The entire concept of rationality is about NOT being able to bend reality to your will. The opposite of "magical thinking" that seems so popular in some places. My point was that Ayn Rand was not rational about everything, but suffered greatly from having to convince herself she was.

I've never claimed to be rational about everything, but I recognize that there is a reality outside myself that is immune to my opinion. It's why I listen when somebody actually presents a new objective fact. How often does THAT happen around here?

Nor is this about assuming nobody else has a better insight into the world than I have. That's obviously ridiculous.

But "you have a point" means, in a discussion, that the other person has pointed out a fact of reality, or more often, a connection of facts that you have missed.

To tell someone "You have a point" when they are engaged in lunatic fantasy concedes the concept of reality itself, and negates the idea of rational discussion.

"Internal logic" is almost a meaningless phrase, and grants the real term "personal whim" or even "insanity" a respect it doesn't deserve. Every historical monster on this planet that has made life miserable for others has had an "internal logic." Some of them went out of their way to even document it, similar to the endlessly-scrolling webpages of calculations and discussions I have seen about things like the Earth being hollow. That doesn't make it real.

If Aunt Lucy thinks electricity slowly leaks out of light sockets when the bulb is out, I would tolerate her eccentricity, but it doesn't mean I have to start thinking that maybe she's right (after all, I've never seen a research paper proving it doesn't!), or that I have to say "every opinion counts" when she starts lobbying to make a law against empty light sockets.

To make things short: irrationality exists, and many people are irrational. But the term "irrational" still means something, and I don't have to grant that point of view the respect of saying it's real.

By the "internal logic" of Arab culture, the United States should have erased Afghanistan into seas of molten glass.