The Case For Ron Paul
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I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.
In this Republican Primary season, we must decide which one of our candidates will be faithful to that oath. It is true that almost any of the candidates can win a general election against Obama. He’s been a total failure, and he has a list of lies and broken promises a mile long. So often in the news and in political commentary we hear the phrase, “Who has the best chance of beating Obama next November?” We can put up a liberal Republican against Obama and win the election, but where will it get us? We will still be dealing with an administration that doesn’t uphold the Constitution.
The question we need to ask is, “Who will actually uphold the Constitution?” The answer to that question, even for those who hate him, is Ron Paul. No one has so strictly followed the Constitution in their legislative career than he has. But why is that the fundamental question we need to ask? Because the Constitution is there to prevent our federal government from growing out of control. When you get down to it though, you have to have men and women of honor and integrity in office that will strictly abide by the Constitution in their public life, or else you get what we do indeed have today: out of control government.
Some critics of Ron Paul say he has no leadership skills. They say this because he hasn’t gotten the rest of Congress to jump on board with his agenda. This is a rather silly way to measure leadership, however. If you’re serving in Congress with a bunch of people who neither know what the Constitution says nor give a crap about abiding by it, how is that a strike against YOUR leadership skills? I know of many congressmen who get bills passed by getting votes from both sides of the aisle, but what good is that if the bills they pass are unconstitutional and/or grow the size of government? Is that leadership, or is that the blind leading the blind? Ron Paul has stood alone many times as the sole “No” vote. That doesn’t make him ineffective; that makes him a man of principle.
So why should you vote for Ron Paul? For any conservative out there, the simple fact that he will veto any piece of legislation that is unconstitutional should be enough reason for you. And boy, is that a lot of vetoes. Another thing that should make conservatives wet their pants is that the threat of the veto pen will force the Republican Congress to be even more conservative than the Tea Party has been forcing them to be for the past few years. Then there’s the budget plan he rolled out recently. He cuts $1 trillion in the first year, and balances the budget in the third year (all dependent upon Congress, of course). Five departments are eliminated, the federal workforce is trimmed by 10%, and congressional pay as well as his own paycheck will see huge cuts.
Ron Paul has been warning about the national debt for many years. A man of principle speaks out on an issue when it presents itself. A man whose doctrine changes with the wind joins in when it is either too late or almost too late. There are many latecomers on the issues of the national debt, the Federal Reserve, and foreign policy. There’s only one candidate who has been right for decades, and that man is Ron Paul.
Typically on financial issues you hardly find a conservative who disagrees with Ron Paul, or they at least mostly agree. The most disagreement you see is on foreign policy. This is usually because they simply don’t understand foreign policy enough to make a sound judgment, and instead defer to talking points or the party line. When I first looked into Ron Paul back in 2008, I was wary of him on foreign policy. I’d grown up listening to Rush Limbaugh, watching Fox News, etc. and just couldn’t bring myself to accept his views on that. Then I read Ron Paul’s book called “A Foreign Policy of Freedom” and my concerns were gone. The book is basically a collection of Ron Paul’s speeches on foreign policy from 1976 to 2007. I can’t tell you how many times my jaw hit the floor while reading this book. So much of the time, he’d give a speech and say, “We need to stop doing this or we’ll suffer some dire consequences”. A little while passes and something bad does happen because of that particular policy, and he gives another speech saying, “See, I told you so! Can we stop this now?”
Ron Paul has been especially perceptive on Mideast policy. Consider his words in 1983 concerning Israel and Lebanon:
Israel has not and will not benefit from our persistent involvement in the Mideast. Since our dollars flow to both Arabs and Israelis, we will not be inclined to allow either side to decide for itself what is in its own best interest. Israel, under today’s circumstances, cannot retain its sovereignty, for we will always feel compelled to criticize their actions if, in our opinion, these actions destabilize the area.
Shock of all shocks, Ron Paul still feels the same way today. He still calls for our government to stay out of Israel’s business and let them decide what’s best for them. He still calls for an end to all foreign aid because it arms Israel’s enemies and guarantees Israel remains a welfare state, not to mention that foreign aid is unconstitutional and we’re broke. When Israel bombed Iraq’s nuclear reactor at Osirak in 1981, he was one of very few who supported Israel while the Reagan administration and the UN condemned them for it.
But what about terrorism? Ron Paul was the only one of our elected officials to warn America that Islamic terrorism would be coming to our shores if our foreign policy wasn’t significantly changed. He warned us in three separate speeches: One in 1998, one in February of 2001, and again in July 2001. Some people like to say he blames America for 9/11. Ron Paul has never blamed America for 9/11. He has consistently blamed government policy. To say he blames America for 9/11 would be like saying the Tea Party blames America for the national debt. Sounds stupid when you say it out loud, doesn’t it?
Americans typically understand that the government is to blame for our problems in domestic policy, yet those same people seem to think that SAME government is a great decision maker when it comes to foreign policy. That may have more to do with nationalism than anything else. As George Orwell noted, “The nationalist not only does not disapprove of atrocities committed by his own side, but he has a remarkable capacity for not even hearing about them.” I believe that pretty well sums up how most Americans view 9/11 and foreign policy when taken together. For many Americans, history began on 9/11 and the attacks came out of nowhere. Heck, I used to be one of those people until I studied history, and the history reveals that our government has pulled off some seriously sorry crap in the Middle East over the years, and those policies continue to this day.
Others believe 9/11 and terrorism in general are part of muslim conquest. If this were true, it would be the first time in history muslims sought empire by not conquering nearby lands, but rather by trying to conquer a land thousands of miles away, and by only using a ragtag band of terrorists and no army. That’s another one of those things that sounds stupid when you say it out loud. The fact of the matter is that revenge is engineered into Islam. If you know this to be a fact, why would you do anything to bring wrath upon your own country? Ron Paul knows these things, and this is why he was able to foresee that Islamic terrorism would come to our own shores if we didn’t make some serious changes in foreign policy.
Is Ron Paul alone in this view of terrorism? In 2004, Donald Rumsfeld directed the Pentagon’s Defense Science Board Task Force to review the impact the Bush administration’s policies — specifically the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan — were having on terrorism and Islamic radicalism. They issued a report in September, 2004 and it condemned the Bush/Cheney approach as entirely counterproductive, and that it was worsening the terrorist threat those policies purportedly sought to reduce. It also revealed that the terrorists don’t care about our freedom, they hate our policies. They see our one sided support of Israel against Palestine, our support of tyrannies in various muslim countries, and the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan as an affront to muslim self determination. The 9/11 Commission Report and the CIA also reached about the same conclusion.
Remember KSM, the mastermind behind 9/11? He’s the one we waterboarded multiple times and supposedly got some great information out of him. He said the reason he planned the attacks was because of US policy. Now, at this point some folks will say muslims can lie to advance their faith. Yes, and so can Christians. Remember Rahab? However, it’s a little quirky to say the guy who was waterboarded for information lied about this one thing, and that one thing just happened to be the reasoning behind his involvement in the plot. These folks who throw out the taqiyya card seem to think that these terrorist muslims who are supposedly trying to conquer America are all together on this huge lie about WHY they’re doing it. It’s a first in muslim history, but this is what they want us to believe. Yeah, that’s another one of those things that sounds stupid when you say it out loud. Furthermore, they fail to realize that taqiyya refers not to lying in general but to concealing your faith from an oppressor in order to protect your life and/or property from damage.
So why, in a write up about Ron Paul, would I include such a huge section on foreign policy and Islam? Because in my experience, it is those two subjects which keep people from voting for Ron Paul, and instead leads them to call him a nutter or a dangerous man. In reality, when you fully utilize what’s in your brain housing unit you will see he’s the only choice for president. So now for the summation:
- Ron Paul will veto A LOT of bills passed by Congress, since most of them are unconstitutional
- The veto threat will force the Republicans to be even more conservative
- He’s the only candidate who has proposed serious cuts that address our debt/budget problems and will pull us back from the brink.
- He’s led by example by strictly upholding the Constitution, even when it was unpopular.
- He’s the only elected leader in the US who warned Islamic terror was going to come to our shores if our foreign policy didn’t significantly change.
- He’s the only candidate who understands that the status quo foreign policy is not only counterproductive in fighting terror, but we simply can’t afford it anymore.
- In a presidential debate with Obama, he can paint the president as a hypocrite on just about every foreign policy issue, and he can dominate him in any discussion of the economy.
- There’s no other candidate with Ron Paul’s knowledge of the Constitution, foreign policy, and economic and monetary policy.
- Lastly, the guy who predicted the economic crisis is the guy we need to get us out of it. That’s Ron Paul.
About The Author
Clint Stutts
I'm very political because it's the government that controls your quality of life. If you don't take part in the political process, if you don't make a stink when your rulers are doing wrong, you deserve what you get, good and hard.
