The Democratic Electoral Trap

 

Sometime next year — mid-2013 or so — the U.S. economy will crater.  The Weimar-Republic-like inflation we've been worrying about will finally become a reality.  The dollar will crumble.  The "world's reserve currency" will have gone the way of the Euro which will likely crumble this year.  The new "world's reserve currency" will be the Yuan and China will call the tune.

The Democrats are hoping they will be able to play the game for another inning or two, but they are probably wrong.  Whoever wins the White House in 2012 will preside over the disolution of the American economy.  Both the Republicans and the Democrats are hoping to be that someone.  It is clear they have a death wish, because the party left standing when the music stops will never thereafter win another national election.

I'm assuming here that Barack Obama will be the Democratic candidate and that Ron Paul will not be the Republican candidate.

There is a small non-zero probability that Ron Paul will secure the GOP nomination and go on to defeat Obama in November, but I'm not betting any actual money on it.  If such a miraculous thing happens and if President Paul really does yank all our troops out of foreign countries and if he manages to cut a serious chunk out of the bloated federal budget...  IF...  the economy might be saved at least temporarily.

The short odds are on Romney or Gingrich going up against Obama...  and losing.  The winner loses and the loser wins.  Could it be possible that the GOP is really smarter than we ever gave them credit for?  That they will back a known-loser so that Obama gets re-elected and is thus in a target position when it all comes tumbling down?

I don't believe that.  I believe the GOP is in denial:  they don't believe a meltdown is imminent and they believe they can beat Obama with the likes of Gingrich.  They will lose in November and thus save their party (accidentally) while condemning all the rest of us to Hell.

It will be a good time to be in debt.  The resulting inflation will wipe most of that debt out by allowing the debtors to pay it off with cheap dollars.  I may just refinance my house.

 

Searching For Truth

 

Every true thing was first believed by one person, then hundreds, then millions, then everyone.  Once upon a time, it was obvious to everyone that the stars were mere holes in the crystal sphere of the night sky, that if you were poor or sick it was because God wasn't pleased with you, that the Sun wheeled around the unmoving Earth, and that the Earth was flat.  Today, anyone who tries to convince you that the Earth is stationary is most likely to be judged a dangerous lunatic.

Today we are asked to believe just as many things whose truth is suspect:

• People who vacation in Paris are stupid because the French hate Americans.
• The Moslem world hates us because we're so good and so free.
• Julian Assange and Bradley Manning are traitors who want to see the Western democracies destroyed.
• Ron Paul is an isolationist who can't possibly beat Barack Obama.
• Sometimes you just have to hold your nose and vote for the lesser of two evils.
• Bullshit doesn't stink and is actually quite tasty and nourishing.

In fact, none of that is true.

 

The Republican Electoral Trap

The GOP is in serious trouble.  They have tried with all of their might to marginalize Ron Paul, and they have been only marginally successful.  This is inadequate.  The GOP must be able to make Ron Paul a non-person, an almost impossible feat unless Paul is caught in bed with "a dead girl or a live boy".  Not bleedin' likely.

So, what's the trap?  It's this:  Ron Paul supporters — by and large — will desert the GOP if Ron Paul is not the party's candidate.  'Big deal,' you say.  'Big deal,' I repeat.  Yes, it is a big deal.

If Iowa can be believed, Ron Paul owns twenty-something percent of likely GOP voters, and over the course of time (if things go as they have been going) this will grow.  The problem for the GOP is that most mainline Republicans simply want to beat Barack Obama in 2012.  Ron Paul's supporters want Ron Paul to beat Barack Obama in 2012.  These goals are at serious cross-purposes.  If Ron Paul isn't the GOP's choice to cross swords with the incumbent, Paulistsas will either stay home on Election Day or vote Libertarian.  What if, on Election Day, 20% or more of Republican voters don't show up?  (I'm here positing that voting for some other party is, as far as the GOP is concerned, the same as not voting at all.)  In order to make a decent showing, whoever is the GOP candidate will need every available nominally-GOP voter plus a smattering of nominal Democrats.  A GOP candidate who cannot pull that off cannot defeat the incumbent President.  Cannot.

Ron Paul can.  Romney may if he sucks in a noticeable chunk of Democratic voters;  don't bet on it.  Santorum and Gingrich cannot, nor can any of those candidates who have dropped out of the race.

To summarize:  the GOP seems intent on having Romney go head-to-head with Obama, but he will do so without twenty percent or more of the voters he's counting on, the voters he's depending on.  Romney, no matter how good he looks the morning of Election Day, will lose to Barack Obama.  Ron Paul may also lose to Barack Obama;  it's possible a large chunk of Republicans will desert the GOP if Ron Paul is the candidate;  it's possible.  Walter Williams has already suggested that this election is a waste of money and air time.  Ron Paul is, however, the only Republican who has a prayer of unseating Obama.  That's going to be hard for mainline Republicans to handle.  Can they do it?  My money is on Obama.

 

Sean Hannity is an idiot. — I get it.

 

Sean Hannity recently made this remark:  "Ron Paul is an isolationist.  I get it."

Except that he doesn't get it.  Or maybe he really does get it but would rather slander one of the few honest Congressmen around.  I'm attributing his remark to stupidity;  maybe it really is malice.  Nor am I writing this just to defend Ron Paul.  When Hannity made that (inexcusably stupid) remark, he wasn't just defaming Ron Paul;  he was defaming me and everyone who thinks like me and Ron.

"Isolationist", as defined by Hannity and the other neocons, means anyone who doesn't think the United States should have a military presence in 145 countries, anyone who thinks the United States shouldn't invade any foreign country without a formal declaration of war issued by Congress and naming the country to be invaded/conquered, or anyone who thinks the foreign policy of the United States ought to be focused sharply on 'minding our own business'.

The opposite of "isolationist" for people like Hannity is "patriot", defined as someone who thinks it's perfectly OK for the President, without so much as notifying Congress, to ship the First Marine Division into the hell-hole du jour in order to show those gooks just who's the sheriff 'round these here parts.  If a couple thousand or a couple million civilians get in the way, that's their tough luck.  They should have been smart enough to have been born Americans, shor 'nuff.

I define 'patriot' somewhat differently, in case you haven't guessed, and you probably suspect Hannity and I differ on the definition of 'isolationist', too.  To me, an isolationist is ready to pull up the drawbridge and seal off the kingdom, having first gotten everyone inside to hand over their passports.  Their intent would be to isolate themselves from the cold, cruel world outside.  An isolationist would never dream of popping off to Paris or stealing away to Stockholm.  Noooooooo!!  That would be...  sleeping with the enemy!  Horrors!  Can't have our citizens doing that!

Perhaps Sean Hannity is a stay-at-home.  Not me, and not Ron Paul, either.  Keep your passport.  Go to Barcelona whenever the spirit moves you.  Bring me back a souvenir.  The word Ron and I use for our foreign policy (singular, because we share the same one) is 'non-interventionism'.  We think it's a great idea to travel and trade, to meet new people who may speak a different language and who see the world through different eyes, to talk with them and learn their views on topics for which we have formed our own opinions.  What Ron and I don't advocate is forming those peoples' views for them by force of arms, nor do we advocate taxing American citizens to provide foreign aid to countries which are often ruled by dictators.  Ron and I know (too well) how close to the truth Lord Peter Bauer was when he said

Foreign aid is an excellent method for transferring money from poor people in rich countries to rich people in poor countries.

But as long as we're trading verbal insults, I suppose it's only fair that I get the chance to label Sean Hannity and all those who think like him:  they're 'imperialists'.  They're the nutballs who believe their own fantasies about 'American exceptionalism'.  They think America is exceptional because God wanted it that way.  Oddly, they have no explanation for why God would make us exceptional and then let our economy turn to shit.  In truth, if America is exceptional it is almost entirely because of the inventiveness, the will to win, and the moral strength of all those who came here from other supposedly un-exceptional nations to make a better life for themselves, their families, and their fellows.  And they did this all without any help from the government.  What didn't make America exceptional was the foreign policy that led us to war with Mexico in 1846, to overthrow the Kingdom of Hawaii in 1893^*, war with Spain in 1898, war with half of Europe in 1918, or any of the dozens of 'conflicts' since 1945.  It's not our military that makes us great, it's the people and the freedom of people to do great things.

People like Sean Hannity would like to see all that come to an end.  If anyone deserves the term 'isolationist', it's idiots like Sean Hannity.

 

(*) - I'll bet you didn't know it was the U.S. Marine Corps which overthrew the Hawaiian monarchy — at the request of American fruit growing companies whose owners were upset that the Hawaiians would no longer let foreign workers vote in local elections.  Golly, if Sean Hannity gets his way and we stop letting Mexican workers vote in our elections, maybe the Marines will overthrow this government?  No, doesn't work that way, does it?