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Links: Gimmie, Gimmie Bailout Money

Published by Colin November 21, 2008 in General. 2 Comments

Bailing out the Big 3

EndTheFed.us - Protests against the Federal Reserve Kick off this week

The fervour over Obama in Namibia

Taliban leader says: We have no faith in Obama

Mission Accomplished?

Iraq’s cabinet on Sunday overwhelmingly approved a proposed security agreement that calls for a full withdrawal of American forces from the country by the end of 2011. The cabinet’s decision brings a final date for the departure of American troops a significant step closer after more than five and a half years of war.

Perhaps the surge worked? Victory in Iraq Day.

All Apologies

I Sometimes find strangers’ manners so lacking that I have started engaging in an odd kind of activism. I call it reverse etiquette: I supply the apology that they should be giving me.

American doctors hate their work

What Happens If You’re on Gay Rights’ ‘Enemies List’

An animated map of religions over time. History of Religion

Conservatives: This is Your Own Fault

Published by Colin November 5, 2008 in Politics. 68 Comments

While I am not interested in as ridiculous a tirade as Focus on the Family engaged in during this stupidity, I would like to make a few interpretations and predictions regarding the next four years of the Barack Obama administration.

First of all - a note to all you conservatives who voted for McCain and also Bush in 2004 - I am blaming you. This is what a voting philosophy of the lesser of two evils has gotten you. You marginalised and mocked the one man who even held a glimmer of old-right economic values and fiscal conservatism. Take a moment to consider the so-called “conservative” candidates you’ve supported as the lesser of two evils since Ronald Regan:

John McCain
George W. Bush
George W. Bush
Bob Dole
George Bush
George Bush

Are you now surprised that America, which generally supports you when you campaign for things like balanced budgets, lower taxes, private property rights, civil liberties, families and free-enterprise, has now elected the party of one of the most unpopular congresses in modern US history? You have allowed your party to be completely subjugated by a neo-conservative group of right-wing socialists - and this is what you deserve - a taste of your own medicine. I washed my hands of the GOP five years ago, partly because I saw this coming - it was an inevitable correction in the political marketplace.

Any changes that Obama now makes using expanded executive power is your fault. You gave George W. Bush unprecedented power in the executive to do all manner of unconstitutional things - now, the man you most fear inherits that power. You had the mandate to reverse the power of the executive branch and you expanded it more than ever - and Obama will now wield that with a vengeance.

In fact, you have set a precedent for using a congressional majority to vest power in the executive, because by circumventing the legislative branch, political agendas can now go through faster and with more force. Welcome to the Obama administration, because of the power you gave George W. Bush, expect the next 40 years of the left-wing agenda to come to pass in eight.

I suspect this includes:

Wage and price controls - When the economy continues to go sour after the bailout fix has run out, including massive inflation, Obama will use his expanded executive power to control wages and prices. There will be record unemployment, increased poverty and shortages of gas, food, healthcare and other essentials.

More wars - towards the end of the Obama administration, I expect him to send in troops or air strikes in some new country - probably Pakistan or Iran. Who knows, if the economy gets bad enough, Obama might very well start WWIII with Russia by sending troops to “protect democracy” in Eastern Europe.

Universal Healthcare - This will still take congress’s approval, but Obama will get some form of universal healthcare - putting the final nail in the coffin of what used to be the greatest and most innovative system in the world.

More Federal Control in Education - Again conservatives, this is your fault. You encouraged Bush to dramatically increase federal involvement in education. Now enjoy Obama using this new power to expand the role of the Department of Education.

I am glad that Obama has won. I can’t imagine what another four years of neo-conservative power-mongering would bring. Hopefully conservatives find a moment to humbly reflect in all of this - and repent of just how far they’ve fallen. Their zeal for power overshadowed their traditions and principles.

It might take another new-deal and depression for them to get it - but so be it. This may not be the candidate you directly voted for all these years, but he is the unintended consequence of every vote for a right-wing, neo-conservative socialist as the lesser of two evils. Conservatives: you deserve Barack Obama.

Don’t Waste Your Vote: Vote Third Party

Published by Casey Huxley October 6, 2008 in Politics. 13 Comments

It has been said (unsurprisingly often by supporters of one of the two main parties) that voting for a third party is wasting your vote. I beg to differ. In fact, it is often voting for one of the two main parties that is a waste of a vote.

Consider this year’s presidential elections. Already most states have been decided. There are only about a dozen or so states where your vote could possibly make a difference. If you live in Massachusetts for example, why vote for Obama and run up the total on what will be a certain victory? Or, for that matter, why vote for McCain in an already doomed effort?

However, a vote being “not wasted” is about more than just having your vote decide something. It is about expressing your views in a way that matters. So often, we hear that many people are voting for the lesser of two evils. Well, when you do that what you get is still evil, and you will never have anything else. Why not vote for someone who does actually share the majority of your views?

Now, for those who feel their views are adequately represented by either the Democrats or the Republicans, I’m not telling you to vote otherwise. The true tragedy of our system is that many people feel they have to vote for one of the two main parties and don’t even examine other candidates to see if they would prefer one of them.

Therefore, today I’m pleading with you to take the time to examine the positions of third party candidates. Below are some links showing many of the major third part candidates and their parties. (Note that due to overly strict ballot access laws not all candidates may be on the ballot in your state).

Third Party Links:

Chuck Baldwin - Constitution Party

Bob Barr - Libertarian Party

Cynthia McKinney - Green Party

Brian Moore - Socialist Party USA

Ralph Nader - Independent

Cocktail of Crises

Published by Colin September 22, 2008 in General, Essays, Politics, Current Events and Philosophy. 4 Comments

I also thought about titling this post; “At least part of the reason I have chosen to leave the US and obtain other citizenship.” I do not want to rush, like many libertarians and apocalyptic Christians to hasty conclusions that the sky is falling. I don’t think we’re even near that in the civilised world. In fact, I would even argue that the whole thing is being exaggerated and perpetuated mostly by the media, politicians and business which seek to profit of people behaving like chickens with their heads cut off and reloading CNN every two minutes, asking for more government handouts/power and looking for sales in guns, oil, water, food, gas, metal, gold, silver and so on to go up.

However, having said that, I suspect that most people are missing the real crisis - the wider crisis. In the determination to focus on something like gas prices or civil liberties in detail, perhaps how these elements combine and mix in the current climate reveals the nature of the “crisis machine” that is being built. In other words, the bail-outs aren’t really a catastrophic problem in and of themselves, but combine them with say, inflation, lost civil liberties and foreign policy - and now you’ve got a little cocktail being mixed that might do some damage.

The essence of this comes from one of my few favourite quotations by one of my favourite men, Henry Hazlitt:

The art of economics consists in looking not merely at the immediate but at the longer effects of any act or policy; it consists in tracing the consequences of that policy not merely for one group but for all groups.

So, while various plans drawn up to solve one particular problem might stem the specific leak, these will weaken other-areas in a greater and greater ways. If we continue to pay more than what we are getting on the whole, if we borrow more from ourselves than we gain back in any given solution, then we are gaining momentum on the path to bankruptcy.

I don’t think that any one crisis would really damage the United States, but if crises are continually paid-forward with short term fixes at the expense of the aggregate, we’ll have a huge queue of multi-industrial, multi-dimensional problems bursting the seams of law and order that tie them down.

So I want to look at how some of the following areas have or may, in the future, combine to compound a larger crisis for the US:

Foreign Policy
The Domestic Economy
Immigration
Civil Liberties
Free Speech
Nationalism/Patriotism
Religion

I’m going to do my best now not to try and lose you.

Foreign Policy
Regardless of one’s view on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, it is clear that we are less liked in the Muslim world today than we were on Sept 10, 2001. Terrorist groups (including non-Islamic ones) have seen their numbers swell. America, regardless of why, has a lot of enemies.

Even if we had the perfect military, intelligence and every move we have made and will make to combat this reality were perfect, the cost would be enormous - probably greater than any military effort that was ever unleashed. To stem everything from active terrorism and resistance in the middle east, to peacekeeping for US interest and allies in numerous other places, to protecting resources and trade partners, to preserving and install US-friendly regimes in places like South America and Eastern Europe would make the kind of scarcity, rationing and planning not seen since the forties.

Again, I am presuming that there is no waste, no bad intelligence, no blow-back and other bugling. Just this effort alone, in one area, might be doable if we had the savings and capital to pay for it.

However, we clearly have no capital and savings. America has been in the red for sometime. What is going to happen when all of these troops, assets and protections are pulled back from the fragile order which they are supporting? Those who have supported a planned, orderly decrease in military intervention for the past few years (heck, even the past decades) have been laughed at in favour of the idea that the current level of empire is a linear, sustainable stronghold. But as Ron Paul said as early as 2003, we will be pulling our empire back - either by planned, orderly and strategic organisation or as a reckless reaction to the bottom line that we no longer can afford it:

Policing the world and nation-building issues are popular campaign targets, yet they are now standard operating procedures. There’s no sign that these programs will be slowed or reversed until either we are stopped by force overseas (which won’t be soon) or we go broke and can no longer afford these grandiose plans for a world empire (which will probably come sooner than later.)

It should now be clear that we are facing this reality. Even those of us who are staunchly anti-war will not deny the fact that there are people out there being held at bay by the military who would otherwise seek to kill Americans. When the military is forced to downsize, we will have left the gates open for these people to come in and sack our country.

The reactionary answer by conservatives (and many democrats) is to rely on the same old argument to beef up the military. But what if there is physically no money to pay for it? We are going to have an increase in terrorism at home and abroad and the accompanying cries by the population for safety in the form of increased government power in exchange for freedom and civil liberties.

Next time: discussion on what the current economic situation reveals, along with the combined problem of immigration and civil liberty erosion.

When Extremism Becomes Mainstream

Published by Colin September 8, 2008 in Essays, Religion, Politics and Philosophy. 7 Comments

Would anyone born into an extreme society be aware of the exact nature of that society relative to history? For example, if there was a bubble thrown around Soviet Russia (in many ways there was) - wouldn’t the people of that society view ideas like free-will, free-markets and free-speech as extremes? The norm might be long lines for basic necessities, rampant crime, neighbours, friends and family disappearing and never returning.

In many ways, the centre of mainstream society can be measured by what ideas are considered extreme. We look back in hindsight at societies such as Hitler’s Germany and Soviet Russia as though these movements became mainstream by magic. We ignore the history and conditions which made certain ideas, leaders and philosophies popular. We see images like this and this (warning: graphic) and assume that this guy is soley to blame. We fail to realize that perhaps the most important explanation of these images is this one. We presume that extremism will come into our society announcing itself with nazi flags, poverty or honest people being locked up right away.

So many American Christians are terrified of such boogey men. Take fighting radical Islam - which is often compared in mainline conservatism to a war against “fascism“and Iraq is compared to World War II. I am going to go out on a limb here and say that Islamic Law, radical Islamic repression, widespread Islamic Terrorism and Christian persecution at the hands of Islamic elements in government will never become a reality in the US.

Extremism Doesn’t Look Like Extremism
I suspect that Sinclair Lewis is a little closer to the mark: “when fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross.” This is not a statement to be ignored - it is backed by historical patterns that are repeated over and over again. Extremism rarely comes from outside a society, but it cultivated, embraced and implemented from within. Adolph Hitler wasn’t released on the world until he had secured power in his own society using tradition, religion and philosophy that Germans were familiar with. In other words, we must be more fearful of internal extremism gradually overtaking those historically accepted and mainstream “Americanisms” - the constitution, freedom, Christianity, security, prosperity, capitalism and “democracy.”

American Extremism will look like patriotism. It will be embraced by the dominant religious elements: Christianity in this case. It will be described as traditional American values such as free-enterprise, democracy and security.

Because extremism moves into the mainstream culture, language and political system - the best measure is historical context. For example, “liberal” is used today as a cuss-word against left-wing democrats. I accepted this as the historical definition until, when I was twenty, I visited a memorial to Meriwether Lewis and was shocked to see Thomas Jefferson use the term to describe Lewis:

Of courage undaunted, possessing a firmness and perseverance of purpose which nothing but impossibilities could divert from its direction, … honest, disinterested, liberal, of sound understanding and a fidelity to truth…

I looked into it and found that the mainstream definition is relatively new, and in fact completely the opposite of what it had meant for hundreds of years. If it weren’t for the word “libertarian” - we might not have a word that summarises something close to the definition of liberal.

Case in Point: GOP Primary
But this has happened with so many things. Conservatives in the past eighteen months have been calling Ron Paul a radical and a fringe candidate. And he is - in that his positions aren’t mainstream in the slightest nor are they what is now called “conservative.” There is a radical gulf between Paul’s view and the conservative movement.

But that is what should scare us - and if conservatives would stop marching forward and question their orders for a moment, they might get a glimpse of where they are going. For example, “county first” was plastered all over McCain’s convention - is that phrase responsible? Is it biblical? Is it actually patriotic? Should that be the moral and political priority of conservatives and Christians? If that is an acceptable idea, is a rally worth $16 million in money taken from the country, celebrating one man, in one political faction a genuine articulation of that ideal?

How Extremist Leaders Win the Support of Otherwise Principled Men
What does it mean when those voices calling for objective morality and the rule of law are considered extreme in favour of embracing those solutions with “reasonable,” “common-sense” and short-term sacrifices to solve problems that were first created by such measures? Conservatives don’t like Paul because a purer form of traditionally conservative ideals comes out so different than the practices of what is now called conservatism. Conservatives would rather align themselves with men who share almost none of the deeper convictions, morals and ideals of their own movement, but who will still give lip service and token support to popular conservative causes (abortion, family, military). They will support unprincipled extremists who are promising that they will ignore their nature. This is foolishness - but a familiar path that humanity has taken in placing reckless, unprincipled men in power.
Continue reading ‘When Extremism Becomes Mainstream’

McCain and Obama both Clueless on Patriotism

Published by Colin July 7, 2008 in Politics and Current Events. 4 Comments

I never read Parade Magazine in the Sunday paper for the same reason I don’t read something like People or Time - in short, it’s total crap. I am generally not interested in celebrity gossip, oversimplified political analysis or to know how much people make. However, I couldn’t help but see Barack Obama and John McCain on the cover with the question “What is Patriotism?” below.

Upon turning to the articles that each of them “wrote” (most likely someone wrote these letter for them), I was not surprised to see identical rhetoric from both of them. Essentially - patriotism is submission to the state and the total suppression of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

John McCain
The lead answer for McCain was: patriotism is “putting the country first.” Specifically, this means:

…it is the sacrifices of so many Americans, at home and abroad, in times of peace and times of war, that give meaning to all of us. We are blessed to be Americans, and blessed that so many of us have so often believed in a cause far greater than self-interest, far greater than ourselves.

McCain looks immediately to the military, war and militarism to sell his point. Americans need to support the American Empire because it is killing foreigners in their own countries which keeps us free and “give meaning to all of us.” Actually, McCain is right on this account. It was Randolph Bourne, after four years of this principle put into action in World War I (ironically, the “war to end all wars”) who wrote that “war is the health of the state.” McCain’s potential presidency, the careers of politicians and the constant expansion of government power in the name of never-ending emergencies or crises is sustained by drumming up and redirecting the fear of Americans from their own government towards some external threat - be it Iran, global warming or gas prices.

If the revolutionaries had this view, they would have gladly yielded to the British Empire and submitted to the taxes, trade restrictions and suppression of liberty (mild compared to the modern US Government). They would have fought for Britain in more foreign wars, personally submitted to its king and docily handed over their wages and wealth with a smile because they “put the country first.”

Barack Obama
Obama’s short answer was not so terrifying as McCain: “Faith in one another as Americans.” But it doesn’t take long for Obama to start praising war and welfare as the health of the state:

…true patriotism also means a willingness to sacrifice for our common good. For those who have fought on the battlefield under the Stars and Stripes—for the young veterans I meet at Walter Reed Army Medical Center or those like John McCain who endured physical torment while serving our nation—no further proof of such sacrifice is necessary. Those who have signed up to fight for our country in distant lands inspire me…

When politicians say “sacrifice” it means us, not them. In times of “sacrifice” the government itself is increased and benefited while individuals are trampled upon, stolen from and killed. In other words, patriotism means that more individuals readily give up their lives, liberty and property with diminishing resistance.

For Obama, who would use the power of the state to dramatically interfere with economic liberty, this is especially true. So that insurance companies can have a state-enforced monopoly, American’s should sacrifice their their little-remaining rights to choice and freedom in healthcare. Perhaps we should also sacrifice to the special interests that both Obama and McCain would give our tax money to in the name of “fighting global warming.”

What Patriotism Is

I have never heard a more inspiring message of patriotism than one given on the house floor last year. A short excerpt barely does it justice:

The true patriot is motivated by a sense of responsibility and out of self-interest for himself, his family, and the future of his country to resist government abuse of power. He rejects the notion that patriotism means obedience to the state…

Statism depends on the idea that the government owns us and citizens must obey. Confiscating the fruits of our labor through the income tax is crucial to the health of the state. The draft, or even the mere existence of the Selective Service, emphasizes that we will march off to war at the state’s pleasure.

A free society rejects all notions of involuntary servitude, whether by draft or the confiscation of the fruits of our labor through the personal income tax…

Resistance to illegal and unconstitutional usurpation of our rights is required. Each of us must choose which course of action we should take: education, conventional political action, or even peaceful civil disobedience to bring about necessary changes. But let it not be said that we did nothing. Let not those who love the power of the welfare/warfare state label the dissenters of authoritarianism as unpatriotic or uncaring. Patriotism is more closely linked to dissent than it is to conformity and a blind desire for safety and security. Understanding the magnificent rewards of a free society makes us unbashful in its promotion, fully realizing that maximum wealth is created and the greatest chance for peace comes from a society respectful of individual liberty.

Ron Paul outlines patriotism in a nutshell: it is unwavering resistance to collectivism and an authoritarian state.

McCain and Obama clearly would move the government in a more authoritarian direction. They are both anti-patriots, who triumph the suppression of individual rights and expansion of power (and the inevitable resulting abuse) of the state.

GOP Flip-Flop on Financing

Published by Colin June 23, 2008 in Politics. 24 Comments

One of the major party candidates wants to see the Federal Government spending hundreds of millions of dollars on presidential campaigns. This candidate also wants restrictions on donations, especially from businesses and wealthy people. This includes restrictions on the speech of religious groups as well.

The second major party candidate has decided to save taxpayers millions of dollars, by not taking this money in what is basically welfare for politicians. By this same token, free speech is no longer put into boxes based on timing, nor is money now channelled into rule-laden 527 Groups.

As I am sure the reader knows, the big-government position is being advocated by Republican John McCain, while, ironically, Democrat Barack Obama has forgone spending taxpayer money.

While this is already an almost comical commentary on the lack of distinction between Republicans and Democrats, the Republican National Committee has made themselves look even more foolish by criticizing Obama for his conservative position.

RNC Chairman Mike Duncan said the following:

In his decision to break his promise and forgo our nation’s public financing system, Barack Obama failed to demonstrate the kind of principled leadership that Americans are looking for in our next President. Obama’s decision is what we’ve come to expect from a candidate whose rhetoric is nothing like his record, and it undermines his own claims to represent a ‘new’ kind of politics. Clearly, Barack Obama is just another politician who is willing to do whatever benefits his own personal agenda.

While Obama is “flip-flopping” - it is the good kind - moving from a bad policy to a good one. Whereas McCain and the GOP’s steadfast adherence to their own hypocrisy is deplorable. The correct thing to do, is for the GOP to issue an apology for supporting a candidate like John McCain who claims to want to “reduce wasteful government spending” and subsequently supports federally-funded elections and free-speech restrictions.

What I suspect is the biggest problem with Obama’s move is that it is a break from the typical bipartisan agreements that the Dems and GOP have made to keep unfriendly elements (third parties and independents) from using wealth or grassroots support to crash their two party fiesta. That is the reason McCain-Feingold is in place - to enforce the duopoly currently in control of Washington.

Perhaps Obama really does represent change, and maybe his decision will have a positive impact on the future viability of non-traditional candidates. Either way, in this instance, it’s clear that public financing is not a viable program.

Links: Japanese Healthcare Solutions and Gitmo Outa’ Here

Published by Colin June 20, 2008 in Current Events. 2 Comments

Every week, our users put together the news, interviews, articles, videos and media that they have found important, interesting and informative. We post it every Friday. Here are the links for this week:

Politics
Japan has enacted a law in an effort to rein in ballooning health care costs. Local governments are measuring the waist size of citizens.

British man pepper sprayed while watching TV. See what happens when you won’t open up your door and prove you aren’t being a bad boy? I love police.

Is Obama an enlightened being? His answer/opinion is at the bottom.

Senate Votes To Privatize Its Failing Restaurants. Alternatively: Mark Cuban wouldn’t hire politicians to manage a Diary Queen.

‘Deadly flooding keeps Iowans from homes’ and/or ‘Man gets pulled from truck at gunpoint for trying to go around a barrier’

Women’s hands, feet, hacked off, then throw into firebombed house in Zimbabwe election violence

From the New York Times:

The Supreme Court on Thursday delivered its third consecutive rebuff to the Bush administration’s handling of the detainees at Guantánamo Bay, ruling 5 to 4 that the prisoners there have a constitutional right to go to federal court to challenge their continued detention.

Religion
President Bush considering conversion?

Anglican Church In Meltdown

Misc.
10 Minute Radio interview with Canadian Industry Minister Jim Prentice on Canadian DMCA. This is an excellent interview where the Minister shows that he either has NO idea what he’s talking about or he’s outright LYING…and then hangs up. Seriously, this is unbelievable. Oh, and Canadian Music Artists do not like this bill.

Wine snobbery: “When wine drinkers tell me they taste notes of cherries, tobacco and rose petals, usually all I can detect is a whole lot of jackass.”

Scientists find bugs that eat waste and excrete petrol

Why Ron Paul Won in 2008

Published by Colin June 5, 2008 in Essays, Politics and Current Events. 40 Comments

With a headline like this, it must be first mentioned that this is not a paranoid conspiratorial piece on how delegates were STOLEN (all caps), votes weren’t counted or the major media somehow sabotaged the Ron Paul campaign. Rather, it is important to take a realistic look at the goals that Ron Paul’s campaign set out to accomplish, and examine how he fared.

First of all, did Ron Paul actually enter this election to win? Before we start getting our competitive juices flowing, just think about what Ron Paul stands for and what a realistic assessment of this kind of “victory” would have meant. He would have gone to the Oval Office with a congress that absolutely hated and loathed him, departments that feared him and would fight him as though their jobs were at stake (which they would be) and a public (after fickle popular support had waned) which was bewildered with the kind of radical policies and actions that were coming from the president. A Ron Paul presidency may have destroyed the best fruits of his candidacy.

Ron Paul’s campaign has always been a bottom-up phenomenon. Secondly, it is a more purely philosophical and ideological agenda - rather than a pragmatic political one. While many have criticized that this is a bad thing - is it not more beneficial in the long-term to sacrifice an election in order to generate hundreds of thousands of individual awakenings to liberty?

Rather than being humble, Paul was being very honest when he said countless times that the campaign wasn’t about him, but about the people who supported him. Paul’s campaign jarred the intellectually lazy and cynical over a few months (which may have been all they needed), and made them take a moment to consider what freedom, consitutionalism and liberty really mean. He showed us what a free society should look like.

This is key, because rather than end up in a politically neutered position of central power, Ron Paul has lit the spark of changed hearts and minds. And for those that have not changed, especially many conservatives, they have had to reconsider what kind of GOP they now support. Paul’s campaign was in the spotlight for enough time to act as a mirror against the new GOP - and show conservatives just how long it’s been since they took a good look at themselves - many of them no longer recognizing their own faces.

Ron Paul’s expectations have been wildly exceeded by his campaign. For the first time in decades, there is an active block of people who are learning about the evils of central banking, empire-building and welfarism. These aren’t the crazies and kooks who were in the cracks of society, burying guns in Idaho - these are regular folks, who work regular jobs and have become evangelical about the message of freedom.

This movement, which has been scattered and divided across the spectrum: libertarians, constitutionalists, republicans, democrats, independents, anarchists and even some former socialists have been united under Paul’s big tent platform. And while it may be easy to ridicule the conspiracy theorists, it is a testimony to the movement that they now join with college professors, intellectuals and businessmen. Or the atheists, homosexual activists and objectivists now aligning with radical Christians and New Agers. These people now realize that they have more in common than they once thought - and while disagreements remain, there is now more than a undefined dissatisfaction with what has happened in America, but a visible way out.

John McCain or Barack Obama will go to the White House in 2008. But their policies, which favour a continuation of America’s slow decline into the also-rans of history, will prove Ron Paul right again. People like BJ Lawson, Murray Sabrin and Carl Bunce are setting themselves up as future advocates. Many of these would have never thought to seek political office, but have been inspired by the optimism and hope that Ron Paul exampled.

Ron Paul won in 2008, by taking the exact opposite approach of most politicians. Instead of coalition building, compromising, pandering and standing for nothing and everything at the same time, Paul explicitly denounced the problems we have created and boldly proclaimed the solutions found in freedom and liberty. Ron Paul has mobilized many in the coming generation to build a better future. This long-term investment may not have resulted in an immediate gratification, but over time, compounded with interest, this movement may very well pay off.

Internet Buzz is Irrelevant

Published by Kenneth Martens September 27, 2007 in General and Politics. 96 Comments

According to a Fox News online poll [It was actually a cellphone poll. - Ed.] earlier this month, Representative Ron Paul won the New Hampshire Republican debate by a significant margin (Ron Paul wins by a landslide). Unfortunately for Ron Paul enthusiasts, that support has not translated into big numbers on the offline polls. A September 7-8 Gallup poll put Ron Paul at the bottom of the field with 1% support. Subsequent polls show a similar level of insignificance.

Why does Ron Paul poll so well online but not elsewhere? Rush Limbaugh says it’s because of small number of his supporters are spamming the online polls (May 16 transcript) and that Paul’s buzz isn’t real.

But it’s not just Ron Paul. Other candidates are seeing the same pattern: huge online support, but dismal showings in scientific polls. In a New York Times op-ed piece (The Center Holds) David Brooks reports:

In the various polls on the Daily Kos Web site, John Edwards, Barack Obama and even Al Gore crush Hillary Clinton, who limps in with 2 percent to 10 percent of the vote.

But in the scientific polls, Hillary Clinton is polling nearly double the numbers of her nearest competitor. Gallup has her support at 47% compared to Obama’s 25% (Sept. 14-16 poll). Unless every candidate except for Clinton has supporters spamming the online polls, we can’t chalk this phenomenon up to online chicanery. Something else is happening.

David Brooks offers one explanation in his New York Times piece:

As the journalist Ron Brownstein and others have noted, Democratic primary contests follow a general pattern. There are a few candidates who represent the affluent, educated intelligentsia (Eugene McCarthy, Bill Bradley) and they usually end up getting beaten by the candidate of the less educated, lower middle class.

That’s what’s happening again. Obama and Edwards get most of their support from the educated, affluent liberals. According to Gallup polls, Obama garners 33 percent support from Democratic college graduates, 28 percent from those with some college and only 19 percent with a high school degree or less. Hillary Clinton’s core support, on the other hand, comes from those with less education and less income — more Harry Truman than Howard Dean.

Brooks’s unsaid assumption is that the internet activists are better educated and wealthier than the general public. If we assume this is true, then the skewed online polls are just another manifestation of an ongoing class divide in America. The real divide is between the wealthy and the lower middle class. Ron Paul’s online dominance is not due to libertarian crackpots stuffing the internet ballots. It is an effect of the fact that internet users are not a representative cross-section of America. It’s only the wealthier folks who support Ron Paul.

Or so Brooks’s article leads you to believe. But does his unsaid assumption fit the facts? Do internet users in America represent the “affluent, educated intelligentsia?” A 2006 Pew report shows that 73% of American adults are online. (Internet Penetration and Impact) The report shows that income and education did play a factor–53% of adults making less than $30,000 were online compared to 86% of adults making $50,000 to $75,000. But the report also shows that age is an even greater indicator: 88% of 18-29 year-olds are online compared to 32% for those 65 and older. It’s possible that the overrepresentation of Ron Paul supporters on the internet is a result of a new generation with new values. If that is the case–and I caution that it is by no means proved–then we can expect political shifts in the next few decades as this young generation matures.

But for now, the internet is irrelevant.

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