Paul Ryan: Beck fan and Randroid
by digby
And 80's sitcom star!
In honor of the debate I'm just going to run my favorite Paul Ryan interview with Glenn Beck:
GLENN BECK: Nice to meet you, sir. Tell me, tell me your thoughts on progressivism.
PAUL RYAN: Right. What I have been trying to do, and if you read the entire Oklahoma speech or read my speech to Hillsdale College that they put in there on Primus Magazine, you can get them on my Facebook page, what I've been trying to do is indict the entire vision of progressivism because I see progressivism as the source, the intellectual source for the big government problems that are plaguing us today and so to me it's really important to flush progressives out into the field of open debate.
GLENN: I love you.
PAUL RYAN: So people can actually see what this ideology means and where it's going to lead us and how it attacks the American idea.
GLENN: Okay. Hang on just a second. I ‑‑ did you see my speech at CPAC?
PAUL RYAN: I've read it. I didn't see it. I've read it, a transcript of it.
GLENN: And I think we're saying the same thing. I call it ‑‑
PAUL RYAN: We are saying the same thing.
GLENN: It's a cancer.
PAUL RYAN: Exactly. Look, I come from ‑‑ I'm calling you from Janesville, Wisconsin where I'm born and raised.
GLENN: Holy cow.
PAUL RYAN: Where we raise our family, 35 miles from Madison. I grew up hearing about this stuff. This stuff came from these German intellectuals to Madison‑University of Wisconsin and sort of out there from the beginning of the last century. So this is something we are familiar with where I come from. It never sat right with me. And as I grew up, I learned more about the founders and reading the Austrians and others that this is really a cancer because it basically takes the notion that our rights come from God and nature and turns it on its head and says, no, no, no, no, no, they come from government, and we here in government are here to give you your rights and therefore ration, redistribute and regulate your rights. It's a complete affront of the whole idea of this country and that is to me what we as conservatives, or classical liberals if you want to get technical.
GLENN: Thank you.
He sounds just like the Ayn Rand acolytes I used to debate back in the early days of Usenet. They all turned out to be teenagers in real life.
And wouldn't it be nice if this man were retired from politics altogether? You can help by donating to his congressional opponent Rob Zerban, here.
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