The Ron Paul Story
The most interesting Ron Paul Story these days is the Ron Paul Story. What? It's like this. I well understand why so many disgruntled and disgusted Republicans are turning in despair to a man who probably cannot get the nomination, much less win in a general election. Paul's supporters have come, however dimly, to realize the truth of George Wallace's observation that there is not a dime's worth of difference between the two parties. And remember a dime went a lot further back in the days of Little George. The willingness of Middle American Republicans even to consider Ron Paul, for even a moment, should be news, big news both in the official media that is miscalled "mainstream"--if The New York Times is mainstream, what does that make The Nation, slightly left of center?--and in the organs of the Republican "right," which are right only in relation to The Nation.
I do not claim to have been paying very close attention, but the lack of stories is the Ron Paul Story. Today, on the way back from lunch, I tuned in for a minute to Rush Limbaugh. Unfortunately, it was one of those days when Rush is off. It's is clear to anyone how he choses his replacements--they have to make him look good, make the audience long for Rush's return. Listening to Mark Steyn repeat himself, babbling on in search of an object for his verb, is excruciating, Mark Belling, today's replacement, is even worse: he has a voice for print. An annoyed listener had called in to complain about the lack of attention to Dr. Paul. Belling, who poses as a populist type, told him the truth, as he saw it. Ron cannot win, therefore it is pointless to pay attention to any polling numbers until he can consistently get numbers of 17-25%.
Get it? Commentators do not report on or analyze actual events. They decide in advance what is significant, because they know, dear listeners and readers, what is important, who can win and who cannot. I feel sure it has penetrated into the cheese curds that fill the head of Milwaukee's toast of talk radio that these are self-fulfilling prophecies. If even "conservatives" will not talk about Ron Paul, then we can scarcely take him seriously, can we? Certainly not seriously enough to turn off the TV and go out and vote for him in a primary.
The exception that proves the rule is the most honest and intelligent news anchor in television, Jon Stewart. Yes, Mr. Stewart is on the left, and yes he typically ridicules conservatives, but he does take a lively interest in the zaniness of the American scene. Occasionally he even deviates into rectitude. Recently he derided the big networks for openly refusing to talk about Ron Paul. He hit the nail on the head, when he pointed out that all Dr. Paul has going for him is that he believes what he says and has been repeating a consistent message for decades: limited government, low taxes, dismantle the fed, bring the troops home, legalize marijuana, give up our imperialist dreams, and restore the republic. Is it wrong to dream?
I like Ron Paul. He is not my dream candidate, and I do not believe he has much of a chance of winning. But that is not why he is being ignored. He is being ignored because unlike every other candidate of either party in the field, he is issuing a fundamental challenge to the regime. Rick Perry, for all his insincere secession and God talk, is the lackey of the regime who led the Al Gore campaign in Texas. Michelle Bachman does not simply look like the deer in the headlights: she Is the deer in the headlights. And if anyone is going to oppose the establishment, it won't be a wealthy member of the Romney clan.
Talking endlessly about Michelle and Mitt, commentators never have to face the realities of American life, never have to consider the tissue of lies on which the regime is founded. Ron Paul probably cannot win, but he can make the voters begin to think or least to wonder if it is possible to confront the truth and give up the fantasies of equality that underly the American ideology, the self-evident lies both parties tell in order to maintain their power-shared control of 300 million people.
Ron Paul cannot be forgiven for speaking truth to power. The conservatives and liberals don't take him seriously, not because he gives silly speeches--which he does--or looks funny--which he does or takes politically unwise positions--which he does. No, they love all that, because they can use it against him. What they hate about Ron Paul is that he believes what he says, and that, my dear readers, listeners, and sports fans everywhere, is not playing by the rules.
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I could not agree more. Yet one wonders whether his message would be any more effective if delivered properly. He comes off as a grandfather who has been completely outraged by what is going on.
Apparently things need to get a lot worse before he gets taken seriously. And it is amazing that everything is not worse already. The fact that the measure of inflation, the one economic indicator that would make all the difference, is under control is truly the most incredible achievement of the Obama regime. With the amounts of credit and money printed out of thin air, inflation should be at least fifteen percent.
The sad thing about Paul is how much more of an ideologue he sounds like compared to his campaign of 2007-8. He allowed himself to become the mouthpiece of the LvMI, and now I know what he says before he opens his mouth. So even though they Hate the State, they still choose to promote anarchy through a Presidential candidate. Paul used to be more frank and un-PC before they were his handlers.
I have long liked and respected Dr. Ron Paul. He is one the few in Washington who has any honor or principles. Out of all the candidates he is obviously the only decent one out of the lot. That being said, several of his anarcho-libertarian positions make me cringe. There is certainly quite a bit that a reactionary like me finds too much within the sphere of liberalism.
As for the other candidates, Rick Perry represents the neoconservative, evangelical crowd, the Israel-and-End-Times movement. This is a guy who is traveling around with the likes of John Hagee, the man who denounced the Holy Roman Catholic Church as the "great whore" mentioned in the Apocalypse of St. John. Plus the Republican establishment loves him. That is never a good sign.
Romney is your typical establishment Republican. He represents the moneyed interests and little else. The same goes for Jon Huntsman
Newt Gingrich is an incoherent, narcassitic neocon, he changes his views like he changes wives.
Rick Santorum is an absurd character. He tries to play the part of the traditional Catholic, but will sacrifice the Church's teachings to elect a pro-abortion then-Republican (Specter) over a pro-life, outsider challenger (Toomey). He did all of this because the neocon project to democratize the Arab world is more important then anything else.
I will admit that I do like Michele Bachmann, but she says way too many stupid things, things that make it hard to take her seriously. It would be hard to regard her seriously as a leader.
As I jumped onto the site to add my comments to Dr. Fleming's insightful post, I noticed Daniel's comments above at #3; to borrow (and amend) an overused phrase, he has taken the words right out of my mind! I concur wholeheartedly with him - paragraphs one through six inclusive! I even intended to address the candidates in the same order. Well-said, Daniel!
I can give a very sound argument against Ron Paul.
He has often been a part of Congressional hearings where Bernard Bernanke was questioned on Federal Reserve policy. It's bad enough for the representative to come not as a witness, but an assertive debater. But his questions and his statements betray that he does not understand how the Federal Reserve works. Especially when open market operations are conflated with "printing" of money, and when it is assumed that the Federal Reserve gives money away to banks for free, when banks actually give away possession of their assets in return for that money. Big things like that.
Does Paul understand the implications of this? He has basically legitimized Federal Reserve independence even further. Why? The more lack of knowledge a legislator betrays when trying to argue against a leading central banker, the more he justifies leaving the central banker's affairs out of legislators' hands. He, along with Kucinich, Grayson, and Sanders, have asked stupid questions (or arguments posing as questions) to Bernanke that have only served to make the technocrat look wiser than the elected official.
In the end, he has dealt a huge blow to his own cause, which was to hold back a powerful, unaccountable entity from damaging people's livelihoods across the world. And a good cause that is!
Yes, Ron Paul really believes what he believes. The problem is that his conviction makes him forget to do his homework.
PS: On topic, the media blackout on Paul is very much a bizzare and interesting issue, that reveals much about the strange groupthink of TV anchors across several networks.
Yes, if only we'd had John McCain interrogating Fed Chairmen. Imagine how far along the cause would be.
Senator Paul would garner much more media attention if he would quit talking about the expense to our country for policing the entire globe. There are plenty of GOP candidates who will talk about the Federal Reserve, the gold standard, the legalization of fraud,waste and abuse, DEA, attacking defenseless countries, "The Lord" etc...
That is to say, "He is being ignored because unlike every other candidate of either party in the field, he is issuing a fundamental challenge to the regime." This is nothing new at allfor the GOP. They had to loosen the reigns a bit -- They have allowed a few televised, albeit supervised, debates without the poll restrictions they imposed on Pat Buchanan.(although they still reserve their right to recognize any or no polls of their choosing) They also allowed Representative Bachman to win the notorious and fraudulent Iowa straw poll to demonstrate her " ability to energize the base" and "demonstrate organizational skills" far superior to Senator Paul who she demolished by a mere 250 votes!
The Duopoly will always allow full debates on various ways to shake down working families of our dear country, or what in the old days was called, defrauding laborers of their wages. They cannot, however, allow any discussion whatsoever about these senseless and expensive military campaigns that the sons and daughters of working families fight. This would unnecessarily jeopardize their own strangle hold on the department of truth, justice and American exceptionalism. In other words, Senator Paul can run in public if he desires, but if he won't hide his public pronouncements, then they will hide them for us.
The fact that the entertainer Jon Stewart is the "most honest and intelligent news anchor" says enough about how disturbing our cultural situation is. Recall King Lear, where the king goes insane, the state disintegrates, and only the Fool speaks the truth.
Mr. Sanjay has things backwards. Paul has made anti-Federal Reserve sentiment popular, when only the most zealous cared about the issue even a few years ago. The Federal Reserve is now an election issue, to the point where snakes like Rick Perry are calling Bernanke "treasonous" and even Rush Limbaugh is complaining about fiat money creation. Lord knows these men wouldn't haven't said such a thing during a Republican presidency and didn't oppose Bernanke's appointment by their buddy George W. Bush.
Perhaps it would not be out of place for me to make my argument a little clearer. My object was not to endorse or even praise Ron Paul but to draw attention to what his campaign and its media rejection suggests about politics and political discourse. On Jon Stewart, I agree entirely with Mr. Matthews and would go farther in expressing how repelled I normally am by Mr. Steward, but the webmaster would undoubtedly censor my remarks. I do recall with pleasure, however, his appearance on Crossfire, when he told Paul Begala and Tucker Carlson to quit degrading American politics with their shadow boxing and rhetorical distortions. Begala was smart enough just to laugh and go along with "the joke," but poor Carlson got angry and accused Stewart of degrading politics with humor. Stewart just looked at him and asked if he was aware that the Daily Show was not on CNN or ABC but on Comedy Central, that it was in fact a comedy show. Older people and conservatives are shocked to learn that the Daily Show is the primary source for news of a majority of people under 35. Speaking personally, though I would shut down all TV--and newspapers--tomorrow, if I had the power, it is partly a good sign that younger people can laugh at both parties, though it sad that they have had to learn this lesson.
J. Matthews, you are right, and I concede on your points. The not-so-often discussed central bank is coming into mainstream discussion.
But why did the Audit The Fed bill fail? It was because the legislative debate primarily focused on the fact that the most visible anti-Fed types had poor understanding of monetary matters. Of course, it wasn't just Paul, but also Grayson, Sanders, and Kucinich, and all the Fed officials had to do was point out that the four did not know what they were discussing.
One can not fight wrongful institutions with ignorance. The worst habit of legislators is that they believe their lack of expertise gives them a layman's superior credibility.
I don't think it's a good idea to a) comment outside of one's area of expertise without doing some full-time research on the matter, b) behave as if those with any expertise are wilfully wrong or have some agenda, when one does not have the expertise to counter or evaluate their claims, and c) hold some sort of Marxist principle that one must not allow empirical evidence to interfere with one's class interest or ideology.
"But why did the Audit The Fed bill fail?"
The Audit the Fed bill failed because it ran counter to a powerful international banking cartel. Has a movement, supported by ordinary Americans, that opposes the ruling elite, suceeded any time in recent memory?
"draw attention to what his campaign and its media rejection suggests about politics and political discourse."
That was certainly the purpose of my post and the only purpose. I am not at all interested in the current political debates between libertarian/anarchists on one side and gnostic freedom lovers on the other,who believe politics should consist of nothing more than jobs, wages and a five year plan.
Mr. Sanjay, the answer to your question about why the Audit the Fed bill failed is in Dr. Fleming's post. Dr. Paul speaks "truth to power." Federal Reserve officials, counterfeiting thieves that they are, cannot be trusted and would rather not hear truth. In their world, the power to create digital money and thereby steal from us all is called "quantitative easing." And in the Washington DC world of power politics, revealing who and where the Federal Reserve sends its fiat money to would expose the political connections of a supposedly politically-independent institution. In other words, there is no way that the power elite want anybody messing with the nation's central bank, whose dealings are kept secret from us taxpayers.
While I would normally agree with you about Congressional ignorance, Dr. Paul mostly repeats what Murray Rothbard said about the Fed in his books (e.g., "The Case Against the Fed," "The Mystery of Banking"). So you will have to argue with Rothbard, who was not a fool on the subject.
Argument that one needs to have a phd to argue with anybody about anything is self defeating. Just like when we dismiss the quality of Ivy league scholarship on the gournds that is contrary to what we stand for and then we proceed to send our offspring there nonetheless.
The point that balances are created versus the bank assets, is a type of manouver that delights students in a course on advanced accounting. BUt it does not bely the fact that money is being created out of thin air. As for conflating open market operations with creating money, well obviously it makes no sense, unless you are politicians who are trying to anathemize something, which they are always very good at. So I would not agree with the idea that Paul appeared foolish or that he hurt the cause, not any more than Reagan ever did.
I agree with everyone here that our political debates have become tedious and worthless. Most likely we are looking at a comfortable Obama reelection.
Ouch. This is going to be a painful area to maneuver. I don't know how to sound uncontroversial here.
You know how these freedom lovers always have a little bit of confirmation bias? They read only the people with whose views they would agree, and just assume their opponent's positions from whatever they read from their own side? This is a good example.
The problem is precisely that the likes of Rep. Paul never read their opposition.
If we are going to use Rothbard as an authority to be appealed, let us first remember that Rothbard never held a decent academic position. YES, Rothbard was no fool, and worked rigourously in his field. I found two of his books to be fascinating. But he was also primarily an economic historian, and monetary matters were not his core expertise.
There are dozens of other perspectives, just as solidly argued, and as laymen, we can just match each sides views and take what we can from it. Rothbard's views are based on the assumption that banks lend from reserves, even though (shockingly), other experts point out that banks don't lend from their reserves.
Getting back to the original topic:
Basically, how can we talk about the narrow-mindedness and mental enclosures of the Washington establishment, while ignoring the narrow-mindedness and mental enclosures of Team Paul and co.? The same kind of "La la la la, not listening!" practised by the former in this case is what the latter also practises. Both are part of the same problem.
The lack of stories on Ron Paul is the Ron Paul story. Despite Mr. Paul's Mr. Rogersness, his lack of "presence" so necessary for the media which both fauns on and creates the cult of personality, Mr. Paul's alleged ignorance of things "economic," assuming that a "science" can be applied unto understanding of that which we have come to call economics, and Mr. Paul's libertarian leanings, the reason that Mr. Paul must be ignored is that despite his real and alleged weakness as a political leader and a candidate he calls attention to the fact that America is now under the tyranny of an abstract corporation with a monopoly on coercion, with the ability to define the limits of its own power and with the power which comes from a powerful will of a fickle democratic masses manipulated by elites such as those associated with the Federal Reserve and other such entities and he calls attention to the fact that this Leviathan, this Hobbesian state, has an illegitimate claim to power: it came to power in a regional revolution and shot its way to power over the rest of the country from 1860 to 1865. The illegitimacy of this government cannot be admitted to. Too many ideologies of the left and the so-called right are tied to it.
I understand why Mr. Paul's default as he exposes the reality, sometimes wittingly and sometimes unwittingly, behind the curtain of the American political myth is the Constitution. I, too, am an apologist for the Constitution in certain places and at certain times; however, I have long realized that the Constitution is a meaningless scrap of paper to which to return is to return to nothing. The intents of Hamilton and perhaps even Madison aside, I could stipulate that the drafting and the ratifying of the Constitution rested on the best possible intention: to create a agent (the general government) for the states who were the principals and to redefine the relationship of those principals in a new constitutional federation of republics (states).
Well, assuming that the best of intentions were indeed implemented in the Constituion and what came out of it was a more perfect union of constituionally federated republics with a general government which served their interests (An assumption which is dangerous to make.), then we must conclude that the Constitution is dead and meaningless, for it was never an end but a mere means, because the union of federated republics is dead and the agent has become the tyrant which the Constitution was supposed to put in chains - the junk-yard dog is mean, is off his chains and runs the master, or Dr. Frankenstein's creature has become the monster which is destroying him.
So, Dr. Paul cannot gain voice in the media because his voice, no matter how weak and sometimes inarticulate, reveals, sometimes almost inspite of itself, the truth: the Leviathan is illegitimate!
Mr. Paul's big mistake and mine as well in my more misplaced hopeful moments is that one can "return to the Constitution." That cannot be; that experiment has failed; the embryo of the failure was tucked into the Constitution itself in the "general welfare clause" and the "commerce clause." The foul egg was nurtured by Hamilton, Marshal, Webster, Story and Clay. It hatched into the cockatrice of Lincoln and the Republican Party. What the Hobbesian state does not, disregarding all subsidiarity, subsume itself, it allows its corporate, for-profit and not-for-profit, allies to consume. The Fed is an important link between the state and its allies.
The voice of Providence is often, but not always, in the weakest of voices, voices not unlike that of Mr. Paul's; or to paraphrase the words of Uncle Remus - Brer Fox, this ol' grayin' fox, goin' to lay low; the lowly tar baby might just catch something yet. One never can tell about a mystery.
Mr. Sanjay, at the risk of following a rabbit trail too far, it is of course pointless here to accuse instead of argue (e.g., "[they] never read the opposition"). The existence of multiple "perspectives" doesn't mean that any of them are right and true and worth listening to, and Rothbard's failure to hold a "decent academic position" is not exactly a blight on his reliance as an authority--in fact, just the opposite these days.
Economists tend to ignore morals, and yes even Austrian economics explicitly does so. Still, Paul does offer a moral critique of the institution of the central bank and of its fractional-reserve banking system--something I dare say almost no one in Washington wishes to hear. The system works well for our rulers, but not so well for our parents and grandparents, whose hard-earned savings are daily eroded by the Fed's monetary dealings. The Fed is a symptom of our spiritual problems, but it is still worth critiquing--something that was rarely done until recently. I am less concerned with a supposed failure to "listen" than I am with the status quo's unquestioned acceptance of the destructive advice of Lord Keynes.
#15. Rothbard did not hold and decent position nor was he an expert, like I suppose Friedman and Bernancke. This is exactly the fallacy that I was referring to in my previous post. You cannot attack the Ivy League and go get a degree from them at the same time and claim it as a gold standard so to speak. Besides, if you were a Rothbard nowadays, they wouldn't even let you graduate from Columbia let alone get an advanced degree. Of course Rothbard was a highly successful professor in New York for the longest time and later he turned UNLV along with HHH into an undeserving international attraction.
The opinion that Rothbard did not know banking and was an economic historian is a statement of the pearls before swine variety. Both Rothbard and HHH would tear the invidious Mr, Bernancke apart in a direct confrontation if it came purely to theory.Thus we cannot fault Ron Paul for doing half the job they would.
Lord Keynes' views were a bit more nuanced than for what he is generally known. As I read his own works bit by bit, I realize he often stays on the same page as conservatives today.
He was a member of the Liberal Party, the limited government party of the old UK, and in his own times belonged to the same group that the likes of Paul in US belong. He didn't support the recklessness of the National Industrial Recovery Act of the New Deal. The man was not some supporter of high tax rates, and he thought that it was unreasonable when rates went above 25%. He was not some unabashed supporter of high deficits either, and believed instead that governments should hold back spending during good times, so that they could build savings that they could spend during bad times when tax revenues go down. As a Liberal, he hated nationalisation and believed railway nationalisation to be a waste of time that would not benefit anybody (he says as much in The End of Laissez Faire). Most of all, he was very much in favour of cutting tax rates and not raising spending to get out of a slump. And he didn't believe government had to be a source of stimulus - even private businesses and wealthy people could pull their own weight, as JP Morgan once did in the 1910s when the banking industry was in crisis.
Either way, the gist is that Keynes saw that there were rare occasions when everybody is indebted, everybody is tightening one's belt, and everybody is getting worse off for it. In this rare case, his liberal ideology went out of the window, because he realized what makes sense for one person might not make sense for all to do together. In such a rare case, he said it made sense for governments to build houses and put jobless people back to work for a while. Hardly outrageous or radical. This is not the prescription for all recessions or even most recessions. Just the few very bad ones.
Okay, I am sorry for diverting this discussion on media blackouts and double standards, but all the same, Mr. Bailey's post has to be answered.
Why do libertarians think that if they are not given due credit, it is because of an ulterior motive or agenda by powerful people who only support one point of view?
Friedman was also a man of unpopular views, and he was among the few who blamed the Federal Reserve itself for The Great Depression. He later even said that the Federal Reserve should have been abolished. Still, he was recognized and well known, because he made a strong convincing point, not because he was closer to the establishment. Friedman was an extremist radical, for heaven's sake, and he could have been easily marginalised. Rothbard didn't get the same credit as Friedman, not because he was too much against the establishment, but because he didn't have the same charisma or academic record.
Bernanke? Well, the man is a mystery to me, but let's remember that Bernanke has been a)notoriously anti-inflation and pro-hard-money, and b)also blamed the Federal Reserve for the Great Depression. Not too far away from Rothbard either. He has said his main concern is to keep price levels stable, and guess what the current price inflation rates in US and Europe are at the moment? Even after QE2, the money supply remains the same, because of the recalling of loans during recession.
Friedman and Bernanke both differed from the status quo opinion so far, that one should suspect they would have been almost as marginalised as Rothbard was, if for different reasons.
Trying to wheel this back to topic: sometimes a libertarian is marginalised not because he is an extremist, but because he really does not have the very best arguments.
Could that have been the case with Rep. Paul?
There is nothing counter establishment about Bernancke. The fact that he likes low inflation is pretty much in line with Lord Keynes, as all changes in the value of paper money are viewed as detrimental to the professariat. Friedman more convincing than Rpthbard, how? we had a big discussion here a few months ago about free to chose so it cannot be that. And some of the basic tenets of monetarism have been disputed, I would stipulate convincingly thus far. One such example being deflation.
The problem is not that Ivy League academics are unconvincing which they are and that the whole profession is preposterous. The problem is that no matter how much they fail and how wrong they are about everything, they will continue to have a stranglehold on public policy. To accept their knowledge and the teaching standards after all that we know and to look among them for opinion is the height of absurdity. I cannot think of a more unprofitable time spent than to continue to look for good in a failed and discredited profession. To nitpick the few coherent critics around for quality of all things should be the least of our priorities.
The arguments for and against fiat money has always interested me, but this current thread has been mostly a debate about the credentials of those who are for or against fiat money. Being a person of average income, I am more inclined to oppose fiat money because of its constant erosion of my savings and earnings. It seems to me that fiat money is a legal dishonesty that punishes savers and rewards borrowers and lenders, especially big borrowers like the Federal government and big lenders like the Federal Reserve. It is a hidden tax that the average person doesn't understand and would be rightly outraged if they did. I believe this is why Ron Paul is being marginalized, as Dr. Fleming says, for speaking truth to power.
# 5 - He has often been a part of Congressional hearings where Bernard Bernanke was questioned on Federal Reserve policy. It’s bad enough for the representative to come not as a witness, but an assertive debater. But his questions and his statements betray that he does not understand how the Federal Reserve works. Especially when open market operations are conflated with “printing” of money, and when it is assumed that the Federal Reserve gives money away to banks for free, when banks actually give away possession of their assets in return for that money. Big things like that.
# 20 - Trying to wheel this back to topic: sometimes a libertarian is marginalised not because he is an extremist, but because he really does not have the very best arguments.
Could that have been the case with Rep. Paul?
Mr. Sanjay,
Can you offer some evidence related to your claims that Dr. Paul has conflated open market operations with printing money, or that he assumed that the Fed gives money away to banks?
The actions of the government that are directly in contradiction to our national interests are legion, and well known to anyone who is both rational and paying attention. Dr. Paul has been outspoken about these actions for over thirty years. He is marginalized because most of us can neither fathom nor stomach the depravity of those entrusted to 'lead' us, which he points out daily. The media merely gives the majority of us [picture 200 million Bush/Obama types swaggering around and pontificating] what we want to see and hear.
Whoever wins South Carolina, wins the GOP nomination. That's been the rule of thumb ever since pre-Reagan. For those who care, the SC GOP establishment still seems to be scrambling for candidates and alliances. Four years ago, all of the major consultants had been locked in for a long time going. The last time there was a crapshoot like this was in the 90s. By the way... big endorsements among SC bigwigs may be coming soon, including a viable primary opponent of Lindsay Graham.
In regards to Ivy League Schools, my own observations are they are fine in so far as reality can be measured and so far as life consists in living on bread alone. Their weakness and that of almost all of our educational institutions is the failure to understand that "Man’s activity consists in either a making or doing. Both of these aspects of the active life depend for their correction upon the contemplative life. The making of things is governed by art, the doing of things by prudence."
The problem with contemporary education is not only its contempt for yesterday's quaint little virtues, but the fact that one can never really graduate because there is no ladder of ascent. Here is a good example, although not a unique example of what is sometimes referred to as our "best and brightest":
"I’m not saying the believers are as irritating as the nonbelievers, they’re just…weird. You actually believe all that stuff with the guy in the gigantic hat and the jewel-encrusted robe shaking the thing with the water in it at everybody? What are you, Haitian? ..... I don’t get how someone could call themselves pragmatic and rational and then talk about all this ancient astrology with a straight face...."
We of course chuckle at such juvenile impiety because we no longer know why or how either.
The trouble with this whole thing in the end lies with Paul's blind adherence to the Constitution he treasures. The whole endeavor was to create a strong central government as the federal government in the Articles of Confederation was rather weak, and almost powerless. The Consitution is so vague in so many areas, that it begs to be abused with regards to its original intent. Many of the Founders cried foul when they finally hammered the thing out, saying basically it sucked rocks. In addition to that, let's be honest, Americans want to be taken care of like children anymore. They will give anything up to be able to keep their creature comforts and security, including true liberty. In short, we are moral cowards.
In regards to the Constitution, history has proven Patrick Henry to have been 100% correct. It went exactly as he predicted. Too bad he doesn't receive more recognition.
I don't see that it advances our understanding much to reduce complicated problems down to black-and-white depictions of good against evil. American government under the Constitution--say, 1788 to 1858--was neither perfect nor evil. It should not be venerated or despised. There were agendas in Philadelphia, but there were so many agendas that the compromises reached reflected some of the complex realities of American life--big states v. small, agrarian v. commercial, Yankee v. everyone else. If it failed, it is because all systems fail. They fail because of human entropy. In the first flush of great victories--Greeks in 480, Americans in the 1780's--men temporarily rise, if only partly, above their native swinishness, greed, and lethargy, but it cannot last. One can trace the inexorable descent of the American character by looking at the declining quality of Presidents, from Washington, Adams, Jefferson to JQ Adams, Jackson and Van Buren, to Lincoln, Grant and Hayes...one hesitates, for the sake of one's stomach, to go much further. No one, it goes without saying, is 100% correct, especially in politics. Of course Patrick Henry is vilified, but only because of his integrity and insight. He was, admittedly, a prickly customer.
Robert Reavis's quotation sent me looking for the idiot who was responsible. The entire "article" is worth examining as an exhibit of what younger "conservatives" are like when they too weak and frivolous even to embrace a religious tradition.
"Ten Things I Hate about the Right"
I can name one thing I hate about the right and hate it straight from 1789 on down, and it's that the right has consistently confused resigning ourselves to the status quo with making friends with such idiots as the author of that article.
To Daniel @ comment #3,
To put it bluntly, I think the GOP is shooting itself in the foot and the power elite are going to keep there man in office for another 4 years. You can debate about Paul's positions all you want, but in terms of electability, he is really the only one that could beat Obama, save the coming of the crash before Nov 2012. As has been duly noted, he has brought the machinations of the Federal Reserve to the fore, and has been quite articulate on how these useless wars are driving us deeper in debt every day. These two issues cut across party lines. Matt Damon, a well known celebrity Democrat, narrated the DVD expose on the banker bailouts called Inside Job and from that he publicly quit his support for Obama. Many folks on the left are also pissed at Obama for not stopping these wars for moral reasons, as well as financial ones. Dr. Paul is also for the discontinuation of the Drug War, which is nothing more than a wealth/asset confiscation program under cover of good intentions, as well as a nice excuse to keep black men in prison for non violent crimes. This too is an issue that can go across party/racial/ideological lines. Perry or Bachmann would turn off most moderates and independents and would thus lose the general election to Obama.
I feel as though I owe Dr. Paul some gratitude. Through a chain of web clicks and reading articles, I came to this place and had been primed enough to read real things. Furthermore, so many of my friends who have been built into the brand recognition of the Demo/GOP waltz now actually stop to hear what Ron Paul says. I get texts from people saying things like, "your man Ron Paul...". I don't like the "your man" bit, but I suppose I deserve it.
The blob of media completely misses the sensation of Dr. Paul. They know he cannot win, they fear his messages because they either know far less than he does or they are overt socialists, and, most of all, they know that he knows he cannot win. In an American culture where charity is returned in taxes and publicity, why would anyone do something they won't directly gain from? They lack all understanding of art, whereas Mr. Stewart merely lacks prudence. He's supposed to, they are not.
"Mr. Paul’s big mistake and mine as well in my more misplaced hopeful moments is that one can “return to the Constitution.” That cannot be; that experiment has failed;"
Mr. Peters, I agree with that in theory. I am at heart an anti-Federalist. I think the anti-Federalists have been proven almost entirely correct over time, and I believe the Constitution contained within itself the flaws that eventually lead to its irrelevance. But that said, I don't really see a rhetorical alternative to Constitutionalism. Perhaps I am a hopeless romantic or lack imagination, but I can't for the life of me figure out what alternative to Constitutionalism we are supposed to embrace.
Do we bad-mouth the Constitution and attempt to undermine it and replace it with something more to our liking. If we were to scrap the Constitution and start from scratch, what is the likelihood we would come up with something, given all the modern interest groups who would surely want their say, that is better than the initial flawed Constitution? In fact, it is actually the rigorous following of the Constitution that is going to get us as close to anti-Federalism as we are likely to get. If you are a dreamer and want something like the Articles of Confederation, we get there through returning to the Constitution first. Not by scraping it and starting from scratch. I do not think that it is an anomaly that all the best Constitutionalist (Woods, Gutzman, etc.) are really anti-Federalists and/or anarchists.
What am I missing?
I must say I bravely agree with both Mr. Peters and Dr. Red. What might be useful here is a distinction between philosophy that pursues truth and political rhetoric whose object is the advantage or interest of one's group. The Constitution of 1787 is at best an historical curiosity these days. It ceased to function in any practical way, either in the 1860's or, if we are wildly optimistic, in the 1960's. Appeals to the Constitution, however, can be quite useful but only so long as we agree that the world is moving in the opposite direction, and whatever happens will have nothing to do with restoring the old Constitutional order. If it is true, what the wise Sicilian maintained, that we must change in order to remain the same, then to change, perhaps, we must pretend to be conservative or reactionary, to be reaching back into those halcyon days that only existed in imagination, never in reality. By all means, let us invoke the constitution in an effort to gain some practical advantage for our children and our kind and to tame some part of the ravenous beast that is the government, but if we delude ourselves into thinking that some process of amendment or restoration will save us from the devils in power, we are not only wasting our time--which may not mean much to the younger crowd but means something to me--but that we are only empowering a set of cynical rascals like Rick Perry or Michelle Bachmann. While I applaud the Tea-Partiers for daring to dream, I fear that in the end they will sell their souls to an unscrupulous conservative who will scourge them with scorpions.
I know, I know, this is cynical and disheartening, but, once again, I urge you not to follow the bad example of the Roman Stoics who threw away their lives resisting an empire that had come to stay. They would have done much more good by working with Vespasian and Titus--not bad sorts, as emperors go, by any means--or by simply retiring to their estates where they might have spent time with their families, hunted and read to their hearts' content. Pliny the Younger did both: He served Trajan loyally but had sufficient leisure to enjoy something like the good life.
Red Phillips @32:
What you may possibly be missing is that the Anti-Federalists were in 1787, and their ideological descendants are today, the ONLY true U.S. Constitutionalists. As opposed to the members of the Federalist Party, that is. The jury of history is in on Hamilton and his Federalist cronies and enablers in the big cities of the North and New England. They wanted unlimited power over all the masses of people they claimed to be their fellow countrymen, from New Hampshire to Georgia. The Anti-Federalists and their followers throughout the generations can proudly claim, however, that it is THEIR philosophy of government with absolutely and explicitly defined limitations which was legally ratified in 1790 with that pesky Bill of Rights which ended with that peskiest 10th Amendment. And as James Madison himself admitted, a written Constitution of laws has no meaning except what the people RATIFYING it intend it to mean. That being undeniable, it matters not what unscrupulous men like Hamilton wanted when designing the Constitution as a means to exerting unlimited power over the American people. No 2/3 majority of American people ever legally ratified such a wicked document, nor WOULD they ever have done so, considering what they had just been through roughly a decade earlier.
Is this really a black and white case? Were there no Federalists who believed in limited government? Were they all power-seeking monsters? Even John Randolph's Federalist friend Fisher Ames? Why would Adams and Hamilton have wanted a type of government they had never experienced? It seems to me the real question on the table--apart from quite practical matters of dealing out favors--was how far to depart from the British model, which was almost universally viewed as the freest and most successful state in the world at the time. Outside of New England, the leaders of the Revolution had been proud to be English, and it was their mistaken belief that their rights as Englishmen were being threatened that led them to rebellion. George III exceeded the king's traditional powers not by acting as a dictator or usurping authority he did not have. He got his powers honestly by bribing members of parliament. In the political struggles of the time, I generally support the anti-federalists, but that does not mean we have to pretend that the Federalists were, to a man, dirty scoundrels plotting tyranny. And, let us be candid. There are no Anti-Federalists today, not in any practical political sense. One might just as well say that in supporting, a party of law and order one is a confucianist or a fascist. The Anti-Federalists made excellent arguments, and when they elected more or less their man to the White House, they achieved something, but many (not all) turned against Jefferson, when he proved to be a practical statesman, doing his best for his country as he saw it, Constitution or no Constitution. I suppose we could begin the restoration of the old order by giving up the Louisiana Purchase and kicking out all states admitted after 1800. Perhaps we should give back to the states the right to issue their own paper money. They did such a good job of it in the past!
Anti-Federalism is an attitude, not a philosophy. As an attitude, it derives its strength from the great traditions of Aristotle, St. Thomas, and Althusius. If turned into a philosophy, however, it will become a strait-jacket.
"Anti-Federalism is an attitude, not a philosophy. As an attitude, it derives its strength from the great traditions of Aristotle, St. Thomas, and Althusius. If turned into a philosophy, however, it will become a strait-jacket."
This quite true and true because there was a certain culture in which it grew to maturity. Without the culture, the thing will be used as a weapon instead of a tool. Or as our friend Clyde Wilson loves to say, "The law was created for men, not men for the law."
Here are a few observations made years ago by an old member of parliament who saw the gigantic difference between confronting the old paganism vs. the new paganism.
"New Paganism, should it ever become universal, or cover whatever districts or societies it may become general, will never be what the Old Paganism was. It will be other, because it will be a corruption. . . .
“The Old Paganism worshipped human things, but the noblest human things, particularly reason and the sense of beauty. In these it rose to heights greater than have since been reached, perhaps, and certainly to heights as great as were ever reached by mere reason or in the mere production of beauty during the Christian centuries.
“But the New Paganism despises reason, and boasts that it is attacking beauty. It presents with pride music that is discordant, building that is repellent, pictures that are a mere chaos, and it ridicules the logical process. . . .
“The Old Paganism was of a sort that would be open, when due time came, to the authority of the Catholic Church. It had ears that at least would hear. . . .
“The Old Paganism had a strong sense of the supernatural. This was often turned to the wrong objects and always to sufficient objects, but it was keen and unfailing; all the poetry of the Old Paganism, even where it despairs, has this sense. . . .The New Paganism delights in superficiality, and conceives that it is rid of the evil as well as the good in what it believes to have been superstitions and illusions.
“There it is quite wrong. . . . Men do not live long without gods; but when the gods of the New Paganism come they will not be merely insufficient, as were the gods of Greece, nor merely false; they will be evil. One might put it in a sentence and say that the New Paganism, foolishly expecting satisfaction, will fall, before it knows where it is, into Satanism.”
I should add for my protestant friends the addendum that in Catholic Church I was not refering to a particular sect in time but rather the deposit of faith.
and for the sake of this clarification I add the follwowing quote to the above quotes from the same author.
"Neo-Paganism grows prodigiously.... So long as there were definite Protestant creeds, more or less thought out and sustained by logic of a kind, so long as men could say what they thought and acted thus and thus, Paganism was kept out."