To the Rush Limbaugh’s, Mark Levin’s and Sean Hannity’s of the world, Ron Paul was an insane “isolationist” “kook” who might as well have been pulling for the “enemy” when he, almost alone, argued passionately against America’s involvement in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and Mark Levin were of course arguing passionately for these wars.
You might have noticed that America’s effort to transform these nations into future democratic Americas doesn’t get discussed much anymore.
The talk show hosts - like their listeners - now know that the whole effort was a tragic folly.
While it might have taken a couple decades for history to make a definitive judgment on America’s war in Vietnam, such a judgment hasn’t taken nearly as long with our military involvements in Iraq and Afghanistan.
In just a few years, public opinion (and history’s “verdict”) has changed 180 degrees.
The attitude on these shows seems to now be, “let’s don’t talk about that.” Literally.
In a sane world, the person who was most conspicuously right on such a hotly-debated and massively important policy question might get a little credit.
Credit for being right. For being right early and first. Credit for sticking to his principles and views when no one else (at least no other Republican) was saying what he was saying.
If he was right on this topic, maybe he is also right about all these other topics he keeps bringing up. Or so - in a sane world - the thinking might go.
In such a world maybe more people might say, “Hey, let’s take a second look at this guy.”
Such a “reassessment” of Paul has of course not taken place. Instead the labels “isolationist” and “kook” still seem to apply to him - even though the position that earned him these labels turned out to be 100 percent correct, and prescient.
Madness
Apparently in politics and in the world of ideas, you can be right and it doesn’t matter. And if you are a talk radio host, you can apparently be completely wrong ... and it doesn’t matter. This is madness, but the truth. In our “1984” world in 2014, the “truth” or being right doesn’t matter.
Rush Limbaugh (or Fox News or the writers of National Review) simply does not want to advertise the fact that he was wrong on such a huge issue, nor the fact a candidate he dismissed, ridiculed or ostracized was right. It’s simply embarrassing to him and to them.
The above wouldn’t be important if Paul’s only issue of note was his warnings about America’s counter-productive involvement in foreign wars.
But as readers of this site no doubt know, Paul’s “other issues” might be just as important to the future of this nation.
But these issues receive hardly any mainstream media attention.
Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Mark Levin, Laura Ingraham, Charles Krauthammer, etc. clearly aren’t big enough people to admit they were wrong on the biggest foreign policy issue of recent decades.
Nor do they seemingly possess the magnanimity or character to take a serious look at the economic issues Paul convincingly argues are so vital to our future.
Ironically enough, Paul in effect is being punished for being proven right.
For conservative “opinion makers” protecting one’s ego (by not acknowledging one was wrong) trumps any desire to discuss issues that really matter - all because the person most associated with these issues is the same person you’ve either ridiculed or ignored, or both.
This is a long way of saying that an unspoken conspiracy probably exist in Talk Radio and conservative media to marginalize Ron Paul and the ideas he embodies.
The memo has gone out ...
Here is a guy who talks about things others don’t talk about; who doesn’t back down; who doesn’t suck up to establishment players; and, to top it off, is almost always right.
The memo has apparently gone out: Don’t mention this guy or his ideas or policy prescriptions.
1) You’ll make yourself look silly if you do, and
2) He’s talking about things that really would change the Status Quo and could lead to the “powers that be” becoming the “powers that were.”
If someone with real and great influence did offer a public “mea culpa” about Ron Paul and begin to preach from his campaign playbook, Paul’s ideas would suddenly move from the “cult” fringe into the mainstream.
This would qualify as as a terribly “dangerous” development to TPTB and the cronies who game the status quo system. But potentially life-saving (or nation saving) stuff to the rest of us.
No Churchill treatment ... yet
History has shown that prominent figures who were proven right about something or someone can re-emerge as a potential national “savior.”
I’m thinking here about Winston Churchill, whose voice at one time was the earliest and loudest in issuing warnings about Adolf Hitler and the rise of Naziism.
Churchill, alas, had been pushed to the policy sidelines after his own involvement with a disastrous World War I military action (the Gallipoli Campaign).
When Neville Chamberlain’s “peace in our times” agreement with Hitler turned out to be a joke and Hitler’s army invaded Poland, who did the people of England look to lead the country in its war against Germany?
Winston Churchill, the man they quickly recognized had been right in his assessments and warnings.
As mentioned, no such belated and rapid reassessment has occurred with Ron Paul, the man who most loudly warned against on-going, national building wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
This is the same man who just as loudly and consistently issues warnings about the poisonous effects of The Fed and endless fiat “stimulus.”
Paul’s issues WILL be reconsidered one day
I predict that one day the nation’s voters WILL clamor for a politician with Ron Paul’s views to become president.
This will most likely occur after the economic system has crashed, after hyper-inflation has ravaged families and businesses, after the paper fiat dollar is rejected. And, oh yeah, after gold and silver have probably become too expensive for almost anyone to buy.
This “revolution” in outlook will occur when the majority of Americans (and even economists and politicians) come to realize that the things Ron Paul said we’re going to cause a crisis of historic proportions actually did.
When these voters ask themselves who can “fix” the problem, they darn sure aren’t going to draft the same people whose policies and corruption caused the disaster in the first place. Or one would hope and think.
This is when the ideas of Ron Paul might actually make it onto the radio and TV airwaves, this time earning respectful and serious treatment.
But for many of us - given the hardships we will be forced to endure, likely including new and more serious wars - this metamorphosis in thinking will be too late.
If not conservative talk radio, then who?
Some of us would like to avoid economic and social Armageddon. We thus offer a humble request. Can’t we change course right now, when such a course change might save billions of people from enduring unimaginable misery?
As mentioned, The New York Times or Reuters certainly aren’t going to start emphasizing policy ideas that could make a difference.
The ruminations of silver and gold stackers on precious metal sites aren’t going to be enough to recruit new adherents of any sizeable scale.
Which leaves the conservative media as our best hope.
Right now, these possible “allies” are blocking these potentially society-altering messages just like the mainstream liberal media are. In fact, the conservative media and MSM might as well be allies in preserving the Status Quo.
Likely or not, this has to change if voters are going to use the ballot box to clean house and start afresh.
Rush Limbaugh (and others) could change things and maybe save a nation if they admitted they had been wrong to ostracize and ridicule the views of people like Ron Paul. And then began to champion these very views.
Ironically enough, Rush Limbaugh routinely pokes fun of “low information voters,” by which he means the folks who elected Barack Obama and will probably elect Hillary Clinton.
But has it ever occurred to him (or his throng of listeners) that they too might be “low information” voters? Do these listeners get exposed to any of the topics I’ve outlined in these essays?
They don’t. At least not on a consistent basis. Or if these policy issues and economic topics are mentioned it’s only to disparage and dismiss them.
I’ll say it one last time. This has to change.
A prayer for America
I know I can’t change the public dialogue that frames what issues are important and what issues are not. I’m overjoyed if my articles reach a few thousand people, people who probably already think like me.
Someone like Rush Limbaugh, who reaches millions of listeners every day, might make a difference though.
So when I say my prayers at night, I’m going to pray that Rush Limbaugh sees the light and changes his tune.
Or if he doesn’t someone else who might become the next Rush Limbaugh does.
(Mark Steyn, my favorite Rush “substitute,” is one such candidate. Steyn has actually written a piece or two which hints that he is not firmly in the anti-Ron Paul camp.)
Anyway, if there’s another way “our” ideas could - almost over night - go “mainstream” I’m not aware of it. Right now, this is our best and perhaps only hope ... thus my overly long essay ... and my short prayer.
The Powers that Be who profit from and ruthlessly defend the Status Quo pray this doesn’t happen.
Which is perhaps the best reason why such real change - novel ideas that might actually penetrate into the minds of large numbers of voters - should and needs to occur.
That is, if the “ballot box” is to play any role in saving a once great nation.
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Bill Rice, Jr. is managing editor of The Montgomery (AL) Independent. He can be reached by email at: bill@montgomeryindependent.com.
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