In Defence of Ron Paul

Sean,

I agree that Ron Paul often hangs out in the 'extreme' foreign policy side of things. Think of my supporting Ron Paul akin to Southern Baptists supporting Giuliani. They don't agree with everything Rudy stands for but they can live with it on the whole. His fiscal positions trump some of the more Kosian foreign policy positions for me.

If we continue at the pace we are with spending - including never ending wars, social security, Medicare and all of Jorge W. Arbusto's "compassionate conservatism" spending initiatives - my tax rate will hit 70% by the time I am blowing out 55 candles on the cake. This is actuarial fact no rhetoric. Everyone knows what is down the road, yet nobody by Ron Paul will call it out. Fred, Hillary, Obama, McCain and the rest just dance around the real issues and argue about whether to delay the day of reckoning to 2032 or 2034. None of them are willing to say we are dead broke and need a serious overhaul of everything. They are arguing over the positioning of the Titanic chairs.

As for foreign policy issues he's not all crazy. We don't need 100,000s of US military in Germany 60 years after WW2 and 15 years after the USSR died. His argument against Iraq would be more persuasive to Republicans if he termed it in that framework. Do you want American soldiers stationed in Baghdad in 2055? I sure as hell don't.

And I know it's a technicality a lot of conservatives dismiss. But he is not an isolationist. Pat Buchanan is and isolationist. Ron Paul is is a non-interventionist. Not the same thing.

Ron Paul has zero chance of winning a general election. I'm not delusional. I wish it weren't so, but it is reality. Maybe in 2012 or 2016 a new version of him will show up (he'll be too old) when the shit really starts hitting the fan. But not in 2008. If you support and vote for Fred(or Ron Paul), you are essentially supporting and voting for Hillary since he wouldn't stand a snowball's chance against sher. I can live with that supporting Ron Paul. As I have said before, we needed a Jimmy Carter to get a Ronald Reagan. We may very well need a Hillary Clinton to get the guy who fixes things.