Ron Paul is Thomas Jefferson
Writes Ralph Benko at Forbes:
Who stands in opposition to “the [central] bank of the United States, public debt, a navy, a standing army, American manufacturing, federally funded improvement of the interior, the role of a world power, military glory, an extensive foreign ministry, loose construction of the Constitution, and subordination of the states to the federal government”? Hint, these words were not written about Rep. Ron Paul.
This is Garry Wills’s description of Thomas Jefferson. The elite political class looked with disdain, and now looks with a certain measure of bemusement, upon Dr. Paul. Paul represents the re-emergence of a great American tradition. That tradition reawakens in the person of Ron Paul, who has a fair claim to be our era’s Thomas Jefferson…
The Hamiltonian version of America is ascendant. Yet the Jeffersonian streak of subsidiarity lives on, is essential to America’s identity and greatness, and is a rising force. It has found its most powerful exponent since, at least, Goldwater in the person of Ron Paul.
Thomas Jefferson’s agenda including eliminating the national bank, reducing the military, and dismantling the federal taxation system. These are at the heart of Ron Paul’s agenda.
Jefferson was a courageous radical. His anti-(federal)-government convictions often are indistinguishable from those of Dr. Paul…
Upon Jefferson’s 1801 inauguration as president, the Pasha of Tripoli (the sure enough predecessor of Muammar Qaddafi), demanded tribute from America. Jefferson refused and the Pasha declared war on America not through some declaration but, lore has it, by chopping down the flagpole in front of the American consulate.
Jefferson responded by sending in a small force to protect Americans and American interests but believed it unconstitutional to do more absent a declaration of war…
Still, Jefferson’s demilitarization of the United States very much anticipated that proposed by Ron Paul. And in matters economic it is hard to slip a photon between Paul and Jefferson. Dr. Paul calls the Fed unconstitutional; Jefferson called its predecessor, the Bank of the United States, unconstitutional:
Jefferson’s opinion on the Constitutionality of a National Bank:
I consider the foundation of the Constitution as laid on this ground: That all powers not delegated to the United States, by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States or to the people. … To take a single step beyond the boundaries thus specially drawn around the powers of Congress, is to take possession of a boundless field of power, no longer susceptible of any definition.
The incorporation of a bank, and the powers assumed by this bill, have not, in my opinion, been delegated to the United States, by the Constitution.
The entire column is well worth for time
Ron Paul is Thomas Jefferson*|*Ron Paul 2012 Presidential Campaign Committee