Thanks, Paul Dunn, for your column “Paul Ryan’s Unlikely Heroine” (Aug. 29), on Paul Ryan’s respect for Ayn Rand’s views on self-reliance and individualism.

Your presentation was very humorous. You find Ryan’s views extreme, perhaps “too crazy to support,” likening the situation to Tom Eagleton having received shock therapy for depression and losing George McGovern’s vice-presidential nomination.

You mention that Ryan is “reputedly a devout Catholic,” and that “the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops wrote Congress opposing the ‘regressive’ Ryan budget plan.”

When John Kennedy ran for president, the fear was that Kennedy, as a “papist,” would have to follow the pope’s orders. Since Kennedy obviously did not, why do you expect Ryan to be in lockstep with the Catholic Church hierarchy?

Other humorous excerpts are that Ryan “figuratively worships at the altar” of Ayn Rand, who “made her living in that den of iniquity, liberal Hollywood.” Who’s being extreme?

You mention that William Buckley Jr. “had utter contempt for Rand’s writing.” Do you even care what Buckley thought?

You criticized Rand for being “fiercely opposed to social programs,” yet accepting Social Security and Medicare benefits six years before her death. Rand was born in 1905, worked until 1976 (age 71) and died in 1982. It seems like she, being forced to pay into the system to age 71, was reasonable to collect from it.

Why do you have the delusion that all Catholics are one-dimensional and have exactly the same beliefs? Do you hold Nancy Pelosi to the same standards?

Dick Smetana

Pinehurst