Posted on 02/17/2013 11:35:25 AM PST by JohnPDuncan
Sen. Rand Paul says he'll wait until 2014 to decide whether to run for president, but he believes voters are ready for a Libertarian-minded Republican candidate.
"I would absolutely not run unless it were to win," the Kentucky Republican said on "Fox News Sunday." "Points have been made, and we we will continue to make points. But I think the country is really ready for the narrative coming — the Libertarian Republican narrative."
Voters want a "different face," he said.
In order to expand the party's reach, Paul believes the GOP should embrace candidates who are willing to push a less aggressive foreign policy, comprehensive immigration reform and less punitive measures on first offenders of nonviolent drug possession.
"We're doing fine in congressional seats, but we're becoming less and less of a national party," Paul said.
Paul has been making it clear for months that he's leaning toward a presidential run, but he added he won't make a final decision before next year.
In the interim, he said, he'll continue to make his points in the Senate, including over immigration. On the same program, Paul said he'll offer an amendment to the forthcoming bipartisan immigration bill that would require the Government Accountability Office to report annually whether the border is secure and force Congress to vote on those reports. That would occur before the 11 million illegal immigrants can achieve permanent residency, under Paul's plan.
"I do support the concept of telling the 11 million people here that if you want to work and you don't want to be on welfare, we're wiling to find a place for you in America," he said.
(Excerpt) Read more at politico.com ...
Rand calls himself a libertarian Republican, i’m not trying to tie him to anything.
We need quick action to balance the budget.
Guys like Paul Ryan or Pat Toomey see one ten years or more down the road.
That’s too long to wait.
If Rand Paul is ready to get it done quickly and balance the books, I’ll say Amen to that and vote for him, too.
As far as the prigs are concerned, the only isms dissimilar to statism are pedophilia-ism, drug-ism, homosexual-ism, etc.
The next time you encounter a Conservative that holds the Republican Party and its RINOs in contempt, find out if the sentiment includes republicanism. Then await the stream of hypocritical bullshit on the subject of libertarianism.
The RINO’s have been hustling social conservatives for the last 25 years lip servicing with their Pro-Life and Anti-Gay Marriage rhetoric.
They don’t intend to rock the boat anyway, they just stir up emotions while the liberals advance through courts and media their liberal social agenda.
The RINO’s fought the no-win Vietnam style war in Afghanistan for eight years until Obama picked up the torch and the conflict “drones” on.
As for “social conservatives” I can’t speak for all of them but my own view after seeing the “truth” about myself is that I need to worry more about changing myself than changing society.
I would support Rand Paul over RINO Rubio anytime.
When the Tea Party groups got started, it was really about two motivated groups of people getting into the meetings. First the RINO establishment, trying to keep the conservative grassroots in line, Second the Paul libertarians trying to get the Tea Party behind their ideas.
We either go RINO with Rubio or libertarian with Paul?????
In that scenario, I pick Paul.
It hurts me to realize that many people are destroying their lives with drugs (including prescription ones), alcohol, porn, credit cards and the list goes on......
But in the end I can’t go around changing other people, I have to focus on changing myself.
Rubio for all of his positives does not meet my understanding of a ‘natural born citizen’ because of his parents not being USA citizens at the time of his birth.
The issue is really Pro-Life.
I was in the room back in 1982 when the evangelical scholar Dr. Francis Schaeffer said that Christians should defend human life including the babies born with Down’s Syndrome and those with disabilities etc. etc.
Its about human life in general, not abortion in particular. The GOP political machine turned this issue into an abortion debate only, with emphasis on “partial birth” abortion, crossing state lines with minors for abortions, parental notifications etc.
Those sidebar issues were the Karl Rovian “wedge” issues used to create voting records of “Pro-Life” for RINO’s to keep getting our votes in election after election.
When Terri Schiavo was starved to death in 2005 a phony symbolic RINO inspired vote was taken in Congress to pretend something was being done on her behalf when nothing was being done on her behalf.
The abortion issue has been used to hold voters to the RINO’s while Roe vs. Wade remains the unchallenged law of the land. Attempts to pass Roe v Wade killing legislation in states have been discouraged by the machine affiliated National Right To Life Committee.
The RINO’s have suckered people for years on this.......I would be OK with Rand Paul because even if he calls himself “Pro-Life” and does nothing about it, he would be no different from where the RINO’s have been all these years.
The older Paul was always focused on the notion that a “world order” was being built that tore down the tradition of an independent United States.
The Dems and GOP-E each support such notions in their own ways.
Crazy words that sounded like leftist anti-war rhetoric came out of his mouth all the time after 9/11, but knowing the Ron Paul of the 1970’s when I first learned about him, Paul believed in the Constitution, not international laws or world government.
I don’t think most people really understand the stark reality that military actions in Iraq and Afghanistan after 9/11 were taken with United Nations sanction-approval.
They weren’t about a sovereign nation declaring war (ala WW1 and WW2).
They confuse the brave and courageous actions of our soldiers today with past wars not fought under UN sanction.
“The RINO’s have suckered people for years on this......”
Naturally. Because if they did something substantial then they couldn’t come back every year promising to solve the problem if you would just re-elect them.
And, as you noted, a lot of them have no interest in changing things anyway. They just pretend to.
I’m listening but I see in Rubio first and foremost an insider politican (he is former Speaker of the House in Florida).
Speakers in legislatures take big campaign contributions from special interests and force members to vote for “imperfect deals” like Boehner’s do.
The GOP-E brought Rubio in and created the “Tea Party” image to take out Charlie Crist in the 2010 Senate primary because Crist had a personal life that would have come out and hurt him in a general election.
Now that he’s a Dem the next thing I expect is for Charlie’s personal life to come out to his advantage in the politics of that party.
“I don’t think most people really understand the stark reality that military actions in Iraq and Afghanistan after 9/11 were taken with United Nations sanction-approval.”
You statement is totally flawed. The US didnt go into Afghan or Iraq because of UN approval. That is absurd.
Rand Paul’s comments regarding the US and war are equally absurd.
The historical record is that the United States got approval from the UN because in the post-World War 2 world there is international law.
Harry Truman ran right to the UN Security Council in 1950 got approval from them and called Korea a “police action.” Our troops were under United Nations command then, although led by American generals.
In Irag in particular, there was all this need to get the UN involved before and after the military actions.
In Afghanistan right now our soldiers are part of the UN sanctioned International Security and Assistance Force. UN backing was sought as soon as possible after the military actions following 9-11.
I support our troops, but they fight under international command right now in Afghanistan. That’s the stark reality.
You misunderstand UN approval and assistance.
The UN has no bearing on whether the US intervenes in an area.
There is no taking away of sovereignty if the UN agree on an action...none.
We went to both Afghanistan and Iraq due to US presidential action and congressional approval.
There’s no doubt we did, but the UN ended up getting dragged in too because of
the kind of post World War 2 international law kind of world we live in.
Rumsfeld said these wars in Iraq and Afghanistan weren’t like World War 2 and he’s right. They are limited wars not wars seeking a total and complete victory over the enemy like Roosevelt got over Germany and Japan.
Pakistan meddles in Afghanistan and Iran meddles in Iraq.
Both those nations should have been dealt with to obtain total victory in the wars but were not. One (Pakistan) has nukes and the other (Iran) is developing them. Those were probably the clinchers to deter action just like the fear of killing Soviets (nuclear country) preventing the bombing of Haiphong harbor that would have won the Vietnam War.
W Bush and Obama failed to take these wars to total victory and we are left holding the bags we hold now. No victory in Afghanistan with Pakistani meddling and an Iraq left dominated by Iran.
>>rand Paul’s comments regarding the US and war are equally absurd.
Name three specific examples.
His recent foreign policy speech before the Heritage Foundation (certainly a conservative group) on the topic of Islamic Containment had more sense than the last 200 things I have heard from politicians of any party on the general topic of how we interact with the Muslim world. I welcome a politician willing to openly recognize that radical Islam is a mainstream force in control of powerful countries. Name three other Congressmen who have done this. The only one I can think off offhand is Alan West, and he is now out of Congress.
In general, I get the sense that the anti-Rand Paul posters here think there are no differences between the father and the son. That is far from the case.
Total War and Limited War is another debate.
My point is that the US has not given up sovereignty to the UN. The latest actions came from Executive branch action and Legislative branch approval votes.
The United States has acted as if the United Nations needed to be involved in both the Iraq and Afghanistan military actions. We live in an international law world as far as this nations leaders are concerned.
The wars being fought today are about protecting the world order in their minds and I’m not against them as much as I’m against not winning them.
The United States has acted as if the United Nations needed to be involved in both the Iraq and Afghanistan military actions. We live in an international law world as far as this nations leaders are concerned.
The wars being fought today are about protecting the world order in their minds and I’m not against them as much as I’m against not winning them.
Rand Paul:
“In the 1980s, the war caucus in Congress armed bin Laden and the mujaheddin in their fight with the Soviet Union. In fact, it was the official position of the State Department to support radical jihad against the Soviets. We all know how well that worked out.”
1. Calling Reagan and Congress a “war Caucus” is ignorant of the realities of the cold war and insinuated that the US was “war crazy”, as have other comments from Paul.
2. It is urban myth that we armed OBL...totally false and shows ignorance on the topic.
3. Arming the Afghan resistance had nothing to do with jihad.
Paul’s general comment’s that the US and Republicans needs to be less aggressive, implies US fault...and this in conjunction with his comments regarding backing off of social issues, lead me to believe he has a good bit of his father in him.
“The wars being fought today are about protecting the world order in their minds ...”
Paulian conspiracy poppycock. The Afghan war is about the Taliban allowing Al Qeada to operate in Afghan, as a base of operations to plan attack on the Us.
The Iraq involvement, rightly or wrongly was about intelligence showing WMD in Iraq and it’s possible use and spread to terrorist entities.
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