What if Ron Paul were elected?

Ron Paul is a likeable man, earnest, feisty, good humored, and with a decidedly different perspective to all the other candidates running for President.

According to the latest Harris poll, Ron Paul would beat Barak Obama 51:49. So what if he wins the Republican nomination and then the Presidency?

As President, he would need no brains trust to figure out what to do. He would lead as the aging Prince Mikhail Ilarionovich Kutuzov led the Russian army during Napoleon's invasion: politely listening to the ambition-crazed advice of the wonks -- and ignoring it.

His policies are already decided.

Abolish the money-printing Fed, the IRS (and with it the Federal income tax), the Department of Education and many other branches of government.

End the wars, slash the Pentagon budget, bring the troops home.

Secure America's borders.

Withdraw from the UN, exit the WTO and other trade agreements that restrict free trade in the interests of the most powerful corporations.

Then what?

Stephen Harper, Cameron, Sarkozy and other former US puppets would be toast. In a post-imperial era, no one likes an imperialist lackey.

America would become a more diverse nation. Some states would no doubt seek to assume the big-government roles abandoned by the Feds. But others would not.

Americans would have new choices. They could vote with their feet for high taxes and massive state intervention in the economy and their personal lives, or for low taxes and greater personal responsibility.

Uncontrolled immigration would end. Abortion would cease to be legal and the birthrate of the native-born would increase.

Abroad, America's direct influence would be greatly diminished.

China, India and other great nations would be free to pursue their own economic interests in Africa and elsewhere, bribing and corrupting governments, monopolizing oil supplies, gaining control over agricultural and other resources.

The Kissingerian policy of ruling the World by controlling the World's energy supplies would be abandoned.

Energy-rich countries such as Iraq and Libya, Iran and Sudan would become prosperous and highly developed, as was occurring in Libya under Gaddafi and in Iraq under Saddam Hussein.

Such countries might become militaristic dictatorships or they might evolve in other ways. But what concern is that of Americans?

With thousands of nuclear weapons and means of delivering them within 15 minutes to any spot on Earth, the US has no reason to fear petty despots.

But America would once again become a credible advocate of freedom and of the right of every nation to self-determination and of the right of every person to freedom of conscience.

Political correctness would be at an end. Democracy would emerge more strongly than ever before.

America would once again become a light unto the World: the nation that the mass of people throughout the World would want their own country to emulate.

Would this not be a worthier role, a better role, for the American people than pursuing a global empire controlled by faceless plutocrats buying elections, creating fake democracies and holding the people in contempt?

See also
Aangirfan: LIBYAN TOWNS WRECKED AND LOOTED; THOUSANDS MURDERED
Aangirfan: Inside the minds of the CIA
Aangirfan: Britain, the most Americanized and least happy state in Europe