Dallas Morning News Texas of the Years

[Arne]

I agree.

Rod Dreher: Ron Paul, if only we listened

06:21 PM CST on Tuesday, November 25, 2008

I didn't vote for Ron Paul in the Republican primary (I was a Mike Huckabee man), nor did I write him in on Election Day (I penciled in farmer-poet Wendell Berry). But no Texan this year did more good for conservatism and his country than the congressman from the coast.

Lord knows there was no Republican in the 2008 campaign who talked straighter.

Dr. Paul – he's a physician – never had a chance, of course. He is too peculiar in his opinions and doesn't know how to spin like a TV slick. What he had was ideas, integrity and authenticity. On the most critical challenges facing America, Dr. Paul was more right than the well-funded GOP regulars who bigfooted the campaign trail.

His best moment came in a May debate aired on Fox News. Dr. Paul asserted that too much U.S. meddling in the Middle East invites terrorist blowback – a conclusion shared by the 9/11 commission and former CIA bin Laden unit chief Michael Scheuer. Rudy Giuliani pounced, accusing Dr. Paul of trying to blame America for the Sept. 11 attacks.

But Dr. Paul's point – lost on the demagogic New York mayor – was simply that America should rethink its role in Iraq and the region. "We don't understand the irrationality of Middle Eastern politics," he said in the debate.

Who can doubt it today, given an Iraq war debacle conceived and executed by a president and an elite team blinded by ideology? The Iraq war did deep damage to our military, our economy and our prestige – and it has destroyed the Republican Party's credibility on national security issues.

Ron Paul, who has always stood against U.S. imperial overreach, was right about the Iraq war. And that's not the only thing he saw that most Republicans did not.

His libertarian economic views are far from mainstream. For example, he's against income taxes, period, and believes the U.S. should go back on the gold standard. Eccentricities like this keep him from being taken seriously.

But the truth is, if U.S. economic policy looked a lot more like Ron Paul's ideal than what we've had these past decades, the nation wouldn't be tottering on the financial abyss. Dr. Paul has long argued that an economy built on easy credit, insatiable consumption and deficit spending is a time bomb. He backs a national economic model based on savings, investment and production.

An economy that depends so heavily on government intervention to keep it afloat is one that creates of necessity an ever more powerful state. The nationalization of the banking sector only increases the power of the central government and decreases liberty. Dr. Paul warned for years against what we're seeing happen today. But nobody – including me – listened to the old crank.

How much better off would America be today if we had? We'll never know. Poor us.

It's not true, really, that nobody listened. Dr. Paul had a relatively small but intensely devoted following and raised astonishing amounts of campaign cash for his outsider presidential bid. Unfortunately, that enthusiasm didn't amount to much of anything in the primaries. So much for the Ron Paul Revolution, right?

Maybe not. The same GOP establishment that mocked and reviled Dr. Paul now lies shattered. Who believes in this Republican Party anymore? The party destroyed itself with its own unprincipled recklessness, both in foreign and fiscal policy. And it has ruined its reputation among the young – the most ardent of Dr. Paul's supporters, incidentally – who are far more likely to identify with the Democrats.

Out of this destruction, some creative young conservatives may rise up and decide to take back the Republican Party. Perhaps they'll run against the overweening power of the federal government and in favor of decentralizing power (but unlike today's Republicans, they'll actually mean it). Maybe they'll fight for an America that lives responsibly, within its natural limits both overseas and at home. And maybe, just maybe, they might make the Republican Party worth following again.

If that day comes, it will be thanks to the lifelong labors of Ron Paul and his 2008 campaign based on ideas. If those ideas germinate into genuine reform and restoration of sanity in our government, America will look back on Dr. Paul as a gift from Texas and a worthy nominee as Dallas Morning News Texan of the Year.

And having once given the nation George W. Bush – and given him to our countrymen good and hard – we Texans sure as hell owe them one.

Rod Dreher is a Dallas Morning News editorial columnist. His e-mail address is rdreher@dallasnews.com.

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcont...1.2b92bf2.html

[wmbwinn]

perhaps we'll find a Republican that is economically conservative without the 'wacky' parts of Ron Paul. perhaps we'll find the person who can articulate conservative values without espousing a national security plan of absolute isolationism. Ron Paul is right on many things. i watched him on the Glen Beck show. He just has several off the wall ideas that make him irrelevant as a candidate.

[Arne]

Originally Posted by wmbwinn

perhaps we'll find a Republican that is economically conservative without the 'wacky' parts of Ron Paul. perhaps we'll find the person who can articulate conservative values without espousing a national security plan of absolute isolationism. Ron Paul is right on many things. i watched him on the Glen Beck show. He just has several off the wall ideas that make him irrelevant as a candidate.

Isolated is what the US is right now. Isolation does not come from a non-interventionist foreign policy.

[wmbwinn]

Originally Posted by Arne

Isolated is what the US is right now. Isolation does not come from a non-interventionist foreign policy.

clever semantics.

Isolationism can refer to a protectionist economy. Isolationism can refer to a pre World War I style attitude of refusing to be involved in international conflicts. Isolationism can refer to many things.

Isolated due to anger over our non isolationist policy is a different thing.

Germany and much of Europe has a different view on this that what we see in the USA.

[alexamenos]

Yeah, Ron Paul is wacky....no, wait, Ron Paul is principled and sensible, the rest of the Republican Party is wacky and corrupt.

(ps...the idea that the US was "isolationist" prior to WWI is the same sort of gizz-dribble as the idea that Hoover's was some sort of minimalist government, laissez faire type.)

.....

incidentally....this has been the state of so-called "conservativism" in the US for many years now...a "conservative" can be pro-choice, favor amnesty for illegal aliens, advocate massive deficit spending, embrace mammoth government boondoggles and welfare, etc., etc....but a "conservative" can't question the empire. The true test of "conservatism" in this day and age is the Iraqi question -- if you favor nation building expidition to spread democracy to parts here and yon and you thought Al-Qaeda and Saddam were in cahoots and if you thought Saddam had Drones of Mass Destruction getting ready to bomb Denton Texas then you might be a conservative, but if you questioned any of these propositions then you're not only not conservative, you're "wacky".

[Usually Lurkin]

Originally Posted by alexamenos

Yeah, Ron Paul is wacky....no, wait, Ron Paul is principled and sensible, the rest of the Republican Party is wacky and corrupt.

Kookiness is not from being wrong. Kookiness comes from having ideas that are further out there than your ability to communicate them. And because of Ron Paul's kookiness, he couldn't be taken seriously.

and it's not "empire" that is the crux of conservatism. It's "safety first" - however that might get misconstrued.

[alexamenos]

Originally Posted by Usually Lurkin

Kookiness is not from being wrong. Kookiness comes from having ideas that are further out there than your ability to communicate them. And because of Ron Paul's kookiness, he couldn't be taken seriously.

and it's not "empire" that is the crux of conservatism. It's "safety first" - however that might get misconstrued.

"Kookiness" comes from having ideas that are out of the mainstream. When mainstream ideas are radical, extremist and stupid, ideas that are sensible and prudent indeed seem kooky...kooky because they are unfamiliar, not because they are unwise.

And I beg to differ...it's not a question of "safety first". Nobody is debating whether the US should protect itself, the question is whether leading the charge in a worldwide democratic revolution is a means of protecting the US. When one argues that bolshevik wing of the Republican Party is amiss, that person generally gets put in the "kooky" category.

[Usually Lurkin]

Originally Posted by alexamenos

"Kookiness" comes from having ideas that are out of the mainstream. When mainstream ideas are radical, extremist and stupid, ideas that are sensible and prudent indeed seem kooky...kooky because they are unfamiliar, not because they are unwise.

That's what I just said. "unfamiliar" is entirely dependent on how well you can communicate. If your ideas are just a tiny bit outside of mainstream, but you can't communicate them, you will be treated as a kook. If your ideas are far from mainstream, but you communicate them very well, you will not. If Ron Paul and his followers had toned down the rhetoric, and perhaps made some sacrifices of their own, rather than telling everyone that they are extreme, radical, and stupid, they might have convinced them of their own sensibility.

And I beg to differ...it's not a question of "safety first". Nobody is debating whether the US should protect itself, the question is whether leading the charge in a worldwide democratic revolution is a means of protecting the US. .

What do you mean "beg to differ?" You just added to, not disagreed with my post. The debate concerns "safety first." If you and your guru weren't more interested in arguing against people and were more interested in discussing with people, you might not be so hopelessly kooky.

[alexamenos]

Originally Posted by Usually Lurkin

What do you mean "beg to differ?" You just added to, not disagreed with my post. The debate concerns "safety first." If you and your guru weren't more interested in arguing against people and were more interested in discussing with people, you might not be so hopelessly kooky.

I beg to differ with you when you say that "safety first" has been the crux of conservatism over these last several years. Support for the empire is the crux, and this support is sometimes sold through the more palatable "safety first." Hence John McCain can sing:

bomb, bomb, bomb,
bomb, bomb, Iran

like an absolute mad man and still win the Republican nomination. But after Ron Paul quite calmy and quite correctly argued that US meddling abroad is the source of much animosity, the Republican Party powers-that-be excluded him from the next debate to the cheers and jeers of the Repubican masses.

It would be nice if quite calm rational discussion had some merit, but I don't think the real world works that way. But I don't care, I'm an analyst first and foremost -- I rarely vote and I don't think the leviathan that is our Federal Government can be changed in any positive way, it's simply going to fall under it's own weight much as the Soviet Empire fell. So, I'm not too concerned with convincing others of my "sensibility" anyway....I'm not vain enough to think my opinion matters.

cheers

[alexamenos]

Originally Posted by qrst127

Replete with nightworld of warcraft gold elves, Orcs and dwarves, Worldworld of warcraft gold of Warcraft is set in a fantasyworld of warcraft gold world not unlike Tolkien's Lordworld of warcraft gold Of The Rings.

c'mon dmack, changing your nick isn't going to fool anyone.

[sike]

I'd like to offer a dissenting opinion...we don't have nearly enough WoW gold. I'm not backing down from that stance either.

[DirkFTW]

I agree with Sike. If we had more WoW gold, we might be able to repair our rep system.