Mark Davis: Interesting, Human, War-mongering

I just read this article by Mr. Mark Davis about one of my personal heroes, Dr. Ron Paul. I am forced to respond, even though I doubt he'll even see these words let alone actually consider their merit.

Dr. Paul has admitted he is a long-shot for President, but has never said nor given me the impression that he isn't in it to win.

As a long-time follower of Dr. Paul, I can assure Mr, Davis my head is "not full of nutty things". But let's look at what Davis considers to be nutty:

1. Dr. Paul's long-held belief that abandonment of the gold standard was ill-advised.
2. Dr. Paul's position that the undeclared war in Iraq is bad policy.

The money issue is probably my least favorite position of Dr. Paul's, even though I understand the principles behind his concerns. Those principles are related to the idea that the Federal Reserve bank is a private corporation set up by the US government which has some control but not complete control over things like interest rates. The idea that some economist can decide each quarter to raise or lower interest rates in the name of controlling inflation seems quixotic to me. It also strikes me a very unfree market. With the gold standard, our government had to have the real, tangible wealth to spend money, as opposed to empty promises of its good word. The result is that there is no reason not to spend, so spend we do, and do we ever! To me the gold standard is sort of arbitrary (why not a silver standard?) and something that should be unnecessary. To the credit of Dr. Paul's position, Congress has proven it cannot be trusted to balance the budget, let alone work to pay off the national debt. So I give Dr. Paul a shrug on this position.

As for the Iraq war, the ignorance in Mr. Davis statements make him unfit to be an opinion leader in the media. Since when is comparing the actions of nations to each other "phony equivalency [that] rises to the level of sheer moral idiocy"? Does Mr. Davis not believe in the golden rule, or does he simply think is shouldn't apply at the international relations level? Apparently Mr. Davis thinks our nation and it leaders are morally infallible when it comes to ideas like "spreading democracy" and fighting the so-called "war on terror". Sorry Dr. Paul is right on this one, and this is the issue that will win or lose the general election. Even a RINO like Giuliani has no chance against the Democrats if he maintains the untenable big spending, pro-war stance.