He may be a darling of those who’ve just recently discovered a document called the Constitution, but he also seems to have a short memory.
Neoconservatives who have come to power in both the Democratic and Republican parties argue that the U.S. must ether confront every evil in every corner of the globe or risk danger at home. We need to “fight them over there” they say, so we don’t have to “fight them over here.” This argument presents a false choice. We do not have to pick between interventionism and vulnerability. The complexity of our world is exactly why the lessons of our past should ring true and demand a return to a traditional, pro-American foreign policy: one of nonintervention.
Congressman Paul, did you forget about the World Trade Center twice, the Pentagon, the USS Cole, our embassy in Kenya, the Khobar Towers, etc.
I may be a simple man, but with a few exceptions, I think the enemy is already fighting the battle here.
So just about everything liberals and prgressives disagree with is a ‘false choice’. Gee I am so glad they have given us real choices.
By the way anyone hear how good the surge WORKED since teh ‘combat’ troops are leaving Iraqi cities? didn’t think so.
Dr. Paul is a non-interventionist, not an appeaser. As for the attack on “World Trade Center twice, the Pentagon, the USS Cole, our embassy in Kenya, the Khobar Towers”, ever heard of blow back? We’ve intervened in the region, propping up dictators and ensuring their time in office the best we could. Had we been simply seeking to trade with them, we would not be in this position now. Had we only been trading with them and Al Qaeda would not have had any footing to stand on. Don’t get me wrong in this. The Cole was apart of my carrier group. I was apart of the active duty service when 9/11 happened. I’m no truther and I have every bit the desire to see bin Laden and his organization pay for what they did, but things do not happen in a vacuum.
Ron Paul is about as trendy as freedom and liberty is. His message was that the government had grown too big, that we were being attacked because of the government’s desire to remake the world (be it democracy or the like) and that we, who supposedly are the freest people on this miserable blue dot, shouldn’t be enslaved.
Obama is rightly despised by many on the right, but not for the right reasons, because he’s so far been as much a third term of Bush the Younger as McCain would have been.
Btw and I know we have a few days to go, Happy Secession Day.
I voted for Ron Paul in 1988.
He’s right about a lot of things. I could not get behind him last time around, though, mostly because I feel an obligation to Afghanistan and Iraq … too many times we’ve gone in to places and stirred shit up, right or wrong — and then left too early leaving the citizens of that country holding the bag looking down the barrels of the guns of some pretty shady characters. Non-intervention is a defensible position AFTER you’ve cleaned up your messes from when that wasn’t your policy.
That all being said, there’s no doubt in my mind that we would be a LOT better off with about 220 Ron Pauls in the House and 59 of them in the senate than we are right now.
Well, I became a conservative before it was Ron Paul trendy and I still have a problem with people who were liberal one day, saw the light, and now because they like what Paul has to say (and want to distance themselves from the conservatives they previously hated), believe they can now lecture the rest of us how to do conservatism.
I’ve followed the career of Ron Paul for a very long time. No, I’ve never been a “Paultard” or what have you, but indeed, I’ve always admired his conviction, commitment, and tenacity in support of freedom, liberty, and our Constitution. Even Ronald Reagan was a fan of Ron Paul.
People are people, and it would be impossible to find any 2 on the planet who are in 100% agreement on every issue, but the older I get, the more disturbed I become with “conservative” attacks on this man, the only person in Washington who stands against the tide, defending our Constitution.
He ran as a Libertarian, but he’s not libertarian. He’s an original conservative. Paul is a mirror-image of Sen. Robert A. Taft, the man the people proclaimed as “Mr. Republican!” If as conservatives today, we don’t consider “Mr. Republican” conservative, then I no longer know what a conservative is.
I was a huge supporter of the war in Iraq and Afghanistan. Ron Paul supported the war in Afghanistan, but not Iraq. But hindsight being 20/20, I question my original convictions. Osama bin Laden and al Qeada attacked us on 9/11, yet 8 years later, bin Laden’s still alive and al Qeada remains in full operation. That’s not success in my book. We may have defeated Saddam Hussein, but all these years later, the most powerful nation on Earth has yet to defeat the enemy who actually attacked.
Yes, Saddam is gone, yet our borders remain porous, and innocent Americans get hassled and searched. I personally have had my bags confiscated at the airport, causing me to have to catch a later flight. But I digress … I have no problem with preemptive combat or anything of that nature, but let’s face it, the most logical way to protect America is to defend it! Here, at home.
Paul’s been 100% correct all along, about the economy, the budget, and the Federal Reserve. Why? Because he has faith in the great men who came before us – Jefferson, Washington, Madison, Taft … His track-record on all these other issues should earn his views on others some respect. With our military at home, nothing could touch us! But when the majority of it is half way around the world … we only open ourselves up for trouble.
Besides … has anyone taken a serious look at our federal budget? I don’t see how an honest man could say we have the money to finance our overseas wars anymore. We are headed for deep depression, and I’m tired of subsidizing the Europeans too. Let them defend themselves! In Iraq, we should have went in, blown it to shreds, and got out (a real war). Building other nations on our taxpayers dime … immoral.
Paul’s age may be too significant a factor in 2012 (if we even make it that far). But he’s the last living, breathing, true heart and soul of the the original conservative movement, and of our Founder’s intent. Attacking Paul, is attacking the American Creed itself. And that’s something this one man, myself, will simply not participate in.
Maybe freedom doesn’t matter to anyone anymore. Has Team Politics officially trumped the American Creed?
Perhaps Mr. Paul would learn something from reading a quote from Gen. Douglas MacArthur:
“…history teaches with unmistakable emphasis that appeasement but begets new and bloodier war. It points to no single instance where this end has justified that means, where appeasement has led to more than a sham peace. Like blackmail, it lays the basis for new and successively greater demands until, as in blackmail, violence becomes the only other alternative.”
I don’t know what “lessons of our past” Mr. Paul is referring to, but if anything is apparent, the history of the nature of human evil has many times led to the point where we DO have to pick between interventionism and vulnerability.
Libertarians tend to be as great fools as “liberals.”