I apparently hit a big, shiny red button there, and I wasn't even trying for one.

This is a distilled version of a complex analysis that takes entire books to detail completely. It's the equivalent of Ayn Rand's response to the challenge to present her entire philosophy while standing on one foot.

Any reasonable person would see that this kind of thing needs to be fleshed out a bit for serious discussion. If you want to focus on a specific, I'd be glad to grind it exceedingly fine for you. I have ten feet of bookshelf space devoted to this kind of thing, and I guarantee you, it ain't all Ayn Rand.

I am actually agreeing with your negative opinions on Plato, which you seem to overlook. I notice you didn't really respond to my question on how you contrive to link Platonic thought to conservative principles or economics. Did you see Reagan walking around with his works under one arm?

You are perfectly correct that the basic facts of reality (and human nature) that are the foundations of the principles of individual rights, and the consequential methods of organizing society, are as old as humanity.

I don't know where you get the idea that Reisman is claiming to have "invented" these values. What he and others have done (and not all Rand-types by any means) is identified and clarified things that have been there all along, but have been enthusiastically obscured by people and institutions who have a lot to gain by their obscurity.

Incidentally, the term "neocon" has pretty much been stripped of any objective definition, assuming it ever had one, and is pretty much as meaningless at this point as "fascist," which used to be the old knee-jerk buzzword applied to people like me by furious leftists. Its practical meaning is "evil person who doesn't agree with me."