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.”

[Titus Quinctius Cincinnatus]

What nuke?

Apparently you know something that our Government doesn’t know. Care to enlighten us?

Head. In. Sand.

[DJ MacWoW]

So, why do anything, it's an empty threat.

I imagine your "logic" was used before we entered WWII also. Seems to me the guys name was Chamberlin. And he was clueless to the threat.

According to the Qur'an: "Muhammad is the Apostle of Allah. Those who follow him are merciful to one another, but ruthless to unbelievers" Sura 48:29.

"Kill the Mushrikun (unbelievers) wherever you find them, and capture them and besiege them, and lie in wait for them in each and every ambush..." Sura 9:5.

[JTN]

We brought 9/11 on ourselves?!

Although I didn't say that, and in fact my post had nothing to do with 9/11, I'm going to answer your charge anyway, because it's important that you gain some understanding here. I hope you'll follow along as best you can, even though I won't be able to use a lot of pictures to make my point. I'll start you off with one, but mostly you're going to have to read, and try to understand. I hope you're up to it.

This is a picture from the start of the Iraq war. A man carries a little girl, her foot barely hanging on to her stump of a leg, past a pile of dead bodies. I want you to think back. I want you to remember how you felt on September 11, 2001. Now I want you to consider this fact: the way you felt was not unique to Americans. That man is probably feeling it, and quite strongly. When Iraqis see their country made a mess of, and their families, friends and neighbors being killed, because the United States government chose to invade, they are going to blame someone. A lot of them are going to blame the United States.

Yeah, I know, we meant well. We went in to remove a dictator and liberate them. So what? Many of them are still going to blame us. Many of those that blame us are going to be motivated enough by their hate and anger to do something about it.

Do we deserve to be attacked because our government, in spite of acting on good ideals, made a terrible mistake? Of course not. That's not the point. The point is is that there are plenty of people in the middle east who disagree. If those people subsequently choose to attack us, that does not make their cause just. But what difference does that make? The fact is that terrorists are created out of something our government did, justly or not.

This point was made very strongly here, and, again, I hope you're reading and trying to understand, because it's very important that you do:

The Barber of Beirut

Here’s the really important part of yesterday’s Christian-Science Monitor story, “Anti-US anger grows among Arab moderates“:

“Of course, our hatred of the United States will increase if America attacks Iraq,” says Mohammed Nawfal, a barber. “The Lebanese have experienced much bloodshed and there is a history of bloody American involvement in Lebanon. So we feel more sympathy for Iraq than other countries because we have been there.”

Now your typical neo will find Mr. Nawfal’s statement purely infuriating. Weren’t our occasional postwar forays into Lebanon undertaken with the best of intentions? In 1982 the US came in essentially throwing the bodies of its troops in front of the Palestinian refugee community to save them from - why, that would be Ariel Sharon! The US sought to mediate a bloody civil war and get Lebanon back on the path of (wait for it, Iraq hawks!) multi-ethnic, multi-sectarian democracy. Before that, US troops intervened in 1958 at the request of Lebanon’s elected government to stabilize the country through its election of that fall. At the time, Lebanon was threatened by Syrian (United Arab Republic) troops that had crossed the border and was suffering riots in several major cities.

Who could dislike the US after that?

What the barber would tell you, most likely, is that after arriving to save the Palestinians, the US ended up choosing de facto sides to prop up a government few Lebanese wanted. And he would likely construe the 1958 intervention as bolstering the minority Christian government at the expense of Lebanon’s muslims and Druze, that US support was a cold war power play suppressing arab nationalism by design.

Do not mistake Unqualified Offerings’ point here. UO is not saying Mr. Nawfal is right and we’re terrible people. Unqualified Offerings is saying that what matters is that Mr. Nawfal thinks he’s right and we’re terrible people. The fact that we launched our interventions in the name of Good Things counts for nothing with people like Mr. Nawfal. That the interventions may have accomplished at least some good things doesn’t either. (I am convinced that mitigating the humanitarian catastrophes of Sabra and Shatila really was the immediate motive for the Reagan Administration intervention, which I was old enough to follow at the time.)

Unqualified Offerings is saying, once again, that military intervention buys a country almost nothing in terms of lasting gratitude (and you can ask Mr. DeGaulle if you don’t believe UO). Our coming Glorious Liberation of Iraq will simply produce legions of Iraqi Mr. Nawfals, and smaller legions of Iraqi Mr. Attas. Do not be fooled by any short-term kite-flying or parades. The real issue is not the immediate post-conquest reaction, but the mood a year from then, and five years from then, and ten.

A few weeks ago, Unqualified Offerings snarkily asserted that “The problem with neoconservatives is everybody has them.” Let’s be less snarky:

It’s a conservative world. Sorry, liberals among you, but it’s true. From continent to continent and country to country, most people prefer the familiar to the strange, whether in terms of people or folkways or governance. The West did not invent ethnocentrism, we just named it. I pluck you down anywhere in the world, outside of a major metropolis, and I will be plucking you down among people who like their own tribe better than the next tribe and the next tribe better than, well, you. What bothers Mr. Nawaf about the history of US intervention in Lebanon is less that the interventions were “bloody” - Lebanon’s neighbors and its own factions far excel us there - than that we weren’t Lebanese.

The essential conservatism of the entire planet is the reef on which virtually every universalist “progressive” movement has foundered. Oh, you can find factions and individuals that warm to “foreign” causes. A certain number of Ukrainians will fight for Hitler, a certain number of Nicaraguans for Lenin.

A certain number of Afghans for Brezhnev.

When it’s all over, these are the folks that get strung up on the lampposts.

[BlackElk]

PaleoPaulie blamed America for 9/11. Pantywaist Paul did it in the first debate. Unfortunately it was Julieannie who was allowed to hammer the pipsqueak fir insulting our country. We saw and heard all of this with our own eyes and ears. We have been sledgehammering the little antiAmerican antiwar creep ever since for precisely what he is: a mouthpiece for Al Qaeda. You are bleating that we should believe you rather than our own eyes and ears???? No thanks!

My IQ test says 163. How about yours???

As to the brain-damaged chimp story, I had always wondered what happened to paleoPaulie between arriving in Congress as and apparently sane in 1976 and his Libertoonian POTUS candidacy in 1988 and even further down the drain to his current comedy roadshow imitating a Republican and hoping to be perceived as a patriot while doing the Baghdad Boob thing in GOP debates.

In case I forgot: paleoPaulie says that 9/11 is America's at fault all lies by his paleosupporters notwithstanding. EUREKA!!!! etc.

[cripplecreek]

Ever head of Pakistan genius? BTW india has them as well and they slide ever deeper into islam.

[no dems]

Wow! I’m convinced this guy is going to win the GOP nod and be the next President of the United States of America. /s

[BlackbirdSST]

I will tire of it when paul apologizes to America for blaming her for 9-11 until then he will be the BUFFOON

Why should he apologize for your lie buffoon? Blackbird.

[ejonesie22]

It’s is worse than that in this case. It's dangerous and willfully naive.

I laughed at this response. It’s not what the government knows, it is what it doesn’t know that worries me. Just look at Club CIA...

[BlackbirdSST]

What I'm asking these days is: "Why don't they fear us?"

Have you asked that of the WH lately? Blackbird.

[Darksheare]

Hello.
How many times has that picture been posted as proof of US ‘atrocities’?
And how many times has it been debunked?
You should know better.
Iraq a mess because of us?
You obviously haven’t been speaking to those who are over there.

[DJ MacWoW]

And you believe propaganda. Shame on you. There have been MANY of these stories debunked on FR. WHY are you here? Radical islam is a real threat and danger. Only the very uninformed and naive believe otherwise.

[BlackElk]

Beats me. I suspect he could be persuaded but I doubt he would be senseless enough to get eager over anything sponsored by a moonbat such as paleoPaulie. The man has a reputation to maintain and you don't get very far associating with Congress's equivalent of the village idiot (i.e. paleoPaulie for those in Rio Linda).

The rest of your answers seem honest and accurate other than the failure to recognize posturing for what it is.

[JTN]

So you decided not to try to learn anything. I can’t say I expected more.

[DJ MacWoW]

So you decided not to try to learn anything. I can’t say I expected more.

I was a leftist in the early 70's. Then I grewup. You can't "teach" me to regress.

[Darksheare]

Learn what, pray tell?

[Puddleglum]

You lie. No other way to put it. And you lie even after you have been shown clearly that you are lying. Ron Paul did NOT “blame America for 9/11” and it is a stupid, vicious lie to claim that anything he said in the debates does so. I am getting fed up with single digit IQ dunderheads who are so bereft of the ability to simply parse out a plain english sentence that they turn a clear documented truth (actions do have consequences, and the middle east is no exception) into some mewling “it is all our fault” attempt to “blame America.” It is NOT what he said, and you people have heard tons of people, from Ron Paul supporters to the NRO (which is NOT a Paul supporter) explain to you in painstaking detail why it is not so. Yet you continue to prance around like some retard version of Archimedes,dripping wet and shrieking “EUREKA” as though you have just discovered an irrefutable axiom.

I once saw a brain damaged chimp in the zoo that behaved in the same manner, endlessly fascinated by the rubber band he stretched, captivated by the fact that it continually returned to its original shape. So it is with the “blame America first” paulietroll caterwaulers. No matter how many times or by how many people or how clearly it is explained to them they insist on howling at the moon like some deranged inbred cur and spitting out the slobber just long enough to intone “Ron Paul says 9/11 is our fault!”

I swear I don’t see how they can manage to remember their passwords to log in.

---

best post ever

[TheZMan]

Gnat.

[Calvinist_Dark_Lord]

Head. In. Sand.

Not proof. Not even good speculation. Not an answer.

[Allegra]

You obviously haven’t been speaking to those who are over there.

Even when we do try to tell them things that debunk the media's lies, they just refuse to listen to us and tell us things like, "No, that can't be true, because CNN said...blah, blah, blah..."

I've pretty much given up on them. They can spread their propaganda; we here are going to keep working at this mission. Much to their disappointment, I'm sure. ;-)

[BlackElk]

You can't be serious other than as a serious psychiatric case. What on earth would make anyone, much less that all powerful "establishment" fear from the likes of paleoPaulie and his Bush Derangement Syndrome pals???? He will probably not be renominated for Congress after proclaiming his international cowardice policy much less be nominated for higher office, much less be joined by a House or Senate taking him seriously and refusing to see him as the cartoon that he is.

Intestinal fortitude is displayed in combat or even in office supporting those who are in combat (and necessarily their mission). Posturing by sponsoring a bill to abolish the concededly unconstitutioal Federal Tea-Tasting Board or that little WWI era bureaucracy that meets (at great expense) once a year to judge the suitability of various wools for military uniforms or what not is NOT a profile in courage. Declarations of war, however titled, are Congress's constitutional way of telling the president: "The light is has become green. Go get 'em!" NOT "check back with us next month after the newest polls are published." We are not reverting to the British parliamentary system of gelded leaders and wars micromanaged by mouthy and often antiAmerican legislators (Paul, Cuckoocinich, Weepy Walter Jones, Nancy Facelift, et al.) who want to micromanage wars in an anarchy reminiscent of the old Keystone Cops.