Dave Smith: evaluation

Transcript context

…You’ve been a big fan of Ron Paul. Can you explain what you admire about him? A big fan is an understatement. I think Ron Paul is the greatest living American hero. I revere him on the level of the founding fathers, Thomas Jefferson or George Washington, number one. I mean all of the major issues that he was correct in his understanding of them, his diagnosis of what caused these problems and his solutions. And in hindsight, there’s just a million different examples of where almost everybody today would agree, even though his ideas were very controversial at the time, it’d be like, “Oh my God, if we had just listened to Ron Paul about that, we’d be so much better off.” But I think there’s something almost deeper than that about why Ron Paul inspires so much love from so many people is okay, so number one, the guy, he was a champion of these views for decades when there was no payoff for it at all. Where he was just kind of alone in the woods, they used to call him Dr No because he was a medical doctor. And then he would be the lone no vote in Congress all the time, on the bills that the entire Congress, bipartisan agreement, everything, and there’s one vote against it. And that he would be that guy. He clearly kept doing what he was doing simply because he believed it was right, not because there was any benefit for him. In fact, he dealt with a lot of headaches for the views that he had. And then he was just a genuine person of integrity. He’s the only congressman who I’ve ever heard this about. And DC insiders, people on the hill will say this. He was the only congressman of my lifetime who the lobbyists simply stopped visiting. He was the only one who, they just stopped going to his office because they were just like, “There’s just no getting through to this guy.” He was just not playing politics like that. And you imagine what it must’ve been like from the lobbyist perspective when they first tried to go there and they’d be like, “All right, listen, we really need you to vote yes on this or that.” And he was like, “The constitution doesn’t authorize us to do that.” And they’re like, “What? Who in this town even talks like that?” I’ve met him many times at this point, and he is just genuinely, he’s like one of those guys who’s just from an older, better generation. He’s the sweetest guy, but he’s not a pushover. He was a tough guy in his day, and he was an athlete and he was in the Air Force and is married to the same woman for I think over 60 years at this point, has a big beautiful family. He was a country doctor. He was a baby doctor who delivered thousands of babies. He’s like this kind of classic American figure. And I just think at the risk of falling into hero worship or something like that, I do think he’s a genuinely great man, and I think great men are to be revered. Yeah, as you said, there’s integrity there. Can you speak to the ideas that Ron Paul represents? He says some of the things he’s been right about. Maybe can you speak about the economics, the Fed, and maybe war and being anti-military intervention?…

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