Hmmm, yes. And Don Henley once sung "There's 3 sides to every story: there's yours and there's mine and there's the cold hard truth". The problem is, most people don't want to acknowledge any truth. Gulchers are the exception.

Galt's commentary on the lesser of two evils. For one who observes reality and analyses it rationally, there is no confusion, but clarity.

Maybe this is overly simplistic, but I think AR's meaning is pretty straight forward. To paraphrase, she seems to saying that there is truth and there is untruth. With regard to these absolutes there is no middle. Any attempt to create a middle requires a "individual" to create and hold a contradiction - requires one to hold that a fact is half true and half false at the same time. Existence exists is right. Existence is non-existence is wrong. To say it is both requires a mind to invent the impossible, and then believe it. Such a double rejection of prima facia rational reality seems to be the equivalent of being proactively obtuse... And yes, maybe even evil.

When the choice is between evil and good, moral and immoral there are only two choices. A compromise means morality has moved toward immorality, the next move will be another step in the same direction. America as a republic did not fail suddenly, it has been a constant series of missteps which has lead to a communist democracy where we can vote for the political leaders who will dictate the lives of all. When I started in this fight 47 years ago I believed there were trigger points that would 'alert Americans' because we were special and wouldn't go beyond a certain point towards slavery. America (I don't say we anymore because I am not part of the group) has lost its sense of being a republic and as Estienne de la Boiete once pointed out 500 years ago most people want to be slaves and will demand to be so. All that is needed after that is any absurd leader (Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Obama, Bush - insert any name here) willing to take command. As Estienne once said it may be that for those who would be free their best chance is to live a life unobserved by the masses for if you get their attention they will either enslave or kill you. There isn't much hope for anything else. When I first started in the fight we defeated "The Land Use Act" to preserve the right to property and its use. The governing body and the masses immediately conceived the EPA which is a thousand times better at destroying property rights. The freedom movement has done nothing but lose ground since although there are times when those involved in living freely claim the tide is turning and more are joining the movement the end result is Obamacare and an ever encroaching bureaucracy that seeks to control every facet of life and with the advent of computers and a massive facility being built in Utah the ability to watch everyone all the time is only months away. The desire of humanity by an large is imprisonment and slavery and the desire of the majority may remain this way until the race dies out.

We dance round in a ring and suppose,
But the Secret sits in the middle and knows.
Robert Frost

"every issue" must be the problem here. It must be an issue such as a some dispute or statement with a existential or moral or political aspects to which logic is applied then there may be some evil in compromise. It cannot be about making economic choices since there are usually other choices which will fit the available possible transactions and have no good/evil or right/wrong or true/false aspects.

First, let me say that I believe in the quote. But unfortunately, we do not live within the pages of a book. No matter how rational we are, we are living in a world that is mostly irrational. It has been my experience that in certain situations, actually in many situations there is not a choice between right and wrong. We know that the wrong is evil. But the right can destroy you. If that is true (and believe me, it is) what should a rational person do? This is even more true when people depend on you for their very existence. Do you have the right to destroy their lives because of your principles? I am told that the right always wins in the long run. But, what if there is no long run? Only now or never. Life can throw those hardballs at you. Again, based on my experience, if you are in the game of life, a participant in the arena, things may occur to you that doesn't allow for a choice of right or wrong. Ask anyone over 65 who is being honest, if this is true, and, if this is true, can one still call him/herself and Objectivist?

but it may be necessary to go through the middle to get to the right side.

Absolutist thinking is the root of rigid ideology. Often judgements of what is "good" or "evil" are based on subjective, emotional thinking. Absolutist abortionists believe anything that stands in the way of aborting a developing child, for any reason, is "evil." Absolutist anti-abortionists believe that any excuse to abort a developing child is "evil." Who is "right" and on the side of "good" usually depends on who is in the strongest position of power, able to impose their subjective view on others who don't share their belief.

Hear, hear, Esceptico!

Yes, obviously there is the "black and white" of reason. Establishing the context in which black and white is shown to clearly exist is the difficult part! Those constantly looking only for black and white, at the exclusion of the immensity of the gray, must lead desperately unhappy lives!

As a generalization, Galt commits a logical fallacy here. His statement is a good example of the “Fallacy of the False Dilemma” (also known as false dichotomy, fallacy of bifurcation, false alternative, black-or-white fallacy) of claiming two alternative statements are held to be the only possible options, when in reality there may be one or more options. Thus the statement can properly be applied only in a very strict discussion as distinct from a general discussion.