USA - “This campaign is more than a contest between two men. It is more than a contest between two parties. It is a contest between two philosophies of government.” Herbert Hoover - 1932

Paul Ryan Applies a Reality Check to Government, 

Confusing Pundits

David Davenport, Contributor

Pundits aren’t sure what to do with a candidate like Paul Ryan, who has a clear political philosophy and a published set of policies for America’s future. If you think about it, it’s been awhile. Barack Obama has essentially campaigned on his personal narrative with broad promises of “hope” and “change.” John McCain’s appeal was his career as a maverick and a straight-talker. Even Mitt Romney is running more on his resume than his plans.

But Ryan is different. He’s actually read books of political philosophy and has published his own plans for governing: “A Roadmap for America’s Future, Version 2.0.” Of course the attacks on his plans come easily, one ad suggesting his approach to Medicare is like pushing your grandmother’s wheelchair off a cliff, a commercial at least one television station in Ryan’s home state of Wisconsin declined to air. But it’s easier to mock Ryan’s economic policies than to counter them with alternatives that will keep Medicare and other government entitlements afloat, much less in the black.

More interesting are the attacks on his philosophy and values with verbal punches that are so obtuse they fail to connect with most Americans. He’s a disciple of Ayn Rand, alleges New York Times columnist Paul Krugman, which would prompt most Americans, in imitation of Rand’s Atlas, to shrug. No, says Robert Reich, Professor at U.C. Berkeley and former Secretary of Labor in the Clinton Administration, it’s worse than that: Ryan is a social Darwinist. And you thought Darwinism passed from presidential campaign rhetoric with William Jennings Bryan at the turn of the last century.

What liberal intellectuals like Krugman and Reich are unable to grasp is that, outside their ivory towers, there are Americans who still believe in limited government. And it is apparently lost on them that a belief in limited government need not be tied to the mid-20th century objectivist philosophy of Ayn Rand or the product of a selfish, dog-eat-dog social Darwinism. Limited government, as Paul Ryan believes, is the fruit of the American Revolution and the counterpoint to the social and economic engineering of the European-style administrative state.

.................................

Read more: www.forbes.com