I got the original message (or at least the beginnings of one).
OP started off on the narrow path of understanding with balancing viewpoints, but then fell off by representing Rand as unconditional support for corporate domination, and went on to imply that her writings inspired these before-her-time titans to boot. So I pointed out the absurdity by expanding on it.
Besides what's really more interesting, analyzing caricatures of ideologies, or time machines?
Only if you're talking about a narrow caricature of her ideas, and ignoring the context she was writing from - socially-based totalitarianism. Her focus of strong individualism would have manifested quite differently if she had been writing during that period of hierarchical totalitarianism.
There are many people who use what she said to justify their being assholes, but the same applies to any philosophy when it's taken for strict prescriptions.
OP started off on the narrow path of understanding with balancing viewpoints, but then fell off by representing Rand as unconditional support for corporate domination, and went on to imply that her writings inspired these before-her-time titans to boot. So I pointed out the absurdity by expanding on it.
Besides what's really more interesting, analyzing caricatures of ideologies, or time machines?