Won't get fooled again

I have a couple of reasons for not getting too excited over the Ron Paul for President phenomenon.

One is that I'm fresh from the one-two punch of Murray N. Rothbard and Frank Chodorov, so my faith in the American system of elections is at a low ebb. Even if a miracle were to occur and he became President Paul, there's only so much he could do. Ronald Reagan was the closest thing to a limited-government Constitution-respecting president we'll probably have in my lifetime, and the government got bigger, more intrusive and more imperial under his watch. However, a strong showing by Paul could give a boost to the notion that Americans have begun to notice how un-American our State has become over the past 100 years or so.

The other reason is Serenity. No, really. I remember the huge Internet buzz that accompanied the pending release of the best movie of the 21st century so far. I remember telling my friends that Firefly/Serenity was the next big science-fiction franchise, based on the incredible enthusiasm I found everywhere I turned on the Internet. I was astonished and disappointed when the film's actual box office numbers weren't good enough to debut at No. 1, couldn't even beat a lame Jodie Foster movie. (Hey, I love Jodie Foster sometimes, but this wasn't her finest hour.)

So I do not put a lot of stock in the huge Internet buzz for Ron Paul. I'm glad he's out there making noise, and it's fun watching the grass-roots volunteers at work, holding signs at highway overpasses and such. But after Serenity flew in on all that Web buzz and barely earned back its cost, I'll need more than Web buzz to be optimistic.

An internal gut check and reformation is going to have to happen before the United States becomes a free country again. Ron Paul can be a catalyst, but politics isn't going to solve what ails us.