Pierce begins: "Ladies and gentlemen, we present to you today's worst paragraph in political rhetoric, courtesy of Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Dickens), in an appearance at the Heritage Foundation, which must be like seeing The Beatles at The Cavern in Liverpool, back in the day. Take it away, big guy."
Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan makes the GOP case against healthcare reform. (photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty)
Paul Ryan Is Living In an Ayn Rand Fantasy Land
27 October 11
adies and gentlemen, we present to you today's worst paragraph in political rhetoric, courtesy of Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Dickens), in an appearance at the Heritage Foundation, which must be like seeing The Beatles at The Cavern in Liverpool, back in the day. Take it away, big guy.
"We're coming close to a tipping point in America where we might have a net majority of takers versus makers in society and that could become very dangerous if it sets in as a permanent condition. Because what we will end up doing is we will convert our safety net system - which is necessary I believe to help people who can't themselves, to help people who are down on their luck get back onto their feet - into a hammock that ends up lulling people into lives of dependency and complacency which drains them of their incentive and the will to make the most of their lives."
Sentence No. 1: pure Ayn Rand. "Makers vs. takers." Moochers and leeches. You and Them. But especially Them. But not in a divisive way. Oh, no. The Congressman doesn't believe in divisive class rhetoric. He said so - "To my great disappointment, it appears that the politics of division are making a big comeback. Many Americans share my disappointment ..." - earlier in his remarks. And he is not engaging in the politics of division himself. Oh, no. He's just sad - mournful, even - that the "conceits of liberalism" are on their way to dividing the country into "makers versus takers." And you know who you are, don't you? And who They are. And what They are taking ... from You.
And also, it has apparently escaped the congressman's notice, probably because he's so saddened by the politics of division that he sees all around him, and by the fight between makers and takers, which he wishes wasn't taking place, and wouldn't be, if it weren't for those damn liberals over there, but we don't "make" a helluva lot in this country any more, and the reason that we don't make much in this country any more is because, 30 years ago, we put our brains in cold storage and started taking crackpot conservative economics seriously. The difference between a maker and a taker in the economy is whether or not the widget plant moved to China, or whether or not the company got broken up and its pension plan pillaged because some deregulated Wall Street ferret created a new way to steal other people's money. That's what we "make" now: complicated new financial instruments with which the "makers" can lift our wallets.
(Let us pause briefly here to point out that anyone who takes Ayn Rand seriously at Paul Ryan's age desperately needs to get out in the fresh air and sunshine more.)
Sentence No. 2: an entire K-Tel collection of Golden Oldies. "A Safety net, not a hammock." "Dependency." "Complacency." "The Draining of The Will." (That last one sounds like a film on penile abscesses directed by Leni Riefenstahl.) Holy god, this stuff was old when Newt Gingrich was peddling it in his previous life. Tell us, congressman, when you were skating for a couple of years on your Social Security survivor's benefits, and when your family stayed on the government dole for longer that that, "taking" from, among other people, my parents and me, how did you manage not to be "lulled" into a life of "complacency" and "dependency"? How were you not "drained" of your "incentive"? How was your "will to make the most of your life" not drained, as well. What's the magic number? Two years on the dole? Three? Five? Let us know so we can stop pestering you and find our bootstraps.
I suspect it was because, after you left the family earth-moving business, you eventually went to work on a government paycheck for Senator Bob Kasten, and then you went to work on a government paycheck for Senator Sam Brownback, and then you went briefly into the private sector - as a speechwriter for the late Jack Kemp - before going back on a government paycheck when you were elected to the House, 13 years ago. At which point, you became the pet Big Thinker and point man for a bunch of rich people, including many - Was the wine to your liking, by the way? - of the same folks that crashed the economy in 2008, thereby creating the conditions that, much to your obvious pain and chagrin, are turning so many of your fellow citizens into dependent, complacent, will-lacking slobs, because they're taking unemployment benefits. That pretty much guaranteed you wouldn't be paying for your own dinners much any more.
Stop running away from your constituents, and siccing the cops on them back home while you're in Hawaii, and ask some guy who got laid off at the Janesville GM plant last spring, if his primary worry is that his unemployment check is turning him complacent and draining him of his incentive to look for a job that probably isn't there, because unemployment in your district is running in double digits. Is that guy a maker or a taker? Speak up. Your constituents would like to know. If they can afford a ticket, that is.
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Comments
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2. How the 1% apologists twist the truth! The true 'takers' are those who shamefully feel entitled to steal from the 99% and call it free enterprise!
Anyway, we all know that now, so we can tear up his plan for prosperity, and quit listening to him.
Quoting
Go back and read the article again (with an open mind) and you'll find the refutation that lies in the real reason "making" has been taken away from the ex-makers: the bosses found a supply of slave labor overseas.
Martin missed the part in school where he had to understand what he read. Maybe he wasn't fortunate enough to get an excellent public school education available to persons like myself. Lower middle class urban.
So, of course he must because like all of the rest of them he's clueless about what he's defending but his party says it's right.
Do you know what you are saying and how foolish you sound? Pierce's editorial is excellent! Pierce utilizes a classic icon (Ann Rand) to enlighten his readers metaphorically on Paul Ryan's arrogant, egoistic, self-serving attitude and to poke fun at his out of time/out of style anachronistic ideas which is his way of refuting both Ryan and Ann Rand's ideas. You got lost in the editorial when you thought Pierce insulted Ryan when it was Ryan who denigrated himself by telling his audience how little he cares about them and how little he intends to do for them because HE IS A MORON!
If you tried to read "Paraadise Lost" like a novel, that's where you lost Milton. I agree with you about Paul Ryan, except it's his heart not his soul that is no bigger than a "gutter snipe". A person's heart is a reflection of their soul.
The takers are the ones taking trillions of dollars out of our economy to fight pointless wars.
And the would-be makers are of course those who want to be productive, but because we've wrecked our economy and closed 50,000 factories, cannot be.
Ending the wars will solve the "taker" problem, and there are lots of ways we can try getting the economy going again (such as modest tariffs on imported manufactured goods).
But everybody in the ruling class seems very reluctant to do anything like this.
:(
The Takers are the ONE PERCENT. When they have rung the last bit of work, innovation, loyalty, hope, and enterprise out of the 99% they are willing to raise the drawbridge, thumb their nose and count there bounty, using it to exploit the next opportunity, the next countries resources, the next generations hope.
The greatest takers are the people who are at the top of our society's wealth and power pyramid. The rest of us seek aid from some other entity than ourselves because the plutocracy of Wall Street has taken it all in the last thirty years.
is running against Ryan. For address,
point your browser at
http://www.robzerban.com/
Alan McConnell, in Silver Spring MD
That is 15K/year.
Try paying rent, food and transportation anywhere for only $480/week. Remember, those Corporations are getting tax breaks to send the jobs overseas. They are holding onto record profits because they don't have to pay workers a living wage.
Raise the minimum wage to a living wage, tax companies that outsource work, and double that tax when they outsource it overseas. Then stand back because the economy will take off.
Apple, Broadcom, Cisco, Google, Microsoft, Pfizer, Oracle and others.
These are multinationals which cut 2.9 million jobs in the U.S. and added 2.4 million jobs overseas between 2000-2009.
Making money off of other people's hard work and talent is NOT being a maker, it is being a taker. Privatizing gains and socializing losses is again, being a taker.
If one were to take Ryan's arguments seriously, the people in the safety net are the wealthy and ultra-wealthy. They are the only ones whose wage is going up. They are highly dependent on a Congress that does their bidding.
Perhaps the ultra wealthy need some incentive to start creating jobs (after all, that was the whole point of cutting taxes, that it would release money to create more jobs). Apparently, in Ryan's myopic view, those out of work are out of work because, well, they just want to be taken care of. Classic, if 100% wrong.
Reagan, once described a welfare mother who lived a luxurious life in a ritzy hotel. When push came to shove, he admitted to making it all up, but argued that even if the person didn't exist, there were some elements of truth. Huh? Ryan is engaging in the same kind of lie.
The GOP is intent on dismantling the safety net (it has never been a "hammock"). If he thinks that welfare is all that great, perhaps he ought to do so. As a Congressman he certainly doesn't seem to be doing his job.
Human evolution took a wrong turn.
The Neanderthals are back!
They call themselves Republicans,
But they are Zombies,
Risen from the grave of history
Now chasing Homo Sapiens
With their big sticks
Clubbing every social advance of human kind,
Torturing and killing non-white peoples in distant lands
Jailing and deporting those considered aliens in their heartland.
The Zombie Machos party with tea spiced with Texas bourbon,
Cooled with Alaska ice and served by a stylish Haus Frau.
Through their control of yellow journalism
They force those with residues of tolerance and humanity
To swallow the piss and bile of once defeated anachronisms.
The Zombies, bankrolled by their friends in corporate board rooms
Prepare to remove the Nation´s heart
And replace it with a Made-in-China machine.
They coerce and blackmail the reasonable yet complaint politicians
To appoint the plutocrats and murderous Generals to controlling government bureaucracies
And to follow their dictates to roll back social progress.
The bankers succeed in reversing the American Dream,
Full version at www.zcommunications.org/zspace/Dale Johnson
Good point - I remember when Republicans started using "democrat" as an adjective/ adverb. It sounded contrived, yet the media followed along. It is the Democratic Party.
I too wonder how millions of poor/middle Americans continue to support the GOP. It doesn't make sense. I think I will adopt the "NEVER VOTE REPUBLICAN" mantra even though most Democrats in office seem to be turning into Republicans before our eyes.
"Paul Ryan, the Republican Party’s latest entrant in the seemingly endless series of young, prickish, over-coiffed, anal-retentive deficit Robespierres they’ve sent to the political center stage in the last decade or so, has come out with his new budget plan. All of these smug little jerks look alike to me – from Ralph Reed to Eric Cantor to Jeb Hensarling to Rand Paul and now to Ryan, they all look like overgrown kids who got nipple-twisted in the halls in high school, worked as Applebee’s shift managers in college, and are now taking revenge on the world as grownups by defunding hospice care and student loans and Sesame Street. They all look like they sleep with their ties on, and keep their feet in dress socks when doing their bi-monthly duty with their wives."
How well this describes Ryan and the others!
I wish you peace and health, sandyboy.
I was barely old enough to know the difference between a Democrat and a Republican, but I was smart enough to know how utterly out of line with reality Rand's ideas were.
I shun Paul Ryan and those like-minded just as I have shunned Ayn Rand.
That a system would break down because of a huge corporate state is not part of the book but that is what is currently happening.
Self-made man, I have only two questions to ask you but I would like to go into great details on these questions.
First, how did you conceive, gestate, and deliver yourself before you had a corporeal prescence?
Second, what was the first thing you did today when you awoke naked on the forest floor?
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