Most of the people who weigh in on Rand -- pro and con both -- have never read her books and are only repeating stuff they've heard. Many of those who HAVE read them haven't understood them.

For instance, the right wingers who fawn over her -- for all the wrong reasons -- would have viscerally repulsed her. She would have vomited to see her works admired by the current GOP, and she would have despised Fox News with a vicious passion. Seeing incompetent, vapid Donald Trump in the White House would have instantly reminded her of one of her minor villains from Atlas Shrugged, a greasy South American dictator with a beautiful whore for a wife.

Interesting thing nobody seems to understand about her heroes and heroines -- caught up as the silly critics are in the stupid cawing of "OH MY GOD, SHE PREACHED SELFISHNESS AND GREED!!!" -- is that the main value her heroes all displayed was an unremitting devotion to EXCELLENCE. They worked to excel at their chosen professions, to be the best in the world at what they did. Her heroes were inventors, artists, architects, engineers, captains of industry. They succeeded by the strength of their own efforts, working themselves near to death to achieve great things -- to create, to invent, to discover.

One of her heroes formulated a metal alloy stronger and more durable than anything on earth. Another invented a device that would produce limitless energy. A third -- a woman -- efficiently ran the largest railroad in the world. These were GIVERS, people who served the needs of countless others by being the best they could be in their work.

She clearly referred to her villains, by contrast, as the Aristocracy of Pull -- people who used political pull and dishonest deal-making, including looting the public treasury, to get ahead. Her villains were thieves and liars and parasites who lived off the efforts of others. They were hyenas who produced NOTHING, instead feeding on the corpses of innocent victims, both individuals and nations.

Rand was wrong about some things. But the jackasses who bray the loudest about how horrible she was have no idea what those things were.

The knee-jerk hate for Rand is an almost exact parallel of the hate for Hillary Clinton. People repeat shit they've heard -- character assassination, slurs, smears and outright lies -- and never bother to find out what the real person did or said or stood for.

Those same idiots helped put that witless phony Donald Trump in the White House and kept honest, hard-working, experienced and knowledgeable Hillary out.

In both cases, there's a price.

. Finally, someone down the thread referred to Rand as a "hack writer." Speaking as a professional writer and editor myself, I can say this is completely false. Of course any particular reader might find her writing less than personally pleasing -- surely there are also people out there who hate every word of Harry Potter -- but Rand's authorship was goddam brilliant. She kept up an extremely complex narrative thread for more than a thousand pages -- 562,000 words! -- and that is something no "hack writer" could do.

Someone else carped that she took welfare while denying it to others, which is brainlessly parroted horseshit. She paid into Social Security for decades, and at the end of her life had to be persuaded to accept payments -- eventually receiving about $7,000 in benefits, much less than she paid in over the years.

About five years ago I watched a short documentary on Ayr Rand and thought it quite interesting. I went to library and checked out a weighty copy of Atlas Shrugged. I enjoyed the nostalgia of life before cell phones and computer since I was born in 1959. Moreover, learning how steal was produced was fascinating along with information of different types of locomotives. However, Rand’s characters searching for intellectual individualism by shrugging off the weight of the world was a ransacking of compassion and deep human connection. The book had sexuality but no sensuality and zero humor yet, I continued to read. I must admit I didn’t finish the book. When Dagny Taggart fell from the sky and found herself in that whatever utopia place I closed the book and was done. For me living in that place seemingly barren of children, laughter and even a touch of the crazy was the sadness and most tragic existence I could imagine.

Having spent 30 years working with many at risk young children. I thrive on the messy, lots of color, big dance moves, wild play, and deep sensuality for all the beauty life has to offer especially through human connections. And I like lots of people have joined the political resistance wanting to help create a country of equality for all people. My morals or not based on religion. I do not interfere with peoples beliefs while keeping my beliefs to myself for love is what matters. Although and because I am an atheist I work to teach children compassion, helpfulness, kindness, and confidence along with self-regulating life skills as well as emotional intelligent.

Nothing that Ayn Rand taught could measure up to loving and support one another during our time here on earth.

Most of those who attack Ayn Rand do so because of her morality, which goes against the morality of the political left and right. She was an advocate of rational self-interest and based her morality on human nature, rather than accepting the morality ingrained in society and taken from religion. I'm surprised most atheists, who claim to be rational, don't question the source of their own morality.

If you read the negative comments here about her, like you said, you will see some are accusing her of the opposite of what she advocated. Others are taking the words of her haters, without researching the truth. And others just use ad hominem attacks against her.

I agree with you about the value of her philosophy. She was primarily an advocate of reason and her philosophy was built from that standpoint. I think she was a genius. Her epistemology was ground-breaking and could be of value to anyone who wants to think clearly.

I agree with your assessment of Ayn Rand.......rely on your own mind and do not give away authority to others.

Ayn Rand was wrong on every level. Her political theory requires altruism from all individuals - a thing that has never existed. Her insistance on hyper individualism is highly toxic to all societies and social institutions. She equates financial success with morality and goodness, and idea that is patently and the evidently wrong, and because of her teachings there are hyper rich douche bags ransacking the economy and disassembling the government so that the middle class they are intentionally destroying will have no recourse or mechanism to redress their appallng lack of human empathy championed by a psychotic woman with a skewed worldview.

Ayn Rand was a hack writer, a hypocrite, and a terrible human being. What she promoted were the worst parts of humanity.

Ayn Rand eschewed the social contract that connects us all for the Narcissist view of the individual.

For many years I was an Ayn Rand fan. I was even the secretary of my college's Objectivism Club. My foundation for liking Ayn Rand was, I think similar to yours. The first book of hers that I read was, Atlas Shrugged' where her support of intellectualism and intellectuals dominated her story line. Because that is what I wanted to hear, lacking any support for my own intellectual proclivities. But in the same instance, I ignored her economic message, which is really the crux of her thesis. Remember she fled the Soviet Union, and her thesis was to reputate the communist pholodophy. She did this going to the other extreme, total unregulated 'laizze faire' capitslism. What she and other backing this philosophy fail to consider is human's tendency to gravitate towards an unhealthy form of "selfishness". This means they betray the tenets that Ayn Rand discussed herself in her own works.

More reading on Ayn Rand's "Atlas Shrugged", just in case you didn't know much about her or her best known book:

[alternet.org]

It lists 10 main points about Rand's views.

Let me add that Rand was saying the the individual is all that is important, that we -- alone -- are responsible for our creations and that we, alone deserve the entire fruits of our efforts. That is nothing but an egocentric pile of crap manufactured by a self-absorbed moral idiot. When we create an idea,an invention, a piece of writing, we stand on the shoulders of those who came before and laid the intellectual scaffolding on which we built. Without them, we would be nothing. Similarly, there are always people and agencies -- including governments --- who have helped us to become who and what we are. To ever say that we did it all by ourselves is pure self-absorbed bullshit!

Lots of good ideas. In practice, some not so good,..

Alan Greenspan apologized for following the lunacy of Ayn Rand.

His behavior contributed to the world financial meltdown, and theft of trillions.

We All must be "Mindless"

She celebrated selfishness and greed, used welfare whilst demonising others who used it and hero worshiped a serial killer in her time. I find it hard to think of a more repulsive woman.

[alternet.org]

I can easily argue. Rand supports the selfishness that abounds in today's world. Her philosophy is beloved by adolescent girls and nutso libertarians.

While I am not all that familier with her writings, it would be difficult to disagree with that statement. I would imagine, while writing more than 1 book, she had a lot more to say than what you just wrote and I assume it is a quote from her.