Hyper-capitalist, moral absolutist, and her objectivist circle was a cult. But her best bits were the best IMO. A steadfast commitment to it. There was something refreshing for me about it. Though not exactly real world applicable, I think that she influenced so many says a lot. (She loathed becoming a politician.) The biography titled Goddess of the Market was a rather fine compliment.
Below reminds me of how prayer is often used to not confront life's obstacles.....
Intellectually, to rest one's case on faith means to concede that reason is on the side of one's enemies--that one has no rational arguments to offer. The "conservatives' " claim that their case rests on faith, means that there are no rational arguments to support the American system, no rational justification for freedom, justice, property, individual rights, that these rest on a mystic revelation and can be accepted on on faith--that in reason and logic the enemy is right, but men must hold faith as superior to reason.
Consider the implications of that theory. While the communists claim that they are the representatives of reason and science, the "conservatives" concede it and retreat into the realm of mysticism, of faith, of the supernatural, into another world, surrendering this world to communism. It is the kind of victory that the communists' irrational ideology could never have won on its own merits.
Observe the results. On the occasion of Khrushchev's first visit to America, he declared, at a televised luncheon, that he had threatened to bury us because it has been "scientifically" proved that communism is the system of the future, destined to rule the world. What did our spokesman answer? Mr. Henry Cabot Lodge answered that our system is based on faith in God. Prior to Khrushchev's arrival, the "conservative" leaders--including senators and House members--were issuing indignant protests against his visit, but the only action the suggested to the American people, the only "practical" form of protest, was: prayer and the holding of religious services for Khrushchev's victims. To hear prayer offered as their only weapon by the representatives of the most powerful country on earth--a country allegedly dedicated to the fight for freedom--was enough to discredit America and capitalism in anyone's eyes, at home and abroad.