I think anyone who is a Ron Paul supporter is wholly and utterly convinced of his uniqueness as the one and only candidate who can get our country back on track. Ron Paul supporters believe this because:
· no other candidate adheres as strictly to the Constitution as Ron Paul does and wants to bring the civil liberties enumerated under it back to the forefront of governance.
· no other candidate has put forth a SERIOUS plan to reduce our debt and get our nation back on track financially by proposing to cut $1 Trillion in debt his first year in office.
· no other candidate believes that our imperialistic endeavors are the CAUSE of anti-American sentiment and that our warmongering further imperils us rather than makes us safer.
· no other candidate has as consistent a record on the issues as Ron Paul has. His unfailing record in voting with the Constitution has garnered him the nickname “Dr. No” for often being the sole dissenting vote, even amongst his party, on many issues.
· no other candidate eschews the big Wall Street fundraisers and congratulatory dinners held by favor-seeking lobbyists. This makes him the only candidate out there solely representing the People’s interests, not the moneyed interests.
· and no other candidate has so tirelessly worked to bring about economic understanding to the American people by railing against the Federal Reserve, correctly predicting the bubbles created by the Fed, and vociferously opposing the hidden tax on the poor and middle class the Fed’s money creation leads to.
Despite all this there are still a great many who don't believe that Ron Paul is the right man to occupy the Oval Office. They call him unelectable. Many say they agree with some of what he says, but not all of it. They call him a kook and crazy.
Personally, I think most of these naysayers just don't understand economics and haven't bothered to learn enough about it to understand the message he's putting forth. I've seen economics writers decry that, "The problem with the Honest Left is their absolute and obstinate refusal to learn the most basic economic principles." I tend to agree.
Furthermore, Ron Paul's case isn't helped by the mainstream media who tend to obstruct any storyline that doesn't fit the very narrow worldview and narrative they are allowed to present. For example, whenever our nation goes to war, the media don't call into question the validity of our reasons, they don't call into question the un-Constitutional actions of the President to send our troops into hostile territories without a declaration from Congress, nor the fact that Congress has ceded this authority unashamedly over to the executive branch rather than providing a check on executive powers as it is supposed to do. Rather, the media focuses on the weaponry that will be used, the environment in which they will be located, and the supposed evils of the people we're fighting against.
It's no wonder alternative media sites are gaining popularity because the American public is starting to wise up to the fact that we aren't getting the full truth about what our government is up to and why. Mainstream corporate-owned media isn't asking the important questions that should guide our dialogue: questions like the ones Ron Paul asks.
What questions should we be asking? First and foremost on the list shouldn't be "Why not?" or "How?" but rather, "Is this Constitutional?” Nonetheless, when Ron Paul is invited on to a news show to present these viewpoints and ask these questions, the tone of the anchors is often derisive and they attempt to paint HIM as the radical one for daring to question if our government's actions fall in line with the Constitution. That is, if Ron Paul is even given any time at all on a national news network or in print. A recent Pew Research study came out validating what Ron Paul supporters have been saying for years: that the mainstream media is ignoring him. Despite consistently polling in 3rd place and within striking distance of the top, the study found that Ron Paul gets the LEAST coverage of any of the Republican presidential candidates, even the ones he polls higher than.
An observation that I've made is that whenever I read an article from a major news source online about politics, no matter what the original story was about, the comments below inevitably turn into a heated debate about Ron Paul. You have those fervently trying to educate the misinformed about Ron Paul's stances and the repeated attempts of those people to smear him and his ideas without really having an understanding of what he's about. How is it that a figure who so conspicuously dominates message boards, Facebook pages and YouTube feeds gets so little attention from the mainstream media gatekeepers? What are they afraid of?
In response to the media blackout and the mis/disinformation campaigns directed against him, I will attempt to rebut many of the arguments I've heard in opposition of Ron Paul.
1) "I like some of his ideas, but not all of them."
Well how many politicians do you ever agree with 100%? Do you 100% agree with and support Obama’s continuation of Bush-era foreign policy? Do you 100% agree with Obama’s extension of the Constitution shredding Patriot Act? Do you 100% agree with Obama’s handling of the economy and his leadership via un-Constitutional mandates? No? Well why would you still vote for Obama then even if you don't agree with all of his policies? I don’t think that any of the candidates on either side of the aisle have widespread appeal for the American people. Obama’s approval ratings are decreasing steadily and the penchant of those in the Republican Party to get swept away in the fervor of the Flavor of the Month candidates shows that the American people have serious misgivings about all of the candidates.
That being the case, with apparently no candidate wholly satisfying the needs and wishes of the People, why not turn to the one candidate who has stood by the People, not big business, his entire time in office? Why not stand by the one candidate who has stood for the Constitution his entire time in office? Why not stand by the one candidate who understands economics and knows how to return sound money to our country? Why not support the one candidate who advocates for liberty for ALL, not just some?
In a field of widely unpalatable characters where many of us feel we’re going to have to hold our nose and vote for the least offensive, isn’t Ron Paul that man?
2) "I don't agree with his economic policies."
Ron Paul is probably the most studied candidate of either party when it comes to matters of economics. What I think some people are scared of when they listen to his arguments in favor of the free market is they think he is advocating more of the same brand of crony capitalism that has gotten us into this mess in the first place. Ron Paul understands that what we have presently is not a free market system by any stretch of the imagination. The Federal Reserve manipulates the market on a daily basis by arbitrarily setting the interest rates, not letting the markets set them themselves. Ron Paul understands that when governments give subsidies to certain business and industries it is essentially picking winners and losers and taking sides, whereas in a free market this wouldn't happen. I think we saw the outcome of this in the recent Solyndra debacle that cost the taxpayers over $500 million dollars.
Ron Paul understands that bureaucracies like the FDA, SEC, and USDA (to name a few) only serve to protect the interests of Big Agri, Big Pharma, and Big Business. The people are misled into believing that these agencies are there to protect us from businesses that wish to do us harm, when the reality is that the incestuous relationships formed between government and businesses as a result of these agencies do us more harm personally and make it harder for small businesses to compete professionally than if it were left to the free market.
The other thing is that most people forget or don't realize (I know I didn't until recently) is that there is NO Constitutional authority for the Federal government to have created these agencies to begin with. The 10th amendment states that those powers not specifically granted to the Federal government nor prohibited to the states are reserved to the states or the people. Part of the reason we're in this current economic crisis is because we've steadily been growing the size of the federal government for decades now. Perhaps if we had never created agencies such as the Department of Education, Department of Energy, Department of Transportation and so forth we would be a very wealthy nation indeed.
Another thing that nobody but Ron Paul points out is that were it not for the Federal Reserve and its ability to create money out of nothing, we would never have been able to afford these programs to begin with. The Federal Reserve provides a means of elastic currency through which politicians promise expansionary programs that could never have existed without the Fed’s magic printing press. We create all these welfare and social justice programs by inflating our money supply, which increases the cost of living and dilutes the purchasing power of the dollar, thereby hurting the very poor and weak we are trying to help in the first place. It becomes the tyranny of good intentions.
While some of the Republican candidates are starting to echo Ron Paul’s call for more state’s rights, very few (except Newt Gingrich) recognize the role the Federal Reserve plays in all this. Nonetheless, the rest of the field is in consensus that we need to give power back to the states because the more power we give to the federal government, the more opportunity we give them to take away our choices, our liberty, and the more we concentrate the power into the hands of a few while sinking our nation ever deeper in debt. But why vote for an imitator when you can vote for the real deal? The others are merely swimming with the present day political tide while Ron Paul has been pushing against the current for decades.
3). "I'm still not convinced that Ron Paul is right for our economy."
It's a truism that you can't do the same thing over and over again and expect to get a different result. However, that seems to be the thinking of the majority of our politicians and the American people. They seem to think that we can dig ourselves out of this hole by continuing and even expanding some of the same irresponsible practices that got us into this mess in the first place!
At this point in time, our country is in dire straits. Nobody else will tell you that. They all want to speak in euphemisms and hide the truth from the American public. Only Ron Paul will tell you straight up that we're bankrupt.
As any psychologist or addict will tell you, you can't fix the problem until you admit the problem. We, as a nation, are addicted to spending. Nobody else will fess up to this except Ron Paul. So why do you think these others can provide a solution when they can't even admit that we have a problem?
The rest of the Republican candidates and our current president can't/won't do the right thing by this country because it's not very popular (or their campaign donors won't allow it). They're too busy making campaign promises that might sound good but are either unattainable or un-Constitutional. Everyone else keeps insisting on putting band aids over a wound that needs to be amputated.
Let's put it this way, it can't get much worse, can it? So why not align yourself with the one candidate who has a clear understanding of where this country needs to go and how to get there? Why keep trying to do more of the same? Why not try something new since clearly the policies we've been trying haven't worked? It can't get any worse (well it might, but that's because we're still following the same erroneous policies and Washington groupthink that got us here in the first place).
Even if Ron Paul is dead wrong about the free market, his 40 years of study were all for naught and nothing improves, AT LEAST YOU WILL GET YOUR CIVIL LIBERTIES BACK!
· You won't have Big Brother breathing down your neck, reading your emails, checking your bank statements, and eavesdropping on your phone conversations.
· You won't have to put up with being molested by the TSA every time you go to the airport (or the bus station, the mall, or a stadium).
· The continued militarization of the police will cease, the SWAT team won't be called in for something so simple and routine as to deliver a search or arrest warrant and military drones won't be patrolling our skies; TSA won't be patrolling our highways.
· You will get freedom of choice back, freedom to put what you want into your body whether that be raw milk, fatty bacon, or marijuana.
· You will be able to run your business how you see fit without the indecision and uncertainty that government rules and regulations instill and the wondering if temporary measures will become permanent or not.
· You will pay lower taxes because with the size of the federal government shrinking it won't need as much money to sustain all of its activities.
· There will be no federal mandates about who you can or can't marry. Ron Paul has stated numerous times that government can't teach morality, nor should it try.
Overall, we'll be much freer than we are today as our government will no longer be toeing the line of tyranny. No other candidate advocates for all of these things like Ron Paul does. Ron Paul has stood for the Constitution and Rule of Law for well over 30 years and his message hasn't changed. You won’t dig up any skeletons in his closet like you will with these other candidates. If nothing else, if he doesn't create a single job, reduce the debt, or balance the budget (which Obama hasn't done either), then won't it at least mean something that our government is once again adhering to the principles of the Constitution and that our liberties won't continue to be eroded under the duplicitous guise of the "War on Terror"? Obama has already proven that his law degree isn't worth the paper it's written on. Ron Paul doesn't just talk the talk, he walks the walk and his voting record over the decades proves it.
4) "He's weak on foreign policy."
Our presidents, politicians, and pundits go to great lengths to justify all of our military actions. As I mentioned before, our mainstream media make no real attempt to investigate any of the reasons or accusations levied against the offending government du jour. We have a long and storied history of lying in order to win popular favor for military action and aggression. I can't go into all of the history here but a short run down includes the Gulf of Tonkin, Panama, Nicaragua, the First Gulf War, the present Iraq War, and the most recent intervention in Libya (a great read on all of this is the book War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us To Death, by Normon Soloman).
It doesn't take much digging to find out that the justifications for all of these interventions were based off of lies, fabrications, and exaggerations. Yet the American public seems to suffer from a severe case of collective amnesia every time a new president starts banging the war drums. We act like Charlie Brown when Lucy is holding the football, each and every time thinking she's going to hold it down for him and each and every time she yanks it away at the last minute and he falls on his butt. For some reason, no matter how many times our government lies to us about why we need to go war, we completely forget about it the next time around and fall for it hook, line, and sinker again.
Ron Paul talks at length about the consequences of what the CIA calls "blowback". Blowback is the violent, unintended consequences of a covert operation against the people who perpetrated it. You can't honestly expect that with America's having over 700 military bases in over 120 countries, having unleashed bombing campaigns over almost every continent in the preceding 6 decades, having propped up some murderous regimes while decrying others, and having killed millions of people around the world in the name of "freedom" and "democracy" that it wouldn't eventually produce consequences for the United States? There are many countries who don't see us as "liberators" or "freedom fighters", but who see us, rather, as terrorists and "occupiers".
Our foreign policy is seen as extremely hypocritical in how we pick and choose to demonize some dictators and yet arm and ally ourselves with certain others if it suits our purpose. This is only weakening our standing in the eyes of the world, not strengthening it. You cannot bomb a population into loving America or the American way of life. It almost seems that our American foreign policy is comprised of the tongue-in-cheek saying “The beatings will continue until morale improves.” I think most would see the irony in this statement, yet completely miss it when thinking of our foreign policy stances.
Our foreign policy is seen as extremely hypocritical in how we pick and choose to demonize some dictators and yet arm and ally ourselves with certain others if it suits our purpose. This is only weakening our standing in the eyes of the world, not strengthening it. You cannot bomb a population into loving America or the American way of life. It almost seems that our American foreign policy is comprised of the tongue-in-cheek saying “The beatings will continue until morale improves.” I think most would see the irony in this statement, yet completely miss it when thinking of our foreign policy stances.
The Constitution does give the Federal government and the President full power to defend our country against all enemies. But there is a big difference between defending our country from attack and instigating the aggression against nations abroad. John Quincy Adams cautioned that, "America does not go abroad in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own."
In addition to the moral arguments against war, one must not forget the economic reasons against it. Presently, half of our discretionary budget goes towards military and defense expenditures. When our nation is bankrupt, can we really afford to continue to operate over 700 military bases, engage in bombing campaigns in 7 different countries (Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, Somalia, Pakistan, Libya, and Uganda), give foreign aid to anyone who asks for it, and continue searching for monsters to destroy as the administration is aiming to do, now in Iran and Syria? We will truly come to ruin by endeavoring to conquer these nations and force democracy down their throats.
When our own country is suffering and our own border is insecure, why aren't we focusing on Americans first and foremost? We can't help others if we can't even help ourselves...and to continue trying is folly. Ron Paul wants to dismantle the military-industrial complex that President Dwight Eisenhower warned us of, which enriches the few in the form of defense contracts and arms deals at the expense of many, oftentimes in the form of their life. Ron Paul doesn't want to dismantle the entire standing army; he just wants to bring it in line with what was constitutionally outlined. That is, for the defense of our nation, not in nation-building abroad. Our military personnel would agree and they've been putting their money where their mouth is. Ron Paul receives more donations from active duty military than all of the Republican candidates and President Obama COMBINED. That's an extremely telling statistic. Perhaps they know something that the rest of us (including our current and previous administration) don't?
5). "I like him but he'll never win/he's unelectable."
Why is he unelectable? Because the mainstream media keeps repeating that mantra and by virtue of repetition it becomes true? If every person who uttered the above phrase or some variation of it decided to vote for him, then Ron Paul would win in a landslide. I don't know about you, but I'm tired of voting "against" a candidate. I want to vote "for" a candidate. And that candidate is Ron Paul and only Ron Paul. I'm going to stand on principle like he does and send a message to the establishment, even if that means writing him in on the ballot. If everyone else would stand on principle rather than merely trying to align themselves with the winning team then the guy might actually have a shot. What do you say?
6). "He's not a true Christian."
I'm sure Ron Paul would beg to differ with this very much. Those who say this want to see a candidate enact federal laws against pretty much any and every sin and won't be happy with anyone but Michelle Bachmann or Rick Santorum. They want to see the government try to teach and enforce morality instead of embracing the notion of personal choice and freedom. While Ron Paul is steeped in Christian beliefs, he also believes in the separation of church and state and doesn't believe in governing from the pulpit.
7) "He's anti-abortion."
So for some he's not Christian enough but for others he's too Christian. Look, the fact of the matter is that as a former obstetrician he saw firsthand the physical and mental effects of abortion. He has stated that he has agreed to protect life everywhere, and that includes the lives of the unborn. However, our nation is bankrupt. Our unemployment is through the roof. We need to bring jobs back to America. Given Ron Paul's vocal outspokenness on all matters economic, I highly doubt he's going to stake his campaign and/or his presidency on the pro-life/pro-choice issue. There are much bigger fish to fry, and given everything else that is going on in this country right now, it would be very troubling for someone to cast their vote based primarily on this relatively minor issue in the first place.
8) "He wants to get rid of Social Security, Medicare, and the Fed"
Not exactly. He knows it would be irresponsible to just out and out do away with these services that many people are dependent upon. Rather, he proposes to phase them out so that it doesn't affect anyone who is currently or about to be eligible for these entitlement benefits. He proposes to let anyone under the age of 25 opt out of Social Security.
With Medicaid and other social welfare programs, Ron Paul would block grant these services to the States to allow them the flexibility and ingenuity they need to solve their own unique problems without harming those currently relying on the programs.
As far as the Fed goes, while maybe the ultimate goal would be to end it, he merely wants greater oversight and accountability of the institution seeing as how there is presently none. I think once the Fed is more transparent and Congress, the People, and the world can see openly what sorts of wonky practices it has been engaging in, you will see a backlash against the Federal Reserve, and then perhaps it won't be so hard to take them down and revert back to a sound money policy.
9) "I hate Obama, so I'm going to vote for Mitt Romney (or Rick Perry or Herman Cain)..."
Let me tell you something, Mitt Romney is not a true conservative. I think it's been proven very clearly with the transition from Bush to Obama that there is very little difference between Republicans and Democrats nowadays. Obama, in an unprecedented move, retained the services of the Defense Secretary Robert Gates who was appointed under George W. Bush. Mitt Romney echoes the same foreign policy sentiments that were started by Bush and expanded by Obama and even hopes to expand on these policies even further, so we know we won't get any change in foreign policy under a Romney administration.
In fact, in the CBS/National Journal sponsored debate that focused on foreign policy, 5 of the 7 candidates were in favor of continuing our current foreign policy, only disagreeing on which country to go after next (Iran, Syria, or Pakistan). Ron Paul and his anti-war ideals were relegated to a mere 89 seconds of debate time in a one hour event! Simply put, it doesn’t matter whether there’s an (R) or a (D) in office, the foreign policy stays the same unless we elect Ron Paul. If you’re sick of America’s warmongering, Ron Paul is your ONLY choice.
I can only give Romney credit and attribute his high poll numbers to his slick debate style and his poise under pressure. His stance on the issues certainly isn’t endearing. Romney has been shown to flip flop on the issues many times over the past several years to fit the prevailing political tides. He has as many Wall Street ties and fundraisers as Obama did, and they are all defecting to the Romney camp now; his top 5 campaign donors are all employees of Big Banks and over half of his top 20 contributors are in the banking and finance industry. All of Romney’s Big Bank/Wall Street ties mean that there will be a continuation of crony capitalism, just with a different set of winners (but the same losers, the American people). Bush, Romney, and Obama all represent the same thing. Expect no change whatsoever under a Romney presidency.
Rick Perry is also defending a mixed record as governor of Texas. He was under fire for mandating by executive order that young girls get an HPV vaccination. More and more of our presidents are sidestepping Congressional legislation by issuing executive orders that in effect nullify the powers and decisions of the House and the Senate. This is a dangerous trend that upends the legislative process and makes obsolete the system of checks and balances so carefully designed by our Founding Fathers. Ron Paul has promised that he will not use executive orders to legislate as he believes it is wrong.
Neither Perry nor Romney's views and methods of governance are steeped in the Constitution. Sure, they invoke the sacred name of the Constitution when it's convenient but will ignore it most of the rest of the time like the many presidents preceding.
Herman Cain is running on the fact that he is NOT a politician and that somehow this makes him more qualified because it's the politicians who have ruined this country in the first place. It works well in a sound-bite, but the reality of the situation is that this makes him even more dangerous. He has no voting record that would give an accurate indicator of where he has stood on the issues before. The best predictor of future behavior is past behavior. We can't tell what his past behavior was and therefore we can't predict his future behavior. He's a wild card. Why in the heck would we want to vote a wild card into office instead of the man who is backed by 30 years of consistency?!?!
You will get no surprises with Ron Paul, unlike what we did with Obama, and unlike what we would probably get with Herman Cain. The few stances Cain has taken via his radio show demonstrate his complete ignorance of the issues. Cain is on record as denying there was a housing bubble and that we have nothing to worry about. Cain is on record as saying that there is no reason whatsoever to audit the Federal Reserve and he flat out lied about saying that when questioned about it by Ron Paul during a recent debate. Cain is wishy-washy on many other issues as well, saying at one point that we need to build an electric fence to protect our borders, but then he said he was joking, then when asked again later he said that he wasn't really joking. Huh?
The other scary thing about Cain is that with the exception of his 9-9-9 plan, he won't outline his stances on many other issues. In foreign policy he says that we need to make sure we're working on the right problem and that we need the right people working on the right problem. So in essence, he's not sure because he needs to consult with other people first but he'll get back to you on that. But the decisive way in which he states his indecisiveness seems to have many people fooled.
As if all that weren't enough, Cain at one point in time worked for the Federal Reserve in Kansas City. Any true Ron Paul supporter would disqualify Herman Cain as presidential contender based on this credential alone. Once again, how can you fix a problem if you don't even admit what the problem is? Cain also stated that he thought Greenspan did a great job as Chairman of the Federal Reserve despite the fact that economists across the board pointed the finger at Greenspan for the crisis we are currently facing today and he essentially lost his job because of it.
Newt Gingrich is the current Flavor of the Month. People might be fooled by his latest incarnation with a new wife and new religion and supposed conservative values, but a look at his history and record shows his true big government colors. He rallied the Republicans in Congress at the time to get behind the Clinton favored doctrine of NAFTA and a year later voted in favor of GATT. He supports amnesty for illegal immigrants. He increased federal funding for education by $3.5 billion dollars when he was Speaker of the House. He supported TARP.
Most disturbing of all, however, is his desire to dismantle our Constitutional republic that we were founded on and implement a new democracy for the 21st century. He has written a forward and commended the works of Alvin Toffler who wrote The Third Wave. In his book Toffler wrote:
“The system of government you fashioned, including the very principles on which you based it, is increasingly obsolete, and hence increasingly, if inadvertently, oppressive and dangerous to our welfare. It must be radically changed and a new system of government invented — a democracy for the 21st century.” He went on to describe our constitutional system as one that “served us so well for so long, and that now must, in its turn, die and be replaced.”
How can we expect Newt to champion the Constitution when he openly supports upending it?? The answer is simple: WE CAN’T.
Herman Cain is a charismatic speaker who wins voters more with his clever turns of phrase and sound-bites than on any real platform he's got. Mitt Romney is slick and unflappable, but offers very little difference between himself and the current president. Newt Gingrich is the Establishment entrenched, anti-Constitutionalist. Ron Paul is the only candidate offering REAL change, not just a minor course correction. He is the only one who offers a true conservative agenda. He is the only candidate fighting for the American people.
The other Republican candidates are correctly calling for more States' rights and fiscal responsibility at the federal level, but at the same time contradicting themselves by promising to GROW our military and police force and inviting even more of a police state than we currently have (if you have any doubts about this, watch some of the videos of policemen pepper spraying and beating peaceful OWS protestors). If you vote for these others, you will only see a continuation of business-as-usual political gamesmanship in Washington. If you vote for these others, expect at least another decade of war in the Middle East and Asia. Can our country afford to put one of these guys in office? I say NO!
The other Republican candidates are correctly calling for more States' rights and fiscal responsibility at the federal level, but at the same time contradicting themselves by promising to GROW our military and police force and inviting even more of a police state than we currently have (if you have any doubts about this, watch some of the videos of policemen pepper spraying and beating peaceful OWS protestors). If you vote for these others, you will only see a continuation of business-as-usual political gamesmanship in Washington. If you vote for these others, expect at least another decade of war in the Middle East and Asia. Can our country afford to put one of these guys in office? I say NO!
10) "Ron Paul wants to do away with education, infrastructure, and government as we know it."
NO! This might be the greatest fallacy of them all. For some reason, whenever people try to demonize Ron Paul and other Libertarians, they whine, "But what about roads and bridges? I'm happy to pay taxes to keep our roads in good condition." I haven't heard Ron Paul out in the field stumping on the platform that government needs to be out of the business of bridge-building. Nobody out there is seriously arguing that government doesn't have vital functions to perform at the local level, including the maintaining of core infrastructure, and yet for some reason that's the argument that so many liberals tend to roll out when they shrug off Ron Paul as a radical.
Ron Paul merely states that a great number of roles that our Federal government is now playing are un-Constitutional, but that if they were to be implemented at the State level then that's okay. If a state wants provide food stamps and welfare aide, that's fine. He still might not agree with mandating state-wide health insurance like Romney did in Massachusetts or the principles of welfare, but it's much better to enact these measures at the State level than at the federal level.
Just because he proposes to do away with the Department of Education (ED) does not mean education would cease to exist in this country. The ED has not increased the level or quality of our education since its inception in the late 1970s. All of the Presidents’ one size fits all education mandates have failed. There is no authority in the Constitution for the creation of this department. It wastes taxpayer dollars. By all accounts, education is something that should be handled at the state level and within the local communities. A Washington bureaucrat isn’t going to know better how to educate children in Montana than the people living there. Many of these same arguments apply for the other departments he proposes to eliminate as well: there is no provision for them in the Constitution, they waste money, and are better dealt with at the local level or in the private sector.
There are very few powers given to the FEDERAL government by our Constitution. The idea was that our founders saw what happens when you concentrate too much power in the hands of too few of people. That's why they created the 10th amendment, which essentially gives the states all the powers not granted to the Federal government. It's much easier to deal with poorly written laws and bad government at the local level than it is at the federal level. When you have bad governance at the federal level and have these bureaucrats and politicians trying to run your life from 1000 miles away, it's much harder to get out from underneath of it. Businesses, rather than moving their business to another more business-friendly state, have to move their businesses out of the country altogether. Individuals, however, will have a much harder time leaving the country if and when their centralized Washingtonian government starts to infringe on their rights and trend towards tyranny (which it has). Where can they run? To be sure, some state legislators and governors might be abysmal once they get into office, but if it's truly that bad then you can either vote him/her out of office or you still have the option of moving somewhere else that suits your lifestyle. You stand a much better chance at overturning legislation that only affects 10 million people than you do with legislation that affects a whole nation.
Our country has been steadily inching towards a much too centralized Washington-based government over several decades under numerous administrations of both parties. I believe that's why we have such polarization in this country-- because we have people from both parties in Washington trying to make one size fits all laws for a country of 300 million people, and the people are getting tired of government telling them what they can and can’t do. Both parties do it. It’s not just the Republicans or just the Democrats, it’s the whole stinking system!
It’s time to call a spade a spade and to quit turning a blind eye when “your” party is the offending party. I see this currently with the 45% of the nation who still supports Obama. These must be the same 45% who supported Bush because there is absolutely no difference between the two presidents whatsoever. You cannot honestly criticize the Bush administration and some of his nefarious policies and at the same believe that Obama has done anything differently. If so, you just haven’t been paying attention.
Ron Paul doesn't play partisan politics. He votes against his party almost as much as he votes with it. With the current bunch of Republican candidates, they're playing the party card already; they’re saying that it's all the Democrats' fault and if we just get a Republican back in the White House everything will be alright. That's faulty logic and it's been tried by both parties. The fact is, is that it shouldn't matter too much whether we have a Republican in the White House or a Democrat, because they should have such limited powers to begin with, aside from appointing Supreme Court justices and as Commander in Chief. That's not what we're seeing. We're trying to pin our hopes and despairs on the lapel of one man (or woman) and treating this single person as a savior and the one to solve all of our problems. That’s an invitation to tyranny. Pinning our hopes on Ron Paul might seem contradictory, but he’s the only candidate who wants to hold office because he wants to shrink the size and reach of our government and return us to the Constitutional government our Founding Fathers envisioned. I’m not so sure about the motives of the other candidates.
We are a nation of 300 million drastically different people who come from a multitude of micro cultures within this great United States. The woes that plague the people of Arkansas aren't the same as those that plague Michigan. Ron Paul understands that we can't turn to 1 person in Washington, or for that matter 545, and expect them to be able to understand and solve the problems of a whole nation with one size fits all legislation. Obama doesn't understand that. Mitt Romney doesn't understand that. Rick Perry doesn't understand that. George W. Bush didn't understand that. Bill Clinton didn't understand that. Do you?
I know that there are more objections out there against Ron Paul, but these are the ones that I hear the most. If you believe in liberty for ALL, then Ron Paul is your man. If you believe that government has overextended its reach and is now interfering in too many aspects of our everyday life, Ron Paul is your man. If you believe that our foreign policy ideas of this century have helped to bankrupt our nation without actually making us any safer, then Ron Paul is your man. Ron Paul promises to slash spending by $1 trillion dollars, he promises to balance the budget within 3 years, and all the while he has vowed to not take a salary greater than that of the average worker, $39,000/year. He has written many books and his Plan to Restore America is on his website at www.ronpaul2012.com. Before coming back with another uninformed argument you picked up from some media pundit, do your own homework. I did. I picked up one of his books and was stunned at how much I agreed with him and how much his ideas resonated with me. You might be surprised too. Pass this along, help spread Ron Paul's message of liberty. We need it now more than ever.
