And Rand did this to the point of justifying the obscene -- that it's not the moral responsibility of any person to stop mob rule, if I don't feel like it.

That many people sit with their hands in their pockets and let war, slavery, injustice, lynch mobs happen, either out of closet sympathy or fear of becoming the next target of that mob, does not make it any better.

Alas, it does happen.

Ironically, Rand's code is a code of nihilism, ecstasism and subjectivism -- doing what one wants, on whatever impulse is present, for whatever goal one has in mind....or for no reason at all.

In that respect, she was most certainly aligned with the Nazis, or any other movement (read: mob) that has an ad hoc community of interest to do the occasional good deed, or the far more frequent harm to something beautiful, important, valuable and fragile.

Perhaps the intellectual story of her life should be titled "When Good Dialectic Goes Bad".

Still, she did not create the problem of selfishness, as much as tried to patent it and define it into some vehicle for fortifying the will of people who seem to attract public outrage....not all of whom are by definition nice, creative, productive people who if left alone would make the world a better and more beautiful place.

Sometimes, people off by themselves, with no self-restraint, do terrible things. Rand missed that. Boy, did she.

Have Keyboard. Will Travel. :)