Paul returned to the House in the Clinton era, and in March 2007, he launched a second presidential bid, this time in the Republican primary.
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The campaign drew a distinctive mélange of far-right, libertarian and just plain out-there supporters.Īmong them was LSD pioneer Timothy Leary, who hosted Paul as a special guest at an event in Los Angeles titled, “High-Tech Psychology: Demonstrations of Self-Change Appliances.” In 1988, he ran for president on the Libertarian Party ticket. He won the seat back two years later and served three terms in the House before retiring to pursue a failed Senate bid. With the nation still reeling from Watergate, sound monetary policy was not a priority for most voters, and Paul lost narrowly to his Democratic challenger. Stopping at the Woodlake Convalescent Center, he regaled senior citizens with his views about the difference between “honest,” gold-backed money and “dishonest money,” which was “backed by nothing but politicians.”
WORD MEANING TO STOP A REVOLUTION FULL
Thus began a decadeslong crusade to restore the gold standard and convince an indifferent nation to revolt against the Federal Reserve.Īs he sought reelection to a full term that fall, Paul took the issue with him onto the campaign trail. Paul held up the bill for about a month, but it became law, another blow to the gold-backed monetary order the Texas congressman revered. He took a seat on the banking committee, from which he mounted a lonely stand against a bill that would allow the International Monetary Fund to sell part of its gold holdings to finance international aid. When the incumbent vacated the seat, Paul won a special election to serve out the remaining nine months of the term. In 1974, he mounted a run for Congress, but lost. From there on out, the doctor found himself increasingly drawn to politics. So in 1971, when Richard Nixon shocked the world by severing the tie between the dollar and gold, few Americans were more incensed than Paul. He grew enamored with the gold standard, and he developed a deep enmity for the Federal Reserve, the epitome of the state’s power over the economy. Since its birth in the late 18th Century, it has sat far outside the mainstream of economic thought.Įven its name, “Austrian,” connoted its backwater status in the world of German-speaking economists - the equivalent of a group of New York art critics derisively terming some contemporary art movement, “the Topeka School.”īut the Austrians had a way of attracting fanatical followers. Its methodology eschews data in favor of thought experiments. The school emphasizes the role of individuals and is suspicious of state power. Paul was a fan of Ludwig von Mises, a Ukrainian-born intellectual who held a prominent place in the permanently out-of-fashion Austrian School of economics. He also became known as a fierce critic of American monetary policy. He became known locally for delivering many of the county’s babies. He served as a flight surgeon in the Air Force in the 1960s and relocated to Brazoria County, outside of Houston on the Gulf of Mexico, where he worked as an obstetrician. Paul was born in Pittsburgh in 1935 and attended Duke Medical School.
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In the beginning, it was a revolution of one. “I’m more convinced than ever,” a downright giddy Paul told POLITICO Magazine, “and our numbers are growing.” It’s no wonder that years after his quixotic presidential quest became a punchline, their patron saint feels certain that he will have the last laugh.
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For Spanos and his fellow travelers, it was just one more sign that the world is coming around to their heterodox views. During one 2017 trip to Caracas, he was whisked under cover of darkness to a military compound and given a surprise audience with the country’s president, Nicolás Maduro. Spanos has found allies in the unlikeliest of places. To Spanos and his ilk, the technology is a tool to reduce government power, especially that of the U.S. Spanos’ journey - and the links between the crypto movement and the Paul revolution - demonstrate the extent to which the cryptocurrency debate is about more than investments. “When I realized that Bitcoin couldn’t get destroyed on Election Day, that I finally had an instrument against this, a weapon for my battle, then I threw everything I had behind Bitcoin.” People thought I was crazy,” said Nick Spanos, a former director of voter contact for Paul turned pro-Bitcoin agitator. “I thought I threw my life away, chasing the Federal Reserve. Now, with crypto going mainstream and official inflation figures hitting 40-year highs, they say that Washington will have no choice but to contend with an economic vision that once seemed destined for obscurity. Their objective is to pry control of money away from the state, an audacious goal that flies in the face of a century of American monetary policy.