I'll accept that challenge, WDonway. My philosophy is somewhere between Rand's and Burke's. I am the "libertarian conservative" that Rand despised. I am personally conservative, yet do not think that others should be required to live as I do. Consequently, in a past role as a faculty senate president, I governed in a libertarian fashion, even once passing an idea that I was philosophically in disagreement with but realizing that the only way to not violate others' rights to live their lives as they chose was to pass the idea anyhow.

My main objection to Objectivism is that, in order for it to survive, everyone in a society must agree to it. I will argue that, while reason should be the basis for any proper society, looters and moochers see no reason at all why they cannot and should not trample all over us. As such, Objectivism is an inherently unstable situation. The American Constitution provides a more stable framework for meeting many of Objectivism's goals other than atheism, but even the American Constitution's system of checks and balances has proven an insufficient barrier against looters and moochers over the past 100 years.