Palin: GOP Should Not Alienate Ron Paul Voters

NewsMax ^ | Jan. 4, 2012 | Staff

[La Enchiladita]

Sarah Palin said she wasn't surprised at Rick Santorum's success in Iowa, and warned that the GOP should not take Ron Paul's supporters lightly.

Speaking on Fox News before Iowa's final numbers were in, she called Santorum "spot-on" with his policies toward Iran and praised his "social conservative" positions.

Her strongest comments came for Paul, however, saying "the GOP had better not marginalize Ron Paul and his supporters after this" because "a lot of Americans are war-weary and we are broke" and Paul has reached that constituency well. She warned that the GOP "better work with them."

[justlurking]

When I first joined FR, I was amazed at the quality of the writing and minds of the posters here.

Noob. :-)

Seriously, I agree with the rest of your post. The quality has gone way down, as the best people have either burned out, or moved on. Some, like Iowahawk, have leveraged their talent into something bigger.

In general, FreeRepublic has become much less tolerant of differing viewpoints. It started with the elimination of obvious disruptors, but now anyone that dares to disagree with the groupthink gets zotted.

[TheOldLady]

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[jpsb]

Yes I’ve noticed it (zotting) has become a game, in the old days you had to a serial trouble maker, a very oblivious troll, racist or really nasty individual. Primaries are always a dangerous time here at FR. Emotions run high, I don’t like all the zots but such is life. I’ll never support Romney but I would not mind hearing why others do. I’d enjoy the chance to maybe convert them to my guys. Romney supporter don’t scare me. That said I think management does a reasonable job here, which is why this is pretty much the only conservative web site that I am active in.

[dmz]

Seems to me you’re a bit thin skinned on this issue.

It’s inflammatory to ask if Palin would agree with Paul on the elimination of foreign aid to Israel, after you state that Palin was agreeing with Paul only on fiscal issues?

You raised the issue of Palin’s agreement with Paul on his fiscal concerns, not me. And foreign aid absolutely is a fiscal concern.

Do you think Palin would support the cutoff of aid to Israel? I don’t.

Perhaps you’ve been taking a beating from others and you thought my question was part of that beating? It wasn’t.

[justlurking]

It’s inflammatory to ask if Palin would agree with Paul on the elimination of foreign aid to Israel, after you state that Palin was agreeing with Paul only on fiscal issues?

I was quoting Palin.

You invented something out of thin air.

So which one of us is thin-skinned?

Grow up, child.

[jpsb]

How about, considering we are broke and in serious debt, cutting off all foreign aid? Would that be OK?

I am wondering why it is necessary for us to borrow money from China so we can give it to foreign countries? Can you explain that to me?

[rbmillerjr]

“Since the bozos who would work for a government agency whose “mission” is CLEARLY unconstitutional ... the death penalty should be administered immediately”

Your mistake is driven by your belief that Ron Paul is a Constitutional force. He’s not, his interpretations come from a gumball machine. He is a charlatan who preys on the ignorant. Hell Ron Paul is the one worthy of execution, if you want to play that silly game.

If the DEA was “CLEARLY” unconstitutional...it wouldn’t exist. Your RonPaulian belief is not based on reality, but on a charlatan.

[dmz]

So which one of us is thin-skinned?

Grow up, child.

<><><><

LOL. That would be you.

I’m not the one resorting to grade school insults.

[justlurking]

Primaries should be the time that a forum like this really helps: people can discuss the different candidates and what they like or dislike about them.

I don't have a problem with people promoting or even disparaging candidates, as long as they do so on a factual basis, rather than making up things that never existed, and are completely contrary to the candidate's previously-stated positions. I do have a problem with zotting people that support certain candidates. It's a short leap to zotting people that disparage certain candidates.

But, what really bothers me is the people that make personal attacks on supporters of other candidates. As I've written elsewhere, there's a lot of common ground among conservatives. You can disagree on a lot of things, but agree on what I think are the most important issues right now. Engaging in a circular firing squad during the primary season only poisons the well and makes it very difficult to work together when the nominee is chosen.

I don't like any of the Republican candidates for President this year. If someone wants to vent their frustration, I'll suggest the Republican party leadership, for their inability to recruit a candidate that can defeat the most unpopular and incompetent incumbent President in my memory.

But for crying out loud, stop attacking each other. Agree to disagree, and move on to what is really important: building a coalition to boot Obama out of office. Each day, it becomes more apparent that the future of this country depends on it.

[dmz]

Selectively I have no problem with reduction / elimination of foreign aid across the world.

Israel, not so much.

[justlurking]

I’m not the one resorting to grade school insults.

I've found that grade-school insults are the only ones understood by grade-schoolers.

Start acting like an adult, and maybe you'll be treated like one.

[stuartcr]

Tolerance!!??...we doan need no steeenkin tolerance when we is right

[rbmillerjr]

“Is it constitutional to invade, fight and occupy another nation with out a declaration of war? I hope you will stop and spend a little time contemplating exactly what it is you are supporting.”

Yes it is and it is expressly stated so in the US Constitution...that is your homework assignment. Read the Constitution.

You guys are going to have to get past the a FruitLoops interpretation of the Constitution.

Do you believe we should allow Iran to attain nuclear weapons?

[jpsb]

I see words but I don’t have the slightest idea what you are saying. Are you OK with cutting off all foreign aid? We are borrowing 43 cents for every dollar we spend. Adding 1.5 tillion dollars a year to our debt. Now if you are not willing to cut aid to Israel along with all other nations please explain why we should borrow money from China to give to Israel? Can not Israel borrow money as well as we can?
thanks

[dmz]

No, I am not OK with cutting off ALL foreign aid. I don’t know how much more clearly I could have stated that in post #270.

Aid to Israel is not why we are borrowing 43 for every dollar we spend.

We can be selective about who we reward with our aid, no?

[PieterCasparzen]

I’m retired from the Marine Corps and I plan to vote for Dr. Paul. Many of my friends, also retired military, mostly Marine Corps, also plan to support and vote for him. Including a full bird Colonel whom I used to work for at Camp Pendleton. Does that help answer your question?

And no, I am no part of the weed vote, though I firmly believe we’d be far better served if the WOsD and the DEA/ATF/IRS, etc., were abolished, their agents jailed or executed and their buildings torn down and the land sown with salt.

Please consider righteousness. The libertarian view of morality as a relative thing, i.e., secular humanism, places the righteousness of America and her military at odds with libertarianism, which always intellectually starts out in a good freedom-oriented place and inevitably winds up too far afield towards moral ambivolence.

Please consider that there can be no ambivolence in morality, it is either yea or nay, with ambivolence abandoning morality. Without morality our cause is not just - and popularity is decidedly no certain indicator of morality. Once, as a child in school, all the other members of my class went along with a child who had been scolded by the teacher, saying that she hit him. As I had witnessed this event, I simply told the teacher the truth when she asked me when she took me aside in an "assembly". I heard nothing on the issue until a few years later when it was revealed to me what the other children had done, which I did not know at the time. I very often rub organizations the wrong way because I stick with what is true and right regardless of the the internal organizational consequences.

The whole idea of DADT replacing court-martial was the beginning of the end of morality in the services and I knew that when it passed. The stealth repeal of morality laws throughout America based on the Model Penal Code of 1962 provided the roots of the basis for today's homosexual lobby. As long as morality laws were in place, political activism was inhibited by the fact that politicians would not be openly homosexual. Decline in national morality always portends general national decline.

The positions of Paul on cutting bureaucracy are great; whole departments need to be eliminated. But Santorum also advocates this type of cutting; Paul is not the only candidate advocating cutting of non-defense General Fund spending. And certainly intelligent people realize that any money wasted is money that could have been wisely spent efficiently providing for national defense. America relies on her military for free existence.

Paul's ideas on the Fed being out of control are accurate. Even though a gigantic change in how the Treasury and Fed work is needed, precisely what the resulting organization looks like is the most important question, as an ill-conceived replacement could quite easily be worse. His support for a gold standard reveals that he any many who support him have little knowledge of the history of money. A gold "backing" will not prevent devaluation of the currency; the Spanish empire proves this. As long as the sitting government has control of money creation, devalution will always be a temptation for lawmakers. There is nothing special about gold or any "backing" of currency that prevents the "backing" from being readjusted to devalue the currency. The only thing that stands between sound currency and rampant devaluation is the morality of the politicians of the current generation.

Precious metal salesmen and some who hold gold as in investment are the ones who pitch this economic fallacy that far too many Americans have sopped up. One must bear in mind that the value of gold, right off the bat, would necessarily have to be valued at least 10 times higher than it is the moment the "backing" is introduced. Enough bankers and politicians are fully aware of this so that it remains a conspiracy-theorists dream.

Drug abuse reveals a weakness of character of the type that I'm sure you realize is a fatal flaw in a military group. It's quite troubling that members of the U.S. military no longer understand that free-wheeling moral values and drug use advocated by libertarianism is the hallmark of a military in structural decline. Great American military leaders of the past would be aghast at the decline of Christian moral values that has taken root in our society and seeped into our military. I mean this in no way to disparage America or her military, but as a lone voice calling upon them to repent.

America thanks you for your service.

[PieterCasparzen]

I support him because of his respect for the constitution and his desire to reign in spending and the role of government. He is an original constructionist. Lots of neocons have a problem with that. I don’t support all of his foreign policy desires, but I support the past/current direction of our foreign policy even less. I think he would make no immediate and dramatic changes, but would incrementally change its direction in a positive way. Besides that, he would never abuse his power and overstep the authority of congress and the courts. That would go against who he is.

The neocon label today, IMHO, is split. There are those who, out of instinctive loyalty and wanting to be firm in purpose, refuse to repudiate past policies. There are also those who, like myself, would be labeled neocons but who are also Constitutional originalists to what appears to many to be an extreme degree. I think most people who have a small-business background recognize the reality of how overbearing government has become.

I reject occupations and favor total annihilation of an enemy then returning home. I reject the comparison with Japan and Germany after WWII, since those were societies of people who were manipulated and controlled by maniacal leadership, but these populations did not have centuries of suicidal hatred pervading them. Once these populations had their a$$ whooped and saw the defeat and humilitation of their leaders, they resumed their reasonably peaceful and diligent lives. The only use of occupying what I call "crazy" populations, on the other hand, is to take the fight to their soil - which would be totally unnecessary if Americans had the political courage to bar them from our soil.

I've always firmly believed that somewhere on the order of 90% of the Federal government is unconstitutional.

But in Republican establishment circles - that view has not yet become acceptable. Amongst big business types, of course, the government is simply a big customer with an addiction to spending.

The "other neocon" - the establishment neocon type - believes that "certain" big government solutions are Constitutional. Of course, this perspective is nothing more than a liberal with a different colored tie.

[NFHale]

“...Yeah, the furniture gets tossed around, ...”

Been happening a lot lately...only the furniture is getting tossed at each other now.

Sad...we do this as the enemy laughs at us.

[jpsb]

Ok, curious, I disagree since I think keeping our nation safe and sound is more important then give Israel free money that we have to borrow from China first before we can give it to Israel, but that’s just me. I will point out that there are probably folks here (USA) that would insist that we continue to borrow money from China to give to Egypt. We even borrow money from China to give them aid too! So IMHO best think to do is just cut off all foreign aid and then we can borrow a little less from China.

[jpsb]

Hmmm, I missed the Article W, section Zero in my Constitution that said it is OK to go to War without a Declaration of War. Or as in the case of Libya even congressional approval.