By Warner Todd Huston ——Bio and Archives--August 11, 2012
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I grew up reading Ayn Rand and it taught me quite a bit about who I am and what my value systems are, and what my beliefs are. It’s inspired me so much that it’s required reading in my office for all my interns and my staff. We start with Atlas Shrugged. People tell me I need to start with The Fountainhead then go to Atlas Shrugged [laughter]. There’s a big debate about that. We go to Fountainhead, but then we move on, and we require Mises and Hayek as well.From this the left went off like a dog with a bone imagining that Ryan was claiming to be a full-on Randian. Then, this year, Paul Ryan gave an interview to National Review and there he disavowed being a strict devote of Ayn Rand. As Ryan told the National Review:
“I, like millions of young people in America, read Rand’s novels when I was young. I enjoyed them,” Ryan says. “They spurred an interest in economics, in the Chicago School and Milton Friedman,” a subject he eventually studied as an undergraduate at Miami University in Ohio. “But it’s a big stretch to suggest that a person is therefore an Objectivist.” “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, the left said, proves he is a flip flopper or a liar. But, again, none of it is true. First of all Ryan does not disavow being a fan of Ayn Rand's work. He fully admits that as a young man he was influenced by her economic theories and her energetic apologia for capitalism. But he has never, ever said he was enamored of her objectivist ideals. There are no quotes from him accepting Rand's strict philosophy. Another area where Ryan parts company with Ayn Rand reveals a key difference between them. Rand was a vehement opponent of religion — all religion — as well as its moral strictures. But Paul Ryan is a committed Catholic. As he stated in the quote above Ryan has never signed onto her anti-religious ideals. Ryan's compassionate Catholicism is what makes it impossible for him to be a full-throated Randian. Still, the left claims that Paul Ryan's budget policies are intended to throw grandma out on the street and that he intends an Ayn Rand-like destruction the welfare state. But the truth is, his Roadmap For America's Future goes out of its way to save the welfare state by paring it down to an economically sustainable form. Ryan is not proposing any end to the welfare state. Ayn Rand was not nearly so kind. She called the welfare state an imposition of complete immorality on a polity and opposed its construction. What ever you think of her philosophy there is no evidence that Paul Rayn ever signed on to all of her ideas. So, it just isn't true that Paul Ryan is some wild-eyed “objectivist” ready to tear down grandma's safety net. Paul Ryan is clearly a fan of Ayn Rand in many ways. But he is not a Randian objectivist. And he never was.
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Warner Todd Huston’s thoughtful commentary, sometimes irreverent often historically based, is featured on many websites such as Breitbart.com, among many, many others. He has also written for several history magazines, has appeared on numerous TV and radio shows.
He is also the owner and operator of Publius’ Forum.