What planet is Ron Paul on?

Ron Paul, the darling of the internet (who is not Barack Obama) is on record as saying this: "I don't think we'd all die of unsafe food if we didn't have the FDA. Someone else would do it."

Let's dissect this a moment. Paul seeks to assure us by saying that we won't all die. This might be parsing language a bit, but it doesn't settle me much.

Of much more significance is his second part of the quote -- "Someone else would do it." Really? We would get one, unified body of experts to -- without regard for profit -- monitor every food and drug item on the market, outside of our government?

Paul and other free market fetishists fail to comprehend the absurdity of what they are suggesting. Did they ever ponder why the FDA was established in the first place? Or Social Security and Medicare for that matter? They were established precisely because somebody else wasn't doing it. The free market had its shot in each of these areas, and it failed to adequately address the problems presented to it. That is why the government must be tasked with things such as product safety.