Today we begin rating the Presidential candidates with our rating for Barack Obama. The Paul-O-Meter will give us a total score on 20 criteria. The closer a candidate gets to 100 points the more that candidate is like Ron Paul. For each criteria we will give the score and a short justification for that score. Read the results for Barack Obama below.
Ron Paul was interviewed via phone on FOX Business News yesterday. He spoke about capitalism, monetary policy, oil prices, foreign policy, Iran, income taxes, and our costly interventions overseas. Yes, he fit a lot into 5 minutes.
Most presidential campaign books come at the beginning of the campaign season. This gives even a bad campaign book undeserved relevance. But the increased relevance is generally offset by discernable reductions in candor and specificity, so as not to provide one’s opponent with too many inviting targets.
Ron Paul’s “The Revolution: A Manifesto” defies this convention. Writing at the end of his campaign, and therefore knowing he will not be the next president, Mr. Paul forcefully articulates our bedrock constitutional principles and energetically advances his argument that these principles can restore American greatness for years to come ,if we will only return to them now.
And although Mr. Paul’s presidential campaign is over, this is indeed a manifesto, not a memoir. These are political principles for our future, things Mr. Paul wants us to remember after he has left the rostrum.
Mr. Paul’s central thesis is that we have departed from the principles of our nation’s Founding in ways that systematically make us less free. Consequently, we now have a much larger, more powerful national government, one our Founders would not recognize - or might recognize as an empire doomed to the fate of all previous empires.
Such a thesis could easily become unbearably dark and tedious. But Mr. Paul, a medical doctor, makes his diagnosis in seven concise and lucid chapters that never lose the thread of hope for recovery.
The IMF has informed Ben Bernanke that “the board has ruled that a so-called Financial Sector Assessment Program is to be carried out in the US.” This brings up an interesting dilemma for Ron Paul supporters who monitor the Fed and liken it to an unconstitutional cabal. We are against the IMF and federal style regulation over markets at all levels, yet we painfully yearn for more transparency from the Federal Reserve. If we aren’t yearning for more transparency from the Fed we are advocating abolishing it outright.
So the question is then, do we support the IMF investigating the hated Federal Reserve because it conveniently supports our anti-Fed sentiments? Or are we truly and purely against the IMF and it’s authority to perform such investigations?
In the opinion of David Hirst in Australian’s “The Age”, such IMF interventions are long overdue for America. After all many other IMF countries have had to go through the same investigations. Hirst calls it a “blow to American exceptionism.”
[The] IMF intervention (my expression) is a humiliation for the US, the real significance may be that this is another blow to American exceptionism.
While the examination is far reaching, and deeply intrusive, Canada, Britain, Italy, indeed two-thirds of IMF members, have participated in the program. The new President will soon discover the age of US exceptionism is over.
Meanwhile the US markets have entered bear territory, the economy has done likewise and we are at the beginning of a long and tortuous process before rebuilding can even commence.
The entire article by Hirst is well worth reading although his argument seems to be for demanding fairness from the IMF rather than whether performing such “investigations” should be done in the first place.
Who needs a Ron Paul endorsement when you have the Paul-O-Meter?
Everyone knows the perfection of Ron Paul. He is already a living legend. All future candidates are damaged goods simply because they are not Ron Paul. There is only one Ron Paul. So to see how other candidates measure up to his perfection we are introducing the “Paul-O-Meter”.
The Paul-O-Meter ranks candidates on a scale from 0 to 100 depending on how closely they are in agreement with Ron Paul on chosen criteria. Since no candidate can possibly equal Ron Paul, the highest score on the Paul-O-Meter attainable for candidates other than Ron Paul is 99. To simplify the ranking, each candidate will be graded from 1 to 5 on each of the 20 criteria. The 20 criteria are listed below, along with a short description for each.
Much has been made amongst the Ron Paul faithful about who Ron Paul will end up endorsing for President. The only thing they all seem to agree on is that it won’t be John McCain. It seems that the sentiments are evenly split between Bob Barr and Chuck Baldwin. The truth is it doesn’t really matter who wins his endorsement. Anyone who has followed Ron Paul knows what issues represent true liberty. They don’t need Ron Paul’s expressed approval to know which candidates support liberty and which do not.
For those that don’t already know here is a refresher. If your last name is Obama or McCain you are anti-liberty and don’t understand the Constitution even though you will swear to defend and uphold it when you take office. If your last name is Barr or Baldwin you are pro-liberty and you understand that the Constitution is the supreme law of the land. That is really all you need to know. Ron Paul has De-facto endorsed both Barr and Baldwin. It is unlikely Paul will officially endorse either candidate.
Why is it unlikely that he endorse one or both of them officially? The answer is simple. He’s a sitting Republican Congressman. If he were to publicly and officially endorse someone from another party he could be committing political suicide. He could lose his committee memberships. He could lose his seniority. It is important for Paul to walk this political line in order to help return the Republican Party back to its “Old Right” principles. He could not do so if he loses his status as a senior Congressman. He would be jeopardizing his ability to directly question the Federal Reserve Chairman about monetary policy. That is something he seems to relish so much, as do his supporters.
The only other evidence that can be given to support the argument that he will not endorse a non-Republican candidate is that he has played politics with his endorsements over the past year. He refused to endorse against any incumbent Republicans even when the challenge came from a liberty minded Ron Paul Republican. To this day he still has not endorsed against any incumbent neo-conservative Republican. The only motivation for doing this has to be maintaining his Congressional status on committees and other relationships. This runs at odds with his rhetoric of castigating the party for its neo-con ways. He won’t put his endorsements where his mouth is.
So stop waiting for Ron Paul to endorse Bob Barr or Chuck Baldwin. Pick one to endorse yourself then go out and campaign for your choice. When you do so you know you are campaigning for liberty whether Ron Paul gives his endorsement seal of approval or not.
We support Bob Barr over Chuck Baldwin, but supporting either is a victory for liberty. Writing in Ron Paul is a victory for your own conscience but it won’t help liberty win. However, supporting Barr, Baldwin, or writing in Ron Paul is infinitely better for liberty than voting for Obamccain.
Ron Paul appeared for over 10 minutes for two segments on the Glenn Beck TV show tonight. The show had a replacement host who interestingly allowed Paul to answer his questions fully and completely, but also asked him a form of the dreaded 9-11 truth question. Ignoring that one question I think it was a pretty good appearance. The now requisite ask Ron Paul about Bob Barr and ask Bob Barr about Ron Paul interview dance was done as well. It is in two parts.
This is a great article showing a comparison of Ron Paul and Bob Barr on the issues over at Third Party Watch. It clearly shows that since Bob Barr’s transformation to libertarianism he and Ron Paul are twins on the major issues of the day.
Non-interventionism
Ron Paul: “Non-interventionism is not isolationism. Non-intervention simply means America does not interfere militarily, financially, or covertly in the internal affairs of other nations. It does not we that we isolate ourselves; on the contrary, our founders advocated open trade, travel, communication, and diplomacy with other nations.” – source
Bob Barr: “Our National Defense policy must renew a commitment to non-intervention. We are not the world’s police force and our long, yet recently tarnished, tradition of respecting the sovereignty of other nations is necessary, not from only a moral standpoint, but to regain the respect of the world as a principled and peaceful nation.” – source
Iraq
Ron Paul: “The sooner we withdraw the better. The invasion and continued US occupation has strengthened both Iran and Al-Qaeda in the region. Continuing down the road of a failed policy will only cost more money we do not have and more lives that should not be sacrificed. Interventionism has produced one disaster after another. It is time we return to a non-interventionist foreign policy that emphasizes peaceful trade and travel and no entangling alliances. We can begin by withdrawing from Iraq immediately.” – source
Bob Barr: “I believe the occupation of Iraq—where we have a presence in a foreign country that effectively manages that country and provides the fundamental basis on which that country and government exists and operates—is not something that is sound policy and is not consistent with the historical norms of a national defense policy. So I think that we need to—and I would as president—begin immediately and significantly drawing down our military and economic presence in Iraq for two reasons: One, because it is not in our interest to nation-build or to occupy foreign lands and, secondly, if we would ever wish to have the Iraqi government take responsibility for its own affairs, we necessarily have to remove the security blanket that right now makes it very easy for them not to do so. In other words, they are never going to assume responsibility for their own affairs as long as we are there propping them up.” – source
Taxes and spending
Ron Paul: “A pure consumption tax like the Fair Tax would be better than the current system only if we truly did away with the income tax by repealing the 16th amendment. Otherwise, we could end up with both the income tax and a national sales tax. A consumption tax also provides more transparency and less complexity. But the real issue is total spending by government, not tax reform.” – source
Bob Barr: “Cutting spending would allow America to implement real tax reform. Our goal should be to reduce both the tax burden on Americans and the intrusion in their lives resulting from IRS enforcement of the income tax. One of the best approaches would be to adopt some form of a consumption tax, like a national sales tax, replacing the Internal Revenue Service and all federal income taxes as well as payroll taxes.
“It is not enough to eliminate the income tax. We also must repeal the 16th amendment, which authorizes Congress to levy an income tax. Without doing so, there would be an ever-present danger that a future Congress would attempt to bring back the income tax on top of the Fair Tax or any other alternative to the income tax. ” – source
Federal Reserve
Ron Paul: “The greatest threat facing America today is not terrorism, or foreign economic competition, or illegal immigration. The greatest threat facing America today is the disastrous fiscal policies of our own government, marked by shameless deficit spending and Federal Reserve currency devaluation. It is this one-two punch—Congress spending more than it can tax or borrow, and the Fed printing money to make up the difference—that threatens to impoverish us by further destroying the value of our dollars.” – source
Bob Barr: “If I could wave a magic wand and the Federal Reserve Bank would disappear tomorrow, I would do so. It’s a group of unelected governors that are not answerable to or accountable to the people of this country and yet they wield considerable influence over the economy by basically setting rates at which banks and other financial institutions can loan money. And they have built up, you know, huge reserves themselves that they can then dole out as they’re doing – as they did recently with Bear Stearns to prop up as failing, what they see as failing investment houses, for example.” – source
Here is the 6 part (full hour) interview of Glenn Beck interviewing Bob Barr from tonight (06/06/2008). Good stuff. Note that without the commercials it is not a full hour.
I turned 18 in 1989. Like many young people I had been taught that the government was there to help people. I called myself a Democrat. I didn’t understand the consequences of big government. I didn’t understand taxes.
It didn’t take long for me to learn these things. The first presidential election I voted in was 1992. I supported Paul Tsongas in the Democratic primary. I didn’t like Bill Clinton much, but I disagreed with the Republicans the most. So in the general election I voted for Bill Clinton. Between 1992 and 1996 I read “Atlas Shrugged” By Ayn Rand. It changed me. I already had the foundation of a fiscally conservative, socially liberal world view with my support of Tsongas. After reading Ayn Rand and discovering the Libertarian Party and with it Harry Browne, my conversion was complete.
After voting for Harry Browne in 2000 I became disinterested in politics. I voted for Michael Badnarik in 2004, but I never felt the same kinship with him as I had for Harry Browne. In early 2007 I read that Ron Paul may be running for President. I knew of Ron Paul as the most libertarian Congressman, but I didn’t know the details of his positions at that time. After research it seemed I agreed with him on most things with the exception of immigration and abortion. I decided Ron Paul would get my vote.
Then the movement started and I was swept up in it. Probably the single event that did it for me was watching the video of his speech on the floor of the House about a year ago called, “In the Name of Patriotism (Who are the Patriots?)” [VIDEO]. I got chills listening to it. I was amazed to hear such wonderful rhetoric from a politician. The fact he was saying it on the floor of the House of Representatives filled me with awe at his political bravado.
I was skeptical at his reach with the American public, but he certainly struck a chord and his liberty message spread in spite of limited media attention. If the media treated him as a candidate equal to the others I firmly believe his appeal would have been even wider. Unfortunately, to many Republicans he did reach, he was deemed crazy.
Then I heard that Bob Barr may seek the Libertarian Party’s nomination. I had heard that he joined the Libertarian Party awhile ago and thought it was odd. After all, I knew him because of his neo-conservative roots during the 1994 “Contract With America” that was well intended, but never materialized. I did some research and discovered Barr and Ron Paul were friends, worked on legislation together, and agreed on many of the issues.
Liberty Maven
” from Mark Grattis in the Washington Times.
. It changed me. I already had the foundation of a fiscally conservative, socially liberal world view with my support of Tsongas. After reading Ayn Rand and discovering the 
