Liberty Maven

When future generations look back on Ron Paul, and I believe they will, he will be seen as a wise sage, not an iconoclast nor a wing nut. Ron Paul is today’s “Round-earther”, perhaps more technically, a “Spherical-earther”, but that doesn’t roll off the tongue as well. Long ago, the prevailing wisdom was that the earth was flat or at least non-spherical. Those who dared suggest the earth was spherical were considered extreme or fringe and dismissed as “crazy”.

This dismissal by the establishment didn’t make the earth flat. Likewise, just because many of today’s establishment politicians and pundits consider Ron Paul “crazy” doesn’t make him wrong. Yet this seems to be the prevailing argument against him. In other words, yeah I get it, his name is similar to Ru Paul, but what about his ideas?

Ron Paul challenges your indoctrination. He makes the flow of your synapses hurt. He makes you uncomfortable and that is no excuse to dub him “crazy” or “kooky”.

In an excellent piece, Paul Mulshine explores this theme.

The winner of that poll [CPAC] is often considered the consensus leader in the race for the next GOP presidential nomination. When Mitt Romney won it last time around, he was seen as something of a sure thing in an otherwise weak field.

Well the 2012 field is even weaker than last time around. But across the spectrum, the pundits agree that the Texas congressman has no business being in it. Newsweek proclaimed Paul “probably won’t run again for president in 2012 and almost certainly wouldn’t win the Republican nomination if he did.” The Fox News crowd repeated the “Paul is dead” mantra as if the congressman were a Beatle. As for Glenn Beck, who spoke at CPAC, he termed the winner of 31 percent of the audience’s votes “a crazy, kooky guy.”

Quite an achievement for a man who may be the single most unexciting speaker in American politics today. I mean that as high praise. The U.S. Constitution is a dry, unemotional document. And Paul, as its leading proponent in Congress, is a dry, unemotional guy.

So why do his opponents get worked up into such a fervor?

I’ve been mystified by that since early in 2007, when I first interviewed him. Even though Paul had announced for the Republican nomination for president, I didn’t have to go through a press secretary to contact him. I just asked around and got his home number. We had a pleasant chat about the Constitution.

Read the entire piece here.