Posted on 06/15/2007 7:24:20 AM PDT by Fiji Hill
The Conservative Case Against Ron Paul
By John Hawkins
Friday, June 15, 2007
Even though he's not one of the top tier contenders, I thought it might be worthwhile to go ahead and write a short, but sweet primer that will explain why so many Republicans have a big problem with Ron Paul. Enjoy!
#1) Ron Paul is a libertarian, not a conservative: I have nothing against libertarians. To the contrary, I like them and welcome them into the Republican Party. But, conservatives have even less interest in seeing a libertarian as the GOP's standard bearer than seeing a moderate as our party's nominee. In Paul's case, his voting record shows that he is the least conservative member of Congress running for President on the GOP side. So, although he is a small government guy, he very poorly represents conservative opinion on a wide variety of other important issues.
#2) Ron Paul is one of the people spreading the North American Union conspiracy: If you're so inclined, you can click here for just one example of Paul talking up a mythical Bush administration merger of the U.S., Canada, and Mexico, but you're not missing much if you don't. Reputable conservatives shouldn't be spreading these crazy conspiracy theories and the last thing the GOP needs is a conspiracy crank as our nominee in 2008.
#3) Ron Paul encourages "truther" conspiracy nuts: Even though Ron Paul admits that he does not believe in a 9/11 government conspiracy, he has been flirting with the wackjobs in the "truther movement," like Alex Jones and the "Student Scholars for 9/11 Truth." Republican politicians should either ignore people like them or set them straight, not lend credence to their bizarre conspiracy theories by acting as if they may have some merit, which is what Ron Paul has done.
#4) Ron Paul's racial views: From the Houston Chronicle, Texas congressional candidate Ron Paul's 1992 political newsletter highlighted portrayals of blacks as inclined toward crime and lacking sense about top political issues.
Under the headline of "Terrorist Update," for instance, Paul reported on gang crime in Los Angeles and commented, "If you have ever been robbed by a black teen-aged male, you know how unbelievably fleet-footed they can be."
Paul, a Republican obstetrician from Surfside, said Wednesday he opposes racism and that his written commentaries about blacks came in the context of "current events and statistical reports of the time."
..."Given the inefficiencies of what D.C. laughingly calls the `criminal justice system,' I think we can safely assume that 95 percent of the black males in that city are semi-criminal or entirely criminal," Paul said.
...He added, "We don't think a child of 13 should be held responsible as a man of 23. That's true for most people, but black males age 13 who have been raised on the streets and who have joined criminal gangs are as big, strong, tough, scary and culpable as any adult and should be treated as such."
Paul also asserted that "complex embezzling" is conducted exclusively by non-blacks.
"What else do we need to know about the political establishment than that it refuses to discuss the crimes that terrify Americans on grounds that doing so is racist? Why isn't that true of complex embezzling, which is 100 percent white and Asian?" he wrote."
Ron Paul has since claimed that although these comments were in his newsletter, under his name, he didn't write them. Is he telling the truth? Who knows? Either way, those comments don't say much for Paul.
#5) A lot of Ron Paul's supporters are incredibly irritating: There are, without question, plenty of decent folks who support Ron Paul. However, for whatever reason, his supporters as a group are far more annoying than those of all the other candidates put together. It's like every spammer, truther, troll, and flake on the net got together under one banner to spam polls and try to annoy everyone into voting for Ron Paul (which is, I must admit, a novel strategy).
#6) Ron Paul is an isolationist: The last time the United States retreated to isolationism was after WW1 and the result was WW2. Since then, the world has become even more interconnected which makes Ron Paul's strategy of retreating behind the walls of Fortress America even more unworkable than it was back in the thirties.
#7) Ron Paul wants to immediately cut and run in Iraq: Even if you're an isolationist like Ron Paul, the reality is that our foreign policy isn't currently one of isolationism and certain allowances should be made to deal with that reality. Yet, Paul believes we should immediately retreat from Al-Qaeda in Iraq and let that entire nation collapse into genocide and civil war as a result. Maybe, just maybe, Paul's motives are better than those of liberals like Murtha and Kerry, who want to see us lose a war for political gain, but the catastrophic results would be exactly the same.
#8) Ron Paul excused Al-Qaeda's attacks on America: In the single most repulsive moment of the entire Presidential race so far, Ron Paul excused Al-Qaeda's attack on American with this comment about 9/11,
"They attack us because we've been over there. We've been bombing Iraq for 10 years." In other words, America deserved to be attacked by Al-Qaeda.
This is the sort of facile comment you'd expect to hear from an America-hating left winger like Michael Moore or Noam Chomsky, not from a Republican running for President -- or from any Republican in office for that matter. If you want to truly realize how foolish that sort of thinking is, imagine what the reaction would be if we had bombed Egyptian or Indonesian civilians after 9/11 and then justified it by saying "We attacked them because those Muslims have been over here."
#9) Ron Paul is the single, least electable major candidate running for the presidency in either party: Libertarianism simply is not considered to be a mainstream political philosophy in the United States by most Americans. That's why the Libertarian candidate in 2004, Michael Badnarik, only pulled .3% of the vote. Even more notably, Ron Paul only pulled .47% of the vote when he ran at the top of the Libertarian ticket in 1988. Granted, Paul would do considerably better than that if he ran at the top of the Republican Party ticket, but it's hard to imagine his winning more than, say 35%, of the national vote and a state or two -- even if he were very lucky. In other words, having Ron Paul as the GOP nominee would absolutely guarantee the Democratic nominee a Reaganesque sweep in the election.
Summary: Is Ron Paul serious about small government, enforcing the Constitution, and enforcing the borders? Yes, and those are all admirable qualities. However, he also has a host of enormous flaws that makes him unqualified to be President and undesirable, even as a Republican Congressmen.
Mr. Hawkins is a professional blogger who runs Conservative Grapevine and Right Wing News. He also writes a weekly column for Townhall.com and consults for the Duncan Hunter campaign.
Copyright © 2006 Salem Web Network. All Rights Reserved.
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Great to see your Posts of CLARITY back here of F/R, Freeper miss print.
Happy Father’s Day to your Loved Ones.
AR
‘I only go by what I hear the man say, sorry so far he hasn’t impressed me. ‘
‘So his sterling record of supporting the Constitution means nothing to you.’
His mutterings on Constitutional theory don’t trump his insane assertion this is our fault due to policies from the past decade.
Congress did not abrogate any responsibilities to the President ... they fulfilled their Constitutional mandate, and passed an authorization of the hostilities against Iraq.
That is ALL the Constitution requires ...
A
Libertarians are conservative in some aspects ... but there are definite distinction between libertarianism and conservatism (which is why there are two different names).
>> They are a whole lot more conservative than the republican party acts now.
The Republican Party is far from a model of conservatism ... and I don’t remember arguing otherwise.
>> And, actually, staying out of foreign entanglements is a time honored conservative policy expressed by more than two of the founders.
Two? Anyway, isolationism is no more “time-honored” in conservative ranks than interventionism. And, isolationism is not majority position among modern conservatives. I am a conservative ... and I will not vote for isolationism as a foreign policy. It is naive, and ultimately self-destructive.
The founders of this country envisioned isolationism as a policy when isolationism was a viable option ... i.e. when weapons were short-ranged, Navies were slow, communications were archaic, and the globe was generally segmented. Technology in weaponry, communications, and speed of travel has rendered isolationism nothing more than a quaint idea for a less globalized era.
The founders also, incidentally, invisioned the national defense as among the highest callings of the Federal government. I would argue that, in this modern age of high-tech weaponry, any prioritization of national defense is anathema to the idea of isolationism.
>> Also, the freedom of people to take anything within their bodies at their own discretion is a conservative principle consistent with the foundation of the states ancient police power.
No - that’s a libertarian principle. Conservatism favors protection of innocent citizens when “freedom” encroaches on the public safety.
You are only free to do what you will, even within your own body, to the extent that this freedom does not imperil the safety and well-being of others in society. This is relatively rudimentary conservatism - as expressed by John Locke ... one of the originators of conservatism, and one of the philsophers on whom the founders drew for the founding principles of the United States.
There are always limits on absolute freedom in an ordered society.
A
Just a little note to you folks that think our Reps are conservative and fighters of freedom:
House approves stiffer gun background checks
By Joel Havemann, Los Angeles Times June 14, 2007
Only Representative Ron Paul, Republican of Texas, spoke out against the bill, calling it “flagrantly unconstitutional” and saying it undermines the Second Amendment right to bear arms and violates privacy rights of those whose medical records go into the FBI database....
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1850033/posts
Like so many before me have said... “Ron Paul is the only real Conservative”
So where are your “conservative Republicans now?”... Thats right.. there are not any... OOPs..I forgot... there’s that pesky Ron Paul again... trying to protect us from the BIG arm of the government.Hmm, isn’t that a conservative position?. So give me a break with your Ron Paul bashing. One more thing-— he never said we “deserved” the attacks. He is only speaking in retrospect of our foreign policies.Don’t you as a conservative think we should stop sending our troops globe trotting around the world? (You did when Clinton was doing it) Well, Ron Paul does too. And He is also a States Rights supporter. Some interprit that to be “liberal”, because he may vote against a conservative bill thats “unconstitutional”; but emotionally, he supports it.
Don’t be blinded by the leftist in our republican party-— I’m talking about people like Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, Michael Medved, Mark Levin, and others... “leftist...???”. Well I have no other choice... when they tell me to vote for KNOWN traitors to conservatism like Arnold, Lieberman, Romney, and Ghouliani. What do you want me to think?
Arnold - 1st year in office , BAnned the 50 cal rifle in Kommifornia
Lieberman — Known socialist. Look at his voting record
Romney — Tax and spend. OOPS I mean raise “FEES” and spend... to the tune of over 500 Million dollars in Massachusetts, Oh, and lets not forget his assault weapons ban, and his State health care boondoggle!!!!!...CONSERVATIVE???? I don’t think so!
Ghouliani -— Anti- gun, authoritarian NUT CASE extroidanaire...claim to fame... 911...( I read his book...its all in there) what else did he do..... cracked down on guns. and crime. Well, I’ll let him slide on the crime crack down.... but lumping me in with the criminals with his anti-gun stance is ludicrous. And DANGEROUS to future freedom fighters of America. Yes, your great grandchildren may need weapons to defend their liberties...from cattle cars to gas chambers.. Think about it!
“No free man shall ever be de-barred the use of arms. The strongest reason for the people to retain their rights to keep and bear arms is as a last resort to defend themselves from tyranny in government.” -—Thomas Jefferson
Ron Paul gets it.... no other republican got it...And I guess you die hard, Republican First, Freedom Second folks.... just don’t either!
Truckinmike
Terms like "liberal" and "conservative" are politically relative. Terms like "libertarian" are absolute, along with terms like "socialist" or "democratic". "Libertarianism" and "conservativism" are the same in the context of American politics to the degree that we were originally founded on libertarian principles.
The Consitution of the United States lays out a national government of strictly enumerated powers, limited to those functions necessary at the national level. It explicitly protects individual liberties, and generally restricts the national governments power to control personal behaviour implicitly by not enumerating the powers to do so, and therefore leaving them to the States. It is quite arguably a libertarian proposition, and holding strictly to those ideas will produce a necessarily libertarian result within that context. Faulting Ron Paul for being "libertarian" while agreeing with his desire for smaller, limited government and holding the origial intent of the Constitution is self-contradictory, IMHO.
Your argument(in the form of a question) is a non-sequitur, because it assumes that simply passing a new law would negate the effects of Roe v. Wade. The only thing that will override Roe is either a new SC decision or a Constitutional Amendment. I believe the former is much more likely than the latter.
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