The political and media establishments, who treat a genuine dissident like a man from Mars, are lecturing Iowans that if they choose the wrong person — e.g., someone those establishments haven’t approved for them — they will “discredit” the Iowa caucuses. These are the same people who pretend to want to “spread democracy” around the world, remember.

What would discredit the caucuses would be a victory for any other candidate. It is not the job of Iowans, or anyone else, to rubber-stamp the choices the establishment has told them are acceptable and safe. It is their job to make up their own minds — and if that means telling the establishment to take a flying leap, then so be it.

A Ron Paul victory would prove that Iowans are done with letting the New York Times or Rush Limbaugh do their thinking for them. It would prove that they understand what may be the most important point in all of American politics: whenever someone comes along who refuses to play the game and might actually upset the apple cart, the entire establishment — from Sean Hannity and Mark Levin to the New York Times and Meet the Press — goes into Destroy mode.

And it would show that a substantial number of Americans are prepared to say: the more you smear, the more viciously you attack, the more obvious your venom for one particular man, the more we will rally to him. Since this is the only man who actually terrifies the crooks, the flip-floppers, the thought controllers, and the whole range of so-called respectable opinion, he is obviously the one to support.

The other theme these days is that Ron Paul is “dangerous.” They’ve got that right — he’s dangerous to them. He threatens the whole bipartisan establishment. Remember that whenever you hear this Pravda-esque warning. To borrow a phrase from Bill Buckley, the propagandists fear Ron Paul for the same reason the baloney fears the slicer.