Ayn Rand:

"A compromise is an adjustment of conflicting claims by mutual concessions. This means that both parties to a compromise have some valid claim and some value to offer to each other. And this means that both parties agree upon some fundamental principle which serves as a base for their deal.

"There can be no compromise between freedom and government controls; to accept "just a few controls" is to surrender the principle of inalienable individual rights and to substitute for it the principle of government unlimited arbitrary power, thus delivering oneself into gradual enslavement.

"Today, however, when people speak of "compromise," what they mean is not a legitimate mutual concession or a trade, but precisely the betrayal of one's principles--the unilateral surrender to any groundless, irrational claim.

"THERE CAN BE NO COMPROMISE ON MORAL PRINCIPLES."

Aside from her obvious paranoia, fearing Soviet-like subjugation in her adopted home, her refusal to acknowledge that individual freedom in a democracy or republic, if you must, requires the recognition of the other person's individual freedom, including the possibility of disagreement of moral principles which she would describe as groundless and irrational.

Her philosophy permeates the majority vote in the current US Congress.

Legislative compromise