The Leader of the Libertarian Movement

With his current White House run, Ron Paul, has become the most significant Libertarian figure in modern American history. See Lew's latest article. He even mentions the Liberty Dollar!


Ron Paul's bid for the U.S. presidency ranks among the most heroic anyone has ever undertaken. We live in emergency times, with a choice between forms of socialism or fascism. The parties' leadership have embraced this decrepit old model, despite all evidence of the bankruptcy of statism. Ron alone dared pose a challenge. His bid has also been the most unusual in modern history. Its main energy has come not from a political machine, but from millions of volunteers, most of them young and most of them exposed to new political and economic truths for the first time.

In that sense, and in addition to garnering more primary votes than any libertarian candidate in American history, Ron has accomplished precisely what he set out to do. He has re-founded the libertarian movement on a principled basis, liberated the ideas of peace and free enterprise from monopolistic control, exposed the political apparatus for the fraud that it is, and laid the groundwork for a future flowering of liberty.

The Best Kept Secret

Six and a half minutes of Ron Paul goodness.

What is a Dollar?

According to the Mint Act of 1792, 371.25 grains of fine silver or 24.75 grains of fine gold. Just like a yard is 3 feet and a pint is 16 ounces. Get it?


From 1790–1913, the United States dollar was constant. It was tied to gold and/or silver. A dollar bought pretty much the same thing for Thomas Jefferson as it did for Teddy Roosevelt. A careful look at inflation rates from 1790–1913 shows some minor fluctuation, but for the most part, a 1913 dollar was the same as an 1850 dollar, and was the same as a 1790 dollar.

Of course, the pound, the mile, the yard, the foot, the pint, and the degree Fahrenheit, are carefully regulated and kept standard. It would be preposterous to say that back in 1908, the yard was comprised of sixty feet, or that a gallon was made up of eighty quarts. And yet, we accept the degradation and the devaluation of our currency as normal. We can't even compare economic data in our own day and age without saying something like "as measured in 1995 dollars" – since the dollar as a monetary unit is not standard, but is systematically devalued every year.

So, why was there no inflation (devaluation) of the currency until 1913? That's the year the United States created a central bank. The Constitution makes no provision for the Federal government to do any such thing, and the Constitution even specifies that money must be backed by gold and silver. But, of course, the folks that tell us the Constitution is a "living document" will tell us that the dollar simply must be "flexible" (while the same people would never in a thousand years propose a "flexible" foot, pound, or gallon to shrink over the course of time).

John Stossel Interviews Ron Paul

Q: Is war ever justifiable?

A: Sure. If you’re attacked, you have a right and an obligation to defend (your) country. I do not believe there is ever a moral justification to start the war.

Q: What if there’s genocide and terrible suffering in a country?

A: It’s a tragedy, and we can have a moral statement, but you can’t use force of arms to invade other countries to make them better people. Our job is to make us a better people.

Read the entire interview here.

Paulonomics

For many conservatives, what makes Paul seem like a nut is his absolute opposition to the war in Iraq and his insistence on immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops from the Middle East and most of the rest of the world. On the other hand, his views on abortion are perfectly in line with mainstream conservative values (although this side of Paul never seems to get any attention).

On the economics front, Paul is a delightful paradox. If you crack the nut shell and look objectively at what Paul is really advocating, conservatives will find that Paulonomics looks an awful lot like Reaganomics. Paulonomics emerges as a refreshing return to conservative roots: small government, low taxes, deregulation, and sound money. If Paulonomics seems nutty, that may say more about the sad state of events today, with “big government conservatism” having become the new touchstone.

The core concept of Paulonomics is the reduction in the size and cost of the federal government. Irking many of today’s conservatives, Paul emphasizes how this should include scaling back what he calls American “militarism,” beginning with a pullout of Iraq.

As a first step he advocates the elimination of all taxes on capital — estates, capital gains, interest income, and dividends. He told me, “It’s capital that you need to make capitalism work.”

Pimp My Ride

This is a great article by Tucker Carlson on Ron Paul.

If you know Ron Paul primarily from watching the Republican debates, you probably assume he spends most of his time ranting about September 11 and the Iraq invasion. In fact, his real passion is Austrian economics. More even than the war, Paul despises paper currency, which he considers a hoax, "fiat money." He can become emotional talking about it. Caught in traffic in downtown Vegas on the way to an event, Paul looked out the window at the casinos and mused aloud: "Can you imagine when all those slot machines used real silver dollars? All that silver ... " His words trailed off, as in a pleasant daydream.

Ron Paul Raises $6.14 Million in 1 Day!

Thank you to everybody who made a contribution. There were 59,170 people who donated an average of $102! The MSM has already picked up on it. Way to go guys!

The Most Libertarian City in the U.S.

Austin, Texas. Hats off to my friend, Arlo, for making the Sunday edition of the Statesman with his Ron Paul car.


Famously, flagrantly liberal Austin has almost overnight become a crucial redoubt in a campaign to elect as president a libertarian Republican congressman from Lake Jackson.

"Austin is a place for open-minded people."

The Austin meetup group, with 1,142 members, is the largest in the country. There's a much smaller University of Texas group, but the Austin organization is bigger than New York's, bigger than Chicago's, bigger than the meetup group for the entire state of Michigan.

Table Manners

There are many guides to table manners out there. But we live in a blogging culture in which all information must be instant and short. So here are the five essential things you MUST do no matter what:

1. Hold your fork and spoon properly. There is only one way: balance them between the first knuckle of the middle finger and the tip of the index finger; the thumb steadies the handle. There are no variations on this, no issues of personal style, and no regional permissions. For some things, such as cutting with the other hand, there are other variations that require turning the fork over. If you are unsure, default to the orthodox way.
2. Put your napkin in your lap after you sit down to dinner. Do not forget.
3. Don't smack. This is easy, right? Apparently not. Smacking is incredibly and disgustingly common. People must suppose that others don't hear it. But they do, and it's awful. There is only one way in the known universe to prevent smacking: keep your lips closed when there is food in your mouth, no matter what.
4. Eat at the margin, not the aggregate. Don't cut all your steak up before you begin eating. Don't butter your whole roll. Prepare each bit separately.
5. If in doubt, wait for others. Don't start eating anything until everyone has been served.

Ron Paul's Views

It's nice to have a candidate who I concur with on everything. RP for Prez folks.

Views: Nicknamed "Dr. No" for his willingness to vote against any legislation he believes increases the size of government. Strongly anti-abortion and opposed to federal funding for abortions. Gun rights backer. Has called for an immediate end to the Iraq War. Opposes the death penalty and free trade agreements. Vowed to abolish the Internal Revenue Service and phase out the Federal Reserve if elected president.

Ron Paul on the Environment

The Pentagon burns more fuel than the whole country of Sweden.

What's your take on global warming? Is it a serious problem and one that's human-caused?

I think some of it is related to human activities, but I don't think there's a conclusion yet. There's a lot of evidence on both sides of that argument. If you study the history, we've had a lot of climate changes. We've had hot spells and cold spells. They come and go. If there are weather changes, we're not going to be very good at regulating the weather.

To assume we have to close down everything in this country and in the world because there's a fear that we're going to have this global warming and that we're going to be swallowed up by the oceans, I think that's extreme. I don't buy into that. Yet, I think it's a worthy discussion.

So you don't consider climate change a major problem threatening civilization?

No. [Laughs.] I think war and financial crises and big governments marching into our homes and elimination of habeas corpus -- those are immediate threats. We're about to lose our whole country and whole republic! If we can be declared an enemy combatant and put away without a trial, then that's going to affect a lot of us a lot sooner than the temperature going up.