Alright. I promised myself I wouldn’t do this, but I am going to waste my breath and try to inject a little nuance and comprehension into FoC’s binary worldview. My mistake, I’m sure.
First, these hilarious assumptions about the Constitution (and the Amendments), and its rhetorical treatment as dogma for the Ron Paul set need to be addressed, if only to take the stupidity off the table altogether. Let’s be clear, here: the strengths of Ron Paul’s Bible aka the US Constitution are threefold: it is minimalist; it is enumerated; and it is self-correcting. Unsurprisingly, these three strengths render it unfit as an aegis in arguments, since it not only suggests necessary interpretation, it demands it. Article Six alone must give Herr Doktor Ron fits.
Unsurprisingly, Ron Paul –- and by sad association, FoC and his duh-hyucking Texas cohort –- make the classic Scalia Fallacy in assuming that the Constitutional minimalism is not a deliberately pragmatic application but instead an academic one: that the minimalist can be extrpolated as METAPHOR, and is not a deliberate approach designed to satisfy competing polarized interests from that period. The primary thrust of the Anti-Federalists was, eponymously, the bugbear of states’ rights – and just as it is now, it was a codeword back then for OWNING BLACK PEOPLE. Hell, we even codified that as the 3/5ths Rule! The Constitution does not imply minimal government any more now than it did back then – and if you disagree, the ghosts of John Adams and Alex Hamilton (lol pwned) would like to have a word with you. (Again, this does not justify the chronic elitism of the Federalists any more than it justifies the chronic racism of the Anti-Federalists.)
The Constitution was drawn up as a general appeasement for BOTH SIDES –- well, and to banish the specter of the Articles of Confederation -- and its minimalism is designed to allow BOTH interpretations, suggesting that Ron Paul is no more the candidate for the Constitution than Dennis Kucinich is. The Amendments are all artifacts of their respective time periods, and are simply no more than changes to the Constitution deemed necessary in a given era of this country.
My primary beef with Ron Paul is the utter disingenuousness of his speech and arguments. To the uneducated, the simplicity of his interpretation seems like “plain talkin’” in a political era where bullshit does indeed rule discussion, but to those with some semblance of education, it reeks of total disingenuousness and poorly-nuanced populism. It’s all ideology and no practicality. And when I see “plain talkin’,” I immediately smell the other brand of bullshit –- the kind that doesn’t stink due to verbosity, but rather due to an absence of meaning; a vacuum that anticipates the stench to fill it. In this case –- as “states’ rights” has ever suggested –- the nose is quite specifically not turned up at racists, paranoiacs, closet fascists, LaRouchian apoplectics, and the collective sociopathic aggrieved of America who regularly rely on open interpretations to disavow any notion that their shit might stink. In Ron Paul’s America, it’s okay to be any of the above, because -- DISINGENUOUSLY -- one shouldn’t tread on another man’s right to be a freaky-deaky cretin! “Oh,” shrugs Doktor Paul, a glibly beatific expression poorly-affixed on his gawky features, “I may not agree with what Joe Bob Darkiehater here says, but I will defend to my death his right to say it!” So what happens when, without public censure, these groups organize and get power, Mister Paul, as they so often do? When will you learn the opposing maxim that “silence indicates assent” for those of a fascist leaning? Oh, that’s right, you ignore THAT interpretation when your silent assent helps fill your campaign coffers!
The utter silliness of Paul’s gold standard support and his hardline immigration stance –- as well as his ideology-first Iraq withdrawal strategy –- merit serious question. These three stances alone suggest that he prefers his plain talkin’ rhetoric to realistic and measured solutions, since they are all easily demonstrated as nonviable under the conditions in which this country exists. They are appeasements to a specific demographic –- and they are wholly semantic, which is the very definition of disingenuousness. To FoC, this makes Ron Paul a straight shooter who merits unflagging loyalty; to me, it suggests a manipulative scoundrel.
As for the Great Very White Hope that is a reduced Federal Government: Paul, FoC, and the rest of Team Tinfoil have done nothing but complain about the expansion of executive powers under the Bush Administration, yet never have they suggested that Ron Paul is anything other than a shallow and reactionary “solution.” They have NOT demonstrated why most of the Democratic candidates –- who have also suggested ameliorating and correcting the egregious abuses of the Bush White House -- have nonviable approaches. They, in their binary view, require a rapid polarization of the situation, where ONE PRESIDENT’S TYRANNY suggests a wholesale dismantling of federal powers, or at least those powers and offices they view as unworthy despite countless perspectives otherwise from rational folk who no more have tyranny in their hearts than the tinfoilers do, and probably less.
All that can honestly be concluded from the vocal minority support of Ron Paul is that the Bush Presidency and the gleefully smug rhetoric from the left have driven certain American elements into a polarized state – and that Doktor Paul has capitalized on it. Beyond that, there’s nothing of substance in the Paul campaign, and that’s why I find the shallow jingoism of the Paulites so fuckin’ insulting.
JOHN EDWARDS 2008
edited for grammar: yikes me!
