The Ron Paul Thought Police

The following appeared in Real Clear Politics:

Yes, $4 million is a lot of money to raise in a single day.

But it pales in comparison to the overall fundraising of Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.), Barack Obama (D-Ill.) and former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who didn't need a one-day fundraising event to get media attention. Still, let's give the Texan credit for his fundraising.

But what does that mean if he also has no chance of becoming the GOP presidential nominee, or even of winning a single primary contest?

Yes, I know. This statement alone is enough to generate far too many e-mails and telephone calls from Paul supporters accusing me of being anti-democratic and of violating the Constitution. When I wrote months ago in this space that it was time for Paul and other third-tier candidates to be excluded from televised debates, more than a couple of reporters made it clear that although they agreed with my view, they didn't want to be swamped by angry e-mails and phone calls.

The result is that many in the national media have treated Paul casually. Some media types surely find him interesting, especially given his views on Iraq. And people who cover "new technologies," including the Internet, have a self-interest to hype Paul's Web hits and Internet fundraising.

Then, Real Clear Politics continues:

But you hear very little about his kooky votes.

Hardly anyone is bothering to talk about his votes against resolutions calling on the government of Vietnam to release political prisoners and on the Arab League to help stop the killing in Darfur. Nor do they note that he said during his 1988 Libertarian bid for president that he would do away with the FBI and CIA, abolish the public schools, eliminate Social Security and all farm subsidies, and withdraw from NATO.

This reminds me of something that happened in Reed College back in 1980, and something that happens to Libertarians across the board.

Because Libertarians, like Roman Catholics, cover a wide range of the political spectrum, it's easy for a Libertarian to target a particular audience by advocating particular views. Thus, posters went up at Reed College in 1980 emphasizing the Libertarian anti-war stance.

However, someone scrawled a comment on one of the posters along the lines of "But these people also want to abolish Social Security...."

Certainly it is possible for thoughtful people to agree with Paul's prescription for better government, but someone I wonder how many thoughtful people are on the Ron Paul bandwagon. Even those who think through the issues sometimes miss something:

Ron Paul wants to bring this country back from corporate control and run it under the principles of the constitution.

Theodore Roosevelt also believed that the country should be brought back from corporate control, and he INCREASED the size of the government to keep the corporations in check.

Nice little paradox, and there's no easy solution.

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