And for my part I honestly don't care if I convince a single person to get into Objectivism. Conversion is not my goal. I think it's interesting but if you don't that's fine. You do you. I just want (a) to be able to do me, and I resent not being allowed to by people who whine about fascism every other sentence and then conduct themselves like damn good fascists, and (b) to be able to set the Rand record straight so that even if people want to hate her guts everyone is at least on the same page and dealing with her actual ideas and arguments rather than ludicrously caricatured strawmen built by people who've never actually read anything she ever wrote. As a scholar, such conduct is so unprofessional, so hideously ideologically motivated, that it is actually gross. I would never dream of even opening my mouth on a subject unless I had an informed opinion, and if for some reason I was dragged into a conversation in which I was over my head I would admit it straightaway. But the number of people who so casually and so confidently dismiss Rand (among others) without even possessing the ability to name a single one of her nonfiction writings (if they could even name one of her fiction books) is downright staggering.
