Paul Ryan loves Ayn Rand. Loves her. He has stated that Ayn Rand is required reading for everyone who works in his office.
Here are some choice quotes highlighted by Elspeth Reeve of The Atlantic Wire from Mitt Romney's new vice-presidential running mate on Ayn Rand:
• "I just want to speak to you a little bit about Ayn Rand and what she meant to me in my life and [in] the fight we're engaged here in Congress. I grew up on Ayn Rand, that's what I tell people."
• "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 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."
• "It's so important that we go back to our roots to look at Ayn Rand's vision, her writings, to see what our girding, under-grounding [sic] principles are."
• "Because there is no better place to find the moral case for capitalism and individualism than through Ayn Rand's writings and works."
And here are some more:
• He told Insight on the News on May 24, 1999, that the books he most often rereads are "The Bible, Friedrich von Hayek's The Road to Serfdom and Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged."
• He told the Weekly Standard on March 17, 2003, "I give out Atlas Shrugged as Christmas presents, and I make all my interns read it. Well... I try to make my interns read it."• At a February 28, 2009 speech to the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington, Ryan said Obama was trying "to use this [financial] crisis to move America toward the sort of Europeanized economy... Sounds like something right out of an Ayn Rand novel."
Of course, once Ryan began angling for the veep-slot he had to say that he "rejects her philosophy," and even threw in, as he must given the sway of religious conservatives in his party, his condemnation of Rand's "atheist philosophy." He went so far as to call the idea that he's a Rand fanboy an "urban legend."
So, not only is Paul Ryan a devotee of Ayn Rand, he's also a bald-faced liar.
Follow Ian Reifowitz on Twitter: www.twitter.com/ianreifowitz
 |
 |
|
| Obama | Romney | |
|---|---|---|
| Electoral Votes (270 to win) |
332 | 206 |
| Obama | Romney | |
|---|---|---|
| Total | 65,899,660 | 60,932,152 |
| Percent | 51.1% | 47.2% |
| Democrats* | Republicans | |
|---|---|---|
| Current Senate | 53 | 47 |
| Seats gained or lost | +2 | -2 |
| New Total | 55 | 45 |
| Democrats | Republicans | |
|---|---|---|
| Seats won | 201 | 234 |
In the 1920s, when Rand was newly from Russia and learning the language, she followed a sensationalist case that was all over the LA newspapers. Like the OJ trial of our time, the central figure was believed by many to be innocent. Ladies groups and the like went on public campaigns against the kid, and it was generally hysteria. It was Rand's first exposure to a media circus, and THAT is what interested her. Her story was not planned to be about Hickman or modeled on Hickman, who she called "degenerate", but what the Hickman circus suggested to her -- a young man attacked from all sides who defiantly throws it back in the mobs face; a anti-collectivist type story. In her tale the boy would be innocent.
This was in private journals unpublished until years after her death -- she hadn't written a single novel or figured out her philosophy. She was new to America. In her home country criminals were men who killed to survive despite dictatorship and starvation -- read her eventual novel We the Living to understand.
The modern left drops the context of this obscure Journal entry to smear Rand despite thousands of pages of her mature writing, which every word speaks to the inviolability of individual rights and the evil of initiating force. It's a cynical and grotesque lie.
But what else can you expect from an Obama shill.
Its easy to write or vote for laws to take wealth from some people to give it to others. Its far harder to use your own wealth and time to actually give to others and help them. Its is far more usefull still to produce goods and services on the market and provide them at a profit that allows you to produce even more.
There are people in power in this country who believe that they have the right to total fulfillment of their every dream without regards to society.
Google..".Ayn Rand on William Hickman" if you are not familiar with this crime.
I have been reading these articles in cross reference, and would expect anyone who would Google "Ayn Rand on William Hickman" to do the same, and make up their own mind.
Liberals don't know anything about Ayn Rand.
Unless you were borne before 1946 I was deep into objectivism far earlier than you. But as for your last sentence, you are correct. Her premises and logic are flawed, and the more mulling she receives the better.
Well, it sounded to me like Jabo22 was being sarcastic, which is why I responded the way I did. You wrote, "Ryan could not possibly pick and choose among parts of her thinking."
Not according to an Objectivist (who would regard her philosophy as an integrated system) but Ryan isn't an Objectivist; he's a Catholic. As I understood him, he was simply disavowing certain foundational elements of her philosophy, not every aspect of it..
"As a follower yourself you surely know her statements of values precede everything, and economics is a tiny and consequential part of her writings. Capitalism is a mere results of her values and morality. Ryan is lying to get ahead."
It's certainly possible for someone like Ryan to agree with her political and economic views without accepting her reasons for them. He'd be incorrect to do so, but you can't infer that he's being dishonest -- that he's really an Objectivist, not a Catholic.
You say her premises and logic are flawed. Is there an argument you'd like to make in support of that assertion? When I was a philosophy student at U.C. Berkeley in 1970, the Chair of the Department told me that her monograph, "Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology," was the best thing he'd seen written in philosophy in the last 50 years. Not exactly a ringing endorsement, but not bad coming from a professional philosopher who was not himself an Objectivist. Btw, I was born before 1946. :-)
Losing his father at a young age has made him need the approval of the Church's heirarchy so much so that he sought out a more conservative bishop to follow.
Another content-free smear job.
In conclusion, let me touch briefly on another question often asked me: What do I think of President Reagan? The best answer to give would be: But I don’t think of him—and the more I see, the less I think. I did not vote for him (or for anyone else) and events seem to justify me. The appalling disgrace of his administration is his connection with the so-called “Moral Majority” and sundry other TV religionists, who are struggling—apparently with his approval—to take us back to the Middle Ages, via the unconstitutional union of religion and politics.
The threat to the future of capitalism is the fact that Reagan might fail so badly that he will become another ghost, like Herbert Hoover, to be invoked as an example of capitalism’s failure for another fifty years.
Observe Reagan’s futile attempts to arouse the country by some sort of inspirational appeal. He is right in thinking that the country needs an inspirational element. But he will not find it in the God-Family-Tradition swamp.