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

Someone who advocates nuclear holocaust saying that Ron Paul and his supporters are crazy. Okie doke.

Wow, I guess Al-Qeada had nothing to do with it then, right?
Your statement is like saying that Yoyoi of Honshu attacked Pearl harbor instead of Japan being at fault.

Well, Paul doesn’t support Islamic terrorism anymore than you do, but whatever. Believe what you will & keep using every third word as Paleopaulie or Paulistianian. In the meantime, Paul has built an impressive network of supporters who represent a cross-section of America. He has over $2 million on hand with no debt, and he doesn’t have to beg the RNC for help. When he goes deep in the primaries and give the front-runners a run for their money, I expect your level of discontent with him will intensify short of your head exploding.

Hi FRiend. Ron Paul’s message, and mine too, is to stop funding the murderous Pali bastards and stop having BS handshake photo-op legacy building sessions in the Rose Garden, and let Israel do what she needs to. You think it will be Iran who nukes Israel? Please cut the crap! Israel might have already nuked Iran and solved our problem for us if we didn’t stop them from doing what they need to in that region.

This part is not directed to you but to the folks who say that Islam is the #1 threat to the whole world and must be destroyed, and that our foreign policy and nation building must be stepped up to be more aggressive so we can confront them... Read the Constitution and then start a Christian army to fight another Holy Crusade. Join it yourself! It is YOUR job, not the job of American sons’ blood and taxpayer dollars to fight your stupid imaginary holy war.

I write this while on vacation from Sweden. Guess what, geniuses? There are no terrorist attacks against Sweden, and they are just as “free” (sort of, minus taxes for social programs) as we are. IT IS NOT OUR FREEDOM THAT THEY HATE. Only a very, very small percentage of these radicals hate our freedom and want us to surrender to the black flag of Islam. The rest get involved in jihad because they see a threat from our un-Constitutional foreign policy.

Let’s look at the words of Ronald Reagan himself, from his memoirs:

http://www.ronaldreagan.com/leb.html

LEBANON, BEIRUT AND GRENADA

In the weeks immediately after the bombing, I believed the last thing we should do was turn tail and leave. If we did that, it would say to the terrorists of the world that all it took to change Americans foreign policy was to murder some Americans. If we walked away, we’d also be giving up on the moral commitment to Israel that had originally sent our marines to Lebanon. We’d be abandoning all the progress made during almost two years of trying to mediate a settlement in the Middle East. We’d be saying that the sacrifice of those marines had been for nothing. We’d be inviting the Russians to supplant the United States as the most influential superpower in the Middle East. After more than a year of fighting and mounting chaos in Beirut, the biggest winner would be Syria, a Soviet client. Yet, the irrationality of Middle Eastern politics forced us to rethink our policy there.

How do you deal with a people driven by such a religious zeal that they are willing to sacrifice their lives in order to kill an enemy simply because he doesn’t worship the same God they do? People who believe that if they do that, they’ll go instantly to heaven? In the Iran-Iraq war, radical Islamic fundamentalists sent more than a thousand young boys - teenagers and younger - to their deaths by telling them to charge and detonate land mines - and the boys did so joyously because they believed, “Tonight, we will be in Paradise.”

In early November, a new problem cropped up in the Middle East: Iran began threatening to close the Gulf of Hormuz, a vital corridor for the shipment of oil from the Persian Gulf. I said that if they followed through with this threat, is would constitute an illegal interference with navigation of the sea, and we would use force to keep the corridor open. Meanwhile, another development promised to bring change to the Middle East: Menachem Begin, deeply depressed after the death of his beloved wife and apparently devoid of the spirit he once had to continue fighting against Israel’s Arab enemies and its serious economic problems, resigned as prime minister.

King Fahd of Saudi Arabia, perhaps thinking American resolve on behalf of Israel might have been diminished by the horrendous human loss in Beirut, approached us with a new peace proposal that he said could end the warfare in Lebanon, and also take Syria out of the Soviet camp and put it in ours. But the proposal would have required us to reduce our commitment to Israel, and I said no thanks. I still believed that it was essential to continue working with moderate Arabs to find a solution to the Middle East’s problem, and that we should make selective sales of American weapons to the moderate Arabs as proof of our friendship. Syria with its new Soviet weapons and advisors, was growing more arrogant than ever, and rejected several proposals by the Saudis aimed at getting them out of Lebanon.

Our intelligence experts found it difficult to establish conclusively who was responsible for the attack on the barracks. When Druse militiamen began a new round of shelling of the marines several weeks after the bombing at the airport, we had to decide whether to ignore it or respond with firepower and escalate our role in the Lebanese war. “We’re a divided group,” I wrote in my journal after a National Security Council meeting held to discuss the renew shelling in early December. “I happen to believe taking out a few batteries might give them pause to think. Joint Chiefs believe it might drastically alter our mission and lead to major increases in troops for Lebanon “ Then, the Syrians took an action that more or less made our decision for us. Syria had launched a ground-to-air missile at one of our unarmed reconnaissance planes during a routine sweep over Beirut.

Although there was some resistance from Cap and the Joint Chiefs over whether we should retaliate, I told him to give the order for an air strike against the offending antiaircraft batteries. We had previously let the Syrians know that our reconnaissance operations in support of the marines were only defensive in nature. Our marines were not adversaries in the conflict, and any offensive act directed against them would be replied to. The following morning, more than two dozen navy aircraft carried out the mission. One crewman was killed and another captured by the Syrians. Our planes subsequently took out almost a dozen Syrian antiaircraft and missile-launching sites, a radar installation, and an ammo dump. When the Syrians fired again at one of our reconnaissance aircraft, I gave the order to fire the sixteen-inch guns of the battleship New Jersey on them. Two days later, we had a new cease-fire in Lebanon, a result, I’m sure, of the pressure of the long guns of the New Jersey - but, like almost all the other cease-fires in Beirut, it didn’t last long.

As 1984 began, it was becoming clearer that the Lebanese army was either unwilling or unable to end the civil war into which we had been dragged reluctantly. It was clear that the war was likely to go on for an extended period of time. As the sniping and shelling of their camp continued, I gave an order to evacuate all the marines to anchored off Lebanon. At the end of March, the ships of the Sixth Fleet and the marines who had fought to keep peace in Lebanon moved on to other assignments. We had to pull out. By then, there was no question about it: Our policy wasn’t working. We couldn’t stay there and run the risk of another suicide attack on the marines. No one wanted to commit our troops to a full-scale war in the middle East. But we couldn’t remain in Lebanon and be in the war on a halfway basis, leaving our men vulnerable to terrorists with one hand tied behind their backs. We hadn’t committed the marines to Beirut in a snap decision, and we weren’t alone. France, Italy, and Britain were also part of the multinational force, and we all thought it was a good plan. And for a while, as I’ve said, it had been working.

I’m not sure how we could have anticipated the catastrophe at the marine barracks. Perhaps we didn’t appreciate fully enough the depth of the hatred and the complexity of the problems that make the Middle East such a jungle. Perhaps the idea of a suicide car bomber committing mass murder to gain instant entry to Paradise was so foreign to our own values and consciousness that it did not create in us the concern for the marines’ safety that it should have. Perhaps we should have anticipated that members of the Lebanese military whom we were trying to assist would simply lay down their arms and refuse to fight their own countrymen. In any case, the sending of the marines to Beirut was the source of my greatest regret and my greatest sorrow as president. Every day since the death of those boys, I have prayed for them and their loved ones.

In the months and the years that followed, our experience in Lebanon led to the adoption by the administration of a set of principles to guide America in the application of military force abroad, and I would recommend it to future presidents. The policy we adopted included these principles:

1. The United States should not commit its forces to military action overseas unless the cause is vital to our national interest.

2. If the decision is made to commit our forces to combat abroad, it must be done with the clear intent and support needed to win. It should not be a halfway or tentative commitment, and there must be clearly defined and realistic objectives.

3. Before we commit our troops to combat, there must be reasonable assurance that the cause we are fighting for and the actions we take will have the support of the American people and Congress. (We all felt that the Vietnam War had turned into such a tragedy because military action had been undertaken without sufficient assurances that the American people were behind it.)

4. Even after all these other tests are met, our troops should be committed to combat abroad only as a last resort, when no other choice is available.

After the marines left Beirut, we continued a search for peace and a diplomatic solution to the problems in the Middle East. But the war in Lebanon grew even more violent, the Arab-Israeli conflict became more bitter, and the Middle East continued to be a source of problems for me and our country.

thanks for this excerpt from Reagan’s memoirs. Very thought-provoking.

Plane train or automobile, dead is dead in my book. In a world of instant carnage, knowing for sure is too late...

Obviously RP is qualified to be POTUS based on his ability (and those of his campaign) to put on a media event where all those who attended were invited and all those who are against RP not allowed to participate (the usually way these events are staged for the media).

I don't think you grasp the context or you're just ignoring it.

In the Iowa debate, a McCrazy supporter and affiliate used his anti-tax candidate forum to exclude Ron Paul only from his debate, despite Ron Paul being the most award-winning anti-tax congressman year after year by his own national organization, the Taxpayers Union. He then drew 600 bored people (and press) to his presidential debate. Later that day, Ron Paul's rally in the same building drew 1200 people, again, everyone very happy and enthused to be there. The media was forced to resort to telling us it was because we had free hot dogs.

So this county GOP chairman in SC said that Ron Paul wasn't welcome in his county. Ron Paul supporters emailed him and poured on the pressure to get him to bring Ron Paul to his county for a forum. He took the challenge and the place was packed. He is the one that says he left feeling like a hero, had $5000 raised by the event for his county, but he still doesn't agree with Dr. Paul. But now Dr. Paul is welcome in that county.

We're just asking for a fair chance to be heard. And we are turning out crowds, bringing new people to the party with Ron Paul's message. And the GOP needs to bring in new members, excite the young people. Ron Paul is the only candidate doing that.

As I asked at the beginning of the thread, what's wrong with the old Reagan magic anyway? It works every time it's tried, just as Rush has said so many times. We need more Republican candidates who offer this message, not more big-government Republicans repeating the errors of the Bush administration and promising Dim-lite ideas.

But what do you really think? ;-)

Your post was one of the best I have read on FR in several years. Just wanted to let you know that you did a good job. Much respect, peace and prosperity.

I remember reading that some time ago. That is the basis that was our involvement in Iraq and else where. The issue is the points mainly in 2 and 3. Both sides in this issues, Bush and the congress have not been at their best. Bush has not prosecuted this war to win IMHO, for reasons I can’t put my finger directly. The congress is full of idiots that surpass anything Reagan would have known.

The rationale for our actions is sound, the execution is flawed and the support damaged by irrational anti American zealots (Dims, KOS kids and their ilk). I think the challenge for Paul is that in the minds of many he questioned the reason not the execution. While that maybe his point, it is lost in the reality of the world today.

I have read several statements about Reaganesque qualities. I feel several Candidates could claim parts of that including Paul, for many of his stances are the same. But there is one Reagan quality I always appreciated, pragmatism. He would understand the rules had changed, and based on the 4 points above hew would very likely have taken the same actions with one caveat...

He would do it to win, no questions asked.

Your post was one of the best I have read on FR in several years. Just wanted to let you know that you did a good job. Much respect, peace and prosperity.

Thank you very much for your kind words.

A lot of people post as if they have some understanding of Reagan’s belief on Islamic politics or our involvement in Middle Eastern affairs and haven’t even read the man’s words. I post this frequently but it is obvious that people would rather post lies about Ronald Reagan to smear Ron Paul than they would read Reagan’s words and actually comprehend what is possibly the most important issue of our day:

Ronald Reagan - Memoirs

LEBANON, BEIRUT AND GRENADA

http://www.ronaldreagan.com/leb.html

In the weeks immediately after the (Beirut) bombing, I believed the last thing we should do was turn tail and leave. If we did that, it would say to the terrorists of the world that all it took to change Americans foreign policy was to murder some Americans. If we walked away, we’d also be giving up on the moral commitment to Israel that had originally sent our marines to Lebanon. We’d be abandoning all the progress made during almost two years of trying to mediate a settlement in the Middle East. We’d be saying that the sacrifice of those marines had been for nothing. We’d be inviting the Russians to supplant the United States as the most influential superpower in the Middle East. After more than a year of fighting and mounting chaos in Beirut, the biggest winner would be Syria, a Soviet client. Yet, the irrationality of Middle Eastern politics forced us to rethink our policy there.