Reports a young friend of Tom DiLorenzo's: "Ron spoke to a packed house at Goucher College last "evening. He was amazingly well received by the mostly college-aged crowd. There were a lot of senior citizens in attendance as well, which I found a bit surprising.
"Dr. Paul spoke for about 40 minutes on everything you might imagine he would. His main thrust was on the war and how it affected everything else, but he also spent a good bit of time on fiscal policy.
Then he took questions. This was the most interesting part of the evening as it was very instructional in what it revealed about today's college-aged youts. They almost universally like what he says about the war, but they simply don't understand constitutional government. Almost without fail, they could not help but ask him what he'd replace things with.
"For example, one girl asked (sic) 'Since No Child Left Behind has been such a failure, what would you replace it with?' Ron answered about how it could do nothing but fail and how it was absurd for Washington to get so involved in education. The girl still didn't get it, she restated her question - 'but what would you do instead?' she insisted. Ron said 'I think we've done too much already. I would get Washington out of your hair.'
"Another girl asked about the wage gap for women (obviously not aware that there really is no such thing), and what Ron would do about it. 'Nothing' was his basic answer; he said he couldn't wrap his head, as a libertarian, around the idea of treating one person differently from another. She walked away with her head held down.
"One of the boys asked about how Ron would create jobs. Once again, Ron talked about how that is capitalism's job, not government's.
"The kids just didn't get it. They can't really wrap their heads around the idea of Washington doing nothing about a problem, as Paul is undoubtedly the first politician they've ever heard propose doing nothing, insisting rather that you can do it better than they can. You could see the confusion on their faces when he said, 'As president I would get Washington out of the abortion business, putting the decision back in the states, where it belongs.'
"The realization that all these kids know is politicians' promising to fix everything, never having seen on tell the truth - that they can't fix it, filled me with shame.
"The one thing they do understand, however, is that the central bank is a problem. I found that very illustrative."
