Ron Paul: Give Peace a Chance
Posted on October 11, 2007
Then read the Washington Post.
Republican presidential hopeful Ron Paul said today that he could see no possible reason to ever launch military action or initiate a war, vowing instead to battle efforts he said are undermining the individual liberties of people in America.
In an interview with Washingtonpost.com’s PostTalk program, the Texas congressman said he could see “no reason” to justify military action if he were elected president. He compared the United States to a schoolyard bully and said the country has no reason to flex its muscles overseas.
“There’s nobody in this world that could possibly attack us today,” he said in the interview. “I mean, we could defend this country with a few good submarines. If anybody dared touch us we could wipe any country off of the face of the earth within hours. And here we are, so intimidated and so insecure and we’re acting like such bullies that we have to attack third-world nations that have no military and have no weapon.”
Paul has been intensely opposed to the war in Iraq and to a potential attack against Iran during his campaign for the presidency. During this week’s GOP debate in Dearborn, Mich., he once again became red-faced as he blasted the Middle East war effort.
“The thought that the Iranians could pose an imminent attack on the United States is preposterous,” he said Tuesday night. “There’s no way. This is just war propaganda, continued war propaganda, preparing this nation to go to war and spread this war not only in Iraq, but into Iran, unconstitutionally. It is a road to disaster for us as a nation.”
But during the PostTalk interview, Paul said he does not believe he is too angry to be president.
Ameripundit takes issue with the sentence I put in bold above:
Good idea! We’ll just nuke any country off the face of the earth if it even dares touch us. Nuclear fallout and/or retaliatory consequences be damned! By the way, Iraq had a significant military and had used biological weapons against its own citizens. Iran also has a significant military and no one claims it yet has a weapon – only that it’s pursuing one.
No Runny Eggs: Ron Paul – too f—ing ignorant to be in politics
I’m really gonna miss the entertainment this guy brings when he bows out. I don’t doubt he will run on a third party ticket though. To me, this guy is out there! John Hawkins at Rightwing News does a good job explaining why so many Conservatives don’t like Ron Paul.
Along those same lines, Paul wants to get rid of the CIA, opposes the Patriot Act, and wants to legalize hard drugs. Taking in all those positions in addition to others mentioned earlier just emphasizes the fact that he does not take into consideration how implementing the ideas that he’s presenting will affect the world. In that sense Paul, and for that matter, most “Big L” Libertarians are more similar than they’d like to believe to the wildly impractical, Marxist college professors that conservatives love to snicker at. To people like Paul and these professors, their beliefs seem to be largely divorced from any sort of real world impact that may occur or the political reality that has to be dealt with.
You can win pats on the back for your purity or you can accomplish something in the political arena, but you usually can’t do both. Ron Paul does not seem to have figured that out.
Make sure to read the whole thing.
» Filed Under 1st Amendment, Humor, News, Politics As Usual
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7 Responses to “Ron Paul: Give Peace a Chance”
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He said “could”, not “should”. His point is that we have many layers of defenses. If you disagree, I would love to hear you outline the strategy by which a country such as Iran (or even China) could conquer us.
Those statements are truly only in the sense that Nigeria doesn’t have a significant military. Neither Iraq, nor Iran, have, had, or will have a military that can seriously challange, let alone defeat any industrial nation, let alone us.
Be careful not to twist this. It’s the bureaucracy he wants to eliminate, not the function. He has stated clearly on national TV that he believes the gathering of foreign intelligence is a necessary and proper function of the federal government.
John Hawkins has clearly not read past the headlines.
I have devoured virtually every public word spoken by Dr. Paul in the past 6 months, and I have heard absolute nothing that led me to believe that he expected to create anything remotely resembling a libertarian utopia in the next 8 years, let alone 4. He knows full well that the monstrosity that is our federal government took decades to build and would take decades to dismantle.
The Ron Paul campaign is about changing the direction of the federal government, not about taking a sledgehammer to it.
If I were China I would use economic means. The U.S. is a consumer nation and does not have enough sense to only purchase what they can buy so they would easily get into dept to me. There is a saying that a debtor is a slave of the lender and I could then use that debt to take over businesses and ports thus tightening my control. Taking over the businesses would give me more access to higher technology which I could use to improve my armed forces. I would also use third parties such as N.Korea, Iran, Sudan and Burma to cause the U.S. to spend more money. In time my country (China) would have pretty much total control of the U.S. without even bothering to fire a shot. If it did come to a shooting war I would have the citizens to spare even if 99% of my population was wiped out in a nuclear war. The U.S would probably loose in a conventional war against China. We could not even handle their numbers during the Korean war and that was without the technology they have obtained from us in the meantime.
You’re right. That is a realistic scenario. I just so happens that Dr. Paul talks about this regularly. Here is one such example.
Yes. So why is it that most of our politicians are encouraging us to take the bait?
Depends on the location. I said “conquer”, so I was implying that they would defeat us here.
Numerical superiority wouldn’t help them much in that case. They would need air and naval superiority in order to capitalize on their numerical advantage. That’s certainly possible (probably even inevitable), but not in the reasonable future.
Sorry, I forgot to mention that the trade deficit stuff starts about 40 seconds into the video.
I’m going to miss the Paul-nuts about the end of next summer. Sadly, he’s not going anywhere for a while.
You probably should have put a language warning on the link to my post. Paul’s latest bout of insanity sent me over the edge.
The problem with Ron Paul is that he is still at heart a
Libertarian. They can´t seem to get elected to anything
more than dog catcher. Historically, their candidates
for president never garners more than 3%of the vote. So
for somebody with high aspirations, such as Congressman
Paul his only option is to be a Republican. Interesting
either Republicans or Democrats leave their party they
become independent instead of aligning with a third party
like the Libertarian. It could give those third parties a
boost in membership.
As I have said in the past, Ron Paul is preachig the Conervatism our Conservative founding fathers. As in President Coolige, Sen. Robert Taft, and Sen.Barry Goldwater. Real Conservatism. But thoughts three names have been replaced by Socailist, like F.D.R, J.F.K, and Sen. Scoop friggin Jackson.(I cringed every time Hannity brings him up as some kind of conservative hero)
There’s not a dimes worh of differnce between Benito (Rudy) or Lazy Thompson, and Countress Bathory(Hitery) or Dip-stick galore Obama. There isn’t a differnce one bit. Big Governent, Higher Taxes, more Undeclared Wars fought under so-called UN “orders”.
“If you analyze it I believe the very heart and soul of conservatism is libertarianism.” Ronald Reagan said that. You guys remember him right? Or has he been replaced by Woodrow Wilson?