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I don't accept Rand's view of life as simply being for yourself. I'm a conservative and a believer in capitalism and free-markets because I believe it's the best economic system devised for improving the lot of man. I do believe I have an obligation to help and care about those who have problems or who are suffering under tyranny.

That does not mean I have to live my life for those people. But I am a better person for helping give other people the opportunity to improve their lives.

I think you may miss one of Rand's key points which is more about being forced to help others. Rand doesn't rail against charity or doing good for others, she rails against being forced either by Government or those who subscribe to a political system that abhores the nature of a Capitalistic society.

I think if you look at who pays the taxes in this country today vs. those who are living on the government dole with a sense of entitlement (they're "entitled" to our tax dollars by force of government taxation and wealth distribution away from those of us who work) I think Rand nailed exactly what this country turned into, and she did it more than 50 years ago.

I fully understand her point about being forced to help. But there's too much emphasis on the "great man" being the ultimate force for good in a lot of Rand's philosophy as it were. When socialists like Obama say that nobody can do anything by themselves, it takes society to make it possible, he's right, but not in the way he means it. Of course, even diehard capitalists understand that nobody can create anything strictly by themselves. In fact, as many advocates have pointed out, capitalism takes a great deal of cooperation to work.

That does not mean I believe whatever an individual does is owned equally by other people. A system like capitalism i.e. the free market allows some to get fabulously rich, but it also makes great lives possible for those who have no hope of achieving great wealth. But even the not so great or so-called takers, as Rand might put it, make wealth possible. Everybody does their part, and everybody prospers. Some more than others. But everybody who willfully participates in a free market system does a lot better than under socialism. But Rand seems to sneer at those who aren't at the top. Nevertheless, they're important too. It's not just the "great men" who make the modern world possible. It's everybody doing their part...great and small. Rand seems to have missed that.