Can someone please enlighten me on this... Ron Paul...

[LakeSamish706]

This guy is a Republican admitted, but he certainly seems to me to be the most Liberal Republican that I can ever remember... He really seems to be very left of center ......

So my question is, is he really as bad as some have indicated on DU?

[Redneck Socialist]

1. He's not left, he's libertarian. n/t

[polichick]

2. He's not pro-choice, so I couldn't vote for him.

[Dr.Phool]

3. He's a libertarian, not liberal.

Other than getting out of Iraq, he has nothing else in common with most of us. The rest of his positions are wing-nuttery. Anti- abortion, anti-regulation, anti-social security and medicare.

[jmp]

4. He's mostly libertarian ... and no, not nearly what some screwballs on here ...

Paint him as. Basically he gets attacked so viciously here for the same reason that Nader and the greens are. They are viewed as a threat to bleed votes from the Democratic candidate.

[polichick]

5. It's scary to see how many YouTubers are nutz for him...

I have a feeling most of them have no idea what his positions are, other than his stance on the war.

[Lasher]

6. No he's not as bad. He's worse.

He's not liberal at all. He's an anarchist masquerading as something less than that to get gullible people to support him.

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

7. If he's really anti-choice and pro-prayer in schools he's no libertarian

As a staunch civil libertarian I am tired of that word being applied to tax cranks.

[Hydra]

8. He's just not part of the NWO wackos

which is why he seems so much better. He would rather scale everything back rather than rule the world as the American Empire.

I agree with his ideas about withdrawing from the wars and bringing our soldier back from all of the 700 or so bases around the world, but other than some of his things like legalizing marijuana, I don't like his domestic ideas. "Free Market" makes me sick.

Libertarians don't like us lefties, btw.

[cuke]

9. I guess being a racist, homophobic, sexist, right wing wacko just isn't enough

to convince some DUers

[jmp]

11. What makes him a racist?

What makes him a homophobe?

What makes him a sexist?

[cuke]

14. Hate combined with a pervasive sense of inferiority

would be my guess

[jmp]

17. Any chance you can flesh that out a bit?

I was hoping for some substance to back up those serious charges.

[iverglas]

19. he really does strike me as an extremely stupid person

The weird thing is that, reading some of his stuff, one might imagine he belonged to the dregs of some early 20th century left-wing revolutionary cell ...

http://www.l4l.org/library/bepro-rp.html

Being Pro-Life Is Necessary to Defend Liberty

by Congressman Ron Paul
Copyright 1981

Pro-life libertarians have a vital task to perform: to persuade the many abortion-supporting libertarians of the contradiction between abortion and individual liberty; and, to sever the mistaken connection in many minds between individual freedom and the "right" to extinguish individual life.

... A libertarian's support for abortion is not merely a minor misapplication of principle, as if one held an incorrect belief about the Austrian theory of the business cycle. The issue of abortion is fundamental, and therefore an incorrect view of the issue strikes at the very foundations of all beliefs. ...

"Contradiction", "incorrect belief", "mistaken connection", "misapplication of principle"?

The bizarrely rigid thinking he engages in suggest some sort of obsessive-compulsive disorder. He needs the world to be strictly ordered in order to feel comfortable in it.

Sounds paradoxical for a "libertarian"? Well, yes, that being one clue that he isn't one. He doesn't actually revel in the diversity of human life the way a real libertarian does. I think he really just doesn't deal with complexity well, and has chosen what he considers to be the simple approach to eliminate the complexities of life in a diverse society. Simplistic would be a better description.

[cuke]

20. Isn't that true of all the bigots?

"He needs the world to be strictly ordered in order to feel comfortable in it."

I know it sounds odd for a libertarian, but when I consider how many libertarians I know are also bigots, it begins to make sense

Another thing I've noticed about libertarian types - they like to think of themselves as intellectuals.

[iverglas]

10. he's not a libertarian, he's right-wing

Isolationism is not left, libertarian or even liberal.

If I don't eat meat on Friday because I'm a vegetarian, it doesn't make me a Roman Catholic.

[OKNancy]

12. LOL

good one... I may steal that.

[jmp]

13. "Isolationism is not left ..."

It's pro-American.

[iverglas]

15. charming

Me being Canadian, I'm not especially concerned with what's "pro-American".

But if you really think it's "pro-American" to refuse to engage with the world community in the 21st century ... well, good luck to you if you get your way.

The fact is that US foreign policy actually is isolationist. Invading and occupying countries that have not committed aggression against the invading power isn't non-isolationist, it's just imperialist. Different concepts. And it's still isolationist in the sense that it is done unilaterally (with the help of client states, of course), without genuinely engaging with the rest of the world.

[jmp]

18. "The fact is that US foreign policy actually is isolationist."

Being Canadian is no excuse for ignorance. :P

If America was isolationist, we wouldn't have an empire ... and Canadians could sleep easy at night.

[goodhue]

16. He would like to abolish the Federal Reserve, Federal Income Tax, Federal Dept. of Education, etc.

He is libertarian, not liberal!