Why Dems Should Register Republican & Vote Ron Paul

There are many Democrats who agree with congressman & Republican Presidential candidate Ron Paul when it comes to his positions on military interventions, the drug war, and the rights of the individual over corporations. The fact that progressive icon and consumer advocate Ralph Nader has discussed teaming up with Paul demonstrates how Ron Paul’s views often are compatible with those of liberal progressives. However, most Democrats argue that Paul’s libertarian stance regarding entitlement programs, taxes, and the role of the Federal Government prevent them from ever throwing their full support behind Paul, even if they agree with him on other issues.

By making this argument, Democrats seem to think that Ron Paul could simply do away with Federal programs and departments with the swipe of pen. While Executive power has increased in recent years, American presidents are not dictators. A President Paul would have two (likely hostile) halls of Congress to deal with in setting an agenda. Secondly, Ron Paul is a pragmatic libertarian, not a radical one hell bent on throwing the United States into a state of anarchy and kicking people off Medicare and Social Security. When dealing with domestic issues and entitlement programs, Paul has always talked about slow transitions from Federal control to the State and local level, and actually saving entitlement programs like Social Security and Medicare from impending bankruptcy over the short term by drastically cutting military spending.

Democrats though will argue that we are in crisis mode with the economy and need an FDR style president to inject money and create programs to fuel job growth, not someone like Ron Paul who wants to reduce the size of the Federal Government. Even if one were to agree with this argument, it should be obvious to all Democrats that Barack Obama is no FDR, but a panderer of Wall Street who has repeatedly refused to use the office of the Presidency as a bully pulpit to push a progressive agenda through Congress and make the banking industry pay for its high crimes. Beyond Obama’s very obvious shortcomings, one must ask Democrats if beefing up Federal programs should be the deciding factor in their choice for the next President of the United States. Is that really the ethical and moral priority of our times?

It might be good if all Democrats (and Republicans for that matter) were to pause for a moment and imagine that the Federal government was regularly dropping cluster bombs on their communities to combat suspected terrorists. And that due to these bombings, scores of innocent people, including family members, friends, and neighbors, were being maimed and killed.

Now, also imagine that this same Federal government has banned alcohol. Get caught drinking a beer and get tossed into jail for years. One guesses that if this were happening in the United States, the priority of nearly all voters would be to vote for a new President who would stop killing innocent Americans and tossing folks into jail for drinking a Budweiser.

Well, that Presidential candidate is Ron Paul. That the accidental killing of thousands of innocent men, women, and children is happening in foreign countries (instead of at home) and the jailings are related to marijuana and other drugs (instead of alcohol) are arbitrary distinctions. From a moral and ethical standpoint, these crimes against humanity and assault on personal freedoms are the same. That is why Democrats should register Republican and vote for Ron Paul in the primaries.

Read our article: The Corporate Trolls Vs. Chris Hedges & Ron Paul.

 

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