What Ron Paul Might Have Said About That 47%

Unlike Romney and Obama, Ron Paul is neither a repeater of Republican Party platitudes about "America’s greatness" nor a mumbler of silly socialist platitudes that sound like they were paraphrased directly from The Communist Manifesto ("From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs"). Ron Paul is a seriously learned man when it comes to economics and political philosophy. He is very familiar with the writings of all the classical liberals, especially Austrian School economists such as Ludwig von Mises, Henry Hazlitt, F.A. Hayek, and Murray Rothbard. As such, he must know that Rothbard considered John C. Calhoun, the nineteenth-century U.S. Senator, Secretary of War, and Vice President of the United States to have been one of America’s greatest political philosophers as well. Because of his educational background, Ron Paul would have articulated Romney’s truthful comment about how the moochers and parasites of American society ("the 47%") are on the verge of overwhelming the producers politically. He would not have gotten involved in the mindless media "debate" over whether it is 47 percent or 49 percent of American adults who pay no income taxes but receive benefits from government. He likely would have quoted or paraphrased Rothbard’s favorite American political philosopher, Calhoun, from his magisterial 1850 Disquisition on Government instead. More