« BACK  |  PRINT

RS

FRONT PAGE CONTRIBUTOR

Ron Paul Goes Full Metal Truther

By: Leon H. Wolf (Diary)  |  December 10th, 2011 at 12:19 PM  | 

RESIZE: AAA

I’ve been waiting for quite a while for Ron Paul to just come out and admit he’s a 9/11 truther. Frankly, I thought it would happen a long time before now. It has taken so long, in fact, that I had started to doubt whether he would ever do it. However, I guess his Iowa polling numbers must have him feeling his oats, because he finally let slip (apologies to those who cannot view the video in IE, we are working to fix the technical issue. Original video may be found here):

And it’s… just think of what happened after 9/11. Immediately, before there was any assessment, there was glee in the administration because now we can invade Iraq. So the war drums beat…

Perfect. Just great. Remember that the less crazy truthers out there don’t get bogged down in scientific nonsense like “fire can’t melt steel.” They don’t necessarily believe that the Bush administration actually put bombs in the WTC to help it come down (although they’re not precisely ruling it out). What they DO believe is that the U.S. government was warned by the Israelis/Saudis/French/whoever that the attacks were coming and deliberately ignored it because they wanted 9/11 to happen so they could go to war in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Ron Paul has now moved from saying that 9/11 was our fault (which was despicable enough) to now saying that it’s something our government actually wanted to happen. Put this up there with Ron Paul’s belief that Southeast Asia got much better after we left Vietnam (a viewpoint doubtless shared by millions of massacred Southeast Asians – but hey, at least we trade with Vietnam now) on the all time list of Ron Paul’s contemptible and publicly-expressed beliefs. Add to this the fact that Ron Paul is a liar and a hypocrite on spending, who has built a career larding up appropriations bills with pork for his home district and then casting meaningless votes against their final passage, and I have to confess that I don’t really see the appeal of Ron Paul to Iowa voters. Well, the Republican ones, at least.

Tags: , , , ,

COMMENTS

POSTING RULES  |  LOGIN TO COMMENT  |  REGISTER TODAY
  • Marcus_Traianus

    He is not even a Republican. He simply hides behind that moniker as a way to try and destroy the party from within.

    Ron Paul is really a fringe Libertarian-Conspiracy-Nut-Fool. The people in his district must be so proud.

    • mikeymike143

      Ron Paul supporters are angry at his exclusion from the Republican Jewish Coalition presidential forum, despite Dr. Paul himself not publicly even caring. Supporters of the Klan do not get angry when they are excluded from NAACP banquets. Go on Ron Paul message boards, read the anti-Semitism, and then understand why nobody wants these miscreants anywhere near respectable events.

      The Republican Jewish Coalition recently held their 2012 Presidential Candidates Forum in Washington, DC. Ron Paul did not attend, which of course resulted in his supporters going ballistic. Because Ron Paul supporters have a habit of shouting down speakers and disrupting events, anything that minimizes their attendance improves Republican events.

      These events are for people to listen to the candidates and make an informed choice. Supporters of Dr. Paul already have their mind made up. There is no reason for them to attend a single event. They know who they are voting for.

      Yet the problem with Ron Paul supporters goes deeper than just bad behavior. There is a cancer in the Ron Paul movement. It is called anti-Semitism, and it is pervasive among his followers.

      Dr. Paul himself may not be one, but his outreach to the Jewish community has been non-existent. His supporters are angry that he was excluded from a Jewish event, but he never asked to be included. He has not said a single word about his exclusion. His supporters care. He doesn’t. In all of his years in office, he has never truly reached out to the Jewish community. Therefore, when a Jewish forum takes place, it is reasonable to understand why neither side would want to interact.

      Dr. Paul has never at any time condemned anti-Semitism, even in the most perfunctory of ways. He has never weeded out the anti-Semitism among his supporters. Those supporters will make the same argument they always make, that a few rotten apples should not spoil the whole bunch. This argument would be valid if the anti-Semitism was not so widespread. The bad apples are not the exception. They are much of the bucket.

      It took only several minutes of searching on Ron Paul forums to find pure Jew-hatred, with desperate attempts to insist that anti-Semitism was not so because they said so.

      The first comment was the stereotypical linking of Jews and money, which is every bit as awful as making remarks about black people involving chicken and watermelons. After the “Jews and money” link, the commenters got much worse.

      Some tried to claim that they liked Jews but hated Zionists, as if that is not the most pathetic and tired excuse of anti-Semites.

      One commenter compared Ron Paul to Jesus. Another accused Jews of using the Holocaust for political gain.

      (I am sure my Holocaust survivor dad and grandparents, while they were fleeing for their lives, had other considerations besides how being nearly shot to death could benefit them politically several decades later.)

      These comments were not “cherry-picked” to skew the data. They are the data.

      These are Ron Paul supporters. They judge everyone else. Now it is time for them to be judged.

      “Yes, but it will generate the most donations.

      Submitted by YumYum on Thu, 12/01/2011 – 18:25.
      $$$$$$$$$!!!!”

      “Real Jews love Dr.

      Submitted by Charlie’s Angel on Thu, 12/01/2011 – 18:20.
      Real Jews love Dr. Paul…..these are just ZIONIST sOB’s!”

      “what’s wrong?

      Submitted by jblackpost on Thu, 12/01/2011 – 18:44.
      what’s wrong with criticizing Zionism? Considering they were a bunch of warmongering left-wing atheists and communists who only cared about establishing the state of Israel and nothing else (not even Jewish life), I think separating this horrible movement (which I hate) from the Jewish people (whom I like) is a pretty good idea.”

      “Most Jews are pretty cool aka not Zionista -look at my hero

      Submitted by sharkcity on Thu, 12/01/2011 – 18:45.
      Milton Friedman
      Isreal[sp] wouldn’t be much more than just another country if it were not for the apocalyptic Christian lobby aka the neocons..
      Not much difference in the right wing be it neocon, taliban, or zionist -Their all bizzacko in my book”

      “At least in this post

      Submitted by ANCAP_REASON on Thu, 12/01/2011 – 19:22.
      you differentiated between atheists and communists…
      The biggest warmongers are monotheists, specifically those of the Abraham tradition, by the way.”

      “Makes sense to me

      Submitted by Smudge Pot on Thu, 12/01/2011 – 19:59.
      in as much as “the Jewish lobby” represents the modern state of Israel. Ron never pretended to represent the 51st state in the union.”

      “Well….

      Submitted by JFEJ004 on Thu, 12/01/2011 – 18:08.
      It wouldn’t be the first savior they’ve killed.”

      “Samaria? You mean the

      Submitted by AtlantaIconoclast on Thu, 12/01/2011 – 23:39.
      Samaria? You mean the Occupied remnant of historic Palestine. There is no such thing as Samaria any more.”

      “This is absurd and the height

      Submitted by AtlantaIconoclast on Thu, 12/01/2011 – 23:34.
      This is absurd and the height of irony. It is the Zionist who is extreme, and that includes Christian as well as Jewish Zionists. They have bullied and use the Holocaust to scare everyone into speaking out against Israel’s policies.
      So sick of this. I don’t want us to give another penny to either Israel or its enemies.
      Why can’t be let go of the religious thing?”

      “Be Careful

      Submitted by Gary Patridge on Thu, 12/01/2011 – 21:53.
      any criticism will be construed as “Anti-Semitic”.
      When will the World figure out that Zionists are not Isrealites? Pretty sure that Zionists are not God’s chosen people…”

      “One can dislike Israel, but

      Submitted by AtlantaIconoclast on Thu, 12/01/2011 – 23:38.
      One can dislike Israel, but not have a problem with Judaism. Why would anyone, but a Jewish supremacist, or Christian Zionist LIKE the apartheid state of Israel? This is not about anti Jewish sentiment. I have no problem saying it, for I truly do not care about someone’s religion.”

      “I’m shocked!

      Submitted by BigT on Thu, 12/01/2011 – 20:54.
      You mean that rabid socialist zionist Jewish Neocons are working against freedom again??Who’da thunk it???!!
      News flash folks.?That’s all they do is work against freedom.?They are the enemy within.”

      The real challenge was finding one Ron Paul supporter willing to stand up for what is decent and right. Among a bunch of ranting, raving, Jew-hating bigots disguised as reasonable people, one person named Toledana tried to reason with the mob.

      “It doesn’t help us

      Submitted by toledana on Thu, 12/01/2011 – 18:39.
      when RP supporters make negative statements about Israel, Zionism, or the Jewish people. I have heard some Jews say they have been turned off to Dr. Paul because of what his supporters have said.
      It’s not surprising that Ron Paul has been banned from a Jewish debate when people like you are making negative statements about them as a people. We need to open our arms to everyone, and instead of talking badly about them as a group help to educate them about Ron Paul’s platform.
      To much of the world, America is seen in a very bad light. Do you appreciate it when people make blanket statements about American citizens saying all of us are evil and bloodthirsty?”

      Toledana’s next comment was even more insightful, especially the last line.

      “It is name calling

      Submitted by toledana on Thu, 12/01/2011 – 19:20.
      not constructive criticism. Rarely do people who use this terminology give any kind of explanation, and it comes off as angry and hateful.
      Terming people “Zionist” is collectivist thinking and polarizes our movement from Jewish people who see Israel as their homeland. Whether or not you agree with that belief is up to you…. but throwing hate their way is not helping us get any votes. Instead we are turning even moderate Jewish supporters away in disgust.
      I’ve never heard Dr. Paul use the term “Zionist” or speak the way many of the people in this thread are doing.
      Raging against the “religious right,” “Left wing extremists” and “neocons” doesn’t do us any favors either. If we want to expand the movement we need to work on being inclusive… promoting education, not name calling. We need more votes, not more enemies.
      Otherwise we are going to end up on a little life raft mumbling to ourselves.”

      Toledana is the aberration. As for the rest, this is what is infecting the Ron Paul movement. There are tons of things Dr. Paul could say or do. He has said nothing. He has done nothing.

      Silence is acquiescence, and Dr. Paul will not stand up and condemn pure evil in written and spoken form. While his followers are spouting noxious garbage, he stays silent. Therefore, when it came time to hold a Republican Jewish forum, it was perfectly appropriate for Dr. Paul to remain silent far away from the event. His supporters will speak up for him, but not for anybody else.

      This is why when his supporters complain, Jews everywhere should tune them out. They have spoken enough, and the words were pure ugliness.

      When an anti-Israel, anti-Zionist, anti-Jewish presidential forum is held, the Paul supporters can all get together and rail about Neocons, moneylenders, bankers, merchants, Paul Wolfowitz, Wall Street, and other blood libel conspiracies.

      Actually, these forums are being held on a daily basis. They are called Internet message boards.

      Dr. Paul may wish to drop the willful blindness and see what his supporters really believe. Then he may wish to reach out to Republican Jews with any kind of outreach.

      Most likely, he will not.

      http://communities.washingtontimes.com/neighborhood/tygrrrr-express/2011/dec/8/republican-jewish-coalition-2012-presidential-cand/

    • dogsterr
      “He is not even a Republican. He simply hides behind that moniker as a way to try and destroy the party from within.”

      Newt owes his entire career to his membership in the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) This Rockefeller “think tank” is truly a conspiracy against the American (and world) middle class. The war propaganda in support of Middle East occupation serves the interests of these puppet masters.

      Ron Paul, on the other hand, is resisting destruction of the dollar and obliteration of the middle class. Cutting one trillion dollars from the federal budget is as American as you can get.

      As an ordinary American, I an unable to see how the trillions wasted in IraQ, Afghanistan, Pakistan etc. have benefited me in the slightest and neither can you.

      • http://www.nighttwister.com NightTwister

        **no*test**

        • gekster

          clown will eat me.

          • gekster

            THE CLOWNS WILL EAT ME!

            gotta go watch football, and watch out for the clowns.

      • dcacklam

        He’s a Libertarian – and has ran for President as such against Bush Sr…

        Of course, he got his ass kicked, so now he runs as a fake Republican, because he thinks he can win under the GOP banner…

        You, OTOH, sound like a socialist…

        ‘Middle class’ this and that – class warfare is the platform of the LEFT.

        Combine with CFR conspiracy crap… And we get the typical Paulistinian…

        The problem with Paul’s budget cuts is that the first things on his list are the CIA and DoD – actual Constitutional responsibilities of the federal government….

        Paul wants to take the US back to the days when we had no global power, the US Dollar was only accepted on US soil, and most Americans lived in what would be considered abject poverty according to today’s standards.

        Today, the US is the world’s preeminant military power – we are ‘free’ to do as we please in international affairs because no nation or alliance of nations can match us in this regard….

        And for all the prophet-of-doom garbage about the ‘destruction of the Dollar’, the USD is accepted worldwide, and is the commodity of choice for foreign governments looking to establish a reserve of wealth…

        Paulistinians will complain about ‘dollar devaluation’… Of course, this comes back to their worldview again – if the US is supposed to be a ‘hermit kingdom’ then of course, we should reward monetary hermits for their massive collection of cash-filled cigar boxes, and punish those who actually participate in the economy… What brilliance!

        Ron Paul’s positions are as bad for the health & wealth of the USA as Obama’s…

  • WY_Cowboy

    For whatever reason, all I see is a box with nothing in it. Would love to watch the viedo and share it as well. Thanks.

  • Glaucon

    Wow, I thought this was going to be a new revelation.

    Most of the truthers follow the conspiracy nut Alex Jones. They believe that someone (Dick Cheney?) crawled around and planted “thermite” in the buildings for a controlled demolition. Maybe he was practicing for his underwater mission in New Orleans. /s ;)

    As much as Ron Paul mangles some of his statements, that is not what he said. He did not go “truther”, and he didn’t really say anything different from what he has already said. He was on Fox News yesterday and specifically said that he did not think that the Bush Administration was gleeful about the 9/11 attacks, and he didn’t say that they had advanced knowledge of the attacks. He explained that some of them stated that they now had an opportunity to finally take out Saddam, and that was the first thing on their agenda. There’s nothing terribly controversial about that. It’s well documented. Colin Powell has talked about it.

    What he said was nothing new for him. Despite his poor communication skills, it’s usually pretty easy to fill in the blanks when he leaves out words and to understand what he is attempting to say. His big obsession is about this “blow-back” concept, which is controversial enough as it stands. Nothing justifies terrorism. Nothing.

    • Leon H. Wolf

      SO when he’s in front of the young people in Iowa, he says the administration was gleeful about the attacks, but when he’s on Fox News he says something completely different. THe only thing you’ve established is that he has the good sense not to go Full Metal Truther in front of the wrong audience.

      As for the rest of your comment, spare us the lefty talking points, please.

      • Glaucon

        Not sure what I said that was lefty.

        I saw the full Fox interview, I didn’t see anything other than the 15 second clip of the other event, so I don’t know what he was saying before and after. Did he say something else related to this?

        As quoted in the clip, he said “because now we can invade Iraq”. Seems consistent with what he was saying in the Fox segment.

    • Marcus_Traianus

      The man does not deserve excuses about why his language was parsed.

      Defending Ron Paul is akin to defending Nazideutschland by saying they had great social and industrial polices…and what about that Autobahn or the Volksgemeinschaft they promoted in their supporters? Then saying with regard to human rights and national sovereignty- eh, who is perfect?

      I said it before. The man is a kook that relies on people that are either ill-informed, ignorant, foolish or surreptitiously supportive of his extremist positions to remain relevant. They freep every poll and destroy democratic process to give the appearance of widespread support.

      We will be better off without him and his gang of intellectual-midget Sturmabteilung.

      • mrmises

        We don’t want a nominee that supports extremist policy. We don’t want a nominee who relies on people that are either ill-informed, ignorant, foolish or surreptitiously supportive of his extremist positions to remain relevant.

        We want a nominee who will eliminate large portions of the federal government. We want a nominee who will eliminate the tax code as it developed over the last century. We want a nominee who has openly discussed secession. We want a nominee who will take our legislative branch and cut it in half. We want a nominee who respects the Constitution so much he supports numerous amendments that will fundamentally alter the balance of powers and function of our government.

        That’s why we want Governor Rick Perry not that extremist loon from Texas!!!

        • retire05

          he’s an implant who saw opportunity in Texas after he left the military.

          He is also bat sh!t crazy. His financial philosophy is correct in some ways, proving that even a broken clock is right twice a day. But he is a 1936 isolationist who ignores the reality of the world around him. But he is soooo much more than that, really.

          Paul is bestest buddies with the kook, and 9-11 truffer, Alex Jones. He pushed Debra Medina in her bid for the Texas Governor’s office, but she, like Paul, shot herself in the foot by being a Jones’ truther. Now, she is relegated to the dust bin of Texas history. And no one talks about the Ron Paul Financial Letters which were as racist as they come or Paul’s anti-semitism toward Jews. Of course, Paul denied writting those letters, but his name was on them and his right hand man, Lew Rockwell, does not claim responsibility for them. There is no excuse for sending out letters that are racist with your name on them. If you are going to put your name on something, you need to make sure what is in it doesn’t come back to bite you.

          Now, to your other points: half of the government agencies should be abolished as they are useless, and unconstitutional (there are seven agencies that handle Indian affairs, yet our reservation system is a national disgrace). Also, if you research our history (that is the history where we were a blossoming nation), our legislaturers were part time. They had jobs, businesses, and spent most of their time in their districts. They were not “career” politicians. And that is the way it should be now. Or if you disagree with that, then explain how Texas manages to be such a success with a Legislature that meets for less than 150 days ever two years and are only paid around $8,000/yr.? And no one is talking about cutting our legislature in half, just reducing the damage they do by half by making them spend more time in their districts and less time in D.C. making useless rules and laws that affect us. i.e. a return to the citizen-legislature as envisioned by the Founders.

          Ron Paul is a fraud. He puts pork into bills that he knows have the votes to pass, then votes against them to say that he didn’t support his own pork requests. He told those of us who campaigned for him years ago, that he would not serve more than two terms and that he believed in term limits, yet he remains in D.C., using the excuse that since Congress rejected term limits, he should not be held to his own promises. He goes to his own district and brags how he got all this pork for the shrimping industry. Yet, on national TV, he disavows pork projects. Simply put, Paul is a charleton.

          • pttx333

            The man is not of this world either.

            Glad to see you, retire … haven’t seen you in a while. I trust everything is okay with you and yours?

          • retire05

            Two things have kept me from my favorite blog: a serious computer virus that the tech I use says originated from China and just about wiped out my entire system and some serious oral surgery which turned out to be worse than I had anticipated.

            But I am well on the mend now, and thanks for inquiring. Now its on to decorating for Christmas (I am ususally done by now) along with dispelling falsehoods about my chosen candidate, Governor Perry, whom I have had the pleasure (yes, it was a pleasure) to meet on more than one occassion.

            And if anyone wants to know about the real Rick Perry, I suggest they ask a true American hero, Marcus Luttrell.

          • pttx333

            through the mill with two double whammies! Whoa, oral surgery – I’ve had such, and it is the most awful thing to go through, isn’t it. I’ve always said I’d rather give birth to triplets under a tree than to go to the dentist – never changed my mind on that either. ;-) So glad you are on the mend now, and so good to see you are back after the catastrophic computer wipe-out.

            We’ve had some great videos, articles, comments and diaries about our guy Perry. I’m keeping the faith that he will prevail, and I can honestly say that I believe he will.

            Again, retire, good to see you back at RS.

          • Scope

            hope you are not in too much discomfort from your oral surgery. Sounds like your computer also had some surgery done on it, unwanted for sure.

            After you hang your J-I-N-G-L-E Bells, don’t forget to watch the debate.

          • retire05

            But even oral surgery doesn’t slow down my consumption of eggnog. (LOL)

            As to the debates, sorry, but there is no point in watching them. I already know the senario: Newt was informative and factual, Romney was “presidential”, Santorum seemed angry, Bachmann continued to repeat “repeal Obamacare”, Huntsman told how he is the most conservative of all the candidates and Paul will was crazy as ever.

            As to Perry, he will be reported as not very informed, not intelligent like Newt, not presidential like Romney, yada, yada, yada.

            Except I have heard it all before. And I understand that the media, including Fox, will promote the candidate THEY think exudes that “professorial” quality so necessary to be POTUS.

            Well, history has shown us what an academic has wrought. From Wilson, to FDR, to Carter, Clinton and now Obama, not one of them followed the Constitution. So if I have my choice between an academic like Wilson or a man of the people like Reagan (and Crockett), I will take the man of the people. Yes, I understand that Rick Perry doesn’t speak like a Harvard law lecturer, but that is a plus in my book.

            It is time for Americans to elect someone who is truely one of us. Not a wealthy man, not a man with a sheepskin from a tony university, but a “common” man and to my knowledge, there is only one running. The question is “are Americans dumbed down to the point that they can no longer pick a good president?”

            I wonder.

          • Scope

            Are the American people so dumbed down that they can’t pick a good president? I would have to say yes. When the tons of debates are the deciding factor, mostly controlled by the leftist media, in order to make all of the candidates look stupid, yes, you are correct. We are truly living in an “American Idol” or “Dancing with the Stars” age. It hurts my heart, my soul, and my intellect that we now pick presidents based on their debating skills, even when the slickest debater is nothing more than a wordsmith that “sounds” like the smartest guy in the room. The smartest guy in the room has been all over the map, but somehow finds the words to delude those who think he is authentic. It defies my mind to find that so many don’t realize, understand, or don’t want to know, that Gingrich has flip flopped as much, if not more often than Romney. When Gingrich has gone leftist, he has done it with a vengence, and until his presidential run, he has stayed there.

          • biglarryk56

            Nice metaphor….ro me, Perry is like “The Sing-Off” (the a cappella competition): it takes real work and real talent to accomplish great things. Until I moved to Arkansas in 2007, I lived in Texas for 23 years (having escaped from my birthplace in the Peoples Republic of Illinois), so I can vouch for the work Perry has done to make Texas the place that embodies good old American common sense and know-how ro get the job done.

            PS. It’s no coincidence that this season’s “Sing-Off” champions hail from Arlington, Texas!

          • Scope

            our candidates should all be required to enter both competitions on Dancing with the Stars and American Idol, and whoever wins both competitions gets to be the next president. Perry can play Beethoven on the piano, and I’d bet he can do a mean Texas Two Step. Perry’s dancing partner can be Meghan McCain, that ought to bring out all the swooners.

    • economics102

      I appreciate the first few paragraphs of your post. I’m replying to your post even though I agree with most of what you said.

      >His big obsession is about this ?blow-back? concept, which is controversial enough as it stands. Nothing justifies terrorism. Nothing.

      I think this is a misunderstanding of Paul’s point. He does not believe that 9/11 is “our fault” or that things that we did “justify” terrorism. All Paul is saying is that an important part of defending yourself is understanding what motivates others to attack you. It’s a simple truism that if enough people want you dead, no amount of defense is going to save you. Ask Bernie Madoff whether he would feel safe walking the streets of New York right now, for instance.

      So what Paul is saying is, it’s not a good situation when everybody thinks we were attacked for the wrong reasons. All the evidence and intelligence agencies say we were attacked on 9/11 as a reaction to our bases in Saudi Arabia, our bombings and sanctions of Iraq, and our support of Israel.

      So to see how what Paul is saying might be applied — maybe people decide “well, it sucks that our support of Israel provoked this attack, but supporting Israel is the right thing to do so we’re not going to change that policy.” And so it’s not about blame, just understanding cause and effect so prudent decisions can be made. For example, we didn’t really have a particularly good reason for having bases in Saudi Arabia (in my opinion, and the Bush Administration’s too, apparently, since they closed them immediately after 9/11). So OK, maybe we’re 1/3 less likely to get attacked because of that.

      Whenever the public is polled, there’s a disturbing percentage of Americans who, 10 years later, still think Iraq had some direct involvement in the 9/11 attacks. I don’t think a poll has been done of what Americans think the 9/11 hijackers’ motivations were, but I’ll be the percentage who don’t know the correct answer to that question is more than 75%. Which makes you wonder, if people understood the cause-and-effect, would they be more opposed to the current wars and continued military operations?

      You have to remember, Americans are not unique in being poorly informed about current affairs and world events. Many people are killed, injured, displaced, economically harmed, etc, by the things we do in the middle east. Without casting any judgments on whether our military activities are justified or not and without even judging whether we’re the good guys or not, the fact is that when someone’s home gets blown up in Iraq and it’s an American bomb, people may hate us for that whether it’s irrational or not. After all, if most of the American people don’t understand what we’re doing in Iraq, do you really think the Iraqi people have a clue?

      As Robert Pape has documented in the most comprehensive evidence of suicide terrorism available, of the thousands of suicide terror attacks in the past 3 decades, in over 95% of them, including the 9/11 attacks, the primary motivation of the attackers, in their own words and as otherwise documented, was not religious extremism, but a desire to have a foreign country out of their country. As Pape points out, the rise-and-fall correlation between occupation and suicide terrorism is over 95%, which is pretty hard to refute, whereas the correlation for other things we feel pretty confident about, like the link between smoking and lung cancer, is a mere 80%.

      Regarding the ‘glee’ comment, as well as those who intentionally misrepresent Paul as “blaming America” for 9/11 (and FYI I’m not accusing you of any of those things and I think your post was refreshingly even-handed), I think it’s despicable to use an issue like 9/11 to falsely crucify a political opponent, and that is exactly what people misrepresenting this latest comment about “glee” are doing.

      As you noted, it is well-documented that the key cabinet members of the Bush Administration as well as Vice President Cheney were very interested in invading Iraq years before 9/11. They are all signatories to the Project for a New American Century (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_for_the_New_American_Century). So, for Leon Wolf and others to claim this is conspiracy talk or left-wing talking points — this is a document that Cheney, Wolfowitz, Bolton, etc, SIGNED THEIR NAMES to in agreement. So it shouldn’t be controversial to take things the document says and argue that the people who signed it agree to those things.

      Ron Paul has been very clear over the years in stating whenever asked that does not believe in the 9/11 conspiracy theories put forth by the “truther” movement. There is no evidence to the contrary of this. People like to take the fact that a lot of truthers support Ron Paul as to imply that Ron Paul supports the truthers. But that’s an absolutely ridiculous assertion and only demonstrates some people’s desire to smear a candidate they don’t like.

      • dcacklam

        So we were ‘occupying’ what country prior to 9/11?

        Seriously….

        Do you even think about what you post?

        The fact is, the surprise attack on 9/11/01 was motivated by the exact same thing that motivated the surprise attack on 12/7/41 – a desire to force the US to withdraw from alliances seen as threatening to the desires of a hostile power….

        We weren’t occupying Saudi Arabia or Kuwait – we were there at the invitation of the government, to help contain Saddam.

        What we were doing, was preventing Osama from fulfilling his dream of being king of Saudi (the man made subordinate Queda members call him ‘my prince’ – this is documented fact).

        It’s the EXACT SAME motivation and the EXACT SAME strategy/desired outcome as the Japanese had when they attacked Pearl – ‘Hit the Americans hard enough, and they will run home & hide behind their borders, leaving us free to sieze power wherever we wish’….

        Now, the correct response in both cases was to strike back & strike back hard – which means invading countries.

        The WRONG response is to – as you and Ron adovcate – give up, go home, and give the enemy the exact victory scenario they imagined when they planned the attack.

        America wasn’t wrong for defending the Saudis & Kuwaitis. Or for opposing Saddam, and pressuring the Taliban (Back when they were the govt of Afganhistan) to not govern like a bunch of thugs.

        There is NO REASON we should ever consider surrendering & withdrawal. It’s just… WRONG.

        • economics102

          It’s a fair enough point to say that most people think of occupying to mean you’ve taken over a country.

          But that’s sort of the point.

          Imagine Russia had military bases in America. Imagine Russia, too, was in America at the “peaceful” invitation of the American government.

          Now imagine you actually live in said version of America, where everything is otherwise normal except that you have the peculiar experience of driving by Russian military bases and training camps on your way home from work.

          Maybe I don’t speak for everyone, but personally that would make me feel like my country was being “occupied” by a foreign nation. Yes, this is not the same strict sense of the term as some might use to characterize what we did in, say, Iraq (do you consider that an occupation?)

          But the only conclusion I might draw from the question of why Russia, a country we’re not culturally friendly with, would have 20 military bases in my country, is that they calculated they didn’t need 30 bases to sufficiently exert whatever influence and do whatever it is they want.

          Now keep in mind that the actual scenarios that transpire in the middle east are far more violent than this.

          We are not occupying Pakistan in the sense of having 30,000 troops over there (though I hear there’s a lot next door…), but the Pakistani people feel like their government is America’s puppet.

          Actual American citizens wouldn’t feel like the Russian presence was at THEIR invitation, they would feel like their elected leaders were too weak or too corrupt or too threatened to stand up and say NO, you can’t build bases in the middle of our cities. As you drive home from work and pass by the Russian base, you’d think, “I don’t know a single person who isn’t creeped out and scared about these bases being here.”

          Imagine if Mahmadinejad showed up in New York at the UN not with a couple bodyguards for his personal protection, but rolling down a closed-off street with tanks and hundreds of soldiers. And imagine one or two Americans were killed by these soldiers in “self defense.”

          That should give you some idea of how we “non-occupiers” look to the rest of the world.

          >There is NO REASON we should ever consider surrendering & withdrawal. It?s just? WRONG.

          Leaving a country that’s not yours is not surrendering. If you go into someone’s backyard and they start throwing stones through your house’s windows in response, even if you think you have a morally justified reason to be in their backyard, they have a justified reason in wanting you to leave, and the good reason you have to leave is that it’s not your yard — you have no need to stay there.

          The mentality that because someone attacked us in order to pressure us into doing X instead of Y and therefore to show we are strong we must never ever do X because that will show them they’ve won and they were successful, that’s a schoolyard mentality, like saying that because someone wants to fight you that you HAVE to fight them.

          Personally I don’t want to live in a country where we are deeply despised for participating in death and destruction overseas and have to rely on a police state to protect me from said people. As Paul pointed out in the last debate, YES, a true Orwell-worthy police state MIGHT be able to stop more crime and keep you safe, but at a disturbing cost. By contrast, if we don’t live in a world where we are hated so much by so many people, we won’t have to live in a world where we are either literally or metaphorically sleeping with the guns under our pillows.

          • aesthete

            “If you go into someone?s backyard and they start throwing stones through your house?s windows in response, even if you think you have a morally justified reason to be in their backyard, they have a justified reason in wanting you to leave, and the good reason you have to leave is that it?s not your yard ? you have no need to stay there.”

            Other countries are not governed by your neighbor who owns a property adjacent to yours: in particular, the countries that we tend to oppose are of the sort that are constituted to be horribly unjust. If in your analogy you were in your neighbor’s backyard because your neighbor raped his own daughter on a regular basis, and he started throwing rocks at you to get you to leave, it would certainly not be immoral for you to continue ahead. When gross injustice is ongoing, evident, and facilitated by private property and privacy, then in a proper system of justice those things are considered to have been forfeited by the perpetrator through his actions. In our system, we presume innocence, it is true — but after the guilty verdict, life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness are all subject to being taken away as a matter of justice. Unless you want to mount an improbable defense of the Taliban and Hussein’s amply-documented crimes against humanity and the citizens they ostensibly served, then I would say that both have forfeited their right to sovereignty, and that while it might be unwise or impractical to invade, it is certainly not immoral to take away these governments’ claims over their citizens, and to try to institute more just rulers.

            I am not in favor of status quo policies in foreign policy, and a smaller footprint in a unipolar world would probably be wiser. I cannot, however, abide this false equivalence — nor can I agree with the ludicrous nature and assumptions behind libertarian foreign policy.

          • Kyle-MI

            NT

          • dcacklam

            I asked you to name a country we were ‘occupying’ prior to 9/11.

            The US had NOTHING in Pakistan prior to 9/11, save for a handful of Marines guarding our diplomatic mission (something we do everywhere we have an embassy, world wide) and possibly a few advisors training the Paki military on any American weapons they may buy from us (such as F-16s).

            You contend that 9/11 was a ‘Response to US occupation’ of (Somewhere) – yet prior to 9/11 the only thing we had in Muslim lands was a large Air Force presence in Saudi Arabia, that caused no casualties or other damage to Saudi because all missions took place over Iraq!

            Your entire narrative fails simply because we weren’t ‘occupying’ anything, nor were any local national civillians getting killed.

            Now, AFTER 9/11 – Hell yes we occupied Iraq and Afganhistan! But that can’t be the CAUSE of 9/11 because it happened AFTER 9/11 – and BECAUSE OF IT!

          • civildebate

            Having a base in one muslim country to attack muslims in another country is like the Chinese having a base in Canada to attack the US. The Canadians would be pissed.

            From Wikipedia: Since Saudi Arabia houses the holiest sites in Islam (Mecca and Medina) ? many Muslims were upset at the permanent military presence. The continued presence of US troops after the Gulf War in Saudi Arabia was one of the stated motivations behind the September 11th terrorist attacks[1] and the Khobar Towers bombing. The date of the 1998 United States embassy bombings was eight years to the day (August 7) that American troops were sent to Saudi Arabia.[2]
            …
            Opinion polls conducted by Gallup from 2006?2008, find that many in Muslim majority countries strongly object to U.S. military bases in Saudi Arabia. 52% of Saudis agreed that removing military bases from Saudi Arabia would very significantly improve their opinion of United States. Also 60% of Egyptians, 39% of Jordanians, 40% of Syrians and Palestinians, 55% of Tunisians, 13% of Iranians, 29% of Turks, 40% of Lebanese, 30% of Algerians gave that opinion too.[4]

            ———
            as noted in the 9-11 Commission Report, Muslim countries around the world are under constant fear (warranted or not) that the US is going to invade or occupy their countries. There is always a strong belief that Americans are controlling their government and the conspiracy theories are similar to what we thought about Soviet communists during the Cold War.

            BTW, we have bases in several other middle eastern countries like Kuwait, Bahrain, and Qatar.

      • http://908StraightSt.wordpress.com/ mbecker908

        you are a raving lunatic.

      • JSobieski

        There are people in the world who want us dead, and a US military presence in Saudi Arabia was merely a stated excuse, not a indication of a cause, for the US to be attacked.

        I totally agree that we should have a ground-up rethinking not only of our relationship with a country like Pakistan, but of our entire foreign policy/military strategy going forward. I agree that we we have largely wasted a lot of money.

        Mark Steyn said it best last week in the NRO:

        I am not a Ron Paul isolationist. The U.S. has two reasonably benign neighbors, and the result is that 50 percent of Mexico?s population has moved north of the border and 100 percent of every bad Canadian idea from multiculturalism to government health care has moved south of the border. So much for Fortress America. The idea of a 19th-century isolationist republic holding the entire planet at bay is absurd. Indeed, even in the real 19th century, it was only possible because global order was maintained by the Royal Navy and Pax Britannica. If Ron Paul gets his way, who?s going to pick up the slack for global order this time?

        Nevertheless, my friends on the right currently fretting about potentially drastic cuts at the Pentagon need to look at that poor 19-year-old woman?s wedding to her cousin rapist and ponder what it represents: In Afghanistan, the problem is not that we have spent insufficient money but that so much of it has been entirely wasted. History will be devastating in its indictment of us for our squandering of the ?unipolar? moment. During those two decades, a China flush with American dollars has gobbled up global resources, a reassertive Islam has used American military protection to advance its theocratic ambitions, the mullahs in Tehran are going nuclear knowing we lack the will to stop them, and even Russia is back in the game of geopolitical mischief-making. We are responsible for 43 percent of the planet?s military spending. But if you spend on that scale without any strategic clarity or hardheaded calculation of your national interest it is ultimately as decadent and useless as throwing money at Solyndra or Obamacare or any of the other domestic follies. A post-prosperity America will mean perforce a shrunken presence on the global stage. And we will not like the world we leave behind.

        http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/284773/egypt-s-descent-mark-steyn?pg=2

        • aesthete

          [no text]

      • Leon H. Wolf

        Watch this, we can still shoot Paultards on sight. ESPECIALLY ones who trot out the whole “it’s WELL DOCUMENTED BY OBAMA SUPPORTER COLIN POWELL THAT BUSH WAS FIXATED ON IRAQ AFTER 9/11 LINE.”

        Blam.

      • Leon H. Wolf

        Watch this, we can still shoot Paultards on sight. ESPECIALLY ones who trot out the whole “it’s WELL DOCUMENTED BY OBAMA SUPPORTER COLIN POWELL THAT BUSH WAS FIXATED ON IRAQ AFTER 9/11 LINE.”

        Blam.

      • retire05

        Do you think that the date, September 11, was chosen by ObL as a lark? It was not. It was a specific date that had tremedous symbolic meaning to bin Laden.

        September 11th was designed to restart a centuries old war. It was on that date that the Muslim hordes were repelled, and defeated, at the Gates of Vienna. On that date, in 1683, the goal of the Muslim armies to conquer the Big Satan of the time, Europe, was ended. Bin Laden restarted that war. It had nothing to do with our presence in Saudi Arabia, just as Europe had no presence in the Middle East in 1683. The only thing that changed in the last 425 years was who the Muslims considered to be Satan.

        Bin Laden was an Islamic fundalmentalist. He believed, as did Mohammed, that the world would become completely Islamic via the conquering of Christian nations and the subjection of those nations. He simply reduced his army to an army of 19 instead of thousands on horseback. He used modern technology to bomb a major city in what he considered a Christian nation, thinking, much as Hitler did with London, that if he destroyed the city, the nation would fall.

        Also, Woodward, not to be considered a conservative by anyone’s standards, wrote that while there were those in the Bush cabinet that wanted to invade Iraq immediately, Bush rejected those plans placing his eye on Afghanistan where the Taliban was harboring AQ.

        So please, when you are trying to spin history, at least make an attempt to be believable.

        • Kyle-MI

          We also need to remember that it is not just Bin Laden who holds these beliefs. You can include nearly everyone who supports him and many Muslims who simply tolerate these radical Islamists. And the same ideas permeate the Iranian government. It is a toxic mix of religious fanaticism, ends justifying means morals, and grandiose dreams of world conquest.

        • funwithknives

          you might know that you and your’s are HARAM {evil;dirty} to Sunni’s/Wahabi’s, without exception. You also know that it is implicit that lying to “…those not of The Book” {The Qur’an}, is not only condoned but encouraged by the same.
          So why would you parrot anything they might utter? You and I are subjects to be extorted and dominated, to them and so many who believe likewise {Moderate Islam}but do not speak of it.
          What would it take for you to believe this train of thought? A knock on your door? A long line of Dhimmis, queing up to pay The Jizya??
          Take off your blinders , fellow citizen and Read the Qur’an. There ain’t nothin’ like The Real Thing.

      • Scope

        unless you leave out terms such as kook, nutjob, communist sympathizer, and senile. Thankfully after Jan. 2013 he won’t be leaving anymore butt prints on the chair he has occupied in Washington for more than twenty years, while accomplishing absolutely nothing except porking.

    • bardamu

      The headline is pretty misleading here. This isn’t full birther at all. It’s just Paul saying, as Glaucon points out, that the administration exploited 9/11 to further the neocon foreign-policy agenda. This is not new, or news. To boot, it’s true. It’s also true, pace Mr. Erickson, that our actions caused 9/11 in the sense that the bad guys exploited our Middle East policy to further their agenda. I’m not saying they were right to do it. But they did it.

      • Christine (Trelaina)

        Right on cue.

        Nice Freudian Slip with “birther”, bardamu. Tells more on you than even the words you chose to litter this thread with.

  • porkandcheese

    That was shameless pandering to his young tinfoil hat brigade! Just as I started thinking he might have mellowed with age, he comes out with that.

    Seriously, I just said maybe he has a shot in that Moe Lane thread on Romney. Now I have to eat those words lol.

  • kchand

    That’s odd … I don’t recall ANY “glee” in this country post-9/11. And I was paying close attention.

    Who knows, perhaps this will help sales, some, of his Christmas cook book.

    • http://www4.webng.com/rickbull/lostlucky/ rickbull

      The first ingredient is 4 cups of Ron Paul . . .

      • pttx333

        ./

  • renl57

    In meetings at Camp David in the week after 9-11, Paul Wolfowitz (and Cheney too I believe) argued that we needed to take out Saddam as well as Osama bin Laden’s minions.

    But from the pictures I saw, there was no “glee” about that or anything else.

    Nor was taking out Saddam any kind of top-secret conspiracy. In fact, it was being widely discussed in the American news media.

    http://tinyurl.com/7n7htk9

    In testimony before Congress the week after 9-11, Benjamin Netanyahu included Saddam in an arc of terrorist enablers that he suggested needed to be taken out.

    • Glaucon

      Not much “glee” after those attacks, with the exception of a few people that danced and thanked Allah.

  • http://chuckdevore.com chuckdevore

    So Ron Paul said, after 9/11 “…there was glee in the administration because now we can invade Iraq.” Imagine if it was Gov. Perry who said that. Does the media ignore Ron Paul because they don’t think he can win, or because many of them share his pacifist views?

    In any case, for those who remember George Bush the candidate and pre-9/11 President, they’ll recall a man who promised less nation-building and a more modest foreign policy after the Clinton years — years that saw the greatest post-WWII number of deployments for the military as we were increasingly doing the bidding for a disfunctional NATO (Bosia, Kosovo) as well as humanitarian missions (Somalia).

    • Glaucon

      Imagine if Herman Cain had said it. “Blitz” would be running it 24×7 for weeks! The media goes after Perry for a rock sitting next to a road, and they crucify Cain before they even knew the name of his accuser, yet new escapades of Newt get barely any coverage. Is Newt the media darling?

      • http://www4.webng.com/rickbull/lostlucky/ rickbull

        I have seen little else today except for Newt’s comment about the Palestinian “invented” people comment that he made yesterday.

        Are you meaning Newt or Paul?

      • pttx333

        he is the nominee (I pray not, though), then they will literally shred him to defend b.o. For now, he is the frontrunner, but when he implodes (which I believe he will), they won’t mention him again. That is the way they play their games.

        • superpatriot

          Every entity that has tried to shred or out debate Newt has gotten burned badly. Just take tonight’s debate.

          Seriously, I don’t think a billion of Obama’s dollars could stop the Newtmentum.

    • dcacklam

      Was that troops would be sent to fight, not hand out food.

      And that Saddam had better behave if he valued his neck.

      Both turned out to be correct.

      Notice that Bush was reluctant to send troops to Indonesia and Liberia (despite liberal howls about humanitarian crisis), but perfectly willing to send us anywhere that there was a battle to fight….

      Go kill Al Queda members, leave the food distro to the Euros….

      IMHO, he kept the promise to not be like Clinton…

      • JSobieski

        Troops under W did a lot of nation building.

        • dcacklam

          done because it was needed to prevent tactical victory from turning into strategic defeat.

          He famously turned down requests for the US to fix broken nations that we hadn’t invaded, and that had no strategic value in the wider war.

          You can’t defeat an insurgency without some level of ‘nation building’.

          The key was, what did Bush do in Liberia, Indonesia, and other such places where there was no military benefit to fixing an existing mess (a/o ‘clean up’ after we destroyed an outlaw regime)…. The answer was, let someone else handle it – we had a war to fight.

          • JSobieski

            but I think in hindsight, we would have been better off leaving Iraq and Afghanistan in a mess, and just periodically bombing any undesirables that pop their heads every couple of years. Or better yet, installing more enlightened versions of Mubarak-types would have been better.

            If we wanted to nation build, we should have emphasized western values (i.e. minority rights) first, and ballot box second. Instead, we played our cards to emphasize self-government first, and as most polls of Islamic nations in the Middle East show—those folks just don’t like us or think anything like we do. Whether its the death penalty for apostates, the lack of separate between church an state, etc. self-government in the ME is just another word for anti-US and anti-Israel.

            I don’t see much benefit to implanting Sharia-light governments in Iraq and Afghanistan. Just as I don’t see the changes in Egypt as an improvement for us. We have lost many lives and spent large sums of money to help bring about governments charging apostates with the death penalty and forcing rape victims to marry their rapists.

            These comments are very much made in hindsight, and I do not fault people having a different judgment at the time.

            Also note that I am not impugning in any way the basic morality of what the US was trying to do. We were in good faith trying to make the world a better place. It is only the efficacy of results that I challenge. I am not challenging the mission in a way that say Code Pink would.

            Iraq may be a short or even medium term success, but a look to Turkey and Egypt shows you what kind of future Iraq will ultimately have.

          • tomatin

            I don’t agree about Iraq. Iran would have definitely took full control of Iraq if we left it without an army of it’s own.

            I’m not sure theTaliban won’t eventually take over Afghanistanno matter what the US does at this point

  • deathandtaxes

    I don’t think RP meant anything offensive but it goes to show that he isn’t really the best at politicking. No politician in their right mind should say something like that. Realistically though, would we have invaded Iraq has 9/11 never happened?

    The thing about RP, is whether you agree with his view or not, he really believes what he says. Yes, he’s eccentric, but at least he’s been saying the same things since the 80s, unlike Gingrich or Romney. I like him (mostly on domestic issues) but I’m not stupid enough to ever think he would win the nomination. However, if he makes a third party run, he is drawing enough support this cycle to hand Obama the election.

    Realistically, Libertarians are far more excited about Rand Paul as a presidential candidate, and Justin Amash in Congress is another up and comer.

    • Repair_Man_Jack

      Do you think we would have allowed the sanctions on Hussein to actually expire?

  • benjaminz

    And he certainly needs to be dealt with, especially given his Iowa polling. But I think Leon is exaggerating the strength of his claim here. He is not going “full” truther at all. He is merely stating what is on record as having happened:

    See this article for example:

    Plans For Iraq Attack Began On 9/11

    With the intelligence all pointing toward bin Laden, Rumsfeld ordered the military to begin working on strike plans. And at 2:40 p.m., the notes quote Rumsfeld as saying he wanted “best info fast. Judge whether good enough hit S.H.” ? meaning Saddam Hussein ? “at same time. Not only UBL”

    “Go massive,” the notes quote him as saying. “Sweep it all up. Things related and not.”

    http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/09/04/september11/main520830.shtml

    It is a matter of the historical record.
    Lets hit Paul with something better than this.

    • deathandtaxes

      would be to give him a spot in the next Republican Administration. Let him take the political fallout for cutting government programs like Medicare, Social Security that will need to be cut/reduced to maintain solvency.

  • dcacklam

    First off, I remember 2000 quite well – and the assumption when we elected W Bush, among many conservatives, was that Saddam would be dealt with properly, rather than coddled & poked-at like BJ had done.

    With the 9/11 attacks, we had 2 problems that he presented a convenient solution to:

    1) We needed to defeat Al Queda in combat on Arab soil – to put lie to their claim as ‘defenders of the Arab world’. While their presence in Iraq was small before 9/11, it was obvious from past history that if we invaded Iraq, Al Queda would be forced to commit men and resources to defend their reputation. If we came, they would meet us.

    2) Saddam’s ability to scoff at the US and openly violate the 1991 cease fire is the exact sort of thing that gave Queda the idea we were weak enough that 9/11 would make us tuck-tail and run home to the states. He needed to be made an example of.

    For those two reasons, it was absolutely logical to open a front in Iraq as soon as we had the Taliban out of power in Afganhistan.

    I’ve served in both wars, and I don’t regret it in either case.

  • bobguzzardi

    How many jobs has Ron Paul created?

    Other than pork related.

    Rick Perry is an American; Ron Paul is a nasty discontent who blames all failures on the Fed and ‘war profiteers’. I have met the type in Pennsylvania and they are as unreasoning as the Left.

  • devereaux

    Bob Woodward and Paul O’Neill (Bush’s first Treasury Sec) both said at George W Bush’s first cabinet meeting the entire discussion was about invading Iraq. Months before 9/11. As far back as the mid 90s Bill Kristol was writing public letters asking the Clinton Adm to take out Saddam.

    And then 9 days after 9/11 The Project for a New American Century wrote a public letter to Bush

    “”Even if evidence does not link Iraq directly to the attack, … remove Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq.”
    “… any war against terrorism must target Hezbollah.”
    “We should insist that the Palestinian Authority … imprison those planning terrorist attacks against Israel.”

    http://zfacts.com/p/165.html

    Ron Paul of course is right. The Adm wasn’t giddy about the death of 3000 Americans, but the NeoCons in the Adm were giddy they’d finally get their war with Iraq.

    Trying to call Ron Paul a Truth for stating the obvious is absurd.

    • Leon H. Wolf

      Blam.

      • gekster

        • pttx333

          w

        • tomatin

          n t

    • http://908StraightSt.wordpress.com/ mbecker908

      nt

    • http://westernhero.blogspot.com/ silverfiddle

      Ron Paul is technically correct, but he is naive if he thinks retreating from the world will make militant islamists go away.

      I am a military veteran who has served in Iraq and Afghanistan, I hate the troofers and I love my country, but I am tired of the Frank Gaffney’s and William Kristol’s of the world continually advocating for more war.

      Beware those beating war drums who have never been to war.

      • http://908StraightSt.wordpress.com/ mbecker908

        Paul is a troofer. And a lunatic. And not a Republican.

        Thanks for your service, but Paul is dangerous.

        • red_refugee

          This is the guy who would have trusted the same Pakis who were hiding Bin Laden to arrest him. But as long as the rest of the field is full of candidates that push big government nonsense like vaccine mandates, support for Fannie/Freddie, and individual mandates to buy health insurance, Paul is going to have followers in the Republican party.

          • http://908StraightSt.wordpress.com/ mbecker908

            The gold standard historically caused much bigger problems than “fiat money” has or ever will. And, with respect for his “small government” creds, he’s the King of Earmarks, and has not managed to convince one other congresscritter to work with him on any small government plan.

            He has followers for the same reason most of the Black Caucus have loyal followers… gross stupidity.

          • http://www.examiner.com/x-1597-Charlotte-Law--Politics-Examiner Mike gamecock DeVine

            cut government programs right before we fit him for the strait jacket?

          • dcacklam

            With the CIA and DoD – the LAST things that should even be discussed when it’s time to cut…

            Paul wants to eliminate the CIA and cut the DoD by 80%.

            Unacceptable.

          • http://www.examiner.com/x-1597-Charlotte-Law--Politics-Examiner Mike gamecock DeVine

            spending cuts!

          • deVere

            The 99% depreciation in the dollar since the creation of the federal reserve far outweigh the comparatively trivial problems of gold as money.

          • dcacklam

            Since you shouldn’t be holding dollars beyond a month, anyway.

            It’s a medium of exchange, not a store of value.

            People don’t care what happens to the value of the money they spent yesterday, over 100 years.

            They do, however, care about the value of the things they bought with said money over long periods of time.

            For the purpose of this discussion, I’ll use ‘property’ for those things – I’m not just talking real estate, but rather ‘anything you can buy with money that is typically kept for a long time’. Investments, for example, also count.

            You have two choices:
            Money slowly loses value, but property slowly gains value.

            Money slowly gains value, but property slowly loses value.

            There’s no in-between.

            Money gaining value is abjectly bad for everyone except hermits who keep cash in cigar boxes.

            Money losing value CAN be bad if it loses value faster than you can spend it (Zimbabwe, Wiemar – all caused by politicians, not banks) – but if it loses value at say 1-3%/yr, that tends to be at worst neutral if not helpful for most.

            After all, most people obtain money to spend it – not to stuff it in boxes/mattresses/safes & just look at it…

          • jkines

            has been far more destabilizing than the Gold Standard ever was. Another viable alternative might be Hayek’s denationalization of currency idea to create a true free market of money, but the current system has played a significant role in bubble and bust cycles.

          • http://www.examiner.com/x-1597-Charlotte-Law--Politics-Examiner Mike gamecock DeVine

            lost his way in the late 90s and especially after 911, but their were more bubble bursts in the 1800s and early 1900s before the 1930s. The main difference then was that government didn’t intervene to try and soften busts, hence the recessions were mostly short-lived. There is no magic bullet to eliminate human excess. There is only damage control since Eve bit the apple.

          • jkines

            however these corrections are exacerbated and extended by the market distortions of centralized banking. The 2008 financial crisis and its aftermath, in conjunction with the sovereign debt crisis were absolutely predictable by Austrian theory. Perhaps the most frightening repurcussion is that, as a means of response, these same institutions are doubling down on failed policies, even as central bank fueled bubbles are primed to pop in China and India.

          • http://908StraightSt.wordpress.com/ mbecker908

            The problem is political manipulation of central bankers. The “bubbles” aren’t banking bubbles, their political bubbles.

          • jkines

            are inseparable.

          • http://908StraightSt.wordpress.com/ mbecker908

            Certainly there will always be some overlap, but the problem comes when they are co-joined, and that can be fixed.

          • jkines

            and your reward awaits in Stockholm.

          • http://908StraightSt.wordpress.com/ mbecker908

            is that RonPaul, his equally unhinged to insane – or in some cases simply ignorant fool – followers and the gold standard are not the solution.

            One of the very best things that will happen next year is that Ron Paul will finally be out of the Congress.

          • jkines

            you don’t have an answer for eradicating the political collusion inherent in centralized banking precisely because one does not exist. Hence you resort to ad hominem attacks on Ron Paul, irrelevant to the issue raised, and a candidate I don’t even support. All of thisin the name of attacking a free market currency, consistent with the very economic principles you otherwise purport to espouse. The irony is rich indeed. . .

          • dcacklam

            As the boom-and-bust cycle was MOST VIOLENT during the period between the end of the 2nd Bank of the US, and the founding of the Fed.

            Yes, there was tremendous development over those years – but that was due to western expansion and industrialization – it happened in spite of a terrible monetary system.

            Since the creation of the FED, our ‘boom-and-bust’ has been far more restrained, with the one ‘major’ disruption being caused by an excessively deflationary monetary policy (that would be the Great Depression) – eg by the FED not ‘printing’ (I hate that term) enough money.

            Throughout the world, the gold standard has been abjectly rejected. If it were superior, there would be at least ONE major power still using this ‘advantage’.

            But it is not.

            The only thing a gold standard is good at, is preventing growth through deflation.

            It ENCOURAGES boom/bust by placing an absolute limit on the size of an economy, which when reached results in a deflationary BUST, followed by a ‘BOOM’ back up to the hard-limit, and so on.

          • jkines

            is the only monetary system compatible with a free market economy. It is important to note that the phrase “gold standard” is meant to denote whatever commodity emerges as money from the free interplay of market forces. Hence it refers to free market money.

            Thus it stands to reason that anyone who opposes a gold standard, as hitherto defined, cannot possibly claim to advocate free enterpise, at least with respect to monetary policy. If one opposes marketplace money, then one cannot, sans contradiction, assert support for the free operation of markets. However, you never did assert yourself an advocate of free markets, hence I digress.

            Throughout the 20th century, the root cause of most economic crises was expansionary monetary policy accompanied by regulatory errors further compounding the effects. Central banks are essentially government-run monopolies not subject to the same competitive discipline as other business entities. There is no logical reason why the supply of money should be monopolized and left in the government’s hands. A system of competitive, privately issued, currencies would deliver superior currencies and greater macroeconomic stability.

          • streiff

            in generalities and particulars.

            Key points:

            1. You don’t have the standing to determine what constitutes support of free enterprise and anyone who equates a gold standard to free enterprise is, not to put too fine a point on it, self disqualifying. One is a currency system the other an economic system. Related? Yes. The same? Only in Bizarro world.

            2. Private currencies would be chaos. The fact that they aren’t used anywhere should be a clue that there is a problem with them.. And then there is that whole inconvenient Constitution thing.

          • jkines

            belies your lack of faith in the market. It’s the same rhetoric liberal democrats use to oppose deregulation. Fiat money imposed by government monopoly is not merely related but endemic with regards to the history of 20th century financial crises.

            Since you bring up the constitution, any originalist reading leads to the same conclusion Robert Bork made that “scholarship suggests that the Framers intended to prohibit paper money.” That is precisely why language explicitly giving the government power to print paper money was voted down 9-2 at the Constitutional convention. Madison noted, in Federalist #44, that the issuance of paper money has resulted “in an accumulation of guilt, which can be expiated no otherwise than by a voluntary sacrifice of the power which has been the instrument of it”.

            It is indisputably clear that the power to coin money and regulate its value is one that the Constitution delegates to Congress. It?s also clear that the Constitution bars states from making coins other than gold or silver legal tender. But it is not clear that there is a constitutional basis or a logic for prohibiting individuals from making and selling pieces of gold and silver and using them, on a voluntary basis, as money?i.e., to ?compete with? the official coinage of the U.S.

          • dcacklam

            Is the actions of the founders after it’s ratification…

            For example, James Madison himself signed our second central bank into law (the first one having been politically eliminated prior to the War of 1812)… This bank was, unlike the first, empowered to issue bills of credit (paper money).

            While the Constitution does not explicitly authorize FEDERAL paper (or other non-coin) money, it (A) does not prohibit it, and (B) through the regulate-value clause, creates a power Congress can use to authorize it (since the issuance of more/less paper money (or today, digital money) can be used to regulate the value of coin-money).

            To contrast, the STATES are ABSOLUTELY FORBIDDEN from operating ANY sort of monetary system, INCLUDING the issuance of gold/silver coin AND paper money (No state shall… coin money, emit bills of credit…). States may make gold/silver an alternate legal tender, however they may not issue or mint gold/silver coin.

            With that said, you are correct in that there is NO LAW preventing private merchants and individuals from accepting gold/silver (or Euros, or Pounds, or whatever else) instead of USD….

            The one ‘specie money’ scheme that did get busted by the Feds – the so-called ‘Liberty Dollar’ – was busted NOT for using (in this case) silver, but because they encouraged users to pass off their ‘liberty dollars’ as USD – which is fraud/counterfeiting, and thus illegal.

            However, there is absolutely NO CHANCE that gold/silver can compete against floating money for the purpose that merchants and individuals use money for: an instantaneous exchange of value.

            This fact tends to fly right by most alternate-money advocates: MONEY THAT GAINS VALUE IS HARMFUL TO BUSINESSES AND INDIVIDUALS WHO DO NOT INTEND TO SAVE IT.

            Which is why almost no one exercises the freedom to accept deflationary commodities (gold/silver) in lieu of USD, as payment for goods/services. It puts the seller at a disadvantage (since the good he sold is worth more when it leaves his store, than it was when it was paid for – and the payment is worth less).

            The only possible superiority of commodities to floating-money is as an INVESTMENT (and even that varies with market conditions, see the price of gold from 1979 to 2000) ….

            But money is not supposed to be an investment – in fact so long as you avoid politically-caused disruptions such as lost wars or confiscatory anti-wealth policies, the ‘better’ money stores value, the worse it serves as a medium of exchange!

            Which is why the USD is set up to ONLY be a medium of exchange, NOT a store of value.

          • http://impudent.edublogs.org/ kyle8

            That although the constitution does not forbid the issuance of private script. It would be used to enforce any such private entity to accept dollars as legal tender. If they are forced to accept devalued dollars then how long would their money last?

            So private money would have a difficulty existing in conjunction with public dollars. There is an old axiom, bad money chases out the good.

          • dcacklam

            Is that it’s wrong to consider a slowly inflating dollar ‘bad money’.

            1-2% inflation per year only impacts those who ‘buck the system’ and hold dollars in cash, instead of spending them on property or investments.

            The USD having an increasing value (constant value is impossible – balancing on the point of a pin) is actually harmful to almost everyone in the economy, as this devalues property and possessions (Which is where most people store their wealth)….

            The one thing most ‘alternate monetary system’ advocates ignore, is that the ‘problem’ they see with the dollar is NOT A PROBLEM for most Americans – in many cases it’s a benefit…

          • dcacklam

            Throughout history, DEFLATION – the exact opposite of ‘expansionary monetary policy’ – has been the greatest cause of financial/monetary crises – including both the wildcat banking era (Jackson to the Fed) and the Great Depression.

            ‘Commodity peg’ monetary systems (Where the circulating money is pegged to the price of a non-money, raw-material commodity) almost UNIVERSALLY fall victim to deflation, as they allow a situation where the economy using the money can grow faster than the available supply of said money, leading to a recession or more often depression (The Great Depression was an example of exactly this problem).

            They are thus FAR MORE DESTRUCTIVE than all but the most severe ‘expansionary monetary policy’ could ever be!

            The universal acceptance of floating, market based (what you gold bugs call ‘fiat’) currency is, in fact, entirely responsible for the end of deflationary panics, by ensuring that there will never be an economic shortage of money.

            As for your allegation that being pro-central-bank is ‘anti-market’, that’s absurd.

            Being pro-peg is anti-market.

            There is, right now, a world-wide market for currency. If the US Dollar was so terrible a choice, people could use Euros, or Pounds Sterling, for example. There’s nothing preventing this.

            There’s also nothing preventing any country from placing a commodity-pegged currency on the market. But no one does it – mainly because it would compete very poorly as a medium of exchange (The modern purpose of money) with free-floating currencies.

            And nothing preventing any US merchant from taking payment in gold, silver, crude oil, or whatever the pet commodity of the day is – so long as they still take USD.

            In this market, the USD still reigns supreme… For example, give an Afghan merchant a choice between payment in Afghanis and payment in USD. USD, every time. Our money, which you guys love to attack as ‘worthless’, is accepted pretty much everywhere in the world – seems there’s plenty of free market left.

            When we get down to it, folks who (falsely) use the term ‘Gold Standard’ to describe an economy with no central bank AND no legal tender requirement, are describing a BARTER economy.

            The point of having money in the first place – vs barter – is that the ‘monetary monopoly’ removes an immense amount of inefficiency from the market.

            Most ‘modern barter’ (Aka ‘free money’) advocates assume the existence of omniscient, perfectly rational consumers. It’s the only way their system of competing commodity-based barter can work – is if everyone knows, at every moment in time, the relative values of all the different commodities being used in trade. But that’s not reality.

            Reality is that the complexity of this system (of banks having to be able to store all these commodities – from gold bars to barrels of oil, of merchants having to be able to reconcile 3-4 or more different prices for each product, not to mention ‘making change’ and so on) would create a huge amount of overhead.

            Consumers would have to be constantly knowledgable as to what the price of the various commodities was at any given moment, so as to be able to make informed decisions about the price of goods they are consuming…

            Even if all of the ‘change making’ and commodity-moving was done by the banks, and merchants only had to handle electronic transfers, the pricing problem would still exist…

            And the overhead/opportunity cost would be immense….

            Compare this to a single medium of exchange (USD) that everyone knows the general value and value-trend of (eg, it’s worth what it’s worth today, and it will be worth 1% less next year, so SPEND IT NOW!)…. The superiority of our current system is obvious….

            Even if the FED were completely private, essentially no one would start accepting other non-’floating money’ means of payment… The USD is superior to every possible alternative so long as it is ONLY used as money and NOT an investment.

            And even with the FED being partially government-controlled, the USD still does not compete well on the market as an investment, which is why people gladly trade their dollars for ‘investment goods’ if they intend to store wealth rather than simply exchange present-value.

            You see, the ONLY motivation for changing the monetary system, is that some people have this STRANGE belief that money should be an investment in-and-of-itself.

            Thus, they want to ‘fix’ something that is NOT EVEN A PROBLEM – the long-term value of money.

            The reason that the ‘value of the USD over 100 years’ is not a problem, goes back to the simple statement that ‘MONEY IS A MEDIUM OF EXCHANGE, NOT A STORE OF VALUE OR LONG-TERM INVESTMENT!

            Thus, the gradual loss of value is NOT A PROBLEM because it only impacts those who use money for something it was NEVER MEANT TO BE….

            Which makes barter-money a ‘solution for a problem that does not exist’.

          • dcacklam

            If your state/local government wants your kids to be vaccinated, that’s well within their Constitutional powers to require.

            There’s nothing wrong with it, either – we’ve required MMR, Polio, Smallpox (back when the disease still existed ‘in the wild’), and a host of other vaccines for public health/safety reasons.

            We’ve ERADICATED one of the most deadly diseases in recent history (smallpox) due to such efforts. Polio used to be common too – but it’s extremely rare, again due to mandatory vaccination.

            The only reason that people complained about Perry’s Guardasil requirement, is that it’s a vaccine for an STD (an STD that has cervical cancer as a side-effect), and there is a certain group that believes vaccinating against STDs encourages promiscuity.

            There’s nothing ‘un-conservative’ about state/local govt requiring such things – and our world is much better because they did when it comes to polio, smallpox, and so on.

            Now that’s not to say that every vaccine ever developed should be mandatory for everyone…

            But it is to say there is nothing ideologically wrong with mandatory vaccination, so long as it’s not the Feds writing the requirements…

          • center77

            even though Chris is trying to catch him up on stuff. I think they seem too want Perry to fall, but his answers in right on message. I think Perry has gotten a lot better. He even tried to get him on the 8 judges, but the answer really is that 8 judges voted yes on Eagle vs. Vital, and that’s what he meant about that.

          • dcacklam

            that Perry pulls a McCain-style comeback….

            Just like I was hoping that McCain did it in 08, after Thompson bailed & he became the only man who could stop Mitt/Huck….

          • Common_Cents

            He admitted he screwed up. He did not say anything about 8 judges voting yes on that case. Watch the interview.

            A candidate thinks its too much to memorize all 9 SCOTUS names? sheesh…..that is ugly. This isn’t some quiz about knowing every podunk country leader.

          • center77

            ran the correct yesterday, and for some reason he did not mention that on Chris Wallace, but my guess is that he just wanted to get through that segment of the interview. The rest of the answer was spot on. We will be watching the news to watch.

          • Common_Cents

            He didn’t say he was referring to 8 voting one way.

            Watch the interview, or am I hallucinating?

          • Common_Cents

            ?Well, obviously I know there are nine Supreme Court justices,? Perry told Fox News host Chris Wallace Sunday. ?The fact is I can?t tell you ? I don?t have memorized all of the Supreme Court judges.?

            ?[Americans are] not looking for a robot that can spit out the name of every Supreme Court justice or someone that?s going to be perfect in every way,? he added. ”

            A robot that can spit out 9 SCOTUS? CRINGE!!!!!!

          • Common_Cents

          • http://www.changeforrickperry.org louisianapatriette

            You can’t find anything wrong with his record so you do as the media does: you nitpick him to death on things like this. People were run out of town on a rail for treating Herman Cain the way you’re treating Rick Perry. That game plays both ways and I call you out as a habitual breaker of the 11th Commandment. Give me some rock-solid issues you have with Perry’s positions and record, not just harping on silly issues that won’t have any impact on President Perry’s administration. I kept a running tab, by the way, of all the times the other candidates stammered and spluttered and struggled for words last night, so don’t bring up Perry’s purely Southern way of talking in your thought-out, intellectual response.

          • streiff

            it due to two things: municipal water/sewage systems and mandatory vaccines. That anyone can argue against mandatory vaccines simply shows we’ve allowed way too many morons into our party.

  • http://westernhero.blogspot.com/ silverfiddle

    While Paul’s comments do not make him a troofer, they do display a naivete if he really does believe that all we have to do is retreat from the world and militant islam will go back to their corner as well.

    I believe he is walking this rhetorical tightrope as a means of sending “dog whistles” to the leftwing kooks.

    • deathandtaxes

      As misguided as his foreign policy views are, they are what he believes and what he’s been advocating for since the 80s. RP is right about a lot of things (most domestic policy) , and very, very wrong about other things (anything foreign policy and national defense related) but you have to give it to him that he really believes what he is saying. Unlike the whoever will end up winning the nomination, RP is 100% honest.

      Regardless of whether you like him or not, RP has been talking about the deficit and the causes of the housing bubble for years. He will not win, but some of his more reasonable ideas are now subject to legitimate discussion by the mainstream of the party. As I said in another post, a politician with RP’s domestic views and a more realistic foreign policy as well as a more polished presentation would be highly effective. That’s why Rand Paul has a real future in the party.

  • pantera

    Ron just keeps oozing craziness.

  • deVere

    “the fact that Ron Paul is a liar and a hypocrite on spending, who has built a career larding up appropriations bills with pork for his home district and then casting meaningless votes against their final passage”

    Does that mean if I think Social Security should be a private system, I must therefore refuse the benefits I paid for for 40 years?

    Ron Paul represents constituents, and very reasonably thinks if pork is the system, his constituents should get their share. Then he very praiseworthily votes against all pork for everyone. I can’t see any lie or hypocrisy or inconsistency in that at all.

    Ron Paul panders to truthers and neo-Nazis to get their campaign contributions. At some point he may get confused and start believing his own rhetoric. He’s getting old.

    The joke is true that Ron Paul is 90% correct, and 10% insane. The insanity is almost exclusively in foreign policy, and it’s certainly enough reason never to elect him President.

    • Marcus_Traianus

      And the normal only extends to things like he breaths air and presumably can use the toilet.

      If you believe in a principle, you stand by that principle. Always. Not when it is convenient. I think Ron Paul should have said a long time ago he didn’t believe in “pork’ and told voters in his district he was not going to take any. Maybe then we would have been done with him a long time ago.

      • tomatin

        no text

      • deVere

        You mean if you think a law is mistaken you should therefore break it as much as possible? Or if you think Social Security was a mistake you don’t take any benefits, and recommend to your constituents that they also skip taking their benefits?

        Sorry to say, Ron Paul comes across as more logical than some of the folks here at RS.

        And believe me, I am anything but a Ron Paul supporter. I’d never vote for the man.

        • http://www.examiner.com/x-1597-Charlotte-Law--Politics-Examiner Mike gamecock DeVine

          I always thought that it hurt my home state of SC for then Rep. Mark Sanford to refuse pork for SC since our taxes help pay for same. Plus, I don’t have a problem with pork as the grease that makes deals possible as part of human nature reality. Plus, its a puny part of the budget.

        • Marcus_Traianus

          Like, John Boehner. Kooky Ron Paul…not so much.

  • tomatin

    The reason SE Asia is safe now is because most of it has adopted Western free trade.

    The fact is American engagement around the world after WWII has made the world much safer. We still have a base in Singapore and bases in Japan and SK. That’s why SE Asia is safe.

    Sure we can cut the defense budget but to disengage around the world like Paul wants to do is flat out nuts.

    The only thing that contains China at all is all the allies we have in Asia.

    • rwheatly

      I see your point on SE Asia, and the stability the US presence has created. But why does the US have to pay for this? Why can’t Japan and S. Korea, both wealthy countries, pay for this stability and balance vs. China?

      It seems insane that the US spends so much $ on defending the world when much of the world could defend itself, but doesn’t b/c it doesn’t have to.

      Paul’s is one of the few Republicans that actually points this fact out. We CAN cut our military spending and still defend our country.

      • dcacklam

        The country that ‘polices the world’ is, 9/10, also the country that issues the world’s reserve currency, and generally a country with substantial trade benefits that others would not receive.

        Our entire economy is based on the USD being world-reserve, and thus the US being able to ‘sell’ dollars as an export.

        An isolated USA that ‘defends itself’ from inside it’s borders would be a 3rd-world country with a 3rd-rate military (garrison armies, that don’t deploy and don’t fight, tend to succumb to ‘Mexican General’ syndrome – issuing pointless awards by the bucketload, and fixating on polished boots & sharp sleeve creases over useless combat skills).

        We have the same size army as South Korea (roughly 514,000 US Army troops on active duty) – but many times more people. We do NOT over-spend on defense.

        • http://impudent.edublogs.org/ kyle8

          In order to have the worlds reserve currency it is necessary to have the largest military? There is no correlation at all.

          Nor does it follow that if we had a less interventionist foreign policy that we would necessarily have a third world military. All militaries decline a bit in peacetime but that is hardly a rationale for continued warfare.

          You are entitled to your opinion that we do not overpay for defense, but since we are currently broke it is hard to reconcile that with reality.

          Do you want to know how we really will end up with a third world military? If we do not address all of our overspending including in the realm of foreign affairs and eventually end up like Greece, then we really will have to settle for less.

          • dcacklam

            Is a ‘follower’ nation… They lack the power to set the terms, and thus are stuck with the terms that greater powers (Germany and France, in this case) dictate to them.

            Does the US overspend? Sure… Do we face any sort of an economic apocalypse? Not so long as we remain sole-superpower and issuer of the reserve currency.

            The ‘correlation’ is seen in the relative military and economic clout of the UK before us, and our ascending to that position economically once we took over the position of preeminent military power/’world police’ from them.

            As long as we have the power to set the terms, we’ll be fine – and as for financial solvency, the problem there is entitlements, not defense.

            We gain something from global military presence & power.

            We gain nothing from cradle-to-grave welfare.

          • http://impudent.edublogs.org/ kyle8

            Again, we are the reserve currency not because we have some sort of giant empire but because in the past the dollar was as good as gold. If we screw up our economy too much we will lose that status whether we have a huge military or not.

            Switzerland is as small as Greece but has none of their problems, and it isn’t because they go around trying to be policeman of the world.

            The UK declined because they could no longer afford an empire. and neither can we.

          • http://www.hakubi.us/ Neil Stevens

            In the end they let India, Pakistan, and the rest go. They were no more ‘warmongers’ than we are.

          • http://impudent.edublogs.org/ kyle8

            that they had no choice. they ran out of money. We need to stop all the huge domestic spending, but we also have to rethink our huge overseas commitments also.

            If you think that we can keep this up to infinity you are incorrect. I also don’t see our security enhanced by blundering into every hotspot in the world, we have a poor track record of picking winners.

          • dcacklam

            They ran out of WILL, not money…

            And because they ran out of will, they later ran out of money…

            We don’t have a choice but to keep it up, or we’ll end up where they are today…

          • http://www.hakubi.us/ Neil Stevens

            Money had nothing to do with the desire for self determination on the part of the Indians and others.

          • dcacklam

            One of the above posters claimed that ‘Britain lost her empire because she ran out of money to maintain it’…

            I’m stating that the Brits lost their empire because they lost the will to maintain it (by force)…

            As a consequence of losing said empire, Britain has been in a constant state of decline (With a slight respite in the Thatcher years)….

          • http://www.hakubi.us/ Neil Stevens

            ..

          • dcacklam

            If your nation’s economy is built on being a global territorial empire, you maintain that empire or you face decline…. If you give up that territory, that is a loss of will to survive…

            If your nation’s economy is built on a financial and political ‘empire’, you still have to do whatever it takes to maintain the same – except that in this case we’re talking trade routes, resources, & reserve currency status, not territory…

            Further, the ‘we quit, HOT POTATO, catch’ manner in which the Europeans de-colonized Asia and Africa is largely responsible for many of the problems in those regions today – populations that lacked the pool of skills required to effectively self-govern (because during colonial rule, those skills were only taught to the colonial power’s citizens) found themselves ‘in power’ with no clue as to how to responsibly exercise the same…

            Instead of transitioning colonies to self-rule over time, the loss of will resulted in a chaotic aftermath… An aftermath the US often finds ourselves cleaning up….

  • reaganbuckley

    I’m not voting for Paul because the gold standard is not a workable currency solution in a modern economy and I disagree with several of his foreign policy views.

    However, to state that Ron Paul attracts mainly non-Republican voters is a lie. I know several people who are voting for Paul and they are no hippie socialist dems. Others in the Iowa caucus and elsewhere would be insulted by you accusing them of not being conservative.

    Conservative elites ignore Ron Paul at there own risk. The libertarian strain of conservatism is growing strong.

    • Tbone

      Thank you.

      BTW, if you know several people who are voting for Paul, you are running with the wrong crowd.

  • buddyp

    Leon,

    Let me preface my comment by saying:
    - I’m absolutely NOT a Paul supporter.
    - I think Ron Paul’s “non-interventionist” approach to foreign policy is absurd and would be dangerous as well as ultimately economically costly on balance.
    - I think Ron Paul’s extreme views regarding currency and the Fed are ridiculous.
    - I think many Ron Paul supporters are nutjobs, including many truthers, although I don’t know percentages and it’s possible they are just a fraction of Paul supporters. I know the few I met in person in 2008 seemed whacky.

    ok, that said, I have simply a point of logic to make.

    Your assertion is a non sequitur. Saying the Bush Administration reacted with glee is NOT the same as saying “that the U.S. government was warned by the Israelis/Saudis/French/whoever that the attacks were coming and deliberately ignored it because they wanted 9/11 to happen.”

    That’s really quite a stretch, and an unfair one, unless you have something Paul has said that bridges the huge gap between those two ideas. As disgusting as it would be for people to react with glee at 9/11 — regardless of their rationale in terms of enabling some subsequent policy they deemed important and good — it would be an entirely different level of disgusting for a president and his administration to deliberately allow it to happen.

    Surely you can see the difference.

    So why not criticize Paul for the ugly accusation he actually made — that the Bush Administration reacted with glee — rather than making an illogical and unfair accusation yourself?

    • buddyp

      I am NOT by any means concurring with what Paul said re: “glee”.

      Although no reasonable reading of my comment would lead one to think I was concurring with Paul, I want to make that absolutely clear.

      Is it possible that some in the Administration (or unofficial advisors) saw a benefit of making it more likely that we’d take out Saddam? Yes, but that’s quite different from saying they reacted with “glee” at the sight of 3,000 Americans being murdered.

      My point above was simply that the accusation Paul made (re: “glee”) was quite ugly, but the accusation Leon seems to be unfairly and illogically attributing to Paul would have been on a much greater level of ugly, and thus it is unfair (and illogical) for Leon to equate the two.

  • nativetexan41

    young people is he wants to legalize all illegal drugs. He is out in left field for sure. He is smart about one thing , he is going to retire with all his campaign money war chest and live very comfortable with that and his congressional retirement check.
    He is not a conservative Republican.

  • retired_sfguy

    It is and was accurate, that elements of our government and political class were “gleeful” that we could finally invade Iraq and finish what we started in Desert Shield/Storm. I was one of them. I fought the first one and went back half a dozen times for the second and current one. It is accurate and truthful and is no secret to those who were in at that time and served in any part of the DoD or Intelligence community. Iraq had been an unresolved issue for us for many years (remember the no fly-zone?)

    To equate stating that fact with being a 9/11 truther is beneath what I thought the reputation of Red State was. The entire point of this article was for the author to get a “bump”. He knew just how to do it, mention Ron Paul and watch the feathers fly. The amount of utter stupidity I have read in the various comments supporting this position is depressing. I can’t believe that people who consider themselves ‘good people cold say such completely fallacious and hateful things.

    You know, it sure is easy to cheer on the troops when you aren’t bleeding and dying, That is the issue at hand. Anyone that has ever spent any length of time in that area of the world knows and understands two facts; 1) Those that recruit and fund the elements fighting us, use our presence in their lands as proof that we are invaders and must be expelled. (given the lack intellectual response to this article it should be apparent that some people are easily swayed to war) 2) We’ve killed a lot of innocent people throughout the region. That is a consequence of war and unavoidable. The hatred that that generates is also a consequence and unavoidable. The longer we stay, the worse it gets. We need to wake up and realize we have no moral right to tell other nations how to live. If they attack us, we crush them. And let there be no doubt, at present there is no other nation or group of nations that could stop us from doing just that. Our presence over there is hurting us in more ways that we can measure. Dr Paul is right, and we need to end it now.

    • retire05

      You said that our mere presence in Muslim nations fuels their hatred for us. I disagree with that. It is not our presence that fuels their hatred, it is their religious ideology. One of the best books written about the ideology set out by Mohammed is Sword Of The Prophet. You should read it.

      1) It was not the presence of Europeans that caused the Muslim hordes to march across Europe, it was the philosphy of conversion or conquest. Nothing has changed. The claim it is our presence in Saudi and Kuwait, et al, is simply an excuse that has been accepted by those who have not studied history.

      2) Yes, there have been the deaths of those who were innocent. But that is war. And frankly, if we had applied the same military tactics to Iraq and Afghanistan as we did to Germany and Japan, we would not be where we are today, fighting a losing war. We did not worry about the “hearts and minds” of the Germans or Japanese. We fought them with a “we win, you lose” mentality.

      Ron Paul, like you, seems to want to ignore the history of Islam and its march across continents. It didn’t start on 9-11-2001, but 1300 years earlier and we could pull every American out of every Muslim nation, and the Islamists would still be trying to kill us, only here, as on 9-11, not there.

      • retired_sfguy

        I’ve read it (Sword of the Prophet) and I would suggest you read Michael Scheuer, Through our Enemies Eyes. As I made clear in my response, 1) Those that recruit and fund…..I know we here in the US like to make distinctions, but people are people. Most folks just want to be left alone. The fact that we are there give those that want power, a common enemy. They can point to us as being the source of all that is wrong, couple that with their abject poverty, and it isn’t hard to recruit. Add to all that propaganda that shows all the death and destruction that the “great satan” is visiting upon them, and you have a long list if would be hero’s ready to stand up and repel the supposed invaders. This is in fact a major contributing factor to the hatred of us.
        In my point of number 2) Killing innocent people is a stain on the soul of whoever does it. Innocents die in war. That is why war is God awe-full, and should be the absolute last resort. And when we go, we win. Germany and Japan as well as the crusades have no bearing on the situation at hand. It is a real shame that we would consign ourselves to the killing of other human beings just to satisfy our own need to ensure “security”. We are no more secure today that were then. Ask anyone who knows. These wars need to stop and quite frankly I’m sick of dealing with amateur historians and philosophers who don’t have to directly carry out their proposed solutions.

  • http://www.changeforrickperry.org louisianapatriette

    “They” being Black Helicopter Conservatives who take everything for a conspiracy theory, a la Alex Jones.

  • chbroussard

    Dad………..we need to talk.

    If I had a nutty, senile parent, I’d at least make an attempt to step in and save him from himself. Though Rand does not seem as nutty as his dad, I don’t think it helps him for Dad to keep running at the mouth.

    • pttx333

      the way he is now for decades, so the issue can’t be senility. He’s just plain NUTZ. As for Rand, I don’t know that much about him, but I am always leery of just how far from the tree the acorn has fallen or will fall. Sorry – that is just me.

      • chbroussard

        in many instances the acorn doesn’t fall far from the tree. However, that is not always the case. I’m married to a conservative who fell about 100 miles away from his liberal parental tree. I can’t even count the times my husband’s eyes have rolled and shook his head at some liberal spew from his parents’ mouths. In fact at family gatherings, political talk is forbidden.

  • wearethevigilant

    Give the 9/11 trash talk on Ron Paul a rest. He’s come out saying 9/11 wasn’t an inside job. Why don’t you look at Palin’s support for a new investigation regarding the attacks of that day.

    If Reagan were still with us and he had an endorsement say, he would endorse Ron Paul.

    • sticktotheconstitution

      Ron Paul, attempting to understand MOTIVATION, is not EXCUSING terrorism or murder. Ron Paul never claimed that the attacks of 9-11 were any sort of “inside job” (as the so-called ‘truthers’ believe). If you refuse to accept the simple concept of blow-back (and it’s consequences), then arguing with you is like debating a child.

      Ron Paul 2012, you want a conservative then he is your man.

      • sticktotheconstitution

        that post was not addressed to you wearethevigilant

        - I agree with what you say

        my post was addressed to Leon H. Wolf and all the other self-titled “conservatives” on this site

      • dcacklam

        And that is what Ron’s ideology demands!

        Calling it ‘blowback’ is the first part of this – and one of the first sticking points against his view.

        ‘Causation’ or ‘Causus Bellum’ is a more neutral term – it fills the purpose of identifying the theory of ‘why they did it’, without assigning fault to US.

        ‘Blowback’ implies that we were WRONG for conducting ourselves as we did prior to 9/11, and thus somehow ‘had it coming’.

        To use a historical analogy, if Ron were around on 8/Dec/41, he would be claiming that the bombing of Perl was ‘blowback’ for our maintaining a presence in the Pacific, and embargoing Japan – as if we were the ones who were wrong, and those ‘poor misunderstood’ Imperial Japanese were just lashing out at the real bad guy…

        This leads to his ‘surrender’ solution – and that’s what it is.

        Even if you accept Ron’s ’cause’ premise (they’re mad at us because we have troops stationed in their homelands and because we are allied with Israel), you can’t help but notice that his solution is IDENTICAL to the enemy’s ‘purpose’ for the operation…

        In US Army speak, the ‘task and purpose’ for the 9/11 team was ‘TASK: Attack key American political/economic/military targets. PURPOSE: To force America to withdraw her forces and support from the Middle East, in order to enable Al Queda elements to gain political power in the region’

        Ron Paul advocates giving in to the enemy’s demands – withdrawing our forces and abandoning our allies to Al Queda.

        This is SURRENDER.

        Far from discouraging further attacks, it ENCOURAGES them by telling our enemies that we’re a one-punch-wonder, and if you hit us hard enough just once, we’ll give you anything you want…

        It’s insane.

        • jkines

          your own foreign policy position would be portrayed as the case for perpetual war. However, I do not believe that to be the case any more than I believe pointing out that 9/11 was an impetus to the invasion of Iraq correlates one with thermite babbling conspiracy wingnuts.

          Can’t we have a genuine discussion about foreign policy differences between neos and paleos without descending into farce? If we, for whatever reason, can’t the Reagan coalition is likely fractured beyond repair and our hopes are even more bleak in 2012 then I had feared.

          • dcacklam

            My position is only a case for ‘perpetual war’ if the US remains under constant attack by entities (nation-state, stateless or state-seeking) that seek to coerce us into doing their bidding.

            The point, is not to fight perpetual wars, but to establish as fact that you cannot coerce the US into doing your bidding by use of force – that if attacked, we will do everything in our power to make sure that you do not succeed in whatever objectives you wish to accomplish by attacking us.

            This means that if the attacker ‘wants us to withdraw from the Middle East’ (a neutral statement of purpose), then that action is OFF THE TABLE from the start.

            We do not appease those who attack us.

            We destroy them.

            Just like Japan.

          • aesthete

            then you *are* talking about perpetual war, since terrorism will always exist, as will non-state entities that seek to perpetuate it.

            If you’re talking about a war against Al-Qaeda, then congratulations: we won. Their senior leadership has been eviscerated due to our actions, they haven’t launched a major operation in years (because they can’t), and are for all intents and purposes defunct as an operational entity. They’re pretty much a non-entity at this point. If that’s not victory, then neither were our Indian wars and God knows how many other conflicts which did not end with an enemy coming up all formal-like with white flag and terms of surrender in tow.

            If you’re talking about a generalized war against Islam… well, there’s another war that we won’t be able to win conventionally, and which we certainly won’t win in the short-term.

          • jkines

            is that the war in Iraq was a strategic mistake, as we missed an opportunity to exploit them as a natural counterweight to resurgent Iran. As it stands, the Iraqi government in place is much more sympathetic to and under the influence of Shiite Iran.

            I am a libertarian republican, but more of the Reason magazine/Gary Johnson vein than Ron Paul. However it is important to note that libertarianism is hardly monolithic, with at least as many factions, if not more, than conservatism.

  • macbookben

    …on a daily basis, and you think Atlas Shrugged sums up your political philosophy, then Ron Paul is your candidate for POTUS.

  • ohtimtim

    that I have seen, Ron Paul receives more donations from active duty military personnel than all of the rest of the candidates combined. If this is true, what conclusions may be drawn between them and the comments of most of the people on this website, who mostly disparage Dr. Paul. Shouldn’t there be more of an effort to find out why members of the military are so supportive of Dr. Paul?

    As far as Dr. Paul’s efforts to curtail the activities of the CIA and the Fed, he joins another more popular figure in those attempts-President John F. Kennedy. Mr.Kennedy probably would also agree with parts of Dr. Paul’s foreign policy in that he was about to remove our troops from Vietnam at the time; But Dr. Paul is crazy.

    Also, the main reason to have a gold based money- it’s what the Constitution recognizes. Considering the number of glowing comments here about central banks and fiat money, I shudder to think of how many “conservatives” here are content in their slavery to the actions of an unelected, unaccountable group.

    There are a few references to “truthers”and conspiracy theories here, most in a condescending manner. If I could go to Congress as a representative, each year I would try to have one of them totally investigated; not because I believe them but because I believe that the people should have as many facts as possible about their country. This includes totally declassifying much of the old CIA records and the Federal Reserve records.

    • dcacklam

      The overwhelming majority of troops are either politically apathetic non-voters (‘we get screwed either way’) or casual Republican voters (vote for whoever has a R by their name).

      Very few are politically active, and of that few even less have ever donated to a candidate.

      The claim that ‘Paul receives more donations from the military’ is based (A) on his own reporting, and (B) is a dollar-amount figure.

      Essentially, there are some RP supporters in the service, and like most of his fanclub it’s an all-or-nothing sort of thing…

      Just like in the civillian world, military Paulites tend to be fanatically committed, and most are willing to donate to ‘the cause’….

      For example, in 2008, John McCain was the ‘favorite’ of the military by far, however Paul still claimed ‘more donations than any candidate’ from the military even though voting patterns showed a different alignment of support.

    • retire05

      that he garners more donations from military personnel than any other candidate? Just because Paul makes that claim doesn’t make it fact. He also claimed he would not serve more than two terms, never seek pork for his district, yada, yada, yet those claims didn’t hold water.

      Where are all the veteran organizations that are supporting Paul? How about Metal of Honor winners, in heroes like Dakota Meyer or other heroes like Marcus Luttrell, both who are supporting Rick Perry.

      And I wouldn’t be so quick to compare Ron Paul to JFK. JFK was not the wonderful president he has been made out to be. Actually, he was pretty much out of his league when it came to foreign policy as the Russians believed.

      When it comes to our military, Paul talks the talk. Perry walks the walk.

      • ohtimtim

        also at the present time. I was just curious about Ron Paul’s claims and figured I would get some of the more politically intelligent ones here explain it for me.

  • dcacklam

    The US Constitution does not mention gold or silver in reference to the federal government.

    The ONLY mention of gold and silver is contained in Art 1 Sec 10 (powers prohibited to the states) as a broader prohibition on state governments having their own monetary systems.

    The federal government’s power to ‘coin money and regulate the value thereof’ is not constrained by a requirement for money to be made of any specific substance.

    And it is the ‘regulate the value thereof’ power, combined with the ‘necessary and proper’ clause that gives Congress the constitutional authority to create an entity to regulate the value of money – aka a central bank.

    • deathandtaxes

      It’s a shining example of regulatory capture by big Wall St. banks. Not that I have anything against Wall St, but the Federal Reserve should be acting in the national interest to promote price stability first, and growth second. The low interest rates that Greenspan enacted were a major cause of the housing bubble.

      • dcacklam

        Price stability indicates an exact balance between supply and demand for money… Don’t supply enough, DEFLATION – depression/recession time!

        OTOH, if you ignore long-term price stability and focus on growth – eg, you have 1-3% ‘oversupply’ of money – you will never, ever have to worry about deflation…

        ‘Low interest rates’ had absolutely NOTHING to do with the housing bubble – it wasn’t ‘low interest rates’ that brought NINJA loans and all manner of other bullshit into existence.

        The bubble is ENTIRELY the creation of government by way of programs encouraging lending to unqualified borrowers.

        Low interest rates didn’t create the bubble – because lending standards, if maintained, prevent low rate loans from going to those who won’t pay them back.

        It’s when government forces lenders to broaden their approval criteria, that you get a housing bubble…

        Even with high interest rates, you still would have had a bubble due to the standards issue.

        The ideal economic climate is easy credit FOR THE CREDITWORTHY – this produces the most efficient allocation of funds…

        It’s only ideological bias against credit that causes people to blame ‘interest rates’ for a problem created by over-regulation.

    • ohtimtim

      Congress has the power to “coin” money and states may only accept gold or silver coin as a payment for debt, meaning they must only accept the gold or silver coin made by Congress as payment not worthless paper money. Why would the people who wrote the Constitution allow Congress to authorize fiat money and then turn around and refuse the States the ability to accept it? We had a central bank for 20 years in the very early 1800′s. It was not renewed as it was found to be not in the People’s best interests.

      “Despite Jefferson?s warnings, in 1791 Alexander Hamilton, the Secretary of the Treasury, pushed a Congressional charter through to create the First Bank of the United States which stood for 20 years until 1811 when President James Madison and Vice President George Clinton refused to sign/renew the charter. Madison said, ?History records that the money changers have used every form of abuse, intrigue, deceit, and violent means possible to maintain their control over governments by controlling the money and its issuance.? Strangely enough, only 5 years later, still under Madison?s Presidency, in 1816 he signed the charter for the second national bank. Such hypocritical action raised suspicion of bribe or blackmail at work behind the scenes.”

      Must be that even though they allowed a central bank they didn’t allow fiat money.

      • dcacklam

        First off, the Constitution contains absolutely no requirement for the states to ‘only accept gold and silver coin’.

        Thanks to the Supremacy Clause, any FEDERAL legal tender MUST be accepted by ALL states – regardless of state law. So the prohibition on states ‘making’ anything but gold or silver legal tender has NO IMPACT on the federal government, period.

        If Congress deems it neccicary and proper to the task of regulating the value of money, to make paper legal tender, there’s nothing the states can do about it.

        The Constitution prohibits the states from operating ANY sort of monetary system, but grants an exception for gold/silver (of non-state origin) as an ALTERNATE legal tender.

        It’s only neo-antifederalists – folks who conveniently ignore Article 6 of the Constitution – who try to argue that a prohibition of state legal tender somehow impacts what federal legal tender should be.

        As for the Banks of the United States, they were not renewed because of political intrigue and the anti-bank biases of southern Democrat politicians, not because they were in any way harmful…

        Madison wasn’t bribed – he just saw the effects of ‘free banking’ during the war of 1812 (ironically, there was a significant problem with inflation, despite the lack of a central bank), and realized he was wrong. Actions in office are more significant than early idealisim.

        Jefferson was an idiot with regard to finance, and his ‘problems’ with banks tend to tie back into his personal life and lack of financial acumen – the man died bankrupt…

        Further, the 2nd Bank of the US – the one Madison signed into law – was able to issue bank-notes….

  • Pingback: free music downloader