LKL wrote:
Whether you like the source or not, her admiration for a sociopath in real life comes out in her writings and her words as well. One of her heroes blows up his masterwork building rather than have 'worthless' handicapped people housed in it.
"If any civilization is to survive, it is the morality of altruism that men have to reject."
"Civilization is the progress toward a society of privacy. The savage’s whole existence is public, ruled by the laws of his tribe. Civilization is the process of setting man free from men."
"The question isn’t who is going to let me; it’s who is going to stop me."
"There are two sides to every issue: one side is right and the other is wrong, but the middle is always evil."
“Freedom (n.): To ask nothing. To expect nothing. To depend on nothing.”
“Why do they always teach us that it's easy and evil to do what we want and that we need discipline to restrain ourselves? It's the hardest thing in the world--to do what we want. And it takes the greatest kind of courage. I mean, what we really want.”
So what? I specifically said that you have to pick and choose when reading her, you obviously picked and chose statements that would support your viewpoint and view of her. I could easily paint a more sympathetic picture if it mattered to me by engaging in a similar cherry picking exercise, but I don't feel that it's a good use of my time.
LKL wrote:
Rand had a low opinion of humanity in general, a low opinion of women in general, and a borderline depraved view of sex (I'll spare everyone the soliloquies from Atlas Shrugged that speak to that). Her entire structure of philosophy is built on misanthropy, and people worship her for it.
Again, so what? Ghandi liked to give little girls enemas (look it up), does that somehow undo all the other things he did with his life?
LKL wrote:
To extend the metaphor of your car, it's a car that gets its energies from being towed along by the kids that have grown beyond the age of attraction for the molester. He no longer needs them, and they have to be useful for something, don't they?
That doesn't make any sense. I said
invented a car that get's
100 miles to the gallon, not "is towed by post-pubescent children. Is that
really the best rebuttal you've got?

You realize there's a difference between engineering and philosophy, right? Engineering doesn't depend on the reputation of the engineer to spread if it does the best job.