Ron Paul , The Man From Green Tree

As noted before, this entire experiment in endorsing a U.S. Presidential candidate began with a more-or-less unprovoked attack by Ron Paul minions, which crippled my Inbox for over a week. So I have looked forward to meeting the man himself, and was finally able to do so yesterday afternoon in the candidate's office.

I began by challenging his positions on the Gold Standard, the merits of a Federal Reserve, prostitution, trade restrictions, privatized roads, the Department of Commerce, Social Security, medicare, the State Department, various matters related to War Powers, and so forth. Well over a dozen topics, which he handled in a reasonably unflappable manner. That is not to say that his stands on these issues are impressive (they are not), or even that he argued his points particularly well (he did not). After a few rounds he generally resorted to such retorts as "Well I guess you're more accomplished than Friedrich Hayek and Murray Rothbard," (I am,) "because that's who you're arguing with."

Jimmy noted that his voting against spending bills, into which he himself has inserted earmarks, is disingenuous given that his 'no' vote on the bill is irrelevant in a body of 435, while his personal insertion of the earmarks is the one aspect he could have controlled. Yet still, Dr. Paul remained composed, and defended his record semi-plausibly.

Then I stated in a very mild voice that as the man who led a small, divided nation to conquer the largest empire the world has ever seen, I could assure him that his doctrines of non-interventionism are the very lifeblood of an aggressively expansionist regime. That's when he became angry.

All of the sudden he stood up and let into me for slaughtering millions (I did), the Talibanesque destruction of numerous invaluable historical monuments (I did, but most of those would have been gone by now anyway) as well as the complete erasure of several cultures (ditto). And then we're both standing and yelling at each other, covering all the same topics that we had earlier, and all this time his aids enter the room with increasing frequency to remind him how important it was I and my delegation leave before the three o'clock hour. But I've really got him spitting mad now, and he won't let the argument end.

So three o'clock arrived. The door shuts, and we hear it being bolted from outside the office. The room falls silent, and Dr. Paul turns a wild, Cheshire-cat grin.


He sat down, pulled out a crisp U.S. dollar bill, and says, "Do you know how much this is worth? Whatever the government says it's worth." Then he pulls out, much to our surprise, a stash of cannabis, which he carefully rolled into the dollar, and says, "Now what's it worth -- let's find out."

Thus is began. The jovial genie was the first one out of the bottle:

There once was a man from Green Tree,
Who strove to defend liberty,
Now they call him a joke,
While he pulls on a toke,
But that's just between you and me.

Then the sad/thoughtful genie:

"Those Austrians swore the currency would be worth nothing by now, and you know what? Now I've got $30 million dollars to spend. I can buy three trips on a Russian Rocket and I can't get over 6% is Iowa. It's not quite irony, and I guess that's the saddest thing of all."

Then the self-reflective genie:

"Do you have any idea what it's like to scare a kid? No, I don't mean the kind of scare you give them when a Mongul warlord is about to slit their throat and lay waste to everything they've ever known, I mean REALLY scare a kid. The kind of scare you give him when you tell him that no matter how hard he works, no matter how much studying, toiling, and saving, no matter if every choice he makes is wise and honorable, it'll all be taken away before he turns fifty by an ignorant, blundering, and Machiavellian government. When you tell them the whole nation is under a spell by globalists, tri-lateralists, and interventionists. Do you have any concept how that feels?"

Then he fell asleep. In a few moments, the door unlocked, and we left.