As a humble reader, I would like to put in my two cents about last week’s editorial column (“Paul gains support despite harmful stances,” Jan. 12) calling Ron Paul insane. If one really researches what he stands for – personal liberty, individual rights, free markets, smaller government – most of what he believes in is logical. Due to brevity, I’ll explain two of Paul’s most controversial policies.

One is to end the Federal Reserve, the entity responsible for inflation of the money supply for the last 100 years.  What Paul and most libertarians tend to agree upon is that if inflation is a tool to control the economy, it should be eliminated from the arsenal of the federal government because – let’s face it – were the Feds really doing a good job of regulating the economy over the last couple of years? Paul believes the free market is a much more efficient regulator of the economy than the Feds. Ending the Fed would also enhance liberty as the economy would now be subject to the marketplace of consumers and producers, or basically the people, as opposed to some bankers in Washington.

Paul believes entitlements aren’t rights and has a very convincing constitutional argument of his position. In layman’s terms, Social Security, Medicare, etc. are unconstitutional. The Federal government has no authority whatsoever to take money from one group and give to another in the guise of “helping the poor.” The money people pay into these accounts (especially Social Security) does not even go to them. It goes to the current beneficiaries (mostly the elderly and poor) and the money that the people finally get back is from the money paid in by the future generation. If the government never enacted these social safety nets, the people could have their own money and provide their own safety. One of the most common arguments against this logic is that a lot of people fail to save money and fall on hard times. The libertarian response: Why should we give people money when they fail to save it?  We should encourage people to make smart financial decisions, not have the federal government bail them out for their financial mistakes.

In the end, Ron Paul is not insane; his policies are logical and he puts freedom and liberty as the ideal on which all laws are based. The mainstream media’s constant definition of him being insane is completely disingenuous and unfair. We have to remember that people called Columbus insane for saying the world is round, but look who got the last laugh there.

– Lan Nguyen is a sophomore political science major.