The Economic Libertarian

and that’s one of the biggest arguments against considering Ron Paul to be a fringe candidate. I offer as evidence this link: http://www.loganotron.com/?p=63

Look at that, and tell me Ron Paul is a fringe. Imagine the screaming horror that a candidate who agreed with most conservative speakers on everything but oh, he’s a communist, would engender. Instead, only the arch-liberals are objecting powerfully to Ron Paul. The reason for all this is about the power of ideas. People are good. They see good, they draw to good, and nobody likes holding their nose to lesser evils. Furthermore, when good people disagree, they both do it knowing that the truth will come in time.
That’s exactly what’s going on here. When people look at Ron Paul, they either agree with him or they don’t, but they don’t say he’s a liar or a hypocrite if they disagree. The only posts that I frequently see which accuse Ron Paul of being in any way immoral are on the (self-proclaimed, see previous post) arch-conservative side. Extreme neocons object more to Ron Paul to extreme liberals, and Ron Paul was quoted in a recent interview as saying that he has worked together in the past with Dennis Kucinich and considers him a “close friend”. Kucinich, who’s more socialist than Hillary! (More honest himself, at least.)
People look at Ron Paul and know that his presidency would lead to a long, hard look at a lot of issues. After years of decieving and dishonesty though I think we’re getting to the point that we welcome this idea. After years of being told that if we give up just a little more liberty we’ll finally be truly safe, being told that we can get a lot more liberty by accepting just a little risk is looking really good. Limited government in the days after the Patriot Act no longer sounds like the government leaving us in the cold – because lately, the government is hugging us way too close to the breast. Big Brother and Uncle Sam are working together way too closely, and Uncle Sam is starting to get a bad reputation. This kind of reputation. Except in our case, the police are taking the crying little boy away in chains for fear that he’ll make the King look bad.

Maybe we should turn this little analogy around. It’s time we put a candidate in office who remembers that it is the government which is subordinate to the people, not the ruler of them.

Ron Paul is the Gold Standard!

Ron Paul is reclaiming the term conservative for conservatism. Until recently, the term conservative always seemed like a minor insult when used by anyone not describing themselves. When applied as a self-descriptive, it always seemed like a hopeless utopianism, or like a deliberate lie. For conservatives, it seemed, were either not interested in conserving anything at all. They seemed interested primarily in using the term only to appeal to those who rather liked their life. The ones who were afraid of change, because they liked the status quo.

Look at the term conservative though. Look at how it is used when applied to anything but politics. A “conservative” spender is not someone who doesn’t spend. Nor is it someone who makes sure to spend exactly the same amount month in, month out, so as to maintain the status quo. A conservative spender, instead, is someone who constantly reevaluates their spending to preserve the good while eliminating the bad. Consider also the case of when the word is applied to nature. A nature conservationist is not someone who wants to preserve the status quo against all threats. Quite instead, they want to preserve the good while eliminating the bad (as they percieve things – it varies from one to the next). Nature conservationists often object to invasive species or imbalanced ecologies that threaten the parts they perceive as good.

Next, consider the case of the conservative businessman. This is a grey term, so I’ll clarify. I mean a conservative business style. Conservative businessmen are not the most effective at handling risk, but they’re great at cleaning up messes. They strive always to preserve the good while eliminating the bad. An example of a conservative business policy is to withdraw from areas that turn unprofitable so as to refocus corporate resources into profitable places. Sometimes it can be better to rebuild the areas that slipped, but the conservative policy in this case is always going to be safe and good, even if it is at times not ideal.

Now, let’s move on to the conservative politician. Conservative spending, conservative business, conservative politics. This represents a natural progression perhaps because it can explain what is going on. Most conservative politicians actively emphasize that their policies aren’t optimal, but are instead safe. The point of conservatism isn’t necessarily to have consistently safe results. The point of conservatism is the constant winnowing out process. The point of conservatism is to constantly remove what is bad while keeping what is good. The fact that this results in good, safe results is merely an effect, not a cause. Conservatism is not achieved by focusing on the effect and seeking good, safe results by any means necessary. It’s achieved by focusing on the cause, and seeking to constantly remove the bad while keeping the good.
To tie this back into Ron Paul, he is a politician who stands on the conservative principle of removing programs and policies that have been shown to not work, while standing more cautious on others. He is to political conservatism as careful spenders are to spending conservatism. He represents that winnowing out policy for which conservation is supposed to be known for. For which, in fact, it is known for everywhere but politics.

Ron Paul is the true conservative in this race.

I just found an interesting analysis of the Ron Paul Effect as it’s occurring online. It focused on debunking accusations of spamming by Ron Paulers – and actually turned them around to accuse some of the anti-Pauler groups of spamming Digg.

Don’t take my word for it, here’s the link so you can analyze it yourself:

http://tsoldrin.blogspot.com/2007/06/ron-paul-digg-spam-and-everything.html

It’s really fascinating all the buzz on Ron Paul. I don’t think I’ve ever been this excited about any person. Sure, there are exciting ideas, and there are exciting events. There are even one or two really exciting places. (Grand Canyon, anyone?) I’ve never been the type to really watch celebrities though. I didn’t get it. It always seemed like the more I looked into someone, the less I liked them.

That doesn’t seem to be happening with Ron Paul. The more I study him, the more I support him. I had to add a new category for posts about him. I suspect I’ll be making a lot more of them in the lead-up to the election, and maybe one or two afterwards about the aftermath.

The point of this post, however, is what I’ve heard about the odds that are being offered by political betting sites. The link below is to the blog that alerted me to what’s going on:
http://ronpaulquest.com/blog/?p=46

I haven’t read most of the blog, and for anyone who wants to save themselves a leap, here’s the link straight to the gambling news site:

http://www.gambling911.com/Ron-Paul-Odds-053107.html

The odds went from not-even-listed, to 200-1, to 100-1, to 15-1 within a matter of weeks on the strength of massive betting and internet activity. That’s an extremely dramatic slashing. In the words of the article, “Representatives from Sportsbook.com agree that the backing of Paul is has been significant enough to shorten odds to what might very well amount to the biggest slashing in online gambling history.” Furthermore, the article goes on to say that, “We will likely be slashing odds further in the coming weeks and quite possibly days since Ron Paul’s momentum is really building.”

This is seriously good news. And almost unbelievable news. This kind of site makes their living off of being able to accurately predict odds and use those predictions to shepherd bets so that they come out on top. They’re harvesting the ‘wisdom of crowds’ phenomena in that they’re keeping track of the number of people who are actively laying their money on the line, too. And they’re getting a lot of it! That’s part of why they have to slash the odds, because they don’t want to go broke in payouts if the ‘crowds’ are seeing something that they’re missing.

Ron Paul has never voted to raise taxes. He has never voted for an unbalanced budget. He has never voted for a federal restriction on gun ownership. He has never voted to raise congressional pay. When a group of candidates were asked in a debate over where to cut programs, all the others hemmed about things they might do. Ron Paul immediately said he wanted to cut the entire Department of Education.

He’s pro-life, avidly constitutional, he’s the most consistently proven small-government-advocate in our nation’s history, and he’s being shredded by the party that claims it is pro-life, avidly constitutional, and small-government. The man was one of the early supporters of Ronald Reagan, remains a consistent supporter of state’s rights, and has shown absolutely no fear of voting against illegitimate expansions of government power. He’d have the same fearless attitude towards the veto power, I suspect. He would probably love the veto.

He has never voted to increase the power of the executive branch, either, a vital concern of the public in the George Bush era of unchecked expansion of executive power. He voted against the Patriot Act. He voted against the Iraqi war. He doesn’t even like immigration.

I don’t think the Republican party knows what it’s doing. They’re trying to destroy the only candidate who stands for what they claim to stand for themselves. Further, I think that the public at large is ready to embrace such an honest and consistent politician. This man isn’t Kucinich. He’s not a crank. He is the quintessential Republican, the man that every Republican claims to be. That the Republican party reacts as it does to their own shining star shows the depths of their dishonesty.

It confirms what I had long suspected about the Republican party, and it confirms that I was right to act on my suspicions and stay away from them. If the Republican party proves that it is what it claims to be by nominating Ron Paul, I will join them immediately. If they continue smearing their most principled advocate… Well, there’s not much I can do besides continue staying away, and pray that they return to the light.