The Ron Paul Beacon

I was on YouTube today and watched a segment of the interview Ron Paul did with George Stephanopoulos on ABC a few months ago. Scrolling through the comments, I read:

You realize Ron Paul will eliminate the dept. of Education, the dept. of transportation, FEMA, and the EPA. He voted against a bill trying to defend Network Neutrality. He wants health care solely in the hands of conglomerates! Are you shitting me? Wake the fuck up.

It’s funny because every time a fearful citizen brings up these points, they do so without understanding what they mean.

For example, I’ve heard the concern of losing the Department of Education come up quite a bit. I have to admit, when I first heard about Paul wanting to obliterate it, my ears perked up too –why would Ron Paul want to eliminate education?

No, Ron Paul doesn’t want to eliminate education. When one says “Eliminating the Department of Education,” many hear “Eliminate Education.” This most likely is due to people believing if a federal department exists for a particular societal function, that federal department controls all aspects of it across the country. This is an easy and almost natural assumption for one to take, but the reality is almost always untrue.

In fact, we super-smart Americans have allowed ourselves to be fooled into believing that all executive departments are solely responsible for their respective “named” functions in our society. Not only have we made asses out of ourselves for assuming as much, it goes against the American ideal to have such a centralized entity in the first place.

One problem is, most people don’t know what the federal departments’ do, are responsible for, or what their main objectives are. To shed some light on this, let’s explore the Department of Education.

The Department of Education, or it’s equivalent, was first enacted in 1867. It didn’t last very long – one year later, it had the misfortune of being downgraded to an office. That is until 1979, when Jimmy Carter broke the department level functions off of the Department of Health, Education and Welfare. Between 1868 and 1979, there was no department dedicated to education.

For those who find the elimination of this department preposterous today, Ronald Reagan himself promised to find a way to eliminate this department during his presidency. He did it with the support of the Republican Party, and its pundits. He did try, but failed to do so. In fact, in 1979, at the onset of the act to create this department, the Democratic party opposed it while the Republicans supported it. And yet, the same Republican Party believes it’s necessary today. A lot can flip-flop in twenty five years.

So what does the department actually do? I couldn’t find anything all too compelling, at least, nothing the states can’t or haven’t been doing on their own. Because education is almost exclusively managed at the state level, all this department’s main function is is to “formulate federal funding programs involving education and to enforce federal educational laws regarding privacy and civil rights.” It exists to play the role of policing the states’ own education police and to distribute taxpayer money that the states would do themselves if the additional funds weren’t diverted to the federal government for that purpose to begin with.

In other words, nothing we can’t live without.

Have they been doing a good job? In my opinion, absolutely not. Ask those around you if they believe public education in America today is better than it was before 1990. How about before 1980? In my experience, most agree the quality of education has diminished significantly in the last twenty seven years. So it would seem the Department of Education’s existence coincides with the decline of American public educational quality. And yet for many of the years before it existed on its own, educational quality seemed better.

So when others look at Ron Paul as some nutcase because he wants to eliminate departments and government functions that “sound” like they do something important, those individuals would benefit from actually understanding what it is the department does, before making such judgements. As in the example with the Department of Education, you can easily break down this logic for most or possibly all of these department’s. For example, consider some other areas people express fear or laugh at when Ron Paul discusses their elimination:

The IRS

Anyone who claims to understand what the IRS does and why it’s required for the good of the nation is a liar. Ask them if they have memorized the code of the IRS. When they say no, ask them to do so –they can’t. In fact, the odds of being able to do so are cosmic in scale. Then you’d have the challenge of understanding them. We had no IRS before 1913, and Ron Paul is not suggesting to eliminate revenue generation for the Federal government. He’s advocating not taxing individual income to get it. Period.

FEMA

They spoke for themselves during Hurricane Katrina, did they not? Citizens are responsible for helping citizens in the event of a disaster, at least in my opinion. Citizens can centralize a solution for this in private industry. Its being in government control has been a disaster. The concept of having an organized and funded group to assist in disaster recovery isn’t a bad one at all. In fact, it’s rather helpful to a functional society. But FEMA’s role is not centralized exclusively for this purpose as most would believe. And we’ve all seen how it’s been managed. I’d prefer to see a private industry take the reins on this one.

The Environmental Protection Agency

Having environmental regulations and laws for private industry to follow is one thing. Having a department act as a policing force for them is another. We don’t need it – removing the EPA doesn’t mean industry will be able to dump chemicals anywhere they want. We already have laws against harming individuals by contaminating the environment, so if you think eliminating the EPA eliminates the laws protecting the environment, stop being scared of that, it doesn’t.

Net Neutrality

Ron Paul most likely fears having the government micro-manage competition will stagnate growth on the internet, and simply doesn’t want government in control of maintaining neutrality. Think about it, if more competition were allowed in communications, the minute this happened a new company would be able to materialize without the unnecessary resistance or costs that exist today, to offer a better service, and people would have a choice to move to it. Simple. The problems with Net Neutrality are problems with other existing laws and not enough competition, and Ron Paul as president would help eliminate that restrictive red-tape.

Health Care

Although I agree that a socialized health care system is not in the interest of the federal government, I do agree health care has become a crisis of sorts for us. Unfortunately, much of this crisis is caused by poor judgment many Americans make concerning their own health and well being. Regardless, I would like to see a working solution myself. But as one would look at a resume and check references when hiring a new employee, I cannot in good faith hire the federal government to perform this function. Even though Ron Paul is against socialized health care, I have heard him state several times he also believes health care, at least for the elderly, is a necessity and is something he would work to promote a federal solution for. I will say this, I’d prefer to put a trillion dollars into my fellow citizens’ health care than bombs and ammunition to kill Iraqis.

Bottom line, if someone wishes to debate a Ron Paul over elimination of a Department based on its label, without knowing what it does, how it works, or how it contributes to the citizen… they do so foolishly. And from this point forward, you’ll be able to understand how much of a fool they appear. It’s like debating how my dad can cut metal with his teeth because he looks bigger than your dad. I know, it’s disturbing, but we live amongst a large group of adult kindergarteners who have the right to vote. I, for one, find that preposterous.