Ryan’s Godless Philosopher of Wealth, Power and Class Narcissism: If you want to understand Ryan know from whom he draws his inspiration.
Ryan says Ayn Rand is the reason he entered politics and he requires all staff and interns to read her books. Says Ryan: “Ayn Rand more than anyone else did a fantastic job of explaining the morality of capitalism, the morality of individualism.”
Here’s Ryan in his own words in an address to the Atlas Society: “I grew up reading Ayn Rand and it taught me quite a bit about who I am and what my value systems are, and what my beliefs are. It’s inspired me so much that it’s required reading in my office for all my interns and my staff. We start with Atlas Shrugged. People tell me I need to start with The Fountainhead then go to Atlas Shrugged [laughter]. There’s a big debate about that. We go to Fountainhead, but then we move on, and we require Mises and Hayek as well…..But the reason I got involved in public service, by and large, if I had to credit one thinker, one person, it would be Ayn Rand. And the fight we are in here, make no mistake about it, is a fight of individualism versus collectivism….And when you look at the twentieth-century experiment with collectivism—that Ayn Rand, more than anybody else, did such a good job of articulating the pitfalls of statism and collectivism—you can’t find another thinker or writer who did a better job of describing and laying out the moral case for capitalism than Ayn Rand…”
Rand’s novel/polemic “Atlas Shrugged” and other less well know works idealize unchecked capitalism as the source of wealth for all. Her writings espouse a moral philosophy that justifies the privilege of the wealthy and demonizes not only the slothful, undeserving poor but the lackluster middle-classes..
Her books provided wide-ranging parables of “parasites,” “looters” and “moochers” using the levers of government to steal the fruits of the labor of the “job and wealth producers.”. In the real world, however, Rand herself received Social Security payments and Medicare benefits under the name of Ann O’Connor (her husband was Frank O’Connor).
But even reality did not stop Rand. Years after applying for benefits she wrote: “Morally and economically the welfare state creates an ever accelerating downward pull.”
Ryan is a faithful disciple but he is not alone.
Clarence Thomas requires his law clerks to watch The Fountainhead, and has said “I tend really to be partial to Ayn Rand.”
Sen. Ron Johnson, Ryan’s GOP colleague from Wisconsin, calls Atlas Shrugged his “foundational book.”
Rush Limbaugh calls Ayn Rand “the brilliant writer and novelist.”
Fox News repeatedly promoted the terribly reviewed and hardly ever seen contemporary movie version of Atlas Shrugged, airing the trailer on several shows and interviewing cast members.
What does not fit the GOP public image is that Rand was also vehemently anti-religion, and referred to Christian teachings as “evil” and “monstrous.”
The conservative evangelical leader Chuck Colson has become so concerned about Rand’s booming popularity in the GOP that he recently recorded a video warning that Rand “peddles a starkly anti-Christian philosophy.”
Richard Cizik, a former top official at the National Association of Evangelicals, says it is necessary to remind politicians that “being consistently pro-life requires more than caring for the unborn, it requires following the Biblical call to care for the poor and the downtrodden.” I wonder if Ryan will take Cizik’s call?
Sources
http://www.atlassociety.org/ele/blog/2012/04/30/paul-ryan-and-ayn-rands-ideas-hot-seat-again
http://swampland.time.com/2011/05/13/the-gops-godless-philosopher/
http://www.alternet.org/teaparty/149721/ayn_rand_railed_against_government_benefits,_but_grabbed_social_security_and_medicare_when_she_needed_them/
Interesting post, Murph. I read the Fountainhead back in high school or thereabouts and of course related to the independent thinking Roark as opposed to the other useless dweeb, whose name I’ve forgotten. The big fallacy in all the Rand worship you see on the far right is the idea that liberals are the “collectivist” thinkers and rightwingers are such independent, original thinkers. My experience has been the opposite. It’s conservatives who are more likely to conform and obey and it’s liberals who are most likely to question authority and strive for big changes. Oh, the irony.
Hey e’cat, long time no see. Your comment makes me think of all the RWs who condemned people at Jon Stewart’s Rally for Sanity by saying they “littered,” and the TP rallies were clean and liter free after they ended. The same thing RWs said about OWS. The righties were more concerned about tidiness than the actual protests themselves.
They are incapable of civil disobedience. It’s just not in them. They are born followers and would never go against what their leaders tell them. And these TPers say they want a violent revolution? Ha!
Great to see your ole moniker cat.
Hey, I’m not ole!
😆 I missed the cat sense of humor.
Hey cat…..very good point. The GOP are far more likely to be herd creatures…like the elephant that represents their party. Donkeys, on the other hand, while they hang together tend to be stubbornly individualistic, ask any mule skinner.
Yep.
Not to mention the charming yard signs carried in Austin when the Supremes were deciding who would be leader – er, I mean decider. They mostly had “Bush/Cheney” yard signs plain and simple. The Progs had “Hail the the Thief” and “Brothers Don’t Let Brothers Steal Elections” (but of course they did). Lot’s of fun, creative images. In fact, it was when W. had the face boil (not to be confused with Rush’s anal cysts, though it is easy to do so) and I had a bandage on the same spot on MY face that said “You can’t cover up democracy”. My friend had one that said “I’m BOILing mad!” We laughed ourselves silly, about the only way to get through those next 8 years. – AB
My grandfather knew the woman who laid the path for Ayn Rand. She was Rose Wilder Lane, daughter of Laura Ingalls Wilder of “Little House” fame.
Rose was devoted to individualism for reasons that made little sense – she was pretty much a personal failure and quickly came to blame her personal losses and family hardship on government even though family setbacks were entirely the result of the 1929 Crash and earlier from railroad exploitations of the Homestead Act. She opposed the New Deal, and it was she, not Rand, who called Social Security a “Ponzi Scheme”.
Like Rand, she was paranoid, hated pretty much everyone, and thought the world was out to get her. She was a rabid anti-communist (in fairness she had seen a lot while acting as a war correspondent after WW I that brought her into contact with the upheavals in the USSR.) She was anti-racist, but her primary focus was on the power of the free market – despite how unfettered capitalism had harmed her and her family.
The cult of hyper individualism cannot be sustained. The mythology of the frontier – the John Wayne images – have no basis in fact. America was built by communities, by sharing resources and by people who cooperated against the harshness of nature and later the pressures of rapacious capitalism. Those who were harmed by unfettered giant capital yet who embraced it as the only social good continue to tie themselves in knots as reality intrudes. By exploiting her mother’s “Little House” books, she may have avoided having to take Social Security as Ayn Rand finally did. But she built her philosophy, the foundational principles of libertarianism, on a fiction about what America was and is.
And why is she less revered than Rand? Apparently she was lesbian. So much for libertarianism in personal issues.
These people are so tiresome. Reasoning from one’s own ideas is solipsism and nothing more. When your philosophy has to be shored up by myths and distortions, you are probably NOT in a position to be telling the rest of us what to think, do, and believe. So Mr. Ryan – take note of how dreadfully marginalized Ayn and Rose and Ron and Rand all are. It’s not that we are commies – it’s that we have better sense than to think we all can be Rockefellers either. Get a grip. The rich do NOT run America or the world – except into the ground.
Choice….a very fine addition to my effort. I knew nothing of Rose Wilder Lane. I will copy and paste your contribution into my archive for integration into my Rand file later.
What is particularly valuable is your critique of the myth of rugged individualism and making it on one’s own.
The concept of the American Frontier as something conquered by the solitary figure is nonsense. I once read that the town council of Dodge City instructed the sheriff to detain and question any man who came into town by themselves or just in the company of other men unless they were known. It was assumed that those who were ok traveled in the company of others, especially women and children. Community was the saving place then and now.
KT…thank you for this. Fascinating. Rand was highly intolerant of the opinions of others. Buckley’s rejection by her for having published a critical review of her writing is typical. She was even critical of the writing of those who were in her camp declaring that little of it was as exacting in standards as her own efforts. Buckley was a great believer in the necessity of serious, honest and respectful interchanges of ideas…something Rand found tedious.
I have added this video to my reference list for the topic. Appreciated.
Side note. Do you think Ron Paul named his son for her?
My pleasure Murph. I do believe that Rand Paul was named after Ayn Rand. He is so blatantly libertarian. Rand, as you most likely know, is a hero among libertarians in America, almost required reading.
I was sort of joking but now that you mention it….the libertarian admiration for Ayn is extraordinary- has Ron Paul ever embraced her publicly, in a metaphoric sense of course….
It’s an interesting cocktail we have on the GOP Presidential ticket, the atheistic selfishness, greed and class warfare of Ayn Rand and the materialism, dictatorial authority and oppressive conformity of The Mormon Church.
It just ain’t a tasty cocktail for most Americans.
What is interesting is that there are similarities between Ayn Rand and Mormonism. Prejudice against those who aren’t followers, absolute beliefs in things that defy provable realities, the self-righteousness to want to force others to live under their beliefs and a central worship of money and wealth.
Up until they collide on atheism, the Ayn Rand philosophy and Mormonism are remarkably compatible.
The positive here is that most Americans find this kind of thinking as incompatible with their view of America as being a compassionate, tolerant and inclusive nation.
Only those who have wealth and power support social Darwinism, survival of the fattest that is. Take away money and power from Ayn Rand followers and watch how quickly they change, all of a sudden Unemployment Insurance, Social Security and Medicare aren’t “leeches” on society.
I posted on the other thread, the results of today’s USA Today/Gallup poll on Ryan, only 39% of those polled feel positive about Ryan being Romney’s VP. Aren’t there more than 39% of voters who are Republicans? They don’t even have their whole party on board with Ryan, let alone Indies and conservative Dems.
The MSM will dance around Ayn Rand, Mormonism, the class warfare that this ticket represents (labeling it Ryan’s “bold thinking” and “fiscal responsibility”) in order to enforce the neck-and-neck Presidential race scenario that promises the greatest profits to them…but as fact-deprived as they leave the American public, people are smart enough to know they don’t want to lose their retirement income and medical care.
This was another bad decision by Romney (as I say, he is not a smart man, making mistakes more often then not) and could prove to be the key for Dems to even retake the House.
Voters will now have a face to represent The Party of No and The Party of Extortion that has and continues to block any progress by Obama on improving the economy (if I were advising Obama, I’d recommend him getting Dems to put up many pro-economy bills up in Congress between now and Nov to hang Ryan on the Repubs shooting them all down) a 10% approval rating in Congress and with Ryan on the ticket, there could be a real anti-Repub wave.
We’ve heard repeatedly that Romney needs to do far better with Latinos and women to win, I frankly don’t see how having an anti-woman, anti-immigrant and pro racist Tea Party candidate makes Romney’s situation anything but worse. And add to that the Repub seniors who will either stay home or vote for Obama because they don’t want to vote for killing or going down a slippery slope to losing their SS and Medicare benefits.
We’ll see but I do feel confident that when people look back at this election, they will see the choice of Ryan as VP as locking in a loss for the GOP on the WH and possibly Congress.
I value this bit of wordsmithing very much: “the atheistic selfishness, greed and class warfare of Ayn Rand and the materialism, dictatorial authority and oppressive conformity of The Mormon Church.”
I am going to archive and use this with your kind permission.It really captures something. What further reinforces it is that both Romney and Ryan are far more than just acolytes in their “faiths.” Ryan has been a high profile advocate and first class missionary for Rand’s individualism and objectivism. Romney was a Bishop and a Stakeholder.
It is so bizarre that the Bishop has put his arms around the follower of the atheist who said that no one who is intelligent can believe in a God and who has been accused by his own bishops of misrepresenting his own church.
Just as the public turned away from the Ryan budget once before, they will turn away from the creator of that budget if the Obama/Dem team sell it and sell it hard. I continue to be dismayed at how many are willing to vote (and with some ardency) against their own interests.
The MSM is hard at work crafting the selection as a “smart choice, a turning point, a game change, a sign of how serious the campaign is becoming, the embracing of the key economic questions in a careful way” when none of that is true. As you so often say…it is all about the bottom line. Generating interesting is essential and a blow up flat lines the moneymaking.
I wrote in several places that I thought the reasoning behind the choice of Ryan looks like this within the party:
“Romney was correct when he said Ryan was the Presidential Nominee Both internal and external polls are indicating that Romney will not be able to cobble together a coalition to defeat Obama. SO a radical choice who can actually speak, is well informed, and has the confidence of the right MIGHT be a game changer. And if not, then that voice WILL be a better representative of the agenda the Right wants to put into place. Ryan will also be the point of the spear emphasizing the importance of turning the Senate Red and keeping the House Red no matter what. Further it pushes Ryan forward as the real GOP national leader. Romney knows this which is why I think he declared that Ryan would be the next President of the United States.”
Of course, I think this is generally wrong headed and bad thinking on Romney’s part, on his campaign’s part, and on their backers’ parts. Romney does seem headed for defeat, but Ryan will attract no additional voters to the ticket. He will become the poster boy for the GOP’s elitist thinking in legislation and be seen as the kind of legislator who do the bidding of Big Money (and even have some of that Big Money in their own families). I had not thought about his negative impact on the House races but I think you are correct.His run for reelection will become a calling card for those opposing the GOP in their districts. Now that could be a game changer!
Murph, thanks for the kind compliment and of course you can share that with others (appreciate the attribution).
Romney and Ryan are indeed both aggressive missionaries for their shared “religion” of greed. They are different in some ways yet in the end, similar as elitist millionaires who don’t care at all about 99% of Americans.
Some ignorant people will vote against their own best interests for this ticket but they will be a minority. Fortunately, most Americans aren’t such blindly hateful and fearful people that they would support blowing up their own neighborhoods just to spite their “enemies”.
The MSM is trying to frame the discussion about Ryan but the party can’t last. Eventually, the pundits and tv commercials from Obama will hammer home what a nasty piece of work Ryan and his SS and Medicare killing budget is and when public opinion turns, the MSM will have a hard time sustaining their propaganda about Ryan.
Yep, I do think it is a potential game changer for the Dems re-taking the House. The Repub House has a 7% approval rating! And Ryan is the personification of them. If Obama and Dems succeed in exposing him and his plans for America, he could indeed become the best and most unexpected Dem campaign tool this year.
Ryan debuts with the worst approval numbers of any VP pick in recent history…on a ticket with a nominee with the worst likeability numbers in recent history. This simply isn’t going to change in a big way.
And what about all the pundits who categorically stated that Romney can’t win without improving his numbers with Latinos and Women? Ryan only hurts Romney more with each of these demographics, he’s a Repub General in The War on Women and attacking illegal immigrants.
And there is no doubt, especially after Obama and the Dems hammer Romney/Ryan for wanting to kill Medicare and SS as entitlements, that they’ll lose some of the usually reliable elderly vote.
This is a major strategic error and in a way, playing the card most Dems were hoping for in the primary. The common wisdom was that the GOP nominee would be an extremist Right Winger that would please the base but never be able to attract Indie voters. Romney has tried to fake being that person and failed so he’s brought on the very type of person that brings this scenario to fruition.
The Repub convention will be a nasty affair, like a venom water park, the RWs there will be splashing around excitedly in racism, hatred, doom and gloom and ugly lies. I think it is very possible that Romney gets little to no bump from the GOP Convention while in contrast, Obama and his positive message should energize indie voters to support him.
Lastly, Ryan doesn’t help in the swing states. I recall polls in WI a while back asking if Paul Ryan being on the ticket would improve the GOP’s chances there and the polls still resulted in Obama winning by a safe margin. In OH, FL, MI, CO, etc., Ryan is worthless in swinging indie voters.
Ryan’s joining the ticket is great news for Dems and if the campaign succeeds in exposing what dangerous creatures he and the Baggers are to America, as I believe they will, we could see the end of this plutocratic Bagger movement in the near future.
I have been doing some reading this morning about Ryan and his family. He grew up in a staunchly anti-progressive, GOP family. This reflects the deep divide in the GOP where the progressive reform was regarded as a betrayal of the business-Republican alliance forged after the Civil War.
This explains a lot about him and about how he has filtered out the social justice themes in his own Catholicism.
His ties to the Koch’s, Americans for Prosperity, and the Tea Party are well laid out at http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/14/us/politics/paul-ryan-has-kept-close-ties-to-conservative-and-libertarian-donors.html?pagewanted=all demonstrate how deeply embedded he is in the anti-moderate movement in his own party. His opposition to Boehner and his efforts to sabotage his leadership are put into perspective.
I do hope you are correct about the electorate knowing where its best interest lie. I continue to say that reelecting Barack will not be enough. The neocon Right controls 29 governerships. Likewise In the 2010 election, the Republican Party took control of a majority of the state legislative bodies, in which a net of 19 of the 49 partisan legislative bodies changed from Democratic Party control to Republican Party control. We have a House which is solidly GOP and a Senate that is hobbled by a GOP minority. That is a lot to overcome. The public’s mood which gave the Dems the victories of 2008 turned on a dime in 2010 and may do so again but its very volatility makes predicting very risky.
In order to turn the tide we need to win on many fronts to change the course of the nation. Obama’s reelection without legislative victories will be hollow. I believe the GOP will be willing to put the country through 4 more years of obfuscation and obstruction because its masters will demand it.
The GOP is making a huge effort to control the convention. The speaker lineup, the neutralizing of the Paulistas, the staging of the events are all meant to create a convention bump. The money is pouring into the big media markets. The news media are playing the ratings game and the economy remains weak (with the uninformed holding the ridiculous expectation that the President can act alone). The efforts to block the vote in key states continues.
Ad Lib, come November, your optimism may be borne out. I hope it is. But all of our hopes depend on an electorate willing to throw off the shackles of the propaganda that plays on anger, anxiety and fear. Such emotion is hard to overcome.
Hi MTS
I like your post very much. Now I have to reread Ayn Rand, which is not my favorite new self-assgned homework.
I’m replying here to your reply to AdLib because I also appreciate his establishing a very impressive connection between AR and the Mormon Church.
More elsewgere,
Bourne
Adlib
Consider the people who are advising Romney. John Sununu the disgraced member of the Bush admin. Cofer Black spy extraordinaire. Eric Fehrnstrum the etch a sketch man. Andrea Saul if he lived in MA his wife would have had healthcare ins. Meg Whitman(on the side) a long time friend of the Romney’s and a colleague from Bain. All have issues in some way or another and the Obama team(like last time) stays on message. No Drama Obama is running again.
Great piece Murph.
RYAND is the avatar for modern day right wing social engineering. He and the modern GOP have no adult understanding that a society is only as good as the way it treats less fortunate. I view society as a big rubber band stretching from the elites to the poor. The more that rubber band is stretched by realities like economic disparity the more the tension grows. Third world societies are so stretched the are just broken rubber bands. The other implication is if you don’t raise people out of poverty their existence will always hold back the heights society can reach. Only unenlightened people think that all humankind is not connected. Like Andrew Sullivan says true conservatives want a stable society but these Social Darwinist are ever expanding the tensions in modern society. In the future when other factors like climate change kick in the world will be headed to more and more conflicts if the RAND-RYAND philosophies win global acceptance.
Adam Smith the creator of capitalism realized this tension in society. That’s why he said business had a fiduciary responsibility and believed in high wages for workers. RAND-RYAND capitalism is not free market capitalism with open competition and upward mobility. They promote Plutocracy where the game is rigged for the elites and where we end up with a group of oligarchies and a few plutocrats that run them.
Not only are RYAND and RAND radical not conservative, they are both hypocrites. Both lived off of government assistance for parts of their lives.
The bottom line is valuing people based on how much money they make or most times what money they were born into like RMONEY is dangerously wrong. If you ask individuals what they value in people they usually say things like honesty, integrity, empathy, kindness, generosity etc which have NOTHING to do with making money. Therefor wanting a society that values those same principles is true human nature and the true values government should entail. Don’t get me wrong imperfect humans creating a society that is just and fair is much more difficult than giving into selfishness but ultimately a selfish society is self destructive. In this way the RAND-RYAND philosophies are just flat out wrong and are hugely just acts of cowardice.
KQ…thank you for the kudo and my appreciation for your thoughts expanding the discussion here.
Newt Gingrich (of all people) said it very well. On Meet the Press he told David Gregory that replacing Medicare with a voucher system was too “radical” an approach. His words were by far the harshest of any major presidential candidate towards Paul Ryan’s proposal on entitlements.
“I don’t think right-wing social engineering is any more desirable than left-wing social engineering,” Gingrich said, calling the plan “too big a jump” for the country. “I don’t think imposing radical change from the right or the left is a very good way for a free society to operate.”
Consider the words of Andrew Carnegie, self made man, industrialist, mega millionaire, and philanthropist: “”…The amassing of wealth is one of the worse species of idolatry. No idol more debasing than the worship of money…Man does not live by bread alone. I have known millionaires starving for lack of the nutriment which alone can sustain all that is human in man, and I know workmen, and many so-called poor men, who revel in luxuries beyond the power of those millionaires to reach. It is the mind that makes the body rich. There is no class so pitiably wretched as that which possesses money and nothing else. Money can only be the useful drudge of things immeasurably higher than itself. Exalted beyond this, as it sometimes is, it remains Caliban still and still plays the beast. My aspirations take a higher flight. Mine be it to have contributed to the enlightenment and the joys of the mind, to the things of the spirit, to all that tends to bring into the lives of the toilers of Pittsburgh sweetness and light. I hold this the noblest possible use of wealth.” (Personal Memos from the Carnegie Libary Foundation)
Your rubber band image is compelling and one I will hold on to. I use the model of the pyramid. The people on the top are absolutely dependent on those below them. The sounder the tiers below, the more stable the pinnacle. Hollow out the core of the pyramid, weaken the base and while the structure may seem to have integrity, a strong storm will threaten it.
The pyramid imagery is an excellent visual metaphor as well and even illustrates the relative numbers involved top to bottom. Let’s combine visuals and call it a pyramid shaped bouncy castle. You stretch it enough to pop at the sees or puncture one layer below the top and it all deflates.
Excellent quote from Carnegie as well.
It brings to mine the great movie Titanic by Cameroon which somewhat addressed the gilded age. The poor little rich girl so miserable in a faux world of excess meets the merry pauper. While the stuff shirts were upstairs in the gold plated ballroom all miserably bored the po’ folk were deep in 3rd class dancing their collective arses off having a great time. The point is thinking money is what makes everyone happy is totally wrong.
Nice hybrid. A bouncy castle. Lacks gravitas but it represents searing truth. Overstretched until the seams separate or punctured, it deflates.
I find
Carnegie believed inherited wealth spoiled the heirs. “I should as soon leave to my son a curse as the almighty dollar,” he said.
In all, Carnegie’s donations totaled $350 million. The continuation of his broad interests was put under the general charge of the Carnegie Corporation, with a donation of $125 million. He left his one child, a daughter, $1 million. Margaret was a trustee of the Carnegie Corporation of New York, a grant-making foundation. The foundation was established by her father in 1911. From 1973 until her death she was an honorary lifetime trustee. She received an annual stipend of $150,000. Nice but pennies on the dollar given Carnegie’s wealth.
The Carnegie Foundation remains active today in the cause of educational support and reform. Good overview at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnegie_Corporation#Vartan_Gregorian
Your reference to Titanic is interesting. In the earlier versions of the story on film the emphasis was always on the those in the 1st class with those in steerage shown as backdrop and props in the catastrophe. I think that the plutocrats would like to return to those days when the story always focused on them.
Yes murph-this can’t be repeated too many times. This is the marriage (on the right) between the selfish and atheist philosophy of Rand-yet the evangelicals embrace the selfish part while ignoring-even throwing out) the atheist part. They ignore the “Again I say to you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.” part of the Bible and profess extreme wealth is instead very “christian”.
To hold these opposite thoughts together is a feat. I read both novels many years ago and it seems one of Ayn Rand’s points, made over and over, is that artists are creators and should be valued as highly as business owners….she was a not successful screenwriter. Hmmm
Like Hitler, Rand was jealous she did not have real talent and was rejected by the artistic community. Spiteful people are obviously the most dangerous people.
Very true KQ.
KQ, her letters in reply to the rejection she experienced are very Hitlerian – condemning those who were critical of her work as unworthy and jealous of real art.
Olderandwiser55…thank you for your comments. Your reference to the Gospel reminds of what Andrew Carnegie wrote in “The Gospel of Wealth”. Carnegie examines the modes of distributing accumulated wealth and capital to the communities it originates from making it clear that the wealthy need to see that redistribution as an obligation and to oversee its use for the betterment of the community.
He preached that ostentatious living and amassing private treasures was wrong. He praised the high British taxes on the estates of dead millionaires, remarking that “By taxing estates heavily at death the State marks its condemnation of the selfish millionaire’s unworthy life. It is desirable that nations should go much further in this direction.”Imagine that being said today by our own elites- by the two outstanding Christians heading the GOP ticket?
Not likely.
Murph
Most people who are “allowed” to vote on the right would not care if Ryan took his ideas from Attila the Hun. They are just not that deep. Trying to get them to understand Ayn Rand mumbo jumbo would be like asking me to take a physics exam. Having said that, we all know the right picks and chooses what they want to believe. Despite the fact they praised Charles Colson to the hilt for his prison ministry they would dismiss his warnings on this because they are so desperate to be on top. BTW Charles Colson is dead. He passed a few months ago. I doubt they would even care about his leanings as is evident by their defending criminals in their midst. To the right a lie is not a lie because you can always say you are sorry later but how many people hear the apology as opposed to the many who hear the lie and believe it.
As I stated on Adlib’s latest piece I am more worried about disenfranchisement of voters who should be able to vote. I wonder if there will be pitchforks and torches on election day when some voters learn they are no longer eligible. I posted an article from a Lubbock paper about a voter rights activist who found out she had been purged arbitrarily by Sec of State in NM.
And yet the right finds it very important to remind us that Obama has the loosest of connections with the radical Ayers and his former church’s occasionally over the top pastor Wright.
Oh, I do not expect the right to be moved by this argument. If evangelicals and welling to set aside generations of condemnation of Mmormon “heresy” then there is little they will not excuse.
Still, when your philosphy is so wound up in someone whose disdain for the have nots is this intense while professing to be a person of faith, the hypocrisy is worth noting.
The big difference being of course in no way had Obama showed any signs of being a radical. Obama rejects radicalism on both sides.
Whereas RYAND is a true believe that passed a budget in the GOPTEA House the radical RAND would have loved.
KQ…agreed. Obama is in all things a centrist- something that is rather galling to me at times. But I understand why he is and salute him for taking the via media.
We have the most radical GOP ticket in history. Goldwater comes close but he was balanced by Miller.
Absolutely. Sure there are true believers on the right. But most people that vote Republican are just voting their racial or religious identity. They have no clue what the viscous right really stands for.