Ron Paul and the Big MO

Murray Sabrin

For decades, the American people have been taught that the welfare state will take care of them. Since the trauma of the Great Depression, the creation of more powerful federal alphabet soup agencies were supposed to virtually eliminate risk in America so we will never have to worry again about economic depression, massive unemployment, old-age poverty, and other challenges to everyday life.

That was the promise of the Ponzi welfare state FDR created. Since the 1930s both Democrats and Republicans have expanded the financially unsustainable welfare state. With the national debt more than $8 trillion and rising. With the value of the U.S. dollar depreciating against foreign currencies. With the cost of living undermining the average America’s standard of living. With regulations denying the American people the right to use their property as they see fit. With the federal government spreading its military around the world in a vain attempt to police the world. With the U. S. military bogged down in the Iraq quagmire, along comes a 10 term U.S. representative, Ron Paul, to challenge both the constitutionality and morality of not only the welfare state but also the bipartisan interventionist foreign policy in his party’s presidential primary campaign.

For his courage, character, integrity, and plain old common sense, Ron Paul has been vilified by the mainstream media and Republican political hacks and operatives as a “fringe” candidate. And yesterday, in Iowa, Ron Paul, who was not invited to participate in a presidential candidate tax forum, because, according to the sponsors, he is a “marginal” candidate, held his own rally right after the tax forum.

According to preliminary reports from individuals in Des Moines yesterday, the Ron Paul rally drew about twice as many people. Nick Bradley, a blogger at www.lewrockwell.com, wrote early this morning: “And let me just say that it was RP's best speech - powerful, convincing, and tailored to the masses. A presidential candidate hasn't talked common sense to the people about the gold standard since Grover Cleveland in 1892!" You can read Bradley’s numerous posts about the Ron Paul rally at http://blog.lewrockwell.com.

Predictably, the MSM are ignoring, for now, a direct assault on the welfare-warfare state like we have not seen in American political history. The talking heads on cable television, over-the-air television and the pundits in the establishment press, believe they can ignore the Ron Paul presidential campaign and his limited government ideas. They believe this will insure that another pro welfare-warfare state candidate from either major party will be elected president.

After you watch the first nine minutes of the Ron Paul rally in Des Moines, it will be crystal clear that the only candidate who has the Big MO now is Ron Paul. (The remainder of Ron’s remarks I’m sure will be posted soon) If the MSM continue to ignore Ron’s growing support, they will confirm what many of us have known for years, the MSM have become the propaganda arm of the welfare-warfare state. In other words, media bias exists—against liberty and a noninterventionist foreign policy. Nevertheless, the MSM are about to get a lesson in democracy like they have never seen before.

Murray Sabrin, Ph.D., is professor of finance in the Anisfield School of Business, Ramapo College of New Jersey, where he is executive director of the Center for Business and Public Policy.