Before I post this, first I really must offer the obligatory disclaimer that I am not endorsing the person or candidacy of Rep. Ron Paul by publishing this video on DM. I won’t go into the reasons why because that only invites avalanches of angry rebuttals from his supporters, who feel very, very passionately about their candidate, and frankly I really just don’t care to hear it. But I’m not putting them down, either. This ability to be able to excite the passions of his base the way that Ron Paul does is a rare, and indeed enviable, quality for a politician to have. Furthermore it’s something that (usually) only comes about because the supporters see themselves as standing behind a person of principle and integrity and on those counts, I have no trouble giving Rep. Ron Paul his due.

Whilst Ron Paul is decidedly not my cup of tea, I do happen to agree with a whole heap of what he has to say on civil liberties, ending the drug war and a dramatically more isolationist American foreign policy. His views on the Military Industrial Complex are anything but wacky! On the flipside, there is just so much that alarms me about his other views that I could never come even close to being persuaded to pull the lever for him in a voting both. As I would classify my views as basically “Marxist,” these reasons should be obvious enough.

Having said all that, and although I would not like to see Ron Paul as the next President, I sure as shit would love to see him debate Obama.

I’d also love to see him throw a hand grenade into the heart of the Republican political establishment, which I think is coming. Some of Paul’s (better) ideas are getting a lot of traction and this is very alarming to the GOP elite, who never took him seriously. As you will hear repeated ad naseum in the weeks leading up to the 2012 Iowa Caucus, “Ron Paul can’t win nationally.” And that’s not the Democrats talking. The Republican establishment is scared stiff of the assent of Ron Paul, and will do everything they can to quash his candidacy.

Fun fact, in late December of 2011, Ron Paul is out-polling where John McCain was nationally this same week in 2007.
 

 
Thank you Otto von Ruggins!