Alco-Paul-ics Anonymous

(Photo courtesy of RonPaul.com)

"Hi, my name is Joey, and it's been two years since I last succumbed to Ron Paul hysteria."

This is where you say, "Hi Joey...", creepily and in unison.

It's true. When my political journey from being a West Texas conservative Republican Catholic schoolboy to a contrarian liberal iconoclast was still just beginning in those cold, confusing but stimulating days of fall/winter 2009, I drank deeply and frequently from what then seemed to be the oasis of Ron Paul-ite libertarianism. For a teenager desperately trying to grapple with the conflicting forces of the conventional wisdom of the social circle I was born into, and the desire for the change or even revolution that I felt the country so desperately needed and that motivated me to shock my friends and family by supporting Barack Obama in the previous year's election, Ron Paul appeared to be just the savior to restore order to the chaos of my contradictory political views. Opposed both to the War in Iraq and on Drugs, and seemingly above the spineless displays of political pandering so shamefully characteristic of modern politics, Paul was and is masterful at couching his brand of libertarianism in terms which at first glance seem acceptable to people such as myself, ordinarily disgusted as we are by the concept of a federal government indifferent both to allowing uninsured citizens to die and to public businesses denying service to racial minorities:

The sad truth that I discovered during my few months with a Ron Paul fetish, was that an America governed by Paul's philosophy would be indifferent to both of those horrific realities, automatically disqualifying him from ever getting my vote or endorsement- and that's to say nothing of his inadequate response to the controversy surrounding his connection to those atrocious racist newsletters, or his ridiculous and historically inaccurate portrayal of Abraham Lincoln as a man who fought the Civil War "to get rid of the original intent of the republic":

http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Elections/President/2011/1229/Racist-newsletter-timeline-What-Ron-Paul-has-said

But while Dr. Paul's, *ahem, eccentric views on history and philosophy disqualify him personally from ever gaining the endorsement of anyone who is aware of those views and cares that their presidential candidate accepts the logic that established national unity, social justice, and racial equality in this country, one must be careful not to, pardon the cliché, throw the baby out with the bathwater. There is a good reason that he's caught the attention of those planning on attending the Iowa caucuses tomorrow, as well as so many of my fellow young people. He is the only candidate who takes seriously the reality, made more obvious every day, that if this country ever hopes to get its budget in order it must cut back seriously on a bloated defense budget that is a whole six times larger than our closest competitor (China- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_military_expenditures#cite_note-The_SIPRI_Military_Expenditure_Database-0), and who has the testicles to say publicly that the War on Drugs has been a miserable failure and that marijuana should be legalized, something that almost every politician must be smart enough to know deep-down. In characteristic Ron Paul fashion, the doctor carries this latter doctrine much too far in his advocacy for the legalization of drugs substantially harder than marijuana as well, but this gets back precisely to the original point- while Ron Paul has some good ideas that ought to be co-opted by more reasonable politicians, he himself is unacceptable as a candidate for high office anywhere outside of his home district here in Texas.