Paul faithful flock to Spartanburg appearance (sixteen standing ovations!)

GoUpstate.com ^ | 7/21/07 | Jason Spencer

[George W. Bush]

Paul faithful flock to Spartanburg appearance

A little-known Texas congressman seeking the Republican nomination for president visited Spartanburg on Saturday and seemed to arrive with all the makings of rock-star candidate for his party — despite polling low, little name recognition and a relatively small campaign staff.

Supporters call it the “Ron Paul Revolution.” You might’ve seen it on signs or T-shirts. Or MySpace.

Paul received no less than 16 standing ovations during his hour-plus speech and question-and-answer session at the Summit Pointe Event Center — first, when he entered the room, a second one when a re-entered after doing a quick television interview and a third when he was formally introduced.

Thunderous applause also followed when he decried the Patriot Act (ovation No. 4), when he said America should never go to war without a declaration from Congress or because of a United Nations resolution (ovation Nos. 8 and 9), and when he attacked President Bush’s foreign policy and handling of the war in Iraq (ovation Nos. 11, 12 and 13).

“No nation building. No policing of the world. Peace is popular,” Paul said. “The sooner we get out of Iraq, the fewer Americans will die. And I say, it’s time to come home.”

About 400 people — half from out of state — were shoehorned into Summit Pointe for a barbecue luncheon that doubled as a fundraiser for the Spartanburg County Republican Party. The local GOP, after expenses, made an estimated $5,000 on the event.

Paul was invited to speak to the local party faithful (they numbered about 80 in the crowd) after county chairman Rick Beltram took offense at Paul’s explanation of the 9/11 attacks as “blowback” from America’s past intervention in the affairs of other countries during a GOP debate. That led to a widely distributed online tit-for-tat between Beltram and Paul supporters, and Beltram eventually invited Paul here to explain himself.

Blowback, in and of itself, was not mentioned Saturday, though Paul often alluded to it, going as far back as World War I, “which (President) Woodrow Wilson got us into unnecessarily, and drew the lines in the Middle East that we’re suffering for today.”

Beltram said he agreed with Paul on most issues except foreign policy, and that he believes the Texan converted some Upstaters to his revolution with Saturday’s speech.

“I left feeling like a hero,” Beltram said. “I got more positive comments after that event than all the other presidential events combined.”

[DJ MacWoW]

If you want to discuss a real terrorist threat, PM me. i will not discuss it publicly.

Um...........yeah.

[SJackson]

Thanks for the ping, I’m not sure this flocking of the faithful is worth the bandwidth. A threat unperceived is simply not a threat.

[George W. Bush]

Your blase attitude as to enemies who struck the World Trade Center and much more importantly our Pentagon is what is really sad.

When Bush makes statements that finishing off Bin Laden is just unimportant, it's not the rest of us who are being "blase".

Who knows? Maybe it was Dubya's fault. Everything else seems to be, at least to those who agree with International A.N.S.W.E.R., Ramsay Clark and paleoPaulie.

If he won't direct the troops to find and kill Osama and the rest of the gang who killed 3000 Americans on 9/11, just how do you manage to blame Ron Paul?

You seem to object that anyone reminds you that Osama is still at large. Thank goodness that Ron Paul keeps raising the issue. The Bush administration has finally snapped out of its coma and is preparing for action inside Waziristan to kill Osama's gang and keep them from attacking America and the West again.

It seems BushCo almost has to be forced to do the most fundamental things. Like show any interest in avenging the murders of our citizens on 9/11.

[MEGoody]

If Paul wins the Republican nomination would you support him?

I very much doubt there's any danger of that, but if he did, I'd most likely just stay home.

[MEGoody]

I am confident that Ronald Reagan would have been smart enough to have viewed Afghanistan and Iraq as important to our national interests, and would have gone in (particularly in light of the escalation of Islamicism). He was definitely not the cupcake Ron Paul is.

[KDD]

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1870648/posts

[SJackson]

I appreciate that Ron Paul thinks the solution is to withdraw from Iraq and Afghanistan while going after Osama with a small strike force, presumably because our enemies, (if we have any, we went to Afghanistan to build a pipeline after all) will melt once he's dead.

I appreciate that you, others here and most of the left think that's truely insightful, I'm simply one of those who doesn't.

[Calvinist_Dark_Lord]

Not a joke guy, it’s a real concern. It’s something we haven’t paid any real attention to.

[George W. Bush]

Ron Paul has not suggested withdrawing forces from Iraq before the job is done. He voted for it. He meant it. He still does.

Iraq, he was against. He still is. Get used to it.

[Titus Quinctius Cincinnatus]

Bill Buckley, you and I know the war was a mistake

Great. So Bill Buckley has turned Turk? This is somehow supposed to convince me of....what?

[SJackson]

I appreciate the fact that you channel him, but the following interview excerpt is clear to me. He would withdraw from both Iraq and Afghanistan immediately, pursue Osama (only, not al Quaida) with small, specialized units. The Arab League would handle Iraq. Why shouldn't I believe what he says?

--------------

JW: Regarding foreign policy and the war in Iraq, what would you do differently than what's being done now?

RP: I would bring our troops home, I would end the war. I would do it rather quickly.
     Anybody who would say, "This would be chaotic," I would say chaos was caused by the fact that we went in there and we've been in for reasons that weren't right or true. It was going in that caused all of the problems.
     Immediately we could save a lot of money and save a lot of lives. Those individuals, including the Arab League, would have to settle those problems.
     I think the Arab League would step in and fill the vacuum.

JW: What about Afghanistan? Would you continue the operations there?

RP: No, I would come home, unless there was specific knowledge of where Osama bin Laden was. Then I send out just a small team of people to take care of him.
     I would not maintain the occupation of Afghanistan. That was mainly motivated by oil pipelines and some other things that are never discussed

[Dr.Deth]

If Paul wins the Republican nomination would you support him?

That's enough of a stretch that it shouldn't reasonably need to be considered. But if it were a choice between a candidate who is more or less correct on all the minutae but dead wrong on the overarching issue of our times, versus a candidate who is a Marxist/Stalinist and just as dead wrong on the overarching issue of our times, then what do you think?

[BlackElk]

I know that. Usually I distinguish the target of a post (most likely the person to whose post I am directly responding) by reprinting some form of that person’s screen name at the beginning of the text. I neglected to do that here, causing your reasonable concern. I should have been more careful. I pinged you because I agreed with and found your posts quite admirable.

[BlackElk]

I would not want to live in another galaxy even if I could get there but I would support any move to transport paleoPaulie and the paleocowards there.

[George W. Bush]

I appreciate the fact that you channel him, but the following interview excerpt is clear to me.

I'm not familiar with the isil.org site.

You might notice that it's dated "– 04-24-06 –". So something is obviously wrong. RP wasn't running for president in April 2006, he was running for re-election to Congress. We first heard rumors about a presidential run in early 2007, February as I recall.

A small hit just on leadership, as Reagan did with Qaddafi, is doable too. But RP is mostly focused on an Iraq withdrawal. However, he has spoken of a general plan to bring home all the troops overseas. That means Germany, Korea, etc.

Good. It's long overdue. Time for them to defend themselves. Part of the problems we have in leading the West when its necessary is that they just hang back and make trouble for us until we just go do the job for them. I'm tired of that. And of them backbiting us all the time for having protected them and spent the money to field a real superpower military.

[Petronski]

He’s such a myopic, weak scumbag.

[BlackElk]

If the WTC had been filled with nothing but paleocowards, leftists and other pacifist airheads, the attack would not have been as distasteful. Unfortunately the average murdered pilot, navigator, stewardess and passenger had done nothing to justify their deaths. Muffy, Skipper, paleocowards generally, spoiled children of unthinking privilege and other enemies of their own country would not be missed. Neither would the Islamofascisti once they reached real America which is heavily armed. What military, we are talking about Islamofascisti (aspiring to be the Mahdis of Malibu) armed with long knives on the beaches of the spoiled and celebrity conscious who would (except for their infernally antiAmerican tongues) be unarmed in the knife fight while the Islamofascisti would be effectively unarmed in the gun fight inland.

] Also, you may recall that it is the paleopantywaistPaulie who wants to wait until we are attacked before waging war against our enemies (other than paleos and other war wimps, we know who they are and ought strike them finally and pre-emptively). Be sure and put the words of El Ron Paulie bleating, pleading, crawling on his belly for peace until we are finally attacked by his turbaned pals on your home page too. Be sure and include Noam Chomsky's treasons as well. And those of Cuckoocinich and the tears and flapdoodle of Weepy Walter Jones. Why not put Neville Chamberlain's paleoclassic about not knowing anyone in the Sudetenland and accepting Herr Hitler's promises that his territorial ambitions are at an end. Whatever you do, do not quote, misquote, partially quote or whatever the people of backbone like Churchhill, FDR, Patton, MacArthur, Maggie Thatcher, Jeanne Kirkpatrick or Ronaldus Maximus. They were heroes of Western Civilization and have earned a far better fate than to be used by the despicable paleopacifistwimp crowd.

[SJackson]

I see, he's changed his mind since 2006. Antiwar.com has a good index of his weekly columns. He wants an immediate withdrawl from Iraq, not a withdrawl when the job is done. As he proposes in Don't Delay: US Out of Iraq Now,by Rep. Ron Paul, July 14, 2007 and Support the Troops by Ending the War, by Rep. Ron Paul, February 1, 2007 . He supports a small, targeted strike on Osama, and considers Afghanistan a failure, one that simply inflames the Muslims. As I presume our presence in places like Kuwait, Bahrain, the UAE and our naval presence in the region do as well. If we withdraw completely, everything will be fine. Why are his supporters in denial about his opinions, they should be supporting an immediate and total withdrawl from the entire Muslim world.

The Law of Opposites by Rep. Ron Paul Obviously, we are not putting forth the full effort required to capture Osama bin Laden. Instead, our occupation of Afghanistan further inflames the Muslim radicals that came of age with their fierce resistance to the Soviet occupation of a Muslim country. Our occupation merely serves as a recruiting device for al-Qaeda, which has promised retaliation for our presence in their country. We learned nothing after first allying ourselves with Osama bin Laden when he applied this same logic toward the Soviets. The net result of our invasion and occupation of Afghanistan has been to miss capturing bin Laden, assist al-Qaeda's recruitment, stimulate more drug production, lose hundreds of American lives, and allow spending billions of American taxpayer dollars with no end in sight.

[BlackElk]

PaleoPaulie likes to be on his knees for all the wrong reasons as in getting down on his knees to spend thirty or forty years minutely picking through the million ton haystack looking for Osama bin Needle and doing nothing of value (while the Needle escapes under his blurry eyes). Conservatives and Americans and patriots (the ones who reasonably want nothing whatever to do with paleoPaulie's shamefully cowardly foreign policy) prefer to burn the da__ed haystack and get on to other priorities simultaneously.

Americans were slaughtered on 9/11. Islamofascists and those foolish enough to be in their vicinity die until we are satisfied in as large numbers as we see fit. By we, of course, I do not include feckless paleopantywaists obsessed with the notion that we might offend our Islamofascist enemies and harm trade relations.

[BlackElk]

Bill has simply gotten old. It is a risk we all run if we live long enough.