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Now before I get into where Ron Paul is right, I’d like to tag him on a few more issues where not only is he wrong, but he is in fact an awful and/or ridiculous person. The first is on his attitude towards spending.
I have a friend who is of a libertarian bent, and at least last time I checked a Ron Paul supporter (or at least Ron-curious.) Like Paul, he hovers near the proto-anarchy scale of libertarianism, generally inclined to suppose that virtually all government funding for anything should be scraped. It was interesting to hear him talk, then about being rescued, for free, by the coast guard during a storm because he had, without prior training or good planning, elected to sail into the Gulf of Mexico. When jokingly prodded about having had government spending (socialism!) save his life, he in perfect seriousness responded with a “have your cake and eat it” claim that they HAD to rescue him, or else they wouldn’t have jobs, so he had no obligation to them or the ideology at all.
And as we watch Ron Paul’s attitude towards spending we see the same hypocritical give and take. For instance, during the BP oil spill, Ron Paul in one hand claimed that Obama was entirely free of responsibility and that BP should be forced to handle the entire clean up, and in the other chastised Obama for not deploying the national guard more rapidly and effectively to help his state. The proper libertarian response, of course, is for the rest of us to tell Ron Paul and those who voted for them that they were stupid enough to let someone drill off their shore so its their problem, and that the rest of us shouldn’t have to have our tax dollars wasted on it, but then as any sane person (non-libertarian) knows the CORRECT response is that the more cooperatively we work to ensure our own progress, the better off we all are.
Deviating a bit, I’d like to review Ron Paul’s take on global warming. From his own 2012 election homepage, here’s a run down on his position regarding global warming. Read this : http://www.ronpaul.com/on-the-issues/global-warming/
Now, here’s some of his basic claims that are flat out lies. First off, he claims to have researched global warming extensively. He then claims that global temperatures have fallen in the last decade. In fact, if anyone bothers to go to an actual source like, oh, say, NASA, they discover that globally we’re still increasing, and that in fact most of the hottest years on record are in the last decade. So either Paul is lying flat out about global temperatures or he’s lying about the amount of research he’s done.
Then he embraces the “hoax” claim. Now I’m not going to get into a huge exploration of the various angles of debate on global warming. There really is none. If you’re a “skeptic” then you simply have no idea what you’re talking about. Even in this article, we see Ron Paul eventually accept that global warming appears to be happening and that mankind has some influence. But he nevertheless claims that the overall drive to combat it or even be better informed and aware is a “hoax”. There is no evidence of any such hoax and never has been. The notion of a vast international conspiracy that encompasses all major governments, thousands of universities, the international press, etc. isn’t just unevidenced, it defies the model of reality. But here’s Ron Paul saying he’s reached that conclusion. Notice the lack of data or reasoning he provides, but only the claim? That’s because Ron Paul isn’t just an idiot, he’s a liar, too.
But weirdly, the part of this that got to me the most wasn’t regarding global warming, but instead regarding economics. Here is the quote, “Government cannot invest, it can only redistribute resources.” This is one of the single stupidest things I’ve ever heard said, ever, by anyone. A first year course in macroeconomics (and I know because I’m taking one,) explores and defines ways governments invest, from foreign bond and currency exploration to direct investment in human capital, all of which has a measurable, proven influence on social and GDP development. This isn’t debated among qualified economic scientists, there is no notion of “two schools of thought on the issue.” Governments can, and do, invest, and those investments can, and do influence and improve society. For Ron Paul, a man who’s core platform rests on notions of economic stability to be claiming otherwise means he is either profoundly, unforgivably ignorant about the subject he insists is his main focus, or he lying. So again, we see that the only two possible things Ron Paul can be is either profoundly, almost cripplingly ignorant, or a dishonest asshole.
But now, as I promised, lets look at the things about Paul that are good! As I mentioned the day before, my first encounter with him, back during the 2008 primaries, was listening to him in an interview on NPR, where he, in a very clear, sane manner explained how he felt that imperialism as a tool of the military industrial complex had to be brought to an end. And I was overjoyed, “finally a conservative with brains!” I thought. So I dashed first thing that evening to his homepage and began reading his platform and positions. And my face fell. It continued falling as I went and looked at his congressional record. No white knight had arrived to save us.
The military industrial complex notion is a good start. Why does Ron Paul oppose such vast overseas operations? For no particularly ethical reason, to be sure, but only because they involve so much government spending, and tend to interfere with a true “free market.” Further, Ron Paul had absolutely no plan on how to reign in the military industrial (congressional) complex, a massive, elderly, crafty beast with tons of money and authority that has no interest in being reigned in. So what I saw was not a like minded social reformer with great ideas but a daydreaming imbecile driven by poor motivations to talk about goals he would certainly never achieve. And looking at his track record in congress, budget proposal after budget proposal politely ignored by his fellows, a Don Quixote of bad economics pursuing his endless quest for arbitrarily lower government spending, while all the real congressmen go about the business of actually getting things done.
A quick review of his Wikipedia article, or his own interviews, finds that indeed Paul pays very little attention to the various bills and proposals he vetoes. As a zealot, he wastes no energy exploring whether or not any new program or spending measure will benefit society. If its more spending, he’s opposed to it (unless it’s the coast guard cleaning up the mess made by offshore drilling he supported.) Again, review reveals Ron Paul as something less than a wise visionary, but instead a largely useless little troll worrying away at fantasies and obsessions.
But surely Ron Paul has some good in him, correct? Sure, I’ll give you a good example right now. Read this : http://www.ronpaul.com/2010-08-20/ron-paul-sunshine-patriots-stop-your-demagogy-about-the-nyc-mosque/
Everything about this article is spot on. Paul’s exploration of the situation is entirely in agreement with my own. I think Ron Paul is right, and I’m thrilled that he’s calling out other conservatives about this! That’s great! Here’s the problem. Plenty of people are saying this. Obama says this. I mean, if Ron Paul wants to impress me, he at least has to outperform Obama in some way. And that’s where he fails. And that’s part of where the “Revolution” crowd, particularly those from the middle, left and … whatever libertarians are calling themselves when they’re pretending not to be conservatives, gets it wrong. They see Ron Paul, or similar, agree with them about something and they poop themselves with delight, seeming to forget almost instantly all the other candidates that have promoted the same idea repeatedly, and more lucidly, for longer!
A perfect analogy for Ron Paul is this. I once watched a complete douchebag hold a door open for a girl. And she fawned all over him, it was like it was the greatest gift in the world. And I thought about some nice guys I know who hold doors open for women all the time and don’t get so much as a glance. And then I realized, its because they do it all the time! The douchebag holding open the door stands out! It’s rare behavior for him, so we’re more flattered and wowed by it. And that’s what Ron Paul is, the douchebag at the door, wowing everyone because hey, it’s a REPUBLICAN making sense, and that’s rare and wonderful. Where it stops being rare and wonderful is when people think it’s a “revolution” to vote for someone like that. Because heads up, it won’t be.
And that will be our exploration in Part III. Ron Paul…the Republican. Because he is a Republican and ultimately he’ll end up being no more sane or “maverick” than McCain or Palin were.
A lot of people are fed up with the way government is behaving. I’m one of them. Obama will not be getting my vote in 2012, that’s just the way of it. I’m sorry if that gives the GOP a better chance of leading us into a dark age, but the Democrats have been trying to bully votes out of me with that threat, while using it to excuse all manner of moronic behavior on their parts, for two years now and I’m done with it. That being said, there are two ways to react to dissatisfaction with the current power structure.
The first is to intelligently review alternative candidates and platforms which better represent your goals. Look at what’s wrong with the people that are in power, especially in contrast to how you voted, and then find candidates that best represent this. For instance, even in the last election, I found Robertson and Kucinich both far more compelling candidates, so if either one of them runs this time around, I might well focus my energies there.
The far more moronic (and far more popular) reaction is a knee jerk backlash. This is the tea party, people who are dissatisfied, so they’ve just started yelling. They’re picking candidates and positions not based on an intelligent inspection of goals or results, but only to lash out against what they don’t like. There is no manifestation of this behavior I find more repulsive than people who claim to be “seriously considering Ron Paul.” This is particularly distressing when Democrats and liberals do this, because what they’re literally saying is, “hey, Obama didn’t work out as well as I hoped, so instead of working to elect a better democrat, lets shift directions and elect an arguably insane, ineffective republican because voting GOP always works out so well for us!” See? Stupid! Stupid and self destructive, especially after the last eight years of GOP rule. After that, to decide, just because you don’t like Obama, that maybe the thing to do is try the, “quirky republican,” is…well, it should be apparent to everyone that “reasoning” isn’t the guiding force there.
“But Mike!” people implore, “Ron Paul has a lot of good ideas! He hates the military industrial complex. YOU hate the military industrial complex! He’s against the drug war! YOU’RE against the drug war! You should love this guy!” No, no I should not. See, when I first heard Ron Paul speak, I was, I admit, intrigued. So I looked him up. I read his campaign homepage. I researched his voting record. I did, in short, all the things anyone who is going to threaten the rest of us with their votes is SUPPOSED to do before supporting a candidate. Ron Paul is not a good candidate, or a good person. The very best description I could give for him is that he is an insane zealot, a tireless crusader for a retarded, unrealistic goal. And over the course of the next few days, I’m going to explain why this is true.
To begin, lets let Ron Paul speak in his own words. Please read the following : http://www.ronpaul.com/2008-11-10/ron-paul-why-more-regulation-makes-things-worse/
There is a litmus test here, and it is not whether or not you agree with Ron Paul. The test is whether or not at any point you even hesitantly thought about agreeing with him. The idea that any socially functional adult couldn’t instantly comprehend how moronic this entire “argument” is sends chills down my spine. It is perhaps the most distressing and disheartening aspect of the current political climate.
Ron Paul’s core idea is that regulation somehow corrupts industry. Ron Paul literally states that if we don’t regulate industry, that it grows naturally more ethical. Rationally the idiocy behind this notion should be obvious, its on par with saying your kids will be better developed if you abandon them in the woods, but for those whom excessive drug use, lead ingestion or repeated blows to the skull have left too crippled for such abstract thinking, we also have a delightful collection of historic precedents to draw from. Charting the course of business, industry and economics in the world, we quickly discover that the model Ron Paul is relying on, one where business began in a state of ethical bliss, operating in harmony with humanity, only to be lead astray into sin and immorality by dun dun dun government regulations is not a scenario that ever existed in real life.
What actually happens is a world where, left unregulated, industry eagerly embraces models employing slavery, wanton resource destruction and pollution, child labor, child labor in unsafe conditions, etc. etc. etc. Compare, say, mine safety records in nations in relationship to their safety standards and regulations. Review the role of black people in US industry over time compared to regulations. Look at living standards nation to nation, or time period to time period, contrasted against minimum wage. A cursory glance at reality instantly destroys Ron Paul’s model.
Not that you shouldn’t be able to do it with reason alone. His argument rests on the idea that “if you make a regulation, a corporation could find a loophole!” Logically, if there is no regulation, they don’t need to find a loophole, they can just do what they want. It’s the simplest reasoning on earth, “if you make it harder for someone to do something, then its going to be HARDER for them to do it than if you don’t do anything at all.” There’s really no reason this should have to be explained to anyone. Unregulated, industry will do whatever they want (and as we just explored, industry doesn’t magically grow an ethics gland the minute its unregulated, no matter what Ron Paul or the idiots that make up the bulk of modern libertarianism want to claim,) regulated it becomes harder for them to many things, and as a result they do them…less!
Here’s what actually happens under Ron Paul’s model. The lower classes are ground into a state of near slavery, forced to work ungodly hours to survive at all, placed in unsafe working environments, often locked up or browbeaten to perform. And what happens when we let the “competitive market” decide? The competition is devoured by larger, more successful organizations, melding into monopolies. Workers that protest against their treatment are often attacked physically, sometimes killed. See the Molly Mcguires fate, or just look at the regular instances of police being used to beat women and children in the US for striking against hours, pay and labor conditions. That is the deregulated society, and you can see it appear time and time again the world over. Ron Paul’s model doesn’t explain this, or offer a solution to it. It ignores it. Ron Paul pretends reality isn’t there.
As for this whine that regulation leads to “blind trust” in government, what Paul is now trying to argue is that people don’t ever think about regulations or how they’re applied. In his mind, if there’s a problem, people vote for a candidate, tell them to “pick a random solution,” and never think about it again. Among the mental infants that make up a majority of the libertarian party this is undoubtedly the case, but it is a pitiful, dishonest argument to describe how the rest of us behave. Quite the contrary, we don’t approach regulation blindly, we approach it with an intelligent review of the benefits of the behavior. I benefit from having the conditions in which my food is prepared inspected. Without such inspection, companies are very prone to cut corners in ways that threaten my health. I think about minimum wage, and how it has created a healthier middle class and a more stable growth in the GDP. There’s no blind faith involved, but only a rationally applied review and interaction with government in order to make it as good as possible through intelligent interpretation of events, the kind of applied thinking that should be required of all voters, but seems to be anathema to libertarians.
Is there the possibility for error, or even corruption? Of course, but Paul’s “throw the baby out with the bath” approach of claiming that regulation is the problem is demonstrably idiotic. The real blindness here comes from Paul’s insistence on caring only about “smaller” government and never about “better”. He claims that smaller is better, but again, this is zealotry that defies all real world models. What Ron Paul has is blind faith, and he absolutely refuses to apply reason, precedent or any model of reality to his political actions, but instead ignores all these things to plod doggedly after his fairy tale belief system.
So why do people want to vote for Ron Paul? Here’s the only reason why any person who isn’t absolutely horrible thinks about voting for him. Because they don’t do their research, and they’re “dissatisfied.” (Same with the tea party in general.) They’re “dissatisfied” with the government and they hear Ron Paul saying he’s dissatisfied and they’re all, “oh boy we’re dissatisfied buddies!” They spend no time looking into Ron Paul’s pathetic voting record, his consistent failure to achieve anything, his lunatic political ramblings or, most importantly, if there isn’t perhaps a far more intelligent, qualified candidate out there that’s ALSO dissatisfied (like Nader or Kucinich.) Instead, they make a poorly researched, knee-jerk emotional decision that is arguably far more socially destructive than what they’re “dissatisfied” about.
There’s plenty more left to discuss, most notably why Ron Paul’s “good ideas” (the ones most sane people agree with at least the mission statement regarding,) aren’t really any good when they come from Ron Paul, but it can wait until tomorrow.
I am now thirty seven years old and inexplicably back in college. Though this conclusion was only achieved through months of thought, planning and agitated, perplexed effort, I feel strangely side-swiped. The very notion of where I am today ambushed me at a glacial rate, ninja stalking me in plain site over the course of eons, while I stood hypnotized like the mouse staring at the fox.
How am I doing back in academy? It's hard to say! So far my GPA as measured by graded work to date sits in the high nineties, but at two weeks not so much has been graded, you know? In those two weeks I have been riding a rapid fire yo-yo of confidence and panic, reveling in the predestined glory that I know to be my college career one hour and wallowing in self condemnation the next, flogging my spirit for ever having had such high aspirations. Doom closes over me, shroudlike, as I gaze in mute horror over a series of strange squiggles in my Trig book. Clearly drawn by no human hand, their alien geometry is impossible to trace with the human eye.
Naw, overall I'd say things are well enough. I did my last trig homework almost seamlessly, hardly even needing to consult book or note. Technical compositions should be impossible not to ace if I just don't be a jackass, and watching some of the other students flounder around me its a wonder any of them succeed at all, at anything, ever. But then, I lurched in chemistry and only by the very grace of one of these ne'erdowells did I blunder through a pop quiz. I'm stressed for sure, but its so damned good to be back in school!
The overall lifestyle is gonna be trying for awhile. Consider this my, “having a kid,” all you parents out there! Between thirty hours of work, fifteen of school, three more mandatory study sessions that I don't get credit hours for (scumbags!) and having to run all aspects of my household singlehandedly, sans car, I've beenleft with an incredible shortage of free time. Part of that is still, of course, getting into the swing of focusing. My multitasking ways certainly haven't done me many favors in getting homework done quickly and efficiently. As time goes on, however, notes and organization improve, study habits improve, even streamlining the cooking and cleaning processes is making a positive difference. And frankly the work/school pair off could hardly be improved on (save only for the pay, which is true of all things anyway.) I may not see that same slack-heavy lifestyle I've enjoyed for so many years any time soon, but I do feel very much, despite the poverty and stress, that I've found a bit of True Slack..
And so begins the twilight of my middle age.
