Ron Paul calls for diplomatic relations with Cuba

[ChadwickHenryWard]

33. I am never able to understand why people fail to see that,

at base, Paul is a career politician just like all the others. He has run for office fifteen times, and has served 21 years in Congress. So why do people think that he is some kind of outsider or fundamentally different than all the others.

Most of what he espouses is right out of fairy tales. He is a supporter of the Austrian school of economics, whose objections to Keynesian and Monetarist ideas have been discredited again and again by the facts. His view of limited government might not have been out of place 1760s, but his opposition to any and all social welfare programs and regulatory agencies puts him even to the right of Enlightenment thinkers like Thomas Paine. Even his favorable policies have some very deep flaws. While it is certainly a good thing that he is against war with Iran, he is more an isolationist than a pacifist. He is against even that paltry amount of money America gives each year in foreign non-military aid, and thinks that Israel is part of a global Jewish conspiracy. His position on drug prohibition is similarly mixed. While he is against the drug war, he thinks that the states should be allowed to prohibit drugs, which is hardly any better. Even his opposition to the Federal Reserve comes from a conviction that the government should not be allowed to regulate the supply of money. His laughable support for the gold standard has not a little to do with his extensive investment in gold and gold mines. He has repeatedly introduced a bill that would ban abortion. And I won't even bring up his newsletters. While he's not the only one spouting crazy (Newt would ignore Marbury v. Madison, for fuck's sake?) an inordinate amount of it seems to be coming form him.