Posted on 11/26/2007 1:54:54 PM PST by rob777
He won’t win the nomination. He won’t win any primaries. But for Ron Paul’s quixotic bid for the White House, it’s “Mission Accomplished.”
In the past few months, Ron Paul has dramatically raised the profile of libertarianism inside the Republican Party. My small-l libertarian friends seem more comfortable describing themselves as such, even though they’ll go out of their way to disassociate themselves from Ron Paul and the big-L kind.
Libertarianism in the GOP took a big hit on 9/11, and it’s slowly coming back, with Ron Paul as the catalyst. Its underlying ideals still have appeal well beyond the cramped confines of the LP. If it’s possible to be known as a pro-life, pro-war, pro-wiretapping libertarian, then sign me up. Markos too brands himself a “libertarian Democrat,” though he’s never read Hayek and supports big government social programs.
Some campaigns can win big without ever coming close to winning an actual contest. Pat Robertson’s 1988 campaign signaled that Christian Conservatives had arrived in the GOP. Ron Paul is doing the same for libertarians. This is not a counterweight to the religious right per se, since Paul is identified as pro-life, but it does potentially open up a new army of activists on the right not primarily motivated by social/moral issues.
Not every losing single-issue candidate succeeds like this. Immigration-restrictionists still lack an outlet in the GOP, thanks to Tom Tancredo’s embarrassing tone-deafness as a candidate. Sam Brownback’s campaign had hoped to galvanize single-issue pro-lifers, but was hobbled by his dry persona. Duncan Hunter looks mostly like a campaign for Secretary of Defense.
Assuming Paul loses, where does small-l libertarianism go from here? His movement already did the smart thing by making peace with social conservatism. Libertarianism is no longer aligned with libertine stances on abortion and gay rights.
To become the ascendant ideology within the GOP, I suspect they’ll have to find a way to do the same thing on national security. The war on terror writ large is the one big thing social and economic conservatives agree on, and Ron Paul is vocally aligned against both.
Mainstream Republican libertarians might be gung-ho for Paul’s small-government idealism, they might adopt Glenn Reynoldsish skepticism of the homeland security bureaucracy, and even John McCain has lately made a thing of ripping the military-industrial complex, but there is no way — I repeat NO WAY — they will embrace Ron Paul if he continues to blame America for 9/11 and imply that America is acting illegally in defending itself around the globe. Even if they aren’t the biggest fans of the war, most people that are available for Ron Paul on the right are by temperament patriotic and will never vote for someone who sounds like Noam Chomsky.
As someone who routinely called myself a libertarian prior to 9/11, here’s how I would square the circle: Absolute freedom within our borders, for our own citizens; eternal vigilance and (when necessary) ruthlessness abroad. For libertarian ideals to survive, they must be relentlessly defended against the likes of Islamic extremists. Take a look at Andrew Sullivan’s writing right after 9/11 to see this ideal in its purest form; far from a religious crusade, ours was a war for secularism, tolerance, and free societies where gays don’t get stoned to death.
The key principle is one of reciprocity. If you behave peacefully and embrace the norms of a libertarian society, we leave you alone. If you seek to destroy a free society, we will destroy you.
If they’re serious about defending their ideals and seeing to it that libertarianism survives more than a generation in actual practice, I don’t see any reason why libertarians couldn’t embrace a more conservative positioning on national security.
"if he continues to blame America for 9/11..."
Stating that an interventionist foreign policy has blowback is not "blaming America" it is disagreeing with a particular foreign policy and pointing out that it has consequences.
It is absolutely retarded to think that disagreeing with a particular foreign policy is anti-American, because that implies that ANY foreign policy we have has to be right.
That is illogical. It's basically saying that America = any foreign policy. But is that true? Hypothetical scenario: What if our government adopted a foreign policy that completely went against our constitution, and went against our long-held values and principles, and also went against what the majority of American want. Would disagreeing with that foreign policy be "Anti-American" or "blaming America" - or would it be the other way around? In that example, the foreign policy itself went against the constitution and the American people, and it would be the foreign policy that is unAmerican, not the person disagreeing with it.
Everytime I hear someone repeat that idiotic, illogical claim that disagreeing with a foreign policy or pointing out that it has consequences is "blaming America" or anti-American, it's like hearing nails on a chalkboard.
It is logically akin to saying that someone who disagrees with an unbiblical church policy and who says that it can have negative consequences, is "blaming Christianity" or "anti-Christian."
We face an existential threat to Western civilization, and all I hear from the Ron Paulistas is mindless jibber-jabber about privatization. Well, that's really nice; I'd love to privatize the whole friggin' government, but you see, you'll have to get back to me on that because I'm too busy right now trying to figure out how to keep the Muslims from murdering my family for the unpardonable sin of being both Jewish and American. After that's done, we can talk about getting back to Constitutional government.
First things first: and that's what's wrong with the Libertarians: they put Liberty first and survival second and pretend that the latter is not their concern. Well, I've got this weird idea that you can't enjoy freedom if you're dead or threatened with death at any moment, and that the primary duty of a government in a Republic is to protect its citizens from external threats to life and liberty. Only Utopians believe that death is preferable to life in an imperfect state. Most Utopians today are Leftists, but not all. And now, frustrated with electoral rejection, Libertarians (and Buchananite nativists, too) have allied themselves with their natural enemies in a bid for power they themselves don't believe in wielding. The Left, on the other hand, means to wield it in spades. Irony isn't a strong enough word to describe it.
Sheesh...
The GOP has become the party of all fear all the time.
You guys need to man up a little.
How appropriate. Ron Paul can declare victory and retreat to his home district in Texas. Very much like his strategy for defeating terrorism.
That said, I appreciate the article as it makes some good points that the libertarians should take to heart.
:He certainly gets a lot of support from the hard money investors based on his call for a sound currency.”
Only because it increases their sales and profits.
“I find the comparison to Pat Robertson’s campaign interesting. That campaign was responsible for bringing a lot of politically active Christians into the GOP. Will Ron’s campaign do the same for limited government conservatives? While I do not support his campaign this election cycle, the long term political impact of the movenevt he has inspired is of intense interest to me.”
The problem with ron paul is he already stated that he’s going to refuse to endorse whoever wins the nomination, and the majority of his “supporters” are democrat crossovers hoping to skew our nomination process and have no intention of supporting him or the GOP in the general election.
“Man, I’m so glad I took FReeper’s George W. Bush’s advice and installed ad-blocker on my browers. It’s nice looking at red Xs instead of photo-shopped garbage.”
Sniff Sniff Whaaaaaaaa!
Hey it's that bond that goes back to when they were getting "buggered" on the mothership.
The article lost credibility when it falsely claimed that Paul thinks that Americans are to blame for 911.
Well said. He is not going to "win" in the traditional sense of being sworn in as President in early 2009. Much like Goldwater, he can score a bigger "win" that will last decades by A. Forcing the statists in the GOP to get back to their roots of ltd. Gubmint in order to retain his constituency and B. Exposing young voters to the idea of limited Gumbint for the first time in their lives.
That sums up what I've been trying to say. And Ron Paul isn't there yet. The republicans need to learn a few things and so do the libertarians.
Some campaigns can win big without ever coming close to winning an actual contest. Pat Robertson’s 1988 campaign signaled that Christian Conservatives had arrived in the GOP. Ron Paul is doing the same for libertarians. This is not a counterweight to the religious right per se, since Paul is identified as pro-life, but it does potentially open up a new army of activists on the right not primarily motivated by social/moral issues.
And that is not entirely a bad thing, either. Competition of ideas can't hurt the process.
My problem with Paul is his small government promise isn't supported by the facts. How does the 'small gov't' candidate (rated average related to his piers) co sponsor 1000 more bills in the same time period as Duncan Hunter did? How does Pauls career in congress back up that talking point? His supporters cheer about his 'accomplishments'. What? He's never gotten a piece of his legislation off the ground. But they're convinced he can do as president what he couldn't do as a legislator about problems that can only be handled by congress in the first place or at least with it's cooperation. He couldn't find any except Kucinich in 20 years, but suddenly he will? Hello?
Mark Twain must have been looking into the future thinking of the more rabid Paul supporters when he said, "They don't think, they think they think." And some are simply so traumatized by the heavy handed GOP elitist crowd that they go off the deep end about it forgetting that sometimes swinging that pendulum too far the other way too quickly leads to catastrophe.
There's a time and a place for everything, and this isn't Ron Paul's time and he's not a wartime candidate. I would have rather had Paul in 1992 than Bill Clinton. You have to admit it would have been an interesting administration even without the blue dress and the rest of the nonsense we got with it.
AuntB, IMHO Paul is not Presidential material. I love his domestic agenda. But I’m in favor of any POTUS who will leave me the hell alone as a US citizen and slaughter the enemy overseas.
He won’t win. Before you are too hard on him, read my previous post and rob’s posts. He can do a lot of good for the cause of limited government. Just let it play out.
Oh good God, it's been documented a thousand times over and there are even videos on youtube showing your massah blaming America.
Here's his own damn words:
"Have you ever read about the reasons they attacked us? They attacked us because we’ve been over there, we’ve been bombing Iraq for ten years."
The moderator then asked “Are you suggesting we invited the 9/11 attacks?”, and Paul said:
"I’m suggesting that we listen to the people who attacked us and the reason they did it."
Let me repeat the part where he blames us:
"They attacked us because we’ve been over there"
One more time for good measure:
"They attacked us because we’ve been over there"
We should "listen" to the terrorists? Is he that stupid as to think that they'll be willing to talk and that we can somehow "reason" with them?
The guy is beyond insane.
Now I know that you're going to follow the ron paul supporter's SOP by denying that it was him who said what he said just like you ron paulie girls deny that he wrote or sponsored those letters with his name on htem as well as deny his ow nvoting record.
From what I have read and seen, this guy may well represent the mainstream (can you say that about a marginal citizen?) Ron Paul supporter. I think Ron Paul does represent moonbat lefties and moonbats in general. Ergo, Ron Paul is a moonbat.
Of course. But I wasn't asking about Iraq and Iran and Afghanistan, I was asking about a few of the other 127 countries around the world where the overextended, stop-lossed US troops are stationed.
How many lapsed Muslims in the US do you come into contact with every day? You know, the ones who DON'T want to cut your head off? Why do you think they don't want to cut your head off? Could it be because they haven't been radicalized by an aggressive, confrontational demeanor? Because they haven't been ground for decades under the boot of US-supported tyrants and monarchs?
If a Muslim comes to kill me, I will arise quickly and kill him first with the Silvertips in my Glock 30 .45ACP carry pistol. Or my wife will arise quickly and kill him first with her Lady Smith 9mm.
A president who will champion and sign gun-law repeals, and veto gun control, and haul on an executive spade bit to rein in the BATFE and its abuse of gun owners, is someone who can make that possible even for residents of Chicago.
And the presumptive nominee for the Republicans is not someone likely to fit that description.
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