Ron Paul – A Wise Consistency

[Solitaire]

Ron Paul – A Wise Consistency

1 – Conservatives Who Spend, Spend, Spend!

Conservatives for years have preached fiscal restraint and balanced budgets. Once in charge, they have rationalized huge spending increases and gigantic growth in the size of government, while supporting a new- found religion that preaches deficits don’t matter. The conservative label merely deceives the many Americans who continuously hope the day of fiscal restraint will come. Yet if this deception is not pointed out, success in curtailing government growth is impossible. Even today, the only expression of concern for the deficit seems to come from liberals. That ought to tell us something about how far astray we have gone.


2 – Free Trade Fraud

Virtually all economists are for free trade. Even the politicians express such support. However, many quickly add, “Yes, but it should be fair.” That is, free trade is fine unless it appears to hurt someone. Then a little protectionism is warranted, for fairness sake.

Others who claim allegiance to free trade are only too eager to devalue their own currencies, which harms a different group of citizens--like importers and savers--in competitive devaluations in hopes of gaining a competitive edge. Many so-called free-trade proponents are champions of international agreements that undermine national sovereignty and do little more than create an international bureaucracy to manage tariffs and sanctions.


3 – Constitutional Inconsistency

The fact that the Constitution is used periodically to embarrass one’s opponents, when convenient, requires that no one feel embarrassed by an inconsistent voting record. This allows limited-government conservatives to massively increase the size and scope of government, while ignoring the deficit. Liberals, who also preach their own form of limited government in the areas of civil liberties and militarism, have no problem with a flexible pragmatic approach to all government expenditures and intrusions. The net result is that the oath of office to abide by all the constitutional restraints on government power is rarely followed.


4 – Paper Money And Inflation

Though there is adequate information to understand the real cause of the business cycle, the truth and proper policy are not palatable. Closing down the engine of inflation at any point does cause short-term problems that are politically unacceptable. But the alternative is worse, in the long term. It is not unlike a drug addict demanding and getting a fix in order to avoid the withdrawal symptoms. Not getting rid of the addiction is a deadly mistake. While resorting to continued monetary stimulus through credit creation delays the pain and suffering, it inevitably makes the problems much worse. Debt continues to build in all areas--personal, business, and government. Inflated stock prices are propped up, waiting for another collapse.


5 – Prohibition For Our Own Good

Our prisons overflow, with the cost of enforcement now into the hundreds of billions of dollars, yet drug use is not reduced. Nevertheless, the politicians are consistent. They are convinced that a tough stand against usage with very strict laws and mandatory sentences--sometimes life sentences for non-violent offenses--is a popular political stand. Facts don’t count, and we can’t bend on consistently throwing the book at any drug offenders.


6 – FDA And Legal Drugs

Our laws and attitudes regarding legal drugs are almost as harmful. The FDA supposedly exists to protect the consumer and patients. This conclusion is based on an assumption that consumers are idiots and all physicians and drug manufacturers are unethical or criminals. It also assumes that bureaucrats and politicians, motivated by good intentions, can efficiently bring drugs onto the market in a timely manner and at reasonable cost.


7 - Interventionist Foreign Policy

Refusing even to consider the failure of our own policies is outrageous. Only in the context of commercial benefits to the special interests and the military- industrial complex, molded with patriotic jingoism, can one understand why we pursue such a foolish policy. Some of these ulterior motives are understandable, but the fact that average Americans rarely question our commitment to these dangerous and expensive military operations is disturbing. The whipped up war propaganda too often overrules the logic that should prevail. Certainly the wise consistency of following the Constitution has little appeal. One would think the painful consequences of our militarism over the last hundred years would have made us more reluctant to assume the role of world policeman in a world that hates us more each day.


8 – Promoting Democracy

This makes the point that our persistence in imposing our will on others through military force ignores sound thinking, but we never hear serious discussions about changing our foreign policy of meddling and empire building, no matter how bad the results. Regardless of the human and financial costs for all the wars fought over the past hundred years, few question the principle and legitimacy of interventionism. Bad results, while only sowing the seeds of our next conflict, concern few here in Congress. Jingoism, the dream of empire, and the interests of the military-industrial complex generate the false patriotism that energizes supporters of our foreign entanglements. Almost all war is unnecessary and rarely worth the cost. Seldom does a good peace result.


9 – Fighting Terrorism

It is never necessary to sacrifice liberty to preserve it. It’s tempting to sacrifice liberty for safety, and that is the argument used all too often by the politicians seeking more power. But even that is not true. History shows that a strong desire for safety over liberty usually results in less of both. But that does not mean we should ignore the past attacks or the threat of future attacks that our enemies might unleash.


10 – Judicial Review

Respect for the original intent of the Constitution is low in Washington. It’s so low that it’s virtually non-existent. This causes many foolish inconsistencies in our federal courts. The Constitution, we have been told, is a living, evolving document and it’s no longer necessary to change it in the proper fashion. That method is too slow and cumbersome, it is claimed. Un-elected bureaucrats routinely write laws, with themselves becoming the judicial and enforcement authority. Little desire is expressed in Congress to alter this monster that creates thousands of pages each year in the Federal Register. Even the nearly 100,000 bureaucrats who now carry guns stir little controversy. For decades, Executive Orders have been arrogantly used to write laws to circumvent a plodding or disagreeable Congress.