Posted on 12/26/2007 11:04:00 AM PST by PlainOleAmerican
Principles without a plan to implement them is just self-congratulatory rhetoric. Paul's vagueness about how he'd enact his principles is reason enough to suspect you're being conned.
“leave-us-alone, small government constitutional conservatism that Reagan ran on but failed to really pull off”
The Nanny State has been erected over the last 100 years, not the last six. The idea that anyone can wake up president on Jan. 21st and reverse 100 years of history is just insane. And even if you could, you wouldn’t want to once you see all the effects it would have on our economy...
I know...
“Conned”? That suggests duplicity on Paul’s part.
I don’t see that in Paul. What ulterior motive could he have? His record is fairly puritanical on supporting his principles (although I can understand why some folks would be disturbed by his use of earmarks).
If Paul were to get in, I doubt that Congress would be willing to give him a great deal of what he wants, but he would at least move the ball in the right direction — away from creeping socialism. And he would foster a national conversation about small government with a fair degree of eloquence (a quality that GWB sorely lacks).
His foreign policy would send thousands if not millions of innicent Americans to their death. His supporters regularly call anyone who does not support Paul’s lunacy, a “Nazi” - a “neocon” or a “facsist.”
Nazi organizations think he supports their views...?
“The Nanny State has been erected over the last 100 years, not the last six. The idea that anyone can wake up president on Jan. 21st and reverse 100 years of history is just insane. And even if you could, you wouldn’t want to once you see all the effects it would have on our economy...”
Notice I said what Reagan ran on (28 years ago — I remember), not what Bush ran on 6 or 7 years ago.
The Nanny State IS bankrupt. The next economic crisis will make that painfully obvious. At that point, we will either move toward heavy handed socialism, or reject the Nanny State altogether. Paul seems to want to start dismantling the Nanny State now, before we are presented with that stark choice.
He adds ear-marks to bills, then votes against them, then rails against ear-marks, but takes the money that passes congress, just like every liberal does...
Paul supporters are in love with cherry picking his record. They want to talk about him voting against ear-marks, but not about his passing ear-marks for his own district...
This is true of almost every RP position BTW...
And what is his detailed plan for accomplishing that?
He acts like he would have the single handed power to do it against the will of congress and the majority of Americans. But he doesn’t. No president does. So, if its more than rhetoric, which I doubt, than where’s his plan to implement?
The only chance we have is taking the war to them where they are. To stop them directly from getting nuclear weapons and last but foremost, changing their culture of death.
It isn’t America’s foreign policy that causes them to hate us. We are the ubber infidel. They hate not only what we represent, they hate our culture. From that flows our freedom, democratic processes, movies, music, cloths and any number of other things that offend them. It is those things that their children see and want that they feel derails their children’s righteous path in Islam. No matter how isolated we are militarily, our culture will still dominate and be militantly hated by them. On this front Paul is simply dead wrong. No matter how right he is on other issues, this one issue makes him totally disqualified to be President.
Yes, Paul is walking death, but for the opposite reasons from the Nazis. The two can have similar end results and not be similar in practice.
I don’t know about every other RP position, but his position on earmarks is plausible. If he didn’t bring home some bacon in exchange for the federal taxes his constituents were sending into Washington, they would quickly replace him with someone who would.
Strangely enough, this Realpolitik sense ought to reassure skeptics that RP will work as necessary within the political framework to get things done.
Having said that, does he have much of a chance? Probably not; the GOP needs a ‘64 Goldwater enema before it regains its values. Unlike Reagan in 1976, when he lost but came back stronger than ever in 1980, RP is probably already too old to pull that off (at 72). Too bad. It would be quite an earthquake.
Funny :>)
Principle without means for implementation are meaningless. If he wants to tilt at windmills, that's fine, but don't pretend it would change anything. If he had a plan for implementation, surely he'd be sharing it.
You hit it on the head exactly right. I would not be surprised if Dr. Death endorsed Ron Paul.
They have a way to handle the Federal budget. Ron Paul imposes his dismantlement of Social Security and Medicare thus eliminating the growing 33% cost and Dr. Kervokian goes on a never ending killing spree.
Of course for this to work, Ron Paul will need to fund the minions of Dr. Death.
No way Dr. Death can do all this work for Ron Paul alone.
If they get the same result, do their different intentions matter?
This just means he can change his principles on a dime. This heartens me not in the least. It just means that like most positions of him, there are times that his principles don't apply. We don't know when and where those will occur, just that they will.
“If he didn’t bring home some bacon in exchange for the federal taxes his constituents were sending into Washington”
This is Teddy Kennedy’s excuse too. Matter of fact, this is the same answer every member of congress would give to defend their plundering of the budget for special pet projects back home. This is how we got where we are, and every member of congress is part of the problem, including Paul...
““Conned”? That suggests duplicity on Paul’s part.”
Duplicity: “contradictory doubleness of thought, speech, or action; especially : the belying of one’s true intentions by deceptive words or action”
Ron Paul says he won’t vote for anything un-Constitutional, Ron Paul voted for the Authorization of Force in Afghanistan, Ron Paul voted against the Authorization of Force in Iraq since it was un-Constitutional. If one was un-Constitutional, why wasn’t the other? Why isn’t this duplicity?
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