Republican Paul Ryan: Heavy on certitude, light on Catholic social justice

As I watched the Veep candidates trade barbs this evening in Kentucky, I couldn't help but wonder what they were like in high school. Lori said that Paul Ryan was called a brown-noser in his high school yearbook. I don't know this to be true but I also don't doubt it. One only has to see his thin-lipped smirk and his beady eyes to know he was a brown-noser, the kind who has his face so far up the teacher's bum that, well, you know....

Joe Biden, on the other hand, was a wise guy, quick-witted and big-mouthed, who might also have been fun to be around. He may also have been the BMOC -- Big Man on Campus -- the guy who got the girls and wasn't too humble about it.

But there's one other thing. Paul Ryan has the certitude and rectitude that makes him unbearable. He's the kind of parishioner who's driven me from the Catholic Church. This is what the Catholic Church believes! I know it in my lily white soul! If you don't like it, you must be one of those cafeteria Catholics. Get out!

So I did. These type of Catholics are insufferable. Certainty has never been a Catholic trait. Joe Biden was right when he quipped that Ryan didn't learn much about Catholic social doctrine with his catechism.

Give me those feisty social justice street-fighting Catholics any day. Or those heady Unitarians or friendly United Methodists or angst-ridden Existentialists or fallen Catholics or Jack Mormons. People who've been through the fire and learned a few things in the process.

Biden has been kicked around some. Lost his wife and daughter in a car crash. Had his son deployed to Iraq. Experienced losses at home and in the Senate. He knows that there's no certainty in life or in politics.

Biden stuck it to Ryan tonight. He probably would have done the same in high school debate, although charm and a big smile doesn't always win points in competition.   

Magical thinking makes the GOP go 'round and 'round and 'round... like a hurricane

Neat column by Beau Friedlander on the Huffington Post:

While I was reading commentary about Rep. Todd Akin's overshare regarding abortion, the female body and the dark night of the GOP's soul, it occurred to me that the same attitude that allowed him to say what he said (call it ignorance, anti-intellectualism, magical thinking) has been at work in the GOP fight against Dodd-Frank, gay marriage, food and product safety, government spending and all the other GOP panic button social issues that have been causing a bottleneck in Congress since Obama took office.

Akin is today's GOP. The grease that moves things is magical thinking, whether we're talking about "self-regulating" businesses that can make or break the world economy or federal roads that build themselves or schools that somehow have everything they need to prepare kids for life without much in the way of tax revenue. What Akin thinks matters, because his thinking reveals a lot about the cultural conservative movement in the United States. It's the dunderheaded certainty of a religious person who believes God is not only concerned with individuals in a granular way, but that He will quite literally provide. This is a version of God that assures his followers there is no cause for alarm with regard to climate change (after all God knows what He's doing). This is a God that says, "Truly I say unto thee, shopping is beautiful in the eyes of the Lord. Nothing to see here. Get back to work."

Rest the rest at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/beau-friedlander/while-i-was-reading-comme_b_1821617.html

Tom Morello wonders what Rage Against the Machine song goes best with regressive Paul Ryan policies

Republicans try to be hip, but they just can't seem to find the right soundtrack to go with their regressive policies.

In Rolling Stone, Tom Morello of Rage Against the Machine writes about Republican Veep candidate Paul Ryan's supposed Rage fandom, something that Ryan has bragged about in the past.

Rage Against the Machine writes songs that ferociously advocate unions, fair wages, immigrants and social justice. In other words, what Rage is for, Ryan is clearly against. And lest you think that Rage is only angry at Republicans, remember that the band put on a huge concert at the Denver Coliseum during the 2008 Democratic National Convention, and then -- with Iraq Veterans Against the War -- staged an antiwar march to the convention center. I hope that Morello and the band plans similar events in Charlotte and Tampa this year.

A few thoughts by Morello from Rolling Stone:

"He [Ryan] can like whatever bands he wants, but his guiding vision of shifting revenue more radically to one percent is antithetical to the message of Rage.

"I wonder what Ryan's favorite Rage song is? Is it the one where we condemn the genocide of Native Americans? The one lambasting American imperialism? Our cover of 'F--- the Police?' Or is it the one where we call on the people to seize the means of production? So many excellent choices to jam out to at Young Republican meetings."