Posted on 10/12/2012 6:25:32 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
At a town hall event in Ohio last month, Rep. Paul Ryan was asked why supporters of Ron Paul — the iconoclastic congressman from Texas — should back this year’s Republican ticket.
Appearing offended by the implication, Ryan scolded: “Do you want Barack Obama to be reelected?” Paul is a actually “friend,” he claimed, and the two are in agreement on key issues.
Baloney. Paul is one of only three GOP House members to not endorse Mitt Romney — and there are several reasons for this.
Leave aside that Paul is a man of deep principle, while Romney appears to have never held a sincere belief in his life. More important are their governing visions, which stand in profound conflict.
Paul was moved to run in the 2008 Republican primary largely out of his disgust with President George W. Bush’s foreign policy. You may recall the preemptive invasion of Iraq?
America’s misadventures abroad, Paul posited, have engendered “blowback” (i.e., anti-American resentment) around the world. This, in turn, has put our security at risk.
His rivals for the nomination were predictably outraged by the suggestion. A bitter Rudy Giuliani recently told me that Paul was intent on “blaming America” for the 9/11 attacks.
Those inclined toward Giuliani’s hardline way of thinking constitute the lion’s share of Romney advisers. Liz Cheney takes part in weekly conference calls with the campaign; former Bush officials and consummate warhawks like John Bolton and Dan Senor are major players.
By voting for Romney, then, Paul supporters would be voting for a return to the same neoconservative philosophy that mired us in the Iraq disaster, costing countless lives and dollars.
President Obama may have authorized a drone war and escalated ground troops in Afghanistan, but at least he has avoided launching another full-scale invasion.
This is not a petty distinction. Romney routinely gives assurances that he’d be far more likely to appease Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has designs to attack Iran — perhaps in the coming months. Paul’s passions seem to be most enlivened by his unflinching opposition to aggressive war; for him, this dark prospect would be a nonstarter.
But the unbridgeable divide between Paul and the GOP is not limited to foreign policy.
Many supporters were first attracted to the congressman for his blunt words on the scourge of drug prohibition. Romney has failed to evince an iota of rationality on this front. In May, he was asked for his view on the legality of medical marijuana. “Aren’t there issues of significance you’d like to talk about?” he rebuffed.
Yes, it is true that under Obama, the Drug Enforcement Administration has continued to raid marijuana distribution facilities, while Marines have been deployed overseas on ill-advised drug interdiction missions.
But it’s equally true that Obama has demonstrated some measure of amenability to reform, at least rhetorically. The famously puritanical Romney would likely bring us back to the era of “Just Say No.”
If Paul supporters still believe their aims can be best advanced vis-à-vis the GOP, they are deluding themselves.
Rather than continue this abusive relationship, they must reevaluate — bearing in mind Paul’s track record of fruitful cooperation with the left, most notably Rep. Dennis Kucinich and Ralph Nader. Ron Paul faithful should thus take a cue from the man himself and reject Paul Ryan’s phony entreaties.
In states like New York, where the outcome is essentially predetermined, they should instead vote for a third-party candidate: Gary Johnson of the Libertarian Party, Jill Stein of the Green Party, Rocky Anderson of the Justice Party or Virgil Goode of the Constitution Party.
In states that hang in the balance, such as Ohio, Florida or Virginia, they should pinch their noses and vote for President Obama — even if only to punish Romney, Ryan and the GOP.
Tracey is a journalist based in Brooklyn. He contributes to The Nation, The American Conservative, Salon and other publications.
Wrong.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partial-Birth_Abortion_Ban_Act
Wikisource has original text related to this article:
Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003
The Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003 (Pub.L. 108-105, 117 Stat. 1201, enacted November 5, 2003, 18 U.S.C. § 1531,[1] PBA Ban) is a United States law prohibiting a form of late-term abortion that the Act calls “partial-birth abortion”, often referred to in medical literature as intact dilation and extraction.[2] Under this law, “Any physician who, in or affecting interstate or foreign commerce, knowingly performs a partial-birth abortion and thereby kills a human fetus shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 2 years, or both.” The law was enacted in 2003, and in 2007 its constitutionality was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court, in the case of Gonzales v. Carhart.
Here is the weak point in your whole argument: it is the Congress that decides the budget.
That is to say, the President Constitutionally has very little [read nothing] to do with our debt.
And of course, the FR50 is still voting for half a dozen other candidates as silly as Ron Paul..............
Irrelevant; just because we're presented with a vote Stalin or Mao situation does not mean that I have to acquiesce to saying that one of them is good.
Romney has promised to repeal 0bama’s executive order authorizing taxpayer fund to be used to pay for abortions overseas.
By that act alone the number of abortions will go down under a Romney Presidency.
Using his own executive orders... ignoring the questions of if that's a proper use of an Executive Order, or if they are themselves legitimate.
But ignoring the questionable legitimacy of executive orders, that will do nothing to stop the infanticide here; IOW, it's a "feel good" measure that has nothing to do with the issue here.
The NRA has endorsed Romney as “the only hope of firearms freedom”.
The NRA, quite frankly, is either a bunch of cowards or in collusion with those who would enslave us. They will not take on unambiguous State-level cases that relate to the Right to Keep and Bear Arms; to wit NM's Constitution explicitly prohibits laws that "abridge the right to keep and bear arms for security and defense" yet NMSA 30-7-2.4 is a state statute which prohibits firearms on university campuses. [Note, it's a State Statute, private property does not come into play in its contraconstitutionality.]
So the only vote a real pro lifer/pro guns right voter can make is for Romney.
The man who signed his own Assault Weapons Ban into law?
Anything else is merely clinging to sour grapes because your candidate of choice did not win the 2012 GOP nomination
Look buddy, I held my nose and voted for McCain in 2008; after that I resolved not to be taken in again by "the other guy's worse", and in fact I think it not inconceivable that Romney would be worse than Obama. {Consider how many pople will think "we changed things!" and be lulled into complacency, think how much bad legislation the Congress could pass with him as President; the Patriot Act springs immediately to mind, yet thanks to Obama's abuses there've been more and more people waking up to government abuse/corruption like that internet-censorship act or the NDAA and they have begun to stir against them. Would they do so if Romney was president? Would YOU do so if Romney was president, or would you give him "the benefit of the doubt" because "he's one of us"?}
This is the great thing about you Ron Paul supporters.
Once we pin you down with the facts, you always resort back to your emotion based drivel. The Paul crowd, and the Left, share that character flaw. You assume emotion based drivel screamed at volume make up for a complete lack of reason and fact.
The veneer of reason the Paul crowd affects is about a millimeter thick.
Funny; I don't think I've mentioned anything about supporting Ron Paul on this thread.
Once we pin you down with the facts, you always resort back to your emotion based drivel.
Um, I'm sorry; but I believe that most of the facts are supportive of my arguments. -- Romney is a horrible choice for president he CANNOT save us from fiscal collapse because the president CANNOT LEGALLY do so (budget is Congress's job), Romney has a proven track record of appointing people like Marianne C. Hinkle and Stephen Abany (there was a better link to another, better [and extensive] article detailing many of Romney's appointments, and why they were bad and objectively liberal and/or activist), Romney supports legal abortion "when the mother's health is a concern" which really translates [from politi-speak] to anytime and anywhere, Romney signed into law a gun ban, Romney signed into law socialized medicine, the man is not going to be good for the country.
The Paul crowd, and the Left, share that character flaw. You assume emotion based drivel screamed at volume make up for a complete lack of reason and fact.
Go take a look at my Post 29, specifically my reasons for being against the War on Drugs... can you honestly say that those reasons are "emotion based drivel screamed at volume"? (Or do you need me to lay them out step by step?)
The veneer of reason the Paul crowd affects is about a millimeter thick.
Where exactly are you getting the reasons for lumping me in "the Paul crowd" if I haven't really said anything in support of him on this thread.
Could it be that you are emotionally reacting to my rejection of Romney, someone I consider to be just as dangerous as Obama?
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