Ron Paul: The only presidential candidate who values freedom

Ron Paul may not follow conventional party politics by any means, but that's exactly why I think he is the best candidate in the 2012 presidential race. Needless to say, eight years under pure Republican politics from Bush did us no good, and electing a Democrat didn't change much despite the campaign slogans. Both parties represent what has become the same decadent, societal killing, militaristic ideals that now represent American thought.

Under both parties, we have managed to stay in tremendous amounts of debt. We've participated in conflicts across the Middle East that serve no purpose other than modern Western imperialism. We continue to see legislation like the Patriot Act slowly take away the constitutional rights we used to cherish so much.

Democrats and Republicans are different names for what I like to call the American Party. Although Ron Paul is running under the Republican Party, he is a Libertarian, and he is the only candidate who cares about doing what's best for the country, not what's best for the party or his campaign. Why else would he publicly stand behind unpopular, yet necessary, reforms like the legalization of drugs, prostitution, gay marriage and all other victimless crimes?

Anyone who watched the debate in September saw him get booed on stage as he claimed that 9/11 happened because of our terrible foreign policy and even cited a letter from Osama Bin Laden explaining his reasons for the attack. These are not ideas that you stand behind unless you truly believe in them.

I am confident that if Ron Paul is elected, he will be serious about getting our troops out of the Middle East. He has always been critical of the Iraq war and the war on terror. He has been bold enough to even call our plans for democratization American imperialism. He plans to bring home all our troops in countries throughout the American Empire and get rid of our bases in places like South Korea or Germany where we have not fought wars in a long time.

We don't need an empire and we don't need to push our Western democratic values on countries we don't agree with. Pulling out of foreign engagements is also the smartest and most fiscally responsible plan of action, considering the U.S. debt crisis.

Ron Paul's social policy emphasizes civil liberties and personal responsibility, not oversold ideas of safety. He plans to get rid of legislation like the Patriot Act that infringes on constitutional rights to privacy and he wants to stop locking people up for personal lifestyle choices.Legalizing things like prostitution, drugs and even suicide seem like radical ideas, but aren't we supposed to be a nation founded on the principles of liberty and choice, not a nation that polices our personal lives and decisions? Not to mention locking people up for petty victimless crimes wastes a ton of money and hasn't stopped anyone from getting their vices anyway.

Other than giving politicians an unfixable problem to claim they will fix just to get elected, what are we accomplishing? Ron Paul sees real problems with real solutions. Though people may think he's a little crazy, he just might be the kind of crazy we need as president of the United States.