Posted on 07/31/2007 12:51:59 PM PDT by traviskicks
Bob Novak stopped by the Heritage Foundation today for a lunchtime discussion with conservative bloggers about his new professional autobiography, The Prince of Darkness. While he lamented the practice of reporters acting as opinion drivers and news analysts, Novak wasn't shy about offering a few opinions of his own. When asked to rate the current field of Republican presidential candidates, Novak didn't have any kind words for the current top-tier field of Rudy Giuliani, Fred Thompson, Mitt Romney and John McCain.
(Excerpt) Read more at video1.washingtontimes.com ...
In the case of Ron Paul there certainly is. He is an advocate of pure appeasement.
We live in a world of greater and lesser evils. And how we go about "interacting" is of course sufficiently vague in your analysis.
Indeed we do live in a world of greater and lesser evils. In Ron Paul's world a strong America that promotes its interests and values with conviction and the force to back up that conviction is the greater evil.
The way we interact is to offer friendship to those nations who want our friendship, to inform nations that reject our friendship they will be left alone as long as they leave our interests and those of our friends alone, and to teach the nations that violate this second principle that we are in earnest about it.
There is a MAJOR difference between “conducting foreign policy,” which is a legitimate authority granted FedGov, and “spreading democracy,” which is NOT authorized and therefore prohibited to FedGov. Further, the whole notion of “democracy” was abhorrent to the Founders (and with good reason) and SHOULD be abhorrent to any rational, thinking conservative today.
No, they don't.
See Jimmy Carter and the US - Taiwan Mutual Defense Treaty
President Carter had no Constitutional right to do so. However, he went unchallenged by a Democrat-controlled Senate, who therein failed in their constitutional responsibility.
and the Panama Canal Treaty.
No Panama Canal Treaty existed, since the Panama Canal was US territory. The US does not make treaties with its own overseas possessions.
Carter presented one proposed treaty with Panama to the Senate and a different treaty to the Panamanian regime.
The Panamanian regime countersigned neither, and no treaty ever legally existed. President Carter simply gave away US territory unilaterally.
And again, the Democrat-controlled legislature and judiciary gave him a pass.
If you are arguing that Ron Paul would undertake to abuse his office as badly as Jimmy Carter did, ignore his Constitutional obligations as brazenly as Carter did and show as much contempt for Constitutional precedent and process as Carter did then you are making a poor case that Ron Paul is the Constitutional stalwart that he and his supporters claim him to be.
So you claim, of your own authority with no Constitutional warrant. Your so-called "prohibition" exist in your mind, not in the constitutional law of these United States.
The Federal government may conduct foreign policy according to its discretion, and if it decides that assisting a foreign nation in making a transition from non-representative to representative government is a useful policy (such as it pursued in West Germany), it is has the prerogative to pursue such a policy.
Further, the whole notion of “democracy” was abhorrent to the Founders (and with good reason) and SHOULD be abhorrent to any rational, thinking conservative today.
The notion of an unmixed democracy without separated powers and checks and balances was considered unproductive by our Founders, but they had no problem with the democratic election of the lower house of the legislature.
To my knowledge the US has never promoted the establishment of an unmixed democracy, but rather of representative governments in which the legislature was democratically elected.
Evidently, it existed in the mind of George Washington, too. But what would HE know about constitutional intent?
Try comprehending it.
If an authority is not specifically GRANTED, then it is prohibited to government. So, YES, it is prohibited.
However, the Constitution specifically forbids the States to conduct warfare or foreign policy and it specifically empowers the President to conduct warfare and it specifically empowers the President and the Senate to conduct foreign policy.
So if the President of the US sees fit to demand the German Reich's unconditional surrender before he ceases prosecuting war against it, the Constitution empowers him to do so.
And if the President and the Senate see fit to impose a peace treaty upon the German Reich that obligates it to adopt a representative form of government in order to reestablish peaceful foreign relations with the United States, the Constitution empowers them to do so.
Even an advocate of the anti-Constitution "strict construction" school of Constitutional interpretation cannot rationally argue that the Truman administration acted unconstitutionally vis a vis Germany, Italy and Japan.
He certainly hasn't left behind the slightest trace of such a sentiment in his writings or recorded speeches, so there is no "evidently" about it.
But what would HE know about constitutional intent?
Since he presided over the Constitutional Convention and since he was the close confidant of Alexander Hamilton, he clearly was intimately familiar with the Constitution's intent.
He warmly endorsed The Federalist as a worthy exposition of the Constitution's intent, and The Federalist's broad view of the President's authority to conduct both warfare and foreign affairs would presumably coincide in the main with his own.
Don’t spam.
Fixed it for you.
Brilliant. Some people here are deaf to nuance.
Why don’t you go back to kissing Rudy’s ass, and leave political discourse to the adults?
One can certainly try to make a case, as the Left has, that there was none in Iraq, but avoiding a second 9/11 fits the criteria.
He’s all over the place on this type of thing.
The fact that you have no intelligent comment to offer and are content to fraudulently connect me to a candidate who should never be allowed near the GOP nomination speaks volumes about your competency to enter this discussion.
There is nothing big government about a family taking care of its own. It is when families don’t take care of their own that big government steps in. I went to another country where a skin and bones child ran up to me and wrapped herself around my leg as I was walking. She held her hand up begging for money. Is that your idea of freedom, starving children begging in the streets?
In Ron Paul’s view, feeding that child would conflict with a much more pressing financial need: funding an inquiry into whether or not 9/11 was an “inside job.”
Ukraine
"Fixed it for you."
Wrong as usual my surrender monkey friend.
Parody most often represents the truth. In this case, a Ron Paul President would strengthen the global outreach of the jihad, while Paul and his spineless supporters retreat.
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