Paul Ryan vs. Ayn Rand

Watch: The religious left will immediately attack Mitt Romney's choice for vice president and give as one evidence of Paul Ryan's awfulness the recommendation he made to his staffers that they read anti-Christian novelist/philosopher Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged.

I showed my concern also in a column last year. My question was whether Ryan recommended the novel because of its broader philosophy or because it "shows young readers how capitalism turns individual self-interest into service to others, and in the process helps the poor far more than socialistic schemes do." The latter was fine, but I wanted Ryan to be clear about what he agreed with and what he spurned.

Ryan did that in an interview with National Review. He said, "I, like millions of young people in America, read Rand's novels when I was young. I enjoyed them. They spurred an interest in economics, in the Chicago School and Milton Friedman." He added, "I reject her philosophy. It's an atheist philosophy. It reduces human interactions down to mere contracts and it is antithetical to my worldview."

Ryan also emphasized poverty-fighting not the Rand way—let the poor die—but by decentralizing government, emphasizing civil society, attacking "the root causes of poverty instead of simply treating its symptoms," and reestablishing America as "a land of opportunity and upward mobility."