Since I have personally talked with about a thousand people from many different walks of life about Ayn Rand since 1963, and since Rand not only sold millions of books before her death in 1982, and TWELVE MILLION SINCE her death, your insinuation that my conclusions are based upon PRETENDING I can only guess is based upon hasty wishful thinking or something equally unwise on your part. Further, did my seeing the impact of Rand on influential people from Robert Prechter to Tibor Machan to Jonathan Hoenig, etc., etc. have me fooled? For myself, I've never been part of anyone's inner circle, and have found her philosophy vastly more compelling, life-saving, inspiring and ennobling than anything else, and any implication that I didn't would be unwise to keep maintaining.
I have many more times been quite correctly portrayed by others as being anti-Rand, than I have ever been referred to as pro-Rand. I consider myself to be an anti-Randian. Yet to be honest, I must admit that Rand has had a tremendous influence on me and my opinions. Today, as when she was alive, I have/had many disagreements with her positions. I also agree with many of her opinions. Any statement as quoted above is pure silliness and is not even worthy of this comment.
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I will second that.
I gave a copy of Atlas Shrugged to my son-in-law and he has told me that it had a major impact on his approach to his job and his life. He recently returned the favor by buying a copy for the fiancee of my other daughter who is Hispanic. He in turn talked it up to a friend of his (who speaks very little English) but wanted to read the book. As is my policy, I offered to buy him a hardback version of Atlas Shrugged. In this case I had to find him a copy in Spanish. I found it at Amazon (the publisher is in Argentina), ordered it and received it in about a month. I will hand it too him next weekend.
"... have found her philosophy vastly more compelling, life-saving, inspiring and ennobling than anything else..."
Well said.