Joel Mathis

A libertarian friend of mine is very disappointed in me for semi-endorsing Mitt Romney for the GOP nomination over Ron Paul. After all, he points out, Paul's anti-imperialistic views of the presidency—both in war-making and in executive power, generally—are closer to my own than any other GOP candidate. Heck, on those two areas, I like his views better than President Obama. So why can't I support Paul for the GOP nomination? Easy. I think he'd be a disaster for the country. Put aside his dubious explanations for the racist newsletters . Put aside the fact that he'd have nearly zero support for his agenda in Congress . Let's look at the agenda itself. (I take all the following statements from his website. ) He'd cut $1 trillion in government spending in the first year of his presidency, on the way to a balanced budget by Year Three. The debt is a problem, I agree, but I believe yanking so much money out of the economy would probably deepen our the Great Re

This year, for instance, Paul has sponsored 47 bills, including measures to withdraw from the United Nations , repeal the federal law banning guns in school zones and let private groups coin their own money . None has moved, and 32 have failed to attract a single co-sponsor. “He’s somewhat of an introvert [and] a little quirky, so he doesn’t work the legislative process like most do,” said former congressman Zach Wamp (R-Tenn.), who served with Paul from 1997 to 2010 . But Wamp said Paul, as president, might succeed where Paul the legislator had not. “When you’re president, they can’t just ignore you,” Wamp said. “Because you have a mandate.” via washingtonpost.com I had a period of about four hours a few weeks ago in which I considered whether supporting Ron Paul was the right way to go: The performance of the president on civil liberties issues has frustrated me that much. But Paul has too easily lent his name—if not his mind—to racist sentiments and crank conspiracy theorizi