Ron Paul, the turd in the conservative punchbowl
I’m staying off of the debate for the Republican primaries…you may have noticed. Except for expressing my extreme displeasure with Newt Gingrich and Ron Paul, I’m just not getting involved. You guys pick the candidate, and I’ll vote for him.
But, I did see some footage this morning of Ron Paul in last night’s debate and it should be discouraging for anyone who wants the best GOP candidate for the office. I’m pretty sure that, in the realm of foreign policy, Ron Paul is no better than the current occupant of the White House.
Last night he said something to the effect of “Of course people hate us, what with us flying around dropping bombs on all of these countries”. I can’t find the exact quote anywhere on the internet, which doesn’t surprise me very much since the media wants Paul to be the GOP candidate. It’s not even listed in today’s Washington Post‘s “jaw-dropping quotes” from last night’s debate.
Since when do we care if people hate us? Is that what our foreign policy should be based upon…making people like us? And the last time I checked, we were dropping bombs on people who kill Americans, or want to kill Americans. Are they all that worried about whether we like them or not?
A Ron Paul presidency would return us to a pre-1941 level of defense. Our troops will be carrying 2x4s to simulate rifles and driving cardboard tanks. His supporters include Code Pink and Michael Moore, who’ve been opposed to attacking our enemies since 9/11, so what are these Paulian people thinking? Or are they thinking? Their favorite advice to me is “read a book” or “do your own research”. But they appear to be the most uneducated, inexperienced buffoons on the planet.
ADDED: I just saw this on Facebook from Jim Treacher;
Some people think Ron Paul is confused and scatterbrained, but that’s only based on all available evidence.
I’m so with you on this, Jonn. And I too watched that clip of Ron Paul and wanted to throw my coffee cup at the tv this morning…
I haven’t met a Paulistinian yet who actually thinks.
Remember this “Republican” exists because that’s how he can get elected. He gets the John Birch/tinfoil hat vote. Libs love him because they can paint the GOP as extreme. College students love him because his talking points are right out of the X-files.
The sooner he exits the stage the better.
Here’s 2 Paulians for you. In a column in my newspaper a woman said she read on the internet(no joke) that the USAF was spraying us with some kind of chemical, a light yellow chemical, from cargo aircraft, that you can actually see as it falls. A day or so later a man agreed with her that he’d read the same thing(ain’t the internet great?). Unfortunately they didn’t say whether it tasted like Coors or some other golden gift from the Gods.
First of all, the media does not want him to be the GOP candidate. Watch ten seconds of Fox News, CNN or MSNBC (the three most watched cable news networks) and you’ll see that plain as day. In fact, there are countless pundits and anchors constantly saying he’s unelectable and “dangerous”. No one calls someone “dnagerous” to make them look good.
As far as foreign policy goes, you’re missing the point. We’re spending trillions of dollars to keep our troops overseas every year, and it’s for nation-building and war profiteering. In the lat ’90s, George Bush was running on the platform of isolationism. He was praised endlessly for saying he was strictly against nation-building and war profiteering. Of course, he did not stick to his principles, and in Iraq and Afghanistan there was a sickening amount of war profiteering, and the nation building still goes on even today. Why is it that when George Bush, a big party guy with lots of media and bank friends, says he’s against nation building and war profiteering he’s praised and elected president, but when Ron Paul says the exact same thing he’s called a nutjob? Do you realize that during the Iraq war KBR charged the government 90 dollars for every bag of laundry it washed? Or that it charged 28 dollars for every cardboard food tray, without the food even on it? KBR is a subcompany of Haliburton, and got a war contract with NO bid because from 1995 to 2000 Haliburton’s CEO was Dick Cheney. They willingly gave a huge high price contract to a well connected company with no bid to their buddies.
What Ron Paul is saying is that if we have our troops here in the states we won’t be paying trillions of dollars every year to other countries or to huge companies like Haliburton, KBR and FLUOR. He’s not going to cut a single cent to defense. He’s going to cut the bullshit spending overseas. What’s wrong with isolationism? Why do we have to always be fighting a war?
“He’s not going to cut a single cent to defense.”
Liar. You don’t know where your candidate stands on the issue. if that were true, he wouldn’t be a fiscal conservative would he?
You people want to have it both ways and you always have. You complain that people “misunderstand” Ron Paul’s position on the issues, but that’s because the candidate and the movement speak out of both sides of their mouths.
You would think that us Christians don’t want to hear that golden rule stuff and that it’s America’s right to invade other nations because they are all bad. We were going back and forth with Bin Laden since we decided not to help him anymore. Watch this video from 1999.
There’s no misunderstanding of Ron Paul’s position. He does not think Iran’s a threat – not to our allies and not to us. He wants us to withdraw from NATO, because he doesn’t believe Russia is a threat. That makes him a clueless moron. He can’t figure out why we have troops in Australia, because he doesn’t think China is a threat to our allies, and he has no clue how treaties work.
And then there’s THIS tidbit from the debate:
Booed by the boisterous audience, Paul compared bin Laden’s capture in Pakistan to a Chinese dissident hiding in the U.S. and said the U.S. government wouldn’t want China to “bomb us and do whatever.”
http://www.politico.com/news/stories /0112/71517.html#ixzz1jj4L2f00
Yeah, because a person seeking asylum from an abusive dictatorship because he disagrees with the regime and speaks out against it can be compared to a guy who masterminded the wholesale slaughter of thousands of innocent people!!!!! I’m about as libertarian as you can get and still understand foreign policy, and I don’t want him anywhere near the Commander-in-Chief slot. He’s a fucking idiot when it comes to foreign policy and military leadership.
Joe@4, those are chemtrails, and the jets are Israeli. Go back in the archives here and you’ll find out how to fight the chemtrails, with vinegar.
As for the main point, if Ronpaul is the answer, it’s a stupid question.
@4: They probably were reading Alex Jones’ site.
And cue the Bots with the “You just don’t understand him because you aren’t as enlightened as he and we” rhetoric in #5. Like clockwork.
@5: “Why do we have to always be fighting a war?”
You’re the one missing the point. Isolationism hasn’t worked so well when were were practicing it. WWI and WWII come to mind. The globalisation genie is out of the bottle and has been since the end of WWII and you can’t put it back in no matter how hard you rub your naieve utopian unicorn. We have global interests, just like everyone else, and those interests need to be provided protection. How are you going to do that if you have your navy tied up in US ports or your ground military sitting around in CONUS? Do you have any idea what it takes to move a division of troops and support equipment and personnel? Good luck being able to help an ally when they need it. Plus, all our treaty obligations around the world need to be maintained. Your lack of knowledge in matters of foreign affairs, from a purely common sense standpoint, is why we ridicule a lot of the pie-in-the-sky pronouncements of Dr. Paul and his supporters. This isn’t 7th grade, it’s time to grow up.
“He’s a fucking idiot when it comes to foreign policy and military leadership.”
At least he’s in good company. Perry called Turkey’s administration “Islamic terrorists”.
This slate of candidates is abysmal.
@13: I agree
Heh, CI – we have a lot of analysts over here who feel the same about Turkey’s current leadership. Perry is not alone.
@6 Ben Ben, there’s a difference between defense spending and blowing all our money on bullshit like a billion dollar embassy in Baghdad. Do we really need to spend that much money? He’s not going to cut money to the soldiers, but instead to the military industrial complex that thrives during wars. Like I was saying earlier about the war profiteering, our money is being wasted. All to often while I was in Iraq I saw service members with MOSs like water purification, fueler, heavy construction, quartermaster, cook and so forth doing things like checking IDs at the chow halls or pulling guard on haji bootleg shops because they literally had nothing else to do. They were being given busy work because instead of paying the soldiers 50K a year to actually perform the jobs they were trained to perform we were paying KBR contractors 120K a year to do the same thing, and we were STILL paying the soldiers that 50K a year to essentially do nothing! Why not have the soldiers do their jobs, leave KBR out of it, and have a shitload more money in our pockets? Because our government leaders wanted to line the pockets of their buddies. True story: on FOB Falcon, Iraq there was an American contractor who was being paid almost $120,000 a year to supervise the maintenance of a gym. All he did all day long was sit around at the gym reading magazines, work out, go to the MWR and eat. He didn’t do anything else the entire time he was there. He didn’t even clean the gym- some Indian guys did that. Why were we paying Haliburton to also pay this dude to literally do absolutely nothing for the actual war effort? And why are you so against Ron Paul for calling bullshit on this type of thing? @8 Nicki: What is Iran doing? There’s no proof they’re progressing with any nuclear bomb making at all, despite people who would profit from fighting a war with them saying there is. What’s with this policy of invading nations because we suspect… Read more »
“There’s no proof they’re progressing with any nuclear bomb making at all, despite people who would profit from fighting a war with them saying there is” — actually there is. Plenty of reports confirm they have stepped up uranium enrichment. Please… read a little. Oh… I’m sorry. I forgot, Ronulans don’t trust any reports other than what Ron Paul tells them.
No one is against curbing waste and abuse. I’m for that as well. But Ron Paul knows NOTHING about what is going on in Iran, he has no clue of the threat Russia poses to the west, and he doesn’t want to know.
@12 Old Trooper
The 82nd Airborne division can deploy anywhere in the world in 24 hours.
Our global interests involve invading countries, overthrowing regimes we don’t like and effectively changing life for millions of people at a time. What right do we have to do that just because we want the natural resources that other nations have? We have enough natural resources here in the U.S. that we won’t be dependent on those in other countries. If we could free some of those up by getting rid of some of the legislation that makes using our own resources very limited, we wouldn’t need to do this.
@11 Ross
Dude, I may be annoyingly passionate about my candidate, but I feel like my level of interest should be minimal for a candidate. Why would you vote for a candidate who’s just a little better than another guy? You’re either choosing between two pieces of dog shit in the backyard or a guy who’s deemed crazy by the media. At least the crazy guy gives a shit about the Constitution.
@16: Ah, yes, the boogieman supreme; the military-industrial complex. Yeah, no one has ever made a profit from war. Try; everyone has made a profit during every war ever fought. The evil “Haliburton” is the 800 lb. monkey in the room. If Haliburton just went away, then everything would be skittle farting unicorns. Yeah, we could have all those military personnel doing their job, but then we would have to increase the amount of military personnel; right? Trade in the civilian contractors for military personnel. Cool; great idea. Then you would have to go back and beg congress to allow you to increase the size of the military. Is Haliburton being paid too much? Maybe, but that’s no different than any other government contract out there. It doesn’t matter if it’s the military, the dept. of energy (green enrgy bullshit is where the real money is going to be), dept. of agriculture, dept. of justice, etc. Plus, when the civilians contractors are gone; where are they going to work back here in the US? Our unemployment level would balloon; right?
As for your reply to Nicki about Iran; you’re right, we can just stick ourt head in the sand and think happy thoughts. As long as we don’t believe they are developing nukes, that’s all the proof we need to say they aren’t developing nukes. Great strategy. If we don’t believe it; it ain’t happening.
@18: Yeah, I know about the 82nd (I was RDF myself), however, you forget that the entire division, with all its support elements takes longer than 24 hours. The initial jump is a blocking force for a limited amount of time.
@17 Nicki – hey, I’m not stupid, I could be dead wrong. If you have the proof, then you have the proof. Do me a favor, though, and show it to me, because if you’re right (IF, heheh) then I’d like to see why.
@19 Old Trooper – there’s no maybe about it, they damn well are being overpaid. Everyone does typically get rich off war. Except the Iraq War. Where America actually lost money. The only people that got rich of Iraq and Afganistan were the war profiteers. And we shouldn’t have to fight wars just to get rich. Don’t act like I’m some naive 19 year old college girl who thinks everyone can hold hands; I know the world isn’t that easy. I sleep with a Para 45 next to my bed for the exact reason that I saw for a fact the world isn’t that innocent in Iraq and Afghanistan. It’s got a lot of evil in it. Don’t think I’m all about unicorns and skittles.
We wouldn’t need to increase the size of the military too drastically. Seriously, there were people doing literally nothing in Iraq and Afghanistan. I was in the Korengal in Afghanistan, and the support element there was minimal to non-existent. We had soldiers cooking, soldiers fixing weapons, soldiers building and so forth. We really don’t need to pay a huge amount of money to train soldiers that aren’t going to do the job they’re trained for anyway, then pay even more money to have a civilian do the same job for over twice the salary.
21 was my comment, I forgot to put my name in. My bad.
@21 – Seriously? You are unable to Google “Iran uranium enrichment” on the unclassified side of the house? Here: http://news.yahoo.com/russia-concerned-irans-uranium-enrichment-170307767.html Start here.
As for Russia, consider this: Russian defense spending is projected to rise by 56 percent in inflation adjusted terms in 2014 over 2011’s spending levels. At least 10 percent of that amount will be spent on its strategic nuclear forces. Now, why do you think that is?
@20 – Just because this is near and dear to me, you’re right. DRF 1 Battalion is 18 hours, wheels up to TOT.
@21: I was talking about “war profiteers” to begin with. If you are so in tune with the fact there are bad guys around the world; why the hell would you sign on to isolationism knowing it is a failed doctrine? Ask any of the guys here that have ever been stationed overseas if there were civilian contractors at their bases. Hell, back in the day, civilians did the job of troops at Ft. Rucker and the troops had nothing to do and that was relative peace time. Don’t think that the civilian contractors go away when wars end; they don’t and never really have. Why do we have DoD rent-a-cops at all the military installations in CONUS? What’s wrong with the MPs doing the job?
“The 82nd Airborne division can deploy anywhere in the world in 24 hours.”
Actually, a BATTALION can deploy in 24 hours.
By the way…what happens when we drop off the 82nd Airborne…and the enemy deploys a couple of armored divisions against the airhead? Are you utterly unfamiliar with the Battle of Arnhem?
I think little Ms BB would rather the military allow Iraq & Afghan civilians work on firebases, ect like the military did way back when during Vietnam. Let the villagers on base or camp, then have to fight off nightly perimeter probes and motar/rocket attacks because the little old woman or nice man passed useful intel to the Cong & NVA. So, boohoo little Ms BB…you had to sleep with your weapon nearby while the Haliburton or KBR “profiteers” did laundry, made chow, cleaned living quarters, repaired vehicles, delivered supplies, whatever else they were there to do…..yada yada. Instead of bitching, maybe you ought to write those companies a letter each thanking them and the employees for caring and taking such good care of your ass in a combat zone.
@25 Old Trooper – What’s wrong with military members doing there jobs? Nothing at all. Yet we hire civilians to do military jobs anyway. I know there are civilians doing military jobs. I live on a post in New Jersey, and there are civilian cops, civilian firefighters, and so on. Isolationism didn’t fail in WWII. We weren’t being isolationist at the same time we were practicing a doctrine of imperialism in Japan, which is the reason they attacked Pearl harbor to begin with. We were drawn into the war by our own imperialism. We seem to do a lot of telling other countries what to do.
@23 Nicki – The idea is to see if you’re just talking out of your ass, repeating everything that’s said on tv. Also, that article has a quote from the Russian foreign ministry: “‘We confirm that all problems linked with the Iranian nuclear program must be solved exclusively through talks and dialogue based on mutual respect, gradual movement and reciprocity,’ it said, adding that Russia is ready to help the negotiations.” That could be due to the fact that they are afraid of the bad press they’ll get from building Iran’s nuclear reactor. Then again, it seems like almost everyone in the U.S. is ready to start the bombing runs and put boots on ground. It’s like we’re hungry for war. However, I agree with that statement. I don’t think another war is the answer.
Ataollah Salehi, Iran’s army chief, said, “We have no plan to begin any irrational act but we are ready against any threat.” Both of those countries you’re worried about seem to be saying passive things. The media is propagating the fear that Iran is hell bent on nuking the entire population of the United States. I understand actions speak louder than words, and they’re enriching a lot of uranium, but come on, are you really ready to spend so much American money and so many American lives on fear without any real evidence of nuclear weapons?
“We weren’t being isolationist at the same time we were practicing a doctrine of imperialism in Japan, which is the reason they attacked Pearl harbor to begin with.”
Please explain, in detail, how we were “practicing a doctrine of imperialism in Japan.”
@27 Streetsweeper – actually, we DO have Afghan and Iraqi civilians working on outposts and FOBs. There are very few places the U.S. doesn’t use local nationals. But you’re twisting my words. Here I’m saying soldiers can do their own jobs, and you’re saying I want foreign nationals to do them for us. That wasn’t even close to what I said, douchebag.
But you’re right, I should totally thank those corporations. I should definitely thank them for all the times we got attacked in Iraq providing convoy security for all the cheesecake they shipped. All the U.S. Soldiers and Marines that were killed on convoys so someone could enjoy dessert- that’s totally worth it. I didn’t need KBR taking care of me on my first tour, proven by the fact that I didn’t HAVE them taking care of me on my second tour. If you really think they needed to be there, especially for those ridiculously high prices, you’re delusional.
@29 Poohba – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperialism_in_Asia. The U.S. has been imperialistic since the mid 1800s. In Japan, the U.S. Navy’s Commodore Matthew Perry demanded Japan trade with the U.S. at the threat of destroying their coastal cities by cannon fire from the fleet.
Yeah, that’s brilliant. Perry died almost 90 years before Pearl Harbor, but you blame Pearl harbor on Perry. That’s makes complete sense. Ron Paul Sense.
Mr. Bodenkurk, you said we were practicing–i.e., in the present tense, as of 7 December 1941– a doctrine of imperialism in Japan, and that was the reason the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor.
What you offer is an event that had taken place nearly 90 years earlier. Try again.
Please explain, in detail, how we were practicing a doctrine of imperialism in Japan on 7 December 1941.
@25: Have you even studied the precursors to our being attacked in WWII? How about checking on that little thing called “the rape of Nanking”? Ya see, we told Japan to stop their aggressions in China and Southeast Asia or we would not provide them anymore commodities that they needed to keep their war machine going. They said “screw you” and we stopped sending them supplies. They needed the natural resources in the South Pacific, so they attacked us in order to get us out of the way of them taking it. Yeah, really imperialistic on our part.
@32 and 33 – Perry was the start of Americas forced trade with Japan, which continued until the Pearl Harbor attack, and then also after WWII.
Man, you people are pissed I’m making sense, so you’re just playing a semantics game. There’s no point in arguing with you people, you’re just convinced of your own rightness, and there’s no room for you to be wrong! I’m done with this argument.
Blah, blah, blah. Unless it’s blah-ti-blah, blah. Or maybe blah, blah-ti-blah, blah, blah.
What’s to misunderstand?
Actually, Mr. Bodenkurk, you are not making sense. You, like Dr. Paul, only makes sense if the United States did not need imports or exports. Because commerce is international, we must deal with other countries. Thus we are likely to irritate someone along the way. Many of the countries that believe we are “imperialists” think that because of our business activities rather than our military ones.
As is stands, others in the world hate us because we intervene (Iraq, Afghanistan, etc.) and/or because we don’t (Rawanda, Somolia, Sudan). Further, because the US is seen as a “rich” country, failing to provide assistance in humanitarian emergencies would only make them hate us more.
Because every facet of life is now international, Dr. Paul’s isolationism is a pipe dream that only makes sense if you ignore reality.
@35. Yeah, the old tired, tried and true Paulian tactic. If you don’t agree with me, and accept what I say, then I’m taking my marbles and going home. And, he thinks he makes sense. The guy who cites Wikipedia thinks he’s the only brain around here?
Buh-bye, BB.
Well, if he’s going to pull the isolation card, he better get real used to living back in the days of the early 1900’s. You know, life expectancies in the high-30’s, infant mortality around 25 percent, hot and cold running dysentery, laugh-a-minute shit like that.
And fact of the matter is, we WERE isolationist in the 1930’s. Not just the GOP espoused it. FDR was reelected in 1940 on a campaign which included the promise that he would not send American boys into foreign wars.
To go back further, we were also not interested in entering WWI, with Wilson’s re-election campaign slogan being, “He kept us out of war,” despite the fact we were at war barely ONE MONTH after he was inaugurated for his second term.
Fact is, Bah, we are a world economy, and have been for well over a century. The goods and services we (and most other nations) require are not found entirely within a single nation’s borders. TRADE is required. And history tells us that if we are to engage in trade, protection for those ships which send the vast majority of those materials (both raw and finished) to and from our shores will be required.
Perhaps a little reading is in order for you. Alfred Thayer Mahan, perhaps? I mean, if you’re going to pull mid-19th century shit out of your ass, fair’s fair, right?
#35 means, he ran out of talking points and he has to go back to Paulians R Us to get more.
“@32 and 33 – Perry was the start of Americas forced trade with Japan, which continued until the Pearl Harbor attack, and then also after WWII.”
This is utterly nonsensical.
If I understand your argument correctly, you’re saying that we forced the Japanese to trade with us, and that they attacked us as a result of this. However, I seem to recall that we embargoed trade with Japan in certain materials in 1940-41. So we weren’t trading with Japan, which should have removed the root cause of their discontent with the United States…
So I guess we’re damned if we do trade with Japan, but we’re damned if we DON’T trade with them…go figure…
Who should we worry about more, Ron Paul or his Paultards?
@28 – @23 Nicki – The idea is to see if you’re just talking out of your ass, repeating everything that’s said on tv. Also, that article has a quote from the Russian foreign ministry: “‘We confirm that all problems linked with the Iranian nuclear program must be solved exclusively through talks and dialogue based on mutual respect, gradual movement and reciprocity,’ it said, adding that Russia is ready to help the negotiations.” That could be due to the fact that they are afraid of the bad press they’ll get from building Iran’s nuclear reactor. Then again, it seems like almost everyone in the U.S. is ready to start the bombing runs and put boots on ground. It’s like we’re hungry for war. However, I agree with that statement. I don’t think another war is the answer.
First of all, I don’t think you have the knowledge or the intelligence to “test” me. Quite arrogant and ignorant of you.
Second, the Russians don’t give a crap about the bad press. What they care more about is their sphere of influence in that area. The point of the article was to point out that even the Russians are concerned about Iran’s uranium enrichment! Iran has a nuclear program and an unstable leadership – with batshit crazy (Ahmadinejad) on one side, and religious lunatics (the clerics) on the other. The LAST thing we need is nukes thrown into the mix. Did you miss that point? I thought you did. No one says we should start bombing runs immediately. There are other measures we can take first. But to claim, like Ron Paul does, that a nuclear Iran is not a threat to us or our allies is naive at best, and downright ignorant at worst.