Giuliani Scores Points at Paul’s Expense
Rudy Giuliani’s challenge of Rep. Ron Paul will go down as the high point of Paul’s longshot campaign. Many keyboards clicked away at Paul’s “blame the victim” view of Sep. 11. Rudy was the star and Paul the villain. Still, if any publicity is good publicity Paul and his rabid fans are jumping for joy.
Bithead writes,
As a person with libertarian tendencies, I’m publicly begging Ron Paul to shut up, put that traffic cone on your head and go stand in the corner. You’ve damaged our cause… the cause of freedom… long enough.
Another libertarian sympathizer, Jason Hayes, also blasts Paul,
Claiming that America is somehow responsible for the 9-11 attacks and for other terrorist attacks prior to 9-11 and after 9-11 is asinine. No one is responsible for islamist terrorism, except islamist terrorists.
If Allah’s use of scare quotes around “constitutionalism” is any indication Paul has set back for a decade that much-needed argument for limited government. When someone mentions the constitutionality of a program the easist response will be “You’re sounding like that crackpot Ron Paul.” As for the label “libertarian” you can add “America blaming” to the stereotype of them being drug legalizing, prostitution legalizing, road privatizing, selfish libertines with lots of facial hair. Paul damaged the brand.
Let me go back to Paul’s blowback argument. James Joyner, a man smarter than me on foreign policy (that’s what a Ph.D. will get you) lists a number of Osama bin Laden’s complaints with the U.S. So Paul is correct that Islamist terrorism is a response to U.S. foreign policy. Paul drops the ball big time when he ignores the nature of the nation state:
That said, Paul’s insinuation that the 9/11 attacks were therefore our fault is outrageous. We can simultaneously recognize that our policies make people angry and insist on our sovereign rate to act according to our interests. We can recognize that radical Muslims have grievances against us and insist that murdering innocents is an unacceptable means of expressing those grievances.
No one likes the “blame the victim” argument that somehow the U.S. deserved to lose 3000 people on Sep. 11, 2001 just as people cringe when a rapist claims his victim “asked for it” by wearing a short skirt and showing off her cleavage. Giuliani tapped into that sentiment beautifully.
UPDATE: If you go by internet polls Paul beat Giuliani 25-29%. Romney beat them both with 29% demonstrating his online campaign can get people to the internet polls.
Sounds like Ron Paul is just echoing Dinesh D’Souza. I wonder why your candidates and writers hate America so much?