I highly recommend this article!  I left the following comment at Liberty without Apologies if any of my followers are interested:

How anyone can claim to agree with the philosophy of Ayn Rand, Objectivism, while simultaneously practicing moral relativism and excoriating those whose judge people as a consequence of their own voluntary actions is truly baffling.

Consider this excerpt from Part I, Chapter VII of Atlas Shrugged:

“What is morality?” she asked.
“Judgement to distinguish right and wrong, vision to see the truth, and courage to act upon it, dedication to that which is good, integrity to stand by the good at any price.”

That surely does not sound like support for hedonism or an aversion to judging others as a consequence of their own voluntary, immoral choices to me. In fact, in Apollo and Dionysus, Ayn Rand had some pretty harsh words for drug addicts as well. I definitely consider questioning their moral character and classifying their behavior as “obscene and evil” to be judgmental of their behavior. Consider this quote:

“Is there any doubt that drug addiction is an escape from an unbearable inner state – from a reality that one cannot deal with – from an atrophying mind one can never fully destroy? If Apollonian reason were unnatural to man, and Dionysian intuition brought him closer to nature and truth, the apostles of irrationality would not have to resort to drugs. Happy, self-confident men do not seek to get stoned. Drug addiction is the attempt to obliterate one’s consciousness, the quest for a deliberately-induced insanity. As such, it is so obscene and evil that any doubt about the moral character of its practitioners is itself an obscenity.”

Ayn Rand also criticized the libertarians of her day for opposing Objectivism for its focus on morality. She called them “monstrous” and “disgusting” for plagiarizing and distorting her views in a manner more vicious than communist publications. Anyone who has any familiarity with Ashley’s blog can attest to the fact that the libertarians of today are no different in this regard. This excerpt from http://www.aynrand.org/site/PageServer?pagename=ar_libertarianism_qa seems to perfectly capture the essence of the many libertines who call themselves libertarians today:

“Q: Why don’t you approve of libertarians, thousands of whom are loyal readers of your works?
AR: Because libertarians are a monstrous, disgusting bunch of people: they plagiarize my ideas when that fits their purpose, and denounce me in a more vicious manner than any communist publication when that fits their purpose. They’re lower than any pragmatists, and what they hold against Objectivism is morality. They want an amoral political program. [FHF 81]”

This is definitely one of your best pieces to date, Ashley, and I am sure that it will further strike at the nerves of the people Ayn Rand described in the quote above as a “monstrous, disgusting bunch of people.” Their vicious hate only serves to reinforce the premises of this article. Keep up the good fight for liberty!