Posted on 03/05/2014 9:06:45 AM PST by SeekAndFind
Being an early frontrunner for a presidential nomination is not always a good thing and Sen. Rand Paul acknowledged as much the other night on Greta Van Susteren’s show. He must have channeled his inner Nostradamus because not more than a day later a man named Putin made his move on Ukraine. He could end up Paul’s worst nightmare.
Now, many of us have been very attracted to Paul. His libertarian message seems, and indeed is, tailor-made for this era when the monumentally incompetent Barack Obama has exposed the farcical nature of big government almost as no one before him. Obamacare is a gift from God to the libertarian movement. It helped me — and I admit I was already primed — to take another step in that direction. That government is best, as the man said, that governs least.
And yet, if there is one caveat regarding libertarianism, it is that it must end at the water’s edge. The idea that the likes of Ayatollah Khamenei or his bearded “moderate” cohort Rohani, Dr. Ayman al-Zawhiri, Bashar al-Assad, Hassan Nasrallah, North Korea’s Kim Jung-un, China’s Xi Jiping or, yes, Vladimir Putin give a rat’s patootie whether the USA is libertarian, a “liberal” welfare state, or something in between is so absurd it doesn’t merit a microsecond of serious discussion. They only care how quickly they can destroy us or, at the very least, render us impotent and take over as much of the world as they possibly can, rendering America “a pitiful, helpless giant,” as we used to say in the sixties.
Bad guys are bad guys — and that’s about it.
The problem for Rand Paul is that his father Ron Paul didn’t quite grasp this message, simple as it is. In the World According to Ron Paul all would be well on the foreign front if we here in America would just mend our evil imperialistic ways. It’s as if a perfectly libertarian USA would somehow, magically, render the rest of the vicious thugs referenced above (not to mention all the other thugs we don’t know yet, planning their little adventures in every corner of the globe, including, quite possibly, your neighborhood shopping mall) quiescent.
Put briefly: that’s insane. In fact, it would more than likely be the reverse. A disarmed, or relatively disarmed, America would only encourage these lunatics, as it has with Putin. To al-Qaeda and company it would be an obvious show of weakness. Allahu Akbar and away we go.
Rand Paul is obviously a very bright guy and understands he might have a weakness in this area. He was quick out of the block to publish a statement when the Ukrainian crisis broke.
But unfortunately for him, he will have to do considerably more than that. As the son and heir of Ron Paul, he has more to prove than the rest of us. We live in a tiny world, which is only shrinking by the second. Years ago, Kipling wrote “the wildest dreams of Kew are the facts of Kathmandu.” Now everybody’s dreams and everybody’s facts are all jumbled up. We can’t be isolationists anymore, even if everybody in the country voted that way, closed the international airports and mothballed all the 747s. Isolationism isn’t happening. It’s naive nonsense.
So Rand Paul has a task before him that none of us could envy. We live in a crazy world. Putin is just the start. Anything can happen and probably will, several times over before the election. So Paul has to do what none of us would want to do. He can do it lovingly. He can do it with respect. But — if he wants to be president of the United States — he has to seriously separate himself from his father.
Oh brother. I’d like to see the invasion force from any country try and cross the ocean and land soldiers on the beach. Any beach. We could have 1/3 the size military we have now and eviscerate any invasion force that could be assembled long before it reached Myrtle Beach.
The only threat the US faces militarily is a nuclear exchange. With anyone. And trying to stop Russian aggression on the other side of the world doesn’t make us stronger — it actually exposes us to this most serious threat.
“You May not be interested in war, but war is interested in you.” — Leon Trotsky
Rand does NOT have a special need to prove anything extra to any of us. What gall. I will listen and make up my own mind without needing anything more than a candidate’s principles and general way of dealing with things
A country that can’t afford to defend itself and its interests will soon become a client state of a country who can. Russia and China will expand until their interests conflict and then things get interesting. A meek mouse of a nation can survive only if it’s rather obscure and economically unimportant. We fail each of those tests.
So did Herman Caine and that magic bullet turned out to be a blank.
And, as long as we have the Second Amendment, Lord help 'em if they do try to invade.
What does it matter how much money you saved if you lose a war and are conquered?
I like Rand Paul because he really is intersted in rolling back the Police state but I think Ted Cruz is going to shake out as the complete package for 2016.
Only one person can be President but we still need guys like Rand Paul in the Senate. A lot of them.
By the way if Rand Paul gets the GOP nomination I’ll vote for him.
Exactly. I’m certainly not advocating aggressive and constant war making, just saying that in order to be heard you can’t rule out armed conflict and disarm.
What if they choose to spend a decade or two getting established to the North, or to the South of us, so that they can mass and be fully established in preparation?
In what magical kingdom is Rand Paul a frontrunner for the 2016 GOP nomination?
Well, Libertarians are selfish, but a true libertarian would fight for liberty.
I don’t believe Rand Paul would lift a finger for the Ukrainians. But I could be wrong.
The Crimea didn’t ask for help. Putin invaded just like Hitler, claiming to help his people......until finally it was too late to stop a World War.
Putin is much more dangerous than Hitler ever dreamed of being, he has a thousand nukes.
Hitler walked in without a shot .....in the Rhineland, Austria and on and on....no one stopped him till it was to late. Putin needs a bullet in the brain. ASAP
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