Posted on 06/01/2008 1:37:57 PM PDT by big black dog
Jim Henley assesses the complete and utter failure that was the Ron Paul campaign for the Republican presidential nomination:
Paul failed to win any states, to move the GOP debate in his direction, to accrue significant delegates or to leverage his fund-raising into a third-party run. And word is hes staying quiet about endorsing an independent because he doesnt want the Congressional GOP leadership to strip him of committee assignments come the fall. Paul accomplished the one thing hes always been good at: using political appeals to get people to send money. I dont feel freer.
But other than that, he did a super job. Revolution!
Why is it that the only candidate that stands for the Constitution is ridiculed by so many in the Republican Party which is supposed to stand for limited government and a strict interpretation of the Constitution (and for the record I don’t believe the Constitution can be “interpreted”; it says what it says and it is the supreme law of the land). I’m not trying to make enemies or be rude, I’m just curious why a lot of Republicans hate him so much. If he doesn’t stand a chance then why smother him so vigorously? Shouldn’t we at least look at what he has to offer or seriously examine what he’s saying?
Well, I could also support openly Marxist & hyper pro-war McCain too.
I did, but I understand where Paul is coming from. The land that make up the border has been held in generations of families down there. So Paul is debating this from a private property issue. He's wrong, and he should support a fence for national security reasons. But (in Paul's POV here) he opposes amnesty, anchor babies, and welfare freebies to illegals, it would basically cancel out the need for a fence anyway. On immigration, he's still tougher than McCain and the other Republican candidates besides Tancredo and Hunter.
You forgot to mention that he wanted to almost triple the H1B visa quota.
That has nothing to do with illegal immigration. It's for highly-skilled foreign workers who come here to work in specialized industries. I'd rather have them come here than the jobs go over there.
Hes opposed to tougher laws against pedophiles for one.
State laws already have tough pedophile penalties. Must the federal government do everything?
BS
Bullfeces yourself. Get rid of this stupid drug war, secure the borders, and stop subsidizing addicts and there won't be drug problems. If people want to rot their insides out, who cares?
Yes he has: Have you ever read about the reasons they attacked us? They attacked us because weve been over there, weve been bombing Iraq for ten years.
That's still not blaming America son.
Unlike the GOP and most conservatives? Lets see some examples of GOP/conservative racism.
I'm not talking about actual GOP racist examples, I'm talking about how the GOP cowardly refuses to see people as individuals and goes along with the political-correctness of the Left. The content of those newsletters were not so much as racist as they were simply politically-incorrect and in some cases the harsh truth. It was only "racist" if Al Sharpton was reading them.
You have a good question and comment. I personally looked very closely at Ron Paul to consider him. I quickly discovered a very strange individual and some very strange support for him. Several of his views were quite out of line with my conservatism and desire for a strong national defense.
Further, I am a firm believer that you are the company you keep and a significant portion of his support was coming from racist and conspiratorial sources.
The final blow came when many years of published Ron Paul newsletters emerged. They paint a picture of a very disturbed mind. (Do a web search on Ron Paul newsletters.)
You probably think Reagan was a Marxist also.
I have many relatives who have or still fighting in Iraq and Afgan. so you can sit on your ass and bash those
who have the courage to fight the enemy.
What private theater?
While on the topic, why haven’t you denounced the federal government creating a huge government bureaucracy called the TSA to protect the private property of the airlines?
Firstly I want to thank you for being civilized. I hate when people just attack each other and let emotion rule arguments.
I’ll admit, Ron Paul is a bit eccentric and not a great speaker. My first impression of him was that he was just an anti-war republican. My views evolved when I saw where he was coming from. I am in the military and at first it was very hard for me to swallow some of what Ron Paul had to say. However, I learned that the US spends $120 billion more on defense (not including Iraq expenditures) than the rest of the world combined. We have bases everywhere and troops in the thousands on those bases. We should be defending our own borders before we defend those of the rest of the world. I also can’t imagine the US fighting the rest of the world and “winning” by $120 billion if that makes sense. I think we can seriously scale back some of that spending, have a better defense policy and be much safer. I think he is seen as weak on national defense because people automatically assume that if he wants to cut any spending on it at all, he is “anti-military.” Anyway, just my thoughts.
While I understand your point about “the company one may keep”, I don’t think this is enough to condemn him. If a man whose best friend is a murderer and he tells you that murder is wrong (whatever his motives), he is telling the truth (unless you think murder is right). Obviously, guilt by association has some credibility, but I don’t think it can be an absolute. I defended Obama in the same way with the Reverend Wright controversy, and I HATE Obama and his policies. What I hope is that the Republican Party returns to its message of limited government and strict Constitutionalism.
Before writing Ron Paul off, I encourage everyone to REALLY look at what he is saying and at the ridiculous size of our federal government. It is completely out of line with what the Founding Fathers wanted and they were some of the most profound thinkers the world has ever known.
Just some of my opinions. If you want to know more just ask.
Firstly I want to thank you for being civilized. I hate when people just attack each other and let emotion rule arguments.
I’ll admit, Ron Paul is a bit eccentric and not a great speaker. My first impression of him was that he was just an anti-war republican. My views evolved when I saw where he was coming from. I am in the military and at first it was very hard for me to swallow some of what Ron Paul had to say. However, I learned that the US spends $120 billion more on defense (not including Iraq expenditures) than the rest of the world combined. We have bases everywhere and troops in the thousands on those bases. We should be defending our own borders before we defend those of the rest of the world. I also can’t imagine the US fighting the rest of the world and “winning” by $120 billion if that makes sense. I think we can seriously scale back some of that spending, have a better defense policy and be much safer. I think he is seen as weak on national defense because people automatically assume that if he wants to cut any spending on it at all, he is “anti-military.” Anyway, just my thoughts.
While I understand your point about “the company one may keep”, I don’t think this is enough to condemn him. If a man whose best friend is a murderer and he tells you that murder is wrong (whatever his motives), he is telling the truth (unless you think murder is right). Obviously, guilt by association has some credibility, but I don’t think it can be an absolute. I defended Obama in the same way with the Reverend Wright controversy, and I HATE Obama and his policies. What I hope is that the Republican Party returns to its message of limited government and strict Constitutionalism.
Before writing Ron Paul off, I encourage everyone to REALLY look at what he is saying and at the ridiculous size of our federal government. It is completely out of line with what the Founding Fathers wanted and they were some of the most profound thinkers the world has ever known.
Just some of my opinions. If you want to know more just ask.
Same here.
I've asked that same question several times. No good answers yet.
I have speculated that the RP bashing FReepers have some vested interest in big government, fiat money, global government, or some such that they won't admit.
“I have speculated that the RP bashing FReepers have some vested interest in big government, fiat money, global government, or some such that they won’t admit.”
Examples might include persons employed by the federal government and federal contractors.
Yup, also multi-national enterprise, securities traders, importers, and bankers, for further examples.
Nothing quite like working for a global concern to get one's "priorities" straight.
Wrong again.
Your very own heerow stated a year ago:
“A border fence isn’t so important.”
Now lets take a look at your heerow’s voting record:
Voted YES on extending Immigrant Residency rules. (May 2001)
Voted YES on more immigrant visas for skilled workers. (Sep 1998)
2005: Ron Paul voted against the Duncan Hunter (R-CA) Amendment to H.R. 4437 to increase border controls
2005: Ron Paul voted against H.R. 418 to increase border controls
2004: Ron Paul voted against the Virgil Goode (R-VA) Amendment to H.R. 4200 authorize the U.S. military on the border
2001: Voted against the Traficant Amendment to H.R. 2586 to authorize the use of troops on the border
But now that border controls is a hot topic your heerow FLIP FLOPS and voted for the fence:
Voted YES on building a fence along the Mexican border. (Sep 2006)
And now he flopped back claiming it infringes on property rights so he’s against the fence.
Then he’s all for english being the official language (Feb 2007), but then he goes on to slam those who support english only policies by calling those people “inferior and jealous” (Dec 2007)
“But (in Paul’s POV here) he opposes amnesty, anchor babies, and welfare freebies to illegals,”
He’s opposed to measures that would report illegals to the feds.
“I’d rather have them come here than the jobs go over there.”
Jobs go there or foreigners come here either way Americans lose jobs.
“State laws already have tough pedophile penalties. Must the federal government do everything?”
Not all states have tough laws, and not when these freaks cross state lines.
“If people want to rot their insides out, who cares?”
You’ll care when you end up having to pay more for it than you do now.
“That’s still not blaming America son.”
Funny but a vast majority of Americans say it is.
The TSA doesn’t protect “private property”.
Based on your argument, we shouldn’t have any customs agents at the airports either since they’re “private property”.
The theater is in Edna.
This is absurd.
There happen to be a few of us out there who genuinely do our own thinking, and therefore gravitate to the only person in a political race who happens to make any sense at all. Frankly speaking, the war was not at all the first thing that drew a lot of us into being Paul supporters; it was his talks about smaller government and old-school Constitutionalism. And frankly, some of us (like me) have been fans of Ron Paul for years---way before anybody named Obama was running for President.
If anything we happen to be the sort of folks who don't take to any master very easily (except, in my case, for the Good Lord of course), so to say anything as absurd as "Because their masters on the Politburo told them not to do so" is nonsense.
I think the reason a lot of people criticize Paul is because they've been so thoroughly indoctrinated into blind patriotism. They have believed wholeheartedly the old bumpersticker line that I saw some years ago: "America Right or Wrong." Other variations would say something like "My Country Right or Wrong."
This wrong and horribly immoral (to say nothing of evil) idea has been unconsciously bought by a lot of well-meaning people---especially conservatives. They were brought up with the bitterness many felt towards the hippie types for treating the Vietnam vets so badly. (I'm the daughter of a Vietnam vet, so I got a taste of that bitterness.) This experience left a lot of conservative, old school Americans with very little tolerance for or patience with anybody who questioned the morality or rightness of anything our military did or does. The people on the far left in the '60's went way, way too far in their protests and became in many ways so un-American that a lot of people began to equate opposition to any American war with being completely un-American. The old idea that one could oppose a war simply for reasons of conscience without simultaneously losing their patriotism was forgotten, and, hence, when any candidate or political movement came along that didn't agree 100% with everything our military does it was branded as un-American and rejected out-of-hand by those otherwise conservative, decent folks.
That, I think, is why many people here on FR bash on Paul and the ideas that both he and we, his supporters, have about the way our country should be run.
Patriotism has become blind, or it is not called patriotism at all.
I think that is a good argument. I used to be all for war and using force wherever it could be justified because I had this belief that more military naturally meant more patriotism. I went to a fairly liberal leaning high school and was very frustrated by all of my peers points of view and it made me turn more towards blind patriotism. I no longer share those same views, but I know where I was coming from. My country right or wrong is a dangerous philosophy.
The TSA is a glorified security guard company that creates an unconstitutional relationship between the airlines and the government.
Customs agents are constitutional, and can constitutional inspect goods at ports of entry.
Words mean things, and organizational relationships between the government and private companies can be constitutional, or sadly, in the case of many of the recent government arrangements, fascistic, depending on the way they are implemented.
Americans are
To finish the thought,
Americans are either asleep or they don’t care. The government is being corrupted, and we need to stop it.
Then there is the distinct possibility that Ron Paul is actually right.
This is an idea that the one-world-government types must reject, otherwise their current worldview will be turned on its head.
Let us remember why Ron Paul said what he said.
The war-hawks were engaged in wholesale denial of cause and effect. By refusing to acknowledge any connection between our own foreign policy and the effect that it has on other nations around the world is nothing but willful blindness to reality. Ron Paul was pointing out the most obvious factor which was lacking in their flawed reasoning.
By intentionally misunderstanding his comment, many FReepers reveal their own bias toward foreign intervention, and their own xenophobia.
Ron Paul's experience of having witnessed the Viet Nam war and our subsequent withdrawal led him to his other major public opinion problem, that of suggesting that we should "just come home" from Iraq.
Whether this is a wise move militarily is often "debated" here, but one very obvious factor is seldom considered in those arguments, and that is this:
The war in Iraq, called the "War on Terror" is actually more of a political action, just like Viet Nam was. With no clear military objective, our military will continue to suffer losses until such time as public opinion forces the politicians to withdraw from Iraq.
Now if this is the same as "surrender", then we must acknowledge that is what happened in Viet Nam also.
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