Paul Ayn Rand Ryan

"There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs."

Unfortunately, some people don't grow intellectually past the age of 14, and having once read the cultish work by Ayn Rand, go on to pontificate to the rest of us how Rand was a great intellectual and "philosopher," apparently without realizing what a shallow and psychopathic 'thinker' she actually was (there's a reason real philosophers, with minor exceptions, don't take her seriously).

One of those sheepish followers is Paul Ryan, a self-professed Catholic who apparently doesn't see the contradiction between his Catholicism (including Jesus' message of charity and compassion for the downtrodden) and his devotion and worship of an asshole atheist who promulgated self-interest and greed as the highest virtues, and social responsibility as one of the worst moral crimes.

Well, the Catholic church called Ryan on the contradiction of his beliefs, and Stephen Colbert talks to the priest who sounded the wake-up call


And here is the best part: a total takedown by MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell, who just rips Ryan apart:



Even xkcd recognizes what's up:



Hat tip to Tony!