Ron Paul's moment

By Stephen B. Young The Daily Record Newswire Even though Ron Paul won neither the Iowa caucuses nor the New Hampshire primary, he is changing the dynamic of our politics and deserves keen attention. The aura around Paul is that of a movement. And, like most movements in our country, this one holds an attraction for the young and the idealistic. Paul has groupies; Paul has an unpaid following with passion and energy, in much the way Gene McCarthy did in 1968 when he took on Lyndon Johnson and the Vietnam War. Paul, who comes across to me as something of an elderly, soon-to-retire college professor, has a capacity to attract young followers. (Is it his message of more certainty in our economy and politics?) He does very well in the demographic of those 18 to 27. This is an odd pairing to say the least. By contrast the "movement" aspect of Michele Bachmann and Rick Perry's campaigns evaporated in a relative hurry. Bachmann has dropped out of contention for the presidency, and Perry most likely will soon join her in the also-ran category of national politicians. Rick Santorum's recent flowering of support strikes me less as that of a movement and more as a sectarian defense of religious conviction. Why, then, has Paul become the catalyst for a movement? His determination rejects the recent convictions of the Republican establishment: He opposes foreign interventions, lacks a crusading concern for stopping abortions and imposing traditional Calvinist "family values," rejects national economic institutions like the Federal Reserve and fiat paper currency. He is a new breeze blowing, as all good movements are. Paul speaks to the times. He says that the emperor is wearing no clothes; he stands for a new vision of justice. He seems to be called forth, not for himself but for a people. He thinks at the level of prophets and those who see into the future. Most importantly, however, he is principled. Martin Luther-like, he takes a stand and, in the words of an old song that we used to sing in the civil rights movement, "he will, he will not be moved." And it seems this capacity for being principled is what attracts his young followers. They speak out in relief that they have found someone who really seems to stand for something, who therefore can be trusted, who can therefore be a leader. I find this reassuring -- even though I disagree with Paul on most of his beliefs (I am proud of my civilian service in the Vietnam War, and I don't see how a modern economy can run without a central bank) -- because his young followers were raised in a culture of nihilism and cynicism. They are rising above what they were given by their parents and their national establishment and demanding higher standards of vision and integrity. Paul gives reassurance to those seeking a vision of more justice in America. Consider the following sorrowful cry from some Occupy Wall Street activists: "We were born into a world of ghosts and illusions that have haunted our minds our entire lives. These shades seem more alive to us than reality, and perhaps by some definition are more actual, hyper-real. ... We sense something is wrong only through the odd clue. ... We notice a vague spiritual nausea, hard to discuss in a world where most serious, hard-working people have little time to believe in the existence of the soul. The ghosts that come to us offer no vocabulary to describe the emptiness they helped create within us. "We have come to Wall Street as refugees from this native dreamland, seeking asylum in the actual. That is what we seek to occupy. We seek to rediscover and reclaim the world. Many believe we have come to Wall Street to transact some kind of business with its denizens, to strike a deal. We have come to confront the darkness at its source, where the Big Apple sucks in more of the sap from the national tree than it needs or deserves, as if spliced from some Edenic forbearer. Serpent-size worms feed within, engorged on swollen fruit. ... "At Wall Street we see that the basic quantum of experience has become the transaction; that life's central purpose is to convert all of existence into tradable currency. The significance of the phantoms from our childhood becomes clearer. We understand them as souls detached from their former selves and meanings, and reduced to messengers. They were sent to us by people intent on grounding life into a hoard-able quintessence, who have urged us merely to buy and 'do our part' in the constant monetization of life." This is from Communique 1. It's a Movement-like statement of what motivates people to take on an establishment. That's what movements are all about -- another chance to get it right. The question to ask about movements -- the Great Awakening of the 1750s, abolition, the civil rights movement, the Moral Majority, Occupy Wall Street -- is how deep is their impact? Will a movement change the course of events, or is it just a brief spasm of emotional enthusiasm? Is the Paul movement a harbinger of fundamental changes in American conservatism or not? Will it be similar to Barry Goldwater's losing presidential campaign of 1964, which led to the radical transformation of the Republican Party under Nixon and Reagan? Goldwater's rejection of the New Deal and the entitlement state resting on the powers of the federal government and an activist federal judiciary set in motion the movement of Republican power to the Southern and Southwestern states, to embrace a core of white ethnic phobias and a cultural war largely on the side of a simplistic Calvinism supplemented oddly enough with defense of Catholic social teachings on abortion as well. Over the course of 30 years, Republicans left the tradition of Lincoln and embraced the more intemperate values of Jefferson Davis. Paul's views are in some sense an extension of this political course, but in other ways he rejects some of its core commitments. Paul continues the effort to cripple federal powers but parts company with the recent ideological course of the party on many social issues and on its vision of American imperial prerogatives in world affairs. Will his different vision prevail over the next few presidential cycles to change the direction of American conservatism? Paul is less of a Calvinist and more of a traditional libertarian -- the tough-minded, keep-to-yourself and defend-yourself-against-all-comers heritage of the Scotch-Irish frontier people who pushed over the Appalachians into the woods and fields of middle America and then on to the plains as mountain men and cowboys and roustabouts and their stand-by-your-man womenfolk. Paul reminds me of Daniel Boone, who allegedly had to move on whenever he saw smoke from a neighbor's chimney. Boone had no need of government or a Federal Reserve system. He took care of himself and his family and had little need for truck with foreigners of any kind. Of course, the Scotch-Irish were largely simplified Calvinists -- Baptists and later Evangelicals and fundamentalists in many cases -- who believed in a fearsome and judgmental God and black and white standards of righteous conduct. Their individualism sat easily on this personally demanding religious foundation of moral responsibility for one's own destiny. In such a world, there is little need for human government or taxes. If social conservatives have played more to the religious side of this set of beliefs, Paul is now promoting the more secular libertarian side of the tradition. He is therefore more likely than the social conservatives have been to suggest effective ways to dismantle the entitlement state we now have. Published: Fri, Jan 20, 2012