MSM: Stick to Approved Opinions, Citizen

I read a Reuters article the other day alleging that Ron Paul supporters are drawn from people who don’t have a very good grasp of the issues. Translation: they learn about them from sources other than Newsweek and the Wall Street Journal, so their understanding isn’t in the form of the propaganda the establishment would prefer. In fact, his supporters typically understand the major issues at a far deeper level, not distracted by the spoon-fed talking points and Orwell-inspired slogans the media would be much happier to hear them parroting.

In short, the kind of “understanding of the issues” that pleases the MSM is in the form of “yes, sir.” “Yes, sir, I trust the ‘experts.’ Yes, sir, you in the Pentagon know better than I do. Yes, sir, I am not entitled to any opinion on the Fed other than yours.”

I’ll leave aside the claim that Ron Paul’s foreign policy is “dangerously naive”; the same critics argue against all available evidence that the fake evidence leading up to the war against Iraq, which left hundreds of thousands dead and four million displaced, was an innocent mistake. Since every last thing that comes out of the propagandists’ mouths is an Orwellian whopper, maybe we ought to keep cool heads for a change, says Ron. This, evidently, is “dangerously naive.” Whereas it wouldn’t be naive simply to take a Pentagon spokesman, or Charles Krauthammer, or Bill O’Reilly at his word.

No, the criticism I like most is that he doesn’t like the Federal Reserve! Doesn’t he know it “underpins the world’s largest economy”?

Or that if we get rid of the Fed, “monetary policy” will be made by gold miners instead of by some guy?

I’ve made videos addressing these kinds of arguments in the past, so let me go a bit deeper here and direct you to some more advanced material on all this:

Jorg Guido Hulsmann, “Optimal Monetary Policy”
Jorg Gudio Hulsmann, The Ethics of Money Production

With some reservations, but still helpful:

George Selgin, “Central Banks as Sources of Financial Instability”
George Selgin, “Has the Fed Been a Failure?”