Category Archives: Ron Paul

Ron Paul Revolution: Ron is for Real..

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The Ron Paul phenomenon

(Updated below – Update II – Update III – Update IV – Update V – Update VI – Update VII)

By far the most significant and interesting political story of the past 24 hours is the extraordinary, record-breaking outpouring of support for Ron Paul’s presidential campaign. Therefore, it is being ignored by much of our establishment press — not a single article about it in The New York Times or The Washington Post (though it is discussed on a couple of their blogs), nor even a mention of it on the websites of CNN or CBS News (which found space to report on Stephen Colbert’s non-candidacy). But MSNBC and Fox News did at least both post the AP article on the Paul story.

Regardless of how much attention the media pays, the explosion of support for the Paul campaign yesterday is much more than a one-time event. The Paul campaign is now a bona fide phenomenon of real significance, and it is difficult to see this as anything other than a very positive development.”

More by Glenn Greenwald at Salon.

All this is only because of the mainstream recognition being accorded to him.

But here’s my thought. Why not recognize smart, consistent views for their own sake? Why not support Paul, even if the mainstream won’t touch him, even if he hasn’t enough money, even if he walks and talks differently from a beltway insider? Why not support him because you like his ideas and think they might work? Why not follow what you think rather than wait, cautiously for the wind to shift, for the water to warm up, for the hour to be right, for your neighbor to agree….

Isn’t that exactly the problem?

That no one will simply trust their own judgment and good sense? If we can’t think for ourselves, then why should we blame the New York Times or the liberal establishment for telling us how to?

Ron Paul Revolution: Ron’s War Chest – SOS America!

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Tucker Carlson talked to Ron Paul on MSNBC this evening — about how his campaign is sweeping along in an appropriately laissez-faire fashion, without top-down orchestration. It’s what we’ve all known, a truly grass-roots campaign.

He’s not using the Internet, he says; it’s using him. And his followers are young people who know they’ve been left to hold the bag on the debt and disaster sowed by their parents.

“Paul raised just over $5 million in the most recent fundraising quarter, which ended September 30. The campaign has set an official goal of raising $12 million between Oct.1 and the end of 2007.

As of midnight Sunday, Nov. 4, the Paul campaign claimed to have raised $2.77 million.”

More at ABC.

Ron Paul is now 4th among the Republican contenders in cash on hand to play, just behind Fred Thompson, and ahead of McCain, Huckabee, Tancredo, and Hunter.

And here from brilliant financial analyst and best-selling author of “Crash-Proof, Peter Schiff, President of Euro-Pacific Capital, a call to arms for the business community.

Call to Action

Congressman Ron Paul, America’s best hope for the future.

I recently had the pleasure of personally handing the Honorable Ron Paul (the only member of Congress truly worthy of that title) a $2,300 check (the legal maximum) as my contribution toward his presidential campaign. I have never given one dime to a politician (though Congressman Paul is more of a statesman then politician) in my life, and you know what; it felt great. It was the best $2,300 I ever spent. The purpose of this email is to urge every single one of my clients, every subscriber to my newsletter, and every one in my database, to make a similar contribution.

There are over 60,000 names in my database. If a significant percentage of us donate $2,300 to Ron Paul, he will have a decent shot at being the Republican nominee, and he is probably the only Republican candidate capable of wining the Presidency in 2008. Come election time, this country will likely be in a severe recession, and Ron Paul is the only Republican able to distance himself from President Bush, who will clearly be blamed for the mess our economy will be in.

Like me, Ron Paul was against America’s decision to invade Iraq. Unfortunately, our predictions regarding what would happen if we did have all been proven correct. However, the one good thing that could potentially come of this whole fiasco is that it may be the single biggest factor making Ron Paul so electable. If that is the price of putting the only principled man in Congress into the Oval Office then perhaps it was worth it.

Unfortunately, most of the criticism of our phony economic expansion has come from the left. The mindless cheerleading of the right will leave them devoid of any credibility on economic issues. Ron Paul is the only Republican who can say “I told you so.” If, as a result of right wing rhetoric, voters blame capitalism for our problems, this nation will take a giant turn to the left. While many on the left have criticized the economy, they have mainly done so for the wrong reasons and their “solutions” will only make the situation worse.

Fortunately we have the power to stop them and we cannot let the opportunity to do so pass us by. This is a unique moment in history, a fork in the road to serfdom. We may actually be able to prove our founding fathers wrong in their belief that democracy does not work (For those of you who do not know our nation was founded as a Republic not a Democracy. For more on the difference between the two forms of government read my new book Crash Proof. Click here to order your copy.) Perhaps with your help we can prove that the special interests of political factions can actually be overcome by an inspired electorate motivated solely by the love of freedom and a respect for the constitution.

If you are fortunate enough to be one of my clients, writing a $2,300 check should not be a problem. As I have likely made you tons of money over the years, here is an opportunity to donate some of it to a worthy cause. We have made our money by betting against the U.S and betting against the dollar. Giving $2,300 of our winnings to Ron Paul gives us the opportunity to bet ON America for a change. And it’s a bet none of us can afford to lose, and the best part about it is that if we all make this bet together we can’t lose.

My penchant for foreign investments has from time to time caused some of my critics to label me unpatriotic. While such attacks are clearly out of line, using some of our foreign profits to secure the election of Ron Paul goes a long way toward defusing such allegations.

If you are not a client and you think $2,300 is a lot of money, it’s not. In fact, if Ron Paul is not our next President, such a sum will be practically worthless by the end of the term of whoever is. So what do you have to lose? Just write the check and hope for the best.

Do not just send in $50 or $100, dig down deep and pony up. If you are married send him $4,600. Think of what is at stake. Let’s not let Ron Paul lose this election for lack of money. Think about the sacrifices others have made for this country. Think of those who have given their lives to secure the liberties we are now losing to a tyrannical Federal Government. The signers of the Declaration of Independence not only risked their sacred honor but their very lives. You have a chance to do something to reclaim the principles embedded in that document yet risk nothing but a lousy 2,300 bucks, the cost of a single plasma TV. If we all make that one small sacrifice, maybe, just maybe, those who have died defending our freedoms may finally rest in peace.

Giving money or voting for any other political candidate, Democrat or Republican, is a complete waste of time, effort and money. The only person in the race whose victory will make any difference what-so-ever is Ron Paul. Even if he does not win, just having his positions heard by a wider audience will make a bigger difference to the country than the outcome of the election itself.

Do not get me wrong; electing Ron Paul will not stop America’s day of reckoning from coming. The piper will have to be paid no matter who is in the White House. However, President Ron Paul will be extremely important if we are going to dig our way out of this giant hole. Any other declared presidential candidate will make the job far more difficult if not completely impossible.

Rebuilding a viable industrial economy will require a return to our constitutional roots of limited government, low taxes, minimal regulation, and sound money. Ron Paul is the only candidate capable of bring those reforms about. He has already proven that his principles are more important then his own reelection. He is the only man in Congress I know that power did not corrupt. In fact, with Ron Paul as President, many others in Congress might actually find the courage to vote their conscience as well.

If you do not know who Ron Paul is, visit his web site at www.RonPaul2008.com and see for yourself. He is the real deal, a true statesmen and citizen politician in the traditions envisioned by the framers of our Republic. From time to time I get emails from people suggesting that I run for President. While such suggestions are indeed flattering, I realize that they are offered purely in jest. However, for those who agree with my take on things, a vote for Ron Paul is the closet thing to a vote for me that you will ever have an opportunity to cast. He understands the real problems facing our nation and knows what must be done to enable “we the people” to solve them for ourselves.

Here is the link to make your contribution. https://www.ronpaul2008.com/donate?c=SCHIFF

If you donate by telephone or use the general donation web page, make sure to reference the project code “Schiff” when you do. That way I can better judge the effectiveness of this email.

Once you have done so forward this email to every contact in your address book. Let’s give Ron Paul the greatest political war chest in history. In modern American politics money talks. With your help, Ron Paul’s voice can be the loudest one of all.

Sincerely,

Peter Schiff
President and Chief Global Strategist
Euro Pacific Capital

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Ron Paul Revolution – The Christian Right and Ron….

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“In contrast to the presently leading candidates, Ron has had one and the same wife for some 50 years. When the Christian right discovers him, he’ll get a big boost. They agree on guns, abortion and immigration (on the latter two I happen to disagree with Ron). The mainstream media try to paint Ron as a Libertarian, not a Republican. Nonsense; he is both. Of course, he is a libertarian, but he is ALSO a Republican; a Taft Republican. Happily, one of the early elections will take place in New Hampshire, chock full of Free State Project libertarians.

Further, and TERRIBLY important, Ron is the ONLY Republican who can beat Hillary. He’ll “steal” many antiwar democrats from her. As a doctor, he’ll kick her butt on socialized medicine. The reason Ron is now so low in the polls is that most people simply haven’t yet HEARD of him. When they do, WATCH OUT! When Republicans come to realize that only Ron can beat Hillary, there will be no stopping the publicity for the free society.

But none of this is entirely relevant to your Institute’s non-support for Ron. Let us stipulate that you are right, I am wrong, and that Ron’s candidacy will not succeed. But, still, he’s got almost $6 million in the bank. Soon, he’ll start an advertising campaign. This will have the effect of massively promoting liberty, even more than so far. In fact, I would say that Ron has ALREADY promoted liberty to the average person better than anyone in history. Ayn Rand only comes in second, in my opinion. Ron will next week be on the Jay Leno show for goodness sake. Even the NY Times now writes about him without calling him a wierdo. And this is only the tip of the veritable iceberg. I tell you B, when his campaign first started, I used to hungrily search for mention of Ron. I can no longer do that. To keep up with the publicity he is now garnering, I’d have to devote my full-time efforts to this one task. Ron is a one-man band of publicity for liberty. I am appalled that (your Institute) takes the stance on him that it does. In my view, Ron is a sort of litmus test for libertarianism. So far, (your think tank) is failing this test. Can you not talk Ron up with X and Y and your other colleagues?”

Walter Block (writing in LRC) is absolutely right on this. The constituency that needs to hook up with Dr. Paul is the Christian evangelical, yes, even the prowar crowd.

I slanted “Mobs, Messiahs and Markets” as best I could, toward traditionalists – no easy task, considering some of our positions.

I think it worked. If so, it was – at least, on my side – a contribution toward the campaign of the most honest man in Washington – Ron Paul.

(I should add that I also think Kucinich is a principled politician – on the Iraq war especially)

GO RON!

Ron Paul Revolution: Taking on Malcolm Gladwell at Forbes

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Irrational People
William Bonner and Lila Rajiva 10.25.07, 6:00 PM ET

Bill Bonner and Lila Rajiva
 
 
 


 

No prejudices are more dangerous than those you didn’t know you had. And no one is more likely to crash into them than one who believes he is impartially examining the facts. That is the trouble with theories about man that assume he is a rational decision maker. All the evidence we have points to the contrary.

What rational commuter, for instance, would buy a Hummer? People buy them not to get somewhere but to tell others that they have already arrived. And what reasonable man would waste his time going to the polls? The rate of return is so uncertain and so remote, he would do better buying a lottery ticket.

But even otherwise insightful writers make the mistake of assuming that when people make choices, they either make rational choices or honest mistakes. Malcolm Gladwell’s best-selling book, Blink, for example, observes that rapid cognition–instinctive reaction without prolonged deliberation behind it–is often the best way to make decisions. He cites approvingly a group of art experts who were able to tell at a glance that a Greek statue was a forgery.

But there are other instances when the results of rapid cognition don’t meet his approval. While only 3.9% of adult men in America are over 6’2″, almost a third of all American CEOs are 6’2″ or taller.

There must be some mistake, says Gladwell. People ought not to pick tall men to lead companies simply because they are tall. In response, we ask, why shouldn’t they? People who choose tall mediocre CEOs over short extraordinary ones may actually be expressing a real preference, even if they explain it away later as a bias. The preference may be rooted in genetic drives that find tall males inherently more likely to dominate and succeed in the reproductive game. Or people might have an aesthetic preference for an imposing appearance. Or they might intuitively feel tall leaders might be better at gathering followers. This might be what people really want, and not a CEO who can increase company profits.

Gladwell himself recognizes this when he notes that in speed-dating the kind of men women actually pick is very different from the kind they say they want. Yet, then he goes on to find decisions based on such hidden emotions and preferences unacceptable in certain cases–say picking a CEO or a member of a symphony orchestra–because they don’t accord with his idea of how these decisions should be made.

The same bias afflicts research into economic decision-making.

In 2005, Princeton Professor Daniel Kahneman conducted an experiment comparing the performance of people with a kind of brain damage that inhibited their emotions to the performance of “normal” people at guessing the results of coin flips. Those with “normal” brain function lost their shirts. Their emotions made them make mistakes, said the researchers.

This August, researchers at the university of Maryland studied stock traders and came to the opposite conclusion. Hot heads who experienced greater emotional intensity when faced with their decisions turned in better performances. Emotions helped them maximize returns. Score one for Jim Cramer.

What is more telling than the contrary results of the experiments is that, in both cases, researchers assumed that the participants were simply trying to maximize their returns. It is true that many may have thought they were doing so. But their actions betrayed other motives, such as, a desire to play it safe, or to have fun.

If human beings only did things out of economic self-interest, then buying stocks when prices are high or investing in subprime mortgages would be mistakes. But if investors, like everyone else, are expressing other, more complex and subtle motives, then their bad economic decisions might be bringing them other rewards. They might want the security of being part of a crowd. They might want to feel smart, or cool. They might invest to make money. Or not to lose it. To make a point. Or to make a better world.

Yes, “good leaders” probably do come in any size. But it may not be a “good leader” (whatever that is) that people are looking for when they pick CEOs or Presidents.

As it is not necessarily economic self-interest that men are pursuing when they enter the investment markets.

William Bonner and Lila Rajiva are the authors of Mobs, Messiahs and Markets .

 

Ron Paul Revolution: Taking on Ben Bernanke’s Rate Cut at the Washington Post

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MONEY FOR NOTHING

Is Bailing Out Reckless Investors Wise? Don’t Bank on It.

By William R. Bonner and Lila Rajiva

Sunday, October 28, 2007; Page B04

Last summer, the bill started to come due on our debt-fueled economy. We should have let it — and let reckless speculators, subprime lenders and banks finally get what they had coming. But instead, the financial authorities let them off the hook. Rather than simply letting markets be markets, they bailed out both the fools and the knaves. We’ll all live to regret it.

At the moment of truth, the Federal Reserve cut the overnight cost of money in the United States (known as the Fed funds rate) by 0.5 percent. Meanwhile, the governor of the Bank of England also succumbed to temptation, infusing ¿10 billion into the British banking system. Next, the Fed let Citigroup and Bank of America increase the quantity of funds that federally insured banks could lend to their affiliates, many of which held risky mortgage debts. When investors, spooked by the subprime lending crisis, stampeded out, the affiliates ran short of cash. Then, just this month, Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. announced the creation of yet another fund, guaranteed by three major banks — a piece of folly that was no more than a bailout of the cash-strapped affiliates.

But bad investments do not become good ones just because a central bank lends more money to the investors who made the rash choices. Problems caused by too much credit do not disappear when you hand out even more credit. And the syndrome that such moves create only makes our economic woes worse.

Mervyn King, the head of the Bank of England, told Parliament that he had been initially reluctant to intervene in Britain‘s credit market because he feared the ” moral hazard” that might ensue. Moral hazard is the idea that eliminating all potential risks from an action encourages people to take excessive risks. King worried that when speculators think that they’ll be bailed out, they tend to take bigger chances. After all, why not go for broke when you’ve got the central bank behind you?

The same thought should have troubled Fed chief Ben S. Bernanke, but somehow America’s central bankers didn’t seem to share even the nascent qualms of the governor of the British bank. Instead, they blithely reversed four years of policy by lowering the Fed funds rate to 4.75 percent. Just a few weeks earlier, Bernanke had called inflation Public Enemy No. 1. Now, by cutting the cost of money (something he looks set to do again next week), he was inviting it to dinner. And by encouraging risky behavior, he was asking for trouble — and he’ll probably get it.

If people always behaved sensibly, they would borrow only what they could pay back. The economy would boom only when it was producing jobs, and not because it was awash in easy money. Industries would not glut their markets, and investors would not make daft decisions out of greed.

But people do make bad calls. They foul up. When the price of money rises and the economy contracts, their errors get corrected. That’s the good news. The bad news is that there are always enough people to argue that it’s the Fed’s job to ease the pain of such contractions. Those arguments have usually carried the day. Since World War II, the practice has been to use monetary policy to smooth the downside of the business cycle — lowering interest rates to make money easier to borrow.

What the economy faces now, however, is a far cry from what it has faced in the past. In the first 25 years after World War II, the average ratio in the U.S. economy of periods of growth to periods of recession was only about 5 to 1. Over the next 25 years, the downturns got softer and even less frequent. And now, we seem to have rollicked our way through an expansion longer than any in the preceding era. Either we are suddenly moving toward the perfection of mankind, or there’s a large batch of errors we’ve yet to clean up.

And the batch grows by the day. Never before have so many people owed so much money in so many different ways.

When you make a mistake with your own money, you may go broke, you may despair, you may even kill yourself. Not to sound callous, but the damage rarely goes much further than that. Make a mistake with borrowed money, on the other hand, and it sets off a chain reaction of losses. You lose money, the lender loses money, savers lose money and the investors who bought shaky financial instruments tied up with the original debt lose money.

This is where central banks are supposed to come in. At first, Mervyn King judged that adding a few more straws might break the British economy’s back. Then, under pressure, he decided to load on a whole other bale. He had called it right the first time.

In theory, a central bank is set up to keep economic order. But in practice, when central bankers intervene in the economy, it is a bit like intervening in a street brawl: Results can vary. Central banking is a pretty imprecise science. At best, it is marginally and occasionally effective; at worst, it is a disastrous fraud.

It’s easier to yield to temptation than to resist it. Paul Volcker, the Fed chief from 1979 to 1987, was the last one who could stomach a recession. Determined to correct the macroeconomic blunders of the 1970s, he jacked nominal interest rates up to 20 percent. Politicians were outraged, and the public was horrified. Volcker’s effigy was burned on the steps of the Capitol. But his forced correction worked: Inflation fell from 12 percent to 4 percent. After the smoke cleared, the U.S. economy was ready for its biggest boom ever.

But since Volcker left the Fed, interest rates have generally gone down, and American consumers have taken advantage of it to borrow and spend. In the process, they have become addicted to cheap money. Now total credit has grown from 150 percent of gross domestic product to 340 percent. In fact, Americans carry so much debt that if Bernanke were to raise interest rates even to 10 percent, as he clearly should, they’d probably scorch him for real.

There was a time not so long ago when it looked as though central planning might actually work. The figures coming out of the Soviet Union showed remarkable — almost unbelievable — progress. Later, it became clear that the numbers were rigged.

Looking at how cheap money is these days, one wonders: Are we following in the Russians’ footsteps? For although almost all economists now admit that markets do better than government bureaucrats at setting prices and allocating resources, central banks continue to rig the most important price of all: the price of money.

In the real world, you can’t create something out of nothing, and debts must always be paid — although not necessarily by the people who incurred them.

When the Bernankes of the world set the price of money too low, they set off an explosion of error. People build houses for buyers who can’t afford them, they add capacity for customers who don’t exist, they speculate on trends that are sure to end.

Don’t take our word for it; just open your eyes. What we see in the U.S. economy today is largely the consequence of the Fed’s wimpy decision to keep rates low after the micro-correction of 2000-01. The economy had walked backward for only a single quarter — not even enough to qualify as an official recession. Still, the Fed panicked, yanking rates down to an emergency low of 1 percent for more than a year. The result? The biggest housing boom in U.S. history, accompanied by more bad decisions than a joint session of Congress. Lenders over-lent. Consumers over-borrowed. Builders over-built. And the dollar crashed to its lowest level ever.

Instead of wiping out bad decisions, the Fed’s rate cuts keep the cheap money flowing, letting errors compound and spread. Instead of sticking the losses to the people who deserve them, it redistributes even bigger losses to bystanders: innocent savers, hapless householders and dollar-holding, dollar-earning chumps everywhere. That’s the problem with meddling in markets: Once you get started, it’s hard to stop.

William Bonner and Lila Rajiva are the co-authors of

“Mobs, Messiahs, and Markets.”

 

Ron Paul Revolution – web of influence

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Another reason to support Ron Paul – the one candidate thoroughly committed to freedom on the net.

Think the net is always free? Think again. Even apart from politics, what goes on the web is slanted.

I am thinking this as I note that after TWO AND A HALF MONTHS of requests to Amazon to place the great blurbs from financial and libertarian luminaries like Marc Faber, Nassim Taleb, Steve Sjuggerud, Lew Rockwell and Ron Paul, not ONE of them is up on the editorial reviews page.

Actually, we called in mid August and sometime in early September, I thought I saw the reviews up. Then they mysteriously disappeared and have never reappeared despite repeated calls. Just a mistake? Most likely. Or anything to do with a book which is getting a lot of attention from Ron Paul types? I wonder. It’s bound to make you think. This evening I called twice and was told someone would call back or I would get an email. No response.

Update: Since then I have received a response. There may still be a problem, but I spoke to someone courteous and alive. So I am hopeful. (Since I wrote this, the mystery has been solved. The reviews apparently “fell” off the web, along with those of other authors. Why they couldn’t inform their clients of it asap is another question.

Update 2

My further dealings with Amazon, convince me it is not to do with Amazon, but a little further upstream, let’s say, nearer the source. “Nuff said. Sincere apologies to Amazon.

In the same vein, I note that I am being cited properly as co-author after my persistent complaints on the web to various promoters and publicists. Tip to all authors –  if you are in the right, don’t take things lying down. When they are corrected, take a screen shot of the before and after so that  when someone  corrects something post complaint, they can’t tell you that it was always right, pre-complaint and pin the blame on you.

Still – here is what it all proves: if you take things lying down, nothing gets done. Exchange your nice guy demeanor for the Leona Helmsley act, and, voila, things start getting done.

Sad but true. Very few people these days work at their jobs with any integrity and devotion to it. When you come across them, treat them like gems. They are.

Anyway, Amazon numbers are massaged (authors buy back their own books in bulk to push up sales); editors reviews are heavily slanted, even customer reviews on the web are orchestrated…..

Meanwhile, in happier news, I recently presented the book to Ron Paul himself and several representatives at an informal session. It was great and they liked the ideas and approach. I was honored to be invited to get more involved with some of their activities. Paul himself is just as I thought – unassuming, highly intelligent, good humored. Like everyone’s favorite brilliant uncle .

Ron Paul Revolution: Whom Would the World Vote For

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A breakdown of the candidates’ popularity around the globe by country. Ron Paul wins hands down. And my feeling is the only reason Barack Obama gets that much traction is because he is a media darling (and creation).  Being half Kenyan and sporting a Muslim name, he has a certain amount of PR value in non-white countries.  [Obama is Christian and denies ever having been a Muslim, as net rumors have hinted]. And there are probably some residual fears that Ron Paul’s libertarian agenda might appeal to racists who might use it to propagate their own chauvinism.

Ron Paul Revolution – massaging the Republican debate in Orlando, Florida

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I am writing this at 8:53 PM.

Obviously, I’m cheering for Ron Paul.

Of the rest of the condidates, I found Romney quite slick. Guiliani was also slick, but much less obviously, and he was also funny – especially when differentiating himself from Mrs. Clinton. I wouldn’t want him for president but he’d make a good stand-up comic, actually. To my mind, Thompson and McCain made a good appearance; they win the “does he look the part?” test, I guess. McCain had the best line of the night. That was also in response to the question asking him to differentiate himself from Clinton. Referring to Woodstock, he said he was “tied up” at the time – a joke about his years as a POW in Vietnam and a slam against her hippie past.

Hunter and Tancredo gave fluent answers, although brought in belatedly. And they sounded real. Huckabee didn’t get much of a chance, but when he did, he was forceful.

A note: Romney called the US government an “enterprise” – a business, which of course it simply is not. It is, as Michael Oakeshott wrote, a civil association. That misunderstanding is central to what is wrong with politics today.

Two columnists were referenced by Brit Hume (or was it a candidate?) – George Will and Charles Krauthammer. Both neoconservatives and both pro-war hawks. George Will used to get his policy line from the Jonathan Institute and Krauthammer is so influential he can singlehandedly set the tone of our public debate. I have written how these two journalists, especially, are often responsible for introducing “memes” into an apparently spontaneous public discussion, which end up taking over and shaping the debate by framing how it is conducted. You saw that at work here.

Paul fielded five questions – on gay marriage and health care, and then his difference from Hillary Clinton, and two more.

His first response was a little involved, and he slipped up by leaving the impression that he saw marriage solely as a religious institution, and not civil. Actually, he did mention the civil aspect, but it wasn’t clear.

His second answer on health care was much better. And he made the important point that our imperial policy is what makes it impossible for us to continue the managed health care system we currently have.
His third answer was boo’d – that the US empire was unsustainable and a bad idea. That threw him off a bit, but he regained footing. He’s not a candidate who thinks or talks in one-liners, which is unfortunately the way issues are decided these days.

I missed his following answera because I had to take a call, but they looked strong.
Now, some things about the debate which made me wonder how these things are presented and whether it’s all really above-board or not.

Question 1:

Why did we need to have a focus group ahead of the debate that promptly labels Hillary Clinton socialist (natural enough at a Republican debate) and Ron Paul “crazy”? And then tells us that ‘security’ and ‘being taken care of’ (presumably by an imperial president?) is the main need of the electorate? And that lets Alan Coulmes come to Paul’s defense by generously allowing he’s not crazy and Clinton’s not socialist (which she is) – a testimonial likely to be about as compelling to Republicans as a Bella Abzug make-up tip to a home-coming queen.

Update: I should add, my problem isn’t with socialism – especially of the anarchist strain. It’s with the state socialism right out of Bismarck that you find with people like Ms. Clinton. She talks about villages, which evokes a fuzzy sense of a community, but what she means is the state – a colder and more calculating beast.

I have no problem per se with socialists, liberals, humanists, conservatives, traditionalists, communitarians, some kinds of communists, anarchists….. or any other breed – so long as they respect the individual and don’t crush him or her under the state.

A little massaging of public perception ahead of time, maybe?

Question 2:

Why were Guiliani, Thompson, Romney and McCain questioned far more than the others? The race isn’t over, is it? Shouldn’t we hear from the candidates with smaller war-chests too? The ones who are less well known?
Question 3:

Why was the mike not on when that long, involved question about a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage was thrown at Ron Paul as his first question?

Question 4

Why was Paul subliminally associated with Hillary Clinton, first by the focus group comment, and then by the question equating Paul’s position on Iraq with Clinton’s – something that is palpably untrue, since she’s been hawkish and moderate by turns but never really antiwar or anti-imperial.
Question 5

How is the audience selected? From all over the country?

Suggestion:

I’d ask all you Ron Paul supporters to call into Fox and ask them those questions…..and any others that occur to you. Give them the same treatment that CNBC got for messing with Ron Paul fans.

And finally, I was thinking of moving to Florida. But after listening to the focus group and what the audience cheered for, I have to rethink that. Warm weather isn’t everything.

Most of the folks there seem to be making up their mind about world issues based on the culture wars at home.

Close down the borders and all programs for illegals, end affirmative action/PC speech codes, and voila, the will to empire will vanish too.

Meanwhile, Stephen Greenhut over at Lew Rockwell notes that the GOP is breaking down 3:1 in favor of big government conservatism over libertarians.

But, what I want to know is since when is Big Government conservative? I mean, the Catholic conservative tradition was never corporatist, was it?

In fact, Russell Kirk has been aptly called a Tory bohemian:

“A Tory, according to Samuel Johnson, is a man attached to orthodoxy in church and state. A bohemian is a wandering and often impecunious man of letters or arts, indifferent to the demands of bourgeois fad and foible. Such a one has your servant been. Tory and bohemian go not ill together; it is quite possible to abide by the norms of civilized existence, what Mr. T. S. Eliot calls “the permanent things”; and yet to set at defiance the soft security and sham conventionalities of twentieth century sociability.”
Update: 3 years ago when I was researching my first book, references to the Jonathan Institute abounded on the net. Today when I google, I see far fewer. Here’s one at Znet, in an article on propaganda by Edward Herman.

And for aficionados of the “War On Terra,” here’s a bit of deja vu:

“The Jonathan Institute had been founded earlier the same year by Benjamin Netanyahu, a young crazy of the Likud block, in memory of his brother Jonathan, who had been killed during the Israeli raid on Entebbe in 1976. The Jonathan Institute was a semi-covert propaganda operation and could only be defined as a branch of the Israeli government. The committee sponsoring this conference on terrorism was headed up by Prime Minister Menachem Begin, followed by Moshe Dayan and many other prominent Israeli politicians and generals.

The US delegation to the conference was divided according to partisan lines, but was generally united by sympathy for the ideas and outlook of the Bush-Cherne Team B. The Democratic delegation was led by the late Senator Henry Jackson of Washington. This group included civil rights leader Bayard Rustin, plus Norman Podhoretz and Midge Decter of Commentary Magazine, two of the most militant and influential Zionist neoconservatives. Ben Wattenberg of the American Enterprise Institute was also on hand. Although the group that arrived with Scoop Jackson were supposedly Democrats, most of them would support Reagan-Bush in the November, 1980 election.

Then there was the GOP delegation, which was led by George Bush. Here were Bush activist Ray Cline, Major General George Keegan, a stalwart supporter of Team B, and Professor Richard Pipes of Harvard, the leader of Team B. Here were Senator John Danforth of Missouri and Brian Crozier, a “terrorism expert.” Pseudo-intellectual columnist George Will (“Will the Shill”) was also on hand, as was Rome-based journalist Claire Sterling, who had been active in covering up the role of Henry Kissinger in the 1978 assassination of Italian Prime Minister Aldo Moro, and who would later be blind to indications of an Anglo-American role in the attempted assassination of Pope John Paul II.

International participation was also notable: Annie Kriegel and Jacques Soustelle of France, Lord Alun Chalfont, Paul Johnson, and Robert Moss of the United Kingdom, and many leading Israelis.

The keynote statement was made by Prime Minister Begin, who told the participants that they should spread through the world the main idea of the conference, which was that all terrorism in the world, whatever its origin, is controlled by the Soviet Union….”

Comment:

That was in the late 1970s…..

Now, over 30 years later, all terrorism in the world, whatevr its origin, is controlled by the Sov — I mean the Islamo-fascists.

Say it again:

All terror in the world, whatever its origin, is controlled by the Islamofascists!

Ron Paul Revolution: Ron raised a million in seven days…

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“In one comment, written as a response to a post at the quintessential neoconservative and freedom-hating blog, Red State, a reader unsupportive of Paul points out the obvious for most neoconservatives, that Ron Paul’s ability to raise a million dollars in seven days is “[expletive deleted] scary.”
And:

“Ron Paul refuses to convert disagreements into personal arguments which create animosity. His tactic is to merely present his side of the argument while acknowledging that this is part of his core belief system and not an indication that those who disagree are stupid or evil. This has trickled down to his supporters who, for the most part, avoid political arguments and instead implore the uninitiated to simply discover for themselves what Ron Paul is saying. This tactic has worked brilliantly. Ron Paul’s message is genuinely compelling and his defense of these views has been consistent and dogged over the past 30 years; no matter what obstacles are thrown before him. That is the basis for his supporter’s enthusiasm. He truly means what he is saying. Unlike his counterparts, he does not have to waste any words explaining why his votes do not match his rhetoric. His supporters do not have to suffer the nagging feeling that something different would occur if they were to elect him. He has always voted in a manner that matches his speech.

The neocons have no candidate in the race remotely showing the same level of integrity though they appear to be certain that nobody will notice this. They prove by their actions that any talk of truth, honesty or values is just empty, pandering, rhetoric. The number of Paul supporters is increasing because, contrary to neoconservative belief, Americans are not stupid. They just haven’t had a decent alternative in 30 years. Well….now they do”

More by. Robert Fisk at Lew Rockwell on why we love the new Ron.

New studies: high IQ correlated with Ron Paul voting…

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Well – not really, but apparently, geeks support Paul.

“As campaign finance records show and the blogosphere has noted, a substantial base of support for Paul comes from professionals in the technology community.

“People in the technology industry tend to be more educated, and more intelligent,” said Jeffrey Schwartz, a Paul supporter who organized the fundraiser through Meetup. Schwartz is a psychiatrist and a long-time libertarian….”

says this Wired piece.

The explanation, it says, is that tech-oriented people tend to want detailed, rational explanations, not emotional sound-bytes. In other words, there is less of the “mob” in the minds of the technology and science crowd…