Why the Ron Paul Campaign is Dangerous

NewsBull ^ | November 11, 2007 | JB Williams

[PlainOleAmerican]

I hate wasting this much press time on Ron Paul. But the Paul campaign is becoming a real threat to the Republican primary process and if allowed to continue, he will take votes away from the most conservative Republican candidates in the party, not the most liberal. This is bad for the party and the country.

(snip)

So, how Republican is Republican candidate Ron Paul?

If he’s funded largely by anti-war leftists, from Democrat stronghold districts and counting on Democrats, Libertarians and members of the Green Party to win the Republican nomination, not very…

[DugwayDuke]

michigander,

How about answering this question? Which do you see as the greater threat:

A. The Federal Government?
B. Islamo-fascist Terrorism?

[PlainOleAmerican]

Who took it out of the leftist handbook...

[JerseyHighlander]

The Republican Liberty Caucus strongly supports Ron Paul.
The RLC comprises individuals who personally hold varying libertarian viewpoints, it’s like herding cats to get them to agree to anything. Still the vast majority of state chapters are the people volunteering for Paul’s campaign.

This is going to turn into a Life of Brian sketch,

It’s the Libertarian Republican groups of a strong Randian background that aren’t supporting Ron Paul.

And I don’t know of any formally named libertarian group (big or small L) that is supporting Thompson, if you know of one, please give us some info.

[PlainOleAmerican]

The founders didn’t have Al Qaeda, Hezbullah, Islamic jihad, Hamas, Iran, Syria, North Korea and Hussein to deal with... They never heard of bio, chem or nuke technologies. They didn't have 300 million citizens to defend and the oceans provided most of their protection.

[ejonesie22]

HEY!

King Friday was no cut and run kind of leader. He ran a tight kingdom with a iron rubber fist!

[Wallace T.]

The heirs of Rothbard are far more friendly to religion than are the heirs of Rand. Several of the paleolibertarians like Lew Rockwell, Joseph Sobran, and Thomas Woods are Catholics, and traditionalist leaning at that. The only Protestant I am aware of who writes for Lew Rockwell frequently is the economist Gary North, who is a Reconstructionist, a far cry from a libertarian, although North subscribes to Austrian economic theory. Rothbard was a secular humanist, whose free market beliefs were grounded, like those of his mentor, Ludwig von Mises, in a belief that the free market economy is the basis of human civilization. However, Rothbard was more in agreement with Catholic economic theorists and their natural law based viewpoint and subjective theories of value than the labor based theories of value favored by economists in the British Protestant world, like Adam Smith. However, Rothbard himself apparently never professed any religious belief, and was raised in an ethnically Jewish but secular home. However, he appears not to have been an enemy of Christianity in general or Catholicism in particular, at least relative to the espousal of altruism.

19th Century Catholic economic and social teaching, as expressed in several Papal encyclicals, criticized free market absolutism. The criticism was aimed at both the Social Darwinism in the Anglo-Protestant nations and the natural law based libertarianism of Catholic authors like Frederick Bastiat and Lord Action. Chris Ferrara, a New Jersey attorney and traditionalist Catholic leader, publicly split with Thomas Woods, a fellow traditionalist Catholic and an historian, over what he considered the latter's free market absolutism and adherence to the secularist theories of von Mises and Rothbard.

Ayn Rand was far more hostile to religion, describing religious believers as mystics of the mind. The only noteworthy exception to this hostility was her admiration for the medieval Catholic theologian Thomas Aquinas, due to his adherence to Aristotleian philosophy and his attempt (unsuccessful in her opinion) to synthesize empiricism with revealed religion. In her later years, Ayn Rand was very critical of the early Christian Right and was uncomfortable with Ronald Reagan's embrace of that movement's leaders. Her hostility was passed onto and probably intensified by Peikoff. As regretable as is their hostility to the Christian faith, Objectivists have been more realistic on foreign policy in both the Cold War era and the present than are the heirs to Rothbard.

[PlainOleAmerican]

“He wants to remove our troops so each region can handle their own problems.”

If they could manage their own problems, we would have never been sent their in the first place. Today, their problem quickly become our problems, as the world grows smaller.

“No one can threaten the United States and with our Navy and Air Force we can protect our vital interests anywhere in the world.”

You can’t be serious??? 19 cave men turned four commercial airliners into a WMD and killed 3000 Americans in 20 minutes, without any bio, chem or nuke materials. Imagine their abilities with some added help from countries who have these materials. You can’t be serious in this thought pattern, can you?

19 nobody’s damaged our government, the center of our financial district and the central command of our armed services in minutes, with NO high-tech equipment at all.

Now we find RPG’s laying on our road sides...

Unless you want IED’s on American streets, you had better think a bit clearer on why we want IED’s on Iraq’s streets.

[PlainOleAmerican]

Until the enemy is ready to quit, it’s called retreat on our part...

[PlainOleAmerican]

“but I am not for nation building, which is what we are now doing on Iraq.”

There’s our difference in a nutshell, one simle phrase.

You think we are nation building in Iraq. I don’t...

[Vanbasten]

I think you nailed it, youth.

I’ve debated many of the Paulbearers. At times, I feel like their sole news source is the Daily Show (which isn’t really surprising). Thinking of them through that prism; it all makes sense.

[wagglebee]

To the right of Ron Paul...

With the possible exception of Kucinich, that includes every candidate from both parties.

[PlainOleAmerican]

“Returning to the principles of non-interventionism is not a ‘leftist’ idea, it is an American idea.”

No, actually, the left has been demanding this policy for a very long time. In addition to RP’s talking points being identical to Democrats, read here www.CPUSA.org and here www.SPUSA.org for where this notion originated. It’s anything but “American.”

It’s nothing more than a naive isolationist stance.

“It is not an issue of ‘left’ vs ‘right’ but American ideals vs the Warfare/Welfare ideals held by the leadership of both major parties.”

Don’t confuse the issues. You’ll get almost all Republican voters to side with you against the nanny state. But what you call “warfare”, we call “national security,” which the founders made the highest priority of every elected office.

“Neither Party is against Big gov’t, they just want to be the ones to control it.”

Not true... Many RINO’s are for big government, but this only accounts for a minor wing of the RNC, just like the Libertarian wing. Most conservative are very much against the nanny state. But politicians have to find ways to get elected at a time when too many Americans are demanding more and more social programs. That’s a reality every elected official must contend with. Ron Paul has been in Washington for some 30 years and not manage to stop or reverse any of it. How’s he get to claim hi ground here?

“The Ron Paul candidacy is an appeal to a coalition against that government Leviathan.”

NO - RP’s campaign is based entirely on the anti-war movement. If you support strong national security, including the right to “prevent” attacks by way of “pre-empting” threats, then you are NOT for Ron Paul. It’s that simple!

[tacticalogic]

Don’t confuse the issues. You’ll get almost all Republican voters to side with you against the nanny state.

Will you get Republican representatives, and the Republican leadership and presidential nominees to side with you against them when it comes time to propose, vote on, and sign legislation that enforces and expands it?

[PlainOleAmerican]

I thought you said FR was a site for RLC?

[William Terrell]

And the people have a year to discover that Paul is honest and Hillary isn't. We'll forget, for the moment, how many traditional democrat votes he can pull on that issue alone.

But, a lot can happen in a year. Maybe the people will even realize that Hillary may not be meant to win, just stampede the electorate toward one capable of completing the regionalization of the Americas that Mr. bush started, one that they would not ordinarily accept.

But maybe not. We never believe it can happen to us because we trust our leaders and America is too great to suborn.

[PlainOleAmerican]

Yep, Paul is the Kookoocinich of the Republican party, which is why he placed third behind Hillary and Kookoocinich in Zogby’s “Who would you NEVER vote for?” poll...at 47% to Kookoocinich’s 49% and Hillary’s 50%.

He’s in good company and that’s what we keep pointing out. How RP supporters miss this is beyond imagination???

[wagglebee]

It really wouldn’t surprise me one bit for the two of them to unite and run together on a third party ticket.

[PlainOleAmerican]

Only if we elect conservative republicans, which is hard today.

Too many RINO’s, too many isolationists, too many looking to the government for solutions....

Conservatives have a tough road in this country right now. But that’s why we need good conservative candidates who can unite the conservative party, not divide it.

We can’t unite with the left and get where we’re trying to go. That’s what’s wrong with the Paul campaign. He’s using the left on the war issue, but dropping conservatives in that effort.

[tacticalogic]

By your account, virtually all Republican voters except a relatively insignificant percentage of RINOs oppose big government. Republican representatives elected by those voters oppose it also, but they have to vote for it because their constituents (those same Republican voters who overwhlemingly oppose it) demand “more and more social programs”.

[PlainOleAmerican]

He’s honestly wrong on national security, and dishonest in his campaign to over-ride conservative voters with liberal anti-war voters in the RNC primary.

Wrong guy for both reasons.