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"Ron Paul’s point is that we should consider the ramifications of what we do instead of blustering about like a bull in a china shop."

Ron Paul is not a bad guy. I'd just much rather have a President who puts the emphasis on making the terrorist-spawning countries consider the ramifications of what THEY do, instead of spewing random death like a suicide bomber on an Israeli bus.

The invocation of something the US did 50 years ago, and that wasn't all that bad anyway, is a trope from the nutter left-o-sphere, it's a form of ritualized self-denunciation of America. The world is not a rationally, perfectly predictable place, that's just an ideological fantasy. Reasonable people do the best they can at the time, including prediction of the consequences. To try to pin the blame for present situations on a few narrowly selected events long ago (cherry-picked to support a particular ideological position) is not supporting reason, it's just sophistry.

Ron Paul could as easily claim that Iran is run today by religious extremists because Charles Martel beat the Moors at Poiters (Tours), and if he hadn't, Islam would have developed differently, as would Europe, and today Iran would be a democratic paradise, la dee da. Whatever. Retrospective second-guessing of hypothetical alternative universes is delusional and useless, no matter how it's dressed up.

“Ron Paul is not a bad guy. I’d just much rather have a President who puts the emphasis on making the terrorist-spawning countries consider the ramifications of what THEY do, instead of spewing random death like a suicide bomber on an Israeli bus.”

Ron Paul would do that. If a nation supported terrorism and we were attacked Ron Paul would get a proper declaration of war and then he would fight to win. What he wouldn’t do is invade nations that we don’t need to and then sit around letting troops die instead of doing what it takes to kill the enemy. Iran should be afaid of US nuking THEM, not the other way around.

“To try to pin the blame for present situations on a few narrowly selected events long ago (cherry-picked to support a particular ideological position) is not supporting reason, it’s just sophistry.”

That’s true, but that isn’t what is happening here. We are currently at this moment making poor decisions. Pointing out that we made poor decisions in the past, which we should have known were poor at the time, merely illustrates the current mess.

“Retrospective second-guessing of hypothetical alternative universes is delusional and useless, no matter how it’s dressed up.”

Learning from the past is helpful though.