She may have had more taxes withheld, in real terms, than anyone commenting on this thread. Using Social Security and Medicare is one way to get some return on (what she may have considered) confiscated money. No more shame in that than in a war protester enjoying whatever security the military provides.
 Here’s what Rand said in 1966, long before she took medicare:

“…the victims, who opposed such laws, have a clear right to any refund of their own money—and they would not advance the cause of freedom if they left their money unclaimed, for the benefit of the welfare-state administration.”

Rand railed against the collectvist medicare, until she got Cancer.

It’s not about what she stood for, it’s about what she ACTUALLY STOOD FOR.

in this case, she blew hot air, and then stood to get her bennies.

Whatever she said, she took it back in the end. Do you not get that?

For my part, I’ve noticed randroids tend to think they’re the objective ones. Which I laugh at.

It’s quite easy to get “progressives” to vote for you by talking loudly about breaking up mega-corporations, while actually pursuing policies that strengthen those corporations. 

As a case in point, note how many Wall Street fraudsters have been indicted by the current administration.

Objectivism is a philosophy.

Objectivism is a personality disorder.

I read articles like this, and I think that either progressives are the biggest fools in the world, or eles they secretly adore entrenched power structures and corporate power.

I can’t figure it out.

P.S.: I recently learned that Jimmy Wales of Wikipedia is a hardcore Randian Objectivist. His interpretation of that philosophy, that we should let no one stop us from expressing our inner potential, caused him to create one of the most selfless, cooperative, and enlightening and pro-humanity services in the world – wikipedia, which is given for free to anyone in the world.He has said directly that the whole project was inspired by Ayn Rand.

So before you go giving yourself a dopamine kick writing screeds about what a monster Ayn Rand was, realize that nothing in the world is black and white.

Uber presents an elegant, fair, economic, and generally far superior way of solving the exact same problem that regulations solve.

But progressives are so wedded to their vision that regulations can create a perfect world that they will protect even those regulation that most obviously protect corrupt private interests.

Yep. Just like the citizens of the country did DMCA, and the Patriot Act.  You listen to ‘em for me, OK??

Adam Smith elegantly dissected rent-seeking behavior and regulatory capture (of which the New York City taxi industry could well be the type specimen) almost two centuries before Rand, and without any of her polemical baggage.

The city could simply sell new medallions, for $500 each, to as many new cab owners as can present a safe and properly equipped cab, and bonded drivers with clean records.  And confiscate those medallions from anyone who fails to maintain that standard.

Anyone who knows why this will never happen also knows why none of this is about “safety”, because all of it is about maintaining a death grip on the proverbial rice bowl.

Or in other words, it is about “rape”, just not the literal kind.

I also disagree with her notion that reason is the only source of knowledge and basis for action.

Rand is strong medicine but deserves more than knee jerk hatred.

Those two options are exactly what my first comment to you was about.  You’re trying to impose a certain moral perspective on Rand’s work — that her work really represents those ideals as stated.  But from my perspective it I think the situation is more like (2).  There’s some suggestion of the principles you stated but they’re in conflict with other implications of Rand’s philosophy.

Silly?
a) Values and actions cannot be decided purely by reason.  No one with any understanding of human nature or even a cursory knowledge of western philosophy would think it could be.  You can’t derive an ought from an is.
b) Whether or not it should be a “right”, it is physically impossible for anyone “exist in his own right”.  People inevitably learn to speak and reason from the society into which they were born; that’s also where they acquire their moral values (or lack thereof).  Human beings are social animals and actually require contact with others for psychological health.  Life as a human being demands involvement in society and that demand is what shapes the morality that people derive from society.
c) I’m not sure what it means to “seek values from others by force” but it seems to me that there are different kinds of force and that Rand tries to disqualify some kinds of force as “not counting.”  Presumably if a person takes a humiliating and physically debilitating job because there is no other way to feed his or her family Rand would not take this to be “force” — he has the choice of letting his family starve.  This is another instance of trying to impose a particular moral frame on any criticism of Rand’s work: force means what Rand said it means; there are no other reasonable interpretation of “force” that conflict with Rand’s values.  I simply don’t agree that this is the case.

Probably because she was in reality she was quite shallow?

and you talk sense.

think that was the thing in question.

I’m not sure but I know there was a problem with it here in London. A lot of cases went un-reported

Brandon may be right that people are reluctant “publicly to name the essential ideas of Atlas Shrugged and to attempt to refute them.”

Perhaps they think they would look silly.

This makes her an interesting figure, notwithstanding the dogmatic (and therefore tedious) polarization of her haters/admirers.

She advocated (among other things) “Don’t expect me to prove a negative.”

I’m thinking of her appearance on the Mike Douglas show (if memory serves).

Douglas said something about “Do you believe there is no God?”, and Rand replied — I’m paraphrasing here — “Don’t put that false logic on me, nobody can prove a negative.”

Whatever else her faults, she was quite right about the absurdity of expecting anyone to disprove the existence of God.

As you are invited to judge Rand’s stand by her stated terms.

It strikes me as bizarre that someone who claims to believe in radical self-determination is trying to dictate to me what moral values I’m allowed to use when assessing the work of Ayn Rand.

Again, if I use Rand’s values to try to criticize Rand I’m not going to do a very good job of criticizing because Rand’s values validate Rand’s philosophy.