He’s Still On A Roll

Posted on 05/15/2011 at 5:20 pm by JM Ashby

Ron Paul continued his weekend media-blitz today, appearing on Fox News Sunday with host Chris Wallace.

Paul, who is working hard to ensure that he will never be anything more than an obscure congressman from Texas, added to the mountain of evidence that he is in fact a lunatic.

Wallace: “You talk a lot about the Constitution. You say Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid are all unconstitutional.”

Paul: “Technically they are. There is no authority. Article 1, Section 8 doesn’t say I can set up an insurance program for people. What part of the Constitution — liberals are the ones that use this general welfare clause.”

Wallace: “Doesn’t Social Security come under promoting the general welfare?”

Paul: “Absolutely not. Maybe sound currency is general welfare, maybe markets, maybe judicial system, maybe a national defense, but this is specific welfare. This justifies the whole welfare state. The military industrial complex, the welfare to foreigners, the welfare state that imprisons our people and impoverishes our people and gives us our recession.

That is such an extreme liberal viewpoint that has been mistaught in our schools for so long. That’s what we have to reverse, that very notion you’re presenting,”

Wallace: “Congressman, it’s not just a liberal view. It’s the decision of the Supreme Court in 1937 when they said that Social Security was constitutional under Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution.”

Paul: “The Constitution and the court said slavery was legal, too. We had to reverse that. So, I tell you. Just because a court in ’37 went very liberal on us and expanded the role of government, no, I think the original intent is not a bad idea.”

If Chris Wallace of Fox News is calling you out, you have much bigger problems than the big scary government knocking on your door to give you social security.

via ThinkProgress

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  • indyfurnace

    I don’t get how Chris Wallace won that one. Wallace is a huge d bag anyway. I thought you said that before in one of your posts.

  • Stephen Dean

    I think he gave a bad answer. He should have just quoted Madison, the father of the constitution:”With respect to the two words ‘general welfare,’ I have always regarded them as qualified by the detail of powers connected with them.”He should have noted that the prohibition of alcohol required a constitutional amendment. Because everyone knew the federal government’s power was limited.

  • alopecia

    Stephen Dean, show me where in the constitution is explicit authority for the federal government to create the internet.Shouldn’t you honor the original intent of the framers and refuse to use the internet?

  • Nanotyrannus

    @alopeciaI’m going to cut & paste that and use it EVERYWHERE.

  • http://www.yahoo.com caribbeanobserver

    Is it just me, but he just looks, old, over the hill,tired and worn,just like his stale rhetoric! …its the same ole song, NOT EVEN with a different meaning. Yeech! Rocking chair time Ron Paul. Go gracefully!

  • http://twitter.com/OsborneInk Matt Osborne

    Wait, this would be the 1937 SCOTUS that had just finished declaring the National Recovery Administration illegal, right? Also the Agricultural Adjustment Act, New York’s minimum-wage law, and plenty of other New Deal legislation. So apparently they weren’t altogether “liberal” on that court, except in the mind of Ron Paul.

  • http://stinkinchickensroost.blogspot.com/ mommadona

    Don’t usually tune to Fox, but was flipping through and watched. My goodness. It was like Rory Calhoun in Motel H*ll ~ or your strange cousin who visits on holidays, but ends up isolated, out in the yard, talking to themselves.

  • MrBrink

    By the standard of “the General Welfare” of the proper role of government within the broader text of Article 1 Sec 8, it would have been unconstitutional NOT to have intervened by establishing Social Security and Medicare.”Promote” and “Provide”= Money. Tax revenues. And the historical and contemporary failure of the magical market is what justifies Ron Paul’s “the welfare state.”He might as well be saying the federal government has no authority to do anything he and other wingnuts collectively deems unconstitutional and impure, and his sly attack on “liberals” and schools is dangerous and petty. Fuck him.Maybe if Rand Paul– benefactor of old school Affirmative Action and private graduate Ron Paul University– wasn’t such an embarrassment to American conservative intellect while simultaneously inferior to a liberal-progressive alternative, I might be more inclined to cut him some slack, but his ideas are in a position to hurt real people– not those fictional ones basking in the security and prosperity of his naive and reckless version of the proper role of government.And someone should tell him that on a fundamental level he’s undermining his case against “The Military Industrial Complex” by ignoring the exploited loophole legally constructed in federal provisions for a national defense.A “national Defense” could not exist in the modern era without that Military complex Ron Paul likes to pretend to condemn.Ron Paul’s alternative would have to involve a government takeover of a ubiquitous industry.Good luck wrestling with that libertarian contradiction, Libertarians.Plays well for the war-weary and conspiracy theorists, though. But I think my favorite Ron Paul policy is the one where he’s trying to convince people– through The Message, that hoarding fortresses of gold= monetary policy.”Gold, gold, gold! We want all the gold!!!”He’s like a kooky prospector.

  • http://dferew@mailinator.com arouetofthetrailerpark

    Thanks for reminding me about “Motel Hell”, a great “cheapy creepy” and Rory Calhoun was genuinely scary and disquieting in that film. He was a pretty good actor playing a role and he has two stars on Hollywood’s Walk of fame. Ron Paul is no actor, he genuinely believes his own b.s., but it would be cool to do a mash-up of that film and insert Mr. Paul’s speeches (or his equally loony son’s) into Rory Calhoun’s part as the farmer. Now that would be scary.

  • jdsne

    Great post as always Mr. Brink. Libertarianism is riddled with contradictions. And apparently, by declaring that Social Security causes poverty and recessions, they have embraced full-on doublespeak. Libertarians might be even worse than Republicans, but it’s pretty close.

  • http://www.angryblacklady.com Angry Black Lady

    i just read this article today and found it fascinating: http://sethf.com/essays/major/libstupid.php

  • alopecia

    That’s like telling me not to drive on roads or not to collect social security. Which is a child-like argument without an ounce of thought, so it deserves no answer.

  • Stephen Dean

    I meant to @ that towards @alopecia, not use that as my name. It was obviously me.

  • jdsne

    ABL, that’s a great read. I have dealt with these libertarian types and their “coercion by police force” propaganda. Apparently government coercion is not okay, but business coercion is okay, because the government shouldn’t intervene in association or private contracts. If a business abuses their position, by introducing low wages or child labor, for example, the libertarians claim that the free market will take care of this, because nobody would willingly take low wages or let their child go to work. But this is incredibly ignorant of real world circumstances–unsurprisingly, many of these libertarian proponents are in an economic situation where they would never have to make the choice to accept low wages or sent their child to work. If you take their free-market argument literally, then there certainly exists a market for low-wage and child labor, for those without another viable choice.The same kind of argument can be made on libertarians’ position on the civil rights legislation–obviously, there still exists a market for whites-only lunch counters and segregation in general. Libertarians claim otherwise.Similarly with Social Security. The free market failed in protecting the economic situation of seniors, as the elderly were widely impoverished before Social Security’s implementation. It’s all a very intricate farce, and I love nothing more than tearing down each and every one of their out-to-lunch philosophies.

  • alopecia

    Stephen Dean, I was at least as serious in my first sentence as I was snarky in my second.And I find it very … convenient that you won’t give up all those evil, unconstitutional things like public roads and Social Security and the internet which just happen, by some strange coincidence, to be of use to you. So much for libertarian principles, I guess.