Since Raul Castro seems to be transitioning to a more permanent position of power, the administration has begun talking about Cuba policy again. One would think we would be able to survey the results of the last 45 years and come to logical conclusions. Changing course never seems to be an option, however, no matter how futile or counterproductive our past actions have been.
The Cuban embargo began officially in 1962 as a means to put pressure on the communist dictatorship to change its ways. After 45 years, the Cuban economy has struggled, but Cuba 's dictatorship is no closer to stepping to the beat of our drum. Any ailments have consistently and successfully been blamed on US Capitalism instead of Cuban Communism. They have substituted trade with others for trade with the US , and are "awash" with development funds from abroad. Our isolationist policies with regards to Cuba , meanwhile, have hardly won the hearts and minds of Cubans or Cuban-Americans, many of whom are isolated from families because this political animosity.
In the name of helping Cubans, the US administration is calling for "multibillions" of taxpayer dollars in foreign aid and subsidies for internet access, education and business development for Cubans under the condition that the Cuban government demonstrates certain changes. In the same breath, they claim lifting the embargo would only help the dictatorship. This is exactly backwards. Free trade is the best thing for people in both Cuba and the US . Government subsidies would enrich those in power in Cuba at the expense of already overtaxed Americans!
The irony of supposed Capitalist, free-marketeers inducing Communists to freedom with government hand-outs should not be missed. We call for a free and private press in Cuba while our attempts to propagandize Cubans through the US government run Radio/TV Marti has wasted $600 million in American taxpayer dollars.
It's time to stop talking solely in terms of what's best for the Cuban people. How about the wishes of the American people, who are consistently in favor of diplomacy with Cuba ? Let's stop the hysterics about the freedom of Cubans – which is not our government's responsibility – and consider freedom of the American people, which is. Americans want the freedom to travel and trade with their Cuban neighbors, as they are free to travel and trade with Vietnam and China . Those Americans who do not wish to interact with a country whose model of governance they oppose are free to boycott. The point being – it is Americans who live in a free country, and as free people we should choose who to buy from or where to travel, not our government.
Our current administration is perceived as irrelevant, at best, in Cuba and the message is falling on deaf ears there. If the administration really wanted to extend the hand of friendship, they would allow the American people the freedom to act as their own ambassadors through trade and travel. Considering the lack of success government has had in engendering friendship with Cuba , it is time for government to get out of the way and let the people reach out.
Saturday
Monday
WHAT I THINK....KAREN DE COSTER
There was a time, not too long ago, when I thought that an overly-obsessive Ron Paul mania was sweeping the Internet. As much as I have always admired Ron Paul’s rock-solid commitment to liberty and peace, along with his remarkable dedication to intellectual study, I didn’t yearn to hear libertarians do live blogging play-by-plays of his every speech and every step, and I didn’t care to read a trillion posts about pointless straw polls in trivial places.
Internet libertarians tend to be a well-read, principled, and feisty bunch of folks. They are irrepressible when it comes to using the resources of the Internet. They know what they like and they’ll let you know what that is. They’ll praise you in the same week they purport to hate you. For libertarians, any political action that promotes the state, distributes wealth to one group at the expense of another, or panders to empowered interest groups will bring on the fightin’ words.
Consequently, there are libertarians who have respectfully challenged some of Paul’s past policy decisions because they were said to be "unlibertarian." Thus they decline to support his presidential candidacy. I can respect the various objections and even agree, at times, but in fact Ron Paul is an avowed Constitutionalist, and not an anarchist. Thus to try and reconcile Paul’s political courses of action with the various strains of libertarian dogma could prove to be quite futile, and perhaps even self-defeating.
Over the years, we hopeful libertarians have witnessed a host of ineffective Libertarian Party candidates who throw up a second-rate website, paste a few basic "principles" on their "about me" page, and claim a presidential candidacy. The others run for city council, judge, or the school board and celebrate their 1% of the vote. And we are supposed to take this stuff seriously? Some do, and this is what has made the Libertarian Party a ridiculed failure. And then along comes a libertarian, Ron Paul, who is an established man in Washington – though an outsider – in a mainstream political party, with a support network that actually has a chance to make a lasting impression upon a whole lot of people.
Sure, there are those of us who battle tyranny, misinformation, and the political power structure almost daily. We publish, blog, engage in forum and email activity, post to YouTube, attend rallies, bomb mainstream political polls, and generally just keep the passion for freedom alive in a world of apathy. Additionally, there are those who contribute by reading and supporting those who do engage the enemy firsthand. But when you consider how much time we all spend singing to the choir, you realize we have a long way to go before our missives reach Mom and Pop on Main Street.
On the other hand, Ron Paul is a phenomenon who has made a large-scale impact on folks outside of the choir and its usual audience. He is on national TV, night after night, saying the right things about Wall Street, hedge funds, the Federal Reserve, Sarbanes-Oxley, the IRS, the war, taxes, decentralization, and regulation. He doesn’t say anything for the purpose of pandering to any particular interest group – he says it because he means it. The twenty-something thinking set grooves on Dr. Paul, and these kids may be our only hope in keeping us all from experiencing an unabridged Orwellian nightmare. After all, if we can't get these young kids to think for themselves, what's left over when they reproduce?
His impassioned campaign has been influential on people of all sorts: old, young, leftist, socialist, capitalist, anarchist, democrat, and even folks in the military. He is educating people on other alternatives – those that don’t offer up prescriptions for every perceived problem and propose welfare in exchange for votes. People are witnessing Paul’s uncompromising positions on issues that have never been challenged prior to his presence on the campaign trail. When is the last time you heard an elected official, in a nationally-televised forum, talking down Wall Street’s financial socialism, bringing up the devaluation of the dollar, stating that "free trade agreements" are a scam, and refusing to play along with the question of whether or not he should support the nominated candidate out of nothing more than party loyalty? He is a perfect ideological storm in a sea of statism.
Freedom, as we understand it, can never be recaptured without some very radical strategy supported by moderately conventional exposure – otherwise, who will rebel? What reason do uninformed, passive people have to rebel? We can talk "revolution" all we want, but what does that really mean? Those of us who will "live free or die" are in a minority. As with anything else, the masses have to be shown the way. You have to put a marketing campaign in front of them. You have to sell freedom to them and the message has got to be reasonable and attainable in their minds. And lastly, you have to present a genuine platform from which to broadcast your message. Ron Paul is that marketing campaign. A presidential campaign is a genuine platform according to the perceptions of the general public. Ron Paul, I believe, is giving many people a reason to doubt, to react, and to question authority. And that can only be to the good. Should he be denied the Republican nomination, I can't think of anything that can come after the Paul campaign and give us any kind of a legitimate shot at recapturing lost liberty.
As libertarians, we understand how to educate ourselves. We may disagree, and we are sometimes right and oftentimes wrong, but still we are at the top of the self-education chain. Most folks, however, have no knowledge of basic liberty, let alone an understanding of the more abstract thrusts of libertarianism such as antitrust, Wall Street financial socialism, taxes as theft, war as welfare, victimless crimes, the corporatocracy, medical/health totalitarianism, and so on. Ron Paul has the ability and the means to bring these ideas into Mom and Pop’s living room.
Though I do not support the existence of an executive office, or even voting for that matter, somebody is going to be elected president when all of this is over. All choices but one will lead to a furtherance of the current, neoconservative-social democrat, totalitarian dictatorship, which is why I support Ron Paul. Though I remain a persevering, anti-state libertarian, I will cheer on this libertarian Constitutionalist in the greatest attempt, ever, to snatch the limelight from two near-identical, establishment political parties and turn the attention toward a platform of ideas that will spiritedly disrupt the entrenched caste.
I admire Ron Paul, his campaign, and his vision for the short run: grab the highest and most visible platform available and use it to take a multi-faceted freedom manifesto to the people in the streets. If nothing else, Ron Paul will have taught a nation of individuals how to use our existing resources and lead a real revolution, should we ever need to do so.
Internet libertarians tend to be a well-read, principled, and feisty bunch of folks. They are irrepressible when it comes to using the resources of the Internet. They know what they like and they’ll let you know what that is. They’ll praise you in the same week they purport to hate you. For libertarians, any political action that promotes the state, distributes wealth to one group at the expense of another, or panders to empowered interest groups will bring on the fightin’ words.
Consequently, there are libertarians who have respectfully challenged some of Paul’s past policy decisions because they were said to be "unlibertarian." Thus they decline to support his presidential candidacy. I can respect the various objections and even agree, at times, but in fact Ron Paul is an avowed Constitutionalist, and not an anarchist. Thus to try and reconcile Paul’s political courses of action with the various strains of libertarian dogma could prove to be quite futile, and perhaps even self-defeating.
Over the years, we hopeful libertarians have witnessed a host of ineffective Libertarian Party candidates who throw up a second-rate website, paste a few basic "principles" on their "about me" page, and claim a presidential candidacy. The others run for city council, judge, or the school board and celebrate their 1% of the vote. And we are supposed to take this stuff seriously? Some do, and this is what has made the Libertarian Party a ridiculed failure. And then along comes a libertarian, Ron Paul, who is an established man in Washington – though an outsider – in a mainstream political party, with a support network that actually has a chance to make a lasting impression upon a whole lot of people.
Sure, there are those of us who battle tyranny, misinformation, and the political power structure almost daily. We publish, blog, engage in forum and email activity, post to YouTube, attend rallies, bomb mainstream political polls, and generally just keep the passion for freedom alive in a world of apathy. Additionally, there are those who contribute by reading and supporting those who do engage the enemy firsthand. But when you consider how much time we all spend singing to the choir, you realize we have a long way to go before our missives reach Mom and Pop on Main Street.
On the other hand, Ron Paul is a phenomenon who has made a large-scale impact on folks outside of the choir and its usual audience. He is on national TV, night after night, saying the right things about Wall Street, hedge funds, the Federal Reserve, Sarbanes-Oxley, the IRS, the war, taxes, decentralization, and regulation. He doesn’t say anything for the purpose of pandering to any particular interest group – he says it because he means it. The twenty-something thinking set grooves on Dr. Paul, and these kids may be our only hope in keeping us all from experiencing an unabridged Orwellian nightmare. After all, if we can't get these young kids to think for themselves, what's left over when they reproduce?
His impassioned campaign has been influential on people of all sorts: old, young, leftist, socialist, capitalist, anarchist, democrat, and even folks in the military. He is educating people on other alternatives – those that don’t offer up prescriptions for every perceived problem and propose welfare in exchange for votes. People are witnessing Paul’s uncompromising positions on issues that have never been challenged prior to his presence on the campaign trail. When is the last time you heard an elected official, in a nationally-televised forum, talking down Wall Street’s financial socialism, bringing up the devaluation of the dollar, stating that "free trade agreements" are a scam, and refusing to play along with the question of whether or not he should support the nominated candidate out of nothing more than party loyalty? He is a perfect ideological storm in a sea of statism.
Freedom, as we understand it, can never be recaptured without some very radical strategy supported by moderately conventional exposure – otherwise, who will rebel? What reason do uninformed, passive people have to rebel? We can talk "revolution" all we want, but what does that really mean? Those of us who will "live free or die" are in a minority. As with anything else, the masses have to be shown the way. You have to put a marketing campaign in front of them. You have to sell freedom to them and the message has got to be reasonable and attainable in their minds. And lastly, you have to present a genuine platform from which to broadcast your message. Ron Paul is that marketing campaign. A presidential campaign is a genuine platform according to the perceptions of the general public. Ron Paul, I believe, is giving many people a reason to doubt, to react, and to question authority. And that can only be to the good. Should he be denied the Republican nomination, I can't think of anything that can come after the Paul campaign and give us any kind of a legitimate shot at recapturing lost liberty.
As libertarians, we understand how to educate ourselves. We may disagree, and we are sometimes right and oftentimes wrong, but still we are at the top of the self-education chain. Most folks, however, have no knowledge of basic liberty, let alone an understanding of the more abstract thrusts of libertarianism such as antitrust, Wall Street financial socialism, taxes as theft, war as welfare, victimless crimes, the corporatocracy, medical/health totalitarianism, and so on. Ron Paul has the ability and the means to bring these ideas into Mom and Pop’s living room.
Though I do not support the existence of an executive office, or even voting for that matter, somebody is going to be elected president when all of this is over. All choices but one will lead to a furtherance of the current, neoconservative-social democrat, totalitarian dictatorship, which is why I support Ron Paul. Though I remain a persevering, anti-state libertarian, I will cheer on this libertarian Constitutionalist in the greatest attempt, ever, to snatch the limelight from two near-identical, establishment political parties and turn the attention toward a platform of ideas that will spiritedly disrupt the entrenched caste.
I admire Ron Paul, his campaign, and his vision for the short run: grab the highest and most visible platform available and use it to take a multi-faceted freedom manifesto to the people in the streets. If nothing else, Ron Paul will have taught a nation of individuals how to use our existing resources and lead a real revolution, should we ever need to do so.
INTERVENTIONISM? ISOLATIONISM? ACTUALLY, BOTH
A few months back, I wrote back-to-back weekly messages regarding globalism and isolationism. In writing those columns, I focused on the fact that our nation’s interventionist foreign policy was precisely what was isolating us from other countries.
Turkey’s recall of their U.S. ambassador in the wake of last week’s resolution, passed in the House Foreign Affairs Committee in condemnation of Turkey, is a perfect example of what I wrote in those columns, as well as what I have been saying for years.
The House has passed similar resolutions for years, praising some foreign countries or political groups while chastising others. It is my policy to vote against resolutions of this sort whenever they have the impact of placing our country in the middle of an internal political problem of some other nation, or involving us in some regional conflict. In fact, this is almost always the specific intent of resolutions of this sort. Often, I am the only Member of Congress to vote against these resolutions.
Some have questioned these votes, arguing that they are meaningless statements of opinion. However, I have always been more skeptical, and careful, about voting for these measures. Last week’s reaction by Turkey , a long term ally and NATO member, shows that Congress should be a lot more restrained in sticking our government’s nose into the affairs of other nations.
Even though I am no fan of the war in Iraq , keeping positive relations with Turkey is important to protecting our troops who have been sent to fight this war. We are likely to need cordial relations with Turkey so that we can get our troops out of Iraq as quickly and safely as possible, when the time comes.
As a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee, my office has been contacted both by the White House and the Turkish Embassy. They know I oppose these types of interventionist resolutions and they know I will not support the current resolution. They also know full well that this particular resolution will only serve to strain an important international relationship our country should be seeking to strengthen.
In this instance, the problem is that many of my colleagues in Congress are more interested in seeking to score political points and proclaim their moral superiority, instead of worrying about our nation’s best interests. Also, in most of these situations, those who oppose the resolution regarding Turkey all-too-often fail to realize that similar resolutions dealing with other nations have the exact same effect. Namely, they isolate our country from the rest of the world.
Even if other countries do not take the rather extreme step of recalling their ambassador, this kind of meddling by Congressional resolution almost always serves to offend governments and political leaders in other counties.
Last week’s events make clear that Congress, and our foreign policy establishment, must reconsider the entire policy of interventionism if we are to avoid further isolation of our nation.
Turkey’s recall of their U.S. ambassador in the wake of last week’s resolution, passed in the House Foreign Affairs Committee in condemnation of Turkey, is a perfect example of what I wrote in those columns, as well as what I have been saying for years.
The House has passed similar resolutions for years, praising some foreign countries or political groups while chastising others. It is my policy to vote against resolutions of this sort whenever they have the impact of placing our country in the middle of an internal political problem of some other nation, or involving us in some regional conflict. In fact, this is almost always the specific intent of resolutions of this sort. Often, I am the only Member of Congress to vote against these resolutions.
Some have questioned these votes, arguing that they are meaningless statements of opinion. However, I have always been more skeptical, and careful, about voting for these measures. Last week’s reaction by Turkey , a long term ally and NATO member, shows that Congress should be a lot more restrained in sticking our government’s nose into the affairs of other nations.
Even though I am no fan of the war in Iraq , keeping positive relations with Turkey is important to protecting our troops who have been sent to fight this war. We are likely to need cordial relations with Turkey so that we can get our troops out of Iraq as quickly and safely as possible, when the time comes.
As a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee, my office has been contacted both by the White House and the Turkish Embassy. They know I oppose these types of interventionist resolutions and they know I will not support the current resolution. They also know full well that this particular resolution will only serve to strain an important international relationship our country should be seeking to strengthen.
In this instance, the problem is that many of my colleagues in Congress are more interested in seeking to score political points and proclaim their moral superiority, instead of worrying about our nation’s best interests. Also, in most of these situations, those who oppose the resolution regarding Turkey all-too-often fail to realize that similar resolutions dealing with other nations have the exact same effect. Namely, they isolate our country from the rest of the world.
Even if other countries do not take the rather extreme step of recalling their ambassador, this kind of meddling by Congressional resolution almost always serves to offend governments and political leaders in other counties.
Last week’s events make clear that Congress, and our foreign policy establishment, must reconsider the entire policy of interventionism if we are to avoid further isolation of our nation.
Wednesday
WHAT I THINK....JOSHUA SNYDER
Dr. Ron Paul has called for American troops to be brought home not only from Iraq, but also from Germany, Japan, and South Korea, where in all countries they have been stationed for sixty years and counting. The case for pulling our forces from Germany is so obvious that it need not be discussed. But what about Japan and South Korea? The author has resided in South Korea for ten years, and will demonstrate why Dr. Paul is correct.
"What about North Korea?" is the first rejoinder on the lips of those who maintain that our continued presence is vital for Northeast Asian stability. No one who reads past headlines believes that North Korea is poised for world domination, and even if it were, it would have to seek the approval of its "big brother" in China, who has the most to lose from instability in the region. It is true that North Korea, still bitter about the colonization that took place between 1910 and 1945, has occasionally launched a test missile in the direction of Japan, with South Koreans, also bitter, silently cheering on. However, there is no reason to believe that Japan, the world's second largest economy, could not quickly muster the capability to defend itself, if its "self-defense" forces do not have that capability already. What, then, about South Korea?
The North launched an invasion of the South on June 25, 1950, but it would not do so today. Kim Jong-il may well be evil, but he's not a fool. The South Korean government has been his country's best ally during the past ten years. Under the so-called "Sunshine Policy" of South Korean Presidents Kim Dae-jung and Roh Moo-hyun, the North Korean regime has been propped up by aid and outright contributions from the South. This aid feeds the military and keeps the economy from coming to a standstill, preserving, for the time being, the Dear Leader from a coup d'état or from meeting the fate of Nicolae Ceauşescu. Kim Jong-il is wise enough to know not to bite the hand that feeds him and keeps him in power.
It could be argued that Kim Jong-il might launch an invasion of the South in order to cement his place in power, after which ruling over a reunified Korea with all the South's resources in his control. But he is no moron, and realizes that there is no Soviet Bloc to support him or even trade with him after such an invasion. An invasion would simply make him the leader of a larger, war-devastated, and even more isolated pariah state. Kim Jong-il has witnessed first-hand the market successes of China and his children have been educated abroad, in Switzerland. While he has a genius for brinkmanship, he realizes that further isolation will only weaken his hold on power, which is why he has been scurrying to further economic cooperation with the South. And even if this North-South cooperation were but a ruse, South Korea has the means to protect itself; its high-tech juggernaut economy is the world's twelfth largest and is forty times larger than that of the North.
This fact is not lost on the slight majority of South Koreans who support a continued American presence. They realize that if they were to have to bear full responsibility for the defense of their country, public funds available for mercantilist subsidies of South Korean conglomerates would dry up. In South Korea, government and business are in cahoots to an extent that causes shock to any Anglo-Saxon observer. Eminent domain on behalf of big business is a fact of life. Even brainy conscripts under South Korea's mandatory military service are often sent to serve companies in the private sector. By subsidizing South Korea's defense and thereby freeing up South Korean public funds for domestic corporate welfare of the type even Washington would balk at, America is selling her own companies and their workers down the river.
The Chinese bogeyman is the last argument for maintaining an American presence in Asia. Surely we should at least maintain the U.S.S. Japan as a last line of defense against the threat of the looming Chinese Century!
However, this line of thinking ignores the fact that the Middle Kingdom is contained as is perhaps no other major country on the planet. Moving counter-clockwise from the north, we have Russia, the 'stans of Central and South Asia, India, several very large ASEAN countries, and finally the Koreas and Japan. Among these countries are many of the world's most powerful countries in terms of diplomatic, economic, and military strength, not to mention population. And if this geographic containment were not enough, China's demographic containment will not allow it to become a world power any time soon.
One unintended result of Beijing's one-child policy is that China is one of the world's fastest aging societies. As a result of its rising standard of living, the elderly, who will soon be the majority, will demand an unprecedented amount of resources, which the Confucian Chinese would deem unthinkable to deny their elders. This demographic time bomb is only exacerbated by the prevalence of sex-selective abortion resulting in an alarming surplus population of males. It is very conceivable that fifty million young men with no possibility of marriage or family could find a substitute in military glory, even given the traditional Confucian disrespect toward things military. This could conceivably pose a risk for international instability. But it is inconceivable that China would target America for a land and resource grab.
Finally, our presence in Asia only serves to create a negative image of our country, which for many Koreans and Japanese begins with the red-light districts near US military bases. The culturally nearly-identical British bemoaned the fact that the Americans were "overpaid, oversexed, and over here." What of the racially homogeneous, historically xenophobic, and traditionally modest Japanese and Koreans? It is immaterial whether or not it was American GI's who brought modern prostitution to Korea; most Koreans accept this as an article of faith and it reflects poorly on our country. So do the violent crimes that inevitably occur when tens of thousands of men are far from home in an alien land.
We are under no constitutional obligation to maintain these East Asian alliances. In fact, doing so flies in the face of the Washingtonian and Jeffersonian warnings against "foreign entanglements" and "entangling alliances." And we are under no moral obligation to bankrupt ourselves retaining as protectorates two of the world's richest countries, Korea and Japan. It's high time we heeded the wisdom of Dr. Ron Paul and the founders by ending a military presence in East Asia which ultimately only serves against our national interests.
"What about North Korea?" is the first rejoinder on the lips of those who maintain that our continued presence is vital for Northeast Asian stability. No one who reads past headlines believes that North Korea is poised for world domination, and even if it were, it would have to seek the approval of its "big brother" in China, who has the most to lose from instability in the region. It is true that North Korea, still bitter about the colonization that took place between 1910 and 1945, has occasionally launched a test missile in the direction of Japan, with South Koreans, also bitter, silently cheering on. However, there is no reason to believe that Japan, the world's second largest economy, could not quickly muster the capability to defend itself, if its "self-defense" forces do not have that capability already. What, then, about South Korea?
The North launched an invasion of the South on June 25, 1950, but it would not do so today. Kim Jong-il may well be evil, but he's not a fool. The South Korean government has been his country's best ally during the past ten years. Under the so-called "Sunshine Policy" of South Korean Presidents Kim Dae-jung and Roh Moo-hyun, the North Korean regime has been propped up by aid and outright contributions from the South. This aid feeds the military and keeps the economy from coming to a standstill, preserving, for the time being, the Dear Leader from a coup d'état or from meeting the fate of Nicolae Ceauşescu. Kim Jong-il is wise enough to know not to bite the hand that feeds him and keeps him in power.
It could be argued that Kim Jong-il might launch an invasion of the South in order to cement his place in power, after which ruling over a reunified Korea with all the South's resources in his control. But he is no moron, and realizes that there is no Soviet Bloc to support him or even trade with him after such an invasion. An invasion would simply make him the leader of a larger, war-devastated, and even more isolated pariah state. Kim Jong-il has witnessed first-hand the market successes of China and his children have been educated abroad, in Switzerland. While he has a genius for brinkmanship, he realizes that further isolation will only weaken his hold on power, which is why he has been scurrying to further economic cooperation with the South. And even if this North-South cooperation were but a ruse, South Korea has the means to protect itself; its high-tech juggernaut economy is the world's twelfth largest and is forty times larger than that of the North.
This fact is not lost on the slight majority of South Koreans who support a continued American presence. They realize that if they were to have to bear full responsibility for the defense of their country, public funds available for mercantilist subsidies of South Korean conglomerates would dry up. In South Korea, government and business are in cahoots to an extent that causes shock to any Anglo-Saxon observer. Eminent domain on behalf of big business is a fact of life. Even brainy conscripts under South Korea's mandatory military service are often sent to serve companies in the private sector. By subsidizing South Korea's defense and thereby freeing up South Korean public funds for domestic corporate welfare of the type even Washington would balk at, America is selling her own companies and their workers down the river.
The Chinese bogeyman is the last argument for maintaining an American presence in Asia. Surely we should at least maintain the U.S.S. Japan as a last line of defense against the threat of the looming Chinese Century!
However, this line of thinking ignores the fact that the Middle Kingdom is contained as is perhaps no other major country on the planet. Moving counter-clockwise from the north, we have Russia, the 'stans of Central and South Asia, India, several very large ASEAN countries, and finally the Koreas and Japan. Among these countries are many of the world's most powerful countries in terms of diplomatic, economic, and military strength, not to mention population. And if this geographic containment were not enough, China's demographic containment will not allow it to become a world power any time soon.
One unintended result of Beijing's one-child policy is that China is one of the world's fastest aging societies. As a result of its rising standard of living, the elderly, who will soon be the majority, will demand an unprecedented amount of resources, which the Confucian Chinese would deem unthinkable to deny their elders. This demographic time bomb is only exacerbated by the prevalence of sex-selective abortion resulting in an alarming surplus population of males. It is very conceivable that fifty million young men with no possibility of marriage or family could find a substitute in military glory, even given the traditional Confucian disrespect toward things military. This could conceivably pose a risk for international instability. But it is inconceivable that China would target America for a land and resource grab.
Finally, our presence in Asia only serves to create a negative image of our country, which for many Koreans and Japanese begins with the red-light districts near US military bases. The culturally nearly-identical British bemoaned the fact that the Americans were "overpaid, oversexed, and over here." What of the racially homogeneous, historically xenophobic, and traditionally modest Japanese and Koreans? It is immaterial whether or not it was American GI's who brought modern prostitution to Korea; most Koreans accept this as an article of faith and it reflects poorly on our country. So do the violent crimes that inevitably occur when tens of thousands of men are far from home in an alien land.
We are under no constitutional obligation to maintain these East Asian alliances. In fact, doing so flies in the face of the Washingtonian and Jeffersonian warnings against "foreign entanglements" and "entangling alliances." And we are under no moral obligation to bankrupt ourselves retaining as protectorates two of the world's richest countries, Korea and Japan. It's high time we heeded the wisdom of Dr. Ron Paul and the founders by ending a military presence in East Asia which ultimately only serves against our national interests.
Tuesday
WHAT I THINK....ISAAC LOPEZ
Ron Paul is a protest candidate. No more. No less.
What you have to consider, though, is that Dr. Paul's campaign is a political dream come true for a lot of people in America right now. More proof of that can be found in the first ten days of the fourth quarter, where he's already raised over half of what Huckabee did all of last 3rd quarter. The day after the poorly moderated Michigan debates, Dr. Paul had a $100,000 day online (imagine how much more he could have raised if he’d have been treated like a candidate who had just raised $5 million dollars from enthusiastic Americans ready to vote for him).
What the media and Republican power center hasn’t quite figured out yet is that Ron Paul's campaign is not going away. At some point in time the media (and the people in general) are going to have to recognize the facts here. We have a fiscally conservative candidate who is garnering huge amounts of people-powered cash, talking about peoples’ top issue (getting out of the Iraqi civil war), while returning American government to its Constitutional roots. His voting record is as stellar in its adherence to Constitutional principle as you could ever imagine a voting record could be. Oh yeah, and he doesn't accept money from special interests.
Oh, and one more thing: the Ron Paul package comes tremendously steeped in Reagan tradition. Reagan's genial conservativism proved to be a powerfully winning formula for drawing people on both sides of the aisle. Ron Paul has already proven that this formula works like a charm in two separate elections in Texas, one where he beat a well-funded Democrat incumbent, and another where he beat a well-funded Republican who had previously been a Democrat. This is a man with bona fide cross-party appeal.
Ron Paul's Revolution isn't just a neat slogan. Whether the average person understands/believes it or not, there is radical change being peacefully born in our political system. The establishment is only going to be able to hide and marginalize Paul's campaign for so long. He's going to start (smartly) spending money soon. He has spent hardly a dime yet and he's gained ground in nearly every poll you can point to over the last six months (especially in primary states). These poll numbers have risen thanks to his debate performances, his non-stop touring across the states – from Washington DC, to Washington State – and his most powerful (yet thus far ignored) superweapon: the most free, and abundant political advertising that a candidate has ever enjoyed having in the history of political advertising.
People are going to find him... And when they do, they're going to find that this man is an open book. He's not afraid to talk at length about his principles to anyone who will listen, unabashedly and consistently speaking truth to power. With each debate, his willingness to stand up against popular and popularly backwards thought is going to gain him a lot of fans on both the left and the right. And as these reasonable folks explore their feelings of agreement on different issues (nearly everybody in America strongly agrees with Ron Paul on at least one core issue that's important to them), those who speak out about their political confusion and raise discussion about it will find themselves being brow-beat and driven out of their respective party by loyalists who demand near fealty to their flawed mainstream candidates (you can witness this already happening every day on RedState, FreeRepublic, or Daily Kos).
If Ron Paul doesn't get the Republican nomination, you have to remember that Ross Perot got 18% of the vote as a third-party candidate with a message nowhere near as powerful as Dr. Paul’s. Perot’s third party was something that he had just invented on the spot – the Reform Party. Dr. Paul already has a strong association to an existing political party to funnel his supporters into should his bid for the Republican Nomination fall short. With the backing of a party and enough widespread grassroots support, Ron Paul is the only candidate who's spot in the post-primary debates is virtually cemented. Everyone else still has to get by the primaries. All he has to do is make a decent showing in the primaries and then say yes to the supporters who have donated and will do everything they can to ensure that his name is on the ballot, even if this means accepting the Libertarian party nomination. Let Dr. Paul be coy now, but his campaign is like Plato’s cave, and nobody is going back down. Dr. Paul’s name will be on the ballot come hell or high water.
That's when the fireworks will really begin, because Ron Paul out-flanks both sides of the establishment candidates on issues that are crucial to their base's. Hillary vs. Rudy vs. Ron Paul in a debate is going to be Must See TV for the ages. It's going to be beautiful watching the establishment snakes double talk on their bases core issues, while Dr. Paul talks credibly about things like State's Rights, local controls, less government, fewer taxes, more personal liberty, a fundamentally sound economy, and peace through non-intervention teamed with free and abundant commerce.
And when election day comes, and people are in that voting booth with the curtain closed, and nothing but themselves, their United States ballot, and their own personal best interests in mind, they're going to find themselves faced with an unfamiliar reality: that they have a decision, and that they're not making a choice between Hillary and Rudy (the lesser of two evils), but that they're making a choice between Hillary and Ron Paul, and Rudy and Ron Paul.
And they're going to remember how their party has treated them. They're going to remember how the system has treated them. They're going to remember.
And I'll tell you what: they're going to protest.
What you have to consider, though, is that Dr. Paul's campaign is a political dream come true for a lot of people in America right now. More proof of that can be found in the first ten days of the fourth quarter, where he's already raised over half of what Huckabee did all of last 3rd quarter. The day after the poorly moderated Michigan debates, Dr. Paul had a $100,000 day online (imagine how much more he could have raised if he’d have been treated like a candidate who had just raised $5 million dollars from enthusiastic Americans ready to vote for him).
What the media and Republican power center hasn’t quite figured out yet is that Ron Paul's campaign is not going away. At some point in time the media (and the people in general) are going to have to recognize the facts here. We have a fiscally conservative candidate who is garnering huge amounts of people-powered cash, talking about peoples’ top issue (getting out of the Iraqi civil war), while returning American government to its Constitutional roots. His voting record is as stellar in its adherence to Constitutional principle as you could ever imagine a voting record could be. Oh yeah, and he doesn't accept money from special interests.
Oh, and one more thing: the Ron Paul package comes tremendously steeped in Reagan tradition. Reagan's genial conservativism proved to be a powerfully winning formula for drawing people on both sides of the aisle. Ron Paul has already proven that this formula works like a charm in two separate elections in Texas, one where he beat a well-funded Democrat incumbent, and another where he beat a well-funded Republican who had previously been a Democrat. This is a man with bona fide cross-party appeal.
Ron Paul's Revolution isn't just a neat slogan. Whether the average person understands/believes it or not, there is radical change being peacefully born in our political system. The establishment is only going to be able to hide and marginalize Paul's campaign for so long. He's going to start (smartly) spending money soon. He has spent hardly a dime yet and he's gained ground in nearly every poll you can point to over the last six months (especially in primary states). These poll numbers have risen thanks to his debate performances, his non-stop touring across the states – from Washington DC, to Washington State – and his most powerful (yet thus far ignored) superweapon: the most free, and abundant political advertising that a candidate has ever enjoyed having in the history of political advertising.
People are going to find him... And when they do, they're going to find that this man is an open book. He's not afraid to talk at length about his principles to anyone who will listen, unabashedly and consistently speaking truth to power. With each debate, his willingness to stand up against popular and popularly backwards thought is going to gain him a lot of fans on both the left and the right. And as these reasonable folks explore their feelings of agreement on different issues (nearly everybody in America strongly agrees with Ron Paul on at least one core issue that's important to them), those who speak out about their political confusion and raise discussion about it will find themselves being brow-beat and driven out of their respective party by loyalists who demand near fealty to their flawed mainstream candidates (you can witness this already happening every day on RedState, FreeRepublic, or Daily Kos).
If Ron Paul doesn't get the Republican nomination, you have to remember that Ross Perot got 18% of the vote as a third-party candidate with a message nowhere near as powerful as Dr. Paul’s. Perot’s third party was something that he had just invented on the spot – the Reform Party. Dr. Paul already has a strong association to an existing political party to funnel his supporters into should his bid for the Republican Nomination fall short. With the backing of a party and enough widespread grassroots support, Ron Paul is the only candidate who's spot in the post-primary debates is virtually cemented. Everyone else still has to get by the primaries. All he has to do is make a decent showing in the primaries and then say yes to the supporters who have donated and will do everything they can to ensure that his name is on the ballot, even if this means accepting the Libertarian party nomination. Let Dr. Paul be coy now, but his campaign is like Plato’s cave, and nobody is going back down. Dr. Paul’s name will be on the ballot come hell or high water.
That's when the fireworks will really begin, because Ron Paul out-flanks both sides of the establishment candidates on issues that are crucial to their base's. Hillary vs. Rudy vs. Ron Paul in a debate is going to be Must See TV for the ages. It's going to be beautiful watching the establishment snakes double talk on their bases core issues, while Dr. Paul talks credibly about things like State's Rights, local controls, less government, fewer taxes, more personal liberty, a fundamentally sound economy, and peace through non-intervention teamed with free and abundant commerce.
And when election day comes, and people are in that voting booth with the curtain closed, and nothing but themselves, their United States ballot, and their own personal best interests in mind, they're going to find themselves faced with an unfamiliar reality: that they have a decision, and that they're not making a choice between Hillary and Rudy (the lesser of two evils), but that they're making a choice between Hillary and Ron Paul, and Rudy and Ron Paul.
And they're going to remember how their party has treated them. They're going to remember how the system has treated them. They're going to remember.
And I'll tell you what: they're going to protest.
TAXING OURSELVES TO DEATH
This past week, Congress had an opportunity to permanently repeal the death tax by amending the Tax Collection Responsibility Act of 2007 to include language that ends the estate tax forever. This would have been a good provision in an overall bad bill. 212 Democrats were enough to keep this spectre looming on the horizon if the Bush tax cuts are not renewed in 2011. The bill passed without this silver lining and now we face big in increases taxes and penalties in the next five years.
The underlying attitude behind this bill, and the estate tax, is what I find so distressing about tax policy in this country today - that being a growing disregard for property rights, which are so important to the American dream.
The basic tenets of the American dream are that through hard work and ingenuity, you can earn a better life for yourself, and you can give your children a better start than you had. Surveying American history this vision has played out through steady economic progress and growth from one generation to the next. Our prosperity now is our reward for hard work and achievement in the past. Today we are the strongest economy in the world, and have much to be proud of, but Congress doesn’t seem to understand that we did not tax our way here.
Conversely, a nation certainly can tax its way out of prosperity, and that’s one danger I see with this bill, and with policies like the death tax.
The death tax punishes one of the greatest and ultimate satisfactions of achieving the American dream – the knowledge that your life’s work is an investment in your family’s future. Instead of being able to focus on hard work, however, death tax provisions keep countless estate planners working countless hours helping Americans negotiate through complicated tax laws just to keep the fruits of their life’s work out of the squandering hands of government.
Other anti-property rights provisions in the Tax Collection Responsibility Act make desperate last attempts to extract the most amount of revenue possible from expatriots on their way out the door. A telling signal that a country is taxing itself to death is capital flight and expatriation. When successful Americans no longer feel their property is secure from government thieves, and they have too much to lose by staying, they vote with their feet and go elsewhere. This country is poorer for the loss of that citizen’s investment here, but it is their right to keep and enjoy what they have built up. How dare Congress or the IRS try to deny them that? And what message does that send to the next generation of young entrepreneurs?
It is troubling to me that this country is chasing away wealth, while entitlements recklessly grow. The power to tax is the power to destroy, and we are making strides towards destroying prosperity but expanding the welfare state. This is a dangerous and untenable trend.
186 Republicans and 10 Democrats voted with me last week to kill the Death Tax. It is my hope that we will get another chance in the future to end this punitive and un-American tax for good.
The underlying attitude behind this bill, and the estate tax, is what I find so distressing about tax policy in this country today - that being a growing disregard for property rights, which are so important to the American dream.
The basic tenets of the American dream are that through hard work and ingenuity, you can earn a better life for yourself, and you can give your children a better start than you had. Surveying American history this vision has played out through steady economic progress and growth from one generation to the next. Our prosperity now is our reward for hard work and achievement in the past. Today we are the strongest economy in the world, and have much to be proud of, but Congress doesn’t seem to understand that we did not tax our way here.
Conversely, a nation certainly can tax its way out of prosperity, and that’s one danger I see with this bill, and with policies like the death tax.
The death tax punishes one of the greatest and ultimate satisfactions of achieving the American dream – the knowledge that your life’s work is an investment in your family’s future. Instead of being able to focus on hard work, however, death tax provisions keep countless estate planners working countless hours helping Americans negotiate through complicated tax laws just to keep the fruits of their life’s work out of the squandering hands of government.
Other anti-property rights provisions in the Tax Collection Responsibility Act make desperate last attempts to extract the most amount of revenue possible from expatriots on their way out the door. A telling signal that a country is taxing itself to death is capital flight and expatriation. When successful Americans no longer feel their property is secure from government thieves, and they have too much to lose by staying, they vote with their feet and go elsewhere. This country is poorer for the loss of that citizen’s investment here, but it is their right to keep and enjoy what they have built up. How dare Congress or the IRS try to deny them that? And what message does that send to the next generation of young entrepreneurs?
It is troubling to me that this country is chasing away wealth, while entitlements recklessly grow. The power to tax is the power to destroy, and we are making strides towards destroying prosperity but expanding the welfare state. This is a dangerous and untenable trend.
186 Republicans and 10 Democrats voted with me last week to kill the Death Tax. It is my hope that we will get another chance in the future to end this punitive and un-American tax for good.
Monday
WHAT I THINK....CARLA HOWELL
As Ron Paul for President is demonstrating, a bold small government message attracts and mobilizes ever-growing numbers of supporters. Disgust for Big Government is growing.
As Ron Paul is proving, Americans are hungry for plain and simple talk.
As Ron Paul is showing us, you can start small and grow fast. Start weak and grow strong. Start with modest donations and raise the large sums needed to put the case for freedom in front of the voters.
As Ron Paul is proving, Americans are hungry for plain and simple talk.
As Ron Paul is showing us, you can start small and grow fast. Start weak and grow strong. Start with modest donations and raise the large sums needed to put the case for freedom in front of the voters.
WHAT I THINK....CHARLEY REESE
If anyone doubts that the republic created by the U.S. Constitution is dead, he or she only has to watch the Republican presidential debates. Save for Dr. Ron Paul, all of the candidates believe a president can take the country to war on his own, though most concede it might be a good idea to "consult" attorneys and even Congress.
The Constitution, written by men more intelligent and better educated than today's crop of political duds, is quite clear. The president has no authority to take the country to war. The sole authority for declaring war rests 100 percent with Congress.
Naturally, if a shipload of pirates sailed up the Potomac and began shooting at the tourists, you wouldn't need a declaration to authorize returning fire. American troops defending themselves while under attack is not the issue. The issue is that if a president wants to take the country to war against another country, he must, as Franklin Roosevelt did after Pearl Harbor, ask Congress to make that decision.
The Founding Fathers, having suffered under a monarch, deliberately created a weak president. His powers, as specified by the Constitution, are limited mainly to administering the laws passed by Congress, making appointments, negotiating treaties and being the official greeter when dealing with foreign powers. His role as commander in chief is limited to just what it says – the military. The president is not our commander in chief, as the current president seems to think.
Lest anyone be beguiled by the current politicians' determination to create an emperor and an empire, even the president's appointments and treaties have to be confirmed by the Senate. Congress has sole authority over taxation and spending. Appropriations for the military are limited by the Constitution to two years. Furthermore, Congress is elected independently of the president and is a separate branch of government. It is under no obligation whatsoever to do anything the president asks it to do, and the president has no authority whatsoever to do anything not authorized by Congress and the Constitution.
The Constitution, which apparently not many Americans have ever bothered to read, is the supreme law of the land. It does not make suggestions. It commands. It was written in clear English. It has provisions to amend it, but it should never be amended by interpretation. That is always a usurpation of power and should be grounds for impeachment.
There is only one way for the U.S. to be a real nation of laws. That way is for the people to demand that every single public official obey the laws as they are written and obey them to the letter. The current president seems to think he can alter laws with "signing statements" and legislate with executive orders. He should have been impeached a long time ago.
The kernel of the nut is this: In our constitutional republic, sovereignty rests in the people. If the people are too stupid or ignorant, too lazy or indifferent, to hold their public officials accountable for violating the laws and the Constitution, then of course they will deserve the tyranny they will surely get.
Self-government is tremendously more difficult and demanding than living under a dictatorship. In a dictatorship, all you have to do is obey. I fear that concept appeals to some Americans today. It's understandable. Responsibility can be a heavy load to carry. It's much easier to relegate all of that to the Great Leader and just do what we are told.
Anybody who's ever been in the military or a jail knows what I'm talking about. When you are deprived of the ability to make choices, you are simultaneously relieved of the responsibility for making them. Responsibility is the other side of the coin of freedom.
The Constitution, written by men more intelligent and better educated than today's crop of political duds, is quite clear. The president has no authority to take the country to war. The sole authority for declaring war rests 100 percent with Congress.
Naturally, if a shipload of pirates sailed up the Potomac and began shooting at the tourists, you wouldn't need a declaration to authorize returning fire. American troops defending themselves while under attack is not the issue. The issue is that if a president wants to take the country to war against another country, he must, as Franklin Roosevelt did after Pearl Harbor, ask Congress to make that decision.
The Founding Fathers, having suffered under a monarch, deliberately created a weak president. His powers, as specified by the Constitution, are limited mainly to administering the laws passed by Congress, making appointments, negotiating treaties and being the official greeter when dealing with foreign powers. His role as commander in chief is limited to just what it says – the military. The president is not our commander in chief, as the current president seems to think.
Lest anyone be beguiled by the current politicians' determination to create an emperor and an empire, even the president's appointments and treaties have to be confirmed by the Senate. Congress has sole authority over taxation and spending. Appropriations for the military are limited by the Constitution to two years. Furthermore, Congress is elected independently of the president and is a separate branch of government. It is under no obligation whatsoever to do anything the president asks it to do, and the president has no authority whatsoever to do anything not authorized by Congress and the Constitution.
The Constitution, which apparently not many Americans have ever bothered to read, is the supreme law of the land. It does not make suggestions. It commands. It was written in clear English. It has provisions to amend it, but it should never be amended by interpretation. That is always a usurpation of power and should be grounds for impeachment.
There is only one way for the U.S. to be a real nation of laws. That way is for the people to demand that every single public official obey the laws as they are written and obey them to the letter. The current president seems to think he can alter laws with "signing statements" and legislate with executive orders. He should have been impeached a long time ago.
The kernel of the nut is this: In our constitutional republic, sovereignty rests in the people. If the people are too stupid or ignorant, too lazy or indifferent, to hold their public officials accountable for violating the laws and the Constitution, then of course they will deserve the tyranny they will surely get.
Self-government is tremendously more difficult and demanding than living under a dictatorship. In a dictatorship, all you have to do is obey. I fear that concept appeals to some Americans today. It's understandable. Responsibility can be a heavy load to carry. It's much easier to relegate all of that to the Great Leader and just do what we are told.
Anybody who's ever been in the military or a jail knows what I'm talking about. When you are deprived of the ability to make choices, you are simultaneously relieved of the responsibility for making them. Responsibility is the other side of the coin of freedom.
Thursday
WHAT I THINK....JUSTIN RAIMONDO
Ron Paul is breaking through. His call to return to the vision of the Founders, and the principles embodied in the Constitution, is piercing the wall of silence that surrounds the conduct of our disgraceful foreign policy. Andrea Mitchell proclaims him the new Howard Dean, network television takes note of his fundraising prowess and the resonance of his message, and then we have this very favorable piece on CNN, not to mention this, this, and this – all of which points to the appearance – or, rather, reappearance – of a resurgent political movement on the horizon: an anti-interventionist wing of the GOP.
Commentators, including those who most definitely look on Paul's success with a very jaundiced eye, are baffled. Why is this happening? How could a mere blip on the electoral screen, a man nobody thought was worth even a footnote in the story of this presidential campaign, suddenly catapult into prominence?
The answer is illustrated in a recent poll, which shows that the majority of Iowa Republicans want us out of Iraq in six months – a far more radical proposition than any of the major Democrats has yet to offer. It's no accident that Paul's political breakthrough is occurring just as the dissatisfaction of the GOP rank and file over the Iraq war issue reaches the breaking point. As the sole antiwar candidate in the Republican field, it makes perfect political sense that Paul's campaign is in the ascendancy.
Yes, of course, there are other issues in this race: the sellout of the conservative agenda on fiscal policy, a wholesale and unrelenting assault on the Bill of Rights, the immigration mess, the spectacle of a "socially conservative" party with a putative presidential front-runner whose private life is neither private nor an example of Christian virtue. Paul has some appeal to GOPers who can't stomach one – or any – of these ideological anomalies.
Yet most of these issues would not be relevant without the single most important question in this election, the answer to which underlies the basic approach of all the presidential candidates, and that is the war – not just the war in Iraq, but the one to come in Iran, as well as the broader "war on terrorism" that has eaten up so much of our attention and resources since 9/11.
For surely Giuliani would have been considered a long shot for the GOP nomination in a world where 9/11 never happened. What would he have run on, without his status as the vaunted hero of 9/11 to constantly fall back on and refer to? His entire campaign is based on the synchronicity of his being in Gracie Mansion as the Twin Towers fell: without that, he'd be somewhere between Mike Huckabee and Tom Tancredo in the polls.
The massive erosion of our civil liberties, the fiscal crisis staring us in the face, and even the immigration quandary have all been either brought to the fore out of relative obscurity or else greatly exacerbated by the post-9/11 hysteria that has so deformed the national consciousness and, consequently, our politics. Underlying all these disparate issues is the foreign policy question, and only Ron Paul is giving Republican voters an answer quite different from, say, Giuliani's – to take a cartoonishly extreme example of the pro-war view.
The media-anointed "front-runner" has problems other than having to explain himself to social conservatives. After all, how many Americans, even including Republicans, really want to see Norman Podhoretz ensconced in the Department of State? Once they hear Poddy's plea to President Bush to please, pretty please start bombing Iran, I'd venture to say not many.
As for the other GOP hopefuls, McCain has run out of gas, with his campaign stalled and his fundraising in free-fall. Why? McCain has been dragged down by the albatross of his more-royalist-than-the-king position on the Iraq war, his signature issue and the one he – mistakenly – built his entire campaign around. Fred Thompson has proved a dud, even less inspiring than the Stepford candidate, with all of Reagan's vagueness and none of his charm or acumen. The second- and third-tier candidates display an alarming lack when it comes to having either a clear ideological message or any particular brand of charisma (except for Alan Keyes, whose brand of charisma, like his ideology, is so idiosyncratic that it cancels itself out). Huckabee should announce he's running for vice president and be done with it, and the others amount to little more than vanity campaigns. By means of a simple process of elimination, Republicans are left with Ron Paul as the only alternative to ideological bankruptcy and looming political disaster.
The approach the chattering classes have taken to the Ron Paul phenomenon has been classic, rather along the lines of Gandhi's famous aphorism: first they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win.
The "let's ignore him and maybe he'll go away" phase ended right after the contretemps with Giuliani over the theory of "blowback." Giuliani's verbal assault on Paul condensed the ridicule-fight-victory process into a single, signal incident. What Giuliani and his enablers in the media failed to realize is that Paul's calm, considered, and thoughtful answer resonated with many voters.
The Iraq war has opened this entire question up as it relates to 9/11, a subject that was previously taboo, as Susan Sontag, Bill Maher, the Dixie Chicks, and any number of Andrew Sullivan's enemies, both real and imagined, learned to their sorrow. The war dramatized exactly what the critics of American foreign policy had been pointing out, to little effect, for years: that hostility toward America and the gathering terrorist threat were blowback from our actions overseas.
Rudy Giuliani is going around the country hectoring audiences with his Podhoretzian message of a civilizational war between the U.S. empire and international Islam: They hate us, he yells, they really hate us for who we are! Yes, but who are "we," exactly? If we're starting with the speaker of those words, then no wonder they hate us, but, aside from that, what's the problem? Is it our obsession with Britney Spears – or is it the bombs raining down on the Arab world, the propping up of killer regimes like Hosni Mubarak's in Egypt and the House of Saud, and our unconditional support for Israeli aggression (and not just against the Palestinians)?
Ron Paul has an answer quite different from the one usually given – or, I should say, the one allowed – by the self-appointed arbiters of political correctness: the debate "moderators," the pundits and television talkers, the "analysts" and "experts" who, like ancient seers examining the entrails of goats, interpret the meaning of political actors and events for us.
We have, however, outgrown such superstitions and no longer need or want the guidance of the gatekeepers, who have traditionally guarded the door to social and political "legitimacy" with jealous vigor. All their vigor and jealousy failed against a technology that simply outflanked them, took them by surprise, and laid siege to their journalistic fortress. These mandarins hid behind the Times-Select wall to the bitter end but couldn't keep it up indefinitely: there is no better symbol of the gatekeepers' fall. It was only a matter of time before that wall came down – and, with it, the whole concept of "mainstream" thought presided over by guardians of the permissible. The leveling of the playing field, made possible by the cybernetic revolution, has ended the intellectual and political monopoly of the elites. It's no wonder that the Paul campaign has such a massive online presence.
Furthermore, the existence of the Internet, far from destroying journalism, as predicted by some die-hard dead-tree'ers, has forced the "mainstream" media to be more responsive and flexible. That's why they're now paying attention to the Paul campaign: Ron is news, big-time political news. He's drawing thousands to his campaign rallies, a boast not many presidential candidates of either party can credibly make. And he's raking in the money. This quarter, he's brought in almost as much as McCain, and he's third – behind Giuliani and Romney – in the cash-on-hand sweepstakes. Money talks – and now they have to take him seriously.
The establishment has fallen back on their second line of defense: they ridicule him as a "kook," a "loon," and even a "bigot" – in short, they're trotting out the same attack strategy they used to target another rebel against the party establishment, true-blue conservative-slash libertarian Barry Goldwater.
Back in 1964, when the electorate was still in thrall to the gatekeepers' media machine, this tactic was quite effective. Today, however, this ploy has the effect of underscoring the depth of Paul's challenge to the political status quo, thereby enhancing his appeal. It works rather like the concept of blowback in the foreign policy realm: just as U.S. military intervention invites an equal and opposite reaction from its overseas victims, so the intervention of our political elites against the rising Paulian grassroots insurgency guarantees his base of support will expand.
Ignore, ridicule, attack – we're about into the third phase, and I expect that will commence shortly. Perhaps as shortly as the next GOP debate, and certainly right after. The neoconservatives have been the target of Paul's scorn on several occasions, and he is likely to receive it back in kind before long. Aside from Jonah Goldberg's ill-informed renunciation of Robert A. Taft and a few bouts of snickering at The Corner, National Review has so far kept its trap shut tight about the Texas troublemaker, even going so far as to exclude him from their daily compilation of stories about the GOP primary campaign. I have the feeling, however, that their silence is about to end, and Ron is about to join the ranks of the "unpatriotic conservatives." After all, the neocons have to somehow stop the erosion of their base at the hands of someone who so clearly understands the role of neoconservatism as a cancer eating away at the heart of the GOP and the conservative movement.
In their view, Paul is falling for the line of the "Left" that America is fighting a futile war against forces it neither understands nor has any hope of controlling, and yet if this was truly a "leftist" idea one would imagine that the Left would come to Paul's defense – but, no. The same "Ron is nuts" meme being spread by neocon snarkers on the right side of the blogosphere is being echoed by the "center" liberal-left. You see, anyone who opposes the system that makes imperialism possible – the mercantilist, state-capitalist system of corruption that enriches the few at the expense of the many – is "crazy."
Maybe he's just crazy enough to think our rulers will let him, or anyone with a major public platform, get away with exposing the full extent of their corruption – and thank God for that.
The Good Doctor is not alone in prescribing a change – a radical change – in our stance toward the rest of the world. You're hearing it not only on the Washington cocktail party circuit, but around the office water cooler: it's time to start disengaging from the mess our interventionist policymakers have created, starting in the Middle East. In carrying this stance into the arena of GOP presidential politics, Ron is a libertarian-noninterventionist gladiator taking on several lions at once. The resulting knockdown drag-out battle, regardless of its outcome, is going to be fun to watch.
Commentators, including those who most definitely look on Paul's success with a very jaundiced eye, are baffled. Why is this happening? How could a mere blip on the electoral screen, a man nobody thought was worth even a footnote in the story of this presidential campaign, suddenly catapult into prominence?
The answer is illustrated in a recent poll, which shows that the majority of Iowa Republicans want us out of Iraq in six months – a far more radical proposition than any of the major Democrats has yet to offer. It's no accident that Paul's political breakthrough is occurring just as the dissatisfaction of the GOP rank and file over the Iraq war issue reaches the breaking point. As the sole antiwar candidate in the Republican field, it makes perfect political sense that Paul's campaign is in the ascendancy.
Yes, of course, there are other issues in this race: the sellout of the conservative agenda on fiscal policy, a wholesale and unrelenting assault on the Bill of Rights, the immigration mess, the spectacle of a "socially conservative" party with a putative presidential front-runner whose private life is neither private nor an example of Christian virtue. Paul has some appeal to GOPers who can't stomach one – or any – of these ideological anomalies.
Yet most of these issues would not be relevant without the single most important question in this election, the answer to which underlies the basic approach of all the presidential candidates, and that is the war – not just the war in Iraq, but the one to come in Iran, as well as the broader "war on terrorism" that has eaten up so much of our attention and resources since 9/11.
For surely Giuliani would have been considered a long shot for the GOP nomination in a world where 9/11 never happened. What would he have run on, without his status as the vaunted hero of 9/11 to constantly fall back on and refer to? His entire campaign is based on the synchronicity of his being in Gracie Mansion as the Twin Towers fell: without that, he'd be somewhere between Mike Huckabee and Tom Tancredo in the polls.
The massive erosion of our civil liberties, the fiscal crisis staring us in the face, and even the immigration quandary have all been either brought to the fore out of relative obscurity or else greatly exacerbated by the post-9/11 hysteria that has so deformed the national consciousness and, consequently, our politics. Underlying all these disparate issues is the foreign policy question, and only Ron Paul is giving Republican voters an answer quite different from, say, Giuliani's – to take a cartoonishly extreme example of the pro-war view.
The media-anointed "front-runner" has problems other than having to explain himself to social conservatives. After all, how many Americans, even including Republicans, really want to see Norman Podhoretz ensconced in the Department of State? Once they hear Poddy's plea to President Bush to please, pretty please start bombing Iran, I'd venture to say not many.
As for the other GOP hopefuls, McCain has run out of gas, with his campaign stalled and his fundraising in free-fall. Why? McCain has been dragged down by the albatross of his more-royalist-than-the-king position on the Iraq war, his signature issue and the one he – mistakenly – built his entire campaign around. Fred Thompson has proved a dud, even less inspiring than the Stepford candidate, with all of Reagan's vagueness and none of his charm or acumen. The second- and third-tier candidates display an alarming lack when it comes to having either a clear ideological message or any particular brand of charisma (except for Alan Keyes, whose brand of charisma, like his ideology, is so idiosyncratic that it cancels itself out). Huckabee should announce he's running for vice president and be done with it, and the others amount to little more than vanity campaigns. By means of a simple process of elimination, Republicans are left with Ron Paul as the only alternative to ideological bankruptcy and looming political disaster.
The approach the chattering classes have taken to the Ron Paul phenomenon has been classic, rather along the lines of Gandhi's famous aphorism: first they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win.
The "let's ignore him and maybe he'll go away" phase ended right after the contretemps with Giuliani over the theory of "blowback." Giuliani's verbal assault on Paul condensed the ridicule-fight-victory process into a single, signal incident. What Giuliani and his enablers in the media failed to realize is that Paul's calm, considered, and thoughtful answer resonated with many voters.
The Iraq war has opened this entire question up as it relates to 9/11, a subject that was previously taboo, as Susan Sontag, Bill Maher, the Dixie Chicks, and any number of Andrew Sullivan's enemies, both real and imagined, learned to their sorrow. The war dramatized exactly what the critics of American foreign policy had been pointing out, to little effect, for years: that hostility toward America and the gathering terrorist threat were blowback from our actions overseas.
Rudy Giuliani is going around the country hectoring audiences with his Podhoretzian message of a civilizational war between the U.S. empire and international Islam: They hate us, he yells, they really hate us for who we are! Yes, but who are "we," exactly? If we're starting with the speaker of those words, then no wonder they hate us, but, aside from that, what's the problem? Is it our obsession with Britney Spears – or is it the bombs raining down on the Arab world, the propping up of killer regimes like Hosni Mubarak's in Egypt and the House of Saud, and our unconditional support for Israeli aggression (and not just against the Palestinians)?
Ron Paul has an answer quite different from the one usually given – or, I should say, the one allowed – by the self-appointed arbiters of political correctness: the debate "moderators," the pundits and television talkers, the "analysts" and "experts" who, like ancient seers examining the entrails of goats, interpret the meaning of political actors and events for us.
We have, however, outgrown such superstitions and no longer need or want the guidance of the gatekeepers, who have traditionally guarded the door to social and political "legitimacy" with jealous vigor. All their vigor and jealousy failed against a technology that simply outflanked them, took them by surprise, and laid siege to their journalistic fortress. These mandarins hid behind the Times-Select wall to the bitter end but couldn't keep it up indefinitely: there is no better symbol of the gatekeepers' fall. It was only a matter of time before that wall came down – and, with it, the whole concept of "mainstream" thought presided over by guardians of the permissible. The leveling of the playing field, made possible by the cybernetic revolution, has ended the intellectual and political monopoly of the elites. It's no wonder that the Paul campaign has such a massive online presence.
Furthermore, the existence of the Internet, far from destroying journalism, as predicted by some die-hard dead-tree'ers, has forced the "mainstream" media to be more responsive and flexible. That's why they're now paying attention to the Paul campaign: Ron is news, big-time political news. He's drawing thousands to his campaign rallies, a boast not many presidential candidates of either party can credibly make. And he's raking in the money. This quarter, he's brought in almost as much as McCain, and he's third – behind Giuliani and Romney – in the cash-on-hand sweepstakes. Money talks – and now they have to take him seriously.
The establishment has fallen back on their second line of defense: they ridicule him as a "kook," a "loon," and even a "bigot" – in short, they're trotting out the same attack strategy they used to target another rebel against the party establishment, true-blue conservative-slash libertarian Barry Goldwater.
Back in 1964, when the electorate was still in thrall to the gatekeepers' media machine, this tactic was quite effective. Today, however, this ploy has the effect of underscoring the depth of Paul's challenge to the political status quo, thereby enhancing his appeal. It works rather like the concept of blowback in the foreign policy realm: just as U.S. military intervention invites an equal and opposite reaction from its overseas victims, so the intervention of our political elites against the rising Paulian grassroots insurgency guarantees his base of support will expand.
Ignore, ridicule, attack – we're about into the third phase, and I expect that will commence shortly. Perhaps as shortly as the next GOP debate, and certainly right after. The neoconservatives have been the target of Paul's scorn on several occasions, and he is likely to receive it back in kind before long. Aside from Jonah Goldberg's ill-informed renunciation of Robert A. Taft and a few bouts of snickering at The Corner, National Review has so far kept its trap shut tight about the Texas troublemaker, even going so far as to exclude him from their daily compilation of stories about the GOP primary campaign. I have the feeling, however, that their silence is about to end, and Ron is about to join the ranks of the "unpatriotic conservatives." After all, the neocons have to somehow stop the erosion of their base at the hands of someone who so clearly understands the role of neoconservatism as a cancer eating away at the heart of the GOP and the conservative movement.
In their view, Paul is falling for the line of the "Left" that America is fighting a futile war against forces it neither understands nor has any hope of controlling, and yet if this was truly a "leftist" idea one would imagine that the Left would come to Paul's defense – but, no. The same "Ron is nuts" meme being spread by neocon snarkers on the right side of the blogosphere is being echoed by the "center" liberal-left. You see, anyone who opposes the system that makes imperialism possible – the mercantilist, state-capitalist system of corruption that enriches the few at the expense of the many – is "crazy."
Maybe he's just crazy enough to think our rulers will let him, or anyone with a major public platform, get away with exposing the full extent of their corruption – and thank God for that.
The Good Doctor is not alone in prescribing a change – a radical change – in our stance toward the rest of the world. You're hearing it not only on the Washington cocktail party circuit, but around the office water cooler: it's time to start disengaging from the mess our interventionist policymakers have created, starting in the Middle East. In carrying this stance into the arena of GOP presidential politics, Ron is a libertarian-noninterventionist gladiator taking on several lions at once. The resulting knockdown drag-out battle, regardless of its outcome, is going to be fun to watch.
KEEPING PROMISES TO SENIORS
With our country's finances stretched thin, our credit limit fast approaching, and our currency inflated to the breaking point, there is no indication yet of any urgency on the part of Congress to rein in spending. The predictable answer to the government's voracious spending habits is this week’s proposal by some Democratic Congressional leaders for tax increases to pay for operations in Iraq . Here at home, however, there are promises our seniors heavily rely upon. We must keep these promises.
An analysis of the Social Security "Trust Fund" shows we are not doing a credible job of keeping these promises. Official reports show the trust fund having assets of $2.1 trillion. In reality, those dollars are just IOUs the government is writing to itself when it borrows from the fund to spend on unrelated programs. There are no real assets in the Social Security Trust Fund. This is similar to taking money out of your savings account, spending it, then replacing it with an IOU to yourself, and calling that IOU an asset.
In addition, this money we owe to our seniors is not even included in official budget deficit figures. In fiscal year 2006 alone, $185 billion was borrowed from Social Security. The official deficit was reported to be $248 billion. The actual deficit for 2006 would be $433 billion when combining the two. This sort of accounting would land private sector executives in prison for fraud.
Yet this is done every year by the federal government. The truth is that while politicians in Washington differ about what programs to spend Social Security money on, they are united in wanting to spend it on something other than benefits for seniors.
This approach can continue only until Social Security stops running “surpluses” the government can raid. Trustees of Social Security estimate this will happen in 2017. At that time, the amount owed to the Trust Fund will be between $4 trillion and $5.2 trillion, depending on the economy.
When that day of reckoning comes, there will no longer be “excess” payroll tax receipts available to prop up government spending, and the risk of financial crisis will be significant. Instead of forward thinking solutions, politicians are discussing alarming proposals, such as an agreement with Mexico to let their citizens collect social security money intended for our seniors. This would break the bank even sooner. But, current Members of Congress will no longer be in office to face the wrath of seniors and their families when the trust fund goes bankrupt. Instead, they will be retired and enjoying their own plush Congressional pensions.
I have been working to reverse this trend. My Social Security Preservation Act, HR 219 would make sure this Trust Fund has real assets such as certificates of deposit in FDIC-insured institutions so that in 2017 and beyond, Social Security payments would continue for those who are depending on them.
An analysis of the Social Security "Trust Fund" shows we are not doing a credible job of keeping these promises. Official reports show the trust fund having assets of $2.1 trillion. In reality, those dollars are just IOUs the government is writing to itself when it borrows from the fund to spend on unrelated programs. There are no real assets in the Social Security Trust Fund. This is similar to taking money out of your savings account, spending it, then replacing it with an IOU to yourself, and calling that IOU an asset.
In addition, this money we owe to our seniors is not even included in official budget deficit figures. In fiscal year 2006 alone, $185 billion was borrowed from Social Security. The official deficit was reported to be $248 billion. The actual deficit for 2006 would be $433 billion when combining the two. This sort of accounting would land private sector executives in prison for fraud.
Yet this is done every year by the federal government. The truth is that while politicians in Washington differ about what programs to spend Social Security money on, they are united in wanting to spend it on something other than benefits for seniors.
This approach can continue only until Social Security stops running “surpluses” the government can raid. Trustees of Social Security estimate this will happen in 2017. At that time, the amount owed to the Trust Fund will be between $4 trillion and $5.2 trillion, depending on the economy.
When that day of reckoning comes, there will no longer be “excess” payroll tax receipts available to prop up government spending, and the risk of financial crisis will be significant. Instead of forward thinking solutions, politicians are discussing alarming proposals, such as an agreement with Mexico to let their citizens collect social security money intended for our seniors. This would break the bank even sooner. But, current Members of Congress will no longer be in office to face the wrath of seniors and their families when the trust fund goes bankrupt. Instead, they will be retired and enjoying their own plush Congressional pensions.
I have been working to reverse this trend. My Social Security Preservation Act, HR 219 would make sure this Trust Fund has real assets such as certificates of deposit in FDIC-insured institutions so that in 2017 and beyond, Social Security payments would continue for those who are depending on them.
Monday
WHAT I THINK....RICK FISK
Ron Paul can win.
Dr. Paul's latest accomplishments have created a great deal of buzz amongst the old media talking heads (let's stop calling them "mainstream" OK?) Most of those who have been predicting that Ron Paul is a long shot or is merely a curiosity are now forced to re-assess their remarks; those who are honest anyway. The rest continue to repeat the same derisive comments because they haven't yet figured out how they're going to derail the Revolution.
Ron Paul's supporters, my favorite name for them so far is "Paulunteers," have decided that he's going to be their next President.
There are several reasons why Ron Paul's campaign is historic and none of them have to do with Ron Paul's "genius" in utilizing the Internet. The old media would like us to believe that Ron Paul's campaign is just a repeat of the Howard Dean campaign. However, there is only one parallel, grass roots support, but all comparisons end there. What most of the derisive pundits overlook is the campaign's message. The fact that they do not truly understand what Dr. Paul is advocating, speaks volumes about entrenched old media personnel.
Like government bureaucrats who spend most of their lives witnessing tragedy, their view of the world is distorted. Members of the old media have spent at least 40 years attempting to amplify the worst in our society, pretending it is the norm. It isn't surprising that this advocacy would turn practitioners into believers. The old media is used to politics as strictly an advertising campaign. Typically, the public is manipulated by psychological propaganda issued by campaigners. To the media and many scientific observers, this manipulative process always works. From the time that the first soap advertisements were produced, people have studied and improved upon propaganda techniques. However, humans are unpredictable. Most studies assume that because a particular experiment showed humans to be easily manipulated, they will always be subject to manipulation and thus merely focus on the effectiveness of different techniques.
The possibility that humans could change their behaviors and beliefs is not seriously considered. Take a look at polling for example. In spite of the knowledge that technology and its use has been changing, every major polling organization still clings to old methods. They have not adapted to new technologies whereas the population is doing so. The old adage – "if you repeat a lie often enough it becomes truth" – is assumed to be true forever. What if it isn't? What if Goebbels was wrong? Or, what if what Goebbels said was true but there is a more powerful antithesis?
To one who knows the truth, the repetition of lies cannot shake his belief in those truths.
Alan Stang wrote of Ron Paul recently:
Then, suddenly, without warning, there was an Incredible Hulk transformation. Godzilla was onstage, biting off heads, tearing off limbs and chewing on the bones. Who was he? Where had he come from? Who let him in? The reptilian media scumbags couldn’t very well drag him off the dais. The cameras were live. They had to sit there and listen while Dr. Ron assured them that his first official act as President would be to dismantle IRS.
And across the country, from the west bank of the Hudson to the California line, a roar erupted, as millions of astounded Americans who pay the taxes, fight the wars and go to work (unless their jobs have been deported), realized that Dr. Ron was saying in plain English what they believe in private. Most of the other candidates spoke boilerplate. They saw they were not alone and not crazy. "Imagine! A candidate for President who thinks like me."
The self-evident nature of certain truths is a problem for the old media and central planners. When the founders stated that some truths were self-evident, they were acknowledging that truth didn't require a certain level of education or rational thinking to be understood. We know them in our bones and they do not necessarily require articulation. I personally believe that these truths are so obvious that social planners have for over a century, done everything they can to prevent them from being considered. A great number of "isms" have been introduced into our lexicon and taught in public schools and universities; most of which seek to rationalize and advocate central planning.
But because they are stuck in the same cycle, they don't recognize what is actually happening. Why is Ron Paul so successful in spite of the fact that his campaign hasn't employed "time tested" methods?
• Message/Delivery
This is number one on the list though what follows may not necessarily be in order. Ron Paul's message isn't original, but it is powerful and highlights the self-evident truths that drive every human action and interaction. Most importantly, this message is not antagonistic. To central planners it is offensive, but to everyday people, it is purely positive. Ron Paul's strength is in the way he delivers the message – not as a charismatic speaker but as a Patriot whose actions are hard to fault. He's the opposite of a cult leader because he does not demand anyone follow him. Quite the opposite is true. His statements have been in deference to his supporters. They are the ones leading the Revolution and he is merely the public representative of this movement.
• Home Schooling
For the past 25 years, a significant number of parents have rejected government schools. Not only can we count a large number of the children (some 1 million per year) as better educated, their parents count amongst those who, in spite of a public education, have rejected central planning. While it is hard to gather statistics in this regard the number could be up to 30 million who have completed their studies or are in the process of doing so.
• Government Intervention – "blowback"
Over the past 40 years the government at all levels has become increasingly belligerent towards us. The increasing level of central planning is producing the unintended consequence of a population seeking ways to circumvent central planning. This is a feature of any market system as it is fundamentally part of all nature (not just humans) to seek freedom.
• Distillation of the Message
The Internet is a key here but only as a tool. The use of YouTube and various social networking sites have compressed Ron Paul's public appearances and allowed people to see what he has to say without the old media's vapid commentary. The "permanence" of availability is also important. Prior to the internet, one had to tune in or wait for a re-run to air. Now, we have an on-demand source of information and no one to dole it out in acceptable doses.
• Action
This applies to both Ron Paul and his supporters. Actions speak far louder than words. As with Ron Paul's life-long devotion to spreading the message of freedom, his supporters, encouraged by Dr. Paul's sincerity, proven by his actions, are taking action themselves. This action is far more powerful than the old media's methods of simply broadcasting platitudes and slogans.
• The Remnant
Counted amongst the remnant must be Lew Rockwell and the Von Mises Institute, Ludwig Von Mises, Ron Paul, Harry Browne, Ronald Reagan, Barry Goldwater, Murray Rothbard, Alan Stang, a gaggle of Patriot Movement writers and protesters and to some degree Ayn Rand and her Objectivist followers – all who have provided a source of enlightenment and an antidote to central planning themes. We also must include the relatively small group (as compared to all of organized Christianity) who actually follow Jesus' teachings and of course Jesus himself whom I list last but certainly not least. Their reach was, and is, far greater than imagined.
• Convergence/Timing
The blowback listed above has created a myriad of political insurgencies. Every Federal agency has organized detractors now. From the BATF, to the Department of Education, there are advocacy groups which oppose the policies of these agencies. Though these groups will not always agree with one another, we are at a very unique point in our history where members of these groups are coming together while laying aside any differences they may have. Ron Paul’s candidacy has facilitated this.
To use an old cliché, the stars are aligning perfectly for Ron Paul and against his opponents. The results have been nothing less than spectacular. This isn't to say that a Ron Paul victory is a foregone conclusion. Quite the contrary, we have no idea what the establishment is going to do next. However, we do know, like the Federal Reserve which has one weapon in its arsenal, inflation; the government also has only one weapon, force. Its fraudulent use of force is the cause for Paulunteer's sense of urgency. More of the same will only speed up the process.
However, it's not just wishful thinking as detractors keep saying. There is a very real possibility that we can lead Ron Paul right into the White House over the objections of his detractors.
Dr. Paul's latest accomplishments have created a great deal of buzz amongst the old media talking heads (let's stop calling them "mainstream" OK?) Most of those who have been predicting that Ron Paul is a long shot or is merely a curiosity are now forced to re-assess their remarks; those who are honest anyway. The rest continue to repeat the same derisive comments because they haven't yet figured out how they're going to derail the Revolution.
Ron Paul's supporters, my favorite name for them so far is "Paulunteers," have decided that he's going to be their next President.
There are several reasons why Ron Paul's campaign is historic and none of them have to do with Ron Paul's "genius" in utilizing the Internet. The old media would like us to believe that Ron Paul's campaign is just a repeat of the Howard Dean campaign. However, there is only one parallel, grass roots support, but all comparisons end there. What most of the derisive pundits overlook is the campaign's message. The fact that they do not truly understand what Dr. Paul is advocating, speaks volumes about entrenched old media personnel.
Like government bureaucrats who spend most of their lives witnessing tragedy, their view of the world is distorted. Members of the old media have spent at least 40 years attempting to amplify the worst in our society, pretending it is the norm. It isn't surprising that this advocacy would turn practitioners into believers. The old media is used to politics as strictly an advertising campaign. Typically, the public is manipulated by psychological propaganda issued by campaigners. To the media and many scientific observers, this manipulative process always works. From the time that the first soap advertisements were produced, people have studied and improved upon propaganda techniques. However, humans are unpredictable. Most studies assume that because a particular experiment showed humans to be easily manipulated, they will always be subject to manipulation and thus merely focus on the effectiveness of different techniques.
The possibility that humans could change their behaviors and beliefs is not seriously considered. Take a look at polling for example. In spite of the knowledge that technology and its use has been changing, every major polling organization still clings to old methods. They have not adapted to new technologies whereas the population is doing so. The old adage – "if you repeat a lie often enough it becomes truth" – is assumed to be true forever. What if it isn't? What if Goebbels was wrong? Or, what if what Goebbels said was true but there is a more powerful antithesis?
To one who knows the truth, the repetition of lies cannot shake his belief in those truths.
Alan Stang wrote of Ron Paul recently:
Then, suddenly, without warning, there was an Incredible Hulk transformation. Godzilla was onstage, biting off heads, tearing off limbs and chewing on the bones. Who was he? Where had he come from? Who let him in? The reptilian media scumbags couldn’t very well drag him off the dais. The cameras were live. They had to sit there and listen while Dr. Ron assured them that his first official act as President would be to dismantle IRS.
And across the country, from the west bank of the Hudson to the California line, a roar erupted, as millions of astounded Americans who pay the taxes, fight the wars and go to work (unless their jobs have been deported), realized that Dr. Ron was saying in plain English what they believe in private. Most of the other candidates spoke boilerplate. They saw they were not alone and not crazy. "Imagine! A candidate for President who thinks like me."
The self-evident nature of certain truths is a problem for the old media and central planners. When the founders stated that some truths were self-evident, they were acknowledging that truth didn't require a certain level of education or rational thinking to be understood. We know them in our bones and they do not necessarily require articulation. I personally believe that these truths are so obvious that social planners have for over a century, done everything they can to prevent them from being considered. A great number of "isms" have been introduced into our lexicon and taught in public schools and universities; most of which seek to rationalize and advocate central planning.
But because they are stuck in the same cycle, they don't recognize what is actually happening. Why is Ron Paul so successful in spite of the fact that his campaign hasn't employed "time tested" methods?
• Message/Delivery
This is number one on the list though what follows may not necessarily be in order. Ron Paul's message isn't original, but it is powerful and highlights the self-evident truths that drive every human action and interaction. Most importantly, this message is not antagonistic. To central planners it is offensive, but to everyday people, it is purely positive. Ron Paul's strength is in the way he delivers the message – not as a charismatic speaker but as a Patriot whose actions are hard to fault. He's the opposite of a cult leader because he does not demand anyone follow him. Quite the opposite is true. His statements have been in deference to his supporters. They are the ones leading the Revolution and he is merely the public representative of this movement.
• Home Schooling
For the past 25 years, a significant number of parents have rejected government schools. Not only can we count a large number of the children (some 1 million per year) as better educated, their parents count amongst those who, in spite of a public education, have rejected central planning. While it is hard to gather statistics in this regard the number could be up to 30 million who have completed their studies or are in the process of doing so.
• Government Intervention – "blowback"
Over the past 40 years the government at all levels has become increasingly belligerent towards us. The increasing level of central planning is producing the unintended consequence of a population seeking ways to circumvent central planning. This is a feature of any market system as it is fundamentally part of all nature (not just humans) to seek freedom.
• Distillation of the Message
The Internet is a key here but only as a tool. The use of YouTube and various social networking sites have compressed Ron Paul's public appearances and allowed people to see what he has to say without the old media's vapid commentary. The "permanence" of availability is also important. Prior to the internet, one had to tune in or wait for a re-run to air. Now, we have an on-demand source of information and no one to dole it out in acceptable doses.
• Action
This applies to both Ron Paul and his supporters. Actions speak far louder than words. As with Ron Paul's life-long devotion to spreading the message of freedom, his supporters, encouraged by Dr. Paul's sincerity, proven by his actions, are taking action themselves. This action is far more powerful than the old media's methods of simply broadcasting platitudes and slogans.
• The Remnant
Counted amongst the remnant must be Lew Rockwell and the Von Mises Institute, Ludwig Von Mises, Ron Paul, Harry Browne, Ronald Reagan, Barry Goldwater, Murray Rothbard, Alan Stang, a gaggle of Patriot Movement writers and protesters and to some degree Ayn Rand and her Objectivist followers – all who have provided a source of enlightenment and an antidote to central planning themes. We also must include the relatively small group (as compared to all of organized Christianity) who actually follow Jesus' teachings and of course Jesus himself whom I list last but certainly not least. Their reach was, and is, far greater than imagined.
• Convergence/Timing
The blowback listed above has created a myriad of political insurgencies. Every Federal agency has organized detractors now. From the BATF, to the Department of Education, there are advocacy groups which oppose the policies of these agencies. Though these groups will not always agree with one another, we are at a very unique point in our history where members of these groups are coming together while laying aside any differences they may have. Ron Paul’s candidacy has facilitated this.
To use an old cliché, the stars are aligning perfectly for Ron Paul and against his opponents. The results have been nothing less than spectacular. This isn't to say that a Ron Paul victory is a foregone conclusion. Quite the contrary, we have no idea what the establishment is going to do next. However, we do know, like the Federal Reserve which has one weapon in its arsenal, inflation; the government also has only one weapon, force. Its fraudulent use of force is the cause for Paulunteer's sense of urgency. More of the same will only speed up the process.
However, it's not just wishful thinking as detractors keep saying. There is a very real possibility that we can lead Ron Paul right into the White House over the objections of his detractors.
WHAT I THINK....ALAN BOCK
The biggest news to come out of the Ron Paul campaign last week was that the campaign raised $5.08 million during the third quarter of this year. That's not the $27 million that Hillary raised or even the $6 million or $7 million (on top of $10 million from others) that Mitt Romney donated to himself from his personal fortune. But it's real money, even in national presidential politics.
A week before the end of the reporting period the Paul campaign challenged supporters to donate $500,000 by Sept. 30. They did that in three days, so the campaign increased the challenge to $1 million. Piece of cake. By the end of the day Paul supporters had donated more than $1.2 million. The campaign reports that it has $5.3 million in hand as the candidates prepare for actual primaries rather than just debates and straw polls.
John McCain, who is much more prominent and used to be considered in the top tier of candidates, raised about the same amount over the third quarter, but he still has several million in debts. Mike Huckabee, viewed by much of the media as the only second-tier GOP candidate with a chance to break through because of his religious-right roots, raised a paltry $1 million.
Ron Paul may be the candidate who breaks through. Whatever happens, his campaign has turned into the most significant pro-freedom mass movement in modern American history, perhaps in all of our history. Early on he was viewed as strictly an Internet candidate because he usually dominated the "who won?" polls on cable TV Web sites after Republican debates. That could be dismissed as a function of Net-savvy libertarians spamming the polling sites.
As debates and other events started to take place, however, it turned out that the campaign was also able to turn out "boots on the ground" – large crowds of enthusiastic supporters of all ages and descriptions, including college students, young families, aging Goldwaterites and Reaganites, hippies and bikers. At joint events, people started to notice that the Ron Paul Revolution signs seemed to outnumber the signs of all the other candidates combined. When Paul was excluded from a GOP debate in Iowa his supporters came out for a predebate speech and rally, and, without disrupting the actual debate inside, dominated the event.
Last weekend he held a rally in New Hampshire attended by about 800 people – the largest crowd any candidate has turned out to date in that state. After listening to him speak (and getting all of them who weren't duly registered to vote), the troops dispersed to the three major cities in New Hampshire to knock on doors. They hit 12,000 households in New Hampshire that day.
A Paul supporter and blogger from Pittsburgh who attended the rally told an interesting story. He had come to sell T-shirts to help finance what he hopes will be several hundred Pennsylvanians busing to New Hampshire the week of the primary to work for Paul. Toward the end of the rally a fellow who had been hanging around the table came over and plunked down a big wad of cash. He told them he wanted to be anonymous, but he wanted to buy a Ron Paul T-shirt for every child in the crowd (about 50) and have volunteers hand them out. Turns out he had already given the maximum $2,300 to the actual campaign, but he goes to campaign events and looks for other ways to help out.
That illustrates an aspect of the volunteer, grass-roots nature of the Paul campaign that may well be worth more than the $5 million in formal donations the campaign raised last quarter. Lew Rockwell, proprietor of the popular libertarian Web site LewRockwell.com, told me that whenever he's been to a Paul campaign event, he sees at least a dozen different kinds of T-shirts, bumper stickers, buttons and the like being sold or given away – "nice stuff, not homemade schlock" – by local Paul volunteers.
Kent Snyder, Ron Paul's campaign manager, told me that as of Wednesday (the numbers are undoubtedly higher now), Ron Paul has 29,489 YouTube subscribers, and YouTube videos featuring Ron Paul have attracted 4,339,507 views. Barack Obama has attracted more views (11,197,523) but has only 11,264 subscribers. Among the other Republicans, Mitt Romney is second, with 3,076 subscribers and 784,640 views, followed by Rudy Giuliani (2,467 and 655,000) and McCain (1,631 and 483,174).
Hillary Clinton has 6,089 subscribers and 926,547 views. (Numbers for all candidates for Facebook, MySpace and YouTube are available, updated daily, at www.techpresident.com.)
As of Wednesday, Snyder says, there were 49,928 Ron Paul MeetUp supporters in 771 cities in 22 countries (including one in the Green Zone in Baghdad). So far they have held 7,671 events, ranging from a few people meeting at somebody's kitchen table to speeches and rallies. As of the most recent report, according to USA Today, Paul had raised more money from active members of the military than any other Republican. Whom do the troops support?
The Paul campaign has evolved into "a self-directed, decentralized organization full of people who take the initiative locally," Rockwell told me. He believes that the movement will continue, whatever happens electorally, and that's a good portent for the future of freedom. He notes that especially the young supporters seem interested in reading and learning about freedom as well as attending rallies.
So how did a 72-year-old grandfather who is self-effacing and slender to the point of looking frail on television (he doesn't in person) become the closest thing to a rock star the Republicans have produced, swarmed for autographs at every appearance? Raised in Pittsburgh, Ron Paul attended Duke medical school, served in the Air Force, and began practicing medicine (he's an OB-GYN) near Houston. Along the way he started reading writers like Ludwig von Mises and Friedrich von Hayek and became a strong supporter of free-market economics and the gold standard.
He supported Reagan for president in 1976 and was elected to Congress the same year, which is when I first met him (I was living in the D.C. area and was assigned by the long-defunct magazine Conservative Digest to do a profile shortly after Paul entered Congress).
His practice in Congress has been to ask himself, before each vote, whether this is a program specifically authorized by the Constitution. If the answer is no, he opposes it – including funding for NASA when NASA was in his district. This has earned him the nickname, "Dr. No."
After an unsuccessful run at a Texas Senate seat in a 1982 primary won by Phil Gramm, he returned to medicine for a while and was the 1988 presidential nominee of the Libertarian Party, where he pulled the usual 1 percent or so. Afterward he ran for Congress again, and despite a couple of efforts by the Texas Republican establishment to knock him off in the primary, he has won reelection ever since.
His most significant issue in this campaign is the war in Iraq. He is the only one of the active candidates (besides Democrat Dennis Kucinich) to vote against authorization to use force in Iraq, though he had approved the military incursion into Afghanistan after 9/11. He uses Iraq – 70 percent of the American people now believe the Iraq war was a mistake – to broaden the discussion, arguing for a noninterventionist foreign policy that would involve bringing our troops home from Korea, Germany, Japan and elsewhere, and minding our own business.
He also believes the income tax should be abolished, government made significantly smaller, and that the Federal Reserve should be abolished, with the country returning to a gold standard rather than printing fiat money. He is staunchly pro-life and seldom misses a chance to denounce the war on drugs, which he believes is unconstitutional.
This is a frankly radical platform, much more radical than Barry Goldwater's in an earlier era. Why has it attracted such enthusiastic support?
Part of the reason, Rockwell believes, is that economists and other intellectuals have been building the case for a free economy and free society since the 1930s, and there's a critical mass of people who have studied freedom and support it. Add to that the Internet and other forms of communication that have allowed people who might have felt alone in their beliefs to communicate with and get to know others of like mind. And we've had six-plus years of a Republican presidency that has not only been aggressive militarily but has increased domestic spending and started new federal programs, leaving many traditional Republicans feeling abandoned.
Perhaps as important as the ideas, which are at the heart of the Paul campaign, is the man himself. Ron Paul is not a great orator, though he does well enough in debates and interviews. But his low-key manner may have its own appeal. He doesn't shout or gesticulate, but he doesn't back away from what he believes. He presents radical ideas in a low-key, unthreatening manner, and people seem to sense a certain unyielding integrity. Whether they agree with him or not, people sense that he really believes what he is saying rather than delivering the latest focus-group-tested message.
Will people actually vote for such a political oddity once they get into the privacy of the voting booth? We'll know in a few months.
A week before the end of the reporting period the Paul campaign challenged supporters to donate $500,000 by Sept. 30. They did that in three days, so the campaign increased the challenge to $1 million. Piece of cake. By the end of the day Paul supporters had donated more than $1.2 million. The campaign reports that it has $5.3 million in hand as the candidates prepare for actual primaries rather than just debates and straw polls.
John McCain, who is much more prominent and used to be considered in the top tier of candidates, raised about the same amount over the third quarter, but he still has several million in debts. Mike Huckabee, viewed by much of the media as the only second-tier GOP candidate with a chance to break through because of his religious-right roots, raised a paltry $1 million.
Ron Paul may be the candidate who breaks through. Whatever happens, his campaign has turned into the most significant pro-freedom mass movement in modern American history, perhaps in all of our history. Early on he was viewed as strictly an Internet candidate because he usually dominated the "who won?" polls on cable TV Web sites after Republican debates. That could be dismissed as a function of Net-savvy libertarians spamming the polling sites.
As debates and other events started to take place, however, it turned out that the campaign was also able to turn out "boots on the ground" – large crowds of enthusiastic supporters of all ages and descriptions, including college students, young families, aging Goldwaterites and Reaganites, hippies and bikers. At joint events, people started to notice that the Ron Paul Revolution signs seemed to outnumber the signs of all the other candidates combined. When Paul was excluded from a GOP debate in Iowa his supporters came out for a predebate speech and rally, and, without disrupting the actual debate inside, dominated the event.
Last weekend he held a rally in New Hampshire attended by about 800 people – the largest crowd any candidate has turned out to date in that state. After listening to him speak (and getting all of them who weren't duly registered to vote), the troops dispersed to the three major cities in New Hampshire to knock on doors. They hit 12,000 households in New Hampshire that day.
A Paul supporter and blogger from Pittsburgh who attended the rally told an interesting story. He had come to sell T-shirts to help finance what he hopes will be several hundred Pennsylvanians busing to New Hampshire the week of the primary to work for Paul. Toward the end of the rally a fellow who had been hanging around the table came over and plunked down a big wad of cash. He told them he wanted to be anonymous, but he wanted to buy a Ron Paul T-shirt for every child in the crowd (about 50) and have volunteers hand them out. Turns out he had already given the maximum $2,300 to the actual campaign, but he goes to campaign events and looks for other ways to help out.
That illustrates an aspect of the volunteer, grass-roots nature of the Paul campaign that may well be worth more than the $5 million in formal donations the campaign raised last quarter. Lew Rockwell, proprietor of the popular libertarian Web site LewRockwell.com, told me that whenever he's been to a Paul campaign event, he sees at least a dozen different kinds of T-shirts, bumper stickers, buttons and the like being sold or given away – "nice stuff, not homemade schlock" – by local Paul volunteers.
Kent Snyder, Ron Paul's campaign manager, told me that as of Wednesday (the numbers are undoubtedly higher now), Ron Paul has 29,489 YouTube subscribers, and YouTube videos featuring Ron Paul have attracted 4,339,507 views. Barack Obama has attracted more views (11,197,523) but has only 11,264 subscribers. Among the other Republicans, Mitt Romney is second, with 3,076 subscribers and 784,640 views, followed by Rudy Giuliani (2,467 and 655,000) and McCain (1,631 and 483,174).
Hillary Clinton has 6,089 subscribers and 926,547 views. (Numbers for all candidates for Facebook, MySpace and YouTube are available, updated daily, at www.techpresident.com.)
As of Wednesday, Snyder says, there were 49,928 Ron Paul MeetUp supporters in 771 cities in 22 countries (including one in the Green Zone in Baghdad). So far they have held 7,671 events, ranging from a few people meeting at somebody's kitchen table to speeches and rallies. As of the most recent report, according to USA Today, Paul had raised more money from active members of the military than any other Republican. Whom do the troops support?
The Paul campaign has evolved into "a self-directed, decentralized organization full of people who take the initiative locally," Rockwell told me. He believes that the movement will continue, whatever happens electorally, and that's a good portent for the future of freedom. He notes that especially the young supporters seem interested in reading and learning about freedom as well as attending rallies.
So how did a 72-year-old grandfather who is self-effacing and slender to the point of looking frail on television (he doesn't in person) become the closest thing to a rock star the Republicans have produced, swarmed for autographs at every appearance? Raised in Pittsburgh, Ron Paul attended Duke medical school, served in the Air Force, and began practicing medicine (he's an OB-GYN) near Houston. Along the way he started reading writers like Ludwig von Mises and Friedrich von Hayek and became a strong supporter of free-market economics and the gold standard.
He supported Reagan for president in 1976 and was elected to Congress the same year, which is when I first met him (I was living in the D.C. area and was assigned by the long-defunct magazine Conservative Digest to do a profile shortly after Paul entered Congress).
His practice in Congress has been to ask himself, before each vote, whether this is a program specifically authorized by the Constitution. If the answer is no, he opposes it – including funding for NASA when NASA was in his district. This has earned him the nickname, "Dr. No."
After an unsuccessful run at a Texas Senate seat in a 1982 primary won by Phil Gramm, he returned to medicine for a while and was the 1988 presidential nominee of the Libertarian Party, where he pulled the usual 1 percent or so. Afterward he ran for Congress again, and despite a couple of efforts by the Texas Republican establishment to knock him off in the primary, he has won reelection ever since.
His most significant issue in this campaign is the war in Iraq. He is the only one of the active candidates (besides Democrat Dennis Kucinich) to vote against authorization to use force in Iraq, though he had approved the military incursion into Afghanistan after 9/11. He uses Iraq – 70 percent of the American people now believe the Iraq war was a mistake – to broaden the discussion, arguing for a noninterventionist foreign policy that would involve bringing our troops home from Korea, Germany, Japan and elsewhere, and minding our own business.
He also believes the income tax should be abolished, government made significantly smaller, and that the Federal Reserve should be abolished, with the country returning to a gold standard rather than printing fiat money. He is staunchly pro-life and seldom misses a chance to denounce the war on drugs, which he believes is unconstitutional.
This is a frankly radical platform, much more radical than Barry Goldwater's in an earlier era. Why has it attracted such enthusiastic support?
Part of the reason, Rockwell believes, is that economists and other intellectuals have been building the case for a free economy and free society since the 1930s, and there's a critical mass of people who have studied freedom and support it. Add to that the Internet and other forms of communication that have allowed people who might have felt alone in their beliefs to communicate with and get to know others of like mind. And we've had six-plus years of a Republican presidency that has not only been aggressive militarily but has increased domestic spending and started new federal programs, leaving many traditional Republicans feeling abandoned.
Perhaps as important as the ideas, which are at the heart of the Paul campaign, is the man himself. Ron Paul is not a great orator, though he does well enough in debates and interviews. But his low-key manner may have its own appeal. He doesn't shout or gesticulate, but he doesn't back away from what he believes. He presents radical ideas in a low-key, unthreatening manner, and people seem to sense a certain unyielding integrity. Whether they agree with him or not, people sense that he really believes what he is saying rather than delivering the latest focus-group-tested message.
Will people actually vote for such a political oddity once they get into the privacy of the voting booth? We'll know in a few months.
WHAT I THINK....JAMES OSTROWSKI
Ron’s Paul’s announcement of his third-quarter fundraising was a major turning point in the campaign. It was the first time he received coverage from the mainstream media befitting a contender.
I just have a few small quibbles and not out of orneriness or ingratitude at the fine coverage.
The MSM actually understated the significance of this accomplishment.
First, the money was raised by a candidate the MSM had given no chance to win and little coverage. Much of the coverage was derisive or dismissive. His poll numbers were in the single digits. Ron Paul supporters evidently don’t care much about today’s poll numbers or MSM conventional wisdom. The Ron Paul Revolution is, among other things, a revolution against the MSM! The Revolution has used the MSM’s rival, the internet, to force its way into contention. This is the first presidential campaign where the internet has been a decisive factor, not just a sideshow.
Second, while money is the heart of the campaigns of the other contenders, official money is the lesser part of the Ron Paul campaign. The heart of Ron Paul’s campaign is a spontaneous, grassroots eruption of real world and virtual activism. This is simply nonexistent with Rudy’s campaign, for example. There is no grassroots Rudy campaign. I would know. I live in the second largest city in his home state and am a close observer of local politics. It just isn’t there.
As has been noted in various places on the web in recent days, the total economic value of the efforts on behalf of Ron Paul is far greater than reflected in his campaign spending. He has 50 paid staffers but tens of thousands of hardcore volunteers spending their own money. I spoke to a volunteer in Albany the other day. He said there were "only" 150 Ron Paul volunteers in Albany. Only 150 in one small city? Other campaigns would kill for that.
Third, it's a mistake to compare contributions to Ron Paul with contributions to Rudy. Rudy collects large donations from the usual suspects, the corporate state elite, rich people who wish to buy political influence. They want something specific and tangible for their money: a judgeship, a subsidy, a pardon, an ambassadorship. In Buffalo, his fundraiser was hosted by a man who did the same for George Bush and coincidentally got an ambassadorship to Malta. A tough job but somebody has to do it.
Those who give to Ron Paul do so mainly out of pure principle. While his supporters expect to benefit from his election, it’s not a specific tangible benefit at the expense of others. On the contrary, they expect an improvement in the general welfare of which they will partake. Concern for the general welfare has rarely provided the basis for substantial political fundraising. Political scientists tell us that people generally do not get heavily involved in politics unless they expect to materially benefit above and beyond the general public. Ron Paul is defying a law of politics known as rational apathy.
Fourth, the average donation to Rudy is many times higher than Ron Paul’s. This means that far more people stand behind those Ron Paul dollars. As the campaign goes on, they can continue to donate while many of Rudy’s influence buyers have maxed out. Also, there’s just more of us plain folk than fat cats, once again pointing to more room for growth for Ron Paul.
The MSM deserves credit for finally noticing the Ron Paul Revolution but they have barely begun to grasp its true strength. Nevertheless, this burst of publicity will generate even more contributions, boost poll numbers, and encourage more volunteers, which in turn will stimulate more publicity. I think the best metaphor for the campaign now is a nuclear chain reaction. That’s why this may be an appropriate campaign theme song:
"Ain’t no stoppin’ us now; we’re on the move."
I just have a few small quibbles and not out of orneriness or ingratitude at the fine coverage.
The MSM actually understated the significance of this accomplishment.
First, the money was raised by a candidate the MSM had given no chance to win and little coverage. Much of the coverage was derisive or dismissive. His poll numbers were in the single digits. Ron Paul supporters evidently don’t care much about today’s poll numbers or MSM conventional wisdom. The Ron Paul Revolution is, among other things, a revolution against the MSM! The Revolution has used the MSM’s rival, the internet, to force its way into contention. This is the first presidential campaign where the internet has been a decisive factor, not just a sideshow.
Second, while money is the heart of the campaigns of the other contenders, official money is the lesser part of the Ron Paul campaign. The heart of Ron Paul’s campaign is a spontaneous, grassroots eruption of real world and virtual activism. This is simply nonexistent with Rudy’s campaign, for example. There is no grassroots Rudy campaign. I would know. I live in the second largest city in his home state and am a close observer of local politics. It just isn’t there.
As has been noted in various places on the web in recent days, the total economic value of the efforts on behalf of Ron Paul is far greater than reflected in his campaign spending. He has 50 paid staffers but tens of thousands of hardcore volunteers spending their own money. I spoke to a volunteer in Albany the other day. He said there were "only" 150 Ron Paul volunteers in Albany. Only 150 in one small city? Other campaigns would kill for that.
Third, it's a mistake to compare contributions to Ron Paul with contributions to Rudy. Rudy collects large donations from the usual suspects, the corporate state elite, rich people who wish to buy political influence. They want something specific and tangible for their money: a judgeship, a subsidy, a pardon, an ambassadorship. In Buffalo, his fundraiser was hosted by a man who did the same for George Bush and coincidentally got an ambassadorship to Malta. A tough job but somebody has to do it.
Those who give to Ron Paul do so mainly out of pure principle. While his supporters expect to benefit from his election, it’s not a specific tangible benefit at the expense of others. On the contrary, they expect an improvement in the general welfare of which they will partake. Concern for the general welfare has rarely provided the basis for substantial political fundraising. Political scientists tell us that people generally do not get heavily involved in politics unless they expect to materially benefit above and beyond the general public. Ron Paul is defying a law of politics known as rational apathy.
Fourth, the average donation to Rudy is many times higher than Ron Paul’s. This means that far more people stand behind those Ron Paul dollars. As the campaign goes on, they can continue to donate while many of Rudy’s influence buyers have maxed out. Also, there’s just more of us plain folk than fat cats, once again pointing to more room for growth for Ron Paul.
The MSM deserves credit for finally noticing the Ron Paul Revolution but they have barely begun to grasp its true strength. Nevertheless, this burst of publicity will generate even more contributions, boost poll numbers, and encourage more volunteers, which in turn will stimulate more publicity. I think the best metaphor for the campaign now is a nuclear chain reaction. That’s why this may be an appropriate campaign theme song:
"Ain’t no stoppin’ us now; we’re on the move."
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