Ron Loses It Again (Supermegabarfhurl Alert)

Politics and Eggs Breakfast, Bedford, NH | 19 December 2007 | C-Span

[OCCASparky]

A quote from Ron Paul's speech at Politics and Eggs breakfast airing on C-Span now (actual comments aired appx 9:25 pm EST):

"A president has a responsibility to, uh, you know, retaliate against an attack. I don't think there's been a good example of a need to do that throughout our whole history."

[CyberAnt]

Freightening is right .. a president’s prime responsibility is to PROTECT the people [as well as protect and defend the Constitution]. Evidently, Ron doesn’t believe he’s supposed to do either.

[blackie]

"SOME OF YOU MAY NOT BE OLD ENOUGH TO REMEMBER THAT NEARLY EVERY FAMILY IN AMERICA WAS GROSSLY AFFECTED BY WW II. MOST OF YOU MAY NOT REMEMBER THE RATIONING OF MEAT, SHOES, BUTTER, GASOLINE, AND SUGAR. NO TIRES FOR OUR AUTOMOBILES, AND A SPEED LIMIT OF 35 MILES AN HOUR ON THE ROAD, NOT TO MENTION, NO NEW AUTOMOBILES. READ THIS AND THINK ABOUT HOW WE WOULD REACT TO BEING TAKEN OVER BY FOREIGNERS IN 2008 or 2009."

I remember, I was eleven years old when the Nips bombed Pearl Harbor.

We had it better than most, my dad was a farmer in So-Cal and we had plenty of gas, tires (recaps,) meat (we butchered our own,) farmers got special exemptions, etc.

Those were exciting times for pre-teen, teen.

Patriotism was everywhere, people loved their country!

[God luvs America]

ding, ding, ding!!!

[Billthedrill]

I'm highly complimented at being asked, frankly. This goes rather far afield from the thread but does have a couple of interesting points of congruence.

That the United States has been given the opprobrium for the establishment of the state of Israel throughout not only the Arab world but most of the educated West as well is a triumph of Soviet propaganda. There had been a Zionist movement for years, but the initial push for the postwar creation of Israel was to a great deal Soviet, and it wasn't an altruistic effort to aid the Jews, it was a means of making mischief against the British, who had been assigned the mandate over Palestine since before the end of the first World War. Following the war of independence the U.S. and Soviet Union recognized the state of Israel within a few hours of one another.

Incidentally, it is one of the ironies of history that the pro-independence army was termed the Palestinian army in contemporary accounts. Run into that one in the old books and it's likely to leave you scratching your head for awhile.

The real source of the problem is the continuing support of Israel by the United States within the UN (who created the problem in the first place) and internationally. This is portrayed as an undue influence on the part of Jews within the U.S. political structure in support of a broader Zionist project. The most effective propaganda is partially true - yes, of course there's influence, and no, I do not consider it "undue." Don't try selling that point of view to a determined conspiracy enthusiast.

The difficulty, as in all things with regard to foreign policy, is past commitments we are obligated to live up to because somebody in a position of authority agreed to do so. Aid to the entire area is one example of this. Essentially the Israelis don't really need it but we're giving it to them because we're giving it to the Palestinians in order to get them not to fight. For better or worse we agreed to this. One difficulty with the inception of a radical shift in foreign policy such as the ones recommended by Paul is that breaking these commitments carries with it its own disadvantages. Who will make a commitment with a country that discards them every time a Presidential election comes around?

That does not mean we're entirely stuck. In this I agree with Paul, at least partially - if what we're paying for is peace and we're not getting peace then why continue paying?

Getting back to your original question, the real issue is that the problem is historically complex and subtle, and frankly blaming the United States saves the blamer the trouble of attempting to understand it.

It's a backhanded compliment in a way - most historical treatments, even in the eyes of our political opponents, are fantastically U.S.-centric and imbue us with intentions and a level of power that we simply don't have. The notion that the world is as it is out of an enormous conspiracy is easier to fathom than the truth that it is the resultant of a myriad of little decisions that were made for what seemed sound reasons at the time. The notion that principle should guide policy decisions is a good one. The practice of taking a set of policy decisions and ascribing - accusing would be a better word - them to a malign principle in retrospect keeps a lot of popular historians in business but simply isn't the way we got to where we are. IMHO, of course.

[Sunny Poipu]

It’s an abomination to those who had to choose between continuing to be incinerated alive or leap from 1,000 feet in the air that he feels safe to make such comments.

[Luke21]

This guy reminds me of Pat Paulsen, but at least he was trying to be funny.

[Momaw Nadon]

YouTube - Ron Paul - 12-19-07- Politics-n-Eggs Breakfast - NH -Part 3, about 5 minutes in

Upon further review, the quote was taken out of context.

Sorry about jumping to conclusions without seeing the entire video first.

No foul.

BTW, I am a Duncan Hunter supporter and have never supported the Ron Paul campaign.

[George W. Bush]

Not so.

I notice your quaint little history of Iraq completely ignores the British invasion eighty years ago, the slogan "we come not as conquerors but as liberators", and all the other rather comedic parallels to Parliament and the debate in our Congress, like they just recycled the script. Our revival of this little British production has played to tepid audiences, much as the original cast did.

The British Mandate of Mesopotamia - At the end of World War I, the League of Nations granted the area to the United Kingdom as a mandate. It initially formed two former Ottoman vilayets (regions): Baghdad, and Basra into a single country in August 1921. Five years later, in 1926, the northern vilayet of Mosul was added, forming the territorial boundaries of the modern Iraqi state.

And the Kurds of the appended vilayet? Those pesky savages that Winston Churchill was referring to when praising the merits of poison gas warfare circa 1919? I think the Churchill worshippers need to be reminded of his real policies occasionally.

---

Winston S. Churchill: departmental minute (Churchill papers: 16/16) 12 May 1919 War Office

I do not understand this squeamishness about the use of gas. We have definitely adopted the position at the Peace Conference of arguing in favour of the retention of gas as a permanent method of warfare. It is sheer affectation to lacerate a man with the poisonous fragment of a bursting shell and to boggle at making his eyes water by means of lachrymatory gas.

I am strongly in favour of using poisoned gas against uncivilised tribes. The moral effect should be so good that the loss of life should be reduced to a minimum. It is not necessary to use only the most deadly gasses: gasses can be used which cause great inconvenience and would spread a lively terror and yet would leave no serious permanent effects on most of those affected.

from Companion Volume 4, Part 1 of the official biography, WINSTON S. CHURCHILL, by Martin Gilbert (London: Heinemann, 1976)

Winston Churchill's Secret Poison Gas Memo and other writings

---

I like these little historical gems. They are revealing of the means and methods of empires throughout history. People prefer to see these actors as titans of history than to see what fallible human beings they are and how easily they fall into brutal ways.

So, it's no sale for your tidy little Golden Age Of Baghdad. It's an old military district of the British empire, seized following the Ottoman collapse and given a veneer of legitimacy by the useless but amusingly named League of Nations which our Senate soundly refused to ratify.

One can assemble such a rosy little narrative for almost any region and it is actually pretty routine. Creativity is a plus. However, the lines on the British maps were not drawn on that basis. Nor were they under the Ottoman satraps. The kinds of nostalgic and dreamy writings you quote are produced well after the fact and are used as a justification for restoration or revanchism. They are a familiar propaganda narrative over the last few hundred years.

I'm rather surprised anyone familiar with the region would take such a fairy tale at face value.

If the residents of the old Mesopotamian Mandate do actually have any desire to make it into a real nation, they sure have peculiar ways of demonstrating that when they've had every opportunity to make progress. Instead, they go on vacation, refuse even the smallest compromises between factions, allow the Ministry of the Interior to become an armed and dangerous camp of corruption, etc.

Now, the Kurds, there you can see real progress and genuine national identity, the problem being that their kinsmen in western Iran and southern Turkey make those countries so nervous. They even have good commerce and elections and treat the Christian minority and the other strange minority sects in the area quite well with a good general human rights record to boot.

The Kurds might make themselves a nation. But Iraq? No real signs of it. It's sad too. The ordinary people of the area really are in a bad situation but our presence is a bandaid, not a solution.

[luvie]

"I don't think there's been a good example of a need to do that throughout our whole history."

"I don't think". There, that's fixed.

[George W. Bush]

Anyway, this isn't Breaking News, and it does FR a disservice for a false hearsay report to be at the top of Breaking News for an extended period of time.

And that is the choice of the forum owner. It is his property. We RP folk do believe in property rights after all.

[George W. Bush]

If these RP trolls spent as much time promoting their own GOP candidate as they did trying to slime RP, we just might get a Republican into the White House. But I am thinking that they might rather Hillary win!

EEE and I can probably find at least 20 different quotes by FReepers on these threads that stated outright that they would vote for Hitlery when (if) Ron Paul becomes the 2008 GOP nominee.

Now I wish I would have bookmarked them all.

Yes, they would vote for Her Thighness and a return to Xlintonism. That says a lot more about them than it does about Ron Paul and his supporters.

[Luke21]

My point is that none of the other Republican candidates are vilified to the point Ron Paul is, and those who support him. It’s not a matter of arguing points or his position, just a lot of name calling. I find that very odd for this board.

Good night. Have you read the Romney threads this morning? Are you aware that a number of long time Freepers were banned from here after a civil war over Giuliani?

Your candidate is an idiot. He’s an imbecile. He says stupid things. My grandfather was a better speechmaker after he lost his marbles than your candidate. He can’t put two straight sentences together and look like he’s going to drool on himself.

I gave the guy a hearing. I’m very, very conservative. But the more I watched the less I liked. This is not personal. We are a collection of screennames. Don’t take it that way.

[George W. Bush]

Upon further review, the quote was taken out of context. BTW, I am a Duncan Hunter supporter and have never supported the Ron Paul campaign.

Thanks for being fair. There is such a thing as just being honest and standing for the facts.

Few of the Duncan folk have gone in for this dishonest trolling. And Duncan and his fence bill did save us from an election utter disaster in 2006, something the national party will never acknowledge.

And this is trolling, to put it mildly. Many, perhaps most, of these people know perfectly well that they are libeling Ron Paul. It is deliberate dishonesty and goes well beyond what they would do even to the more hated Democrats in the country.

I'm not sure exactly what justifies doing this to our own forum over a candidate they all say can never break 1% in the primaries.

[Bokababe]

"Upon further review, the quote was taken out of context. Sorry about jumping to conclusions without seeing the entire video first. No foul. BTW, I am a Duncan Hunter supporter and have never supported the Ron Paul campaign."

Thanks, Momaw. Hunter people have been the most civil & fair non-Paulers on FR. Gives me more respect for your candidate, based on the kind of people who support him.

[George W. Bush]

Hunter people have been the most civil & fair non-Paulers on FR.

I can think of only one Mittster who has trolled us. And every crowd has at least one like that.

[Uriah_lost]

I cried when Ol’ Yeller died and I wear it like a badge of honor!

[Mitchell]

Upon further review, the quote was taken out of context.

Sorry about jumping to conclusions without seeing the entire video first.

No foul.

Thanks, Momaw Nadon. Your post confirms what I already knew, that most people on FR are fair-minded.

Paul is just saying that we don't live in a dictatorship so it normally isn't up to the President all by himself to authorize a military retaliation; under usual circumstances, Congress needs to provide the Constitutional authorization.

Paul would agree that, of course, there have been many cases requiring U.S. retaliation. But that means retaliation authorized by Congress (and then carried out by the President as Commander-in-Chief), since that's how the United States government works under the Constitution.

There haven't yet been any unusual cases that where there was so little time to get Congressional approval that the President could reasonably have retaliated unilaterally.

[kinsman redeemer]

There's a guy (in my church) who brings his car early and parks it in the most predominate spot in the lot. For weeks, the car has been loaded with Ron Paul signs.

I wonder if he will:
A. Come to church tomorrow
B. Take the signs off
C. Find another church
D. Come in with John Edwards signs.

We shall see.

BTW - his wife comes in a separate car.

[Diamond]

Well, mainly because they view Saudi Arabia as the holy lands, while we view Baltimore as a sh**hole.

LOL.

I think though, that they view the whole world as their "holy lands", with some lands just remaining to to be conquered. That's the problem we face.

Cordially,

[NCSteve]

As usual, the toddlers here on FR wax hysterical over their own FUD.

How very, very tiresome.