Senator McCain, this could have been you.

While I respect the power and idealism of your beliefs (and those of Ron Paul) I do not believe history supports them as a workable way to run a country.

I will take your other points in turn:

I. GOLD STANDARD:

Your response:

He does not fail to realize this. His plan is not to just eliminate the Fed outright. He wants to cut government spending, to legalize trade in gold, rather than dollars (one would assume that government involvement in coinage of gold would not be unacceptable. You bring your gold to the government, they weigh it, certify it’s purity, and press it into difficult to “clip” coins), and eventually eliminate the Federal Reserve, hopefully when it can be done without causing an economic collapse.

I think what you fail to realize is that the economic collapse is coming, with or without the Fed. If we very carefully eliminate the fed, we have a chance to avert it. If we stay the course, we are doomed.

“Liquidity” is the problem with your argument. If the Government and Foreign Banks hold the dollars and the money supply is allowed to tighten drastically (which it would if we went on Gold), then economic collapse occurs in short order. There is no “careful” way to eliminate the Federal Reserve. The Federal Reserve has been the only thing between us and the abyss what with the antics of the last few Republican presidents pushing us to ever higher deficits. And even if we started today to make those deficits go away (and I would agree with you that we should definitely start on that journey), they’ll be with us for years and years to come.

II. CONSTITUTION

Your response:

Did states rights contribute to slavery? Yes, to some extent. They also contributed to abolition of slavery in much of the North prior to the civil war. If we had eliminated the states, and tried from the outset to have only federal government, rest assured that either the Constitution would have never been ratified, or it would have been a Constitution that federalized slavery, and made it much more difficult to eliminate. Of course since there is not a state anywhere in the Union which would vote for slavery today, to attempt to use the past existence of slavery as a reason for continued centralization of government is at best foolish, at worst dishonest.

It is a strawman to argue that I advocated for the abolition of the States. Whether or not any State would legalize slavery today is completely irrelevant. History is history. The 14th and 15th Amendments were necessary to abolish slavery. Your back-door states-rights argument that these Amendments had no relevance to the abolition of slavery is not supported by any credible historian.

III. IRAQ/AFGHANISTAN:

Your response:

Iraq War:
Yep, they never attacked us, we attacked them. End it, bring the troops home.

Afghanistan:
Wrong, buddy. Paul voted for war with Afghanistan, since either they did attack us, or through their inability to police their own population, allow us to be attacked from their soil. I’m sure he would have preferred a real declaration of war, to make it constitutional, but unlike Iraq, Afghanistan is a defensive war.

A defensive war? I think you are on the horns of a dilemma. The Taliban, the recognized regime of Afghanistan did not attack us–on of their many “guests” did. By all the rules of war and all the dictates of history, this was an OFFENSIVE war. Now, I’m not troubled by that, since it was in our interests to destroy the Taliban–OFFENSIVELY–so that they could no longer harbor “guests.” I only take issue with the pathetic and totally inadequate application of force that the current Administration used. If there is one reality of war, it is that “violence cannot be rationed.”

Since it was an offensive war, to stay true his beliefs Congressman Paul should have voted against the invasion.

Finally, I am well aware that he was an Air Force officer. But the reality is that the Air Force has NEVER been engaged in actual combat over the ground we both call home. Moreover, bombers are specifically designed to attack targets in someone else’s territory (it’s not fun to bomb you’re own backyard). Tankers are specifically designed to extend the range of bombers so that they can range farther from our borders. And fighters are specifically designed to rest air supremacy from our opponent over HIS ground.

As a postscript, a war does not become defensive because we feel “good” about it or because it conveniently supports our political aims. That is the realm of propaganda. Rather, a war is objectively defensive if it is fought on our territory and offensive in all other cases.

He does not fail to realize this. His plan is not to just eliminate the Fed outright. He wants to cut government spending, to legalize trade in gold, rather than dollars (one would assume that government involvement in coinage of gold would not be unacceptable. You bring your gold to the government, they weigh it, certify it’s purity, and press it into difficult to “clip” coins), and eventually eliminate the Federal Reserve, hopefully when it can be done without causing an economic collapse.

I think what you fail to realize is that the economic collapse is coming, with or without the Fed. If we very carefully eliminate the fed, we have a chance to avert it. If we stay the course, we are doomed.

Did states rights contribute to slavery? Yes, to some extent. They also contributed to abolition of slavery in much of the North prior to the civil war. If we had eliminated the states, and tried from the outset to have only federal government, rest assured that either the Constitution would have never been ratified, or it would have been a Constitution that federalized slavery, and made it much more difficult to eliminate. Of course since there is not a state anywhere in the Union which would vote for slavery today, to attempt to use the past existence of slavery as a reason for continued centralization of government is at best foolish, at worst dishonest.

FWIW, I have never heard Ron Paul make any argument against the 14th amendment, and as a libertarian, I cannot imagine he would ever object to the 13th. One thing you can be sure of with Ron Paul: if he believes a thing, he will say it, even if it means ending his career.

Taxation:
I believe it is more accurate to say that he would like to eliminate the income tax, and to reduce other taxes to the minimum level which would fund the constitutional purposes of government. The income tax is constitutional. So was slavery. That does not mean they are right.

Iraq War:
Yep, they never attacked us, we attacked them. End it, bring the troops home.

Afghanistan:
Wrong, buddy. Paul voted for war with Afghanistan, since either they did attack us, or through their inability to police their own population, allow us to be attacked from their soil. I’m sure he would have preferred a real declaration of war, to make it constitutional, but unlike Iraq, Afghanistan is a defensive war.

Military:
As for the military, it is interesting to note that it is the Air Force that you assume Ron Paul wants to eliminate. Did you happen to know that he served in the Air Force as a flight surgeon during the 60′s? Obviously, the United States, being much larger and more populous then it was in Jefferson’s day, requires and can afford a larger military then Jefferson preferred. I doubt that Jefferson would disagree, were he to be elected today. The question is purpose. We can afford to defend ourselves. Hell, we can’t afford not to. Do we need to defend the world? No. Do we need to force freedom, at gunpoint, on those who do not want it? Uhhh …. please define freedom, as I’m not sure that anything forced on you at gunpoint can be properly called by that name. Democracy cannot be maintained by those that need it; it must be maintained by those that want it. And when they truly want it, we won’t be able to stop them from getting it.