Faux Conservatives Diss Ron Paul

Disliked and mocked by many so-called conservatives, Congressman Ron Paul (R - Texas) is probably the closest thing to a conservative in Washington.

Take a look at the following clip from Fox “News” reporting the results of this year’s Conservative Political Action Conference straw poll. The winner was Ron Paul, which for Fox was the wrong result. Watch as they try to explain away Paul’s nine point first place finish last week over golden boy Mitt Romney.

This sorry-ass report tells you all you need to know about Fox “News.” Notice how the reporter tried to downplay Paul’s victory by saying that attendees weren’t just handed a ballot, but rather they had to go out of their way to booths in order to vote at the convention. In other words, Paul’s supporters are dedicated and they really believe in their guy. What does this episode say for the support for Mitt Romney or Sarah Palin or Tim Pawlenty? It says that maybe they don’t have too many supporters who are excited enough about their potential candidate to vote for self-serving, made-for-TV professional politicians.

Can you guess what the CPAC crowd’s reaction was when the results of the poll were announced? They booed loud enough to drown out the Paul supporters That’s pretty amazing considering that Ron Paul is arguably the most principled Republican in Congress. Unlike the phonies who comprise the GOP, there is no gap between what he says and how he votes. Personally I agree with Paul’s warnings about our interventionist policies in international affairs. I agree with him about the need to protect personal liberty. But we are at opposite ends of the spectrum when it comes to the economy. Paul wants government out of the markets as much as possible, which I think will pave the way for a tyrannical takeover of America by big business. Obviously he would dispute this conclusion, but given the dysfunctional nature of American democracy, we are ripe for corporate picking.

Having said this, I admire Ron Paul for his consistency and willingness to stick to his principles, even when it is politically unpopular. And in the modern Republican Party, antiquated ideas such as personal liberty and retrenching our hegemonic ways in international relations are very unpopular. That’s because the GOP of today advocates a mild form of fascism characterized by extreme patriotism which is used to launch wars of choice to secure American (elites’) economic interests. It also seeks to foster an ever cozier relationship between corporations and the government (which Democrats also advocate), and also a gradual erosion of individual freedom via legislation such as the PATRIOT Act, as well as through debt slavery which has a very limiting effect on personal liberty.

Republican bigwigs would prefer that Ron Paul didn’t exist for the simple fact that he makes them look bad. If any one of the 200 plus Republican lawmakers in Congress can claim to be against “big government,” it’s Ron Paul. I find it absolutely hilarious that the CPAC attendees were cheering guest speaker Dick Cheney whose administration exploded the national debt and funneled billions if not trillions of taxpayer dollars into the big banks to bail their sorry under-regulated asses out. But what do you expect? The CPAC people are full of shit. All of them. Well, most of them anyway. How else can you explain their mindless applauses for people such as Cheney, and former House Majority Leader Dick Armey, who helped the Bush administration dig America into a giant hole? The same goes for Newt Gingrich. When he was Speaker of the House, Gingrich’s district was one of the biggest recipients of federal money (pork) in the country. So yeah, Newt said he wanted to reduce federal spending, but not on Cobb County, Georgia where Lockheed-Martin just happened to be the largest employer. Although the Lockheed plant there wasn’t actually in Gingrich’s district, thousands of his constituents were nonetheless employed there. As such, Gingrich helped secure a $503 million government contract with Lockheed to build nine C130-J transport planes that the Air Force said it didn’t need. I don’t remember reading that in the Contract with America.

This is American conservatism at work. Ronald Reagan, for which many conservatives have an almost neurotic fetish, has achieved a mythical status as a slayer of big government in defiance of what he actually did as president. But in order for Republicans to run against “big government,” they need to rewrite recent history in order to portray their party as one of small government. But that’s bullshit, and as soon as they’re in power they show just how full of it they were on the campaign trail. And the sad thing is, the people who voted for them never call them on it. The fact that the teabaggers came into existence the month following Barack Obama’s inauguration speaks volumes about their motivations. Indeed, if a Republican became president today, the majority of teabaggers would go away for the rest of the administration no matter what the new president did or how much he spent from here on in. Sure they’d keep their organizations and websites, but as for the mass protests against nonexistent tax hikes, kiss those goodbye. And if you think I’m wrong, you’re only kidding yourself.

- Max Canning

Appendix

As these charts clearly indicate, Republican presidents have done more to increase the size of government than Democrats.

Gross debt as a percentage of GDP

From the FY 2009 Government budget. Upper chart shows national debt in trillions of dollars. Lower chart shows national debt as percentage of GDP. Both are overlaid with party affiliation. Red = Republican president, Blue = Democratic president.

Charts courtesy of Wikipedia.