Wow

I'm feeling really enlightened tonight. And when I feel enlightened it's really hard to hold onto the thoughts. So I'm going to write them as I think along, here.

I'm watching the only politician in the US who I can agree with ninety-nine percent of the time, that being Ron Paul. Specifically, I'm watching this playlist: http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=67670E5727E6BFA4 You can tell he's going to be on his feet tonight because he starts off the video sounding pretty jovial and awake. Other times he isn't quite as good when he speaks, and he's no Obama (not that Obama ever really says anything when he speaks... it reminds me of paintings like Les romains de la décadence by Thomas Couture that everybody loves at the time but that everybody forgets because they say nothing important and contribute absolutely nothing to the progress or the development of the art), but this is pretty good as it is. It's the kind of speaker he was the night of one of the Fox News Republican debates, the one that really got me hooked onto him.

In the third video he's talking about how the bailout is throwing money at big companies instead of giving it directly to the people, while at the same time claiming to have an immediate effect on you and me. He concludes that they could have done exactly what they were talking about by "just getting rid of the income tax." Every liberal, and rightfully so, would call for a justification here. And I realized something: This is the exact same thing, except better than the bailout. In either case, the benefit is directly proportional to how much you earn. The dropping of the income tax (though sadly politically much less feasible) of course doesn't technically mean you earn more money; it means you lose less. But it has no effect on our national debt - pay attention, they're calling for a global monetary standard at G20, specifically China! Why is this a surprise? The whole global system couldn't rest on us forever. This is China calling bullshit with our citizens being permitted to stay rich on the backs of their citizens. What happens if we refuse to accept what they say? More importantly, what happens if we agree and then later want to back out? War? Global authoritarianism?

Or (this word means but in french), I guess it's really hard to explain these floating thoughts too. And I don't mean to say I know enough to be fully convinced of my own, um, convictions, but this is just what I'm thinking.

By the way, if you watch anything in the playlist, don't actually watch the video; the camera work is horrible, so just listen.

Here's how I see what he's talking about in regards to the Federal Reserve. If you try to prove something and it goes wrong, and your proof has n steps, you can blame it on the n-2th step (assuming that step exists) and claim that this step is the flaw. Well, that step may be flawed only because step 2 (assuming 2 is less than n-2) is flawed. Otherwise it would be perfectly acceptable. But if you take n-2 to be flawed in itself and then you try to do other math problems on the test assuming such, you might actually fail the test. This is similar to the problem with the US economy. Yes, it is wrong that certain regulations were eliminated from the economy. But this does not mean in general that regulation of businesses is a good idea and is necessary. If you go along with that, then you risk really killing your economy and your country in the future, near or far. If on the other hand you look back at the problems caused by the Federal Reserve's unchecked power, and its members' potential to be tied with the interests of big companies... ah.

This is what I'm pondering. Life doesn't give you an infinite amount of time to create an argument, and neither do teachers, so the argument I'm going to try to develop in my head is the one I believe in. You argue the other, I'll feel hurt, you'll feel hurt, so it goes. Someone's got to hurt eventually.

As for the income tax, well, apparently there's something constitutionally wrong with the amendment, and if that's true then it should be abolished. In any case, think about where the government money is going to: the rich, just not necessarily the same rich people. Yes, it allows poor people to keep their jobs. And if they lose their jobs, they're at the whim of charity again. Either way, though, it's getting money from the rich. I guess if you come to believe what I believe then you have to put faith in the idea that people will give sufficiently to charity in such a crisis.

I guess that's where my blind faith is going to have to go to complete the argument. It's tough believing and having hope for the future. Better than the alternative. Hmm... I have a slight headache.