3:06 AM Time to tell King Paul he has no clothes.

A take on the speech by Congressman Ron Paul

Obviously Ron Paul is of the "doom and gloom" set. My uncle has told me of how in the 70's there were stories in the media reporting on the impending ice age, in the 80's it was the impending nuclear holocaust. Neither incident happened, in fact in a ironic reversal we're now talking about global warming. I'm sure if Ron Paul had to do over again he would have got in on the Hale-Bopp suicide cult and committed suicide so he could meet the mother ship as it passed earth disguised as a comet. Ahhh but that was the 90's and Ron Paul probably didn't get the memo.
Well factually Ron Paul has a few things skewed, I mean generously interspersed with some historically accurate facts. The truth is of course that the US has been in uncharted waters since 1776 and with every day and every event, taking into consideration globilization I think its fair to say that no one knows for sure how things are going to unfold, but thats not bad news its good news which I'll explain later. A year and a half ago the odds for anyone but Hillary and Rudy being the nominees running for their respective parties for the presidency would have been astronomical and so we all know that the future is hard to predict.
Ron Paul wants to talk about our personal liberties being trashed? Where is the evidence? In a Obama-istic manner he speaks of it in a general way without supporting facts like its something we're all aware of. Yes we did pass some wire tapping laws aimed at overseas calls to middle eastern countries. I can't see how that tramples on my freedom. Ron Paul speaks of American imperialism, thats crazy. Every place we have asserted our military might and stuck it out have become economic powerhouses, leaders in democracy and freedom. Germany, Japan, Korea, all tales of the triumph of the human spirit over horrific circumstances. Iraq and its 25 million people are now free, free to elect their leaders, free to express their opinions, free to travel and ultimately enjoy the great riches of their country in a manner they collectively choose.
Ron Paul and those less informed would live the hypocritical lie that its logical to buy car insurance at whatever cost regardless of the prospect of and imminent accident yet reject that idea that the US needs to invests itself globally as an insurance policy to a catastrophe. You don't have 50K to cover the cost of an accident, so you buy insurance, and we don't have the trillions it would cost to clean up the nuclear crater that was LA so we make an investment now in billions. Bringing democracy and sanity to the middle east is really priceless. The Truman Doctrine in the age of the atom is ridiculous, Chernobyl alone spread radiation across the globe killing tens of thousands in the immediate vicinity. Chernobyl was an accident and mostly contained, it will pale in comparison to the nuke detonated by a jihadist that the Ron Paul's and Obama's of the world chose to do nothing about. Paul's idea of "empire building" is a complete unsubstantiated utterance of fiction.
Ron Paul's relevant points referred to "guns and butter" and "entitlements". Today a politician would have a slim chance of getting elected without promising their constituents the moon and the stars payed for on the backs of the rich and those diabolical corporations (regardless of the fact that all those companies are publicly owned, stocks held by teachers, fireman, policeman and just about anyone with a few bucks to invest) Ron Paul didn't get into "class baiting" similar to the race baiting practiced by the likes of Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton. People also have now come to believe that there should be no limits on what they are entitled to, free education, health care the list goes on and on. Ron Paul in this instance touched on a subject that not only had merit but need to be expounded on.
Ron Paul speaks of our military might as a weakness. Its only through our might that we persevered over communism and fascism in the last century. Only through our might have we backed down all the upstart nuclear nations. Only through our might have we secured freedom for the Taiwanese. Only through our might have we discouraged real imperialism(Russia in Afghanistan, Iraq in Kuwait). Again the hypocrisy is thick and sickening in those who would advocate humanity, charity, and justice in our own country but turn a blind eye to the injustices perpetrated on others because a border alleviates their consciences of any responsibility. What a shameful lack of compassion and principles by some of our leaders, and our countrymen that refuse to educate themselves.
Ron Paul talks of a financial crisis. This is the same Ron Paul that lived through unemployment of 13% and interest rates of 20% in the late seventies and early eighties. Is he insane? Our unemployment is less than half of that and our interest rates a quarter of the eighties numbers. I really didn't look up any Ron Paul speeches from that era but I'm sure they weren't so dire. The economy has a cycle, it heats up and cools down. No one has perspective they keep wanting to compare our economy now to a period when it was red hot. It would be like getting to drive a really fast car 200mph and then jumping in a fast car that does only 150 and being depressed for the rest of your life. 150mph is still outstanding! But the good news about our economy is that it usually always gets back up to 200mph for a few years and people really prosper, unfortunately people without historical perspective just don't understand the business cycle. Ron Paul is old enough to know better, spouting this inaccurate crap is to impress the rookies, those that think they care but not enough to crack a book. Only those of us to know the difference on whether the book was better than the movie can share that perspective, Ron Paul is shovel feeding doom and gloom to the movie watchers.
Jeff Foxworthy has a popular saying "you know your a redneck when....." Well I can imagine someone well known like Ben Stein coming up with a similar phrase "you know your a crackpot when...." and the punchline would be "Just like Ron Paul you romanticize in a completely illogical and unrealistic fashion about when the dollar was backed by gold". Come on Ron, when our economy was 1000th its size(I'm probably even underestimating) there was enough gold on the planet to back the dollar, but with three hundred million American's and countless other countries using US currency we'd have to mine the moon to make that practical. All that gold talk is for people without any reasoning ability and no access to a calculator.
Ron Paul talks of exporting dollars overseas, what would be the alternative. No exports, or imports? We might as well take that premise a little further and not transport goods between states, I mean we don't want to give money or export jobs to Georgia when we live here in California. Ron Paul talks about freedom and liberty but apparently that doesn't extend to buying Russian vodka or and Afghan rug. And as far as foriegn entities loaning the money back to us, they wouldn't do it if we weren't a good credit risk and they are doing it at a historically low interest rate. Furthermore the talk of debt ratio's is completely out of skew with even Ron Pauls personal finances I'm sure. For the sake of argument lets say Ron Paul makes 200k a year, well he would qualify for a housing loan of at least 600k a third of his income. So it would be practical to assume a debt 3 times larger than your yearly salary, and for decades millions of Americans have used that formula, successfully paying off their homes. Lets look at our GDP(gross domestic product) which according to the US department of commerce is almost 14 trillion dollars, we compare that too a debt of 9.5 trillion dollars. So when Ron Paul and anyone I know goes to purchase a home, a debt to income ratio of 3 to 1 is okay but when he wants to strike fear in the hearts of his fellow American's a .65 to 1 ratio is atrocious. Ron Paul must have scored very low on his college entrance exams because his logic and math just don't add up.
Ron Paul also attempts to disregard a foundational concept in a free market economy, that of supply and demand. He talks of $4 dollar gas as being the result of the sins of our fathers while in fact its a matter of "natural inflation" and a burgeoning world population. Paul seems to think the fact that our planet is covered with 6 billion other souls who consume fuel in one way or another has nothing to do with fuel costs. We only have so much supply and the demand keeps increasing, very simple economics. Natural inflation is very simply the fact that every time you accept or ask for a raise you are causing inflation. The Paulites should really lead the way by accepting a minimum wage job at 18 and retiring at the same wage, then they would have no culpability in causing the gas prices to rise. Whether it's a COLA raise or a merit based raise when practiced through the economy it causes inflation.
Ron Paul goes on to discuss collusion with the central banks, he might as well talk about an Elvis sighting. 9/11 cost our economy 500 billion, the war is costing 175 billion a year, OPEC controls fuel costs to a great extent and the central banks have no governance over any of those variables. Ron Paul is not only a gloom and doomer he's also got a conspiratorial side to him. He talks of collusion without proof, which is really a manipulative practice used by the desperate.
I told you there was good news in uncertainty, let me share with you something about human nature that usurps Ron Paul's traditionally myopic view of the world. Self interest always trumps all the other human motivations. Regardless of the troubled times in history, societies have always come to the conclusion that chaos doesn't benefit anyone. Despite differences we always choose order over madness and uncertainty. There are 300 million of us, with family and friends, houses and cars, jobs and lives. We all have to much at stake to choose pandemonium over stability. The sheer momentum the American people have built up in their love of freedom and prosperity makes it certain we'll work out any problems we'll encounter regardless of the obstacles.