Ron Paul is Wrong: Civilization is Not Crumbling

The latest apocalyptic cult to take off in America has nothing to do with the Rapture or the Mayan Calendar. It's the Ron Paul campaign.

Ron Paul often speaks as if the collapse of civilization is imminent, and he has personally put most of his savings in a stockpile of gold. The Post has a feature today on some Paul followers who believe America is on the edge of the abyss:

He had already heard Ron Paul speak on C-SPAN dozens of times. He had read and re-read the 1970s book “None Dare Call It Conspiracy,” about international banking magnates and the loss of civil liberties, which, he said, “totally relates to today.” He’d become steeped in the details of monetary policy, economic bubbles and national security issues, which to him add up to an increasingly bleak picture of America, which helps him understand the increasingly trying circumstances of his own life.

“Once you see the truth, it can’t be unseen anymore,” Way likes to say. And these days, he was trying to figure out what he was supposed to do about that, about the overwhelming prospect that American civilization is crumbling.

Where, I ask you, is the evidence that American civilization is crumbling? Is it the falling crime rate? The economic growth we have been experiencing for most of the past year? The absence of terrorist attacks and riots? Yes, the 2008 market collapse showed that our version of capitalism has problems, and the collapse led to a severe recession. But here the important thing: in the face of market chaos, governments stepped up and stabilized the situation across most of the world. Things aren't great, but they aren't awful either, and only a paranoid mind can think our system is doomed.

I am no Mr. Sunshine myself. But our civilization is old and strong, and it is not going to disappear in a hurry.