• • Secret Ryan Transcript: Social Security and Medicare are the Target 
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Atheism  |Atlas Shrugged  |The Fountainhead  |Capitalism  |Individualism  | For Ryan “defined benefit” programs such as Social Security and Medicare are problems in themselves. This isn’t something he saves for gatherings of the Ayn Rand Society, such concerns about “dependency” are scattered throughout his Path to Prosperity.  

• • • Ryan renounces Rand for Aquinas 
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Atheism  |Individualism  |Paul Ryan  | Under fire for misrepresenting Catholic Social Teaching before his speach at Georgetown, Congressman Ryan aimed to debunk the “urban legend” that he is follower of Ayn Rand in an interview at The National Review.Well, there is this Ryan Campaign video. http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=1191939045695 We report, you decide. But do so quickly, before it’s scrubbed.  

• Dolan, Ryan, and an Unfulfilled Vision of Transpartisan Witness 
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Paul Ryan  | Rep. Paul Ryan, feeling heat from the political backlash against his budget sent a public letter to Archbishop Dolan offering a Catholic apologia for a budget inspired more by Ayn Rand than Leo XIII, or John Paul II.  

• Conclusion of Boehner Commencement Saga 
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Atheism  |Paul Ryan  | The Republican House leadership seems to be hurtling toward a head-on collision with the counsel of the American Bishops, and it is not just [House Speaker John] Boehner. Paul Ryan, another Catholic and the intellectual author of the Republican budget proposal, has offered cogent explanations about how his thought is consistent with that of atheist libertarian philosopher Ayn Rand. He has not, so far as I know, explained its relationship to the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church.  

• • • Ayn Rand, Paul Ryan, and an ideology never challenged 
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Altruism  |Atlas Shrugged  |Egoism  |Paul Ryan  | Congressman Paul Ryan is a Rand devotee. He calls her “ the reason I got involved in public service” and requires his staffers to read Atlas Shrugged. Indeed Ryan’s celebrated budget proposal reads like it was written by John Galt himself. It is one grand shrug of the wealthy--combining further upper income tax cuts with slashes to Medicaid and the conversion of Medicare to a shrinking voucher. It is worth noting that Ryan is Catholic. I wonder if he knows that both his principles and policies are fundamentally opposed to the social teaching of the Church?  

• • A libertarian in the senate? 
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Capitalism  |Egoism  | [Peter] Schiff made his name predicting a meltdown in the U.S. economy and a video compilation of his predictions went viral, garnering a million hits on YouTube. But, his prognostications are worrisome. Schiff hails from the Ayn Rand school of economic and social theory. Ms. Rand, you will recall, came to America and reached the conclusion that what this nation needed was more selfishness. In the economic realm, this has translated into libertarianism of the kind espoused by Congressman Ron Paul in the 2008 GOP primaries.