Writes Bill Schetlick to Murray Sabrin: "I read the Salon and Alternet articles referenced to on Lew's website and respecting the candidacy of Ron Paul. A few observations.
"First, the articles themselves are far more straightforward and fair than the smear/hit pieces put out by the Neocon/Warmonger Right. With a few exceptions, the authors fairly characterize Ron's positions on the issues. Of course, they are speaking to big-government liberals who are Greenie anti-market, pro-big government true-believer fanatics who think that Adam Smith was the last free market writer that merits attention. Thus, they believe Ron's positions are not anti-American or surrenderist or an anti one-world conspiritorialist, but simply wrong, particularly as regards 'market failure'.
"Second, the Comments sections are rife with examples of how our educational system has discredited the idea of a free market. It's clear that the people commenting on these websites are college-educated and fairly otherwise well-informed. But they simply have no clue about how government regulation actually works to protect the interests of polluters and how a market regime of law would prevent industrial and auto pollution from the get-go.
"Of particular interest to me were the number of people who asked 'how would I, as an individual bring a lawsuit against all of the car owners in my town for damages caused me by their exhaust emissions'? No mention at all of class-action suits against polluters; no mention of equitable actions enjoining mass polluters; no mention of how a legal regime of private property would have encouraged the research and development of pollution-avoiding technologies, etc., etc.
"Naturally, there were the usual number of pro-choice folks who wrongly think that Ron's legislative initiative to establish the 'personhood' of the child at conception is dispositive of the issue of abortion...which, of course, we know it is not. Ron's legislative approach to this issue is legally nuanced, and most don't understand what he has attempted to do.
"But for the most part and with some reservation, I think what I'm seeing/hearing and reading is simply miseducation, not hate or cultural divide. Given its true mission, the American public school and university system has been a wild, unqualified success. Pity."
