The chapter " Campaign Finance Reform" is a hoot....
Paul claims the solution to bribing and buying influence is to reduce the size of government to the point there aren't many politicians left the bribe. And I do mean politicians....the people that are elected, not the bureaucrats that fulfill the daily chores.
The topic in this chapter is campaign reform, not bureaucratic bloat.
this is incredibly childish logic. There would certainly be fewer politicians to bribe and the overhead would naturally be a lot less. But this would not reduce the influence, only the necessary costs to generate the same amount of influence.
and don't forget to read the Supreme Court's decisions about the interpretation of constitutional law at the same time. It appears to be a lot different from Mr. Paul's version. Since Mr. Paul is not a Supreme Court justice let alone a lawyer, his opinions are merely his personal interpretations to justify his political position, not constitutional law.
Much of this short chapter is merely muddled bullshit. Anybody interested in Ron Paul's thoughts should take a close look at this short chapter. He's using an argument of freedom of speech as an argument to accept the corruption in campaign financing while at the same time arguing that a reduction of the size of the Federal Government is the solution.
Here is an example of his logic:
Paul has taken the situation completely out of context. He has intentionally confused the concept of being able to freely express one's self versus one of buying influence.
[FONT=&]There are significant differences between expressing one's self, paying for an opinion to be expressed versus paying for an opinion to be embraced. The latter is of course, in the realm of bribery.[/FONT]
This particular chapter is an argument to reduce representation at the legislative level.
Is that really in alignment with the concept of 'liberty'?
I think not.
Read this chapter....it's quite telling if you do it objectively and ignore the emotionalism Paul tries to project.
