November 30, 2007
Even if you love him, don’t hold your breath for Ron Paul
Yes, I like Ron Paul too. But this is the GOP, after all. Does anyone (including Paul himself) believe that the Republicans are going to nominate a candidate who wants to legalize gambling and prostitution?
Paul’s ideas on foreign policy also conflict with the far-right tilt of the current administration:
"We don't need to just change the management of the war….We need a foreign policy of nonintervention to prevent wars from ever breaking out. ... We're spending a trillion dollars maintaining an empire overseas. We have to end the empire and come home."
Key points:
Ron Paul is the first Republican to credibly challenge the grip that neocons and the Religious Right have on the GOP. While his candidacy has little chance of succeeding (this time, at least) he may succeed in opening an important dialogue about how the GOP has gone off course during the Bush years.
Ron Paul’s ideas on foreign policy are not the sole domain of “wacky libertarian types.” Even paleo-conservative Pat Buchanan (who most certainly disagrees with Paul’s positions on social liberties) sounds a lot like Ron Paul on geopolitical matters. Here is Pat Buchanan, speaking recently on Hannity and Colmes:
COLMES: We want to pull you over here to the left just a little bit. But you know, is this where left meets right? Where you are — you've been described as an isolationist. Is that a fair description of your point of view?
BUCHANAN: I'm not, but I do think this. I'm not — I mean, I'm not an interventionist. I do believe the United States has commitments to go to war on behalf of some 60 nations around the world. We make, you know, Victoria's empire look like it was isolationist. And we've got the smallest army we've had since 1939. That is not realism.
COLMES: You want — yes, you want us to get out of Russia, too. You want us to pull the troops back, get the troops out of all — wherever we have United States troops.
BUCHANAN: Look, the Russians got up and walked out of Eastern Europe. They moved their army behind the Urals. They let Eastern Europe go free. They let 15 nations break up. What did we move NATO into their face for?
COLMES: Would you bring every troop from all over the world? Where would you keep American troops?
BUCHANAN: I would keep them, certainly, in Guam. But I think bring them out of Korea. The Chinese went home in 1955. What are we doing with 30,000 people defending South Korea, which has an economy 40 times the size of the North and twice the population?
Bottom line: American taxpayers are sick of sorting out the problems of the entire world. We are also sick of sinking billions into foreign aid. Ron Paul has said “It is time for us to take care of ourselves.”
I, for one, couldn’t agree more.
