Thursday, April 07, 2011
What would you do?If you've ever benefited from seat belts or air bags, you'd probably not call for the repeal of laws mandating their installation. With that in mind, here's a factoid from Esquire: He is a lifelong adherent to the doctrines of Ayn Rand ...
Paul Ryan is a thoroughgoing fraud. He went through high school and most of college on Social Security survivor benefits after his father's death. How does someone who benefited from a government social insurance program turn around and embrace the exact opposite, as exemplified by Ayn Rand's philosophy?
posted by Quiddity at 4/07/2011 04:32:00 AM
8 comments
If your father died in a car fire because he couldn't get his seat belt unfastened, would that give you moral authority to call for their abolition?
As far as Social Security benefits, if you were to be held up a gunpoint, all your money taken by a criminal who then stood there and handed out your money, one bill at a time, to every stranger who walked by, would you be a "fraud" if you got in line?
I see that the Koch brothers have run their course as the Alinsky target. Paul Ryan is the new target to be isolated and attacked. Everyone has been expecting that, so have at it.
Or to put it another way, I'm sure that in his working career, Paul Ryan has paid far, far more in Social Security taxes than he has received in student benefits, and since he has a Congressional pension, he will not be receiving Social Security benefits. So he's a net contributor to the Ponzi scheme. Are you?
Koch-head jms' second comment calls for fact checking. Or is he making stuff up like Paul Ryan?
"How does someone who benefited from a government social insurance program turn around and embrace the exact opposite, as exemplified by Ayn Rand's philosophy?"
Ayn Rand did the same thing.
http://www.alternet.org/teaparty/149721/ayn_rand_railed_against_government_benefits,_but_grabbed_social_security_and_medicare_when_she_needed_them/
Link not working... Just Google "Ayn Rand Collected Social Security."
He was born in 1970 so he turned 18 in '88. When did his father die? It seems he and his mother would receive survivor benefits over the period.
If he started working from 88 till his first government job in 92 (having never worked for the government, I don't know about this "no benefits" thing -- snopes seems to suggest some BS on jms's part here: http://www.snopes.com/politics/socialsecurity/pensions.asp), he would have put in 12.4% of the amounts listed here from 88-92:
http://www.ssa.gov/oact/cola/cbb.html
(unless contribution rate was different then)
Inclusive, that's ~$3200 he'd paid in. I'd say it's highly likely he was paid out more than that as a survivor. Wouldn't survivors benefits be several hundred a month? And I believe his mother would get widow's benefits too -- those also benefit him indirectly.
I'd say the burden of proof here is on jms as far as proving the "net contributor" assertion.
That doesn't mean Ryan can't want to blow it up. Benefiting from a system doesn't mean you can never dislike it. But it does make it weird, especially since he benefited more than most.
Maybe survivor's benefits were a form of "original (public) sin" for him -- maybe he was brought up a Randite so there was extra shame for having the government help him out in his youth, like an albatross 'round his neck.
Not that I care much about this guy, but it is weird. And by the way: family business PLUS welfare? Not very bootstrappy.
Ayn Rand was a sociopath and her philosophy reflects that. Her perfect man: Charlie Manson when he was on the loose.
Charlie wasn't Ayn Rand's perfect man but he was close. Her guy was William Edward Hickman, who killed and dismembered 12 year old Marion Parker in 1927.
http://www.alternet.org/story/145819/
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