Religion
Related: About this forumPaul Ryan: I Reject Ayn Rand, She's an Atheist!
April 26, 2012
12:15PM
Post by Sarah Posner
Rep. Paul Ryan has decided that he doesn't like Ayn Rand after all, because she's an icky atheist. He told National Review's Robert Costa, in advance of his speech today at Georgetown University:
"I, like millions of young people in America, read Rands novels when I was young. I enjoyed them," Ryan says. "They spurred an interest in economics, in the Chicago School and Milton Friedman," a subject he eventually studied as an undergraduate at Miami University in Ohio. "But its a big stretch to suggest that a person is therefore an Objectivist."
"I reject her philosophy," Ryan says firmly. "Its an atheist philosophy. It reduces human interactions down to mere contracts and it is antithetical to my worldview. If somebody is going to try to paste a persons view on epistemology to me, then give me Thomas Aquinas," who believed that man needs divine help in the pursuit of knowledge. "Dont give me Ayn Rand," he says.
Ryan enjoys bantering about dusty novels, but its not really his bailiwick. Philosophy, he tells me, is critical, but politics is about more than armchair musing. "This gets to the Jack Kemp in me, for the lack of a better phrase," he says crafting public policy from broad ideas. "How do you produce prosperity and upward mobility?" he asks. "How do you attack the root causes of poverty instead of simply treating its symptoms? And how do you avoid a crisis that is going to hurt the vulnerable the most a debt crisis from ever happening?"
http://www.religiondispatches.org/dispatches/sarahposner/5921/paul_ryan%3A_i_reject_ayn_rand,_she's_an_atheist!/
He's such a flip-flopper.
Ayn Rand more than anyone else did a fantastic job of explaining the morality of capitalism, the morality of individualism.
http://swampland.time.com/2011/05/13/the-gops-godless-philosopher/#ixzz1tAGZ0Nrw
JHB
(37,161 posts)...but unfortunately, words get more air time.
cindyperry2010
(846 posts)bull shit
TlalocW
(15,384 posts)He, and the rest of his ilk, are still trying to destroy the middle class and make the 1% into demi-gods just like Ayn's books describe.
TlalocW
zbdent
(35,392 posts)At least, in the way that Repugs/Cons think of "atheism" ... Capitalism has no regard for human life nor ethics. It's all about making money.
Although, now that I think about it, Capitalism is monotheistic ... the one true god of Capitalism is $$$$$$ ...
Democrats_win
(6,539 posts)Paul Ryan is a caricature of the Rush Limbaugh party.
Larkspur
(12,804 posts)The last I heard he did.
Jester Messiah
(4,711 posts)The woman was an idiot, a hypocrite, and a fraud. Which leads me to question... what exactly is Ryan's beef with her? They should get along well.
Lifelong Protester
(8,421 posts)Hilarious! They are two peas of the same pod, I'm thinking.
JohnnyRingo
(18,636 posts)We all know they'd label Ronald Reagan a RINO if he was around today, but now even Ayn Rand has disqualifying faults to the Tea Party. In this case, she'd be perfect if only she tempered her predatory economics with a strong devotion to The Lord.
They're getting closer and closer to digging up Mussolini's DNA for cloning future candidates.
Lost-in-FL
(7,093 posts)Ok... please I need to get with the program here for a sec. Aren't we atheists amoral?