From The Founder's Desk
columnist: Walt Thiessen

Topic: Ron Paul
I'm Thankful For Ron Paul

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People give thanks for the blessings in their lives today, in an American tradition that dates back to our founding. In this article I share what I'm thankful for.

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by Walt Thiessen
(libertarian)
Thursday, November 22, 2007

Sometimes it's hard to feel grateful these days. We live in a society that is growing darker, where liberty shines through less and less often. Liberty is under attack at every turn.

Inflation is rampant, but the government pretends that it hardly even exists while covering up M3 (by refusing to publish it at all since March 2006), the most important measure of inflation. The dollar is plummeting, and it is very likely that it will soon cease to be the major international currency, which will virtually guarantee that foreign investors will start dumping their dollar investments, which will destroy what little value it still has. Private enterprises like NORFED, which attempt to provide us with a more solid and reliable currency system, are arrested and hounded, their property confiscated, by the people who are sworn to protect us.

Fear dominates the political landscape, which leads to initiated force and aggressive attitudes, and people vote for candidates like Rudy Giuliani for president because, as a Connecticut steelworker said it, "I'd rather have a president that's going to get in somebody's face if he's got a problem with them or another country."

Our country's involvement in Iraq shows no sign of ending, and now there is talk of attacking Iran, despite the fact that our country does not have the financial means to carry out either activity. Instead, our "leaders" are leading us to deeper and deeper national debt and red ink.

Real ID takes effect next year, and it will effectively wipe out what little privacy we have left, as the government eventually will be able to track our every movement and will be able to punish those who disagree with what it is doing.

The House of Representatives on Oct 23, 2007, by an overwhelming margin of 404-6, voted for HR 1955 entitled the "Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007," which defines Violent Radicalization as, "the process of adopting or promoting an extremist belief system for the purpose of facilitating ideologically based violence to advance political, religious, or social change," thus giving the Federal government the leverage it needs to declare any viewpoint as illegal which it (the government) believes might lead to violence. They don't even have to prove that the belief system will lead to violence. They only have to believe that it will, and the new law will give them the justification they need to crack down. This becomes an incredibly effective tool to stamp out dissent.

Health care costs are flying upward because of government interventions that have been going on for decades. Medicare and the FDA continue to apply the screws, contributing greatly to that spiral upward.

Social Security is already bankrupt, although most politicians aren't willing to admit it, and even the government accountants claim that it won't be insolvent until 2018. By 2037, according to the U.S. Comptroller General based upon current spending trends, there won't be enough money in the entire Federal budget to pay for more than Social Security and the interest on the national debt.

Education has turned into micromanagement in this country. As a tiny example, just yesterday my wife told me about a local day care center that requires toddlers, 18 to 28 months old, to rotate from one pre-planned activity to the next in 10 minute intervals in order to "expose" them to various things. It never occurs to the day care operators that they are training these kids to develop Attention Deficit Disorder, which will be treated further down the line by drugging them.

All this makes it very difficult to be grateful. So as I lay in bed this morning, wondering what I was grateful for on Thanksgiving Day 2007, the following thoughts came to me.

I'm grateful for my wife, Louise who helps make the insanity of our society go away when we're having our private time together by simply being who she is and by loving me for who I am. No greater gift has ever been given to me in my life.

I'm grateful for the fact that I still have a roof over my head. I don't know how long that will last, given the state of the real estate and mortgage markets, but I'm grateful that it's still there.

I'm grateful for the fact that there is still food on the table, despite every attempt by the government to micromanage it, too.

I'm grateful that a minority of people in this country are showing signs of waking up to what's really going on. I see them in the Paulites, that strange, diverse, and often disenfranchised motley crew of Americans who are standing up against all odds and fighting back in peaceful ways that most people don't even notice.

And I'm grateful for candidate Ron Paul, who is daring to say what America most needs to hear, within a party which has deliberately ignored and forgotten the basic truths he is uttering.

It is my most fervent prayer that Ron Paul will win the New Hampshire primary on January 8, 2008 and set the political world on its ear. I don't expect it to happen, but I pray for it anyway.

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©2007 Walt Thiessen, all rights reserved. You must have written permission from the author in order to republish this work.
Published: Thursday, November 22, 2007
Last modified: Thursday, November 22, 2007

The views expressed in this article are those of Walt Thiessen only and do not represent the views of Nolan Chart, LLC or its affiliates. Walt Thiessen is solely responsible for the contents of this article and is not an employee or otherwise affiliated with Nolan Chart, LLC in his/her role as a columnist.

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