by Michael Daunt - January 2, 2008
There has been an awful lot of fuss made over Ron Paul, an obscure Republican congressman from Texas, and his quixotic bid for the Presidency. He has captured the imagination of a broad spectrum of the citizenry: conservative, liberal and libertarian.
Why?
Well, he makes a lot of the right sort of noises about the war in Iraq, the Patriot Act and other byproducts of the so-called War on Terror. This attracts the left. He makes a lot of the right sort of noises about abortion and Christianity to attract the right. He makes a lot of the right sort of noises about the 2nd Amendment and the War on Drugs to appeal to libertarians.
All well and good, but is there an underlying philosophy behind all of these disparate positions?
I think there is.
Mostly, he is just a loony: From his website, referring to a bill he has sponsored: H.R. 1146 would end our membership in the United Nations, protecting us from their attempts to tax our guns or disarm us entirely. Yes, he is actually proud of this.
But what kind of a loony is he?
I think he is a dangerous loony.
Ron Paul, a physician, fancies himself as something of an expert on banking and the money supply. He is best known for his introduction of a bill to abolish the Federal Reserve. This has long been a favorite target of neo-Nazis, who regard it as the product of a Jewish conspiracy to control the American money supply. While I hesitate to judge Dr. Paul guilty by association, I do find this tidbit on his site:
In addition, the Federal Reserve, our central bank, fosters runaway debt by increasing the money supply — making each dollar in your pocket worth less. The Fed is a private bank run by unelected officials who are not required to be open or accountable to “we the people.”
Can this be true? Well, no. It took all of 0.19 seconds to Google that. Surely, Ron Paul’s congressional staff (or campaign staff) could have saved him that embarrassment with a similar level of effort? Yes, they could have, but that would have gone against an article of faith that stems from the works of a man named Eustace Mullins, the neo-Nazi author of Secrets of the Federal Reserve.
In any case, anyone who thinks Ron Paul should be put in charge of the nation’s finances cannot know many doctors.
Once one makes this connection with Ron Paul, the rest of his positions begin to make sense. The extreme nationalism of the neo-Nazi connects his positions of foreign affairs and on immigration. I note that he has removed a nasty anti-Catholic “pro-Christian” video from his site. His xenophobia shines through in all of his writings and speeches and, no doubt, this appeals to a significant percentage of Americans who like to think of the country as white, Christian and protected by the baby Jesus.
It disturbs me that this man has been able to craft a platform that, unexamined, can appeal to such a broad spectrum of people. However, there is no doubt in my mind that he is both loony and dangerous. Luckily, he has almost no chance of winning. Should he show any signs of being successful, the press attention to his platform and his origins would bring the majority of his supporters to their senses.
Until and unless that happens, just ignore his name wherever you see it on the ballot.
Michael Daunt is the Publisher of Quiblit Magazine.