Giles Fraser said that in the Guardian this morning.
And this:
As a work of literature, Atlas Shrugged is drivel, and not simply because it is so up itself with its own perceived radicalism; fundamentally, all propaganda is drivel, even if it is propaganda in a good cause. Ayn Rand's cause was to celebrate what she called "the virtue of selfishness", to denigrate the poor as scroungers and to celebrate the muscular individualism of the creative heroes of capitalism. Altruism, she contends, is "complete evil". The question she poses: what would happen if all the bankers and captains of industry went on strike? What would happen if these Atlas-like gods, who hold up the world, decided one day to shrug and refuse to support everyone else? Then the world would be buggered, she contends.
Paul Ryan says Ayn Rand is his political inspiration.
Now you know why he' so dangerous.
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He is even worse than that. Rand’s “philosophy” such as it was, reads very much like an attempt to create a cartoonish sort of evil, which is why it is so popular amongst certain rebellious teenagers. Rand did however at least make an attempt at some sort of consistency. Ryan cannot even claim that.
In addition to claiming to be a follower of Rand, Ryan also claims to be Catholic, which would normally be a perfectly respectable thing to be, as somebody raised in that religion I retain respect for it. Ryan however is clearly just using it as further excuse to promote his misanthropy. For instance Catholicism teaches to love one another or course (which is why Rand hated it so much) and also holds that Government has a responsibility to help and support the poor. Ryan has outright denied this however claiming that this should be interpreted only at the most local level and that it does not apply to Federal, State or even Municipal Government.
Happy though he is to ignore his religion when it teaches love and compassion, he is willing to trot it out as justification whenever he can use it to hurt others. The man has a long history of sexism and homophobia and while many Catholics hate to see their religion twisted to support such things, it is the case that the Church hierarchy has had a history of these prejudices and Ryan is happy to use his religion as a shield when he is engaging in gay-bashing and other prejudices.
The irony is that despite her own homophobia and obvious hang ups considering gender, Rand was against using the law to discriminate on grounds of sexuality or gender. Ryan cannot even hold to her brutal philosophy when it seems to promote any kind of tolerance. He simply casts around for justification for whatever horrible policy he happens to be promoting that day.
This is worth noting:
Six Things to Know About Ryan (and Romney)
1. Ryan really believes in ending Medicare as we know it.
2. Ryan really believes in ending Medicaid as we know it.
3. Ryan really pushed for privatization of Social Security
4. Ryan really would decimate government funding, to the point it could no longer carry on many routine operations.
5. Ryan really does want the biggest transfer of wealth, from poor and middle class to rich, in modern U.S. history.
6. Ryan really holds an extreme position on abortion rights, even relative to other conservatives.
http://www.tnr.com/blog/plank/106029/ryan-romney-vp-budget-cuts-medicare-medicaid-voucher-tax-cut
I am not really an optimistic, but I am a prisoner of hope, and I HOPE that enough Americans will do the right thing and ensure that these people do not come to power.
Ryan says just what he needs to say, depending on who is listening. He is no more Randian than any other Republican and a good many Democrats.
He is anti Abortion.
He voted FOR the bail out.
He voted FOR $192B additional anti-recession stimulus spending in Jul 2009.
He voted FOR making the PATRIOT Act permanent.
All the above actions contradict Ayn Rand’s philosophy and beliefs.
Ergo, Paul Ryan is inspired by Ayn Rand for reasons unknown and difficult to fathom.
Probably the best article by Giles Fraser that I’ve read to date, Richard. The exposure and dissection of the evil that is Paul Ryan in a little more than 500 words.
There are so many pieces of the article that hit the mark, so I’ll add another to your quotation:
‘Which is why Paul Ryan is little more than Ayn Rand in Christian drag.
Ironically, he is a “second-hander” — Rand’s terminology for those who take their values, prêt-à -porter, from others. The trouble is that Christianity in the US has become so widely hijacked by the right that not enough people will actually notice. As the Ryan case aptly demonstrates, the Christian right is neither: that is, Christian nor right.’
Let’s hope one of Obama’s aides brings Fraser’s piece to his campaign team’s attention.
Indeed!
“What would happen if these Atlas-like gods, who hold up the world, decided one day to shrug and refuse to support everyone else?”
Err…we’d just run the world without them. Having expropriated “their property”. And after requesting of them that they don’t let the door bang their buttocks on their way out of the room.
It’s Ayn Rand we’re talking about here, not the Rand Corporation.
Spot on. I never read Atlas Shrugged, but I did read The Fountainhead many years ago. The irony in that story is that even Rand’s supposed super-human – Howard Roark – ends up working as an employee (a construction site worker) at one point in the story; proving that none of these so-called ‘gods’ can survive on their own – they depend on other humans for their existence. Which is something the objectivists (Rand’s followers) forget to mention. They deride the ‘collective’ and the altruistic, but at the end of the day, we all have to work together. Individualism, as Rand and her followers believe in it, is (unless you’re going to live on top of a mountain and eat berries and roots) bunkem.
Remember the clamour that greeted Sarah Palin as John McCain’s running mate? That evaporated when it became clear that she was a complete fruit cake. I see history repeating itself.
Apparently “Ayn Rand’s receiving more in Medicare services (a lot more!) than she paid into the system” (DeLong) wasn’t much of an issue to her.
A few weeks after VE day Keynes laucnhed the Arts Council on the BBC, and he stopped his smooth delivery to say “Death to Hollywood!”. And he hadn’t even met Rand or Reagan.
Rand was a truly warped minded disgusting individual so it follows that those that agree with her views are also disgusting
http://www.alternet.org/story/145819/ayn_rand2C_hugely_popular_author_and_inspiration_to_right-wing_leaders%2C_was_a_big_admirer_of_serial_killer?page=0%2C0
Richard, Paul Ryan has never had a real job in his life, lives off the public trough, wants to bestow misery on millions of Americans in the name of the free-market ideology.
From Gerald Celente’s Trends Journal (Summer 2011), I quote:
“Ryan was brought up solidly middle class. His father, a lawyer, died when he was sixteen. Ryan collected Social Security survivor’s benefits for two years that he claims to have put toward his college tuition. During his senior year in college, he worked briefly as a “Hotdogger,” driving an Oscar Mayer Wienermobile. Upon graduation in 1995, he worked briefly as a staff member for Sen. Bob Kasten. In 1996, he worked as a speechwriter.
to both former US “Drug Czar” William Bennett and former US Rep. Jack Kemp. In 1997, he was legislative director for US Senator Sam Brownback of Kansas. According to his congressional campaign, Ryan’s only experience in the private sector (evidently overlapping his political jobs) was as a “marketing consultant” for his family’s construction business.
Ryan was first elected to Congress in 1998 at the age of 28. What goes unmentioned in neutral biographical accounts and his omnipresent press coverage is that, apart from his Wienermobile days and a vague nepotistic stint in the family business, Ryan never worked a day of his life in the private sector.”
Ryan is the domestic equivalent of a chicken hawk (people who have never been in a uniform but are quite happy to send other people off to war).
I always think these career patterns odd
It’s the same with the rabid free marketeers I meet in think tanks
They haven’t actually worked in business
I have, extensively, as an enteepreneur
I have also been pretty heavily exposed to state education and the NHS
The result is I arge for a Courageous State