This is my response to my friend Richard's question about Ron Paul. I begin with the same disclaimer I've written once before. This is my opinion, please don't be offended, I don't mean to insult anyone. Richard I know you are contemplating supporting Ron Paul, and I don't think you're stupid, absurd, idiotic or any other pejorative I may use in the course of this post to describe this movement. I use absolutist language because I'm talking more about the movement as a generality, as an ideology, which has an identity, in my opinion, separate from the individuals who may support it. I would never dream of intentionally disrespecting any of you individually, I have the highest regard and complete respect for all of you and for all of your opinions.
Ok; Libertarianism is a ridiculous delusion (in my opinion) that is completely un-American and leads logically to violence, hierarchies and constant, chaotic, conflict, exactly the things it supposes it will end. Alcohol is the first pillar of culture. Taxes are the first pillar of government. It is open for debate whether the first government arose to collect taxes, or the first taxes were imposed to sustain the first government. Either way, this is not a bad thing. Without taxes there are no Pyramids, no Great Walls, no paved roads, no aqueducts or canals, no armies, navies, schools, hospitals, libraries, firefighters, police, marketplaces, ports, courts, jails, or power plants. Ok, I realize Ron Paul is not proposing the abolition of taxes, not straight out. But his intention is to make it possible for someone to live their entire life without paying taxes if they don't want to. That's what an abolition of income tax and a national sales tax means. Now tell me, who's gonna pay a single tax they don't have to? The long term result of a national sales tax is that everyone eventually produces their own necessities, no one sells anything to anyone else, and there is in effect, no tax. There is also no technology, because how can you have a computer if you have to find and make all of the parts yourself. Well, won't this keep people buying things? Come now, people like technology, but they HATE taxes. It's stupid of them to hate taxes, but they do. Always have, likely always will.
The next part of this whole thing is that it’s fucking dangerous. The real truth is, GOVERNMENT DOES WORK. The myth that libertarian, neo-conservative, ‘federalists’ propagate is that government is evil, it doesn’t work, it doesn’t really respond to the desires of the people, it doesn’t really represent you, its just a bunch of rich white men patting each other on the backs, passing laws full of spending that serves no other purpose than to get themselves re-elected. All the while, they themselves vote, as do their easily led, under-educated, completely thoughtless dupes, like Christian conservatives. The reality is that LIBERTARIANS don’t work, NEO-CONSERVATIVES have no interest in the desires of the people, FEDERALISTS don’t represent anyone but themselves. Just today, the headlines in the NY and LA times were about the new republican strategy to win back some seats in congress, which is to recruit candidates who are super rich and don’t have to fundraise well in order to compete because they can spend their own money. You don’t see democrats doing anything of the sort. What did democrats do to win seats in the last election? They ran candidates who ACTUALLY REPRESENT the districts they were running in. Some of the freshman democrats are conservative Christians, like that quarterback guy, others were fiscal conservatives, the major difference between them and the candidates they were running to unseat was just that they were democrats, instead of supporting a party leadership that is based on how much fundraising clout they have, they support a party leadership that is based on seniority or the merit of their records.
Of all Americans, Californians should know best that it’s not government in general or most especially democrats who have left the government in dysfunction. Look at the Gray Davis coup, I mean recall. The whole reason he was recalled was supposedly because “he couldn’t get a budget passed.” So we elect a Republican, and what happens? The republicans in Sacramento STILL blocked the budget from passing. Remember this was a budget with billions of dollars less spending than the one they blocked Gray Davis from signing. They blocked it for no other reason than that it was acceptable to democrats.
The Democratic party’s greatest strength is that it is NOT monolithic. Notice how breaking four, just four senate republicans from the president on the war was an immense accomplishment. On the other hand, a couple of weeks ago, the democratic party split DOWN THE MIDDLE, almost exactly in half, with the majority of the party voting AGAINST the leadership. What happened? Did the party have some crisis of identity? No, that was just business as usual, Democrats allowed to express their opinion without being completely ostracized from the decision making process in the party. That’s what happens to black sheep Republicans, they lose all power to contribute to the direction of their party.
OK, you say. Ron Paul isn’t really a republican, you say. He’s only running in the republican party because he thinks he can get heard better there. Bullshit, I say. Libertarians are the little brothers of republicans just like Green party members are the little sisters of Democrats. They’re the most zealous of the zealous wings of each party, people who are such extremists on the right and the left respectively that they can’t even win primaries in the mainstream parties. They’re not in these spin-off parties because they’re so courageous, so misunderstood, and the main parties are so corrupt they won’t hear what they have to say. They’re in those parties because they’re NUTCASES. Ralph Nader is as deluded as Ron Paul is, only he’s worse, because he’s swallowed whole the idiocy that government doesn’t work and both parties are riddled with corruption which is in reality a conservative agenda.
Do you know that in almost every election, in almost every country ever, the greater the voter turnout, the better liberals do? The lower the turnout, the better conservatives do. In the election that brought Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to power about 14% of Iranians voted. In the next election, a provincial election, mayors, city councils and such, maybe parliament as well, I can’t remember, 24% of Iranians voted. Guess who’s party got its ASS KICKED.
Same deal with the recent Polish elections. The election that brought those idiot twins to power had low turnout, last month’s parliamentary elections had record voter turnout for that country. What happened? The idiot Prime Minister twin, is now the idiot opposition leader in polish parliament.
By the way, if you want to know what a true American conservative should look like, one who believes this country is worth keeping a Democracy, but who sets more value by a strong military and low budgets than by social security and public education, a man worthy of respect, conservative and all, with all of what we disagree on and all, Republican and all, his name is John McCain. Watch his most recent campaign ad on YouTube. That’s what’s wrong with the Republican party, and by extension America. Shit-heads like the former CIA director, like his son the AWOL coke snorting serial failed-business owner have been in charge of the party, and by extension the country for the last 20 years. But wait, you say, what about Clinton’s presidency? Clinton was president sure, but six of those years he dealt with a Republican controlled congress.
Democrats are in control now. Bush is president, but democrats are in control, they dictate the conversation, even if they can’t do everything they want, like withdrawing from Iraq. Anyways, that’s my opinion on Ron Paul, Libertarians, and the low point of America, which we have just passed sometime in the last four years.
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