Inspired by a phone call from Dave Kellogg.
Marc wants to keep politics out of his blog. But since my self-imposed moratorium is over, I’ll just go out and say it: Ron Paul is a socially-regressive, batshit-crazy asshole and support for him makes me ashamed for the bandwagon-following bullshit of my socio-economic peers.
[What Ron Paul represents after the jump]
And this does not come from just because the things written in his name, it comes out every time he opens his mouth in public. Even his carefully-controlled and constantly-policed political positions bear this out—when you parse them they scream out one word:
Regression.
I don’t disagree with all of his political views, but it is pretty obvious from the debates and such that this guy would “plain speak” our society off a cliff. And I can’t help the feeling that when this crap slips out of his mouth that this is the Real Ron Paul we’re seeing.
The anti-libertarian plea
I’m going to make the plea I always make every time I talk to a libertarian:
Please, please put down that copy of Atlas Shrugged and open up your first-year economics text book.
Read about externalities, monopolies, public goods, regressive taxes, social welfare, and the like. Don’t just obsess over pareto efficiency; discover market defects. Stop using the invisible hand of capitalism to shirk your social responsibility.
Until you do, you can talk to my (invisible) hand.
Running scared
And this part is what scares me the most: Not that he has a chance (he doesn’t). But that the reason he doesn’t is because of the people I despise—the people who traded this country’s values for a cheap political calculus—are the balance; that this isn’t plainly evident to my peers.
Reactionary extremism has replaced the indifference that got George Bush elected in 2000. And if you don’t think the next generation of political calculators aren’t going to exploit this to divide America again, then you are naïve to the extreme.
I’m not advocating political moderation here, just a little temperance.
Excuses, excuses
My generation has replaced Social Darwinism with an Economic Triumphalism.
An idiot has an excuse: an idiot is an idiot. They are not the darlings of a top-notch (and publicly-funded) education. They are not offensively rich. The public has invested a wealth into us and entrusted its wealth to us—we have returned the favor in mindlessly supporting a demagogue.
Please think.
