Go figure. A guy who spent over 20 years as a Democratic congressional staffer — and now writes for a Beltway newspaper — can’t grasp why Ron Paul doesn’t worship Congress and mainstream political thought:
Ron Paul’s campaign ad calling for defeat of a debt-ceiling extension is a trite, minor-league and irresponsible tactic unworthy of any candidate for the presidency. If anyone of importance actually took Ron Paul’s ad seriously and his position prevailed, he would cause a global crash and possibly a new depression.
Yes, as opposed to the current Democratic-Republican policies which…caused a global crash and almost certainly a new depression.
After thinking about this a few days, it is sad and revealing that Ron Paul is abandoning Congress and his position as chairman of a major financial subcommittee. After years as a gadfly, Paul finally has an opportunity to make a major difference as chairman of a major subcommittee and he throws it away, preferring to remain a gadfly on the fringes.
The phrase “Ron Paul is abandoning Congress” makes it sound like he’s leaving his pregnant wife to go shack up with a 20-year-old intern. The fact that Paul didn’t use his elevation to a committee chair as a pretext for spending the rest of his life in the House seems to anger this guy more than anything.
I’m also unclear how Paul is supposed to “make a major difference” while adhering to the traditional party line regarding the debt ceiling and monetary policy in general.
I have always tried to be fair to Ron Paul, sometimes praising him, sometimes criticizing him. His new Hollywood-style ad calling for defeat of the debt ceiling reveals him as just another politician hustling for votes, and just another hack desperately trying to win the lunatic fringe of a lunatic faction of a party out of touch with economic sanity.
Is he just another politician or a fringe lunatic? I think you have to pick one.
All of the Republican candidates for president look ridiculous when discussing the debt ceiling. It is a race to the bottom in a party dominated by extremists, with a third-rate flock of candidates playing amateur night at the farm, now including Ron Paul. His latest ad makes him look like a righty blogger or cranky talk-show host, not a worthy leader of a great nation.
A “great nation” whose “worthy leaders” keep spending so much money that they constantly have to raise the debt ceiling. But Ron Paul’s the lunatic for wanting to break this vicious cycle. Child, please.
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“Ron Paul’s campaign ad calling for defeat of a debt-ceiling extension is a trite, minor-league and irresponsible tactic unworthy of any candidate for the presidency.”
Does this apply to Obama who once did something similar I believe?
Hannity uses Obama against Juan Williams: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZMyQJjL9QcQ
Congress Cannot Suffice The Greatest Statesman Of Our TIme!
Classical liberalism appears foreign to those who have been deprived of an education that teaches logic. When propagandized ‘education’ is the fall back position, the lack of perception is as evident as the sun at mid-day on a cloudless afternoon on a mountain peak in southwestern U.S.!
have you been drinking ? ron is focusing on one goal win or bust he aint getting any younger
Not win or bust – educate or bust. I think, based on his voting record and his rhetorical consistency throughout his political career, it’s clear that Paul is more interested in changing the mindset of the average American, and he uses his platform to attempt to educate people. Of course, I’m sure he’d also accept the opportunity to make some changes as President, but I doubt he has ever had that as a primary goal, and I’m sure that even now he recognizes the extremely long odds he’s up against.
Some libertarians (myself included) are even saying that the education platform Ron Paul provides is the only goal – that it would be disastrous if Ron Paul actually won. If the US is going to go bust, there will be riots in the streets. If, instead, somehow it is managed to cut government entitlements and other market distortions, the people who are currently the beneficiaries of this largesse will riot in the streets. Either way, the result is the same – the public perception will be that as soon as a libertarian became president, society began to crumble, even if libertarians know that this decay was set in place long beforehand. This is not a favourable situation for libertarians.
So, the best way this can turn out is that Ron Paul educates, but loses the presidential race. The “winner” president then presides over the collapse of the US Empire, and, assuming the US doesn’t go full-on totalitarian, libertarianism can try to grow on a clean slate.
I have heard this argument before but I just don’t see Dr. Paul causing the financial apocalypse by eliminating all types of government in one stroke.
As he has said by dramatically lowering all types of taxes, eliminating tons of rules and regulations, and repealing healthcare, the US would probably see unprecedented growth before the year is over.
Doing things like withdrawing troops from oversees would boost morale. Eliminating the drug laws would create a legal avenue for mass of entrepreneurial start ups to sprout up like we have seen in California and Colorado’s green rush. If any president were to even state that we are going to pursue energy independence by allowing oil exploration, gas and oil prices would immediately plummet as the market reacts giving Americans cheap gas. Just to name how three of his ideas would impact us.
I feel like if he were to do that first then he could move on to eliminating the FTC, FDA, department of Education, soon enough he will can tackle the real entitlements of SS and medicare.
x,
The argument is not that Dr. Paul would bring about a financial apocalypse at all. Rather, the financial apocalypse is going to occur, and it would be best if, when it did occur, a libertarian was not at the helm, being held responsible.
Further, while what you say is true, and all the moves you mention would have the effect you say if things went forward as planned, there is also the unseen effect: what would happen if things did not go forward exactly as planned.
An example from you is the elimination of the drug laws. This immediately makes a large chunk of the armed thugs fighting in the “War on Drugs” redundant, and their (admittedly, illegitimate) jobs are in danger. Do you think they’re going to allow Dr Paul to eliminate their sole source of income without a fight?
What will happen is that these well-armed, well-trained, emotionally unstable violent people will revolt, strike, and generally disrupt society any way they can, until their tantrum demands are met. They will have nothing to lose. They will do anything. That includes sabotaging all of the other things Dr Paul tries to achieve, to discredit him.
If I truly believed Dr Paul could do the things he is promising to do, and also believed that they would go ahead as smoothly as he and his followers seem to believe, then I would hope that he wins. Sadly, I am not that naive.
I’d have to agree.
I genuinely hope he loses.
Assuming he wins, he will have no power to d much of anything because his enemies are essentially everyone else in washington. The most he could do is exercise the veto power more often than any president in history. That’s about it though.
The country is too far gone for anything but a massive sea change to wipe away the massive distortions that have taken place over the previous decades. I would rather a mainstreamer were in office to take the fall (especially since it is their fault) than a genuine libertarian who just got in on the tail end of it.
Hope he has a good retirement.
It actually doesn’t matter who is at the helm. The Helm needs to be destroyed.
Either we do the financial apocalypse now and get it over with or we spend then next 20 years in a ‘recession’ and get surpassed by other countries and then explode into a new fascist state when our eventual crisis becomes unbearable.
The way we run the country now is utter shit. It’s self destructive and cannot be sustained. We are destroying our wealth and engaging in ever increasing long term foreign wars.
The longer we keep this up the worse it’s going to get.
nate-m,
I agree that the “helm” needs to be destroyed, obviously. And you’re right that who is at the helm doesn’t change that. However, if we have learned anything from the Great Depression, it is that people want very simple explanations for things. Note how many people blame President Hoover for not providing a big enough bailout, leading to a depression so big, only FDR could save America.
The likelihood of the helm being destroyed before the 2012 elections is extremely slim. In the ideal case, nobody would win that beauty pageant. But that’s not going to happen. What I was saying is that the next best thing is *not* to have Ron Paul win, because that means that when the whole shebang falls, people will remember that it was a dirty libertarian who wouldn’t bail out the economy, thus leading to a depression that ended the glorious reign of the noble american empire. That would not be a good thing at all.
Could Ron Paul do all that in such a short notice all on his own ?
Doesn’t politics require that you have some sort of clout and creed within the system ?
How will he abolish and repeal existing laws ? Veto power applies to proposed new laws and in the USA power is subdivided in three branches, Judicial, Executive, Legislative.
It’s even more difficult to repeal a law than it is to make one. A president cannot order that such and such law be abolished. Ron Paul could not all by himself declare that the war on drugs is over, he will need that congress and the senate follow him and given that there will be a struggle of power within his own ranks and versus the democrats, I don’t see how they will all align and simply do what Ron Paul says.
This is the USA, this is not communist North Korea. The president does not have dictatorial powers. And though I understand that repealing unjust laws has nothing to do with being a dictator, he cannot do that.
Ron Paul is like brainy smurf in his corner, not many people in congress and in the establishment likes him. He lacks the charisma and networks to bring his projects to fruitition.
He should instead focus on a very narrow dismantlement like ending the FED. Nobody likes the FED in the public and it would be easy to bring a movement to end it. But to end everything, as much as it would be desireable, how is he going to do that ?
He can’t. The president of the USA is powerless to stop his own government and to reverse course.
The sad truth is that the president of the USA only has the power to direct the growth of the government, he does not have the power to shrink the government.
Only the people have this power and it’s not from the ballot box either.
It is interesting how many who have posted comments on this thread are ignorant of the powers of the executive branch. However, this is not a knock on Miseans but a reflection of the general public’s knowledge of their government. Unless you have taught a government class (as I have) or you googled powers of the executive branch (as I did) you wouldn’t be aware.
As Linux, slim934, and others have pointed out the president has very few powers. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/President_of_the_United_States
That said, Ron Paul would have very little ability to enact a libertarian revolution. At best, he would be able to withdraw our troops from around the world. (If nothing else, that would be a positive thing for the US and the world.)
Minarchists must understand that the road to a libertarian America is not through the executive branch but through congress. Today, we have two members who are libertarian. After 2012, we will have one.
The best we can hope for from a Ron Paul candidacy is our ideas will become more public and henceforth change the political discussion in this country. As an anarcho-libertarian, I believe that reason alone is worth getting off my ass and voting for Ron Paul.
Well Colin Phillips, it’s evident your a government mole.
ForwardMove,
Lol @ government mole, I’m not even American.
I should clarify, I’ve got nothing against Ron Paul, I hope he gets his message out far and wide. But making him president is too little, too late. And it would be a shame to see him left holding the bag.
I was thinking about this the other day. I think the more time he runs for office the less he will be effective at educating the public. The whole reason why he was so effective at educating the public was because he got so much media attention. The whole reason why he got so much media attention is because nobody knew who the hell he was (despite running for president in the 80′s under the Libertarian party). He was fresh. He was getting money left and right. It was news.
He’s not news anymore. He’s not fresh (for news outlets, anyways). So kids aren’t going to get bombarded with the constant “who the freaking hell is this Ron Paul guy?” which is exactly what got my interest piqued the first time around.
That’s an excellent point.
And as ‘Linux’ also suggests, there’s no turning back within the current framework.
The memory of Reagan is a Republican’s nighttime teddy bear, comforting and secure, the good old days when the country was headed in the right direction. And admittedly, at least in the beginning, he usually said the right things:
End the Department of Education.
Cut spending.
Leave people alone.
That legacy is as mythological as his westerns.
‘course he’s got nothing on the current figurehead, but nevertheless, size of government back then grew faster than Kansas corn.
On mobile, looks like you are the one slamming Ron Paul instead of quoting.
It amazes me you made a point-for-point rebuttal considering he never made a single point.
LOL
“But Ron Paul’s the lunatic for wanting to break this vicious cycle.”
Of course, it’s the American way. When you find yourself in a hole, dig faster.
Logic has no place in empire. Uncle Sam sits at the diner table, morbidly obese, as he stuffs helping after helping of food and drink down his gullet. Any attempt at taking his plate away results in him screaming that if he stops eating he’ll never get the weight off.
I’m not sure America is responsible and worthy enough for Ron Paul. Hopefully for our kids and grandkids sake we will vote for him.
“If…his position prevailed, he would cause a global crash and possibly a new depression.”
TARP, initiated under Bush and carried through with Obama, was justified on the same basis.
Any large-scale spending is justified on similar bases (with more or less necessity), from new sports stadiums to foreign aid.
The blunderbuss buffoon Bill O’Reilly warns of the same imminent danger, evidentiary because “Moody’s and Bernanke said so.” And how about Mitch McConnell, with neo-cons rah-rahing his plan as an intricate plot to hang the debt on Obama. What tripe. As if it isn’t already hanging on him. McConnell is in the club, with no intention of ever (and I mean ever!) righting the game.
But the crowds carry on, arguing over a red shirt or a blue shirt, oblivious to its shredded fabric, old tatters on the ground.
“The phrase ‘Ron Paul is abandoning Congress’ makes it sound like he’s leaving his pregnant wife to go shack up with a 20-year-old intern.”
Heh, very clever subtlety and metaphor.
“The phrase ‘Ron Paul is abandoning Congress’ makes it sound like he’s leaving his pregnant wife to go shack up with a 20-year-old intern.”
Bill Clinton ?
Certainly he’s a featuring role, but it’s only one of many, whose length exceeds the cast calling audition lines that run several city blocks.
Right you are. Remember back in the TARP days, they said we had 48 hours to pass it or we were all going to die. The first time TARP failed and nothing happened. A few weeks later, TARP eventually passed.
Was the Second Great Depression averted? The average unemployment rate for the First Depression was 17%. The current unemployment rate is either 18% (according to Gallup) or 22% (according to Shadow Stats). The US had a manufacturing base back then and was a creditor nation. The US has no manufacturing base, and is the largest debtor in human history. Also, there is a record number of people on food stamps, which is a fancy way of saying that the bread lines are longer now than then.
So not only was the Second Great Depression not averted, it is already worse than the first one, and the you-know-what hasn’t hit the fan yet.
Didn’t most of those apply to Germany after at least one of the world wars?
“The US has no manufacturing base,…”
What?
http://mjperry.blogspot.com/2010/07/increased-worker-productivity-has.html
I was thinking a few years ago of developing a virtual Ron Paul capable of debating politics with people and written in a new language I would call RonPaulScript.
Instead of having one distant and non-accessible Ron Paul making short videos and appearing once in a while on TV for short interviews … Ron Paul could have been on your PC and you could have debated with him directly as if it was the real Ron Paul.
Therefore, he could have reached millions of people.
I wanted to make a virtual Gerald Celente as well.
C’mon! Go for it!!
That’s like genius!
A Ron Paul Turing Test machine. Cool.
I have the complete abstract model in my head.
I would follow Laurent Nottale’s fractal approach and develop neurofractals.
I would use a modified version of the Boltzmann machine which would treat noise locally as opposed to temperature globally.
I would use a breit-wigner “neutronic” propagator.
I would use a fork-and-noise approach for disambiguation.
The problem is, I’m rusty in programming and I haven’t even completed my calculus. I would need to learn programming and math prior to develop my project.
By the time I will have learned what I need to and will be ready to start my project, it will be too late.
I don’t know… Gerald Celente is kind of a blowhard that is often oblivious to economics (buy local derp)
His point in buying local is to value smaller companies that truly NEED you as a customer and NEED you as an employee with skills rather than feed big box marts that could NOT care less about losing you as a customer or does not need skillful employees.
I understand that the market is global and that wealth and power tends to concentrate and create such giants but I fully understand Gerald Celente’s doctrine of breaking the chains.
I tend to abide by his advice and I don’t mind paying a premium to buy local, I value freedom over cheapness and if that means I will do without materially then so be it.
I’d rather being served by a courteous and competent local store owner than a big box mart and I am ready to pay extra for this feature. And if this means that I will have less money to buy other things then so be it.
I will buy freedom, respect and quality over quantity anytime.
I like the “localvors”. It’s a personal choice and very Misesian. Also, you need to cultivate local sources for when the u-no-watt hits the fan.
Donald Trump hit the nail on the head when he said the Republicans were lousy negotiators.
All they would have to propose is the following:
Raise the debt ceiling just enough to allow Tiny Tim to borrow just enough money to:
a) Pay the interest on the debt.
b) Pay the difference between Social Security receipts and outlays.
c) Pay the difference between Medicare receipts and outlays.
This would paint the Democrats, RINOs and CONOs into a corner.
However, I think most Republicans are as clueless as the Democrats when it comes to the importance of not raising the debt ceiling – they think they can just go on spending and that it would be the “end of America as we know it” if they stood firm on not raising the debt ceiling.
Ron Paul’s observation of the consequences of the Congress reneging on, or the FED forgiving, the $1.6 trillion in treasury debt that the FED owns is an incredible insight. It blows a hole in the notion of fiat money.
There is only one party with two different rhetorical faces to confuse the propagandized population. The unConstitutional coup does not want a debt limit and so neither of its mouthpieces can say anything truthful or meaningful in this regard.
I’m pretty sure you can pay for those 3 things without raising the debt ceiling. The government does still collect taxes, you know.
“I have always tried to be fair to Ron Paul, sometimes praising him, sometimes criticizing him.”
It doesn’t matter whether you’re praising or criticizing someone for the right reasons. As long as you dish out praise and criticism in equal amounts, you are “fair”.
awesome.
I really liked your post. On the other hand…
There are far too many posts suggesting that Ron Paul, if elected President, should try to dismantle the government and its associated agencies like the Federal Reserve, the Postal “service” and membership in organizations like the UN, World Bank, and WTO acting alone with only the power of the Presidency to help him , and that he will fail since “everyone else in DC will be against him”.
That is wrong, both for Ron Paul, and for the rest of us!
Upon his inauguration, every effort will be needed from the rest of us–his SUPPORTERS–to support his initiatives and policy proposals. Every effort will be needed, from upholding the Second Amendment and securing firearms ownership and responsible use and storage, to the support of independence of both Grand and Petit Juries (see http://www.fija.org for more information), from us, acting as peaceably as possible, defying the legal tender monopolies of the central Bank and the US Treasury to secure our right to trade with REAL money in gold( and perhaps silver), to continuing the advocacy and education in freedom, self-responsibility, and private property that will define the Ron Paul revolution. It is AFTER this election that we will be needed, in our millions, perhaps even tens of millions, more than ever!
Ron Paul can–and ought to–show the way. It is up to the rest of us to make it work! We CAN take our country back, if need be by the suggestions of Mises Institute scholar Tom Woods regarding “nullification”, working one State at a time. We can also, armed with Ron Paul’s Presidential pardon power behind us, start to ignore the pack of usurpers, grafters, and morons who form the so-called “authority” of the Federal government, win a Republic worth having, and even pass on our country–as it might have been and should have been–to our children and grandchildren!
He can’t, and MUSTN’T, do this alone! After he should win in 2012, the REAL fight for freedom and for OUR country begins! Let us be inspired by the timeless prose of the great French novelist Victor Hugo when he said,”mightier than all the armies of the world is an idea whose time has come”! Ron Paul’s Presidency is an idea whose time has come. Prepare ourselves!
PEACE AND FREEDOM!!
David K. Meller
“That is wrong, both for Ron Paul, and for the rest of us”
Why,pray tell?
A voice of reason tin he asylum? The bus is headed off the cliff – why is Ron Paul crazy for wanting to pull on the brake and stop?
He is “crazy” because he is not a sheep following the herd.
of course people think he is crazy and will never win. everyone wants to stay the status quo. its human nature to not like true change. this nation has a serious problem and we all see it but we keep electing the same dumbasses who are causing it. because we do not like change. ron paul supports and would implement true liberty and grant us freedom once again. he is much like a founding father in his views. the media and all those in politics will be against him because they have their own agendas and ron paul would not benefit them but would truly benefit the american people.
Ron Paul for President 2012
the government of this country is so screwed up. people were panicking when they told us about the august 2nd deadline to raise the debt ceiling. ron paul was so strongly against this. maybe a financial collapse is what we the people need because it’s going to take something drastic to make any real change and bring us together
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