President Ron Paul
Jul. 16th, 2007 12:16 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
drewkittyRep. Ron Paul from Texas is running for President. He had a rally here in Mountain View, CA on Saturday that didn't make the media. You see, he's not considered a "viable" candidate although he kicked quite a bit of ass in the Presidential debates. A thousand people still showed up.
He's got a bunch of qualifications:
He's a strict Constitutionalist.
He wants the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Education abolished.
He's pro-individual and anti big government.
He's viciously attacked the Republicans for departing their conservative roots.
Last but not least . . . he's been against the Iraq adventure from the very beginning
Finally, the Washington Post has written an article on him.
I don't agree with him on some of his ideas and positions.
So what?
He's a man of integrity and honor in a country that is critically short on both.
He's got a bunch of qualifications:
He's a strict Constitutionalist.
He wants the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Education abolished.
He's pro-individual and anti big government.
He's viciously attacked the Republicans for departing their conservative roots.
Last but not least . . . he's been against the Iraq adventure from the very beginning
Finally, the Washington Post has written an article on him.
I don't agree with him on some of his ideas and positions.
So what?
He's a man of integrity and honor in a country that is critically short on both.
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The Nader?
Date: 2007-07-16 01:31 pm (UTC)Because they are the same thing? That somebody is trying to pull what happened in the 1992 election, with Ross Perot? (I remain convinced that Perot ran because the Clintons promised him that if he ran, his company would get the computer admin contract for HillaryCare.)
Hell, I get the same feeling from him that I get every time I look at Jimmy Carter-somebody that would make a great saint, but a horrible leader. Especially a wartime leader.
Re: The Nader?
Date: 2007-07-16 06:05 pm (UTC)I used to think of Jimmy Carter as a misguided good guy, until he wrote that recent incredibly anti-Semitic book. Now, I think he may have been malevolent all along.
Re: The Nader?
Date: 2007-07-17 12:53 am (UTC)Got some of that crack you've been smoking? What anti-Semitic book? An Amazon link would be nice.
Israel and the United States are allies. This is a great example of what the founding fathers called "foreign entanglements."
Saying that is not anti-Semitic. Nor is wondering if we get our money's worth for what we pay Israel to be our friend.
Re: The Nader?
Date: 2007-07-17 02:56 pm (UTC)Demanding that Israel adhere to standards that no other nation is held to is anti-Semitic.
Re: The Nader?
Date: 2007-07-18 03:37 pm (UTC)If you acknowledge that nations have the right to keep people out based on arbitrary criteria, both the Berlin Wall and South African apartheid were entirely lawful under international law.
Arguments like this are why I'm very uncomfortable with citizenship being defined in any other way than birth within the national boundary, or immigration and naturalization.
Otherwise, a future government might arbitrarily declare you non-American and deport you to the other side of a militarized United States - Mexico border. This is what has happened to the majority of Palestinians.
In the case of Israel and Palestine, as with the Berlin Wall, the issue is not what level of fortification is used to control the border (which is an essential function of national government), but the criteria that are used to control passage across the border.
Re: The Nader?
Date: 2007-07-18 06:10 pm (UTC)1) Citizenship is hardly an "arbitrary criteria," since it is the primary indicator of to which state one bears primary loyalty.
2) The Israeli wall has been built to keep out people who want to kill Israelis; the Berlin Wall was built to keep in people who merely wanted to leave East Germany. Apartheid was not a "wall" at all, but rather an institutionalized system of racism.
This history lesson courtesy of me, to you who very obviously needed it. :)
Arguments like this are why I'm very uncomfortable with citizenship being defined in any other way than birth within the national boundary, or immigration and naturalization.
The Palestinians do not claim to be Israeli citizens. What they claim is that Israel has no right to exist and that they have the right to destroy the "Zionist entity" by force.
Given these facts, Israel is understandably unwilling to let the Palestinians live in Israel.
Proof of this is provided by the fact that the Israelis do let Arabs, including Muslim Arabs, become Israeli citizens if they are willing to swear allegiance to the state of Israel. They even give them the vote.
Otherwise, a future government might arbitrarily declare you non-American and deport you to the other side of a militarized United States - Mexico border. This is what has happened to the majority of Palestinians.
That is untrue. The Palestinians declared their opposition to the very existence of the state of Israel and left its territory. Thus, in your scenario, I would have to first declare my opposition to the existence of the United States of America and flee to Mexico in order to suffer this "deportation" of which you speak.
The Palestinians are NOT ISRAELI CITIZENS, and thus HAVE NO RIGHT TO RESIDE WITHIN ISRAELI BORDERS. They do not even claim to be Israeli citizens. Clear on that? They have no more right to reside in Israel than a Mexican citizen would to reside in California on the argument that it was once Mexican territory.
In the case of Israel and Palestine, as with the Berlin Wall, the issue is not what level of fortification is used to control the border (which is an essential function of national government), but the criteria that are used to control passage across the border.
Which criteria would you propose instead of the ones currently in use?
Re: The Nader?
Date: 2007-07-17 02:02 am (UTC)Worse, I think he really, really believes it...and will go along with the Pravda of the week.
Re: The Nader?
Date: 2007-07-17 03:04 pm (UTC)Re: The Nader?
Date: 2007-07-17 01:00 am (UTC)It's not. The survival of the United States is not threatened except by our own increasingly out of control, flailing actions around the world. Time for us to take a break from the War Of Terror. It'd be nice to achieve "peace with honor" in Iraq, but I can't figure out how to finesse that. It's slightly preferable to continue the counterinsurgency in a competent fashion, than to abandon the country to chaos and civil war . . . but I don't see the majority of Americans agreeing with me.
I stick by my minority view.
1) It was stupid to invade Iraq.
2) Now that we have, "we broke it, we bought it" and we have no business leaving for the twenty to thirty years it will take to win an insurgency there and establish a competent, peaceful government.
Re: The Nader?
Date: 2007-07-17 02:14 am (UTC)You read something in the NY Times, and Iraq sounds like the days of Tet 1969, without Walter Cronkite(1).
You read the blogs-Michael Yon, people that are actually there-it's still a bit of a mess, but it's getting better. The Iraqis want all the idiots making chaos in the country OUT of there, especially Al Qeada, whom they view as another bunch of Persians trying to make it run...
Honestly, the problem has been the Bush administration has done an awful job of selling the war, selling the need for it, and selling how all these movements are interconnected (sadly, that would mean having to hold the Saudi feet to the fire). And, George W. Bush seems to have a positive knack for pissing off his base.
The war needs to be fought, and needs to be won. It just needs to be done better.
(1)-Tet, as a military objective, failed miserably-the United States Army and Marines pretty much racked up the entire VietCong and slaughtered them to a man, and Khe San was not another Dien Bien Bhu(sp). Past this point, the entire "VietCong" was pretty much the NVA and the survivors...except that as a political effort, it was a victory, as it showed the Americans as "losing the war".
Re: The Nader?
Date: 2007-07-17 07:23 am (UTC)As you point out, the VietCong were combat ineffective after Tet. Most of the action after that was direct combat with NVA regulars.
I should add that immediately after victory, the few Viet Cong surviving were immediately sent to re-education camps and kept there for a decade or so, as a threat to the new regime.
Re: The Nader?
Date: 2007-07-17 02:58 pm (UTC)The equivalent, in Iraq, would be the Iranians.
I should add that immediately after victory, the few Viet Cong surviving were immediately sent to re-education camps and kept there for a decade or so, as a threat to the new regime.
Sometimes there is some justice :)
no subject
Date: 2007-07-16 04:09 pm (UTC)In the process, his failure will tar all conservativism in America with the assumption of isolationism, and after the Democrats win the White House in 2012, it may be another 12 years before the Republicans win another Presidential election, again on the Carter analogy. So I very much would hope that Ron Paul did not win the Presidency in 2008; I would like to see a Democrat make these foreign policy mistakes (or even better yet, win the war).
no subject
Date: 2007-07-17 12:56 am (UTC)Let's say that we pull all US troops out of Iraq and both Al Qaeda and the Iranians move into the power vacuum. So what?!? (Now, I think it's a horrible mistake because we will have handed a victory on a silver platter to Islamic fundamentalism, but we did that back when we invaded Iraq in the first place.)
In what way is the national security of the United States threatened by giving Iraq back to the Iraqis? Or letting the place descend into a horrible mess punctuated by the occasional free-fire zone defending an American military base.
I'd much rather that the Republicans never win an election in the United States again, unless they get off their duff and impeach Georgie the First prior to the end of the year. But I don't think of Ron Paul as a spoiler -- I think of him as a viable candidate in his own right, who will veto the daylights out of everything that comes out of Congress and force cross-aisle compromise to override his vetoes. We might actually see some decent law for once.
no subject
Date: 2007-07-17 03:02 pm (UTC)Millions of Iraqis die with your "so what" ringing in their ears. But I'll buy your premise that Little Brown People Don't Matter, for the sake of argument.
In what way is the national security of the United States threatened by giving Iraq back to the Iraqis?
Since when were Al Qaeda or Iran "the Iraqis?"
However, the conquest of Iraq either by Iran (the likeliest outcome if we pull out) would rather directly threaten the United States of America, by handing over much of the world's oil supplies to a Terrorist Power, which would then be ideally positioned to dominate Arabia and hence most of the world's oil supplies. The vast financial base of support this would create would enable the Terrorists to escalate their attacks by whole orders of magnitude.
Is that enough of a threat to America's security for you? Or to St. Ron Paul?
no subject
Date: 2007-07-18 03:30 pm (UTC)Saddam Hussein, for his many and gravehttp://www.livejournal.com/talkpost_do.bml#
[other] sins for which he will certainly burn in Hell, did a good job of keeping terrorism OUT of Iraq and did not contribute to the Islamic world terrorist network. Iraq served as a buffer state between Iran and the rest of the Middle East, with a powerful military that was enough to beat Iran several times.
Modern-day Iraq is full of terrorism. Not to mention American soldiers who make great targets. Of course, they often shoot back :) Iraq does not have the kind of military that could resist an Iranian invasion.
>> Let's say that we pull all US troops out of Iraq and both Al Qaeda and the Iranians move into the power vacuum. So what?!?
> Millions of Iraqis die with your "so what" ringing in their ears. But I'll buy your premise that Little Brown People Don't Matter, for the sake of argument.
We have demonstrated time and time again that the United States does not care if millions of people die, as long as it's not blocking something in our national interest. See Africa. I think the actual death toll in Iraq would be tens of thousands, but hey, that many have been killed in the insurgency, so where's the difference.
You also might want to get your racism checked. It's spinning out of alignment.
>> In what way is the national security of the United States threatened by giving Iraq back to the Iraqis?
> Since when were Al Qaeda or Iran "the Iraqis?"
If the Iraqis can't chase out Al Qaeda (which is neither local, nor supported by the majority of Iraqis), they have no claim to be a nation state at all, let alone ready for self-governance. Even the weak government of the Taliban _could_ have chased out Bin Laden, if they wished.
Saddam was doing a good job of keeping Iran out until we took his regime down around his ears. There is a difference between Iranian influence and outright invasion. I don't think more Iranian influence in Iraq would serve the US national interest . . . but I don't see it as a grave threat to our national security, compared to Iranian nuclear weapons.
We also have a great precedent for smashing the Iranian war machine if they do invade Iraq, as we can punish them for "invasion" just as we punished Iraq for invading Kuwait. Instead of trying to defeat hardened bunkers, etc. it is much easier to destroy a mechanized army on the move and out of its bases.
> However, the conquest of Iraq either by Iran (the likeliest outcome if we pull out) would rather directly threaten the United States of America, by handing over much of the world's oil supplies to a Terrorist Power,
Oh, baloney. Saudi Arabia controls a chunk of the world's oil supplies, and by every reasonable standard IS a Terrorist Power of the first order.
> which would then be ideally positioned to dominate Arabia and hence most of the world's oil supplies. The vast financial base of support this would create would enable the Terrorists to escalate their attacks by whole orders of magnitude.
We already did this. It's called the Iraq War. When we took out Saddam (who was an asshat of the first order, no dispute there), we created a power vacuum in Iraq which we failed to fill.
This is the present breeding ground for terrorism and insurgency that is Iraq.
The various anti-American terrorist groups have a battlefield, a recruiting ground, and a cause celebre that allows them to get large amounts of money from supporters all over the world. Including your President Bush's beloved Islamic Center and the Saudi Arabian oil regime!
> Is that enough of a threat to America's security for you? Or to St. Ron Paul?
Saint? Now there's an insult for you.
I'd rather deal with direct threats to the national security of the United States, such as a President who doesn't know what separation of powers is and commits us to an unwise war with unpalatable options, claiming authority to do so from a "use of force" authorization five years and a major House election old; an Attorney General who doesn't know what torture is; and a Vice President who claims to be above both the Congress and the courts.
Then we can deal with comparatively minor threats from overseas.
no subject
Date: 2007-07-18 06:02 pm (UTC)I think that it was a mistake to start it if we weren't willing to take the measures needed to rapidly resolve the war. Having said that, I think it would be an even worse mistake for us to pull out now, leaving bloody chaos, demoralizing our allies and encouraging our enemies around the world.
I don't think more Iranian influence in Iraq would serve the US national interest . . . but I don't see it as a grave threat to our national security, compared to Iranian nuclear weapons.
The Iranian conquest of Iran will give them more resources which they can then use to obtain nuclear weapons faster and in greater quantities. It will also position Iran to conquer the rest of the Gulf and thus gain control of the majority of the world's oil supply.
This is not a "comparatively minor" threat.