"The younger crowd amongst the Ron Paul supporters have a very good understanding of the dwindling freedom and prosperity we have in America, and it is they who will have to suffer many, many years in the future of the kind of Total State-controlled, impoverished society that the Obama and Romney statists are giving us, and the young people know it."

Ron Paul vs. The Real 'Tinfoil Hat' Crowd

by Scott Lazarowitz

While Ron Paul will no longer actively campaign in the remaining state primaries, he will nevertheless continue in the delegate-winning strategy, and go to the Republican convention. Contrary to State-shilling media hoaxers and propagandists, Dr. Paul has NOT dropped out of the race, and those who hope for a future of freedom should vote in remaining primaries.

But one must wonder why Ron Paul has not received as many votes as he should have during this election campaign.

Well, one of the unfortunate consequences of democracy and especially government’s seizure of education has been the decline in critical thinking and common sense in America.

In the mainstream of America, the people love the State, and they demonize those who challenge the State’s authority, legitimacy and policies. It seems that some of those most maligned are the libertarians, particularly the Austrian economists, historical revisionists, anarcho-capitalists or market anarchists, and voluntaryists.

Remarkably, it is these libertarians whose views are closer to those of the American Founders than the modern mainstream statists. Yet it is the libertarians – advocating individual freedom, the non-aggression principle, private property rights, freedom of trade and voluntary exchange, and equality under the rule of law – who are dismissed as "Tinfoil Hat" wearers.

Our society has become an Orwellian, Bizarro World in which dependence, irresponsibility, recklessness and aggression are good – and peace, independence, responsibility and prudence are bad.

Only in Amerika does advocating independence, responsibility and the rule of law give one a "Tinfoil Hat" status.

Here, I will set the record straight, that the opposite of all that is actually the case, in government spending and monetary policy, and in foreign policy.

Government Spending and Monetary Policy

In a recent debate between Ron Paul and Paul Krugman, Ron Paul summarized the differences between him and Krugman: "(Paul Krugman) believes in big government … and I believe in very small government. I emphasize personal liberties. I don’t like a managed economy, whether it’s through central economic planning or monetary policy, or even Congress doing it."

There Ron Paul described the true fiscally conservative and responsible approach that Krugman in the past declared to be of the "Tinfoil Hat" crowd.

Krugman and his fellow Keynesians support increasing government debts and deficit spending, and believe that more people should be dependent on the government, such as "the poor," students and the elderly. And they advocate greater tax-thefts of the workers and producers of society to involuntarily finance such dependence and serfdom.

The Keynesians and statists continue to fantasize that corporatism, militarism, tax-thefts, debts and deficit-spending are helpful to Americans.

But when crashing back down to Earth, we learn that those who are most helped by stimulus, government social programs and war profiteering are the government bureaucrats themselves and corporate special interests. (e.g. ObamaCare, Dodd-Frank, Solyndra, body scanners, etc.)

Can you get any more "Tinfoil Hat" than the elitist daydreamers wanting more of such government activism and intrusions?

In reality, the State is the true "1%," as evidenced by the wealthiest districts of America surrounding Washington, D.C.

But we must no longer allow these elitist daydreamers to continue forcing their delusions onto the rest of us! The people have a right to know the truth!

Government deficit-spending and the National Debt force future generations to have to involuntarily pay for current and past generations’ self-indulgence and irresponsible spending habits.

Philosophically, Ron Paul believes that if it’s wrong for your neighbors to take your earnings from you (that is, to force you to do extra labor to serve others involuntarily), then it’s just as immoral for government bureaucrats and their armed police to do that.

No one should be above the law.

And Ron Paul understands that when you rely on funding the government through borrowing, you are creating a moral hazard.

There’s no "Tinfoil Hat" there – only a sound, rational belief in protecting the rights of the individual, protecting private property from theft and intrusion, and a belief that no one should be above the law.

Another moral hazard is the printing of money out of nothing. For a government to just spend money that doesn’t exist, or that has nothing of value backing it, is extremely irresponsible. It ought to be considered a crime, as it is equal to actual theft and fraud.

This fiat money printing causes inflation. It is a sneaky, backdoor way of government bureaucrats and their "private" banking cartel associates to get easy money right away to spend – while causing price inflation of everyday necessities, which makes it more difficult for those in the lower and middle classes to afford to provide their daily needs, especially in food and energy.

Through this backdoor inflation-tax, the Primary Dealer Big Banks are virtually stealing from the poor and middle class. This is not just a real moral hazard, but it also should be considered a crime.

So the truth is, those who advocate these schemes of debts robbing future generations and fiat-money printing robbing the current population are really the true "Tinfoil Hat" wearers of our time.

For more on these issues, see Murray Rothbard in Taking Money Back and Repudiate the National Debt, and Hans-Hermann Hoppe in Why the State Demands Control of Money. (And more information here [.pdf], here, here, here, and here.)

And here is an important interview of Ron Paul covering monetary policy, the business cycle, government-stimulated artificial inflation and bubbles, and the role of government in private economic matters.

By the way, unlike clueless Krugman and Bernanke et al., Ron Paul predicted the housing bubble and economic downturn of 2007-2008, as did many amongst the Austrian school of economic thought. That was based on their knowledge of history, and understanding of cause and effect, as well as the moral hazard that results from excusing people from personal responsibility and the rule of law.

In economic matters and monetary policy, Ron Paul wants to bring the government’s budget back down to only funding that which the Constitution authorizes, and eliminate the tyrannical IRS (and most of the other dirty three-letter words in Washington).

Ron Paul also wants to repeal the Federal Reserve Act of 1913, repeal legal tender laws and allow for competing currencies.

Unthinkingly, many people believe that those proposals are of a Tinfoil Hat variety, whereas it really is the status quo of monetary serfdom that only real Tinfoil Hatters would support.

Forcing the entire population to only use the one government-issued, government-debased currency is very authoritarian and dictatorial, and it violates the people’s right to freedom of exchange.

People have a God-given right to choose any medium of exchange they want, and, unlike the chaos that the current central planning monetary dictatorship causes, a natural order would result from a society of monetary freedom.

And regarding the government’s control over the nation’s banks and the people’s wealth and savings, why can’t an individual or group who wants to serve one’s community own and operate a bank? In a society of freedom, there would be no central government bank (and thus no revolving door between a "Federal Reserve" and the dreaded private sector), banks would compete for the people’s business, and the currently legalized fraud of fractional reserve banking would not be allowed under the rule of law.

More important, in such a society of freedom, those bankers who engage in risky and irresponsible investment and lending practices would be held accountable and would not be bailed out by taxpayers involuntarily. Those local banks with the best reputation would attract more customers, while the irresponsible ones would be forced out of business or be sent to jail. A system of freedom would also reward consumers who take responsibility for their own banking choices, too.

As Jacob Hornberger noted just recently, we need to separate banking and state.

Only real Tinfoil Hat wearers would support an authoritarian, top-down central banking authority and a cartel of government-controlled "private" banks who can get away with crimes of theft, fraud, and "bailout" extortion-looting.

Foreign Policy

On foreign policy, I still can’t believe the number of people who actually "boo" Ron Paul’s suggestion that we apply the Golden Rule to foreign policy.

Now, a lot of people have this false "Tinfoil Hat" view of Ron Paul and libertarians in foreign policy mainly out of ignorance of actual history, as well as lacking skills in critical thinking.

Unfortunately, too many Americans simply believe the propaganda that government bureaucrats tell them, as repeated to them by the State’s lapdog media stenographers.

Besides ignorance, a problem with many Americans is their belief in American exceptionalism – that the U.S. government may trespass on foreign lands with military bases and occupations against the will and approval of the actual inhabitants of those lands, but foreign governments may NOT trespass and occupy OUR lands. This long-ingrained moral relativism has reinforced many Americans’ narcissistic, communistic self-appointed role as rulers of the world, as owners of the entire world’s territories.

It is this attitude of American covetousness that has contributed to so many people viewing as absurd Ron Paul’s asking how we would like it if a foreign government invaded our territory and occupied our lands. The question is not so absurd, when you consider all the aggressions and provocations committed by the U.S. government against foreigners.

And when I refer to most Americans as ignorant, many of them actually don’t know such facts of history as our government having started a war against Iraq a first time (even though Iraq was of no threat to us), in 1991, and intentionally destroyed Iraq’s civilian water and sewage treatment centers. Those actions, along with the sanctions and no-fly zones on Iraq, led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqis throughout the 1990s. And all this led to widespread anti-Americanism throughout the Middle East.

Prior to that during the 1950s, on behalf of the British Empire and its covetous craving for Iran’s oil, the U.S. government and its CIA staged a coup and overthrew the Iranian Prime Minister Mosaddegh, and installed the Shah of Iran for the next 25 years. The U.S. government supported the Shah’s tyranny, and that led to the 1979 Iranian Revolution. The Iranian population knew damn well that the U.S. government was the main supporter of their tyrant leaders.

Just look at this description of the Shah’s notorious torture and spy regime, and how it compares to America’s current police state of NDAA, NSA spying, torture regime, the DHS and the TSA.

Unlike the Tinfoil Hat wearers, Ron Paul understands that when you go across the street and provoke your neighbors, trespass on their property and steal their stuff (and murder their family members), they will try to retaliate against you.

Dr. Paul wants to dismantle the Leviathan militarist and police state apparatus that are turning us into the Soviet Union.

The real Tinfoil Hat wearers support keeping or even expanding the current Leviathan nightmare.

Now, do people really believe that if we close down the foreign U.S. military bases and bring the troops home, stop initiating wars against others who were of no threat to us, and shut down the Nazi-like, Soviet-like police state at home, that we would make ourselves even more vulnerable to terrorism?

Sorry, the opposite is true. Our government’s aggressions, intrusions, and provocations are what really have compromised our security and made us vulnerable to terrorism.

After all, during the 1990s Ron Paul actually foresaw the increased probability of terrorist attacks on our soil, based on the U.S. government’s provocations overseas.

Only Tinfoil Hat wearers would think that you can provoke your neighbors but think they wouldn’t (or shouldn’t) fight back.

The truth is, the main purpose of post-Cold War militarism and the "terrorism" charade has been for certain special interests to profit from the labor and savings of the American workers and producers. (For more on that, see this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, and this.)

Conclusion

While the Ron Paul campaign will probably be accused of "stealing" Republican national Convention delegates, it is really the Ron Paul campaign who are following the rules of primaries and state conventions in their accumulation of delegates.

But it is the Romney people who have been committing the shenanigans, and are the true alleged cheaters and alleged vote-stealing fraudsters.

Some people just crave political power and artificial financial advantages over the people, while Ron Paul wants the opposite: Freedom!

There is a reason why so many people are enthusiastic about Ron Paul: Because they believe in freedom, and Ron Paul is the only candidate who has said that he wants us all to have our freedom.

The younger crowd amongst the Ron Paul supporters have a very good understanding of the dwindling freedom and prosperity we have in America, and it is they who will have to suffer many, many years in the future of the kind of Total State-controlled, impoverished society that the Obama and Romney statists are giving us, and the young people know it.

But the Tinfoil Hatters want it all to continue, and at these young people’s expense, to which the young people reply, "Up your nose with a rubber hose!"

For those whose only real familiarity with Ron Paul is from the propagandist mainstream media and the neocon talk radio blabbermouths, here are some of Dr. Paul’s own writings and speeches:

Hundreds of articles by Ron Paul (Three of my favorites: Paper Money and Tyranny, The End of Dollar Hegemony and What Really Divides Us) and Ron Paul’s many books promoting freedom, peace and free markets

Here are some of Ron Paul’s books that are available for free online:

A Foreign Policy of Freedom [.pdf]
The Case for Gold [.pdf]
Freedom Under Siege: The U.S. Constitution After 200-Plus Years [.pdf]
Gold, Peace, and Prosperity [.pdf]
Pillars of Prosperity: Free Markets, Honest Money, Private Property [.pdf]

And there are these more recent books:

Liberty Defined (Intro, with links to buy the book)
End the Fed
The Revolution: A Manifesto

Link:
http://lewrockwell.com/lazarowitz/lazarowitz45.1.html