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    Cam/ronAdam Weinstein
    8/28/14 1:02pm

    I asked the then-GGC-alienated salesman, "When you 'sold' us the property, when you printed out a photo from your phone that read 'Wendy's tree,' did you know you could not legally sell us the lot you were offering?" He said, "That is correct."

    So much for Objectivists being Minds of Pure Reason.

    On a side note, I'm curious, did Rand ever own or manage a business? Or did she simply make a living from writing books and delivering speeches that told businessmen they're wonderful?

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      ManchuCandidateCam/ron
      8/28/14 1:28pm

      And social security fraud.

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      MattRCam/ron
      9/17/14 1:33pm

      Short answer: yes, she tried to start a business and failed horribly at it.

      Long answer: When Ayn Rand emigrated to America she moved to L.A to pursue a career as a screenwriter, which flopped hard after she backstabbed her colleauges to the House of Unamerican Activities. She came to loath the Hollywood establishment which spurned her for it and took solace in 1940s era conservative talk radio, whose talking points provided the foundation for her later philosophy. After marrying fellow Hollywood never-was Frank O'Conner she moved to NYC to begin a career as a novelist.

      The Fountainhead was her break out hit and Atlas Shrugged brought her financial comfort. With this new found platform she pulled an L.Ron Hubbard and turned her beliefs into a marketable product chain managed almost exclusively by her right hand man, Nathaniel Branden, allowing her the creative freedom to focus on her writing while Branden took care of the rest.

      The Nathaniel Branden Institute was her attempt to found a business, with herself as its main product.

      However by any objective account Ayn Rand was a horrible manager. The objectivist movement devolved into a personality cult attempting to explain in philosophical terms why Ayn Rand's taste in, say, cigarette brands or classical composers, were objectively the best. It reached new heights of absurdity where expressing a liking towards Mozart made you a self-hating communist, where fellow libertarian forefather Murray Rothbard wrote a satirical play about how ridiculous the objectivists were, (which was in response to Rand's demand that he divorce his wife because she was a practicing Jew) and where disagreeing with Rand on even something trivial could result in an official "trial" to determine that person's philosophical purity.

      Conflating things was Ayn Rand's habit of sleeping with associates who pleased her, as Alan Greenspan later admitted. Anyone who's ever owned a business could see how that could really, really complicate things, which is exactly what happened. Nathaniel Branden (who was said to have all the personality of a used car salesman) who was cheating on his wife with with Miss Rand, and when Rand discovered that he had a third younger woman on the side, she pitched a temper tantrum so infamously colossal that it made the history books and expelled him and his wife from the movement.

      Yes, she couldn't handle the man she was having an affair with "cheating" on her, like a petulant D-list celebrity who can't handle being reminded that she's not the center of the universe.

      She took over the newly christened Ayn Rand Institute and within months ran it into the ground, eventually having to go on government assistance in her elder years while passing ARI management onto Leonard Peikoff, a young enough member of the movement to have avoided the bloody purges of the post-Branden era, and Ayn Rand's sole remaining sycophant.

      Nowadays the ARI is little more than a minor pro-Israel think tank of little consequence, a cause Rand herself barely supported. Most of her contemporary popularity comes from the patronage of billionaires who can drop gobs of money proselytizing her defense of their behavior.

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    destor23Adam Weinstein
    8/28/14 1:05pm

    For twelve years, you have been asking: Who is John Galt? This is John Galt speaking. I am the man who would like a glass of water. Please, somebody send us some water. We're dying here. Send us some water and we will return to our self sufficiency while you socialist toads decay in the stomach of your unreasonable altruism.

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      Stenchofaburnerdestor23
      8/28/14 1:11pm

      Come winter in Chile's wine country (which is where this self sufficiency paradise is located), John Galt will also probably want some fuel to keep warm and maybe some electricity to power up those laptops that will enable him to do business with the outside world. So, John Galt would be grateful if he was plugged to the electric grid as well, at least until he figures out how to be totally self reliant.

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      CapitalistWarMachinedestor23
      8/28/14 1:15pm

      That paragraph would have to be about 30 times longer before I believed Ayn Rand wrote it.

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    KittensAndUnicorns_v2_The UprisingAdam Weinstein
    8/28/14 1:18pm

    a libertarian fantasy ( not written by me)

    I was shooting heroin and reading "The Fountainhead" in the front seat of my privately owned police cruiser when a call came in. I put a quarter in the radio to activate it. It was the chief.

    "Bad news, detective. We got a situation."

    "What? Is the mayor trying to ban trans fats again?"

    "Worse. Somebody just stole four hundred and forty-seven million dollars' worth of bitcoins."

    The heroin needle practically fell out of my arm. "What kind of monster would do something like that? Bitcoins are the ultimate currency: virtual, anonymous, stateless. They represent true economic freedom, not subject to arbitrary manipulation by any government. Do we have any leads?"

    "Not yet. But mark my words: we're going to figure out who did this and we're going to take them down … provided someone pays us a fair market rate to do so."

    "Easy, chief," I said. "Any rate the market offers is, by definition, fair."

    He laughed. "That's why you're the best I got, Lisowski. Now you get out there and find those bitcoins."

    "Don't worry," I said. "I'm on it."

    I put a quarter in the siren. Ten minutes later, I was on the scene. It was a normal office building, strangled on all sides by public sidewalks. I hopped over them and went inside.

    "Home Depot™ Presents the Police!®" I said, flashing my badge and my gun and a small picture of Ron Paul. "Nobody move unless you want to!" They didn't.

    "Now, which one of you punks is going to pay me to investigate this crime?" No one spoke up.

    "Come on," I said. "Don't you all understand that the protection of private property is the foundation of all personal liberty?"

    It didn't seem like they did.

    "Seriously, guys. Without a strong economic motivator, I'm just going to stand here and not solve this case. Cash is fine, but I prefer being paid in gold bullion or autographed Penn Jillette posters."

    Nothing. These people were stonewalling me. It almost seemed like they didn't care that a fortune in computer money invented to buy drugs was missing.

    I figured I could wait them out. I lit several cigarettes indoors. A pregnant lady coughed, and I told her that secondhand smoke is a myth. Just then, a man in glasses made a break for it.

    "Subway™ Eat Fresh and Freeze, Scumbag!®" I yelled.

    Too late. He was already out the front door. I went after him.

    "Stop right there!" I yelled as I ran. He was faster than me because I always try to avoid stepping on public sidewalks. Our country needs a private-sidewalk voucher system, but, thanks to the incestuous interplay between our corrupt federal government and the public-sidewalk lobby, it will never happen.

    I was losing him. "Listen, I'll pay you to stop!" I yelled. "What would you consider an appropriate price point for stopping? I'll offer you a thirteenth of an ounce of gold and a gently worn 'Bob Barr '08' extra-large long-sleeved men's T-shirt!"

    He turned. In his hand was a revolver that the Constitution said he had every right to own. He fired at me and missed. I pulled my own gun, put a quarter in it, and fired back. The bullet lodged in a U.S.P.S. mailbox less than a foot from his head. I shot the mailbox again, on purpose.

    "All right, all right!" the man yelled, throwing down his weapon. "I give up, cop! I confess: I took the bitcoins."

    "Why'd you do it?" I asked, as I slapped a pair of Oikos™ Greek Yogurt Presents Handcuffs® on the guy.

    "Because I was afraid."

    "Afraid?"

    "Afraid of an economic future free from the pernicious meddling of central bankers," he said. "I'm a central banker."

    I wanted to coldcock the guy. Years ago, a central banker killed my partner. Instead, I shook my head.

    "Let this be a message to all your central-banker friends out on the street," I said. "No matter how many bitcoins you steal, you'll never take away the dream of an open society based on the principles of personal and economic freedom."

    He nodded, because he knew I was right. Then he swiped his credit card to pay me for arresting him.

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      NickKittensAndUnicorns_v2_The Uprising
      8/28/14 1:25pm

      I assume this is pretty good, but there's no way I'm going to read it. Just have a star.

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      KittensAndUnicorns_v2_The UprisingNick
      8/28/14 1:26pm

      i actually considered taking away the paragraph spaces, to make the story seem shorter, to appease people like you!!! ( but i didnt)

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    toothpetardAdam Weinstein
    8/28/14 1:02pm

    I can only imagine what'll happen when a whole bunch of em one-way to mars.

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      cheerful_exgirlfriendtoothpetard
      8/28/14 1:11pm

      Let's not imagine it, let's make that reality!!

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      unclethirstycheerful_exgirlfriend
      8/28/14 1:16pm

      If you can dream it. You can do it!

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    Adam WeinsteinAdam Weinstein
    8/28/14 1:33pm

    Steve Bodzin hit me up and flagged a piece that he penned for Mother Jones last winter that hinted at the sketchiness of Galt's Gulch Chile—it's definitely a recommended read.

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      phunkshunAdam Weinstein
      8/28/14 1:02pm

      I don't understand why these people would ever trust each other enough to actually go through with something like this. You're buying land in another sovereign country that has its own laws and regulations....and you're going to trust someone who, by their belief system, explicitly doesn't believe in the social contract to not deal you crooked...

      I mean caveat emptor is basically the operating mantra of libertarian thought.

      People are so fucking stupid sometimes..

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        ManchuCandidateAdam Weinstein
        8/28/14 1:32pm

        The non-Randies knew it would end with Gaulters dancing around the rotting head of a boar demanding for "Blood for Baal!!" or more likely, "FUCK THAT PIG UP THE ASS!" All I can say is "WHERE'S YOUR INVISIBLE HAND NOOOOOOW???!!??"

        GIF
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