Carl Gibson : Grow Up, Ron Paul

Running away from home. Image from goodbuddies inc.
Grow up, Ron Paul

Ron Paul's right-libertarian ideology does espouse a new kind of freedom, just as rebellious children who fantasize about running away from home dream of a new kind of freedom.

By Carl Gibson / Reader Supported News / January 9, 2012

Like most other little kids, all I wanted to do was eat junk food, play video games, and goof around with my friends. I didn't like being made to go to school, going to bed at 9 p.m., eating vegetables, doing homework after school, or taking out the garbage. And like most other little kids who don't like abiding by the rules of their parents, I sometimes fantasized about what it would be like to run away from home.

But when I packed my backpack full of clothes and individually-wrapped packs of peanut butter crackers from the pantry, I could never go through with my plan. I knew if I ran away I'd be hungry, cold, lost, and eventually found by the police and returned home.

Libertarian views of government regulation are very similar to how six-year-olds view the authority exerted by their parents. Ron Paul's every-individual-for-themselves rhetoric appeals to young, radical libertarians with simplistic views of authority and an ignorance about why government exists in the first place.

In Ron Paul's ideal America, safety regulations imposed on employers by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration would be a thing of the past. Clean air and water regulations imposed by the Environmental Protection Agency would be no more.

Taxpayers would save money, since Ron Paul would abolish the Department of Education and cut the Food and Drug Administration's budget by 40%. Employers would save money by paying workers as little as they wish, since Ron Paul would abolish the Davis-Bacon Act.

Corporate giants would be free to monopolize markets, since Ron Paul opposes federal anti-trust legislation. And employees would no longer be required to pay into Social Security.

So what would this libertarian utopia look like, if Ron Paul were elected and followed through on his campaign promises?

• Families grieving for loved ones lost due to Massey Energy's negligence in the Upper Big Branch coal mine explosion would have to accept that their relatives were casualties of the invisible hand of the unfettered free market. And Massey would get off scot-free for polluting Martin County, Kentucky's drinking water supply with 300 million gallons of coal slurry.


• Millions of college students dependent on Pell grants would be forced to move back home and work minimum-wage jobs, no longer financially able to further their education. Oh wait -- what minimum wage?


• Food recalls would be a regular occurrence when tainted meat and vegetables hit supermarket shelves, causing record outbreaks of e-coli. And risky new drugs would avoid FDA tests and hit the express lane to the pharmacy, endangering the health of millions.


• Too-big-to-fail banks like Wells Fargo, Citi, Chas, and Bank of America would be allowed to merge and/or buy out their competitors, as would oil giants like ExxonMobil and Chevron, and cellphone service-providers like AT&T and Verizon.


• The Social Security trust fund would become insolvent, making retirement that much harder for those who paid into it all their lives.

Ron Paul's right-libertarian ideology does espouse a new kind of freedom, just as rebellious children who fantasize about running away from home dream of a new kind of freedom. But, as much as we may have rebelled against our parents as little kids, we eventually matured and realized that the rules and regulations our parents imposed on us were meant so we'd grow up to be responsible, functioning adults in society.

An unregulated little kid free to eat junk food and play video games all day won't ever learn the responsibilities of adulthood. And an unregulated society where all individuals are out for themselves will quickly collapse.

[Carl Gibson, 24, of Lexington, Kentucky, is a spokesman and organizer for US Uncut, a nonviolent, creative direct-action movement to stop budget cuts by getting corporations to pay their fair share of taxes. Since its founding in February 2011, over 20,000 US Uncut activists have carried out more than 300 actions in over 100 cities nationwide. You may contact Carl at carl@rsnorg.org . This article was published at and distributed by Reader Supported News.]

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Lamar W. Hankins : Republican Health Care: 'Let Him Die'

Thumbs down at Republican debate. Image from The Godless Liberal.
'Just let him die':
The Republicans and health care

The indisputable fact is that the U.S. is alone among the advanced societies in failing to assure that health care is available to all its citizens.

By Lamar W. Hankins / The Rag Blog / September 19, 2011

Now that the Republican nomination for president is in full swing, we once again return to the topic of health care, especially the role of government in assuring that all Americans have access to that life necessity.

Living adequately in a modern society requires many things -- transportation, housing, food, income, security from crime, education, water, fire protection, fuel for home needs and vehicles, and information about what is going on in our community, state, and nation.

Few people disagree with this list, but when health care is added to it, some people become uncomfortable -- some almost apoplectic.

The government at all levels helps provide everything on the list, as does the private sector. We have a mixed economy. Usually, government and the private sector cooperate in providing needed goods and services. Sometimes the government takes the lead role; sometimes it is the private sector leading. Few, if any, vital services are provided exclusively by the private sector.

I may buy natural gas from a private company, but the transmission of that natural gas to my home requires the assistance of government to assure that it is done with sufficient care that no one is put at risk. The public highways and streets are used by the gas company to provide the service. Public rights of way are used for the natural gas lines. The government inspects the company's installation and maintenance of the company's gas lines to insure that they are safe and citizens are protected. It is a cooperative endeavor that benefits all of us.

Neither the government nor the company is perfect, however. Mistakes are made by both on occasion, but the system works about as well as any human enterprise can be expected to work. When there is a failure, the causes are determined and actions are taken to correct the deficiencies in the system. If the failures are too great, changes in leadership occur in either the government, the private company, or both.

Few goods and services are provided in our society without this sort of cooperation, coordination, and connectedness between the private sector and government. In fact, I am unable to think of a single 100% private-sector activity; that is, an activity that does not use some resource of the government or the public to carry out its purpose. If you come up with one, please share it.

This system works, more or less, for all of the needs of modern life. But when we start discussing health care, people who believe strongly in self-sufficiency and rugged individualism posit the notion that health care needs must be entirely the responsibility of the individual. This happened at one of the recent Republican presidential nomination debates, as described by The Washington Post’s Eugene Robinson:

The lowest point of the evening -- and perhaps of the political season -- came when moderator Wolf Blitzer asked Ron Paul a hypothetical question about a young man who elects not to purchase health insurance. The man has a medical crisis, goes into a coma and needs expensive care. "Who pays?" Blitzer asked. "That’s what freedom is all about, taking your own risks," Paul answered. … Blitzer interrupted: "But Congressman, are you saying that society should just let him die?" There were enthusiastic shouts of "Yeah!" from the crowd.

Paul then mentioned that the churches would take care of such people. Most listeners and watchers to that debate probably missed the irony in this exchange between Paul and Blitzer. Jay Bookman, a columnist and blogger for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, explained in 2008 what Paul has ignored and Blitzer likely did not know:

Kent Snyder, 49, served as Paul’s 2008 campaign manager but died of complications from pneumonia two weeks after Paul withdrew from the ‘08 race. … However, Snyder did not have health insurance. According to his mother, he had a pre-existing condition that made it financially impossible to buy it on his own. (Interestingly, Snyder is credited with raising $19.5 million for the Paul campaign in the fourth quarter of 2007 alone, but none of that money was apparently used to buy insurance for campaign staffers.)

Because we treat health care as a de facto right in this country, Snyder did get at least some health care, racking up $400,000 in unpaid medical bills before he died. A fundraising effort after his death -- the charity approach advocated by Paul -- produced only $35,000 toward paying off those bills.

That’s not an unusual story. … [Patients such as Snyder don't] come close to having the resources to pay off their bills. But somebody paid them. You did, and I did, and we paid Kent Snyder’s bill as well. It’s a convoluted, extremely irrational, unnecessarily expensive and inefficient system, and the only two approaches that show any promise of rationalizing it are the individual mandate or single-payer.

When Bookman writes that "we paid Kent Snyder's bill," what he means is that Snyder's bill was absorbed into the rate structure that all of us who have health insurance support. We pay for all the Snyders by increased premiums and increased co-pays.

What such situations point out to me is that many people in our political system are driven by an ideology that ignores the reality of our lives. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the health care debate. The indisputable fact is that the U.S. is alone among the advanced societies in failing to assure that health care is available to all its citizens.

Access to health care is controlled mostly by health insurance corporations and pharmaceutical giants so that these companies can rake off large profits at the expense of 50 million Americans who do not have insurance, as well as at the expense of every policy-holder.

One of those Americans without health insurance is a friend of mine who has had to take out crushing loans that could leave him penniless to pay for two essential surgeries and other medical procedures as a result of accidental injuries he sustained doing a good deed for another person. He can't afford health insurance in the present system. Where are the churches that Ron Paul touts as the solution? Where is the compassion?

For the same amount of money we spend in this country for health care and health insurance, we could cover those 50 million uninsured and an equal number of poorly insured with one simple reform -- a single-payer system. What we would miss out on is paying millions of dollars to health insurance and pharmaceutical companies to enrich their stockholders and executives for a service that adds nothing to the nation's well-being and could be provided better by a single-payer system.

They have rigged our system with appeals to the kind of libertarian arguments made by Paul and others, while 45,000 Americans die needlessly each year because they can’t afford health insurance.

The U.S. health care system ranks 37th in the world in its quality of care and its efficiency according to the World Health Organization. It is this way only because too many people have bought the lie that we have a free enterprise system, which is falsely seen by them as the greatest idea in the world, more important even than all the world's religions.

But we don't have a free enterprise system. We have a cooperative enterprise system, and that system does not serve the people well when it comes to health care.

It is the government’s responsibility, acting on behalf of the people, to make our society work for the people’s benefit when any system becomes dysfunctional. When that dysfunctionality results in the unnecessary deaths of tens of thousands of Americans each year, that responsibility becomes an imperative.

I am not advocating that government pay everyone's health care bill. I am advocating that government help create a health care system that everyone can afford to participate in. That's not socialism, as some falsely charge; it's American democracy.

For nearly 100 million Americans with no health insurance or inadequate coverage, having meaningful health insurance reform will do more than almost anything else to assure that the promises of the Constitution are fulfilled.

It is past time for us to have a government of, by, and for the people, not of, by, and for the giant corporations who now control access to the health care system. When ideology prevents our system of government from working as was intended by the founders, its adherents are ideologues, not patriots.

[Lamar W. Hankins, a former San Marcos, Texas, city attorney, is also a columnist for the San Marcos Mercury. This article © Freethought San Marcos, Lamar W. Hankins. Read more articles by Lamar W. Hankins on The Rag Blog.]

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Ron Paul : My Convention is Bigger Than Your Convention

Joyous Ron Paul supporters lined the street Tuesday in front of the Target Convention Center in Minneapolis. Paul appeared on stage to the roars of fervent followers, most of whom traveled long distances and waited as long as eight hours to see him. Photo by John Tlumacki / Boston Globe.
Ron Paul draws more people and more excitement than John McCain's show across town -- but he also attracts some scary 'old friends.'
By Alex Koppelman / September 3, 2008

MINNEAPOLIS -- If you were in the Twin Cities on Tuesday, you could be forgiven for thinking that Republicans had to come to Minnesota to nominate Ron Paul instead of John McCain. At St. Paul's Xcel Center, where the real Republican convention is being held, a substantial number of seats remained empty. Next door in Minneapolis, however, a wildly enthusiastic crowd came close to filling the Target Center, capacity 10,000, where the Paul-ist faithful had gathered for their own quasi-convention to pay tribute to the Texas congressman, failed GOP presidential candidate and Libertarian hero.

The event, dubbed the "Rally for the Republic," was a daylong affair that marked the formal end of Paul's quixotic presidential run as well as, attendees hoped, the beginning of a Paul-sparked revolution in American government. The crowd defied the easy stereotypes that attached themselves to Paul's supporters during the Paul-mania of winter and spring -- the conspiracy-addled Web dweller, the Libertarian eccentric, the kid who only knows that Paul opposed the war. Sure, there was the occasional coonskin cap (and Daniel Boone-style frontier outfit), one man who appeared to be in Colonial dress and at least a couple of dreadlocked youths. The most striking thing about the people at the Target Center, however, was that they seemed so damn normal. But underneath the normality, and unbeknown to many in attendance, there lurked some of the dark undercurrents that have been present in the Paul movement all along.

Much of the energy that propelled Paul to the spotlight earlier this election cycle came from passionate neophytes. Many of those at the Target Center said they hadn't cared about politics before they first heard the Texas Republican speak. Some had come hundreds of miles just to be there -- like 23-year-old Tim Regnier and 21-year-old Nicole Wagner, who had driven seven hours from the Chicago suburbs. "We just wanted to show that the movement's not going to die," Regnier said. Justin Spyres, 27, said he "flew out from California just to be a part" of the rally. "I'm unemployed, I don't have any income," Spyres said, "but we made it work."

Others at the Target Center, however, have deeper roots in American politics, specifically its far-right fringe, and longer ties with the star of the show. For years, Paul has attracted support from right-wing radicals and even white supremacists, and he hasn't exactly run from that part of his fan base. Newbies like Regnier were on the floor, but some of the radicals were onstage, hidden in plain sight.

There was a furor earlier this year when the New Republic's Jamie Kirchick dug up some old newsletters put out under Paul's name that smacked of racism. (In some, African-Americans were called "animals." One issue, Kirchick noted, "ridiculed black activists who wanted to rename New York City after [Martin Luther] King, suggesting that 'Welfaria,' 'Zooville,' 'Rapetown,' 'Dirtburg,' and 'Lazyopolis' were better alternatives.") Onstage at the Paul rally on Tuesday was Lew Rockwell; credible evidence suggests Rockwell may have ghostwritten much of the controversial material in those newsletters. (Rockwell denies this.)

There, also, was Howard Phillips, a self-described "old friend" of Paul's, and one of the founders of, and a former presidential candidate for, the far-right Constitution Party. Phillips has long maintained ties to the Christian reconstructionist movement, and has advocated a "return to Godly, Biblically based constitutional government." His party's platform includes dark mentions of the "New World Order."

And there was a special guest, whose name was kept secret until he hit the stage: John McManus, president of the John Birch Society. The JBS is perhaps best known for having opposed fluoridation of drinking water as a communist plot; it was kicked out of the American political conversation decades ago after -- among other things -- its founder called Dwight Eisenhower "a dedicated conscious agent of the communist conspiracy." But at the Target Center, McManus was one of the stars of the day, and he was clearly enjoying himself, basking in the applause. He got a grateful response when he announced that Paul will headline JBS's 50th anniversary dinner this fall.

A good many of those in attendance had not yet been born when the JBS had its heyday, and a fair number of the people Salon spoke with afterward had never heard of it. A few, however, had become familiar with the group, even joined it, because of their association with the Paul campaign.

The mainstream, however, at least the conservative division, was well represented. Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform and a prominent GOP activist, spoke. MSNBC's Tucker Carlson served as emcee. "I'm not endorsing anybody," Carlson told Salon, adding that there "are things I disagree with" about Paul's philosophy. He was there, he said, because they'd asked him to be and because he admires Paul for sticking up for personal liberties. He also praised the people who'd come to the Target Center. "I admire the fact that they don't get anything out of it -- nobody's going to be ambassador to Belgium for supporting Ron Paul."

"I don't like the thing we do in the media," said Carlson, "this dismissive thing -- 'Oh, they're just crazy.' And I do it too. That's a low impulse. I think if you're going to say that, you should be required to offer some proof."

Another semi-mainstream figure almost stole Paul's show. Former pro wrestler and Minnesota Gov. Jesse "The Body" Ventura was a clear crowd favorite -- a diversion into some 9/11 Truther rhetoric didn't hurt him -- and he got some attention for hinting at a presidential run, promising that if the U.S. "shows me that it's worth it, in 2012, we'll give them a race they'll never forget."

There were plenty of delegates from that other convention in attendance as well, most pledged to Paul but some to McCain. The GOP delegates with whom Salon spoke were universally more excited about Tuesday's event than they were about the rest of the week, and said their fellow GOP delegates had been supportive. "We agree on so much ... we're trying to build bridges," said David Fischer, an alternate Paul delegate from Iowa who described himself as a "lifelong Republican" who hadn't been inspired to become a delegate to the GOP convention until Paul's candidacy. Some of the GOP Paul delegates, like Fischer, said they'd vote for McCain in November, but others weren't sure.

Marc Lucca, a Paul supporter and delegate from Oregon who'd been a field director with Victory 2004, the Republican effort to reelect President Bush, said, "I would likely support McCain if he is the nominee," but added, "I would like to see John McCain not take my vote and the votes of millions of other conservatives for granted."

Thomas Kiene of Oklahoma, a reluctant McCain delegate -- he preferred Paul, he said, but his district went for McCain -- was less generous. He called the GOP convention itself a "railroaded show."

"I was over there yesterday and it made me sick," Kiene said. His vote is pledged to McCain, but he's not happy about it, and says he's considering not voting at all. "I'll be there. Maybe as an observer more than a participant. Whether I let my alternate cast my vote or not, I don't know."

At least one longtime Libertarian was excited to see the turnout, and to see the wide array of people and opinions the movement is now attracting, even if he doesn't agree with the philosophies of some of the groups represented. "It's a wide, weird tent," said Kerry Welsh of Redondo Beach, Calif., who says he's donated more than $100,000 to Paul and other Libertarians over the years. "All I can say is that freedom brings in a wide assortment of people ... Imagine what would happen if someone like Mike Huckabee or Mitt Romney held a rally like this now? Nobody would attend, because they don't stand for anything."

Source / salon.com

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