Thank you for this wonderful article. I feel like my “conversion” story to Ron Paul was similar to yours. As soon as I started learning about Ron Paul five years ago, I couldn’t get enough (and still can’t!).

I just forwarded your email to a number of my LDS family members because I feel like you do a great job of breaking down why supporting a principled candidate who supports the Constitution is so much more important than supporting a “popular” candidate.

Best,

Greg

I’d vote for a Romney/Paul ticket if it were to happen, but I just don’t know if those two would come together. I assume that would mean Romney coming toward Paul on some issues, since I don’t suspect Paul would bend.

Do we have four more years to put Rand in office or someone else truly up to the task of liberty restoration??

Having a mormon background myself I was familiar with the “white horse prophecy”Joseph Smith jr,it is said, gave in May 1843 dealing with the saving of the constitution by the LDS people or elders when it(the constitution) would hang by a thread. Even though Mitt Romney is LDS it appears to me Ron Paul has much greater aptitude to be the instrument of this accomplishment. I certainly am inspired in that direction watching and listening to Paul vs Romney.

Thanks for your article. Much appreciated. My question is: Do you think that americans (not to mention people throughout the world) are ready to accept libertarian (i.e. liberty) principles? Hoping not to unfairly judge the intellect of others, but it just seems like people aren’t either educated or maybe thoughtful enough en mass to accept these principles because they run counter to conventional wisdom. I think that on an individual level the message of liberty rings true, but it has been twisted so deeply by the government at large, special interests, and various communication outlets. So many people believe that what we currently have is a maximum of liberty and it is only after making the time and effort to become educated that there is a hope of being “enlightened”. Most just aren’t willing to make that effort.

My worry is that someone like Ron Paul would be bludgeoned by a democrat political machine with very good organization and almost unlimited resources. Even though Romney is not as committed to the some libertarian principles as Ron Paul, he does have the organizational and fund-raising ability that Dr. Paul lacks. There are some immediate practicalities that are difficult to ignore. He has one 2nd place finish, two 3rd place finishes, and two 4th places. I do think he is electable, but he has to get the nomination and it doesn’t seem likely.

As you said in your post: We could certainly do worse than to have Mitt Romney as our president. He has an incredible track record of performance in the private and public sector. What do you think about a Romney/Paul ticket this fall?

Btw, I found The Case Against the Fed to be highly intellectual and rigorous. I had to re-read several parts. Definitely not some loony pamphlet. http://mises.org/books/fed.pdf

None of the above removes the duty for Christians to take care of family and neighbors, including feeding the hungry and clothing the naked. The U.S. has a great tradition of giving to charities. I have every reason to think that would continue, and might even increase.

On the gold standard, I had the same question you did. The book “Case Against the Fed” by Murray Rothbard cleared up the issues for me. It points out that prior to the creation of the Federal Reserve in 1913, we didn’t have a full gold standard “free for all” as I thought we did. We had some policies that were fully capitalistic/free-market (no lender of last resort) but we also had some policies that were not free-market (fractional reserve banking and sort of regional banking zones.) This instability might have been solved by moving toward a more free-market arrangement, but they moved the other direction and gave us a lender of last resort. The videos in the Fed section above were helpful to me.

Our military influence would decline under Ron Paul but I think the influence of our peaceful example would increase. Other countries would view us as more peaceful. I served my mission in Brazil and it’s been my observation that most Brazilians were against the U.S.’s war in Iraq. I wonder if less intervention would give us more peaceful allies and friends and opportunities around the world. I don’t worry too much about having a Mormon in the White House, but what if Mitt Romney attacks Iran — what that might do to the influence of the Church if people associate militarism with a Mormon president?

By the way, AFAIK, Ron Paul has always said he wants to bring home troops and if anything increase the number of troops and bases here at home. So I don’t think of him as the “opposite extreme” of a large military. He wants to continue defense spending while decreasing spending on militarism.

On bailouts, I previously thought of policy as this very tricky balancing act of knowing when to get involved and when not to get involved. However, when looked through the lens of these liberty principles, I think it makes sense to choose to be consistent. For example, we think of the Fed as this necessary thing, but it gave us the housing bubble that made Wall Street rich. Then when the bubble popped, we instituted Dodd-Frank to regulate financial markets even more. We could arguably have solved this by rolling back government but instead we added more. I like the quote by Robert LeFevre, “Government is a disease masquerading as its own cure.”

“Idealogical” has come to be a dirty word in politics, though most people don’t think of being “idealogical” in their religion or morals or devotion to their family as a bad thing. I think politics can be similar.

For me, Romney’s being moderate just means he’s like Obama or Bush or Clinton. I think of him as a boat being tossed around and just navigating whatever comes. This pragmatism seems like the opposte of “acting” instead of “being acted upon”.