Ron Paul Speaks The Truth

THE DISPATCH | Ashby W. Frank | March 21, 2012

Guest columnist Steve Hodges stated, "Ron Paul reminds one of the eccentric uncle who shows up at family reunions with his fly down, wearing a silly grin and babbling incoherently."

Sarcasm (which is the only explanation I can find for these otherwise ridiculously ignorant remarks) and partisanship aside, statements such as this explain to me why our nation is in the situation it's in.

Our crazy "Uncle Ron" stated on the floor of the U.S. House on Feb. 2, 1999, "The conviction that stock prices will continue to provide extra cash and confidence in the economy have fueled wild consumer spending and personal debt expansion. The home refinance index between 1997 and 1999 increased 700 percent. Secondary mortgages are now offered up to 120 percent of a home's equity, with many of these funds finding their way into the stock market. Generous credit and quasi-government agencies make these mortgage markets robust, but a correction will come when it is realized that the builders and the lenders have gotten ahead of themselves."

Search the internet for Paul, and you'll find he's been spot on with his predictions for a very long time. I'm sure the people who practically destroyed our financial system laughed at Uncle Ron's "silly grin" and "babbling" back in 1999, too.

Paul also predicted the quagmire in Iraq when no one else in the Republican Party was willing to speak up. Four years ago, he predicted that President Obama wouldn't lessen the burden we've assumed as a policeman of the world, and now we're involved in Egypt and Libya.

Shall we continue this "policing" business that all of the progressives argued was making us the great evil of the world simply because control of the White House has changed parties? Shall we continue printing money and borrowing from our own wealth, the world and more specifically China just to continue our broken entitlement programs and needless foreign entanglements?

President Eisenhower warned of the military-industrial complex, and the original conservative Republicans, Sen. Barry Goldwater, Sen. Robert Taft and President Reagan, warned of an ever-encroaching federal government in all aspects of our lives. Even "New Right" Senator (Jesse) Helms joined Rep. Paul as an advocate for returning to the Gold Standard.




Now it seems that growing some role of the government either with new entitlements, regulations, bureaucracy and limitations on freedom in our personal lives is something that both political parties seem to be gung ho about. "Eccentric" "babbling" Uncle Ron has rightly warned against these policies for 30 years.

To me the choice couldn't be more clear. You can be blissful in your ignorance and pick sides in a worthless partisan fight or wake up and realize the mess that's being created for my generation of taxpayers. Ron Paul may have seemed out of the mainstream for years, but our nation's deaf ears to his prophetic realism has cost us greatly and will continue to cost us until we wake up.