• Relentlessly gathering momentum even as the mainstream strains to ignore it
• Are we talking about the price of gold..?
• Or the gentle statesman from Texas..?

Whiskey & Gunpowder -- the Daily Missive of Laissez Faire Books
Gary Gibson, New York, New York...

Hey, gold...we see you creepin'...

Without much fanfare gold is casually wandering near the $1800 level again. We remember the hundreds of articles and editorials we've read about gold over the past decade. We recall the questioning, the cautious wonder as gold approached $500, then $600, then $1,000...then $1,500...

Despite its gathering momentum gold remains as unfairly marginalized as its best friend in politics: Ron Paul.

David Franke writes in his article "Ron Paul Won In Iowa":

The media attacks on Ron Paul...seek to de-legitimize him as a serious candidate. And the intention is to depress the vote for Ron Paul. Outside of his hard core supporters – who are ostracized as crazed political groupies, mostly college students high on ideology – who wants to "throw away" their vote for someone who "cannot win"?

The anti-Paul media's solution (both the leftist media and the rightist media) is to ignore Ron Paul's near-victory. I watched the results come in on CNN. They had to show the actual votes on the scorecard, of course. But the rhetoric was something else. A CNN commentator said breathlessly and loudly, "The two big winners in Iowa tonight were Michele Bachmann and...[I'm not making this up] Rick Perry, with his 718 write-in votes." Yes, 718 votes trump 4,671 votes. The commentator didn't mention Ron Paul.

Given that the establishment media, Left and Right, treat Ron Paul in this way, it really is remarkable that his following just keeps growing and growing. CNN and Erick Erickson can huff and puff all they want, trying to blow Ron Paul out of the picture, but the Ron Paul Revolution is much bigger today than it was four years ago, and it's going to be even bigger next year than it is now.

Same thing with gold! 

Gold and Ron Paul have an awful lot in common. Both mistrust any political management of the economy. Both seem to have the same views on liberty and free markets. Even their careers seem to be mirroring each other, gathering strength as the wheels fall of the rickety fascism train. 

Dismissed by mainstream voices as the premiere fetish for panicky investors and as a mere commodity non-money by the world's most central banker, gold continues to get the market's vote. It continues to prove that it is indeed money of the best sort.

We won't venture a guess as to how the Ron Paul Revolution will turn out. We're hopeful. But we're also notoriously dubious about political solutions to anything. Still, we'll be rooting for the good doctor. We can't help ourselves. 

Below, Walter Block continues the discussion about the media's treatment of Ron Paul's results in Iowa...and makes a compelling case for the jaded liberty-lover to take some political action. 

Whiskey & Gunpowder
by Walter Block
August 17, 2011
New Orleans. Louisiana, U.S.A. 

Ron Paul and Liberty
If Ron Paul had won the Ames Iowa poll, the mainstream media would have dismissed the entire exercise as unimportant. If he had come in at, oh, 6th place, they would have used this as evidence that he is incompetent, not in the first rank of Republican candidates, can't get out the vote, the American people had rejected his candidacy, etc.