Young People; Get Over your Ron Paul Man-Crush

There is a seriously disturbing trend of young kids going gaga for Ron Paul.
Democrats had better pay notice. Obama soared to an electoral victory thanks in no small part from the youth vote in 2008. Millions of people under 30, millions of first-time voters showing up at the ballot box to ride the Hope & Change Wagon. Incidentally, the only white demographic that Obama won in 2008 was the 18-35 year-olds.And we're gonna need them if we want to win in '12. Three years later, millions are still out of work, the political divisions remain & the economy is still very delicate thanks to the do-nothing Fillibuster happy Congress that Obama has had to deal with.

Ron Paul's doctrine certainly speaks to a group of young voters, with his non-conformist, rebellious rage against the machine rhetoric. Young kids can identify with this. The youth are obviously concerned about their future and hate the thought of paying off wars they don't support the rest of their lives. Paul's lasez-faire attitude toward things like ending the War on Drugs and getting government out of the marriage business work well for him in getting the youth out to vote for him.

This is all fine & dandy and I certainly side with Paul when it comes to Foreign Policy. But that is simply where my alliance with him ends. Ron Paul is the candidate liberals think that they love, until they spend five minutes discovering who he actually is, and what he would do to this country.

To deconstruct Paul, first you have to understand what a liberaterian is. This is essentially the absence of almost any government whatsoever. This means no highway system, no Social Security, no Medicare, no student aid to attend college, no unemployment insurance if your laid off from your job during a recession through no fault of your own. A free public school system? Guess again. This means no checks & balances in the financial sector, no laws protecting people from discrimination. This would take us back to segregated lunch counters, land-lords that are able to throw you out of your apartment simply because they don't like black people.

It sounds all fine and dandy when he says things like, "restore our freedoms and liberty." "Let the free market decide what's appropriate." This ideology would be great if we were living in some Utopian Society where everyone did the right thing. Alas, we as you know do not. No country in the history of man-kind has succeeded while embracing Paul's principles. Government does actually have a purpose. Especially in a country of 300 million and a GDP of $15 Trillion.

Prior to the New Deal, and the creation of the Federal Reserve (as Paul's people deteste to no end) we did not live in a Utopian Society of Middle Class, Mon-Fri College Graduate type folks with things that we take for granted. Like weekends, overtime, vacation pay, healthcare, labor laws for children, safe working environments, Workman's Compensation, etc.
The Free Market didn't create this kind of society. Government & unions did. The GI Bill helped create the greatest generation of Middle Class families the world has ever known. The Free Market wasn't responsible for that. Government was.
Before Roosevelt regulated the banking system, we were not a Nation of Sound Money as Paul would have you believe. The banks went boom & bust almost every decade - wiping out lifetime savings of families and ushering in depressions/recessions on a regular basis.(There were five depressions in the 19th Century) The policies of the New Deal kept this pattern of recklessness from wiping out the Financial System for decades until we started gradually deregulating it starting with Reagan. Perhaps the greatest atrocity of deregulation was repealing a depression era law known as Glass-Steagall which kept Banks and Investment Banks separate. Almost 10 years to the date of repeal resulted in the collapse of the Financial Sector. During the 80's & 90's we partially deregulated the Financial Sector and look what happened. Paul would completely get rid of any sort of Government oversight in the sector and we would be strictly at their mercy. No thanks.

Ron Paul wants the power to regulate Monetary Policy to go back to Congress. Are you kidding me? Those jokers? The same people who almost defaulted on the Full Faith & Credit of the United States? I agree that the Federal Reserve is shadowy and clandestine in nature, but the last people on earth that should have the power of our currency is Congress who is fully owned by the lobbyists & Special Interest that pays for them. Monetary Policy is very complex and I certainly don't want that to be politicized. Members of Congress aren't professional economists. Members of the Fed are. They are elected by Congress and that's good enough for me. Sure, maybe we should look into more oversight & transparency, but my God, DON'T let Congress get their hands on our currency..

Paul would have you believe that before Medicare/Medicaid was created, the cost of healthcare really wasn't that bad because government wasn't involved. Actually, it really was pretty bad and seniors in particular spent their life savings paying for their healthcare. Paul doesn't believe in Social Security but in personal savings. Well, in a Ron Paul World of unregulated markets and jobs, if you're lucky enough to actually have a nest egg without the aid of Social Security, you'd probably eventually lose it all in another run on the banks or major depression or recession. Prior to the New Deal, seniors lived in extreme poverty. They didn't have luxuries today like cashing out equity on their house through a Reverse Mortgage.

Most importantly. Ron Paul is almost bragging about how he is going to remove $1 Trillion from the budget in his first year. Now, take it with a grain because even if he was elected that's almost impossible to make good on as Congress has the power of the purse and there are not 535 radical enough people to drink the Paul Kool-Aid.

We all know that we have a serious debt problem. But it is not as serious as the jobless problem. Just look to countries in Europe that are embracing Austerity when they should be investing in their economies right now. They're all going back into recession and the budget deficits actually get worse as tax revenues fall due to more and more people being out of work due to Austerity. They're exacerbating the problem dramatically.

When the economy in the US collapsed, it was from a contraction of 8% of GDP in the fourth quarter of 2008. That's about $1 Trillion. We were bleeding jobs at an average of 700,000 per month. Trillions of dollars of wealth was wiped out in the Stock Markets and Home Values.
Some people in this generation may never fully recover from this collapse. Billions in pension funds disappeared. That's what taking $1 Trillion out of the economy looks like. And that is what Ron Paul wants to do again in a not-yet-recovered economy. This would plunge the world into a Global Depression and I don't see America coming out number 1 again.

Even in a recession, our European & Asian economic competitors are still investing in infrastructure & education at rates double & triple the rate that we are. If we're going to remain dominant on the world stage we have to invest in our country in a way only government can.

I can certainly respect Ron Paul for staying true and consistent with his principles for decades. He's been getting up in front of his party over the years and never backing down from what he believes in while the GOP boos him off the stage. I respect the love he obviously has for his country and he really believes in what he's saying. But I don't respect his disdain for government. I can't respect his opposition to the Civil Rights Act, the fucking Civil War (Paul maintains that we didn't have to go to war over slavery, I beg to differ) and even his opposition to Martin Luther King Day (he famously dubbed, "Hate Whitey Day" on the House Floor)

We're not a group of pilgrims in a great American Experiment anymore. We're not that small, low tax nation that doesn't get involved in global affairs anymore. We don't have a monarch to rally against, but we certainly have massive greed, corruption and ridiculously wealthy people that we need a check & balance on to maintain a strong & healthy middle class and protect us from plutocracy.

Ron Paul is not good for America.