*Written by Rob Rimes.

I was late watching this debate, as I had to check the replay. Unfortunately, I wasn’t home and I was unable to take serious notes on it. I was at my boss’ house due to it being the annual national sales meeting for my real job and between the alcohol and festivities, this thing was hard to watch in any serious sort of manner. I regret not being able to give it my full attention but the whiskey and wine were flowing, the girls were distracting to say the least and the copious amounts of food transplanted from several of the world’s most exotic regions somehow took precedence over watching the most recent episode of ‘Three Tyrants and a Wizard’. I do apologize as I have been trying to chronicle every damn one of these things but there are just so many, seven this month alone, and turning down a chance to literally spend the night at a party thrown at the mansion of the Indian version of Caligula is incredibly hard to pass up. Bourbon soaked tits are better to stare at than three dudes arguing over their dicks and the fourth shaking his head because America’s fallen so far that we’re literally having a debate about three dicks.

Now I did go back and read the transcripts from the debate and I did watch Ron Paul’s highlights – the only important parts, as the other three’s highlights would’ve put me to sleep in my hungover stupor. If it wasn’t for my boss’ brother handing me a Bloody Mary when I walked through the office door this morning, I’d probably be curled up in a ball under my desk hiding from the flickering power-draining headache-inducing fluorescent lights over my head. Needless to say, I am not a Bloody Mary fan by any stretch of the word, as it just conjures up the thought of drinking vodka with some ketchup spilled in it, but that fucking cocktail hit the spot today and I’m about 70 percent recovered from guest-starring in the Bollywood version of ‘Eyes Wide Shut’.

I know I’m rambling about my drunken escapades and that might disinterest you, as you came to this article to experience my certain style of critique on these things, so for that I’m sorry. I will do my best to give you the rundown of the debate, as I saw it between nude champagne showers and Chilean sea bass dodgeball.

So I’m just going to go down the line and analyze the candidates one-by-one starting with Rick Santorum. He started by talking about illegal immigration, border fences and telling the story about his immigrant family for the umpteenth time. He got into it with Ron Paul on foreign policy and failed miserably as he tried to cover up the fact that he’s a goddamned idiot on the affairs of Central and South America. I’ll write more on this when I get to Ron Paul, who owned Santorum like a twenty dollar prostitute. Santorum goes on to bitch about Fannie and Freddie and in turn blasts Newt and Mitt for playing personal politics and distracting everyone from discussing the real issues. On the subject of space, Santorum said that America is a frontier country and space is the next frontier to conquer. He calls for the private sector to be more involved with NASA but doesn’t fully support government being out of it. On health care he goes on and on about how awesome he is for trying to create health savings accounts. If you were so awesome, you would’ve got it done pal! He then gets into a health care argument with Romney that is neither interesting or worth writing about but what the hell, I’ll give you the nutshell version. Basically it went something like this:

Rick Santorum: “Fuck Romneycare”
Mitt Romney: “But it was only at the state level Ricky Baby!”
Rick Santorum: “I don’t care Mitt! You’re a bitch and you gave Obama the blueprints to evil!”
Mitt Romney: “Ricky Baby, you’re so silly!”
Rick Santorum: “Jesus Bible! No health care for the gays!”

Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich spent most of their time arguing about who was a bigger bastard while both looked like big bastards. Mittens talked about “self-deportation” again. If these guys believe in such a thing as an effective way of handling a situation, can we get them to believe in “self-governance”? If they trust those illegal immigrants to leave on their own accord after sneaking in here in an effort just to come back in a way that is much more difficult, they’ve got to believe that we’re all capable of managing every other aspect of our lives? I mean, they are putting blind faith into something so farfetched that they’ve got to be down with just saying “fuck it” and letting us run our own shit, right?

On the immigration subject, Newt says that Romney is the most anti-immigrant candidate out of the four. Romney gets all pissy and pulls his two Latino cards. The first he pulls is Marco Rubio, the Cuban American senator that came to his defense on immigration. The second card Mitt pulled was Mexico, as his father was born there. I was born in a hospital bro, that doesn’t make me a doctor!

Romney and Gingrich argue about immigration for awhile and then they argue about Fannie and Freddie and who is the biggest crook. Newt, once he gets away from the lame feud for a minute, goes on some tangent about making a moon base. Newt later said that Jacksonville was going to get big pimpin’ because the Panama Canal was widening and would bring them more boat traffic. Shortly after that we were treated to a Santorum-Gingrich-Romney three-way which was like stumbling upon a middle-aged homosexual version of Cinemax at three in the morning. It was a bitch and rant fuck fest that no one in their right mind needed to see, unless of course you’re into middle-aged gay men. If you are, I mean absolutely no disrespect. Do ya thang homegirl!

Fuck all these queens, let’s get to Ron Paul, the only adult in the room. On immigration, he says that if we had a working healthy economy we wouldn’t be so worried about the immigration issue as we’d be looking for workers to fill jobs. He adds that the way we are handling our borders is actually harming our economy. He points out that we don’t have the right amount of resources on the border and that we should pay more attention to our border instead of the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan.

On the Latin America issue, Ron Paul says, “Free trade is the answer.” He throws in the fact that we’d be a lot better off if we practiced free trade with Cuba. He adds that he doesn’t like the idea that America thinks that they can go down to Central and South America and try to dictate which kind of leaders they need down there, as it is none of our business. He says that the best way to influence other nations isn’t by telling them what to do, it is by practicing friendship and free trade. Paul then references Santorum who said that we have to stand up for these nations. Paul explains that standing up for nations often times comes with us imposing ourselves on the people of these countries while picking their dictators, undermining their government and sending them a lot of money. He warns that this sort of tactic always backfires and the people we are “supporting” end up hating us. Ron Paul calls Rick Santorum’s ideas on foreign policy the “bully way”. Paul adds that he knows a better to way to work with people other than using force. Santorum shakes his head, mumbles some stupid crap and then changes his tampon while wiping his bitch tears. Checkmate Paul!

Ron Paul is asked if Mitt and Newt should return the money they’ve made off of Fannie and Freddie and he responds to thunderous applause when he says, “That subject doesn’t interest me a lot.” Paul says that Fannie and Freddie should have been auctioned off right after the crash came. He said that if it was sold, the problem would’ve been “cleansed” by now. Ron Paul says that he’s been trying to prevent this stuff which is why we need to end the Federal Reserve.

CNN’s Wolf Blitzer asks says that Ron Paul, if elected, would be the oldest president ever. He asks Paul if he would make his medical records public to show the people that he is healthy. Blitzer basically wants to paint Ron Paul as a geezer who could croak tomorrow and I find the question to be repugnant, just as I found it distasteful when the same issue was brought up with Ronald Reagan years ago. Paul said that he’ll prove how healthy he is by delivering an open challenge to all the other candidates to face him in a 25 mile bike ride in the heat of Texas. Ron Paul face-palmed the shit out of Wolf Blitzer and the other candidates with that answer. He also took a shot at Wolf himself when he jokingly pointed out that there are laws against age discrimination and that Blitzer should be careful. Wolf, after getting bitchslapped, tries to cover up the stupid question by asking the other candidates if they’d release theirs. What a tool.

On space spending, Ron Paul says that he would only approve funding on stuff that fits under defense. He says that going to the Moon and Mars is fantastic but that it could be done better by the private sector if their hands weren’t tied. Ron Paul then takes a shot at Newt, saying that he has stretched the truth with all his “balanced budget” claims from the days when he was Speaker of the House. Ron Paul is taking solid shots backed by facts and there is nothing that can be done about it when he brings these guys a dose of the truth. Strangely, Newt Gingrich was very polite and gracious to Ron Paul all night and gave him props for his ideas in several areas.

In the end, the debate was lightyears better than the NBC debate a few days prior. CNN does the best job, in my opinion, and I’ve watched every single one of these debates. Kudos to Wolf for rocking the house, even with a few prickish questions. Ron Paul owned the motherfucker, Santorum did decent if you are into his religio-fascist bullshit while Newt and Mitt looked like a few bickering Tinas arguing over the last pack of Lee Press-On Nails at K-Mart.

And that’s all I got because I immediately returned to my whiskey-scented orgy on the south lawn.

Grading Scale:
Grade A+: Ron Paul
Grade C-: Rick Santorum
Grade D+: Newt Gingrich
Grade D: Mitt Romney

*Best debate moment in recent memory:

*Written by Rob Rimes.

*This article is broken into five parts with each being released a few days apart. This is due to the size of the article. PART I can be found here.

3. Stage Two – Woodrow Wilson and the Rise of Wilsonian Tyranny:

“You are not here merely to prepare to make a living. You are here to enable the world to live more amply, with greater vision, and with a finer spirit of hope and achievement. You are here to enrich the world, and you impoverish yourself if you forget this errand.” – Woodrow Wilson

After Lincoln, Woodrow Wilson is probably the worst president in history. Although FDR is pretty close. What makes Wilson so bad? Well, he was instrumental in creating the Federal Reserve and the Federal Trade Commission. He also kick-started the income tax system that we have today. Additionally, Wilson intervened in the first World War, which had absolutely nothing to do with the United States. His actions in that war created the snowball effect that eventually became World War II. Sure, Hitler was a sick and twisted fucksack but there is a huge chance that he would’ve never gained power in Germany if it weren’t for the heinous actions of Woodrow Wilson. Shit, the fact that Wilson could have inadvertently caused the Holocaust probably makes him worse than Lincoln.

Wilson’s first order of business was the creation of the Federal Reserve. Contrary to popular belief, the Federal Reserve is not a government entity. The Fed is a private central bank that has the power to print money. Instead of having currency with actual value, Woodrow Wilson birthed a non-governmental establishment that has the power to control, regulate and print paper money! This was a way for the government to control and meddle with the flow of currency. Instead of letting the free market and free trade dictate the cost of goods and the value of money, Wilson thought it best to have supreme control over the monetary system. Many historians, the world over, credit the Federal Reserve and it’s meddling with the American economy as being a major catalyst for the Great Depression as well as our nation’s current economic peril, inflation and the devaluation of the dollar. John Maynard Keynes didn’t see it this way and the progressives of Wilson’s era all the way up to today, still trust in Keynesian economic theory.

Looking past the issue of the Federal Reserve, which is a monstrous issue, I want to put some emphasis on Wilson’s lesser-known progressive follies. The next thing on the docket is the Underwood Tariff Act, also known as the Revenue Act of 1913. What this act did was it lowered basic tariff rates from 40% down to 25%. That may seem positive but tariffs in general are just bad economic policy. Read some Mises, Rothbard, Hayek or Friedman if you don’t believe me.

Apart from the reduction of tariffs, the Underwood Tariff Act created something much worse. In order to off set the loss of revenue from the decreased tariffs, the federal income tax was reinstated. What was once created to pay for the Civil War, was brought back fifty years later to help create a pot of money for the growing progressive agenda. The income tax was previously deemed unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in 1894 but that obstacle was overcome by the creation of the 16th Amendment, which made a federal income tax constitutional. Wilson used the Underwood Tariff Act as a tool to justify the creation of the federal income tax, which was now within the government’s power to legally implement.

The next piece of shitty progressive legislation to look at is the Clayton Antitrust Act. In a nutshell, an antitrust law is a law that attempts to prohibit monopolies from forming while trying to eliminate unfair business practices. Just like everything pimped by progressives, it sounds like a good idea based off of good intentions but it is counterproductive to what it is trying to accomplish and it essentially creates that in which it is trying to regulate or destroy. It helps the federal government pick winners and losers and thus, kills true capitalism only to replace it with a crony clone wearing the same title.

The Clayton Antitrust Act was created to double up on the control of rogue capitalists that started with the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890. These acts created a style of legislation that is still be used today. For whatever reason, lefties on the Hill can’t seem to wrap their heads around the fact that these practices hurt the economy. Maybe I am being unfair here, as the righties have adopted these practices as well. Because of that, we’re all fucked.

Anyway, the Clayton Antitrust Act was setup to restrict mergers between companies as well as controlling price competition. To restrict mergers is incredibly foolish and borderline chaotic. This punishes the end consumer because the product or service he would receive, may not be as good because of these restrictions. See, two companies merge when they feel that by combining their efforts they will improve their ability to create superior results with whatever good or service they offer. When companies see a greater value in merging, it is the end consumer that really reaps the benefits of that extra value. Often times, mergers happen because the company that is committing the “hostile takeover” of its competitor believes that the smaller company could be more efficient if better run. They believe that they can run it better and if they can, this benefits everyone involved. Well, except for maybe the shitty employees. Should we reward them with jobs in the new company for running the old company into the ground? Often times these “hostile takeovers” are an alternative to bankruptcy.

Like a typical progressive “Trustbuster”, Wilson didn’t just stop with the Clayton Antitrust Act. He also created the Federal Trade Commission or FTC. Today, the FTC is the “National Nanny”. For decades it has overseen and meddled with our economy. Now it is defining the rules and regulations of the Internet. The only truly free thing left in the world is being tyrannized by this archaic progressive institution that has done nothing apart from stifling the free market.

The next piece of legislation to come across Woodrow Wilson’s desk was the Smith-Lever Act of 1914. This act created subsidies for agricultural education and research. Is that a waste of tax dollars? I’ll let you decide.

Following that was another pro-agricultural law, the Federal Farm Loan Act. This established a system that would provide an increase in credit to rural, family farmers. This was achieved by the creation of a federal farm loan board, as well as twelve regional farm loan banks. Essentially, cooperative farm loan associations were able to get long-term loans at very low interest rates (under subsidized terms of course). This was to help smaller farmers “survive” against the harsh competition of larger farmers (or better farmers, depending upon your reality). Farmers were able to borrow up to 50% of the value of their land and 20% of the value of any improvements. This evolved into today’s monstrous Farm Credit System, which received a $4 billion bailout in 1987 that  created a new arm for the beast, the Farm Credit System Financial Assistance Corp.

Wilson then attacked child labor with the Keating-Owen Act of 1916. I know that the vast majority of the lefties and righties are all for child labor laws but in reality, they have very negative consequences. Luckily, at the time, the Supreme Court recognized this and deemed the Keating-Owen Act unconstitutional. Because of the child labor laws that did eventually pass, it is technically illegal for you to give a minor $20 for fixing your computer. However, the government decided that we had to save the children from a Charles Dickens nightmare. Never mind that many of the children of the 19th and early 20th centuries worked to help provide for their poor families. As time progressed, parents made more money and they were able to send their kids to school. The free market was working towards destroying child labor before the progressives created laws to completely eliminate it in all its forms.

In 1916, Woodrow Wilson was faced with a serious dilemma from the railroad unions. The railroad brotherhoods threatened to shut down the railroads. Wilson attempted to get the angry unions and the “evil exploitive” management to work together to find a solution to the labor issues. No compromise was made, so our progressive hero created the Adamson Act which forced railroad management to limit the work day to 8 hours and to pay overtime if the maximum hours were exceeded. Because of this, a strike was avoided but the railroad companies now had a gun to their head. There was no negotiation. The federal government, led by Woodrow Wilson, forced management to comply with these demands.

Wilson initially tried to keep us out of the first World War. However, his know-it-all meddling progressive attitude couldn’t be tamed. Because of that, he tried to mediate the conflict, just like he tried to do but failed with railroad unions and railroad management. The result here was no different and Mr. Fix-it had egg on his face again. That snotty yolk must have left a bad taste in his mouth because Wilson showed that he wasn’t really an objective party when it came to the War. In fact, he demanded the Germans quit their bullshit. As far as the British went, he slapped them on the hand and they called his bluff, continuing to do what they were doing because they knew Wilson didn’t really mean it.

With his first term coming to a close, Woodrow Wilson ran for reelection with the slogan “He kept us out of war.” Funny, because it wasn’t long before his anti-war message was replaced with a pro-war attitude. Kind of reminds me of what Barack Obama is doing now. Damn progressives.

After narrowly winning reelection against Republican Charles Evans Hughes, it wasn’t long before Woodrow Wilson brought us into a war that we had no business whatsoever being in. He built a massive military through conscription. What that means is that young men were forced to fight because Woodrow Wilson said so. The war was bloody and hard-fought. At one point, the life expectancy of a soldier on the front lines was 21 days! These men, just like the soldiers during Vietnam, were practically being shipped overseas with a death sentence. All it took was a gun to the head to force a gun in the palm.

Lives weren’t the only cost of war; the war was incredibly expensive monetarily and this strained the economic stability of America. So, not only were Americans now paying income tax, now those taxes were being raised to fund our idiotic involvement in the war. The progressive-led government also insisted that people eat less, this way more food could be sent to soldiers. The government also tried pimping out war bonds and manufactured a mass amount of pro-war propaganda that pretty much told people that they were traitors and assholes if they didn’t support the war effort. Apparently, you weren’t a patriot unless you were a drone to your progressive masters and their ever-growing collectivist society.

Apart from the war, Wilson had us involved in other foreign affairs. He proposed that U.S. vessels traveling through the Panama Canal would be exempt from paying tolls. This angered the British as well as many others.

Wilson also wanted to avoid trampling on Latin America, as he believed Teddy Roosevelt had done, so he apologized to Columbia for the United States’ role in the Panama Revolution during Teddy’s reign. That must’ve been an inspirational moment for Obama, the Great Apologizer.

Woody then meddled with Latin America, trying to “teach” the Latin American countries on how to “elect good men.” Wilson had troops stationed in Mexico, Nicaragua, Haiti, Cuba and Panama.

Wilson’s soldiers in Nicaragua forced the country to pass the Bryan-Chamorro Treaty after they selected the nation’s president. Haiti was forced to choose the presidential candidate that Wilson hand-picked. They were also forced to adopt a constitution that Wilson wrote! Wilson had our troops go into the Dominican Republic after their president resigned. The American military aligned themselves with wealthy landowners and fought brutally against any resistance they encountered. Wilson’s foreign policy with our closest neighbors was abhorrent!

After World War I, Woodrow Wilson made his famous “Fourteen Points” speech that introduced the world to the idea of a “League of Nations”, his anti-American globalist dream and the precursor to the United Nations. The League of Nations was officially created with the Treaty of Versailles. That treaty also gave birth to the “Stab-in-the-back Legend” that the Nazis latched onto and spread like wildfire, as they rose to power in a Germany crumbled by war. There are many other factors associated with Wilson and his involvement in WWI that inadvertently helped the Nazi cause but that is an article for another day.

After all of this awesome foreign intervention, the Norwegian Nobel Committee showed that they were pranksters of the world when they gave the Nobel Peace Prize to Woodrow Wilson. Funny, that is another parallel to Obama. Maybe I should write an article about all their similarities.

Following the Treaty of Versailles and the formation of the League of Nations, Woodrow Wilson’s presidency was winding down. As soldiers were coming home, they were faced with harsh times due to the effects of Wilsonian policy. There was poor planning, very little money and next to no benefits for the four million soldiers who returned to the States. The economy was in serious trouble and the Wilsonian Era nearly caused a depression in 1920 (I wrote about it and how the problem was resolved in “The Forgotten Depression of 1920“).

Wilson’s wartime progressive politics caused the farmland prices bubble to burst, which left many farmers bankrupt or drowning in serious debt. His meddling with the unions and their bosses caused strikes in the coal, steel and meatpacking industries. Class warfare was at an all-time high as race riots broke out in dozens of cities throughout the U.S., most notably Chicago and Omaha. This was the legacy Woodrow Wilson left behind. Well, in reality. The left has deified him with the other ex-POTUSes in this article and for whatever reason, he is heralded as one of the greatest American leaders of all-time. That’s fucking hogwash!

Woodrow Wilson was shit. I don’t think that it can be any fucking clearer. He took the progressive ball and ran with it, completely disregarding what worked in this country, trading it in for a nation wrapped in chains. Wilson did have some second thoughts on his policies however, but it was too little too late.

He had this to say about the creation of the Federal Reserve, after he realized his mistake:

“I am a most unhappy man. I have unwittingly ruined my country. A great industrial nation is controlled by its system of credit. Our system of credit is concentrated. The growth of the nation, therefore, and all our activities are in the hands of a few men. We have come to be one of the worst ruled, one of the most completely controlled and dominated Governments in the civilized world no longer a Government by free opinion, no longer a Government by conviction and the vote of the majority, but a Government by the opinion and duress of a small group of dominant men.”

If only he had listened to Andrew Jackson.

4. Stage Three – Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal:

“The country needs and, unless I mistake its temper, the country demands bold, persistent experimentation. It is common sense to take a method and try it: If it fails, admit it frankly and try another. But above all, try something.” – Franklin Delano Roosevelt

This article is continued in PART III