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I’ve had a chance to talk to a few Ron Paul supporters and the conversations always run the exact same way:
I ask, “What exactly do you love about Ron Paul?”
The answer is, “He’s against the war in iraq and he wants to return freedom to the people!”
Uh huh. And what exactly does that mean? How exactly is he going to “revolutionize” everything and “free” us?
This is where it falls apart. They don’t really know exactly what is going to change – all they know is that, magically, they will suddenly have lower taxes and cleaner water and everything will just magically work out.
“Because you don’t want the government controlling your life, do you?”
Somehow or another Ron Paul supporters seem to think all the problems in their life are because some mythical “government agent” is causing them. Somehow government is “controlling” them in some way. (True, under Bush things have gotten a little worse – but that’s a Bush problem)
They seem to think they’re broke not because corporations are ginning the system, suppressing wages, cutting benefits, relocating 100,000 jobs every month to Mexico – no! It’s really because of government!
But when you press them for specifics of how our “evil” democratically elected politicians are ruining their lives – well, they really can’t answer.
Usually they can’t come up with a single Ron Paul “philosophy” outside of lower taxes that they know of and/or like – and even then you can tell these supporters really have no idea how our economy works.
“Which is cheaper,” I ask. “What you pay in taxes every year to have unlimited access to every single road in this country – or paying 25 cents per quarter mile to a private corporation to maintain our nations roads?”
After a very long pause and some calculations they eventually come to the conclusion that, yeah, paying for highway construction and maintenance with taxes is far far cheaper than privatizing it and paying 25 cents per quarter mile.
“Dude! Just getting to work one way would cost me over $15 bucks! I don’t want that!”
Then I ask them which is cheaper: paying $300-$400 a month for private police “insurance” and another $200 a month for private “fire/rescue” insurance – or just paying for it via taxation?
Again after a lengthy pause, yup, it’s cheaper (and more efficient!) to pay for those services via taxation. And a lot fairer. Nobody wants the working poor to be denied police protection just because they make low wages, right?
What about education? Which is cheaper? Paying $500 a month for privatized basic education or simply paying for it via taxation?
A lot of Ron Paul supporters (all 500 of them) seem to be caught up in the hype of the so-called “revolution” without really understanding what exactly his policies would do.
I mean, yeah, I’d also like to have my paycheck increased by $5 (due to lower taxes) and my property tax bill reduced by $100 – but if by doing that I have to pay an additional $1,000 to privatized companies --- I didn’t really “save” any money, did I?
The amount “saved” by all of these privatization schemes is never equal to the massive increase you pay out-of-pocket to private for-profit corporations.
