In a recent interview I was asked why Bernie Sanders, a self-described “democratic socialist” had seemingly attracted so much support among young people. In fact polls suggest Sanders is the most popular candidate among people aged 18-29, and 51 percent of that same age group appears fed up with “capitalism in its current form,” according to a recent Harvard study.
It was just four years ago that so many young people turned out to hear and support my message of personal liberty, non-aggression, and non-intervention at home and abroad. I was thrilled that so many young people were attracted to a candidate whose main message was “I don’t want to run your life.”
Socialism, of course, is the opposite philosophy. The socialist philosophy has at its core the desire to run people’s lives. It is by design an authoritarian system. Who would willingly give up so much of their own property to the state to redistribute to others? That is where the use of government force comes into play. Socialism tells how much of your money you can keep, how you can spend it, if you can spend it, which of your personal habits must be modified in order to qualify for your “free” healthcare, what course of study you must pursue to qualify for your “free” education, and so on.
But we also know the false promises can be very seductive. Socialism preys on that human fault that would like to have something for nothing. You deserve an education, the socialist tells young people, so I will give you one for free. He never tells the student that he will pay for that education many times over in the hidden tax called inflation. Or the student may “pay” for that education with unemployment after college as his potential employer was forced to shut down over the high taxes required to pay for all the things the socialist promises.
So am I surprised that it seems so many young people have fallen for the seductive lies of socialism? Well I don’t really believe they have. They are frustrated by a system they are told is capitalism. They are angry over the same things I have been talking about for years.
Our current system is far from the free-markets that we in the Austrian school of economics espouse. We have a system of cronyism, corporatism, inflationism, regulated and managed trade to the benefit of special interests, and the criminality of central banking. Unfortunately because of our faulty and biased education system and the relentless propaganda of the mainstream media, many young people are taught that the mess they see all around them is all caused by “capitalism.”
Politics is about getting people excited about a candidate. Ours is a much longer effort. The young generation that first attended my rallies in 2007 is by now in its mid-20s. They are raising a new generation that in many cases will be home-schooled and outside the propaganda machine that is modern public education. They understand that the real freedom revolution will not be won at the ballot box, but in the battleground of ideas. They continue to learn the freedom philosophy and they support the various educational organizations that provide the intellectual ammunition for our fight. I am more optimistic than ever that our message is taking hold and growing deep roots. Ideas really can change the world.
Contrary to what many would like us to believe, the Freedom Revolution is alive and well!
“What Happened To The Revolution?”
farcebook, shitter, crapchat, and all the other methods of mind-herding have corralled the independent thought of the gullible collective mass, that’s what. and isn’t it obvious?
The revolution is going on without you, Dr. Paul. Not siding with Trump is a tacit vote for TPP-TTIP-TISA, in other words, the end of american sovereignty. You made your bed, stop complaining. But at least you didn’t have to get a real job.
fcker, so now one either is going to vote for Trump or is voting to end American sovereignty? That sounds a lot like something George Bush the 2nd would say.
TJF.
We have lost much of our sovereignty already, Hillary (or Sanders) will finish it.
So what else do you do to oppose it than vote for Trump? Specifically what other action can be taken to at least fight our loss of sovereignty?
Make America great again or make it Mexico, that is the real choice we are facing now.
TJF, every other candidate running for president in this cycle wants to open the border. Every other candidate exept Sanders wants those three trade deals. One of us is a dumb fuck, and it’s not me. These are just facts. Prove me wrong. Name your candidate who will actually prevent this. This is for all the marbles. If i am mistaken, tell me how.
The problem with the Pauls is thet are ideologues. They get bogged down on issues of little conseqence. Such as the minumum wage. Witch tends to be set below the market minumum anyway.
Its not that their not right its that they are deaf to politics.
Trump is smarter then that. He can see the bigger picture and pivot on a dime.
Intelligent people often believe that everyone is as intelligent as they are if only they could… fill in the blank. When you realize that MPAI you feel bad about yourself (because you are neither stupid nor callous) for even thinking this is so, or you delude yourself into the belief that the only thing standing between you and the other guy getting with the program is enough information/education/opportunity.
Ron Paul is the latter.
Star, I just have trouble believing “this is for all the marbles” any more. Name one time in recent history we haven’t been told that? My problem with this view is that I believe the marbles have been gone for decades. We are now fighting over who gets to hold the empty bag. There is nothing trump(or Ron Paul) or anyone else can do about this now.
I get it, people have the issue with the borders, and it’s not that I disagree with trump on everything. I just don’t think he is capable of ‘saving’ this country, nor is anyone else. I have yet to hear him give a realistic solution to our 200 trillion in unfunded liabilities too. Unless those are addressed, it’s all a moot point anyway. It will eat us alive. There’s no way out, it’s either going to be defaulted on, or inflated away. And inflated away is just defaulting in another manner. Those are the only two choices.
Gator, somebody new is going to be running things in january. That’s a fact. Who do you want it to be?
STar, I understand that, you are correct, I’m just over the lesser of two evil idea. The primary reason for supporting trump, IMO, was the idea that he would be the least likely to do something really stupid with Russia or china. My biggest fear with the future is a WW3 type scenario which too many in our deep state apparatus seem intent on starting with Russia, china, and Iran. I consider massive financial upheaval to be inevitable regardless of who is in charge, but a major war against a major foreign power is avoidable. However, despite trump saying some good things in that area, he has john Bolton as an advisor, and others like him. There is no a more bloodthirsty warmonger in the world than that guy. Why, if you are talking about an ‘America first’ type foreign policy where we try to mind our own business, would you have that guy as a top foreign policy adviser?
The most important lesson to be learned from History is that Government is corrupt, incompetent and evil. The second most important lesson is that the real government is the central Banksters that operate in the shadows. They control the politicians, the media and the mega corporations. There is no hope for Western civilization. The sooner the debt based monetary system crashes and burns, the sooner the next game of Monopooly/Risk can begin. Maybe people will have learned from the experience. But probably not. Human intelligence is an oxymoron.
Many have realized that libertarianism is really liberal-tarianism. Like communism, it is a fine theory that doesn’t take into account the wolves of the world that will laugh at your self-imposed limits as they happily exploit you in every way possible. Liberaltarianism equals open borders, and therefore promotes a noble suicide as it refuses to even acknowledge the hordes of unwashed, illiterate locusts who do not now, or never will care for your St. Rothbard or St. Rand. Liberaltarianism was also infiltrated by degenerates, initially typified by potheads looking for legalization, but it now includes homosexuals, miscellaneous gender types, nudists, pedophiles, smug atheists, polyamorists, and hippies. Outside of a few pet issues such as taxes and gun rights it’s becoming harder and harder to distinguish from Bernie Sanders style socialism.
The Revolution has moved on from a bumbling nepotist who was bullied by Borat. We now have Trump, a flawed billionaire who at least is being given the benefit of the doubt that he can solve a few of our problems, or at least that he will try. Ron Paul could only promise theoretical utopianism. Many now realize even a few common sense solutions, actually enacted, is better than a heaven on earth that will never be.
“The wolves of the world that will laugh at your self imposed as they exploit you in every way possible”
You mean kinda like what we have now? Libertarianism doesn’t promise utopia. It promises to let you live your life as you see fit. Why we have NOW is a government and society run by the very wolves you think libertarianism would unleash on us all. You are living in that reality right now, and you think that a philosophy that wants to remove the power from this institution and remove the current fraud based monetary system from around your neck is going to unleash the wolves? You have to be joking.
There are always going to be people who take advantage of others and exploit them. What he have now is a system where the very worst of them do all of that LEGALLY and are lavishly rewarded for doing so, and often times adored by the ignorant, fawning masses they exploit.
@Gator, agree with your concerns about Trump having John Bolton as an advisor, and his choice of an ex-Goldman Sachs as his finance campaign advisor is disturbing as well.
As to Ron Paul, he is largely irrelevant now. Too bad his revolution was killed on the vine in 2008/2012 by the media and TPTB (those 2 are redundant, I suppose).
Dr. Paul wonders why his revolution fizzled. I think that he spiked his own efforts for any future campaign back in ’96 when he decided to go back to the GOP in order to work within the system.
He had a message that young people responded to in a big way but he had assumed, wrongly, that being a tiny cog in the GOP machine was his only shot at at president. Being a little bitty, unessential cog in a big, clanking machine doomed him from the start.
Being a member of Congress from ’96 until ’08. he had been in an environment that used up all his energy and focus. He didn’t see that a huge publicly accessible medium, the internet, had been invented that can give an ordinary person a platform for presenting a message to those who wanted to hear it.
Launching a campaign as a little slave on an established political plantation is just a way of allowing the owners of the plantation to control your access, limit your exposure to the rotten old media of TV, radio, and print, and it telegraphs any punch you try to land.
The kindly elder statesman was done in by the very entity whose podium he thought he was standing behind by being a GOP member of Congress. Working within the system makes you subject to the system. It won’t work because it can’t work.
He apparently still hasn’t learned that you can’t kill a snake by living in its belly.
I’ve come to believe that Libertarianism is a self-crippled passive-aggressive dogma. Yes, it is closest to the principles of the early republic and the founding fathers, well most of them. Yet, it completely eschews what got us those freedoms back then: forceful action if not violence against oppression. Force. Determination. These are not libertarian qualities. A libertarian government is almost an oxymoron because it can never do what needs to do to get elected to “impose” freedom which is to water that tree.