Five quick reasons why he's insane: http://newsflavor.com/opinions/five-reasons-why-ron-paul-is-insane/

To add to that, he also wants to leave NATO and abolish all state funded education. He voted against civil rights and is ridiculously in favour of state government power - his answer to pretty much everything is "let the states decide". Gay marriage, abortion, human rights... meh, Texas and Tenessee can handle it >_>

If that link plus your short list (though he never voted against the Civil Rights act since that was before his time in office) is why he's considered batshit insance, perhaps that's why we've let our country fail so hard.

Apologies, he wasn't in Congress then, but he has spoken out against the Civil Rights Act.

Even ignoring that, you think these are good ideas? An end to state education, leaving NATO and the UN, reverting to the Gold Standard, the fact that he's happy to see America run as fifty different countries?

Yes, he's a libertarian, and that's fantastic. He's also a massive idealist, and his idealism puts that of Obama to shame. He thinks the country can run without income tax. He thinks the world will be happy and and America will be safe with no alliances. He thinks the free market is so brilliant that it can guarantee a good education for millions of children.

Admit it. That makes him crazy.

I'll cover your points one by one to better clarify things.

1. Civil Rights - His point against the Civil Rights Act is modern in thought.  If you were to establish a white only business today, you'd be out of business in a week.  It would a disasterous venture.  While the business is given the right to choose whom they cater to, the consumer has the right to ensure his establishment fails.  I, nor Dr. Paul, are sugesting it a good idea to create discretionary businesses but we also understand that if you did, you'd only be setting yourself up for failure and allowing a business to fail is a concpet America has a hard time grasping lately.

In some places in America those businesses wouldn't fail. That's where the problem is, you're assuming that racism is gone but it's not - there are plenty of people still out there who think that blacks are inferior to whites.

3. Leaving NATO and UN - The US government has started taking orders from UN and many UN policies are now laws that supercede our very own laws.  They drag us into wars we have no business being in, use us as a global police force, violate soveriegnty of other nations and their laws.   Fact is they do far more harm to the world than good and we're losing our soverignty to them.

BAHAHA. The USA is the one behind most of the wars and they use the UN to try and make them legitmate. (Though they don't always succeed as with Iraq).

4. Gold standard - He doesn't want a complete return of the gold standard but the option to allow competing currencies such as gold.  Right now, gold is illegal as a currency despite it being listed in the Constituion as the only currency (plus silver).  More to the point is that it would keep the value of the dollar honest instead of continually losing value as it does under the Federal Reserve.

It also wouldn't work. The very concept of money has changed significantly since the gold standard was dropped and with the way a modern economy works I can't see the gold standard working currently.

8. Free market education - We had it before and it worked just fine.  I also think you are mixing concepts on this one.  He still wants public education just governed from the local and state level, not federal.   But free market education is also known as private schooling.   Right now it's expensive because a public option exists.  There is no market for a private school at that level whena  free school already exists.   If ALL schools were private based, the market would cover all levels simply because demand for it would exist.  But again, you're mixing his policy on this one.  

The market would cover all levels, poor people would get shitty and cheap education and the rich a good and expensive education.

I'll cover your points one by one to better clarify things.

1. Civil Rights - His point against the Civil Rights Act is modern in thought.  If you were to establish a white only business today, you'd be out of business in a week.  It would a disasterous venture.  While the business is given the right to choose whom they cater to, the consumer has the right to ensure his establishment fails.  I, nor Dr. Paul, are sugesting it a good idea to create discretionary businesses but we also understand that if you did, you'd only be setting yourself up for failure and allowing a business to fail is a concpet America has a hard time grasping lately.

In some places in America those businesses wouldn't fail. That's where the problem is, you're assuming that racism is gone but it's not - there are plenty of people still out there who think that blacks are inferior to whites.

2. End of federal education (not state education) - And federal education has improved American education how?  Every eyear we keep getting worse and worse.  None of it is even standardized across the states or school districts.  Also the fact that government backed school loans are one of the largest reasons college tuition has skyrocketed in price.  A university may charge anything it wants to knowing it will get paid regardless of whether the student pays his loans or not.  So they have no incentive to work on free amrket priciples.  Education itself has become far cheaper per student than ever thanks to larger class sizes and technology.  But instead of lowerd tuition, it rises....  Get rid of federal education and the government backed student loans go away forcing universities and colleges to reduce their credit hour rates. 

3. Leaving NATO and UN - The US government has started taking orders from UN and many UN policies are now laws that supercede our very own laws.  They drag us into wars we have no business being in, use us as a global police force, violate soveriegnty of other nations and their laws.   Fact is they do far more harm to the world than good and we're losing our soverignty to them.

BAHAHA. The USA is the one behind most of the wars and they use the UN to try and make them legitmate. (Though they don't always succeed as with Iraq).

4. Gold standard - He doesn't want a complete return of the gold standard but the option to allow competing currencies such as gold.  Right now, gold is illegal as a currency despite it being listed in the Constituion as the only currency (plus silver).  More to the point is that it would keep the value of the dollar honest instead of continually losing value as it does under the Federal Reserve.

It also wouldn't work. The very concept of money has changed significantly since the gold standard was dropped and with the way a modern economy works I can't see the gold standard working currently.

5. State rights - State rights are actually the intention behind the United States of America and the Consitution.   The concept of 'voting with your feet' means if you do not like the laws of your state, move.  You have 50 to choose from.  1 of them should have the perfect set of laws for you.  Largely, they'd all have the same basic set of laws with only a few variations.  Nevada and New Jersey allow gambling, for instance.   Any reason why this concept should not be accepted more broadly?

6. Income tax - The US survived just fine for over 100 years with no income tax.  We didn't ahve one until the early 1900's.   If you reduce our federal budget to 1995 levels, we can completely get rid of income tax.   All other federal revenue streams would cover the budget.

7. Non-interventionism - The country was established on this priciple and we held to it for more than 100 years with no one wanting to kill us.  As soon as we started interfereing in other countries business, we made enemies.   Had we stayed out of the Middle East, 9/11 would never have happened.   Do you think radical Islamic extremeists have it our for Canadians or the Swiss?   Nope.  Because they leave people alone.  They don't go overthrowing elected presidents, establishing oppressive dictators, occupying nations, building 900 military bases around the world, bomb hundreds of thousands of innocent civillians and then expect people to smile, ask for more and say thank you, America.

8. Free market education - We had it before and it worked just fine.  I also think you are mixing concepts on this one.  He still wants public education just governed from the local and state level, not federal.   But free market education is also known as private schooling.   Right now it's expensive because a public option exists.  There is no market for a private school at that level whena  free school already exists.   If ALL schools were private based, the market would cover all levels simply because demand for it would exist.  But again, you're mixing his policy on this one.  

The market would cover all levels, poor people would get shitty and cheap education and the rich a good and expensive education.

So as you can see, these ideas aren't crazy.   In fact, they are largely, if not compeltely, based on the Constitution itself which my friend is most certainly not a crazy document.

I only commented on the parts I actually kind of cared about. But he is an impossible idealist and would make a rubbish President because of it, he wouldn't know how to compromise and he would never gather enough support in both houses to push his ideas through. He'd be reduced to using his power of veto against bills he didn't agree with, which would be most of them, and as such gridlock the government (which to be honest seems mighty easy to do in America).

The problem about poor people getting shitty and cheap education is....

right now poor people get shitty and expensive education.... so shitty and cheap education would actually be a plus.

Private and Magnet schools(schools that are public but lack government oversight past the individual school level) far outperform public schools... even when you take everything into account.  (That is the private and magnet schools that accept students soley from random lottery.)  The teachers who work in the private and Magnet schools actually make LESS then their public school compatriots in the same districts.

I think what the US needs to do is abolish the Department of Education and School Systems, and instead let public schools run independly vs each other... and you get so much money per student.

Make schools compete vs each other, rather then having a monopoly in one area to where you know you'll always have students.