“The Constitution only gives people the right to pursue happiness. You have to catch it yourself.”
-Benjamin Franklin
We achieve the highest Sense of Life when we are most intimate with our passions, and most devoted to
the management of reality to accomplish our ends. Our ruthless manipulation of events is fueled and
legitimized by the joy of feeling that one's essence is more precious than the earth would be if it were
a single, solid diamond. At every moment, we employ our reason. We ask: is it excellent? Does it
accomplish my purpose? This is the heartbeat and delight of our lives.
We keep, and do not give away, the work of our hands. When we push back our chairs on a job well
done, it is not to deliver our love to those who would wrest it from us in envy. Rather, we employ that
tool used by people of character to facilitate the exchange of value for value. Working toward
deliverance from the illegitimate appropriation of our goods is the life's work of every Objectivist in the
United States. This country was the first in history to be born as a rational product of man's mind, and
the first built on the supremacy of reason. “For one magnificent century, it redeemed the world. It will
have to do so again.”
The Real US Capital
The buildings of Capitol Hill and Downtown aren’t homes for prosperity
as they appear, but instead house more bureaucratic squalor than ever
was envisioned, even by the author of Atlas Shrugged. Even a random
inventory one finds many parasitic entities which grow fat on
government money. On L Street NW, a sample elevator board reads:
“10th floor - EPRI” (an electric power research institute funded by the
government and operating “for the benefit of the Public”), “11th
floor -
Welfare Adjunct office, 12th floor - Montez, Gonz and Gellin, Attorneys
specializing in Social Security Law.” Not a single legitimate group in
the entire building, yet people wear suits, hold telephone conferences,
generate profit and loss sheets, as if they were part of the capitalist
system.
Sketch of Thomas Jefferson by Latrobe, 1802.
The purpose of SOLO DC is to enrich other’s passion for life and enhance each other’s ability to reason.
We will create a record of businesses, think tanks, groups, and individuals seeking to expand and grow
based on life-creating principles, and provide support by networking and activism. By strengthening
the Objectivist community, and mapping out for the rest of the world those parts of the City which
intrigue us, we may begin to develop and protect the “real” Washington, DC. The rest is chaff.
“WE WILL ABSOLUTELY NEVER, EVER, TAKE ADVANTAGE OF ANYONE, NOR DO WE WANT TO DO BUSINESS WITH
THOSE WHO WOULD TAKE ADVANTAGE OF US.”
- 2004 Philosophy Statement of Branch Banking and Trust Company
1909 K Street NW, Washington, DC 20006
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