Her quirkiest yet correct view: That landing on the moon was an intrinsically wonderful thing to do, and libertarian objections be damned.
Chris couldn't make the Ayn Rand birthday party, but I took Ben, who, unfortunately, had a stomach "bug" so we got there late. I dropped him off and parked pretty far away, so missed almost all of it except the last half hour, the "free lunch," the birthday cake, and yack-yacking with the other attendees afterwards.
One person observed that, with respect to government funded scholarships, Rand said that the money came from taxpayers via coercion, but that did not mean you should turn it down. Otherwise you would be compounding the error, for example, if a thief took $100 from you and then offered you $50 you should not turn it down.
I would ask whether she thought you should take the $50 if the thief took it from someone else, but I truly believe I've paid far more in taxes than I've received.
BTW, the room the event was held in, the Members of Congress room, has the fanciest ceiling I've ever seen. Lots of gold, lots of murals and the walls are also covered with murals and mosaics. The whole Jefferson building is like that. I think she would have liked it. She loved gold. I wore a lot of gold jewelry in her honor.
I also chatted with a Librarian from the manuscripts division. She says that Leonard Peikoff, who was her heir, sold off most of her manuscripts, but that one major purchaser donated a large chunk to the LOC. So they have the largest collection of her manuscripts. And Peikoff doesn't.
Peikoff needed the money and scattered the work to the winds. As was his right, but still,so much for the theory that private industry will do better at preserving creativity than governments. |
