Ron Paul: Your President?

Depending on who is talking, Ron Paul is either the greatest invention since the bread slicer (or the Iphone for the youngsters of the world) or the man who will bring down the Republican Party. What exactly would Ron Paul do if he was president that has everyone in a hissy. Let me count the ways.

Isolationism
Ron would close up all United States foreign bases and bring home the troops. This flies in the face of the current convention that the United States deters aggressive nations by placing troops near them. A current convention that has been proven to work, well, I guess it would be never.
Isolationism actually has a long storied history in the United States. You know why the United States didn't get involved in World War II until Pearl Harbor was bombed? At the time most of the residents believed the world's problems were none-of-our business. With all the problems at home with joblessness, foreign aide to other countries, you can certainly understand why people harken back to a thought of not being involved in other people's business.

Speaking of other people's business.

Eliminating Foreign Aide
This confuses people on a fundamental level as the United States often speaks fondly of those we aide while sanctioning those who we dislike. The main issue has been that we change the rules of who we like - even sometimes threatening to withdraw money from those very people if they don't do what we say.

Ron Paul wants to end all the politics with this by cutting off everyone.

Very interesting thought. After all our currency is worth a lot. Hey, wait a second. What exactly is our currency worth these days? Wasn't it tied to gold once upon a time?

Returning to the Gold Standard
Once upon a time there was a direct connection between gold and the dollars in the bank account. In lay person terms you could trade your dollars for actual gold according to the exchange rate, the underlying principle being that there was a correlation. In 1971 Richard Nixon took the United States off the gold standard, keeping us off it ever since.

For the longest time Ron Paul wanted to return us to the gold standard, though he has now backed off. Mostly since nobody will know what would happen. Well, most likely combining the gold standard with Ron Paul's next idea would get him shot.

Ending the Federal Reserve Banking System
The fed reserve system is a bunch of private banks who control lending policies. Yes, it is odd that privateers control public policy except the initial reasoning made sense. Before federal taxes private companies could raise money faster than the U.S. Banking system. Why it was left this way is not all that complex: these banks help get politicians into office.

The last major player to try to eliminate the banking system was John F Kennedy. That didn't turn out so well for him.

Ron Paul is dancing with very powerful people with these last two ideas in conjunction with each other. These are the type of ideas that frighten the Republican party to no end. The fact that Paul has gotten traction with all of the ideas is what terrifies both political parties.

It is a world where money keeps its current value, money stays within the very country that created it, and where bankers can longer change the destiny of a country with a whim.

Is it likely to happen? No.

Congress would tie up any of these changes with forty pounds of red tape. It is the ideas that are enough though. Ideas of questioning the status quo while asking for explanations of the reasoning. Critical thinking that seems to have been missing for so long.

Sometimes it may be enough that Paul is putting out the ideas, knowing that there could be change. The idea of hope. The same ideas that got our current president elected.

We live in interesting times indeed.

Wayne