Long ago, I worked for a fellow devoted to the writings of Ayn Rand. He did not take part in this fraternity by himself.

The Russian-born Rand authored a couple of best-selling books, The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged, in addition to numerous articles and essays, that gave birth to a philosophy known as Objectivism.

This movement championed the individual above all else, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, she wrote.

Rand, who died in 1982, became a significant influence in the American conservative movement.

Ronald Reagan had called himself an admirer of her thinking, though that praise did not bounce back his way. They shared a hate for the Soviet Union, but the author criticized the future president for kowtowing to organized religion, for which she had little use.

During his campaign in 2016, Donald Trump called The Fountainhead his favorite book, its protagonist a builder named Howard Roark whose individualism puts him at odds with the community of collective-thinking architects.

In The Fountainhead, Rand wrote of basing self-respect on personal standards of achievements, noting that any person can fake virtue for an audience while finding it impossible to fake it in your own eyes.

Its simple to seek substitutes for competence such easy substitutes: love, charm, kindness, charity, she wrote. But there is no substitute for competence.

Competence can have a tricky semantic bearing, an agreeable word but closer in line with adeptness and proficiency than, say, mastery.

A B student might be said to have competence. Those pressing for an A grade would tend toward the exceptional.

I understand that the term American exceptionalism does not refer to a letter grade for acts carried out in this nation. Rather, the phrase points out a historical, moral and freedom-endowed superiority, this great land a harbor of democracy in a global tempest.

Of course, it didnt hurt that the United States did some things right. It parlayed vast resources into industrial might. It took the fight to oppressors in World War II. It promised that Americans would walk on another world and did just that in less than a decade.

Need a can-do country? America can.

Or could.

Maintaining your mojo in a pandemic can not be easy. The United States, though, should be built for challenges ... hence the exceptionalism.

If you look at the highly industrialized nation of the G7, the U.S. ranked fourth on Monday for the most COVID-19 deaths by population, 434 for every 1 million residents.

Japan had just eight deaths per 1 million population, with Germany at 109 deaths and Canada at 235 deaths in this accounting. (France, Italy and the United Kingdom stood at worse rates.)

Back in March, many states put individualism to work in finding personal protective equipment for health-care workers, largely because centralized supplies seemed unreliable. Four months later, shortages once more arise, only the locations having changed.

School administrators, charged with safety of the nations young, have gotten into the business of translating mixed messages coming from everywhere. Youre on your own, Washington says, but if you dont open, were cutting off some money.

Times demand the best of America. Scientists cant even coax citizens into the simplest act of civic good, the wearing of masks.

The Ayn Rand Institute, enemy of the collective and advocate of free enterprise, accepted the federal governments Payroll Protection Program money. A can-do country can do irony.

Ken Newton's column runs on Tuesday and Sunday. Follow him on Twitter: @SJNPNewton.

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Making it on your own in pandemic | Opinion - News-Press Now