But none of that really matters.

He's the only candidate that I feel I could actually trust to stick by his campaign rhetoric, and the only one I would trust to actually defend the constitution.

Ironic, given that we have a constitutional scholar in the White House and a historian running for the GOP nomination.

Ron Paul is wrong on some things I care about, but so is Obama, and certainly so is Newt or Romney. I think I'll vote for the lesser of a dozen evils, and go with Paul.

You know what? I will still be voting for him.

I'm tired. I'm so tired of the lying. Gingrich, Romney, Obama, Bush, etc. will say anything to get elected. Once elected, they all behave the same way.

I'd rather have an honest man I disagree with in the White House, than a man who says one thing, but does another.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jsvf1HU0KHM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I8NhRPo0WAo

I don't understand why people think he's an honest straight-shooter, any more than I understood that meme when it was applied to McCain. He's a politician playing a roll, that's all. He's not even a libertarian: he's perfectly fine with States grossly abridging freedom, just not the federal government. It's the same Southern conservatism that has been prominent since they lost the Civil War. Paul was smart enough to realize that you could sell this to a broader audience if you wrapped it in libertarianism is all.

As for the newsletters, they dealt with economics primarily. Could he have done a better job of overseeing the newsletters? Sure. But they were released over the span of a decade or more and as a whole contained only a few articles with questionable content. I mean, is someone making noise about Gingrich's or Romney's questionable ethics and corruption? Is someone asking why Romney's people bought all the HDD's from Mass. state computers before leaving office? Is someone calling other GOP candidates racist for supporting racial profiling and the drug war? Of course not. But a 20-year old ghostwritten dead horse has been re-re-exhumed and is being paraded on every network "news" show. Am I the only one who sees something wrong with this picture?

Exactly this. He's not a libertarian, he's a states rights guy because he wants the power to do things like ban abortion in Texas. I think he has a very regressive political philosophy, that would empower local governments to discriminate against minorities, women, the disenfranchised, etc. People talk about how he wants to legalize drugs, but he would be perfectly fine with state governments creating even more draconian drug laws.

No, he's a states rights guy because he's a states rights guy, and he holds to that position even when states pass laws he disagrees with.

Look, the two most decentralized first-world countries that I can think of are Canada and Switzerland. These are not draconian racist hellholes; they're considered some of the freest countries in the world.

This is a guy who thinks abortion is the most evil thing in the world and still opposes federal laws banning abortion because he thinks it's a state issue. I disagree with him about abortion, but the fact remains: he's not some scheming ne'er-do-well who wants to bring back Jim Crow laws, he's a consistent, ideological antifederalist who thinks decentralization is the way to go.

In the majority of recent, real-world instances, local laws have tended to be more liberal than federal laws. We've seen this with gay marriage, we've seen it with medical marijuana, and we've seen it with election reform (see also Calif. Prop. 14); we may very well soon see it with recreational marijuana.

This is an excellent point. It's also far more expensive for lobbying groups to try to influence politicians state by state. Powerful Federal officials represent a one stop shop for buying influence, so decreasing Federal power will reduce corruption.

How many members would it take before lobbying became prohibitively expensive?

But the South was. You're ignoring the evidence of history. Canada and Switzerland are simply much less diverse, and it's pretty naive to think that racists in Mississippi and Alabama, who never went away, wouldn't seize on the chance to reinstitute something resembling Jim Crow laws.

Edit: > No, he's a states rights guy because he's a states rights guy

The first rule of tautology club is the first rule of tautology club. He's a states rights guy because he's a Christian fundamentalist who wants the power to enforce his provincial values on others, and the federal government gets in the way of that.

Yeah, was. Past-tense. The federal government has a wonderful history too in this regard.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trail_of_Tears

>Canada and Switzerland are simply much less diverse

Switzerland has four official languages. It's also right next to Germany, which has a history of racism that would scare a Mississippian. Canada, too, has plenty of diversity; 16.2% of people belong to a visible minority:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Canada#Visible_...

>The first rule of tautology club is the first rule of tautology club.

It's not a tautology. I was saying that his anti-federalism is de novo, i.e., without ulterior motives, which has been supported by every single thing he has ever said.

>He's a states rights guy because he's a Christian fundamentalist who wants the power to enforce his provincial values on others, and the federal government gets in the way of that.

There is absolutely no evidence whatsoever to support this belief and I've provided substantial evidence against it in the above post.

The benefits of a large shift in power toward the states are too numerous to list, but to name a few:

- Look at the issues discussed in national political campaigns. They are unduly biased by the issues relevant to swing states, and candidate promises (and laws) end up exerting federal control over swing state issues simply to help candidates win Federal office.

- Voter empowerment. The washington establishment is so big and unwieldy that it takes lots of money to get one's voice heard. With increased power at the state and local level, individuals could more easily focus their activism efforts in ways that would create the biggest benefit.

- The biggest issue is experimentation. With 50 different "experiments" in democracy (state laws) there is hope of actually realizing that a law is bad. Our current system picks a single winning approach before any has been tried and then loyal partisans stick to it and ignore all evidence. How much better would it be to observe how 50 different entities solve similar problems. Like any optimization problem, this might at times be a less efficient approach, but it'd do far better at global optimization.

I'm generally of the opinion that more states' rights is generally better as long as it doesn't create a game-theory zero-sum clusterfuck of misaligned incentives, like taxes for crossing state borders or something like that. Some things need a federal guarantee but many can/should be devolved to the states.

I'd like to comfort you that "taxes for crossing state borders" could never happen but I'm not sure I can justify that. I was hoping the Commerce Clause would say something there but I couldn't find anything. Maybe somebody else could find something on this bit of a hole in the libertarian philosophy?

     > it's pretty naive to think that racists in Mississippi
     > and Alabama, who never went away, wouldn't seize on the
     > chance to reinstitute something resembling Jim Crow laws.

http://mississippibelieveit.com/home/

>The “good ole boy” network alive and well in Mississippi? Not hardly. Our new “network” consists of more black elected officials than any other state in the country – a number that grew from a mere 81 in 1970 to 897 in 2000.

Mississippi is as racist today as Russia is Communist. Give me a break.

Creating 99% black districts to consolidate the black vote into the smallest number of seats isn't really support for your position, even if the people doing it are pure post-racial political optimizers (they're not post-racial).

Also, I don't know how old you are, but you do realize that many southern people from 50 short years ago are still alive, right? You're positing that right after the civil rights act was passed, all those people firehosing black people and setting the dogs on them and stuff, they just changed their minds and did a 180? And raised their kids that way?

>In the state of Ohio, a conversation between Republican officials was recorded that demonstrated that redistricting was being done to aid their political candidates. Furthermore, the discussions assessed race of voters as a factor in redistricting, because African-Americans had backed Democratic candidates. Republicans apparently removed approximately 13,000 African American voters from the district of Jim Raussen, a Republican candidate for the House of Representatives, in an attempt to tip the scales in what was once a competitive district for Democratic candidates.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerrymandering#United_States

That's coming at you from blue-collar freezing-cold northern Ohio.

Furthermore, "right after" the Civil Rights act was passed? It was passed a full 47 years ago.

Digression.

The South was as racist as the North, at the time. Y'all just got better press about it.

Everyone knows about the sunset laws below the Mason-Dixon: hardly anyone knows that many small towns in Wisconsin had the same laws right up until 1970. The very worst - in my opinion - fights over desegregation happened in Yankee-land when schools started busing white kids to black schools and visa-versa.

This is not inconsistent with libertarian thought. Protecting life from violence is a primary responsibility of government. If you believe that the fetus qualifies as a life at any point between conception and birth, you would be against abortion. Simple as that.

If you want to fault him for believing a fetus qualifies as a life, fine, but that belief in itself has nothing to do with politics.

Were you just asserting your property rights or did you commit murder?

Please let me know at which point it becomes obvious that it is a life worth protecting. It isn't so obvious to me. There is no physiological difference between a fetus that is in a mother's womb and an infant born a few minutes later.

I don't believe that's true. But even if he were, the elegance of his philosophy is such that it renders him powerless to do anything about it.

He wants to take power away from the presidency and the rest of the federal government. He's not looking for power to oppress somebody he doesn't like (or favor the corporations he does like). He wants to make it so that it's impossible to curry favor or harm on groups according to a politician's whim.

He's flawed but you certainly didn't mention his actual flaws, which means you don't know him, you've simply read about him.

His worst crime is that he's homophobic on a personal level. But he's not one bit anti-gay on a philosophical level and he has gotten big endorsements from Andrew Sullivan and Dan Savage. So you've lost the anti-gay argument.

And ditto for the other accusations. Please don't just be a part of the echo chamber. If you do, you're being rather easily manipulated, sorry.

But outside of a minuscule band of KKK members, there are few whose racism is the defining fact of their lives.

Case closed! Ron Paul is a racist!

That's completely OT and not really related to your post in particular but what's with the disclaimers lately? Are we becoming the sort of community where you need to preface every thought with a bow to group's believes? Are we so stuck in the "singaling game" [1] even here, on a niche website and clearly among people smart enough to get the gist of a comment?

Or is it just me? As in I'm just noticing those more often?

[1] http://www.overcomingbias.com/2008/06/against-disclai.html

Especially among (more or less) non-political communities like this one an argument starting with a"I am an independent voter" premise is most likely going to get a better reception than a "I have been for years a dedicated follower of politician x". Not that I am a fan of this, quite the opposite - but there are other sites much more suitable for political "confrontations".

Disclaimer: Ron Paul supporter (hopefully not too fanatical)

It's a game of influence, not rationality. If calling people names "wins" an argument with less effort and time than applying logically sound arguments, why bother with logical arguments?

The sad part is that Paul has been the only politician in a long time to resist the trend and talk about the issues in a serious and straightforward manner, only to be attacked and ridiculed.

If there isn't a single person in the western political discourse who proudly adheres to a given characterization, it's a strawman.

That's all. Meanwhile, on Ron Paul / race, that newsletter is a bit of a problem. Maybe you're too young to remember the conflation between states' rights and segregation.

I'm really interested to see what happens if he wins Iowa and comes in 2nd in New Hampshire. I do think it would be good for the Republican party.

> The newsletters, attributed to Paul, made statements such as "opinion polls consistently show only about 5% of blacks have sensible political opinions," "if you have ever been robbed by a black teen-aged male, you know how unbelievably fleet-footed they can be", and referring to Martin Luther King as a "pro-communist philanderer" and to Martin Luther King Day as "hate Whitey day."[72][73] An issue from 1992 refers to carjacking as the "hip-hop thing to do among the urban youth who play unsuspecting whites like pianos."[74] In an article title "The Pink House" the newsletter wrote that " "Homosexuals, not to speak of the rest of society, were far better off when social pressure forced them to hide their activities."[73]

-- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ron_Paul_presidential_campaign,...

Of course, he distances himself from these newsletters now. Would somebody who is truly not racist and not anti-gay have such words published in their name by accident?

Newt Gingritch, Mitt Romney, Rick Perry, Michelle Bachmann et al may well be unprincipled and deliberately lying about all sorts of things. But I don't think any are proposing anything quite as reckless as Ron Paul's economic policies. Frankly though, that this lot are the best the Republicans can produce is an abysmal failure.

One, the market ignores this and everyone continues paying in the dollars the president thinks are just another means of exchange. Sounds risky to me; it's pretty much a public statement that the gvernment won't at all seek to defend the value of the dollar so I'm not sure why anyone would want to accept such a risky asset.

Two, each merchant has to manage things in multiple currencies in parallel, along with the tax offices having to do the same and keep track of relative values and when the payment came in to establish the correct rates of tax. Won't happen.

Three, the market sees an unsupported national currency with little or no base backing and no national reserve bank backing it up. That's pretty much a guaranteed recipe for hyperinflation and flight to assets (remember, the historic result of not having the Federal Reserve was high inflation - it's been tried). It won't be orderly; the price of gold will rise fast due to demand against a basket of currencies, let alone against the dollar that'll be collapsing even faster. The banks aren't set up to handle physical deposits of gold, the merchants aren't set up to handle transactions in them so we'd end up with multiple, incompatible, payment systems based off private gold-measured currencies. Meanwhile industrial use of gold becomes prohibitively expensive putting brakes on the economy, while the fixed money supply inherent in a commodity-based currency puts us deliberately back into the situation that crashed the markets in 07-08 - no-one can get any credit to work with, so the economy ground to a halt. That was able to be mitigated by quantitative easing temporarily creating new money and injecting it into the economy, but under a commodity-backed economy that becomes impossible. Have a read of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold_standard if you want; I'm not alone in holding these views.

There's a reason why the Federal Reserve was created in 1913 and why the US ended convertibility with gold in 1971. Ron Paul seems to appreciate the lessons of neither, and I don't wish to live through him reminding the world of them again. Which is why, reluctantly, I think even Michelle Bachman would be a better candidate than Ron Paul.

Do you have the backwards?

The dollar has lost 95% of its value since the creation of the Federal Reserve.

Inflation with gold based currency is rare. The California Gold Rush is the big example of inflation with a gold currency.

a public statement that the gvernment won't at all seek to defend the value of the dollar

The Federal Reserve and the government have already signaled through their actions that they want to devalue the dollar. Examples: Geithner asking China to revalue the yuan, quantitative easing, record deficit spending and so on.

If the dollar really is so wonderful, then it shouldn't be threatened by gold.

Inflation with gold based currency is rare. The California Gold Rush is the big example of inflation with a gold currency.

No, I don't.

Firstly, the periods when the US had no national reserve bank showed either severe inflation or a depression / panic cycle that only ended with a private reserve bank being set up as lender of last resort - hardly ideal. In both cases the lack of reserve banking made the financial system volatile and unstable.

Secondly, the Federal Reserve was created 99 years ago. A 95% drop in value (your numbers, I've no idea of their accuracy) is equivalent to inflation compounded for 99 years at just 3%. While I agree hyperinflation is bad, 3% is a long way from hyperinflation and a cursory examination of the Japanese economy in the 1990s shows why deflation is a bad thing. Some small inflation is good because it promotes market liquidity rather than hoarding and provides incentives to investment.

Thirdly, China are being asked to revalue the Yuan because its value is being artificially manipulated down to make both Chinese exports into world markets cheaper and foriegn imports more expensive, both to the benefit of China but the detriment of global free trade and free markets. It also has the side-effect of exacerbating China's balance of payments surplus and leading to it stockpiling both resources and currency (thus artificially boosting its international buying power), which is directly parallel to the mid-19th century 'silver grave' situation that led to the Opium Wars. Revaluing the Yuan is emphatically not an indication that the dollar is inherently weak, it's an indication that China is trying to use the openness of western markets and restriction of their own to its own advantage.

Fourthly, the California gold rush and resultant inflation is an example of what happens in a commodity-backed economy when that commodity suddenly becomes more abundant, a factor that is now out of state control unlike the Dollar money supply which is currently able to be tightly controlled. Commodity-backed currencies in the past have also caused severe deflation, and we're back in Japan in the 1990s. Now, the bulk of world gold mining assets are in Australia and China, and China is agressively buying up Australian mining assets - well, mining assets in general, particularly across Africa, using up its balance of payments surplus created by their artificial suppression of the value of the Yuan. A gold-backed US economy would have its money supply (and by extension both credit availability and rates of inflation / deflation) largely out of national control and primarily in the hands of China. I don't think this is a good idea.

All of which is why I think Ron Paul's understanding of economics is dangerously flawed and (reluctantly) I'd regard him as the least preferable Republican presidential nominee.

You are against allowing people to use gold as money. Is it because you are trying to save people from themselves? Perhaps it's because you are concerned about what it might do to the dollar. If that's your concern, is that not an admission that the dollar is fragile?

Is it wise to run the economy with the Federal Reserve as a single point of failure? We are suffering greatly from the failures of the Federal Reserve now. They will make mistakes in the future.

Edit because site will not let me comment on reply below:

The Federal Reserve failed us by stoking the housing boom with low interest rates. The subsequent bust has caused many people to suffer through lost jobs, lost homes and ruined credit ratings.

The Federal Reserve is a single point of failure because it controls the one currency that we are forced to use under the boot of the government. Because the dollar is used as the world's reserve currency, the Federal Reserve is in some sense a single point of failure for the entire world economy.

Besides, calling the Federal Reserve a single point of failure is at best over-dramatic. Should we also have a free market in governments? It's not really a single point of failure by any realistic definition though. The world economy is significantly interlinked and managed by the co-ordinated action of several central banks. The dollar's value is as much backed by its use as the primary international trading currency as anything, so short of Ron Paul's proposed disowning of the dollar its value is guaranteed by a large network of individual actors, all of whom have sufficient dollar holdings that they have no interest in seeing its value collapse; while it retains its status as the only payment means for the world's single largest economy, it's fine.

I'm curious what mistakes you think the Federal Reserve is making now that are causing you to suffer greatly. Inflation? Low, and (while it remains low and somewhat controlled) A Good Thing as I said before. General economic malaise? No, the FR's action on quantitative easing ensured any degree of market liquidity remained in a situation where it would otherwise have dried up almost entirely through fear of unknown and unknwable liabilities. Why would the ideal remedy to a crisis caused significantly by a loss of market liquidity be to move to a medium of exchange with little or no liquidity and what there was being outside of your control? It's madness.

Without checking out each quote, I believe the answer is that it's generally accurate, but you need to understand what these represent.

First, there's the normal crap about taking things out of context...

But more specifically, these are decidedly not things that Paul ever said or wrote. These are things that somebody else wrote in a newsletter that was using Paul's name. That doesn't mean that you should let Paul off the hook. It means that what you should be concerned about is not that he's a racist ass, but that he may have a lapses in judgment, as here where he allowed someone else to use his name without monitoring closely how they used it.

It's worth noting, though, that there are some very strong parallels here between Paul's misstep and President Obama. Consider Obama's association with the explicitly anti-American, anti-Semite minister Jeremiah Wright, and with the communist and terrorist Bill Ayers. Indeed, in my opinion, Obama comes out much dirtier in this comparison, because he refused to disavow those other people, and particularly Wright, who is acknowledged to have served (still?) as a mentor to Obama, shaping his thinking. In contrast, Paul condemns those statements, and there's no reason to believe that he ever took their writers' ideas as guidance.

More discussion of this here: http://volokh.com/2011/12/22/libertarians-and-ron-pauls-raci...

Some of the quotes were not only written in a newsletter with Ron Paul's name on it, but were actually signed "Ron Paul," and written in the first person talking about why he voted a certain way. And he's refused to name these mysterious ghostwriters who wrote it.

And when these came up in the 1990s... he didn't claim they weren't him or even disavow them! He just said that they were taken out of context, not that he wasn't responsible for them.

I really don't give a huge crap about what it says about Ron Paul's deepest darkest prejudices--I'm a policy man, myself--but to simply try to shrug it off and say "I disavow these things" while also saying things like the Civil Rights Act should be repealed? Call me unsurprised if people are upset about it.

The Reverend Wright deal is a weak comparison. Something analogous would be if, in Dreams from My Father, Obama had said "I wish a Mao would rise in the United States to give the capitalist running dogs what they deserve." And given what he's given shit for... do you seriously not believe he'd get shit for that? It'd be an instant disqualification, even if the quote were taken out of context or even written by a ghostwriter.

http://andrewsullivan.thedailybeast.com/2011/12/re-thinking-...

The newsletters are definitely offensive, and are reasonable cause for disliking Paul as a candidate and perhaps even a person, but as others have pointed out, they are relatively mild as far as political skeletons in the closet go. If the media favored him, they could be easily downplayed as have been countless much more serious missteps and outright crimes by mainstream candidates in the past.

I was personally very disappointed when I found out about the newsletters and disgusted by the idea that Paul would even associate with people who would think manipulating racial tensions for political expediency is morally acceptable. But let's put it in perspective--in the last decades the lies and criminality of the US political class have led to the wrongful deaths of millions, illegal torture, vast illegal wiretapping programs, vast financial fraud and unprecedented transfers of wealth to the very richest people in the world, stripping of civil liberties that have been fundamental since the Magna Carta... need I go on?

How much airtime do we see devoted to examining establishment political figures' complicity in these and laundry lists of other history-making type crimes? I'm sorry, but the idea that Ron Paul's lapse in oversight on some barely-circulated newsletters 15 years ago somehow ranks as 'damning' on the scale of political transgressions is, quite frankly, utter horseshit. This is just continuation of the usual program--distract from the real issues and manipulate public opinion through manufactured divisiveness and tabloid journalism.

Considering how small those opportunities were, a profitable newsletter publishing articles exhibiting this level of inaccuracy and racial animus is meaningful.

There have been plenty of opportunities for Paul to sell out, as there are for every successful politician, and he has rejected these opportunities at every turn. Contrast this with Obama's record: a supporter of the patriot act from the beginning, a friend of Wall Street, a believer in empire, in favor of suspension of habeas corpus for American citizens, in favor of the drug war, tolerant of illegal spying on citizens, tolerant of torture. Obama has broken promises and sold out the American people time and time again. It seems pretty clear who has the better batting average.

Paul is far from perfect, but the only alternative at this point is the status quo or worse for the next four years, and believing in that is a lot more insane and dangerous than any of Paul's most controversial beliefs. In fact, when you look pragmatically at the scope of what Paul would actually be capable of as president, you see that he could only really affect policy in the moderate and generally popular portions of his platform--ending permanent war, ending the drug war, vetoes on overspending. His more 'fringe' positions are well beyond the purview of the executive branch, and his principles explicitly preclude him from overstepping those bounds.

Now, I agree that he has had substantial power rhetorically. He has people who are passionate about what he says; his elucidations and opinions have influenced them, raised money, started conversations, and affected the political agenda. That is why it is disappointing that the very little power he has has been used inappropriately in certain instances. If he hired awful ghostwriters who spread stupidly racist material because he wasn't minding the store, then that is not a good sign that he has successfully managed the one area where he did have meaningful power.

Separately: I think you can critique Obama without mentioning things which seem to me untrue or at least misleading, which I think warrant correction:

- Obama has never (I believe) indicated that he's in favor of suspending habeas for U.S. citizens. There's misinformation around that NDAA does this; it does not. If you're thinking of something else, citation please.

- The U.S. torture debate has mostly revolved around waterboarding and unauthorized treatment of prisoners at Abu Ghraib, Bagram, etc. -- none of these are known to have happened under Obama. Some people believe that the Army Field Manual enables other forms of torture; Obama ordered a full review and asked for all torture to be taken out; if you think he missed things, that's a complex judgement call, not a simple issue.

- On several other fronts, like the drug war, Wall Street, etc., Obama has in fact applied the policies he stated--I'm not sure what makes you think he's broken promises or compromised his sincere beliefs in any of these areas. He's not a libertarian (except maybe in comparison to H. Clinton).

"Batting average" is a helpful term to use, but I think you're not using the right denominator: Paul hasn't been up the plate many times, whereas Obama, Gingrich, Romney, even Santorum have had a lot more opportunities to either accomplish something or screw up.

By the way, I'm not arguing generally that you should vote for Obama instead of Paul or whatever. But I am defending this newsletter "scandal" as a still relevant datapoint on Ron Paul. Not definitive, but relevant.

I think you misunderstand the separation of powers in the US government. As a member of the House of Representatives, part of the Congress, it's been explicitly Paul's job to set policy.

As president, on the other hand, the job is to find ways to implement the policies that the Congress has defined.

We get all excited about Presidential election, but at least in theory, the Executive is less important than the other branches.

On the other hand, Congress has ceded so much power to the Executive branch (e.g., giving the EPA, IRS, FDA, etc., so much latitude in defining regulations) that power tilts significantly in that direction -- although not to that office itself, but to that branch.

And I suppose that it's natural to focus on the single individual figurehead, when the power of the Legislature, even if it really is more important as I claim, is more diffuse across all the members of that body.

We're evaluating individuals here, not branches of government.

The House is probably the most most important single body in the government, and if we are unhappy with the laws, we should indeed generally hold that body as the first layer of accountability.

Ron Paul, on the other hand, is one of 435 members of the House. He does not chair a committee and has chaired one subcommittee for one year. He heads a congressional caucus--that's good--but it has ~12 members and virtually no record of legislation or other action. Separately he has gotten ~1 bill passed in his career and a very small number of notable amendments. He has not been a decisive vote on virtually any issue.

Many individuals have policy powers vastly exceeding this, including not only (obviously) the president, AG, Supreme Court, and perhaps 100+ Congressional leaders, but also (I would aver) the Cabinet, Federal Reserve Board, OLC, JCs, and dozens or hundreds of others.

I think it's very common for people to treat all members of Congress as if they're the same, but Ron Paul is not John Boehner or Nancy Pelosi.

Ron Pauls's power comes from his writings and speeches on various principles of governmental power and the economy. If he's been remiss on that exact front--hired famous cranks like Lew Rockwell to ghost for him and then failed to review his work--then he's mismanaged his power. I'm not saying that he's a criminal in the sense that, say, Warren Harding is a criminal, but it's absolutely relevant to his candidacy.

edit: Ron Paul does chair one subcommittee as of Jan 2011--misstated that.

Obama did it with Jeremiah Wright, openly grappling with the past toxic association, owning it, explaining it. Paul has not had the wherewithal or presence of mind to do that. Indeed, he has not even named the association, the first step to disowning it.

But this is false, he did address it four years ago. I've linked and quoted that statement below. [1]

Also, Sullivan goes on to say "And unlike Obama with Wright, Paul got money from these newsletters."

You'll have to make your own value judgments here, but I think Obama comes out worse. It's true that Paul profited. However, it seems clear to me that Obama's relationship with the real perpetrator (Wright, in his case) was far closer than Paul's. Obama chose Wright to baptize his daughters, and used Wright's ideas for the title of his book The Audacity of Hope. This make me believe that Obama had a close, respectful relationship with Wright, and that some of Wrights ideas molded Obama's own. None of these things can be said of Ron Paul with respect to those newsletters.

[1] http://www.reuters.com/article/2008/01/08/idUS233377+08-Jan-...

"The quotations in The New Republic article are not mine and do not represent what I believe or have ever believed. I have never uttered such words and denounce such small-minded thoughts.

"In fact, I have always agreed with Martin Luther King, Jr. that we should only be concerned with the content of a person's character, not the color of their skin. As I stated on the floor of the U.S. House on April 20, 1999: 'I rise in great respect for the courage and high ideals of Rosa Parks who stood steadfastly for the rights of individuals against unjust laws and oppressive governmental policies.'

"This story is old news and has been rehashed for over a decade. It's once again being resurrected for obvious political reasons on the day of the New Hampshire primary.

"When I was out of Congress and practicing medicine full-time, a newsletter was published under my name that I did not edit. Several writers contributed to the product. For over a decade, I have publically taken moral responsibility for not paying closer attention to what went out under my name."

Well, it's not my phrasing.

- - - - - Begin Quote [1]

An ABC News review of dozens of Rev. Wright's sermons, offered for sale by the church, found repeated denunciations of the U.S. based on what he described as his reading of the Gospels and the treatment of black Americans.

"The government gives them the drugs, builds bigger prisons, passes a three-strike law and then wants us to sing 'God Bless America.' No, no, no, God damn America, that's in the Bible for killing innocent people," he said in a 2003 sermon. "God damn America for treating our citizens as less than human. God damn America for as long as she acts like she is God and she is supreme."

- - - - - End Quote

[1] http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/DemocraticDebate/story?id=4443...

I never understood what was the big deal - it's just someone who takes seriously their religion. (And all of his accusations in that quote are factual. The crack epidemic was largely CIA-fueled as a way to funnel money to Central American rebels, and the rest is easy enough to verify.)

he had a 30 year career in politics, if he was really a racist, there'd be some video proof to support it of him actually saying this...or hell anything else to support that...but there isn't

+ then there is this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=8...

the bottom line, is that if the worst thing that they'd been able to dig up about him, are some comments from ~20 years ago that weren't even written by him...then he is one of the cleanest politicians in generations.

http://ronpaulracistimpossible.blogspot.com/2011/12/unabridg...

http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2011/12/race-bait...

The new ad from Revolution PAC is pretty powerful. James Williams, a black man, talks about his efforts to get medical attention for his pregnant white wife at a Texas hospital in the 1970s. The crescendo comes when a young doctor named Ron Paul broke through the indifference of the staff to give them the help they needed. Their baby would be stillborn. And Paul paid their medical expenses. Then Williams extols the virtues of Paul — his honesty and willingness to take on the establishment.

Those quotes were taken directly from these newsletters

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-rXxdXLObxdk/TvFkFgQzpSI/AAAAAAAAFh...

It has his name, his face, and says by Ron Paul

He also benefited financially for over 2 decades from these newsletters. You had to write a check to Ron Paul to get these newsletters

example

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-vT7kX8KDLI4/TvFnrfhhwVI/AAAAAAAAFk...

So as far as I am concerned, after viewing the physical evidence, I conclude Ron Paul made large sums of money from distributing and claiming at the time to write, hate speech, promoting misogyny, and promoting fringe conspiracy theories, in an effort to scare people into sending him money. Reminds me of how Glenn Beck operates.

Ron Paul's excuses today lead me to conclude he is either lying, or completely incompetent, and would not have the ability to lead a Cabinet effectively. In other words unfit to serve as Commander-in-Chief.

EDIT: I see the downvotes flying in. I provided evidence of the claim. Sorry to see his hero worship is so strong that people will ignore factual hard evidence. Kind of pathetic really. This reminds me of the circlejerks over at Reddit... thought the people over here were a few steps above that base level of ignorance.

let's say you build a user generated content startup. It's one of the projects you built, so after a few months you forget it and go work on another startup. Then while you were 100% focused on your new startup, one of the users posts up some rant on your old one that you barely check.

Should you be held responsible for something put up on a domain that's registered to your name? After all, you made a whole $2 off adsense clicks.

How much money do you think a local ~town/county level newsletter makes anyways? Millions?

Bottom line, is that one lapse of leadership/judgement/what have you is nothing compared to most people...and let's not forget that it was 20 years ago and he has been squeaky clean since then. Which isn't something you can say about any other politician....so either hold others to the same standard...or cut the guy some slack and focus on policy, especially considering the lack of "evidence" in this case.

He's not racist, as long as people of all colors assimilate into his culture. I can see the confusion: people who aren't part of this culture see that as a set of racist, irrational beliefs that lead to stop-and-frisk harassment and profiling in airports, whereas Ron Paul obviously has a cultural fear of people different from himself and doesn't equate that with skin color except by correlation. He doesn't consider this "racism", and thus is offended by the implications.

We disagree on the terms and on whether or not it is a disqualifying feature for the highest office in the land, but we should at least be able to agree that the only evidence we have for what he believes have been the things he's done or said. That he began claiming he never did them when they became politically inconvenient doesn't mean he's changed his mind.

I wouldn't care what he said 20 years ago if he stood up and said, "yes, I said those things. Since then, however, I have spent more time with people from cultures I had previously been isolated from and feared, as many of us do when faced with the unfamiliar. I now appreciate that theses communities have come together in the face of adversity and are an assets to this nation." Instead he claimed that Not Me did it, and looks about as mature as that kid from Family Circus while doing so.

Thanks, but I can do without his form of 'tolerance'. Anyone else in the GOP is preferable.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ron_Paul#Inter-congressional_y...

http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2011/12/27/395391/fact-che...

The very interesting thing is, why? What is the motivation of such people to bash Paul as a homophobe when there's decades of actions on his part that are anything but? What's the motivation of people to bash Paul as a racist, when he has freely associated with people of every color without any hatred his whole life? When in the 1970s he gave a poor family free medical care because he was a doctor and they couldn't pay? (and it didn't matter to him that they weren't white.)

I'll tell you the motivation. The people attacking paul now do not give a damn about the rights of gay people or about racism... after all, they themselves are racist, and they support a guy-- Obama-- who opposes gay marriage and gay rights and is widely known to be a homophobe, by his actions.

The motivation is that Ron Paul represents a credible threat to change the US federal government to one that protects rights of the people, limits itself from controlling the economy, and lets people be free to pursue their ambitions.

This is very threatening to people whose sole career has been peddling influence.

Jon Stewart even called them out on it. Google it.

Daily Show: Indecision 2012 - Corn Polled Edition - Ron Paul & the Top Tier

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/mon-august-15-2011/indecis...

Quora: How are MSNBC, CNN, and Fox News so united in their snubbing of Ron Paul?

http://www.quora.com/How-are-MSNBC-CNN-and-Fox-News-so-unite...

EDIT: I seriously hope you're not trying to tell me that Ron Paul is a terrible person because one of his supporters favors the death penalty.

[1] http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:JXXloeP...

[2] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/12/28/phillip-kayser-ron-...

[3] http://www.biblicalblueprints.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/01...

EDIT: In re to nirvana's misreading of my comments below:

> To claim that Ron Paul endorses murdering homosexuals because some random religious guy who does, endorsed his campaign is a lie.

I never said any such thing. I said that Paul, i.e. the Paul campaign is seemingly directly linked to anti-gay sentiment as evidenced by the endorsement of Rev. Kayser they touted on their website. That's repugnant.

Also, I don't appreciate being called a liar: These aren't my opinions. They are confirmable facts. The campaign was endorsed by a person who wants to murder gays. This endorsement was featured on Paul's website. It's deplorable. I'm only sorry you don't feel the same way.

1. There is a religious guy who endorses murdering homosexuals.

2. This guy endorses Ron Paul's campaign.

3. Ron Paul's campaign is touting that endorsement.

This is false. He absolutely opposes anti-abortion (or pro- for that matter) legislation at the federal level.

He is personally opposed to abortion, and he'd like to see states forbid it. But since we're talking about him with respect to a national office, his views of what states should do shouldn't matter too much.

I think you'll find that in almost every way, he wants to get the federal government out of the way. From my perspective, that's a good thing.

CLARIFICATION for the reply. Paul's personal belief is in opposition to abortion. However, in contrast to other politicians, he doesn't believe that his personal beliefs should determine federal policy, and thus as President, his opposition to abortion would be irrelevant. That is, when wearing his president hat, he would advocate that the federal government stay out of the issue altogether. Only wearing his doctor hat does he oppose abortion.

Ron Paul wants to make it legal for states to ban abortions, as Ron Paul is personally pro-life.

This isn't something that is driven by some deeply-held libertarian principles. Many (most?) libertarians are pro-choice.

Ron Paul wants to make it legal for states to ban abortions, because Ron Paul generally favors state powers and is against federal powers. It has nothing to do with his personal opinion on abortion.

He's made this clear several times, but most people don't seem to understand it.

Rights are inviolable. If Ron Paul believes states should be able to violate certain rights, he is opposed to those rights. Which is fine: it's a perfectly coherent position that there is no right to privacy and self-determination. But call it what it is.

Imagine if Ron Paul becomes President (yeah, right, but hang with me) and he does give states the right to do all kinds of things within the constitution. (Side note: I think banning the practice of Islam is unconstitutional due to the first amendment)

So let's say that some Southern states ban abortion and ban gay marriage. That sucks but there is some elegance here that you didn't notice. California is not about to ban abortion or gay marriage, in fact now they have fully promoted gay marriage, and legalized marijuana. Colorado has done all that and decided to exempt themselves from all of the SOPA stuff as well (they aren't as under Hollywood's thumb as California is).

While it sucks for those gay couples in the south while they grow up, it should be obvious that they (and others that support these rights) will move to a new state. A state can't hold those couples in their state and refuse them to leave and states can't go to war with each other. So now you have two groups of people: those people in more "civilized" places like California and Colorado are happy and those people in the traditional south are happy too.

There is an elegance in letting complex, controversial issues be decided at lower levels and leave the top level government only worry about states violating a core set of rules. And you better believe that a constitutionalist like Ron Paul would enforce state adherence to the Bill of Rights. I would hope that at least that part would be indisputable.

I agree it can be messy. I agree that some people don't get what they want immediately (they might have to relocate). But at least they don't have to leave the country. At least they still eventually find like-minded people and influence their own local governments to get what they want.

Another point I want to make is that marriage is not a right explicitly guaranteed by the constitution and neither is having an abortion or smoking weed. And you'll only hear a libertarian note that the 9th amendment acknowledges rights outside of those explicitly guaranteed. So while you believe that these are rights (and I agree with you) not everyone does, and more importantly, not all of the Judicial branch does.

Actually... Paul's "We the People Act" seeks to expressly place state laws on religion, sexual orientation and abortion outside of any possible constitutional review (essentially it's a repeal of the Fourteenth Amendment, targeted at the issues that provoke the most frothing at the mouth from social conservatives). So if he gets his way, yes, a state could pass a law banning Islam and there'd be no recourse.

His personal opinion on the particular issue isn't what's motivating him, it's his opinion that it should be up to the states to decide, not the federal government.

Ron Paul wants to define life as "starting at conception", he wants to do this at the federal level, and he wants states to ban abortion (which they'd frankly have to do if life was defined as starting at conception).

In the absence of asking the man directly, can you cite a source?

[1] http://www.dailypaul.com/122553/ron-paul-hr-2533-sanctity-of...

It's interesting how interpretations are so easily drawn, because while you cite the "Deems human life" as synopsis, I draw "each state has authority to protect the lives of unborn children residing in the jurisdiction of that state" as justification that it simply allows states to have more sovereignty.

That said, I agree that the language, which I don't personally agree with (or have much opinion on) would likely tie the hands of states trying to enforce or enact pro-choice legislation.

  And as President, Ron Paul will continue to fight for the same 
  pro-life solutions he has upheld in Congress, including:
  
  Immediately saving lives by effectively repealing Roe v. Wade and 
  preventing activist judges from interfering with state decisions 
  on life by removing abortion from federal court jurisdiction through 
  legislation modeled after his “We the People Act.”

  Defining life as beginning at conception by passing a “Sanctity of Life Act.”

This is false. Such an official definition would probably be only symbolic. The thing is, the federal government does not have any general police power.

Even if, by their definition, abortion were murder (and there's a lot more defining to be done before we could arrive at that conclusion), it really wouldn't matter. Consider that today, we would define all living people as "alive" (duh), the federal has no laws forbidding murder! Any murder charge is the result of state laws (other than in national parks and in DC, but those are a different argument).

The only way this could affect real life legalities is in the way it interacts with the 13th Amendment. But since that's got the goofy doctrine of incorporation, there would be no net change unless the Supreme Court were to recognize the right with respect to this new/clarified definition. And that just puts the ball right back into the SCOTUS court, which is where it sits today anyway.

(I upvoted you because I think it's worthy of discussion, but this is the way the answer is going to fall out in the end)

http://www.salon.com/2007/11/12/paul_3/

Mr. Speaker, we have some misfits who on occasion burn the flag. We all despise this behavior, but the offensive conduct of a few does not justify making an exception to the First amendment protections of political speech the majority finds offensive.

Apparently he didn't even show up to vote for it, so much was his "support": http://clerk.house.gov/evs/1996/roll316.xml

Secondly that page agrees with me: "Paul opposes all federal efforts to define marriage, whether defined as a union between one man and one woman, or defined as including anything else as well. He believes that recognizing or legislating marriages should be left to the states, and not subjected to "judicial activism".[197] For this reason, Paul voted against the Federal Marriage Amendment in 2004."

"He says that in a best case scenario, governments would enforce contracts and grant divorces but otherwise have no say in marriage.[201] Paul has also stated he doesn't want to interfere in the free association of two individuals in a social, sexual, and religious sense.[202][203] Additionally, when asked if he was supportive of gay marriage Paul responded "I am supportive of all voluntary associations and people can call it whatever they want."[202]"

Thus, Ron Paul, directly quoted, endorses gay marriage. Something you can't say for Barack Obama.

"Same-sex marriage In a 2007 interview with John Stossel, Paul stated that he supported the right of gay couples to marry, so long as they didn't "impose" their relationship on anyone else, on the grounds of supporting voluntary associations."

I cut all the parts which contradict these because they are due to misinterpretations or assertions based on legislation that don't include any statements by Paul, or an explanation for why Paul might support some act. Paul has to pick and choose legislation carefully because most legislation contains both constitutional and unconstitutional provisions.

You can't cite him supporting some bad legislation unless you give the reasons he supported it, especially when it conflicts with direct statements. Well, you can, but that's just spin.

Now, I've spent time debating a wikipage, when you didn't provide even an argument for your position.

It's not marriages that he wants to abolish, but government-issued licences for it. The government should have no say whatsoever in defining what a marriage is; it's an inherently personal and religious matter (I use the term religion to refer to a person's understanding of reality).

Once you remove the government from the equation, any attempts to force others to believe what you do by law dissipates, and everyone gets to do whatever they want.

A libertarian is happy to allow any two or more adults to marry should they wish to do so. A libertarian just asks that no one's marriage is recognized by the state because it's not a matter that the state should be involved in. Can you really say that after gay marriage is legal everywhere (which will never happen) that marriage is actually equal? What about polygamists? I'm perfectly happy to allow them to obtain licenses to get married but it seems easier to just say government has no proper role in what is a private affair. This seems to make your case even better because it just removes from politics what is not a political issue.

Ron Paul believes that marriage licensing should simply not be. If there are no licenses, there is no discrimination. Problem solved.

It seems like you believe that everyone should know that gay marriage is ok, and that everyone should agree with your view on the matter, because it's clearly the right one.

There are people who will never agree with you, no matter the position. Your view on morality is your view, and that's all there is to it. It doesn't need justification, it simply is. Attempting to push this on other people by mandating in law is the worst form of bigotry.

That's what libertarianism is all about: freedom. Freedom for you, for me, for everyone, to do as they please, so long as it doesn't infringe on others rights. That's what Ron Paul is about: we all don't have to agree. We can believe opposite things, and still accept each other as we are.

I understand that Ron Paul believes that the ideal world is not to have government licensing of marriages at all. I get it, and might even agree with it. Okay?

What I've said is that Paul supports a discriminatory status quo over fixing the discriminatory status quo. This is true, and this makes him a supporter of homophobic discrimination, even if he has some theoretical plan that will never come to a vote that would be equitable. Remove your finger from the "auto downvote any critic of Paul" mode for a second and stop to understand this point: Ron Paul is supporting anti-gay discrimination.

Answer me this: suppose we lived in a world where black people were banned from going onto public roads. There were multiple votes to make it legal for black people to use public roads. Ron Paul voted against those attempts multiple times, saying "I'm not racist, but I believe that public roads shouldn't exist as they're an inappropriate use of public funds." So the status quo remains indefinitely, as there's no actual chance that public roads will be abolished altogether.

I argue that I get his position, but that it's still immoral to discriminate against black people, and so in the short term he should vote to make the situation equitable . And then you come along, and say, "your view on morality is your view, and that's all there is to it" and "attempting to push this on other people by mandating in law is the worst form of bigotry." That's narrow-minded and pigheaded, no?

Ron Paul's the bad guy here, even if he has some idealistic long-term view of the perfect solution that one of the victims of his votes might even agree with. You say "we can believe opposite things, and still accept each other as we are": well, you can get legally married, get benefits from my tax money, and get special rights from the government, while I can't. That's shitty, and Ron Paul prefers to posture for his ideology over actually considering the day-to-day suffering of regular people resulting from that shittiness.

Anti-discrimination laws didn't pop out of nowhere; the idea had been building over time, and when they hit the courts, new laws where made, instead of addressing the issues with the laws that were already made.

You argue that the status quo remains unless something is done - I agree, however that something is not law. There's a word for forcing morality on people: bigotry.

Allowing black people to use public roads is a matter of upholding existing law: All people are created equal. It took a lot of time, but eventually America began to understand the inconsistency of that law - A law that wasn't forced on people, but rather one that people chose to support when they supported the revolution. Change didn't happen by law. The change happened by people no longer standing for it.

The fact is, whether the group of people is gay, black, or whatever, there will always be a people group that is being discriminated against by someone. 20 years from now, we'll be coming up with more laws about group x, and pundits will say, "This is just like the gay rights wars of the early 21st century - we need more laws!", just as much as gay rights pundits are making comparisons to mid-20th century race relations, and demanding more laws to address an issue that people are already changing.

The point is this: laws don't change people. You can't enforce morality on people. Enforcement only creates bitterness and more problems. Change happens because of cultural influence, and that cultural influence is the input to the change function, not the output of f(law).

Your last point is that state-recognized marriages get tax benefits, but that's an issue with the tax code, not marriage. Attempting to fix the problem by defining/redefining marriage is like spraying air freshener without flushing the toilet. The problem is the tax code, not marriage. If you remove the concept of a marriage license, there are no tax benefits, for anyone, no matter their sexuality. The state simply has no jurisdiction over marriage. It's an inherently personal matter. Subsequently, Ron Paul's removal of the IRS also addresses the larger problem.

This is why I keep touting "freedom freedom freedom", because that's the core principle from which the solution is grown. Get the government out of the way, so that people, together, can work out problems. Enforcing morality by law encourages segregation. Staying out of it, thereby forcing people to deal with themselves and others without running to mommy government...that's the long term solution.

Freedom solves all problems. It's arguably the ether of human relationships.

They gloss over important things like how Ron Paul is planning to implement $1 trillion in budget cuts, a reduction in the cabinet, etc and go straight for his personal beliefs which he doesn't allow to dictate his political career. He even voted against the ban on gay marriages.

You can't really blame people - it's just such a foreign concept, so it takes time to really sink in.

Further, he supports human rights in virtually every context, including marriage.

Paul wants the government out of the marriage business. Obama wants the government in the marriage business, AND he wants to keep gay marriage banned.

Thus if support of DOMA is your criteria, then Paul is a better choice than Obama.

Of course this has nothing to do with SOPA. It's just the leftist talking points for bashing Paul whenever his name comes up so we have to respond to these insinuations.

Also: "If I were in Congress in 1996, I would have voted for the Defense of Marriage Act," So there's why he didn't vote for it or against it, or even abstain.

http://web.archive.org/web/20070207225148/http://www.house.g...

I just pulled out three random stories: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/politics/sns-rt-us-usa-io... http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/politicsnow/la-pn-iowa-ri... http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/la-pn-romney-...

Notice how every candidate name mentioned in the article (for the first time) is also a hyperlink, except Ron Paul.

I came away thinking his talking points are great but get him off those and there's very little there.

I suspect reporters who have seen the guy up close see this and don't bother with him. I think they're too invested in their self-image as news filters to provide deep, even-handed coverage and let their audience decide.

EDITED TO ADD: As noted below, I can't find a link to the interview I had in mind. So I'll walk back what I've said here a step or two: That's my impression of how the guy seems after extended scrutiny. But I can't now point to a document that would support that impression as well as I'd like.

I agree that Paul seems to have too narrow of a focus in his talk - he answers healthcare or fuel price questions half the time by saying these wouldn't happen with a gold standard / Fed, etc. I don't think he's thin in his views, but that (in typical libertarian fashion) he focuses just a bit too much on pure philosophy and not on pragmatism.

I agree with the previous commenters with his sincerity and trustworthiness. I think "The Incorruptible" can honestly be applied to his name. Whenever he gave a speech he just got up there and said what was on his mind - it's not all good policy, but he's serious and consistent.

The most likely result of a Paul presidency would probably be, not his legislative force, etc., but perhaps the waking up of America to what the establishment's power (and really the presidency itself) really is - fully controlled by interest groups.

I actually think that Obama is a genuine / smart guy, but he's too afraid (seemingly) to press his views. I think Paul would be fine pressing the views, but would probably be near censured by the true political ruling class.

The collective power of interest groups is indeed the key.

The horror of slavery wasn't abolished by President Lincoln's stand on principle. It was an alignment of the industrial North's economic/geopolitical interests with the principled stand of abolitionists. Lincoln merely walked to the front of the parade and raised his baton. The Emancipation Proclamation was pragmatic, not principled.

Even Gandhi was doing this. He was able to align the interests of the average Indian villager with the principle of Indian independence, and get the population to understand it through clear material examples. (Cloth and salt.)

"The collective power of interest groups" is the reality, the landscape of politics. Those who fight battles and wage campaigns on this landscape had better be aware of its shape and implications. Wars are not won by those who "want it" bad enough. The energy of fervor needs to be directed in the most effective fashion.

When looking to who to vote for, identify where their money comes from. Then you can see how they might govern (e.g.: Obama got lots of money from the electorate-at-large, but a substantial amount from the financial sector - look where we are today).

The sad truth though is that nearly all of these fall back into hierarchies with a ruling class in control of the masses - which is probably some type of innate state of humanity of any size - unless social collaboration costs decrease significantly.

That describes nearly every single politician. Bill Clinton comes to mind as an exception, and no doubt there are a few others, but not among the anointed GOP candidates.

This lack of depth and intellectual rigor does nothing to dissuade major news outlets from sticking a mic in front of nearly anyone or discussing them as serious contenders.

Reporters have decided that Paul is never going to get the nomination so they don't bother.

Anyway I'd love to see that Paul interview if anyone has a link. I'm curious about "bamboozled by questions on the gold standard" and "hardly coherent".

http://video.cnbc.com/gallery/?video=1359402302

This is 15 December 2009, and it isn't "almost half an hour", and I don't recall the details so much as my impression of the guy's thinking.

They've had a number of long interviews with him.

17 May 2010 -- http://video.cnbc.com/gallery/?video=1496298429

27 April 2011 -- http://video.cnbc.com/gallery/?video=3000018858

31 May 2011 -- http://video.cnbc.com/gallery/?video=3000024836

This does little to differentiate him from any other politician.

The media needs to stop its blackout of Paul and the smear campaign and cover the issues he is highlighting which are of the utmost importance.

That's why we should flag political articles and leave them to other sites.

  That's why we should flag political articles and leave them to other sites.

But if all scientists, techies and reasonable people stay out of politics and common people are distracted by media, how can we expect things to change? If readers of HN cannot discuss political beliefs in a rational manner, I wonder who can.

No wonder legislation like SOPA has reached to the doorsteps of congress in US.

Also, many techies who otherwise would not engage in political discussions (due to aforementioned reasons), can bounce off ideas here. I'm not claiming that HN becomes a political discussion forum, I'm saying downvoting legitimate political discussions for being political is taking it too far.

[Edit: missed a word and it bothered me enough to edit the post.]

And you'd like to bring that here?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3405357

The "don't comment about flagging" guideline is. It's meant to eliminate pointless arguments about what is or isn't germane to the site, much like how you're asked not to comment about being downvoted. But flags are invisible, and the number of people flagging is dwarfed by the number of people upvoting threads about Ron Paul's newsletters, so that the only way for it to leave the front page of the site (precipitously, if you didn't notice) is admin intervention.

Commenting on this post in the first place was stupid, since the story already got buried. I just felt bad for 'davidw, and I'm a nerd, so when someone says "I think HN is in fact a great place to talk about politics", it's hard for me to resist commenting that it's by charter not a place to talk about politics.

I'm answering in detail because you seem to follow my comments, and I don't want you to think I'm blowing you off. I'm not. I don't know you or have any problem with you personally.

HN is in a unique position to offer high quality discussion on topics that have become extremely important to hackers, much more important than some nostalgic ideas on what HN is 'supposed' to be. This is no time to stick our heads in the sand. We have a powerful platform and a powerful community here and it would be very foolish to waste them given the seriousness of what we face.

Which is why many of us do not want politics here.

Maybe this should be a tech-only forum to avoid getting people charged up and polarized.

Well, technically, it is supposed to be limited to tech, startups, and 'things hackers might find interesting'. Politics is generally considered off topic. SOPA is directly relevant to many of us, so it's gotten a pass, but this discussion doesn't seem to be much about SOPA, but about Ron Paul.

I don't want to start a political flamewar on HN, so all I'm trying to say is that there are valid reasons to believe what davidw believes and he shouldn't at least be downvoted for it.

I think it would also be reasonable to attribute "insane = courting disaster by inviting unintended consequences".

I would posit that "insane" and "broken" are problematic in civil discourse, as these words tend to evoke strong emotions. However, if one ascribes to, "insane = courting disaster by inviting unintended consequences," and also to, "broken = fails to filter insanity," then SOPA/Protect-IP are clear indicators that something in the system is broken.

In a way, this is much worse than the "Indiana Pi Bill" since that bill wouldn't have had any impact on practitioners who understood math. On the other hand, SOPA/Protect-IP has a huge impact on practitioners of computation and programming on the Internet.

In Indiana they were lucky to have a mathematician in the legislature, and a legislature humble enough to listen to him. The US House of Representatives and the Senate apparently don't meet this standard.

His original sentence:

> he is talking about something none of the other candidates are talking about: returning freedoms and sanity to America

It's a cheap rhetorical trick. "Sanity" is defined as what his favored candidate wants to do, no?

> I would posit that "insane" and "broken" are problematic in civil discourse, as these words tend to evoke strong emotions.

Exactly.

It depends. If Ron Paul were to reverse his views on positions where individual rights and freedom are the foundation, do you think the original poster would still support Ron Paul?

If your answer is no, then he's clearly not defining "Sanity = What favorite candidate wants."

If the answer is no, then the original poster is guilty of ineloquence and inadvisable word choice. By the same token your position is misattribution of the other poster's motivations.

By the way, you, too, are insane for not agreeing 100% with me:-)

It would be seem we agree on many points, but you've thought a little more about the meaning and implications of (un)civil discourse. At first glance, maybe one would feel compelled to label insane proposals as such. But the lack of a clear arbiter of what is sane and not sane is a bit problematic.

Everyday life has always involved a bit of insanity and unreality, yet somehow we all muddle through.

But what if a person's value system defines certain ideas as wrong, and unsupported adherence to those ideas as insane? Is it wrong in a society that supposedly values free speech to express this belief?

Absolutely not! But there's a difference between expressing it here and on some other site. There are plenty of sites for political debate, from free-for-alls with all included, to various flavors ranging from neofascists to anarcho capitalists to communists and of course everything else in between.

I'm skeptical of many such sites producing anything other than volumes of vitriol, because many people do believe other people's positions to be 'insane', and if that's where you're starting from... it's difficult to find common ground.

It's 2011, not 1787. The US is a vastly different country than it was when the idea of States Rights was created. Would the level of innovation that you describe be possible in a country that does not have a strong central government? Could an individual State put someone on the moon? Would sectors of the economy that are closely associated with a specific area (Technology – CA etc) still be as prosperous without a central government? I am skeptical.

Abandoning the Federal Government because it is dysfunctional seems short sighted. Personally I do not see how the US can prosper in the modern world without a central government. We need more political compromise and a more consistent government agenda, not a shift towards one political agenda. Government should represent everyone, not just the 51% of constituents that elected them this term.

Also, suggesting that human rights should be legislated at a State level is absurd. It astounds me that a Libertarian such as Paul can so proudly proclaim that government intrusion is wrong, but then defer to the State on issues such as gay marriage and abortion. Legislating religious views at a State level is no different than doing it at the Federal level. Rob Paul style libertarianism only brings “freedom” for some.

Innovation coming from a strong central government? What happened to the Soviet Union's innovation? They had a strong central government and collapsed... almost zero innovation came from them. What about China? Largely a beneficiary of treaties like NAFTA and GATT which gives them a great opportunity to ship in products made with substandard wages or as some would argue, slave labor wages. They also appear to be manipulating their currency and have a copy-and-paste business model. I see little innovation here as well.

I do agree that states and the fed can collaborate on issues of national interest that apply to all parties but I am totally against shredding the constitution or increasing the size of the fed because we are not in 1787. This country got to where it got because of freedom and allowing the people, like hackers, to tinker, fail, experiment, succeed, and do whatever they wanted as long as they did not infringe on the rights of others. SOPA and the NDAA are acts of central government that are appalling. Centralize government did not get us here, free people did.

By “strong central government” I did not mean an economy centrally managed to the point at which Washington would be dictating how many widgets are made in a given month. I meant to imply a government that acts in the best interest of the population. Is it unreasonable to have minimum national standards for education, welfare, safety, and pollution? Every successful OECD country has these because they are necessary to prosper in the complex modern world. Would the US be more successful if we had policies such as centralized healthcare? Insurance is a HUGE burden on business in the US (not to mention on the individual – my wife was seriously ill earlier this year, even with insurance the total out of pocket cost will be ~$30,000. I can assure you that this burden is NOT helping my own attempts to start a business).

The freedom for people to tinker, fail, experiment and hopefully succeed comes from living in a society that educates, has some form of a social safety net, and provides reasonable economic legislation – i.e. the stable conditions necessary for capitalism to flourish. It is disingenuous to ignore the role that government has played in the success of the US and every other successful country.

Yeah, what was that "putting the man in space" thing anyway?

That said, libertarians like Paul would have been against funding the projects that led to the Internet, and are today against funding similar government projects that might lead to future innovations.

In many cases, innovations are bootstrapped by government funding or research, and then handed off to an appropriate role by the free market. Libertarians are usually against regulating the private market once the handoff has occurred (for good in many cases, and definitely in this case), but they are usually against the initial government bootstrapping.

It's easy to imagine attacking the initial ARPA work on privacy, anti-military, or anti-elitism grounds, and I could easily imagine it losing its funding today, decried as a boondoggle that was useless for regular Americans, who of course would never have access to a computer, with taxpayers footing the bill.

If it wasn't ARPA, it would have been something else.

In contrast, the plans for ARPAnet were finished in 1968, and the system was operational in 1969. The concept was pretty pie in the sky at the time, and it's likely that the success of ARPA led to commercial implementations of packet-switched networks.

Additionally, the early private networks did not have the character of the "public Internet" which is a crucial component of the Internet we know and love today. Indeed, the reason we care about SOPA is that the public Internet, and not a patchwork of private internets, won the day.

I personally enjoy your simplistic vision of how an economy works. It's as simple as having the government water little seeds of innovation, and to simply hand it off to the "free market" to flourish and capitalize.

You see, entrepreneurs operate in a market, in which they compete to create value. A monopoly on violence is not an entrepreneurial entity.

I'm not disagreeing with your historical account, just what you derived from it.

You're essentially arguing networks would never exist unless the U.S government made it happen -- and that's why government must act as an "entrepreneur". I hear you, I'm saying this is naive and without evidence, and most likely exists to support your opinions of central planning. It's been tried, I recommend you investigate the history behind that (hint: it doesn't end well).

This is a classic reductio ad absurdum fallacy, and only works if your concept of how the economy works is very ideological.

Then you aren't allowed to speculate abstractly on how economies work. You are relying on one data point with no control group.

Yes, there's a wide array of economic theories. It's the equivalent of religion. Everyone has their own belief. Libertarians believe people shouldn't impose their beliefs on others. Why are you against choice? Shouldn't I get to choose how I invest my earnings? Do your theories trump my liberty?

Thank you.

As while I'm hugely interested in the whole SOPA story, being from the UK, I had no idea who Ron Paul was, let alone that he was a presidential candidate.

Now that I know who he is, his stance against SOPA is much more interesting. Just a thought.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LM20w0jHH8A

He seems to a hero to many people including those who aren't the stereotypical republican voters. I have to admit I don't quite understand his appeal, his position seems to always just be to oppose any new legislation on government involvement in anything. His position always seems to basically boil down. "let the free market decide" or "let the individual states decide"

At least he appears consistent in what he says and I'm not necessarily saying he is even wrong about anything in particular. But let's say he was elected president , I can't see him actually doing anything (some might argue this is what the president should be). Let's say there was a national disaster of some kind, what would he do? Just say "we the federal government would help but we would just mess it up , let the free market create a solution"?

He is a hero to many because he holds stances that are antiwar and, generally, pro-individual liberty.

I must say that I would be scared of a Paul presidency but I also love the way he's shaken up the republican party.

He has not shaken up the GOP whatsoever. He has arguably shaken up the Libertarian party, but his base has nothing in common with the GOP base.

Paul says things that sound insightful and refreshing on the surface, when heard in terms of a soundbite. Most of his fans don't dig much deeper.

He would be a horrific president, but he's having a positive impact. By speaking his mind and talking about things that don't make it out of the PR machine of the mainstream political parties, he's giving air to important issues.

The media collaborating with the military-industrial-complex to drum up a war on phony pretenses that resulted in the slaughter of more than 100,000 Iraqis is horrific.

Strip searching citizens before they can get from point A to point B is horrific.

The media (both Team Left and Team Right) blatantly conspiring the blackout of a popular politician is horrific.

93 out of 100 senators rubber stamping the indefinite detention and torture of American citizens and declaring the Internet a battlefield is horrific.

A president that would do anything in his power to prevent these things from happening would be Heroic, not Horrific.

If we've reached a time for heroes to be politicians and politicians to be heroes, then we're living in interesting times indeed.

What it means, is that the US and possibly the world economic/geopolitical body as a whole is in a systemic crisis. Heroes can either change the course of the world, or they can be a temporary stopgap. Worse, they can be a throwback to old patterns of thought that no longer work.

Don't know what I'm talking about? Have a listen: http://thehistoryofrome.typepad.com/

A Ron Paul Presidency probably wouldn't be a member of the war-of-the-month club that we've been members of since 2001. But I think he would rapidly discover the limits of Presidential power. A Paul presidency in the current environment would almost certainly lead to economic ruin as markets panic and that military-industrial complex (which employs millions of people) gets turned down. IMO, a Ron Paul administration would be like a second Andrew Johnson administration.

When 93% of Senators (the house of Congress that is supposed to squash bad ideas) are willing to attack fundamental principles of American government, a new president isn't going to have the influence to "save" us.

What Paul CAN do is inspire people. We need people in congress, state houses and county governments who can represent the people, and not just the various special interests that pull the strings.

I think the conclusion I'd rather draw is "the free market doesn't owe you anything."

She had insurance that covered, flood, wind, and rain damage. The insurance company did not pay her a dime, even after she, and the rest of LA sued them.

There is no free market when insurance companies can buy judges to get their way out of doing what they were paid to do.

The problem with this logic is that there are extremely few (if any) locations in the United States that aren't affected by severe natural events (blizzards, heat waves, wildfires, tornadoes, hurricanes, droughts, flooding, earthquakes, etc). I live in one of the more moderate locations in the USA (western MA) and in the past 11 months we've had an earthquake, tornado, hurricane, an ice storm that left much of the region without power for about a week,and 80 inches of snow in February alone.

We all subsidize each other - maybe you had more moderate weather this year while we got whacked, but the situation could reverse itself next year.

Sorry, I'm European and hardcore US "free-marketism" is so incredibly alien from here... I mean, the free market wouldn't ever give me 24 days of paid vacation every year, so why should I want more of it?

"I should force people, at the threat of violence, to give me 24 days of paid vacation."

That's pretty much what you are saying. I agree with you: the free market doesn't provide everything but that is what charity is for. Government is not charity. What kind of charity is it when they will send you to jail or bankrupt you for not tithing on time or enough?

It's a more constructive debate when you start analysing on utilitarian terms whether there's any practical benefit to having 24 hour weeks, whether the market tends to underprovide them and whether regulation is the optimal solution.

Most libertarians don't advocate for no government, they advocate for as little as possible to maintain order and preserve freedom.

So if a billionaire for example has a relative who suffers from a rare type of cancer for example they will be likely to donate a disproportionately massive amount of money to research and care for that particular type of cancer, or perhaps they find one particular endangered species particularly cute and will donate the money to the preservation of that particular species. They might also be opposed to environmentalists or hate gay people so will donate no money at all to environmental causes or treatment of aids victims.

If their income is 1000x that of the average person they basically get 1000x the say in what is important (actually perhaps more since their cost of living will likely be lower as a % of income).

This money might be used far more efficiently when some kind of justification is required in terms of providing the widest amount of help throughout society or the world as a whole.

In addition allot of the "free market" type people that I know are quite opposed to the idea of charity anyway, although I think this may be somewhat different in the US.

To take an extreme example. Let's say that as a society we decide that young children living homeless on the street is a bad thing and that some provision should be provided for this. However let's say you have a handful of people who are the owners of the owners & directors of huge monopoly companies, their personal income put together might be comparable to the rest of the population (basically the 1%/99% thing).

Now if these guys decide that they don't really care about homeless children because they all follow a religion which tells them that children are evil. Now the people who want to do something about the homeless children problem have a much more restricted amount of money with which to do that.

What this really implies is that if you have more money available to donate then you have a better understanding of what is important in society.

So yes, if the government comes in and forces the rich guys to hand over some of their money to solve the problem they are going to be pissed but if not then countless more people would be at least equally pissed that nothing can be done about a massive problem facing society.

But the government just gets money from the people. Also, they get mandates from the people. So getting the government to tax you to pay for someone else's problem is exactly the same as paying for the problem yourself. Except now you've got a bunch of politicians involved. I don't see how that's supposed to make things better.

If people in a society want to pay for poor people's problems, they can just do that. On the other hand, if people don't want to pay for that, then of course they would never vote for a law to make them do that. I can't think of a case where people would rather be taxed by the government instead of giving money to charities.

It's not about not wanting to be taxed, not at all. It's about removing the incentives to tie profit to violence.

In most countries people do not vote for individual laws. Instead we trust the politicians to write laws we like. This means the government being a single huge entity can have a more holistic plan where less obvious groups get left out in the cold.

I for one have no idea what groups really need help in our society and do not want to spend time to figure it out so am very happy that I have a government doing that job for me. Sure they do it quite poorly but I am positive I would do a worse job.

Obviously, as a social-democratic position, this moves from an implicit critical view of original capitalism, i.e. rich people exploiting the poor for financial gain, as observed through post-XVII-century history (more so in Europe than in the US, I guess, which might explain why it's not as widely accepted a concept over there). Times when Charity was widely praised and practice, but clearly was never enough.

Obviously, if all economic disparity was eliminated overnight, things would be different. I look forward to the 1% renouncing their fortunes in order to establish a free-market utopia where such laws wouldn't be necessary.

And if you don't pay the financial penalties? You go to jail... Ultimately, the government derives all its power from having a monopoly on the legitimate use of violence.

People don't go to jail for breaking workers' rights like holiday entitlements, let's not make it more dramatic than it is.

Seizure of assets is violence. You can be sure I would not like my assets to be seized because I have to follow some dumb, overreaching law. But I don't have the guns.

Also when you have a large number of staff who all doing essentially the same job they will usually get roughly the same vacation time or that would be regarded as unfair.

Just because somebody works as say a programmer but doesn't happen to be numero uno rockstar-ninja coder doesn't mean they don't deserve some time off every year.

The point isn't that people who are poor get fucked, but that the federal government shouldn't be the ones bailing them out, especially because under Paul's regime, the federal government would be much much smaller, and wouldn't be able to afford to.

Instead of paying federal taxes to the federal government, for which states could then petition to get some of it back, states would levy the taxes they saw necessary to operate and maintain their own infrastructure without help from the federal government.

This means that moneys spent on infrastructure would be spent more efficiently, as the overhead on managing the money would be significantly lessened.

Seems to me he's suggesting that the federal government do essentially nothing, except perhaps maintain enough of a military to defend the USA if directly attacked.

Perhaps I misunderstand his position?