Posted on 08/20/2010 8:55:24 PM PDT by speciallybland
Congressman Ron Paul today released the following statement on the controversy concerning the construction of an Islamic Center and Mosque in New York City:
“Is the controversy over building a mosque near ground zero a grand distraction or a grand opportunity? Or is it, once again, grandiose demagoguery?” .“Is the controversy over building a mosque near ground zero a grand distraction or a grand opportunity? Or is it, once again, grandiose demagoguery?
“It has been said, “Nero fiddled while Rome burned.” Are we not overly preoccupied with this controversy, now being used in various ways by grandstanding politicians? It looks to me like the politicians are “fiddling while the economy burns.”
“The debate should have provided the conservative defenders of property rights with a perfect example of how the right to own property also protects the 1st Amendment rights of assembly and religion by supporting the building of the mosque.
“Instead, we hear lip service given to the property rights position while demanding that the need to be “sensitive” requires an all-out assault on the building of a mosque, several blocks from “ground zero.”
(Excerpt) Read more at classic.cnbc.com ...
There is a clip I saw of Ron Paul speaking on the Alex Jones radio show and in it he expresses these basic sentiments. I never heard him say anything about Islamophobia, but he did say the argument about the mosque was a distraction and that conservatives should have argued for its being built on the basis of property rights and freedom of speech. He definitely seemed to be on the side of supporting the mosque. I listened for only minute or so and he may have nuanced the points somewhat later, but he did take this basic position. I actually am inclined to think this reflects his position.
A Yahoo! search of the second paragraph yeilds 36 exact hits.
The fourth paragraph (searched in its entirety) yeilds 6,190 hits.
At that rate, I have no trouble believing that Ron Paul said it.
What I do doubt is the veracity of a poster who signed up today, to make this one post:
http://www.freerepublic.com/tag/by:zatch87/index?tab=comments;brevity=full;options=no-change
I’m pretty sure this article mostly reflects his views but I’m just saying I haven’t heard him throw around words like Islamophobe and sunshine patriot before.
Seems a strange way to introduce yourself to FreeRepublic.
In Ron Paul threads, it’s always worth noting he was the one and only Republican admired by Cindy Sheehan. She endorsed Paul over Obama, which answers pretty much every question raised in these threads.
Saturday, May 10, 2008
Cindy Sheehan endorses Ron Paul over Barack Obama
http://wigdersonlibrarypub.blogspot.com/2008/05/cindy-sheehan-endorses-ron-paul-over.html
and also:
Sheehan: “I don’t want to even discuss who is likely to be the Republican nominee, because besides having little foreign policy difference between any of them and Hillary, anyone of them would be a complete disaster on matters of war and peace, with the possible exception of Ron Paul (Tx).”
http://salsa.wiredforchange.com/o/1590/t/523/blog/comments.jsp?key=346&blog_entry_KEY=21045&t
It shouldn’t be a suprise that Cindy would endorse Ron Paul. Cindy is/was the lover of Lew Rockwell. Lew is a big supporter of Ron Paul and was once one of Paul’s principal staffers in the Congress. Lew supports all of Paul’s campaigns and is also a big antiwar/blame America/truther.
Unfortunately....this is what keeps more conservatives from voting for Dr Paul. You cannot allow a shrine to Islamic Terror be built near where Muslims killed 3000 Americans.
Your property rights end when they interfere with someone else’s
undiplomatic??
Ron Paul??
Here’s a video of the “diplomatic’ Ron Paul:
Ron Paul has publically said that the CIA has accomplished a coup against America and needs to be taken out:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2dECSYm5bSM
A direct quote from this conference is as such:
(January 20, 2010) House Rep. Ron Paul says the CIA has in effect carried out a “coup” against the US government, and the intelligence agency needs to be “taken out.”
Speaking to an audience of like-minded libertarians at a Campaign for Liberty regional conference in Atlanta this past weekend, the Texas Republican said: “There’s been a coup, have you heard? It’s the CIA coup. The CIA runs everything, they run the military. They’re the ones who are over there lobbing missiles and bombs on countries...”
This is a war against the islam-nazis... Not all of Islam..
The justification to ban the mosque is no more rational than banning a soccer field in the same place because all the suicide bombers loved to play soccer.
This is not a well considered opinion. This comparison seems to reveal a very poor understanding of the role Islam plays in events like 9/11 and how important religious shrines and symbols are to people. A very unfortunate and unwise comment.
Offsetting this are a couple of gems which I do like.
In addition conservatives missed a chance to challenge the hypocrisy of the left which now claims they defend property rights of Muslims, yet rarely if ever, the property rights of American private businesses.
This is spot on. The left, in supporting so strongly the alleged rights of this mosque and its proponents have thrown into stark contrast their constant derision and denial of any such rights for either American businesses or, even more to the point, Christian churches.
What saddens me about this is that Ron Paul missed both the significance of this mosque to both sides, as opposed to a football pitch, and the most important reason we should be more careful in opposition. Right now this story is everywhere and it is making me very nervous. The Right has so jumped on this that they have created a firestorm over it, and now regardless of what the muslims may have thought about it it really is an important symbol. If it gets built they will know they have really beat us, and if it doesn't they know that the conservatives will have come out looking intolerant to a lot of people. In either case they get ammunition. We are investing the actions of these people with too much power and it may very well turn on us in the end. I do wish we could have just taken it all down a notch before it got this huge as it now threatens to turn on us. One stray word from anyone on the opposing side and we will never be able to get away from it. I worry that conservatives often don't understand the delicacy these things require and will end up giving too many opportunities to the enemy to turn our words and actions against us.
As I read your post, the word that jumps out at me is "enemy."
I used that particular word within a narrow context. I understand your feelings here, and many of them I share. However, there are more conflicts going on right now than just that with Islam, of any stripe. There is a political war waging in America, and we are losing it. The Left is using Islam, or so it thinks, to further its own cause, and right now they are tied together. Any ammunition of a political nature we give to the political enemy will in turn be used to serve the enemy abroad.
This mosque is an important issue, but we are actually working right now to serve the people who wanted it to be so important. We could have struck a fine line between recognising the intention of those seeking to build it, and taking no action which the political enemy here at home could use to distract the people from what is really going on. This is a very common approach for the Left. They stir the pot and then wait for somebody to say something indelicate and then that, not the real issue, becomes the focus of all discussion.
Consider Joe the Plumber. During the election Obama said something so stupid, so retarded, that it was screaming for attention. However, people like Sean Hannity decided to play right into the Left's hands and focussed on the personality of the man who asked the question, and thereby gave a free pass to the media to ignore the actual words of the candidate, i.e. Obama. Over and over we let the Left guide the conversation, or set the terms of the debates, and then we act surprised when they keep taking the focus away from the relevant points.
The Left is the enemy. They hate us and will stop at nothing to hurt our cause. We have to be careful. This mosque discussion is growing too big and could turn on us. If anyone does or says anything which the media can make the new issue then we will have no way to make headway in the discussion. We have to remember that when fighting a political war only political weapons matter, and we keep shooting ourselves in the feet.
“Islam is the enemy ... We are at war with a fanatic and implacable enemy ... They are willing to die to the last man to do it.”
We need to be good hosts and oblige them. Just the other day, here on this board, someone said “what are we supposed to do, kill them all?”
Yes. Let’s start with the bloody murderers in custody and keep moving, wherever and whenever possible.
“We have to be careful. This mosque discussion is growing too big and could turn on us. If anyone does or says anything which the media can make the new issue then we will have no way to make headway in the discussion. We have to remember that when fighting a political war only political weapons matter, and we keep shooting ourselves in the feet.”
That’s pathetic. Let’s all cower in the corner because the press might not like us and work against us? Let me guess, you think we should continue running “moderate Republicans” and “working across the aisle” am I right?
Americans don’t like where the country is headed. Keep playing the politically correct game and adding more limp wristed Republicans to the list and they will not come along. Conservatives will win. But to be a Conservative, you need to stop whimpering and give people real hope.
The Grand Old Potty needs to be flushed.
You just said; “However, people like Sean Hannity decided to play right into the Left’s hands and focussed on the personality of the man who asked the question, and thereby gave a free pass to the media to ignore the actual words of the candidate, i.e. Obama.”
Well, I don’t know what country you are living in, but the press got a hold of Joe the Plumber, tore him to shreds, Dem activists conducted illegal investigations and passed them to the press, who then made HIM the story and ignored the statement by that POS in the WH. Hannity did nothing to change the story (but throw a toy football like a girl). You seem to be in the “blame conservatives first” branch of the The Grand Old Potty.
That’s pathetic. Let’s all cower in the corner because the press might not like us and work against us? Let me guess, you think we should continue running “moderate Republicans” and “working across the aisle” am I right?
Hardly. You are reading into my words. I am saying that we have to act carefully so that we don't play into enemy hands. And the Left is the enemy. The press, btw, is also on the Left and so they work for the enemy too. We have to recognise this acting accordingly.
And I don't think we need "moderate" anything, but conservatives. But smart ones who won't keep saying and doing things which will let the Left off the hook for their stupid gaffes over and over again.
Well, I don’t know what country you are living in, but the press got a hold of Joe the Plumber, tore him to shreds...
Exactly, but they did that because we on the Right focussed on him and made him the story. If Hannity et al hadn't been doing specials on what a great guy he was, and instead had been hammering at Obama's retarded comment, then we could have simply responded "Hey, Joe the Plumber is not the story, he just asked a question..." We couldn't though because all of the people who could have said that had actually made him the story, over and over again. That meant we had no response at all to the media attacks. Dumb.
Look at the Sherrod video. A video clip comes out, Breitbart is baited into showing it, and immediately Obama starts firing people. When it comes out that the clip was misleading and that she probably wasn't the demon she looked to have been who gets the blame for jumping on it? FoxNews and the Right. Does Obama have to answer for firing somebody without knowing anything? No. Does the NAACP, who had the complete recording and still denounced her, have to answer for anything? No. And guess what story disappears? The racist charge of the NAACP about Tea Parties. Either it was a bait and switch, calculated from the start (who ever heard of this administration and the NAACP so quickly acting against and denouncing an anti-white bigot before?) or it was just a calculated move to recover from a hasty firing by the White House, but in either case we again suffered from a blunder on the Left somehow being used to make us on the Right look bad. It happens again and again and we never seem to start looking for traps. Or, as in the case of Joe the Plumber, we are hoist on our own petards.
This is not about being wimpy or soft. That is hardly the point. It is about being calculating and prepared. We have to be wise as serpents, but that doesn't mean being weak and soft. Anything but. The Left controls the media and we cannot keep pretending that isn't so.
You seem to be in the “blame conservatives first” branch of the The Grand Old Potty.
You seem confused. First, I am wrong to call liberals the enemy as only Islam deserves that title. And now I, a conservative, am the enemy because I think we keep giving liberals the opportunities to win. It is called responsibility, and conservatives used to embody it. Used to. Now, if you suggest that mistakes are being made you are just "blaming conservatives first." Twaddle. I am blaming those who are blameworthy. Democrats don't just win elections, we lose them. Over and over Republicans manage to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, and until you and all of us start realising that we deserve the blame for this we will never be able to change that fact.
You need to wake up and realise that we on the Right are constantly letting the Left dictate the terms of the encounter, and that means we lose every time. And any win we can celebrate is usually a Pyrrhic one. That is what this mosque situation threatens to be if we are not careful. We are in the moral right, but if we make the wrong political moves we will end up suffering heavier losses than it is worth.
Please ignore my reference to “enemy” in the second and third sentences in the penultimate paragraph of post #56. I didn’t realise until too late that you were not the person I had previous responded to, and so made reference to the previous posts which would not be relevant to your comments. Sorry if I caused any confusion.
You: Exactly, but they did that because we on the Right focussed on him and made him the story.
My full paragraph before your edit:
Well, I don’t know what country you are living in, but the press got a hold of Joe the Plumber, tore him to shreds, Dem activists conducted illegal investigations and passed them to the press, who then made HIM the story and ignored the statement by that POS in the WH. Hannity did nothing to change the story (but throw a toy football like a girl). You seem to be in the “blame conservatives first” branch of the The Grand Old Potty.
Be a big boy and respond to full posts, not your own edits.
Yeah. The Learned Professor tells us how to do it the Republican way...or are you a Dhimmi operative? Because this way is ... well ... flaccid. And it will get more Americans killed.
And when the Left started, which was nothing but smart at that point, we had no defence. Nobody could say the only reasonable thing, "Who cares who asked the question, look what Obama said!" No, supposed conservatives had made Joe the Plumber the story and so they could say and do nothing as the Left tore him down and helped Obama to the White House. Obama self-destructed when he answered without thinking, and we could have skewered him with it. However, in their zeal to celebrate this "regular guy" people on the Right undid themselves, and us with them. Fox set the trap and they caught us in it. It is these very kinds of stupid decisions and lack of clarity which leads to losses of major elections.
I am not saying that this mosque situation is one of these, but I think it may become one if we lose sight of the goals. The Dems love to set traps. How do we even know that this mosque was ever going to be built? Last I heard this group had $10,000 in their account. You can't build anything in lower Manhattan for that. You can't fix the windows with that. For all I know this is another bait and switch like the Sherrod video, and somebody is sitting back and waiting for just the right thing to happen and they will pull the pin on it. I am asking questions like just how much we really stand to win if we stop this potential mosque from being built, assuming it ever would have been built? What damage could we suffer in so doing? Will it be yet another Pyrrhic victory? I don't know, but I keep waiting for a Mel Gibson moment. You should prepare yourself.
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