Spoken like a true libertarian, Greenie. But then, what would I know, I'm just a softheaded socialist. Speaking as a soft-minded socialist, I will say personally that Paul's vision is not one that I will ever embrace. Which is to say, I'd probably embrace some of the general principles that he espouses if we were a wilderness society, with about a tenth the number of residents, all of whom had access to farmland, well-water, and the like.

Without highways, or public transportation, and such. No cars. No phone system. No public utilities. Especially no mega-global corporations or whimsical billionaires. A sort of nice, Jeffersonian nation of gentleman farmers, possessed of arable land and a terrific classical library. But, sigh. Not such a world.

Certain things I would disagree with Paul on, even if the world I describe above were the world we live in...

This is Dr. Paul, 1993

QUOTE "Indeed, it is shocking to consider the uniformity of opinion among blacks in this country. Opinion polls consistently show that only about 5% of blacks have sensible political opinions, i.e. support the free market, individual liberty, and the end of welfare and affirmative action.... Given the inefficiencies of what D.C. laughingly calls the "criminal justice system," I think we can safely assume that 95% of the black males in that city are semi-criminal or entirely criminal.

If similar in-depth studies were conducted in other major cities, who doubts that similar results would be produced? We are constantly told that it is evil to be afraid of black men, but it is hardly irrational. Black men commit murders, rapes, robberies, muggings, and burglaries all out of proportion to their numbers.

Perhaps the L.A. experience should not be surprising. The riots, burning, looting, and murders are only a continuation of 30 years of racial politics.The looting in L.A. was the welfare state without the voting booth. The elite have sent one message to black America for 30 years: you are entitled to something for nothing. That's what blacks got on the streets of L.A. for three days in April. Only they didn't ask their Congressmen to arrange the transfer." ENDQUOTE

This was Ron Paul, on the LA Riots. Now, I happened to have been in Los Angeles during the riots, in fact I'm in Los Angeles right this second, and was for many years before the riots, and have made a sort of an amateur study of this town for my whole frigging life, and I will tell you without equivocation that that is the most dumb-headed, simplistic, offensive and risible misinterpretation of our racial divide and it's roots here that I have ever heard.

Thank you, Ron Paul, but no thanks. Love your positions on drugs and getting us out of Iraq, but the rest? The Neo-Nazi ties? The "life begins at conception" thing? The John Birch Society ties. The militia ties. Sorry, no. Just not going to happen.

As far as the red states seceding from the Union, well, oh well, okay, if you must. Just don't come crawling back when you've plummeted into the dark ages. Oh, and you have to take our wingnuts, and we get your progressives, okay? We'll turn Orange County Blue! Wahoo!