The Vindication of Ayn Rand

The Autonomist ^ | 03/11/05 | Cass Hewitt

[Hank Kerchief]

The Vindication of Ayn Rand

A review of James S. Valliant’s The Passion of Ayn Rand’s Critics: The Case Against the Brandens

by Cass Hewitt

Who would have thought that within the seemingly sedate and cerebral world of philosophy would be found a history to rival any Hollywood drama for intrigue, passion, seduction, lies, betrayal, black evil, and the ultimate triumph of the good—and which is also a fascinating detective story.

Among those who rose to heights of fame in the last half of the twentieth century none was as charismatic as the author-philosopher Ayn Rand. Her electrifying, radical novels depicting her fully integrated philosophy, which she named Objectivism, broke on popular consciousness like a storm and caught the enthusiasm of a generation seeking truth and values in the aridity of postmodernism. She was a sought after speaker, her public lectures filled to standing room only. She was interviewed on Prime Time television and for high circulation magazines.

She taught a philosophy of individualism in the face of rising collectivism; an ethic of adherence to reality and honesty; of objective truth against the subjectivist antirealism of the Counter Enlightenment philosophies and presented the world with a blue-print for day to day living.

On the coat tails of her fame were two young students who sought her out, convinced her their passion for her ideas was genuine and became associated with her professionally, intellectually, and ultimately personally. They were Nathaniel Branden, now a noted “self-esteem” psychology guru, and his then wife, Barbara Branden.

Not only did Branden, 25 years Rand’s junior, become her favored student, he was so professionally close to her that he gave Objectivist lectures with her, edited and wrote for the “Objectivist Newsletter”, and formed a teaching venue, the Nathaniel Branden Institute, to teach details of her philosophy to the army of readers of her novels hungry for more. Rand dedicated her magnum opus, Atlas Shrugged to him (along with her husband), and named Branden her intellectual heir.

Then suddenly, in 1968, Rand issued a statement which repudiated both the Brandens, totally divorcing them from herself and her philosophy. In “To whom it may Concern,” [The Objectivist, May 1968] Rand gave her explanation for the break detailing Brandens departure from practice of the philosophy.

However, in 1989, 7 years after Rand’s death, Nathaniel Branden published his book Judgment Day, a supposedly detailed biography of his famous philosopher-mentor. In it he painted a picture of a woman very different from that recognized by her army of admirers —a dark, “repressed“, angry woman who tortured and pilloried anyone who remotely disagreed with her, with no patience for any views not exactly her own, with an almost pathological arrogance and dictatorial tyranny.

Barbara Branden published her own “warts and all” version of her reminiscences earlier, in 1986. The Passion of Ayn Rand (later made into a movie) presented a similar picture of Rand. Both categorically stated that the reason for the break between Rand and the Brandens was because Nathaniel and Rand had been involved in an extra-marital sexual relationship while still married for a period of 14 years and that Nathaniel’s refusal to continue the affair had reduced a tyrannical Rand to hysterics.

Rand is presented as a seriously psychologically disturbed individual whose very philosophy was not only flawed but dangerous. Both books and their authors have become accepted as the last and most reliable “word” on Ayn Rand, and most works describing Rand today mainly trace back to these two as sources.

However, in 2002 a prosecuting lawyer, James Valliant, published on the Internet the results of his examination of these two books. Studied with the critical eye of a dispassionate investigative mind he saw serious errors: major contradictions both within each book and between both. Apparent to him was that a major act of deliberate deception had been perpetrated by these two well known, highly respected adherents of Rand’s philosophy.

For a considerable time before the final split the Brandens had drifted away from Rand’s philosophy but it was much worse. They lied to her about themselves, the state of their marriage, their multiple sexual affairs, and Nathaniel Branden’s secret four year love affair with another woman while he was supposedly carrying on a sexual liaison with Rand herself . Worst of all, was the reason for the deception. The lies enabled them to use her name to promote their own early publications and the considerable income they were deriving from the “spin-offs“. Nathaniel Branden admits that he frequently “paced the floor” trying to work out how not to wreck the “life he had built up for himself” as Objectivism’s authorized representative. At his wife’s urging that he admit his secret affair to Rand he responded “not until after she writes the forward for my book."

As the author states, “the persistent dishonesty of the Brandens about their own part in Rand’s life makes it impossible to rely on them as historians of events for which they are the only witnesses.” He amply demonstrates, taking their own words from their critiques of Rand, to substantiate his conclusion that “they will recollect, suppress, revise, exaggerate and omit whenever convenient… [where] necessary they will pull out of their magical hats a very “private” conversation that one of them “once” had with Rand to prove what all the rest of the evidence denies.”

Their criticisms of Rand are personal and “psychological,” perfect examples of the psychologizing Rand denounced, attempting to demonstrate that Rand did not live up to her own philosophy. Barbara Branden makes total about face contradictions within a few pages; draws conclusions from nearly non-existent evidence such as a single old family photo and uses such alien to Objectivism concepts as “feminine instincts” and “subjective preferences” without the bother of defining these terms.

In her The Passion of Ayn Rand, Ms. Branden draws personal psychological conclusions without any evidence. Examples such as “Her Fathers’ seeming indifference ..{had} ..to be a source of anguish.. as an adult, she always spoke as if [they] were simple facts of reality, of no emotional significance.. one can only conclude that a process of self-protective emotional repression [was deep rooted]…” and further “In all my conversations with Ayn Rand about her years in Russia she never once mentioned to me [any] encounter ..with anti-Semitism. It is all but impossible that there were not such encounters.. One can only assume that ... the pain was blocked from her memory … perhaps because the memory would have carried with it an unacceptable feeling of humiliation” Assumptions, which Valliant says, prove nothing.

It is interesting to note that Ms. Branden was an ardent supporter of Rand until immediately after the break, when such wild accusations and psychologizing rationalizations cut from whole cloth began. Indeed, Ms. Branden can be read at public Internet forums doing the very same thing to this day.

Nathaniel Branden is even more revealing. His own words not only carry the same blatant unreal contradictions as Ms. Brandens’ but he also reveals a twisted mentality capable of totally unethical acts which he then tries to portray as his victim’s faults. For example, he accuses Rand of being authoritarian and “causing us to repress our true selves” and offers as evidence his own lying sycophancy, agreeing with Rand on issues he was later to claim he had always disagreed; praising Rand's insight in topics such as psychology in which field, he says, she had little experience. Considering that it was Rand's endorsement of him he was seeking, his behavior constitutes, as Valliant says, “spiritual embezzlement.”

The complete lack of value in anything either of the Branden’s have to say about Ayn Rand is summed up with pithy succinctness by the author: “We have seen [they] will distort and exaggerate the evidence, and that they have repeatedly suppressed vital evidence and [employ] creativity in recollecting it. Both exhibit internal confusions and numerous self contradictions. The only consistencies are the passionate biases that emanate from their personal experiences. These factors all combine to render their biographical efforts useless to the serious historian.”

James Valliant has done more than demonstrate the complete invalidity—including a viscous character assassination—of both the Brandens books. Using the clear logic and language of an experienced prosecuting lawyer, with only essential editing, he has presented and interpreted Rand’s own private notes, made while she was acting as psychological counselor for Nathaniel Branden. These show her mind in action as she analyses the language of, and finally understands the bitter truth about, the man she had once loved.

Mr. Valliant not only demonstrates this is a tragic story of assault on innocence by a viciously duplicitous person, it is also an amazing detective story, and the detective is none other than Ayn Rand herself.

Over the four years of emotionally painful psychological counseling Rand gave Branden for his supposed sexual dysfunction, we see a brilliant mind carefully dissecting the truths she unearthed. By applying her own philosophy to Branden’s methods of thinking although still unaware of the worst of his deceptions, we see Rand slowly reaching her horrifying conclusion.

The picture of Rand which shines out through her notes is of a woman of amazing depths of compassion; who would not judge or condemn if she could not understand why a person thought and felt as they did; who would give all her time and energy to try to understand and help someone she believed was suffering and in need of guidance.

The facts indicate the sexual affair was apparently over 4 years before the final public split, though Mr. Valiant is careful to say he is only certain it had ended by the start of 1968 and that it was Rand, not Branden, who ended the relationship because she had finally understood his subjectivism, deceits (including financial misappropriation) and mental distortions.

From the flaws in their own works and from Rand's concurrent notes of the time it is clearly apparent that in her 1968 statement of repudiation, Rand told the truth about events and the Brandens lied. Throughout all of her years with them, Rand behaved with the integrity followers of her work would have expected. And, to quote Mr. Valliant, “The Brandens were dishonest with Rand about nearly everything a person can be … largely to maintain the good thing they had going at NBI. This dishonesty lasted for years. ..[They] not only lied to Rand, they lied to their readers .. [and] then they lied about their lies. Ever since they have continued to lie in memoirs and biographies about their lies, calling Rand's 1968 statement ‘libelous’. This remarkable all-encompassing dishonesty is manifest from these biographies and all the more apparent now we have Rand's journal entries from the same period.”

Her generous nature was unable to conceive the full truth about Nathaniel Branden. It is left to Valliant to finish the story, taking it to its full and final dreadful conclusion, showing exactly what it was Nathaniel Branden had deliberately done to this innocent, brilliant, compassionate woman, and what both the Brandens, whom Rand rejected as having any association at all with her philosophy, are still doing to this day—and why.

In the end, those who have used the Branden’s lies to claim the philosophy of Objectivism “doesn’t work, because it’s author couldn’t follow the precepts,” are shown to be completely wrong. Rand used her philosophy and psycho-epistemology to discover the truth; her philosophy to guide her actions in dealing with it and finally to lift her above the heartbreak and pain it caused her.

There is something almost operatic in the telling: A great woman, a great mind, who conceived of a philosophy of love for and exalted worship of the best in the human mind, who defended with searing anger the right of all people to be free to discover happiness, being deceived by the one person she believed to be her equal, her lover and heir, who had lied to and manipulated her for his own gains while she was alive and vilified her name and distorted with calumny the image of her personality after her death.

Perhaps in nothing else is her greatness better shown, than that she was able to rise above the cataclysm and live and laugh again. She always said, “Evil is a negative.. It can do nothing unless we let it.” In her life she lived that and proved it true.

[jackbob]

You contradict yourself. Quoting me first, you then replied "same here" to my statement that "Rand has had a tremendous influence on me and my opinions." You then say you "stand by" your "epithet of 'pitiful.'" Which was expressed in the context of "let us not pretend that her... philosophy ever convinced anyone outside of a very narrow circle of fellow-theorizers." If that be the case, then explain how she had a "tremendous influence on" you and your "opinions."

[Rembrandt_fan]

I don't 'blindly' follow anything, and won't dignify your indirect claim that Christianity is itself a cult. And I certainly can't be faulted for thinking you're an Ayn Rand acolyte, given your staunch (if inept) defense of her work and ideas throughout this thread, although it is good to be reminded that you're largely unfamiliar with those ideas. Lastly (and finally), I don't have the time or patience to walk you through the rudiments of reasoned argument. I do suggest, however, that you know at least something of a given position before you defend or attack it. I had to slog through the entire, turgid length of 'Atlas Shrugged', as well as 'The Fountainhead' and numerous nonfiction essays and lectures in order to grasp the essentials of her thought and philosophy. While I don't wish that particular fate on anyone of intelligence and discernment, it is required reading if one wants to engage in knowledgeable discourse or debate on the subject.

[jackbob]

Its been a very interesting discussion you all have had. My take is that their actually are no true altruists. I see the entire notion of altruism as completely phony. There are only selfish people seeking different kinds of rewards.

Some are fooled into not recognizing their own selfishness being satisfied by some of the rewards and call it altruism. While others seeking those same rewards find a good deal of self satisfaction in their own selfish giving.

This concept can be expanded all the way to the risking of ones own life for others. But taking it one step beyond that to the actual giving of ones life for another brings rationality in to question in most, but not all cases. For example, a mother giving her life to save her child's life, I think could be called an act of rational selfishness, in most cases.

This view of altruism and selfishness I learned from arguing with the writings of Rand. Its been so many years since I read Rand's stuff, that it is now impossible for me to draw a line between what is from Rand and what is from myself and others. But I must giveher the credit for the insight, even if all of it is not hers.

[CSM]

Do you realize how self-righteous your posting is? On top of that I have yet to see you actually address anything specific, you just keep harping on general writing style and your personal opinion of her as a person.

BTW, I wasn't inferring that Christianity is a cult, I was using your own words on you. Your response makes it perfectly clear that you can dish it out, but don't like eating what you served. More hypocricy.......

Goodbye and good day.

[Rightwing Conspiratr1]

Mel has the values and instincts that would do justice to it on film.

Yeah he sure does, but Gibson also has the common sense and good taste not to produce a film based on one of the most horrid and turgid novels ever written. I think you really want that Pulp Fiction fellow doing the film.

[Rembrandt_fan]

'hypocricy'. (chuckle)

[BlackElk]

Askel5: I see much too little of you around here and you are missed. Thanks for being involved here.

ZC: As I explained to you in a recent private Freepmail, I have decided to generally refrain from picking or performing in theological fights with my reformed brethren and sisters on Free Republic. I have little doubt that they are generally as firm in their religious affiliations as I am in mine. It is for the good of the conservative political movement that we recognize that we agree on about 95% of doctrine and make a mountain out of the rest (important as the differences may be and certainly are).

I do not want to have fights with reformed folks of perfectly good will who are my allies on life issues, marriage, the divinity of Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, the Holy Trinity, the virgin birth of Jesus Christ, creation, that G-d so loved he world that He sent His only begotten Son to give up His life on the Cross in atonement of our sins (however great or small) and so many other areas of agreement. My fellow Catholics and I on the one hand and our reformed brothers and sisters on the other hand, have not earned the right to squabble with each other in public before for the entertainment of our common heathen enemies.

I am not at all interested in participating in obscure arguments over what my reformed brothers and sisters in Christ may think the Holy Scriptures may mean when the Holy Father or any of his predecessors going back to Peter has taught otherwise. As I have previously told you privately, if the Roman Catholic Church, speaking through the office of the pope, says so, then that is and always will be good enough for me. I reserve the right to defend my Faith from those who claim Catholicism but are otherwise of whatever stripe. You do not make that claim.

I do not doubt that others who are not Catholic hope to act in my best interest (as they see it) or that of other Catholics by leading me or others out of the Roman Catholic Church and believe that they are sharing with me other Catholics what is most valuable to them in giving me (without my asking for it) and those other Catholics those beliefs and arguments which the reformed believe are compelling and Scriptural to require that I be what they are (non-Catholic). All I can say is that it will not happen, not now, not ever.

None of this is meant to be an offense to the sincere beliefs of the reformed but rather a recognition of their sincerity and my Catholic assertion of adherence to the Roman Catholic Faith with which non-Catholics, for whatever reasons, may disagree.

Living in a rural area of the plains in Northwest Illinois, I find it curious to be accused of belonging to a Roman Catholic religion that allegedly disses the Heartland. If anything, Catholicism is a lot stronger among Catholics in the Heartland than it tends to be in coastal precincts (where I used to live until 5 years ago, such as Los Angeles (Cardinal Mahoney), DC (Cardinal McCarrick), Baltimore (Cardinal Keeler) and others of their ilk. If our complaint is a populist complaint against imagined upper class snobbery of some Catholics, I can assure you that the pews contain few economic or social snobs. My dad was a production worker in a cardboard factory and my mom spent most of her working years at a sewing machine in a garment factory and then took a cut in pay to open mail at Yale's Admissions Office. Snobs we are not.

Half of my ancestors since Luther have been either Lutherans or Anglicans or Presbyterians and all of my wife's ancestors of recent centuries have been Anglican, Lutheran or Presbyterian. That does not lower our status nor does it raise our status. My wife has some very classy and well-known ancestors who were Plantagenets and, better yet, included Philip the Fair of France, but we still have to do all that pedestrian stuff to pay the same bills you probably have to pay and hope there is enough to save a little for the education of the Elkettes. I bless the memory of my once-Anglican paternal grandfather who chose Catholicism over bachelorhood and of my once Presbyterian maternal grandfather who chose Catholicism over bachelorhood. Intellectuality was not necessarily a reason for either of them. Their surrenders, as one might say, saved a wretch like me. My wife had more intellectual reasons but don't hold that against her.

Your last paragraph is a bit shameful and not much of an argument. I am not going to attack your faith whatever it may be just because it contains sinners, as do they all. I have never denied the sinfulness in high places or low places in my own Church and freely admit that there is all too much sin to go around in more modest characters such as me.

As to charges of "Mariolatry" or worship of statues, I cannot convey to you just how silly those charges sound to any properly catechized Catholic. They have as much weight as claims that the Red Sox are made up of natives of the planet Pluto. As a lifelong Yankee fan, I suppose it is theoretically almost vaguely possible but not really.

One thing ought always to be remembered by those non-Catholics who feel compelled to preach at Catholics their individual ideas as to what the Scriptures may mean. We do not like to be preached at by those who are not among the members (better yet, popes) of our Catholic Faith any more than non-Catholics like to be preached at by Catholics. Sometimes, we may respond forcefully. We can become angry in the face of what YOU call Fundamentalist insults. I try not to respond at all any more.

Oh, and try NOT to speak for the Heartland. It is far more diverse than you apparently suspect.

None of this post is hostile in nature to you, to Heartlanders, to modest folks or to non-Catholics.

God bless you and yours.

[BlackElk]

La Rand had a newsletter (The Objectivist Newsletter?) in which she endorsed Gerald Ford breathlessly over Ronald Reagan solely on the basis of Reagan's opposition to abortion. Given her life of atheism and serial adulteries, we are hardly surprised.

[BlackElk]

Don't miss the giants of 20th Century libertarianism like Ludwig von Mises and Friedrich von Hayek. If you are young, you should be encouraged and not discouraged to read widely in such literature. I did not think about this with my previous post. In my opinion Rand was wrong about much and never more so than in being an atheist. Let the evidence lead to your conclusion and not your conclusion to your evidence.

May I suggest that you take a look at something quite different from Rand. Pope St. Pius X wrote, in 1907, an encyclical called Pascendi Dominici Gregis (aka On the Theories of the Modernists) and a syllabus of errors called Lamentabile Sane. His predecessor, Pope Leo XIII, wrote a short but revolutionary (in the best sense) encyclical called Rerum Novarum in 1893, which might well surprise you by its libertarianism. Best of luck in entering upon the ongoing conversation of mankind.

[secretagent]

It wouldn't be charity -- or altruism, -- if by giving of myself I gave something bad.

Rand, distinguished charity from altruism, and said that altruism has the premise of the self, or "selfishness", as evil. She found that idea itself evil:

What is the moral code of altruism? The basic principle of altruism is that man has no right to exist for his own sake, that service to others is the only justification of his existence, and that self-sacrifice is his highest moral duty, virtue and value.

Do not confuse altruism with kindness, good will or respect for the rights of others. These are not primaries, but consequences, which, in fact altruism makes impossible. The irreducible primary of altruism, the basic absolute, is self-sacrifice--which means; self-immolation, self-abnegation, self-denial, self-destruction--which means: the self as a standard of evil, the selfless as a standard of the good.

http://snow.prohosting.com/rights/indexphilo.htm

[BradyLS]

You asked earlier from another FReeper Rand's views on abortion. I wish I was able to post earlier, but work comes first... Anyway, here is one of several of Rand's key remarks about abortion:

"Nevermind the vicious nonsense of claiming that an embryo has a "right to life." A piece of protoplasm has no rights-- and no life in the human sense of the term. One may argue about the later stages of a pregnancy, but the essential issue concerns only the first three months. To equate a _potential_ with an _actual,_ is vicious; to advocate the sacrifice of the latter to the former is unspeakable. Observe that by ascribing rights to the unborn, i.e., the nonliving, the anti-abortionists obliterate the rights of the living: the right of young people to set the course of their own lives. The task of raising a child is a tremendous, life-long responsibility, which no one should undertake unwittingly or unwillingly. Procreation is not a duty: human beings are not stock-farm animals. The concientious persons, an unwanted pregnancy is a disaster; to oppose its termination is to advocate sacrifice, not for the sake of anyone's benefit, but for the sake of misery qua midery, for the sake of forbidding happiness and fulfillment to living human beings."

Myself, this is where I have my biggest break with Rand. Her reasons supporting practice of abortion come across, to me, more like excuses and her argument (normally very precise) is surprisingly sloppy.

First of all, a developing baby is not "a piece of protoplasm." At least not for very long. And as for saying a developing baby has "no life in the human sense" flies in the face of the experience of every human being ever born: EVERYONE has had to pass through every stage of fetal development to take breath as an infant. Her argument does everything to dehumanize the developing baby. Very ironic, IMO.

Rand is correct that carrying and caring for a baby is a tremenous undertaking and should never be entered into lightly. I think she is correct that procreation is not a duty. I think she is also correct when she says that having sex with another human being you love is the greatest act two people can share. However, I wish that men and women that engage in casual sex would also remember that. And therefore their private party might be joined-- not by a stranger-- but by a son or daughter they explicitly invited by creating it between themselves.

Individuals are supposed to be responsible for their actions. And a man and a woman should be responsible for their actions when they create a baby. They should practice birth control if they are going to engage in sex and don't want children: whether married or not.

And I don't think that it needs to be the disaster that Rand foretells, either. A mother could carry a baby to term and then give it up for adoption. I know it's not always that easy, but there can be a win-win for the mother that can't support a child willingly allowing to have it adopted by a couple that can.

I'm honestly at a loss to assess a penalty for the individual(s) involved in aborting a fetus. Killing a baby merits a severe sentence, up to capital punishment, depending on the circumstances. And I don't know what the penalties were in place while abortion was illegal. Naturally, it gets worse where rape is involved. For now, I'd make peace with the classic exceptions for rape and incest. I'll have to punt on the rest for now. I'm genuinely conflicted and this is where my argument breaks down.

Basically, the union of human sperm with a human egg can produce no other living organism except an innocent human being (or possibly beings!). Does anyone else think that the case for Objectivism might actually be _stronger_ if it acknowledged that a developing fetus is a _living human being?_

[DBeers]

good posting!

[higgmeister]

Bump

[jackbob]

Your argument is quite persuasive. But it must be remembered that those of us who hold a different view are really not allowed to put forth our views with the same gusto, less we be banned from FR. So any argument on the matter from either side, is constricted, shallow, and totally incomplete.

I do however have a question with regard to the exception you put forth. Are you saying that an un born baby resulting from a forced incestuous rape of a minor is some how not an innocent human baby? What are you proposing it is? A demoncrat?

[My Favorite Headache]

[BradyLS]

I do however have a question with regard to the exception you put forth. Are you saying that an un born baby resulting from a forced incestuous rape of a minor is some how not an innocent human baby? What are you proposing it is? A demoncrat?

It's certainly an innocent human being and I'd like to see it live. But the mother had no choice in the matter, either, so the baby is an univited guest.

On the one hand, I could see how the fetus is at the complete mercy of its mother. On the other hand, it's also wrong that the fetus should pay for the crime of another. In such a case, I'd like to see support for the mother until she could bring the baby to term and is adopted. (But then all the "Who pays?" arguments spring up.) The father should pay for his crime, certainly.

Can you imagine this terrible option? What if the fate of the father is then tied to the fate of the child in some way? If the fetus is terminated, the father simply does jail time. If the baby is allowed to live, the rapist receives capital punishment.

I freely admit, I haven't thought it all through as thoroughly as even suggesting it deserves. Folks could probably poke huge holes in the argument as it stands and there's not much I could say to defend it.

...And I am also aware of the handicap folks work under if they see it Rand's way and say so on FR. I should think, however, that so long as the debate is civil, no one should be banned.

[CSM]

"Given her life of atheism and serial adulteries...."

And these are the reasons I haven't gone gung ho into studying her works. I violently disagree with these practices and beliefs. Thanks for the information regarding her stance on abortion/murder. That is another area that I am in disagreement with her philosophy.

[CSM]

"Does anyone else think that the case for Objectivism might actually be _stronger_ if it acknowledged that a developing fetus is a _living human being?_"

Good post. Thanks. I am in agreement that an embryo is a human being upon conception and abortion is nothing less than murder. I am surprised that Rand took this stance considering the emphasis she had placed on human intellect and consciousness, over the physical efforts of the human. I'm sensing some conflict in this stance of the physical being not being human, yet no considerations to the potential intellect of the developing human mind.

Did Ayn ever have an abortion?

[BlackElk]

Again, best of luck on your intellectual journey. I will even recommend two works by Rand herself whom I do not yet allow my children to know about but soon will recommend to the 17-year-old. They are the novel: Anthem and the essays collected in The Romantic Manifesto, particularly the one that deals with the Compracheros (long gone Europeans who purposely deformed the bodies of little kidnapped children to turn them into circus freaks and her proper assertion that it was worse for modern Comprachecos to purposely distort the minds of children). I might differ with her to some extent on the identities of the modern Comprachecos (the gummint school system comes immediately to mind but she would probably regard my Catholic Church leaders as Comprachecos as well and there I part company with her).

Good luck and God bless you and yours!

[Smile-n-Win]

Did Ayn ever have an abortion?

As far as I know, she did not.