THE TRUTH IS OUT THERE! GO AHEAD, TAKE A DRINK!!!

The third phase of the smear campaign has started. It is all moving so quickly! The first stage of the knock-Ron-Paul-Out-of-the-Box-Quickly movement was to ignore presidential candidate Ron Paul (R-TX). The next stage was to claim he was a kook. This was tried in the last debate, when Ron Paul's comment that the United States foreign policy was in part responsible for Middle Eastern hatred of the West, and America in particular, was roundly derided – until the blogosphere made it clear that his comment was considered both accurate and courageous. Now it's proven untenable. Onto the next "big idea."

The third phase of the "Get Paul" campaign is to brand his views as not politically correct, or even racist. This has begun, as FMNN's alert journos reported last night, see Ron Paul a Racist? And Ron Paul Rebuts Racist Views.

Sorry, neo-cons and assorted collectivists and levelers, but the Ron-Paul-Is-a-Racist smear won't stick, either. He's not a racist. No, Sir. The man has spent his entire adult life delivering babies, black and white, and "speaking truth to power." He doesn't like graduated taxes, federal reserve phony money (that melts in your hands while you look at it) and the increasing viciousness of U.S. militarism and adventurism around the world. More than that, he's courageous enough to stand up and say it.

Ron Paul is actually speaking about the ideas that matter, the basic building blocks of Western civilization. He understands that civilization springs from free markets, from human action and individual achievement. He is aware that government does not create jobs – people do. That taxes are rarely, if ever, well spent. That wars are seldom, if ever, definitive. That putting private bankers in charge of the public pursue is a kind of national suicide.

Ron Paul is a deeply read man, probably the most educated candidate to run for high office since, well, how about Thomas Jefferson? That's a strong statement, but likely a true one. Certainly, one could make a case that he is the most learned and deeply read candidate of the 20th century.

What is his pedigree? He was a colleague and close friend of Murray Rothbard, the eminent free-market economist who proved one of Ludwig von Mises most outstanding and febrile pupils. Together, Ron Paul and Murray Rothbard (along with Lew Rockwell) helped define Austrian economics and academic libertarianism in the 20th century.

Rothbard is the author of the sweeping socio-economic masterpiece, "Man and State." Ludwig von Mises is author of numerous deeply learned, works on the free-market. His masterpiece is perhaps "Human Action," in which he sums up a century of "Austrian" free markets economics.

Never heard of it, or him? Oh, you will. Thanks to the Mises Institute and other free-market Internet sites, the Austrian School is the fastest growing sociopolitical and economic discipline in the land. Just google "Keynes" and then "Mises" and see for yourself. A decade ago, you couldn't find "Mises" on the ‘Net. Quite a difference, today!

This is the school of thought to which Ron Paul is heir. And he is deeply schooled in its substance and fully aware of the arc of history from whence it is derived.

He is no fool. He is no racist.

Dr. Ron Paul's life, at least his later life, has been about intellectual achievement. No one forced him to become an expert in free-markets, to write numerous speeches, articles and white papers about them, their genesis, their characteristics and the promise they hold for the future as they are more widely applied. Yet he has, for many years.

He has never to my knowledge personally written a single, racist tract. He has never delivered a racist speech. To label him racist is a canard. It is absurd. Perhaps, as he has explained, he did not pay attention to what was published. Perhaps he did not take notice. Perhaps he was otherwise occupied. But the rhetoric – the language - is obviously not his. Such ignorance does not inform him. The case cannot be made, no matter how it is tried.

No, anyone lucky enough to read the body of work that Ron Paul has produced over the last decades will find himself in the company of a lucid, rational, inquiring mind. An intellect at once reasonable and emotional in the best sense - suffused with hope for the future of humanity, if only the right lessons are learned and the appropriate cultural elements are maintained and fortified.

Sadly, we live in a day and age when learned men – and learning – are disparaged by an obscenely bloated academic bureaucracy feeding at the trough of federal "earmarks." And it is not only Ron Paul who suffers. Look at what has happened to Thomas Jefferson in recent times. He has been subject to a steady vilification that would be nauseating if it were not complimentary in a back-handed way.

Is the question of whether of not Jefferson slept with one of his slaves and impregnated her more important than his investigations into how to encourage and maintain freedom within a political and federal setting? I think not. Only Jefferson has been subject to a veritable industry of poisonous academic papers and gleeful PBS documentaries. Only Jefferson, main proponent of freedom in the 17th century, a giant on whose shoulders much that is good and wise in the libertarian movement has been erected. Coincidence?

Jefferson, then Paul

Ron Paul is indeed heir to Jefferson's thought, though much buttressed since Jefferson's time by the Austrian School. He does understand this sweep of libertarian economic history, from the origins of theoretical free-market thinking in Spain, to the French entrepreneurs, to Adam Smith, the fallacy of Malthus, the discovery of marginal utility and the creation of the Austrian School itself.

He understands where the British went wrong, how the Fabians poisoned the British well, why econometrics – the language and religion of the Western governmental bureaucracy – is fatally flawed, and so on. Does John McCain understand these things? How about Mitt Romney who is said to be presidential material because he looks good? Maybe "Hillary?" How about "Bill?" Do they care?

Ron Paul is a cut above. Several cuts. Maybe dozens, or hundreds. This is the man whom they have now set out to smear. The smearers! Sure, he just a man, flawed like all of us. But he a good and courageous one – and less flawed than most, in my opinion.

It is Ron Paul's aspiration that makes him is so attractive. He wants to educate us about how we may build better lives – as he understands it – and to do so he has chosen the bully platform of a presidential campaign. No, this racism smear will not work - mostly because Ron Paul is a subtle thinker whose personal writings rebut the charges on their face. They will fade away ... And then?

Then, my friends, the fourth smear will probably be brought into play. The one that questions his character, his fiscal rectitude, etc. I don't believe this will work either.

I leave it to you to decide what other strategies his enemies might employ if he meets continued success. -Anthony Wile

Special Commentary Note ...

Ron Paul is an FMNN commentator, and you can see his commentary, here:

http://www.freemarketnews.com/Writers-Archive.asp?wid=110&ncat=ema

Try to find a single racist commentary. I cannot.

Labels: btvol, gandolfo, Ron Paul, The Truth Is Out There