By Henry McRandall
WRISEUP.COM
It never seems to amaze me how so many supposedly thinking Americans have become so totally enthralled by “Libertarian” Republican Ron Paul’s sadly-lacking agenda. The only way their support for his great “vision” makes any sense to me is if I assume the vast majority of his supporters have never actually read his entire platform.
True, some of it sounds great — such as the vow to slash U.S. military spending. But most of the proposals he has made are sheer lunacy — and would be extremely destructive toward the material well-being of the Other 99 Percent.
For example, Ron Paul wants to privatize Social Security. The net result of privatizing Social Security would be that every retired or disabled American would see their pensions reduced by at least 20 percent so that the mega-billionaires who bought it could enjoy massive profits.
For example, Ron Paul wants to privatize Medicare. Once again, cutting a huge margin for private corporate profits out of the public funding Medicare receives would require either massive increases in government funding and/or massive reductions in health care for the elderly.
For example, Ron Paul wants to abolish the minimum wage. Even with the very modest increases there have been in the federal and many state minimum wages over the past decade, the average family in the Other 99 Percent has seen its real income fall by almost $2,000 a year. How much worse off would they be with no minimum-wage laws?
An American president does not pass legislation. In fact, the president does not even have a single vote on almost any legislation. Congress passes legislation. And if Ron Paul were elected president, he would need the support of either the Republican Teabaggers or the Democrats to translate his proposals into law.
And with a large portion of the campaign funding of almost every Republican Teabagger and almost every Democratic candidate for the U.S. Senate or House of Representatives coming from military contractors, there is zero prospect that either party would vote to slash military spending.
But the psychopathic Republican Teabaggers and their Bluedog Democrat partners in crime would make sure that every Ron Paul proposal that would hurt the Other 99 Percent and benefit the insanely wealthy Top One Percent would very quickly become the law of the land.
Moreover, to what extent can Ron Paul even be trusted? Like every other serious contender for the Republican Teabagger presidential nomination for 2012, Ron Paul had an “angel” mega-billionaire providing the bulk of the funding for his supposedly-arms-length Superpac. And it just so happens that Ron Paul’s “angel” mega-billionaire Superpac funder was the CEO of the country’s fifth largest defence contractor. Do you really believe Ron Paul would have fought very hard to slash military procurement? When pigs fly!