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Ron Paul: The Man For All Reasons by
Bill Sardi Most voters vote against the candidate they abhor the most. The opposing candidate wins a vote by default. For example, some voters in the 2000 Presidential election loathed the idea of voting for Al Gore because of his positions on global warming, and his contrived idea that he fathered the internet. In the upcoming election, a voter may detest the idea of voting for a candidate like Hilary Clinton, who not only brings the baggage of her husband’s eight years in office, but her support for gay agendas or abortion. So, when it comes to Ron Paul, what does he bring to his candidacy that others like to hate? When Ron Paul’s name is mentioned, it is difficult to find something repulsive that would prompt a voter to cast a ballot for the other side. Are you liberal, detest big business, want a "caring President," want to get the country out of the Iraq war? Ron Paul may be your candidate. Are you conservative, concerned about onerous taxes, pork-barrel deficit spending, looking for someone who does not buy into abortion, want prayer returned to the public schools? Ron Paul may be the best fit for you. Ron Paul: consistent Ron Paul is probably the only candidate who gains respect for not being "wishy-washy." He is the most consistent candidate in his positions, even having documented them in books. (Wikipedia lists Ron Paul’s political positions.) Voters have no sure way to know, when they cast their ballot, if a candidate will consistently apply his/her own campaign rhetoric into active policy. Candidates can say one thing to gain votes, but once in office take a totally different position. For example, in the 2000 campaign, George W. Bush said that he opposed nation-building, and he blamed Bill Clinton for high oil prices. Whom would he blame for near-$100 per barrel oil today? It also appears Bush had a hidden war agenda on his mind before he entered office. Which candidate for President do you think is actually going to "stick to his guns" when he gets in office? Hillary Clinton recently proposed that every citizen receive $5000 upon reaching their 18th birthday. It didn’t take her long to change her mind. Shortly after announcement of her $5000 baby bond bill, she changed her mind and now proposes a 401(k) retirement account be started for every American with a $1000 matching government grant. But exactly what will we get in proposed legislation if she is elected? Ron Paul is predictable. He gains respect from both sides of the aisle. When his Congressional district in Texas was gerrymandered in the last election in an attempt to unseat him from office (the gerrymandering left him to fight for votes in largely Democratic territory surrounding Houston), his anti-war stance got him re-elected, even though he is a Republican. Surprising support from university students Young collegiate voters have surprisingly flocked to support Ron Paul. They know Social Security is under-funded and is unlikely to provide them with a pension check that could even pay the monthly rent. They know that Medicare has $70 trillion of unfunded commitments and that it may not be available to them when they need it most. They know their financial future is being squandered by the "print more money, tax and spend" leaders now in office. Who has a plan to avert insolvency? Which Presidential candidate even has a plan to solve the nation’s present and future financial crisis? None but Ron Paul. You may favor universal health care for all, but countries that have implemented it have placed roadblocks in the form of rationing plans to thwart over-use and certain bankruptcy. The answer lies in making Americans healthier, not more of the "disease-care" system now in place. To this end, Ron Paul proposes (H.R. 2117) lifting the FDA’s censorship on health claims for dietary supplements, something that would reduce health care costs and produce a healthier population. (Oddly, no other Presidential candidate has stood with Ron Paul on this proposed legislation. All the other candidates have sided with Big Pharma.) Ron Paul: prepared Ron Paul has been preparing for a day like this. He has written extensively on how to stop the inflationary fiscal policies that are robbing Americans of their hard-earned savings. The nest egg you have in the bank is being eroded by inflation. It is bank robbery that goes unseen. Another question: which candidate now running for President, is best prepared for the challenges that lay ahead for this country? Will we endure another Presidency, like that of the first year of the Clinton White House, where they didn’t know how to organize an administration and had to beg the opposing party to send them David Gergen to show them how to do it? Researchers indicate a President must have a plan for the first 100 days in the Oval Office. The nation suffers when the White House becomes a training ground. Candidates need to have in mind who they will appoint to Cabinet positions and what changes they need to make immediately. Just imagine how difficult it would be for a newly elected candidate like Barack Obama, should he win the election. Who is your Presidential candidate aligned with? Another question for Presidential candidates is just what Rolodex they will bring to the Oval Office? Who will comprise their Cabinet, who will be their think tank? You won’t have to guess with Ron Paul. His think tank can probably best be found among the regular writers at LewRockwell.com and the Ludwig von Mises Institute. Where will the money come from to support your candidate? Bill Clinton gathered millions from attorneys as they wrung their hands waiting for the money they would make upon his election, like the millions they made in Clinton’s assault on the tobacco companies. Did Clinton really care about tobacco being promoted to the American public at the cost of their health? No, he was cutting off the main source of funding for the Republican Party at the time. Subsequently tobacco taxes have been rigged to marginally reduce tobacco use while building dependency for social programs upon the perpetual use of tobacco. As tobacco use declines, the tobacco tax is raised to continually fund the social welfare programs. Ron Paul has grassroots financial support. There have been no fund-raising dinner speeches at $2300 per person (the Federal limit on a Presidential campaign donation). Compare this to Mitt Romney, who skirted around federal limits on campaign donations by raising millions of dollars before he announced his candidacy, and then went to States that have no limits on campaign donations to raise more funds. One influential donor gave $250,000 to Romney’s campaign. Other candidates announced their candidacy after accepting large donations from labor unions or corporations. So they come into their candidacy as shills for special interests. What did Americans expect from the George W. Bush presidency, which is essentially laced with shills for oil companies (G.W. Bush, former Harken Oil stock holder; Dick Cheney, Halliburton; Condoleezza Rice, director at Chevron Oil)? Was it any surprise that oil prices skyrocketed in this administration? Special interests still have their covert ways of paying off Presidents. Sometimes payments for favors don’t arrive till after their term in office is over. Former President Ronald Reagan received a $2 million honorarium in 1989 while visiting Japan. Bill Clinton was given a $12 million book contract and placed on a $9.5 million speaking tour. When voting for a Presidential candidate, you have to look hard at the personal integrity of the candidate. Don’t you believe in a strong military? So, you hate those pot-smoking hippy-type pacifists who won’t defend their country? Ron Paul served honorably in the U.S. military. He supports a strong national defense. But he objects to the country launching perpetual wars to keep the economy going. The federal government hides from public view the fact that war spending represents over half of federal spending. You can’t examine federal budget figures to find this out because much defense spending is off-budget. If you look at the pie chart for the U.S. budget it depicts defense spending at only 21% of the federal budget. The trillions of dollars that would go toward saving Social Security and Medicare are being squandered in phony wars. The War Resisters League states that out of $2.387 trillion Federal budget for 2008, $1,228 trillion is for military spending (that’s 51%!). Is this real economic growth? The U.S. gross domestic output, and new job creation, is dominated by military spending. The Bush administration recently told Democrats if they did not support his latest war spending proposal that 20,000 Americans would be unemployed this Christmas. Perpetual war for perpetual employment! Is this how we want to run our country, dealing up contrived wars to keep the economy going? Mr. Bernanke of the Federal Reserve now brags that the country is creating new jobs in the education and healthcare sectors. But health care costs are a drag on society, not a desirable measure of economic growth. And are we to assume that if Americans earn university degrees to become teachers and professors, that this circuitous morphing of students into teachers is a measure of economic growth? President Kennedy saw future bankruptcy You can go all the way through high school and college and no professor is going to inform you where paper money comes from. The answer is, a printing press, but it is supposed to have some intrinsic value. When backed by something of value, like silver or gold, it does have value. The U.S. mint prints paper money and sells it (for about the cost of printing) to a private banking network called The Federal Reserve, which then loans the money out at interest to other banks and the public. Every time you use a Federal Reserve Note you are cutting an unwelcome third party into your transaction. Looking forward, President John F. Kennedy saw that this money system would result in the future bankruptcy of the country. He sought to break the hold the Federal Reserve had on the nation in 1963 by printing $4.3 billion of silver-backed U.S. Notes. Kennedy’s action to save the nation from future bankruptcy (Executive Order 11110) could have prevented the national debt from reaching its current level, because it would have given the government the ability to repay its debt without paying the Federal Reserve interest. President Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas in November of 1963 and all those U.S. Notes were quietly recalled, without the public knowing a thing. Had those silver-backed U.S. Notes stayed in circulation, they would have grown in value and been preferred over the fiat money created for The Federal Reserve, and slowly would have replaced Federal Reserve Notes (there is nothing of value in reserve to back these pieces of paper, and The Fed is not a federal agency). In a replay of the 1963 challenge to the Fed’s monopoly on money, an Indiana company that had been in business for 9 years selling gold and silver was unexpectedly raided by the FBI (without a prior injunction or cease and desist order) and all their precious metals and operational equipment were confiscated, just as their new "Ron Paul Dollars" (Ron Paul’s image etched on gold and silver dollars) were to be shipped to buyers. Americans don’t recognize the significance of this illegal raid and confiscation of private property. Worthless paper money Both parties spend more money than is budgeted, and then elect to print more money to pay the bills, devaluing the purchasing power of the U.S. dollar in process. The Baby Boomers are too young to remember the postwar newsreel pictures of millions of Italian liras in the streets of Rome, as if leaves had fallen off trees. The Italian paper money was worthless. Mussolini had funded his war by printing more and more money, just as the present administration is doing. What about the little guy? What about the little guy? Which candidate will stand up for those Americans who labor at the low end of the totem pole? Will a Ron Paul Presidency result in more money in the hands of the rich at the expense of the poor? Can Americans say today that either political party has an answer for their future? Does raising the minimum wage do anything more than raise the price of goods so the cost of living continually rises? Generally, wages don’t keep up with inflation, and we have erosion of the family budget until we can’t pay for health insurance and other necessities. So let’s just tax the rich and balance the budget. But then, what is the incentive to make more money? Few Americans recognize we already tax the rich to the point where more than 70% of Federal taxes are paid by 30% of the top wage earners, and the bottom half of the income bracket pays very little tax at all. We can never have a tax protest like the Boston Tea Party because only the top wage earners feel the pinch. If every wage earner has "some skin in the game," and has to pay taxes, they are more likely to oppose the loose spending habits that the federal government how practices. America is a nation that gives and responds to those in need, like no other nation. But whether the government needs to force this benevolence via taxes is another question. When a nation "robs from the rich to give to the poor," does giving a desk job at the YWCA to a poor woman with four kids represent independence or dependency? Why do we assume government knows how to invest money better than private enterprise? Wouldn’t private capital generate more real jobs than public capital? Isn’t public employment, to some extent, nothing more than "featherbedding" (hiring more workers than needed) to make employment figures look good. Do you even plan to vote?
December 11, 2007 Bill Sardi [send him mail] is author of the new book: You Don’t Have To Be Afraid Of Cancer Anymore. Copyright © 2007 Bill Sardi Word of Knowledge Agency, San Dimas, California. Not intended for commercial use or posting on other websites. Permission to reprint should be obtained from the author. |
