Posted on 12/29/2011 7:02:41 AM PST by Kaslin
After the most recent GOP presidential debate, reasonable people can disagree as to who came out on top. It was abundantly clear, however, who was smothered beneath the pile.
As Ron Paul waxed naive from his perch in Sioux City, Iowa, on issues ranging from foreign policy to judicial activism, one could almost hear his campaign bus tires deflate. Although some polls indicate that Mr. Paul has surged in Iowa, most national polls suggest that, beyond a relatively fixed throng of blindly devoted “Paulbots,” support for the eccentric Texas lawmaker has a concrete ceiling.
Mr. Paul did himself no favors during the debate. Afterward, former Iowa House Speaker Christopher C. Rants blogged, “Ron Paul finally lit a match after dousing himself with gasoline.”
Putting aside for a moment Mr. Paul’s leftist policies on a variety of social issues ranging from his unwavering support for newfangled “gay rights” – to include open homosexuality in the military – to advocacy for across-the-board legalization of illicit drugs, Mr. Paul demonstrated that he has a dangerous, fundamental misunderstanding of the threat posed to every American citizen by radical Islam. This alone disqualifies him for serious consideration as our future Commander in Chief.
During the debate, moderator Bret Baier asked Mr. Paul: “Many Middle East experts now say Iran may be less than one year away from getting a nuclear weapon. … Even if you had solid intelligence that Iran was in fact going to get a nuclear weapon, President Paul would remove the U.S. sanctions on Iran - including those added by the Obama administration. So, to be clear, GOP nominee Paul would be running left of President Obama on Iran?”
Mr. Paul responded: “But I’d be running with the American people because it would be a much better policy.” (The only American people running with this policy risk running the rest of us off a cliff.)
He went on to reject a U.N. agency report that indicates Iran is within months of developing nuclear weaponry, calling it “war propaganda.” He then spouted the same anti-American talking points we’ve come to expect from the hard-left “progressive” establishment, blaming America for Iran’s efforts to go nuclear.
In defense of Islamic terrorists, not unlike those responsible for Sept. 11, Mr. Paul said, “Yeah, there are some radicals, but they don’t come here to kill us because we’re free and prosperous. … They come here and want to do us harm because we’re bombing them.
“I don’t want Iran to have a nuclear weapon,” he continued, all the while demonstrating to everyone watching that a President Paul would be unwilling to lift a finger to prevent it.
His pacifist ruminations prompted fellow presidential candidate Michele Bachmann to respond: “With all due respect to Ron Paul, I think I have never heard a more dangerous answer for American security than the one that we just heard from Ron Paul. … I’ll tell you the reason why, the reason why I would say that is because we know without a shadow of a doubt that Iran will take a nuclear weapon, they will use it to wipe our ally Israel off the face of the map, and they stated they will use it against the United States of America. Look no further than the Iranian constitution, which states unequivocally that their mission is to extend jihad across the world and eventually to set up a worldwide caliphate. We would be fools to ignore their purpose and their plan.”
Mr. Paul evidently is one of those fools. Iran is today’s version of Nazi Germany, and Mr. Paul’s obtuse strategy of reckless inaction affords him the dubious title of this generation’s Neville Chamberlain. Like Chamberlain’s fruitless appeasement, Mr. Paul’s similar strategy simply feeds the insatiable beast.
Don’t get me wrong. I personally like Ron Paul. He’s that affable - if not a little “zany” - uncle who has the whole family on edge at Thanksgiving. “Oh boy; what’s Uncle Ronny gonna say next?”
Still, you wouldn’t give Uncle Ronny the carving knife for the turkey, much less the keys to the Oval Office.
Mr. Paul is many things, but conservative is not one of them. He’s a died-in-the-wool libertarian. That’s one part conservative, two parts anarchist.
Ronald Reagan often spoke of a “three-legged stool” that undergirds true conservatism. The legs are represented by strong free-market economic principles, a strong national defense and strong social values. For the stool to remain upright, it must be supported by all three legs. If you snap off even one leg, the stool collapses under its own weight.
Mr. Paul is relatively conservative from an economic standpoint, but in true libertarian form, has snapped off the legs of national defense and social values.
The libertarian is a strange and rare little animal – a bit like the woolly flying squirrel. It spends its days erratically darting to-and-fro atop this teetering, one-legged stool in a futile effort to keep it from toppling. America witnessed Ron Paul doing this squirrelly libertarian tango on the night of December 15th. Cute but unstable.
Ron Paul never had a chance; but now, with the possible exception of his most committed devotees, I suspect most people will finally admit it. Regardless of what happens in Iowa, the Paul engine has run out of steam. During the debate it pulled into the station and released its final wheeze right alongside the Cain Train.
Sorry bud. Paul is not an appeaser. He is a strict Libertarian who follows the Founding Fathers’ warnings about involving ourselves in “foreign entanglements”. It’s an economic strategy.
We are broke in case you haven’t noticed and at this point any time we get sucked into some foreign war, it further weakens us. So, no you are wrong about the motivation, and yes, Ron Paul has principles unlike the ruling elite who are all over the place.
Dittos. Get rid of the Federal Reserve? Put a stop to the 12.5 million per day we waste on Israel? Music to my ears....
Look for the “dark horse” Rick Santorium looking a WHOLE LOT GOOD.
Amen.
I love Ron Paul. By the constitution. Period.
You hit it right out of the ball park!
You Paulitards are as clueless as your hero.
A Paulitard named Dubie...
Wow, you just can’t make that up...
Hey, I do not know all fo the guy’s views. I was answering an attack about his views on foreign entanglements.
Does he love Muslims? If so, he shouldn’t. Does he want to harm Israel? I don’t agree with harming the only Western-style country in the Middle East.
Does he think we shouldn’t be sucked into foreign entanglements? Yes and he is right about that. Libertarians have always been isolationist.
You saw how much credit we got for the massively expensive fight against the Nazis, the French asked us to leave. Really grateful they are not speaking German these days. /sarc
Now the administration has actually quietly sent OUR TROOPS INTO UGANDA!!!!!!!!!!!What interest is being pursued there at huge taxpayer expense, red expense.
Ridiculous. I can remember when I was in about 2nd grade hearign “Six cents out of every dollar is spent on national defense.” Heaven only knows what it is now.
Dont really agree with his policy that we should do nothing and just let Iran have the bomb. But.. Can we afford a war with Iran? We are over $15 trillion in debt. We are on our way of going the same route of the Soviets...spending so much on our military while domestic economy collapses under the heavy entitlements.
We need to start considering the national debt to a serious threat to the stability of the nation. Now if you balance the budget and you have money to spend on the war, then by all means, bomb the sons of bit**es. But you know... I really dont know if we are any healthier taking out another multi-trillion dollar loan to take down a 3rd world country on the other side of the planet. Not quite sure the public would be in favor of that.
Its a serious dilemma.
I have long believed that by looking at Paul’s eyes, he is either as nutty as a fruitcake, or he self-medicates.
Read a few biographies. The Founding Fathers were not "strict Libertarians" who are about the most dogmatic people on earth. Having said that, I'd vote for Paul over Obama, no question. I'm sympathetic with a lot of his positions and trust that at least when he says he'd cut 1 trillion he'd actually mean it (that is..he would insist on it not that the congress-critters wouldn't just over-ride him).
Don't forget Paul thinks that traitor Bradley Manning is a hero and a patriot. He also opposes building a fence along the southern border because of some bizarre idea that it would be used to prevent American's from fleeing to Mexico. The list of Paul's loopy ideas is really too long to list.
You Paulitards are as clueless as your hero.
Yup. Unfortunately FR is infested with paulbots these days.
The problem with Americans these days is that they have been led so damn far from the edicts of the constitution they don't even recognize it when slapped in the face with it.
Ron Paul as far as I can tell uses the constitution just as our founding fathers intended. A guidepost for all legislation and policy.
I don't agree with everything Paul says, but when he speaks about a subject, utilizing the constitutional guidepost I refer, folks have this dumbfounded look on their face.
Regardless of a Paul win, his input in this process is CRUCIAL to our freedom. There are those that want to shutdown this voice. Calling him a nut, loony and so forth.
Paul's positions are clearly listed on his website. I've read them all. Unlike many, they parrot crap they here without first doing simple research for themselves.
One of the reasons our republic is dying, instead of thinking for themselves, they act like lil parrots.
Paul's comes from a Christian family, served in the military, successfully completed studies to become a physician, then have served in Congress with a pretty damn good conservative voting record.
Win or lose, Paul is an accomplished, principled fella and as far as I can tell, the closest person to a true constitutionalist as I've seen in years.
I realize that the Founding Fathers were not Libertarians..........don’t confuse what I said. What I said was Paul is a Libertarian. AND that as such, Paul was following the Founding Fathers’ warnings about foreign entanglements.
Now do you see?
That is about the limit of thinking through their vision of the world.
It is a helluva list...
But that manning thing, its a good one as well...
Sorry ass SOB...
So the decades of racist newsletters does not matter to you? Ron Paul calling a traitor a hero, being a truther, participating frequently on fringe conspiracy nut shows, wanting to gut the US military, supporting Iran getting nukes, being a extreme isolationist, saying the Bush White House had “glee” after 9/11, and supporting the destruction of even more families and neighborhoods from dope don’t matter either?
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