It's admirable and more mainstream politicians should take notes from him. The GOP and his rival candidates did themselves a disservice in my mind by treating him like a joke because he did address a lot of points they don't have the balls to even go near and he also brought up a lot of valid points. I think he has two weaknesses which make him utterly non-electable and would make him a horrible leader. First, he is absolutely will not compromise if something goes against his core values. That sounds great on paper, but lets not kid ourselves, in a democratic republic it's a retarded trait to have in a leader. This isn't Russia, people (should) respect reason in their leaders rather than bullheadedness. Secondly, he is too bound by his polices. It may sound like the same thing, but it deals more with how his policies are basically based on pure theoreticals that don't necessarily have any real relevance. Adhering to the constitution is good, but binding yourself word for word to it in a global political economic environment that wouldn't even be recognizable to the founding fathers is just stupidly limiting your self. Yes, there are problems with fiat currencies and there are arguments for going back to the gold standard, but there's a trade off there that I don't think most of his supporters understand. I'm sure he understands it perfectly - like I said before, he's uncompromising, but he's coming from a different place then they are. He knows a shitload about pure economic theory, while they watch youtube videos with dramatic music playing in the backround and think they understand the subject completely. First and foremost, they are missing the very basic point that fiat money and gold both only function based upon perceived value rather then real utility-based value and as such have inherent flaws when used as currency.
Like I said, he raises some very important issues and if the GOP was smart they'd adapt to the ones which suit their (traditional) political philosophy and run with them; non-interventionalism, smaller government, fiscal responsibility as well as promote social policy which has relevance in this day and age such as socialized health care (trim the fat of the government, but in a modified Adam Smith type manner use the power of it to address enterprises which private industry won't, can't, or functionally fails), and improved education. The main problem with his supporters is they just hear what they want to hear;
"VOTE RON PAUL! HE'S AN ISOLATIONALIST AGAINST FREE TRADE AGREEMENTS!!!" Actually, he's basically 100% liberalized trade. He's against free trade agreements because he thinks they're TOO managed compared to the open border system he'd push for. This is the same as above, where in a different world and a textbook scenario it could work out fine, but as we've been discussing in the other thread, individuals have different priorities like making sure their manufacturing job isn't getting shipped off just so that the role of government could be reduced and their (non-existent) income tax would be lower.
