Ron Paul was a big hit at this year’s CPAC convention and he really brought the house down with his speech. He has, well, an interesting proposal.
A lot of Republicans running for president (or “maybe running for president”) these days are trying to reach out to the Libertarian wing of the party, whose fiscal views have come to dominate the tea party movement. But Paul made it clear how far the Mitt Romneys and Tim Pawlentys of the world will have to go before they really talk like a libertarian. Where they’re talking about small government and shrunken entitlements, Paul’s suggesting young people be allowed to walk away from the government entirely. His proposed deal works like this: you pay the government 10% of your income (presumably to protect your borders and such) and you promise you’ll never take advantage of a government service for the rest of your life.
Can we make sure that these opt-liters don’t use our roads, our sewers and our electrical grids? How would this work at all in practice? Would the opt-Lugers wear special badges or something so police know not to help them and ambulances can ignore them. I suppose they could go live in a cabin in Idaho or something.
Also, apparently conservatives have found their love of trains. The Atlas Shrugged, Part 1 of 3 (no I’m not kidding, supposedly there’s 3 movies total) was a big hit at CPAC.
I’m sure you’re all saving your money already to go see this.