ayn ryan

Yesterday morning, Romney announced that Paul Ryan is his choice for VP, and will be his running mate for the 2012 Presidential election. Yes, Willard Mitt Romney thinks that this blue-eyed, pitcher-eared, rising Conservative superstar of the beltway and Tea Party darling is the best choice to be one heartless beat away from the Presidency. Ryan, only 42 years old, is an avid fitness enthusiast, was born into wealth, but used his father's Social Security money to pay for his education at Miami University of Ohio (Miami, Ohio? Wow). He lives in Janesville, Wisconsin, in an historic house which is overseen by the National Park Service (whose budget he'd love to see eviscerated). In college, he worked summers as a salesman for Oscar Meyer, driving the weinermobile (I'm not making this up). Other than being a fitness instructor, weiner-driving is his only private sector experience. He began working on Capitol Hill for a string of inconsequential conservatives directly after graduating with a B.A. from Miami of Ohio. He was elected to the House of Representatives in 1998, and has been giving hard-ons to Conservative oligarchs ever since with his unscrupulous, Machiavellian, throw-granny-to-the-curb budget proposals, the first of which, "The Path to Prosperity: Roadmap for America's Future Act of 2008" found only eight sponsors and did not move past committee. Ryan's followup alternative budget plan proposed lowering the top tax rate, introduced an 8.5% consumption tax, imposed a five year spending freeze, and also proposed phasing out Medicare! Additionally, Ryan has taken to having attendees, who challenge or disagree with his position, removed from his town hall meetings and arrested. 

(There are many more disturbing and interesting facts about this über-schmuck to be uncovered, and lots written about him if you care to look around. I'm giving just a very cursory overview here. His lunatic budget proposals alone have been the source of countless news stories. Now that he's been chosen as Mittens' running mate, I'm sure there'll be no getting away from the info rolling in on him. If newspapers were still the business that they once were, I imagine the presses would be on fire!)

Ryan has said that "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 "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"

I'M SICK OF PEOPLE USING AYN RAND AS AN EXCUSE FOR UNPRINCIPLED, IMMORAL, CUTTHROAT BEHAVIOR!

A Randian philosophy is one that paints altruism as being inherently evil. This malevolent belief that empathy and the caring for others leads to collectivism and socialism is the corrosive untruth that lies at the sociopathic heart of the new Conservatism. Claiming Ayn Rand as one's ideological hero is a pseudo-intellectual rationalization for personal, childish, selfishness at the expense of all others. 

What's delightfully interesting here is that a large swath of the Conservative voting block is fundamentalist Christan. Aside from Ryan being Catholic, a wholly unchristian denomination in the eyes of any evangelical (I'm not even mentioning Mittens' Mormonism, or Rand's rabid atheism), it isn't possible to embrace Ayn Rand's philosophy of selfishness and the all-loving and forgivng teachings of Jesus at the same time.

Rand, a self-righteous sociopath with a strident and poisonous tongue, referred to the poor as refuse and parasites, while holding up millionaire moguls of industry as moral heroes. Jesus dedicated his gospel and his life to serving those less fortunate than himself. With all due respect to Mittens, Paul Ryan, and the entire Republican party, it is simply not possible to claim both of these platforms. Right now, it is quite clear which one they've chosen.