Philadelphia Ron Paul Rally

Buffalo and I were at the Ron Paul rally on Independence Mall, Philadelphia, today.  The rally started at 1pm, with a musical number (Jordan Page), followed by a few speakers, including former CIA officer and Bin Laden Unit leader Michael Scheuer.

The weather today in Philly was far from ideal, with a thin rain in the beginning of the rally becoming a downpour before 2pm.  The crowd was very animated, with lots of people in the age group of 20s to 30s.  My estimation of the number people attending was of about 500-1000.  The Ron Paul campaign is claiming 4300+ attendees, which is a claim I find very hard to believe.

Congressman Paul talked for about 30 minutes or so, delivering his standard message with the usual confidence.  It was quite motivating, actually.  The man has a type of charisma that comes from believing in what he says and in being able reason his positions in a manner that does not come across as preachy or pretentious.  He didn't try to work the crowd much, other than a quip or two about "Sunny Day" patriots, as the rain poured incessantly.

We took a few snapshots of the crowd and the rain.  The mall being relatively flat and with all the umbrellas it was not possible for us to catch more than a glimpse of Dr. Paul now and then, so we don't have any pictures of the man himself.

Cognitive Dissonance and Conservative Politics in America

Modern liberals in America are not what they used to be in the 19th century--namely, defenders of free markets and individualism, i.e., freedom from government.  Instead, this new(ish) breed believes in an "enlightened" government that is charged with providing for its citizens and with improving on society by the careful application of social engineering.  While pre-Roosevelt liberals generally believed in the rule of law and saw the importance of decentralization--and of the Constitution as a means to attain such goals--modern liberals would struggle to understand how a two-centuries-old booklet of a document could try to interpose itself between citizens and such lofty goals as those made possible by government-sponsored charity.  Any reasonable person will recognize the central planning efforts proposed by liberals as socialism, but to dare suggest it these days is to be viewed as bitter, name-calling ignoramuses.  But I digress; the title of this post is not "Cognitive Dissonance and Liberal Politics…"

What is Conservatism?

Conservatism as a label denotes a desire to prevent change.  Quite meaningless a descriptor, really.  In practice it generally means a few things:

• A strong desire to impose their views of tradition on others (see drug war and opposition to same-sex marriage, to name two issues).
• A strong belief in individual rights, as long as said rights are not used to consume drugs, have gay sex or to allow an unsanctioned religion to build a YMCA equivalent anywhere near Ground Zero.
• Government should be allowed great leeway in searching for terrorists at home, since good people have nothing to hide--except when it comes to TSA pat downs, which are plainly evil.
• A strong desire to curb government spending, as long as said spending does not affect free medical care for seniors, or the military and security budgets.

And so on.  The list above could very well be seen as a symptom of psychosis--at a social scale.  Modern liberals are bad, but at least not as clearly psychotic in their form of pathological stupidity.

Pathologically Unconstitutional

Modern conservatism's breakdown with reality has been clear for everyone to see in the many GOP Primary debates.  All candidates have a platform mostly consisting of a minimum set of planks:

• Reducing the size of the federal governement.
• Reducing taxes.
• Promoting economic growth.
• A constitutional approach to government (the fact that this is a campaign platform as opposed to getting you jail time for governing in any other way is disheartening in and of itself).

Things get incoherent when you look at the other planks of some of the GOP candidates.  Take Romney on the Constitution, for example.  From his website:

"Mitt Romney’s view of the Constitution is straightforward: its words have meaning. The founding generation adopted a written constitution for a reason. They intended to limit the powers of government according to enduring principles. The job of the judge is to enforce the Constitution’s restraints on government and, where the Constitution does not speak, to leave the governance of the nation to elected representatives." [Emphasis mine; correct understanding of the constitution would cause that to read "the issues to the states."]

But on immigration Romney's main proposal is the use of a so called E-Verify system, by which employers will check prospective employees' identities and immigration status.  This means that legal immigrants will be given some form of centrally maintained ID card, containing, among other info, biometric data.  Illegal immigrants will not have such cards and therefore be unable to find legal jobs.  The quite obvious problem with this approach is that citizens will also need to have such cards, otherwise there would be nothing to distinguish illegal immigrants from citizens--this is not really brought up by Romney during debates, but, perhaps more surprisingly, by any of his opponents either.  Meanwhile, the federal government's power to issue federal IDs is nowhere to be found in the powers enumerated by the Constitution.  Incidentally, Gingrich is another supporter of these biometric-based federal ID cards.

The subject of constitutionalism is a rich one.  Romney's, Santorum's and Gingrich's positions on Iran are to use military force if they build or are perceived to attempt to build nuclear weapons.  Again, the problem is obvious:  The President cannot declare wars, only Congress can do so.  That simple fact seems to escape most of the candidates.

Most reproductive law rhetoric spewed by the candidates--which includes even the prohibition of certain types of contraceptives--also fall well outside of the scope of the constitution, except for the repeal of Roe v. Wade, which can reasonably be argued on constitutional grounds.

And then there is the War on Drugs.

These are people that, should any of them win the election, will have to swear an oath of office that states, as per Article II, Section I, Clause 8 of the U.S. Constitution

"I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."

I believe three of the GOP nominees would be at serious risk of perjury if they were to take that oath.

Coherence Wars

Reducing the size of the federal budget is another mine field of ideological inconsistencies for most of the GOP candidates.  For instance, the yearly expenditures of the U.S. Government break down as such (for 2011):

• Medicare & Medicaid: 24% or $835 B
• Social Security: 20% or $725 B
• Defense and Security Spending: 26% or $929 B*
• Debt interest: 6% or $227 B
• All other spending: 23% or $922 B

* Note that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are funded by separately handled appropriations bills, and do not figure in the numbers above.

World's top military spenders in 2010.  Source: Wikipedia.

Defense and security spending are the thickest slice of the budget, and by extension a natural candidate for spending cuts consideration.  The United States military expenditures represent 43% of the world's combined military budget.  China is at a distant second place with 7.3% of the world's budget.  We overspend the next 23 countries (21 of which enjoy very friendly relations with us) in the world's hierarchy of military budgets.  It should be easy to reduce our military expenditures by half and still enjoy the peace of mind of "only" overspending the next 5 countries in that list (three of which are strong allies).

And yet all but one of the GOP candidates vocally and proudly state that not a single, solitary dime will be cut from defense spending.  (Incidentally, the role of world police is also nowhere to be found in the list of enumerated powers.)

The GOP answer to budget reduction**?  Platitudes such as Made in America, bring the jobs back home, get the illegals out, impose tariffs on China, and other proposals that seem to be tailored to have little effect at best to catastrophic effects at worst.  They seem to be content in rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.

**I should say, 3/4 of the GOP's answer.

The Culture Wars and Reason's No Man's Land

I make no secret about favoring Ron Paul for this election cycle (I'll presume to go as far as saying that the same applies to my editorial colleague in this blog).  The Congressman has consistently upheld his principled belief in the rule of law and his defense of the Constitution.  He is the only candidate to put forward a clear, concise, measurable proposal for reducing the federal debt and the presence of government in our lives.

Sadly, in the political environment we find ourselves, populism has taken the lead in ideas, and we the people are engaged in a cultural loud mouth competition where the impact of politics and central government is continuously amplified.  Conservatism is reduced to seeking moral affirmation at the detriment of the rule of law.  "Liberals" are so ideologically lost and self-conflicted that they cannot even comprehend the principles behind their own social-economic policies, and have instead opted out of critical thinking altogether.  The end result of this stupidity arms race is that nothing will likely change after this election cycle, and politics will continue to be an intelligent life's no man's land.

References

http://www.ricksantorum.com/issues
http://mittromney.com/issues
http://www.newt.org/answers
http://www.ronpaul2012.com/the-issues
http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/arizona-shows-pitfalls-romney-proposed-national-e-verify-142419836.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_military_expenditures
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_federal_budget

State of the Primary, February 2012

Fresh off of Saturday's Nevada caucus (which my esteemed compatriot has already discussed), it's high time to evaluate the remaining candidates, their relative statuses within the Republican Primary to date, and, most poignantly, what lies ahead for their candidacies.

Here's my take, in order of delegates earned to date:

• Mitt Romney (81 Delegates)

Let's face it.  Massachusetts' former governor has all-but secured his position as this year's Republican nominee.  While Newt Gingrich may have dominated South Carolina, and a retrospective recount squeezed him out of first place in Iowa by a few votes, his strong showings in New Hampshire, Florida and Nevada have given him a substantial lead and, more importantly, all of the momentum.

It is interesting to note that Romney's core supporters have mostly come from the "Whoever can beat Obama" demographic, which speaks volumes about what is most important to a vast majority of conservative voters in 2012.

•  Newt Gingrich (27 Delegates)

The former Speaker of the House had a sweeping victory in South Carolina, but has been a dwindling second ever since.  With supporters comprised mainly of the "Whoever can beat Obama, but isn't Mitt Romney" demographic, it's hard to see a path to nomination for Newt, though it's certainly far from impossible.  Probably the best debater we've seen in this election cycle, look for Gingrich to continue his well-verbalized but mostly insubstantial monologues at least until March.

• Rick Santorum (16 Delegates) 

 Perhaps the biggest surprise of Iowa, Rick "Santorum" Santorum had hoped to ride that momentum straight through to the Convention.  Unfortunately, after spending all of his time in Iowa (and most of his money) eeking out that victory, the former Pennsylvania Senator has very little to justify his continued presence in this race.  I would expect him to drop out within the week, barring surprise showings in Colorado or Minnesota.

• Ron Paul (6 Delegates) 

 If you've been paying attention, or even if you've just skimmed an article or two, you've probably surmised that we here at TPGTFS have more than a bit of sympathy for the Texas Congressman.  Supporters, yes, but realists all the same.  Having yet to finish first in any Caucus or Primary election, the "Intellectual Godfather of the Tea Party Movement" is not going to be the nominee.

The good doctor, however, may not define this as a defeat.  Let's briefly go over a few statistics so far:

1. Ron Paul has received almost double the amount of campaign contributions from active military personnel than all the candidates combined, including Barack Obama.
2. Ron Paul has absolutely dominated the youth vote in every state so far.
3.  In Nevada, Ron Paul garnered 42% of voters who said that "true conservatism" was the most important factor behind their choice.  Compare this to Gingrich at 30% AND Santorum at 24%, both of whom have billed themselves as the "true conservative" Romney alternative.

 These stats show the necessity of Dr. Paul's presence in the Republican party.  To discount him is to throw away a large chunk of these three demographics, all of whom will be vital to next year's general election against Obama.  It is very likely that Paul is positioning himself as an asset to the eventual nominee, and that the eventual nominee will be hard pressed to ignore him.  (Notice how Paul and Romney rarely go after each other, and indeed have been known to exchange compliments?)

If this is indeed the case, an intelligent Republican presidential candidate would do well to accommodate Paul and his supporters, thus changing the dialog of the election and pushing the Republican Party back toward its libertarian roots.  Especially if this candidate is Mitt Romney, who has virtually no die-hard loyalty within his fan base, Republicans will need the kind of support given to Ron Paul, specifically from the demographics that Paul has dominated.

It would be difficult for Ron Paul to call this a defeat.

Nevada Primary and the State of Small L Libertarianism

By now everyone is aware of the results of the Nevada caucus.  According to Google, with 88.9% of precincts reporting, the results are:

1. Romney (49.6%)
2. Gingrich (21.3%)
3. Paul (18.5%)
4. Santorum (10.3%)

 Now, as a realist Ron Paul supporter I understand the odds against his campaign, and so these numbers surprise me in a positive way.  That's a pretty close third, I think.  The thing is, as it happened in New Hampshire, the Paul campaign had higher expectations for this caucus, so this third place has been seen a bit of a let down.

What does that say of the success of libertarian ideas this election cycle?  Is libertarianism failing to make inroads into mainstream America because Congressman Paul could not amass more votes than Gingrich (and Romney, for that matter) even in freaking Nevada? Or does it imply that libertarianism has become so mainstream that a fairly close third place in Nevada (after a fairly close third in Iowa and a second place in New Hampshire) is just a sign of abject failure?

I think Dr. Paul is achieving something important with his campaign.  I'm not saying anything original here, it's been a talking point everywhere for months now that Dr. Paul's main goal may be simply to obtain enough delegates in the primaries to affect the Republican platform this election, perhaps add a libertarian plank or two.  But it does amaze me how successfully he has been bringing some well-established libertarian ideas (end of the "war" on drugs, sound money, etc.) more to the forefront of political discussion.  At every debate so far Paul has consistently received less time than most other candidates, and I expect this to be still true as we proceed down the primaries calendar, but being part of a smaller field he's still received a great amount of exposure.  The next debate he might be one of three (assuming Santorum drops sometime soon).  It's going to be progressively harder to ignore the good Congressman and his ideas.

South Carolina CNN Debate

My personal takeaways from the Republican Primary Debate today:

• Newt can't stop talking with authority about anything, even when what he is saying is barely coherent.
• Romney could have handled this whole tax returns issue a lot better than he has, but even having had two days to practice a proper response to that issue he still ended up like a deer caught in the headlights today.
• Best moment of the debate was when the audience booed the bejesus out of John King (the moderator) when he tried to skip Paul's answer to the question of his position on abortion.  Paul had to remind him for the second time in the debate (the first was during the question about Obamacare) that he, as the only medical doctor, probably had a relevant view on the issue at hand.
• Santorum may have done well for himself with his strategy of non-apologetic social conservatism.
• Some of the candidates seem to think that the Federal Government is the answer to everything.  Surprisingly to me, Romney may just not be in that group.
• Ron Paul knew there would be a closing statement.  Couldn't he have prepared one in advance?