I love politics. I write fiction (hopefully for a living), but
politics continuously look like the place where reality seems to break away from common sense. Either side has made decisions that made
neither political nor legislative sense, it just seems that this year it will
be the Republicans take on it. Before I go
any further, I will make full disclosure.
I am a bleeding heart Liberal from a rather Navy Blue state, and take
great pride in it. On the subject of the
Paul Ryan, my perspective is going to be entirely that of an
outsider/opponent/gleeful audience member.
Take it as you will.
 |
| Congressman Paul Ryan |
I have been keeping up
with Paul Ryan’s nomination for the past week, and his portrayal has been
controversial at best. He is known as
charismatic to the right, risky to the left, and the rest of us haven’t really
known what to think. Personally when I heard
Paul Ryan was the nominee, my first thoughts were of the Paul Ryan budget,
named by people like me as the “Kill Medicare” budget. For those who aren’t obsessive about
politics, Paul Ryan wrote a budget that would replace the current system of
Medicare with a voucher system, in the hopes of extending the livelihood of the
program. This budget, while some may see
it as a partisan issue, has actually been widely discredited by members of Ryan’s
own party. Former speaker of the house
Newt Gingrich has been on record calling Ryan’s budget proposal “Right-Wing
social engineering.” Also, many Republicans
in tight races this November are racing away from his budget, calling it unsound
and claiming they never voted for the
plan. With Presidential candidate Mitt
Romney already facing questions about his personal finances – such as when he
stopped receiving money from Bain capital, and what exactly is he hiding in his
tax returns – this seems an odd choice.
Paul Ryan is a fiscal conservative, with some rather radical ideas.
As of Sunday of this
week I knew of Paul Ryan as the “Kill Medicare” budget guy. But as his record has been perused, his
social concerns have come to light with almost alarming urgency. Paul Ryan is a co-author of not one, but two
bills dealing with abortion rights coming to the House floor. The first is a federal law similar to that of
the Ultrasound law in Virginia, requiring all women wishing to have an abortion
to be shown an ultrasound of her baby, regardless of its medical relevance. This law was passed in the hopes of limiting
abortions in the state by Governor Bob McDonnell, and is widely attributed to him
being passed over for the VP candidacy.
As controversial as the
Ultrasound law is on a national level, Paul Ryan unfortunately has to deal with
the second law, which has precedent at the state level as well, but not nearly
as successful. Paul Ryan has helped
author a bill which will define personhood, i.e. when a fertilized egg becomes
an actual person with all the rights of a person, at conception (1). Paul Ryan is trying to pass a law which will
define that life begins at conception, and that any form of birth control or
abortion after conception is murder.
This bill is wildly unpopular across the country. Almost the exact same bill has been voted
upon in Colorado the past two years. Each
year the bill was defeated by over forty points. Even in Mississippi the personhood bill was
defeated. This bill is simply too
extreme for Americans in any state, and Paul Ryan is trying to make it
national.
I can’t go into my own
view on abortion rights. I am a young
man who has never had that serious a relationship with a woman up until this
point in my life, and I honestly don’t believe I will ever be in a position
where I can tell a woman what to do with her body. But Paul Ryan has three bills which he is
fast becoming famous for, and Democrats are eager to define him as a man who is
trying to impose his will against the American populace. No matter his qualifications, Paul Ryan is
fast becoming a risky pick for former Governor Mitt Romney. Let’s see if he chose the right risk.
I now open the floor
to debates!
(Picture courtesy of http://emilyslist.org/blog/breaking-mitt-romney-chooses-paul-ryan-vp )
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