Breaking Down the Douchiest Article You May Ever Read About Paul Ryan (Or Fraternities)

Rob Fox12 years ago

As you may or may not have read several times on this website, Paul Ryan was in a fraternity. Delta Tau Delta to be specific. Pretty cool, right? Well not if you’re a nitpicking asshole looking to demonize the GOP’s Vice Presidential candidate in any way possible.

Listen, there’s plenty to criticize about Paul Ryan, just like there is with any candidate in either party. Not everyone is going to like the guy, especially not liberals, I get that. But holy shit can people keep their criticisms somewhere near reality? This article from a blog called “TBogg” (I’m assuming it’s super reputable) is about a year old, but it wouldn’t surprise me if the issue the column addresses resurfaces in the near future, considering Ryan’s controversial stances student loans and Pell Grants. I doubt anyone worth listening to will write anything as abrasive as this dick has, but you never know.

Paul Ryan Has A Soft Spot For America’s Beer/Rape Hostels

Ugh, that’s title. He called fraternity houses “Rape Hostels.” It’s stupid for so many reasons, but mostly because “Rape Hostel” is redundant.

But Ryan thinks it is also very important that we extend a helping hand to our future leaders who are painstakingly culled from our collegiate student herd population and housed in the petri dishes of future excellence more commonly referred to as “sororities’ and “fraternities”:

What the author is referring to is Paul Ryan’s support of three different bills that would have made charitable contributions for the construction of fraternity and sorority houses tax deductible. I remember hearing about this bill while I was in school. I remember hearing about it ALL.THE.TIME. If I remember correctly, without doing any research (yet), the bill essentially allowed an alum or whoever to donate very specifically to the purchasing of material for improvements/construction. So if your chapter were say, constructing a new fraternity house and you donated money to the cause, your money would not be tax deductible if it was used to pay the architect, but it would be if it was used to purchase the wood, brick, dry wall, etc. to actually build the house. Keep in mind this is off the top of my head. Now let’s do some research.

Fraternal educational foundations (501(c.)(3) organizations) would be able to make grants to the not-for-profit house corporations of their respective undergraduate chapters (501(c.)(2) or (c.)(7) organizations) for a larger array of purposes including bricks and mortar infrastructure and life safety improvements to chapter housing.

So yeah, I think I pretty much got that right. Feel free to correct me if you think I’m wrong though. Regardless, I don’t see how that’s such a big deal. As the link I provided above points out, “Under the current tax code, colleges and universities may expend tax-deductible charitable contributions for the building, improvement or alteration of student facilities including dormitories, dining halls, study areas, libraries, computers, laundry facilities, physical fitness facilities, and social or recreational areas.”

Considering that fraternities and sororities house roughly one out of every eight college students it only seems fair to extend some sort of tax break to them. Oh and by the way, these bills had bipartisan support from Greeks on both sides of the aisle, but never mind that, that’s one of those “unhelpful facts.”

Also, information like that isn’t useful to the author because he’d rather make lame fraternity/sorority jokes than an actual point.

And, besides, we can’t have these young people wasting all of their (parents) money on stupid dumb stuff like housing when those dollars could be flowing into the economy by paying for red Solo cups, Natty Light, Taco Bell, ping pong balls, roofies, Bob Marley posters, TOM’s shoes, non-medical marijuana, black BMW’s, and abortions.

Think of it as trickle down only it smells like light beer, THC, and STD’s…

Roofies, LAWL. He got us good. Trust me buddy, roofies aside and swapping out abortions for Plan B, all that stuff gets purchased aplenty no matter who is paying our housing bills. But we’re not all spoiled brats by the way, I guarantee you FAFSA has inadvertently killed its fair share of embryos too.

When I read things about fraternities and sororities as unabashedly negative as this I can’t help but wonder how miserable the author’s college experience must have been. I mean, to feel that negatively about anything from your college days you almost certainly have to have had a general negative experience. Although considering his hilariously low reading comprehension level that I’ll point out in a second, I also can’t help but wonder whether or not the guy even went to college. It’s really awesome when someone is trying SO hard to make a point and be edgy at the same time, but has no idea what the hell they’re talking about. I’M SPITTIN’ TRUTH MOTHUFUCKUHS! DEAL WITH IT.

You’ll notice that the author blatantly claims that the legislation would have allowed alumni donations to pay the housing bills. To the author, how fucking stupid are you? Literally like three seconds of research would have told you otherwise. Then you could have made really awesome fraternity jokes about how the bill was passed so that our rape rooms (or Rapetoriums) could get new hardwood flooring and a chandelier from which to hang forcibly removed panties. I mean, that would have been technically inaccurate, since every fraternity man knows a good Rapetorium needs to have a dirt floor, so that it’s more degrading, but whatever, semantics. I can’t give you free ones all day, chief.

So Paul Ryan (as well as other Republicans AND Democrats) wanted to pass some bills that would have reasonably allowed institutions that help students with housing and scholarship expand their ability to help students with housing and scholarship? So what? By all means keep up the spiteful irrationality, it really helps your cause.

[h/t to reader SkoalHammer]