Paul Ryan

The Republican candidate for U.S. vice president embodies the good and the bad of his society. He believes in the initiative of the individual and the repayment to each individual according to his or her contribution to society. Ryan lives in Wisconsin with his family, sleeps weekdays in Congress and eats in the cafeteria. As a result of his perceived ideology, he takes on views not very supportive of the vulnerable sectors of society and shares radical views against abortion. He supports the reduction of taxes on higher-income people and protects the right to bear arms.

Mitt Romney chose him as his running mate because of the large number of followers supporting Ryan’s views throughout the country: the country where the myth that a person can forge his or her own destiny and disregard the great imperatives of our species prevails. In the U.S., there is not a clear awareness of the great threat imposed to the standards of sustainability by the excessive consumption of non-renewable resources and the misuse of water, air and land. Because of the great size of this country, which was built with the advantage of having a very large territory and population, lacking a limitation for commerce and development and owning a solidified currency, its society thinks little about the events happening abroad. In spite of the defeat in Vietnam and the inefficiency of its given solutions for the stability of Iraq and Afghanistan, Americans remain convinced that their destiny is guaranteed. They do not recognize that their productive apparatus has lost competitiveness; the dollar is overvalued; their finances are fragile; and their expenditures on health care, over 15 percent of the national GDP, are excessive because of inefficiencies and abuses of power.

Paul Ryan is not a bad individual. He is a congenial and hard-working man. He wants everyone to improve as a product of their efforts. However, he does not ask himself whether his model of life may be applicable to all citizens. He has little tolerance for the mistakes and weaknesses of his fellow Americans. The living schemes that Ryan proposes do not give much room for cultural differences, nor do they consider solidarities. The Republican candidate is not open to diversity and has not come to terms with critical views regarding the prevailing paradigm in his country. This has been characteristic of being the first liberal democracy around the world. Like in Colombia, its presidential model is currently becoming highly obsolete because of the great complexity of its contemporaneous society, economy, technology and cultural dynamics. [This system] places great responsibility in the hands of one person. The United States has the best universities in the world, its public institutions more or less work and its innovative society overcame a great crisis. In contrast, Colombia does not have a real commitment to the construction of knowledge, and it should adequately manage the same social complexity with a fifth of America’s GDP and the worst distribution of income in the American continent with exception of Haiti. If the United States goes through constant inquiries about the future, what could we say?