Holy crap! I only wrote that half-jokingly, not expecting that you were took objectivism seriously, but you do!
I don't take Rand's philosophy seriously for much the same reason I don't take postmodernism as a whole seriously: the Continental approach (which she employed) lacks any real rigour[1]. Great for fiction, but not so good for being useful. As well as that, we objectively (see what I did there!) know that some of her important points (such as on causation, determinism, and free-will) are bunk, and it's not as if she was even particularly consistent on them anyway.
The best I can say to you is to go read Hume and come back to me: he was a much better philosopher than Rand, and had much more interesting and useful things to say about the world. Alternatively, maybe try to broaden your horizons with the Rationally Speaking Podcast (http://rationallyspeakingpodcast.org/). But if you don't want to, that's fine: you do you.
[1] Even with the continental school philosophers I do take at least a little more seriously, such as Nietzsche and Camus, it's more on the level of 'oh, that's an interesting idea', 'hmm... that's an interesting line of though', and 'oh, that's an interesting story' rather than anything seriously useful. And Rand doesn't even get to that level. I'm totally OK with her loathing Kant[2] and thinking Marxism sucks, but she doesn't offer much else of any depth, which, I guess, at least nothing that's been published.
[2] My personal opinion of Kant is that he was a stick-in-the-mud prude, and that deontological arguments, such as those Kant made, fall down when exposed to the real world, even though deontology itself can be a useful tool.
Rand makes for a convenient & well-known reference when making a brief point on a casual discussion board.
I have a similar reaction to many of the "soak the rich" types posting on this thread: I don't expect they take Bernie & Bolshevism seriously but...they do!
If Rand is the best reference, then I'm not sure those boards are all that well worth taking part in.
Sanders isn't a Maxist/Marxian by a long shot. He might describe himself as a democratic socialist, but he's really a social democrat with much more in common with the aims of the Fabian Society than anything else: his ideas are pretty much those of any European social democratic party (such as the British Labour party, Dutch PvdA and GroenLinks, German SPD, French Parti socialiste), and whatever you might somehow think, none of those parties are hives of Bolshevism.
Also, whatever about the 'soak the rich' thing (which I haven't seen much evidence for), only one commenter seems to take Marxian though seriously here, and even they said that he's doing himself a disservice by using the label 'democratic socialist'[1].
I don't take Rand's philosophy seriously for much the same reason I don't take postmodernism as a whole seriously: the Continental approach (which she employed) lacks any real rigour[1]. Great for fiction, but not so good for being useful. As well as that, we objectively (see what I did there!) know that some of her important points (such as on causation, determinism, and free-will) are bunk, and it's not as if she was even particularly consistent on them anyway.
The best I can say to you is to go read Hume and come back to me: he was a much better philosopher than Rand, and had much more interesting and useful things to say about the world. Alternatively, maybe try to broaden your horizons with the Rationally Speaking Podcast (http://rationallyspeakingpodcast.org/). But if you don't want to, that's fine: you do you.
[1] Even with the continental school philosophers I do take at least a little more seriously, such as Nietzsche and Camus, it's more on the level of 'oh, that's an interesting idea', 'hmm... that's an interesting line of though', and 'oh, that's an interesting story' rather than anything seriously useful. And Rand doesn't even get to that level. I'm totally OK with her loathing Kant[2] and thinking Marxism sucks, but she doesn't offer much else of any depth, which, I guess, at least nothing that's been published.
[2] My personal opinion of Kant is that he was a stick-in-the-mud prude, and that deontological arguments, such as those Kant made, fall down when exposed to the real world, even though deontology itself can be a useful tool.