Today is the perfect day for an individual, and most properly a businessman, to refuse to submit to a tyrannical government, especially ours in America here and now. I’ll tell you why in a minute but first let me praise former General Electric (GE) Chairman and CEO Jack Welch for writing in his op-ed in today’s edition of the Wall Street Journal (read the essay here):
Imagine a country where challenging the ruling authorities—questioning, say, a piece of data released by central headquarters—would result in mobs of administration sympathizers claiming you should feel “embarrassed” and labeling you a fool, or worse. Soviet Russia perhaps? Communist China? Nope, that would be the United States right now, when a person (like me, for instance) suggests that a certain government datum (like the September unemployment rate of 7.8%) doesn’t make sense.
Mr. Welch, a chemical engineer who led GE between 1981 and 2001 and raised the company’s value by 4,000 percent, is right to compare the United States to a Communist dictatorship. The Obama administration, which recently targeted CNN, has attacked free speech by singling out a lone filmmaker for persecution. The government is similarly waging a smear campaign against Republican opponent Mitt Romney – on the grounds that he, too, is a businessman – so it is no surprise that Jack Welch is being attacked; in his case, for exercising his freedom of speech on Twitter and speaking his mind. But the businessman is fighting back, taking to the free press to make his case in the above-quoted article. It’s an excellent piece, and it is particularly appropriate for Mr. Welch’s article to be published on this day, the 55th anniversary of Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand. Give ’em hell, Jack.