I think I like Ron Paul. Really. And I like a lot of the people I see advocating for him.
I know a number of Gen X and very late boomer generation people who like Ron Paul. He's not just for the college kids. He's the only Republican who is talking about real issues like our various wars, drug, terror and otherwise. There have been some convulsions on 'the left' as I know it regarding his racist '90's newsletters. His denials that he actually wrote them are embarrassingly craven. I fancy myself as knowing more than your average bear about economics, and I'm absolutely sure there's not a rational economist alive who doesn't think that returning to a gold standard would plunge the US into a deflationary spiral. Lets face it, if Paul had is way, lots of us would be going hobo chic - ridin' the rails and singing our folk songs of lament.
But the heart of Paul's appeal to 'the left' and to the libertarian, 'small government' types stems largely from his thoroughgoing critique of the entire notion of what the Presidency should be. His emphasis on ending the US 'policing of the world' is really just a way to say that the POTUS himself shouldn't be doing it. Obama's recent insistence to Congress that he should, in theory anyway, be allowed to assassinate anyone at any time is truly chilling - he's continuing the drive toward realization of the theory of the "Unitary Executive" that was such a turn-on for Cheney-Bush.
I personally think our martial society - complete with blue-shirt thugs at the airport harassing and commanding all they survey - is in dire need of being rolled back. We've an embarrassment of riches when it comes to official gun toters and 'secret agent' men. Start with eliminating TSA, then move onto the DEA and finish with CIA. But how do you do it? How do you roll all that back - especially considering these fine folks will not take it lying down and there would likely be a new golden age of bi-partisanship when it comes to defending these delicious Democrat jobs (yes, Dems were the ones who wanted to create the confounded TSA - Cheney Bush just went along)?
It would appear the closest thing we have to an answer is contained in the convictions of a Texas Doctor who wrote 'race war' newsletters in the '90's. Congressman Paul would not likely convert into President Paul without any alterations, but when it comes to rolling back the martial society and the unitary executive, he's pretty much the only game in town...right?
If you're only looking at Presidential candidates, the answer is yes, but the problem for Paul and the problem for his supporters is that darned US Constitution he's always praising in his squeaky but sincere tone.
The framers envisioned the three branches as essentially 'self interested.' Should the judicial get too drunk with power, the framers thought that the executive and congress would jump in and slap the black robed ones around the head and neck. In our era of Presidential over-reach, it is the courts and Congress that must 'check' the the President. Let's say a miracle happened and Paul got elected. Maybe he would declare that the President doesn't get to kill anyone at anytime for 'national security.' Maybe he would send the DEA agents packing and end about 90% of the killing Mexico.
But what happens once he's gone? Maybe the pendulum would swing back and we'd get a twisted amalgam of Cheney, Nixon and Woodrow Wilson.
I can't remember the exact NPR story - I think it might have been about German holocaust museums and monuments, and I heard some commenter mention what I consider to be one of the most salient observations about politics: "States really just don't 'do' self abnegation."
This notion that the President himself would engage in a kind of self humbling simply runs counter to the entire notion of nationhood itself. There is no 'other hand' to state self glorification and by extension, Presidential power, given that he is indeed head of state. National glory is a one way street - it's 'unipolar.' 'Patriotism' is just an extension of boosterism - there's no two sides to that coin - literally no 'loyal opposition.' Power and status don't have opposites - there's just a spectrum that begins probably with the POTUS and ends with the blind beggar in India singing under the bridge. But there's another blind beggar with a better spot, and he has higher status and is damn proud of it. See what I mean? There's no opposite of status.
So if the President is too strong, you don't solve that problem by sifting through till you find one self abnegating guy who will be President because he's basically opposed to most of what the President does in the Post WWII world (although this 'over-reach' stretches back at least to Woodrow Wilson and his jailing of war protestors).
If you think, as I do, the POTUS has gotten too big for his britches, you have to look to strengthening congress. I think the most important step would be to combine the House and Senate so you don't have a "House divided against itself" to quote my favorite Republican - or hey, even a Constitutional amendment might do the trick. But electing a President who promises not to be so President-y - while it has idealism behind it that I respect - is virtually impossible to pull off and wouldn't work anyway.
