Paul Ryan — the New Power Behind the GOP Ticket

Paul Ryan — the New Power Behind the GOP Ticket

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I was planning on writing an article today titled “When Morals Collide with Pragmatism.” The crux of the article was going to address the question: Should a true libertarian or conservative obey his conscience by voting for a third-party candidate or should he yield to pragmatism and vote for the “lesser of two evils?”

Right now, pragmatists are laser focused on one thing, and one thing only: getting Son of Saul out of the White House before he finishes the job of destroying America. The decades-long Republican argument goes something like this: “Forget what you think about our candidate. Let’s just get this evil guy out of office, then, once we’re in power, we can work on changing our man.”

Change Romney? Like we changed George W. Bush?

Exactly what kind of change are you expecting out of a guy who responded to the Chick-fil-A brouhaha with, “Those are not things that are part of my campaign?” This is the same stalwart Republican who went out of his way to call Barack Obama “a nice guy.” The same fellow who timidly said that Barack Obama’s nonstop lies are “inaccurate.”

Really? Gosh, Mitt, that’s pretty brazen of you.

All this was going to be the general tone of the article I had planned to write. Then along came Paul Ryan. Stop the presses! You can just feel Republican hearts beating rapidly, forgetting those mocking “Beep! Beep!” Road Runner sounds they heard yet again shortly after celebrating George Bush’s inauguration in 2001.

Let me make one thing clear before continuing on: I love Paul Ryan! You have to love a guy who’s from Janesville, Wisconsin. You have to love a guy who mandates that his new staffers read Atlas Shrugged. You have to love a guy who looks like a candidate for the Tim Tebow All-American Boy Award, rushes home to his wife and three kids every Friday after the last vote is taken in the House, and is genuinely humble.

Unfortunately, Paul Ryan is also human, and he is subject to the get-along-to-go-along hissing of the RINO serpent day in and day out in Washington. As a result, though he has a sterling conservative voting record overall, he has voted for such atrocities as No Child Left Behind, the 2003 Medicare prescription drug law, and the 2008 Wall Street bailout.

Why would an Ayn Rand devotee vote for massive, unconstitutional government programs like these? The answer was summed up rather well by former Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, when he said, in an interview with the Washington Post, “We don’t need a lot of Jim DeMint disciples. As soon as they (new Tea Party Republicans in Congress) get here, we need to co-opt them.”

But regardless of a handful of disappointing votes, Paul Ryan is for real. He genuinely understands that most of what government does is unconstitutional. He genuinely believes in liberty. He genuinely believes that our rights do not come from government, but from our Creator.

When I interviewed Ryan back in 2010, it was obvious to me that he would like to go even further than he has when it comes to forcing government into its constitutional straightjacket, but the pragmatic side of him realizes that that’s a dangerous proposition.

Now, Ryan has been given the job of babysitting with a classic caricature of an unprincipled political animal, SuperMitt. As I’ve said before, I don’t think Romney is a bad guy. He seems to be a devoted family man, well respected in business, a true gentleman, and likable. However, like millions of his fellow Americans, he tends to opt for pragmatism over principle.

But Mitt’s pragmatism hasn’t worked so well with the ever-so-sleazy Bolshevik Barry and his vile and vicious Obamavik disciples. As a result, he has been little more than a punching bag for Obama, and his quest for the presidency has recently appeared to be slipping away.

Which brings me back to Paul Ryan. Ryan may be the first vice-presidential pick in modern history — or perhaps ever — who is the most important person on the presidential ticket. He not only has been able to dazzle crowds from the moment his candidacy was announced, he appears to have been able to inject new life into MittMan’s yawner speeches.

All this is reminiscent of how Sarah Palin came out of nowhere to singlehandedly prop up Mush McCain’s campaign. And had his co-opting handlers stayed out of the way, she might have just pulled off a victory for him.

But Paul Ryan’s accomplishments through twelve years in the House dwarf what Sarah Palin brought to the table. And being a man, he’s a much more difficult target for the Marxist media than was Palin.

So, does this mean Romney can now win? Perhaps. But it’s going to get much dirtier and much uglier than what we’ve seen thus far. Remember, the mantra of the true-believing communist is that anything — absolutely anything — goes, because his noble ends justify any means necessary to bring them about.

Libertarians and conservatives should look at Paul Ryan’s selection as a small, albeit good, first step. But for him to be able to rehabilitate a hard-core statist like Romney in three-and-a-half months is asking a lot of him.

And if Ryan and Romney should be successful in unseating Obama, they will still need:
A republican controlled Senate and House that will demand that Romney obey the Constitution.
To allow Ryan’s ideas to drive the administration’s agenda.
A plan to educate the nearly 50 percent of the population that suffers from hard-core addiction to entitlements.

Given the reality of No. 3, we’re light years away from a president having the courage to stand before the American public and say, loud and clear: “The age of entitlements is over. Now get to work.”

Benjamin Franklin said that “Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters. But America is too enlightened to be enslaved.”

Today, few would argue that most Americans are virtuous or enlightened. So in order to fundamentally change America from a soft-socialist country back to a country based on its founding principles, it’s the people who must change. And that’s a change that can occur only through gradualism, over a period of perhaps 50-100 years.

Again, Paul Ryan is a good first step, but America is so deep into the moral and financial abyss that no politician has the power to get it out any time soon. The best thing each of us can do to help Paul Ryan in his quest to begin rebuilding America is to focus on our own virtuosity and our own enlightenment — then help to enlighten as many other people as possible.

The Founding Fathers had it right: Politicians are not the answer. People are the answer.

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Copyright © 2012 Robert Ringer
ROBERT RINGER is a New York Times #1 bestselling author and host of the highly acclaimed Liberty Education Interview Series, which features interviews with top political, economic, and social leaders. He has appeared on Fox News, Fox Business, The Tonight Show, Today, The Dennis Miller Show, Good Morning America, The Lars Larson Show, ABC Nightline, and The Charlie Rose Show, and has been the subject of feature articles in such major publications as Time, People, The Wall Street Journal, Fortune, Barron's, and The New York Times.