The Icing Down of the Ron Paul Phenomenon

I took these pictures today outside in the 33 degree temperature. I had this idea for a post about how my guy is being treated in the media coverage during this election season. As you can see, those are Ron Paul coins laying out on sheet ice right before darkness falls. I thought the symbolism apropos. The metaphor, apt.

The point of my essay was going to be on how the media, and I mean ALL of the big three News media organizations, demonstrated and have continued to demonstrate abject bias in how they cover the presidential run. Jaw-dropping, ugly, insincere, blatant bias. The kind of ill-treatment that raises the hackles of protective types like me. If you follow the horse race that is the presidential primaries at all, you will know exactly what I am talking about.

If you don’t know what I am talking about, then you aren’t going to care much about all of us who do care. My anger will not affect you. You will scratch your head and say something like “politics!”, and that will be that.

You people are graciously excused. The rest of this posts deals with politics and governance and boring stuff like that.

But I will be switching gears.

If you know about the political drama of this election season, then you know that Fox News did everything they could to dismiss and/or ignore everything Ron Paul did or said. You know about the boycotts of their advertisers by irate Paul supporters. You know about how Paul supporters had to find new and ingenious ways to get their guys’ name out in spite of the media. You know about the scant and derogatory coverage of the other networks, as well. But the thing I find most interesting about all of this, is why I care at all.

Politics only matters when it matters. If a son is being sent off to war. If the government is taking away something from you. If what the government does dictates what you pay for medicine, or food, or shelter. Then you pay attention.

Ron Paul, however, stood up and said a few things that made me sit up and take notice. Simple things. Things I realized I agreed with, without knowing I agreed with them- having never really thought about them before.

Why is the US government taking money from the pockets of Americans by threat of jail, and giving it to Pakistan, which has been harboring Osama Bin Laden for six years?

Why is the US government dismissing and disregarding the very Constitution that gives it its legitimacy?

Why are 300 million Americans reliant on a few thousand in Washington to dictate to us everything from the size of our toilet flushes to the type of vitamins we are allowed to take?

Why do we give the federal government so much power, and then suffer through their human ineptness?

Why do we let our savings be devalued by our very own government? In other words, we let them tax us up front, and then steal our savings out the bottom by knowingly creating inflation.

Why do we let the media dictate to us WHO should be president? Who owns the media? Why do we tolerate their flagrant bias?

Why are we taking a trillion dollars a year out of the pockets of Americans, and sending it overseas to military bases in places like Germany and Korea? Do the Koreans even want us there, and if so, why are they not paying us to be there? That goes for Japan too. Why do we allow the US government to take money from our pockets by threat of jail and give these countries security they aren’t willing to pay for themselves? Who are we afraid of? Why do we take out loans from China to continue this nonsense? Why is there ONLY ONE CANDIDATE even asking this question?

Why are we submissively allowing our government to “solve all of our problems” for us? When did they get smarter than we were?

If the number one Accountant of America, the man in charge of auditing America’s books, says we can’t afford the Medicare and drug entitlements the government has already promised us, why are we even considering having the government manage our health care? Why not start up smaller, local, private health care networks and cut out all of the middle men and women who are taking money from between you and your doctor?

Why do we let the federal government dictate what should and should not be taught in schools? Are they smarter than us? Have they demonstrated that anytime recently? When?

Why do we let the government in Washington tell us what is moral and what is not? Have they shown themselves to be more moral than the rest of us?

Why do we let the federal government take money by force from the coffers of the states, and then dole it out haphazardly back to the states, creating a situation where favors are rewarded and special interests groups favored?

Why aren’t Americans asking politicians running for president any of these questions, and why aren’t we asking these politicians why they think they are smarter than us? Do you think any of these politicians currently running for president are smarter than you?

Why aren’t Ron Paul’s notions of giving Americans back the power to decide for themselves resonating more in the hallways of our country?

Why have we let habeas corpus be taken from us, and when did we, as Americans, decide torture was ok?

At what point in our growth as a country did we decide to become apathetic and reliant on a giant nanny-state?

Ron Paul may not have gotten much consideration in the media, but he has surely made me think.