Linda Chavez - Please email her NOW!

Subject: Ron Paul a crank?

Hello Linda! I am writing in response to these comments, which I beleive were written by you:

"Ron Paul, on the other hand, is a bona fide crank. This week we learned, for example, that he not only opposes the war in Iraq, but that he regards the Civil War as a mistake as well. Apparently he believes the Southern states should have been allowed to secede from the union in 1861. As for slavery, Paul says that it could have been ended by the federal government without a war. How? "You, you buy the slaves and release them," he told Tim Russert on "Meet the Press."

We didn't learn this week that he opposes the Iraq war, he's described his foreign policy fully since the very beginning of his campaign. Regardless of that, it is not an uncommon stand to take (only amongst his fellow Republican candidates) and he backs his assertion up with reason and logic, so I don't see how that qualifies him as a "crank".

You are correct that Ron Paul said he didn't think the Civil War needed to be fought, and that slaves could have been purchased from their owners and set free. This is exactly how England ended slavery in their own country, so it HAS been successful in the past. Why is that worse than having 500,000 + men killed? Furthermore, if you study the war further, you will see that slavery was NOT the main issue that Southerners were fighting over... it was oppressive taxes and tarriffs imposed on the South by the Federal governemnt that caused them to want to secede. Oppressive taxation is the main reason why the American revolutionaries fought for independance from England. If you agree with the revolutionaries' reasoning for wanting to get out from under England's rule, it's hard to say that the Southerners were entirely wrong to protest this taxation. The reason they were taxed was due to the South's much more temperate climate, and it's ability to easily outgrow the North in terms of agriculture. In order for the North to be able to sell their goods, they needed to impose these tarriffs to make the South's products more expensive. These policies helped the North while hurting the South.

In summary, if you want to call Dr. Paul a crank, then so be it... that's your right. I just wanted to point out that the two reasons you list for calling him that are not very convincing arguments.

Here's to a prosperous and free New Year!!

Mike Murphy

It's hard to email her about her article if we can't read it. Instead of linking to it, why don't you post the article here?