Ron Paul & monetary crank supporting him

Hello everybody. I am a Rothbardian libertarian and a supporter of Dr. Paul from Finland.

Here is my problem: I have been debating with other Ron Paul supporters from Finland, especially about the gold standard and the Federal Reserve System. Their understanding about monetary issues seems to be either from Anti-semitic (crackpot) authors like Eustace Mullins etc. or from some early 20th century monetary cranks. Of modern authors, they draw heavily especially from this relatively new book "Web of Debt" by Ellen H. Brown, especially on this chapter.

http://www.webofdebt.com/excerpts/chapter-37.php

Just by reading a few paragraphs one understands immediately how silly most arguments of this book are, but what would be the best way to convince these fellow Ronpaulists? They are definitely not one of those "black helicopter/commies fluoridating our water"- guys and most of them seem to be just one push away from pure libertarian position. Unfortunately writings of Murray Rothbard seem to be too hardcore-libertarian for these guys, so I've been thinking to give them Edward Griffin's book "Creature from the Jekyll Island"? I haven't read it myself, but I know that it takes very conspirational position blaming giant banks of the early 20th's while at the same time being scholarly very sophisticated and taking much information from the writings of Murray Rothbard.

So what would be the best way to turn these supporters of Ron Paul into libertarians? Or am I just trying to make a leopard to lose his spots?

I'll thank for your provocative and insightful thoughts in advance. :)

When you say that they find the writings of Rothbard too hardcore-libertarian, have you actually shown them or are you just assuming this will be their reaction? If it's the latter, then I would suggest showing them Rothbard's work anyway (specifically: The Case Against the Fed, What Has Government Done to Our Money? and The Case for a 100 Percent Gold Dollar) and noting that Paul himself is an admirer of Rothbard's work, as can be seen by looking at the picture of Rothbard on Paul's wall and by Paul's claim that Rothbard's "Austrian explanation of the Great Depression was 'eye-opening'" in one of his books.

If it is too hardcore for them, show them these two more moderate works: The Austrian Theory of the Trade Cycle and The Gold Standard: Perspectives in the Austrian School. I'd say these works are a good overview on Austrian, and thus Paul's, views on monetary policy.

In the long run, I'd say it is better to try to convince them through these academic works as opposed to the more conspiratorial books out there, which will only give Paul a bad name. It's also important to remember that not all Paul's supporters are economists anyway, and so many may not understand these works or even be motivated to read them

To say that bankers are for a gold standard like that chapter starts out is funny.

Anyway, I'd recommend Jesus de Soto's treatise on Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles for a fully capitalist view on money (one in which freedom of competing currencies is welcomed but fraud is not).  Not all libertarians agree with the idea of 100% reserves no matter what, but after reading this it would be pretty hard to argue the alternative (the alternative being allowing banks to decide whether or not to create credit against deposits using their own money).

 http://www.mises.org/books/desoto.pdf

Sadly, the Creature book tends toward money crankism too. Most of the Fed's critics on left and right do. The Misesian-Rothbardian position on all of this is really quite rare.

If you don't mind, could you give a brief summary (or at least a general idea of what griffin got wrong) of the crankery in Jekyll Island? It was the book i read that got me interested in economics in the first place so i wouldn't want my knowledge to be based on false assumptions. Thanks! 

It's been years since I looked at it but crankism always comes down to the same claim that private bankers were attempting to restrict money's availability and make a monpoly for themselves rather than permitting the government to do what it should, which is issue vast amounts of paper money. Every form of crankism asserts something along those lines. My memory suggests that Griffen is not the worst offender in this regard but he didn't seem to have a firm grasp on the inflationist intent of central banking or that it is government that makes the Fed possible in the first place.

Here Edward Griffin tries to debunk some other monetary crank authors and responds also for some economist who has characterised Griffin as a conspiracy theorist.

http://www.freedomforceinternational.org/freedomcontent.cfm?fuseaction=meetflaherty&refpage=issues

Especially his closing remark the "[T]he Fed does not need to be converted into a government agency. It needs to be abolished." sounds very good to me :)... And I remember someone named Hunt Tooley [?] advocating Griffin's book in one of the journals of the Mises Institute because the book is really easy to approach by non-economist readers or something like that. But thanks for all for your remarks and comments. I am more and more convinced that trying to convert these monetary cranks is simply a waste of time, because their arguments against gold standard are something like "scarcity of specie/Rothschild has hoarded all gold and has too big advantage" and have not much to do with economics.