Part One: Why This Godless Soshulist is Voting for Ron Paul

In your correspondent’s relatively brief life as a registered voter I have been a Republican, a Democrat, and unaffiliated. As someone who likes to believe he thinks critically about public policy, the two major ‘Merican political parties leave a lot to be desired. Both are incoherent amalgamations of various (almost random) interest groups and despite all attempts to dress up their platforms as internally consistent your correspondent has never been convinced.

Your correspondent’s politics, like those of many economists, is the intellectual offspring of the Victorian Liberals who were in favor of free trade and civil rights, deeply skeptical of empire and large corporations, and opposed to aristocracy, monarchy, and the established church. Fifty years ago this could have been described as Eisenhower Republicanism but there is no room in either party today for people who:

• see government as a means to an end, rather than an end in itself;
• want simple, open, transparent, accountable public policy; and
• want government to have no part in moral crusades at home or abroad.

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