Response to Ross Douthat

This is a comment I left on The Atlantic website in response to this article by one Ross Douthat.

You are partly correct that Mr. Paul is being ridiculed (not ignored so much any more, we've moved from "ignored" to "laughed at") by the media because he opposes the War. However, its deeper than that.

It's based on the fact that Mr. Paul is a symbol of the demise of the "Establishment".

He is the Internet, and that is killing the Old Press.

He is against the Federal Regulatory and Tax System, which (being written by the lawyers of multinationals) are used to maintain the status quo, to secure members of the "nobility" in their positions.

His opposition to the War is perhaps the ultimate anti-establishment position. Using Wars to gain power and money is nothing new. Julius Caesar used the conquest of Gaul to build his influence and wealth, and that of his friends in the First Century B.C. And he was just following the lead of dozens of Romans before him. "War is the health of the state" may seem like a crazy statement, but it is supported almost invariably by history.

His opposition to Welfare (including Social Security, Medicare, Student Loans, Farm Subsidies, Foreign Aid, etc.) is similar. Welfare payments have always been used by the "patrician" class to gain the support of the populace and other nations in their effort to expand their power, and in their attempts to maintain it. Caesar did it. Augustus did it. They all do it. Any time the aristocratic class needs popular support to maintain power, they turn first to providing welfare (which is invariably money taken from those that threaten to themselves become competing members of the aristocracy, i.e. the "rich". ).

I could go on.

Put simply, we should expect to observe that the entities threatened by Mr. Paul will do everything they can to discredit and ultimately remove his relevance (welfare recipients of all kinds, government employees, members of the Old Press, multinational corporations, the military industrial complex especially).

Conversely, we should expect to observe those that would benefit from Mr. Paul's platform (i.e. everyone else) supporting him, assuming the political rhetoric coming from the Establishment can be effectively countered.

As far as I can tell, that's exactly what is happening. As the signal breaks through the Old Media static, people hear it, and convert to the Paul cause.

Historically, the Establishment propaganda apparatus, along with its control of the police and military, had no real counterbalance. Today it does: The Internet. (Aside: Historically, no Establishment class has tolerated threats to its dominance. One wonders if today's Establishment will be the first to do so. If they don't, we would expect to see them endeavor to regulate the Internet, and do something to try and break up the anti-Establishment citizen organizations that have already arisen.)

I think it's very likely that the Paul movement will continue growing beyond this election, though it may abandon Mr. Paul if he does not win (and make no mistake, he very well could win).

I think what may be considered historically most noteworthy about the Paul candidacy is that it may be the first instance of the people, via the Internet, "nominating" and advancing their chosen leader in a grassroots fashion, rather than the establishment choosing the leader it wants in a "top down" fashion. It's interesting and somewhat disturbing that the candidate chosen by the people is so incredibly repulsive to the Establishment.