How can journalism and anecdotal complaints be trusted, though? Why wouldn't one of those dishonest firms just buy a newspaper, or plant people in crowds to talk up its goods/services in hopes of drowning out the negative voices? What if a dishonest firm just pays the complainers to shut up? What if it drowns the…

And is that additional value greater than the additional value that the dishonest firm can accrue by jacking up prices? How do we know?

"Don't do business with those known to deal unethically."

Actually, the fact that people need a program ISN'T evidence that we should abolish the program.

How are you defining "progressive" and "backwards", by the colors the news networks paint them on Election Day? Because I adore Illinois, but it ain't progressive, it doesn't even have a progressive income tax. Similarly, California effectively can't raise taxes and gave Republicans a veto over the budget until 2010,…

"However, saying Rand admired honesty, intellectualism, and integrity are very valid points indeed"

I'm not sure I disagree, but it does remind me of the time my friend told me that KISS "never sold out" because they only thing they ever believed in was making money.

…except that the #1 liberal fear of an unregulated market is institutional capture, which is exactly what happened to lead to the boycotts (and happens on a smaller scale with, say, Comcast). If they guys with the money buy off the guys who write the rules, don't say the guys with the money were innocent. You still…

Once that line is crossed- and it will be, god save us all, it will be- we're only a hop, skip, and a jump away from Dick McPenis.

You can kinda see a through-line- her OITNB character is kinda/sorta what right-wingers seem to think all liberals are like…

It's not exactly the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval to see one character played by three different actresses in a planned trilogy.

Kids are where the entire objectivist philosophy breaks down, anyway (well, that and every other part of it, outside of "Excessive regulation is bad"), and they would clash kinda severely with Rand's lifestyle, so, y'know, not surprised that the whole parent/child relationship is ignored.

Well, it's old, and it sells very well, even today. Close enough.

This is my biggest problem with Atlas Shrugged. It's presented as the best foot forward for her political philosophy, and the deck is so stacked it frankly insults the reader. If your philosophy only works when you create a world where a train crash only hurts bad guys, your philosophy doesn't work.

Well, there's at least ones who actually agree with Rand's real positions. They're mostly still full of it, but it's better than Hannity.

That's probably true, he just always struck me as kind of Manhattan intellectual Jew, like a Woody Allen type. I dunno, sometimes I read extra traits into characters.

Well, they're not Jewey enough, but yeah, close.

Yes, that's a very good point, and there's a lot of internal disagreement about domestic politics among neocons (look at Bush and Cheney themselves on gay marriage).

Even beyond that, though (both men wear the religions lightly), Sean Hannity has a distinct and powerful neocon edge that Rand would find abhorrent, and Glenn Beck is just an all-purpose nutter. Besides that, they're hardly Galt-ian "makers", which is just about the only people Rand's philosophy really respects.

While both philosophies have little purchase with me, I do think it's reasonable to separate neocons and Randians, even if they're sometimes fellow travelers.