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Who could have guessed Tuesday’s turnout!?! OMG, what an unpredictable world we live in! The Socialist Lady and the Endless War guy. Fuuuuuck me. Oh the sweet choices Democracy has laid before us yet again.

If you think I’m being facetious, get yourself a beer.

Say what you will about Ron Paul, the man made a mark, and if he runs for the election as an independent, he’ll make an even bigger one. I’ve never seen more steet signs and freaking airplanes and, good god, the Ron Paul meet-up emails in my inbox. But alas, the United States is not ready to mix reason with politics. It still prefers dynasty and fear, and the shit-sturm und drang of empty rhetorical pandering, to boring sound argument.

I’m not crazy about all of RP’s positions. I don’t agree with his stance on abortion, or his hard-line views on immigration or even his seductive yet somewhat over-simplified foreign policy (considering the mess we’ve made for ourselves is one we ought to atone for in my book.) But I think he’s got more of a coherent vision of the proper role of government in the United States according to its original charter (hint: think smaller) , than any other candidate. Government is too big, too intrusive, and has proven time and time again that it does not work. Both parties have lost sight of this.

Fans of utopia will chide me for being so simplistic. They will say “Don’t be so naive. Government can fix anything- it just has to be done in the right way.” This is the core fallacy of the modern status quoticians: the belief in a top-down, self-engineered utopia delivered by a big shiny government to your doorstep for free. Energy issues? Let them eat ethanol. Poverty? Just raise the minimum wage, and we’ll all become rich. Terrorism? Just start toppling rogue governments halfway across the world. Blowback? What blowback? At best, the idea that the powerful government can solve all of our woes, is misguided. At worst, it has brought us war, broken and unethical wealth redistribution schemes, disastrous protectionism and other economic meddling, and unconstitutional invasions of privacy (wiretapping, drug policy.) All of these scenarios have one thing in common: the oft ignored hidden consequences that are birthed by the “noble” intentions of government.

When Ron Paul talked about “blowback” he was lauded by both the left and right for making a connection that few politicians dared make. Why stop there? Blowback, mostly in the form of unintended consequences, is visible in all government policies. Prohibition put small business out and strengthened organized crime, just like the drug war today creates international crime and puts money in terrorists hands. The creation of the unnecessary Homeland Security bureaucracy contributed to the ineffective handling of Katrina. The training of the Mujahideen led to the rise of the Taliban and you know what.

This is not to say that government can’t ever get it right, just that usually it doesn’t, and that its actions often end up causing more harm than good. Furthermore, when government meddles we never get to see how people and markets and society adjust to a problem naturally. Patience! Economic stimulus plans are naive, needed pain is just put off until tomorrow. But we’ve grown so accustomed to the government “doing something” that we erroneously think of it as a physician. All of the leading candidates just sprinkle promises of money and programs and war to fix everything. They promise what they can’t deliver and it’s that false hope that gets them elected.

America is on the greatest crack bender ever.