Editor's note: Mark Anderson is a young, ex-marine who's passion is apparent in the following article. When I started the Silver Bear Cafe, I mistakenly thought that young people would be the first to pick up on the travesties and injustices that were being perpetrated by the "Dark Side". As a sixty year old boomer, I found myself outraged at a very young age. I have since found that today's youth are, for the most part, products of the great "dumbing down" that has been going on for the past three decades. It is quite refreshing to hear from a young person with some honest sensibilities. There may be hope for us yet...JSB

Why I Support Congressman Ron Paul for President
Mark Anderson

Presidential candidate Congressman Ron Paul (R-TX), MD

There are a plurality of reasons why I support Ron Paul and oppose the rest of the candidates. I couldn't possibly enumerate them all in this one commentary. However, I will begin by pointing out a few of the reasons why Ron Paul appeals to me.

Ron Paul is a true intellectual who didn't get into politics looking to score personal gain and fortune. Running for office wasn't a perfunctory thing for the Congressman. He has devoted his life to learning and understanding issues that escape the opportunists in Washington, D.C. Ron Paul is a very intelligent man, and he isn't some "fringe" candidate like the establishment tries to portray. He is a medical doctor who has delivered many babies throughout his life.  I believe Ron Paul is the only electable Republican, since he doesn't come with the Iraq war baggage that the rest of the candidates have. 

One issue that Congressman Ron Paul understands is inflation versus sound money. Ron Paul understands that there is a nexus between the present monetary situation and the expansion of government. Ron Paul also understands how government power comes at the expense of individual liberty.

Nobody can favor inflation - i.e., an expansion of the money supply - while being against big government, the war, and a police state. When Ron Paul calls inflation a tax, he is absolutely correct. There is no objective difference between the government taking the money you have in your pocket and the government duplicating the money you have in your pocket, consequently devaluing what you do have. Inflation is a much more sinister tax, since it is a stealth tax that is difficult to trace and account for.  We feel this tax with higher prices of goods and services. 

People get fooled into spending even more money with inflation, unwittingly spending their savings. Inflation itself penalizes savers and makes saving objectively impossible. You certainly have the freedom to save money, but saving the value of the money is impossible with the government devaluing it to finance its spending orgies. Trying to save money that politicians are constantly tampering with is a lot like trying to save milk for a few months.

Inflation also discourages any attempt to save, artificially speeding up consumption. There should be no surprise that with the expansion of government, more and more elderly people find themselves unable to retire and have to remain in the work force. I can think of no position more friendly towards the elderly and retirees than being in favor of sound money.

Especially with rising gas prices, I believe the country is ripe for Ron Paul's message.  Congressman Ron Paul would actually do something to curtail this abuse of our money, whereas the rest of the candidates wouldn't.

Ron Paul is also opposed to the war, unlike the establishment Republicans and Democrats. Ron Paul correctly amalgamates the antiwar position with the paleoconservative position. If being against the war is such a "left wing liberal" position, then why is it that Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, et. al., have consistently voted to keep funding the war? Even the recent bill which Democrats passed is a war funding bill, which was camouflaged with antiwar sounding rhetoric and platitudes. The withdrawal provision in the bill is a pseudo-withdrawal provision.

What I appreciate about Ron Paul's truly antiwar position is how this is, itself, a good thing for veterans. While the big so-called veterans' advocacy groups grade candidates by how much money they throw at the Department of Veterans' Affairs, there are more ways to support and help veterans than merely throwing more money at the bureaucracy. Supporting veterans should not be conflated with throwing more money at the VA, especially given the VA's rampant misfeasance.

As a disabled veteran, I notice how almost every politician will engage in grandstanding by saying how much they care about veterans and then claim accolades for handing more money to bureaucrats at the VA - very little of which actually helps veterans. Author's note: Government programs are about helping those in the bureaucracy, while making the masses that much less self-sufficient. Hoping that money trickles down from the government is trickle down economics at its worst.  Ron Paul will point out the obvious: viz., that government isn't a philanthropic institution.  When politicians spend money, it isn't their money being spent.

While those same politicians say how underserved veterans are, they will simultaneously vote to appropriate more funds to keep a war policy going, which will create even more disabled veterans. You don't have to be an expert in calculus to see a paradox there. If veterans are underserved as it is, why would you wish to create more disabled veterans? Getting help from the VA is akin to trying to win the lottery. How dare any politician who votes to keep funding the war - i.e., creating more disabled veterans - turn around and claim accolades for "helping" veterans.

This leads me to the following axiom: There is an inextricable nexus between opposing policies that are creating even more disabled veterans and supporting veterans. Being opposed to the war policy is merely a different way to support more per capita funding for veterans. When will the big so-called veterans' advocacy groups realize this?

Drawing the two issues of inflation and the war together, I would like to point out to those who are opposed to the war on the left: There is a nexus between the government's power to inflate and the war policy. As long as government has the power to print money, it will be able to get us into wars. The government's power to spend money is directly related to its power to act. This makes Ron Paul the only true antiwar candidate and friend of liberty in the race for President.

While establishment tries to sterilize the debate with personality related issues, Ron Paul is addressing real issues, such as habeas corpus. When I heard Ron Paul say that he wouldn't abuse habeas corpus during the debate, I was hearing the voice of a man who loves his country and its inhabitants. With the growth of government has come a crowding out of citizen cognizance of issues such as habeas corpus, and the importance of jury trials, and the need for warrants before conducting a search. The establishment does its best to misdirect us by talking about Mitt Romney's looks, or whatever else we can be distracted with.

The Bush administration has candidly expressed its view that the Constitution does not explicitly grant the right of habeas corpus. This is setting the precedent for the government to grab people, put them away in jail or execute them, without due process of law. People should have the right to face their accusers, examine and confront evidence, and receive a fair trial by an impartial jury.

The importance of a jury trial in protecting liberty is something that shouldn't be overlooked. Many people are enamored with the right to vote for politicians at the ballot box, but they forget about the vote in the jury box. If the purpose of the jury was to come up with a conscience-less application of fact-to-law, there would be no need for the jury. Court officials could perform that task.

The first Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court, John Jay, said, "The jury has the right to judge both the law as well as the facts in controversy."

What John Jay was saying is that the jury has the right to not only determine whether or not somebody violated a statute, but whether or not the statute itself is just. If jurors find a statute to be unjust, they have the undisputed right and obligation to acquit no matter what the statute says, and that decision is supposed to be irrevocable. The jury, in essence, is supposed to be the final tribunal through which all law must pass, having the power to effectively veto bad law. It is called jury nullification. This is why the right to a trial-by-jury is so important in the defense of liberty. The vote in the jury box is just as - if not, more - important as the vote at the ballot box. The government can have no more power than that which a jury is willing to bestow upon it.

The Bush administration has also been candid in its view of the fourth amendment supposedly not requiring probable cause and warrants. The administration argues that probable cause and warrants are not necessary, so long as the search is "reasonable." Yet, that is another way of saying that probable cause and warrants are only necessary for unreasonable searches. By reading the fourth amendment, you can see that it is probable cause and warrants which make a search reasonable, not the arbitrary discretion of government agents as the government would like to pretend.

The importance of the fourth amendment in protecting liberty is something that also should not be overlooked. Saying that probable cause and warrants aren't necessary is another way of saying that government agents have the right to go wherever they want, whenever they want, for whatever reason they want. This was called the Writs of Assistance Act under King George III.

Ignoring habeas corpus and the fourth amendment is a calculus for tyranny. Between the attacks on habeas corpus and the fourth amendment, liberty is imperiled. The Bill of Rights was not written to protect terrorists, as many neocon talking heads argue. The Bill of Rights was written to protect the innocent from tyranny. Congressman Ron Paul is the only candidate who would be a roadblock in front of the police state. He is the only candidate who would work to maximize liberty, and so he gets my support.

Mark served for four years on active duty in the Marine Corps infantry, and was a candidate for a municipal office in 2002. Mark has helped raise awareness of military and veterans' issues, by establishing No Anthrax Vaccine.  His commentary has been carried by such sites as AntiWar.com. He spends much of his free time reading the great minds of the Austrian school of economics, such as Murray Rothbard, Henry Hazlitt, Ludwig von Mises, et. al.

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