RedStateEclectic

Bargain Basement Jefferson

From Newsweek’s Howard Fineman:

No one thinks Ron Paul is going to lead the GOP, let alone be president. He's 74 years old and just too…out there. He is an obscure guy who waited patiently (if not quietly) for the cycle of history to come back around his way, and finally it did. We have been arguing about money, credit, and banks since the first days of the republic. Paul is a bargain-basement Jefferson for our time.

Still, the GOP needs to study Ron Paul, and learn. No one has better captured the sense of Main Street outrage over secret insider deals and Wall Street bonuses. No one has been more consistent about sticking to core conservative values—including the one that says the government shouldn't spend more money than it takes in. If the GOP is going to appeal to independent voters, it has to confront its own corporate allies. "Republicans need to find a populist edge again," says Craig Shirley, the author of Rendezvous With Destiny, a new account of Ronald Reagan's 1980 campaign. "Reagan spoke to the guy who thought he was being screwed by big business, by big government, by the big media." The good doctor, of all people, is showing Republicans the way. What they need is a candidate who embodies the spirit of Ron Paul. Just so long as it isn't Ron Paul.

Be sure to read the rest—you may not agree with it all, but there is, I think, some truth to what he says.

LLE

The Freedom Movement Freight Train

Scott Smith interviews James Jaeger, producer of FIAT EMPIRE - Why the Federal Reserve Violates the U.S. Constitution. Mr. Jaeger has some pretty strong words to say about our political future:

Daily Bell: Where is the freedom movement headed in America?

Jaeger: The "freedom movement" is currently defined by Ron Paul's CAMPAIGN FOR LIBERTY (www.campaignforliberty.org), such based on libertarian political philosophy, the Austrian school of economics, the insights to fiat money as explicated by G. Edward Griffin and Edwin Vieira in their respective works and most of all the hundreds of millions of hard-working American citizens in the middle-class that are fed up with the IRS, the Federal Reserve System, the IMF/WORLD BANK, the UN, NAFTA, GATT, the WTO, the Counsel on Foreign Relations and soon the GOP and the Democratic party. In other words, the plutocracy that meets in DAVOS every year is getting on their nerves. The Ron Paul Revolution is thus a freight train full of CHANGE headed straight towards Wall Street and K-Street so the 1-percenters better take cover. At the end of ORIGINAL INTENT we make three suggestions on what all Americans can do to board the freight train. See clips at www.OriginalIntent.us.

Daily Bell: Is the freedom movement being co-opted by the "conservative" movement?

Jaeger: They are trying, but I don't think the American people are going to bite. More and more middle class Americans realize that the Democrats and Republicans are BOTH heavily influenced by the CFR-infested Globalist Agenda, and it was this Agenda that shut down their domestic manufacturing base and has relegated them to unemployment lines and Walmart check-out lines. I predict at some point they will defect and "go indi" en masse. They will realize that, unless the Sarah Palin's of the world are talking about FIAT money, shutting down the Fed, and abolishing the IRS -- they are FAKES. Sarah Palin does NOT talk about any of this like Ron Paul does, nor do any of the other DemGOP fakes. Fake "conservatives" showed their colors on the way they treated Ron Paul last year. There's no way patriotic Americans can forget how FOX News and Sean Hannity snubbed them when their own polls showed that Ron Paul won three (3) distinct times. The so-called conservatives are thus traitors to their country because most of them supported "free" trade and NAFTA, globalization and the corporate fascists that have invaded Congress. Also, have any of them read or applied Robert Zubrin's book, ENERGY VICTORY. Of course not. The Republican party therefore deserves to die. Same thing with the cultural Marxist-infested Democratic party. Both of these parties are traitors to the U.S. Republic envisioned by the Framers.

He predicts a shake-up. I hope he's right and that the shake-up goes our way. 

A Good Comment

While reading a hit piece on Ron Paul (you can tell the primaries are coming), I found a comment that was pretty good at describing his views in a way that really portrayed what we like about the good doctor:

On War...
RP--Wars should be defensive only and declared by Congress, with a clearly defined mission and exit strategy.
U.S.--The UN, the Congress, or the President can send our troops wherever they want without a formal declaration of war, a strategy, clearly defined enemy, definition of victory, or exit strategy.

On Civil Liberties...
RP--The government exists for one reason--to protect our liberty. Any actions taken to do more can only come at the expense of those liberties.
U.S.--The government gives you your rights and can take them away at will [see rendition, torture, "don't taze me bro", countless 10th amendment violations, war on drugs, income tax, excessive punishment of "hate crimes", etc.

On Monetary Policy...
RP--End the Fed! [a message he's consistently delivered for decades], sound commodity-backed currency (or at least legalize competing currencies)
U.S.--Just keep printing, borrowing, spending with reckless abandon. There will be no consequences... ever.

On the Economy...
RP--Balance the budget by cutting bureaucracy and reigning in the empire
U.S.--Just go to the mall. Everything will be ok. The dollar isn't crashing. Just keep buying. We'll punish you from saving by devaluing the currency faster than you can save money and earn interest.

Mainstream Steam

Who’d have thought two years ago that a mainstream publication would be talking about Ron Paul as going “mainstream”? 

Reason #3,435 To Pay No Attention to the Mainstream Media

From the Associated Press:

"In the past, the Federal Reserve was held in very high esteem," said Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, a libertarian who ran a quixotic third-party presidential campaign in 2008. Now, it's "the source of our problem," suggests Paul, author of the bestseller "End the Fed."++

Usually an outlier, Paul suddenly has found an army of at least 307 House colleagues and 30 senators marching behind his legislation to subject the Fed to intense scrutiny by Congress' Government Accountability Office. The House Financial Services Committee endorsed Paul's approach 43-26 last week over objections from its chairman, Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass.

Now, if these people don’t even check their facts (or look at the video), or refuse to recognize that Paul did NOT run a campaign as a “third-party” but rather as a REPUBLICAN in 2008, why should we bother to believe ANYTHING that they report—or at least believe it without doing some independent fact-checking.  The work of citizens in a republic is hard.

LLE

Paul-Grayson Amendment - Something Quite Amazing

To me its an example of the incompetence and the contradictions that result from the incompetence of those holding and vying for power. It confirms my suspicion, in order to survive and succeed at least for a while in politics (a) you must not know what you are doing, other than in terms of (b) gaining, maintaining or expanding power. Sometimes (a) gets in the way of (b). Concerning the Paul-Grayson Amendment, this is what seems to have happened in a big way.

Something quite amazing happened yesterday in Congress:  the House Finance Committee -- in a truly bipartisan and even trans-ideological vote -- defied the banking industry, the Federal Reserve, the Democratic leadership, and mainstream Beltway opinion in order to pass an amendment, sponsored by GOP Rep. Ron Paul and Democratic Rep. Alan Grayson, mandating a genuine and probing audit of the Fed.

Take a look at Glenn Greenwald's interesting article on this remarkable event.

See also Eric Parks' post.

Paul-Grayson Amendment Wins!

Lew Rockwell Writes:

Congratulations to Ron Paul! His amendment to audit the Fed was just passed, kicking out he evil Mel Watts version, in the financial services committee. Still to come, the vote on the whole bill, and much can happen, but this is great news. Bernanke and friends must be crying in their beer.

The Straight Talk on Health Care

Ron Paul shows the dearth of logic up on the Hill:

But the government’s prescription for the ills caused by intervention is always more intervention. We see this not only in healthcare policy, but also in foreign policy, in economic policy, and in monetary policy - basically, in all areas of public policy. It was even claimed that the House bill would increase competition in healthcare, and thereby improve the private sector’s business model for insurance.

It is fascinating that politicians would use the language of the free market in this way to justify more corporatism. This demonstrates a couple of things. One, that politicians truly do not understand the very basic tenets of a free market. By definition, a free market is free from government intervention. But once a little intervention is accepted as legitimate, politicians will blame the problems created by their intervention on the free market and present themselves as saviors that must intervene even more.

It's called job security.

Watt's Not To Like?

Representative Mel Watt is back in the news. His attempts to gut H.R. 1207 must not be enough insurance since he has introduced a "transparency" amendment of his own. Here was the salesman's pitch:

"While my amendment will certainly fall short of demands by those intent on destroying the independence (if not the existence) of the Fed, the critics of my amendment will have to concede...that my amendment will provide transparency of the Fed's financial operations that will be completely unprecedented,"

You gotta'  love this stuff. You already have a bill with loads of support, ostensibly because it is something the voters want, yet we voters are just too ignorant to know Watt's good for us. Mel is from the district in Charlotte which is home to Bank of America - a corporate voter that not only knows Watt's best for the country but also gets to vote much more frequently than we individuals do (there's a special booth on K Street).

As much as the universe seems to revolve around this one office-holder, there seems to be some contention regarding the transparency of the new amendment. Representative Alan Grayson sees it a little differently:

"The Watt Amendment, as written today, actually places new restrictions on the little authority that exists, such as it is, for independent auditing of the Fed," Grayson said. "It keeps in place all existing restrictions and adds four more. So I don't see why anybody would reasonably think that it creates unprecedented authority to audit the Fed."

We all know that congressmen have their special businesses to protect whether it be banks on the coasts, auto-companies to the North, or farmers in the Midwest, their job includes finding a way to derail populist efforts and preserving the $tatu$ quo. The Fed is the big one. It is the fountain from which all the vote-buying flows. The cash cow. There should be little surprise, therefore, if Ron Paul's bill goes down to defeat while being sold as a victory. All we can do is keep up the pressure and hope for the best.

Anybody Making the Trip?

Congressman Ron Paul Speaking in Ames

11/13/09 7:00 PM - 11/13/09 8:00 PM
Location:

Benton Auditorium in the Scheman Building (next to Hilton Coliseum) at the Iowa State Center in Ames.