Enough Already with the Ron Paul This and the Ron Paul That

I’m a big enough man to admit it: I was wrong about Ron Paul.

Oh, not that he shouldn’t be president. I still believe that; in fact, I believe that even more now than I did when I wrote a post on why I couldn’t support him. No, I was wrong about Ron Paul when I wrote this:

“And for all the talk of him being a crackpot, in my mind he in not nearly as bats**t crazy as Gingrich or Bachmann.”

Two days after I posted this, an old fundraising letter of Paul’s surfaced. Unlike the newsletters that are getting so much play these days, this was a letter sent on his stationary with his signature. I would encourage everyone here that still thinks Paul would be a fine President or even just what the GOP needs to move toward to read it in it’s crazy-guy-on-the-street-corner, 8-page entirety. The press is the press, of course, and so it is unsurprising that the only bits it has covered are two bite-sized throwaway lines: The first warns of a “coming race war;” the other declares that he will expose the “federal-homosexual cover-up on AIDS.” But the thing of it is, neither of these are even close to the craziest parts of this letter.*

No, the craziest part of the letter is the way it meanders on and on about the new $100 bills that the “new world order” will be using to enslave us. Or his casually mentioning the evil Skull and Crossbones illuminati-like society that is controlling our lives. Seriously, you really need to read the letter.

Now, you might note that Paul wrote these paranoid visions in the mid 90s. Who is to say he hasn’t seen the error of his ways, or isn’t taking meds 20 years later? Well, Ron Paul for one.

In the GOP debate on September 7th, Paul was one of the only (maybe the singular only?) person to stand against building a wall on our borders. And I know that most of us cheered him for that, because a lot of us feel the wall is expensive, unnecessary and a symbol of exactly what we think this country stands against. But it’s worth noting the reason Paul gave at the time for why he was against the wall:

“I think this fence business is designed and may well be used against us and keep us in. In economic turmoil, the people want to leave with their capital. And there’s capital controls and there’s people control. So, every time you think of fence keeping all those bad people out, think about those fences maybe being used against us, keeping us in.”

People, with all respect, this kind of warning is squarely in “Obama is having FEMA set up concentration camps” territory.

Furthermore, though we tend to think of Paul as a Pro-Freedom guy, I suspect we are reading more into him than he is saying. For example, he does not believe in the separation of Church and State. For those concerned with civil liberties, it is important to note that Paul isn’t necessarily big on civil liberties – he simply believes it should be the State’s who are allowed to infringe upon them.

He believes our government is secretly trying to surrender and become one with Mexico and Canada:

NAFTA’s superhighway is just one part of a plan to erase the borders between the U.S. and Mexico, called the North American Union. This spawn of powerful special interests, would create a single nation out of Canada, the U.S. and Mexico, with a new unelected bureaucracy and money system. Forget about controlling immigration under this scheme.

This, by the way, is from his campaign way back in the dark ages of 2008.

Look, I get that people are tired of us being at war, and want a champion to bring our boys back home. I really, really do. I am so with you guys there.  But trust me when I say this isn’t the guy you want to be your champion.  I have come to believe that we want a champion so much that we all just hear what we want to hear when Paul speaks, and block out the fact that he is several cards short of a full deck.

In fact, for those here that really support either a Paul presidency or the GOP moving closer to Paul’s vision, here is a thought experiment I ask you to consider:

Google “Glenn Beck, chalkboard, video.” Watch a few random videos of Beck explaining the conspiracies that are working against you. And then ask yourself:

Even if you have some overlapping policy opinions, is this the kind of guy you want our leaders and major political parties to emulate?

*(Although I do think it needs to be noted that Paul’s warning of a coming “race war” was in the mid-1990s, not the mid-1950s. Years after you had turned off the Cosby Show because it had gotten too whitebread… When you were shelving your Prince and Michael Jackson CDs because they were to lame and mainstream… When you were rooting for MJ to get his second threepeat… When you were deciding to pass on the new Eddie Murphy vehicle because his movies were for kids and tweens… Ron Paul was sounding the alarm that those people were about to rise up against you. Seriously, think about that.)