Posted on 10/14/2007 1:29:17 PM PDT by reasonisfaith
Something about Ron Paul doesn’t smell right. Despite the fact that he appears to advocate core conservative values such as upholding the constitution and limiting government power, instinct tells me not to touch Ron Paul with a ten foot pole. Conservatives understand this. He’s just too kooky. I think it comes down to two possibilities: either Ron Paul is very foolish or he is very evil.
It’s true that on a certain level, tending to our own political and economic affairs here in the U.S. is where we should focus most of our resources. But the cauldrons of tyranny and terror are ever-present in far reaches of the world. When these wicked brews begin to boil over and spill their hateful contents onto our land, that’s the point where we must take action to extinguish the fire at its source. We did so in Japan and Germany sixty-odd years ago, and we are now doing it in Iraq.
Ron Paul’s behavior is consistent with two possibilities. The first possibility allows for the notion that Paul is an honest man with true libertarian beliefs who just doesn’t understand the reality of geopolitics, thus he is basically a kook hopelessly unfit for the oval office. The second possibility is less likely but nonetheless fun for the imagination: Ron Paul is part of a conspiracy, planned for decades, that covertly seeks something sinister—either a Hillary presidency (by means of dividing the conservative vote) or the downfall of the United States.
Ron Paul is full of courage and principled plans for dealing with what ails this country.
Not a scoundrel, I view him as an opportunist. Narcissist perhaps, but I’m not qualified to make psychiatric diagnosis. Ron’s an ME, ask him
People were asking the same thing about al Qaeda in Iraq earlier this year. Looks like they have their answer playing out before them now.
I'll let the generals develop the strategy for dealing with PKK. I am not an armchair general and do not hold armchair generals in very high regard.
Anyway, you have twisted my words and actually made up quotes and attributed them to me, so you don't have a strong argument against me. If you did, you wouldn't have to reposrt to such tactics.
I prefer not to have discourse with people who use practices like that.
Offputting, does that mean they're golfers and miss their putts?
The MotherShip, I haven't posted much from Minister Farrakhan's site in a while, but I'm going to visit it tonight.
The Revolution, I'm thinking about posting Paul manners on each thread, width=5,000,000,000.
Could be 5 billion or 5 trillion, who cares, gold matters. But I think that's 5 million, but I need to ask the admin before I break anything.
How did I twist your words? Prove it.
He’s the pubbie answer to Kucinich!!
“Yes, Turkey is shelling across the border and talking about closing its airspace to us. The web we are weaving is getting more and more tangled. I wouldn’t describe it as “better.” It’s “different.” It’s a different problem every day.”
You sure jumped on that one fast. A bit excited?
Turkey is the latest hope for the Democrats that the Iraq war will turn back toward chaos and end in U.S. defeat.
“He’s just taking a play from the Jesse Jackson/Pat Buchanan playbook. Find a fringe niche that 1% of the population supports and milk that 1% for money and publicity.”
Sad but true.
“It’s not kooky to point out that there isn’t a valid exit strategy yet.”
Careful with the phrase “exit strategy” when discussing the Iraq war. It reveals a particular ideology.
There have always been differences, otherwise Ron Paul would have had no party under which to run for President in 1988 after 8 years of the most "conservative" President we've had. At most he might have run a primary challenge to Bush on grounds of conservative purity. The differences have sadly grown, and the Bushes do deserve significant blame for that. There have been some questions asked of the other candidates, perhaps not as specific as I'd like, more along the lines of general spending tendencies. The monster of government has grown so large that it is hard to ask all the appropriate questions individually. Because of Paul's record it is a better question to ask him does he still take this or that stance which falls outside the positions of "mainstream" Republicans and Democrats. I would hope he would endorse his past traditional libertarian positions. I hope that would separate those I believe belong on the loony anti-war left from his camp and leave a political force pushing for reduced government. A good conservative would be able to use such to good effect. And if Paul were to, by some fluke, end up President, he'd need good conservatives to accomplish his goals, as his election would leave zero libertarians in Congress.The bulk of Democrats certainly won't support reducing the government, their chief employer and source of power.
An ideology of non-intervention, yes. How else could I support Ron Paul?
Simple answer, "Yes."
A more nuanced answer, "Yes, and yes."
What I've heard of his solutions sound inadequate and dangerous. Our enemies would take them as a sign of weakness and attack all the harder. This is not a neat conflict that can be resolved by libertarians precisely throwing rocks from the moon. It cannot be done neatly, cheaply nor quickly.
Also the domestic rollback, as much as I love to see it, realistically will only be done on an incremental bases, much as growth was incremental. I'd love to see a bill starting with "The following are hereby repealed" and continue with a list of laws that run a volume in the Federal Register and a President that signed a similar executive order at his inauguration. I don't expect to see either.
fool
I understand your sentiments. It took me quite a while to come around to seeing Ron Paul’s views as providing greater security than our current policies. It began with years and years of frustration with odd inactions and even more bizarre actions on the part of the interventionist leadership. I finally couldn’t stand the perpetual disregard of Saudi culpability in the global terror war. I simply could not take it another day. After that, I started to look for underlying causes, and I think I’ve found them in our monetary system, and in the global elite’s efforts to unite the world in one economic and legal system. To me, this is all very real, and a lot of our sovereignty, domestic security, and foreign policy “inconsistencies” can be explained by it.
“We went after Japan only after they attacked us, and Germany only after they declared war on us.
When did Iraq attack or declare war on us?”
Your argument is asinine. Are you suggesting that we ought to use a war in which we did not preempt the enemy and which killed 55 million people in 6 years as an example of why preemption is wrong? I think Ron Paul supporters need to go back to the drawing board on that line of reasoning.
Do you consider pilots for the US Air Force, Americans?
If you were a pilot in the US Air Force and were fired upon countless times would you consider that an attack?
If you saw the pictures of gassed Kurds and intelligence indicated those weapons might still exist and be in the hands of the madman that perpetrated this upon fellow human beings; Would you say, "well we weren't attacked, let's wait for the attack"?
Keeping in mind, thousands of your fellow Americans have just been killed by terrorists would you be at all concerned that WMD's might be in the hands of a madman?
Bearing in mind also this madman lost a war and agreed to inspections and then behaved in such a way as to lead any reasonable person to believe he had something to hide.
A billionaire, with complete and absolute power would risk all that for no reason?
Tell me more of logic and fallacy.
If you actually do believe that, may I suggest that you adjust your tinfoil hat? I think he's simply naive, not malign.
I agree with Rudy Giuliani's positions* less than 25% of the time.
Ron Paul is neither evil, nor a kook. Rudy, on the other hand, ...
*as supported by his record
Of course I do. But how did they get there? By an HW Bush-Bill Clinton consistent policy of intervention.
We were over there both in 1991 and during the flyover period to protect Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. That's because we've become enslaved to the Saudis both economically and geopolitically. How did that happen? Is it good? Should we talk about ways of getting free from it? Or should we keep obeying our royal Saudi masters and march off to war every time their feckless kingdom is threatened? By the way, this entire region's borders were established by the Anglo-American Establishment in the wake of WW1. We're talking about a long history of manipulation here. Strategically it really couldn't have been any other way up until 1991. After the Soviet collapse, we have had several opportunities to change our direction. Ron Paul is talking about alternatives to interventionism, and we should be listening.
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