Here's a pretty bizarre moment in Ron Paul's quite-long speech celebrating his third place finish in the Iowa caucuses Tuesday.

...and we had the task, for which we are very successful, is reintroducing some ideas Republicans needed for a long time, and that is the conviction that freedom is popular. [applause] But once again, we have had a fantastic showing for this cause and challenging people. Not the status quo that we have been putting up with for decade after decade. But challenging 'em and saying 'You know, let's challenge them. Let's go back to this real old fashioned idea, this very dangerous idea, let's obey the Constitution! [applause] And too often, those who preach limited government and small government, they forget that invasion of your privacy is big government and we have to emphasize protecting your personal rights and your economic rights are what the government's supposed to do.

Before I continue with the transcription, let me just interject the observation that Ron Paul abandons the whole "protect your personal rights" when it comes to things like same-sex marriage, LGBT issues, and women's right to choose what happens to their bodies, even in cases of rape and/or incest. But I digress. Back to the speech.

They're not supposed to run our lives or spend our money. [applause] And also, along those lines, what we have introduced with so much enthusiasm I hear so often from so many volunteers -- The other day someone came up to me and he was refreshing my memory because he knew I - knew the statement because I've said it. Back in the old days in the early 70s, Nixon said we're all Keynesians now, which meant that even the Republicans accepted liberal economics. He says I'm waiting for the day when we can say we're all Austrians now. But the biggest change I think in intellectual and political changes that we have brought about is the emphasis on a very important matter: Making sure we get to the bottom of the ultimate bailouters, and that is our Federal Reserve system, we need reforms there, and we need a new monetary system and obey the Constitution. This is something that we made great progress on, so the first and initial and important step that we've worked so hard for and it's on the table. Today there was a national poll came out and they were talking about how many people supported the gold standard. How long has it been since they've taken a national poll on the gold standard? And guess what? The majority of the American people believe we should have a gold standard and not a paper standard. But also, also the great strides that we have made has been really on the foreign policy. The fact that we can once again talk in Republican circles and make it credible, talking about what Eisenhower said, to beware of the military-industrial complex. Talk about the old days when Robert Taft, Mr. Republican said we shouldn't be engaged in these entangling alliances. He believed what the founders taught us. He didn't even want to be in NATO. We certainly don't need NATO and the UN to tell us when to go to war. But we have seen a great difference. The majority of the American people are behind us on this total war effort. They're tired of the war, it costs too much money, too many people get killed, too many people get injured, too many people get sick, and the majority, maybe 70 or 80 percent of the American people now are saying it's time to get out of Afghanistan.

A couple of comments. First, Ron Paul is an expert at finding wedge issues to split liberals. The wars are one; the privacy issues are another; and the Federal reserve is the third. He uses these like candy to feed to the willing masses. I seriously doubt those who were polled on the gold standard have the slightest idea what a return to that monetary standard would mean for this country, and the 99 percent in particular. The same for privacy issues. He's all about being against privacy invasion until it involves a woman's private dealings with her doctor or what two consenting adults might do in their bedroom. Finally, on the wars, yes. Most of us not only think it's time to get out of Afghanistan, but we also think we should never have gone there in the first place. This is not news. And it's in process.

I'll just close with this excellent post by David Atkins over at Digby's blog. This is why liberals and progressives do not vote for Ron Paul: