Aside from the catcalls and epithets arising from the neocons, in the saner precincts of the internet the response to the sight of Ron Paul standing up to the bully Giuliani is somewhat heartening.
Over at the Cato Institute, David Boaz has a perceptive analysis of the catalytic role Paul could play in the GOP primaries as the sole antiwar Republican in the pack, and yet notes that Giuliani did score points with the orthodox Bushians. As noted here, some of the Cato-ites tend to look down their noses at Paul, and this interesting piece from McClatchy quotes Michael Tanner, author of Leviathan on the Right: How Big-Government Conservatism Brought Down the Republican Revolution, recently published by Cato, which at least acknowledges Paul’s tremendous contribution:Â
“He’s performing an enormously valuable service. His very existence on the stage pressures the others. There is a small-government, libertarian conservative base in the Republican Party. It may or may not be as big as the religious right. It’s open for the taking.”
Unfortunately, Tanner spoils this by adding Paul is “kind of quirky. He has some issues that give him a fringe-y air.” According to the Cato-ites, it is “fringe-y” to talk about the real cause of inflation — expansion of the money supply by the Federal Reserve. They frown on Ludwig von Mises, the Austrian economist who upheld a pure theory of market economics, and much prefer the supposedly more “pragmatic” Milton Friedman just because he’s more “mainstream.” The problem for Cato is that Ron Paul continues to uphold the libertarian philosophy their own “younger” generation of Beltway-centric know-it-alls is moving rapidly away from.
Meanwhile, on the left side of the spectrum, over at The Nation, they get right to the core issue of Benito’s demagoguery:
“Rudy Giuliani made clear in Tuesday night’s Republican presidential debate that he is not ready to let the facts get in the way of his approach to foreign policy.”
And from none other than the War Party’s former Grand Inquisitor, Andrew Sullivan:
“They’re scared, aren’t they? The Internet polls show real support for him. Fox News’ own internet poll placed him a close second, with 25 percent of the votes from Fox News viewers. We have a real phenomenon here – because someone has to stand up for what conservatism once stood for.”
Coming from this guy, who once attacked Susan Sontag for saying essentially the same thing about 9/11 as Ron Paul did, that’s quite a mouthful. Yes, I know, I know — we’re all sick of Sullivan — but this almost makes up for his past sins….
Unfortunately, Tanner spoils this by adding Paul is “kind of quirky. He has some issues that give him a fringe-y air.†According to the Cato-ites, it is “fringe-y†to talk about the real cause of inflation — expansion of the money supply by the Federal Reserve. They frown on Ludwig von Mises, the Austrian economist who upheld a pure theory of market economics, and much prefer the supposedly more “pragmatic†Milton Friedman just because he’s more “mainstream.â€
This is utter nonsense. Gold standard currencies, Paul’s response of choice to the expanding money supply are deflationary, leading to considerably worse outcomes for most people than a controlled rate of inflation. Incidentally, the value of gold experiences far more dramatic shocks than does the US dollar, especially now that gold has significant value in use (e.g. in electronics), something it did not have at the time when gold standards were prevalent in the world.
Also, von Mises and the other Austrian school “heterodox” fellows are economic philosophers more than they are economists; their ideas are not backed by research, and more so, they are unprovable. The value of a scholar is not to be found in his ideological purity.