August 30, 2012

"And when Ryan riffed on the handful of jobs he briefly held, his Ayn Randian roots were clear."

Writes Joan Walsh at Salon. Here's what Paul Ryan said that Walsh thinks is "straight out of Rand, and ’50s anti-Communist paranoia":
“When I was waiting tables, washing dishes, or mowing lawns for money, I never thought of myself as stuck in some station in life... I was on my own path, my own journey, an American journey where I could think for myself, decide for myself, define happiness for myself. That’s what we do in this country. That’s the American Dream. That’s freedom, and I’ll take it any day over the supervision and sanctimony of the central planners.”
If you believe the individual can think and decide for himself and pursue happiness as he defines it... you're delusional — in Walsh's view. You see what she's saying? She's saying you didn't build that — the very phrase Obama is straining to disown. You didn't build that, you can't build that, and you're psychotic if you imagine that you can. She's deeply into the collectivism the Democrats don't want to openly embrace.

But she doesn't think she's openly embracing it. She thinks Ryan is paranoid to imply that the Democrats favor "the supervision and sanctimony of the central planners." Pressed, she might — I assume — assert that it's fine for individuals to try to come up with their own ideas about what they want to do with their lives and to set out to achieve their goals, but that it's inaccurate to portray this enterprise as solitary and in defiance of the larger efforts of government and society (which they depend on no matter what they do).

But that's not what Walsh says. She's stirring up partisan discord and not inclined to concede that our differences, in the United States, are only a matter of leaning toward individualism or collectivism as we mostly keep to the middle of the road.

230 comments:

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Alex said...

Synova - Paul Ryan wasn't stuck because he was smart and motivated. The average entry-level worker is dumb and unmotivated. You can see the cow-like gaze at the fast food window. These are not future leaders.

Synova said...

Then-candidate Obama promised "...that this plant will be here for another hundred years." He did not explicitly promise that anyone would be working in it.

Politifact rates this promise "mostly kept"
.

LOL.

That's the way to parse the promises. After all, claiming he promised that the plant would be open and people working in it clearly requires mind reading.

Colonel Angus said...

Actually Lindsey, I have no problem flying that baby at home because my business was up an running quite nicely before my wife married my sorry ass. I didn't need her to build it and I certainly don't need her to help me maintain it.

Again, if everyone contributes to my success, do they all contribute to a business owner's failure? You don't seem to have a snappy answer for that.

Synova said...

"Synova - Paul Ryan wasn't stuck because he was smart and motivated. The average entry-level worker is dumb and unmotivated. You can see the cow-like gaze at the fast food window. These are not future leaders."

Not everyone needs to be.

I'm not a leader. Never will be. My idea of eternal torment in hell is arriving to find out I'm a CEO of an international company and I can't quit.

Everyone *can* learn to be a good employee, learn good work habits, and move UP, though. With the exception of the developmentally disabled that fast food places hire to sweep (and that is an awesome thing, too, because people find value in themselves when they are valued with employment and a measure of independence) anyone who can hold down a burger flipping job can work their way up to and hold a better job.

(And most drive-through attendants are perky, and able to process several orders at a time from two lines of cars. I find this amazing.)

machine said...

But the Wisconsin congressman’s speech strained facts on multiple occasions. And that has rankled more than just the usual suspects. Several mainstream outlets that have praised him in the past pointedly went after his misleading portrayals of critical issues at stake in this election.

The Associated Press took on Ryan’s misleading assertions in an article headlined, “FACT CHECK: Ryan takes factual shortcuts in speech,” which included a point-by-point refutation of various claims he made.

Bob Ellison said...

In an earlier comment, I wondered who had written the "Ryan lied" talking points memo. Robert Stacy McCain seems to have cracked the case: it was in a fundraising email before Paul Ryan spoke a word.

This is Nixonian.

Colonel Angus said...

Several mainstream outlets that have praised him in the past pointedly went after his misleading portrayals of critical issues at stake in this election.

Would they only done that with the same vigor and persistence in 2008 I would not have to continue to ask why Obama deserves to be re-elected based upon his job performance.

furious_a said...

Synova: ...there wasn't any implication there where a reasonable person would believe Obama was saying that his election would bring this to pass.

Not to mention that Pres. Obama made that promise about that specific GM plant in person to a crowd of people many of whose livelihoods depended on that GM plant remaining open. Shame on him, but at least he got their votes.

Fprawl said...

Hi Synova,
would you agree or disagree that both Obama's original and Ryan's retelling are pandering, not lying?

Alex said...

Synova - true enough some of the drive-through attendants are perky and motivated. I peg those to rise up to manager position some day.

Alex said...

Becoming a McDonald's floor manager - the American dream!

I'm Full of Soup said...

"Several mainstream outlets that have praised him in the past ....
The Associated Press ..."

Haha Machine- you think the AP is a middle of the road news group? Get a grip- Richard Alonzo has been writing economic apologies for the Dems since Bush left office.

And speaking of racism, take a look at the AP's Board of Directors sometime- it's awfully white!

machine said...

On the other hand, to anyone paying the slightest bit of attention to facts, Ryan’s speech was an apparent attempt to set the world record for the greatest number of blatant lies and misrepresentations slipped into a single political speech. On this measure, while it was Romney who ran the Olympics, Ryan earned the gold.

wow...when even Fox News calls you a liar...

Brian Brown said...

machine said...

wow...when even Fox News calls you a liar...


Hey dum-dum:

That wasn't "fox news"

That was someone offering an opinion.

You do understand there is a difference, right?

Robert Pearson said...

You are now about to witness the strength of reason

Verse One: Paul Ryan

Straight outta Rand, crazy m*********** named Ryan
From the gang called GOP
When I'm called off, I take the gloves off
Rhyme a syllogism, and bodies are hauled off
You too, Walsh, if ya f*** with me
Mitt Romney gonna hafta come and get me
Off yo ass, that's how I'm goin out
For the punk m*********** that's showin out
Progressives start to mumble, they wanna rumble
I throw the math and they cry and stumble
Goin off on a m********* like that
with a sharp brain that's pointed at yo ass
So give it up smooth..
Ain't no tellin when I'm down for a rational mind move
Here's a budget rap to keep yo thinkin
with a debt like that, you should be blinkin
Reason is the tool
Don't try and call me no m********* fool
Me you can go toe to toe, no maybe
I'm knockin liberals out tha box, daily
yo weekly, monthly and yearly
until them dumb m********* see clearly
that I'm down with the capital R-A-N-D
Boy you can't f*** with me
So when I'm in your neighborhood, you better duck
Coz Paul Ryan is logical as f***
As I leave, believe it, I'm manned
and when I come back, boy, I'm comin straight outta Rand

PianoLessons said...

Alex - Yes - for many, many Americans, a promotion to be a McDonald's floor manager is the American Dream.

From my 2nd favorite GOP convention speaker Governor Susana Martinez:

New Mexico Governor Susana Martinez catapulted to the national stage Wednesday night with her remarks at the Republican National Convention, telling her path to the GOP and why she believes her party, led by Mitt Romney, will offer the best future for the United States moving forward.

“Growing up, I never imagined a girl from a border town could one day become a governor. But this is America Y, en America todo es posible,”said Martinez, who is the first Latina governor in United States history.

Nate Whilk said...

Lindsey Meadows said For once and for all, Obama didn't say "you didn't build that" referring to anything other than other people helped out, teachers, mentors, others who helped with infrastructure, and above all, others that produced the nation we and you live in, in which people can flourish. The GOP has truncated that phrase and thought and you quote it and that is dishonest.

This supposed intent is such an obvious, anodyne idea that one has to wonder why he gave it such emphasis. Personally, I didn't wonder very long.

Even if that's really all he meant, it's still a lie. For you to say otherwise is dishonest. WE really did build that. Everybody has already paid their lawful share via taxes to build and maintain that. And "The Government" is still "We, the People". WE (taxpayers) paid for it, and WE (the people) built it. You want to change the share we pay? Get it through Congress. But don't hold your breath.

We American Kulaks will NOT let you take everything without a fight. http://legalinsurrection.com/2009/02/the-revolt-of-the-kulaks-has-begun/

Sheridan said...

How ironic that the phrase "Hope and Change" now rightly applies to the Romney/Ryan ticket. And it's logical that this should happen as "hope and change", in my opinion, is a primary characteristic of the "ideal American" as was taught to me by my parents and my teachers when I was growing-up in the 1950's. I was taught and came to believe that each new day signals a new opportunity to do something new and different and achieve either a success or at least a different outcome.

I maintained that belief through school, the Service (yes, even during the Vietnam era), marriage, work and even now in retirement. Simple-minded or quintessentially American? Perhaps some of both. For me, at least, when I hear a 42-year old Paul Ryan speak the same language of inclusion, opportunity, risk-taking and personal responsibility that I heard nearly every day in my youth, my impulse is to give him and Romney, the man who selected Paul Ryan, my vote.

And this is where voting becomes problematic because I was taught to vote for the candidate's expressed policies, not his personality. Will Romney/Ryan eventually disappoint me in some important aspect? No doubt. They are human and fallible and will weaken when I want them to be firm. But with them, I feel strongly that they will not, either through action or inaction, put in jeopardy the viability of the Republic. I cannot be so certain with Obama.

As I look back in time, no President, neither Nixon nor Carter especially, caused me to doubt their personal connection to my own, personal vision of the American "idea". But with Obama, there is a casualness of word and behavior - a lack of sustained seriousness - that creates a significant doubt in my mind that he truly subscribes to the concept of America that has sustained me, through success and failure, elation and despair, all my life.

How many other Americans feel as I do? We'll find out soon enough.

Anonymous said...

Does anyone else (who isn't innumerate) find this quote from the article funny?:
"and the stimulus is known to have saved between 1.4 and 3.3 million jobs"

Alex said...

Politifact claims stimulus saved between 1.5 and 3 million jobs

Alex said...

Fact is, to say that the stimulus brought back private sector jobs is fallacy. Eve hear of correlation != causation? Show me your work liberals.

Anonymous said...

There is a little bit of "The Secret" in libertarian thinking. (I was a libertarian for many years.) The idea that you could have freedom and control your own fate is what drew me to the philosophy in the first place.

Let's just say there are forces you are far less likely to overcome under certain conditions. Yeah, some people get through the walls, just like one sperm out of millions gets to the egg, but it *is* delusional and magical thinking to imagine that everyone can if they just believe and work hard. The system does not allow for that - especially a global system.

Alex said...

nights - pure libertarianism is a teenage to early 20s phase everyone goes through. Then you live in the real world and realize that certain things society has to get together on. But outside of those things - a man's home is his castle and that should be respected.

PianoLessons said...

Dad29 (a Wisconsin blogger) has this great post:

Pick a Number, Any Number
Biden bumbles. Obozo just makes it up as he goes along.[in 2012 dates - my add]

....on Aug. 14, he told a crowd in Waterloo, Iowa: "I'll make sure government still does its part to reduce our debt and our deficits. We've cut out already a trillion dollars' worth of spending we don't need."

On June 22, in Tampa, Fla., he said: "We're going to reduce our deficit by $4 trillion. I have a detailed plan. We'll cut spending we can't afford."

On June 12, in Philadelphia, he said: "And I've already signed $2 trillion of cuts into law already and have proposed $2 trillion in additional deficit reduction."

Wally Kalbacken said...

Joan - prepare for a rude awakening on November 7th.

Joe Schmoe said...

The Associated Press took on Ryan’s misleading assertions in an article headlined, “FACT CHECK: Ryan takes factual shortcuts in speech,” which included a point-by-point refutation of various claims he made.

Dammit, Bob Ellison, you beat me to it. I was going to add that the AP's headline was already written before Ryan ever released the text of his speech.

Not that the AP had written and published such a headline before Ryan's speech; just that it was a forgone conclusion. They were going to go after anything he said.

Here's an example of a 'fact check' from the AP:
RYAN: Obama "created a bipartisan debt commission. They came back with an urgent report. He thanked them, sent them on their way and then did exactly nothing."

THE FACTS: It's true that Obama hasn't heeded his commission's recommendations, but Ryan's not the best one to complain. He was a member of the commission and voted against its final report.


How the hell is Ryan lying about anything? He voted his conscience because he didn't agree with the report's final findings. He did agree with some content of the report; he just thought it should go farther in other areas like entitlements.

Obama, on the other hand, was welcome to implement any part of the findings, including the Democrat-favored ones. There were no requirements that it was an all-or-nothing endeavor. He could've even picked the parts he liked and ignored the parts he didn't. I guess reading anything titled "Fiscal Responsibility and Reform" was like being behind enemy lines for him.

Ryan was a bit player on the commission pushing for conservative restraint, as was his job. His vote against did not stop the final report. That's how the commission was set up to work. All Obama had to do was follow any of its findings. He had the Congress to do it. Instead, he did zero. Zilch. Zip. Just like him. Zero.

AP fact checking is just slipshod, inaccurate comparisons resulting in partisan cheap shots.

Synova said...

"Hi Synova,
would you agree or disagree that both Obama's original and Ryan's retelling are pandering, not lying?
"

Anyone giving a speech has to typify a situation in a few words. This is not a treatise on the closing of an automobile plant, it's a summary.

Is it pandering? To the extent that someone giving a campaign speech is not going to pick something uninteresting or unimportant to speak about, I suppose it's pandering. But we put moral weight on the word pandering to mean more than that.

So, first, was Obama pandering? If he understood that he could do jack-all about the plant closing, but chose to act like he could in order to get votes, that was pandering.

Ryan telling an audience who wants to hear about how pointless Obama is, maybe, or just "playing to the audience".

But calling one sentence of three and ignoring where he *said* that they were losing the plant when Obama spoke... I don't know that I can agree that Ryan was pandering just because it's clear that he wasn't lying.

I also don't see how Obama's speech can be taken as honestly not promising what he *appears* to be promising.

Really. Someone could do a test here, change names and parties around and have people evaluate the claim and counter claim for what was promised by whom and what claim was made about it. People *want* to nit-pick Ryan and they *want* to give Obama a pass.

Synova said...

"Let's just say there are forces you are far less likely to overcome under certain conditions. Yeah, some people get through the walls, just like one sperm out of millions gets to the egg, but it *is* delusional and magical thinking to imagine that everyone can if they just believe and work hard. The system does not allow for that - especially a global system."

People seem to insist that "free market" and opportunities means that government lets non-government groups control the market. What about that is "free?"

Government ought to be ensuring free markets and free participation in the economy. Instead government puts up walls and then justifies it's own existence by the need to help people get through those walls. And then, because things are unfair and the big-boys are bullies, people demand that their elected folks "do something" and so more walls are put up, more regulations and more hoops to try to keep the dominating elements in check, but those with resources can navigate that, so the only people who are held back are the ones who were already not competing as well as they could.

I'm not an anarchist and I'm even far far from strictly libertarian, but if we *need* government to make sure people are given equal access to full economic participation, we're doing the wrong things.

We're incentivising the wrong things, regulating the wrong things, punishing the wrong things, and growing a social welfare system in response to all those wrong things we've done and now need to clean up after.

It's so bad that people are portraying an assertion that working crappy jobs is the beginning of building the American dream as something like hate speech.

That blows my mind.

Mick said...

Alex said...

"Politifact claims stimulus saved between 1.5 and 3 million jobs"


Politifact is an arm of the DNC

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