My, what a difference a little criticism by religious, but not wackaloonitarian, people makes. Republican Rep. Paul Ryan in 2003:
“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.”
In 2005:
“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 at a D.C. gathering four years ago honoring the author of “Atlas Shrugged” and “The Fountainhead.”
And in 2012? Not so much Rand:
“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.
This man is supposedly a Verious Serious Thinker and Policy Person. Guess what? He’s not.
It should also be noted that when we fight back, it seems to work out ok. Just saying.
mikethemadbiologist
Video praising Ayn Rand from Ryan’s Facebook site, 2009
Oh my, someone found out it’s not Matthew, Mark, Luke, and Rand. Now, I wonder if this is actually going to change his policies.
Probably not. I’m guessing it’s still going to be Free Market Jesus.
Rand gives atheists a bad name. Next he’ll be saying there can be no morality without religion, and he’ll have come full circle. (misunderstanding it all the way around)
I’m always appalled when I encounter people who take Rand seriously as a philosopher. (Often these are frosh male philosophy majors.) Just … no. Read the actual Aristotle, not the Russian emigrée writing for Hollywood movies who thought she could do Aristotle one better. Spoiler: she didn’t.
Ryan attempts to suck up to the Catholic church, but for once it doesn’t suck back