What's fact, what's fiction? If you're a Master of the Universe, you decide! It's the second chapter of Tales of GOP Living with Austerity.
Paul Ryan as a Young Man
Paul Ryan's father died when he was just 16 and that's just really sad. He also saved up the Social Security payments to help pay for college which I think is really cool. Not that 2 years of a hundred some dollars every month even comes close to making up for the loss of a parent. I think it's so cool, that other orphans should be able to do the same, but we'll talk some more about that later.
It was probably then he had to mow some lawns while his neighbors tanned all day, all summer, in their hammocks. Why? Because all their motivation to ever do anything had been drained by the $400 they received each month to prevent eviction, because really what could be better for a family? If he we're growing up today they probably could even afford such luxuries as a refrigerator, moderate amounts of water, electricity, and the ultimate sign of parasitic sloth: a $60 dollar per month cable tv plan and the TV they found in their alley!
Of course I would be remiss to write any further about Ryan without mentioning his profound, intellectual powers as "the Brain" of many House GOP members. Or his really, really brilliant plans and what formed them.
Paul Ryan Brilliants Plans for America
When Ryan reached college, he had what you might call little rebellion, against those liberal professors and their oppressive capitalist hating curriculum. He started reading Ayn Rand and didn't think a few months later "Actually, if you think about it this is kind of crazy." Instead Ryan decided to pursue a career in public service. Just because you thought Rand believed "government [was] the most dangerous threat to a man's rights", doesn't mean you can't share your brilliant ideas. Like, for example, Paul Ryan's brilliant plan to 'fix' Medicare.
For example, when those horrible, horrible people we elected pass legislation to "take" 3-6% of our paychecks now, to pay for 80% of most our healthcare costs later or Medicare.
It was there in conference room of Miami University the Objectivists would meet. They were forced to meet there of course, unlike the black kids who got the entire auditorium on Friday nights to dance and play music. In other words, the cruelest kind of discrimination...the kind that no one believes until they've experienced it themselves.
So the young masters of our universe were sitting there one day, when Paul Ryan walks in and says "Well I just got off the phone with Sam Brownback, he just doesn't like our 'Medicare is Satan' bumper-sticker." To which one recent convert replied, "Damn. You know what this means don't you? Brownback is one of them now...a parasite." To which another said, "Well Paul, you just interrupted our conversation on the dangerous use of public power for private profit, but let's figure out a way 'fix' Medicare and make it more palpable to the public!"
It was then Ryan began to first articulate and form his very own (every thoutht every Galtian every had was within a vacuum and their own), brilliant new idea to 'fix' Medicare. "Let's switch it to a privatized, fixed-voucher system." Then his friend had the idea "We'll pay them just enough to buy some junky plan on a state-level 'exchange'." His other friend, who just happened to be the son of an insurance executive, thought aloud "And make it illegal not to purchase." Now you're probably really confused by now about what meeting this is, but I can assure you Rahm Emanual was not there.
"Won't people catch on and get upset when Grandma can't afford her medication?" said one timid master. "Yeah, that's when we get back out the 'Medicare is Satan' stickers and go for the..." "SILENCE!!" Ryan yelled, "We must never say it until the time comes my brothers, until then, NEVER SPEAK OF IT UNTIL THEN." "Especially in front of the liberal media with their cameras and pens!"
"What if people think we're callous?" piped the timid master once again. To which our prodigal marketing major had just the answer "We'll go down to the food kitchen or local clinic every once and a while and act like it's enough."
"But wouldn't that mean interacting with the...sickly parasites?"
But Ryan had answer for that too, "No, we'll just invite the liberal media and talk to them about all our good works for a couple of hours, shoot some photos, then call it a day. There may be some prop handeling, but you won't actually have to touch or speak to the parasites no."
"But how would we ration care?"
"Ration? What are you talking about? There are no death panels here. Once Medicare is gone there will never be a need to ration healthcare, ever. Should my family have to 'ration' our seven vacation home because somebody chose to get cancer? Is this the USSR?" Said the son of the insurance executive.
"But how will we get healthcare ourselves?"
But the idiots just wouldn't stop with their questions, the brilliant Ryan alreading scheming years ahead, so he already knew the answer to that one too: "As aides to public officials or other political appointments as rewards for our brilliant minds. Why shouldn't the public pay for our insurance?"
"Still, the public should be able to know something about the parasites using their money."
Ryan sighed, wasn't it obvious? Did he even have to explain it? "Of course, the States can collect whatever data it feels necessary, maybe with a required survey."
To which one replied "Of course we'll only collect, impersonal, data, that reflects our 'small-government' philosophies."
Like "Did you ever have sex before you were married? Or before 30 at all? If so, how?" or "Did you ever not notify the nearest authority figure if you suspected your neighbor was smoking Marijuana?" followed by "What is your address?"
Of course, the States can do whatever they want, even create some procedural hurdles to "prevent abuse". Just not depending on the answers to the surveys, that's only for "research." Oh and did I mention we can 'sell' the info to my friends marketing firm?"
You see one of the things that makes Paul Ryan so brilliant is his subtle distinction between State and Federal power. Like you might see one federal officer beating up a hippie and their uniform is black, and then the state officer taze grandma and their uniform is blue. I know I'm not even explaining right, it's just so brilliant that I can't...not all us are masters of the universe. Speaking of which, let's return the meeting of those that are.
“Alright, so we’ve tackled the Medicare problem. Now back to the danger intersections of state power for private profit.”
“Yes.” One master replied, “Back to affirmative action.”
“No, wait. First we have to decide who should run the public committees that transition us through the privatization process…do you know of anyone?”
They look around at each other slowly…
“Well, Billy here is second cousins to the guy who helped Ayn Rand fill out her own complicated Medicare forms. Maybe he should head the board.”
That’s just what Billy had in mind too, “Yeah, leave it to the government and their complicated forms to confuse one of the most brilliant minds of a generation. I mean, did they really expect her to put down a the cigarettes and speed long enough to fill out their stupid forms? Thankfully, she knew who to ask…”
“But Billy…do you actually know anything about Medicare or medical administration?” There was a brief pause, followed by uproarious laughter, qualifications only mattered for mere mortals, not Masters of the Universe like them.
“There’s one more thing we need, though. A catchy slogan to sell Brownback on.”
“How about ‘If a manger was good enough for Mary, it should be good enough for you too.’ I’ll bet Sam would love that.”
“No, no, no.” Ryan insisted, “If a manger was good enough for Mary, then one built by BillyRyanCo should work for you too.”
And thus Paul Ryan’s, very own, brilliant plan to ‘fix’ Medicare was born. But the liberal text books might not want you to remember it that way of course.
Now some people would like to accuse Ryan of being unyielding, cold, and even empathetic. Yet once Ryan wrote a paper in school entitled “The Coddling Effects of Crossing Guards.” But shortly after graduating he discovered one of his friends dad was a private contractor that happened to employee crossing-guards for “cost-conscious” school districts. Now there isn’t a street in the neighborhood Ryan doesn’t think there should be a crossing guard, because that’s just how much he cares about the parasites.
We’ll have to wait for a later Tail of GOP in Austerity to explore more the complicated relationship many of its characters have with Jesus. For now, all you need to know is that yes, Republicans and their Ayn Rand Masters of the Universe do own Jesus in addition to your government, banks, homes, mines, and whatever else they can. And that’s why I can make up this completely fictional allegory (unlike Ryan’s Bible) about a football team in the NFL. And how despite being in the smallest market in the NFL, would be wildly successful competing against teams in markets many, many times its size. And how it’s a perfect business model for government to adapt itself because that’s how any genius in the GOP like Paul Ryan would think.
Each year that team receives the same share of the NFL’s lucrative media deals, which is enough to cover the team’s entire salary which capped at an amount that is, completely coincidently, less than that share. The share is the same, regardless of how many people attend or watch their games, or how the teams perform or any other metric. Now isn’t that the kind of successful business model a Randian like Ryan knows should be adopted, or else he’d run against it...right?
Ryan is also the paragon of one of the Bible’s most important virtues, honesty. Just ask the supply and demand expert just what he really thinks is the solution to illegal immigration at the next Tea Party function he attends. Time how long it is for an honest answer, but I wouldn’t hold your breath. That’s just another completely fictional allegory of course.
Paul Ryan also has his own, very brilliant plan for Social Security, although it may sound suspiciously familiar to every Republican plan for Social Security in the last 30 years. If you don’t know what a 401k is, you’re probably one of those parasites anyways, so I won’t bother explaining it. Actually if planned on relying on Social Security at all, you’re a parasite. But we couldn’t begin to cover everything really brilliant about Ryan.
Paul Ryan’s plan for Social Security actually reminds me of another Republican, sure to be chronicled in future Tails of GOP in Austerity, Ronald Reagan. Any less of Republican might be tricked into adjusting the cap at which Social Security taxes stop to capture enough income to keep Social Security indefinitely solvent. But not Ryan. Ryan knows the only real way to fix the “broken” Social Security fund, is to gradually let the people on Wall Street handle the money instead, because they never muck it up, ever. And if they do, well all the more reason to kill it out right. It’s not like it’s ever done any one anything like help an orphan save up for college.
Sometimes the ever changing array of heroes profiled in Tails of GOP living with Austerity can seem confusing, but if you ever really want to know what they’re about it’s this: privatize as much of the profit for themselves, and pass as much of the cost onto you the public. There’s nothing new to that really, but it takes a true “brain” to do it, while pretending the government couldn’t possibly have had anything to do at all with the business they were able to conduct. Wasn’t it the Great Gatsby who said it took a genius to hold two contradictory thoughts in their head at the same time?
There really is no contradiction though, that is if you’re crazy enough to believe Republicans get a free pass by proving just how dysfunctional and corrupt government can be.
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Click here to read the previous chapter, Sarah Palin, the GOP’s Queen of Austerity. Daily Kos may need to lawyer up, it may have violated her 1st amendment rights. Of course, it probably would need to be read first….
Who will be profiled in the next chapter of Tales of GOP Living with Austerity? Join us for a guided reading from the familiar Gospel of False Equivalencies by Scott Brown. How are whoring and thinking you’re an American Indian the same? I'm not exactly sure myself, but then again I'm not a Master of the Universe.