If Mitt Romney chooses Rep. Paul Ryan to be his Vice Presidential nominee, as seems likely, we can expect to hear a lot about novelist Ayn Rand in the coming weeks:
Paul Ryan AKA Ayn Rand
— TomAdler (@TomAdler) August 11, 2012
Paul Ryan– becuase Alan Greenspan's implementation of Ayn Rand's ideas didnt completetly destroy the nation's economy
— linusesq (@linusesq) August 11, 2012
Paul Ryan's chief philosopher unlike much of GOP base isn't compassionate Jesus. It is sociopath Ayn Rand http://t.co/neus3OER
— Zaid Jilani (@ZaidJilani) August 11, 2012
VIDEO: Get to know Paul Ryan's hero, Ayn Rand http://t.co/OrWbrvpJ (via @ZaidJilani @JeffSpross) #RomneyRyanRand
— Mike Conrad (@mikeconrad1) August 11, 2012
https://twitter.com/Inb4daPop/status/234143385840152576
https://twitter.com/parkersmuse/status/234146621519167488
https://twitter.com/stevelepore/status/234142190186663937
Paul Ryan *terrifies* me, y'all. The man actually said Ayn Rand proves the morality of capitalism. Like, he said that!
— Joshua Eaton (@joshua_eaton) August 11, 2012
Dear Mitt, please do everyone a favor and help us get Paul Ryan and his Ayn Rand nutsiness out of the house & make him your veep choice!
— Leslie Scoopmire (@Scoopexplainsit) August 11, 2012
If Romney picks Ayn Rand-devotee Paul Ryan as his VP I will literally never stop laughing.
— Matt Kilburn (@kmatt45) August 11, 2012
Ayn Rand and St. Francis Assisi had a baby, and his name is Paul Ryan. #VP
— Brian Rafferty (@bmrafferty) August 11, 2012
MT @karimbitar "The reason I got involved in public service…if I had to credit one thinker, one person, it would be Ayn Rand" Paul Ryan
— Robert Danin (@robertdanin) August 11, 2012
Romney to pick Ayn Rand devotee Paul Ryan as Veep?
— Stefania Pomponi (@CleverStefania) August 11, 2012
In truth, Ryan once admired Rand but now rejects her philosophy:
‘You know you’ve arrived in politics when you have an urban legend about you, and this one is mine,” chuckles Representative Paul Ryan, the Budget Committee chairman, as we discuss his purported obsession with author and philosopher Ayn Rand.
Paul Krugman, the New York Times columnist, recently called Ryan “an Ayn Rand devotee” who wants to “slash benefits for the poor.” New York magazine once alleged that Ryan “requires staffers to read Atlas Shrugged, Rand’s gospel of capitalism. President Obama has blasted the Ryan budget as Republican “social Darwinism.”
These Rand-related slams, Ryan says, are inaccurate and part of an effort on the left to paint him as a cold-hearted Objectivist. Ryan’s actual philosophy, as reported by my colleague, Brian Bolduc, couldn’t be further from the caricature. As a practicing Roman Catholic, Ryan says, his faith and moral values shape his politics as much as his belief in freedom and capitalism does.
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“I reject her philosophy,” Ryan says firmly. “It’s 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 person’s view on epistemology to me, then give me Thomas Aquinas,” who believed that man needs divine help in the pursuit of knowledge. “Don’t give me Ayn Rand,” he says.
