Posted on 09/14/2011 11:50:30 AM PDT by presidio9
Ron Paul is smart. Some contend that he is a genius. I don't argue that point. Anyone who has read "End the Fed" has to admit he's no slouch when it comes to number-crunching.
And it's partly because of his economic acumen, as well as his message of starve-the-beast fiscal austerity, that this sometimes-cranky, often-kooky congressman from Texas is a darling of the libertarian right. "Paulites" champion his policies as if he were Milton Friedman's heir apparent.
Mainstream conservatives like me are pressured to concur with Paul by the Paulites, who insist that to be considered a true conservative, a Ron Paul bumper sticker is a must-have. The problem is that Ron Paul's America would be a scary place to live in. So would the rest of the world.
That's not because he would, as he has so often promised, end the Federal Reserve or the Department of Education, but because he would end our history of fighting brutal regimes and human rights abuses around the world.
Paul insists he is not an "isolationist" because he favors free trade. But that nuance aside, he believes we should mind our own business when it comes to the world's many evil regimes.
It goes beyond getting out of Iraq and Afghanistan. On 9/11, his position is that we started it. "Osama Bin Laden and Al Qaeda have been explicit," he said in Monday's debate in Tampa, "and they wrote and said that we attacked America because you had bases on our holy land in Saudi Arabia, you do not give Palestinians fair treatment, and you have been bombing . . ." His argument was cut off by a chorus of boos.
He concluded that "we had been bombing and killing hundreds of thousands of Iraqis for 10 years," which is untrue, then asked, "Would you be annoyed? If you're not annoyed, then there's some problem."
The idea that Bin Laden was justified in his violence is dangerous and patently anti-American.
Paul also says we should lighten up on Iran. He insists there is "no evidence that they are working on a weapon." But they should have nuclear weapons if they want them. Israel, needless to say, should be worried.
So, too, should Egypt and Jordan, thanks to an amendment he was pushing to end all foreign aid to them and other countries. This would mean that the famine currently ravaging Somalia would be left unattended, as would countless other global disasters that the United States is relied upon to help address.
"This is what the founders advised," Paul says. "We were not meant to be the policemen of the world." One is left wondering, then, what President Paul would have done about Hitler or Pol Pot. What would he have done about Rwanda or Bosnia? What would he do now about North Korea?
Good conservatives recognize a need for limited government, but they also know that America has an obligation to spread democracy and promote international security. The fact that our troops are stationed all over the world acts as a deterrent to the likes of Kim Jong Il; the mere proximity of American military force is enough. Paul, with his simplistic "bring 'em home" message, would end all that.
As Jeffrey Lord points out in the American Spectator, Paul's memory of what the Founding Fathers wanted is selective. James Monroe was an interventionist; Washington invaded Canada; Alexander Hamilton birthed Paul's biggest foe, the Federal Reserve.
Ignoring America's moral obligations in favor of isolationism is a departure from the very reason for our humble beginnings. Had the colonists been do-nothing Paulites, America's Founding Fathers wouldn't have founded much of anything.
WOW!
Whose the babe?
oh, by the way. I agree. On foreign policy Ron Paul is seriously disturbed.
The babe is S.E.Cupp, the author of the article. And Ron Paul has a few interesting ideas, but he’s basically nuts.
A population conditioned to a football/video game/hollyweird/publiced-indoctrination mentality!!!!!
RON PAUL: 2008/2012
(The ONLY Choice)
Cupp sort of leans liberaltarian, IMO. She’s still a babe though.
Great article by Sarah Elizabeth. :)
(The ONLY Choice)
You may be on the wrong website by accident. Happens all the time when people confuse libertarianism for conservatism. You want to be HERE.
No need to thank me.
A vote for Obama by another name. But they have the same foreign policy anyway, so what’s the difference.
“On foreign policy Ron Paul is seriously disturbed.”
Our current policy is so much better. Start trillion dollar wars everywhere until we go broke.
In a two party system, failure to vote for the Republican nominee is equivalent to voting for Obama. Good luck with that.
As registered Conservative, I held my nose and voted for McCain, and I would do it again.
No. Its not. You pick your fights, fight ‘em hard, knock them out, then you GET OUT!!
We NEED to wipe out or intimidate the enemies of our country and of our country’s allies. EVERY super power does. We’re not Switzerland.
He DOESN’T get it.
But, hey, read my tagline. If you can get him nominated, he gets my vote.
Ron Paul = Ross Perot = 4 more years of Obama
I am periodically tempted to change my screen name, just so people don't associate me with Paul and his ilk.
WOW!!!
See:
I won’t miss Coulter anymore. Not after her shilling for Chris Christie and Mitt Romney.
Now I have S.E. Cupp. A LOT hotter and just as brainy!!!
Miss Cupp (at least I hope it’s miss...) remind me again, what did we do about Pol Pot?
Some will say that the republican foreign policy neocons who want to idealistically go around nation building and spreading democracy at the point of a gun are disturbed and nuts
Some will say that the republican foreign policy realists who are willing to make foreign policy deals with tyrants and dictators are disturbed and nuts.
Our current policy is so much better. Start trillion dollar wars everywhere until we go broke.
The liberal dogma that Iraq and Afghanistan were illegal/unnecessary/failures does not hold for Conservatives. I hate the fact that your childish argument forces me to reply like a third grader, but we didn't "start" any wars. The conservative prices tag of the September 11 2001 attacks on the United States and the subsequent market plunge is at least $2 trillion.
Afghanistan may never advance past the 14th century, but without it we never get bin Laden, al Zarquawi, Atef, both al Masaris, Ramsi Yousef or Kahlid Muhammed. All of who publicly stated that they were planning further 9/11 style attacks. Tens of thousands of unnamed terrorists and trainees lost a base from which to conduct their operations, and the Taliban is actively re-thinking their polices in regards to the US.
Contrary to liberal mythology, prior to 2003, Iraq was actively challenging UN no-fly zones, threatening US aircraft, plotting assassinations of US officials, funding terrorism abroad, and continuing to develop nuclear and WMD technology. These aren't George Bush's conclusions, these were universally conceded. As a Ron Paul supporter, it may not bother you that Iran is developing nuclear weapons (which is insane). It should bother you that Iraq was farther along and may have had them by now, had we not intervened.
Often ignored in this debate is one of the original stated goals for intervention in Iraq: Democratizing an Islamic nation in the ME would have the effect of spurring peoples in other nations to seek the same for themselves. There is no point in arguing that this is not EXACTLY what took place earlier this year. It continues to take place, and if Obama had the stones to support the uprising in Iran, the world might be a much safer place today.
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