A powerful work to be sure. Atlas Shrugged is a transparently propagandist book, yet manages to get away with it. Personally, however, I enjoyed The Fountainhead more.

The danger with Ayn Rand is taking her too seriously. Before starting down Ayn Rand's path, people should learn about its logical conclusion, the religion she founded: Objectivism.

Personally, I class Ayn Rand's philosophy with Communism. A hopeless wish for Utopia based on extreme and godless principles. A society founded on the ideals of Objectivism would be doomed, like Communism, to fail after causing the suffering of millions. As a work of fiction, it is powerful. As a moral guide, it is a powerful message to be remembered but mistrusted.

I respectfully disagree with your assessment of Ayn Rand. Your distaste for her philosophy stems partly from what you think of her as a person. Do you think it is not possible to approve of a person's philosophy, or at least parts of it, if you do not approve of portions of their personal behavior? Most people can look past what makes a person human (i.e. they're not perfect.)

I have pondered Rand's views of religion and while she's quite absolute in her admonition of all religious beliefs, I find that what she hates most about religion is that religious people, in her mind, are blind followers to the beliefs of their faith. She sees the religious as people who do not think for themselves. Rand's assertion is that people who do not use their mind -- their only great asset as humans -- are subject to the consequences of letting stupid and evil people ruin their lives. I agree wholeheartedly.

I am proud that I belong to a religious organization that actively promotes the active use of the mind. Investigators are actively encouraged to question any and all tenets of the faith. There is no requirement for blind obedience, only faithful obedience.

So, set all that aside. Forget that she said she was an atheist. Forget that she participated in activities in her personal life (had an affair with a married man) that violate your personal standard of moral conduct. Lots of people have weaknesses, but it doesn't make all their viewpoints null and void.

Consider this other quote from Rand:

"The only proper purpose of a government is to protect man's rights, which means: to protect him from physical violence. A proper government is only a policeman, acting as an agent of man's self-defense, and, as such, may resort to force only against those who start the use of force. The only proper functions of a government are: the police, to protect you from criminals; the army, to protect you from foreign invaders; and the courts, to protect your property and contracts from breach or fraud by others, to settle disputes by rational rules, according to objective law. But a government that initiates the employment of force against men who had forced no one, the employment of armed compulsion against disarmed victims, is a nightmare infernal machine designed to annihilate morality: such a government reverses its only moral purpose and switches from the role of protector to the role of man's deadliest enemy, from the role of policeman to the role of a criminal vested with the right to wielding of violence against victims deprived of the right of self-defense. Such a government substitutes for morality the following rule of social conduct: you may do whatever you please to your neighbor, provided your gang isbigger than his."

There are very few statements I could agree more with. This falls right in line with what Frederic Bastiat says the proper role of the law is.

Now, Stuart, you've said in the past that if I don't agree that it's the government's job to improve our lives, we were just never going to agree. It may be useless to continue this discussion because, as you've already stated, there is no place to meet if we can't agree on what the proper role/function of our government should be.

I think a government that is engaged in, as you say, improving the lives of its citizens, will always end up violating and limiting the rights of said citizens as time goes on. But a government, such as ours was when it was founded, that was primarily concerned with guaranteeing the inalienable rights of its citizens (i.e. life, liberty, and property) allows those citizens the greatest freedom to provide improvement to their own lives.

What I see you saying is that this libertarian philosophy that the founding fathers believed in, more or less, is extreme and, had it continued until today, would have resulted in the deaths of millions in events akin to communist regimes. I can't see it.

Perhaps you should re-read what I wrote. I did not base my judgment solely on the author's behavior. I based it on the fundamentally anti-Christian nature of Ayn Rand's message. You recommend Atlas Shrugged because it contains a few passages that resonate with your support for Libertarianism. Last I checked, however, Libertarians did not consider personal sacrifice immoral. So far as I'm aware, Libertarians do not have a position on the relationship between man and deity. The industrialists that Ayn Rand worships are the same people that Upton Sinclair exposed in The Jungle, sparking the creation of the FDA.

Your uncritical reading of my comment, is exactly the approach to reading Atlas Shrugged that I warned against. Do not read the book (or my comments) looking merely to find the passages that support or oppose your opinion. Consider the whole. It is a frightening vision.

Ayn Rand is why I will never be a pure socialist. She is also why I will never be a pure libertarian.