“Except for the gold standard, Paul is William Jennings Bryan.”
That is a fairly large exception. Moreover, viewing the consequences of Wilson plunging the USA into the European Great War (immediately after winning a second term on the slogan “He Kept Us Out of War”), and preventing a stalemate that would have forced the European powers to a less unstable settlement than the Versailles Treaty, WJ Bryan’s refusal to remain as Wilson’s SecState is not obviously mistaken.
Far from “making the world safe for democracy”, Wilson and his vigilante supporters suppressed democratic dissent at home and contributed to the making of a “peace to end all peace” http://www.amazon.com/Peace-End-All-20th-Anniversary/dp/0805088091 that led to a century populated with totalitarian states that took most of the century to reduce.
At least Wilson did get a declaration of war on carefully specified enemies from Congress before proceeding, however, unlike the wars commenced in recent years, which have blurred into a ‘perpetual war’ with enemies that now include, by vote of a large bipartisan majority in both houses of Congress, US citizens on US soil with the definition of ‘enemy’ left to the discretion of the commander in chief.
There is a difference between “isolationism” and “anti-interventionism” which critics of Paul seem incapable of grasping. Perhaps they don’t want to understand it. Another year or two of the consequences of break-the-bank interventionism may help to illuminate the difference.
Financial Arbitrage Capitalism After 10 Years
http://www.prudentbear.com/index.php/creditbubblebulletinview?art_id=10610
Five trillion in welfare and who knows how many trillions in corporate welfare is what has broken our bank.
I have less of an issue with us fighting than I do the hand of an attorney on every gun.
We won WWII because while our soldiers were getting the job done the Nazis were awaiting orders. We lost Vietnam because we turned into Germany.
How could the armistice after WW I have been any more unstable?