Thursday, November 6, 2008

Post-election blues?

I've calmed down quite a bit since Tuesday night. I don't really like Obama any better, but when I started thinking about what imperialistic, corporate tools the GOP has become I realized that we need a change of pace in the Whitehouse.

I have little doubt about the efficacy of free market ideals, as described by the Austrian school of economics, but at this point McCain has all but abandoned these ideals as well in his support of corporate welfare wall street bailouts. Since both candidates share this unacceptable monetary policy, its not like I had a better choice here on what's really the most important, and most invisible, problem facing the nation right now.

We'll see how it plays out, of course, but I have little doubt that the republican party will have to readopt true conservative ideals or people like Ron Paul and the liberty caucus will gut the party and return it to the small government principles which once made it great.

Meanwhile, I'll just have to remain critical of the Obama administration where criticism is due (and even praise when that's due) and use the platforms I'm lucky enough to have to get these important ideas out there (like the Patriot blog and newspaper as well my Statesman column).

Just because we have a big government democrat in the white house doesn't mean true free market conservatism and Austrian economic theory is dead... not by a long shot.

Just think about it. A few years ago, Ron Paul was a sole voice in congress preaching Austrian economics. After 60 years of being marginalized and ignored (and yet somehow getting re-elected again and again!) he finds himself surrounded by devoted followers... and not just stuffy intellectuals either. Thousands of real, hardworking, devoted people dedicated to getting more government out of our lives.

What right do I, having called myself a free market libertarian for little more than a year, have to get upset over one small election loss (which wasn't really a loss at all, considering we had no real options) when, for Dr. Paul, the future has never looked brighter for his ideology. To quote American Revolutionary War naval hero, John Paul Jones, when it comes to my defending and promoting my new found ideology, "I have not yet begun to fight."

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