Since I am a Ron Paul Fan, I can address somewhat.

Paul's immigration stance does NOT reflect the admnistration's approach on that issue, although a common sense of American isolationism/exceptionalism and outright xenophobia in the Republican base informs or enables both the anti-immigration approach of Paul AND the administration's ability to act out-of-touch weird in foreign lands.

Ron Paul's approach is to be the noisemaker for disaffected Republicans. In this regard he taps into a strong set of anti-Bush sentiment since Bush is seen as pro-immigration, and actually is, relatively speaking (aside from oddball anti-Muslim security measures).

In that regard also, Ron Paul's views are out of touch with mainstream libertarians too, and is somewhat unique on that, and most who support him grin-and-bear that with the sort of feeling that well, control of illegal immigration, ie controlled access to the country is a reasonable position for a sovereign state, so we'll just put a fight off til later. So most Liberals/libertarians are more comfortable with Bush on this, and probably one of the few areas where libertarians are more Bush than Paul. (Similarly, on things like NAFTA, Paul has somehow convinced himself that those treaties are biased against free trade and opposition taps into the "if-it-makes-Mexicans-happy-and-cross-the-border-it-must-be-evil-crowd".)

Paul knows that all politics are local and is also a product of his geography and home congressional district which is redneckish Texas (xenophobic/know-nothing) upset by more Mexicans in the neighborhood.

Otherwise he is going for disaffected groups, including his home-ideology right-wing Liberal/libertarians who do oppose the Iraq war, the growing national security state/war on terror, and large deficit spending by the national government.

Opposition to federal government internal law enforcement using the war on terror is also a Republican base issue as many do not like power devolving too much security to the national government.

Thus, the same base that is ignorant of foreign things inspires the anti-immigration and ignorant foreign and purported terror-security actions. Bush has ignored the first and alienated many. Paul has seized the first, but has opposed the second (unless one wants to count being against certain trade treaties).

Since I am a Ron Paul Fan, I can address somewhat.

Paul's immigration stance does NOT reflect the admnistration's approach on that issue, although a common sense of American isolationism/exceptionalism and outright xenophobia in the Republican base informs or enables both the anti-immigration approach of Paul AND the administration's ability to act out-of-touch weird in foreign lands.

Ron Paul's approach is to be the noisemaker for disaffected Republicans. In this regard he taps into a strong set of anti-Bush sentiment since Bush is seen as pro-immigration, and actually is, relatively speaking (aside from oddball anti-Muslim security measures).

In that regard also, Ron Paul's views are out of touch with mainstream libertarians too, and is somewhat unique on that, and most who support him grin-and-bear that with the sort of feeling that well, control of illegal immigration, ie controlled access to the country is a reasonable position for a sovereign state, so we'll just put a fight off til later. So most Liberals/libertarians are more comfortable with Bush on this, and probably one of the few areas where libertarians are more Bush than Paul. (Similarly, on things like NAFTA, Paul has somehow convinced himself that those treaties are biased against free trade and opposition taps into the "if-it-makes-Mexicans-happy-and-cross-the-border-it-must-be-evil-crowd".)

Paul knows that all politics are local and is also a product of his geography and home congressional district which is redneckish Texas (xenophobic/know-nothing) upset by more Mexicans in the neighborhood.

Otherwise he is going for disaffected groups, including his home-ideology right-wing Liberal/libertarians who do oppose the Iraq war, the growing national security state/war on terror, and large deficit spending by the national government.

Opposition to federal government internal law enforcement using the war on terror is also a Republican base issue as many do not like power devolving too much security to the national government.

Thus, the same base that is ignorant of foreign things inspires the anti-immigration and ignorant foreign and purported terror-security actions. Bush has ignored the first and alienated many. Paul has seized the first, but has opposed the second (unless one wants to count being against certain trade treaties).

Link broken, as per usual. I'd argue that US libertarianism is the low brow version of Ye Olde Euro classic liberalism that only really thrives among the learned & erudite... translates as 'get the hell of my lawn' to the hicks. Ron Paul is right out of that tradition. Matt is not.

Fist's point, maybe also that Ron Paul is still the most sensible Republican candidate in the field.

I frankly could care less about his immigration stance, it's your bloody parenthetical ((unless one wants to count being against certain trade treaties) and his barking mad UN clap-trap that gets my attention.

The man is a nutter, mate. A real nutter.

He may be a nutter, but from my perspective, he's our nutter.

I reacted to the immigration thing because I saw the "know-nothing" reference. On the treaties the same thing, though I havent followed it closely as I am emotionally indifferent to them (while totally in favor of freer trade ideologically), as they dont affect my trade or household as much.:-)

And I wonder how important they are. Maybe they are.

Mate, your nutter seems to believe the Gold standard is a good idea. And he wants to abolish your bloody cental bank.

That's not endearing, that's bloody insane and bloody well positively dangerous. Whatever sympathies to his smaller government position, advocating gold standard is a level of idiocy that borders on irrational superstition.

Bloody insane.

"Mate, your nutter seems to believe the Gold standard is a good idea. And he wants to abolish your bloody cental bank."

The good Congressman once quizzed Alan Greenspan during his routine Fed Chairman report testimony about returning to the Gold Standard.

Now, Paul was no doubt serious but on another level he was tweaking Greenspan who himself had written about doing this very thing back (I believe) in the late fifties or early sixties when Greenspan was a member of Ayn Rand's inner circle in New York.

Of course, at the time of Greenspan's musings, this was still the era of Bretton Woods fixed exchange rates and the dollar's tie to gold, however indirect. Moreover, the days of the pre-Depression Gold Standard were, unlike today, also well within living memory and even the experience of professional economists.

As Matt said, Ron Paul is getting the Republican protest vote. I wonder how many of his supporters would actually choose him over whomever the Dems will end up with, if their choice really mattered. He hasn't a snowball's chance in hell of getting the nomination, so why not support him?

Ahem

Of course, at the time of Greenspan's musings, this was still the era of Bretton Woods fixed exchange rates and the dollar's tie to gold, however indirect. Moreover, the days of the pre-Depression Gold Standard were, unlike today, also well within living memory and even the experience of professional economists.

I am not sure where you are going with this comment, but I hope it is not meant to imply that somehow Gold Standard makes sense.

No.

I'm explaining why Greenspan, not unlike Ron Paul today, once had an intellectual affinity for the Gold Standard a half century ago. There is a long intellectual history to the gold standard that is tied up with American political conflict in the 19th century ( the classic work here is Sharkey's _Money, Class and Power_). Anti-keynesian, free-market economists of various stripes picked up gold as a handy club against Keynesian orthodoxy in the 1940's-1960's but most have long since dropped the issue.

The Gold Standard is not compatible with the requirements of a modern economy - for that matter, it was incompatible with the needs of the late 1920's when European central banks forced the issue with their governments and went off of gold.

I have no strong opinions on the gold standard. Not sure why people feel it is good or bad, on the extremely unlikely chance Paul is elected, the chance of restoring a gold standard would be nil anyway. Not too worried.

I'd like passionate supporters and opponents to explain why either way.

Not sure getting rid of a central bank is insanity. I dont feel strongly about it as most are mostly harmless these days having lived and learned through the heavy inflation and deflation periods of the past 100 plus years. And they generally follow the economy and not try too much to micromanage.

Limiting the money supply to the arbitrary supply of a random shiny yellow metal is rather silly and primitive. This especially in a world in which fiat money is in no risk of losing its legitimacy as a means of exchange. I suspect that the Paultards love the gold standard because it could be a crude tool to slash government spending to almost nothing, their all-consuming goal. This is exactly what happened to the UK when they tried(and failed) to go back to the gold standard after WWI.

Besides, going back to the gold standard would put many of our dear financiers out of business!