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How More Plaque Will Improve Our Smile
A memorable idea
from Don Meinshausen
freedonnow@yahoo.com

Attribute to The Libertarian Enterprise

No I'm not teething you. This is a wonderful idea to honor one of libertarianism's greatest contributors. Of course she might use another sound bite with more bracing properties and more jaw breaking for those who loves this Chewish mother of us. Ayn Rand was our mouthpiece. She was a true trance and dentalist.

Anyone who met her as I was honored to do so when she was still giving lectures remembers her as an edifice of a woman. No wonder she wrote about architecture, metallurgists and engineers and railroad terminals. She was a towering figure as a novelist, philosopher, playwright and freedom fighter. We could include feminist, as well as an anarchotype of our time.

So one way to house the memory of Ayn Rand is to find a cottage, lodge or even motel as well as skyscraper that she lived in while she stayed in and put a plaque on it. (See suggested wording at the end of this piece*). In New York City, even in Hoboken, NJ you can find plaques and signs in, on and outside of buildings. They announce to the world where famous personalities, philosophers, thinkers, novelists and playwrights lived and what they wrote there. Ayn Rand was all five; thinker, author, playwright, philosopher and famous. She deserves such an honor. It would serve as a way of informing people that this was a woman who deserves not just recognition but honor itself. We've all taken a shrine to her.

If we can find and locate the owner especially of whatever inn or even a commercial cottage we could guarantee them increased business and interest. There could be even a tax concession for the owner that allows such an acknowledgement of such a historical site. We could put a plaque on it with all due ceremony and even have it listed on tourist guides and registry of historic places. Better would be buying it outright and maintaining it as a business as well as a historical site.

It would be a great honor to the business to house a shrine to the goddess who protected business. I could see someone with Randiose ambitions building a railroad to such a place. Could a profit be made from honoring such a prophet? I'll leave such enterprises for the Galt of the earth. A small house can start a cottage industry. If Rand worked at more than one place its even better for our purposes. An Axton café could be done for the asking to help ruminations while ruminating. There is a tour guide in New York City who provides for a fee a walking tour of places associated with Ayn Rand.

Or as a firm or a foundation we could make sure that our firm foundation of liberty is enshrined. We could do research and restore the building and décor to its original appearance of when she stayed there. It need not be the whole building but the room or cottage itself. Chris Sciabara Barbara or Nathaniel Branden might remember the details as well as locations of the buildings that would qualify. The provenance will be essential to provide respect from local historians and tour guides.

At Experimental Prototype City of Tomorrow (EPCOT) in Disneyworld there is the American pavilion. Walk into the entrance and front and center you see a quote on the wall from Ayn Rand. It says, "Throughout the centuries there were men who took first steps down new roads armed with nothing but their own vision".

Perhaps she wrote or had ideas on a mountaintop or some boulder. If that philosopher's stone could be found that rock of ages could be turned into a Qaaba around which the world of liberty might revolve in homage. But that might be Haaj-erdous. Or am I taking a Mecca-nistic view of the universe? Or maybe I'm being anarcho-Qaaba-istic.

Or seeing that our wisdom came from a Russian Jewish lady people might see us as being anarcho-kabbalahistic. Or thinking that we support the right to get very wealthy and are fond of conspiracy theories we might be seen as anarcho-cabalistic. We may find out when Atlas Shrugged is finally filmed and on cable and you know . . . Of course if they ask us we'll just look to our mountains, refer to our Atlas and shrug.

It could become a place for pilgrimage. Aspiring writers would want to stay there and compose their opuses with the help of her magnum opus, a magnum to load and shoot or a magnum to get loaded on. We hope that they have great sex there and become Magnum Cum Laude. We would hope that they would then become magnum-ominous

After her death an auction of her personal effects drew in much more than such items would usually valued. This was not worship of a name or mean stupidity. Doing her bidding were We The Living; financiers, professionals and academics. Here was more than a Rand-dumb factor even though Random House was her publisher.

I remember once going to a famous store in Manhattan that sold autographs of famous people to museums and collectors. On one wall was the script of the Fountainhead film signed by all the actors and the director that was given to Ayn Rand when the film was being shot. It became a holy relic. People who came there said that those who were in touch with it could lose their irrationality and could see clearly once again. However in order for this artifact to work one had to have no faith.

Before we announce this plan to the public we have to make sure that our rights to so honor her as well as accessibility are guaranteed by the owners of this sacred property. If we are not discreet we could find that an ARC of Randroids will block our path because they may see us as undeserving radicals. After all aren't many of us are an-ARC-ists? This would be in keeping with Objectivist tradition as Objectivists spend much time objecting to libertarians finding a room in their movement. They might want to tear down the place to build a skyscraper honoring her instead.

Skyscrapers are nowadays a dangerous concept. There is a conspiracy theory going round that the pilots who flew the planes into the World Trade Center were architects who worked on its design and were very angry when their plans were changed without their consent. This created a Fountainhead of chaos. Or did the problem's construction begin with that their promised payment of virgins was reneged? But what do you expect from a deconstructionist analysis? The WTC's site was obtained by eminent domain. Another great example of the potential problem in such doomed deconstructionism is the Wagnerian Ring cycle, a 16 hour Romantic, dramatic opera comparable to the scope, creativity and energy of Ayn Rand. There for the climax of the opera the home of the God Wotan was brought down because of problems of paying off the dwarves who built that edifice complex.

Ayn Rand spent much time in the beautiful mountains, towns, roads and railroads of Colorado. These must have been an inspiration to her. Ouray, the home of Galt's Gulch, is so known for its mountainous beauty that it's known as the Switzerland of America. It has even had civic celebrations of John Galt.

I visited the beautiful mining town of Ouray, Colorado, which is believed to be the model of Galt's Gulch in Atlas Shrugged. I stayed in beautiful preserved hotel, which is a national historic site. It was first used as a brothel and had a secret tunnel so that the town's leading citizens could visit without scandal. There is no record of Ayn Rand going there. I also called up the town's historical society and there is no record of where in that town Ayn Rand stayed. In a way that is understandable. Ayn Rand's philosophy was based on A is A and privacy witch lodged private ownership into her thinking. So I believed she stayed in a mine, or a modern lodge. After all she wanted what she thought was MINE or an A frame lodge rather than what was OUR-ay. This way could look down upon the town with a feeling of ownership.

It is believed that her husband Frank O'Connor sought the spirits of Colorado. He wrote a book on the noble folk Ent-ities that lived there called The Virtue of Elfishness. He was known to be a 100 proof specimen of Rand in rum-inations.

I nominate Doug Casey, investor consultant and host of the Eris conferences in Colorado for the honor of plaque-ating her spirit. He's a great libertarian with a flair for publicity and a sense of ad venture. This could a museum him.

So let's get our plaque in or on. We just have to make sure that we have to accomplish this in the teeth of potential opposition. Otherwise going to this place will be like going to the dentist. After all we don't want to be treated like indentured servants, do we?

So let's do it and keep it within Reason. With such a foundation we could make sure that our base is secure. With a 501-3 we can see the future and maintain it and even make it pay. We would be true rent seekers. It would also be tax deductible and a source of employment, education, vacation and inspiration for libertarians.

Suggested wording for honorary plaque to be attached:

*During the 19__'s famed author and freedom fighter Ayn Rand (1905-1982) stayed here. This area of (_________) was the setting where her heroes lived while the drama of conflict of liberty vs. slavery was carried out to its successful conclusion. She is highly regarded by millions as an accomplished philosopher, novelist, playwright, screenwriter and advocate of individual liberty.

Don Meinshausen is the person who organized the draft card burning at the 1969 YAF convention which is regarded as the dramatic beginning of the libertarian movement. He's also a former political prisoner in for 4 years for heretical misinterpretation of the First Amendment and the doctrine of free enterprise (as his old friend and client Robert Anton Wilson put it). The state called it conspiracy to distribute ecstasy and hemp. Unauthorized shamanism. He is currently in desperate need of work and money. Contact him if you have some available! He's looking and ready to move.

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