I always take Rand with a grain-of-salt. Having read ALL her writings (Fountainhead…Shrugged..We The Living…Anthem) and essay collections, her discourse on human nature is dead-on. Her Objective underpinnings of economic theory are also dead-on. Her musings that a lit cigarette is a metaphor for a bright, rational mind..not so much (note her death due to lung cancer..oops). Her conclusion that faith and reason are unable to co-exist is also bugnuts. Whether you “believe” or not, you can no more disprove God than grow wings and fly to the moon. A man, contrary to Rand, CAN be as equally awed with the natural wonder of a sunset in Maui as with the man-made engineering feat of the Golden Gate Bridge. A man can believe that God endowed us with the ability to be rational, self-interested creatures without being contradictory. And a poster (I believe it was Friar Kermit) above sited scumbags such as Greenspan and Fassano as living proof that Objectivism fails. Eh? Artificially manipulating market interest rates and/or fraudulently gaming the reinsurance and credit risk analysis regime would not last a day in Galt Gulch. Think before you post, Brother Beaker!
