What Ron Paul would bring to the debate

For the most part I cannot stomach watching the Republican debates.  There have been way too many of them and they have been long on bullshit and short on substance.  That is because, for the most part the candidates themselves are long on bullshit and short on substance.  The exception has been Ron Paul.

Let me say that much that he has to say is completely wrong.  If his economic policies were every implemented, our slide into feudalism would be completed.  It would be like Europe during the dark ages.  But on the libertarian side, he does get some things right.

But this is my thought.  Both Paul and Obama are intelligent men.  And I suspect a debate between these two would expose once and for all the issues that the American people really need to think about.  It is about what kind of country that we intend to be.

What should the role of government be?  What should the role of business be?  And just as important, what has worked, for the benefit of us all, and what has proved to be a failure?  All this matters, all this needs to be discussed, and I think that, during a debate between these two, that would happen.

How would Obama respond to Paul's observations on the failure of the War on Drugs, of his contention that the Patriot Act is unconstitutional and contrary to all our ideals as Americans?  How would Paul respond the  historical evidence that the middle class has prospered and grown the most during the periods that our tax code was most progressive, and that regulating business conduct had kept us out of this kind of economic malaise since the Great Depression?  These are just a few of the issues where it is important that both sides be heard so that informed choices can be made.

Perhaps I am being naive, but I believe that Paul being the Republican nominee would raise the level of discourse, and allow the real issues facing us to be discussed and debated.  Any one of the other Republican candidates would be running on slogans and personality and character assassination.  Either way, Obama gets re-elected, but a real debate about real issues would do much to elevate the American consciousness on the decisions that lay before us.

There is a war of ideas going in in this country, but the right is doing it's best to conceal what those ideas really are from the public at large.  I think this would get those ideas out in the open.