Ron Paul is the fact of batshit. Seriously, this is not a well man. If you weren’t sure that he was out of his ever loving mind before, allow me to present the latest evidence to you.
Ron Paul decided to offer up his criticism on how the ebola epidemic is being handled by President Obama, and then shared his solution. I do want to take a moment to say this; to his credit, Ron Paul actually presented his solution. This is the step that his republican brethren generally don’t trouble themselves with. Now back to his solution. If you’re not already giggling, it’s because you haven’t yet figured out that this is going exactly where you think it’s going. There’s so much batshit here, that I’m going to have to take it one piece at a time. From his Ron Paul "institute" website:
The people of Liberia and other countries would be better off if the US government left them alone. Leave it to private citizens to invest in African business and trade with the African people. Private investment and trade would help these countries develop thriving free-market economies capable of sustaining a modern healthcare infrastructure.
YAY libertarian paradise! The beauty of libertarian paradise is that it always soldiers on, like an unstoppable, unkillable cockroach. It doesn’t need facts, historical precedent, or even a shred of evidence to support it’s ideas. It only needs other libertarian rubes to advance its fantastical ideas by throwing up websites to peddle its crazy. Because as libertarians all know, if it’s on the internet, it’s true and valid. Oh and also, everyone except other libertarians are lying to them. If their "point" is up at Mises or the Ron Paul site, it becomes a "source" for them. They basically create a circle jerk of unproven and unprovable ideas, and think that they’re really clever because the guy holding his dick across from them agrees with their argument.
Ron Paul’s belief that the free market will cure ebola is exactly that; it’s made up, not based in fact, and he serves as the guy with his dick in his hand that all other libertarians will point to and proclaim, "AHA!"
The free market has never cured a disease. In fact, the last disease that we cured was polio. The cure for polio was discovered by Doctor Jonas Salk, whose research was funded by the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis. If you haven’t guessed already, the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis was a nonprofit organization created by Franklin Delano Roosevelt. It is now known as The March Of Dimes. Nonprofit, PEH! Oh, but it gets worse for libertarian paradise. Doctor Salk didn’t patent his vaccine. He gave up an estimated seven billion dollars by not patenting the vaccine, in order to get it distributed around the world as quickly as possible. Socialist scum!
For anyone keeping score, the board looks like this;
- Socialism – 1
- Libertarianism – 0
Oh Ron Paul and his laser focus will never be affected by history and empirical evidence. No, he jerks himself onward and upward so that jerks across from him can point to him for validation. But he’s not done jerking his "solution" for us. Again from his site;
Legitimate concerns about protecting airline passengers from those with Ebola or other infectious diseases can best be addressed by returning responsibility for passenger safety to the airlines. After all, private airlines have a greater incentive than does government to protect their passengers from contagious diseases. They can do so while providing a safe means of travel for those seeking medical treatment in the United States. This would remove the incentive to lie about exposure to the virus among those seeking to come here for treatment.
Do I even need to unpack that? Private airlines have a greater incentive than does government to protect their passengers from contagious diseases? Are you shitting me? Private airlines don’t even have an incentive to deliver a travel experience that isn’t absolutely fucking miserable. There’s no incentive to transport me from one destination to another in anything other than the fetal position (with my knees at my chest), but they’re going to set up ebola screening stations? We don’t have a choice but to do business with airlines that treat us like crap and they know it. What universe is Ron Paul living in?
Then he goes on to explain how the Firestone Tire company eradicated ebola in their little corner of Liberia;
Firestone Tire and Rubber Company has successfully contained the spread of Ebola among 80,000 people living in Harbel, the Liberian town housing employees of Firestone’s Liberian plant and their families. In March, after the wife of a Firestone employee developed Ebola symptoms, Firestone constructed its own treatment center and implemented a program of quarantine and treatment. Firestone has successfully kept the Ebola virus from spreading among its employees. As of this writing, there are only three Ebola patients at Firestone’s treatment facility.
Firestone’s success in containing Ebola shows that, far from justifying new state action, the Ebola crises demonstrates that individuals acting in the free market can do a better job of containing Ebola than can governments. The Ebola crisis is also another example of how US foreign aid harms the very people we are claiming to help. Limiting government at home and abroad is the best way to protect health and freedom.
Guess what, Ron? The government of Senegal also eradicated their one case of ebola. But that’s not convenient to Ron Paul’s magical free market ideology, so we’ll point to one instance where one company participated (no evidence that they didn’t get government aid) in one instance of containing one case of one outbreak. No need to provide other examples, because we have the one, and that allows us to ignore all of the other times that governments and governments alone have contained and eradicated disease.
Isn’t libertarian paradise grand?I actually have more respect for teabaggers than I do for libertarians. At least teabaggers don’t bother telling themselves they’re smarter than other people. When asked why they supported Sarah Palin, most of them answered with, "Because she’s just like me. Just an ordinary person." They didn’t bother constructing the circle jerk first. I find that infinitely less annoying than libertarian paradise.
