I Read the Ron Paul Reddit AMA. Ask Me Anything.

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If you have any questions about Ron Paul's Reddit "Ask Me Anything," in which the former congressman fielded questions from Reddit users, shoot. (This user has been verified by The Atlantic Wire staff.)

Hey. Thanks for doing this. Does Ron Paul think he's brave?

Happy to be here!

Well, user gerudo_pirate asked exactly that: "Dr. Paul, what is the bravest thing you've ever done?" And Paul answered.

To tell you the truth, I've never thought about it. I've never thought of me doing a whole lot that I would categorize as brave. Other people have said that what I do standing up to the establishment and speaking my piece of mind and not backing down as being something brave, but I don't think of it in that manner.

So his answer was basically: if you think so.

I had a question. Do Reddit users think he's brave?

Yes, pretty much all of them. The word "brave" appears about 40 times in the comments.

I've always wondered if Ron Paul was logically consistent. Did he give any indication?

He did, actually. He was asked by a user what Redditors (people who use Reddit, I guess) could do to pushback on NSA surveillance. Paul's answer:

One is to become very well educated, to understand how they came about and how terrible they are.

The next thing we do is we have to get other people to agree with us, which means we have to educate other people to know that it's important and in their best interest to know about them.

Because that's important: once you present people with facts, you can convince them that you are correct. Basic psychology.

Then someone asked how Paul would fight climate change. Paul said:

Regarding pollution, nobody has the right to pollute their neighbor's property. But when I look at the history of the issues, temperatures have gone up and temperatures have gone down, a long time even before the industrial age, so I would not claim that I had any unique ability to regulate the climate.

Hm. OK.

So I'm a big Ron Paul fan and I would like to give him money but also I am a big Bitcoin fan. Any insights in the AMA?

Yep. The very first question Paul answered dealt with Bitcoin. He's all for Bitcoin, any currency really, and doesn't think the government should be involved "if there's no fraud."

And if you want to give him money, more good news! There is a weird Reddit account, bitcointip, which apparently allows you to give people on Reddit Bitcoin. As of writing, people have given Paul about five bucks in Bitcoin, so that's nice. One commenter worried that this would be a headache for his political reporting team. It probably won't, though, because he doesn't have one any more.

Sometimes there are funny unrelated threads on Reddit. Where there any in this case?

This one was pretty good.

EnglishMunichFan: Will Rand Paul run in 2016?

Grizmoblust: Rand paul != Ron Paul. Rand is a neocon.

prideofthepeaches: But maybe Ron Paul knows because their names are similar

tehgreatist: rand is his son.

I was wondering what the longest question that hasn't been answered was? Did it have a lot of parts?

Great question. Yes. It's this one. It is a 10-part question. Then the guy asked more questions.

I am a big Grover Cleveland fan and was wondering if Rep. Paul had any thoughts on Grover Cleveland. (And thanks for doing this AMA!)

Ron Paul only had a few pictures in his office — but one was of Grover Cleveland! "He was a man of principle, who believed in the Constitution," Paul explained, "and the Gold Standard."

Can you tell me what Ron Paul thinks of this GIF?

As far as the image you shared, I am delighted to be here!

This article is from the archive of our partner The Wire.

About the Author

Philip Bump is a former politics writer for The Atlantic Wire.

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This is a first for the Trump presidency: the first formal presidential retraction of a presidential untruth.

President Trump tweeted a warning to James Comey: The fired FBI director had better hope that no “tapes” existed that could contradict his account of what happened between the two men. Trump has now confessed that he had no basis for this warning. There were no such tapes, and the president knew it all along.

The tweet was intended to intimidate. It failed, spectacularly: Instead of silencing Comey, it set in motion the special counsel investigation that now haunts Donald Trump’s waking imagination.

But the failed intimidation does have important real world consequences.

First, it confirms America’s adversaries in their intensifying suspicion that the president’s tough words are hollow talk. The rulers of North Korea will remember the menacing April 4 statement from the Department of State that the United States had spoken enough about missile tests, implying that decisive actions lay ahead—and the lack of actions and deluge of further statements that actually followed.