As (almost) everyone knows, Ron Paul is running for President.  So are dozens of other folks, right?  Why does this warrant a blog post, you ask?  The reactions to his candidacy have amazed me.  Many conservative Republicans are aghast that Congressman Paul has received the slightest consideration - not to mention a near record haul of $4.2 million in one-day online campaign donations.  The venom thrown towards him and his supporters in both the traditional media and the blogosphere is amazing.  He's called a liberal, a RINO (for Republican In Name Only), a closet Democrat, a kook, a nut, crazy, insane, etc.  Now, I can understand completely if someone disagrees with Paul on his foreign policy stance.  Frankly, I'm torn on the issue.  But liberal?  A closet Democrat?  A kook?

Read any of the speeches, publications or release from Paul or his campaign.  (http://www.ronpaullibrary.org/)  He stands unrelentingly for a return to republicanism.  Now, I'm not speaking of the Republican party, but something much bigger and more important: a return to a republican form of government.  He believes that the federal government should only have power over those specific things granted  to it by the Constitution, and that the vast majority of the federal government's actions in the past century have been outside the bounds of that Constitution.  Paul doesn't care whether these the results of these laws are good or bad.  In fact, the public debate should not be about whether Congress should do something, it's whether they are able to do it.  In the vast majority of cases the answer is clearly no.  In fact, Paul, a medical doctor, earned the nickname "Dr. No" because of his consistent votes against any bill which he believes expands the federal government's power beyond those enumerated in the Constitution.  Sound wacky?  It shouldn't: All powers except those explicitly listed in the Constitution are reserved not to the federal government but to the people through the states.  As Paul continually advises, read that darned Constitution sometime.

Today, however, both parties have completely ignored that most important Constitutional language.  Today, Republicans, once the party of restraint, expand the federal government and spend the people's money just as fast, if not faster, than the party across the aisle.  Republicans today think federal government programs are the way to answer this country's wrongs.  Since President Bush (who I voted for) was elected, we have seen numerous laws and initiates passed which vastly expands the federal government's power over our lives, including the Patriot Act, faith based initiates, Medicare prescription drug benefits, No Child Left Behind, FEMA reform and expansion, Hurricane Katrina recovery, and the creation of the Department of Homeland Security.  No matter what you think of the inherent goodness of these programs or their results, our Founding Fathers are spinning in their graves at the very thought of the federal government usurping that much power.  I haven't even touched on the hundreds of programs sponsored by both parties - from the income tax to Roe v. Wade - that have arisen since our founding.

On the issue of foreign policy, Paul is against all foreign entanglements, including the War in Iraq.  So was George Washington.  So were many of the other Founding Fathers.  Paul would rather us not give (read: waste) billions of dollars in foreign aid while we tax individuals in this country from cradle to grave.  He would withdraw from the U.N., NATO, and other international "super-governments."  He would only go to war if war was declared, and then fight with full force rather than with one hand tied behind our backs.  These are liberal ideas?  Really?   Since when?  Did I miss the teams changing jerseys?

Who would have thought that conservative Republicans would wage war on a Republican candidate who wanted to return this country to a republican form of government.  How could we imagine that the avoidance of foreign entanglements and their subsequent drain on national resources, as warned by George Washington himself, would considered "liberal."  When did limiting federal government, whether the purposes or results of a particular program are noble or not, become "crazy."  What kind of Orwellian world are we living in when a person is considered a kook for advocating the return to the exact form of government that our Founding Fathers created. 

You, as a member of the GOP, may be against Paul's positions.  But as long as the establishment GOP is for ever-expanding government, increased entitlements, run-away spending, amnesty (no matter how phrased) for illegal immigrants, endless foreign entanglements and nation-building, then please, think hard and make no mistake about which of you is actually the liberal.