Ron Paul Red: Conservative Animosity?
I've noticed a lot of animosity from people who claim to be Republicans aimed at Ron Paul. They agree with him on abortion, small-government, border security, lower taxes, strong national defense, opposition to nation building, national sovereignty... and many other ideals. So why the vehement opposition? Why all the name-calling?
A lot of these people don't like Ron Paul because they feel, erroneously, that he abandoned the Bush administration with regard to Iraq. I read this comment on the 'Redstate' website: "Nobody who supports a cut-and-run strategy in the Middle East deserves the slightest hearing or consideration from the American people." I guess these people don't remember that Ronald Reagan, revered as a conservative icon, 'cut-and-ran' from Lebanon. Ron Paul's not abandoning Bush, George W. Bush abandoned him... and all those who voted for him.
George W. Bush promised he wouldn't nation-build. In the 2000 debates between George W. Bush and Al Gore he made the promise, "If we don't stop extending our troops all around the world and nation building missions, then we're going to have a serious problem coming down the road, and I'm going to prevent that." "I mean, we're going to have kind of a nation building core from America? Absolutely not. Our military is meant to fight and win war. That's what it's meant to do. And when it gets overextended, morale drops." In Bush's own words from 2000, he's demoralizing our troops. By his own standards, we should be finding terrorists, not making a haven for them in some bogus Democrat-style nation building. He broke his campaign promise. He broke his word.
"But what about 9/11???" you ask. "Didn't 9/11 change everything?" NO. It did not. The heart of American ideals remains the same; Freedom and Liberty are still the fundamental principles. If we change that, the terrorists win. I can respect someone changing their opinion if they are proven wrong. Non-interventionism was never proven wrong. As a matter of fact, according to the bipartisan 911 commission, more emphasis on non-intervention might have prevented 9/11.
"We broke it, we bought it." Gov. Mike Huckabee so quaintly put it. We 'broke' Iraq, now we're supposed to 'buy' it, whatever that means. Firstly, we didn't 'break' anything. Saddam Hussein broke it. If you want to get down to the nitty-gritty, the Iraqi people broke it by not rising up against a brutal dictator on their own. They never asked for our help to overthrow him in the first place. It's like when we went into Somalia to try to help the starving people that were being oppressed by greedy warlords. What did they do? They shot down our helicopters and killed our men, doing unspeakable things that anger me, even now. I know there are good people in Iraq, but, for the most part, they don't DESERVE our help. Let 'em make their own country. We did it.
But, alas, war is good business. This truth spans across aisles in government... from the Democrats to the Republicans. War tends to give a boost to the economy through borrowing and creation of currency. Having addressed the perceived abandonment of the President on Iraq, could it be that the logic of these conservatives' opposition of Dr. Paul lies, at least partially, in greed? I certainly hope not.
A lot of these people don't like Ron Paul because they feel, erroneously, that he abandoned the Bush administration with regard to Iraq. I read this comment on the 'Redstate' website: "Nobody who supports a cut-and-run strategy in the Middle East deserves the slightest hearing or consideration from the American people." I guess these people don't remember that Ronald Reagan, revered as a conservative icon, 'cut-and-ran' from Lebanon. Ron Paul's not abandoning Bush, George W. Bush abandoned him... and all those who voted for him.
George W. Bush promised he wouldn't nation-build. In the 2000 debates between George W. Bush and Al Gore he made the promise, "If we don't stop extending our troops all around the world and nation building missions, then we're going to have a serious problem coming down the road, and I'm going to prevent that." "I mean, we're going to have kind of a nation building core from America? Absolutely not. Our military is meant to fight and win war. That's what it's meant to do. And when it gets overextended, morale drops." In Bush's own words from 2000, he's demoralizing our troops. By his own standards, we should be finding terrorists, not making a haven for them in some bogus Democrat-style nation building. He broke his campaign promise. He broke his word.
"But what about 9/11???" you ask. "Didn't 9/11 change everything?" NO. It did not. The heart of American ideals remains the same; Freedom and Liberty are still the fundamental principles. If we change that, the terrorists win. I can respect someone changing their opinion if they are proven wrong. Non-interventionism was never proven wrong. As a matter of fact, according to the bipartisan 911 commission, more emphasis on non-intervention might have prevented 9/11.
"We broke it, we bought it." Gov. Mike Huckabee so quaintly put it. We 'broke' Iraq, now we're supposed to 'buy' it, whatever that means. Firstly, we didn't 'break' anything. Saddam Hussein broke it. If you want to get down to the nitty-gritty, the Iraqi people broke it by not rising up against a brutal dictator on their own. They never asked for our help to overthrow him in the first place. It's like when we went into Somalia to try to help the starving people that were being oppressed by greedy warlords. What did they do? They shot down our helicopters and killed our men, doing unspeakable things that anger me, even now. I know there are good people in Iraq, but, for the most part, they don't DESERVE our help. Let 'em make their own country. We did it.
But, alas, war is good business. This truth spans across aisles in government... from the Democrats to the Republicans. War tends to give a boost to the economy through borrowing and creation of currency. Having addressed the perceived abandonment of the President on Iraq, could it be that the logic of these conservatives' opposition of Dr. Paul lies, at least partially, in greed? I certainly hope not.
Labels: politics
posted by Tonewah at 12:21 PM
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