There has been some talk on the left defending / supporting Ron Paul - or at least defending the prospect of supporting Ron Paul and the trade-off a liberal would face in voting for Ron Paul over Obama. I want to weigh in on this.
Let's start with the supposed trade-off. The argument goes that Ron Paul is more liberal than Obama on foreign policy (drones, indefinate detention, war powers) and domestic civil liberties (drug war) but more conservative on issues like government domestic spending, the economy, rights protecting minorities and women, etc. Therefore, there is a trade-off between these sets of issues.
Even if I agreed, there is a flaw in the argument and it is a matter of scale. On domestic policy, Paul's positions would each be disasters for liberal positions. His economic policies would drastically prolong recessions and high unemployment. His spending policies would eliminate the social safety net and important government protections. He would remove necessary prohibitions against segregation and discrimination. His positions are a far extreme from liberals and terrible policies.
On foreign policy, although Obama is implementing more conservative policies, I don't think they are as horrible as Paul's domestic positions. Obama is not calling for bombing Iran. His drone strikes violate liberal's sense of justice but are less provocative than I would expect under a traditional Republican candidate. For the war on drugs, Obama lacks leadership and guts, but I don't think he is on the wrong side of the issue; he may not call for ending it, but he isn't calling for tougher penalties.
Basically, on these issues where he disagrees with liberals, Obama is still much closer to liberals than Paul is on the issues where he disagrees. And that by itself should rule out any thoughts of supporting Paul over Obama.
When I started this post, I accepted for the argument that there is this trade-off - that Paul is better on issues like foreign policy. But even that basic assumption is wrong. The liberal Paul supporters exaggerate how much Paul's foreign policy is actually in line with liberals. Sure, Paul supports liberals on some of the hot-button issues of the day - drones and detention. But if you look at the big picture, Ron Paul's foreign policy is deeply different from liberal general policy preferences.
Ron Paul's anti-militaristic foreign policy comes from a place of deep isolationism (and nationalism). This means that a Ron Paul administration would not want to intervene in situations like Rwanda, Bosnia, Iraq (for the Kurds - ie no fly zone), Sudan, Congo, Libya, Syria, etc. Granted, Obama (and previous administrations) haven't intervened in all of those places. But Paul would oppose all of them. I don't think turning our backs on horrible atrocities is in line with liberal foreign policy.
One last thing. The article I referenced above does go on to compare the different positions each has and which ones a president has more power to affect. The author thinks Ron Paul would be less able to implement his devastating cuts on government programs and end civil rights legislation but would be able to do the positive things like end unlawful killings and indefinite detentions.
I don't agree at all. Paul's veto power (and obvious lack of fear over a government shutdown) would allow for drastic cuts to government - short of a Congressional veto override. And his control over fed appointments may prevent bank bailouts (although I don't know if liberals oppose the bank bailouts but instead also wanted homeowner bailouts) but it will also allow him to make the fed far more conservative - maybe even completely ineffective to further the goal of moving to the gold standard.
The bottom line is that Paul would have a decent chance, as president, of implementing much of his platform - or at least moving the country very far in that direction. And I don't think moving towards isolationism in foreign policy, and a virtually non-existent government domestically is in any way in line with liberal ideology.
