Psychopaths, on the other hand, are unable to form emotional attachments or feel real empathy with others, although they often have disarming or even charming personalities. Psychopaths are very manipulative and can easily gain people’s trust. They learn to mimic emotions, despite their inability to actually feel them, and will appear normal to unsuspecting people. Psychopaths are often well educated and hold steady jobs. Some are so good at manipulation and mimicry that they have families and other long-term relationships without those around them ever suspecting their true nature.
Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) isn’t someone who grew up with a silver spoon in his mouth. He used Social Security benefits and other government largesse to get through college and into adulthood…so you’d think he’d be someone capable of possessing compassion and understanding for those who for whatever reason find themselves in dire circumstances. You’d be WAY wrong.
Ryan, who came to national prominence as Mitt Romney’s running mate in 2012, has demonstrated himself to be capable of a surprising degree of judgment and hypocrisy. He’s been fortunate enough to have attained a degree of financial success, but to claim that he did it on his own and that he got to where he is in life on his own would be the height o hypocrisy…and yet that’s essentially his argument.
Now, as the newly-elected Speaker of the House, he’s second in line to the Presidency, a thought that should scare the Hell out of any American possessed of even the barest shred of compassion and humanity. Ryan’s world is a Randian, hypercompetitive, dog-eat-dog world where the strongest survive and the rest are tossed out with the trash. To believe him to be a psycopath hardly seems a stretch.
There’s certainly nothing wrong with a leader having strong religious beliefs and demonstrating that his world view is informed by those beliefs. It’s quite another to twist religious doctrine to justify a penurious self-interested hatred of those down in dire straits and advancing the argument that government has no responsibility toward them.
IF our government was struggling to adequately to fund our military and anti-terrorism efforts, and IF corporate welfare had been slashed due to scarce resources, Ryan might have an argument to make. The fact of the matter is that these metaphorical pigs continue feeding at the public trough even as Ryan and his acolytes continue blaming the poor, the sick, and the unemployed for their plight.
Newly elected Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.)…dismissed Democrats’ calls for a paid family leave law as another “federal entitlement” and said his position isn’t at odds with recent remarks that he wants to spend weekends with his young family in Wisconsin instead of fundraising for the Republican party.
“I don’t think people asked me to be Speaker so I can take more money from hard-working taxpayers, so I can create some new federal entitlement,” Ryan said during an appearance on “Fox News Sunday.” “But I think the public wants to have members of Congress that represent them, that are like them.
“Don’t you want your member of Congress to be a citizen legislator who lives with you, among you, who has your own kinds of concerns, who wants to spend time with his children on Saturdays and Sundays?”
Don’t you want your member of Congress to be a self-interested, self-absorbed, compassionless zealot whose “I got mine” attitude represents everything that’s wrong with America today?
Don’t you want your member of Congress to give lip service to caring about families…but really only caring about his own as he declares that family leave is “just another federal entitlement?
Don’t you want your member of Congress to be more amenable to continuing to grow our bloated military and provide welfare to corporations and the oligarchs who own them even as he thumbs his nose at working families looking for the very same “balance” he demands for himself and his family?
Ryan has said he wouldn’t be like other modern Speakers who criss-cross the country on weekends to raise cash for the party; instead, he said he’ll return home each weekend to his native Janesville, Wis., where his wife and three children live.
But Democrats pounced on him, saying he’s a hypocrite for wanting time with his own family while denying mandatory paid time off for other Americans.
“Yes, Sundays are going to be family days, and Saturdays are family and constituent days,” Ryan said. “That is what I think most people want in their life is a balance.”
Even worse is Ryan’s cynical use of his Catholic faith to justify his Randian view of income inequality, the role of government, and our collective responsibility to one another:
Religious leaders across America from the group Faith In Public Life have a powerful message for new Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan: stop distorting the Catholic faith to justify an agenda that helps the rich and hurts everyone else.
When Paul Ryan was elected as Speaker of the House, Faith In Public Life made sure America knew what Ryan really stood for, reminding them of how the Republican had warped teachings of the Catholic Church to further income inequality. The group said:
“As you know, all eyes are now on the new Speaker of the House, Paul Ryan, but Catholic bishops, theologians, nuns and faith-based social justice advocates have been watching him closely for years. Ryan frequently references the importance of his faith and has argued that his budget proposals find support in Catholic teaching.”
The faith-based group highlights the fact that religious leaders have long been challenging Ryan’s economic philosophy, stating that, “There seems to be a disconnect between the faith Paul Ryan espouses and the public policy he supports.” In the past, Ryan has suggested that Pope Francis, a leader who strongly supports tackling an “economy of exclusion and inequality,” is naive.
Ryan’s callous dismissal of the Family Leave Law is but one example of his lack of commitment to the concerns of the everyday Americans he claims to be one of. If his moral argument against public assistance is based on his religious views, then Ryan is as much a Catholic as I am an NBA point guard. That Church leaders have called him out for his callousness and lack of regard for those not fortunate enough to be an oligarch is something a normal person with a conscience and a sense of social justice might take to heart. Ryan seems not to be burdened by compassion or concern for those less fortunate.
He’s got his; everyone else can damned well get their own.
How can it be more appropriate and in line with one’s faith to lavish money on the military and the 1% while balking at the idea of universal health care, unemployment insurance, and other public assistance that, relatively speaking, represents a very small portion of federal spending?
Then again, his refusal to display even a modicum of compassion and humanity, his “I got mine” attitude, and his twisting of his Catholic faith to justify his callous worldview is why Paul Ryan is a textbook psychopath. That he leads one of Washington’s most important asylums should be enough to make any decent, caring American fear for the future of our Republic.
