I recently forwarded a link containing clips of Ron Paul from the first Republican debate to a friend of mine. He in turn forwarded the same email on to his step father with a bit of his own words in the body. He stated that the ideas that Ron Paul put forth were simple, logical, and made about as much sense as anything that he had heard coming out of a politician’s mouth.
My friends step father responded to the email with one point. The response simply stated that if Ron Paul's ideas made so much sense, then why do the majority of our fellow Americans not agree?
I have been thinking about this response for the better part of the day, and I have come up with only one conclusion about it. My conclusion is simply this: how can someone respond to such a position with such a weak and hollow remark? It is exactly this type of thinking that advances the mindlessness of the American citizenry today. Rather than rationally and coherently respond with rebuttals and ideas of their own, those who come to the table with the statist point of view have no real coherent thoughts when it comes to thinking outside the statist box. My friend's father used the same hollow logic that Rudy Giulliani used when he labeled Ron Paul’s views about possible reasons why we were attacked on 9-11 as absurd. Ron Paul listed several sources, including the 9-11 Commission report, as backing for his rationale, but all the apologists of the welfare-warfare state can come up with is, "That is absurd, not in the mainstream!"
Where is the intelligent debate on the statist side? It seems that most of the time someone challenges their conventional way of thinking, all they can do is dismiss that persons views as “outside the mainstream.”
I wonder if these same people would have responded with these same hollow words towards people of pro-abolitionist views during the early 19th century. I can only imagine someone trying to persuade another that slavery is morally wrong and must be abolished, and the other person’s only line of reason for the continuance of slavery being, “If you are so right, why doesn’t the mainstream agree with you?”
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3 comments:
For most people, the statist viewpoint is just part of the existential substrate that is never questioned. To problematize the state is to call into question their basic assumptions about social reality. They have to be reprogrammed.
I like the way that Harry Browne used to explain the concept of reprogramming. People learn all of these things in school that they later have to un-learn in order to have a clear understanding of the world.
Isn't the statement that "most people have to be reprogrammed" rather characteristic of totalitarianism? Why don't you simply take pride in not being "mainstream"? After all it's THEIR word and THEIR attempt to justify themselves.
Analysis of Welfare Society
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