Posted on 11/01/2007 11:36:05 AM PDT by SJackson
Ron Paul is a seductive mistress. His popularity on MySpace and YouTube is now legendary. It helped him raise more than $5 million in the third quarter of this year's fundraising cycle. Even some among the media elite — on both sides of the aisle — can't resist his charm. Conservative blogger Andrew Sullivan gets downright giddy over Paul. And liberal Hardball host Chris Matthews (who cut his teeth under big government, East Coast Democrat Tip O'Neill) has declared of the libertarian from Texas: "He's my guy! I love Ron Paul!"
But do people understand what Paul really stands for? Like every siren song, his policies are fraught with danger. Let's take a look:
1. Foreign Policy and the Constitution. Paul is what you might call a Constitutional originalist. He divines his governing philosophy from the Constitution and America's Founders. But his understanding of their vision is profoundly flawed. Paul appears to believe the founders vested absolute authority for foreign-policy making in Congress, not the executive. "Policy is policy," Paul wrote in 2006, "and it must be made by the legislature and not the executive." But there's almost no evidence the founders saw it in such simplistic, absolute terms. Law professor Michael Ramsey, a former clerk for Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, recently noted (pdf) this in very eloquent terms in the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy. Reasonable people can agree that Congress has failed its oversight responsibilities with regard to Iraq and the Bush Doctrine. But Paul's thinking here is simply not supported by the weight of historical evidence.
(Excerpt) Read more at blog.foreignpolicy.com ...
Michael C. Boyer
Mike Boyer joined FP in July 2001. He commissions and edits feature articles, reviews, and department pieces. He also reports and writes for the magazine. Previously, Mr. Boyer served on the legislative staff of U.S. Sen. Chuck Hagel, where he covered foreign relations. He was assistant to the candidate on Hagel’s first Senate campaign in 1996, during which time he traveled extensively with the senator on the campaign trail. Mr. Boyer’s writing on international affairs has appeared in National Geographic, the Boston Globe, San Francisco Chronicle, Washington Monthly, The New Republic, and Weekly Standard online, and other publications. He has appeared as a commentator on television and radio, including CNN International, CBS Sunday Morning, Al Jazeera, National Public Radio, and in numerous print media outlets. A native of Omaha, Nebraska, he earned a bachelor’s degree in political science from Colorado College and a master’s degree in the history of international relations from the London School of Economics and Political Science.
I think most Republicans who may vote for Paul if he is still in the race when their state has its primary are doing so out of outrage at GWB and his failed policies.
Because the term ‘fifteen minutes’ does not appear in the United States Constitution, this comment and approach is invalid in PaulieWorld.
You know this, SJackson.
(chuckle)
I wonder why he wants to be in the Executive then? Does he not want to be able to create policy? /s
the economy is great, the surge is working. let’s end it!
I'll read the rest of this when I stop laughing...
Please sign me up for the LOST treaty. We surely have gone full circle.
Plus, it gets people really riled on both sides of the Ronpaul divide, which provides needed entertainment.
“does anyone serious really believe that the world would be better off without the United Nations?”
Yes. Me.
A view that foreign policy should be the venue of Congress is not only Constitutionally flawed, it is a horrible idea. Can you imagine over 500 Congressmen going on junkets like Pelosi’s to Syria? How many different messages should the U.S. send out?
We already have Iran and Syria suffering under the delusion that GWB’s hands are tied due to Congressional interference and pronouncements. That’s bad enough.
I think it must be some kind of a trick question.
Thank you, this echoes what I've been saying for months now. RoPaul's "vision" about the foreign policy powers of the legislature vs. executive are just the tip of the iceberg for RoPaul's constitutional incompetence.
Ron Paul, despite claiming to be a constitutionalist, has jolly-well no idea what the Constitution actually says, and neither do his supporters. They haven't a clue what it says, they haven't a clue about the historical and philosophical background that underlies it, and they don't have a clue what the Founders actually thought about this document.
What's always fun - ask a Paulistinian to show you how the War in Iraq is "unconstitutional", and they will almost ALWAYS tell you that Congress MUST "declare war" by using that specific terminology (which the Constitution never says, btw).
I do.
I think most Republicans who may vote for Paul if he is still in the race when their state has its primary are doing so out of outrage at GWB and his failed policies.aka BDS. aka Mental Illness.
Yes, actually.
Only a complete IDIOT would vote for Ron Paul because they did not like GWB or his policies.
Other reasons may be valid, but not that one.
A lot of democrat party members (and apparently ron paul supporters) are going to be surprised that GWB is not on the ballot in 2008.
Specific to this: “Both the WTO and CAFTA could force Americans to get a doctor’s prescription to take herbs and vitamins. Alternative treatments could be banned.”
Paul’s opinion here is dead on correct. People who say otherwise are either ignorant or on pharma companies or the FDA’s payroll.
That would be me as well, the UN is a failure and it is time to jettison that corrupt dictator infested farce on the Hudson in favor of treaties with individual countries that are in our interests.
The LOST Treaty is a good example along with the ICC.
No thanks.
It would seem the NeoCons are trying to rallye...
yea, unfortantely, we’re already forced to go and pay our ‘tribute’ to docs to get medications as is... and they have been trying to expand this to get power over supplments and natural meds. For the ‘common good’ and ‘the children’ of course...
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