Corporate Security State Declares Victory in 2012 Elections

After an extensive analysis of the situation, the United States corporate security state declared a victory in the November 2012 Presidential election, in an internal March 31st memorandum circulated by analysts to key figures.

"We are now that certain that, barring extreme circumstances, either Barack Obama or Mitt Romney will be the next President of the United States," a source who saw the memo told me.

But which of the two men did they favor? "We almost always prefer Democrats, as long as they are firm supporters of our security agenda, as Obama is. Democrats are good at heading off troubles among poorer Americans. Throw people a few food stamps and you don't have to worry about them getting very out of line."

Wouldn't any of the Republican candidates have been acceptable? "Mitt Romney was the best of the lot. He really wants to be President, just like Obama, so he'll be easy to control. Santorum gets people too whipped up over religion and morality, which is a security concern. Newt is, well, a time bomb waiting to go off. Ron Paul was a real danger because he would have tried to close down our global empire."

Aren't Democrats cutting the military budget? "Our own analysis showed the economy would crumble under current spending projections. We are reining things in to assure our long term prosperity."

What about withdrawing from Afghanistan? "We decide how to prioritize our missions. The President can help with that, but it is not his final decision. Not if he doesn't want to be Kennedied."

How about Congress? "During an election year in certain districts they have to moo about being concerned about Afghanistan or military spending. We want them to be re-elected. Let them moo."

Not even Norman Solomon, running for Congress in northern California? "Having a couple of people in token opposition in Congress keeps our control system credible. We don't think Solomon can win, and if he does we don't think he'll be a problem. He spent his younger years using nonviolence as a bludgeon against Marxists and Anarchists. These last few years he's been a big help in destroying the Green Party in California. We can work with him. We can show him off as proof that we are a democracy."

So no problems at all? "We are keeping an eye on Derrick Jensen and his attempts to inspire a new generation of eco-terrorists. We keep an eye on Occupy. We keep an eye on a lot of people. But we are not going to overreact to a bunch of amateurs. Frankly, the greatest danger to the corporate security state is that our own people will get too greedy and cause our temple to collapse under its own weight."

I am not venturing an opinion. They have an eye on me. I am just reporting what my source said.

President Obama's Gasoline Problem

Just when it looked like the economy of the United States of America was recovering, and Barack Obama was well on his way to joining the second term Presidents club, the price of gasoline started shooting up. If gas prices go significantly higher and stay high they could derail both the recovery and Obama's re-election.

Naturally the Republican candidates, thought to be dead in the water just a week ago, are perking up and blaming the President for the high price of gasoline. As usual, Republicans are good at identifying problems while offering solutions that would make matters worse. Newt Gingrich, who has not won a primary since South Carolina (citizens of which mostly believe they are not even legally part of the U.S.A., but an independent, sovereign state occupied by a foreign power since the end of the Civil War), says he would lower the price of gasoline by drilling everywhere in the United States and occupying Iran.

Allow me to point out that the big oil companies are not interested in drilling everywhere. Drilling for oil is an expensive and chancy proposition. There are only so many drilling rigs available. They want to drill in just a few particularly lucrative American places they have been excluded from because those places are particularly environmentally sensitive. It would take three to five years to get a major drilling program underway, and what would be the result? The price of gasoline, and of oil, would go down. Which means the U.S.-based international oil companies would be losing money five years out. That is not their idea of a sound investment.

Then you have Rick Santorum, who attacks the demand side of the equation. He wants to go back to the Dark Ages, when the Pope was an emperor, birth control consisted of one Roman Catholic army invading another Roman Catholic nation and slaying its maidens after raping them, and you were lucky to own a donkey or a horse.

Mitt Romney, on the other hand, is still trying to figure out how the Tea Party got control of the Club House. He keeps painting himself with Tea Party camouflage, but they won't forgive him for his past bouts of sanity. He will let us know what he thinks when he his aides figure out what the Tea Party thinks.

Finally, there is Ron Paul. He has a more workable plan than Santorum. His way back machine would take us to 1928, before the big crash, when unfettered capitalism and the gold standard looked like they might actually work out. Gasoline then was something like $0.21, but then again the minimum wage was $0.00, so go figure.

The real problem is that the oil companies and corporate security state are lying to us, with Barack Obama as their front man. Right now they are saying Iran is the problem, Iran is the cause of high gas prices. But Iran would be happy to get back to the Republican ideal of Free Trade. It is willing to trade its oil to anyone, and wants a bunch of things it can't produce itself. Like parts for nuclear weapons and reactors. Iranians just want parity with Israel, which has had nuclear weapons and reactors for decades.

Here's an idea, Mr. President: push back a little at the war hawks. Pretend to be nice to Iran until you have won a second term. Ship some of that good Iranian crude to California so our Prius fleet does not run out of gas.

Wait. I take that back. There is the Jewish vote in Florida and New York to think about, two swing states with a lot of Electoral College votes. I guess the rest of us are going to have to pay through the nose for gasoline until after the election.

So I'm voting for Jill Stein, the Green Party candidate. Her plan is to cut back U.S. military spending slightly and then use the money to buy Toyota. The whole company. She'll move all the Toyota factories to the U.S. and hire all American workers. They will all build Prius variants, and everyone over the age of 17 would get one on a sliding-scale basis. We'll have full employment and the price of gasoline will drop to $1.50 a gallon. Of course, that would be socialism.

Newt Gingrich's Open Presidency

Newt Gingrich, who still has a decent chance of becoming President of the United States, actually has a lot in common with Barack Obama. Both are consummate politicians with spines so flexible they can stick their heads up their respective sphincters if they think they can find some votes there. Barack has the votes to get the Dem nomination, so let's take a look at Newt's situation.

Rick Perry, having proven yet again that people who would have been sterilized under the old eugenics programs can indeed become governors of Texas, finally dropped out and endorsed Newt. The field, if that is an appropriate word ("coven" comes to mind) has narrowed to Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum, and Ron Paul.

So much for right-wing evangelical control of Republican primaries. Mitt Romney is a religious man who practices monogamy. Unfortunately (in terms of Protestant bible brewing voters) he belongs to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. He and his fellow Mormons essentially deny the Roman Catholic and Protestant basis of faith: the Trinity, or three gods in One. Nor are the Mormons monotheists like Jews and Muslims. Mormons believe in a male god with a Heavenly Mother consort; we are all the children of Dad and Mom, just like Jesus himself. For all their family this and family that, Protestants overlook the fact that, according to the orthodox New Testament, Jesus had no family of his own. Nor did he recommend having one.

Rick Santorum must have been designed by God because he certainly did not evolve in any rational manner. He is Roman Catholic. When I was a child Protestants in South Carolina lumped in Roman Catholics with Jews and people of undesirable skin color. They still really don't trust the Pope and a bunch of Catholic doctrine that obviously is not in the Bible. Rick Santorum believes in the sanctity of human life until it emerges from the womb, after which it should not be eligible for food stamps, public schooling, or any other waste of taxpayer money. He is all for spending taxpayer money on homeland security and turning the whole world into an American armed camp. He's unemployed, so is probably hoping to be tapped for Vice President, an office that pays well and does not require anyone to get up early in the morning or break into a sweat during the day.

Ron Paul will do better in other primaries. South Carolina is a funny state. People (and not just Republican people) there have almost all experienced socialism and liked it. Only they call it patriotic public service: working in the military sector, usually beginning as soldiers. Ron Paul is the only candidate who is honest about the need to get the people of South Carolina disengaged from the military tit if the federal government is ever to get its debt and deficit under control. The other candidates probably know that, but are not about to say it when votes are at stake.

Newt needs to come in first or second to keep the donations rolling in. His native state of Georgia is next door, so a loss would be embarrassing. But it is hard to embarrass Newt. Despite being a deeply conservative man, he is also an intellectual who prides himself on new ideas.

Newt wants to be President. He already was once Speaker of the House, which back before the development of the Imperial Presidency was considered by many to be a more important job than the Presidency. The House controls taxation and appropriation, it represents the people, and it was considered the most important branch of government until around the Civil War.

Newt's new idea is the Open Presidency. It will make the world a better, more efficient place. If Americans select Newt Gingrich as their President, that will just be a start. He will play the field. If the Canadians want him, he can also be their Prime Minister. If the Mexicans show some love, he can be their President. Who knows, maybe he can be the head of the European Union too. Perhaps something more exotic would excite him: Pakistan, Afghanistan and Somalia all are looking for better leaders right now. Perhaps he can become Emperor of the World.

Open Presidency? Haven't some Presidents been tired out by having to run just this one country? Sure, but Newt is an extra-energetic guy, and this is the era of multitasking. If anyone can keep more than one nation happy, it is Newt.

Also, Newt is a Roman Catholic. There is plenty of historical precedent for a Catholic being head of state of multiple nations. Such open marriages are made in heaven.

Iowa Caucuses and the GOP Tragedy

The State of Iowa plays the opening role in America's Presidential election years. It is a farm state with a population of just over 3 million, most noted for its rich soils and agricultural productivity. Despite that over 60% of its citizens now live in urban areas.

When Iowa became a state in 1846 (notably, a "free" state, one prohibiting slavery) the Whigs were slugging it out with the pro-slavery Democratic Party. When the Republican Party formed at the far-left of the American political spectrum in the 1850's, Iowans embraced it. In 1856 Iowa voted for the first Republican Presidential candidate John Fremont. The Civil War cemented the Republican triumph. Although the Democrats returned in strength during the Great Depression, afterwards Iowa reverted to the Republican fold.

Of late the Democrats and Republicans have been more evenly balanced in Iowa, with Clinton and even Al Gore carrying the state, then it switching to George W. Bush. Most recently Barack Obama captured the state in 2008, but Republicans captured most statewide offices in 2010.

Next week Iowa will hold its partisan caucuses. These require more of citizens than just showing up and voting; they have to actually sit through a meeting. The process amplifies partisanship, since only the most committed partisans are willing to engage in it.

No one substantial is challenging President Barack Obama for the Democratic nomination this year, despite his unpopularity in his own party. That leaves us with the Republican lot of would-be Presidents.

Pretty much all of the Republicans are more experienced than Obama was when he became President. On the whole the problem is not the candidates, though I have enjoyed criticizing each of them individually. The problem for America is the Republican activists who will dominate the caucuses.

Historically, there is a lot good to be said about the Republican Party. They abolished slavery and tried to make the former slaves equal in the eyes of society and the law. They treated the American Indian tribes much better than the Democrats ever had. They tried to do something about America's alcoholism problem. Excepting the Spanish American War, they were the anti-war party until President Eisenhower retired in 1960. The Republican core values of being an economically responsible, law-abiding, moral citizen and good neighbor are hard to argue with.

Where did the people who dominate the Republican primary process come from? It is as if the doors of hell have opened and the legions marched forth. Instead of taking responsibility and building an economically strong, just, and durable America, they want to blame anyone but themselves for their troubles. They don't want to pay taxes even though Iowa is probably the most heavily subsidized state in the nation. Iowa's relative prosperity is propped up by food stamps (which prop up grain prices), ethanol subsidies, and direct crop subsidies.

The Christianity of these people makes Islam and atheism both look good. It is a narrowly-constructed Christianity, carefully avoiding entire directives from God himself. Jesus said to pay your taxes and stop complaining ["Give unto Caesar ..."]. He said to be kind and charitable. He asked Christians to find a way to feed the hungry even if only a few loaves and fishes are available. The activist Republicans instead want to regulate birth control, deny human rights to women and homosexuals, and let the weak starve and freeze.

The Republican activists pretend to be supporters of free-market capitalism, but mainly they have a criminal mentality that should frighten all decent American citizens. They want to make money by destroying the environment, destroying the health of their neighbors, and endangering the lives of workers. Why not just sell crack or weed or untaxed bathtub gin, if you need money?

I'm not saying that every government agency or regulation is necessary, but I do know that the threat of enforcement deters crime. Have we had too little economic crime these past 10 years? Too few Madoff's and mortgage derivative scams? Too few nuclear reactor meltdowns? Too few oil spills? I think not.

I know there are plenty of sensible Republicans out there. It is still a big party. With a little bit of reform—throwing out the Tea Party mad dogs and the corporate security state operatives—it could be a beloved American Party again.

But who could those sensible Republicans vote for in Iowa?

While I like Ron Paul's stance on dismantling the U.S. global military empire (which would straighten out the federal budget deficit pretty quickly), his love of nutty, discredited ideas like the Gold Standard limits him to being my second choice.

I think Mitt Romney is by far the most competent of the Presidential candidates in the field. This might seem like a dangerous thing to Democrats, who would prefer an less competent opponent, like Michele Bachman. But consider:

When highly competent people have been elevated to being President of the United States they have usually stepped outside of the narrow interests of their pasts. It Mitt's case, I don't think his Latter Day Saints upbringing or Bain Capital days will prejudice him.

I think he is the kind of individual that will try to serve all of the American people if elected. He won't just serve his Wall Street friends, or any particular constituency. He'll do what a President can to get the economy humming, without disregarding environmental or consumer safety. He'll stand up to corrupt interests in Washington, and to the worst impulses of the Tea Party.

Let me repeat: Romney excels in competence. He didn't use his family fortunes to put coke up his nose and then party on borrowings against his inheritance. He got both an MBA and a Law Degree from Harvard in just four years, no easy feat. He excelled in business and then served as governor of Massachusetts.

Romney makes me think of Joe Kennedy, the father of President John Kennedy. In his early life Joe was a lot less ethical than, but just as competent as, Mitt Romney. Joe got rich on Wall Street and was notorious for his slick dealings that made him a billionaire (he even sold his stock holdings well before the 1929 market crash). When it was time to reform Wall Street, President Franklin Roosevelt chose Joe Kennedy to be the first head of the SEC. Having used every trick in the book himself, Joe was able to create a set of regulations that served American investors, large and small alike, from the 1930's until a new wave of mischief was invented in the 1980's.

Of course, there is the opposite story of competence, Robert Rubin, U.S. Treasury Secretary from 1995 to 1999. He used his position to gut regulations, including the Depression-era Glass-Steagall act, thereby heavily contributing to the economic calamities of the following decade.

So, if Mitt Romney becomes President, let us hope he turns out to be a Joe Kennedy, not a Robert Rubin.

In any case, it would take three or four Barack Obamas to match the competence of one Mitt Romney. Muddling through is not what we need right now. Four years of that is enough.

I am not, however, endorsing Mr. Romney. He is still part of the two-party, corporate security state system. I will probably support the Green Party nominee, Gill Stein, or an independent candidate, depending on who emerges. Mitt is just the best I think we can hope for out of the old, hopefully dying, two-party system.

Tea Party Ovens

A tea party sounds so nice, so elegant. Savor the pagan flavors of India sipped from pretty matching porcelain tea sets. Or perhaps you might like the romantic American patriot version: dress up like American Indians and dump British, privately owned tea from India as a protest against a tax that explicitly was to pay to defend American colonists from American Indians.

Yesterday the world, or at least the few people who were not already sick of watching Republican presidential candidates debate, got to see a darker sort of tea party. The kind where you are sipping your tea, hoping to get to know your host and suddenly your host sprouts fangs and tears at your throat. Fade to black.

I did not listen to the debate. My wife heard about the incident on NPR and, as she related it, which may not exactly correspond to NPR's report, the entire Tea Party audience (about 1000 people) at the Tea Party sponsored debate demanded the death of a hypothetical working guy, following a question about medical insurance put to Ron Paul, to be known henceforth as Uncle Death.

I found a replay on the internet easily enough. As far as I could tell from the audio portion, only three or four audience members were screaming "let him die" or "death". Ron Paul had a weasel answer. If a working guy has no private medical insurance and needs prolonged hospitalization, Ron Paul strongly recommended that he retroactively buy medical insurance. Pressed, he talked about the freedom to take on risk. Asked if the man should just be turned away to die, after the four idiots in the audience did their death chant, he talked about religious charities dealing with such cases instead of the government. He never really answered the question.

I agree with Ron Paul on a thing or two, like bringing U.S. troops home from our imperialist adventures. His attachment to the Gold Standard, however, distinguishes him as a nutter who has been unable to adopt to industrial, much less post-industrial, reality. But I never knew he was as dead, as cold at heart as old General Franco himself.

As Adolf Hitler showed, it is not much of a leap from allowing people to die from lack of medical care to putting people in ovens and gas chambers to save on the cost of bullets.

What was scary about the moment was not that four extreme libertarians expressed such an extreme every-man-for-himself philosophy at a public, televised debate sponsored by the Tea Party.

What was scary is that no candidate took the opportunity to distinguish himself or herself by scolding the deathers. Not one. They are cowards individually, and cowards collectively. Let me name them, in no particular order:

Jon Huntsman, coward
Herman Cain, coward
Michele Bachmann, coward
Mitt Romney, coward
Rick Perry, coward
Newt Gingrich, coward
Rick Santorum, coward

In particular, if Mitt Romney had jumped in and scolded the deathers, I think that might have put a damper on dominance of the political debate by Tea Party extremism. Moderate Republicans don't want obvious nutters like Bachman, Perry or Paul to lose an election against a vulnerable Barack Obama. But when they see even Mitt molded like plastic by a few Tea Party thugs, moderates get intimidated.

Clearly the tail is wagging the dog now. The thugs are in charge of the Republican Party nomination process.

Forget Iowa, New Hampshire: California Primary Will Rule

Everyone is worrying about the Iowa caucuses, but they will be totally inconsequential this year for everyone except possibly Mike Huckabee. The caucuses are on Thursday, January 3rd. A cold day in Iowa. You can't just show up and vote. Only the most politically motivated will be at the caucuses, and then no matter what happens there is a real primary on Tuesday, January 8th in New Hampshire. And who cares about that, when Michigan has a primary on the 15th?

But more important, most California citizens who bother to vote now vote by mail. While election day is February 5th, you can vote by mail in California beginning January 6th. That is before the New Hampshire primary and just after the Iowa beauty contest. Californians favor Clinton and Giuliani.

February 5 is also Super Tuesday, with about 22 states voting (See primary schedule). After Super Tuesday, unless the race is close between front runners, the game is essentially over.

Which means come November you will probably be allowed to choose between the two Candidates from Wall Street, Hillary Clinton and Rudy Giuliani. Giuliani is well ahead in the polls in California as well as nationwide; so is Clinton.

Aside from the possibility of heart attacks narrowing the field, it is hard to see any surprises. Things will happen too fast. Even if Barack Obama does well in Iowa, even if he continues to raise a lot of money, it is hard to see him surging. People surge when they look like winners, and Barack looks like a lightweight who wants so badly to be President that he acts like a pile of gelatin next to the beautiful predator Hillary. Think of Hillary as the creature in the Alien movie, no, better still, think of Barack as the creature in the Alien movie (he was cute when he popped out of the corpse of Chicago politics, not unlike Adlai Stevenson), but Hillary is the Sigourney Weaver character, Ellen Ripley, and in the end Barack will feed the vacuum. The corporate ore will get to Earth and Ripley will get her share.

On the Republican side Mike Huckabee is pretty lovable as right-wing populists who like their women barefoot and pregnant go, but a surge in Iowa won't lead him anywhere. Sure, a lot of Republican's don't like the fact that Rudolph did not round up New York City's gay boys and use them for target practice; they don't like his divorces; they don't like his letting women decide for themselves whether to kill their potential babies or not. But those idiots aren't in charge right now. Republicans have two "realistic" choices: Giuliani and Romney. Mitt Romney could have had a chance if he had an honest hair on his head, but instead he decided to lie about his pro-abortion, pro-gay record and pretended to be one of the Southern Baptistas just as they had totally succeeded in discrediting themselves. It isn't that conservative Christian leaders have a big problem with hypocrisy; they just don't like it freshly minted. It needs to be practiced for decades to really get it down.

So, odds are it will be Giuliani versus Clinton come November. The commercial media want to pretend that is not so, because it is so amazingly boring.

One oddball outlier: enough independents will vote for Ron Paul to pull an upset in California. In California, under our odd election rules, independents (called Decline to State here) can vote in the Republican or Democratic primary, but not in the Green Primary. I don't think that will happen, I'll be surprised if Ron Paul hits 10% of the vote, but it is not impossible.

The Green Party has seven people on its primary ballot in California. Ralph Nader will probably win because he has name recognition, but he has declined to campaign or even say if he would accept a nomination if offered. Most activists in the state are getting behind the Cynthia McKinney campaign. If she can top Nader in California she will probably get the nomination. Elaine Brown, former Oakland Black Panther Party leader, will also be on the ballot and may get most of the ultra-left Green votes. California activist Kent Mesplay is a good man but has never held political office and is having trouble getting people to take him seriously. Unknowns Kat Swift, Jesse Johnson and Jared Ball round out the Green ballot.

Ron Paul or Cynthia McKinney?

Now that the Democrats and Republicans have stopped bickering among themselves enough to at least set actual dates for their primaries, the end of Ron Paul's campaign is within sight.

Of course Ron Paul could prove himself to be just another Dennis Kucinich; a water carrier for the corrupt party organization he pretends to offer an alternative to. If Ron is not among the top 3 Republican contenders by mid-February, you will know that is what is going on. Last time around Kucinich beguiled the anti-war movement by saying stay away from the Green Party, have a say in the Democratic Party. But at the Democratic Party convention he and his followers were ignored. Yet he endorsed Kerry, preferring to stay in the Democrat camp even if it meant backing a pro-war candidate.

Probably Ron Paul will drop out in February. Not that I don't wish him well. Despite his occasional nut-case positions, like wanting to go back to the gold standard (and hence to hard times and Depression), he has a lot of good things to say. We do waste perfectly good taxpayer money on useless military expenditures. The war on drugs is a failure, not because it was not well prosecuted, but because it is an ill-conceived effort to reduce drug problems (which are real) by increasing the profitability of the illegal drug market.

Cynthia McKinney is a former Democrat who served first in the Georgia legislature and then in Congress. She was an early critic of the U.S. response to the attacks on the U.S. by Saudi members of Al Qaeda, and then of the wars against Afghanistan and Iraq.

On civil liberties I think she better than Ron Paul, but basically in the same camp. The main difference is that Cynthia McKinney, though she is much younger than Ron Paul, is an African-American who was born in Georgia when there was still a (Democratic-Party led) regime of racist discrimination and segregation. She knows what it is like to be denied her civil rights. She has a long history of fighting for civil rights for everyone.

I'll be learning more about Cynthia's campaign positions over time, and I will criticize the ones that I think are wrong.

But come February, or whenever it is that Ron Paul stops seeking the Republican Party nomination, hopefully some of his fans will give Ms. McKinney a chance.

Again, if a grass roots effort earns Ron Paul the Republican nomination, I'll be pleased. I just would not lay any bets on that happening.

More data:

Ron Paul's campaign site
Cynthia McKinney campaign site

My Politics main page

Democracy or Republic: Ron Paul's Liberty is Your Death

To my surprise an essay I wrote back in 2002, America: Republic or Democracy, has become pretty popular on the net. It comes up high at Google search, given you type in republic, democracy, and America for search terms. About 750 people looked at it in September, which is trivial by Paris Hilton standards but not bad for a political essay at an obscure Web site.

I noted another essay on the same topic, A Republic, Not a Democracy, by Republican Party presidential candidate Ron Paul, which was written back in 2000. Ron Paul comes out squarely against democracy. That in itself should be ugly enough to stop a presidential campaign in its tracks. But there are a few things I agree with Ron Paul on. He's a serious guy. Instead of dismissing his argument, I am going to dissect it. If you are squeamish now is a good time to click over to something funny at YouTube.

Ron Paul claims "Our Founders instituted a republican system to protect individual rights and property rights from tyranny." He defends the Republican system as being on the same order as the Bill of Rights. He claims the individual rights of minorities are endangered by majority rule or democracy.

But only a fool would swallow such reasoning. What a Republic always establishes is the rule of the few over the many. It does not protect everyone's individual rights: it protects the rights of the ruling minority. The Liberty of the minority becomes the subjugation of the majority. The only thing Ron Paul and I agree upon, within this topic, is that the federal government, under the Constitution, was designed that way.

The minority of 1789 given power by the U.S. Constitution were mainly descendants of European aristocrats, though some were from merchant families or had made it in the U.S. despite humbler ancestry. Who were they establishing power over? Women, for sure. Native American Indians. Slaves from Africa. White slaves (indentured servants). And, in fact, most white men, because most white men did not have enough property to qualify to vote.

Liberty is an ugly thing when it is the liberty to own slaves, to prevent women from owning property, to grab Indian lands protected by treaties, and to crush poorer white men under your boot with laws and a swarm of lawyers.

How many slaves did Patrick Henry own when he said, "Give me liberty or give me death?" Over forty.

Ron Paul is the sort of spineless pawn of the rich (I think he is rich himself) whose job as a politician is to shift all costs to the working citizens and all profits to the investor and managerial class. His freedom is your slavery.

I'll take democracy any day. I believe the rights of individuals and minority groups are important. But I don't see where that obligates me to assign to the rich the right to write laws that make them even richer and make the bulk of us poorer.

If one of Patrick Henry's slaves, or George Washington's slaves, or Thomas Jefferson's slaves had said, "Give me Liberty or Give me Death," it would ring through the centuries with a sweeter sound.

Ron Paul's advocacy against democracy is advocacy for bad government. It advocates special privileges for the rich that are denied the rest of us.

Ron Paul's Crazy Gold Standard Proposal

I like many of the stances of Ron Paul, currently in the U.S. House of Representatives for Texas and seeker of the Republican nomination to become President of the United States. I even agree with him on some of his critique of the Federal Reserve System. But his idea of returning to the gold standard for money is crazy, and it is important to understand why.

Let me begin by asking this: what would you think of a candidate that urged returning to the wampum standard? What do the gold standard and wampum standard have in common, and how are they different? What does the U.S. Constitution say? How does Ron Paul's proposal differ from the gold standard used in the 19th century in the United States? Finally, having covered that extensive ground, I

First of all, you should know that none of Ron Paul's ideas are new. They have been discussed by those interested in monetary policy since before Alexander Hamilton laid out the blueprint for the U.S. financial system (though he did not foresee the need for a Federal Reserve).

Wampum (see Wampum) is a kind of money made from sea shells that used to be used by Native American Indians. It had value because it was believed to have value. Like other forms of money, it could facilitate trade, lifting an economy above the pure barter level. While the shells themselves might have some ornamental value, mainly they were a symbol for work done. Much like a modern dollar bill. There were two problems with using wampum for money that would have shown up in a more trade-oriented, modern society. One is that there could be a shortage of wampum if not enough of the appropriate shells could be found. That could constrain trade. The other is that either too much wampum could be produced, or that it could be counterfeited. Then the value of wampum would fall relative to real goods; in effect, you can have inflation even on the wampum standard.

Gold (see Gold) is a metal used for ornamentation and other purposes; it used to be used as money. While more difficult to counterfeit than wampum, it had the same problems when used as money. It did not always prevent inflation. For instance, when the Spanish conquered Mexico and Peru, so much gold and silver was mined that there was inflation in Europe. In the 19th and 20th century, with major veins of native (metallic) gold mostly tapped out, there was not enough gold available to facilitate the rapid growth of commerce. With the introduction of modern methods of extracting low-grade gold ores a related problem arose: the high cost of producing metallic gold.

Even paper money is becoming obsolete; most money today is tracked electronically.

Ron Paul proposes to fix the problem of gold by allowing the value of gold relative to silver to float in value as determined by markets shows how far his mind has wandered from reality. This was a real issue in the U.S. in the 1880's. The Democratic Party, having lost the Civil War (it was the party of Slavery), tried to get back in power at a national level by changing the official silver-to-gold exchange ratio, as exemplified in (losing) presidential candidate William Jennings Bryan's famous Cross of Gold speech. The problem with gold and silver used as money lies not in their exchange ratio, but in the fact that the supply from mining varies over time and does not match the variation in economic activity.

So forget the gold standard.

Ron Paul does remind us that the U.S. Constitution does not clearly allow for paper money, much less authorize the Federal Reserve System. It specifically states in Article I, Section 10 "No State shall enter into any Treaty, Alliance, or Confederation; grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal; coin Money; emit Bills of Credit; make any Thing but gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts." However, here "state" is specifically one of the states, not the federal government. In Section 8 it had already given Congress the power "To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures;
To provide for the Punishment of counterfeiting the Securities and current Coin of the United States;" which seems to give it the power to issue securities, which could be bonds, but has been interpreted as the ability to issue paper money. Why allow issuance of federal paper money and then prohibit the states from accepting it for the payment of debts? This issue was got around for a time by issuing paper money backed by gold or silver. As in so many cases, when the Constitution should have been amended, it was simply re-interpreted.

As to the Federal Reserve, I agree there are problems with it. It is supposed to allow for creation of a money supply sufficient to allow the economy to improve, but not so great as to cause inflation. But it is composed of bankers. Bankers are not like the rest of us. They have a long history of being far more sympathetic to the perceived problems of the rich than to the very real problems of the poor, the working class, and the middle class.

So sure, let's talk about reforming the Federal Reserve to make it responsive to all the people, not just the banks and Wall Street. Let us make it more transparent and find a way to hold those running the Federal Reserve System accountable. But forget the gold standard.

More data:

Ron Paul's Presidential campaign site