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What say you?
i'm unconvinced that i should support RP and linking the contemptible Antiwar.com doesn't help. Jefferson fought a war overseas so there is a time and place for war. i find many of RP's views agreeable so i'm not against him but i haven't been converted to being a Paulinian either. as for a fight brewing, i agree. the RINOs will be converted or kicked out.
My point wasn't about supporting Ron Paul, it was about the cheap attacks made on him, thus his genuine limited government philosophy, which is tearing the movement apart. Just as is all the attacks on Beck's speech. If the movement insists on attacking and burying their heritage, the Old Right, I don't believe anything significant (kicking the RINOs out) towards turning this country around can happen..
On RP, a) he was in favor of going into Afghanistan after 9/11 and b) you should read his idea on how to deal with the Somali pirates, straight out of Jefferson's playbook, and quite aggressive too! What's he's against (as am I), is Wilsonian nation-building.
CL, I'm a name-caller, that much I admit. I've also called Ron Paul names, that much I admit as well. But my name-calling, while admittedly juvenile, is borne of a deep-seated belief that Ron Paul's (and Lew Rockwell's) version of American Libertarianism comes from a deeply flawed understanding of American History and a general contempt for pragmatism in international affairs. I call him names because I think if we adopted the entire scope of his platform, we'd all be dead. It's that simple.
There's only two things here: One, if Ron Paul thinks that our overseas involvement in the Middle East is in any way responsible for their animosity towards us and their willingness to indiscriminately kill civilians, he has literally no idea whatsoever of the history of Islam. While perhaps only a glisten in history's eye when it began, Islam has been at war with the idea that would one day become America for over a millennium. This is a fact. Two, if he does understand Islam and still decides that it's better and smarter policy to completely disengage, then he's stupid. I can't make it any clearer than that.
I've read "A Foreign Policy of Freedom" and "The Revolution" and have them both prominently displayed on my bookshelf. When I was in D.C. for Reagan's funeral I made it a point to stop by Paul's office and his alone. I just cannot for the life of me understand why he thinks our bedrock foundational principles would ever tolerate a foreign policy that would knowingly permit another nation, unabashedly dedicated to our destruction, to gather momentum and act on that dedication. Suffice to say, I think he's wrong.
Now, this is not to say that I don't agree with Paul that our present FP isn't hopelessly convoluted. That much is undeniable. He is and always has been right that the "entaglement" in foreign affairs causes much grief and creates intractable conflicts of interest. We are FAR too involved with FAR too many issues for our FP to be considered consistent or coherent.
But that issue in no way justifies the Rockwell/Paul doctrine that we have to wait for the bombs to be en route before we act. That has NEVER been the truth and no matter how badly Lew and Ron want it to be, God willing it never will be either. Personally, after having read Rockwell for a good five years now, I think he is a leftist at heart who just happens to understand Austrian Economics well enough to make it seem like he's being consistent and rational when he's neither. At best he's an anarcho-capitalist, which at the end of the day is so ridiculous as to warrant ridicule. To the contrary, I believe Ron Paul is a Patriot first and foremost who simply has taken the wrong path on American Foreign Policy.
I am greatly enjoying your posts on this by the way. Thanks CL.
In the struggle,
Russ
Totalitarianism is the extreme on the left, and anarchy is the extreme on the right. If you think Old Right conservatives like myself (Rockwell, et. al.) are on the Left, you're sadly mistaken. I mean seriously, who is more supportive of Big Government? Neocons or libertarians? Think about it. Which one of those 2 loves them some Roosevelt?
I think you and I need to have a blog debate. I'll email you in a little while.
I think that's correct. The problem I see is that in the world today, it is simply unreasonable to withdraw on a national level. Who's gonna fight the Jihad? You and me? Really? While I'd love to believe that, it is an untenable position. It's also why the Founders decided that a Government was necessary "to secure those blessings", among other things. One of the ways to do that is to fight those who would deny them. Islam, would deny them.
The problem with anarchy is that it makes any such society ripe for, yup, totalitarianism. This is the flip side to Hayek's "Road to Serfdom". An anarchistic society will inevitably devolve into the purest form of "might equals right" thus leading to the guy with the most guns ruling everyone else. That is the same end result as unbridled "progressivism". Both are disturbing.
The key, I believe, lies in the Declaration and Constitution, neither of which support a Rockwell/Paul version of foreign policy, in my opinion.
I'm down. I have a distinct feeling I'm gonna get my ass kicked, but in the name of knowledge, wisdom and most importantly, learning, I'm in.
Russ
I'd like to see one of them try to get through my front door.
That's the thing though...they don't have to get that close anymore.
If I can add this; I personally think that while this debate is an important one, it isn't NEARLY as important as the us v. them fight in which we're engaged right now. At the national level, I for one am perfectly willing to put aside ALL differences and work to elect fiscally conservative candidates only, regardless of whether I agree with them on anything else, including foreign policy.
If we don't get our fiscal house in order, the debt bomb that's coming down the tracks will destroy us just as completely as any nuclear bomb could.
[...] There’s a Fight Brewing in the Conservative Movement What’s different about Ron Paul as compared to just about any other politician, is that he represents an idea, a philosophy … his movement is not about the man. So when “conservatives” attack Ron Paul, what they don’t understand is that their attacks don’t resonate as attacks on some politician, but as attacks on Americans who believe in restoring our representative republic. [...]
Damn! I left home before I saw this. Will link later.
I'm really pleased to see these discussions across the web. Will they do any good?