I Enjoy Ayn Rand's Novels

but her philosophy, while getting right the absolute importance of the truth, doesn't actually know what is truth.  Or human nature.  Or charity.  Or, it would seem, the consequences of a world where her philosophy wins.  But anyway--Mark Shea does some lovely commentary on her, Rush Limbaugh, and the ways of much of the modern right.  Excerpts:

... Rush Limbaugh is a big fan of Ayn Rand. That would be the Ayn Rand who says:

There is a great, basic contradiction in the teachings of Jesus. Jesus was one of the first great teachers to proclaim the basic principle of individualism -- the inviolate sanctity of man's soul, and the salvation of one's soul as one's first concern and highest goal; this means -- one's ego and the integrity of one's ego. But when it came to the next question, a code of ethics to observe for the salvation of one's soul -- (this means: what must one do in actual practice in order to save one's soul?) -- Jesus (or perhaps His interpreters) gave men a code of altruism, that is, a code which told them that in order to save one's soul, one must love or help or live for others. This means, the subordination of one's soul (or ego) to the wishes, desires or needs of others, which means the subordination of one's soul to the souls of others.

This is a contradiction that cannot be resolved. This is why men have never succeeded in applying Christianity in practice, while they have preached it in theory for two thousand years. The reason of their failure was not men's natural depravity or hypocrisy, which is the superficial (and vicious) explanation usually given. The reason is that a contradiction cannot be made to work. That is why the history of Christianity has been a continuous civil war -- both literally (between sects and nations), and spiritually (within each man's soul).

It's that Ayn Rand who saw abortion as an absolute right more fanatically than Obama does.

It's that Ayn Rand who said, "I swear, by my life and my love of it, that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine.”...