Here is a sample of a NewsWithViews “nut case”. Might as well call me one as well as I agree with her.
http://www.newswithviews.com/Betty/Freauf107.htm
Here is another, by Pastor Chuck Baldwin.
http://www.newswithviews.com/baldwin/baldwin350.htm

Is “Ron Paul not RuPaul” a campaign slogan? :-)

Ron Paul not RuPaul?? Oh. Nevermind.

As for central banks, the Founders certainly weren’t uniformly opposed to them — Alexander Hamilton certainly was not.

It isn’t possible to back US currency with gold or other hard assets — nor is it particularly wise to do so. Hyperinflation isn’t a concern in an industrialized state with a strong economy — unless the US government collapses, it isn’t likely to happen. The rise of the Euro isn’t a big problem — the EU economy is about 1.3% the size of the US economy, and even then the overvaluation of the Euro is good for us because it makes US exports more attractive to European buyers.

Most of the anti-Federal Reserve arguments are based on bad economics — floating currencies give governments the flexibility to deal with recessions like the one in the early 2000s. Had Greenspan not been able to increase liquidity, the recession would not have been so mild. The price and supply of gold has nothing to do with the price and supply of goods and services — so you’d be hitching your economy to something that has nothing to do with the performance of the economy as a whole. (And in 100 years or so, imagine what would happen to a gold-backed currency when some enterprising entrepreneur captures a large asteroid and starts mining it for gold, increasing the overall gold supply by a large magnitude.)

Nobody uses a gold standard any more because it just doesn’t work, and calls for getting rid of the Federal Reserve tend not to be particularly well-considered arguments or arguments based on bad or misleading data.

Given, there are some loonies who latch onto Ron Paul’s message… but it’s usually to fulfill their own agenda, not the other way around. If you talk to people at his meetups, most are rational, hardworking Americans who are fed up with the control of our government by massive lobbying by special interests and corporations. Most Americans are tired of the Iraq War and the erosion of our civil liberties. He happens to be the most anti-war candidate and the more pro-liberty candidate. Most of these meetups arose spontaneously, and are quite numerous: ronpaul.meetup.com. Other candidates have to *pay* people to become activists.

On a side note about fringe groups, I’d say the most reasonable ones are those who want to get rid of the Federal Reserve and restore a hard-backed currency… Think about it this way, our money has been backed by absolutely nothing but the world’s faith in the US economy and the soundness of our government, since Nixon abolished the gold standard in the 70’s. If there’s a crisis in our currency, bad things will happen. In 2000, The Euro could buy 0.7 dollars (approximately). Now the Euro can buy 1.3 dollars, so some paranoia is justified in this regard. The Founding Fathers warned us about central banks and stressed the importance of sound money. It doesn’t have to be backed by gold necessarily, just backed by something real as opposed to nothing but faith.

Thanks for an interesting take on Ron Paul. I think your article sort of misses the point. RP’s platform is essentially a return to the Republicanism of Goldwater and Reagan. Thats what Ron Paul stands for.

Thanks,

James