The unquestioned king of A Voice for Men’s crew of meme-makers is the mysterious fellow known only as John Galt. Galt, whose contributions are often chosen as AVFM’s “meme of the week” and posted to AVFM’s Facebook page, is truly the meme-maker AVFM deserves — a graphic designer whose graphically challenged photoshopped masterpieces are as baffling as they are offensive.
I highlighted several of his, er, designs in my recent post on Inexplicable AVFM Memes. Today, I’d like to delve further into the photoshop disasters that fill his own Facebook page, some of them official AVFM memes and others posted under his own fake name.
But first, a little introduction to Mr. Galt, as found on his blog.
I live and work in the UK, am a physically fit man in his mid thirties currently studying Computer Science and Mathematics. … I, like most men I know have dated on and off for the past 20 years or so and from my experiences I have come to realize as, no doubt many of you have that there is a deep sickness in our society in regards to how men are treated. …
With a 50 billion dollar divorce industry, sex sold as some sort of priceless resource and victim hood sold to a nanny state as the only valid form of currency it is evident that Men must protect their independence and freedom more vigilantly than ever.
The price, for failing to see what is essentially a fairy tale lie is higher than it has ever been. That price is paid to governments and businesses who profit from the misery of destroyed families, men and women with tax rates and laws that only ever increase. It is paid to greedy women and feminists who demand one sided equality while forcing men to shoulder responsibilities with none of the inherent rights associated with
Sorry, I nodded off for a second.
These fascist lies permeate everywhere from the destruction of Masculine Roles to the ignorance of sex differences in medic
Oh fucking hell he goes on like this for several hundred more words. You can go read it if you like.
Anyway, he ends with a question:
What are you going to do about it?.
Longtime readers of this blog will no doubt notice that Mr. Galt ends his sentence with a new variation on the famous MRA two-dot ellipsis, which I think we can call the Galtian MRA Question Period.
Galt has answered his own Question Period with an ever-growing collection of terrible, terrible memes. So let’s take a look!
There’s this inexplicable homage to a 24-year-old song by MC Hammer.
And this conspiratorial take on “the pill.”
Apparently feminism was writing nursery rhymes in the early 19th century:
Hey ladies! Get on the feminist gravy train!
Apparently feminists want everyone to live in tents, which supposedly look like … vaginas?
Apparently the true cause of erectile dysfunction is … nagging?
I’m not sure what’s the most offensive thing about this one — the comparision of feminism to a nuclear weapon or Mr. Galt’s egregious typo.
![There are only [] words in this poster. And one of them is misspelled.](https://i0.wp.com/www.wehuntedthemammoth.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/1512277_283830341778156_2363545253799813839_n.jpg?resize=541%2C720&ssl=1)
Honestly, I don’t think Mr. Galt needs a Men’s Rights movement to solve his problems. I think he might just need to hire a dominatrix. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
I’ve just scratched the surface of Mr. Galt’s graphic work. I may have to return to him in a future post.
Yeah, proxieme, I fear that they’ll say that the fact that some women now make more than their husbands and pay alimony after divorce is also a sign of misandry because it means that some women are out-earning some men, which can’t be because of merit because of course women can’t do anything right, except (for some reason) raise kids, cook, clean, maintain a home, and maintain their appearances. Apparently, all of the latter are easy-peasy tasks for which women don’t deserve any credit (like alimony) if the marriage fails.
“Strangely every Rand-admiring guy seems to believe that he is one of the highly productive elite, or would be if only society were strucutred properly.”
Best example is Paul Ryan, who went to college on the government (sad that his father died young, but nevertheless) and has “worked” for the government ever since, producing nothing but budgets that don’t come near balancing in spite of screwing poor people to the wall on the pretext of balancing the budget. He has been a classic taker who thinks he’s a maker.
http://www.quickmeme.com/img/ae/aefa50b499aec4843be5aaf18aff8d76a8cb1faf5ea2b4d40b714dd445698ddf.jpg
Paul Ryan’s family business also made its money from government contracts.
To continue to beat the Objectivist horse, everyone that I’ve known who has worn that label have been classic examples of those who’ve started out on 3rd base and thought they’d hit a triple.
“Look at me! I’ve done so much! Anyone who can’t simply lacks talent and drive!”
The problem is that the Objectivist horse isn’t as dead yet as it ought to be,.
And you’re being a bit unfair — some of the Randians were only born on second base. (Nothing actually wrong with being born on second base — my wife and I were, too, but IREALIZE it.)
@proxieme
And basically all of them are moochers according to Rand. Atlas Shrugged paints a clear view of who she considers the ubermensch – and they’re people who don’t exist and who never existed. We’re talking about CEOs who invent all their products and operate every machine better than the workers, and who magically generate capital through the sheer force of awesomeness – or would, if every one of the heroes except John Galt weren’t heirs of already rich families and therefore didn’t have to work a bit to start off their businesses.
Oh lord, is Diogenes back AGAIN? Thought dude got booted for criminal boringness.
One of the few friends who’ve actually survived my coming-out process is a libertarian who loved Rand when I met him. He is one of the wealthier friends I have, and helped me out a lot during the Homeless Year. I still go to him for assistance with my taxes, since he actually UNDERSTANDS them, and I like to seek his advice, in part because he is coming from a very different standpoint than me and has a very different skillset. (Is still smarter than I am, though, as far as breadth of knowledge and speed of mental processing go.)
Considering we met at Harvard, I think he sometimes feels bad for me and wonders what the hell happened. *snrk*
I always find it interesting that these objectivist MRA types seem to think that feminists are behind the disposability of men. But, who really benefits from male disposability? Usually, it’s other men with more money (and therefore power) than the ones they’re sending into a meat grinder. But, you can’t criticize them, that would be socialism. It must be those women-folk who are behind it.
There is no room fro me in their world. I work in STEM, I have custody of my two children, and I pay spousal support. I bought him out of his share of the house so the kids and I can continue to live where we love to live. I didn’t receive any scholarships because I was a girl in at STEM field, I have the kids because he didn’t want the responsibility of having them half of the time. I pay spousal support because he wasn’t working at the time I filed for divorce. I’m certain he won’t work as long as I am obligated to pay support. Fortunately spousal support ends just a couple of months after college begins. I don’t know how he looks in the mirror every morning, knowing he takes a substantial amount of money away from his kids each month. And then he parades them around town as if he is remotely responsible for how amazing they are. His sense of entitlement certainly matches Mr. John Galt’s. His meme skills may be just a bit better, though.
Slightly OT because this isn’t a meme, but I thought everyone here would get a kick out of it. A Republican politician has made an ad comparing voting to picking out a wedding dress in what appears to be an attempt to appeal to female voters.
The goal here is to communicate with women voters in a way that outside groups and campaigns haven’t.
Ummmm…what? Other groups haven’t used these tactics because they are patronizing, which many women don’t appreciate. Also, comparing yourself to a garment that is typically only worn once says a lot about how you feel about the possibility of reelection.
http://thinkprogress.org/election/2014/10/01/3574672/say-yes-to-the-candidate/
Possibly a different diogenes? His random splotch is pink this time. Would our old Diogenes stand for being colored with the most feminine of colors?
(Even though color labels for sexes is totally bunk and pink used to be the boy color)
Still, there are a lot of UK folks on these here threads, and they spell with not as much of an assault on spell checkers as Galt. I misspell things all the time, so I’m disinclined to nail people for spelling, but excusing it away with “He’s from the UK” seems bogus to me.
If he had written colours or something like that, saying, “Oh, he’s from the UK or Canada. They like doing the extra u’s. It’s all good,” would be totally legit. However, I’m pretty sure that ingenuity is spelled ingenuity in the UK, and not engenuity.
I’m not an expert, because not a UKian…
^ So much of it’s every man’s own island BS with them. Concepts like community, cooperation, and the inherent interdependence of those operating within systems (that is to say: everyone) are thrown into the Damn Commie/Infidel Pile – mostly, it seems, because they’ve never cared to look around at or put much thought into all the lives and work that make their lives possible.
But that’s a big part of privilege, I guess.
(Just don’t dare point that out or you’ll be subject to screeds about how they won’t apologize for their affluence.
No, you shitheel, most out there don’t want or need an apology for wealth. Just don’t be an asshole about it – maybe acknowledge the shape of the social and economic systems that have shaped your circumstances and, I dunno, put at least a little brainpower into modifying the more unsustainable elements.)
Grumpy – Here, too.
Well, at least on my end. My husband’s one of those by-the-bootstraps types that Randians wet themselves over, or would be if he wasn’t also the type to acknowledge that his (relatively recent) success is as much owed to luck and the goodwill of friends as it is to everything else.
The cries from certain circles that those who work against inequality “resent success” annoys me.
My admiration for those who’ve used honest tenacity, intelligence, and grit to make it out of the dugout and around the bases isn’t diminished by the sure knowledge that they were helped along by a healthy dose of good fortune, nor does it sully the respect that I feel for those who leverage their relative power to help others rather than soley to prop up themselves. And it doesn’t blind me to the reality that those who were not privy to happy accidents of birth and who couldn’t find adequate handholds along the way (mixing metaphors, but I’m typing on my phone while watching my dorky chickens free range, so meh) aren’t “takers” but rather people living and striving – and that’s all you can really ask of anyone.
I /don’t get/ those who don’t at least make an attempt to understand the humanity of others, but such is life.
I’ve alluded to my kids in other posts. There’s something that I tell them and have told each since toddlerhood: It’s the duty of the strong to help the weak. Everyone is weak with some things and strong with others, so that means that it’s the duty of us all to help one another.
*hears sound of distant, agonized Objectivist scream*
What was that?
LBT – Have his views changed at all?
Another thing that I’ve noticed about a lot of heavy Rand fans is that they’re also usually quite young.
I’ve known some good people who’ve mellowed and moderated with age and experience.
(Probably won’t be able to respond – the older kiddos just got off the bus.)
The idea that civilization is based on cooperation, not competition, is disturbing to these people. Mostly because they hate the thought of cooperating with anyone.
Frankly, most of the rest of us dislike cooperating with them almost as much, because they’re so bad at it.
“Considering we met at Harvard, I think he sometimes feels bad for me and wonders what the hell happened.”
As I recall, we didn’t have to sign a pledge on our applications that we would become either corporate lawyers or hedge-fund managers (although when I was there, hedge-fund managers hadn’t been invented yet). I would say that as long as Harvard can produce comic-book artists and other assorted weirdos (which is how I would classify myself), it hasn’t totally lost its soul.
I am always amazed at how easily many people get semi-consciously sucked into some lightly disguised version of that old delusion that how much money you make has any relation to your worth as a person.
I think typically Ayn Rand has been a rite of passage for (almost exclusively male) college students. But I never knew anyone who was able to get more that a quarter of the way through one of her Tomes, and I would regard with serious suspicion anyone who is still a Randian after the age of about 24. That does not necessarily mean that they are evil; they just have an irresistible tendency to cluelessness.
I’ve always thought that her choice of an architect for her creative genius was extremely strange. After all an architect is paid to design a building that will be paid for by others, built by others, and used in a way determined by others. The idea that everyone must bow down to the architect’s vision is … well, mind-boggling. That somehow he is a hero for blowing up the building when they don’t build it exactly as he designed it … that is how your average four-year-old thinks. Someone should have given Roark his blankie and put him to bed.
The fact is that if all these ubermenschen didn’t have the civilization built over millenia by the contributions, large and small, of untold millions of people, they would just be trying to survive as hunter-gatherers or subsistence farmers like so many of our ancestors did. The fact is that society works best at a mixture of about 95% cooperation and 5% competition, and people who claw their way to every last dollar, way beyond what they can even spend, are playing a futile, self-defeating game — in addition to making things more difficult for the average person.
These posters are like they’re screaming their castration anxiety at me.
That’s what gets you? I always figured that was just the response of a “creative genius” angry at “fools” for getting his “grand designs” wrong, in some angry egoistic fueled rampage.
Now, what gets me is Francisco d’Anconia in Atlas Shrugged who opens a series of copper mines in areas that have no copper knowing they will be taken over by the government. Okay, sure, that’s petty but I get what they’re going for.
Only, doesn’t stop there, oh no, guy also builds large, large housing complexes for all the workers that came in to work the fake mines… and they’re all constructed extremely poorly and prone to failure of a terminal nature (gas, electricity, wind, weather, so on). It’s mentioned a few times how the entire place is basically a death trap. But the one thing Francisco doesn’t built shoddily? The church; seeing as, he says:” They’ll be needing it”.
That’s somewhere beyond just sticking it to The Man and directly into Actually Lawful Evil.
The moralizing surrounding pregnancy is really harmful. Our culture sets up these impossible rules for what pregnant women are and aren’t allowed to do, and then if anything goes wrong, we blame them for not following all the rules.
And nowadays in some states women can be criminally charged for failing to obey the pregnancy rules.
Fibi, I’m not sure that would be Actually Lawful Evil:
I’m thinking more along the lines of negligent manslaughter or maybe even homicide. If he had stopped at the copper mine, yeah, lawful but petty.
I’m pretty sure a decent lawyer could have gotten him at the minimum a fairly substantial civil penalty, if not a criminal charge. But he totally deserved a criminal charge.
Well, the thing is, you have to know when you become an architect that much of the time you’re going to do your creative thing within the confines of what the people who pay you want. There’s always been an element of that in other arts, like portraiture or music where works are commissioned by the wealthy and powerful. But I think that aspect is much stronger in architecture, where you usually have to get someone else to build what you designed, and if you really want to create freely without allowing the Philistines to have you by the short hairs, you might go into some other form of art. The problem? It’s risky — even if you’re very good, you probably won’t make much money, and if you’re mediocre, you might starve. (You could ask our friend LBT what a barrel of laughs trying to make a living as an artist is.) But even a mediocre architect can make a living. (My wife’s aunt was formerly married to an architect — who once designed an office building and forgot to include bathrooms.) Randian heroes may pose as creative geniuses, but they’re certainly not willing to risk suffering poverty for their art.
I mean, we’re wasting our time here making any serious criticism of Rand. I find her slightly interesting in the same way I find de Sade slightly interesting: it’s amusing to visit her world for a few minutes, but I wouldn’t want to live there. Unfortunately, there are people here in the US who seriously want to make us live in her world.
And I agree with you that Roark vs. d’Anconia amounts to pernicious egotism vs actual active evil. In any case, Rand’s heroes are almost as charming as she was.
Well lawyers in any Ayn Rand novel only exist to suck out the rightful juices of the maker class, as they twist and turn the true just laws of true justice into evil for the sake of the taker masses who are too stupid and dumb and ugly to do it on their own, and need smart people to destroy others through their just righteous adherence to the just righteous laws.
or… something.
It’s intentional homicide! He builds an entire town and mining complex specifically to waste his own cash and kill everyone who nationalizes it. I understand that nationalization is probably not the best thing and that eminent domain has problems, but engineering the deaths of hundreds of people out of spite is just going too far! Especially when you add a church that’s the only decent built building just so that everyone will have somwehere to go to hold religious masses for all the hundreds of people you killed with your evil plan. I mean, there’s being an asshole, and then there’s being a spiteful bastard :b
Heheh.
The new student apartment complex near SDU Uni in Odense is a lovely built building… with pipes going nowhere, just hanging unconnected, a lateral shift of 7 centimeters from one side to the other unaccounted for in any plans, no safety equipment on the roof, ventilation that goes into the wrong places and small alcoves sized, consistently, 9-11 centimeters smaller than the blueprints alloted for, so all the closets meant to be installed there cannot currently be installed. It’s a hilarious clusterfuck of people giving the schematics to their interns and architects forgetting important things like “ground area” and “alloted size requirements” and “pipe connections”.
Buildings! They’re hard, man!
My dad’s an engineer. He kind of hates architects as a general rule after having one too many try to convince him he needed to put 10 inch pipes in 8 inch walls.
Nope.
The whole book is just a series of acts of petty revenge, isn’t it? It’s all “you did something I think is unfair, so I’m going to ruin your life.” Even if the thing you did for revenge benefits you in no possible way. (What on earth does d’Anconia gain by opening useless copper mines?)
And it’s just such a transparent response to whatever happens to piss her off in real life. Next someone will blow up the DMV. That’ll show them for making her wait in line!