It appears Paul Ryan's constituents aren't buying his attempted reversal on his support of Ayn Rand's philosophy that Blue Texan wrote about here last month. The media never calls him out for any of his lies, so it's nice to at least see him getting an earful from the voters.

Paul Ryan Challenged By Town Hall Constituents Over Previous Praise Of Ayn Rand:

At a town hall meeting on Friday, Ryan was pressed by a constituent to explain this about-face. “Mr. Ryan, are you telling us that your political career was founded on the concepts of a rally of hers, but until recently, you never realized Ayn Rand was an outspoken atheist, that she felt altruism was evil, supported abortion, and condemned Christianity for advocating compassion for the poor?” the constituent asked.

Ryan professed no inconsistency in his views, arguing instead that “just because you like someone’s novels doesn’t mean you agree with their entire worldview philosophy.” He called the notion that he supports Rand’s views “a canard,” though still insisted that Atlas Shrugged is “a great book” that he recommends to those in his office.

CONSTITUENT: My question concerns your current and previous feelings toward the author and philosopher Ayn Rand. [...] Mr. Ryan, are you telling us that your political career was founded on the concepts of a rally of hers, but until recently, you never realized Ayn Rand was an outspoken atheist, that she felt altruism was evil, supported abortion, and condemned Christianity for advocating compassion for the poor?

RYAN: [...] Just because you like someone’s novels doesn’t mean you agree with their entire worldview philosophy. She has a worldview philosophy which is completely antithetical to mine because she has an atheist philosophy. [...] It’s really kind of a canard, is what I would say.

CONSTITUENT: You spoke as a keynote speaker for Ayn Rand banquets. You were quoted at length about how you loved her. You say you grew up and Ayn Rand taught you who you are and what your values are. I think we’ve learned the question of your honesty.

RYAN: It’s a great book! It’s a great book! Let’s go on to somebody over here, I think we’ve covered it pretty well. By the way, I don’t require it. I have a reading list. Lots of young people ask me what are good books. I give them Alexis de Tocqueville, I take the Founders, Friedman, Hayek, Atlas Shrugged. There are lots of good books worth reading if you want to study freedom, free enterprise, the Founders, economics. There are a lot of good books out there to read, it doesn’t mean that you subscribe to the person’s worldview and philosophy. That’s really kind of a stretch.

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From C-SPAN's Washington Journal, during open phones on a question related to a recent E.J. Dionne Washington Post column: "Where is the left's tea party movement equivalent?" Following a perfectly sane question on Twitter from someone on the left, host Libby Casey had this exchange with a Republican caller from New York.

CRAIG FROM DOWNSVILLE, NY: I believe the reason the tea party is viewed as a peaceful force is because the tea party is a peaceful force. And the tea party's not top down, as the leftists would like to have you believe. The tea party... my tea party was started when one of my neighbors asked me to go on a bus trip to Washington D. C. to try to put an end to the government ruling the people, as opposed to the people running the government.

Now you look at these leftists protests and you tell me there's someone there you're proudly associated with, looking at their behavior. And then you look at the tea party record and then you look at the way the left wing media represents everybody. Then you tell me that's an honest and fair comparison.

CASEY: Craig, after you went to that... I'm assuming you did go to the rally in Washington...

CRAIG: What's that?

CASEY: I'm assuming you did go to that tea party rally...

CRAIG: I have been to every rally in Washington...

CASEY: And what have you done to keep up with it?

CRAIG: And I'm not interested in having the public decide what my health care is going to be. I'd prefer to do that myself.

CASEY: Okay. What we're wondering is how you've stayed involved? What are you doing on the activism level locally in your community...

CRAIG: I'm a union laborer, and I do not accept what I consider to be propaganda at work. I spread the word of independence. I've got my shop steward reading Atlas Shrugged right now. That's what's going to happen. A little truth is going to be taught in this country instead of the propaganda that's been taught here for thirty years.

There are so many things wrong with this crazy person's phone call it's hard to know where to begin, but for one, I'm pretty sure he isn't aware of who was paying for those buses he was riding to go to those “tea party” rallies on Washington D.C. if he's even telling the truth about anything he's saying here and isn't just off his meds for the day. And second, if the man is actually in a union, he doesn't deserve to be.

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I'm still waiting for the good Judge to explain to the rest of us what he said to his mom after he told her that he was buying into Ayn Rand's Libertarian B.S. "philosophy" of "I've got mine and the hell with anyone else" after, as he admitted here, reading Rand's book several times during his younger years in college and his mom freaking out about what sort of philosophy he was buying into. Apparently like a lot of people who were young and impressionable and read that book, Andrew Napolitano never figured out that it was a myth propagated by people who really just don't want to pay their fair share for participating in our civilized society, to hold up their end of the social contract.

Like most Libertarians and this current "Tea Party" crowd, they basically believe that you're "on your own" and that we have no shared responsibility to each other in maintaining a civil society. And like the good little cheerleader for Rand's philosophy that Napolitano is, he brought on the producer of the new movie version of Atlas Shrugged coming out on Tax Day this month, John Aglialoro, to push the latest propaganda effort by the right to fool Americans into thinking that being selfish and greedy and telling everyone else I've got mine and screw you is somehow a virtue.

And if anyone wonders why Fox's sorry excuse for a "business channel" that was supposed to compete with the other not-quite-as-sorry example of a business channel, CNBC, and why their ratings are in the tank, I'd just cite this as one of the many examples. CNBC pushes corporate America's agenda with their reporting; but Fox's alternative has stuff like this Libertarian crap as a regular feature.

So if you're looking for news on how the market's doing, you can choose between the mouthpieces for the upper 1 % at CNBC, or you can watch the wingnuts over at Fox tell you that you should take Ayn Rand's horribly written novel seriously.