Libertarian and Ron Paul supporter.
Of course, Ron Paul could never get elected. His ideas are too far out of mainstream, which unfortunately, I believe is a bad thing for the US, eventually.
I'm not going to go into all of the reasons that getting rid of things like Social Security and Medicare are good ideas, WHEN TAKEN AS A WHOLE with other policies. Anyone interested can do their own research about this and will find more than the sound bytes usually presented against such ideas and see why people like Ron Paul who propose such things think it would be a good thing, not an evil money-grubbing-keep-you-in-the-dirt-and-don't-give-a-rat's-ass-about-anything-but-making-money thing.
But something as simple as eliminating the Federal Reserve, which according to many isn't even technically allowed in the constitution (the existence, not the elimination - it gives Congress the right to print money and control federal currency policy, not a quasi-private organization), but there are so few people who really understand that and why it does more harm than good, that the concept of eliminating it is treated as some form of bizarre heresy.
I'm an avid State's rights guy, always have been. "It says so in the constitution" and I believe the guys who created the US, in an attempt to shake off a greedy, corrupt, "one size fits all" empire, knew what they were doing, as far as they could know then, and warned us about what has been happening, really since the Civil War.
The federal government has created so many twisted, labyrinthine government agencies that control so many aspects of so many various things, that even if not by intention it is becoming a behemoth that can't be stopped. It's like sitting back and watching a train about to run off a cliff as the engine man is shoveling coal into the furnace.
What many think they know to be right, according to standard wisdom, often turns out to be dead wrong. History's shown us that time and again. One thing that I believe pretty strongly - the current way of doing things doesn't work, and as someone mentioned in a previous thread related to government programs to help workers, the more intervention, the higher the unemployment rate, usually (as an example of something that doesn't work - heavier and heavier labor laws that eventually cripple industry in an attempt to be "fair" to all).
But I'll never be able to convince others just by writing about it, except that one person in a thousand that may see something that makes sense but is contrary to current "knowledge." Then he or she does some digging, a bit deeper than "Libertarians want to pull out all support systems for the unfortunates" and other quickies, and sees what we're talking about.
The US is too big, has too many debts, is supported by too many people throughout the world. Seems to me that if the US were to collapse economically, say because the world lost faith in the dollar due to it's low value after the incredible devaluation it would take to to pay off those debts (how long? 10 years? 20? 50?), the rest of the world is going down with it, at least for awhile.
World-wide depression? Or will the US slowly drown in its own debt as everyone else says "alright, you helped out pretty big in world War II - how long are you going to keep banking on that" and starts moving away from the dollar as the international currency?
There are some people right now who are saying that the US would be better of right now in defaulting on loans than wait for the point when the devaluation of the currency gets so low that it's worthless. Like the Argentine Peso.
I don't know - I'm still learning.
Seems to me that there's no real way out of this though. People are voting themselves money through their representatives and senators, giving themselves a stronger and stronger addiction to government comfort and care. The US federal government wasn't put together to take care of people, it was done so to enforce laws and make things fair for everyone - not just a relatively few "luck of birth" royals and rich people who survived off the backs of those they oppressed and threw their lives away like chess pieces.
Like everyone is convinced they need a super-duper health plan that pays all costs at a low out-of-pocket deductible so they can feel good about going to the doctor when they get the sniffles and not even pay for their over-prescribed antibiotics, everyone is convinced that we as a people, as humans, in this day and age, have no compassion for our fellow man and we must force everyone to enlarge the addiction at the point of a government gun.
That's not charity. That's not helping your fellow man and putting an effort into making sure that those around you are taken care of. It's lazy, selfish and severely damaging to the American spirit.
But hey, that's just my opinion. And people like Ron Paul's.
