• Tag Archives Ron Paul

  • Bernie Sanders Is Not the Left’s Ron Paul

    Posted on by Azrael Comment

    Ever since Bernie Sanders, the independent senator from Vermont, announced that he would seek the Democratic nomination for president, he has drawn comparisons to a similarly disheveled, longtime politician with a cult-like following and a strong independent streak: former Congressman Ron Paul, who ran for the Republican nomination in 2008 and 2012. It’s true that Sanders and Paul have a lot in common: They both have rabid fan bases, don’t hold their tongues, and embrace ideologies that are rejected by the establishment of their respective parties. And like Paul, Sanders could challenge his party’s frontrunner early on, but doesn’t stand much of a chance of winning the nomination. As Slate’s Jamelle Bouie wrote this week:

    Sanders won’t be the Democratic nominee. But that doesn’t mean he won’t be important. Here, it’s useful to think of Ron Paul … He helped bridge the divide between libertarians and the Republican right, and he inspired a new group of conservative and libertarian activists who have made a mark in the GOP through Paul’s son, Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul. If Sanders can sustain and capture the left-wing enthusiasm for his campaign, he could do the same for progressives.
    I disagree; Sanders’s campaign isn’t simply one that will put “democratic socialist” ideas on stage against a more mainstream Democratic view, as Paul sought to do with his libertarian ideas. Rather, his candidacy represents a wing of the Democratic Party whose influence on the establishment is increasing with each election, as moderate Democrats (and their Republican counterparts) become extinct.

    For a more apt Republican analog to Sanders’ campaign, one must go back to 2000. John McCain, like Sanders, was thought to have little chance to defeat George W. Bush, who, as the son of a former president and governor of a major electoral state, had more money and more party support. But McCain harnessed the anti-establishment sentiment of the time to build a strong online following, at a time when the internet’s infancy as a political tool. He fought a hard campaign against Bush, even winning the New Hampshire primary, before being knocked out of the race in early March.

    Apart from the major issue of campaign finance reform, however, he had very little major policy or ideological differences with Bush and the Republican establishment. What set him apart was his press-appointed “maverick” status: He was willing to say things in public that no other candidate would—what David Foster Wallace, in his classic profile of the McCain campaign, called “obvious truths that everyone knows but no recent politician anywhere’s had the stones to say.” (His campaign bus was even called the “Straight Talk Express.”)

    Likewise, Sanders refuses to hold his tongue. In June, he opened an interview with HBO’s Bill Maher by saying, “This campaign is about a radical idea: we’re going to tell the truth.” And that message seems to be working with liberals and even disaffected voters. As one New Hampshire resident, a self-described undecided independent voter, told The New Republic recently, “Do I think he can win? No. But I do like the somewhat fresh take of being a straight shooter.”

    And much like Bush and McCain fifteen years ago, Clinton and Sanders are closer on the issues than a lot of progressives would like to admit.

    Source: Bernie Sanders Is Not the Left’s Ron Paul | The New Republic


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  • 2016 Republicans: Ron Paul was right all along about the Iraq War

    Posted on by Azrael Comment

    During a 2007 Republican presidential debate, candidate Ron Paul said of the Iraq War, “We never should have gone in.”

    Most on the debate stage that night laughed at him.

    In the Wall Street Journal, former Reagan speechwriter Peggy Noonan wrote of the reaction to Paul, “The debate was full of fireworks about Iraq, about its essentials — the rightness of the endeavor…” adding, “After Mr. Paul spoke, it seemed half the room booed, but the other applauded.”

    Noonan continued, “When a thousand Republicans are in a room and one man of the eight on the stage takes a sharply minority viewpoint on a dramatic issue and half the room seems to cheer him, something’s going on.” Noonan observed, “As he spoke, you could hear other candidates laughing in the background.”

    “They should stop giggling, and engage in a serious way,” she advised.

    Last week, they finally did.

    Likely 2016 candidate Jeb Bush was forced, begrudgingly, to say that his brother had made a mistake in invading Iraq, after originally saying the war was justified. In the three days it took for Bush to clarify, most of the Republican presidential field rushed to say they thought the war was a mistake. Chris Christie said it. Ted Cruz said it too. John Kasich chimed in. Rand Paul has always it was a mistake to invade Iraq. Marco Rubio said it was a mistake and then tried, clumsily, to take it back.

    But why would Republicans start saying this now?

    For the same reason Jeb Bush saw the practical need to change his position—if you want to become president, it’s become a necessity.

    For years—including in 2007—most Americans considered the Iraq War one of the worst foreign policy decisions in modern history. Because of its overwhelming unpopularity, supporting or defending the Iraq War has become a significant political liability.

    Just ask Hillary Clinton.

    Last week reflected Republicans finally playing catch-up—albeit almost a decade after Ron Paul had tried to tell them the same thing.

    When viewed through a partisan lens, support for something even as tragically misguided as the Iraq War is not hard to understand. In 2007, that war still had support among most Republicans because it was the primary feature of George W. Bush’s foreign policy. Supporting it, and opposing a vociferous anti-war left, had been integral to Republican identity for a better part of the decade.

    Republicans had no more intention of disavowing their president’s foreign policy agenda than Democrats had in running away from Obama’s healthcare agenda (unless politically forced, similar to Jeb Bush). Popular or not, logical or not, these positions were part of who they were as a party.

    And this partisan stubbornness has cost Republicans dearly.

    Many Republicans continued to mock Paul throughout his 2008 and 2012 campaigns, while the Iraq War and its legacy played no small part in delivering the White House to Barack Obama. Twice.

    On stage that night in 2007 when Ron Paul was laughed at, stood 2008 Republican nominee John McCain, an early supporter of the Iraq War and unrepentant hawk. Also present was 2012 nominee Mitt Romney, who said, “It was the right decision to go into Iraq.”

    To get rid of this baggage, or begin to get rid of it, there would have to be a dramatic break or some visible shift within the GOP.

    That’s what last week was about.

     

    …

    The brother of George W. Bush has now essentially vindicated what Ron Paul was trying to tell his party eight years ago. So have most of Bush’s 2016 rivals.

    In 2007, they giggled when Paul spoke. Last week, no one was laughing.

    Republicans were too busy falling all over themselves to agree that Ron Paul got it right.

    Source: 2016 Republicans: Ron Paul was right all along about the Iraq War


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  • RON PAUL: The Real War on the Middle Class

    Posted on by Azrael Comment

    One of the great ironies of American politics is that most politicians who talk about helping the middle class support policies that, by expanding the welfare-warfare state, are harmful to middle-class Americans. Eliminating the welfare-warfare state would benefit middle class Americans by freeing them from exorbitant federal taxes, including the Federal Reserve’s inflation tax.

    Politicians serious about helping middle-class Americans should allow individuals to opt out of Social Security and Medicare by not having to pay payroll taxes if they agree to never accept federal retirement or health care benefits. Individuals are quite capable of meeting their own unique retirement and health care needs if the government stops forcing them into one-size-fits-all plans.

    Middle class families with college-age children would benefit if government got out of the student loan business. Government involvement in higher education is the main reason tuition is skyrocketing and so many Americans are graduating with huge student loan debts. College graduates entering the job market would certainly benefit if Congress stopped imposing destructive regulations and taxes on the economy.

    Politicians who support an interventionist foreign policy are obviously not concerned with the harm inflicted on the middle class populations of countries targeted for regime change. These politicians also disregard the harm US foreign policy inflicts on Americans. Middle- and working-class Americans, and their families, who join the military certainly suffer when they are maimed or killed fighting in unjust and unconstitutional wars. Our interventionist foreign policy also contributes to the high tax burden imposed on middle class Americans.

    Middle class Americans also suffer from intrusions on their liberty and privacy, such as not being able to board an airplane unless they submit to invasive and humiliating searches. Even children and the physically disabled are not safe from the Transposition Security Administration. These assaults are justified by the threat of terrorism, a direct result of our interventionist foreign policy that fosters hatred and resentment of Americans.

    Some “military Keynesians” claim that middle class workers benefit from jobs in the military-industrial complex. Military Keynesians seem to think that the resources spent on militarism would disappear if the Pentagon’s budget were cut. The truth is, if we reduced spending on militarism, those currently employed by the military-industrial complex would be able to find new jobs producing goods desired by consumers. Even those currently employed as lobbyists for the military-industrial complex may be able to find useful work.

    Few things would benefit the middle class more than ending the Federal Reserve. The Federal Reserve’s inflationary policies erode middle class families’ standards of living while benefiting the financial and political elites. Middle class Americans may gain some temporary benefits from Federal Reserve created booms, but they also suffer from the inevitable busts.

    As I write this, the dollar still reigns as the world’s reserve currency. However, there are signs that other economies are moving away from using the dollar as the reserve currency, and this trend will accelerate as the Federal Reserve continues to pump more fiat currency into the economy and as resentment toward our foreign policy grows. Eventually, international investors will lose confidence in the US economy, the dollar will lose its reserve currency status, and the dollar bubble will burst.

    These events will cause a major economic downturn that may even be worse than the Great Depression. The main victims of this crisis will be average Americans. The only way to avoid this calamity is for the American people to force Congress to free them from the burdens of the warfare state, the welfare state, taxation, and fiat currency.

    http://www.campaignf … eal-war-middle-class


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