I’m dead tired now, so I’ll retire for good.

What I feel rotten about is there clearly being a vast body of legitimate scholarship regarding the merits of free banking, and the side-effects of monetary central planning (the Federal Reserve), while freaks like Ron Paul completely discredit even the legitimacy of discussing these issues academically. These issues need to be considered on their own merits, not on who their loudest kooky advocates are.

By the way, I have zero hope that these issues will be impassionedly considered, not just because the involvement of Ron Paul and the Paleo-cons tarnishes them by association, but because the economic and institutional Zeitgeist of our society is far too collectivisitc and statist-friendly to be open to these ideas. Public opinion is on the brink, between capitalism and socialism. We are close to nationalizing healthcare, the auto-industry, and a good chunk of the financial sector (oh, wait, we’ve actually done that already).

Ideas so radical as the abolishing of the Central Bank, and further still, the abolition of currency controls, are beyond the pale. From a practical standpoint, I wouldn’t even come close to insinuating them into the public agenda. Not if I were a Republican, that’s for sure. THEY’RE OUT OF TOUCH WITH MAINSTREAM THINKING and will alienate the center-left electorate in droves! Why can’t Republicans understand that? Their behavior is so self-destructive, it baffles me.

Nonetheless, I still consider these ideas with the utmost seriousness in the realms of academics and economic research. And in that context, I hate to see them contextualized by the Paulbots.