I'll quote here the last paragraph of her essay. from which I quoted above, called: Doesn't Life Require Compromise? It appears in her "The Virtue of Selfishness" that you mention.

"There can be no compromise on moral principles. 'In any compromise between food and poison, it is only death that can win. In any compromise between good and evil, it is only evil that can profit.' (Atlas Shrugged.) The next time you are tempted to ask: 'Doesn't life require compromise?' translate that question into its actual meaning: 'Doesn't life require the surrender of that which is true and good to that which is false and evil?' The answer to that that (second that in italics) precisely is what life forbids--if one wishes to achieve anything but a stretch of tortured years spent in progressive self-destruction."

I should have included it before. I don't think she ever wrote anything that would protect the politically weak. Compromising one's principles made one politically weak.

The only legitimate compromise is between two people who agree on principles, but wish to make a trade within them.

Yes, "if and only if" would not jar her from a questionable premise.

Later, Herring, I will quote some of the premises she used to make this argument on compromise.

Her discussion against altruism reeks of imagined premises.

I like your comment about the neocon/Randian split coming. I have written about the repeal of the Fairness Doctrine causing the stalemate in congress, but equally responsible, I think, was the inclusion of social issues in the political process injected by the moral majority of Jerry Falwell, amplified ten-fold by today's religious right.

Our founders separated church from state mainly to keep social issues out of the legislative process. They foresaw the the monkey wrench in the political works we have today. Abortion and gay rights belong in the realm of persuasive education. We agree that murder is wrong so can legislate against it, for example.