Jonathan Chait has a piece today...

...in the New Republic about Representative Paul Ryan of Wisconsin. In it, Ryan credits Ayn Rand as his inspiration:

"The reason I got involved in public service, by and large, if I had to credit one thinker, one person, it would be Ayn Rand," Ryan said at a D.C. gathering four years ago honoring the author of "Atlas Shrugged" and "The Fountainhead." ...

At the Rand celebration he spoke at in 2005, Ryan invoked the central theme of Rand's writings when he told his audience that, "Almost every fight we are involved in here on Capitol Hill ... is a fight that usually comes down to one conflict--individualism versus collectivism."

Like Ryan and many other young men, I, too, went through an Ayn Rand phase. But unlike Ryan, I emerged from it sometime in my thirties or forties. (I can't remember exactly when; I evolved out of it.)

Or maybe you could say that I just grew up.

I hope, for his sake, that Ryan does too. If he's lucky, he'll have a friend like mine who once told me that Objectivism, Rand's pseudo-philosophy, was nothing more than "rationalized selfishness." I, of course, dismissed my friend's dismissal as ignorance on his part. But now, with the benefit of hindsight, I realize that he was spot on.

I now prefer the message of Christianity. (Calm down, I haven't turned religious on you.) But it's a powerful message, and it can all be summarized in three words, "Love your neighbor." I don't claim to be any better at it than anyone else, but it's a good target to shoot for.