“When Hillary Clinton says we are ‘stronger together,’ what she means is we are stronger if we are all subject to the state,” Ryan said. “What she means is we are stronger if we give up our ties of responsibility to one another and hand all of that over to government. But there is no strength in that. Only hubris. Only the arrogance to assume we are better off if we fall in line and bow down to our betters.”

Ryan told a group of UW-Madison College Republicans that “liberal progressivism needs no long introduction in Madison,” noting the event held at the Masonic Center in Downtown Madison was 10 minutes from La Follette High School, named for the early 20th-century governor and senator Robert La Follette, who championed government policies that restrained the influence of large corporate interests.

“Their theory was that if we enlarged the state, if we stocked the bureaucracy with so-called experts and technocrats who would decide what was best for the collective, we would be better off,” Ryan said.

“In the America we want, government exists to serve the people. And instead of lecturing us, our leaders listen to us and offer positive solutions to tackle our problems.”

The program included a question-and-answer session moderated by conservative talk radio host Vicki McKenna.