Nice try, but you have to realize that all these Rand apologists/worshipers (and that is exactly what they are) are 100% reality proof, same as any garden variety Republican. I wish they would all go away to their own little paradise of all chiefs and no indians.

In her journal circa 1928 Rand quoted the statement, "What is good for me is right," a credo attributed to a prominent figure of the day, William Edward Hickman. Her response was enthusiastic. "The best and strongest expression of a real man's psychology I have heard," she exulted. (Quoted in Ryan, citing Journals of Ayn Rand, pp. 21-22.)

At the time, she was planning a novel that was to be titled "The Little Street", the projected hero of which was named Danny Renahan. According to Rand scholar Chris Matthew Sciabarra, she deliberately modeled Renahan - intended to be her first sketch of her ideal man - after this same William Edward Hickman. Renahan, she enthuses in another journal entry, "is born with a wonderful, free, light consciousness -- [resulting from] the absolute lack of social instinct or herd feeling. He does not understand, because he has no organ for understanding, the necessity, meaning, or importance of other people ... Other people do not exist for him and he does not understand why they should." (Journals, pp. 27, 21-22; emphasis hers.)

"A wonderful, free, light consciousness" born of the utter absence of any understanding of "the necessity, meaning, or importance of other people." Obviously, Ayn Rand was most favorably impressed with Mr. Hickman. He was, at least at that stage of Rand's life, her kind of man.

So the question is, who exactly was he?

William Edward Hickman was one of the most famous men in America in 1928. But he came by his fame in a way that perhaps should have given pause to Ayn Rand before she decided that he was a "real man" worthy of enshrinement in her pantheon of fictional heroes.

You see, Hickman was a forger, an armed robber, a child kidnapper, and a multiple murderer.

Other than that, he was probably a swell guy.

http://michaelprescott.net/hickman.htm

Evidently, Ayn Rand was the kind of person who worshipped thieves and murderers.

Roark literally blows up the complex. He is brought to trial, and his whole defense is that since his terms were not met, he had the right to take back his design.

And so we see that Ayn Rand's "heroes" blow up buildings when they don't get what they want - out of ideology, and out of spite.

Some people don't call them "heroes". Some people call them "terrorists". Rand apparently lacked the imagination to have her "heroes" fly hijacked jetliners into skyscrapers.

AND AS FOR WALTER

I think you're just annoyed that you've been outed as a con artist. Next time lay your slime a little thicker and maybe nobody will figure it out.

Angelo Mozilo walked away with a tidy $140 million for his efforts. It seems he was unloading his Countrywide stock as fast as he could while telling the stockholders that everything was just peachy-keen.

But since he didn't steal it at gunpoint, it's all okay with the Objectivists here.

One can just see them all nodding and mumbling "Hey, caveat emptor!"

Don't take it personally. It's just business.

"As soon as the land of any country has all become private property, the landlords, like all other men, love to reap where they never sowed, and demand a rent even for its natural produce."

"I have never known much good done by those who affected to trade for the public good."

"No society can surely be flourishing and happy, of which the far greater part of the members are poor and miserable."

"To feel much for others and little for ourselves; to restrain our selfishness and exercise our benevolent affections, constitute the perfection of human nature."

"With the greater part of rich people, the chief enjoyment of riches consists in the parade of riches."

"Civil government, so far as it is instituted for the security of property, is in reality instituted for the defense of the rich against the poor, or of those who have some property against those who have none at all."

Thank you, thank you, Adam Smith. I'm sure a psychopathic greed-obsessed slut like Ayn Rand would call you a fool, and yet, that would be to your credit.

And where is Countrywide today?

Countrywide is toast. One of the big banks bought the cadaver. However, Angelo Mozilo walked away with a tidy $140 million for his efforts. It seems he was unloading his Countrywide stock as fast as he could while telling the stockholders that everything was just peachy-keen. The SEC is going after him for deceiving the stockholders, but it's only a civil lawsuit so there won't be any jail time for Angelo. I think it's pretty amazing that no law enforcement agency has yet tried to indict him for fraud.

Top executives at other big subprime players were also handsomely compensated for destroying the companies they were supposed to manage. For example, Richard Fuld, the former CEO of the former Lehman Bros, socked away $500 million in salary and bonuses during the eight years it took him to wreck Lehman.

The funny thing is that both of these guys seemed to be doing exactly what the objectivist philosophy says they should have been doing: Taking care of number one. Do you agree, or can you find some way to criticize these people within the framework of objectivism?

For every thief like Bernie Madof there are 100,000,000 honest businessmen working and creating, making money and paying the wages ...

... of Malaysian and Indian slave labor. Unlike Americans, they have no expectations. They're not allowed.

And for every company like Goldman Sachs, out to bankrupt the country for their profit, there are 100,000,000 wannabes like yourself.

Until then, my policy is the same. You own yourself and the product of your labors. No taking another's property by gunpoint and handing it to someone else.

And if you can cheat it out of others en masse by corrupting the government, that's okay with you too.

We all sprang from apes, but Spooge obviously didn't spring far enough. Here's hoping you get your face chewed off by a chimpanzee, neocon.