Recently, President Obama stumbled through a poorly conceived bus tour of several states in the Midwest. The object of the junket seems to have been to counter media coverage of the GOP presidential candidates who’d gathered in Ames, Iowa, for the first major straw poll of the 2012 election cycle. Instead, Obama made comments about car- and truck-manufacturing that reminded listeners of his central-planning mindset. He treated a group of Tea Party leaders in a haughty and condescending manner. And, most damning, he stammered through the following self-justification:
“We had reversed the recession, avoided a depression, gotten the economy moving again. But over the last six months, we’ve had a run of bad luck.”
The man is not good at improv. And he’s not well-read. Numerous pundits (not all of them right-leaning) noted that the president’s excuses reflected this famous quote from the great Robert Heinlein:
“Throughout history, poverty is the normal condition of man. Advances which permit this norm to be exceeded — here and there, now and then — are the work of an extremely small minority, frequently despised, often condemned, and almost always opposed by all right-thinking people. Whenever this tiny minority is kept from creating, or (as sometimes happens) is driven out of a society, the people then slip back into abject poverty. This is known as ‘bad luck.’”
How could Obama, a man who trades on being seen as smart and articulate, make such a boneheaded gaffe?
I think this has to do with the ignorance and insular nature of American statists. They operate under a simplistic notion of politics — call it “Manichean,” if you feel like being generous about their philosophical grounding, “infantile” if you don’t.
Their adversaries are “enemies;” and their enemies are “terrorists,” “extreme” and “crazy.” (The quoted terms in that last sentence are from a few recent articles posted on dailykos.com — but Obama and his underlings have used them, too.)
These mutterings reflect a shallow worldview. American collectivists haven’t read the books that define and expand on free-market philosophy; most justify their ignorance by dismissing Hayek, Mises, Rand et al., as “evil.” Instead, they seem to skim some magazines and websites. Mostly, though, they watch TV. And they focus on the personal manners (and lives) of limited-government advocates, rather than the substance of the positions.
Obama’s supporters focus on (and equate themselves with) the weakest and least rational of the president’s critics — a motley crew of bigots and conspiracy mongers. As a result, Obama’s supporters weaken themselves. They can’t understand that there are rational criticisms of a president who has done so much damage to the philosophical and political foundations of the United States.
They just don’t see.
This blindness has rendered Rep. Ron Paul — the most effective advocate of real limited government among the recognized presidential candidates — something of an invisible man.
Because you read Liberty, you know more about Dr. Paul and his latest campaign for the White House than do most Americans. But, for a moment, put yourself in the shoes of an ordinary salt-of-the-earth citizen or even an impassioned Obama supporter. You’d probably have only the vaguest sense of who Ron Paul is. And you wouldn’t understand how many people share Paul’s perspective and beliefs. When Paul finishes a razor-close second in the aforementioned Iowa straw poll, you’d fall back on your epithets. Or just deny the whole thing.
Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (whose retiree-heavy Florida congressional district gobbles up more than its share of federal benefit dollars) took the first option. Here’s some of the invective she hurled about the Iowa straw poll results, via CNN:
“In previous presidential campaigns, we might have chalked extreme fringe-type candidates like Michele Bachmann and Ron Paul as an anomaly. . . . But we’re looking at the core of the Republican Party now. The heart of the Republican Party is the extreme right wing.”
No surprise. A woman who counts on scaring pensioners to maintain her livelihood is bound to vilify people who talked about benefit cuts. I’d just like, once, to read a quote from the wretched Ms. Wasserman Schultz that didn’t include the word “extreme.”
Most statists, though, have simply chosen to pretend Paul doesn’t exist. He and Rep. Michele Bachmann finished in a near-tie for first place in the Iowa straw poll, separated by less than 1% of all votes cast. Mrs. Bachmann won but, if the vote had been an actual election, many jurisdictions would have called for an automatic recount. The next Sunday, Bachmann appeared on all five of the so-called “major” weekend TV news programs; Paul appeared on none.
Obama’s supporters can’t understand that there are rational criticisms of a president who has done so much damage to the philosophical and political foundations of the United States.
Bachmann — whose public persona strikes some as addled — serves as a stand-in during this election cycle for the absent Sarah Palin. Perhaps that’s why the establishment media revels in making Bachmann look ridiculous, as a recent and unflattering cover picture on Newsweek magazine proved. Media outlets that still favor Obama seem to be following a strategy of portraying Bachmann as “crazy” and, therefore, any Republican challenger to the president as crazy by association.
Paul is included in this scheme. But, mostly, he’s simply ignored. And this isn’t just a left-wing phenomenon. Fox News Channel’s top-rated host Bill O’Reilly, a statist of a nominally “conservative” stripe, goes out his way to ignore Paul. And, when pressed, O’Reilly dismisses Paul’s chances of winning even the GOP nomination as “zero.”
In the days after Bachmann’s media blitz, a slight shaft of light — from an unexpected source — cut through the willful darkness. TV talk show host and topical comedian Jon Stewart ran a humorous segment pointing out the media’s obvious denial of Paul’s presence and popularity. Stewart referred to Paul as “the 13th floor” of the presidential news coverage and took cable TV reporters to task for blatantly ignoring the congressman’s close second-place finish in Iowa.
The New York Times, the Associated Press and U.S. News (yes, it still exists as an online news site . . . but has dropped “and World Report” from its name) followed Stewart’s satire with semi-serious articles that discussed the media’s dismissal of Paul, in Iowa and in general.
The Associated Press piece acknowledged that Paul has raised enough money to stay in the presidential race for a long time. And that his supporters are more dedicated than most. But it concluded:
“Still, Paul finds himself outside the bounds of traditional Republicans. His opposition to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan defines him as a dove. His skepticism toward the Federal Reserve has spooked Wall Street. And his libertarian views on gay rights draw the ire of social conservatives. He also tweaks Republicans on foreign policy, arguing it isn’t the United States' role to police Iran's nuclear program or to enforce an embargo with Cuba. ‘Iran is not Iceland, Ron,’ former Sen. Rick Santorum told Paul during Thursday's debate.”
An article on presidential politics that quotes Rick Santorum as an authority on anything is suspect, in my opinion.
The U.S. News piece concluded lazily by quoting an establishment media hack to characterize Paul’s candidacy:
“ 'He’s got a very dedicated cadre of people,’ says Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics. ‘And they're very intense, but they’re relatively few in number . . . It’s ridiculous talking about him getting the nomination.’ ”
Prof. Sabato’s record on political predictions is no more reliable than former Sen. Santorum’s.
I have no idea how well Ron Paul will do in the coming presidential primaries. But I know that he has the money and the organization in place to campaign until the GOP convention. And I know that he’s announced he won’t seek reelection to his seat in congress, so that he can dedicate himself to this presidential run.
I hope he lasts long enough to force more of the establishment media and the GOP powers-that-be to acknowledge he exists. And that his arguments for limited government are as mainstream as anything the rent-seeking Ms. Wasserman Schultz has to say.
Now, if we can only get them to acknowledge Gary Johnson . . .
