The Ron Paul Revolution lives!!

I just got this absolutely killer Ron Paul video from  www.HighTidepromo.com.

Ron Paul wins! and so does the human race

As the Democratic presidential race descends to new depths of personal negativity and John McCain disintegrates,  the cause of human liberty has emerged as the clear winner in the 2008 presidential race.

 

A little over a year ago few people had ever heard of Ron Paul, there were no Ron Paul meet up groups.  Rudy Giuliani was a shoo-in to win the Republican nomination and probably the presidency.  The Republican Party was firmly in the hands of the big government neo-cons and the Libertarian party was as usual pondering its naval.

Cultural change has to happen before political change and as Avery Knapp, leader of New York City’s Ron Paul meet-up puts it “ collectivism won the 20^th century”. 

What a difference a year makes!  Today pretty much everyone, whether they like him or not, knows who Ron Paul is. Twenty-somethings debate non-interventionist foreign policy, the gold standard and elimination of the Fed and the IRS.  By the way they don’t debate “whether” on these issues, they debate “how”.

Of course that debate hasn’t made it through the thick skulls of the vast majority of major party candidates yet or even a majority of voters.  But no one is dismissing the Ron Paul Revolution anymore either. 

Let’s look at a few areas where the Ron Paul Revolution won resounding victories. The internet is considered by many to be the campaign tool of the future and the Ron Paul Revolution buries the competition with 106,000 meet-up group members, in over 1500 meetups.  Mike Huckabee is a distant second with 19,000 members and 496 groups.  But let’s look at what those meetups are doing.  Ron Paul meetups are 10 times more active than Huckabee’s and account for about 90% of all presidential meetup activities.

Candidate            Members         Groups            meetup events

Ron Paul                 106,000          1500            37,000

Mike Huckabee        19,000            496               3,600

Barak Obama             7,000            105               1,000

Hillary Clinton             1,800              36                  334

John McCain                   36                1                      0

Source: http://www.meetup.com/topics/polact/cand/pres/

How about fund-raising?  Of course the party of big money, the Democrats, have their fangs much deeper into corporate America. Clinton and Obama have each raised about $140 million primarily from people connected to financial institutions and law firms.  McCain gets his money from people in similar industries and firms but he has only raised about $50 million.

Compared to the big money crowd Ron Paul, having raised about $32 million, might not look like much.  But as Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney know, money can’t always by you love.   And when an unknown guy who ”had no chance” raises nearly as much as the winner of the Republican nomination you have to ask yourself where it all came from.  It turns out that the guy who wants to bring the troops home from everywhere, and leave health care to the free market gets much of his money from people in the Army, Navy, Air Force and Health Care. 

It’s also worth mentioning that “budget-balancer” John McCain has about  $5.2 million cash on hand and about $5.5 million in debt.  You do the math.  Is that how he’d run the country?   In contrast “crazy” Ron Paul has about $6 million cash on hand and 0 debt.  What? Zero debt?  Excuse me – I’ll have what he’s having.

Sources: http://www.opensecrets.org/pres08/moneyweb.asp?cycle=2008

What’s wrong with this picture? 

The democrats are busy spewing venom.

The big government Republican nominee has more debt than money and his army consists of a professional campaign staff.  The sitting Republican President is a world-class bozo with record low approval ratings and the neo-cons are in disarray.

On the other hand, the Ron Paul Revolution is flush with cash and bursting with young, energized, committed volunteers who are busy right now expanding their grass-roots decentralized, free market network.  They are preparing for phase 2:  running Freedom Movement candidates, raising awareness and educating the public as to why Human Liberty works better for everyone, and taking action to change outcomes in DC, State Houses and City Halls.

As Arlo Guthrie said if “50 people a day do it they call it a movement.”  This one goes by a few names, the Freedom Movement or perhaps the Second American Revolution and it’s happening now, right before your eyes.  Everyone doesn’t agree on everything.  That’s the beauty of the free market.  But we share a belief in Human Liberty as the best way to improve the human condition.

The majority of the Ron Paul army is Republican or “libertarian-republican” but there is a significant minority of  “libertarian-democrats” as well.   It also includes some members of the Conservative Party and Constitution Party.  We also share critical principles with social liberals.

Major party approval ratings dwindle and the Ron Paul army has declared it’s intention to save the Republican Party, to turn it away from Bush, neo-cons, big spending and war and back to principles of freedom and small government. Meanwhile, Libertarian Party membership is up 25%.    Freedom Movement candidates are starting to build their campaign teams with veterans of the Ron Paul primaries.

People are talking about non-intervention, sound money, free markets and all the other thinsg that go along with Human Liberty.

What’s wrong with this picture? 

Nothing is wrong with it.

Ron Paul wins, and so does the human race.

Amazing George McGovern Op-Ed

My friend Mark Axinn, an elder statesman of the Manhattan Libertarian Party, often boasts that his first presidential vote was for George McGovern back in 1972. And apparently with good reason. I don’t think McGovern was really all that libertarian back then, except for the anti-war thing, but his guest editorial in today’s Wall Street Journal is indistinguishable from anything that might be published by Cato or FEE. He makes a principled yet pragrmatic free-market case for subprime mortgages, interstate sales of health insurance, payday loans and other bogeymen of the left:

Why do we think we are helping adult consumers by taking away their options? We don’t take away cars because we don’t like some people speeding. We allow state lotteries despite knowing some people are betting their grocery money. Everyone is exposed to economic risks of some kind. But we don’t operate mindlessly in trying to smooth out every theoretical wrinkle in life.

The nature of freedom of choice is that some people will misuse their responsibility and hurt themselves in the process. We should do our best to educate them, but without diminishing choice for everyone else.

Excellent stuff. Simply wonderful.

Naked Capitalism

By Ignacio Gutiérrez
February 18, 2008

Only in America can one earn a fortune for believing in themselves and their dream, be it standing in nothing but underwear briefs, cowboy boots and hat playing guitar in Times Square even through unforgiving weather for ten years and counting such as NYC’s own Naked Cowboy, Robert Burck.

“Everybody likes this story. It’s the American dream versus the sold-out America” says Burck. Hopefully he’ll win the $6 million dollar lawsuit filed against Mars Inc., the makers of M&M’s. They used his trademarked alter-ego in an ad displaying a blue M&M character in his indisputable likeness. Considering the amount of money, time and focus-group testing behind these multi-million dollar campaigns, it’s a wonder why no one from Mars Inc. or Chute Gerdeman, the advertising agency, bothered to contact Burck for permission to parody his character.

And it’s thanks to such short-sighted decisions made by top CEO’s and corporate management in boardrooms across the country that compel people to mistrust the very impetus behind the American dream – capitalism. Ask most people to define it, and you’ll hear some wildly disparate and inaccurate answers.

“It’s the art of making money”. “It’s every man for himself.” “It’s all about greed dude! Like, in that movie Wallstreet…”“It’s nothing but corporate corruption, and evil, and…and …global warming!!”

But its actual meaning is much less sinister. It’s simply an economic system that allows individuals the right to own property and create goods and services from that property in order to sell them for a profit within a free market. How it has become synonymous with consumerism, materialism, imperialism, fascism, corporate cronyism, and a multitude of other “isms” is one of the 20th and 21st centuries greatest misconceptions.

Considering our current economic woes, it’s imperative more people understand its infinite possibilities, as opposed to moralizing that it brings us these problems to begin with. The right to own, but most importantly, the right to create, has been the catalyst for the most effective , efficient and productive ways of solving society’s problems. Until people realize these crucial rights belong to them as much as any corporation, we’ll continue misguiding ourselves to experiment with other systems such as socialism, collectivism, communism and let alone totalitarianism, all proven to fail time and again for the simple reason they undermine the most important “ism” of all, individualism.

One has to admire the gumption of true individuals such as Burck who’ve taken destiny into their own hands, created their own jobs, and refused to depend on or demand government handouts that purport a supposed “common good”. He represents the cowboy in all of us, one whose nakedness is worth singing about.

Yes we can, but what?

By Ignacio Gutiérrez
February 10, 2008

It was only a matter of time until someone successfully invoked JFK’s image alongside Barack Obama’s timely call for change and hope beyond mere comparison. And with Theodore Sorensen endorsing Obama, it’s no accident either. The legendary speechwriter for JFK has claimed giving Obama “a phrase or suggestion or two”.

And for “the cynics who believed that what began in the snows of Iowa was just an illusion” as Obama stated after winning the South Carolina primary, there’s something for them too. A video making it’s rounds on the internet, replete with celebrities singing out the phrase “Yes we can” along with excerpts from other speeches.

OK, so I’m one of those cynics. And yet, I personally like Obama. He’s refreshingly honest, genuine and an optimist to say the least. It’s great that he’s managed to thwart apathy among voters and is getting more and more people involved. But his message and his following are starting to get a little creepy.

Democracy is the worst form of government if people choose evil, Churchill once said. While it would be an incredibly far stretch to label Obama as such, for anyone familiar with the Spanish translation of “yes, we can”, “si se puede”, and it’s overt use by the Castro regime in Cuba, this subtle call for socialism hits a little too close to home.

Ask anyone who has even traveled to Cuba and seen the inordinate amount of communist propaganda that puts Nike ad campaigns to shame. It’s unspoken and subtle reminder to everyone of its citizens that “yes we can” imprison you for decades without even so much as a trial by judge or jury for daring to question the common good and supposed “will of the people”, reverberates from every other street corner throughout the country.

Were it not for the fact that “si se puede” is actually referenced in the video, with someone even pumping their fist into the air, perhaps this connection would be superfluous. But whether by accident or design, the actual speech’s message is unmistakable. And just like clockwork, it’s timed to the best and noblest of intentions.

“It’s not about rich vs. poor” Obama mentions. However, the part where we “can’t afford another four years without decent wages because our leaders couldn’t come together and get it done” misses one obvious point. It’s not up to government to decide wages, its up to the marketplace, ie the people speaking with their dollars. And what better way for them to lose their jobs to foreign markets than by imposing mandatory wage increases on companies and increasing their costs of production, not to mention the cost of living for everyone overall.

“There are those who will continue to tell us that we can’t do this, that we can’t have what we’re looking for, that we can’t have what we want, that we’re peddling false hopes.” Intentionally peddling false hopes, maybe not. But then again, informing and educating people as to how the economy of any society functions most effectively and efficiently when government gets out of our way and stops mixing up our rights with entitlement programs has never been the hallmark of any Democratic, let alone socialist rhetoric.

Hopefully Sorensen will pen a more compelling line for Obama and all of us to follow. One as inspiring as “ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country”. At least that one didn’t foster an entitlement mindset. Instead it motivated people to give more than they took and drove many to find and even create their own opportunities and destinies as opposed to expecting prosperity to be doled out like some welfare check. It almost demanded people take responsibility for themselves, and yet still be there for one another.

“Yes, we can heal this nation.” Sure, as soon as government stops intruding in our lives and the marketplace and ends the slow and steady pace towards a nanny state that could imperceptibly morph into a totalitarian one. Then there’ll be no doubt that “yes, we can seize our future” once again.

New York Now Accepting Euros

When I traveled in Mexico and the Caribbean many years ago, I always thought it interesting that the locals preferred U.S. dollars over their own local, hyper-inflationary currency. What goes around comes around, apparently, and now some New York businesses are posting signs proclaiming “euros accepted.” That’s the inevitable consequence of our insane monetary policy, which has debased our once strong currency.

 I know I’d rather get paid in a currency that wasn’t constantly losing value. Maybe I can convince my employer to start paying me in gold bullion.

McCain Soft on Taxes - Hard to Stomach

What sets John McCain apart from the rapidly thinning Republican Presidential field? He is the only remaining Republican candidate who has not pledged to refuse to raise taxes.  According to Americans For Tax Reform, Huckabee, Romney  and of course, our hero Ron Paul, have all all signed the Taxpayer Protection Pledge.   McCain has not.

With a recession looming, tax cuts (and of course the attendant spending cuts) are badly needed.  Recessions reduce tax revenue and increase deficits so you could argue that the only politically practical way to control the deficit is to keep the economy strong by cutting taxes.   Interest rate cuts just encourage more bad investment decisions and prolong the agony. For some background on the problems with interest rate regulation check out www.mises.org.

But does McCain get it? Apparently not. While McCain has scored at high as above 80% with the ATR he has also fallen to 66%. ATR suggest that he has “tried to reinvent himself as a taxpayer friendly Senator”. Sure John, I trust you.

Here is a short list of other completely wrong headed McCain Votes

No - Economic and Growth Tax Relief Reconciliation Act, Conference Report - May 26, 2001
No - Death Tax Repeal Sense of the Senate – February 13, 2002
No - Permanent Repeal of the Death Tax - June 12, 2002
No - Jobs and Growth Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2003 - May 15, 2003
N0 - Jobs and Growth Conference Report - May 23, 2003

The list goes on and on.

To all you prospective McCain voters - please ask yourself whether our economy can withstand higher taxes. Then ask yourself if Ron Paul isn’t a better choice.

The Libertarian Party’s Response to the State of the Union Address

The following is a response by Libertarian Party National Chairman William Redpath

Washington, D.C. - Following President Bush’s annual State of the Union Address, the Libertarian Party issued their response from National Chairman William Redpath:

Tonight’s State of the Union address went much as expected.  Instead of calling for a more limited role of the federal government in American society, the President laid out plans that would only increase the government’s intervention into the realm of economics, health care, education and foreign policy.  It is unfortunate to see that after seven years of increasing the size of government and increasing the government’s presence in the day to day lives of all Americans, the President refuses to limit the scope of the federal government, a once championed virtue of the President’s party.  The President’s last State of the Union address encapsulated his legacy of an abandonment of the principles of limited government and individual freedom.

The Redistribution of Debt

The rich get richer and the poor get poorer. It’s a saying as old as history, and just as toxic. It’s misled millions to believe they’re doomed to poverty and that wealth is just an elusive dream for a select few. But the 2008 Economic Stimulus package may help put us all on equal footing. By ensuring everyone experience poverty through massive inflation.

Both Democrats and Republicans are in favor of the plan. The proposal would pay up to $600 to individuals, married couples up to $1,200, plus $300 per child, and even many who don’t earn enough to pay taxes, can receive up to $300. The total plan will cost an estimated $150 billion dollars. But despite it’s good intentions, the program may turn a mild recession into a full-blown one, or worse.

There’s only three ways it can be paid for: taxes, new currency or credit. Through taxes, while it would force government to cut spending in the short term, which is a good thing, there’s no doubt taxes will be raised in the long run to compensate. If it’s paid by printing new currency, the dollar would definitely devalue even further and our current inflation would spiral out of control. But the real problem is credit. By merely tacking it onto the national deficit, which is currently at $9 trillion, it will still devalue our dollar with taxpayers footing this seemingly endless debt.

There’s no doubt spending stimulates an economy. It was lack of spending which fueled the panic from the 1929 Stock Market Crash into the Great Depression. Which is why it’s ironic to hear those who at one time swore the “trickle down theory” only benefited the wealthy, are now clamoring for the potential spending behind the stimulus package. Some, such as the AFL-CIO Labor Union, claim it isn’t enough.

But spending on credit, especially amounts that can’t be realistically paid for, creates serious problems. After all, that’s what got us here in the first place thanks to the subprime mortgage crisis. This is why the Economic Stimulus package is nothing short of a welfare handout. Simply giving money away and conditioning people to an entitlement mindset every time they make mistakes will never address this fundamental problem.

And deficit spending by a government comprised of career politicians who believe they can manage our money better than we can, creates disastrous results. Especially when they simply take our money out of one pocket just to put into the other. Minus inflation no less, not to mention compounding interest. That’s not even the redistribution of wealth. It’s the redistribution of debt.

Bob Herbert Gets Ripped a New One

I know he’s an easy target, but Ann Althouse opens a big ol’ can of whup-ass on doofus NY Times columnist (but I repeat myself) Bob Herbert over his condescending tears for Nevada’s brothel workers.