As a former Mormon and libertarian, I would be happy to vote for Ron Paul and I wouldn't have to hold my nose as I did. I might even send him some money. He is one of the few that actually stands by his convictions.
Having said that, his fiscal and trade policies are idiotic. If he actually got us back on the gold standard and put his trade restrictions in place it would destroy our country.
So what is a dollar, exactly?
No, just it would just destroy certain large but unnatural economic structures which have evolved as a result of poor policy. And those are going to be destroyed soon enough by market forces, anyway - so it might be better if we actually took a hand in choosing how to destroy and replace them.
Not following Paul's recommendations amounts to a conscious decision to keep the floating crap game going for a few more years - or decades - but it guarantees that at some point the central bankers are going to lose control of the whole mess and deliver the USA into a Weimar Germany-like economic situation. But we are so far down that path now that it's probably too late, anyway.
Nice to have convictions, but it would help if they were grounded in the reality of the 21st. century, not the 1700s.
Actually, Ron Paul does not propose an immediate transition to the Gold Standard. He believes that a return to monetary solvency must be accomplished incrementally, and his opening salvo would simply be the elimination of all Sales or Capital Gains Taxes on Gold and allowing Payment in Gold as Legal Tender in Satisfaction of Debts. In other words, allowing Gold to (at least in a minimal way) compete with Federal Reserve Notes as "Money", and moving forward from there as appropriate UNTIL a full restoration of the Gold Standard is monetarily possible.
And Ron Paul proposes NO restrictions on Trade. He's one of the most ardent Free-Traders in Congress. Rather, he proposes the abolition of Multinational Trade Authorities which infringe on US Sovereignty, and the reduction of Tax and Regulatory burdens on US Industry (so that American Workers can better compete).