Freedom Is In Jeopardy
Written by Sam on October 11th, 2007An obstetrician who has delivered more than 4,000 babies, Paul sees a litany of enemies to personal freedom lurking everywhere:The Food and Drug Administration, “supranational organizations” like the U.N., the International Criminal Court and the World Trade Organization, “illegal immigrants,” “wasteful agencies, lobbyists, corporations on welfare and governments collecting foreign aid,” manufacturers of genetically modified foods and pesticides, “globalists,” opponents of home schooling, abortion providers, insurance companies, drug makers, federal bureaucrats and gun-control advocates, to name but a few.Paul’s legislative proposals, which are short and to the point, would address the problems caused by these individuals and organizations by cutting back on the federal government’s power, adopting a “noninterventionist foreign policy” that includes ending the war in Iraq immediately, and a return to robust fiscal restraint.
But the congressman is clearly not interested in the compromises usually expected of members of Congress, which explains why his record of legislative achievement is so paltry compared with other lawmakers who have served in Congress for as long as he has.
For Paul, the principle is everything. Compromise is for those willing to sell out freedom. None of the bills or amendments that he has introduced during the first session of this 110th Congress has been voted on, either in committee or on the House floor.
We hear about principle over party being the cornerstone of what conservatives are trying to accomplish among the GOP. Why then, are so many conservatives shunning Ron Paul, when he clearly is the epitome incarnate of what conservatives have been looking for? He is the only one in the Presidential race consistently warning Americans of our waning freedoms right in front of our face at the hands of a strangling Federal Government. While I have not decided on who I will be voting for in the January primary, I am leaning more towards Ron Paul with each passing week.
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The reasons are many:
1. He comes across as a nut
2. He is isolationist (ok, non-interventionist–it amounts to the same thing)–please remember WWII and don’t repeat those mistakes
3. He wants to go back to a gold standard, which would be disastrous.
4. He comes across as a nut
5. He is screeches negativity and it is not a message that will resonate with the general population
etc., etc.
#2 is enough for me. Mostly, he is really a libertarian and not a Republican. We need to begin to understand that a libertarian is not just a conservative Republican. There are major differences in philosophy.
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Actually Ron Paul is an incarnate of the same as Mike Gravel/Dennis Kucinich/Lyndon LaRouche… A NUT is a good way to put it
The media is enjoying giving him attention to make Republicans/Conservatives look bad because he likes to claim he is a true republican/conservative
Luckily, his wacko followers are less impressive then LaRouchites and are the best testament to who really supports him
The only good that can come out of this is if he loses his congressional seat after the good people in his district find out what a Wack Job they have for a congressman
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What exactly makes him a nut?
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Ron Paul is wrong on the war in Iraq. This is just another case of “Republicans” looking to duck away from this President’s policies at a time when he is impopular. I’ve said time and again, some of these same “conservatives” would have turned on Ronald Reagan in a heartbeat if his opinion polls had been like this. They’re more interested in being popular than with taking a principled stand like President Bush has.
While Ron Paul has other mistaken positions, but this is the number one issue for me.
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I use the term “comes across as a nut” because while I don’t agree with his policies, they are not necessarily insane. He comes across as a nut because of the way that he chooses to present himself–flailing his arms, speaking loudly (screaming or screeching) in a way that is reminiscent of last election’s Dean; and his general “the sky is falling” attitude that he brings to all subjects.
Now there are many of his adherents that I WOULD call nuts. But that is a different discussion.
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Paul would be good inside the borders of the USA, but in a REAL world his isolationist policies are suicidal. He is a nut. Period. Lets face it, a vote for that guy is a wasted vote. Were playing a serious game now with Hillary at the door, and a heavlily dem congress. This isnt a time to be screwing around and throwing away votes. It would be un-american to contribute to Hillary’s victory. And I can say that because I know sam very well and we insult eachother regularly.
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Anybody care to place bets on how many points Senator Clinton will win by?
The Republican nominee, without a doubt, will be Giuliani:
-Paul will run as an independent, siphoning votes from Giuliani
-Keyes (or someone) will run as an independent, and the “values-voters” sheep will all follow their leader and vote for said person, siphoning even more votes from Giuliani
-The war will be going very poorly, siphoning undecided voters away from Giuliani
This is Senator Clinton’s election to win.
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The man is obsessed with the Gold Standard! I think it was good to have him in the debates to add diversity of opinion, but he lost all credibility when he began pandering to the anti-war crazies in our society.
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Ron Paul voted against authorizing the use of force against Iraq Joe, so your notion that he is an example of Republicans running away from Bush because of poll numbers is illogical.
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Ron Paul would not get my vote for a number reasons:
1) He is an isolationist! He calls himself a non-interventionist, but he is an isolationist that would make the pre-WWII Republicans proud. Anyone who can claim we should practice his foreign policy is out of touch with reality. Hillary or Obama would be better than him on foreign policy.
2) His view of the Constitution does not line up with that of those who wrote the document. Anyone who has read any of the Federalist Papers knows that Paul does not share the same views as its drafters and defenders: Hamilton, Madison, and Jay. Paul practices the agarian anti-Federalist mentality, which died a long time ago because it became unrealistic and its proponents realized it never worked.
3) This guy acts like the crazy uncle that everyone avoids sitting by at holiday meals.
4) His legions of moonbats scare me.
5) Does anyone really want to get rid of the FBI, CIA, or NSA? Paul has stated these bodies are unconstitutional (again he failed to read the Federalists).
6) The gold standard thing freaks me out. Yes there would be certain benefits, but it would be like having open heart surgery to fix a nose bleed.
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In response to #7:
The Republican nominee, without a doubt, will be Giuliani:
Care to put money on that? In what primary states are he leading in? How can he count on Super Tuesday if he doesn’t at least win a contest or two before then to have some sort of momentum? Giuliani has hit his ceiling of supporters - Thompson and Romney (unfortunately) have not yet hit their ceilings and can still drum up support.
-Paul will run as an independent, siphoning votes from Giuliani
Or not, because, in the post-debate punditry the other day Paul clearly stated he wouldn’t run an independent candidacy. He may or may not support the Republican candidate, but he won’t run against him.
-Keyes (or someone) will run as an independent, and the “values-voters” sheep will all follow their leader and vote for said person, siphoning even more votes from Giuliani
Republican voters are smarter than to throw their votes at a fool like Keyes. Period.
-The war will be going very poorly, siphoning undecided voters away from Giuliani
Well I guess that settles it. Since you can predict events over a year before they happen, I guess we need not have elections and just listen to your psychic feelings.
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I’m with you, Sam. More and more, Ron Paul seems to be the best of the bunch.
Sure, Ron Paul does seem like a bit of a nut. Yeah, he does sound like the crazy uncle sometimes. And, yes, a lot of the moon-bat types are supporting him.
But, you know, maybe it’s time for some crazy uncle. Cause finesse doesn’t seem to be getting us anywhere right now.
There was a time in the 1930s when many in England thought of Winston Churchill as the crazy uncle.
And, I say all this as someone who once interned at the United Nations and thinks that it has value and should remain part of the international system — despite its many flaws.
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Ronald Reagan wouldn’t cut and run in the face of the Islamic terror threat. Ronald Reagan would never condemn a U.S. House resolution supporting Israel’s right to defend itself against suicide bombers.
Ron Paul is no Ronald Reagan. And Winston Churchill wasn’t a coward.
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Isolationism, the preferred foreign policy of our Founders, is not suicidal. Interventionism is. As for the example of World War II, Russell Kirk and William F. Buckley Jr. opposed our involvement in that war before Pearl Harbor and favored it only afterward. As for modern-day developments, I think that the Iraq example only proves how right Paul was, and the future Iran example will prove it all over again if we go to war with that country.
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Hahahaha! Snatch……….comparing Ron Paul to Churchill……………that is just blasphemous.
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Hey Langley, you wrote:
“Republican voters are smarter than to throw their votes at a fool like Keyes. Period.”
This entire thread is about voting for Ron Paul. See any irony?
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Alan,
The reasons for the founders isolationism are not true anymore. At the time, there was far more to lose by projecting power than by being isolationist. Of course, those feelings were jettisoned very quickly when our trade was being threatened in the Mediterranean Sea, wasn’t it? (i.e. Barbary Pirates)
We are now the #1 power in the world, we were not then. The costs of not confronting an evil early was costly in WWII (i.e. D-Day would not have been necessary had England and the U.S. confronted Germany early) and the cost would be even higher now. The cost of a Paul style “non-interventionist” foreign policy would end with not 3 airplanes crashing into buildings, but with bombs going off in multiple cities.
At this point in history, isolationism would be the equivalent of the ostrich burying its head in the sand.
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Publius,
My prediction on the number of point Hillary will win by is -5. You are correct that it is her’s to lose and she will–just by being herself. We should see the largest negative vote ever (i.e. I don’t want Hillary, so I will go vote for the Republican).
I want Fred, but the result will be the same if it is Rudy or Mitt.
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To predict who is going to win an election 13 months away is foolhearty. Just a single week can change the entire outcome in politics.
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You are right, Sam. The prediction is worth the paper it is written on (oops), but it can still be fun.
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Put your money where your mouths are on this. Don’t you people believe in efficient markets?
https://www.intrade.com/aav2/trading/tradingHTML.jsp?evID=23030&eventSelect=23030&updateList=true&showExpired=false
Giuliani will win the primary.
https://www.intrade.com/aav2/trading/tradingHTML.jsp?evID=22739&eventSelect=22739&updateList=true&showExpired=false
The Democrats will win the election, by a long shot. I’ll be happy to offer even money to anyone on this. Given the odds predicted by the betting market (which has turned out to be extremely reliable in the past), my offering you even money on this is a good deal!
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Langley —
1. Yes, I’ll bet on Giuliani being the nominee and even more on Clinton winning the general election. ALL presidential primaries in the last 20 years have followed the same pattern, and you people apparently haven’t figured it out yet and still seriously believe that your cute little non-establishment people can win. Seesh, at least I didn’t get into the Dean craze in 2004.
2. I did not know that Paul agreed not to run as an independent if he didn’t get the nomination. If you’re correct on this, then I was wrong.
3. The leaders of the “values voters” lemmings have already made it clear that they will not support Giuliani and will run a third-party candidate when he wins the primary. Keyes was just a guess. It will probably be someone else, but whoever it is will siphon off lots of votes from Giuliani. These are, after all, the same people who believe that the universe is 6000 years old because their illiterate pastors told them so.
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Holy cow, elitist Publius showed some humility. There is hope for you yet. As for Dr. Dobson, he does not have the power you attribute to him. That is only an idle threat.
“Values voters’ as you put it have a fine candidate in Huckabee. I am surprised he has not captured some fire. Fred has definitely deflated any momentum he gained in Iowa.
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Joel,
2) Paul voted for the authority to go after Bin Laden in Afghanistan.
Your argument with respect to WW II is wrong. The Congress passed a declaration of War in WW II. Paul says if you go to war: Declare it and win it quickly. A declaration means The People, through their representatives, are behind the war. Paul wants to have the debate before we go to war. Not after, like Korea, Vietnam and Iraq.
3) Paul proposes alternatives to our fiat currency. aka Sound Money. He is not proposing we go on the Gold Standard.
There are several good videos out on the web regarding our unsound inflationary fiat currency. Money as Debt, America Freedom To Fascism, and the Money Changers.
Sam,
Thanks for giving the good Doctor another look.
Steve
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Ron Paul repeatedly promotes returning to the gold standard. He says it while flailing and screeching during every debate. Get the facts right.
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I seem to be having troubles posting comments.
Two quick hits.
First, there was great debate and a resolution passed for both Gulf Wars–prior to Bush I and Bush II taking military action. These resolutions are equivalent to declaration of war.
The point, though, is that we have to take our responsibility to military action outside of the borders of the U.S. seriously and Paul does not.
Second, Paul has made speeches on the House floor calling for the re-establishment of the gold standard.
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As long as Congressional spending continues the way it is and entitlements like SS and Medicare continue to balloon out of control bankruptcy will bring down this nation quicker than any act of terrorism. I am not convinced that any of the other candidates will reign in spending as well as Ron Paul would.
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Dave, all I have to say to you is “BP”.
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Listen to this to listen why he’s a nut:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WuJFpcNqdiY&NR=1
“A disparity between the mainstream and the poor”
“industrial complex” this/that
“Our (American) World Empire”
If Ron Paul ever makes a good point (speaking out against subsidies), when you’re blabbing this much its bound to happen once in a while
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Does part of this “sound money” policy involve getting rid of the Federal Reserve? I find Paul’s dislike of the Fed interesting that much of success of our economy in the last several decades has been in relation to the Fed monitoring inflation and reigning in the economy and ensuring stability and balance. It’s good that the Fed isn’t made up of elected officials. This policy ensures that Bernanke isn’t swayed by political pressure and the election process. Maybe Dr. Paul is still stuck in the 1970s.
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Joel: It’s ridiculous to say that isolationism would result in bombs going off in multiple cities. You have no evidence for that assertion, and common sense points in precisely the opposite direction. Why on Earth would interfering LESS in the affairs of other countries make MORE people want to attack us?
Isolationism never got us attacked. No one ever attacked the United States because they were P.O.’ed about us not sending our military somewhere. The idea that 9/11 happened because we weren’t involved enough in the Middle East or elsewhere in the world is simply risible, and it’s even more ridiculous to assert that attacks worse than those of 9/11 will happen if we’re not acting as policeman of the world. No, policing the world will INVITE more attacks on us.
Just because we’re powerful doesn’t mean we should use our military as the tool for social engineering all over the world. As Iraq has demonstrated, the price of intervention is that we become less powerful. Other countries are looking at our problems in Iraq and taking notes. This war should never have been started, and we haven’t seen the end of its costs, nor will we soon.
Let’s not forget the downside of attacking Hitler. By allying with Stalin to go after Hitler, the United States stained itself with hypocrisy. Who was the bigger monster there? Who at that time had more blood on his hands? Who presented the greater long-term threat to this country’s interests? And of course by helping Stalin destroy Hitler (instead of letting them run each other through), we saved all Eastern Europe for communist rule.
I really don’t think our foreign policy should be dedicated to making sure that evil never triumphs anywhere in the world. This social-engineering foreign policy has very real costs, and we bear a lot of those costs. If this kind of foreign policy is the price we pay for being the most powerful country in the world, then all that power isn’t worth it, and wouldn’t be worth it even if we could keep it–which we can’t, at the rate we’re going.
Abby: The Fed is not responsible for our prosperity or for keeping inflation in check. There was more inflation in the first full calendar year of the Fed’s existence than in all pre-Fed years combined. See the August 24 and 28 entries at http://www.flynnfiles.com/archives/2007_08.php
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I’ll have to agree with Alan on this one. As an economist, the situation is much more complicated than Abby puts it. There are many very good economists who argue that these things are better regulated by the private sector and market forces than by the fed. The assertion that the Fed (and banking regulation in general) have stabilizing effects is far from obvious.
I’m not sure which side I come down on with respect to this issue, and I’m far from an expert in macroeconomics and monetary policy, but one at least must acknowledge that there is a credible argument to be made here.
Actually, I think that the argument for central regulation of banking and the money system is less compelling than the argument for single-payer health care (which I support).
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Hey, Publius, there’s a flagrant grammatical error in the second sentence of the first paragraph of your comment. Care to guess what it is?
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As another economist, I did not mean to imply that the Fed is completely responsible for our economic success. Certainly it is complicated. However, in more recent years, I would argue, it has had a positive and stablizing effect on our economic situation. The point is, no one is talking about returning to the Gold Standard seriously other than Dr. Paul.
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*Why* would you argue that the Fed has had a positive and stabilizing effect on our economic situation? On the basis of what evidence would you argue this? Has there ever been a time, since the Fed was created, when inflation was as low as it was in the pre-Fed era? Has there ever been a time, since the Fed was created, when the value of the currency was as stable as it was in the pre-Fed era?
The fact that no one but Dr. Paul is talking seriously about returning to the gold standard is, in my view, a problem with Dr. Paul’s rivals, not with Dr. Paul.
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The Federal Reserve is constitutional and it has done a good job to control inflation and insure economic stablity over the last several decades. What messes up the system is when elected officials spend like there is no tomorrow or tax our economy to death.
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36:
How has the Fed done a good job to control inflation and ensure economic stability? What, specifically, has it done?
How has it done a better job than the pre-Fed system? What, specifically, has it done?
And in your view, would it be constitutional for Congress to create an agency to pass laws regulating interstate commerce, to determine how long patent and copyright protections last, or to establish a uniform law governing bankruptcy or naturalization? If no, why does Congress get to delegate its power over the currency?
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By the way, I only raise the point about Publius’s grammar because Publius attacked one of the bloggers here, snidely pointing out a “grammar error.” I don’t like it when people who live in glass houses throw stones, so I thought I should give Publius a reason to think twice the next time he wants to get snotty about grammar skills.
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First of all, it wasn’t until Milton Friedman that economists realized the true power of the Fed and the money supply. Prior to that, Keynsian theories ruled (which are stupid obviously). So, the examples of Fed power come through in the 1970s inflation crisis and Volker’s success in ending stagflation. Beyond that, much of the 90s boom economy can be credited to Greenspan’s Fed policies.
Look, I don’t think you can compare inflation now to inflation prior to the creation of the Fed. Our economy is totally different in complexity and in relation to the world economy now. Wage growth, unions and the oil market are just some things that totally alter how we see inflation levels now.
The reason no one but Dr. Paul is talking about the Gold Standard is because economists overall believe that it’s a stupid idea to return to it. I don’t understand how you can disregard all of academia and the business world in favor of one crazy man.
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Abby’s brilliant quote:
“Prior to that, Keynesian theories ruled (which are stupid obviously).”
That goes down as the intelligent and thoughtful analysis of the week, from a self-described “economist”. Do you have a PhD from a top 10 like I do?
I could explain Keynesian versus neoclassical macroeconomics to you, but when you say something as ridiculous as “stupid obviously”, you clearly have no intention of understanding economics outside of the paradigm of your idiotic political partisanship. Believe it or not, there is scholarship that doesn’t fall within your left/right tennis match view of the world. The overwhelming consensus of economists is that the Keynesian model is good at explaining some regularities but not adequate to describe other kinds of phenomena. I’m sure that even your hero Milton Friedman would disagree with your “stupid obviously” characterization.
For everyone except Abby:
The Keynesian Model expresses no normative judgement about anything. It simply asserts that raising spending (including government spending) can raise output in the short-run, which no economist today seriously doubts. Overall, the Keynesian model, empirically, does a good job at explaining the short-term relationship between economic variables like the interest rate, prices, GDP, etc… The Keynesian model is not adequate to study long-run economic growth, where neo-classical models are more appropriate. But I’d hardly call developing the framework to understand the short-run fluctuations of the economy “stupid obviously”.
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Abby’s reasoning is circular because the question–or one of them–is whether Dr. Paul is indeed crazy. I think he’s not.
And the idea that you can’t compare the Fed’s performance to the pre-Fed performance basically means, “Let’s ignore all the empirical evidence about which system, pre-Fed or Fed, has done a better job, because examining the empirical evidence isn’t fair to the Fed.”
You say, “Our economy is totally different in complexity and in relation to the world economy now.” That’s simply not relevant. I could’ve said the same thing in 1912 about the 1790 economy. Yet with all the changes our economy saw (such as the Industrial Revolution, which was late in coming to this country but transformed America’s economy enormously in the 19th century), we actually have a very good indication that the pre-Fed economy kept our currency very stable over a very long period of time.
You boast of the strides the Fed has made since Keynesian economics went out of fashion. But was the Fed Keynesian back in 1915, the year in which the Fed gave us more inflation than we’d seen in the previous 125 years combined? Are you actually saying that the Fed’s Keynesian period lasted from 1914 to 1981? And even if it did, let’s look only at the post-Keynesian period of the Fed–just to bend over backwards to accommodate your argument. Compare the Fed’s performance in keeping a stable currency to pre-Fed America’s performance in keeping a stable currency. Even there, you lose. Pre-Fed America had a much stabler currency than the Milton-Friedman-inspired Fed. You simply can’t escape that fact.
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I am not even going to try to enter the economic theory fray. I am just happy that interest rates are very unlikely to return to the high teens of the 1970’s.