What can you get for a trillion bucks? Or make that $1.6 trillion, if you take the cost of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars as tallied by the majority staff of Congress’s Joint Economic Committee (JEC). Or is it the $3.5-trillion figure cited by Ron Paul, whose concern about the true cost of this war for ordinary Americans shames the leading Democrats, who prattle on about needed domestic programs that will never find funding because of future war-related government debt?
I’ll be honest with you; I detest just about everything Ron Paul stands for. Sure, he’s an out-of-the-closet nutjob, but in a field of GOP candidates focusing on who can get their war on most convincingly, Paul at least has the moral courage and the intellectual honesty to demand that the clusterf—k in Iraq end now.
What amazes me are the numbers of normally clear-thinking individuals who not only support Paul, they’ve donate a ton of money to him. Hmm…for some reason, the phrase “pouring money down a rathole” comes to mind. I wonder why so many people are willing to ignore the totality of Paul’s ideology? I do find it interesting that, given that there’s no way the GOP will allow Ron Paul to be their standard-bearer in 2008, Paul has nonetheless managed to raise any absolutely obscene amount of money for a fringe candidate. Clearly, the people who are donating see something that they want to believe in. Perhaps it’s a Republican with a degree of moral courage, or the willingness to tell the party faithful what they need to hear, if not always what they want to hear. What’s even more interesting is what they’re choosing to ignore.
Still and all, I keep returning to the reality that Ron Paul is a Republican. Some of his views are so “out there”, so beyond the pale, that it’s not difficult to understand why the GOP hierarchy is so determined to sink Paul’s candidacy. Though many Paul supporters are True Believers and probably not capable of admitting to this reality, Paul’s campaign is riding on a wave of well-heeled (and some not so well-heeled) zealots who could only charitably be described as being on the outer fringe of the American polity. Sure, it might be nice to think about “What if…?”, but the reality is that Ron Paul has about as much chance of being elected President as I do Queen of England. Trust me; you do NOT want to see me in a tiara.
In the end, we’ll be left with the same choice we’ve always had: two candidates- normally rich, White males- who, ideologically speaking, aren’t really all that far apart. OK, so perhaps this time around, the Democrats will put forth a woman or an African-American male, but the end result may well be the same. It would be nice to think that someone, perhaps even Ron Paul, might bring an element of honesty to the 2008 campaign, but…nah….
In the final analysis, Ron Paul is still a Republican, and except for his stance on the war in Iraq, his views are even more distasteful than most of the other Republican candidates. Yes, you can talk about integrity all you want- and you might have a point- but Paul is still a Republican who is seriously out of touch with the views of the vast majority of the American sheeple.
Why are so many willing to delude themselves into thinking that Ron Paul is a fresh alternative to the current thug in the White House? Well, it might help to keep in mind that the American sheeple have been thoroughly propagandized for their protection. Ron Paul is no more the answer than is Tom Tancredo or Mike Huckabee.
It’s about time y’all faced reality. A vote for a Republican candidate- any candidate- is a vote for the status quo ante. It doesn’t get much simpler than that.
Heads up, y’all. Bob should be leaving a comment in 4…3…2….
