He was our only hope. No, There is another.

One of my greatest frustrations with the future state of politics is that Ron Paul gained his following so late in life. The man is in his mid seventies. If he runs again in 2012, his age will certainly be an issue. I’ve been keeping an eye out for his potential running mates who could be able to project his honesty and understanding of how to fix the flaws in the system, be strong enough to convincingly step in as president if need be, and still be young enough to negate the age issue. In the video above, we may have our answer.

Update: Carl has a post up about the possible Senate run of Rand Paul.

Torture, Religion, Life, Death, and Fear

A doomish title if ever I’ve penned one. As seen in the video below, a recent poll has shown a strong link between churchgoing and the approval of torture.

While this comes as no surprise to those of us who have been paying attention, I think it deserve some further scrutiny. The obvious conclusion would be that religion causes a desire to torture, but I think that may be backwards. Another recent study showed the religious as being far more likely to seek extreme life prolonging measures when deathly ill. What does all this have in common? A fear of the unknown extreme enough to lead people to oppose the values they claim to have, just to scrabble at a scrap of hope. It is religion that is an irrational safety blanket for some very rational fears, that provides the self  righteousness and justification for the commission of atrocities that were already desired by those susceptible to it’s pull of absolution. It is the dichotomy of hope and fear that got both Bush and Obama elected by the same electorate. While hope and fear are polar opposites, they are two sides of the same coin.

It is as if the whole country is in a Kübler-Ross model of the stages of grief. 

1. Denial: This is where we were between WWII and the Bush years. We were the greatest country on earth. It was our birthright, not just a side effect of being the last manufacturing power standing after the war due to the distance of our homes from the front lines.
2. Anger: We clearly transition from denial to anger early in the Bush years. We believe all of our problems are external in nature, that it isn’t our fault. The Axis of Evil is the source of our pain. Wars ensue on multiple fronts.
3. Bargaining: Hope. Perhaps if we elect a Democrat, they will fix everything. We will give the banks whatever they want, bail out the manufacturing industry, borrow money, whatever it takes. The final days of Bush and the first 100 days of Obama.
4. Depression: This is where we are now. consumer confidence is low, the parties are fragmented, the future unclear. 
5. Acceptance: This is where we are going. We need to accept that our problems are fundamental and widespread, that the middle east won’t have peace, China isn’t going away, and the Dollar isn’t intrinsically strong. Our economy isn’t  in a downturn, it has seen a correction, and we aren’t going back to the golden age of the 1950′s any time soon. It is time to pick up the pieces, make some hard choices, and begin to move forward. 

We are a government of the people, by the people. It hasn’t led us here, we have led it here. We can take it back, but we can’t do it without a majority. Our next president should be a Ron Paul.

Ron Paul Weighs in on Rush vs. Steele Controversy

We are witnessing a bipartisan media convergence. The recent phenomenon of prominent Republicans criticising Rush, only to issue a groveling apology the following day, finally reached its peak with Michael Steele, the supposed head of the Republican party. My favorite headline of the week came from Wonkette: Rush Limbaugh Has Balls Of Steele. Rush has a sizable set of followers in the Republican party, and is unlikely to try and squash the rumors that he is the real voice of the GOP. The left sees his high negatives and is ready to help the Republicans rally around a leader with a low ceiling. It is Hillary all over again. In the above video Ron Paul shows that you don’t have to be in the center to appeal to the center. You just have to have some real honest solutions. In order to do that these days, you can’t tow the party line, of any party.

Saturday Night Live has also weighed in on the issue, which means it has truly reached mainstream proportions. (via the Intellectual Redneck)

Dirty Politcs by the Obama Administration?

In this interview Ron Paul talks a bit about the stimulus bill, and the process by which it was introduced. Ron Paul is an honest guy, so I’ll take him at his word until I see strong evidence otherwise. Obama made a campaign promise to publish all legislation five days ahead of time to allow congress and the public to peruse it. He didn’t do this for the stimulus. It could be argued that the stimulus is an emergency measure and should be exempt, but he also didn’t do this for children’s health insurance, which was hardly an emergency since it doesn’t kick in until mid-year. But this was more than a simple broken campaign promise; according to Ron Paul, the bill wasn’t revealed until the midnight before the vote, and was 1,000 pages. This was made worse by making only five hard copies available, which seems to me to be a clear tactic to prevent the opposition from being able to work together to get it read and discussed before the vote. Lets get this info out to the public at large. I want to see either a denial, an explanation, or a loss of credibility over of this one. If it is true, it is disappointing.

Ron Paul on Anti-Trust

This is a very old video (07/13/1983) of Dr. Ron Paul (congressman) and Dr. Dominick Armentano (Ph.D. in economics) discussing the role of government in relation to monopoly. It is a commonly held belief in this country that one of the main functions of our government is protecting us from large corporations. As our recent banking bailout illustrates, it generally does the opposite. While I find socialism rather distasteful on a government scale, I tend to think that either socialism or free market are superior to our current system evenly between the two. What we have now is politicians invested in wealthy corporations both protecting them from competition and socializing their losses.