Ron Paul is Dangerous

Townhall.com ^ | December 29, 2011 | Matt Barber

[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.

[Sudetenland]

"The libertarian is a strange and rare little animal . . ."

Say rather, the libertarian is a Utopian fool. The failure of the Paulian/libertarian vision of social and foreign policy is the same as the failure of the Marxist Utopian vision.

Neither of those two flawed philosophies has the slightest understanding of human nature and, interestingly, they both make the same mistake . . . that man is a perfectible animal. It is also the vain assumption that atheists make. They simply can't understand that, given his own free will, man will take as much power as he can gather to himself and trample on the rights of any other to gain and retain that power (or wealth). Also interestingly, it is the same mistake that democrats (small "d") make.

The sheer brilliance of our Founding Fathers is that they understood the frailties and deficiencies of man and tried to set up a system that would counter those venal and corrupt qualities without hindering men's abilities to strive towards greatness.

The gravest mistake all those groups make is in assuming that men will behave themselves solely out of enlightened self-interest. Marxist believe that men will work for the sheer joy of serving the state and their fellow man. Libertarians believe that men will restrain themselves from dominating their neighbors, because it makes good sense to do so--both economically and socially. Democrats (small "d") believe that the will of the majority is always right and that they too will not oppress their neighbors rights, because it is in their own self-interest to restrain themselves. Atheists believe that men don't need God to tell them to behave morally.

Thousands of years of history has proven them all wrong.

Paul is wrong because he bases his entire philosophy on wrong assumptions.

[DugwayDuke]

“Paul was following the Founding Fathers’ warnings about foreign entanglements.”

You must be referring to those Founding Fathers who fought an undeclared war on France (The Quasi War), the War of 1812, sent the US Navy into the Med to invade Tripoli, and established the Monroe Doctrine? Those Founding Fathers did a lot of ‘entangling’, didn’t they?

[The_Media_never_lie]

You’ve got Obama as President and you’re telling me Paul is dangerous? Give me a break........

[bkepley]

Yes or Jefferson’s threat to resign his post because he couldn’t budge Washington on supporting the French revolutionaries against Britain.

[Old Sarge]

Jaysus, Kaslin, you really brought out the Paulbots this morning! Complete with indefensible arguements and ad hominems.

[Scoutmaster]

For years a great deal of attention has been paid to 'racist' remarks published on a monthly basis over a period of almost twenty years in a newsletter bearing Ron Paul's name and photo. Paul made almost $1 million a year from the newsletter and it was promoted using his letterhead and signed, handwritten notes. What one should note, and what I'll provide examples of, is that Paul's newsletters didn't just touch on racial issues. They were filled with government conspiracy rantings, advice to militias, New World Order alerts, wacky medical advice, and a hodge podge of the kinds of things you would try to ignore from your crazy uncle at the Thanksgiving table - the one you've checked out of the facility for the day and placed in the far corner, with a bib and only a spoon, because forks and knives have points and sharp edges.

Paul's supporters say that Paul didn't know what was in the newsletters and that he says he is not a racist. Disregarding the fact that Paul's previous defense was not a denial of knowledge, but that the racial facts were based on sociological studies, the man demonstrated he can't be trusted to run a country, if he runs a business by turning it over to crazies for twenty years with no supervision or oversight while collecting a million a year, signing promotional materials, providing content (see below), and just letting the lunatics free on his watch. There is no Get Out Of Jai Free card. He was either incompetent or a raging nut case. And it's not a case of one youthful indiscretion. When he made these comments in the 1970s and 1980s he wasn't a kid . . . and it's more like a few hundreds indiscretions than one.

And the fact is Ron Paul didn't just occasionally write about race and he didn't turn the content over to somebody else. His newsletters were a written form of Attention Deficit Disorder. They never stayed on subject, sometimes changing the topic from paragraph to paragraph. They included first-person notes about his wife and son, his Congressional colleagues, his medical advice, financial invest (buy gold!), and world events, with contrapuntal notes about blacks, Jews, militia, Trilateralists, Jews, blacks, conspiracies, blacks, AIDs, blacks, how-to-kill-a-criminal-punk-and-not-leave-evidence, Jews, blacks, the New World Order, and blacks. These were personal investment and political newsletters from Paul that suffered from Tourettes attacks of an unseemly kind. Did you notice I mentioned blacks and Jews a lot? Well, so did Paul.

I've been 'blessed' by a friend with all or parts of over 50 Ron Paul newsletters. Some of you may agree with parts of these, but take the work as a whole. Remember it was written by a Congressman. Try to imagine that nobody ever said anything to Paul about this content and he didn't know it was being written, over a period of twenty years. Imagine trying to run against Obama while defending the soundbites that come from this stuff. Consider the juxtaposition of some of these comments (I particular love how 'buy gold!' pops up, including the "guy gold! those d*mn black! buy gold! segments). Or the "hey, I have a Jew friend and he done told me that them Massad fellas are the ones what blowed up the World Trade Center" segment. And for anything I have here, I have 100 more. Yeah, run on that, Ron.

(no, didn't look like Ron Paul had anything to do with that newsletter)

("I'm a physician and a Congressman, so I should spread this rumor about government-made AIDs")

(Keep those gay Republican colleagues of mine from having sex in the Congressional gym!)

(Faulty medical advice; BUY GOLD!)

If Paul wins Iowa, it's a black eye for the Republican Party.

[Proud2BeRight]

“I could support his stance. As he says, most, if not all of the audience is not going to run out to buy heroin the instant it gets decriminalized. But the decriminalization will have the effect of reducing drug murders, won’t it? And that would actually be good for neighborhoods and families, now wouldn’t it?”

That certainly shows how naive (and wrong) Paul is. Crime would increase significantly as easier and no-penalty dope purchase and use would push an even greater supply to an even larger demand. But then, easier dope use is the main platform issue that attracts most of his cult anyway.

[servantboy777]

>>Iranians actually killed US servicemen.
If that did not elicit a response then what would?<<

Thanx, perfect example! The majority of the 911 attackers were Saudi....did we hold Saudi Arabia's feet to the fire?

During the Iraq war, it was well known that Iranians were knee deep in killing our soldiers. I mean we have hard evidence, how did we respond?

Sure, we took out some Al Queda training camps at the onset of our response to 911, but 12 years later? Hundreds of billions later, scores of wounded/dead Americans...really, I mean seriously.

Look at Iraq plummeting back into chaos. I watch Bolton (which I respect) talking last night that leaving Iraq was failed policy.

Huh? How long are we supposed to stay? How many billions do we pump into this barbaric society? How many lives lost?

I say, enoughs enough already. Hell, if anything, can we as a nation just freakin pause and regroup?

A sinking lifeboat helps NO ONE. As far as I can tell, this lifeboat called America is in serious trouble of sinking.

[yldstrk]

ha ha ha.

You are funny

[Scoutmaster]

Okay. I left out a bunch of New World Order, “Jimmy Carter is a Trilateralist and part of the conspiracy”, “this George Bush meeting proves the New World Order’ images. Do I really need to post that? I already feel as if I have to soak my computer in bleach just from having Ron Paul’s newsletters on the hard drive.

[ejonesie22]

Now now, don't use facts with Paulitards, it makes them crazy...

[GOPJ]

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

If we hadn't fought the Nazis in World War II, WE would be speaking German today. I don't care if the French are grateful or not - I care that my family is alive and free - and NOT speaking German.

God only knows what groups Hitler would have thrown into American ovens...Irish Americans? Appalachians? There weren't enough Jews here to keep his hate machine going - and 'others' would have to be found...

YOU can thank your lucky stars that war was fought.

That said, most of the battles we've been involved in recently have been a waste of time and treasure. The middle east is a bottomless pit of hopelessness. With one exception: Israel.

Supporting Israel - the only democracy in the Middle East - is NOT a waste of time or treasure. It's just and within our tradition to support a democracy. That's our mission. Period. Our mission is NOT to support dictators, power hungry goons, Arab sheiks, thugs, Muslim extremists, Marxists, or populations that desire the boot to their neck. Those folks need to learn the value of freedom the hard way...

[Proud2BeRight]

“Ok, the “glee” video is not being happy 9-11 happened. He is saying the White House jumped on 9-11 as a reason to invade Iraq, which it did.”

Glee: n. Jubilant delight; joy.

The crackpot said “glee”. So to defend him on just one of many facets of his being a 9/11 nutjob you imply that he is Bidenesque.

[Scoutmaster]

Oh. And on behalf of Ron Paul:

"Those d*mn Jews:"

Will the orderlies please fasten his leather straps?

[yldstrk]

You lost me bud

[Double Tap]

Ok, now as for being a “truther” the use of that word indicates you are perfectly satisfied with having in the White House an executive with all closed records, unaccounted time in Pakistan and no conceivable means of support....who published two obviously fake birth certificates in answer to demands for something I showed on behalf of my kid so he could play Little League.

I think you are confusing terms. A Truther is someone who believes the US government was behind the attack on 9/11/01. A believer in the Alex Jones insanity.

The term you are mistaking is "Birther". Since the Birther belief actually may have merit, I'm sure Ron Paul would not touch it.

[spaced]

“Dont really agree with his policy that we should do nothing and just let Iran have the bomb.”

And we’ve done such a great job of keeping others from building bombs. Lemme see, first we kept it from Russia and China... Then we prevented Pakistan, India and North Korea from building the bomb - not.

Yet, in spite of mad leaders and decades of continuous war, the last nuclear war was over 55 years ago.(Hiroshima and Nagasaki)

[yldstrk]

oh gotcha. Ok

[Proud2BeRight]

“Now now, don’t use facts with Paulitards, it makes them crazy...”

The fun with facts is that the Paul cultists have to defend him by twisting the subject, misdirection, and smoke and mirrors. It is fun to watch how screwed up their reasoning is.
Yep, facts are stubborn things.

[Kansas58]

Ron Paul is a racist anti Semite and is naive and reckless on defense matters. Ron Paul thinks that AIDS was a military germ warfare program gone bad. Ron Paul flirts with “9-11 Truthers” -— Ron Paul is a nut job. A Constitutional nut job is still a nut job!