Many people have been "influenced" by _Atlas Shrugged_, but, like Senator Paul Ryan and Congressman Ron Paul, they believe that the universe had a creator, or they believe that unborn babies have more rights than their mothers, or otherwise hold irrational beliefs.

It is not necessary or important to agree with every word that Ayn Rand wrote. However, it should be clear to any thinking person that Ayn Rand discovered and created an integrated philosophical system within which some truths are fundamental and others derived.

Metaphysics and epistemology are inter-related as the basis of Objectivism. At the farther extent, aesthetic enjoyment in general and judgments of artistic merit can be highly personal, and perhaps unresolveable. On the Objectivist discussion board "Rebirth of Reason" I presented my acceptance of Rodin's "The Thinker" which was denounced in the Objectivist magazine by Mary Ann Sures in "Metaphysics in Marble" (March 1969). Ayn Rand declared Beethoven to be expressing a malevolent universe, though many of her admirers continue to be his. She explained how such disagreements arise between people who share basic values in _The Romantic Manifesto_. (Brieftly: what matters is not the artist's intent, but your perception.) But aesthetics is removed from metaphysics and epistemology. You can disagree about a specific work of art. We cannot disagree about the law of identity or the validity of the senses or the efficacy of reason.

This explains why Ayn Rand had little interest in politics. She did endorse (or condemn) certain presidential candidates, but she remained mute on local issues and politicians. She did denounce various government intrusions such as the Federal Communications Commission and the Anti-Trust Laws. But in every case, she used the specific example to illustrate a deeper truth. It was a matter of philosophy, not of public policy. She did not live to see the computer revolution blossom in the 1980s. I wish she could have seen Apple's "1984" ad for the Macintosh. The overwhelming influence that her work had on millions of computer professionals is obvious by inspection. But the number of Objectivists among them is necessarily smaller.

Ayn Rand wrote: "If you held these concepts with total consistency, as the base of your convictions, you would have a full philosophical system to guide the course of your life. But to hold them with total consistency—to understand, to define, to prove and to apply them—requires volumes of thought."

Sales of her books reflect the fact that while millions of people have read Atlas Shrugged, not even half a million have read _The Romantic Manifesto_. Even _Capitalism: the Unknown Ideal_ has yet to see one million copies sold.

Of the other books, I would suggest _Introduction to the Objectivist Epistemology_ as a touchstone of who is, and is not, interested in philosophy. It is pretty easy to denounce President Obama. It is much harder to learn (or teach) a concept, especially, if you do not what a concept is.

Ayn Rand warned against the non-conceptual or anti-conceptual approach to current affairs. She also identified "social metaphysics" the view that other people's opinions define your ideas, goals, and actions. She defined the "muscle mystic" as the person who glorifies the physical embodiments of wealth such as factories and gold without regard for the spiritual source of such values.

In Howard Roark's "Courtroom Speech" Ayn Rand made a point underscored also by the capitalist economist Ludwig von Mises: the true creator does not participate in the general market, and in fact, often pursues their own truth to their own detriment and destruction at the hands of others -- when any intelligent person could see the obvious benefits of going along with the crowd. In The Fountainhead, the successful businessman, Homer Slottern, who never took a subsidy and who sold only what people obviously wanted is morally and aesthetically despicable, the true antithesis of her hero, Howard Roark. By Peter Keating is a tragic figure, in the Aristotlean sense. The reasons for such assertions can be found in the pages of _Atlas Shrugged_ if you know where to look, but Ayn Rand made them explicit and developed them fully in her other works.