AC

The stakes in the presidential election this November are so high, Paul Ryan, the House Budget Committee chairman, said Tuesday that the contest will be a battle over the Enlightenment. Speaking to about 650 libertarians in Washington at a "Mad Men" themed gala hosted by the Competitive Enterprise Institute, Ryan suggested that a vote for President Barack Obama is a vote against the ideas that inspired the nation's founders. "If you take a look at this proverbial choice of two futures in front of us, which we will decide in November, it is basically a fight for, essentially re-litigating the Enlightenment, natural rights, where our rights come from nature ... They're ours automatically. Or this new idea, the progressive theory of government-granted rights," Ryan said during his keynote speech. "That the government now gives us new positive rights. It's an opportunity society versus a welfare state. It's Adam Smith, John Locke versus Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Hegel...