Posted on 01/09/2012 9:51:16 AM PST by mnehring
I’ll bet you’ve never personally performed open heart surgery. You haven’t? Really? In that case, I don’t want your stinkin’ opinion on how the government should best distort the health insurance markets with artificial incentives. You probably also haven’t dropped acid in the last ten years. Given that painful deficiency on your CV, I don’t want to hear any of your sanctimonious blithering about The War on Drugs.
I assume, furthermore, that you’ve never been behind enemy lines, staggering home through the bad guys’ wire with your small intestine in one your canteen cups.* If such is the case; then you, like Newt Gingrich, have no right to have an opinion on issues of international military involvements.
So argues Dr. Ron Paul, who has the unique moral authority to decide whether John Huntsman really has American values. As Devine Emperor of Truth and Logic; Dr. Paul hath (self)-righteously decreed that Newt Gingrich has no right to an opinion on matters of war and peace.
“I think people who don’t serve when they could and they get three or four or even five deferments aren’t — they have no right to send our kids off to war, and not be even against the wars that we have, (My bolding)” Paul, a former Air Force flight surgeon, said. “I’m trying to stop the wars. But at least, you know, I went when they called me up.”
– Congressman Ron Paul.
The entire reason people serve in the US Military is to defend and uphold the US Constitution. The entire reason that politicians and their enemies make arguments based upon “Chicken-Hawking” is to deprive people who have not been under enemy fire, of the right to participate in the vital national conversation involving war and peace. It’s a way for great and courageous defenders of the US Constitution like Dr. Ron Paul to strip others of their rights under the 1st Amendment.
This would make Dr. Paul a smug and arrogant elitist pig. He is as revolting on the issues of war and peace as President Obama is with regards to social issues. It makes me think that Dr. Paul is a bitter clinger who desperately holds on to his 9-11 Conspiracy Theories and his Racist literature and his proposed Fed audit.
As one who wore the uniform briefly, I can understand a teaspoon’s measure of Ron Paul’s frustration over the civilian leadership of the armed forces. It has to be one of the more vexing aspects of the entire US Constitution when Von Clausewitz of the 9-11 LIHOP Theories ponders the document. But that’s exactly the point. You and I don’t have to like Mr. Gingrich’s resume on military issues in order for him to have a right to express his views.
Ultimately, “Chicken Hawking” is the revolting logical inverse of the argument that a former military person would make a great foreign policy president. I doubt there is a single opponent of the Iraq War who spent all of 2005 thinking “Ya know what? I don’t like this whole Iraq War thing. However, George W. Bush and John McCain have landed fighter jets on an aircraft carrier before. Based upon that, I have no valid point of view on whether the GOP has a correct policy via-avis the Iraq War.”
That’s the astonishing thing about the entire “Chicken Hawk” branch of logical fallacy. Not a single practitioner of it will ever admit that a more experienced member of the military that holds a diametrically opposed point of view on some defense-related issue has a God-Given right to serve the Ron Pauls of the world a big, steaming cup of STFU. This situation sends them appealing to all-important bastions of authority like Gen Wesley Clark.
Thus, Ron Paul’s use of the “Chicken Hawk” smear to demean one of his opponents in the GOP Primary reminds me of what is wrong with American Democracy. Here we have a former military member, sworn to uphold and defend the US Constitution, attempting to deprive an opponent of his right to speak based on pure CV snobbery. This is not courageous libertarian constitutionalism. It is post-modern feudalism instead. Elitist Pigs like Ron Paul, who use their resumes and life experiences as a weapon to silence the points of view they don’t want to hear, are an enemy of American Democracy.
* – If any members of our rich and vibrant RS community have done all three, than what in the heck are you doing wasting time on the Internet? Get out there and fix all the world’s problems!
There has always been a special draft for medical doctors, the armed forces can not fight wars without doctors.
“He volunteered. He lied about being drafted...”
And if he had stated, “I volunteered to serve my country” you would likely be calling him a liar because he was served with a draft notice.
So now pointing out the “lack” of something in an opponents record is “chicken hawking”? It’s like red state telling us that presidential eligibility is a “non-issue”. I’m sick of political bias news bloggers telling us how to think and vote based on their biased opinions and lack of respect for the US Constitution.
Facts are facts and when facts are no longer pertinent, then it’s lights out folks for the Decalration of Independence & the US Constitution, FOREVER!
I think you missed the point, they are calling out a political candidate (Paul) for doing exactly this. The author isn't doing it other than the tongue in cheek first paragraph. The author is basically agreeing with you.
Ahhh, that Ron Paul joker again. He is indeed the Man of the Year.
Unfortunately that year is 1901.
It reminds me of the laws/regulations we are fighting now. Just because some desk jockey rode in a semi from DC to Cleveland,Oh and then got on a plane back to DC, that desk jockey thinks they have the where with all to write laws as to when & how we operate.
The simple fact that Gingrich gets all defensive and never actually tells us exactly HOW & WHY he never served should be a BIG RED FLAG to all voters.
Ron Paul served a couple of years on active duty, a couple in the Air National Guard. He was a flight surgeon. For anyone that doesn’t know what a flight surgeon is I will tell you. It’s a medical doctor that gives pilots their physicals and makes sure they are ready to fly an airplane.
Other than that they drink alot of coffee and play alot golf.
Ron Paul never served overseas, had a desk job, and was never in harm’s way.
His attack on Newt Gingrich was pathetic. If he had also let Romney have it for not serving in the military, maybe I wouldn’t be as hard on the old man as I am. Romney was worse than Gingrich. Having connections in the Morman Church got his weasel his deferment. For three long years Americans, less privileged than Mitt Romney, fought and died in Vietnam, while he was overseas pretending to be a “morman minister”, which is a joke. It burns me up that Ron Paul has became Romney’s biggest cheerleader and never says a disparaging word about him. Ron Paul was also never drafted in the Air Force. The Air Force has never had a draft. He was also never drafted into the Army. Now he might have thought he was going to get drafted in the Army and joined the Air Force. Technically, that would make Ron Paul a draft-dodger himself. He served from 63-65 in the Regular Air Force, then when Vietnam was building up, he joined the very safe Air Force National Guard. He knew he would never have to serve in Vietnam. I don’t like hypocrites and Paul is a hypocrite. An Audie Murphy he aint!
He did tell us how and why. He wasn’t drafted. He was over the age that people were being drafted when the draft was run and he was married with kids. Paul lied that he applied for deferments. He didn’t need to, he was already exempt.
But since you insist in his own words
""Given everything I believe in, a large part of me thinks I should have gone over," Gingrich told Jane Mayer in 1985. "Part of the question I had to ask myself was what difference I would have made," adding that "there was a bigger battle in Congress than Vietnam." As Gingrich put it, "no one felt this was the battle-line on which freedom would live or die."
Well said FRiend and BRAVO.
Now if Ron Paul had volunteered to GO to Vietnam to provide his surgical skills for our wounded troops, that would be a different situation.
Your description however, more than suffices.
Thanks.
He gave an emotionally defensive answer using a couple of reasons that were not backed by the facts of the law at the time. Period.
Would the founders ever have disagreed with you, they were big fans of civilian control of the military.
We'd rewrite our list of Presidents as
George Washington
John Adams
Thomas Jefferson
James Madison
James Monroe
John Quincy Adams
Andrew Jackson, finally, a true Democrat.
I don't believe either of them, though people can forget. I had a college deferrment, 4 years. Obviously I "asked" for it, how else would my draft board know I was in college. Whether it was one "request" or four, I haven't a clue, but they knew when I was a senior and informed me early in the year the month I'd go 1A.
And despite the articles explanation that Paul wouldn't have been a prime draft candidate in the early 60s, I very seriously doubt Paul went through college and med school with a 1A classification. My guess he did the same thing Newt did, got a deferrment.
Wish I had the links to some of the 2008 threads handy. I distinctly remember this issue coming up regarding both Giuliani and Paul. And Pauls supporters position was quite different, he stood up and volunteered. I recall attacks from some of the paultards because I volunteered only late in college, which they let me finish, when I knew I'd be drafted otherwise.
You mean LBJ's military experience didn't qualify him to task bombing missions from the White House?
Don't forget the undeclared quasi-war with France which had just ended, and had led to the construction of our Navy and restablishment of the Marine Corps, our prime weapons against the Islamists. Some things never change
If you’d like to be on or off, please FR mail me.
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I wouldn't express it as "not having a right" to be president or to make policy choices as president, but the observation is worth making.
It doesn't shut anyone up, but it does raise the threshhold a little when we go to war, asking us to be sure that a leader who didn't serve or didn't see combat really understands what's involved.
The article writer goes too quickly to name-calling and is certainly perverse: when the country gears up to go to war there is so much pressure on those who might not agree that it's bizarre to argue that those who argue the negative are trying to "shut people up."
And that is all I am saying, how can one possibly stand up and say they are ready to command a post that they have no 1st person knowledge of. A father's stories are not 1st person knowledge, that is what a court would call hearsay. And can we drop the ‘army brat’ already, it's doesn't help his public perception when he refers to himself as a ‘brat’ all the time.
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