Why The GOP Should Not Accept Ron Paul

Conn Carroll asks a fair question from our recent bloggingheads: How can I believe that the conservative tent should stretch to include former US Senator Bob Bennett, but not include Ron Paul?

It's a question nobody would have asked five years ago. Back then, Bob Bennett was recognized as one of the more conservative members of the Republican caucus. It's a mark of how much the GOP has changed that Conn would talk about Bob Bennett the way conservatives once talked about, say, Arlen Specter.

Even more startling is the change in the conservative swing toward placating and accepting Ron Paul and his version of libertarianism. My answer to the question of why this kind of libertarianism does not belong in the GOP comes down to the title that BHTV decided to give to our dialogue: quality control.

Not to beat around the bush: Ron Paul's monetary opinions are crank and he has propagated hysterical theories which attract people who have dangerous theories and outlooks into the party.

Let’s start with Paul’s economics. Paul urges conservatives to repudiate not only Milton Friedman but free-market economists back to Irving Fisher -- and to resurrect pre-Civil War approaches to banks and money.

Yet the trouble with Paul goes beyond policy. Ron Paul fans are infamously disruptive, such as when they jeered and heckled Dick Cheney at the most recent CPAC. When they engage in antics like this, how are they different from Code Pink?

Ron Paul's version of libertarian foreign policy makes room for wild conspiracy-mongering. Paul frequently appears on the Alex Jones radio show. The list of conspiracy theories that Jones pushes is long but the fact that Jones has supported the idea that 9/11 was a crime committed by the US government, not al-Qaeda, should be enough to disqualify anyone who supports his show from being taken seriously.

Paul's comfort with Jones reminds people with long memories of Paul lending his name to racist newsletters in the early 1990’s. Paul supporters argue that their man had no idea what was being published under his name, month after month. Yet Paul had no qualms about accepting the money generated by the newsletters:

The publishing operation was lucrative. A tax document from June 1993—wrapping up the year in which the Political Report had published the "welfare checks" comment on the L.A. riots—reported an annual income of $940,000 for Ron Paul & Associates, listing four employees in Texas (Paul's family and Rockwell) and seven more employees around the country. If Paul didn't know who was writing his newsletters, he knew they were a crucial source of income and a successful tool for building his fundraising base for a political comeback.

So rather than say that Ron Paul is “expanding the debate” and “bringing more people into the party", let's acknowledge something important: Paul is not just "bringing new people" into the GOP.

The welcome extended to Ron Paul and his group is actually changing the character of the GOP. When Ronald Reagan had to explain why he received the endorsement of the John Birch Society, he famously said: “They will be buying my philosophy, I’m not buying theirs.”

The case with Paul is reversed. Paul is not signing onto the agenda of mainstream Republicanism. Increasingly, mainstream Republicans are signing onto Ron Paul's agenda.

And if conservatives can no longer see how extreme and wrong the Paul agenda is, that says something very disturbing about the state of conservatism.