On Ron Paul
January 1st, 2012 § 2 Comments
Happy New Year! I thought I’d start off the new year with a short post I made to a Yahoo! news column on Ron Paul
I like Dr. Paul on domestic issues, and I have several good friends who think the world of Ron Paul. But the President of the United States is, like it or not, the leader of the free world. I cannot envision Ron Paul as the leader of the free world. Even Mr. Obama’s foreign policy with its many faults is in some respects superior to Ron Paul’s. I don’t see Ron Paul as a President who would give the order to kill Osama bin Laden. Would a President Paul authorize strikes against Islamic terrorists in Afghanistan and Pakistan? How would Dr. Paul effectively deal with a resurgent and adversarial Russia and China, and a now unknown variable in North Korea? Judging by his statements during the debates in which he proclaims that the rest of the world “is none of our business,” Dr. Paul appears to be a throwback, he seems to subscribe to a mid-1930s Republican isolationism which refused to confront the Nazis (fortunately for the isolationists, Germany declared war on the United States and so spared the isolationists the political agony of this decision). How would an isolationist, anti-war Ron Paul handle the 3 am phone call in which he would be told that Ahmadinejad had just launched a nuclear missile at Tel Aviv? Or that Al-Qaeda had just hit a major American city (or a city of our allies) and murdered hundreds or thousands of innocent civilians? Can you see Ron Paul standing in New York at the fallen Twin Towers with a megaphone in hand as President Bush – by no means a perfect president – did following 9/11? I cannot.
If this were perhaps 1992 or 1996 and the world was generally at peace – of course there will be minor skirmishes here and there – maybe – just maybe – I could see supporting Dr. Paul because he is correct that federal domestic power has far exceeded the enumerated powers delegated to the federal government by the Constitution.
However, the Constitution expressly delegates to the Executive Branch the authority and power to defend America. Ron Paul’s recent statements do not present a clear and convincing case that he would in good conscience be able and willing to exercise this power as the Commander in Chief.
If we had a President like Ron Paul, terrorists would have little reason to attack the United States because we would not be picking on people all over the world.
And why is Israel so central to American foreign policy? We have no ancient bond of kinship with those people. The claim that Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East is purely bogus. Israeli conduct in Gaza makes them every bit as tyrannical as their neighbours.
Regardless of how good or bad Israel conducts itself, it is time for America to revert back to a foreign policy of Non-Intervention. That is the foreign policy of our Founding Fathers, and the one Ron Paul subscribes to. He isn’t an isolationist. He simply wants to use force abroad only if American vital national interests are threatened.
Thank you for reading my blog. Could you please clarify some points:
“terrorists would have little reason to attack the United States…” – you assume that Islamic terrorists attack the United States because of what we do; but Islamic terrorists attack us for who we are (“the great Satan”, and so on).
“picking on people” – who do we “pick on” exactly and when have we done this?
“we have no ancient bond of kinship with those people” – please explain your reasoning of this statement given that America was founded on Judeo-Christian values, specifically the Old Testament of the Hebrew (and Christian) Bible.
“every bit as tyrannical as their neighbors” – How so? Arabs living in Israel enjoy more rights and freedoms than Arabs living in any Muslim-Arab state. There is a Muslim justice sitting on the Supreme Court of Israel. Name me a Jewish judge who sits on any court in any Arab country.
Without getting into a long-drawn out discussion, and recalling that the so-called Jenin massacre turned out to be a hoax, name a few things Israel has done in the Palestinian terroritories that makes Israel as “tyrannical” as their neighbors, e.g. Iran and Saudi Arabia? Does Israel stone women? Does Israel cut off men’s hands? Are those who convert from Judaism to Christianity placed under a death sentence by Jewish rabbis? Does Israel the extermination of other nations? What exactly in your opinion does Israel do that is “tyrannical?”
What is your response to the proverbial 3am phone call? Would you tell the free world that “it’s none of America’s business” that Tel Aviv just went up in a mushroom cloud? What does it mean to be an ally of the United States?