Friends of Ron Paul in Japan

A great place for Ron Paul fans to hang out

Nov 11
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Courtesy of Jeffrey A. Tucker Of course, the ezine which was started as a blog by

the man who used to be Ron Paul’s chief of staff

Or as the Gadsen Flag would put it…join or die!

Posted in Libertarianism, Political Forcasting, Ron Paul
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How I’m calling it: Obama wins it plus the “third party pivot.”

Nov 04
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How I’m calling it:

As the “virtual incumbent” malaise sets in, I don’t expect an Obama landslide in the national tally.  He will probably break the 50% barrier but not by much.  Where I expect the landslide will be in the electoral vote, with Obama winning at least half a dozen more states than Kerry did in 2004.  If Obama wins less than 50% in the popular vote the only difference is that you won’t hear any more demands from the left to abolish the electoral college…a good thing in itself!

So how do I expect this to work?  Well lets look at the states that I expect to go for Obama:

Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Pennsylvania, and Ohio in the Northwest.  Michigan, Wisconsin, Illinois, Minnesota, and Iowa in the Midwest.   California, Oregon, Washington and Hawaii in the Pacific.  Colorado and New Mexico in the Rockies.

What about McCain?  West Virginia, Kentucky, Indiana, Tennessee, Arkansas, Louisiana and Missouri in the Ohio/Mississippi region.  Alabama and South Carolina in the deep south.  Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, South Dakota, Wyoming, Idaho, and Utah the West and Plains.

So far a very ho hum prediction…here’s where it gets interesting.  I think Virginia will go for Obama while North Carolina will go for McCain, which again, isn’t all that surprising.  McCain should also hold on to his own state of Arizona, and Palin’s Alaska.  But I am calling Florida for Obama, and get this: Georgia, Mississippi (!), and Montana I am putting in the Obama column.

How on earth could this be?  I’m calling it the “third party pivot” but its more simple to say that Bob Barr will deliver Georgia to Obama, Chuck Baldwin will be the spoiler in Mississippi, and Ron Paul (!) will do the same in Montana.

And you didn’t even think Ron Paul was running did you!?  Well, actually he didn’t want to, at least in Montana…but in accordance with an archaic election law he is running there on the ticket of the Constitution Party…an organization he doesn’t even belong to!  I would like him to win the electoral votes as well…but I’m afraid that there will be just enough votes to make the difference between Obama and McCain.  North Dakota, with very similar demographics to Montana, will probably go for McCain…simply because Ron Paul is not on the ballot there.

So what’s the point.  After all, Obama has a win even without Georgia, Mississipii, and Montana.  The point is that when Republicans start to figure out what hit them, they’re going to need some signposts along the way back to sanity and putting a winning coalition back together.  Those three blue states surrounded by red, surrounded in turn by blue will be the pointers saying: Let the Ron Paul freedom coalition back into the game…or the GOP is RIP!

A few more nuances.  Why do I predict no comparable effect by Nader on Obama’s electoral take?  Because the Nader vote is too thin and geographically uniform.  In contrast there are regional clusters of Barr, Baldwin, and Paul  supporters, i.e. ex-Barr constituents disenfranchised by redistricting in Georgia, the “Bible Belt” running through Mississippi and the Florida panhandle for Baldwin, and the “libertarian belt” (gee, what else could you call it) running along the 49th parallel.  Also, I see ethnic and cultural differences among the white population of the southeast with people in the highlands (“hillbillies”) somewhat more likely to vote for McCain, and people in the lowlands (“rednecks” et al) somewhat more likely (!) to vote for Obama.  So Virginia goes for Obama because there is a West Virginia, but the Carolinas go for McCain because there is no east and west Carolina, only a North and a South.  Or something like that.  I suppose one could dispute these ethnological niceties endlessly.  However I am more interested in seeing the results develop through tonight and tomorrow…and see if my hypothesis holds up.

Posted in America, Chuck Baldwin, Political Forcasting, Republican party, Ron Paul, US Election 2008, political polls
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Can Secularists vote for Chuck Baldwin? You bet’cha!

Oct 09
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WWJD vs. WWHLMD

I was hoping to hear more from Chuck Baldwin, who was scheduled for an interview on the Gary Baumgarten show, but the Constitution Party candidate for the American presidency failed to appear, creating a minor “snubgate” on Baumgarten’s air time.  Recall that I, like many Ron Paul enthusiasts, am supporting the candidacy of Rev. Baldwin in part because of the shoddy treatment given to  Dr. Paul by another third party candidate.  No, I am not switching back to Bob Barr of the Libertarian party, but I am saddened that Rev. Baldwin was not able to get the kind of exposure which the rough and tumble of an open on-line mike would have provided.  I believe that he would have acquitted himself well…but then of course I can only speculate.

In the absence of Rev. Baldwin, the show was reduced to a generalized discussion of the prospects of third parties in American politics.  The only way that Mr. Baumgarden could maintain a focus for discussion was by invoking discussion of the more odiously theocratic points of the Constitution party’s preamble.  At that point the die was cast, and the tone of the discussion became increasingly critical, or at least dismissive of the Baldwin candidacy.

Personally I think a secularist can vote for Chuck Baldwin in good conscience, if by a secularist we mean someone who believes in the separation of church and state.  It is true that the platform of the Constitution party has definite theocratic overtones, but (as was pointed out on the show) Rev. Baldwin is using the Constitution party as a vehicle for his candidacy, and independents or members of other parties (such as myself) are voting for the man, not the party platform.  So the question becomes: what kind of man is this?

That is one reason why Baldwin’s no-show was so disappointing…I think he would have represented himself much better than a mechanical interpretation of his party’s platform.  None the less, Chuck Baldwin has written extensively on a wide variety of topics, and there is nothing difficult about getting a well rounded acquaintance with his views, which are posted on many Internet venues, including, but not limited to, that of the Constitution party, the Baldwin/Castle campaign, and the home site of the Crossroads Baptist Church in Pensacola FL.

At the outset there is much material which would not sit well with anyone who is not a fundamentalist protestant Christian.  For example, it emerges that Rev. Baldwin was closely mentored by the famous (or infamous, depending on one’s point of view) Rev. Jerry Falwell in his formative years, being a member of the first graduating class from Falwell’s Liberty University in Lynchburg VA.

Personally, I could never have voted for Jerry Falwell if he had decided to run for President of the United States of America.  Theological questions by themselves would have made me skeptical of him.  But the proper question here is not WWJD (What would Jesus do?)…because if you wait to vote for a politician who is in 100% of agreement with one’s theological and moral beliefs one is likely to forfeit the franchise entirely!  For better or worse, modern democracies work on the principle of theological compromise.  We who believe in religion find ourselves in the position of the monarchists during the French 3rd Republic.  They could never agree among themselves which king to restore…the prince of Bourbon, of Orleans, or of the Bonapartists.  In the end they had to admit: “a republic divides us least!”

Likewise, even those of us who put religion at the center of our personal life find out sooner or later that “a secular republic divides us least.”  In the political sphere we can’t afford to think in terms of what a perfect man would choose to create a perfect society.  We have to lower our sights and contemplate what a flawed man, albeit a flawed man who wanted to live in reasonable harmony and cooperation with others, would choose.  I can’t think of anyone more flawed, more secular or more tolerant than H.L.Mencken…and if we go off the political gold standard of theocracy and regroup around the silver standard of a libertarian commonwealth, such as Menken might have approved of…then we will be doing well, since the realistic alternative is the fiat standard by which a dictatorship of social engineering and radical egalitarianism will gradually install itself.  We would do well to ask ourselves WWHLMD: What Would H.L.Mencken do?

While it is quite impossible to imagine H.L. Mencken as a Jerry Falwell enthusiast, Chuck Baldwin and his mentor are very distinct people.  Granted, the difference in their style of thinking is so nuanced that most secularists will have neither the patience or the inclination to discover it.  It would be like asking people who have no interest in Christian theology to explain the difference between Augustine and Aquinas…yet as with the ancient doctors of religion, these modern preachers harbor some very fundamental differences, albeit the latter being partially dependent on the former.  It would seem that Baldwin, in contrast to the snap-judgements which some evangelical pastors, notably Falwell, have occasionally confounded with the certitude of faith, has deliberated long and hard (he would probably say prayerfully) on the question of what a just political society would look like…and this reflection has brought him an authentic appreciation of what might be called “liberalism” in the sense that Hayek, or Mencken, might have used the term.  Needless to say, “liberalism” is not a term which Baldwin uses, for his views have nothing to do with either the social liberalism of the Democrats, or the lifestyle libertarianism of those who have usurped the term.  But the essentials are all there: peace in foreign relations and minimal government at home.  This is an abbreviated version of the Ron Paul program…and by extension something which a latter day H.L. Mencken could embrace.

But what about all that odious theocratic stuff in the party platform?  First of all, we ought to recognize by now that party platforms are more often  honored in the breach than upheld as guides to policy.   It is the man, not the document, which should be our concern.  None the less, we can re-frame that concern by asking if an evangelical pastor, once launched on the stage of national politics, can be anything else but a demagogue.  Certainly Falwell came across as a demagogue to his antagonists.  However Baldwin has evolved beyond Falwell’s rhetoric of public accusation, and has honed the fine art of enunciating moral principles in irenic and reasoned tones.  When a pastor enters politics, whatever his views on the establishment of religion might be, he dooms himself if he fails to understand the separation of his church pulpit from public fora.  There must be two ways of speaking, one of which must remain strictly confined to the congregation and the denomination to which he ministers.  From the evidence that I have seen so far, it appears that Baldwin has mastered the art of reasoned public discourse, a mastery which is certainly superior to John McCain’s, and rivals even that of the supposedly flawless Obama.  Again, it would have been interesting to hear Baldwin’s response to the rough and tumble online at the Baumgarten show, if only to verify the  Baptist preacher’s facility at turning the rhetorical cheek.

Like all virtues, the Rev. Baldwin’s (at least hitherto) irenicism comes with a price tag.  We are now at turning point in American history, one at which the art of populist demagoguery is likely to experience a grand revival.  I would love to hear Chuck Baldwin torch the beneficiaries of the 700 billion dollar bailout in the same hellfire and brimstone accents that he uses when he denounces the rich elites in his church.  Moreover, a lot can happen in the month before the election, and we may still see this champion of the Lord, slingshot in hand, march out to challenge the Goliaths which now have this nation in their loathsome grips.

If that should happen, I would hope that our gentle secularists will not take fright.  After all, it is certainly true that Rev. Baldwin is a kind of “extremist” and there are all sorts of excuses for not giving him one’s fullest support.  Why, according to our latter-day follower of Mencken, should I support Baldwin who I agree with only 60% of the time, when I could support Barr who I agree with 90% of the time?  Why indeed, except to put a premium on solidity and constancy, since Barr’s convictions may change tomorrow while Baldwin is a solid, and perchance as stubborn, as a rock.

So what would H.L. Mencken do in 2008?  Of course I don’t know.  Perhaps he wouldn’t vote at all, which is a legitimate reaction to the political realities of this election where our choices have been so dictated and circumscribed.  But I wouldn’t put it past him to vote for a southern evangelical populist, someone akin to his great courtroom charactature of William Jennings Bryan.   I suspect this could happen, not just because Mencken was an eccentric, and eccentrics take delight in doing the unexpected, but because we are now in the odd situation where a candidate fielded by a nominally theocratic party offers a platform which is closer to the original program of Menckenian libertarianism than any other ticket, including, disgracefully enough, the Libertarian party itself.

Jesus and Mencken voting for the same ticket?  Will miracles never cease?  I’ll bet’cha Chuck Baldwin thinks they won’t!

Posted in Libertarianism, Ron Paul, US Election 2008, constitutionalism
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I’m hoping Ron Paul will win Texas, but…

Mar 03
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…even if he did, he’s unlikely to move into the White House. On the other hand, he’s unlikely to loose his Congressional seat. So is the Paulista movement back to square one? Abosolutely not! Here are my meditations on “what it has all been about…

Ron Paul as Prophet

Those who fancy themselves part of what Albert J. Nock called “the remnant” i.e., the die hard advocates of natural rights and civilized vlues, may sense, as this winter campaign stretches on and the spring of victory seems to receed, a feeling that it has all been in vain. Indeed, it would have been in vain if either we or our candidate had embarked on a campaign for political plunder, rather than what I prefer to call “prophetic prophecy”….

you should be able to read the rest of the article on Lew Rockwell ezine:

http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig6/sunwall6.html

in which I generally nix presidency in favor of prophecy…unless, of course RP wins the Texas GOP primary big , in which case I will gladly retract!

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Joel Skousen on how the Ron Paul revolution was sidelined by poltical and media insiders

Feb 24
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Joel Skousen has an interesting column in his e-journal about the degree of vindictiveness against Ron Paul, not just nationally but even locally in Texas where there is an ongoing effort to oust him from his Congressional seat.

Skousen’s article appears in World Affairs Brief, February 22, 2008. Commentary and Insights on a Troubled World…and is reproduced here via Jeff Fenski’s “One can happen” blog:

Copyright Joel Skousen. Partial quotations with attribution permitted. Cite source as Joel Skousen’s World Affairs BriefSUDDENLY THE MEDIA IS INTERESTED IN RON PAUL–AT LEAST IN HIS DEFEAT

[Skousen notes that NPR radio listeners complained]… “You didn’t give Ron Paul the time of day during his active campaign for President and now you do a major story on him because he has a primary challenge to his Congressional race. It seems like you are only interested in his defeat!”

Yes, the establishment has put up a neo-con “conservative” to challenge Rep. Paul for his Congressional seat: turn-coat Chris Peden who used to speak highly of Ron Paul. Thomas Woods provides some interesting background on how this challenge came to be.

“On January 12, 2007, a Texas city councilman named Chris Peden told the Galveston Daily News, ‘I have an immense amount of respect for Ron Paul. Politics has a way of forcing people to go against their core principles for political gain. That has never been the case for Ron Paul.’ In case you don’t know, Chris Peden is now Ron Paul’s congressional challenger in the Republican primary in Texas’ 14th District.”

Here’s Peden giving his best neocon spiel: “I think Islamo-Fascist terrorists were responsible for the 9/11 attacks; the incumbent thinks America’s Middle East policies were responsible for the attacks. The terrorists ‘wish to destroy our way of life because they abhor freedom, democracy, and liberty.’ We should continue to encourage democracy around the world ‘even if it takes the remainder of the century.’” Of course, Peden fails to point out where America is going to get all the money and manpower to tilt at these windmills for the next century. As the Comptroller General of the US David Walker recently told Glenn Beck, “this nation is bankrupt.” Sadly, Walker is now being forced out for being so forthright with the truth.

But the real story behind the story of Chris Peden is the influence of a high level Republican shill in Texas: Kathy Haigler. Again, the research comes from Thomas Woods of LewRockwell.com

“There’s also an interesting story behind Kathy Haigler, the lady that Peden quotes all over his website. Peden has gone out of his way to make it appear like she’s some sort of a constituent or representative of the 14th District. She isn’t. Kathy actually lives in neighboring Congressional District 22, an entire county removed from Ron Paul’s district. Her representative is Democrat Nick Lampson, and she is currently the campaign manager for a Republican opponent of Lampson in the CD 22 primary named Robert Talton.

“Kathy has also had a personal agenda against the libertarian wing of the Republican Party for years, which explains her strong animosity to Paul. You probably read about the Tom DeLay fiasco in 2006, when the courts prevented the Republican Party from naming a successor. The court ruling basically barred the Republican Party from putting a new nominee on the ballot after DeLay resigned, leaving them with the option of either backing Libertarian Party nominee Bob Smither or launching a certain-to-fail write-in campaign.

“In the days that followed the court ruling there was a serious discussion among Republican Party insiders about endorsing Smither if he would agree to caucus with the GOP and vote for a Republican speaker… Smither was open to the plan and immediately agreed to caucus with the GOP if elected, and to cast his votes under the
guidance of our very own Ron Paul.

“Then enter Kathy Haigler. She caught wind of the effort to recruit Smither, and for whatever reason – her hatred of libertarianism, her wish to be a ‘player,’ her own overstated sense of self-importance – she began personally working the entire State Republican Executive Committee membership list to trash Smither. She accused him of being an anti-family values social liberal (ironic because Smither is a Christian homeschooler who heads up a missing children recovery charity), she implied that he was pro-abortion (he wasn’t), she accused his Republican backers (including Patterson) of deviating from the ‘party platform’ that she herself has apparently never read.

“Needless to say, Haigler’s smear campaign against Smither worked. Smither attempted to go to the meeting of the State Republican Party [but] was barred at the door largely at Haigler’s instigation. Haigler rallied the group behind a dingbat Houston City Councilwoman named Shelley Sekula-Gibbs, whose brief congressional career as the placeholder for the last month in Tom DeLay’s term was a spectacular embarrassment to the entire state of Texas.”

The end result of Haigler’s machinations was the loss of the District in the next election to a Democrat. Woods asks, “What happened to make Peden go from an admirer to an opponent — and not just an opponent, but one who is running a vicious and dishonest smear campaign against the very man he so recently praised? I have no idea.”

I do. Haigler appears to me to be a party hack directed by the national party bosses to sabotage any political threat from the constitutional conservatives in that area of Texas. They went looking for someone to oppose Paul and promised lots of support. Hopefully the conservative Democrats and Republicans of the 14th District which have supported Paul in the past will be repulsed by this neocon propaganda and support Paul again. In any case, Ron needs your support since he cannot use his Presidential campaign funds for his Congressional primary contest. Go to http://www.ronpaulforcongress.com to contribute.

One of the pluses of this campaign has been the political education of the American people with regard to bias in the media. This goes even beyond Ron Paul, and its most interesting manifestation of late is the New York Times scandal mongering of John McCain (the demonstration of who’s unsuitability for office certainly doesn’t require nitpicking into past peccadilloes). People are bound to wonder, sooner or later, why the Times, at a time when the Vicki Isemann story was already brewing in their editorial offices, chose to endorse McCain for the Republican nomination. Can you say “manipulation”?

Posted in Libertarianism, Ron Paul, US Election 2008
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In the aftermath of the Early Primaries and the Eve of Super Tuesday: Where do we go from here?

Feb 02
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“Friends of Ron Paul” has been away from the keyboard for a while engaged in a variety time consuming tasks at the day job, including being a full-time administrator of Confucian scholarly examinations.  But we have kept our eyes on the early primaries, and the prospects of a Ron Paul Presidency.

In all candor, we are not pleased.  10, 6, 4, 3…  Is that the Fibbonaci series in reverse?  No, it’s the percentage of the Ron Paul vote in the  Republican primaries and caucuses of the Midwest, East, and South.  Well, there was that 15% in Nevada…but let’s face it, that’s the place where even the most conservative people turn into high-rollers.  He should have done better.  See my post on “The New Hamsters” regarding various hytheses as to why the Ron Paul revolution hasn’t spread further from its determined and heroic hard core.

So where to we go from here?  Well, there are still a few credible Paulistas who can smell the fresh cut grass of the White House lawn, I wish them well…and I want some of whatever it is they are smoking!  The plausibility of this kind of scenario hinges on the prospect of all the other candidates droping out until only Paul and the front-runner are left standing, with Paul finally coming into his rightful share of media publicity.  Even a three person race is no good, since it only takes two to tango and we all know what happened to Edwards.  But would even a two person race before the Republican national convention generate publicity for the good doctor.  Knowing the mainstream media as we do, isn’t it far more likely that they would simply annoint the front-runner and set up more encounters between him and the Democrats, skipping any intra-Republican politicking?

So what about the third party gambit.  First of all, Dr. No has said “no” to that one from the start and his wishes should be honnored.   But of course, if it is down to two neo-conservative/neo-liberal big-spending, executive expanding, warmongers, no self-respecting Paulist could vote for either party…so the third party gambit is an option to be held in reserve.

Fortunately there is another posibility which is quite plausable.  This is the prospect of a hung convention more or less evenly ballanced between a McCain and a Romney block. In this case a third force could play the role of a kingmaker.  Unfortunately Huckabee would like to play that role, shutting out Paul again.  It all depends on how the mathematics sum up after Super Tuesday.  If Huckabee’s votes when factored in to those of the weaker candidate (of course he gains less clout supporting the stronger candidate) still fall short of the winning number by a margin less than the strength of the Paul block, then Paul becomes the kingmaker.  This doesn’t mean that Paul himself would become president…it just means that he would have an indefinate amount of time to educate the Republicans holed up in the Twin Cities as to how they could win a national election using honest and ethical means.  It could actually result in an attractive Republican candidate…say Hagel of Nebraska, or Olympia Snow of Maine…the latter being the perfect antidote to Hillary!

But all of this is speculation, if not quite “idle” speculation.  Now its crunch time for Paulists campaigning in the remaining states.  Afterwards we’ll have to see how the numbers turned out on Super Tuesday.  Until then anyone interested in mathematical games would do better with the Fibbonaci series.

Posted in Libertarianism, Republican party, Ron Paul, US Election 2008, constitutionalism
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Year of the Rat pt. 2: The New Hamsters

Jan 10
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Rats!

There are four possible ways of reacting to Ron Paul’s fifth place, 7.68 % showing in New Hampshire:

#1: congRATulations!  We’ve done it!  We’ve gone from 0.00%, to 7.68% (by way of Iowa’s 10.00%, but let’s not scrutinize the details…).  Why, even Newton’s infinitesimals can’t do justice to that rate of acceleration!

I’m afraid this is just the kind of delusional thinking that became institutionalized in the Libertarian Party.  We don’t expect to win, we just enjoy the process…after all, who wants to be a Major Party when you can party, party, party!  Let’s unbend and lower those expectations.

#2: the election fraud rat:  Paul was projected to win 14% in the last poll prior to the primary.  He came out with half of that…and people in townships where he registered zero votes are claiming to have voted for him.  Is this following up in the grand Republican tradition of Katherine Harris in 2000 and Ohio in 2004?  My guess is as good as yours.  The problem is that computer voting on machines with software written in proprietary computer code is about as non-transparent as it gets.  It might be a good investment in what is still called “democracy” to invest in a recount (one estimate I have heard is that this would cost between sixty and seventy thousand dollars, described as “chump change” in relation of Ron Paul’s campaign chest.  However it would be best to keep one’s expectations down about recouping Paul votes…nobody knows anything for sure, but it would be good for the process to have a check just on principle.

#3 the mouse that should have roared but didn’t:  According to this thesis, it was all the fault of the campaign staff…they were holding back when they should have gone all out.  Of course this is the word from the kibitzers on the ground…to which the staff will no doubt take exception.  I wasn’t there, but common sense dictates that a grass roots movement such as the Paul Revolution runs on momentum and psychology.  If these are sustained, then the money can be replenished…but it doesn’t necessarily work the other way around.  I would have gone all out in New Hampshire, knowing that it was an essential stepping stone towards a potential climax in South Carolina, Florida, and Super Tuesday.

However there is plenty of blame to go around, and I think the rank and file as well as the campaign staff got caught up in an oddly monetarist kind of illusion.  Ron was supposed to be winning because he had the most contributions.  Any Austrian economist could point out the fallacy here: seeing a unit of account as an objective measure of anything is totally delusive.  For example, if the good doctor had all the money in the world but never spent it on campaign advertising etc., it would be as good as naught.  Quite apart from allegations of penny pinching or misallocation on the part of the staff, Paulists in general have succumbed to a kind of feel-good, self congratulatory faith that bursting the contribution thermometer would ensure Dr. Paul’s nomination.  It doesn’t work that way.  The money is necessary but not sufficient.

#4, The New Hamsters:  This thesis maintains that the  people who voted in the New Hampshire primaries were so stupid that they can no longer discharge the basic functions of citizenship, that is, staying on top of issues and sifting truth from error, decency from deceit.   I would like to say that this is implausible, but unfortunately I can’t.   This is rather scary when one proceeds to the conclusion that New Hampshire, the erstwhile “live free or die” state, might be a fair (or even flattering) sample of the general American electorate.

It would be bad enough if the leading candidates were not a woman dedicated to maintaining the status quo and a man dedicated to making it even worse.  When one compares surveys of voter attitudes on issues with with candidate preference the conclusions are totally bizarre.  McCain is preferred by Republicans against the war, presumably on the strength of his stand against torture…which he subsequently abandoned.  But in fact McCain is the most hawkish of all the Republican candidates, including Guillani.  What are these people thinking about?

A cynic would say they aren’t thinking at all…but of course any psychologist, or for that matter someone who has tried Zen meditation, would know that was impossible.  They are thinking endlessly about the kind of facts which fill the tabloids on sale at grocery check out counters…the success of which has now been imitated by main stream media.  They want drama, they want emotion, even to the point of emotional break down.  They don’t want intellectual consistency in their elected leaders, rather intellectual inconsistency is better because there is always the entertaining factor of surprise involved.   Since we are dealing with primates rather than rodents, the spinning tread-wheel is intangible, but no less real for that.  Our New Hamsters are on that wheel of fire described anciently by the apostle James and more recently by the late Johnny Cash.  This frenzy feeding off emotion is what, according to utterly respectable reports, catapulted Hillary over Obama.

But in the specter of McCain the New Hamsters may have gotten more than they bargained for.  It is one thing to vicariously enjoy the momentary madness of Beach Boy tune burlesqued to advocate a nuclear attack on another nation, it is another thing to stare into the abyss for real.  The New Hamsters feeding off of the emotions of sick personalities is merely disgusting when directed at such unfortunates as Brittany Spheres, when it toys with the idea of putting the nuclear arsenal in the hands of a real-life Manchurian candidate, the wheel of fire is burning dangerously hot indeed!

If the whole world had gone mad, we could relax and enjoy it with the aplomb of Nero’s courtiers during the fire of 68BC.   But the lucid argumentation of Dr. Paul is there to remind us that there is such a thing as reason and one’s words and actions may be held accountable against its standard.  It should hardly be surprising that this sanity finds itself in the minority at the present time.  Researchers in higher mathematics don’t deduce their proofs in the expectation that the generality of humankind will follow along any time soon.  Although it shouldn’t be quite that difficult with noninterventionism, sound money, and property rights…we are clearly in a long slog to turn the New Hamsters back into responsible citizens.

Libertarians and paleoconservatives are beset by their own illusions, not the least of which is the hope that (against their own principles) their programs will receive spontaneous democratic acclaim.  I remember that in the 1980s many libertarians expected Alaska to turn into some sort of free republic…only to find out that the state was dominated by the complex and often incestuous politics of trade unions, public lands, and native claims.   As Bob Dylan sang in his ugliest voice:

You have many contacts, among the lumber jacks…

That is, wish-fulfilling dreams of some land where a  rugged individualism prevails against improbable odds.   Just how improbable was demonstrated again this week when we had to say good-by to “live free or die” and hello to the New Hamsters.  For as Dylan continued in dolorous tones:

Something is going on here, but you don’t know what it is, do you Mr. Jones?

So which lesson shall we draw from this post-New Hampshire rats’ gallery?  As Dylan so conveniently neglected to point out, our task is to find out…then pick up the pieces and keep fighting.

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Iowa results: Paul 5th place at 10%

Jan 04
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No easy victory…but the long range outlook is encouraging

Here’s what Lew Rockwell said about the situation in Iowa on his blog

Paul vs. the Kristo-Facists

Ronald Reagan lost the Iowa caucuses in 1980 before going on to victory. And this year, Ron Paul got more than 10% of a bunch dominated by older party hacks, neocons, Bush lovers, and religious rightists. It was NOT a group equivalent to the people of Iowa, let alone the people of New Hampshire or the rest of the country. Indeed, considering the media hate and supression campaign waged almost unanimously against him, this was a credible finish.

Tuesday in New Hampshire is our day, then Michigan, South Carolina, Super Tuesday, right through the entire election and beyond. Ron has taken the first step on a long road towards overturning the apparatus of empire: the state, media, military-industrial, central banking rip-off artists. Ron has build a huge national movement of young people who will have far more of an effect in a state like NH than among the hack-tivists of Iowa, and on into the future.

The peace and freedom revolution has much work to do. But we didn’t sign on for a short-term. We are in this for life, and we remember always what the libertarian Thomas Paine said: “These are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph.”

Or as another famous “Paulist” phrase, from John Paul Jones: “Surrender?  We have just begun to fight!”

 

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Is this our lucky “Year of the Rat?”

Jan 03
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Of Politicians and Sinking Ships

Somehow I just cant keep that classic Edward G. Robinson line from Little Caesar (1931) from going through my head….”You rat, you rat, you stinking rat!” Will the Iowa Republican caucuses be the beginning of the end for our little Caesars in Washington? Put in a somewhat less sanguine tone, as of this time tomorrow we will find out just how prophetic, or how deluded, “Friends of Ron Paul in Japan” and all the other pro-RP bloggers are. Still, I have visions of all the corrupt politicians leaving Washington like rats from a sinking ship with the advent of a Ron Paul administration.

Just a dream? Well, just stay tuned and we’ll see…and one way or the other have a happy 2008!

Posted in Ron Paul, US Election 2008
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Danish Bank Pannel Predicts Ron Paul To Become U.S. President

Dec 28
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The Saxo Bank based in Denmark has issued a Bearish Assessment for 2008, the silver lining is a Paul Presidency

Saxo Bank experts believe that oil prices will hit the level of 175 dollars per barrel in 2008, whereas grain prices will double. The U.S. and the Chinese markets will collapse by 25 and 40 percent respectively by the end of the summer of 2008. Every third of ten U.S. large building companies will go bankrupt. The British economy will also start declining.

The bank has its forecast on the new U.S. president too. The bank predicts that Ron Paul, the Texan Republican, will take the office in 2008.

 What does this mean?

I think it is interesting that a respected financial institution would 1) make such a Casandra-like economic forecast, 2) go out on a limb and  predict a Paul Presidency.  What is it with these Danes?  Libertarian leanings, or just contrarianism?

 Of course Friends of Ron Paul in Japan would like the latter prediction to come true, but hopefully without the tanking of the global economy.  Are we to assume the two forecasts are linked…that is what a cursory reading would assume. Perhaps the Saxo experts are thinking that conditions will worsen early in the year, creating a political demand for an economic outsider to reform (or rather revolutionize) the system. Or in a more sinsiter vein…are they central banking fans who think that Ron Paul’s election will spook the economy into a depression?  The emphasis on oil as a fundamental factor would seem to exclude this latter interpretation.

I don’t know what these Danes are up to myself, but let’s eschew any Hamlet like equivocation and assume that they are Paulistas at heart.  If so, the prediction provides plenty of food for thought…or rather angst.  The timing is troublesome, since twelve months is a long time, and the Republican cards are likely to be dealt out pretty early in the year.  That doesn’t leave much time for reaction to bad news.

In other words, I see the message of these melancholy Danes as just another wake up call for the Paulistas.  The window of opportunity is now, with the onset of the Iowa caucuses, the New Hampshire primary, and all the other early year political events.  If significant headway isn’t made within this time frame, all those thousands of people who just got political to help Ron Paul “for the first time in their life” can just go back to whatever preoccupied them before they became Paulistas, because the show will be over.

“To do or do not…there is no try!”  That’s Yoda, not Hamlet.

Posted in Libertarianism, Political Forcasting, Ron Paul, US Election 2008
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