Branden on Nostr: There are men who win power, and there are men who win minds. The former we call ...
There are men who win power, and there are men who win minds. The former we call politicians, the latter we call prophets. Ron Paul was never meant to be the former, but it is to him that we owe the latter. He did not merely run for office; he ran a revolution. He did not merely campaign; he catechized. And though the world, in its usual dullness, dismissed him as a curiosity, it is his ideas that now stand at the very center of the public square, roaring where once they only whispered.
Before Ron Paul, the state was an inevitability, its sprawling presence accepted like the weather. After Ron Paul, it became a question—a suspicion—a problem to be solved. Before Ron Paul, the only political argument was how best to manage the machine. After Ron Paul, men began to ask whether the machine should exist at all. It was not a matter of electoral success, but of intellectual conquest. He did not seize the presidency, but he shook the very ground upon which presidents stand.
And now, in the great and bizarre theater of history, it is Trump—not the philosopher, not the scholar, not the man of letters—who finds himself wielding the wrecking ball that Paul first hoisted into the air. The appetite for upheaval, the rage against the ruling class, the righteous impatience with bureaucracy—all of it was first kindled by a quiet doctor from Texas, before it was ever shouted by a tycoon from Manhattan. The former planted the flag, the latter carries it forward. And though I am, by habit, skeptical of all things governmental, I cannot deny the fact that we are closer now to the fulfillment of Paul’s vision than at any moment in modern memory.
Governments are still prone to tyranny, power is still prone to corruption, and I have no illusions that this grand movement cannot itself be swallowed by the very forces it opposes. But if the walls of Leviathan are to crumble, let us at least give due thanks to the man who first pointed out that they were made of sand. Thank you, Dr. Paul.
Before Ron Paul, the state was an inevitability, its sprawling presence accepted like the weather. After Ron Paul, it became a question—a suspicion—a problem to be solved. Before Ron Paul, the only political argument was how best to manage the machine. After Ron Paul, men began to ask whether the machine should exist at all. It was not a matter of electoral success, but of intellectual conquest. He did not seize the presidency, but he shook the very ground upon which presidents stand.
And now, in the great and bizarre theater of history, it is Trump—not the philosopher, not the scholar, not the man of letters—who finds himself wielding the wrecking ball that Paul first hoisted into the air. The appetite for upheaval, the rage against the ruling class, the righteous impatience with bureaucracy—all of it was first kindled by a quiet doctor from Texas, before it was ever shouted by a tycoon from Manhattan. The former planted the flag, the latter carries it forward. And though I am, by habit, skeptical of all things governmental, I cannot deny the fact that we are closer now to the fulfillment of Paul’s vision than at any moment in modern memory.
Governments are still prone to tyranny, power is still prone to corruption, and I have no illusions that this grand movement cannot itself be swallowed by the very forces it opposes. But if the walls of Leviathan are to crumble, let us at least give due thanks to the man who first pointed out that they were made of sand. Thank you, Dr. Paul.