Ron Paul should have been president.
That’s how I see it at least. On everything that has come to matter the most, he has been vindicated. The wars have been a disaster and Dr. Paul knew it. The money printing has run this country’s economy ragged and enriched its most deceitful. And Dr. Paul knew it. Our people are spied on, pried on, cajoled, mocked, and belittled by the intelligence agencies and federal bureaucrats who throw around words such as “terror” while targeting our civil liberties. And Dr. Paul knew it.
When it wasn’t pretty, Dr. Paul would say it. At a time when war fervor was rampant in the United States, Paul implored Americans to seek a deeper understanding of the global theater. “Have you ever read about the reasons they attacked us?” Paul asked his peers during the 2007 GOP debate in South Carolina. “They attack us because we’ve been over there!” Paul, more than any Republican of the last 50 years, gave the sharpest summation of the disastrous consequences America has faced in the postwar era as a result of blowback stemming from our misadventures in the Middle East. At a time when most of the Republican Party was dreaming of a post-global new world order spearheaded by the American security state, Dr. Paul said they were wrong. And Dr. Paul was right.
On all of it. The really big stuff. Paul knew this country was headed in the wrong direction and that its feckless leaders were merrily carving the path. The stock market is at an all-time high. The housing market is at an all-time high. The debt is at an all-time high. Crypto, whether it’s useless or not, is at an all-time high. Gold is pumping like the dollar is toilet paper. But Americans, when polled, list the economy, inflation, and rising prices as their deepest concerns. Americans under the age of 40 no longer see home ownership as an attainable goal. Everything has gone up except the quality of life for most Americans these last few years. Paul, a long promoter of sound money and fiscal federal spending, saw it all coming. And it’s why he almost became president.
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I remember how they sabotaged him, too. I remember how they tore apart his character and anyone associated with his movement for radically resetting a bloated and failed political and economic experiment. They called him an antisemite (of course). Anyone who questions America’s blind affinity for Israel receives a similar fate. Such are the blows. Must’ve been tough for Dr. Paul and his family, the way it went down in 2012. I know it’s been tough on America. But I’d like Dr. Paul to know, and I’m sure he does, that many of us still remember that campaign, not for its losses but for the way it transformed and elevated rote discussions on foreign policy from within the conservative movement. When you hear people talk about America First, they’re talking about Ron Paul as much as Pat Buchanan and Donald Trump. That’s his legacy. As a dreamer. Someone who dreamed of a better America. And we dreamed it with him.
That’s exactly what I plan on telling Dr. Paul when I send a letter to the former Representative and Republican presidential candidate in celebration of his upcoming birthday. Dr. Paul, a man whose political voice is echoed in our bravest and most sincere endeavors as a people and a nation, turns 90 on August 20. A tremendous achievement by one of our finest men. His son, Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, is asking anyone who feels so inclined to write the aging statesman. “He would enjoy hearing from you!” Paul attached a P.O. box address below his post to X on Monday: P.O. Box 1776 Lake Jackson, TX 77566.
Reaching out to Dr. Paul on his late birthday is a nice way to remind him and ourselves of what it all meant. And it did mean a lot. So, thanks again Dr. Paul. I hope it’s a fantastic birthday.
