DIGG THIS

The latest move by the mainstream media against Ron Paul is to call him a Libertarian whenever they can fit it into the story. One after another, the pundits work the word in and attempt to make it sound as fringe as possible. The funny part about all of this is that it is not working and having quite the opposite effect. After all, Libertarian just means that you value liberty. How is that an insult?

Most Americans are Libertarians as children, when we are innocent and learn our basic morals. Children learn to share with each other, respect each other’s toys, not to steal, and not to be bullies. It is only as one grows more “sophisticated” that a person begins to internalize the cognitive dissonance and lies that are told to us by our government. At some point we go from knowing deep in our hearts that theft is wrong, to accepting the concept of taxation. Somewhere along the way, we accept that it is perfectly okay to take (steal) from person A to give some of it to person B, some of it to the government for all their trouble in making the transfer, and the majority of it to end up serving corporate interests.

At some point in our lives we start to believe that it is morally right to go to other countries and tell them who should be in power and that anything the great United States says must be followed by the world or there will be severe consequences and sanctions. After all, we are the United States of America. We know best what is good for all countries.

We begin to accept that charity that comes freely from individuals can never take care of anyone and entitlement programs are born: programs that teach the givers to resent the beneficiaries and programs that teach the recipients to demand more and more. In the old days of private charities both sides gained virtue from the transaction. The givers felt good about themselves and felt needed and were appreciated. The receivers were grateful, thankful, and vowed to help out others as soon as they were able. Nowadays, instead of anyone feeling good or learning moral values from the practice, both sides learn something ugly, and hatred and scapegoats are born daily. We have lost something important as a society.

We walk around knowing that something is wrong deep inside, but we can’t quite put our finger on it. It sounds like a nice thing to do to shout to the government that other countries are in trouble and we should help them out. However, we neglect to look at the consequences it costs the poorest in this country. We ignore that our government has no money of its own, and when we demand that our government help others, we are actually demanding that they take the money from the people in this country to accomplish the feat. As children we would call that theft. As adults we call it compassion?

When someone points out the damage this forced giving does to the poor in our own country, we try to push that information down and claim that there must be a way to help everyone. Sadly, money has its limits. So does any commodity. You cannot create more just by wishing it. If we help other countries by simply creating credit for them out of thin air (essentially printing more dollars) we devalue the currency here at home and all goods and services go up in price having a disproportionate effect on the poor and slowly eliminating the middle class.

On the other hand, we also want to give money to the poor at home, which sounds like a noble cause, but again, we must take the money from someone to give it to them. Instead of offering entitlements, if you let people keep their entire paycheck, the people could take care of themselves and the rest would have enough to make their own choice about which charity they want to support.

Did you know it costs around seven dollars in transaction costs just to get one dollar from person A to person B? Can’t we do better? Why is it so hard for people to want to eliminate the middleman? Americans are a giving bunch. We would take care of needy people. You would, wouldn’t you?

Being a Libertarian simply means that you believe in the rights of the ordinary person. It means you believe that people should be free to do what they want as long as they are not hurting anyone. It means that you believe that people should be responsible for themselves. It also means that you believe in having privacy in your finances and other personal information. Being a Libertarian means that you have returned to your once unshakable morality that always made sense … before you became “sophisticated”… when you were pure.

The more the media calls Ron Paul a Libertarian, the more they compliment him. As an added bonus, a lot of his supporters are realizing that deep down inside, they too believe in freedom and liberty, and are coming to realize those are the ingredients that are missing from their lives. However, Ron Paul is not just a Libertarian; he is also a conservative constitutionalist Republican. With Ron Paul, you get a person that believes in limited government coercion in people’s private lives, but also believes in strong national defense. You get someone who would rather we have our National Guard here at home to deal with national disasters such as wildfires and protecting our borders rather than someone who takes our best trained border guards and sends them to another continent.

Of course the Ron Paul message is resonating with people. Until the Neocons hijacked the Republican Party, most Republicans leaned in the Libertarian direction. Here we have, once again, a Libertarian leaning Republican and he is drawing tens of thousands back into a party that frankly — has been dying. Ron Paul gave a wonderful speech about the Neocons that can be found here. You can even watch it below. Do so; it is worth your time.

The saddest part of all of this name calling however, is that the once strong Republican base is being torn in two by one side that wants to spend every dime we have building an empire and creating a world government (the Neocons), and the other side that wants to stick to the roots of the Republican party and limit the size and scope of our foreign policy, pay down our debt, and keep the money to protect the people here at home.

Ron Paul's message is even resonating with Democrats who want Big Brother off of our backs and are worried about the loss of civil liberties that has taken place in the past several years. Ron Paul brings people together. Most people say they want a fiscally conservative government that offers individuals personal freedom but they have to choose between a party that only offers one half or the other. With Ron Paul, you get both.

The mainstream news rarely reports on the wonderful bills put forth by Dr. Paul. Were you aware that Ron Paul wrote a bill to make Social Security benefits tax-free? Did you even know that he wrote a bill to separate out the Social Security payments from other money that Congress spends so that the folks that need the money would always have it? (Seniors, when the media tries to scare you to death by saying that Ron Paul wants to eliminate Social Security and Medicare he means he would eliminate it generations down the road and he would only eliminate now it for the young people who voluntarily want to opt out of the system.) Ron Paul is the only man who has a plan that will save your benefits by eliminating wasteful spending on foreign policy. Ron Paul has never voted to give Social Security money to Congress to spend on other things. Did you know that he was forced to write a bill that requires our government to follow the Constitution? How sad is it that we have come to a day and age where we need a law to force our leaders to follow the law?

If the Neo-Conned Republicans don’t get wise they are going to lose in so many ways. First, they will lose one of the greatest patriots to ever run for President by ignoring his candidacy and making fun of him because that is the Neo-Con agenda. Second, they nearly guarantee a loss to a Democrat next year as the 70% or more Americans who don’t want the war in Iraq to continue come out to vote and find only one candidate on the ballot that is anti-war. (Not one Republican will say anything more than we can only leave Iraq once we have our dignity back and have won this war. Yet no one is willing or able to give a definition of “winning.") As Ron Paul put it, how many Americans have to die so the Neocons can save face?

Finally, the Neo-Conned Republicans will lose the only chance America has of getting better. We need free markets to bring down the price of health care. We need to return to a sound money system to end the inflation tax that destroys the middle class and kills the poor. We need to get the Federal Government out of our schools so that parents can decide what their children get taught and the education system can get better. We need our children to be taught by multitudes of people with many different curriculums. You wouldn't want the government to take over the press and have full control of teaching you information, so why do you want them to decide all the information your children learn?

We need to end the IRS so that workers can have an incentive to work harder, will have enough money to take care of their families and will not have to look to the government to support them, and so they can have money to invest in a brighter future for themselves… and in so doing, for all of us.

We, Americans, need Ron Paul. Ron Paul offers hope and freedom and prosperity to a country that was once at the top and now has a dollar that is falling fast. Ron Paul offers us all the things that we dream of but have been taught can’t be possible — we don’t know why they are not possible, but somehow, somewhere along the way, we accepted that taxes are inevitable and that we as a nation must control the whole world or it will fall apart without us, no matter how much it costs us. We have learned to accept that a 40-hour workweek is part-time, and you really should have both parents working full-time.

The dream we once believed in can come true. You can keep the fruits of your labor and we don't have to police the entire world. Not with a Ron Paul Presidency. The change wouldn’t happen overnight, but it would happen and four years from now you would be better off financially and safer.

So, yeah, go ahead and call him a Libertarian. He can take it. You might as well call him a patriot while you are at it.

Please click on the links in this article. They take you to very important speeches and bills given and written by Ron Paul.

If you want to learn who this man is, read what he believes. Then you will understand why so many are so passionate about him. Have you seen anyone running down the street shouting Hillary, Hillary! How many homemade signs have you seen for Rudy or Mitt or Fred? Find out why the people are so intrigued and inspired by Ron Paul. The interesting part is that the most learned men and women in our society are becoming enamored with Ron Paul. Learn who he is. If you still don’t like him, at least you will be informed. If I have not covered a certain topic or you want further treatment on a subject, go to the LewRockwell.com home page and search the Ron Paul file for articles others have written about him.

There is a reason the "revolution" is growing. People are tired of having no voice. People are fed up with having those folks in D.C. take the people's money and send it to corporations and bail out the banks with it. People don't need to take it anymore. Ron Paul is here and Ron Paul is on the people's side. As a pundit recently stated "A lot of things he says just make sense."

November 9, 2007

The Best of Sandra Hamilton