I could never really understand trickledown economics... I never could understand how a rising tide could lift all boats if people can't even afford boats.

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There's a documentary going around called "Meltup Hyperinflation". It's just another Ron Paul channeling Milton Friedman, free market, tough love, didactic narrative. It preaches, as most of Paul's narratives do.

We give too much to people. They're lazy. They don't want to work. Take the money away from them and you'll see how fast they get a job.

Just look at China. They go to public and private schools for only $400 - $1200 per year.

In the same documentary, the Paul sycophants decry taxpayer support for public education.

Well, which is it Ron? Do we subsidize public education so that American students can go to college for $400-$1200 a year or do we privatize all education so that the criminals you so rightly castigate for their excesses have another venue through which to add to those excesses?

I could never really understand trickledown economics, which is basically what Paul and Milton Friedman have preached so evangelically. I never could understand how a rising tide could lift all boats if people can't even afford boats.

According to the Paulians, let's call them, we should basically have a "skeleton government". It should provide nothing, preferentially, but, if it has to provide anything, it should protect us from foreign invasion. It should not ensure that local municipalities or states have police departments. It's none of the federal government's business. If states and towns and cities don't want to pay for police departments, then they shouldn't be forced to do so by the big, bad government.

While chastising bankers for their excesses, Paul is loathe to allow government to intervene in a manner that would regulate those excesses.

Paul claims to be the standing expert in the world on The Constitution of The United States of America. He implies that if the founders knew how large we've let our government become, they'd roll over in their graves.

I would then ask Ron, and now his son Rand (whom he would have named Ayn if his son had been his daughter), "What did the founders envision the American government doing in 2010?" I submit that Paul would describe an activity which includes converting the government's ass into a safe haven for its thumb.

Anarchism and true communism also have as their goals the doing away with any central governing body.

Do anarchists or communists or libertarians truly believe that's what the founders had in mind when they wrote The Declaration of Independence and The Constitution?

Like the god forsaken Bible, one can point to almost any part of The US Constitution and defend extreme positions and ideologies.

Do the Paulians believe that the Preamble to The Constitution is technically part of the document?

One dictionary defines the word "preamble" thusly:

"1. A preliminary statement, especially the introduction to a formal document that serves to explain its purpose.

2. An introductory occurrence or fact; a preliminary."

These two definitions may or may not contradict one another, but, as you read further down the page of that dictionary, the words "serves to explain its purpose" are repeated more than once.

So, whether or not the preamble is part of The Constitution or merely an introduction which explains the purpose of The Constitution, the preamble says: "We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America." (emphasis mine)

So, what does Representative Tough Love think "promote the general welfare" could possibly mean? Does it mean that, when we see our fellow countrymen suffering because the very same tough lovers say we shouldn't have a minimum wage and the government has no right to stop business from doing whatever the hell it wants to do, including sending American jobs to slave labor nations like, yes, China, we should tell them to pick themselves up by the straps on the boots that they can't afford and find a job working for the companies that no longer provide jobs in The FUSA (The Former United States of America)?

When those Chinese students graduate from the public schools that Paul and his ilk don't believe we should support in The FUSA, how much do we think they earn? According to a 2008 UN report, China's per capita income is $3,000.00 per year?

The Paulians don't want to tie the poor corporations down with a mandated minimum wage, they don't want to subsidize education the way their heroes in China subsidize education, they don't want the government to interfere with business decisions, including where they manufacture their products and they want us to be as eager and hardworking as the Chinese to earn a wage of $1.44/hour, in the unlikely reality that the Chinese actually work 40 hour weeks.

This is the lecture that one should watch and take to heart (I have found that it takes a while to download, but it's well worth it). This is the simplest and most direct narrative of how we got to where we are and suggests the most compassionate and logical way out. No one is punished, even those who should be. Those who should be punished via reregulation will do what they did the first time around, that is, they will do everything in their power to eviscerate any governmental regulation placed directly upon them and they've proven they have the money and the power to do so.

However, the lecture by Richard Wolff doesn't suggest we return the keys to the criminals.

It, admittedly, will take the same kind of courage exhibited by such groups as The Wobblies, The Industrial Workers of the World, in the early 20^th century to make the changes Wolff suggests. The Wobblies actually spilled blood to rid this nation of the scourge of child labor, to get us the 40 hour work week and many other benefits that Americans have since lost.

I cringe when I ask myself if those alive today would have done the same for the future of this nation and the workers of this nation and of the world. This corporate run fiasco has put the fear of something or someone into those who live today. Tea Party activists rally in favor of their corporate enemies and against their own best interests. The so called middle class is filled with frightened little boys and girls who believe that the wealthy ruling elite, which I refer to as The Corporacracy, are still working on ensuring that we all attain that "American Dream". They do this as The Corporacracy creates the ultimate American nightmare and that nightmare is called Free Trade.

So, if you haven't seen the Paul video homily, please watch it.

I don't believe in a higher power, so I don't believe in a heaven or a hell. However, on the off-chance that I'm wrong, I hope I see Friedman and Paul right there next to me, burning for conducting their all out war against the American middle class.

To friendship,

Michael

"All human situations have their inconveniences. We feel those of the present but neither see nor feel those of the future; and hence we often make troublesome changes without amendment, and frequently for the worse." - Benjamin Franklin

Authors Bio:

Michael Bonanno is an associate editor for OpEdNews.

He is also a published poet, essayist and musician who lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Bonanno is a political progressive, not a Democratic Party apologist. He believes it's government's job to help the needy and that leaving the people's well being to the so called "private sector" is social suicide.