So apparently Ron Paul’s putting out his very own homeschooling curriculum, with the help of noted hack Tom Woods. Rather than reiterating my innate distrust of getting an education from anything either man is attached to (though parents really should ask themselves how much isolationism and secession apologetics they want for their kids), I’ll just stick to why this won’t be part of any successful ‘revolution”: the children of parents who not only home-school but are clued in to conservative or libertarian circles enough to even consider something like this are already going to get a classical education and comprehension of center-right philosophy one way or the other, and giving them more of the same just packaged differently or more conveniently isn’t going to transform the next generation. The far hard task – and the one nobody in any faction of the Right seems willing to tackle – is how to reform public education and reach the students still ensnared in it.
Ron Paul
Rave Reviews 7!
It’s been a while since I’ve done one of these, but better late than never, right? Here’s another delightful roundup of my more disagreeable readers’ greatest hits. Accusations of stupidity, evil, and mental disorders from faceless commenters and prominent bloggers alike, you’ll find it all here! Let’s get started:
…all the political credibility of a geranium, a not very bright geranium. – Tbone
Discussion is impossible with you. Scott Feldstein
That’s the dumbest analogy I’ve ever heard. – Jaynie59
No bumper sticker pasting here young boy .. just an old guy that is pissed off at your “holier than thou attitude”…. like you know more about a woman’s body than she does… what kind of up bringing did you have? – Walldodger
God you pro-Life people are really annoying me. – Alex
I think you may be a bit slow. – MiketheMarine
I was a Democrat until 2003, Calvin Freeburger. You want to be more careful about the sneers that you throw around. – Moe Lane
Pretty stupid…This whole story is salted with idiocy. – streiff
The important thing is you’ve found a way to pretend to be superior to women to choose to abort their pregnancies. – Jfabiani
Calvin is an inveterate and pathetic troll. He posts crap here that is poorly, if at all, researched, can’t assemble a cogent argument and puts up “defenses” like the one you just responded to. The guy is a simple minded fool or a raving idiot. Pick one. You’re wasting your time attempting to actually engage him. – mbecker908
Calvin, what a load of unmitigated crap…Too bad your understanding of the Constitution is so bad. – retire05
Maybe it is time to realize you live in a democracy where everybody of every conviction has a voice and a vote. – BizarreEntity
Maybe when you grow up a bit we can have an adult conversation. Until then, I’ll pray for you. – proALLlife
You sound like my rapist. Cope with it, or change your attitude towards women. – Sorites Paradox
What about Calvin Freiburger’s own twisting and ignoring the Constitution when it’s convenient? – britney12
I’m ashamed to know that you are from Fond du Lac, where I live. You’ve written a lot of wacko crap before this, and I’m sure you’ll continue to do so, but you’re a joke. – Hhhhhh
This is what happens when neocon miscreants comment on what they appreciate least, namely the desired morality of the civil society. – NJ_Patriot
Now, the author of the article is not a conservative, he is a Neocon. Neocons are warmongers, more specifically warmongers for Israel, at the cost of bankrupting the United States. – edw987
this is the most poorly written editorial I’ve ever read. My God…Oh, the person who wrote this article is a man. No wonder he has no clue what he is talking about. – Guest
You will never be half man or do half the things in defense of Liberty as has Dr. Paul. Don’t embarrass yourself and blog about Ron Paul. You are too naive, young and stupid. – Illuminoti
…trash… – acat
Why don’t you “Man Up” and grow up while you’re at it and realize that we are only here for a while and then it’s over : Do you really want to spend your life being a hater and a bitter bigot? Get over yourself, why don’t you? – USAgloria
…ignorant pride and a false moral superiority… – Robyn
Calvin, Buddy, I know you hate being challenged on issues and I know it’s hard to process information that goes against your deeply-held worldview. – George
Apparantly Mr. Frieberger is either a shill for the globalist or he bought into the left/right falacy. – andrewhiu
Your a stupid, nazi idiot, you know nothing about politics and your lucky i dont take a big fat dump on your mothers chest. Shes a stupid skank and so are you thoughts, i would be ashamed if i were you, you scumbag american rat. You smell shit and you look like an asshole with out a vagina, […] stupid nigger fuck – Unknown
Come out and say you’re a liberal already. – Anonymous
By the look of you…you will never have sex with anyone much less a woman so why do you care? As a woman I can have an opinion…you…you are just a douche bag dork trying to make friends through all of this. So sad. Go get um acne boy!!! – Anonymous
You’re not pro-life. You might be anti-abortion but you’re not pro-life, you don’t care about the life or the culture. You care about getting retweeted and being stroked by other shut-ins than you do about the culture of death America has produced. – Rob Taylor
Is this serious? You’re an embarrassment to Fond du Lac, this country, and whatever college decided to give you a political science degree. – Apparently anyone can get a political science degree
you sir are a fool. You do not have to vite for every office listed on on a ballot Stay in School… It’s gonna take a while to learn the Stupid out of you. – Anonymous
Does your mommy also beg you to go out and find a girl? Or has she just accepted the fact that with a face like yours, your obvious lack of man’esque type personality, and your constant crying that her son will soon join his true group, GoPride? – Still in anonymous world
sometimes your hurtful comments towards others just makes me cringe. – Jdjdjeeeeerrrryyy
You really don’t get the private property thing, do you? I’m not surprised. – NightTwister
You obviously lack comprehension skills. – Bill S
You’ve repeatedly been warned to follow directions. You clearly can’t. I’ve had it. – Neil Stevens
This one looks like a serial killer – jakeofalltrades
We bash Muslims for their treatment of women but you have shown yourself to not be much better Calvin. – Letscook1
So you get an D for effort. – Oran Switzer
Calvin I wish you a good night as you crawl back in your tent at what ever OWS protest you are at. – izoneguy
Suggestion, instead of a worthless hit piece, post a diary of the good points of your preferred candidate. Oh, wait, I don’t think it would go over to good if you posted a diary promoting Obama. – gekster
…total and complete hypocritical piece of garbage – Scope
So, while you have been pontificating from your ivory tower of intellectualism….I have been looking at this from a “reality” prospective. – carolynr
I’m beginning to suspect that he may suffer from Asberger’s or some other syndrome that prevents him from picking up on higher order social clues. Poor Calvin. – Sparky
You are a repulsive scumbag. – Wade Felty
Ron Paul Can’t See the Difference Between the Other Republicans and Obama
An addendum to my post on why Paulites aren’t reliable GOP voters: Ron Paul suggesting to his fans that if the Republican nominee is anyone other than him, they might as well sit out the election:
“I think they’d all be better on taxes,” he said. “No, I don’t think any one would be a lot better [than Barack Obama]. That’s my problem and that’s the problem with the country. When you put people in office — you put a Democrat in, he acts like a republican too much, and when you put a Republican in, they act like a Democrat and they spend too much money. So I just don’t see a whole lot of difference with them.”
Sure, unless you count stimulus, healthcare, abortion, infanticide, marriage, federalism, judges, religious liberty, gun control, immigration, unions, DOJ corruption, bailouts, national security, foreign policy, the Constitution, regulation, global warming, cap & trade, entitlement reform, or education. But other than that, the Republican candidates are exactly like Obama.
Ron Paul’s not a presidential candidate. He’s a cult leader.
26 Reasons Tom Woods Is A Hack (or, Why Courting Ron Paul’s Voters Is a Fool’s Errand)
Generally, I make it a point not to concern myself with the ramblings of Tom Woods, Ludwig Von Mises Institute senior fellow and peddler of dubious historical revisionism. But when his February 8 piece, “26 Things Non-Paul Voters Are Basically Saying,” appeared in my Facebook feed, I bit. As a non-Paul voter, I couldn’t help but be curious about the hidden meaning behind my own words.
What I found was that I blindly trust the government and the media, I don’t care about spending or the Constitution, want drug addicts to get raped, reject Thomas Jefferson, and prefer Goldman Sachs to the US Army.
Huh. And here I thought it was Ron Paul’s slandering of Israel, bigoted newsletters, Civil War revisionism, earmark hypocrisy, shilling for traitors and dictators, 9/11 Trutherism, desire to imprison Scooter Libby on false charges, and anti-Semitism that repelled me from the Texas Congressman. Good thing a genius like Tom Woods came along to so skillfully expose my subconscious motives. All without even meeting me!
Woods says he’s “trying to understand the thinking behind” those of us who haven’t joined the rEVOLution, but it soon becomes glaringly obvious he’s made no such attempt, and is merely indulging a fanatical desire to berate those who won’t genuflect before his idol. Woods’ twenty-six claims about the non-Paulite psyche are an odyssey of deceit, oversimplification, and sometimes outright childishness.
(1) The American political establishment has done a super job keeping our country prosperous and our liberties protected, so I’m sure whatever candidate they push on me is probably a good one.
Ah, the simpleton’s favorite boogeyman: “the establishment.” Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past year or so, you know that there’s not much consensus anywhere on the Republican candidates—not among activists, not among pundits, and certainly not among some undefined “establishment.” The intense battle currently raging among Romney, Gingrich, and Santorum supporters is no sign of a movement simply marching to the beat of some elite’s drum. (Oh, and would this be the same political establishment in which conservative superstars Jim DeMint and Sarah Palin regularly praise Paul?)
(2) Our country is basically bankrupt. Unfunded entitlement liabilities are in excess of twice world GDP. Therefore, it’s a good idea to vote for someone who offers no specific spending cuts of any kind.(3) Vague promises to cut spending are good enough for me, even though they have always resulted in higher spending in the past.
The idea that Ron Paul is any better than his competitors on spending is dubious. While it sounds good on the stump to say you’ll abolish five departments, you’d think an undertaking of that magnitude would require some discussion as to how. More importantly, though, Paul doesn’t have much of an entitlement reform plan, either; in fact, he’s campaigning on the fiscally-fraudulent promise that if we just take a hatchet to military spending and close down military bases left and right, we won’t have to cut Medicare, Medicaid, or Social Security at all.
(4) I prefer a candidate who plays to the crowd, instead of having the courage to tell his audience things they may not want to hear.
Yet it somehow isn’t the epitome of telling people what they want to hear to promise that we can keep the federal goodies flowing if we simply bring the troops home and stop all that icky fighting. As far as playing to crowds goes, Ron Paul is in a class by himself. After all, this is the author of those deranged newsletters which multiple sources indicate were specifically meant to exploit bigotry and paranoia. Ron Paul is unique among modern politicians in that there’s no crowd he won’t play to, no matter how evil, irrational, or destructive.
(5) I am deeply concerned about spending. Therefore, I would like to vote for someone who supported Medicare Part D, thereby adding $7 trillion to Medicare’s unfunded liabilities.
First, see above about Paul and Medicare. Second, Medicare Part D may well be a mark against Gingrich and Santorum (though not Romney), but to berate people for supporting candidates with Shortcoming X or Bad Position Y, which Woods repeats throughout the column, simply won’t do.
The four Republican candidates don’t exist in a vacuum, and they aren’t running against some Platonic ideal of the perfect conservative or constitutionalist. Unless you stay home on Election Day, it’s impossible to avoid picking a candidate who doesn’t have at least one position that many people will find objectionable. Ron Paul has many such positions, and it would be just as easy to write a similar list of “26 Things Paul Voters Are Basically Saying,” full of propositions that Tom Woods would never agree to.
Candidate selection is a matter of weighing imperfect alternatives, and choosing the one you believe has the most strengths and/or fewest shortcomings. Most rational people understand that your choice of candidate doesn’t mean you endorse those shortcomings.
(6) I am opposed to bailouts. Therefore, I will vote for a candidate who supported TARP.
Santorum opposed TARP. Other than that, see (5).
(7) The federal government is much too involved in education, where it has no constitutional role. Therefore, I will vote for a candidate who supported expanding the Department of Education and favored the No Child Left Behind Act.
See (5).
(8) Even though practically everyone was caught by surprise in the 2008 financial crisis, which we are still reeling from, it’s a good idea not to vote for the one man in politics who predicted exactly what was bound to unfold, all the way back in 2001.
While Santorum’s record here is imperfect, it’s worth noting that he opposed Dodd-Frank and sounded the alarm on Fannie & Freddie back in 2005. Beyond that, see (5).
(9) I am not impressed by a candidate who inspires people, especially young ones, to read the great economists and political philosophers.
I am not impressed by a candidate who miseducates America’s youth on the American Founding, the Civil War, the history of US intervention, and radical Islam.
(10) I am concerned about taxes. Therefore, I will not vote for the one candidate who has never supported a tax increase.
That’s not entirely true—Paul signed a letter affirming that tax increases must be on the table to get the debt under control. Beyond that, see (5).
(11) I believe it is conservative to support bringing the Enlightenment to Afghanistan via military intervention.
Here’s where Woods stops even pretending to care about the truth. While it’s fair to say that the Bush Administration and many conservatives were overly optimistic about the power of free elections to transform societies like Afghanistan, it’s not at all fair to suggest that conservatives were ever out to “bring the Enlightenment” to the Middle East. The Afghanistan War that Paul voted for was motivated by the Taliban’s refusal to hand over Osama bin Laden. If they had given him up, there wouldn’t have been a military intervention.
(12) Even though I lost half my retirement portfolio when the economy crashed from the sugar high the Federal Reserve’s artificially low interest rates put it on, I would like to vote for someone who is not really interested in the Federal Reserve.
For what it’s worth, Gingrich is very interested in the Federal Reserve these days. Beyond that, see (5).
(13) Even though 50 years of the embargo on Cuba did nothing to undermine Fidel Castro, and in fact handed him a perfect excuse for all the failures of socialism, I favor continuing this policy.
Another recurring pattern among Paulites: taking dictators’ propaganda at face value and suggesting we let it dictate US policy. It never seems to occur to these guys that, thanks to little things like state-run media, these PR battles are largely out of our hands. However ineffective the embargo may be, it’s doubtful that lifting it, or increasing tourism and diplomacy with Cuba, will improve things. On the whole, the plight of Castro’s Cuba is yet another issue Paul is clueless on.
(14) If someone has a drug problem, prison rape is the best solution I can think of.
I sincerely hope the mental faculties of the average American aren’t so far gone that I have to spell out how this is so insipidly demagogic. It’s also based on a myth [PDF link]—the overwhelming majority of federal drug convictions are for trafficking, not use or possession.
(15) Even though the Constitution had to be amended to allow for alcohol prohibition, and even though I claim to care about the Constitution, I don’t mind that there’s no constitutional authorization for the war on drugs, and I will punish at the polls anyone who favors the constitutional solution of returning the issue to the states.
Again, see (5). And while Paul’s right that drugs shouldn’t be a national issue, his arguments sure sound like he also wants states to legalize them.
(16) I believe only a “liberal” would think it was inhumane to keep essential items out of Iraq in the 1990s, even though one of the first people to protest this policy was Pat Buchanan.
American sanctions against Iraq didn’t starve the Iraqi people; Saddam Hussein did. America, along with the rest of the international community, attempted to deliver humanitarian aid to Iraqi civilians through the United Nations’ Oil for Food Program, but Saddam stole billions of dollars from the program and used it to bribe politicians and fund terrorism.
(17) The Brookings Institution says Newt Gingrich’s 1994 Contract with America was an insignificant nibbling around the edges. I favor people who support insignificant nibbling around the edges, as long as they occasionally trick me with a nice speech.
See (3) and (5).
(18) I am deeply concerned about radical Islam, so it was a good idea to depose the secular Saddam Hussein — who was so despised by Islamists that Osama bin Laden himself offered to fight against him in the 1991 Persian Gulf War — and replace him with a Shiite regime friendly with Iran, while also bringing about a new Iraqi constitution that makes Islam the state religion and forbids any law that contradicts its teachings.
Appeasement types love the talking point about Hussein’s secularism, because on the surface it seems to indicate that he couldn’t possibly have aided theocratic terrorists. But the empirical record doesn’t lie: Saddam’s Iraq was an active state sponsor of international Islamic terrorism. And while I actually agree that history won’t be kind to Bush’s handling of postwar Iraq, does anybody doubt that if Bush had taken stronger measures to install a more pro-Western, less Iran-sympathetic government in Iraq, Paul would condemn that, too?
(19) Indefinite detention for U.S. citizens seems like nothing to be worried about, especially since our political class is so trustworthy that it could never abuse such a power.
As Andy McCarthy expertly explains, this is a gross misreading of the situation. Indefinite detention of US citizens in wartime is well within the confines of the Constitution, current law strictly and expressly limits which citizens may be detained, and citizen detainees retain robust legal protection via habeas corpus petitions. In short, there’s no blind trust of the government required, Mr. Woods.
(20) Following up on (19), I believe Thomas Jefferson was just being paranoid when he said, “In questions of power, then, let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution.”
Jefferson also said:
A strict observance of the written laws is doubtless one of the high duties of a good citizen, but it is not the highest. The laws of necessity, of self-preservation, of saving our country when in danger, are of higher obligation. To lose our country by a scrupulous adherence to written law, would be to lose the law itself, with life, liberty, property and all those who are enjoying them with us; thus absurdly sacrificing the end to the means.
Cherry-picking is fun, isn’t it?
(21) Even though the war in Iraq was based on crude propaganda I would have laughed at if the Soviet Union had peddled it, and even though the result has been hundreds of thousands of dead Iraqis, four million people displaced, trillions of dollars down the drain, tens of thousands of serious injuries among American servicemen and an epidemic of suicide throughout the military, not to mention the ruination of America’s reputation in the world, I see no reason to be skeptical when the same people who peddled that fiasco urge me to support yet another war as my country is going bankrupt.
It never ceases to amaze me how much people with PhDs can get wrong in so little space:
- The truth about the Iraq War is that we were not lied to—the pre-war consensus that Saddam was a threat spanned both parties, two administrations, and multiple foreign nations; independent postwar investigations determined that the intelligence was not manipulated; and, believe it or not, we did find WMDs.
- Far too many Iraqi civilians have been killed, which may also be justly laid at the feet of Bush’s inept postwar strategy. But lying about how many Iraqis died as Paul does is another matter entirely.
- Nobody is pushing for another war in Iran. The other candidates simply insist on keeping military action on the table as a last-ditch option for keeping Iran from going nuclear—which, if you understand the threat Iran poses, is far preferable to Paul’s shameless pro-Iran propagandizing.
(22) I do not trust the media. But when the media tells me I am not to support Ron Paul, who says things he is not allowed to say, I will comply.(23) I know the media will smear or marginalize anyone who would really fix this country. But when the media smears and marginalizes Ron Paul, I will draw no conclusion from this.
More sheer delusion. For years, Paul was one of the media’s favorite Republicans because he dutifully repeated all of their anti-Bush, anti-war propaganda. What does Woods make of no less a left-winger than Rachel Maddow sticking up for him? I assume the main “smear” Woods has in mind is the newsletter controversy, but the available evidence is clear: the newsletters are indefensible, and Paul likely knew exactly what was going on. Even so, the media has largely given him a pass, with the harshest treatment being an entirely fair interview Paul walked out on in a huff. The why is obvious: most MSM-ers figure Paul isn’t worth the trouble to destroy because he’ll never be president anyway, and letting him get the nomination would the godsend they don’t dare hope for, because he gives them the ultimate opportunity to sell the narrative that conservatives are bigoted crackpots.
(24) I want to be spoken to like this: “My fellow Americans, you are the awesomest of the awesome, and the only reason anyone in the world might be unhappy with your government is because of your sheer awesomeness.”
I would call this a straw-man argument, but usually straw-man arguments at least sound somewhat like something people are actually saying. This sounds more like something you’d hear in a schoolyard tantrum.
(25) I think it’s a good idea to vote for Mitt Romney, whose top three donors are Goldman Sachs, Credit Suisse, and Morgan Stanley, and a bad idea to vote for Ron Paul, whose top three donors are the U.S. Army, the U.S. Navy, and the U.S. Air Force.
Actually, if you dig into the numbers, Paul’s claim to be the military’s favored candidate is misleading at best. And it never ceases to amaze me how tone-deaf Paulites are about their guy’s weaknesses, and how carelessly they play right into critics’ arguments. If Woods wants to open the door to guilt by association, then he also has to account for their guy’s popularity with David Duke, Stormfront, the American Communist Party, and numerous other assorted neo-Nazis, white supremacists, conspiracy theorists, and anti-Semites.
(26) I have not been exploited enough by the cozy relationship between large financial firms and the U.S. government, and I would like to see it continue.
If Woods wants to make a case that Romney and Santorum are shills for large, exploitative financial firms, he’ll have to do better than this. Maybe he’s got Gingrich, but to that I’ll once more refer readers back to (5). I’ll take an apologist for Freddie Mac over an apologist for Mahmoud Ahmadinejad any day of the week.
Tom Woods embodies everything that’s wrong with the Ron Paul rEVOLution: its dishonesty and hypocrisy, its selective image of the American Founding relentlessly promoted as gospel, and the endless disgraces it’s willing to overlook while simultaneously denigrating all others for much lesser offenses. And while trying to talk sense into a hack like Woods would be an exercise in futility, there’s a lesson here everyone else should heed.
Conservatives sometimes argue that we need to play nice with Paul and figure out a way to bring his voters into the GOP fold. But if the sheer irrationality on display here doesn’t prove any such attempt to be a fool’s errand, then the seething contempt for the very thought of backing anyone else should. These guys were never part of the conservative coalition to begin with; they’re hopelessly infatuated with an America that never existed, which in their minds Republicans have betrayed just as fully as Democrats.
No significant percentage of them will consider voting for a normal Republican, and the only way to catch their attention would be to emulate the worst aspects of Ron Paul’s ideology. What good is it to win some voters if we lose ourselves in the process?
New at Live Action – Dr. Ron Paul’s Backward Position on Rape Abortions
My latest Live Action post:
Libertarian Republican and presidential contender Ron Paul made headlines recently for an exchange with CNN’s Piers Morgan about how to handle rape pregnancies. Pro-aborts are scratching their heads wondering what “honest rape” means, while pro-lifers question just how pro-life the Texas Congressman really is:MORGAN: You have two daughters. You have many granddaughters. If one of them was raped — and I accept it’s a very unlikely thing to happen. But if they were, would you honestly look at them in the eye and say they had to have that child if they were impregnated?PAUL: No. If it’s an honest rape, that individual should go immediately to the emergency room. I would give them a shot of estrogen or give them –MORGAN: You would allow them to abort the baby?PAUL: It is absolutely in limbo, because an hour after intercourse or a day afterwards, there is no legal or medical problem. If you talk about somebody coming in and they say, well, I was raped and I’m seven months pregnant and I don’t want to have anything to do with it, it’s a little bit different story.
Read the rest at Live Action.
The MSM Finally Starts Vetting Ron Paul. And It Ain’t Pretty.
Be careful what you wish for, Paulites. Now that people are paying attention to your Messiah, they’re paying attention to the whole story.
Having made my objections to Ron Paul abundantly clear—see, for instance, here, here, and here—I don’t need to rehash them. Here, a quick roundup of the latest developments will suffice.
- December 14: The Washington Examiner’s Phillip Klein highlights Paul’s habit of not only slandering Israel, but doing so on Iranian state TV.
- December 16: After getting smacked down by Michele Bachmann the night before, Paul retaliates by smearing her: “She hates Muslims. She wants to go get ‘em.”
- December 17: In the Weekly Standard, James Kirchick follows up on his original expose of the newsletters, reviewing the vile content, the money Paul made off of them, and Paul’s cozy relationship with raving lunatic Alex Jones.
- December 18: former longtime Paul aide Eric Dondero tells the American Spectator that Paul didn’t write those bigoted, conspiratorial newsletters, “but he did read them, every line of them, off his fax machine at his Clute office before they were published. He would typically sign them at the bottom of the last page giving his okay, and re-fax them to Jean to go to the printer.”
- December 20: Accuracy in Media’s Cliff Kincaid reports on Paul’s vocal support for cyber-anarchist “whistleblower” outfit WikiLeaks and their source, Bradley Manning, whom Paul calls a “hero” and “patriot” for indiscriminately leaking classified information.
December 20: At Townhall, John Hawkins highlights 12 quotes that render Paul unelectable. - December 20: RedState’s Leon Wolf compiles the evidence that Paul is a 9/11 Truther.
- December 21: RedState’s Leon Wolf reveals Ron Paul’s wildly anti-libertarian 2008 presidential endorsements, including Cynthia McKinney and Ralph Nader.
- December 21: Paul loses his cool in a CNN interview about the newsletters, complaining that he’s addressed it so many times everyone should be satisfied with the (non-)answers he’s already given, flatly claiming he didn’t write them, never saw the bigoted content, “and that’s it.” He denies that he made nearly a million dollars on them (“I’d like to see that money”). When the interviewer says it’s a legitimate question because “these things are pretty incendiary,” Paul shoots back, “because of people like you,” takes off his microphone, and walks out.
- December 21: Jonah Goldberg finds 1988 video of Ron Paul claiming federal drug prohibition is a ruse to keep drug prices high to help the CIA fund its operations through drug trafficking. In the video, Paul also suggests electing George HW Bush, a former CIA chief, to the presidency would be the equivalent of the Russians putting an ex-KGB official in office.
December 22: Video surfaces of Paul in 1995, promoting the newsletters he supposedly knew so little about: “Long term, I don’t think political action is worth very much if you don’t have education […] I also put out a political type of business investment newsletter that sort of covered all these areas. And it covered a lot about what was going on in Washington, and financial events, and especially some of the monetary events.”
Let’s cut to the chase: making Ron Paul the Republican nominee would guarantee that Barack Obama gets a second term. We all know how Democrats love to tar their opponents as cranks and racists, even when there’s no evidence to support the smear; what do you suppose they could do with a candidate that does have such baggage, and lots of it?
We’d see the newsletters’ greatest hits—such as the ode to David Duke, the ranting about “terrorists” that “can be identified by the color of their skin”, the warnings to bar gays from restaurants because “AIDS can be transmitted by saliva”—saturate the airwaves and printed page. We’d get a refresher on every conspiracy & crackpot Paul has ever flirted with. We’d even see the president who killed Osama bin Laden credibly cast himself as a tougher wartime leader than the guy who opposed the operation.
And most importantly, all of this poison and insanity would be used not just to torpedo a presidential candidate, but also to discredit the principles of limited government and constitutionalism he claims to speak for. Every libertarian and conservative principle Paul allegedly embodies would be linked in the public’s minds to racism, paranoia. Make no mistake: the Right would be set back years, if not decades.
I gave up on expecting morals and good sense from libertarians a long time ago, but conservatives surely aren’t going to hand the Left victory on a silver platter. Are we?
The Official CFO 2012 Republican Presidential Roundup
In the 2008 Republican primary, it was pretty easy for to pick a candidate early on: I endorsed and vigorously supported Mitt Romney. I reasoned at the time that, aside from his formidable private-sector experience and squeaky-clean personal life, he best unified the social, fiscal, and defense wings of conservatism, and though there were a couple flip-flops in his record, the baggage and positions of his competitors were easily worse. I stand by that decision.
This time around, though, the decision has been more difficult, essentially because the candidates seem more evenly mediocre. Romney looks worse (for reasons we’ll get into below), there are no extreme babykillers among the viable candidates who need to be derailed, and overall there’s just nobody whose assets aren’t marred by substantial drawbacks of one form or another.
But recently, enough has come into focus that I feel comfortable making concrete pronouncements about the major active, official candidates, including an endorsement. So here’s an alphabetical rundown of my take on each candidate, with my endorsement at the end.
Michele Bachmann: Bachmann strikes all the right notes on the Constitution, life, marriage, economics, and defense, she’s got the passion to convince people of her sincerity and her ability to mount a tough challenge to Obama, and she couldn’t care less about whether or not her remarks or positions are expedient or establishment-approved. On the other hand, she’s sometimes a clumsy communicator, and has had a string of minor gaffes and blunders (not reading that Iowa pledge more closely is the most recent example). Ultimately, I’d be more than comfortable voting for Bachmann over Obama.
Herman Cain: I like Herman Cain the man, but I just can’t warm up to Herman Cain the would-be president. He’s generally solid on the issues and a great businessman, but his campaign seems to be something of a one-trick pony, with little more to offer than generic rhetoric about being an outsider and a problem solver, which simply isn’t enough to paper over the sense that he’s utterly unprepared when discussing foreign policy, which is kind of a big deal for a potential commander in chief. Of course, I’d happily vote for him in the general election, since our current president is far more incompetent…he just hides it better.
Newt Gingrich: Newt is frustrating. He’s extremely intelligent, a superb speaker and debater, has lots of terrific ideas, and is second to none in his ability to convey the gravity of a situation. But he’s also got a scandal-ridden personal life, a laundry list of foolish flirtations with liberals, and a horribly managed campaign. I’d still vote for Gingrich in the general, since I think most of his values are basically in the right place (and let’s face it, who wouldn’t love to see Barack Obama forced to debate this guy for an hour on stage?).
John Huntsman: Huntsman is a flake, a moderate-to-liberal Republican, and a phony. I wouldn’t vote for him in the general, which is good because he’s not getting the nomination. Next.
Gary Johnson: He’s like Ron Paul, only worse. He’s going nowhere, and under no circumstances would I vote for him. Next.
Ron Paul: I’ve written extensively about why Ron Paul’s treason, demagoguery, conspiracism, and dishonesty disqualify him from serious consideration, so I don’t think I need to repeat myself too much there. (Oh, and while I’ve admitted before that Paul’s got a solid record on abortion, pro-lifers should be aware that he says the only other candidate he’d support is Gary Johnson, the one pro-abort in the field this time around.) And did you know he’s drifting leftward on immigration? In the unlikely event that the GOP would be so irresponsible as to nominate Paul, I could not in good conscience vote for him, even in a general election against Obama.
Rick Perry: There seems to be a general sense that Perry’s the new favorite for Republican nomination, thanks to a combination of his job-creation record and the perception that he’s the True Conservative TM of the race. And that scares me for three reasons. First, his record on immigration is horrendous. Second, his recent calls to leave gay marriage and abortion to the states are troubling, even if he did flip-flop on both lickety-split. Third, how can you have faith in the liberty, limited-government principles of a guy who issued an executive order mandating that little girls be vaccinated with an unproven anti-STD drug? It’s vitally important that we get Obama out of office, and I’m willing to put up with a lot of bull for the greater good, so I’d vote for Perry in the general if it came to that…but I would do so reluctantly, and with very restrained expectations about his presidency.
Mitt Romney: After Romney dropped out last time, I said that if he put the effort into immersing himself in the movement and taking the lead on the issues, and if he stuck with it between 2008 and 2012, the nomination would be his for the taking. Well, that hasn’t happened. At best, we got the occasional okay-yet-unremarkable op-ed or sound byte. It’s bad enough that Romney hasn’t distinguished himself, but since then ObamaCare has reignited scrutiny over the healthcare plan he championed in Massachusetts, to the point where Democrats are giving him backhanded “thanks” for it. So the doubts about Mitt’s conservatism are bigger than ever, and he’s chosen to circle the wagons around RomneyCare rather than add another flip-flop to the list. Mitt Romney’s drawbacks are even more pronounced this time around, and he brings nothing special to the table that would offset them. That said, I would vote for Romney in the general election—he still embraces (albeit imperfectly) all three legs of the conservative stool, I believe him when he says he wouldn’t replicate RomneyCare at the federal level, and I think he’s got strong potential to threaten Obama on the economy.
Rick Santorum: Santorum is a strong fiscal conservative, a strong defense hawk, and arguably the premiere social conservative lawmaker of the past 20 years. He’s a veteran of the conservative movement, an experienced senator, and a courageous, unapologetic advocate of conservative principles. On paper, it seems like a no-brainer that he should be the Republican nominee. The problem is, he just can’t seem to gain any traction, which I believe is due to a combination of growing antipathy toward social conservatives among establishment Republicans and Santorum’s inability to make his message resonate with voters. I’d love to vote for him in the general…but sadly, I don’t think I’ll get the opportunity.
Conclusion: If it were strictly a question of who I think would make the best president, I would back Rick Santorum. But unless he manages to grain some real traction, I don’t see him as a viable option, and I think Perry’s got the potential to fool enough people that we need a viable, trustworthy, conservative alternative. To that end, I am endorsing Michele Bachmann for the Republican nomination for President of the United States. She’s a little rough around the edges, but in the final analysis I believe she’s got the principles, the know-how, and the fire to take on Barack Obama and set America back on track.
New on RedState – Drug Legalization: A Bipartisan Bad Idea
My latest RedState post:
Hardcore libertarian Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) and rabid leftist Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) have united for a cause near and dear to many a crank’s heart: drug legalization. The two have introduced a bill to all but end the federal War on Drugs. While their proposal would still let the feds prohibit the transfer of marijuana across state lines and keep it from entering the country, it would recognize the states’ authority to legalize pot within their borders if they so choose.
Constitutionally, it’s not the federal government’s job to handle the states’ internal affairs, and as we struggle to trim the fat from our debt-ridden, bureaucratic federal government, every little bit helps. Also, comparing the results of varying drug policies in newly empowered states would help us clearly see whether or not legalizers’ rosy predictions of safer narcotics and collapsing cartels actually come true.
So, is Paul-Frank a win-win? Not quite.
First, it’s simply insane to do anything federally that would increase drug use (and let’s not kid ourselves, that’s exactly what would happen) until after we’ve secured the southern border drugs are currently pouring across, and dismantled whatever federal programs currently force taxpayers to pay for drug users’ bad decisions.
Second, many of Paul and Frank’s supporters want to go further. In recent years, a growing number of voices on both sides have called for a wholesale end to drug prohibition. On June 16, Jimmy Carter wrote that American drug policies “destroy the lives of millions of young people and their families.” The far-left ex-president is in rare agreement with National Review, which on June 27 called the bill “an excellent first step” toward ending a war that has “curtailed personal freedom.” For leftists, drug use is a personal lifestyle choice, the condemnation of which would be the unpardonable sin of judgmentalism, while legalizers on the Right frame the issue around personal responsibility, suggesting it’s paternalistic for government to keep people from putting harmful things in their systems.
What Is the Libertarian Position on Abortion? UPDATED
That is the question posed by Hot Air’s Ed Morrissey to Reason Magazine’s Matt Welch and Nick Gillespie for their “Ask A Libertarian” video series:
Ed reacts with appreciation for a “measured, thoughtful response.” As you might expect, I’m not so charitable.
No, Ed, this was not a thoughtful response. A thoughtful response would have asked what the scientific evidence reveals about the humanity of the unborn, and the discussed how the answer relates to the nature of liberty (you know, the root word of “libertarian”) and the libertarian purpose of government. Instead, all we got was platitudes about respecting differing views wrapped around, quite frankly, Naziesque talk of a “sliding scale of humanity” and how “definitions of life and death change with time.” Gillespie even admits that the sliding scale is an intuitive idea, rather than a logical argument.
I’ll be the first to acknowledge that there are principled, consistent libertarians out there, like Libertarians for Life, who embrace the full implications of the statements “all men are created equal” and “to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men.” But in what might be the most disturbing part of the video, Welch claims that only about 30% of libertarians call themselves pro-life. If that number is accurate (and I don’t know if it is), then that confirms my worst suspicions about libertarianism being merely a form of liberalism that wants to keep its paycheck rather than a sincere, coherent liberty ethos.
But hey, that moral and intellectual confusion is one of the reasons I’m a conservative and not a libertarian. That’s their knot to untangle, and I hope for the sake of the Right as a broader coalition that pro-life libertarians are successful in untangling it.
UPDATE: Speaking of libertarians and social issues, Ann Coulter nukes Ron Paul and company along similar lines, in a column so good we’ll let slide her misguided infatuation with Chris Christie:
Most libertarians are cowering frauds too afraid to upset anyone to take a stand on some of the most important cultural issues of our time. So they dodge the tough questions when it suits their purposes by pretending to be Randian purists, but are perfectly comfortable issuing politically expedient answers when it comes to the taxpayers’ obligations under Medicare and Social Security.
If they could only resist sucking up to Rolling Stone-reading, status-obsessed losers, they’d probably be interesting to talk to.
In my book “Demonic: How the Liberal Mob is Endangering America,” I make the case that liberals, and never conservatives, appeal to irrational mobs to attain power. There is, I now recall, one group of people who look like conservatives, but also appeal to the mob. They’re called “libertarians.”
GOP Debate Reaction
The following rankings are based strictly on their performance last night, not their overall merit as candidates.
First Place: A tie between Michelle Bachmann and Newt Gingrich. I was surprised to see Bachmann at all, simply because she hadn’t made her intentions to run official before last night, and I didn’t expect to be as impressed with her performance as I was (I’ve always liked her passion for conservatism, but she has had a few foot-in-mouth issues). Bachmann was clear, polished, passionate, and generally delivered a performance that stood in stark contrast to the Left’s caricature of her as an unserious nut. Gingrich, unsurprisingly, delivered a performance that showcased his unmatched command of the details and a no-nonsense attitude that I think would have taken him far if…well, if he wasn’t Newt Gingrich, weighed down by all the baggage that entails.
Second Place: Rick Santorum and Mitt Romney. Solid performances, but more or less interchangeable in my view. Romney may have been a little more polished, though he’s lucky nobody forced him to get too specific about health care. Speaking of which…
Third Place: Tim Pawlenty. He would have been in a tree-way tie for second with Santorum and Romney, were it not for chickening out when given a chance to back up his attacks on RomneyCare. Tim does realize that, if he wins the nomination, he’ll have to say uncomplimentary things about Obama to his face, right?
Fourth Place: Herman Cain. I never expected to be as disappointed as I’ve been in Cain. Despite being able to speak with great confidence and clarity on economics, it’s clear he hasn’t made any effort to improve his foreign policy credentials. He also stumbled badly when trying to explain his remarks on the loyalty of Muslims, and I was disappointed to learn he wouldn’t support the Federal Marriage Amendment.
Fifth Place: Ron Paul. His delivery is so terrible that I can’t fathom how this guy managed to develop a cult of personality around himself. He comes across as the crazy uncle you’re constantly praying won’t embarrass you in front of dinner guests.
Conservative Standards 