THE SHOCK OF PAUL RYAN AS VICE PRESIDENT

There is more and more talk of Mitt Romney picking Paul Ryan as his choice to be vice president. This should come as a message to the progressive community. The message is loud and clear, if we care to listen; radical right wing ideology has reached a point where we are seriously talking about “survival of the fittest” in our living rooms. Ryan is an avowed supporter of Ayn Rand’s premise that if they don’t work they don’t deserve consideration. I do not intend to infer that his appointment would help Romney in his quest for the presidency rather it would hurt him. The philosophical baggage would be just too much. What I do want to point out is that social Darwinism, reprehensible until recently, is now an acceptable topic of conversation at conservative tea parties—I mean rich old ladies setting around the parlor gossiping and drinking tea. I do not intend this remark to be anti-feminism but I have a hard time thinking rich house husbands might set around their living rooms drinking tea whole their wives work.

Of course, this does not mean altruism is dead or even close to being dead. It means the young gun (Cantor, Ryan, Paul, Bachman) strategy of trashing their own country to defeat Obama has had a terrifying social influence in certain circles. Preaching that liberals want people to be on welfare rather than working, that veteran paraplegic deserve our heart felt support but those injured in car accidents or with birth defects do not, that homeless people sleep on grates in the winter because they want too is not only wrong, it is crazy—but it is a story that has worked on some people. Does Paul Ryan want to harm homeless people or people with birth defects? The answer is of course not, he just does not care. That is what social Darwinism means; survival of the fittest. Nonetheless, that is how he and people of like belief see these people. Like Anne Coulter says, let these people work hard and go to Harvard as she did, never mind that they do not have a rich union busting attorney father or that they have and IQ in the 80’s or have dyslexia, autism or one of a hundred other physical and mental problems. The easy answer is they just do not count. If Mitt Romney picks Paul Ryan, that would be his message to the American people