A friend of mine posted a video of Ron Paul on Facebook yesterday. I've heard about Ron Paul before but with all the politicians and voices out there I've never actually had the time to pay attention to anything he said. I've got to say I was pleasantly surprised. The video she posted is located here - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AyTZIXDAMS0&feature=related. It's the 1st of a 6 part interview that was banned from ABC. I guess people are up in arms that the media is ignoring him. I don't find that particularly appalling as others do because a. I think it would be a waste of my time to concern myself with what the mainstream media is or is not telling us because I don't think there is any chance of my activism actually changing anything and b. I don't really watch too many mainstream media outlets. Anyway, what I really wanted to write about was the interview.
I really liked what I heard Ron Paul saying. He wants a much smaller government that has more limited roles. Although I think there may be problems if the government gets as small as Ron Paul wants it, I definitely think it's time for the pendulum to swing in that direction. He wants government out of almost all wars, including the drug war, which is something I agree with. He also makes a lot of good arguments for why the government should stop interfering and how they've done a bad job at the things they have interfered with such as education and healthcare.
One issue that I find particularly important is that of immigration. I've heard he was anti illegal immigration before and that is part of the reason I've never given him the time of day. I think immigrants are very mistreated in this country and I wont vote for a candidate that runs on an anti illegal immigration platform. However, this is the issue I was most surprised to find myself agreeing with him on. He is anti illegal immigration but at the same time he is pro legal immigration. This is why I found his view acceptable. This is an emotional topic so I want to explain it using an analogy so that the argument might be more clear.
Let's look at traffic laws and pretend that people are pro and anti speeding on the freeway. I think the reasonable side would depend on the speed limit. If the speed limit were a reasonable 65mph I would be anti speeding because the law allows for a reasonable speed which eliminates any reason for breaking the law. Now, if the law was 10mph, I would say that the limit is unreasonable and I wouldn't think less of anyone for breaking it. Lets pretend that this issue is important in the 2012 primaries and that the current law is 10mph. I would be sympathetic to the speeders and more likely to vote for a candidate that shared my frustrations. Ron Paul's position could be summed up like this, 'Of course we don't want people speeding, so let's raise the speed limit to 65mph so that people don't have a reason to speed anymore. Then the problem will be much smaller and we wont have as much trouble enforcing our laws upon those who insist on speeding.' I can agree with that because at the moment I am sympathetic to speeders but I wouldn't be if the limit was 65. He changes the issue from pro/anti speeding to what is/is not a reasonable speed. That's refreshing.
Now to compare that analogy to the immigration debate. I am currently sympathetic to people who immigrate illegally because it's nearly impossible to immigrate legally. Compared to the speed analogy it would be as if the United States were 10,000 miles away and immigrants were only allowed to drive 1mph to get there. Ron Paul said in the interview that he would like to be much more generous with our legal immigration laws so that the incentive to immigrate illegally lessens or goes away. That's anti illegal immigration I can agree with. That's refreshing.
