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.”

[BlackElk]

Simple solution: drown the black meteorite in pig blood. When the Islamonutcases mass their troops in response, nuke them too!

Draw a border around our Kurdish allies' territory in Iraq in pig blood as well. It will keep both other factions of Iraqis and Al Qaeda out. If the Islamoloonies have other taboos, use them too until we get to eliminate the Islamofascist enemy altogether. Medina? The Dome of the Rock? Any and all.

You do make one good point (stopped clock...twice a day) that the Saudis are still funding Wahabi terrorists (to keep the royals of Ibn Saud's family in power) so let's take over Saudi Arabia before the real nutcases of Wahabi and Al Qaeda and paleoPaulie's other love objects do.

If you, in the cause of paleoPaulie, want to cite the CIA, the 9/11 Commission and the 9/11 Study Group or other blue ribbon, establishment elitists of the internationalist (not isolationist and certainly not interventionist persuasion) as sources of truth, perhaps the facade of paleoPaulie and his little gang being conservative at all ought to be dropped altogether. Do you know who John Flynn was? He would not have cited such sources. Nor would Colonel MacCormack. Nor would Charles Lindbergh. You are living proof that the paleos are really nothing more than rootless phony"cons."

[Titus Quinctius Cincinnatus]

He wanted an actual ‘war’ so we can declare ‘victory’ and come home. But that’s not happened since the 1940s in this country.

If it's shooting, it's a war. Semantics, schmenatics. Regardless of what the Paulistas think, there is NOT a Constitutional requirement that something be called a "declaration of war" before it is legitimate. If Congress "authorises the use of force" then it's a constitutional war. And we're in a constitutional war in Iraq. Against a bunch of Islamist terrorists who have already told us time and time again that they want to destroy the United States. The only think keeping large numbers of them from infiltrating the USA is the fact that our troops are occupying their mythical "capital of the Caliphate", thus attracting the Islamists to Baghdad so that they can be killed in record numbers.

And Ron Paul opposes all of this.

Ron Paul is a collaborator. When all of this is said and done, the American people will shave his head and parade him through the streets to be ridiculed and mocked, just like those Dutch women who used to sleep with the Nazis.

[DJ MacWoW]

He wanted an actual ‘war’ so we can declare ‘victory’ and come home.

Is that why his speech from Oct 2002 is posted on Lew Rockwell and Antiwar.com?

[George W. Bush]

So Ronald Reagan was against any US troops in Saudi Arabia especially including any jews, so as not to rile them up and create terrorists?? News to me. So if Ronald Reagan could speak to us today he would endorse Ron Paul, eh?? Including the part about let’s not be over there in their countries and/or do anything that offends them or riles them up to terrorize us. I don’t think Ronald Reagan would.

"Perhaps we didn't appreciate fully enough the depth of the hatred and the complexity of the problems that made 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."

"In the weeks immediately after the bombing, I believe the last thing that we should do was turn tail and leave. Yet the irrationality of Middle Eastern politics forced us to rethink our policy there. If there would be some rethinking of policy before our men die, we would be a lot better off. If that policy had changed towards more of a neutral position and neutrality, those 241 marines would be alive today." -- Ronald Reagan, 1983

No one can predict what Reagan would have said or done in the present situation. But his public remarks and recently published diaries don't give much support to the idea that he had much confidence in invasions, occupations, nationbuilding, etc. Especially in the Mideast.

[Designer]

"Hey I no globalist"

"That is why I think the middle east has to be reformed.."

Resting case.

[BlackElk]

EEE: If you want such fun, take it to Demonratic Underground where the antiwar antiAmerican pacifists play.

[MEGoody]

Ron Paul is no Ronald Reagan.

[Puddleglum]

Could you give us some ballpark figures on how much aid in $$ we send to Iraq, Pakistan, Saudi, Kuwait, Dubai, Jordan, Lebanon, every year (military + humanitarian + whatever else).

[Beckwith]

As with his appearances everywhere, Ron Paul is bringing excitement and moonbattery ...

[MEGoody]

When people show up in sizable numbers everywhere Dr. Paul appears, many traveling hundreds of miles, the GOP just ignores that appeal.

Yeah, that explains why Ron's poll numbers are so low in every poll. :::rolls eyes:::

[George W. Bush]

You are living proof that the paleos are really nothing more than rootless phony"cons."

Like that "rootless phony con" Ronald Reagan, the former union president and Democrat?

I can live with that.

[Titus Quinctius Cincinnatus]

What does foreign aid have to do with the war in Iraq?

Can you give me a ballpark estimate for how much disruption to the US economy would occur if all the Islamists who want to infiltrate the USA and commit terrorists acts and start general insurrection were allowed to do so by our following Ron Paul's misguided policy ideas?

[Puddleglum]

that crossed the line

[federal]

You have no case you stupid twit, I would have supported the reforming of Germany and Japan but I was born in 1946. I supported the reforming of the USSR. I think removing Saddam was the best way to force a change in the middle east. That doesn’t make me a “globalist”, but hey believe what ever it is your pure idealogical mind wishes.

[Puddleglum]

Ron Paul is a collaborator. When all of this is said and done, the American people will shave his head and parade him through the streets to be ridiculed and mocked, just like those Dutch women who used to sleep with the Nazis.

No more children's chewable paranoia pills for you.

[Round 9]

This former militant seems to disagree...

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=465570

[BlackElk]

GWB: Is that the same Ronald Reagan who ordered the military to bomb Qaddafi and his family personally in the Libyan desert with death from the sky, killing two of Qaddafi’s kids, severely injuring Qaddafi himself and taming him until he turned his nukes prototypes and plans over to Dubya???? Remember that the paleos are the eccentrics who did not realize until 1986 that their personal weirdness and strange excuse for ideology had disqualified them from EVER being significant players under Reagan or ever recognized as conservatives by conservaives?

[George W. Bush]

“With the benefit of minute hindsight, Saddam Hussein wasn’t the kind of extra-territorial menace that was assumed by the administration one year ago. If I knew then what I know now about what kind of situation we would be in, I would have opposed the war.” - William F. Buckley, 6/27/04

Bill Buckley, you and I know the war was a mistake

[ejonesie22]

Sad thing is, I am sure that someone could make an argument that Iran ruling the ME was a good thing. Worse, that many would buy it

[1035rep]

"When I was still a member of what is probably best termed the British Jihadi Network - a series of British Muslim terrorist groups linked by a single ideology - I remember how we used to laugh in celebration whenever people on TV proclaimed that the sole cause for Islamic acts of terror like 9/11, the Madrid bombings and 7/7 was Western foreign policy. By blaming the Government for our actions, those who pushed this "Blair's bombs" line did our propaganda work for us."

 That article deserves of thread of it's own.