Posted 7/10/2006 05:46:00 PM by Douglas

Someone a lot smarter than me once said, "That government is best which governs least." I know the Republic died over a hundred years ago and it's looking like were even in the waning years of the empire, but there's still one lone voice in congress. A pillar of reason in a sea of money and vote whores, yelling STOP!

Republican Ron Paul missed out on the 19th century, but he admires it from afar. He speaks lovingly of the good old days before things like Social Security and Medicaid existed, before the federal government outlawed drugs like heroin.

Hey Wa-Po. Shut your fucking pie-hole. You know exactly where this is going. They're going to try to paint Dr. Ron Paul as a kook because he thinks Social Security is broke, FEMA is as useless as tits on a boar hog and the Department of Education doesn't know why we get the day of on the 4th of July. Yeah, real revolutionary ideas.

There are two basic principles that make Paul an exception and not the norm. First off, members of congress are looking out for their districts and states. Throw a dart at any seat in either house of congress, preferable when someone is sitting in it, and you'll undoubtedly hit someone whose desire to draw federal funds to their home district takes a back seat only to their desire to get re-elected, so they can do it all again for two or six more years. The second problem is that the majority of people in this country today, on both sides of the aisle, think there is no problem that can't be solved with enough federal funding. Or even better, another federal agency. To a true conservative like Paul, government is the problem, not the solution:

For instance, the federal government banning drugs like heroin doesn't work for the same reasons Prohibition didn't. The IRS doesn't need to exist for the same reasons it didn't exist before.

"We had a good run from 1776 to 1913," he says, referring to the years before the modern income tax. "We didn't have it; we did pretty well."

As for Social Security, "we didn't have it until 1935," Paul says. "I mean, do you read stories about how many people were laying in the streets and dying and didn't have medical treatment? . . . Prices were low and the country was productive and families took care of themselves and churches built hospitals and there was no starvation."

How can you argue with that? We seceded from Great Britain for being taxes at a much lower rate than we're paying now. Who can afford to support charities when the government gets 50% of your earnings? Besides, the government will take care of everything, right?

It's truly tragic that Paul is the last of his kind: Someone that's going to stand up for his beliefs in the face of his party. It's obvious that the Republicans hate him more than the Democrats do, as his district was gerrymandered to included some of the poorest (read: welfare recipients) parts of the Texas Gulf Coast, so he probably won't survive the next election, but I'll miss him. The country will miss him more because he's the last of his kind. But apparently my viewpoint isn't shared by everyone in his district:

"He's certainly the taxpayer's friend if the taxpayer doesn't want to get anything done," says John W. Hancock Jr., a rice farmer and banker in El Campo. "All he does is go to Washington and write articles and vote no."

Ask yourself, John Hancock (ha!), what do you want from your congressman? If you would you like to see your tax burden go down to 2%? Vote for 534 more Ron Pauls.