Paul Ryan reads the Ayn Rand and the Bible

Paul Ryan Suddenly Does Not Embrace Ayn Rand's Teachings

Jennifer Benedry

Huffington Post LINK

 04/27/2012 

WASHINGTON -- Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) tried to send the message this week that, contrary to "urban legend," he is not obsessed with philosopher and author Ayn Rand.

"I reject her philosophy," Ryan told National Review on Thursday. "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. Don’t give me Ayn Rand."

Best known for her novels "The Fountainhead" and "Atlas Shrugged," Rand advocated a philosophy that emphasizes the individual over the collective, and viewed capitalism as the only system truly based on the protection of the individual. She has been a significant influence on libertarians and conservatives.

Ryan, whose name has been floated as a possible running mate for GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney, appeared to be distancing himself from Rand in response to a public letter he received this week from nearly 90 faculty and administrators at Georgetown University. In their letter, they criticize him for misusing Catholic social teaching in defending his budget, which hurts the poor by proposing significant cuts to anti-hunger programs, slashing Pell Grants for low-income students and calling for a replacement of Medicare with a voucher-like system. They also invoke Rand's name.

"As scholars, we want to join the Catholic bishops in pointing out that his budget has a devastating impact on programs for the poor," said Jesuit Father Thomas J. Reese, one of the organizers of the letter. "Your budget appears to reflect the values of your favorite philosopher, Ayn Rand, rather than the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Her call to selfishness and her antagonism toward religion are antithetical to the Gospel values of compassion and love."

But any urban legend about Ryan's affinity for Rand surely started with Ryan himself, who, prior to this week, had no qualms about gushing about Rand's influence on his guiding principles.

"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," Ryan said during a 2005 event honoring Rand in Washington, D.C., the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported in April 2009.

During the 2005 gathering, Ryan told the audience, "Almost every fight we are involved in here on Capitol Hill ... is a fight that usually comes down to one conflict -- individualism versus collectivism." The event was hosted by The Atlas Society, which prominently features a photo of Rand on its website and describes itself as a group that "promotes open Objectivism: the philosophy of reason, achievement, individualism, and freedom."

Ryan also said during a 2003 interview with the Weekly Standard, "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.” He noted that he "looked into" Rand's work when he was younger, but reiterated that he is a Christian and reads the Bible often.

In 2009, Ryan posted two videos on his Facebook page raving about the importance of Rand's views.

"If 'Atlas Shrugged' author Ayn Rand were alive today, here's the urgent message I think she'd be conveying," Ryan wrote alongside the first video, titled "Ayn Rand's relevance in 2009."

He says in the video:

What's unique about what's happening today in government, in the world, in America, is it's as if we're living in an Ayn Rand novel right now. I think Ayn Rand did the best job of anybody to build the moral case for capitalism. And that morality of capitalism is under assault. And we are going to replace it with a crony capitalism, collectivist, government-run system which is creeping its way into government. And so if Ayn Rand were here today, I think she would do a great job in showing us just how wrong what government is doing is. Not the quantitative analysis, not the numbers, but the morality of what is wrong with what government is doing today.

In the second video, titled "Ayn Rand & 2009 America, Part 2," Ryan says it doesn't surprise him that sales of "The Fountainhead" and "Atlas Shrugged" have "surged" since President Barack Obama took office.

"It's that kind of thinking, that kind of writing, that is sorely needed right now. And I think a lot of people would observe that we are living in an Ayn Rand novel right now, metaphorically speaking," Ryan says. "The attack on Democratic capitalism, on individualism and freedom in America is an attack on the moral foundation of America. And Ayn Rand more than anyone else did a fantastic job of explaining the morality of capitalism, the morality of individualism. This, to me, is what matters most."

Some of Ryan's critics took a shot at him for suddenly distancing himself from Rand.

"Not pure enough on entitlement cuts @philipaklein @robertcostaNRO Paul Ryan on Ayn Rand: 'I reject her philosophy,'" Austan Goolsbee, the former chairman of Obama's Council of Economic Advisers, tweeted Thursday.

UPDATE: 5:14 p.m. -- Ryan spokesman Kevin Seifert downplayed the lawmaker's apparent change of tune on Rand.

"I wouldn't make too much of this one way or another. Congressman Ryan was not 'distancing himself' from Rand, merely correcting several false storylines that are out there, such as the myth that he requires all of his staffers to read Atlas Shrugged. Saying he 'rejects Ayn Rand's philosophy' was simply meant to correct a popular falsehood that Congressman Ryan is an Objectivist -- he isn't now and never claimed to be," Seifert said in a statement to The Huffington Post.

Christians are called to care, with or without evangelizing

Where is Jesus in politics?

By Anthony M. Stevens-Arroyo

The Washington Post 04/01/2012  LINK

For almost as long as we have been a church, Catholic ritual for Palm Sunday has dramatized that people who greeted Jesus with “Hosannas” and palm branches on his entry into Jerusalem were in the crowd calling for his crucifixion days later.

Holy Week reminds us that religion can as easily distort consciences as illuminate them. This year, the entry of the Affordable Care Act into the Supreme Court invited Palm Sunday-like displays of acclaim accompanied simultaneously by dark threats of rejection. The final court decision is not on a par with Jesus’ passion, nor is Obama to be confused with the Messiah, but just because we consider ourselves God’s friends we are not exempt from the sin of distorting the Gospel message.

U.S. Congressman Paul Ryan introduces Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney as he attends a pancake breakfast in Wauwatosa, Wisconsin, April 1, 2012. (DARREN HAUCK - REUTERS)I’m troubled that public opinion so easily characterizes religion as only right-wing Republican politics. (Catholics like Rick Santorum probably falls into this category, so my critique is ecumenical.) The question of health care insurance is an example of how persons professing to be the most religious among us can nonetheless violate basic teachings of Jesus. We Christians are called to care for material needs of our neighbors (Mt. 25) without imposing evangelization as a condition. In the parable of the Good Samaritan (Lk:10:25-37), Our Lord criticized the temple priest and the Levite who passed by an injured man. Jesus praised instead the non-believer’s material help to his neighbor, while condemning the religious leaders’ escapism in the name of religious purity. Direct action for mercy is valued over abstract passion for piety. Logically then, it goes against Christian discipleship of Christ to repeal the Affordable Care Act without offering a substitute that will provide for 40 million uninsured, most of them children. Talk of “government take over” or “use of abortifacients” does not relieve the Christian’s need to be keeper of our brothers and sisters. Yet, we are treated these days to the irony of religion being invoked as reason to avoid Christian responsibility for health care.

Similarly, God’s friends say they want to remake the U.S. government in the model of Christian values. That clearly would include spending public tax dollars to perform the corporal works of mercy: food for the hungry, housing for the homeless, health care for the sick, etc. Yet the construct of their “Christian government” removes these functions from legislative action. Ironically, today’s so-called “secularists” promote Jesus’ values in government while the “Christian nation” folks largely oppose them.

The Paul Ryan budget endorsed by the Republican party is built upon the principles of atheist Ayn Rand. The Catholic League assails atheists and secularists for offenses like not illuminating the Empire State Building with red lights for Cardinal Dolan, but is meekly uncritical about Randism and uncharacteristically silent about Ryan’s individualism that contradicts centuries of Catholic social justice teaching.

Other “Christian” politics include legislating for more guns and opposing restrictions on their sale. I am waiting for one of these believers to explain how being pro-gun fulfills Jesus’ teaching on “turning the other cheek” (Mt. 5:39). Why do they promote laws like Florida’s “Stand Your Ground: in other states? “Claims of justifiable homicide in Florida have tripled since the law’s passage in 2005” with the result that murder goes unpunished more often. The death of Trayvon Martin should not be required to condemn laws that violate the teachings of Jesus both in word and deed. Why would any Christian be silent about such abuses?

Jesus told us to take in “strangers,” and Catholic teaching has applied this to the need for humane immigration reform. Yet “super-Christians” favor deportation of all the undocumented, even to the extreme ofRepublicans in Congress ridiculing medical attention to those imprisoned.

When God has friends like these, why worry about His enemies? In the reading of the Passion on Palm Sunday, we in the pews are required to shout out “Crucify Him! Crucify Him!” Maybe we should ask ourselves whether this is merely a ritual or if we are betraying Jesus all over again in our politics.

Romeny's not concerned

February 2, 2012

Romney Isn’t Concerned

By PAUL KRUGMAN LINK

If you’re an American down on your luck, Mitt Romney has a message for you: He doesn’t feel your pain. Earlier this week, Mr. Romney told a startled CNN interviewer, “I’m not concerned about the very poor. We have a safety net there.”

Faced with criticism, the candidate has claimed that he didn’t mean what he seemed to mean, and that his words were taken out of context. But he quite clearly did mean what he said. And the more context you give to his statement, the worse it gets.

First of all, just a few days ago, Mr. Romney was denying that the very programs he now says take care of the poor actually provide any significant help. On Jan. 22, he asserted that safety-net programs — yes, he specifically used that term — have “massive overhead,” and that because of the cost of a huge bureaucracy “very little of the money that’s actually needed by those that really need help, those that can’t care for themselves, actually reaches them.”

This claim, like much of what Mr. Romney says, was completely false: U.S. poverty programs have nothing like as much bureaucracy and overhead as, say, private health insurance companies. As the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities has documented, between 90 percent and 99 percent of the dollars allocated to safety-net programs do, in fact, reach the beneficiaries. But the dishonesty of his initial claim aside, how could a candidate declare that safety-net programs do no good and declare only 10 days later that those programs take such good care of the poor that he feels no concern for their welfare?

Also, given this whopper about how safety-net programs actually work, how credible was Mr. Romney’s assertion, after expressing his lack of concern about the poor, that if the safety net needs a repair, “I’ll fix it”?

Now, the truth is that the safety net does need repair. It provides a lot of help to the poor, but not enough. Medicaid, for example, provides essential health care to millions of unlucky citizens, children especially, but many people still fall through the cracks: among Americans with annual incomes under $25,000, more than a quarter — 28.7 percent — don’t have any kind of health insurance. And, no, they can’t make up for that lack of coverage by going to emergency rooms.

Similarly, food aid programs help a lot, but one in six Americans living below the poverty line suffers from “low food security.” This is officially defined as involving situations in which “food intake was reduced at times during the year because [households] had insufficient money or other resources for food” — in other words, hunger.

So we do need to strengthen our safety net. Mr. Romney, however, wants to make the safety net weaker instead.

Specifically, the candidate has endorsed Representative Paul Ryan’s plan for drastic cuts in federal spending — with almost two-thirds of the proposed spending cuts coming at the expense of low-income Americans. To the extent that Mr. Romney has differentiated his position from the Ryan plan, it is in the direction of even harsher cuts for the poor; his Medicaid proposal appears to involve a 40 percent reduction in financing compared with current law.

So Mr. Romney’s position seems to be that we need not worry about the poor thanks to programs that he insists, falsely, don’t actually help the needy, and which he intends, in any case, to destroy.

Still, I believe Mr. Romney when he says he isn’t concerned about the poor. What I don’t believe is his assertion that he’s equally unconcerned about the rich, who are “doing fine.” After all, if that’s what he really feels, why does he propose showering them with money?

And we’re talking about a lot of money. According to the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center, Mr. Romney’s tax plan would actually raise taxes on many lower-income Americans, while sharply cutting taxes at the top end. More than 80 percent of the tax cuts would go to people making more than $200,000 a year, almost half to those making more than $1 million a year, with the average member of the million-plus club getting a $145,000 tax break.

And these big tax breaks would create a big budget hole, increasing the deficit by $180 billion a year — and making those draconian cuts in safety-net programs necessary.

Which brings us back to Mr. Romney’s lack of concern. You can say this for the former Massachusetts governor and Bain Capital executive: He is opening up new frontiers in American politics. Even conservative politicians used to find it necessary to pretend that they cared about the poor. Remember “compassionate conservatism”? Mr. Romney has, however, done away with that pretense.

At this rate, we may soon have politicians who admit what has been obvious all along: that they don’t care about the middle class either, that they aren’t concerned about the lives of ordinary Americans, and never were.

A rabbi on the liberal religious

What It Means to be A Liberal Person of Faith

Rabbi Eric H. Yoffie |

Dec 13, 2011

Huffington Post LINK

Again and again, and especially during the election season, we read in the media about "people of faith," "religious Americans" and "value voters" -- and what is meant, in almost all cases, are Americans who are conservative in both their religion and their politics. There is nothing wrong with being a conservative, of course, but we liberal people of faith like to point out that there are other kinds of believers in America. In fact, there are a lot of us.

What exactly does it mean to be a liberal person of faith?

It means to believe in God, to have deep religious convictions and to be offended whenever media voices pour scorn on religious people.

It means to draw on religious teachings and beliefs when making judgments about matters of public policy. But at the same time, it means to know that when we, as people of faith, make a public argument, we must ground our statements in reason and a language of morality that is accessible to everyone -- to people of different religions, for example, or of no religion. After all, we recognize that other believers have religious convictions different from our own, and in our diverse democracy, Americans need a common political discourse not dominated by exclusivist theology.

It means to understand that "person of faith" does not only mean the Religious Right; it is, in fact, an inclusive term, referring to both liberals and conservatives and to Christians and Jews of all persuasions, as well as to Muslims, Hindus and believers from other religious traditions.

It means to always bring a measure of humility to religious belief. In making our religious judgments, we liberal persons of faith draw on the sacred texts of our tradition, but we don't claim to have a direct line to heaven, and we aren't always sure that we know God's will.

It means being concerned about the poor and the needy, and giving a fair shake to all. When people talk about God and yet ignore justice, it feels downright wrong to us. When they cloak themselves in religion and ignore mercy, it strikes us as blasphemous.

It means to believe that sanctity exists in the commitment that gay couples make to each other. We recognize that more conservative religious people are likely to see this matter very differently, but we oppose, absolutely and unequivocally, unprincipled gay bashing and hateful rhetoric that fuels the hell-fires of anti-gay bigotry.

And it means that we share many of the concerns of conservative people of faith. Like them, we are concerned about the coarsening of culture that makes it difficult to raise honorable, decent children. Like them, we worry about trashy TV and the erosion of the family. And like them, we believe that the public interest does depend, at least in part, on private virtue -- even as we know that justice requires not only good individuals but also the actions of government.

And finally, it means that we welcome dialogue with our fellow citizens who have a more conservative religious viewpoint. It seems healthy to us for people of faith to talk about how our differing religious perspectives help us understand the issues of the day. After all, we have all put our trust in America, the most religiously diverse country in the world. And we all believe that tolerance is an American value. So let the dialogue begin.

Abortion v. Supporting the poor, the criminals, the immigrants, and the environment

Who Will Protect Catholics from Rick Santorum?

By Regina Small | February 7, 2012 LINK

The Awl

Rick Santorum, eager to show that he will stand up for Catholic values, has been saying things about the recent Health and Human Services regulation that now requires Catholic universities and hospitals to provide access to contraception and the morning-after pill. Santorum has accused the Obama administration of being "hostile to people of faith, particularly Christians and specifically Catholics.” He's even gone so far as to vow that he "will make it an issue every day of this campaign," until the Obama administration reinstates conscience protections. Santorum has also spoken up forcefully against same-sex marriage, which the Pope has—yes, again—recently condemned (in some really extreme terms, too).

Santorum further complained that "[The current administration] are folks who are trying to use their power to force people to do things that they believe they should do and are right. They don’t care about their religion."

But you know who does care about religion? Rick Santorum! In fact, let's take a look at how most of Rick Santorum's stated political views are truly representative of the Catholic Church and Catholic voters!

On man-made climate change:

"I for one never bought the hoax. I for one understood just from science, there are 100 factors that influence the climate, to suggest one minor factor of which man’s contribution is a minor factor.... And yet we have politicians running to the ramparts, unfortunately politicians that happen to be running for the Republican nomination of the president who buy into manmade global and bought into cap and trade. Congressman Gingrich and Gov. Romney both supported the idea of manmade global warming and in fact cap and trade; I never did. And unless the science is such that it is a heck of a lot better than what we see today, I won’t.” —Rick Santorum

"I hope that all members of the international community can agree on a responsible, credible and supportive response to this worrisome and complex phenomenon, keeping in mind the needs of the poorest populations and of future generations....In fact, it is by now evident that there is no good future for humanity or for the earth unless we educate everyone toward a style of life that is more responsible toward the created world." Pope Benedict XVI

On intelligent design:

"Well maybe the science points to the fact that maybe science doesn't explain all these things. And if it does point to that, then why don't you pursue that? But you can't, because it's not science, but if science is pointing you there how can you say it's not science? It's worth the debate." — -Rick Santorum

"If the model proposed by Darwin is held to be inadequate, one should look for another model. But it is not correct methodology to stray from the field of science pretending to do science...Intelligent design does not belong to science and there is no justification for the pretext that it be taught as a scientific theory alongside the Darwinian explanation." — -L'Osservatore Romano, the Vatican newspaper.

On the death penalty:

"When there is certainty, that's the case that capital punishment can be used. If there is not certainty, under the law, it shouldn't be used." —Rick Santorum

"There is no room for supporting the death penalty in today's world." — -Tommaso Di Ruzza, desk officer at the Vatican's Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace.

and

Addressing the Sant’Egidio Community in Rome on November 30th, 2011: Pope Benedict XVI stated that he hoped their discussions (organized under the theme "No Justice Without Life") "will encourage the political and legislative initiatives being promoted in a growing number of countries to eliminate the death penalty.”

On illegal immigrants:

"You can't be here for 20 years and commit only one illegal act ... because everything you're doing while you're here is against the law....I understand Congressman Gingrich saying, 'Well, you know, people have been here and they've been good citizens and paying taxes.' Yeah, under somebody else's Social Security number because you stole it." —Rick Santorum

"The Catholic Church’s approach to immigration is not about politics or economics. It is rooted in the vision of human society that was taught to us by Jesus Christ. The Catholic Church, from the time of the first Pentecost, has been a family of nations. By definition, the Catholic Church is universal, one family of God drawn from all nations, peoples, and languages....The point is that in the Catholic Church and in the eyes of God, no one is a stranger or an alien. As a pastor, I am deeply concerned about the costs of this impasse in the lives of millions of men, women, and children. Not just the souls of the 12 million without papers who are living at the margins of our society. I am worried about their physical, moral, and spiritual health. When you are a stranger in a strange land — and unwanted — you are easy prey for exploitation. But more than that. When you are a stranger who is despised, it gets harder every day to hold onto your cultural identity, your moral compass, your religion, your dignity. You start to believe what people say about you — that you are no good." —Archbishop Jose H. Gomez

On diplomatic relations with Iran:

"I would be saying to the Iranians, you either open up those facilities, you begin to dismantle them and make them available to inspectors, or we will degrade those facilities through air strikes." —Rick Santorum

"Vatican officials have said privately that on the question of Iran the Holy See supports the position of the IAEA, which has called on Iran to suspend its uranium enrichment program, allow more international inspections and work more cooperatively with the international community to certify that its nuclear development is strictly for peaceful purposes. The officials have also said the Vatican would view outside military intervention in Iran as morally unjustifiable and impractical." —Catholic News Service Report

On poverty:

"I don't want to make [black or possibly 'blah'] people's lives better by giving them somebody else's money. I want to give them the opportunity to go out and earn the money and provide for themselves and their families." —Rick Santorum

"We've gotta block-grant [food stamps] and send it back to the states, just like I did with welfare reform — do the same thing with Medicaid, including housing programs, block-grant them, send them back to the states, require work, and you put a time limit on it....We'll help take these programs, which are now dependencies, and you help people move out of poverty." —Rick Santorum

"We remind Mr. Gingrich and Mr. Santorum that Catholic bishops describe racism as an 'intrinsic evil' and consistently defend vital government programs such as food stamps and unemployment benefits that help struggling Americans. At a time when nearly 1 in 6 Americans live in poverty, charities and the free market alone can’t address the urgent needs of our most vulnerable neighbors. And while jobseekers outnumber job openings 4-to-1, suggesting that the unemployed would rather collect benefits than work is misleading and insulting." —Letter signed by over 40 Catholic leaders and theologians.

So: Rick Santorum is succeeding in standing up for two stated values of the Catholic Church, while ignoring or outright contradicting most of Catholic social teaching. Is it that these two issues (reproductive freedom, same-sex marriage) actually weigh more heavily in the minds of Catholic voters? Is that why Santorum feels so comfortable identifying as a Catholic politician? Or does the prominence of these two issues in the public discourse about Catholicism have more to do with the Church's inability to communicate its message about social responsibility and diplomacy? HEAVY QUESTIONS. What we do know is in 2008, 52% of Catholic voters cast their ballots in favor of Barack Obama, a pro-choice candidate, maybe in part because his campaign was more in line with the vast majority of the issues outlined here—in a way Santorum's isn't and likely never will be. If Santorum wants to protect the Catholic conscience, it might benefit him to think about what the Catholic conscience actually is.

AZ Legislature and the New Testament

Thou shalt take your Bible class

by E. J. Montini - Feb. 5, 2012 12:00 AM
The Arizona Republic

An Arizona legislative committee last week approved a bill to create an elective high-school class called "The Bible and its Influence on Western Culture," a divinely inspired proposal that needs only two minor changes.

First, the class should not be elective but mandatory. Second, it should not be taught to high-school students but to legislators.

Can I get an "Amen!"?

Given their behavior, Arizona lawmakers must have been absent at Sunday school when a few relatively important topics came up.

For example, caring for their fellow man. Remember how legislators refused to extend unemployment benefits to Arizona men and women who had been out of work for a long time even though the money would have come from the federal government?

Would they have done that if they were familiar with a Bible passage like Acts 20:35? It says, "In all things I have shown you that by working hard in this way we must help the weak and remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how he himself said, 'It is more blessed to give than to receive.' "

Likewise, would they continue giving tax breaks to the wealthiest among us if they were familiar with 1 Timothy 6:17? That's a passage reading, "Tell those who are rich not to be proud and not to trust their money, which will soon be gone, but their pride and trust should be in the living God who always richly gives us all we need for our enjoyment."

In fact, lawmakers might actually start thinking more about the underprivileged than the wealthy if they were familiar with Proverbs 19:17, which says, "Whoever is generous to the poor lends to the Lord, and he will repay him for his deed."

And citizens like us might not have to worry about the influence of highly paid lobbyists working for special interests if our politicians were familiar with Matthew 6:24, which reads, "No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money."

Would our lawmakers cut or limit health care for children if they'd studied Mark 10:14? It says, "But when Jesus saw (it), he was much displeased, and said unto them, 'Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not: for of such is the kingdom of God.' "

Would there have been a Fiesta Bowl scandal if they were familiar with Proverbs 16:19? It tells us, "Better it is to be of a humble spirit with the lowly, than to divide the spoil with the proud."

Would they wage war against police and firefighters and try to deny their rights to bargain collectively if they'd been at Sunday School during the discussion of Isaiah 10:1-2? It reads, "Woe to those who make unjust laws, to those who issue oppressive decrees, to deprive the poor of their rights and withhold justice from the oppressed of my people. ... "

Or to Proverbs 22:16, which reads, "He that oppresseth the poor to increase his riches, and he that giveth to the rich, shall surely come to want."

Would we have all the ugly negative campaigning in every election if our politicians read Matthew 5:5? It reminds us: "Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth."

Nor would candidates trash one another if they had any understanding of Matthew 23:12, which says, "And whosoever shall exalt himself shall be abased; and he that shall humble himself shall be exalted."

For these reasons and many more the state must create a Bible class and require elected officials to take it. After the final exam -- assuming any of them pass -- we could present each lawmaker with a plaque that will have on it this quote from Galatians 6:3:

"For if a man think himself to be something, when he is nothing, he deceiveth himself."

Reach Montini at 602-444-8978 or ed.montini@arizonarepublic.com.