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Well, there are a great many reasons to see American today as "on the verge of totalitarian dictatorship." Obama fired the CEO of GM...
Well sure people might say America is on the verge of totalitarian dictatorship, and those people would be utterly stupid to express such a thing. I would say to those people that they ought to refresh their definition of totalitarian and dictatorship.
I think it is inappropriate to psychologize others and pretend to understand their motivation well enough to call them insincere, or motivated from an insecurity complex
It is equally inappropriate to suggest that having an opinion on the motivation and sincerity of others is worthless, it is proper in the moral appraisal of man to consider, or at least attempt to, their motivations and sincerity, as I am sure you do when you consider whether actions taken against you were deliberately malicious or accidentally stupid.
The Strike in Atlas Shrugged was primarily made up of the greatest minds who had a demonstrated track record of achievement and productivity who withdraw. I have not met a single objectivists claiming to be 'on strike' who has any established track record of achievement which differs significantly from their achievements when 'on strike' They have, for the most part, been people who have never accomplished anything significant, and I don't mean significant in the Francisco D'Anconia sense, but significant even to their own potential and have universally lauded their own 'striking' status in a morally superior tone. But perhaps I am unworthy of being privy to their great accomplishments...
Who cares about "indistinguishable from"? The fact that a person is not visible as a 'genius on strike' as opposed to an "unproductive loser" is only important to those who care about appearances.
I do not consider achievement vs non-achievement to be mere 'appearances' A person who lives in his mom's basement and does nothing but play video games claiming to be 'on strike' is an utter joke. It's one thing to withhold the fire of your mind from fueling the world, its entirely another thing to have no evidence of any fire in your mind.
I know a doctor that quit his clinical practice because of rules, insurance costs. He went into research but he'll probably leave that area if more and more of the research is driven by political agendas.
Interesting example, but I think it proves my point. He had an established track record of achievement in his field. But could you really say he is 'on strike'? he remains in his field and remains doing productive work fueling the same system that drove him out of his clinical practice. My questions are 1) is he an objectivist 2) does he say 2) I am on strike! 3) does he enjoy research or clinical practice more?. It's clear he withdrew the products of his efforts in response to restrictions imposed on him, but I don't think it's appropriate to call such a thing a 'strike' even though it is laudable, a striker gives nothing productive to the world and earns only his barest sustenance. It might be appropriate to call such a thing a protest, but not a strike.
My Architecture professor is perhaps an admirable example of a striker. He had a successful firm for many years, but with the recent downturn in construction had to lay off some employees and downsize his firm. A few months later he bought a newish Volvo and gave his old car to his son. His employees were furious and couldn't believe he had done such a thing after laying off a couple of employees. They all banded together and demanded he either higher them back or get raises. One of the employees he had taken under his wing and given close tutelage to, even helped him when he was having difficult person problems because he saw a brilliant architect in him. He said when that guy turned on him too, he had enough. He fired them all and closed his firm down. Today he teaches architecture and is his firms only employee.
Here we see an established track record of achievement in a field and then a withdrawal of that from the benefit of parasites that fed off him and demanded ever more blood. But he does not go around bragging about being on strike, in fact I don't think he even realized it was a Glat like strike until I suggested as such, he had read Atlas Shrugged decades before, and he continues work on projects on his own in his studio.
In the case of your Doctor friend, those who imposed restrictions on him still benefit from his productive effort. In the case of my Architecture professors, none of those who bled him benefit in any way from his productive efforts. But, perhaps, given the nature of the medical profession it would be almost impossible to achieve what my professor did without completely leaving professional medicine.
The major point though is that without that established track record of achievement, or demonstrations of your own ability that you withdraw from the world, a striker is in fact indistinguishable from an unproductive loser.
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