I wanted to make a few points here. The overarching point is this: Ron Paul is the only candidate who cannot be sorted neatly into a box that is consistent with our dominant narratives.
Look at this table: http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/taxfacts/displayafact.cfm?Docid=200
From 1980 to the present the expenditures of the Federal government have increased, with the sole exceptions of 1986-87, 1992-93, and 2009-10 (which was anomalous, since spending in 2009 jumped by $470 billion, then dropped back to a number that was still $300 billion more than 2008).
There is this implied but wrong idea that the expenditures of the Federal Government should rise pari passu with economic and population growth. This argument only holds if we believe that the Federal government has functions other than protecting this nation, regulating relations between States, and handling foreign policy.
Given genuinely Liberal policies, those oriented around checking the power of the Federal power through the 10th Amendment–as our Founders plainly intended, being well able to foresee the mess we now find ourselves in–the percentage of Federal spending as it relates to our GDP should have been steadily shrinking.
In point of fact, spending has kept pace with economic growth over the last 71 years, and in spite of that growth, we have managed to add to our national debt in 59 of the last 71 years. In every year but one, Reagan added to our national debt. If we count his tenure as 1953-1961, Eisenhower added to our debt in 5 of 8 years. 2001-2007, with a Republican President and Congress, 2001 was the only year the national debt did not increase, and that was clearly the legacy of a moderate Democrat working with a Republican Congress, combined with the explosive economic growth of the 1990’s.
The history, then, of elected Republicans being fiscally responsible is not good.
And we need to understand that an intelligent Fabian strategy could easily consist in nothing other than making sure that, one way or another, the size of the Federal government in the national economy increases year after year, and that more is spent than taken in. It really doesn’t matter if it is Reagan building up our national defense, or Johnson greatly increasing government share-the-wealth programs. With such a strategy, you can bet equally on both parties, and alter the dominant narrative from time to time from helping the poor, to protecting America, and back again. The details don’t matter.
The task, in boiling the frog, is getting people used to annual debt, such that the total can become enormous slowly, over time, and at some point unmanageable.
Look at the Obama numbers. Look at the gap between revenues and expenditures: -10 for 2009, -8.9 for 2010, -10.9 for 2011, and projected at -7 for 2012. Beyond that is BS, since we don’t know what the economy will do, or who the next President will be.
In order to find a -7 you have to go back to 1946. 1945 was -21.5, but we had a rather large war going on at the time.
What I would like to suggest is this: Obama is not a radical; he is, rather, merely the apotheosis of the last 70 years. He is the culmination of long term policies which have acted year after year after year to make us weaker as a nation. He is our “habit” made large. He is our enervated spirit incarnated, and shown on a large screen.
If we look at history, NO ONE will make much of a difference, if they keep doing what everyone since Herbert Hoover has done.
At the present moment our most pressing national security threat is our debt. You cannot fight this with Marines, aircraft carriers, or the latest technology. Victories in Afghanistan and Iraq will not shelter us from this threat. On the contrary, national bankruptcy and economic decline will not only destroy us domestically, but prevent us from even waging those wars.
In some respects we deserve Barack Obama. We have been asleep at the wheel constitutionally since the time of FDR.
Ron Paul, as I see it, is the only one sufficiently “nutty”–by which I mean individualistic enough to get branded with validity an outsider–to do the sorts of things which need to be done to prevent an inevitable national decline.
Yes, we need jobs. Yes, we need limited government. But we need to look at the big picture. What is it our brave soldiers and Marines and airmen will come home to, if we can’t avoid collapse? Would it not make more sense to bring most of them home, and start paying our bills?
I am increasingly inclined to believe yes. Rome was destroyed by civil wars. We are being destroyed by simple stupidity, and that applies both to those who fail to grasp the consequences of our policies, and those who are consciously articulating them in the hope of American decline.
I have more to say on Iran and Cuba, but will have to get to it later.