The Inside Story: Why a Ron Paul Disciple Left His Ranks

Republican Security Council via Facebook ^

[mnehring]

David Bahnsen of Newport Beach, California is a Senior Vice President of Morgan Stanley, and also serves on the Board of Advisers of the California Recovery Project with Dr. Arthur Laffer. Bahnsen has abandoned his earlier support of the Ron Paul crusade, and now describes himself as an "economically literate Republican." He is the author of "The Undiscerning and Dangerous Appreciation of Ron Paul."

• Bahnsen says "It is the ironic that Ron Paul's alleged praiseworthiness comes from his devotion to the Constitution, when in fact, he has emphatically rejected it." Bahnsen has many family and business connections with libertarians. His late father, Dr. Greg Bahnsen, was one of the top three leaders of the Christian Reconstructionism movement which calls on the religious community to put their faith into action.
• The primary target in his article is Lew Rockwell, who has been the Congressman's most prominent ghost writer for the past 30 years. Rockwell served four years as the Congressman's chief of staff and has been vice chairman of his presidential campaigns.
• Rockwell publishes Ron Paul's books, and Bahnsen says Rockwell and Paul are "one and the same."  Rockwell is also Chairman of the Ludwig Von Mises Institute which is closely associated with Paul and advocates the Austrian School of Economics. The libertarians believe in the Austrian School which is totally ignored with good reason by mainstream academia.

The standard economics texts used on the university level do not even mention it. There are no more than 75 scholars worldwide who follow the Austrian School while there are over 20,000 economists in the American Economics Association.

Mainstream economists use the scientific method, but the Austrians reject it. Mainstream economists make heavy use of statistics, but the Austrians claim they have little value. Mainstream economists believe in fiat money, while the Austrians believe in the gold standard. Libertarian economics is a small cult. Bahnsen, 37, is still "heavily influenced" by libertarian economics, and has many interesting observations about their inside world. Some excerpts from Bahnsen's article are as follows:

• I attended every Ludwig Von Mises Institute conference I could find, and read all the books their movement published. Ron Paul spoke at every one of these events. When I wasn’t listening to John Denton say America had no business getting into World War II, or former Rep. Bob Barr (R-GA) saying the federal government (not Tim McVeigh) blew up the building in Oklahoma City, I was intrigued by much of what their movement had to say.
• As I got older and wiser, I began to realize the heir of Friedrich Hayek was Milton Friedman, not libertarian Murray Rothbard. I realized this 'Austrian economics movement' was a front for an extremist form of anti-war zealotry. Every conference break was filled with the most radical of conspiracy theorists you have ever heard, and the political intentions of the major brains behind their operation were not hidden: utter anarchy.
• On Rockwell's website you will hear that Winston Churchill was a worse war criminal than Joseph Stalin or Adolf Hitler.  You will see a celebration that Tony Snow died of cancer (because he did, after all, support the Iraq war). You will find out that Lew Rockwell believes the Constitution is a statist document. 
• You will read that the men and women serving our military are despicable little immoral creatures, trained to kill innocent parties. The Winston Churchill statue at Hillsdale College is called a travesty. Abraham Lincoln, Franklin Roosevelt, Ronald Reagan and George Bush are all called warmongers.
• I spent several hours speaking with Ron Paul shortly after 9/11. He informed me that the Islamist threat was a made up one, just as the Communist threat of the 1950’s and 1960’s was. He told me, to my face, in his own words, that Lew Rockwell and his people were the only ones calling a spade a spade: America did deserve what the Islamists were trying to do to us, and if we simply learned to leave them alone, they would in turn leave us alone.
• Ron Paul’s role in advancing the cause of limited government and a monetary policy of common sense is, shall we say, minimal.  He uses every opportunity when in front of a microphone to advance the cause of military isolationism.

You can read Bahnsen's original article at: http://www.davidbahnsen.com/index.php/2011/05/21/the-undiscerning-and-dangerous-appreciation-of-ron-paul/

[jmc813]

Ugh, I just made the mistake of checking out the wall posts from the”RSC”. Could these people fellate Mitt more? Good grief.

[SunkenCiv]

g its image as the party always seemingly "eager to go to war... We do need to expand the party and grow the party and that does mean that we don't always all agree on every issue" ... the party needs to become more welcoming to individuals who disagree with basic Republican doctrine on emotional social issues such as gay marriage... "We're going to have to be a little hands off on some of these issues ... and get people into the party," Paul said. [Rand Paul: Time for GOP to soften [immigration, gay marriage] stance]

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• One day after announcing on his radio show that he is "truly considering" running in 2014 for the U.S. Senate seat now held by New Jersey's Frank Lautenberg, Rivera amped up his message today in a television interview and a column on the Fox News Latino website... a moderate Republican who is fiscally conservative but also supports gay marriage and Roe v. Wade... [Geraldo Rivera declares himself a 'moderate Republican' as he eyes U.S. Senate run]

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[Larry Lucido]

Yep. Paul would make a lot of sense, except for his stupidity.