Paul Ryan May Be Just The Dreamiest Congressman Out There, But for Pete's Sake, Quit Calling Him an Intellectual.

Republican sexuality creeps me out. Generally, they hate and fear sex, probably because that party is comprised almost entirely of Evangelicals and WASPs, two of the most repressed groups in human history. So they suppress it and hide it. But as Dr. Freud taught us, you can’t crush it down—the sexual urge will surface. So their sexuality finds expression in the disturbingly erotic attraction they evince for their candidates.  

Nowhere is this more evident than in the current orgy of gooing and cooing over Mitt Romney’s pick for VP, the dreamy, blue-eyed, fit-as-a-fiddle Paul Ryan. Read the Mitt Romney/Paul Ryan Facebook fanboy/girl pages on Facebook. Those Conservative broads just soak their collective capacious, poly/cotton, six-to-a-pack-at-Walmart panties over this guy.

“Such a beautiful family,” they sigh (SQUISH). “Look at those eyes!” they moan (GUSH). “He’s like a knight in shining armor!” they whimper (GLOOSH). And worst of all, “He’s so smart! He’s such an intellectual” (SPLURSSSSSHHHHHH).

Barring the vulgar sound effects I added purely for the sake of cheap comedy, I’m not making any of this up. These are real quotes.

The Republican fangirls (and, one can only assume, some boys) are not alone in their adoration. The mainstream media also went gaga for him, blathering about his “undeniable brilliance”, his “impressive brainpower”, and the “intellectual heft” he brought to the ticket. Which left me scratching my head. Paul Ryan an intellectual?

Bitches, please.

“Intellectual” is, like “obscenity”, a tough concept to define. But, to swipe Justice Potter Stewart’s line about obscenity, I know an intellectual when I see one. Paul Ryan ain’t one. He’s actually not very bright. Matter of fact, this twerp is actively anti-intellectual. And here’s why I think so.

1. He doesn’t have any of the traditional markers. Paul Ryan holds no advanced degrees, speaks no foreign languages, and has no significant publications to his credit. Now, while it’s not necessarily a prerequisite to have an advanced degree or fluency in a language other than one’s own, either or both is, in today’s world, a pretty good indicator.

         At the very least, having them indicates a quality that Ryan doesn’t have, namely...

2. Intellectual curiosity. Ryan exhibits none. This guy, by his own admission, hasn’t changed his opinion on anything since he was 14. If your thinking hasn’t evolved since you were 14, it’s not only a pretty good indication you’re not only NOT an intellectual—it’s a pretty good sign you’re stupid. The guy is content to believe what he’s believed since before he finished puberty. Finishing that process alone ought to change your view of the world. But not Paul Ryan.

3. Paul Ryan has no significant publications to his credit. Intellectuals generally do a lot of writing and publishing. This is how we know they’re intellectuals. The one “book” he’s participated in “writing” (the originally-titled “Young Guns,” coauthored with those intellectual heavyweights Eric Cantor and Kevin McCarthy) was ghostwritten. Again, I can’t define “intellectual,” but whatever they are, I’m pretty sure they write their own books.

4. The guy doesn’t have an original thought in his head. The much-lauded "Path to Prosperity" Ryan budget contains precisely no new ideas, no innovative solutions, or any stunning, earth-shattering revelations. Yes, the deficit is a big problem, but no one on either side of the aisle debates that. His economic philosophy, as expressed in his budget, is nothing more than a warmed-over rehash of the same tired, shopworn old supply-side, trickle-down claptrap peddled during the Reagan years—which even its architect, David Stockman, now openly disavows. Because it didn’t work.  

5. He is avowedly anti-science. The examples are legion: he thinks scientists are involved in a “global conspiracy to delude the public about climate change”; under his budget, over 1 million college students would lose Pell grants over the next ten years; he voted to take away federal funding of both PBS and NPR; and he is opposed to stem-cell research. Again, I can’t define what an intellectual is, but I’m pretty sure they aren’t anti-intellect. There is nothing in this guy’s voting record or public utterances to suggest he respects knowledge, or those who add to, gain, and share it. In fact, there’s a lot to suggest he doesn’t.

6. Bill Maher makes an excellent point about this guy, which is worth quoting in full: “Why is he the intellectual of the Republican Party? He has, from what I can see, two ideas. One, let’s stop having rich people pay taxes at all, and poor people should look for food in the woods. This is the intellectual? He’s a step up from Sarah Palin? Actually, you know, he’s more articulate than Sarah Palin, but tell me one area where he and Sarah Palin would disagree. I cannot find one area. So somehow, he’s the smartest guy in the party, and she’s the stupidest woman on earth, but they agree on everything.”

Hell of a point. Most Republicans will, at mention of the Belle of the Bible Belt, kind of grin sheepishly and admit she’s as dumb as furniture. But there’s no difference between her thinking and Paul Ryan’s.

7. Finally—and let’s let this nail close the coffin on Paul Ryan’s “intellectualism”: the dumb son of a bitch still takes Ayn Rand seriously.  He says it himself: “The reason I got involved in public service, by and large, if I had to credit one thinker, one person, it would be Ayn Rand.” 

Problem is, no serious academics or intellectuals take Ayn Rand seriously. They never did. She’s not taught in the political science or political philosophy departments of any legitimate, accredited universities. She’s a tenth-rate philosopher and a 15^th-rate novelist. If Ayn Rand is a serious philosopher, David Barton is a serious historian.

And, much like her acolyte, she also didn’t have an original thought in her head. Her “philosophy”, that “Objectivism” and “rational self-interest”, was lifted, part and parcel, from Herbert Spencer’s late 19^th century “social Darwinism”—essentially, in society, the fittest should survive and the rest of them die. Through a little misreading of Nietzsche in there—“God is dead, and let’s go beyond good and evil”—and mix in a dab of anti-Soviet resentment, and you’ve got Ayn Rand in a nutshell.

Ayn Rand appeals to the barely-literate, the mean-spirited, and the guilty. Her garbage is what upper middle-class 14-year olds who’ve heard their grandfathers bitch about welfare and extol the virtues of being a self-made man read to justify their own privileged existence.

Ryan, in his pandering bid to woo Bible-beatin’ middle America, has recently back-pedalled from his prior endorsement of the half-baked “philosophy” of this outspokenly atheistic, abortion-havin’, adulterous, altruism-hatin’ Russian radical, but make no mistake—by his own admission, he’s a big fan.

Again, I can’t define “intellectual,” but I know anyone who takes Ayn Rand seriously sure as shootin’ ain’t one.

John Stuart Mill once said, “I never meant to say that the conservatives are generally stupid. I meant to say that stupid people are generally Conservative. I believe that is so obviously and universally admitted a principle that I hardly think any gentleman will deny it.”

Being conservative isn’t necessarily a mark of stupidity—there are plenty of very intelligent conservatives with legitimate reasons for their beliefs, who articulate their views well, and who make valid criticisms of leftist thought and policy. Friedrich Hayek, Irving Kristol, John Podhoretz, P.J. O’Rourke, David Brooks, and Leo Strauss all leap to mind. I disagree with them, but I can respect them. But Paul Ryan isn’t in their company. He’s not one of them. He isn’t fit to carry their library card. 

You know, I remember a far, far distant time—2011—when Newt Gingrich was supposed to be the in-house intellectual of the Republican Party. Newt, at least, has a doctorate in history. I’ll give him that. But somehow, he’s had to give up his seat to the mediocrity in pants that is Paul Ryan.

I put in this picture for no other reason than it angers Romney and Ryan supporters. That's as good a reason to add a picture as any.