Posted on 04/17/2008 7:44:24 PM PDT by claudiustg
Every four years, conservative "pragmatists" trot out the "We Can’t Let So-And-So Win" mantra. Of course, the so-and-so in question is always the Democratic Presidential candidate. For all of my adult life, I have been listening to so-called "conservative" Republicans warn us of the impending doom that would befall our country if the Democratic candidate were elected. And this year is no different.
This year’s Republican primary did provide a wonderful aberration, however, to the usual choices between Tweedledee and Tweedledum. Republicans had an opportunity to nominate a real American constitutionalist, a statesman in the similitude of Thomas Jefferson or James Madison. That man was Texas Congressman, Ron Paul. Unfortunately, the Republican faithful seem to be incapable of discerning the marks of true greatness, not to mention fidelity to constitutional government. It is doubtful that most of them even understand what constitutional government is. And as for Christian conservatives, they can barely see any issues beyond abortion and "gay rights." To try and convince them to support a constitutionalist candidate is like talking to a brick wall.
So, what choice does the Republican Party offer the American people this year? The worst of all possible choices: good old John "McSame" McCain.
Let’s be clear: a John McCain Presidency will be no better than a Hillary Clinton or a Barack Obama Presidency. In fact, in many ways, a McCain White House will be WORSE than a Democratic one.
(Excerpt) Read more at constitutionparty.com ...
Let's go through your post.
First you offer some Code Pink propaganda:
OOhhh I don’t know, maybe not spending billions and billions of dollars on a war that was justified for one reason and years later, justified for another.
In the President's 2003 State Of The Union address he outlined various reasons why Iraq merited military intervention. If you make an error that basic at the very beginning of the discussion, then I am not debating points with you - I am giving you a rudimentary tutorial in current events.
But, for the sake of argument, let's say that Ron Paul as President would cooperate with the Democratic majority in Congress to greatly reduce extraordinary spending on the Iraq war.
That's a reduction of about $50-70B annually.
Next item:
Reducing overseas spending
That's typically a code word for ending all aid to Israel. That proposal would be opposed by both Republicans and Democrats. Other reductions in foreign aid would be opposed by the Democrats. In other words: Congressional majorities would stand in the way. What would President Paul do?
Next item:
eliminating liberal, BS program spending (things like planned parenthood)
This is incredibly vague, exceopt for the PP spending. PP spending would eliminate less than a billion from the budget - but the Democrats would fight it tooth and nail. How would President Paul accomplish this?
reducing taxes that would inevitably stimulate the economy
Reduce which taxes? How would he sell this tax reduction to Congress?
increase the American People’s savings
How would President Paul increase the "people's" savings? Mandatory savings laws? Sumptuary measures? Again, how would this move through Congress?
That's the sum total so far of your description of Paul's economic program.
A few observations:
(1) This is an incredibly weak summary of an economic program - it's clear almost no thought went into it all. If this is the best a Paul supporter can offer for Paul's economic prowess, it is small beer indeed.
(2) You imply in your post that Paul as President would be able to accomplish this paltry list of goals as if by fiat. Under the US Constitution the President does not have the power of the purse. Congress does. It is unclear from your post whether you grasp the basic features of our government.
(3) The US federal budget last year was $2.8 trillion dollars. Of that amount, more than $2.1 trillion - more than 75% - was spent on non-discretionary defense spending, veterans benefits, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, unemployment insurance and food stamps.
These are all programs no President can unilaterally cut - he has to have Congress behind him to do anything with any of this spending.
Of that $2.8T, $31B was spent on foreign aid - 1.1%.
So, the three specific cuts you outlined: discretionary spending on the Iraq war, foreign aid and Planned Parenthood - they all add up to less than 3% of the federal budget.
And all three cuts would require any President to expend all of his political capital in a budget war with Congress.
I’m not saying Ron Paul is perfect. I’m not putting him on a pedestal.
Allow me to quote your post upthread:
The guy has had the best approach to our current economic situation than ANYBODY else. He has the best American values than any other candidate out there.
You are saying that he is the best available candidate. Yet you have given us nothing of substance to back up your claim.
But I know that he would do more good than bad.
Other than cut and run in Iraq - which would be incredibly bad, but which the Democrats would support him in - what would he actually do?
You have given us no concrete insight.
I can’t say the same about the other candidates. Why don’t YOU tell ME what glorious things McCain has in store for this country? Oh thats right...he doesn’t.
I didn't make any claim for McCain whatever. You made a claim for Ron Paul, namely that he had "the best" economic approach of "ANYBODY."
You have completely failed to explain how that could possibly be.
I await a coherent reply.
Then it is YOU that is wasting YOUR vote, because there is no such thing as the WOT. I'd invite you to look south. Blackbird.
Good luck with that and I pray to God himself you are not holding your breath or you certainly may expire ;-)
LOL!
The family must have been cursed in the Middle Ages by some pissed off wizard or something...
Not kidding, this is really where it is.
I’ll consider the CP if they nominate Alan Keyes. Unfortunately it’s dominated by anti-Israel Birchites like Baldwin. But that may not last forever.
The fawning continues. We will all die one day, but what will these lemmings do when Ron Paul passes away?
Damn, well at least it keeps ‘em away from us strights and our kids.
Nice that the pot smoke can quickly dissipate into the fresh country when they see “The Man” coming, however they are going to have to buy Skittles and Twinkies in bulk and I don't think Domino's delivers out that far...
But they are conveniently located to have it shipped in from the south... Of course that is not "self sustaining" either...
That is precisely the problem I have with it. We are beset on all sides by poor choices at a time when we are in need of superlative leadership. The same seems to have happened to the Israelis, by the way.
I would find it the irony of ironies if the TTC is put right across the middle of that land.
I don’t think they would notice...
Ron Paulville (Sung to Green Arces)
Ron Paulville is the place to be!
Communal living is the life for me!
Hash plants spreading out so far and wide
Keep mom’s basement, just give me that countryside!
Mom’s basement is where I’d rather stay!
I get food on a tray!
I just got through hiding my stash!
Brother I love you but this is where I crash!
The hash!
Mom’s got cash!
Fresh weed!
I just pee’d!
Oh what the hell…
It’s better than jail!
Ron Paulville we are there!
(And yes it is a slow day...)
Yes, we had the opportunity to elect a wild eyed conspiracy theorist who had neo Nazi literature published in the newsletter of his name.
The mark of greatness? Please. What a joke.
Cult Theme Songs While-U-Wait.
Lol! Great minds think alike!
But it ain't all over yet. The CP is having its convention this month. Maybe they'll nominate a decent candidate (there are pro-Israel people in the CP grass roots and they've had some decent local candidates in the past). Shoot, maybe McCain will pick a conservative running mate (though I don't expect it).
I think it is most instructive that Baldwin attacks the focus on moral issues in favor of what he calls "constitutionalism." Now of course what he means by "constitutionalism" is Jeffersonian "strict construction" (ie, the federal government has only those powers explicitly enumerated). From the very beginning this was only one interpretation of the Constitution. The other is "loose constructionism" (ie, the federal government possesses discretionary powers) and was championed by George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, John Adams, and the Federalists. Yet for some reason the American "palaeo" right identifies the Jeffersonian interpretation of the Constitution with the Constitution itself (in fact, strict constructionism was the natural interpretation favored by those who had been opposed to the adoption of the new Constitution in the first place). Why is this?
I believe the answer lies in the radical relativism and localism (bordering on henotheism) of the "palaeo" right. In Europe, where the "good old days" predated capitalism (and capitalism is itself radical and destructive), palaeo-conservatives are anti-capitalist and advocate a sort of corporativism or neo-feudalism. However, the United States has never known pre-capitalist feudalism, so that our "good old days" were laissez faire instead of feudal. Understood this way, it is only natural that the American counterparts of European rightwing anti-capitalists would be ultra-capitalists. The same explains the difference in the view of the State by European and American "palaeos" (the former favoring statolatry, the latter detesting "our enemy, the state"). The fact that the ideologies of European and American "palaeos" are so radically opposed obscures the fact that the two are really the same. Each champions the civilization's particular "golden age." For one this means a sacrosanct state and a hierarchical corporative collectivism; for the other it means liberty, individualism, and laissez faire capitalism. Thus the divergence in the ideologies is only apparent.
Something else bothers me about this cult of Jeffersonian "strict constructionism" being the "one true original authentic" interpretation of the Constitution. When added to Baldwin's pooh-poohing of social issues one gets the idea that he and his fellows think the Constitution is Divinely inspired scripture (I thought only mormons believed this). And when one considers the pseudo-puritan "theocracy" advocated by so many of these "constitutionalists" (apparently they don't know much about the religious beliefs of Jefferson and Madison) it all falls into place. Just as those in the European countries, our "palaeos" believe that the United States is the Uniquely Holy Country given governed by Holy Writ. I'm beginning to wonder if they secretly believe the Thirteen Original Colonies were the Restored Tribes of Israel. It would certainly go a long way towards explaining their inveterate hostility to the real Israel.
What do you think, wideawake?
Ya know, I was ready to write McCain off because he is somewhat of a liberal Republican. But in some ways I think that will be a lot easier to brige this far left and far right gridlock we’re seeing in Washington these days.
When I start drilling into this a lot more now I see him make a mistake on immigration (keep in mind people every empire needs slave labor, it’s the lack of enforcement to patriate them to all American’s benefit we resent) and then come out and say he was wrong that the people set him straight on it. The guy has never take PAC money, is a true Vietnam Vet and has served the country for 30 years in government. He was smart coming out and saying we are in recession.
He is traveling doing his market research as an good executive should. While yes it’s because he needs to get elected it also means he can’t get off the hook later when elected. I think he will be decent and needs to stop with the global warming mania and simply say we need clean energy independence for the American people to create millions of jobs and lower the cost of oil by building a competing product.
There are the Dems who use global warming to push scams and back the envirowhackos who simply gridlock the whole thing and then the Republicans trying to trick voters and Dems to get energy independence. For cripes sake Republicans, declare a crisis and increase the subsidies to $100 B using ALL available resources, instead of the $7 B the gov is doing now. I am not a Bush or McCain bot, I am American first and would vote independent if I saw a strong enough candidate to actually win. But I don’t see McCain as God awful as some here do.
Allow me to once again play this one...
Basically the people who call themselves "palaeoconservatives" or "true conservatives" of the Paul stamp are the ideological descendants of the Anti-Federalists.
The Anti-Federalists were the opponents of the US Constitution. Their notion of America was a loosely-connected alliance of states based on an almost entirely agrarian economy supported by slave labor. Essentially, they were happy with a situation in which America was destined to be a backwater supplier of commodities to Europe and its colonies, for America to be at the economic mercy of Europe and for America's foreign policy to be purely reactive and dictated by European decisions.
The Federalists saw the future of America as that of a nation among nations, with a strong union, a formidable military and a growing industrial and service economy based on US shipping, US finance and US technology. An America who dictated its own foreign policy, projected force in its own interests and shaped the world economy.
The Jeffersonian program was a program of weakness and pusillanimity - typified by paying tribute to pirates instead of crushing them and embargoing British shipping rather than confronting the British navy.
The Federalists forced Jefferson to fight the pirates and the failure of the Embargo only delayed the inevitable and necessary War of 1812.
After this, the order of American politics was broadly Federalist: the American System, the development of that other American system - of manufactures, the expansion of the frontier, the Mexican War, Manifest Destiny. A program, in short, of strength and national greatness.
Jeffersonianism failed and strict construction failed.
Hamiltonianism and original intent are the touchstones of authentic American conservatism and American power.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.