The Republican Leadership Deserves Only Contempt

English: Crude drawing of the “No RINO” buttons used by American Republicans. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Romney’s Convention Blundering with Ron Paul Delegates

Ron Paul, member of the United States House of Representatives from Texas. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Romney (Photo credit: Talk Radio News Service)

Mitt Romney has done what I had feared in an earlier post: he has supported excluding Ron Paul delegates from Maine from the Republican National Convention and has denied Ron Paul a voice at the convention. Ron Paul delegates, who won the Maine caucuses according to the established rules of the Republican Party in that state, are understandably angry. As someone who voted for Ron Paul in the North Carolina Primary, reading about the way his delegates have been treated by Mr. Romney and his supporters is deeply troubling. To win the presidential election, Mr. Romney needs all the votes he can get. By treating Paul delegates in a disrespectful way, he alienates millions of Paul supporters in the United States. Most likely those among Paul supporters who may have considered “voting for the lesser of evils” in the presidential election may decide to vote Libertarian or Constitution Party instead of voting for Mr. Romney. Frankly I would not blame them.

My feelings are mixed. On the one hand, I not believe a second Obama administration would be good for the country. Although it may turn out that Republicans do not have the will to reduce spending significantly, especially given their support of American interventionism abroad, the Democrats would be far worse. Mr. Obama has continued Mr. Bush’s aggressive foreign policy, and Mr. Bush’s restraints on civil liberty have been enhanced under the Obama administration. Mr. Obama’s unlimited support of abortion, even up to the ninth month (partial-birth abortion can be performed at that state) is morally reprehensible. In addition, Mr. Obama supports a bigger government and stronger regulation, regulation that I have experienced directly at the university where I teach. The government is adding more offenses for which the university can be fined. Such regulation and massive government spending has hurt small businesses. Unlike many academics, I know personally a number of small businesspeople in my area. They have all told me that they believe their businesses will go under if Mr. Obama is re-elected.

Yet the Republicans are even more aggressive in foreign policy than the Democrats, at least rhetorically. Practically I believe that will make little difference. Ron Paul is the only candidate who opposes American intervention abroad unless it is clearly in support of American interests. His opposition to the Iraq and Afghanistan wars has brought down the wrath of so-called “mainstream” Republicans and Neoconservatives as well as the wrath of Wilsonian Democrats. Although it is a good thing that Mr. Ryan wants to cut domestic spending, he is still enamored with the Roosevelt-Johnson welfare state. Mr. Paul rejects the welfare state in principle. Although there are fiduciary relationships with Social Security and Medicare, allowing the states to deal with such matters can allow those in need to continue to receive help.

I suppose, at this point, I will bite the bullet and vote for Mr. Romney. If the country is in intractable decline, which it will be under the two major parties, at least Mr. Romney might slow the decline. I also am deeply concerned about the Obama Administration’s attitude toward religious freedom and its radical moral agenda. As such, I am at a practical level forced to vote for a candidate who can win the general election.
In any case, I am not a libertarian but a traditional conservative, somewhere between Pat Buchanan and Ron Paul. I can swallow hard and vote for Mr. Romney despite his bad behavior now.

However, other Paul supporters, angry at how they have been treated by the Romney campaign, will vote for the libertarian candidate for president. Some traditional conservatives who are fans of Mr. Paul will vote Constitution Party. Others will not vote at all, and some may even vote for Mr. Obama. Frankly I cannot understand Mr. Romney’s behavior. Perhaps he wishes to act in a decisive manner, but to act decisively against his own self-interest is unwise. I would recommend that he make a peace offering to Mr. Paul and his supporters before his behavior costs him the general election and plunges the United States into rapid ruin.

Related articles

• GOP Destroys Integrity of National Convention, Flagrantly Cheats Ron Paul Out of Nomination (theunconventionalconservative.wordpress.com)
• Yes, Ron Paul won the Iowa caucuses (blogs.desmoinesregister.com)
• RNC Disenfranchises Paul Delegates; Rigs Rules to Nominate Romney (musicians4freedom.com)
• Ron Paul supporters put dent in unity at GOP convention (politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com)

The United States Should Stay Out of Syria

The Republican Establishment Needs to Respect Ron Paul

Congressman Ron Paul at an event hosted in his honor at CPAC 2011 in Washington, D.C. Please attribute to Gage Skidmore if used elsewhere. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The Republican establishment has never liked Ron Paul. The warmongering Neoconservatives that control the party dislike his opposition to the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. The Rockefeller country club Republicans (who make up the RINOs–Republicans in Name Only) dislike his libertarianism and his support for small government. Mr. Paul has been busy gaining delegates to the Republican National Convention. Of course Mitt Romney will be the nominee, but Mr. Paul would like some say on the platform and wants a voice at the convention. Now in caucus states, if more Paul supporters show up, he gets more delegates. If the Republicans in those states do not like the results, they should change the system. What they have been doing, however, is challenging the legitimacy of the delegates that Mr. Paul won under the rules of the caucus states fair and square. The Establishment has voiced disdain for Paul’s views and have labeled him as an extremist. What is so extreme about him? He wants small government. The Republican establishment claims that it wants small government, but they really want what the Democrats want without spending quite as much money. Mr. Paul opposes abortion; so has every Republican Party Platform since 1976 (even with Mr. Ford, who supported abortion rights, as the nominee in 1976). Mr. Paul supports a national interest foreign policy–that is not an isolationist position, but it suggests that foreign entanglements should be regarded with caution and with proper concern taken for American interests.Mr. Paul opposes government surveillance of American citizens. Since when did that become a radical position?

Now many Ron Paul supporters would vote for Mr. Romney if he and the Republican establishment would show them respect, let them keep the delegates they earned in states where they won the caucuses, and allow them to have a voice at the Republican National Convention. If the Republican establishment continues its present course, they will guarantee four more years of Mr. Obama. What is frightening is that the powers that be in the Republican Party despise Mr. Paul and his followers so much that they are apparently willing to risk losing the presidential election. Sadly, the Republican party has become a tent of warmongering Neoconservatives, Premillenialist Fundamentalist Christians to whom Israel can do no wrong, Red State Fascists who want no limits on federal police power, and RINO country clubbers. Hopefully if there are voices of reason in these groups, they will listen to what Mr. Paul and his followers, many who are young and energetic, want to say. If not, the Republican Party will slowly die a well-deserved death.

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• Ron Paul Shocks The GOP Establishment Once Again – Check His Delegate Count (runronpaul.com)
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Ron Paul and the Media’s Blatant Lack of Integrity

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Rep. Ron Paul, who finished a hairsbreadth below Michelle Bachman in Iowa, is, in the media’s eyes, a nonentity. This reveals the utter, complete lack of integrity in the major American media sources. The members of the mainstream media (and even Fox News) hate Ron Paul’s antiwar and libertarian views, thus they pretend that he does not exist. But to pretend that the second place winner in the Iowa straw poll does not exist is blatantly lying to the American people. The mainstream media is beyond dishonest; it does not even deserve public respect. And Dr. Paul is not the only person or position the media ignores. The mainstream’s media’s bias toward Mr. Obama was no secret during the 2008 election. But even earlier than that, the media claimed in 1992 that the United States economy was in the worst recession since the Great Depression. The members of the media who said that were liars. The 1973-74 and 1982-83 recessions were far worse than the 1992 recession. But because the mainstream media was rooting for Mr. Clinton, it lied about the economy and helped to get the candidate of their choice elected. On issues such as abortion and homosexual marriage, the socially liberal bias of the mainstream media outlets is obvious, as is the hatred of media members of traditional Christianity. At least Walter Cronkite, who had his own liberal biases, did his homework on the facts and did not intentionally distort them–he had integrity. Not his successors in the media today.

Ron Paul offends the media by opposing their pro-war stance. The media, conservative and liberal, were cheerleaders for the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, and they ignored both the antiwar left and the antiwar right. How can opposing two needless wars be “extreme”? It is in the eyes of the morally and intellectually blinded media. The media also makes much of Ron Paul’s claims that secession is constitutional. Yet few people during the first 85 years of the American republic would have disagreed with Paul–it was only with Lincoln that the idea of “preserving the union” came into vogue, and then the illegally  passed Fourteenth Amendment increased the legal authority of the federal government at the expense of the states.

Neither are Ron Paul’s positions on drug legalization extreme–William F. Buckley, surely a mainstream conservative, supported the legalization of drugs. Anyone who actually believes that the war against drugs is working is so blind to reality that he could just well believe that pigs fly.

Ron Paul deserves a place among the major candidates for the Republican presidential nomination. It is a shame that the utter dishonesty of the American media will work against his receiving the recognition he deserves. Hopefully his supporters will come out and show that that it is not Ron Paul who is irrelevant–it is the American media.

 

Related articles

• Media admits to ignoring Ron Paul (futuredispatch.com)
• After Strong Showing In Iowa, Why Is Ron Paul Still Getting The Media Cold Shoulder? (mediaite.com)
• Establishment Media Admits Conspiracy To Ignore Ron Paul: “We are in the business of kicking candidates out of the race” (destructionist.wordpress.com)
• Ron Paul remains media poison (politico.com)
• Ron Paul wins 2nd Place in Iowa Straw Poll as corporately-owned “mainstream media” downplays significance (destructionist.wordpress.com)

Arrogance and Hypocrisy in U.S. Foreign Policy

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President Obama has chosen to lecture Egyptian President Mubarak on the issue of human rights. This is another instance of American arrogance and hypocrisy, as traditional conservatives such as Pat Buchanan and libertarians such as Ron Paul, as well as some on the left, have pointed out. The U.S. has a shameful history of violation of rights and, regarding the American Indians, genocide. The U.S. Army engaged in brutal tactics during the Philippine War in the early twentieth century. In World War II, the U.S. forced thousands of Japanese-American citizens into what de facto were concentration camps–the fact that they were not as brutal as the German camps does not make what the United States did morally right. The U.S. engaged in saturation bombing of Tokyo in March 1945, killing over 100,000 people with the firestorm created from gasoline-laden bombs. The U.S. is the only country to have used nuclear weapons in combat. The U.S. and its allies, violating centuries of just war theory, demanded unconditional surrender of the Axis Powers in World War II. In Vietnam there were multiple instances of abuse by U.S. Army personnel against the Vietnamese people; Lt. Calley’s unit was not the only one to engage in rape or kill civilians. In Iraq and Afghanistan, torture was the official practice of U.S. military intelligence personnel as well as regular army personnel. The U.S. has not eschewed the first use of nuclear weapons in a conflict–not even with President Obama in power. And domestically, neither the FBI nor the ATF have clean human rights records, as FBI surveillance of American citizens and the ATF disasters at Ruby Ridge and Waco show. Now many countries engage in similar behaviors or worse–it may be the case, as blind patriots claim, that the U.S. has a better record on human rights than most other countries. But this does not justify our actions, nor does it justify the arrogance of President Obama in telling Mr. Mubarak how to run his country, especially since democracy in the Middle East tends to lead to radical Islamists coming into power. Perhaps Mr. Obama (and Mrs. Clinton) would prefer the Muslim Brotherhood to gain power in Egypt. If that happens, the powerkeg that is the Near East may explode.

In addition, U.S. policy holds that democracy is the best form of government for all nations. But as Aristotle recognized in his Politics, the best form of government for any state is going to depend on its history and traditions. But the U.S. continues to follow the neo-Puritanism of Woodrow Wilson’s foreign policy and try to export “democracy” to the world–at the same time democracy is dying a slow death in the U.S. The rest of the world sees U.S. hypocrisy and hates us for it. The U.S. can do better than this–it can clean up its own house and avoid sticking its nose into every other country’s business. I hope such reform happens–but the secularist Puritan strand in American foreign policy is ingrained that I am pessimistic. We need more Ron Pauls, more Pat Buchanans, more true liberals such as Nat Hentoff, to join together in an effort to both stop U.S. abuses of human rights and also to encourage a “more humble” (as President G. W. Bush said in his pre-911 days) U.S. foreign policy.