Ron Paul Builds GOP, Goldwater-like Rump Party
Tuesday, August 14, 2007 - FreeMarketNews.com
Political Analysis
Even from the far north in Canada, I can see what Ron Paul is doing, building a movement, not a political campaign. He is obviously playing for bigger stakes than this election, and perhaps that is why he has so worried the political and monetary elite that disparages individual human action and believes in variants of command and control economies.
Ron Paul understands political movements take time. And whether or not he wins the presidential election, he can already take credit for single-handedly bringing back to life the Goldwater-like wing of the Republican party that the Bush family, among others, has tried its hardest to stamp out. Doesn't matter if he ends up going the independent route later in this election cycle, he's already set the gears in motion.
The Goldwater wing of the Republican party certainly had its Libertarian elements, and those elements have coalesced around Ron Paul, since he has run as a Republican. In fact, Goldwater seemingly lacked a certain understanding of free markets and was far too trusting of the nation’s military industrial complex. Ron Paul is like Goldwater on steroids – in a good way, that is, and without Goldwater's hawkish perspective. He is easily the most economically literate candidate to run in the last century or so. A case can be made that he is the most literate candidate, economically and otherwise, since Thomas Jefferson.
Basically, Ron Paul’s position on government can be summed up simply as “The best government is that which governs least,” and “the U.S. government should be constrained by the enumerated letters of the constitution.” Low taxes, gold and silver money, little or no overseas military ventures and a general cessation of empire building at home and abroad are tenets on which he runs. As a matter of fact, they are those on which the nation and its power was actually built – and to some extent Canada’s too.
Today, of course, the “American Empire” is frittering away its strength, putting the flower of its male and female youth at risk in ventures overseas, inflating its marketplaces with paper money and bankrupting and prosecuting its citizens with graduated taxes and a legion of ever-more invasive regulations and security measures. Ron Paul understands what needs to be done to “take back America” and unlike other candidates he is building a movement that will last a generation rather than an election cycle.
In “real time” one can see the reception of his ideas. He has set the Internet aflame and after only a week’s campaigning in Iowa he finished fifth in a recent straw poll that did not even project him to gain one or two percent. GOP candidates routinely genuflect to the free-market these days and even Rudy Giuliani has tempered his remarks about “endless war for endless peace.”
As a Republican, Ron Paul has a good chance at winning or at least finishing in the top three spots in upcoming races in Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and Arizona. He is making inroads in California and Florida as well. The millions he has accumulated, the additional funding that is coming into the campaign, the “MeetUp” groups that translate Internet action into “boots on the ground” – these all combine with his message to present a formidable force for change not just today but tomorrow as well.
The primaries, the GOP itself, the process of the presidential election itself is intended to bring forth a candidate that will “toe the line” of the monetary and power elite that backs both parties and provides policy guidelines as well. Ron Paul is the antidote to this elite agenda. He is running for history, to build a movement that will last long after he is gone. The man is over 70 years old, and he has been fighting the good fight for much of his adult life.
The twilight of his career is also its capstone. He is creating a conversation that will echo in the history books much as the ancient Roman historians do today. Seen from this point of view, from the point of view of the Great Conversation, Ron Paul’s opponent are political hacks and bureaucrats whose disposable speeches have no resonance and are void of meaning and content as soon as they are uttered.
Goldwater did not win, but in his own way he helped rebuild the Jeffersonian wing of the American political system that went missing in the 20th century. Ronald Reagan, despite his betrayals and weaknesses, was a rhetorical embodiment of the Goldwater Revolution and now Ron Paul is a further element of what is turning into a full-fledged Jeffersonian resurgence.
Think I am just making this up? Here’s something that on Ron Paul’s website right now.
“What could be more important than this movement of ours -- for freedom, peace, and prosperity? We hold the future of our country, of our children and grandchildren, in our hands. We can never stop, never flag. And we never will.”
http://blog.ronpaul2008.com/ron_paul...e-from--1.html
The man clearly understands history and his place in it. But it is not his place alone. The Ron Paul Revolution belongs to everyone who believe that human action trumps government action and that the creativity of the human spirit unfettered by bureaucratic chains is our best hope, first, last and always. -Mitch Curby
Hybrid Mode
