I have spent the better part of a week looking at the new vice presidential candidate for the GOP. Up until now I was not familiar with him other than superficially. This will be the last post in this area so I am going to try to summarize what I have learned about the man.
- Paul Ryan is definitely a passionate person who is true to his principles taught to him by his heroes in life such as Ayn Rand who says money is the source of all good and altruism is stupid. I’m also sure he thinks each one of his ideas is somehow for the greater good of the country.
- As shown by his recent convention speech he is a very articulate person to much the same degree as Barak Obama but at the exact opposite end of the political spectrum.
- He adamantly supported the stimulus packages of President Bush in both 2002 and 2008 but when a Democratic president was just continuing the same it somehow became totally wrong to him. Everything he supported during the Bush years are now somehow unacceptable. That seems highly partisan to me and that is not something I want to continue seeing in our elected leaders in the coming years.
- His budget proposal that he claims is compassionate is totally rejected by his faith leaders in the Catholic church as very uncaring for the least among us.
- 62% of his proposed budget cuts for 2012 comes from cuts to the country’s safety net. This is hard to take especially when at the same time he is proposing big additional increases in our already very blotted military spending. Since we spend about forty times more than any other country on our war machine he seems to be a hawk to the nth degree.
- He plays politics with the best of them. He gets people from the other party on board by promising things that he then leaves them out of his proposed bill when it is submitted. He then wonders why the colleagues who he betrayed object to his calling his bill bipartisan. These types of actions show he can’t be trusted to keep his word.
- His original proposal for “fixing” Medicare was to give seniors a limited voucher to buy private insurance. If the private carrier even agreed to offer them insurance they would end up paying thousands of dollars out-of-pocket for less coverage than their current Medicare plan. Because of the huge backlash he modified his plan somewhat but given his propensity to got back on his word I think we have to assume that the first option if it could be passed is his preference.
- He is a favorite of the radical fringe Tea Party. This alone says much about his spirit of compassion and compromise.
- But maybe worst of all is that he seems to enthusiastically want to toss aside the people at the lower end of our society in order for the upper echelons to prosper even more. Ayn Rand, who is his hero taught him well in that area.
- Finally, I’m sure Mr. Ryan is a good family man who loves his wife and children but he seems to lack even a basic empathy for so many others.
At the end of this week-long investigation I still don’t understand why my clergy friend from the past reveres him so. On the surface Mr. Ryan seems like a nice guy but when you look at his other face he has a very narrow and seemingly dark view of life.
There are three qualities I believe must be used to judge a person’s character. One is his spiritual side; does he have a moral compass? The second is who are his heroes in life are and the third is whether he is true to his word; in other words can he be trusted? Even from this cursory study of Mr. Ryan I don’t see a lot about him in any of these three categories that entices me to vote the GOP ticket this time around.
Reblogged this on Until The Twilight and commented:
The Good Book says: “By Their Fruits ye shall know them.”
Welcome DaPoet. Thanks for saying it so concisely. True, true…
My wife and I had a discussion last night about our complete disgust with virtually all politicians. Regardless of where they sit on the left-right spectrum, they are incapable of either sticking to one strongly held position or not pandering to the most extreme views to keep donors and the loudest screamers among their supporters happy.
i am fighting a major does of cynicism that has me questioning the short and long term validity of our political system. Each passing year results in a more partisan, hardening of the extremes approach to governing. The worst part is that crass, self-serving, my view or go to hell approach is changing our citizenry into the same animal. I just don’t see how we will reverse course and become compassionate and tolerant again. Our brains and heart just don’t seem to be wired that way anymore.
I agree. This is not fun, this is not positive, and I just cannot see how this is good
I will throw this into the mix also, the technology of our day does not help either. The speed in which things come, each side tending for the most part to look at/read things that feed their point of view may actually make the polarization stronger. Every four years I just dislike this more and more.
However, if you want a breather from all of this and possibly some perspective, pick a presidential election from the past ( I looked at Garfield – 1880 election) and read up on it. It is quite interesting. Maybe we really have not changed much at all…
Thanks Scott for the comments. I don’t think anyone believes this is fun. At least I hope not! I have a post coming out soon talking about how each side in the stuff feeds off the other. Whenever something nasty is said about President Obama I get within a couple of hours a email asking me to contribute money to stop the lies. But more about that later…
If you want to go back even further than the Garfield election look at all the Adams/Jefferson mud that was being thrown around. It absolutely terrified Washington…
Hi Bob. Yes the current political times are depressing indeed but I am just not one to give up hope. I am waiting for that special “Have you no shame” moment that finally turned around the McCarthy years in the 50′s. I just don’t know what it is going to take to have any degree of compassion back into our system.
But I refuse to give up hope in the same way that I refuse to reward the GOP for being so obstructionist by voting for them because the Dems having managed to accomplish much. I think this will be a straight ticket vote for me this time.
But as you say one party is not that much different than the other in many respects. I am presently working on a post now how these guys feed off each other to get donations. That is a pitiful way to fund campaigns.
Anonymous, I don’t know what high school you went to but Rand is no more required reading in our area high schools than is the Communist Manifesto.
I will tell you why I am disgusted with politics and that is because of the way your heroes have shut down any progress for the jobless in our society. As for the poor CEOs who are taxed to death actual taxes paid by corporations are the lowest they have been in generations and CEO pay is absolutely the highest it has ever been. So, I don’t have much sympathy for them. If you want to see a successful economy look to Germany and tell me what you find.
Yes since in your mind Obama is a Muslim terrorist and not even an American he became president so he could destroy this country. Why not just give him an anti-Christ label as well? It doesn’t seem to be much of a stretch.
My spiritual foundation goes against so much of what Ms. Rand espoused that I have a had time seeing anything good from her. She ranted for years about the safety nets and then went about collecting her social security under her maiden name as to not draw attention to her hypocrisy.
Since you choose to be anonymous I have no idea if you have refused your Medicare and Social Security payments that you rail so much about also. We will see who prevails here in a few months but I will not be surprised to see the GOP routed because of their current obstructionistic tactics. What goes around comes around my friend.
We should not judge a country by only one of its citizens. If we did that then we would have to be accountable for our ancestors who decided African are not human beings. We also have to answer for the many home grown terrorists in recent years. Germany is the only prosperous country in the E.U. right now and that is because of their regulations and insisting on the workers get paid a rightful portion of the profits.
Yes this is going to be a very interesting election. Will the people put the party back into power who caused the problems we have been plagued with and then prevented most of the things that could have relieved them from being so severe solely because they didn’t want the current Oval Office holder to get any credit.? I give most voters more sense than that.
I think the GOP will be paying their dues for that mistake. Maybe for years to come or I can only hope for years to come.
Being a Catholic (I was one once) which side of the Ryan budget to you fall into? The church view that says it is immoral or the Ryan view?
And your Anonymous poster here would also be Morrison, aka alicia, as well. Her education in Catholic schools has been well documented over the years on her blogs, and her postings on other blogs.
The tone of her posts are always very similar, and she is easy to spot, anonymous or otherwise. Look for the poisoned arrow . . . it’s always there.
if you are determined to look at Germany- see that they pay about 40% of their income to the state. Germans do just about everything for their state. They are regulated- from consumption of gas to walking in the forest. There are few “rights”. I remember being told that if I driving down the autobaun and a policeman put his sign out—STOP—or pay the consequences. Freedom of speech is a fleeting idea there. don’t go shopping on Sunday. And take your vacation for 2 weeks in August! (Still, I love to visit.)
We are responsible for our ancestors who chose to agree that AA were not people. We are not responsible for home grown terrorists—unless we are willing to shut down Mosques that breed them. Which is more important–freedom of religion or fear of misuse of religious institutions?
The Catholic Church has not come out for or against Ryan’s plan—some Bishops have. CC HAS come out distinctly on the side of Pro- Life—which is on the Republican platform and not the Democrat’s. Not sure that open abortion should be anywhere in our society. If you vote the Democratic ticket–you are agreeing that abortion is fine.
As far as reading philosophy and Catholic Schools—I read a lot of it. It was debated from both sides (as actual debates are conducted). The idea is that you take the best of all ideas and move them to synthesis and agreement. It is a lost skill in the US today (and a reason I plan on paying for my grandchild to go to a solid Catholic high school).
Your summary of Ryan is sad. You do not include anything that made him the person he is. I didn’t know you when Barack was running the first time—but I am betting you went deeply into his background as well…..
Hi Janette. Yes there are consequences to having a prosperous economy. As you say Germany pays quite a bit in taxes for their prosperity and so do most of the Scandinavian countries but polls constantly show that they are among the happiest people on earth. They don’t have the everyday worries that we do about getting sick or putting food on the table. They know if they fall on temporary hard times that there is a safety net to catch them.
I don’t think all home-grown terrorists are Muslim and maybe not even the majority. I know Timothy McFey was just a survivalist nut case and quite a few others were also of that flavor. To label all terrorists as Muslim is a mistake and an affront to all the moderate Muslims who are U.S. citizens.
You say by voting Democrat I am saying abortion is fine. No absolutely not!! If that were the case I would not even be allowed to vote at the Republican have been against abortion in voice only. They had solid majorities in every branch of the government in the early 2000s and nothing was even brought up about abortion. So who is worse, those who say they are against abortion and do nothing about it or those who are not. We should be seeking those people who do something to at least reduce it.
I am not, as it seems many Republicans say about Obama, that Ryan is evil or such. I started and finished off with statements that he is a likable person who has a way with words and loves his family. It is just that he seems to lack even the basic empathy for those who make less than six figures a year. I am basing my future voting on actions and not just rhetoric. My foundation in life is the Sermon on the Mount and I can’t see much in Mr. Ryan’s bio that shows much respect for that theology. If you can cite examples in Mr. Ryan’s legislative accomplishments to the contrary I would love to hear them.
It is really nice to have differences and be able to discus them calmly. If only our representative in Washington could emulate us