Paul Ryan vs. the Nuns on the Bus

Mitt Romney has chosen Paul Ryan as his running mate. There are probably few men as vilified by the left as Paul Ryan. Even the nuns on the rock star bus went after him on their luxury tour around the country. They claim Ryan's budget proposals are cruel and un-Christian. Not true! The leftist nuns and their ideological buddies want Big Nanny taking care of us from cradle to grave (and giving them taxpayer money to administer their programs) with an elite few at the top deciding what's good for us. Ryan, on the other hand, like John Paul II, believes in the Catholic principle of subsidiarity as Catholic Advocate point out:

Catholics worried about the erosion of the social safety net should therefore understand that there is a vast difference between reforming the safety net and destroying it. It is in that light that the current debate over the budget proposals of Wisconsin’s Republican U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan should be understood. Ryan, himself a practicing Roman Catholic, is decidedly not undermining the safety net, but trying to salvage it for future generations – another determinedly Catholic concern, that of the sacred trust we hold for posterity. Again, this was a favorite theme of John Paul II.
Talk to Ryan for even a small amount of time and you are immediately struck by the sincerity of his concern about the debt burdens the nation faces and about how it robs hope from generations yet unborn. Examine the details of his proposals and you’ll see stark examples of subsidiarity in practice. What American political liberals describe as an assault on Medicare and Medicaid is nothing other than subsidiarity applied to those programs in order to save them. He would “block-grant” Medicaid to the states – a “community of a lower order” than the federal government – and let the states operate the programs with particular attention to local needs.
For Medicare, Ryan would preserve almost every jot and tittle for Americans 55 and older, but for those under 55 he would devolve choice, and authority, back to the individual.   (More here....)

And here are a couple of quotes from the man himself. Sounds like someone I'd like to invite for dinner. You could engage in an intelligent conversation.

"If the average American can’t handle complexity in his or her own life, and only government experts can … then government must direct the average American about how to live his or her life. Freedom becomes a diminishing good.
But there’s a major flaw in this 'progressive' argument, and it’s this. It assumes there must be someone or some few who do have all the knowledge and information. We just have to find, train, and hire them to run the government’s agencies.
Friedrich Hayek called this collectivism’s 'fatal conceit.' The idea that a few bureaucrats know what’s best for all of society, or possess more information about human wants and needs than millions of free individuals interacting in a free market is both false and arrogant. It has guided collectivists for two centuries down the road to serfdom — and the road is littered with their wrecked utopias. The plan always fails!" Absolutely right! Just look at the utopia's given to us by the French Revolution goddess of reason and Marxist socialism. How many did they murder to establish their dream state?

Ryan is a staunch pro-lifer. Attacked as a follower of Ayn Rand, Ryan responded briskly:

"I, like millions of young people in America, read Rand’s novels when I was young. I enjoyed them.They spurred an interest in
economics, in the Chicago School and Milton Friedman, but it’s a big stretch to suggest that a person is therefore an Objectivist.” 

“I reject her philosophy. 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.”

And here's more on his fiscal philosophy.

Some are trying to paint Ryan as selfish and anti-God because he's a fan of Atlas Shrugged, but that's like trying to paint me as favoring contraception and the sex-crazed culture because one of my favorite books is Brave New World. I haven't read Atlas Shrugged, but I suspect Rand's got some things right.  She discusses individual responsibility. So does the Catholic Church!