Topic: Ron Paul
Why the Internet Community Supports Ron Paul Originally a response to "Will the Web Pull the Rug From Under Ron Paul's Feet" by Seattle Post-Intelligencer. by Grizzle Griz
(libertarian)
Saturday, December 8, 2007
This originated as a response to an article by Seattle PI
If Ron Paul has a handicap, it's that his ideas are esoteric and difficult for quick consumption. He doesn't resort to the easy-out demagogy that seems to be political par these days. Instead, he engages the more robust discussions that Americans entertain in coffee shops and academic quarters. As Glen Greenwald at Salon.com describes, "While Barack Obama toys with the rhetoric of challenging conventional wisdom, Paul's campaign -- for better or worse -- actually does so, and does so in an extremely serious, thoughtful and coherent way."
This sort of thinking is ill-suited for the soundbite-oriented mainstream outlets. It can only be understood in its entirety by doing enough research on the Internet. Thus, the Internet is where Ron Paul flourishes.
Second, he regularly challenges the conventional wisdom of Washington D.C. Objectively, his points are equally valid; he pits trade against war, low taxes against corporate welfare, lower grocery prices against agriculture subsidies. But again, the common assumption that politicians succumb to the whims of Washington can only be overcome by researching the theories that underlie his beliefs. Why, for instance, was he the only Congressman who opposed casting a posthumous gold medal for Rosa Parks? It turns out, he wasn't opposed to casting the medal per se, "Rosa Parks is a hero of mine...I believe in civil disobedience", he said. Instead, he offered to help pay for it with his own money and encouraged other Congressmen to do the same. They would not.
Paul makes an excellent point here: Why is congress willing to raid your Social Security and tax you for a medal that they're not willing to pay for themselves? Meanwhile, they have set up a lucrative pension plan in which Ron Paul refuses to partake. If you use the Internet, you can delineate these points. But if you get all your information from the major outlets, you'll hear "Ron Paul hates Rosa Parks".
This article also evidences this phenomenon. It says that Paul blamed the attacks on 9/11 on American foreign policy. That was a demagogic simplification of his statement. It was first misconstrued by the moderator at the debate, then by Giuliani, and now Sean Hannity and Bill O'Reiley. Bill Maher even corrected Chris Dodd about this by explaining , "Excuse me Senator, but that is just what the Republicans at the debate were trying to do, they were trying to say that he blamed America for 9/11". Yet, he wasn't talking about a good-and-evil blame-game that informs most of our Bush-era understanding of the world. He was talking about geopolitical cause-and-effect. The fact that he is correct according to the 9/11 Commission report, the CIA's declassified intelligence, and Paul Wolfowitz himself seems to matter little to voters who don't have the time to do internet research.
The fact is that Paul addresses the real issues that America faces. There is no doubt that Social Security is crumbling. Rogue economists who set out to buy time for Democrats cannot overwhelm the weight of economic wisdom that a system of IOUs backed by IOUs that the government wrote to itself, simply cannot sustain. The value of the dollar is deteriorating and inflation will be our next biggest long-term financial crisis according to Greenspan. The cost of our war is increasing with no viable end -not to mention the cost of maintaining troops deployed all over the world. All of these put together are recipe for financial collapse.
Paul's wisdom hails from the school of foresight. While conventional politicians go to great efforts to secure legacies by pushing problems down to their successors, Paul stands for the idea that we can address them now, on our terms. One thing is certain though; we *will* address them. Hillary Clinton and George Bush may be in wheelchairs when we do. But an entire generation of Americans who will be worried about putting farm-subsidized bread on the table and will suffer the real, difficult consequences of government largess...well, they tend to use the Internet.
Here is the original article.
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The views expressed in this
article are those of Grizzle Griz only and do not represent
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Nice column, nice conclusion, good points, Thanks!
May I offer a minor suggestion for improvement? It would help me if you were to edit and add a link to the original SPI article you are responding to, if it is in fact still on-line.
Paul's opposition to the War in Iraq, is not an oversimplification at all. Ron Paul is opposed to all Wars for any reason, even if America is attacked. Those of us on his Congressional staff had to literally beg him to support the resolution to go after the Taliban/Al Qaeda after the attacks of 9/11. Two of us threated to resign. His own family jumped all over him about it, and his own wife Carole, was super pissed off at him. Only jerkoff Joe Becker, our Legislative Director at the time, of all 22 staffers, and all of Ron's family members and friends, stood with Ron urging him to vote "No." On the eve of the vote he finally told Joe that he was going to vote "Yay," because of all the political pressure. Ron Paul is opposed to the Death Penalty. He fiercely opposes Abortion. He opposes all Wars, because he is vehemently pacifist. Go ahead ask him yourselves. He'll tell you straight out, that he opposes all Wars for any reason. Hell, he even opposed our getting involved in WWII and thinks that the Confederates were right to succeed in the 1860s, and should have been left alone. He absolutely despises Lincoln. Ron Paul is an outright pacifist. Don't try to sugarcoat it. He is a complete liberal pacifist.
Dondero is a bloodthirsty warmonger. Go ahead and ask him yourselves. He'll tell you straight out, that he supports all Wars for any reason. Hell, he even supports our getting involved in WWII despite the fact that Hitler was already defeated and couldn't feed his troops or fuel his tanks and thinks that the Confederates were wrong to succeed in the 1860s, and wishes that the north slaughtered them all despite the fact that the Federal government broke its contract with the southern States. He absolutely loves Lincoln even though Lincoln favored a constitutional amendment to purchase and deport slaves. Dondero is an outright warmonger. Don't try to sugarcoat it. He is a complete neocon warmonger.
This Dondero guy represents himself as some sort of political professional...what a laugh! Doesn't know the difference between "yea" (a yes vote) and "yay" (as in hooray), between "succeed" (to win) and "secede" (to split off), he capitalizes "war", "abortion", and "death penalty" as if they were proper nouns...a bitter little stooge who doesn't even have a grasp of the English language and spews lies about his ex-employer.
As for not supporting the Afghan part of the "war on terror" scam - did we catch Bin Laden? No. Did we stop the growth of the Taliban etc? No. Did we end up bankruping our nation and killing thousands of U.S. servicemen and innocent Anghan civilians, thus providing inspiration for terrorist recruiters? Yes.
I watched the towers burning out my bedroom window across the East River, and I'd happily strangle any of the responsible parties with my bare hands. I opposed that attack, and I'm no liberal pacifist, and neither is Paul.
You want to know why we never got Bin Laden, and why the Taliban is growing stronger and stronger in the "friendly dictatorship" of Pakistan? Because these wars had NOTHING to do with preventing terrorism, capturing Bin Laden, or even revenge for that matter. The plans, authored by Dick Cheney and similar filth, were published long before 9-11.
Instead of trying to actually trying to address the situations that led to 9-11, the Bushie fake-conservatives hijacked our pain and suffering to fulfill totally unrelated goals.
Posted By: Linda Inveninato
Date: 2007-12-09 09:26:07
Mr Dondero,sir:
Ron Paul's hesitancy to go into an all out war with Afghanistan was because the government of Afghanistan was not responsible for the actions of Bin Laden and Al Qaeda. Afghanistan is a third world county having almost no money. Bin Laden and Al Qaeda have no country supporting them as a regular army would have, they are terrorists. Cetainly you can agree that the attempt to find bin Laden by going to war in Afghanistan was useless. Bin Laden has not been caught.
Ron Paul sees no immediate threat to the US in the current world. He feels its time to protect our own borders while taking care of the economy at home.
The Bush administration is based on warmongering profiteering. Many, Many people have become very very rich while our country's debt has grown to over $9,000,000,000,000.
President Bush's administration has turned our great country into a debtor nation...with a huge military/DOD costing nearly $1,000,000,000,000/year.
Merry Christmas, sir.
Great article, Griz! I may not agree with everything Ron Paul stands for, but you make a good case for why a politician with a coherent ideology and a principled approach to governance is a rare and wonderful thing. It's a shame Dr. Paul isn't taken more seriously by the Washington establishment and mainstream media. We need more candidates like him and more commentators like you. Keep up the good work!
Dondero I've seen your rants about how the muslim population is conspiring to destroy our way of life. It's been 6 years now and Al Qaida is still at large. Clinton had a dozen times to kill Osama. Bush and the King of the crazies haven't done much better. You can give your islamofascist democracy but they will still be islamofascist.
None of the prowar candidates are going to go after Al Qaida. They don't care if Osama get's the bomb. The war party just wants to kill Iranians. Our military now is our main antiwar movement. The prowar candidates have been unmasked by the latest NIE Report, showing how delusional and crazy they are, especially after the debates about nuking Iran.
If the worst case scenario is that the war on terror goes on hold for 4 years because Congress is too chicken to declare war and take responsibility for the decision for war then we aren't going to be any worst than we are now. It could be a time for truthers and islamophobes to wake up and think rationally.
War is dangerous for this country and a waste of treasure when our leadership is so degenerate that they lack the ability to reflect before they do something stupid. The politicians want to bomb bomb bomb Iran without even considering what is going to happen after the bombs fall. The prowar candidates are too stupid to run a war successfully. They should understand what blowback is and they should know their enemies so they can better kill them.
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