A top Gulch contributor week in and week out, the never bashful LetsShrug shares with us how she discovered Ayn Rand and how she hopes to use Objectivist values to shape the lives of the next generation.

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QUICK FACTS

*Favorite Ayn Rand book:
My favorite Ayn Rand book? I don't think I can answer that quickly. Ayn Rands’ books are so jam packed with mental vittles that I often reread sentences just to let them sink in. She mastered the ability to get her point across from every possible angle and it just blows me away.

“The Virtue of Selfishness” and “For the New Intellectual” really peel back the layers of conditioned thinking that we live with every day in this world, and reveal the roots of reasoning, and exposes the truth behind the motivations of others who don't live life for themselves.

Ayn Rand, to me, is synonymous with the word "clarity".

*Favorite Ayn Rand character:
Howard Roark. Unwavering in his convictions about life, work, and others, he is so completely uncomplicated. Having principles and being committed to living by them first means you have to know what your principles are. Most people, it seems, haven't given the idea of principles (let alone living by them) much thought, and that is why so many get lost in the middle and stay there. And we all know compromising and being in the middle is evil... even if you aren't doing it knowingly.

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Q & A

*When were you first introduced to Ayn Rand?
I'm not quite sure how I first heard the name Ayn Rand. At one point, I know I looked her up on the internet and found some bad footage and words I didn't really understand and I thought she must be some left wing loon so I dismissed it for a while. Then I heard Rand Paul mention her in an interview so I looked her up again and somehow stumbled onto “Atlas Shrugged”… I then watched “The Prophecy of Ayn Rand on Netflix” which eventually lead me to “Atlas Shrugged” the movie, and THAT, my friends, was that.

I ordered the book, read it 2 summers ago while I was in Michigan sitting on my parent's back porch and uttering things like, "Finally somebody said it!", and "I'm not the only one who thinks like this??" or, "I JUST heard someone in Washington say that very thing the other day on the news." "This shit is happening right NOW...how did she know?"

Then I read everything I could about her and her life, and then it branched off into reading about history… In a nutshell, stumbling onto “Atlas Shrugged” the movie played a huge part in my journey.

*How has Ayn Rand influenced your life?
She has explained things in a way that I couldn't quite put together on my own. She tied up some loose ends in my thinking and made everything I was confused about make total sense. I wouldn't trade it for the world... and I can't get enough.

*What passion projects are you working on right now?
I have many irons in the fire, but not much time to work on them at the moment:

1.) I plan to expand my eBay business once I retire from working at the elementary school that I've worked at for the last 10 years.

2.) I’m tossing around ideas for children's books with an Objectivist slant. I have had some interesting conversations with my kindergartners who have convinced me that there is a need for revamping Fairy Tales in particular.

3.) I am a new Grandmother who plans on homeschooling her grandson, so I'm compiling all sorts of books and games, and learning tools for that as well. I am excited to teach him something the rest of the world won’t: How to think for himself.

4.) I also host a Facebook page under the name Slug Taggart (https://www.facebook.com/slug.taggart).

5.) And being in the Gulch too, of course.

*How did you hear about Galt’s Gulch Online?
I went looking on the net to find out if/when part II of “Atlas Shrugged” would be coming out and somewhere along the way it asked for my email address so I put in some old email I hardly ever used...and a few weeks later I got an invite into the new Galt’s Gulch. Things haven't been quite the same since.

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ON THE WEB

Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/slug.taggart

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