Tag: ron paul

Culturalism · Economic History · Federal Government

Walled Off

economiccommanderLeave a comment

There’s an older meme of Congressman Ron Paul smiling or waving his arms with the caption “It’s Happening!” The image is meant to imply that Paul was right, and simply got ignored by the broader masses of sheep who continue voting for establishment Democrats and Republicans. Most people throw it around sarcastically, and even less probably recognize Ron Paul anymore.

Except it’s not really a meme. According to reports from congressional testimony, incoming DHS head Alejandro Mayorkas will not commit to tearing down Trump’s spooky fence wall on the southern border region. This seems completely out of character for someone like him, who is only in power due to a political party which spent the last several years lamenting over immigrant detainment and access control. Are the Dems having some magical wake up call regarding border security?

Absolutely not. After all, Biden has encouraged the approaching wave of migrants to enter in the future, regardless of the damage such a move is bound to cause. Instead, the development from Mayorkas made me think back to an old debate from 2011, when Ron Paul answered a question on the long-legislated idea of immigration control:

What a fascinating idea: instead of the wall being used to keep terrorists and immigrants out, it is actually designed to prevent people who wish to leave. From a traditional conservative standpoint this sounds absurd, as who would really want to depart the United States? As it turns out, more than we might realize. The next couple years will begin to show people how all the security apparatus which they endorsed happily as a weapon against terror is going to be used against them. We already have folks getting kicked off platforms and denied flight access because they expressed views which are seen as toxic to the mainstream. How far are we from passport revocation on the same basis?

Not far at all. The IRS already possesses the ability to snatch a person’s passport on the basis of tax issues, so only an upgrade to “problematic political ideas” is needed for us to come full circle. After all, we can’t be exporting extremism and terror to other countries…that would be unacceptable.

This too shall be forgotten by next election.

Culturalism

No One Cares That You Were “Right”

economiccommanderLeave a comment

“He’s been saying the same thing for decades!”

It’s a common theme in politics: roll out the clips of an elder statesman railing against some unholy creation of government or corporations, and use it as reason to vote for them today. After all, he was right.

But no one really cares. When Ron Paul ran in 2008 and 2012, supporters made a big deal of pointing it out. “Ron’s been consistent,” they’d say. “We have to vote for him!”

The result? About 11 percent of the primary ballots, and not even a VP nod.

Fans of Bernie are trying to do the same thing, and on his second national go around he still isn’t wiping the floor with the opposition, at least not on THAT point.

We can explain it simply enough by considering normal human attitudes. When you try to persuade someone who’s convinced otherwise, how frequently do they concede the point? Typically never. And even if you successfully nudge them in the right direction, the chances of getting recognized for it is almost zero. Perhaps the key is to blame human pride, yet that doesn’t make things any better.

Another factor revolves around how the collective outrage consensus shifts over time. A conservative likely saw Ronnie as the best thing ever in 1984, while a Gary Hart supporter probably disagreed. Neither of them knew the precise impact various policies would have, or future economic developments. That’s because 1984 is not 2020, and the most important issues were different at that time. They were blinded by their environment.

Hope should prevail though, because GenZ types will have plenty of TikTok videos to use in their campaign ads for the tech plutocracy.