re: #492 quickjustice

I think Ron Paul personally despicable because of his deliberate and knowing neo-Nazi and 9/11 Truther associations. That doesn’t mean all of his ideas are unworthy of discussion. The gold standard is an argument for hard money. Gold is the wrong choice in a modern economy, because there’s only a finite supply of it. As economies grow, money supply should expand with them. You can’t expand a finite resource. So the economic debate about how hard money should be, or should become, is a valid one.

Letters of marque and reprisal have been suggested as a serious solution to the pirate problem off Somalia. I haven’t thought that one through, and it appears that using them in any context except maritime commerce is problematic, but they’re not a “joke”.

My point is only that the underlying points are debatable, and hence worthy of attention and respect.

Paul has an ulterior motive. He wants to privatize national security and national defence, so he can argue that we don’t need a military, and should abolish it.

Make no mistake about it; he is an anarchist, whose goals are to dismantle very governmental institution, including essential ones.

I’m all for using our perfectly good military to deal with those bastards. It worked 200 years ago. And letters of marque and reprisal didn’t.