Ryan's Way -this year, next year, sometime, never?

[Stavros]

The New York Times has been posting some intriguing articles about Paul Ryan, unable to decide if he is stalking the candidates for the 2016 Republican nomination, and waiting for a white horse to idle by; or if he has decided the present battle is lost, but that the war for the survival of the GOP will offer him his chance of glory in the succeeding years. I don't know much about him, other than what I see on the YouTube clips, which is an alarming tendency to throw his arms out wide on a regular basis (like Sanders' right arm).

Is Paul Ryan the man of destiny?
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/11/us...=top-news&_r=0

[nitron]

One thing that has always troubled me about Libertarian-ism, is that if the State gets out of the way of Free markets, then what will prevent a monopoly from taking root, and the resulting decrease in creativity/improvement of society.Considering Human nature,hahahaha.

[hippifried]

Ryan's just another fanatical follower of the crackpot egoist Ayn Rand. He's not libertarian, & he's not going to be POTUS.

[trish]

I mentioned this possibility back in
http://www.hungangels.com/vboard/sho...=1#post1680042

I agree that Ryan is follower of Ayn Rand (in fact he gives out copies of Atlas Shrugged to the people who work for him) but that’s exactly what a libertarian is. Ayn Rand practically defined the term. However, even though theism is a foundational pillar of Rand’s libertarianism, most American libertarian politicians (Paul Ryan, Rand and Ron Paul) claim to believe selfishness is a virtue and at the same time claim to have Christian values.

Von Neumann and Morgenstern demonstrate with mathematical certainty (in their work on the game theoretic foundations of economics) exactly what Nitron suggests: without regulation, economic players in a free market will either be forced to drop out or will form coalitions. In the end there will remain just a handful of very wealthy players.

[hippifried]

Sorry Trish my darling. (& you are my darling despite our disagreements) A true libertarian does not deny the existence of altruism or its benefits, or the benefits of collective action, or refuse to give credit to those who help bring about desired results. Egoism was the term she used to describe her philosophy before being convinced that "objectivism" brought in more funding, regardless of the term being bogus. She was never libertarian. Egoists seek control for themselves, & will fight tooth & nail to keep other collectives from undermining the egoist rules. Christian values? I don't think so. Jesus was way beyond ulterior motives for doing the right thing. Egoism is nothing but a handful of gimme & a mouthful of fuck you. Crackpot nonsense. "Objectivism" is a cult.

The concept of libertarianism is based around human rights. The right to live free of unwarranted interference or victimization. It doesn't negate the moral code or dehumanize those who choose a different path. There's no claim that collective society is inherently evil. It's really not all that radical a concept, regardless of the continuing attempt by cult fanatics to co-opt the name for their own descriptive. It's like religious zealots, who would overturn democracy in favor of theocracy, calling themselves "conservative". Libertarianism & egoism are not interchangeable.

[Stavros]

I mentioned this possibility back in
http://www.hungangels.com/vboard/sho...=1#post1680042

Apologies, I knew there had been something on Ryan somewhere in the section but couldn't find it before opening a new thread.

[trish]

Thanks for the correction Hippiefried. Libertarianism does seem to be older and broader than Ayn Rand’s reinvention of it. When a philosopher says he’s libertarian you can be sure she advocates personal autonomy and a form of free-market capitalism, but she may not be an objectivist. When a U.S. politician says he’s libertarian, I’d be willing to bet he almost always means he read and assimilated a lot of Ayn Rand in his youth. Ask any college age libertarian what that means by the word and he’ll recommend Atlas Shrugged, or any of a number of Rand’s horrid novels. To quote David Boaz of the libertarian Cato Institute, “Rand’s work rests squarely within the libertarian tradition, with roots going back to Aristotle, Aquinas, Locke, Jefferson, Paine, Bastiat, Spencer, Mill, and Mises.”

http://www.cato.org/publications/com...y/ayn-rand-100

No apology required, Stavros. After reading it again I wonder how anyone could possibly make sense of my unproofed, error riddled prose.

[Stavros]

"To quote David Boaz of the libertarian Cato Institute, “Rand’s work rests squarely within the libertarian tradition, with roots going back to Aristotle, Aquinas, Locke, Jefferson, Paine, Bastiat, Spencer, Mill, and Mises.”

-I would like to know how anyone can put Aquinas in the 'Libertarian' tradition given that he was more or less a slave of the Vatican. Thirteen volumes of the Summa Theologica designed to dismiss the emergence of science as an alternative to the truth and reality as revealed by the New Testament and an Infallible Pope to whom all must bend the knee. I would also take Locke, Spencer and Mill out of the 'tradition' as they promoted a liberal view of the state rather than relegating it to a stamp office and the source of national security. I would have thought Robert Nozick was the paragon of American libertarians, it used to be the case that students were asked to compare and contrast Nozick's view of the state in Anarchy, State and Utopia, with John Rawls' A Theory of Justice, but these days that sounds like a lot of difficult reading. Oddest of all, Lenin believed the state would eventually 'wither away', and Ayn Rand was in her own way influenced by the Bolsheviks before she left Russia -there is an article on it somewhere on the web.

[Stavros]

So, farewell then, Paul Ryan. Unless he makes a dramatic comeback in the future he can now spend more time with his family. His legacy by 2020 will be tax cuts for the rich, tax rises for the poor and another trillion $ on the deficit, for which as long ago as 2012 he was described as a 'deficit hawk hypocrite', thus:

What caused the country to blow a big budget surplus and end up with a $1 trillion deficit and $16 trillion national debt? Sen. Bernie Sanders says the major factors were unfunded wars, tax breaks for the rich, Wall Street deregulation and a prescription drug program that made it illegal for the government to bargain for lower prices. Rep. Paul Ryan, a self-styled deficit hawk, voted for all of them.

Ryan voted for wars in Iraq and Afghanistan without a way to pay for them. He supported tax cuts for the wealthy. He voted for the deregulation of Wall Street, which led to the recession and falling revenues. And Ryan backed the prescription drug program that House Republicans rigged to favor the pharmaceutical industry.
https://www.politicususa.com/2012/08...paul-ryan.html

so Congress has not lost very much, America has lost nothing at all.

[trish]

The real reason the GOP libertarians went along with the foolhardy vote to blow-up the deficit is that an unmanageable deficit will give impetus for others to endorse their mission to cut back, privatize or perhaps even end various liberal programs such as social security, medicare, medicaid, the ACA, etc.