Ron Paul, the Berries, and the Value of a Human Life
Just when you thought Ron Paul was irrelevant... by Random Outlier
(libertarian)
Friday, July 11, 2008
Oh, I don't mean the Ron Paul ideal is in danger of becoming last week's news. I mean that references to him as a vigorously respiring embodiment of libertarianism seem to be waning.
Maybe they are. But let's remember that that people whose information input and enthusiasm output live and die by internet blogs are not known for attention spans of biblical endurance.
A man's real impact is measured less by the number of exclamation points in a pro-Paul post by a Spokane teenager than it is by the company his name keeps.
That's why I was pleased beyond all reason this morning to see a financial site, of sorts, praise the good doctor.
It is Minyanville, a Motley Fool wannabe ("We make losing amusing.") where a writer calling himself Mr, Practical did two praiseworthy things. He complimented Dr. Paul, of course, and we'll get to that.
More entertainingly, Mr. Practical claims to have coined the term "berry" as a new synonym for "bureaucrat."
Wonderful.
In the first place, "berry" simply rolls off the tongue more gracefully, and grace is the soul of irony.
Even more useful is array of apt philological accessories to which "berry' lends itself.
"Lieberry" almost invents itself and automatically creates a fine double entendre. The lieberry is a lying bureaucrat, of course, but a certain kind of academic lieberry also frequents the liberry to gather useless data with which to buttress his government-sponsored idiocy.
Then there's the razzberry, the guy in the suit, dining well at the public trough, while being so obnoxious that the only rational response is the bronx cheer (technically an unvoiced lingualabial trill, you're welcome).
The shuffleberry spends his well-paid adult years moving papers from the left side of his desk to the right. The screwberry molests the young interns. The addleberry loses his cool. The goofberry is simply inept. And so forth.
Of course, I shy away from dingleberry. To expose that beauty would require a much-too-clinical report on where it hangs out, what it's near, and so forth. Delicacy forbids, which is too bad because this genera of net tax consumer is by far the most numerous.
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Dr. Ron Paul could have a very good time recasting some of his positions into anti-berryspeak, and the public would be well-served.
H.L. Mencken might have objected to the coarse vernacular but perhaps would have conceded that it at least contributes to his method of bringing the government down a peg or two -- creating a vast national horse laugh at the multiberries who show up to announce they're from the government and here to help.
Beyond the useful semantic contribution, the Minyanville writer cited Dr. Paul in a deadly serious context -- the berryness of the Federal Reserve Board and the U.S. Department of the Treasury as private citizens strive to make money or at least stave off poverty by investing in the United States economy through equities and debt instruments.
Holy of holies is the mantra that to buy a bond or share of stock is to own a piece of America's future, and the insistent undertone is that all is bright, that the 2008 chaos is simply a small slug in the gas line, and it will soon burn its way through the turbocharger.
if you don't believe that, Fed bossberry Bernanke and Treasury bossberry Ruben think you're wrong. Their most recent congressional testimony concedes that the gas-line obstruction is larger than they thought, but, no problem because we're adding a Goldilocks number of dollars to "the system." Not too much lest inflation occur; not too little for fear of recession. Sort of like they did a few months ago, only moreso. (It is important to add that "the system" is everyone other than you and me.)
Unfortunately for the Bernanke/Ruben peace of mind, one of the men they testified to was our Dr. Paul who, finally fed up with what we now may call berrybarf, asked, in essence, "Where's the beef?" He wanted to know the source of the real wealth required for the schemes.
The subject was immediately changed, but for Ron Paul admirers this is a very bright spot. The mention of his name came in context of a web resource consulted by very serious men and women looking for hard information which will assist them in investing their own money.
That's a far cry from praising Paul in a personal blog, right after you report the cute thing your cat just did.
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All this becomes more pointed, almost poignant, when read in conjunction with another news break today. The AP reports that the federal government has recalculated the value of a human life, and you aren't worth what you were last Fourth of July -- almost a million less, in fact, a total today of $6.9 million.
I can hear the "WTFs?" even over the sound of the neighbor's cute cat howling, but the government has its reasons. It says it uses the number to calculate cost effectiveness of all sorts of endeavors to do good for us.
In other words, last year it could justify spending $7.8 million to save your life, this year just the discounted $6.9 million.
Gentle readers, I submit that only our elected leaders, the uberberries, could conceive of such a thing. And only an army of multiberries could stomach devoting their lives to implementing it, all the while proclaiming they are useful human beings.
The views expressed
in this article are those of Random Outlier only and
do not represent the views of Nolan Chart, LLC or its affiliates.
Random Outlier 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.
I'll just refer to most all the bureaucrats/elected thieves as f***berrys or dodgeberry for dodging the truth , their responsibilities to their constituents, and the Constitution.
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