Hence, the platform demands a pullout from the United Nations, an end to funding the IMF, the repeal of Nafta, and withdrawal from the World Trade Organization. These are interesting positions. They suggest that the Lone Star GOP should reevaluate its own leadership, which supported all these programs. Bob Herbert was particularly upset that the platform calls for the abolition of the Federal Reserve System and the restoration of the gold standard. Not at all.
Paper money is big government s credit card.
The gold standard has the advantage of ending inflation, ending business cycles, and restraining the growth of the public debt and debt-financed government in general. A platform that says something like this isn t extremist or wacky, as Herbert claims, though it surely shocks the sensibilities of New York Times editorial writers. That is an agenda widely desired within the GOP, and also among independents who don t trust the GOP to carry out the program. Devolution from central government and a restoration of liberty and property is exactly what is called for in a post-socialist age. In fact, if the platform has a problem, it is not its extremism but its periodic and wholly unnecessary nod to conventional opinion.