Posted on 10/10/2007 12:18:58 PM PDT by mnehring
It's no secret that I don't care much for Ron Paul, but after reading some of the hurt and angry responses from Ron Paul fans to his first place finish in the Right-Of-Center Bloggers Select Their Least Favorite People On The Right (2007 Edition) poll, I thought it might be worth taking the time to explain to them why Paul is so unpopular with mainstream conservatives.
In an effort to be polite, I am not going to be snarky about it, but I should forewarn Paul's fans and, for that matter, any "Big L" Libertarians who may be reading, that they are probably not going to like what they read. I'm not trying to be insulting, but without a certain amount of bluntness, it's impossible to get some of these points across.
First of all, a lot of Republicans are strongly pro-war and the fact that Ron Paul is not only anti-war, but has adopted some of the more obnoxious and inflammatory rhetoric of the Left about the war is extremely grating. According to Paul, Iraq is a war for oil and empire, engineered by neocons, and in Paul's book, we deserved to be attacked on 9/11.
When you aim that sort of rhetoric at people who strongly support the war and feel that it's justified, moral, and in America's best interests, it's guaranteed to generate a huge wave of hostility. Additionally, Paul's thoughtless, "we must leave immediately, regardless of the consequences," position on Iraq comes across as poorly thought out. Even if you thought that the war was a bad idea and opposed it from day one, the idea that we can simply extricate ourselves from Iraq immediately because it's unpleasant, with no consequences, is the sort of thing you'd expect to hear from a 16 year old at an anti-war rally, not something you expect from a candidate for President. Even Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, and Barack Obama, all of whom have spent months trying to convince their base that they're the most anti-war of all the top tier candidates, are saying we may be in Iraq for years to come.
Incidentally, this is a problem with a lot of the things Ron Paul wants do: they're impractical in the extreme. Paul is an isolationist, even though that hasn't been the policy of the United States since the thirties. Paul wants to go back to the gold standard, which again, the US went off of in the thirties. Ron Paul also wants to get rid of the Federal Reserve, which was created in 1913.
This sort of thinking, which treats government policy as if it's an intellectual exercise with easily changeable parameters is, in my experience, a common failing of "Big L" Libertarians. In Paul's case, it's almost like his thinking goes, "Let's assume that the last 95 years haven't happened. If I could go back in time to that political climate, what changes would I make?"
You can argue that's how the world should work, but it's not how the world does work. You can't simply undo decades of history and culture, with almost no support for doing so in your own party, the opposing party, or from the general population.
Along those same lines, Paul wants to get rid of the CIA, opposes the Patriot Act, and wants to legalize hard drugs. Taking in all those positions in addition to others mentioned earlier just emphasizes the fact that he does not take into consideration how implementing the ideas that he's presenting will affect the world. In that sense Paul, and for that matter, most "Big L" Libertarians are more similar than they'd like to believe to the wildly impractical, Marxist college professors that conservatives love to snicker at. To people like Paul and these professors, their beliefs seem to be largely divorced from any sort of real world impact that may occur or the political reality that has to be dealt with.
You can win pats on the back for your purity or you can accomplish something in the political arena, but you usually can't do both. Ron Paul does not seem to have figured that out.
Going beyond that, Ron Paul's support for the North American Union conspiracy and his winks and nods to the 9/11 truther crowd appall many conservatives. After spending much of the last six years ripping on liberals for tolerating wild eyed conspiracy theorists, it's embarrassing to many conservatives to have someone on our side, running for President, who's encouraging people on the Right to behave in the same fashion.
This leads us to the last big problem that Ron Paul has: despite the fact that Ron Paul is polling at somewhere between 2%-4% nationally, he has, for whatever reason, more obnoxious supporters backing him than all the other candidates combined. If you write a column or a post knocking John McCain, Mitt Romney, or Rudy Giuliani, you'll certainly have some people disagreeing with you, some of them strongly. If you knock Ron Paul, you'll often have hordes of social misfits making obnoxious comments, spamming your polls, touting conspiracy theories, insulting conservatives in general, and doing everything possible to make nuisances of themselves.
That's not to say that Ron Paul doesn't have his strong points. He is committed to smaller government, slashing spending, liberty, and the Constitution. However, he also has more crippling flaws than any other candidate running for the GOP nomination and those problems cannot be treated as if they don't exist or are irrelevant.
If we rely on the states in the case of ground transportation and on the private sector with regard to financial networks, both of which carry levels of risk comparable to or greater than that of aircraft, I see no reason why state level regulation or market forces, or a combination of the two, would not work in air transportation.
The Constitution as it is today is exactly like it was in the 18th centrury, except where it has been explicitly altered by amendment. If the "world as it is today" makes it impractical we have the power to change it, but that's not going to happen without taking a cold hard look at what it actually says, and admitting that if we're going to keep it, then it really does apply to us and what we're doing right now.
Paul has no solutions either. Even issues like the motivation for jihad. And particularly the less than savory places he gets support, from the racist right to the antiwar left with a stop at the drug culture inbetween.
He's one giant soundbite, nosubstance, and personally I think he's deserving of ridicule. And I think he should be disclaimed by Republicans. When his supporters posit coherent arguements, I'm happy to address them.
I get a kick out of all this Constitutional rhetoric the Paul folks throw around, as if the Founders had the final say on all things 200+ years ago. Hell, anyone who actually reads on these men would realize quickly how much they fought and compromised to get where they were going in 1789. Even then they were not sure they had hit it out of the park. Why the hell did they add an amendment capability if they were perfect out of the gate.
The Founders would be shaking there heads at the very idea the Constitution was perfect, and to be honest probably laughing their arses off over a pint at the notion they are revered by some as perfect. They were great men, tough men, smart men, but even they admitted they were only men. That is one thing that made them great.
Where did I say the Constitution is impractical to today’s World? Where did I state it needed to be changed? I was addressing Ron Paul’s view of the World, not our Constitution.
First, we could start with the "law 'n' order" types who unswervingly support what LEOs do, even when they storm the wrong house in the middle of the night and kill a 90-something year old woman or seize cash and property of people merely if they are suspected of being drug dealers, without benefit of a trial. Then you have those who may dislike food stamps and other welfare programs, but have no problem with the concept of the income tax or subsidizing aerospace industries. Furthermore, there are the Bush and GOP loyalists who would decry programs like "No Child Left Behind" or onerous airline screening had it been done by Clinton but support it if it falls under the Republicans.
Much of what passes for conservatism has little resemblance to the philosophy of the Founding Fathers or of Republican presidents like McKinley, Taft, or Coolidge, or even Democrats like Jackson or Cleveland, but is merely statism lite.
Blowback from American colonialism along with the desire of the military industrial complex/other conspiracies to control the sources of resouces vital to American economic interests. I support the latter, war to secure our access to mideast oil is fine with me.
But they work with minimal government regulation. Furthermore, the risk of computer failures would be far more catastrophic than an airplane crash, e.g., power failures, financial meltdowns, etc. Freedom works when given a chance.
Ok. It’s apples and oranges, but Ok...
Your entire post is hyperbole. You can find people with pet issues wherever you go. That does not make them supportive of big government or socialism. You take this way too far in trying to make a point. And you paint with way too broad a brush.
Sorry, but no go.
You claim his views on what the limits of the appropriate, constitutionally granted powers of the federal government are to be rendered impractical in today's world.
Exactly! His views. This in no way reflects on the Constitution. It reflects on his views; not what the Constitution is. Paul is the issue. Not the Constitution.
I find more in the writings of the founders that support his views. On what basis do you submit that his view of the Constitution is flawed?
The founding fathers created a Constitution to serve America always. That’s why they created a system of government that could be developed modified, and enriched through the will of the people, knowing that as times change, so would the needs of those people.
What Ron Paul wants to do is take us back to the world view of two centuries ago. That is unrealistic, it is illogical and stupid. Period.
Hey, bud, I’m out’a here. Things to do before I close it down for the evening. Have at it. You’re on top of things.
No one “wants” big, nanny state socialism. They want a federal government that has the power to do whatever they think ought to be done. They’re alright with “living document” arguments about how “things are different now” as long as it’s going to be used for things they think ought to be done.
Well, we didn't do that.
"The substantial effects test is no test at all. It is a blank check."
-Justice Clarence Thomas.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1908977/posts
From the article Paul said:
“we currently ... cannot even afford to pay [for] the war or our welfare system without borrowing nearly three billion dollars a day from foreigners, a lot of it coming from China.”
Let do the math. $3,000,000,000 times 365 days = $1,095,000,000,000,000 or 1.95 quadrillion dollars a year Federal Deficit!
The entire Federal Budget is $3 Trillion dollars.
It is this sort or reckless, divorced from reality rhetoric that indicates that not only is Dr Paul not fit to be President, he not even fit for the job he NOW has.
I’ll have to look up the current numbers, but the last time I checked, less than 10% of our debt is actually foreign owned.. it may be different now, this was a few years ago.
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