Yes, Ron Paul is still running, but why?
Posted on March 26th, 2008 at 3:21 pm by David Kaiser, EditorA few weeks back I had a good dialog with a PD semi-regular who I considered one of the saner Ron Paul supporters. He was unhappy with the fact that Paul no longer appeared on the list of horses on the GOP side.
The main reason for Paul’s disappearance was simply the fact that John McCain had clinched the nomination. No bias, no collusion, no conspiracy to blackball Ron Paul.
The race was over.
I did make a promise to post something about Ron Paul if I came across anything interesting, and that day has finally come. Time magazine published a very compelling article entitled “Why Ron Paul scares the GOP”.
There was one particular paragraph that stuck home for me:
The real significance of the Paul campaign is not the ubiquitous bumper stickers and lawn signs or the online fund-raising records ($6 million in one day, plus another $4 million, hilariously, on Guy Fawkes Day) but the mirror Paul held up to the modern Republican Party. When his fellow candidates denounced big government, Paul was there to remind them that President Bush and the G.O.P. Congress had shattered spending records and exploded the deficit. When they hailed freedom, Paul asked why they all supported the Patriot Act and other expansions of executive power. And when they called themselves conservatives, Paul asked what was so conservative about sending thousands of young Americans to try to transform the Middle East.
This is the Ron Paul I like, the one I could see myself voting for. The other side of the coin is some of the more goofy ideas that scare people off. Here’s the flip side:
Paul’s supporters aren’t all black-helicopter paranoiacs, but the black-helicopter paranoiacs sure do support Ron Paul. The controversy over a few racist articles in his old newsletters was probably overblown; there’s no evidence that Paul himself was ever a racist. But he is an extremist — partly in the Barry Goldwater extremism-in-defense-of-liberty-is-no-vice sense of the word, but also in the wacky let’s-relitigate-the-currency-debates-of-the-1820s sense of the word. The late William F. Buckley wanted conservatives to stand athwart history yelling stop; Paul seems to want to slam history into reverse. The guy genuinely wants to abolish the Federal Reserve and start circulating gold again.
So Ron continues to run, and run, and run. He’s the Forrest Gump of politics.
But that’s fine by me if his doing so brings some fiscal sanity back to the GOP.
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Why would that be bad? Because your wallet would be too heavy? A simple alternative would be a gold backed currency. You could monkey around with how much gold would equal a dollar and then let it go. Same with silver. Then we couldn’t just print money whenever we felt like it. We would be forced to back it. Right now it is backed by the good faith of foriegn investors in the US Government. What does that mean? Well it means we can print as much money as we want as long as someone is willing to buy our bonds. And then when we are considered too much of a credit risk, they stop buying bonds, the dollar weakens, the economy shrinks, banks start to collapse. Oh, wait, we won’t ever see that happen, will we? Housing prices always go up, don’t they? Bear and Stearns is a great investment, isn’t it? Yeah, right!
Ron Paul supporters aren’t the only ones drinking the Kool-Aid.
Shawn -
There are a few disadvantages of a gold standard, mainly based on the fact that it’s an old system for a different economic era.
The modern economy is far more complicated than a century ago, and a gold standard would make it much more difficult for governments to have the flexibility needed in monetary policy.
Then again the current fiat system hasn’t exactly been a winner either, so I agree to a point that the current system is imperfect, but I don’t think going back to the gold standard is the solution.
I think to paraphrase Winston Churchill is apropos here in that the fiat system is the worst monetary system except for all the other systems that have already been tried.
your argument is a “straw man” argument. Just because it is old does not be any means mean it does not work or is not effective. Using your logic you… You should stick food in your butt because eating with your mouth is old and outdated…
You mean the old economic era where the dollar couldn’t be printed by the US Treasury and sold to the Federal Reserve Bank for the cost of printing only to be lent back to the government at full face value with interest? Or was there some other old economic era you were refering to?
Governments shouldn’t have flexibility in monitary policy, that’s what gets them into trouble. Markets shouldn’t be complex. They only get complex when you have a fractional banking system designed to rip people of through inflation and deflation of currencies. That old economic era was sure stable for a long time until the government got involved. Not to mention that the Federal Reserve system of banking was what the Founders, (especially Jefferson) tried to warn us away from.
No I mean the old economy where the Federal Reserve system could not inject more cash into the economy in the late 1920s and early 1930s when the U.S. economy turned sour. The lack of cash caused a run on the dollar, which in turn boosted unemployment, turning a recession into The Great Depression. I don’t think it’s a conincidence that the last two nations to get off the gold standard in the 30s, namely the U.S. and France, suffered the most from the Depression.
Let’s not forget the practicality of moving back to a gold standard. All the gold the U.S. has times $1000 an ounce will get you about $4 trillion.
There is $7.6 trillion in circulation and deposits in the U.S. It may increase the value of gold, but it again will lead to an inflexible monetary system, which will lead to a greater propensity for recession.
Again, I’m not defending the current system, which is also flawed, but the answer is not the gold standard.
As brilliant and inspiring as the Founders were, none of them could project a world that exists today and the complications of not just an American, but a global economy.
Like they say, “It’s the economy, stupid”.
The 7.6 Trillion dollars in circulation is only worth 600 Billion compared to the 1930’s dollar and about 350 Billion compared to the 1913 dollar. The point is, you don’t need 7.6 Trillion dollars, you need strong dollars that don’t loose their value. You can circulate, print, inject, and throw as many Federal Reserve notes as you want into the economy, but sooner or later it will collapse like a house of cards because they aren’t worth anything.
Let’s drop the gold standard argument for a minute. We both agree (I think) that a fiat system sucks. What would you propose as an alternative? Baseball cards? My son tells me they’re worth something.
Agreed, the fiat system isn’t good, but I just don’t see the gold standard as the fix. The grass is greener on the other side of the fence as they say.
I just think going back to a gold standard in this modern economy is like trying to run a F-16 with a few gallons of unleaded from the corner gas station.
“…No I mean the old economy where the Federal Reserve system could not inject more cash into the economy in the late 1920s and early 1930s when the U.S. economy turned sour.”
Almost right. The federal reserve system CAUSED the boom phase of the twenties by easy money policies. Then the depression of the thirties was the correction to screwing around with the money supply. Any modern economy will have a mild business cycling due to innovation and investments. The federal reserve system attempts to control that economy by the money supply. Stagflation of the 70’s (and maybe today?)showed that it cannot work. The only economic theory that offers an explanation of the business cycle is Austrian economics. If you want to understand what is happening in our modern economy, you better understand Austrian economics (www.mises.org)
Our accounting system is based on the monetary unit principle. Screwing around with the money supply has ramifications you don’t even want to think about. It might even bring back FASB Statement 33 — reporting financial statements affected by inflation.
Believe me, you do NOT want a flexible money supply. The idea that the fed can correctly control the money supply to some proper amount is false. There are too many variables for them to even understand what needs to be done, much less actually do it.
” …Let’s not forget the practicality of moving back to a gold standard. All the gold the U.S. has times $1000 an ounce will get you about $4 trillion…”
This can easily be accomplished by simply allowing individuals to own gold, and to allow treatment of gold as money; do not tax gain or credit loss on purchase or sale of gold. Individuals could contract in gold or dollars at whatever rates are agreeable to them. Once this is legal, if it is desirable or practical will sort itself out. If you are right and no one wants to bother with gold, so be it. If I am right, Americans will at least be able to hold savings in a store of value that is not at the whim of government manipulation. This alone will act as a check on the more stupid of federal reserve actions.
David,
Where have you been the last 30 years? Keynesian economics is dead. The great depression was prolonged by govt. intervention, not helped by it. A correction is healthy for any economy, and attempts by a govt to interfere only prolong the economic turmoi…and there were plenty of interventions at the time.
Why are you begging for the gold standard when it hasn’t been used and hasn’t been successful in generations? The Hoover administrations interventions were because the Fed couldn’t add cash to the economy, he tried to balance the budget to get out of the recession, and that only made things worse.
I’m going to quote a colleague of mine who is an economics professor:
Ron Paul has said before hand that he wont run for Pres as an Independant. Does that Mean that the Libertarians will nominate Mike Gravel who is now a Libertarian and running as one???????
http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2008/03/26/809858.aspx
Crazy Year 08.
Why? Because he is a KOOK.
Its easy to call someone a KOOK on a blog. Its a lot harder to become a personal friend of Ronald Regan, a Captain in the USAF, a Medical Doctor, get elected to the House of Representatives and run for President. You probably wouldn’t consider yourself a Kook, but I bet you haven’t acomplished half as much as Ron Paul.
For the record, I don’t think Ron Paul is a kook, and I’ve stated on several occasions that I respect him and his work.
That said, I think some of his proposals are a little extreme and calls for a return to early 20th century ways that are outdated and in some ways irresponsible.
Again, we’re all just sharing opinions, and you know what they say about opinions…
my local (county that is) Republican committee has three new faces out of 10 attendees. All three are youngish (under 45) and Ron Paul supporters. We kept a fourth out because he was a Ron Paul supporter in the “black helicopter vein”. Every meeting is a 90% 10% break down. 90% the older seven complaining that Clinton II or Obama will destroy the US and/or how dare anyone oppose anything Bush II proposes. The other 10% is spent trying to decide what issue before the county board needs the Republican part to take a stand.
Amazingly the RP supporters are very passionate about that last 10% but look board in the 90% gripe session. These guys held the chairman’s feet to the fire when he wanted to pass over any support or opposition to the 4% hike in the county budget “because we need the taxes to fix the roads and the budget already has been cut to the bone.”
I don’t know what Paul is hopeing for but he has had an effect in one little county in Maryland. Time will tell if the new kids stick around. If they do, the party won’t be the same in ten years.
DNC/RNC have exposed themselves.
Clintons v McCain = Clintons.
Dynasties & Coronations.
Not this time -
not even as VP…
gravel kucinich paul nader
cynthia mckinney too
dare speak truth
demand peace
Hopefully Ron Paul being in the race will mean people will demand that the Constitution be upheld. If we get enought people the Republican Party can be saved. If not, then it’s time to bail and start over.
The good Doctor from Texas knows McCain will be the nominee- but he’s still running so he can get his message out in any way he can.
I, for one, think that this is a good thing. We need real debate on the direction of the Republican party (even if the party doesn’t want it). Are we going to follow the ways of Bush and continue to expand the size of government, or do we take a stand and say enough is enough?
Those who would like to dismiss Paul as a kook should ask themselves how a kook earned more votes and delegates than one time “front-runners” Rudy Giuliani and Fred Thompson. Or maybe they should ask how a kook received more money from military personal during 2007 than any other Republican candidate. Dr. Paul was always an outside shot for the nomination, but I am glad that he ran and gave voters a real option for limited, constitutional government, and that he continues to get this message out in any way he can.
We had a “real debate on the Republican party”, it was called a primary. Ron Paul lost!
Most of the Ron Paul support did not come from disinfranchised Republicans, lets be honest. Why should we pretend that he was speaking on behalf of Republican ideas? Ron Pauls support came from a young, energized, blogging community of anti-war, anti Israel activists, not life long card carrying Republicans. I have met many of the Paul fellow-travelors and what they say on many occasions is laughable…and scary. They wanted to see a Paul/Kucinich ticket. WHAT!? How do you go with supporting Paul and Kucinich unless you have zero knowledge of political philosophies.
As a Republican I too share many of the sympathies as the Libertarians, and even Ron Paul. But to not acknowledge the guys is a scary KOOK would be naive on my part.
I agree that some Paul supporters are kooks, and to say that the man himself is because of his supporters is terribly unfair.
The question we need to ask ourselves is “which is more important, the Republican party, or the advancement of small government conservatism?” If your answer is the former, than I can understand why you don’t like Paul. I understand Paul lost the primary, but when I say debate, I don’t mean bantering about what polices we should talk about for the next election, I mean a substantive debate about the party’s core philosophy.
On a final note, I think this piece from FoxBusiness is a very interesting read for anyone at all interested in Paul’s monetary policy, whether you agree with it or not.
http://emac.blogs.foxbusiness.com/2008/03/26/time-to-listen-to-ron-paul/
oops, the second clause of the first sentence should start out “but to say”
I agree with most of what you have said NewYork. The problem I have is separating Paul from his supporters. Like Obama and Rev. Wright, you are who you associate with. How can I hammer Obama for having a KOOK for a pastor but ignore the fact that Paul has KOOKS for a constituency? I have yet to ever hear Paul disassociate himself from the conspiracy-kooks of his fellow travelers. The truth is that Paul’s imature following irks me. I cant get past those people long enough to appreciate more of what Ron has to say.
Brian -
Come clean now, how many supporters do you really know? The five that post on this blog? Hardly a sampling of his base. There are a lot of people who quietly support him and live thier average lives. I am one of them. Okay, I’m not that quiet. Okay, I’m not that average either. Okay, some people do think I am a kook. But that’s not my point. My point is that I doubt all the people in his Congressional District who keep electing him are kooks. To say that you can’t get past his supporters to appreciate what he says is an unfortunate limitation on your end as there are a lot of non-kookish people who do support him.
Also, making the comparison of Obama to Paul is not really fair. Obama followed his pastor and had him as a personal friend. Paul is not following his supporters, nor is he hanging out with them on the weekends drinking beer and talking about black helos.
Any time you preach limited government on the scale that Paul does, you will always attract some radical anti-establishment mentality people. These people typically are on the lower end of the IQ and Pay scales and some of them even live in trailer parks. But, unfortunantly, there is nothing Paul can do about it except stop preaching limited government. But if he did that, well, he would just be another Republican…
I agree with ShawnN. I too am a Ron Paul supporter and I don’t think I am a kook :-). I am a pro-life (and pro-Israel) American earning an average income (household circa $30,000), don’t subscribe to conspiracy theories and supported RP not so much because of his Iraq or gold standard positions (I think both are a bit extreme but that we need extreme to move our govt even close to where it needs to be), but mainly because he argues for limited government spending/interference in our lives and thus a return to true constitutional governance. Many of my friends are also RP supporters and they are all relatively normal (to the extent that anyone is) people who simply don’t want the government interfering with them unnecessarily or being involved in matters that should be outside its sphere (constitutionally speaking). I know the whackos are out there and granted, anytime a candidate supports limited government he’s going to get those supporters. But they were hardly the core of the RP campaign. They just happened to be the loudest yellers.
And let me just point out that there is a HUGE difference between having people vote for you (all the candidates have some strange people voting for them!) and choosing to associate with and sit and listen to a racist, anti-American pastor for 20 years.
Hey David,
Thanks for my complimentary, albeit somewhat condescending, description as “a PD semi-regular who I considered one of the saner Ron Paul supporters”. In true semi-regular fashion, I’ve just checked in for the first time since we had our dialog, to find this article; probably too late for most readers to dig down and find. Still, I thought it deserved a reply, so here goes.
First, for those readers who may be curious as to what David considers “sane Ron Paul support”, they can look back at our dialog at: http://politicalderby.com/2008/03/06/ron-paul-in-the-straggler/
Our dialog started at entry #4 and ended at #22. It wasn’t until we reached #16 that I wrote:
“I’m not blaming the news media elite for their attempts to obscure or keep Ron Pauls’ message out of the marketplace. That was and always will be expected.
What we disagree about is the roll that blogs can and should play in setting the record straight.
For instance, the PD kept the link to Ron Pauls’ campaign site up until this misrepresentation of him dropping out came out in the news. I offered credible sources to refute the stories, and even offered an example of how Paul supporters in a real, local, GOP convention had a positive impact. Sadly, I don’t expect that link will be restored, but I’d be glad to be wrong about that.”
Clearly, It wasn’t that I was “unhappy with the fact that Paul no longer appeared on the list of horses on the GOP side”, that I questioned the decision. It was your lack of candor when it came to justifying it. If the reasons you gave then were true, Ron Paul would have been removed long before that.
David, your statements that there is “the Ron Paul I like, the one I could see myself voting for” and then at the same time, “He’s the Forrest Gump of politics”, with “goofy ideas that scare people off”, gives us a false dichotomy. How could someone you describe as goofy and Gumpy be able to effectively bring “some fiscal sanity back to the GOP”?
George Orwell described such reasoning when he wrote:
“”Doublethink” means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one’s mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them”.
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