The First World War is little discussed in the high school history classes of America, much less in the halls of Washington, but its role in establishing our country's current position and the current views of many of our politicians is far greater than any war in the history of our planet. The policies of Woodrow Wilson, the president who led us into that war, are remarkably similar to those of many of today's prominent Republicans, and he was the man who coined the now commonly referenced to term 'make the world safe for democracy'

The war was set in motion in August of 1914 by the assassination of Franz Ferdinand, a royal and coincidentally a strong peace activist of the now non-existent Austro-Hungarian Empire. The murder, orchestrated by high-up elements of the Serbian military and government, something usually not acknowledged by your average high school teacher, pitted the Austro-Hungarians against the Serbians. Other nations began to join in protection of their ethnic partner-nations and military comrade-nations, Russia protected Serbia, Germany protected the Austro-Hungarians, the French protected the Russians, but the English were not aligned with any other powers. Great Britain nonetheless entered the war soon after the outbreak citing Germany's violation of neutral Belgium. The question of whether Britain would have gone to war against France had French troops violated Belgium, a strong possibility when looking at pre-war French military plans, can surely be answered with a 'no' Britain was purely involved in the war for economic and naval reasons. The Victorian Era was over and the sun was setting on the British Empire, but across the channel the Wilhelmine Era had only just begun and Germany's industry had surpassed England's, and for the first time since the Spanish Armada the a navy (the German) posed a significant threat to the Royal Navy, Britain's last hope for world dominance. The English declaration of war was a selfish opportunistic move by that country's government aimed at preserving power.

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'How?' you may ask, did we get aligned with a cruel imperialistic power in a war without any clear just participant? The answer lies with the mainstream media, William McKinley, Teddy Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson.

William McKinley, as you may remember, was president during the Spanish-American War. He was actually, in sync with the traditional Republican platform, anti-war. However, new phenomenons were rocking the nation in 1898. Media Monopolies were dominating newspapers and Thomas Edison's newest invention meant movie theatres were popping up across America. Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst were the Rupert Murdochs of their day, owning large chunks of the newspapers in circulation, and like Fox News were very biased in their reporting. When the battleship U.S.S. Maine exploded from unknown causes both Pulitzer and Hearst reported it was a Spanish act of war and had such an anti-Spanish spin, also soon seen in Edison's films, the American public demanded war. The fact that McKinley was half-forced into war by the mainstream media began the end of the anti-interventionist string of the Republican Party. This tradition was to an extent continued by Teddy Roosevelt with his opening of the Panama Canal. Woodrow Wilson, however, took American interventionism to an entire new level.

He was in favor of neutrality from the beginning of the war. From the beginning of the war the British government invested heavily in propaganda. The tragedies of war in Belgium were turned into lies of a German state-sanctioned policy of murder and rape, and with no way for the Germans to defend themselves (the Royal Navy having cut any communication cables running from Germany to North America) Wilson played right into England's hands. In fact the biggest crime of the First World War may have been Britain's blockade of German ports. It broke international law and deprived Central Europe's populace badly needed food supplies. Malnutrition and starvation would claim the lives of far more than a million Germans, Austro-Hungarians, Bulgarians and Ottomans, mainly composed of newborns and the elderly. Germany responded to the British blockade with one of their own through the use of submarines. Wilson, surely more worried about markets remaining open to American business than starving babies in Berlin or drowning luxury liner passengers in the English Channel, immediately condemned both blockades. However, only one of these objections proved persistent. Consistently reminded of Germany's u-boats by the propaganda influenced Mass Media and pressured by the business interests selling weapons and lending money to Britain and France, Wilson, in 1917, ignoring the fact he was re-elect in 1916 on the peace ticket appealed to Congress' patriotism and asked for a declaration of war (this novel practice would later fall out of fashion). Congress, influenced by the same newspapers and films, fielded only six votes against war. One of these came from the now greatly respected Republican Senator from Wisconsin Robert LaFollette, who rightly argued:

"Practicable cooperation with England and her allies in starving to death the old men and women, the children, the sick and the maimed of Germany. The thing we are asked to do is the thing I have stated. It is idle to talk of a war upon a government only. We are leagued in this war, or it is the President's proposition that we shall be so leagued, with the hereditary enemies of Germany. Any war with Germany, or any other country for that matter, would be bad enough, but there are not words strong enough to voice my protest against the proposed combination with the Entente Allies.

When we cooperate with those governments, we endorse their methods; we endorse the violations of international law by Great Britain; we endorse the shameful methods of warfare against which we have again and again protested in this war; we endorse her purpose to wreak upon the German people the animosities which for years her people have been taught to cherish against Germany; finally, when the end comes, whatever it may be, we find ourselves in cooperation with our ally, Great Britain, and if we cannot resist now the pressure she is exerting to carry us into the war, how can we hope to resist, then, the thousand fold greater pressure she will exert to bend us to her purposes and compel compliance with her demands?"

This idiotic entrance into war against the will of the American people (in fact the anti-war activist Eugene Debs obtained nearly one million votes in the 1920 election despite being imprisoned for his protest to the draft) can be blamed solely on Woodrow Wilson. The man was the son of a Presbyterian minister and devoutly religious. He felt it was his duty to "make the world safe from democracy" and had grand notions of a new world order.

He was, or is suspected to have been, a racist, and, in fact, segregation was introduced to the Navy, Treasury and postal service during his time in the white house, and the house of representatives passed a law against inter racial marriage in the District of Columbia without so much as a word of a presidential veto. When asked about his racial policies Wilson had the audacity to declare: "I sincerely believe it to be in their (African-Americans) interest."

He was in strong favor of expanding the power of the executive branch and felt the checks and balances system outlined by our founding fathers simply reduced the accountability for wrongdoing politicians. The Espionage and Sedation acts he pushed into law in 1917 and 1918 were geared against the large ethnic German population in America and outlawed speaking out or protesting the war or the draft in any way. He effectively silenced what, at the time, was one of the largest voting blocks in the country through these acts, which make the Patriot Act look like a Gandhi writing in comparison.

Wilson also invented the notion of globalization. The new world order he envisioned, and eventually attempted to bring into practice at the peace in 1919, mediated the powers through a one world government known as the League of Nations, predecessor of the United Nations. In the end, his weak character and bad health meant his new world order was only half achieved, and the League of Nations failed at almost every endeavor it undertook.

His foreign policy of intervention was responsible for dethroning the Kaiser, leaving Germany vulnerable for the rise of Hitler (America's first case of blowback). His racial policies only came to ahead in the 1960's, and I'm not even going to mention the fact that he instigated the income tax and commissioned the Federal Reserve. In the end he set the status quo of big government, pro-war politicians. We had a few small breaks in between with movements like Roosevelt's isolationism and Reagan economics but these are more than made up for by the Wilsonian presidencies of men like Eisenhower, Kennedy and Johnson. We are still led by Wilsonian policies in Washington today, Democrat or Republican.

You're now probably asking 'what does this have to do with the 2008 election much less Ron Paul?' The answer is, everything. We have seen from the Iowa caucus that change is the theme of this race, but there is only one candidate for change and that is Congressman Paul. We need to end the 1912-2008 Wilsonian Era and usher in a new era of Paulite politics, to reverse where we've gone wrong. If you take almost all of Wilson's positions, Paul is basically the polar opposite. Wilson was a big government Democrat who gave us the income tax and the Federal Reserve, while Paul is a limited government Republican who wants to end the income tax and Federal Reserve. Wilson was an internationalist do-gooder socialist, while Paul is a pro-sovereignty libertarian.

My last point is to those of you who are thinking of voting for Huckabee, Giuliani or Thompson. Compare these men, and George W. Bush and Hillary Clinton to spice things up, to Mr. Democrat Woodrow Wilson and see how similar they are in terms of religion, morale obligations, globalization, and foreign policy. The choice should be clear, end the Wilsonian Era, vote Paul, vote change.