Centerfield

Ron Paul: Not So Into Freedom, And Paranoid

Throughout Paul's run, I haven't begun to understand why he would appeal to people in favor of liberty, especially economists in that group, given the dangerousness of his economic cluenessness. Maybe it's because I've been paying longer attention to his record and though - he used to represent The Profesora's district. She found his stands interesting, but never voted for him. This post grumbles about his being against liberty in one important way, being open to paranoia, and being economically clueless.

If PauL is such a champion of liberty, shouldn't he be consistently for individual choice? But, in fact, he's against a big one, the liberty of the bedroom, as we Dems like to call it. His record shows him to be against abortion rights and for DOMA.

He bought the whole media War On Christmas thing. In this article he wrote,

Knowing this, the secularists wage an ongoing war against religion, chipping away bit by bit at our nation’s Christian heritage. Christmas itself may soon be a casualty of that war.

Never mind that the reality is that both Christmas and religious Christianity are still undimmed here and growing rapidly abroad, huge winners of globalization. If Dr. Paul wants to see a real War On Christmas, he must turn to a historical theocracy, not a democracy. I find his lack of perspective and calm on this issue disturbing for a President. On how many other issues would he be too lazy to look for facts?

Presidents must understand enough about economics to keep from ruining the economy. Ron Paul fails that rather low bar. He thinks the Federal Reserve is evil> should be abolished.

every economic downturn suffered by the country over the last 80 years can be traced to Federal Reserve policy. . . . With a stable currency, . . .

But, the reality of history is that the Fed only hurt things in the Great Depression. Since then, we've enjoyed 2/3 of a century without depressions, a historically unprecedented thing. And even recessions are growing rarer as the tuning improves. Taking away the Fed would vastly worsen both booms and busts. Good thing Dr. Paul has no chance, eh?