I think Ron Paul is a truly great American statesman of our era. However, he has made a lot of bad calls lately, and I finally know why.
He got Venezuela totally wrong because he was convinced Trump would invade. There was never any chance of it. He got Soleimani wrong because he thought it was the first step in an American attack on Iran. Wrong wrong wrong. (I think it was a way to de-escalate tensions, as I wrote elsewhere.)
Now in https://www.infowars.com/the-coronavirus-hoax/ “The Coronavirus Hoax, An Authoritarian dream”, Ron Paul says the whole coronavirus matter is about stripping Americans of their freedom. (That’s what I like about the man, he defends our freedoms)
Of course, he is wrong.
The irony is that it appears on Infowars just as Alex Jones seems to have gone mad with rage over the coronavirus hoax. (The Ron Paul statemet appears on Infowars)
Now Alex Jones is an interesting fellow. Sometimes his instincts are right on the mney. Other times not. He has great energy and a lot of talented associates. But he is wrong about this. Now coronavirus might turn out to be a flash in the pan, with deaths limited to clusters of very old people in nursing homes. Those young, healthy Kirkland firefighters who were exposed (10 or 12 depending on the reports that tested positive after some visited the infamous Life Care Center (Kirkland) nursing home (37 corona deaths so far), are all fine and they are two weeks out.
If corona is a “hoax”, it is a hoax because the response was overblown on the basis of bad advice from CDC, and the pandemic will subside (except for the elderly and seriously ill). (And it might truly be a disease of Chinese-Japanese-Koreans, as the frequency of the ACE2 receptor suggests.) So if we do NOT see mega-deaths among the young and healthy, it will because CDC lied to Trump, exaggerating the pandemic to destroy the Trump presidency. Also the economy. (Is Messioner really Rod Rosestein’s sister? https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2020/02/just-like-her-corrupt-brother-rod-rosenstein-the-cdcs-dr-nancy-messonnier-drops-a-bomb-on-president-trump-while-on-international-trip/ )
The irony is the greatest fears of Ron Paul and Alex Jones have converged on the fear that Pres. Donald Trump is an authoritarian bent on seizing maximum power through a false emergency. Every other presidents in recent memory would have seized that power. And yet they are wrong.
Alone among our recent presidents of the last generation, Donald Tump is not an authoritarian. He is a patriot. And that is why they are wrong.