Ron Paul: A Libertarian Embarassment
For a brief moment I thought about backing Rep. Ron Paul for President temporarily. With the Republican field wide open and it being months and months until the first primary I thought Paul’s strict constitutionalism would add to the GOP debate. A problem the Republicans had in last year’s election was they talked about smaller government yet didn’t act on their words. They spent like a man who thought he was dying. President Bush has the dubious honor of letting federal spending grow the fastest it has in 30 years. All of it enabled by the Republican Congress. The Republicans need someone like Paul who is willing to say, “No!” to new programs and has a good reason to back that up.
Where Paul fails miserably is on the Iraq War. He sounds out-there and outrageous, just like your typical Kossite. Ace found a video clip of Paul in the well of the House yapping about a possible new Gulf of Tonkin incident to set up a war with Iran. In the same speech conspiratorial Paul uses the CIA estimate that Iran will have a nuclear weapon in 10 years. He relies on the same institution that was wrong about the collapse of the Soviet Union, wrong about Iraq’s WMD stockpiles, and blind to the Sep. 11 attacks. That’s a lot of trust in a broken agency. The man isn’t serious about foreign policy. He is not capable of leading the U.S. through the Iraq War let alone a national security crisis.
Paul showed his really kooky when he told a radio host he would fight the North American Union, a crackpot, tinfoil idea that Canada, Mexico, and the U.S. are secretly merging into a superstate. Allah has gone and declared Paul “Bircheresque.”
The low point where the Congressman went off the deep end was when Paul described President Reagan’s “Tear down this wall!” speech as “pandering to his people.”
In the process of looking like a loon his message of limited government and constitutionalism gets lumped in with his kookiness. Because of his wacky views Paul is a lousy spokesman for libertarian ideas. The Anarchy Lew Rockwell crowd thinks the media simply ignores Paul because they fear him. The fact is Paul isn’t a contender for the nomination and he only has entertainment value by waiting to see what wacky thing he says next. Constitutional arguments, long lost from the thoughts of our leaders, will be removed from the political debate for another generation. All because a haze of conspiracy hazes the mind of its spokesman.
“Ron Paul Aligns With Rosie O’Donnell: US Government Will Phony Up New Gulf of Tonkin Incident To Contrive A War With Iran”
Yes, Ron Paul is really on the fringe in his opposition to the Iraq war — he’s so kooky, only 70% of the American people agree with him.
Arguments for individual liberty and smaller, Constitutional government are great, and Ron Paul is making them, and gaining attention for them.
Arguments that an undeclared war that costs hundreds of billions of dollars a year (not to mention the cost in human life) is somehow compatible with smaller government and individual liberty is what is truly kooky.