Yeah sure if you consider reason going to pre WWII style isolationism, dropping trade agreements and hoping someone like, oh, say China doesn't snatch them up instantly is reasonable.
Fellow Americans, you don't want to know what happens when america is no longer a superpower, nor do you want to see what happens when we don't have strong trade. Isolationism is a death sentence in this day and age.
He's an honest guy and makes a good congressman, but i'd never want to see him in the presidency. Positive traits do not outweigh his absolutely ruinous platform.
+1, Ylca. And for those of you who want to say that he doesn't preach isolationism but non intervention, they are effectively the same thing.
Ron Paul is a genuinely nice guy and I don't doubt that for a minute.
However, that says nothing for his ridiculous policies.
As far as why he believes that being non interventionism is a good idea and not dangerous, in a 1997 interview he said this, "There's nobody in this world that could possibly attack us today... we could defend this country with a few good submarines. If anybody dared touch us we could wipe any country off of the face of the earth within hours."
Ladies and gentlemen, our ace in the hole is some diluted,erroneous logic that would have been at best questionable a century ago.
His Idea of airport security is allowing pilots to carry guns of their own.. Not even making this up; he thinks that terrorists would be much less likely to try and attempt to hijack a plane if the pilots can "shoot back".
Pretty much any any federal program out there he wants abolished. "Paul would substantially reduce the government's role in individual lives and in the functions of foreign and domestic states; he says Republicans have lost their commitment to limited government and have become the party of big government. He would eliminate many federal government agencies, such as the U.S. Department of Education, the U.S. Department of Energy, the U.S. Department of Commerce,the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the Department of Homeland Security, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), the Interstate Commerce Commission and the Internal Revenue Service, calling them "unnecessary bureaucracies".)
Despite being so against all the spending that is going on in the nation, Ron Paul actually requested 400 million dollars in ear marks back in 2007 regarding bills he himself voted no against. Paul's office says those requests include $8 million for the marketing of wild American shrimp and $2.3 million to pay for research into shrimp fishing and renovating a fucking movie theater. What was Paul's response though? "In an already flawed system, earmarks can at least allow residents of Congressional districts to have a greater role in allocating federal funds - their tax dollars than if the money is allocated behind locked doors by bureaucrats" How self righteous can you get?
He thinks that removing alot of the policies and programs America has in place right now cost too much money and therefore should be removed, when in reality removing alot of these programs froma society that has become dependent on many of them for nearly half a century would have such a heavy economic impact on the country that it would in fact send the US economy into an even greater downward spiral than the one experienced in late 2007/early 2008
I could go on dude, most of his policies are nuttier than candybar shit, sometimes people really do mistake crazy like a fox for just plain crazy. Most libertarians won't even touch Ron Paul with a ten foot pole. Food for thought.