A possible Ryan response to Reid

Rob links here to Chuck Reid's HuffPo piece on Paul Ryan, Ayn Rand, and Catholic Social Thought.  After what I think is, for Reid, an uncharacteristic misstep -- "The record of [Ryan's] public life is that of a man in thrall to a curdled, warped individualism" -- Reid asks, "I, for one, would like to know what he thinks about the magisterium of the Church regarding the positive value of the state."

The Hill reported, a while back, that Ryan had this to say, in a CBN interview:

“Through our civic organizations, through our churches, through our charities, through all of our different groups where we interact with people as a community, that’s how we advance the common good, by not having Big Government crowd out civic society, but by having enough space in our communities so that we can interact with each other, and take care of people who are down and out in our communities,” Ryan said.

“Those principles are very, very important, and the preferential option for the poor, which is one of the primary tenets of Catholic social teaching, means don’t keep people poor, don’t make people dependent on government so that they stay stuck at their station in life, help people get out of poverty, out into a life of independence.”

And, in his recent speech at Georgetown, he said:

Simply put, I do not believe that the preferential option for the poor means a preferential option for big government.

Look at the results of the government-centered approach to the war on poverty. One in six Americans are in poverty today– the highest rate in a generation. In this war on poverty, poverty is winning. We need a better approach.

To me, this approach should be based on the twin virtues of solidarity and subsidiarity–virtues that, when taken together, revitalize civil society instead of displacing it.

Government is one word for things we do together. But it is not the only word.  We are a nation that prides itself on looking out for one another– and government has an important role to play in that. But relying on distant government bureaucracies to lead this effort just hasn’t worked.

It seems to me that these two quotes -- whether or not one agrees with them -- do not reflect a "curdled, warped individualism", but rather a healthy appreciation for civil society institutions, and also that they are not inconsistent with the view (which Reid and I, I'm sure, both hold) that the political authority -- "the state" -- has a positive role (albeit only a $40 trillion, and not a $47 trillion, role) to play in promoting the common good and protecting the vulnerable.

As Julie Rubio urges, in a really thoughtful and generous post over at Catholic Moral Theology, by all means let's engage and argue about the question whether the common good -- understood as Catholics understand it -- is better served (with "better" being identified with reference to criteria supplied by the Church's social doctrines) by the policies proposed by the President and the Democrats in Congress, or by Gov. Romney, Rep. Ryan, and the Republicans in Congress.  But this engagement is far more likely to avoid the pitfalls of mere "I'm with my team!" partisanship if we don't charge that Ryan's views and proposals are reducible to Rand or that concerns about the inefficiencies and "crowding out" effects of big government, or the sustainability of current social-welfare programs, reveal "warped individualism" and a denial of the positive role to be played by the state.