Posted on 07/21/2015 4:30:47 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
“The U.S. Empire received a big boost from the 9/11 attack.”
Former Rep. Ron Paul, the father of presidential candidate Rand Paul and past two-time candidate for the Republican nomination himself, writes in his new book that he believes “Zionism has played a role in our post-9/11 march toward empire.”
Paul’s book, Swords into Plowshares: A Life in Wartime and a Future of Peace and Prosperity, was released last Friday.
“Zionism has played a role in our post-9/11 march toward empire, and its influence has encouraged extreme interference in the Middle East,” Paul writes in a chapter entitled “Making America Safe for Empire,” under the sub-chapter, “Tyranny takes hold.”
Paul was writing about how “theocracy has always been abused,” in the paragraph preceding his comments on Zionism.
Here’s the full paragraph:
Americans generally see spiritual safety as being in the realm of religion and theology and political philosophy as being determined by the professors and others who dwell on esoteric ideas. There is theocracy when the theologians gain control of the state to offer salvation and eternal life through using force to impose their will and enforce their rules. Theocracy has always been abused. The Founders feared it and worked hard to prevent it. Supporters of radical Islam frequently endorse a theocratic system. Aggressive Christian Zionists also like to use the state to promote their theological beliefs, especially in foreign policy and with social gospel teachings. Zionism has played a role in our post-9/11 march toward empire, and its influence has encouraged extreme interference in the Middle East.
Paul introduces the idea of the U.S. empire in the chapter titled, “Pursuing U.S. Empire,” in which he states, “Our obsession with expanding our sphere of influence around the world was designed to promote an empire. It was never for true national security purposes.”
Later in the chapter, “Making America Safe for Empire,” Paul writes in sub-chapter “The 9/11 boost to U.S. Empire,” that the Patriot Act was written before 9/11 “when the condition were not ripe for its passage. 9/11 took care of that.”
“The U.S. Empire received a big boost from the 9/11 attack,” writes Paul. “Paul O’Neill, George W. Bush’s first secretary of the treasury, reported he was shocked that in the very first National Security Council meeting— ten days after Bush’s January 2001 inauguration— the discussion was about when, not if, the U.S. should invade Iraq.”
“We also know that the PATRIOT Act was written a long time before 9/11, when the conditions were not ripe for its passage,” Paul continues. “Nine-eleven took care of that. The bill quickly passed in the U.S. House and Senate with minimal debate and understanding. Bush signed the bill into law on Oct. 26, 2001, a mere 45 days after the attack. Making use of a crisis is established policy.”
Paul also writes our leaders explained al-Qaeda attacked us “because of our freedom and prosperity,” to avoid “scrutiny of our foreign policy.”
“The reasons for the attack were fully described by bin Laden,” he writes. “His reasons were simple and straightforward. One: foreign troops on the holy land of the Arabian Peninsula. Two: constant bombing and lethal sanctions against Iraq. Three: favoritism for Israel over the Palestinians. There is zero evidence that the attacks were motivated by hatred of Americans because of our freedom and prosperity. The terrorists simply did not like the U.S. constantly meddling in the affairs of the entire Middle East region, defiling their holy land, and causing death and destruction for their people.”
Then he was an absolute idiot, ignorant of current events, and had no place in the Cabinet. At the time, Hussein was defying UN Inspectors and engaging US aircraft enforcing the No Fly Zone.
Ron Paul’s nuttin’ but a vile old man
Opening his mouth whenever he can.
Now that we know that he doesn’t like Jews
I hope that’s changed a lot of peoples’ views.
We need this ‘tard like a “loch en kopf” (hole in the head)
As for me, I’ve heard quite enough.
Keep your garbage to yourself, you outer space-oid
Or take it to a soapbox out in the Void.
We were the only country with nuclear weapons for four years, as I recall, and could’ve put the kibosh on the Soviet program in two days.
Is Ron still selling financial doomsday advice?
If you’d like to be on or off, please FR mail me.
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Always nice to hear from Ron.
If you’d like to be on or off, please FR mail me.
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Well said.
Basically the Paulneonuts agree with Iran, and the rest of Israel’s enemies, they hate Israel’s right to exist.
Like father, like son, Rand Paul deep belifes are the same, he has kept them well hidden for now.
And I believe it has rubbed off on his son.
Damn I wish they had a like/dislike button on FR but I agree 100% with you on this. If Saddam had cooperated with the inspectors instead of screwing them around there would not have been an invasion. He lied and pushed the issues of WMD to the limits and he got his ass kicked then hung.
Agreed. We hoped Rand would prove better then Ron about defense and foreign affairs matters - but it was not to be.
Which one are you?
And that is where Rand Paul gets his isolasionist tendencies.
And the difference is....?
Well I definitely disagree with Ron Paul that Americans typically understand "spiritual safety," in the end (because "church" and "state" are never as completely or neatly separated as he evidently wants to believe), as reducible to the maxim: "political philosophy [is] determined by the professors and others who dwell on esoteric ideas."
Most Americans — leaving out the doctrinaire Libertarian Paulians and Left Progressives — do not believe that the American system of liberty and justice under law premised on the principle of inalienable — because God-endowed — rights for each and every citizen depends on "professors and others who dwell on esoteric ideas" for validation.
America is not rooted in "esoteric ideas." America is rooted in the Constitution and American historical experience.
Ron Paul to me is an interesting curmudgeon who doesn't have a clue about what it takes to make societies function towards the well-being of their citizenry; i.e., the Common Good. I strongly doubt he has any well-articulated notion of what the Common (public) Good even is.
And I suspect that his son is just an apple that has not fallen far from the paternal tree.... But if he were to be the GOP nominee, I would, and will vote if I had to, for Rand Paul as the "lesser of two weavils." For even though I regard him as a deranged Libertarian, almost completely out of touch with core American values, he would be infinitely preferable in my book to an opposition candidate who effectively stands for an Obama third-term....
Which is what I would expect from a Hillary Clinton presidency.
JMHO FWIW
So many libertarians are atheists, so it is hard to take them seriously. An atheist, after all can justify anything. Lying is fine for an atheist, so why trust the word of a libertarian who says he is not an atheist?
Indeed. That's probably at least part of the reason that I tend to scorn Libertarians. But the rest of it consists in the hatchet-job that Ayn Rand — that infantile ignoramus — perpetrated on Plato's works and reputation. So many Libertarians light candles, and give their obeisance, to that very strange woman.
Bottom line, atheists have no ground or measure for objective Truth. Once you get rid of God, you have nothing to stand on in that way. So they just make it up as they go along, citing "reason" as a defense.
But Reason, absent a Ground in Truth, becomes unreasonable.
JMHO FWIW
“Atlas Shrugged” and “The Fountainhead” were so big among us ‘sort-of-hip’ young in the late 60’s. We couldn’t be hippies, because we weren’t going to San Francisco to put flowers in our hair unless our parents paid for the ticket, and they weren’t paying. So we became enamored of John Galt who was a drop-out in a different way. We pretended to great ideas when those unwrapped were really that we didn’t believe anything. And so, inadvertently, I found myself a hedonist because that was the direction of the culture and made as much sense as anything else. The philosophy, played out by my lack of beliefs, led me straight to meaninglessness, shameful behavior, and finally a recognition that I was alone in this big old world — truly alone — and that absolutely no one really cared, for how could they, since they, too, were automatons, nothing more than electrified, reacting globs of protoplasm?
And then one night there was a knock at my door. Rev 3:20. Maybe it was a dream, a fantasy, a who in the world knows, but I found myself on my knees begging Jesus to make Himself real to me. To this day I don’t know how He knocked on my door. I just know that the simple memory verse from Sunday School, and drummed into me by Godly parents came to me, “Behold I stand at the door and knock...”
My own change, and my own experience is proof to me that atheism is a dead end and that Jesus is the Way.
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