Grass Roots Activists Push for Paul

NHPR ^ | 7/18/07 | Dan Gorenstein

[John Farson]

It comes right down to freedom. They want to go back to small government. Not smaller government. Small government as it was originally intended. And that is what really unites most of our support.

The word ‘freedom’ is a short-hand way of explaining Paul’s platform.

Paul supports a drastically reduced federal government- the elimination of the IRS, he believes state’s should be left to regulate abortion and marriage policies.

He questions many international organizations and agreements, such as the World Trade Organization, NAFTA and the country’s membership to the United Nations.

[DreamsofPolycarp]

We have two options in the issue of abortion:

1) RETURN to the position were were at before Roe V Wade (which struck down all 50 state laws regulating abortion)

2) Pass a constitutional amendment defining “person” as an embryo.

#2 is eminently unworkable in our present ideological climate. If you want to claim that nothing short of this is pro-life then be my guest. It may surprise you to know that almost NONE of the leaders who got the ball rolling in the protestant communities (Schaeffer, Koop, Jim Hurley, etc) preferred to wait on an amendment. Would they like it? Sure. And if congress amended the constitution to Ron Paul, I have no doubt that he would sign it. HOWEVER, at this point in time, given the legal structure he is bound to support, a federalist strategy is wiser, and more workable.

BTW, I helped to organize pro life groups around the country when this issue was getting going, and helped to form one of the first Metro Right to Life organizations in my part of the world, and have had pregnant women stay in my home, led protests, have been interviewed on TV and radio countless times, organized “bust ups” of abortion clinics (staged guys and girls to go into clinics and begin arguing with each other over whether the fetus was a child in front of the women waiting for an abortion — until the staff figured out what was going on and threw them out), and numerous numerous other pro life activities. I will put my CV up against anyone on being pro life, and I personally support a federalism approach.

[dread78645]

So then Paul would forego missile defense because it is our treaty obligations with respect to countries such as Great Britain, Denmark, Poland, Japan, etc. which are enabling us to house the foreign bases we need in order to implement missile defense

Nope.

Article I Section 8 of the Constitution give Congress the power "provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States;" --that includes missiles.

Rep. Paul has stated that there is a "Federal duty to provide missile defense" (RLC Position Statement) and he voted to deploy Ron Reagan's Space defense initiative (HR 4).
Clearly Ron Paul believes the US should have strategic and AB missiles.

NATO is not needed to provide basing for missile sites.
Missile sites can be (and have been) negotiated to under separate treaties (see Poland, Czech Republic & Israel). In fact, by attempting to have bases in every one of the European NATO countries, NATO is working against US policy ...

[DugwayDuke]

“We don’t declare war on ideologies or cliques. Wars are decleared, by definition, on nation states.”

Ron Paul used that rationale to justify the fact that he didn’t want to declare war on Alqaeda. His nutty solution was Letters of Marque and Reprisal.

[hedgetrimmer]

Ron Paul used that rationale the Constitution to justify the fact that he didn’t want to a government operating constitutionally cannot declare war on Alqaeda.

The Congress shall have power..To declare war, grant letters of marque and reprisal, and make rules concerning captures on land and water;

To declare war is to state that a state of war exists between us and another NATION.

A letter of marque, allows actions to be taken to seize and destroy assets or personnel belonging to a party that has committed an offense against our nation.

Bush won't declare war, because that would mean fighting Saudi Arabia, the major funder of terrorists globally.

A letter of marque against Al Queda is the constitutional and correct path our nation should be following. But since Saudi's fund Al Queda and harbor them, that would mean issuing a letter of marque against some of those corrupt Saudi princes, a thing Bush would NEVER do, no matter how many Americans are killed.

Also note that since Bush is busily erasing any notion of America as a nation with his SPP and assorted "free trade" deals, he wouldn't want us to declare war... that would be establishing nations as the operational authority in the matter and not his stupid 'working groups' and War Czar, and unconstitutional Department of Homeland Security.

[DreamsofPolycarp]

>“We don’t declare war on ideologies or cliques. Wars are >decleared, by definition, on nation states.”

Ron Paul used that rationale to justify the fact that he didn’t want to declare war on Alqaeda. His nutty solution was Letters of Marque and Reprisal.

Ron Paul used that rationale established fact to justify the fact that he didn’t want to declare a non-declarable war on Alqaeda. HisThe constitution of the USA provides a "nutty" solution called Letters of Marque and Reprisal, but since I have no idea about these or how they might work, I thought I would mock them instead.

There. Fixed it up for you. No charge.

[Calvinist_Dark_Lord]

...That is not what is going on in Iraq. That is not what happened in Nam. That is not what happened in Korea.

Sorry snipe, got to slightly disagree with you on this one.

It's probably best to leave the Korean war out of this discussion, even though it's true that the war ended with non-resolution.

Fact is that MacAuthur had the North Korean Government on it's knees by mid November 1950 after the Inchon Landing. It's also a fact that if not for Chinese intervention, the war would have been over by Christmas 1950 with a single nation on the Korean Penninsula.

However, it is ALSO true that when Ridgeway took over UN forces that the Chinese took massive casualties.

In the 18 months of the heaviest fighting, the PLA took over 1,000,000 KIA. That's One MILLION troops killed in action in EIGHTEEN MONTHS.

Ridgeway had them channeled into 'killing zones', and puts lots of hot, high velocity steel on them.

Korea was unresolved not because of the tactical situation, or an on-going insurgency, rather because of the political situation (one radically different from the political situation in Iraq). Truman was worried about the non-existent (at that time) Soviet nuclear threat.

[George W. Bush]

But Ron Paul didn’t want to declare war on AlQaeda either. He wanted to issue Letters of Marque and Reprisal.

You can't declare a war on anything except a sovereign country. He voted to authorize the president to invade Afghanistan and take out the Taliban who were harboring and supporting Bin Laden, their old ally from the days of the Soviet invasion.

Ron Paul still supports the effort in Afghanistan and wants to go into the tribal areas of Pakistan to finish off Bin Laden and his top leadership who are almost certainly there.

You might just notice that Giuiliani is now taking that same position. So is the White House in statements just this week.

Too bad they didn't listen to Ron Paul before they made such a complete disaster out of Iraq and got 4000 of our noble troops killed, often from sheer incompetence and Rumsfeld's failure to put enough troops in there to complete their (misbegotten) mission.

[CJ Wolf]

When Paul does win the nomination, Are you going to vote republican in the Election?

[vbmoneyspender]

If Paul wins the nomination, I’ll donate $10,000 to FR. If Paul doesn’t win the nomination, how about you donate $10 to FR.

[DugwayDuke]

“The Congress shall have power..To declare war, grant letters of marque and reprisal, and make rules concerning captures on land and water;”

Since you two seem to support the idea of a LM&R, perhaps one of you would like to explain what a LM&R is and exactly how it would work against AlQaeda? Fair warning, it’s a typical dumb Ron Bin Laden idea.

[DugwayDuke]

“You can’t declare a war on anything except a sovereign country. He voted to authorize the president to invade Afghanistan and take out the Taliban who were harboring and supporting Bin Laden, their old ally from the days of the Soviet invasion.”

And we did declare war against Iraq and Afghanistand. We haven’t declared war against AlQaeda so your point is irrevent isn’t it?

A minor point. Ron Bin Laden did certainly vote for the use of force in Afghanistan but his speech is quite clear in that he recommended a Letter of Marque and Reprisal which is a typical dumb Ron Paul idea.

“Ron Paul still supports the effort in Afghanistan and wants to go into the tribal areas of Pakistan to finish off Bin Laden and his top leadership who are almost certainly there.”

Does Ron Paul believe we should declare war on Pakistan prior to our invastion? Or, would he support an authorization of force? Or, would he still recommend Letters of Marque and Reprisal?

“Too bad they didn’t listen to Ron Paul before they made such a complete disaster out of Iraq and got 4000 of our noble troops killed,...”

If we had listened to Ron Paul, we wouldn’t have invaded Iraq or Afghanistan, we would have issued Letters of Marque and Reprisal.

Ron Paul still supports the effort in Afghanistan and wants to go into the tribal areas of Pakistan to finish off Bin Laden and his top leadership who are almost certainly there.

[CJ Wolf]

That’s a bet.

Jim, please take note.

[George W. Bush]

Does Ron Paul believe we should declare war on Pakistan prior to our invastion? Or, would he support an authorization of force? Or, would he still recommend Letters of Marque and Reprisal?

Afghanistan is barely a country, even on paper. The tribal areas of Pakistan belong to Pakistan as a territory but no one, not even Pakistan, believes that Pakistan's government rules them in any significant way.

We're not talking about countries in the normal sense of the word here. Even Paki military are afraid to set foot there. It's one of the truly lawless areas on Earth, outside of Africa or places deep in the Amazon.

Ron Paul has not been specific about how we deal with the danger of destablizing Pakistan entirely by imprudent measures. If you heard the White House statements on dealing with these tribal areas, clearly they are keeping quiet too. Apparently, we're going in with Paki approval but no assistance. It won't be a large bombing and invasion campaign for the region though. We'll be probing and observing. If we can identify Bin Laden's camp, we'll try to capture him and his group or we'll bomb it flat, perhaps with some of our new drone aircraft that can carry, what, 2 dozen Hellfire missiles. We just deployed a squadron of them in Iraq, I read.

If we had listened to Ron Paul, we wouldn’t have invaded Iraq or Afghanistan, we would have issued Letters of Marque and Reprisal.

No, we would have finished the job in Afghanistan and long since moved in to clean out the al-Qaeda camps in Pakistan's tribal areas.

Iraq is and always was completely separated from 9/11. There was and is no connection between the two.

It's long past time to kill Osama and all of his top henchmen. Every day we allow him to live only encourages future terrorists and future attacks. Do we have to wait for him to kill another 3000 Americans on our own soil again before we get back to the job?

The Bush administration has seemed, until this last week, to have no more interest in Osama than Xlinton did. We condemn Xlinton over and over for not apprehending Osama when he had the chance. Just what the hell has Bush been doing to get Osama the last five years anyway?

[vbmoneyspender]

Given that you are a Paul supporter, should JR expect your donation to be made in gold?

[CJ Wolf]

Well $10 worth of gold isn’t much gold. I might be able to go out back and pan for a few bits of gold dust to cover it.

[DugwayDuke]

“Iraq is and always was completely separated from 9/11. There was and is no connection between the two.”

There was a connection. Hussein had a record of supporting terrorism and a record of WMD. Saddam could have remained in power by fully cooperating with the inspectors and proved he had no WMD that he might provide to terrorists.

“Ron Paul has not been specific about how we deal with the danger of destablizing Pakistan entirely by imprudent measures.”

Just like the democrats, avoid being specific, just criticize.

“The Bush administration has seemed, until this last week, to have no more interest in Osama than Xlinton did. We condemn Xlinton over and over for not apprehending Osama when he had the chance.”

Exactly which organization offered to turn Osama over to Bush like the Sudanesse offered to Clinton?

“Just what the hell has Bush been doing to get Osama the last five years anyway?”

You’re making the same mistake as the democrats in viewing this as a law enforcement issue that can be solved by arresting or killing one man. Getting Osama won’t solve the problem of Islamic terrorism.

[George W. Bush]

There was a connection. Hussein had a record of supporting terrorism and a record of WMD. Saddam could have remained in power by fully cooperating with the inspectors and proved he had no WMD that he might provide to terrorists.

Supporting Pali terrorism, yes. Just like our Saudi friends did (and 16 of 19 9/11 hijackers and Osama are all Saudi). You want to advocate invading Saudi Arabia, clearly a known source of terrorism as well as the 9/11 attack? Most of the money we cut off from the al-Qaeda network were the donations from members of the Saudi royal clan.

And Saddam did 'prove' he didn't have WMD to the inspectors. He was stupid about it but there is no proof he still had any WMD or that he evacuated to Syria or anywhere else. And we just said that Saddam was lying and that he really had them anyway. But he didn't, regardless of the rich fantasies some folks here at FR spin about it.

Just like the democrats, avoid being specific, just criticize.

You're being silly. No Congressman, even those on the military and intel oversight committees, is given access to that much information. Not under this administration or in any previous ones.

Exactly which organization offered to turn Osama over to Bush like the Sudanesse offered to Clinton?

I was indicating the hypocrisy in condemning Xlinton for exactly that which Bush has shown so little interest in. Bush has actually been publicly dismissive of the need to bring Osama to justice, talked as though it was completely unimportant. And Xlinton hadn't had 3000 Americans killed and our economy hit on by an Osama attack either.

Beyond that, we don't know yet whether anyone has, since 9/11, offered up Osama. However, they did just raise the reward from $25 million to $50 million. So they're getting a little more interested. Maybe we might even actually capture him.

You’re making the same mistake as the democrats in viewing this as a law enforcement issue that can be solved by arresting or killing one man. Getting Osama won’t solve the problem of Islamic terrorism.

Phooey. It will stop terrorism organized by Osama. You don't stop future murders by executing a single murderer. But you stop that murderer from murdering again. And recent studies show that almost nothing deters murder like the death penalty despite all the bilge the liberals spew about how ineffective it is.

[beachdweller]

I did not lie, but was mistaken. I stand corrected and thank you for setting me straight. I was led to believe he opposed Roe v. Wade for federalist reasons rather than out of opposition to abortion and was ill -informed. My apologies to the Congressman and to his supporters.

[WhiteGuy]

When Paul does win the nomination, Are you going to vote republican in the Election?

WHile it is understood that this question was not directed at me..........I am in touch with a quite a few of Dr. Paul’s supporters here in Ohio.

The general mood is that All will vote for Dr. Paul (therefore vote R) if Dr. Paul is the Nominee.

If Dr. Paul is not the nominee, they will write vote for him as a write-in candidate or simply not vote for president in the general election (Not staying home, voting for other offices issues etc)

Just passing along some intel.

[CJ Wolf]

So if he wins the Nomination your gonna vote Paul. If he doesn’t win you will still vote republican. ;-)