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Does anyone know the outcome of all the Ron Paul delegates in August?  Was it all hype and fear-mongering?

The RNC changed the rules so that the delegates could not change their vote from Santorum (who dropped out) to Paul. Instead, they had to follow the plurality of the votes in their district, meaning giving the majority to Romney. Ten delegates from Maine announced they were going to refuse this, and so they were unseated. The majority, naturally went to Romney.

What's unclear to me is if Ron Paul would have had the majority. It still seems to me that if they didn't change the rule then Romney still would have won. Also the rule change doesn't really make any sense. If delegates have to follow the plurality, then why even have delegates at all?

Even if they had not changed the rules, Romney would still have won.  But that all makes it worse, since the dirty tricks were only to suppress the Ron Paul vote knowing that it wouldn't affect the outcome anyway.

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/ever-wonder-how-to-become-a-convention-delegate-heres-a-primer-on-the-selection-process/

The problem is that delegates selected at the state level are expected to vote the winning candidate from that state party primary.  The Ron Paul people wanted delegates to switch their vote at the convention against the wishes of the voters back home.

If they want that system we should go back to the old convention format without primaries.  That way the party leaders can fight it out in the back room.

Expected, but not necessarily required.  I believe democracy is a terrible system, that is influenced by money, special favors, and propaganda.

If I remember correctly, it was during the last convention that they changed the rules that allowed Ron Paul to get as many delegates.  The reason for this was that Romney 2nd strategy besides trying to win the primaries of each state, was to stay in the race the longest as he has the most money.  He thought that other candidates would split their vote, one would drop out and he would be able to collect their delegates.

We should just have a lottery to pick a president, wouldn't that be more interesting?

True democracy is a terrible system because the average person has an IQ of 81.  The delegate system was developed to try and devolve the power down from the party bosses to the grass roots level.  If Ron Paul was able to convince enough people at the state level to vote for him he would have received more delegates.  He expected to take delegates which were not his and that is why the rules were changed.

I believe we should have a system of tests and evaluations to qualify people to run for federal offices.  This would produce a "pool of candidates" which could be selected from at random to fill seats in Congress and the like.  Additional evaluations or rankings could be added to allow the better candidates a better chance at winning.  Out of the top tier candidates the President would be chosen at random.

This would be a cleaner system.

Your opinion of how the primary system should work has absolutely no bearing upon how it has worked for 100 years.  Ron Paul's campaign worked within the rules that the prior national convention established, which is exactly how he should have done it.  Your opinion on that is as irrelevent as my own.

That's not entirely accurate. The delegates that were voting for Ron Paul were the ones won by Santorum who dropped out. Romney was not the winning candidate from those states, and I'm pretty sure there was not any defecting f Romney delegates to Ron Paul. Santorum delegates were interpreting the votes for Santorum as votes for "not Romney". This is why they introduced the plurality rule because Romney came in second in those states.

Average IQ is 100. That's kind-of the definition.

Average IQ for a white male is 100. That's kind of the problem with IQ tests.

True, but the overall average doesn't really trend that low.  IQ is also a terrible metric to use anyway, since it's a measurement of learning rate (mostly memory retention) and not really any kind of relative or absolute measurement of inate intelligence or ability.  It was never actually intended to be used in that manner, and was developed to evaluate people with mental disabilities.  This is one reason why we all know people with strangely high IQ test scores that don't actually do better than most in any practial situation.  A much better metric is percentile, which (by definition) the average is always 50% among one's age peers.  The variation among races (or cultures, as that is most likely the greater cause in differences between a young Jewish kid in NYC and a young black kid in Detroit) is much more muted, and varies about +- 1%.  A wonderful example of this is my own brother, who has Asburger's Syndrome.  He tests at an IQ level above 140, but in a percentile range of about 65-70%; depending upon the test used.  Taking the same tests, I once clocked in with an IQ of 136 and a percentile of 98%.  I scored a 30 on the ACT heading into college in the 1980's, while my brother scored an 18 (19 maybe? can't remember exactly) and barely squeked in.  The difference being is that my brother can retain facts easily, and manage known proceses effortlessly (like math) so his 'rate of learning' is very high, but he cannot really reason his way through a word problem; thus he can't really think in any practical way.  So his percentile scores are impacted.

And yes, I'm a bit OCD, and thus imprecision in the use of terms drives me nuts, so I have to respond.  You may now return to your ongoing argument.