There is no Paul phenom, there is however Paul bull s#it.
Paul is a fraud.
The reason the world hates American government is their meddling in these different countries. Go back to the 50's and south and Central America and see how these countries elected official that the US did not like and what did we do? We sent teams in to kill them. The CIA and their cabal of spooks have sown distrust and hatred for the USA.
The Ron Paul Psychosis
Ron Paul is the new John Birch.
Ron Paul does good in Iowa because Democrats crossed over to vote for him, in addition to his usual nutbag group.
He may do good in New Hampshire pretty much the same reasons.
Ron Paul may even run third party and re-elect Obama.
Ron Paul WILL NOT be President.
Napoleon remarked that he didn’t steal the crown of France − he found it lying in the gutter, and picked it up with the point of his sword. Ron Paul didn’t steal the mantle of champion of limited government − he found it lying dusty and unused, and picked it up with his mediocre but to-the-point oratory.
... is freeking poetry. Man o man was that a pleasure to read!
That said... ahem... when you say (and summarize) that:
Our duty is to find a more rounded, more realistic, less dogmatic advocate of the limited government that our Constitution requires. Our responsibility is to find someone with the wisdom to balance the ideals of the Founders with the realities of the age of nuclear weapons and fanatical terrorists.
... you leave out what Paul stresses, and everyone ignores - that an economically strong America fundamentally changes the global playing field. If the dollar was strong, regulations were minimal, taxation was minimal, unemployment was almost non-existent, production and exports were soaring, investment and savings were maximal, and international trade from a plethora of healthy American-based companies was booming, that would create such a profoundly massive pressure upon the entire planet to join the American boom, to take part in the wealth-making, that alignment with America would become the standard for international peace.
No, it wouldn't take care of all the problems - and Paul doesn't say it would. But it would clear the bullsh!t to such an extent that any problems requiring the military could be dealt with the way the military is designed to deal with things - taking out the problem - and leave the "peace-keeping" to the foreign country itself and the benefits of being a trading partner in good standing with America.
Yes, that's what we're told is already going on - but look around. It's international-trade-in-name-only, while we just ship all of our jobs overseas, and waste our banks on get-rich-quick schemes for collectivist insiders.
What Paul keeps saying, however, is that we really did what we say we're doing, an environment much more supportive of international peace would arise because of that genuinely free trade. And who can deny that it's an enormously powerful mechanism - even crippled, the American economy supports half the world and influences the rest, and not because it's "American" - but because it's based on (the remnants of) genuine freedom.
Sometimes I think we live during a time of economic ignorance as profound as the time of bloodletting in medicine. When people ask "what good is a healthy economy against those damn Muslim crazies," I hear the distant echoes of past disdain against people who argued that they saw no connection between a full blood supply in the body and the ability to fight disease.
He was dealt with lighting speed compared to the States, 2 year to convict and only 4 years to carry out sentence.
Arresting and punishing terrorists after the fact is not dealing with terrorism “rather well” − it is failing miserably. But Paul, with his narrow, legalistic approach, can’t understand this basic fact.
What are you saying Mr Solinsky, Arrest someone for storing 14 days of food. Our whole justice system is based on AFTER the fact. What you suggest is something straight out of Hitlers playbook.
I thought we won those wars. No? Our forces were smaller than those of the enemy. Smarter. More resourceful. More dedicated. Fast forward . . . "Let's put some ladies in that there submarine. Wouldn't wan't them to feel left out . . . nice torpedos, girl!"
LSD in the water supply.