Ron Paul is at least consistent. Consistently crazy, but consistent. Faced with a financial crisis that has resulted from insufficient regulation and oversight of the financial markets, Paul identifies the problem as too much regulation and oversight. That's what his Randian ideology tells him must be at fault, never mind the actual empirical history.
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
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Ron Paul cites a couple of examples of the kind of regulation that got these big corporations into this mess.
I think we should all get very nervous each time government picks up a new responsibility - not just because it is expensive, but because it encroaches on everyone's freedoms. The government gradually gets larger and larger, and the current growth is connected to big-business who we have always suspected pulled strings from behind the curtain. Any of the founding father's would remind us that it is dangerous to trust your own government too much! Which is why regulation is bad, the more the government regulates, the more power the government has to potentially abuse.
Kevin, if you like Paul's message, you have to eliminate the Fed and return to the good old days when America had a depression caused by a business bust every ten years.
But we can agree that it's very bad when big business and the government are working together too closely.
The Founders lived in a time when an agrarian democracy of atomic economic actors was possible. Even though we can't trust government, there's no going back to that economy either.
The one thing we have is ballot-box restraint on the government. Big business? Not so much. Government is the only counterbalance that could possibly work today, though a combination with strong unions would help decentralize power, which would be a good thing.
The Bushists are a very good example of how not to allow corporations and their advocates to run the government.
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