I’m a few days late reporting this but Lew Rockwell (LewRockwell.com,Mises.org) has started the daily podcast “The Lew Rockwell Show.” They average about 15mins each and have so far been decent enough.
Tom Woods blogged about people starting book clubs, and yesterday Revolutionaries in Maryland had their first book club meeting. I was in attendance, and it was everything I hoped for and more.
Ron Paul’s message was discussed as an abstract philosophy and as it applies to certain issues. The meeting lasted about 3 hours and the last half-hour or so was spent discussing what we do next. It seemed that everyone was in agreement that this is a long-term movement that will go well past November, and also everyone felt strongly that education of our fellow citizens was extremely important; not coerced education - but a presentation of the ideas of the movement at every opportunity.
We’re going to meet monthly, choosing books from The Manifesto’s extensive reading list. Next up, I am pleased to say, is Rothbard’s “What has Government Done to Our Money?” published by the Mises Institute.
This is good to hear. Hopefully the idea spreads. The biggest thing to come out of the Ron Paul Revolution has been the social component. From the Meetup groups to moneybombs and driving crossing state lines to canvas and rally. The libertarian movement really didn’t have that before and most people need that sense of belonging in order to stay focused and not get discouraged. The stereotypical libertarian is the rugged individualist who’s likely introverted. The rugged part is generally way off but we do tend to be self motivated. This is a fairly small component of the population. That’s not to say that libertarianism only appeals to that minority. I think historically you can show this isn’t true. Thomas Paine’s Common Sense got the Colonists all worked up and it’s a very libertarian work for the time. Perhaps you could say that it was just the anti-King rants that got them going but it would seem to me it wouldn’t require Paine’s help in order to do that. There was something more about it. The idea that every man is a sovereign. The common man does believe in liberty they just need to be reminded of it. This revolution is made up of the common man and the social networks that are being created are both a sign of that and also means to sustain them. Or maybe the technology we have now makes herding cats easier.
Whatever the case it seems to me this movement has more staying power then similar ones before it. The participants are often younger and the belief in freedom rarely fades the way other political fads do. The Free State Project is showing us that even a very small percentage of the population being active on behalf of freedom can make a obvious differences in the political and apolitical spheres. Now we will bring that nationally through organizations like DownsizeDC, Free Talk Live, the RLC and maybe even the LP. And of course through the actions of dedicated individuals at their local levels.
When you are Ron Paul, your public enemy No. 1 is the chairman of the Federal Reserve.
Because when you are Ron Paul, although you are technically a Republican, you are really a libertarian, and your strict adherence to the gospel of the Constitution leads you to question why the Federal Reserve — the consortium of 12 reserve banks that acts as the U.S. central bank — even exists.
It doesn’t say anything about any central bank in the Constitution. Not only that, the primary responsibility of the Federal Reserve — to control the money flow and availability of currency on the open market — is something that you, Ron Paul, find incorrigible. The government, you believe, creates inflation when it prints money and moves it willy-nilly into the market to control the very inflation you think it’s causing by moving that money around in the first place. Counterpoint: The gold standard was too inflexible, and the average citizen suffers when the government can’t give the markets more fuel in the form of money.
I read a lot of Ron Paul news. I’ve got a RSS feed of a Google news search of ‘Ron Paul.’ As Dr. Paul has become more popular the number of hit pieces have also risen. What I notice is that a huge portion of them, like the one linked above, are full of ignorance and sarcasm. This guy, Z. Bryon Wolf, doesn’t actually try to intelligently argue his point. In fact I have a hard time figuring out exactly what his point is. He speaks as if it were an inside joke, anyone reading this would already agree that Paul’s economic ideas are crazy so the mere mentioning of them is enough. Unfortunately for Mr. Wolf that’s not the case. While I can’t be certain, pieces like this I’d think would be transparent to the average reader. There just isn’t any substance. No counter argument and worse is the problem, and this is a common one, that they claim Paul wants a gold standard. That’s categorically incorrect. He’s a supporter of hard asset backed currencies and ultimately an open market for competing currencies. He uses gold as one example for historical and practical reasons. You can find out more here and here or read any number of Austrian economics book on the topic, like any of the dozens at the Mises Institute website including Ron Paul’s own Gold, Peace, and Prosperity and The Case for Gold. If you are going to write a hit piece on someone you can at least do so research first. Either throw mud and call him names or attempt to intelligently debate the issues. I’m not interested in these halfassed attacks.
