I could come up with a list of things that I don't like about Ron Paul personally, and a few things that worry me politically.
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.
I feel the same way. In fact, I'm sure most of Ron Paul's supports feel the same way. I find his foreign policy views deplorable and offensive.
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.
I think his foreign policy is one of his strongest policies for which he gets a lot of support. What's funny is that Bush got elected in 2000 for having almost exactly the same foreign policy that Ron Paul has now:
He's either lying now about the newsletters or he was lying then and in 1996 and profited from those lies.
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.
You have to understand that he hasn't shifted his positions in 30 or so years, except on DADT and the death penalty. So to say he isn't a straight-shooter is absurd.
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?
> He's not even a libertarian: he's perfectly fine with States grossly abridging freedom, just not the federal government.
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.
>he's a states rights guy because he wants the power to do things like ban abortion in Texas.
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.
In the majority of recent, real-world instances, local laws have tended to be more liberal than federal laws.
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.
> Look, the two most decentralized first-world countries that I can think of are Canada and Switzerland. These are not draconian racist hellholes
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.
>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:
>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 beginning of the "states right" movement in the 60s (1860s or 1960s, take your choice), was primarily motivated by race. Cletus was not an austrian economist.
I think the post you're replying to is going a little too far but there absolutely is a connection between states' rights and racial issues. That's why the stuff in the newsletter is resonating. Those who are in favor of states' rights on other issues (as I am to an extent) would be well-served to recognize this connection.
Any centrally controlled system will edge one way or another compared to decentralized units. If you take one example (a specific race issue) and generalize, then you'll conclude (as you seem to have done) that centralized control is superior.
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.
You're missing the point - I'm making a historical point.
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.
You are absolutely right. And that is what makes the constitution important, to be that "federal guarantee".
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.
He's the naive one? Frankly, what you're suggesting is absurd and borderline offensive. As if the enlightened North and federal legislation are all that prevents the re-institution of Jim Crow laws! Give me a break.
>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?
Every state gerrymanders. Mississippi is hardly alone on this.
>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.
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.
Switzerland is really not a model when it comes to racism. Until very recently, its government was blatantly organized along ethnic lines, with clear glass ceilings for some groups. Public opinion is very conservative on this matter, and most laws are enacted in clearly racist terms.
> He's not a libertarian, he's a states rights guy because he wants the power to do things like ban abortion in Texas.
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.
You invite your friend to your home for a party. Your guest walked to your home. A blizzard starts outside. Your friend does something that pisses you off. You kick him out of your home, into the blizzard. He dies as a result.
Were you just asserting your property rights or did you commit murder?
When you tell your guest to leave, and they won't, or they don't have anyone to pick them up, and you wanted them gone, you would forcibly remove them from your home and place them outside.
You know that bacteria is "life", right? Does the government need to protect them? Obviously you intend "human life", but equally obviously that doesn't just mean living human cells (scratching -- killing skin cells -- isn't murder). The valuable thing worth protecting doesn't obviously begin at conception. On the contrary, it rather obviously doesn't.
> The valuable thing worth protecting doesn't obviously begin at conception.
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.
It's easier to switch states than to switch countries. If you don't like the draconian laws in your state you can move to another one that shares your views.
Well yeah. Thats kind of my point. I was showing the silliness of the statement I was replying to, that somehow if I don't like the laws of my state, I can just up and move to one that does instead of having to try and affect legislative change.
If you don't agree with Ron Paul, it's because you've spent far less time studying the real implications and economic intricacies as he has. He's right on everything.
I agree with Ron Paul on economy more than any other candidate, but he's racist, anti-semite and a homophobe, or at least pretended to be one in order to get rich, which I find highly unlikely[1][2]. In my opinion, no matter how right on economy he is, we can't have someone like that as a president.
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.
Zavulon, why did you think he was rich? He's not. Why do you think he's pretending anything? He's not. Do you know the man, or are you just taking the easy path of buying into the hysteria?
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.
> I could come up with a list of things that I don't like about Ron Paul personally, and a few things that worry me politically.
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?
HN's voting "thingy" is obviously engaging a middle-ground positioning, especially when it comes to political views. Moreover I suspect that arguments are taken more serious when putting some "I try to be aware of my biases" upfront.
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".
I'd hesitate to describe HN as non-political. The majority of HNer's are very pro-capitalist and pro-business from what I've observed, which makes sense given the community's focus on start-ups. The popular political sentiments that you'll find on Reddit are very different from those you'll find on HN.
You have to admit that most people immediately roll their eyes when they read another die-hard Ron Paul supporter. That disclaimer lets people know/believe that this isn't a fanatic speaking. While I agree with Robin Hanson that I wish we didn't need disclaimers, it truly is an effective way of signalling, and often essential in tone-less, emotionally-ambiguous internet discussions.
Disclaimer: Ron Paul supporter (hopefully not too fanatical)
Fallacies abound in politics. If anything, I think the majority of political discourse is based solely on fallacies. Such as "individual X is Y and is associated with group Z, hence all individuals associated with Z must be Y".
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.
He's saying he prefers an authentic candidate with principles over candidates whom pander to the media to get votes, even if his views differ in some areas.
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.
Perhaps, but he did have a company that earned a lot of money from publishing newsletters containing racist and anti-gay passages under his name (e.g. The Ron Paul Survival Report):
> 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]
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?
I can't vote for anyone who, when reality conflicts with his mental model of the world, believes reality is wrong.
Paul's not just wrong; he works from false assumptions to come to consistently illogical conclusions. I don't care if my politicians disagree with me, but I certainly care that they live in a world of evidence-based decision making.
Can you please cite some of his false assumptions and the illogical conclusions. I believe his argument against SOPA and regulation/censorship of internet is quite sound. His arguments for a sound fiscal policy is based on evidence that governments (or individuals or corporations) spending beyond their means usually lead to their downfall. Results of Vietnam war, Iraq war provide alot evidence that much more diplomacy is needed before going to war, and once you go to war, fight it win it and get out, don't go into nation building.
Personally, I believe that Ron Paul will do what he says and that's a problem. I've read the articles, I've looked into things as much as I can and I very firmly disagree with him on his general monetary policies. The Federal Reserve being wound up and the USA returned to a Gold standard would not be A Good Thing for the USA or the world (me not being American); there's a reason why countries don't do that any more and it's not so politicians can lie, cheat and steal. We tried it his way before and it caused more problems than it solved.
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.
OK, sorry, my wording was loose there; nonetheless, as he is looking for gold and silver to be admissable as payment, I think there's three possible scenarios.
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.
the historic result of not having the Federal Reserve was high inflation - it's been tried
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.
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.
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.
Rather than refuting all of the points above, I'd like to take the discussion in a different direction.
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.
That's a straw man version of my argument. My concern is that the observed history shows that commodity-backed currencies lead to economic problems. I'm not in the least against people choosing to operate their personal economies around barter based on commodities, but the data is clear; it's not good for any of us to use commodities as the primary means of store and exchange of value. Just as the invention of the limited company allowed entrepreneurs to start companies that benefit us all at less risk to themselves, fiat currency's greater flexibility allows us to better control both the money supply and inflation to our collective benefit.
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.
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.