There is one thing that frightens me about Ron Paul. He had it right about the war, but he's only half-right about other things and totally wrong on some other things. Reading his website, I got the feeling of hearing some old crank who wishes government would just leave him alone so that he can take a walk down the street with his equipment hanging out for all the world to see. His vision of people doing the right thing if they're just left to themselves is nice, but unfortunately, naive. Without some kind of guiding principle that we all collectively subscribe to, we don't have a basis for sound judgement as to what is moral. Everyone is just doing his own thing, and to hell with what you think, or if it harms someone else.

The other problem is the absence of community and the need for order and a sense of a collective vision or goals. The USA seems to shift wildly between these extremes and we do better when we get the balance right. The so-called "Left" sees a place for government as the chosen sort of organizer/facilitator, publically decided on by all of us. The so-called "Right" sees government as an inhibition on personal liberty which is why if they really believe their rhetoric, they shouldn't be running for public office, unless the idea is to destroy it, or hollow it out so thoroughly so as to be ineffective and irrelevant. So of course, Dr. Paul would go and speak at Bob Jones University in SC, in the territory that used the argument of "states rights" to countenance atrocities such as slavery, miscegenation, lynching, and brutality against black people. He is of the same intellectual mold, the same worldview. A worldview that as we've seen the last 8 years, doesn't work so well as a practical matter and proves disastrous for everyone.

Another religious zealot who thinks he's cool and relevant because he lost 110 lbs. and plays a bass guitar. People are always talking about integrity in their candidates, but seem perfectly willing to let these people argue for things that are against their own economic and personal best interests just because he holds an opinion about "abortion" or "taxes" or "guns". Mike Huckabee perhaps more than any other candidate will get the vote of people who can only think in simplistic terms. People who need "others" out there to hate and fear. Gay people, immigrants, and those who have sex out of wedlock are always going to be targets for Huckabee's moralizing. This is why I don't go to church anymore. I don't need someone defining my moral center by who I am or am not sleeping with or in what fashion. If Huckabee were elected, he would try to make this a "Christian" nation and then lead us into Armageddon. That's a failed experiment I would not like to see repeated.

What great posts!

AJCalhoun especially made me laugh really hard.

I believe it's conversations like this that have saved our country from the worst that is in our national psyche. Apparently some of the most horrific choices are getting filtered out in this primary process. For example, I was terrified of Rudy Giuliani gaining any traction, but so far, he hasn't. Ron Paul can boast about beating Fred Thompson and Duncan Hunter, but as radical as he seems to be, he's just not quite enough of a screwball to get any serious attention. So here we have the field, friends: the Slick-Haired lying Corporate Republican who can't help flashing his pearly whites while selling the country down the river, the Broken War Horse who sold his country and his soul in the name of Ambition, and the Aw Shucks guy who really defines the words Jesus FREAK, and who would have my 3-year old grandson stoned if he ever gives his parents a hard time.

Should we be worried? Remember that we have seen all three versions of these cranks in our current iteration of government. This is nothing new. Just new packaging. Guaranteed to produce infinitely worse results (if such a thing is possible) than the current version has.