Posted on 11/24/2007 5:42:59 PM PST by Lovebloggers
Terrorists `Just Hoodlums’
The greatest threat to the nation, Paul said, is an overextension of the U.S. military and ``involvement in places we shouldn’t be.’’ Terrorism shouldn’t be fought by waging war on nations, he said. Terrorists are ``just hoodlums and convicts, so to speak, but we incite them with our foreign policy,’’ he said.
(Excerpt) Read more at sayanythingblog.com ...
“Why is Ron Paul running as a Republican instead of a Libertarian?”
Upon doing my own research, I have found that Ron Paul does not align himself with Libertarian views, especially when it comes to ILLEGAL immigants.
Furthermore all one has to do is listen to what the terrorists themselves have to say about it.
Age of Reason? Hardly. LMAO
The desire to crush it is entirely prudent and wise.
Too bad you are too overwrought by panic to objectively see what you sound like.
And what do they say about it?
I certainly see the bitterly ironic contrariness of your screen name.
If you are not informed on the matter I hardly think you are qualified to have a conversation with me about it.
“sayanythingblog.com”
Now there’s a reliable source.
Do your own homework, or don’t blame the DUmmies for the wrong answers.
“””Except this isn’t about campaign donations from “active service military members,” whatever they might be, but “donors affiliated with the military,” which Sullivan might have noticed had he slogged through the whole first sentence of the story. In fact, the first “active service military member” and Ron Paul supporter interviewed for the piece is 72-year-old Lindell Anderson, a retired Army chaplain from Fort Worth. Further, the Chron notes that the average size of Paul’s donations from this subset was $500. How many active duty soldiers are giving $500 to fringe candidates a year out from the election? Not many, I suspect. In fact, among all the candidates, the total number of contributors surveyed here numbered less than 1,000—out of an Armed Forces of 2.2 million. And, remember, most of these contributors aren’t even active duty.
So yes, Andrew, those tasked with fighting this war do get it, which is why they aren’t donating to Paul. The only real report we have on political contributions from active duty military in this election cycle has Paul taking in just over $19,000, and that’s only counting donations larger than $200. So, maximum, we’re talking about 90 active duty soldiers who we know have actually contributed to Ron Paul’s campaign. The rest is pure speculation, and the Chron’s tally of $63,440, with its average of $500 per donation, is unlikely to be populated by many of the guys who are “actually fighting this war.” But you gotta bang out 30 posts a day, right?”””
http://www.weeklystandard.com/weblogs/TWSFP/2007/10/the_fantasy_of_ron_pauls_milit.asp
Historically Active Duty personnel do not contribute to political campaigns.
It’s an excerpt interview done by Bloomberg.com, which is not allowed to be linked by this site.
Do your homework, or perhaps google and learn more about the candidate you support.
“It’s an excerpt interview done by Bloomberg.com, which is not allowed to be linked by this site.”
“Excerpt” is right, including the title.
So, what’s the “bottom line.” Which presidential candidate has received the most contributions from the military?
“Even more basic is the question, “if the Constitution is so laughable in its present form, then why do we not amend it to what we want it to be, rather than ignore it at times?””
The fact that Ron Paul and his core supporters believe LOMR are an effective countermeasure to terrorism is what is laughable. I would be interested in your opinion as to why they would be anything other than ineffective.
Yes it is an excerpt, and the good doctor did make these statements.
Unless you are just a headline reader, there is no point to making a fuss over excerpts unless those excerpts were taken out of context, which clearly is not the case in this instance.
The bottom line is that there is no way to account for that as “occupation” is neither required nor confirmed with donations, and that the military will show their support with their votes — with the Democrats advocating hard against their inclusion in the case of close races. The total number of donations/donors to the front runner candidates who did not disclose their occupation are more than those who claim some sort of military affiliation in Paul donations. There is no credible way of claiming who has the most monetary support.
By the way, Active Duty military vote for those candidates who give a damn about them, and historically that has never been Democrats, nor has it been Ron Paul.
Again, the spin on this has been “military” support Ron Paul as a show of protest of the Iraq war. Remove the anti-war sensationalism from his platform and a great deal of his supporters would be saying “Ron who?”
What you're missing is that there's a lot of damage to be done between "nothing" and "destroying the country" and some of us have no desire or inclination to tolerate the middle ground.
I don't fear terrorists "destroying the country" per se. What I fear - or rather, want to avoid - is terrorism being continually and neverendingly wielded as a tactic against our country - to weaken us, to undermine our will, to extort us into folding up. When terrorism is used by states against us it's usually not to "destroy" us but rather to achieve some geopolitical aim of said state.
The stupidest thing we could do in the face of states which do this would be to telegraph to them (1) that we will indeed capitulate to demands communicated via terrorism and that (2) we will refuse, a priori, to associate terrorism with states. This is the suicidal, idiotic mindset which makes terrorism (deniable, proxy asymmetric warfare) a profitable tactic in the first place. And of course, both (1) and (2) are prominent features of Ron Paul's mindset.
If I was a Pakistani citizen I would be upset over the support of the United States, financially and politically, to the criminal Musharaf who has thrown thousands of citizens and journalists and opposition leaders in jail and runs a socialistic military junta which is invested in most sectors of the economy with government imposed monopolies.
Even if the U.S. were not doing this, and you were a Pakistani citizen, you would probably hate the U.S. for other reasons. For example, there would be some other autocrat in place - and the U.S. would either support him (evil U.S.!) or not support him (evil U.S.!) It really doesn't take much.
Sure they can shelter terror groups which do, as long as they hide it better than Afghanistan did. In such cases Ron Paul will be out in the forefront arguing that there is "no link" and "terrorists are just thugs". And states sheltering terror groups is not the only concern; what about supporting them?
The whole point here is that the Ron Paul mindset undermines deterrence entirely. Deterrence is about making credible threats to respond to attack. Ron Paul is essentially telegraphing to any potential enemies that if they hide their connection to an attack well enough, he'll look the other way.
Um, how about something in between.
First, we have never, and will never, attack "any old country". Where do you even get that? There are hundreds of countries, and since 2001 we have attacked precisely 2 (two) of them, and with plenty of evidence in either terror complicity (Afghanistan) or violation of a standing cease-fire agreement (Iraq). "any old"?? Of course not.
But on the other extreme, if we insist on a strict courtroom-level standard of evidence before we attack any country complicit in terror attacks... we never will. (Which, of course, is the point for some anti-war ideologues.) By (in effect) insisting on such a standard, Ron Paul (as well as the left) lay the basis for making terrorism profitable: our enemies can see perfectly well that (if the Paul philosophy holds sway) all they have to do is cover their tracks pretty well, and they can attack us with impunity. Well, can't they? Wouldn't Ron Paul be on the front lines of the "hey, the links haven't been proven" movement in any such scenario?
It really makes very little sense to telegraph to one's enemies precisely (a) how they can damage you and (b) how they can do so with impunity. By declaring a priori that terrorism has nothing to do with states and that terrorists are "just" hoodlums, Ron Paul is doing precisely that, whether he knows it (or intends to) or not.
heh heh... :)
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