Paul Ryan (1970- ) is an American Congressman from Wisconsin and Mitt Romney’s pick for vice president in the 2012 election. He is also the Republican’s top budget man in Congress. A geek with charm, he is one of the few who understands the budget inside out and can put it into English.
Ryan is hard right but his district in Wisconsin is centre right – a 90% white district that voted for Obama in 2008. Since his university days Ryan has spent most of his life in Washington, not Wisconsin. Wall Street money keeps him in office.
Ryan wants to take from the poor to give to the rich. He would gravely weaken the safety net that Presidents Franklin Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson put in place in the 1930s and 1960s so that he can cut taxes for the rich and keep defence spending high. Among Republicans all but ten are for the Ryan budget.
Ryan is rich. He is worth $5 million. He made his money the old-fashioned way: he married into it. His family lives in a mansion in his hometown of Janesville, Wisconsin. When the General Motors plant there closed in 2009, unemployment went through the roof. Ryan did little.
Ryan is not honest. Not even by Fox News standards. After his speech at the Republican convention they ran a piece which said that Ryan:
set the world record for the greatest number of blatant lies and misrepresentations slipped into a single political speech.
Ryan had a black girlfriend at university. But the NAACP gives him 10 out of 100 on his civil rights voting record.
Ryan is a practising Catholic. But while the bishops like his extreme stand against abortion, they call the Ryan budget immoral. It is unnecessarily cruel to the poor and hungry. For example, it cuts food stamps rather than support for agribusiness.
Ryan is a follower of Ayn Rand. Rand saw selfishness as a virtue and condemned Christianity for wanting to help the poor. Ryan has read all her books and gives “Atlas Shrugged” (1957) as Christmas gifts:
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.
Ryan is a fan of Rage Against the Machine. But Rage guitarist Tom Morello says Ryan is part of the machine he rages against:
You see, the super rich must rationalize having more than they could ever spend while millions of children in the U.S. go to bed hungry every night. So, when they look themselves in the mirror, they convince themselves that “Those people are undeserving. They’re … lesser.” Some of these guys on the extreme right are more cynical than Paul Ryan, but he seems to really believe in this stuff.
Ryan is endorsed by the NRA. When asked about gun laws and violent crime in cities, he said:
The best thing to help prevent violent crime in the inner cities is to bring opportunity in the inner cities. Is to help teach people good discipline, good character.
Sources: Rolling Stone, Examiner.com, The Root, Media Matters, The New Republic, Fox News, Mediaite, New Yorker, ThinkProgress.
See also:
In other words, the quintessential right wing loony. I see why Romney likes him so much.
I am going to take a vow of Internet and television and newspaper silence till I have read the transcript for the Biden-Ryan debate and written a post on it.
I think with the debate last week I was overly affected by the style as opposed to the substance and by the insta-punditry on Twitter and cable news.
So, these two clowns are cut from the same cloth. The two of them running the country is very scary.
rich?? by what standard? he is a mere millionare that is no longer a huge accomplishment there are 1,000 new millionares every day. that also is not uber rich. who cares about his income what are his policy’s . if anything having money is more of a qulaifier than education or intent.
This guy is the shining example of Neoconservatism at its worst. Him and Mittens are both clones from the extreme right wing machine and nothing more.
[...] Abagond does the short and sweet summation on Ryan. [...]
I doubt many people (not just foreigners but Americans too!) are that informed about a VP candidate. You made serious claims about Ryan. You should source these claims.
The Morello quote and an NRA endorsement are simple enough for a reader to check; so I’m not citing a problem there.
But:
Ryan wants to take from the poor to give to the rich.
they [Bishops] call the Ryan budget immoral.
Really? Which Bishops have called it immoral?
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I want to be clear. I actually don’t doubt what you said. But they are still focused claims about a VP candidate – serious post, not a frivolous post. Without the source it is like you are writing for yourself, left wingers and people who know there is a lunatic wing in the republican party. With the source you are writing for everyone.
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@ Legion
Ryan wants to take from the poor to give to the rich.
they [Bishops] call the Ryan budget immoral.
Really? Which Bishops have called it immoral?
I don’t doubt the truth of this, but I a source would be handy, agreed.
Ryan probably is not as much of a true believer in Rand as he wants to think. As much of a quasi nut as she was, Rand really had this thing about TALENT.* From what I can see of my exposure to her, she had this thing about riches being a consequence of unstifled talent and ingenuity. I don’t think she would have been impressed with a man who marries money over creating his own.
Yeah, I know it can be a thin line to tackyville when we claim what a well known person would or would not do, particularly in the case of the deceased but I did not go too far overboard. And besides we all have these little fantasies about prominent people from time to time … n’est ce pas?
LOL! Why yes, we do!
@ Legion
I remember reading Rand whilst still pretty young and feeling unwell afterwards.
@ Legion
My philosophy is that since I am neither a scholar nor a journalist, anything I can find out anyone can. This is the age of Google, after all.
In any case, I added the sources at the end of the post, the ones I can remember.
The bishops in question were the US Conference of Bishops:
http://www.examiner.com/article/united-states-conference-of-catholic-bishops-paul-ryan-s-budget-and-ayn-rand
http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2012/04/12/463211/catholic-leaders-ryan-budget/
^Yes, I know what you mean.
I didn’t follow up my asterisk.
*But she took this thing with talent to sickening extremes. I heard a recorded talk she gave (in some place, U.S.A. don’t remember where) where she said, when youngsters are being taught, the retarded and the slow should not have teaching time wasted on them. Instead maximum teaching resources should go to the talented. The logic (her logic, I should say) is simple: the talented will bring the greatest net benefits to society. The retarded and the difficult to teach are a drag on society and the aggregate potential that could be reached.
Her legacy is a DEADLY serious threat to Americans and people of The West. Ryan probably sees the poor or perhaps just the non rich as talentless. And so, why have social provisions for those who are vaguely better than pond scum. Abagond, you should point the random reader in the direction of Ryan’s budget too.
I feel like America is disintegrating; it’s quite disturbing.
Bulanik, the above was directed at you.
@Abagond
My philosophy is that since I am neither a scholar nor a journalist, anything I can find out anyone can. This is the age of Google, after all.
Yes, I realize that. This is why I don’t ask that you source things that are probably easy to find or sort of trivial. But I found a post in the index one day. You said, as modestly as you could, that you were writing for ‘the ages’. You wanted your writing to last for some time. You need to source pointed/important claims about important persons or situations to achieve this objective of having your writing last for some unknown quantity of time. Furthermore, it is not reasonable to demand/expect of your readers that in 10 posts, 20 posts 70 posts, etc., they check all your claims themselves. You have many, many posts in the index.
Look, in general, I’m suspicious of Republicans. I know they have many lunatics in that party. But if I were writing about Ryan, I’d still have sourced on the budget and the alarm of the Bishops. Those are serious points, you don’t know if a 10 year old kid is reading your post or an unemployed factory worker. People are not always in a rational mood when using the internet, providing the source on a serious point is useful. I’d never ask you to source about Ryan giving Atlas Shrugged as Christmas gifts to people – it’s more a quirk of this guy cause he’s a weirdo and it’s something easy to check if one wants. His policies though, and reaction to them are serious business, they should be sourced.
@Abagond
Thank you for providing those links.
@ Legion
I remember being “talentless” and thus labeled because I was well over 10 before I could read (dyslexia). If these people get in, things will not get much better than they are, will they?
{Bulanik remembers what she has learned about American history, and foreign policy… }
@Bulanik
It is annoying, distressing and puzzling to me that the American public have not clued in to the bitter class warfare and pogroms of marginalization that have been in effect since at least Reagun. When I saw grown adults weeping at Obama’s inauguration, I thought, “wow, you people really like to believe in fairy tales, huh?”
The American people need to use and squeeze service out of their politicians, not treat them like some great savior leader. The Democrats are a little less vulgar than the Republicans but BOTH parties are advancing the interests of the rich. After the 2008 crisis and TAXPAYER money going to the financial sector, one would have thought Americans would wake up to the class warfare in their country. Oh well, what will be, will be.
Abagond:
You voted for Obama/Biden, Why? Paul Ryan made Biden look like a chump. All the black liberals can talk smack as much they want, they look dumber and dumber by the day. I’m not biting my tongue anymore with ya’ll, our race is in the pits because of the Dixiecrats/Democrats. And, Tyrone is the crazy brotha…Hell No!
Tyrone
How do policies aimed at the 1% help Black people?
^ They don’t. Capitalism is a great hotbed for racism and other forms of oppression. As for Ayn Rand, I thnk it’s funny that she worshipped a serial killer ( http://exiledonline.com/paul-ryans-guru-ayn-rand-worshipped-a-serial-killer-who-kidnapped-and-dismembered-little-girls/) and worshipped selfishness and yet when one of her lovers applied her values to their relationship (he cheated on her behnd her back), she lost her mind and threw that man out of her cult. The resurgence of her ideas in the United States is a byproduct of the ongoing class war. The plutarchs, oligarchs, and their slavish supporters believe that they should be treated like demigods and how dare people tell them otherwise. They must be opposed before they drag the whole planet down into the gutter.
P.S Mitt Romney’s father relied on welfare (http://www.npr.org/blogs/itsallpolitics/2012/09/19/161409916/welfare-wasnt-always-a-dirty-word-in-the-romney-family) and Paul Ryan benefited from Social Security (http://www.usnews.com/news/campaign-2008/articles/2008/07/23/10-things-you-didnt-know-about-paul-ryan). If this were really about the national debt and the deficit they wouldn’t be so gung-ho to go to war with Iran. This, along with Romney’s 47% comment, only shows that what they want to do is further consalidate power amongst their class, the ruling class. I guess it’s the USA’s turn for austerity measures because hey they worked so well in countries like Greece and Spain.
I think Paul Ryan is dangerous and not good for this country.
He and Mitt Romney feel women, minorities and poor people aren’t important. Plus he is very radical rightwing person. I saw how radical of a rightwing nutjob he was when I was watching the Vice presidental debate. SMH, Ayn Rand is crazy, I am not shocked that he endorses her at all.
@yomurigiant and anyone who read his/her link on Rand “worshipping a serial killer.”
I read that link of yours at the time of your post. It is lengthy so I will not read it again. But here is what I came away with. That article is “fishy.” Bottom line, if one reads it and thinks on it for a moment one can see clearly what the author is doing. The author is pairing something highly disgusting: the murder of that poor girl with Ayn Rand. The reader is supposed to respond by feeling as revolted with Ayn Rand as they are with Hickman’s unimaginably horrendous killing of Marion Parker.
This is manipulation plain and simple. Rand was something of a nut but the claim this article made, was presented awkwardly and far too emotively; I smelled the rat of agenda! Intuitively it made more sense to me that Rand took some sort of interest in the case but “worshipping” Hickman wasn’t the interest.
The following review (video posted below) of that article makes more sense than that alternet article. I will get a copy of the Journals of Ayn Rand to confirm what I now believe: that the article is dishonest.
So @ Abagond, where did you find proof of his so called african queen? I mena Ryan can die in a fire for all I care lol! But he is not unattractive… hahhaa jk. So I will believe it when I see proof.
“Kfennec
So @ Abagond, where did you find proof of his so called african queen?”
Linda says,
Article about Ryan’s x-girlfriend
http://www.rightentertainment.com/?p=6382
@ Kfennec
I read about it in The Root:
http://www.theroot.com/blogs/paul-ryan/does-paul-ryans-black-girlfriend-matter