Thursday
OPEN LETTER TO MORMONS
To my fellow Latter-day Saint brothers and sisters, this letter is a pleading with each of you to consider supporting Congressman Ron Paul in his candidacy for President of these united States of America.
Congressman Paul is THE only candidate, from either of the two major political parties, that has shown he understands the proper role of government and that he understands and adheres to the principles written in our Constitution.
All the other Republican and Democratic candidates reveal themselves as lusting for power, to be in various stages of corruption, using weasel words with coached speeches and phrases intended to deceive a dumbed-down American public. This deception is facilitated by a mainstream press that has become dominated by a corporate establishment that has a globalist agenda. This agenda requires reduced national sovereignty. All these other candidates approve of this agenda.
The only things that stand between this agenda and it's ultimate goal of centralized global governance are;
1. a militarily strong America
2. a financially solvent America
3. an economically strong America
4. an independent America
5. and .. the Constitution of the United States of America
Congressman Ron Paul's candidacy is a direct threat to this agenda for he alone, among these "establishment candidates," supports all five of the above. Most importantly, his voting record as a Texas Congressman, his speeches as displayed on his website, and his responses during the primary "debates," reveal him to be candid, honest, wise and uncorrupted by the temptations of power that swirl about Washington D.C. He understands the founding principles of this nation and has the integrity to support and defend the Constitution.
Specifically, we Latter-day Saints have been called upon to support and defend our Constitution and this nation, both of which have unique roles to play.
President Ezra Taft Benson counseled the LDS faithful as to their "civic responsibilities" in July 1972's Ensign, writing;
"We honor our founding fathers of this republic .. God raised up these patriotic partners to perform their mission, and he called them "wise men." (See D&C 101:80.)"
"The First Presidency acknowledge that wisdom when they gave us the guideline a few years ago of supporting political candidates 'who are truly dedicated to the Constitution in the tradition of our Founding Fathers.' (Deseret News, November 2, 1964.)"
"Our wise founders seemed to understand, better than most of us, our own scripture, which states that 'it is the nature and disposition of almost all men, as soon as they get a little authority . . .they will immediately begin to exercise unrighteous dominion.' (D&C 121:39.)"
"To help prevent this, the founders knew that our elected leaders should be bound by certain fixed principles. Said Thomas Jefferson: 'In questions of power then, let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution.'"
"These wise founders, our patriotic partners, seemed to appreciate more than most of us the blessings of the boundaries that the Lord set within the Constitution, for he said, 'And as pertaining to law of man, whatsoever is more or less than this, cometh of evil.' (D&C 98:7.)"
"President J. Reuben Clark, Jr., put it well when he said: 'God provided that in this land of liberty, our political allegiance shall not run to individuals ... our allegiance and the only allegiance we owe as citizens ... of the United States, runs to our inspired Constitution which God himself set up ... This principle of allegiance to the Constitution is basic to our freedom. It is one of the great principles that distinguishes this 'land of liberty' from other countries.' (Improvement Era, July, 1940, p. 444.)"
"The warning of President Joseph Fielding Smith is most timely: 'Now I tell you it is time the people of the United States were waking up with the understanding that if they don't save the Constitution from the dangers that threaten it, we will have a change of government.' Conference Report, April, 1950, p. 159.)"
"Another guideline given by the First Presidency was 'to support good and conscientious candidates, of either party, who are aware of the great dangers' facing the free world. (Deseret News, November 2, 1964.)"
"President Clark warned us that 'we stand in danger of losing our liberties, and that once lost, only blood will bring them back; and once lost, we in this church will, in order to keep the Church going forward, have more sacrifices to make and more persecutions to endure than we have yet known...' (CR, April, 1944, p. 116.)"
"The Lord holds us accountable if we are not wise and are deceived."
We LDS have received much counsel regarding our responsibilities toward government, almost too many to list in this letter, however, I add a few more:
"Next to being one in worshipping God, there is nothing in this world upon which this Church should be more united than upholding and defending the Constitution of the United States." (Statements on Communism and the Constitution of the United States. Deseret Book Co., 1966 p. 6)
"We must choose righteous men, good men to fill these positions ." . (Joseph F. Smith, Journal of Discourses. Vol. 25, p. 251)
.".. the fundamental principle of the gospel, free agency..this principle is (1) essential to man's salvation; and (2) may become a measuring rod by which the actions of men, of organizations of nations may be judged." (Gospel Ideals, pp. 299-300) President David O. McKay
." We therefore commend and encourage every person and every group who is sincerely seeking to study Constitutional principles and awaken a sleeping and apathetic people to the alarming conditions that are rapidly advancing about us." (Improvement Era, June 1966, p. 477) President McKay
"No greater immediate responsibility rests upon members of the Church, upon all citizens of this Republic and of neighboring Republics, than to protect the freedom vouchsafed by the Constitution of the United States." President David O. McKay
If we sit idly by, unmoved by the special knowledge which has been given, we are told our state will be awful. Latter-day Saints have been directed to give heed to the Lord's commandments concerning the laws of the land. We have been told to support that law of the land which is constitutional and not tamper with it:
"Therefore, I, the Lord, justify you, and your brethren of my church, in befriending that law which is the constitutional law of the land: and as pertaining to law of man, whatsoever is more or less than this, cometh of evil."(D&C 98:6-7)
"Wherefore honest men and wise men should be sought for diligently, and good men and wise men ye should observe to uphold; otherwise whatsoever is less than these cometh of evil." (D&C 98:9-10)
....... unless the people of America forsake the sins and the errors, political and otherwise, of which they are now guilty and return to the practice of the great fundamental principles of Christianity, and of Constitutional government... politically we shall lose our liberty and free institutions. Heber J. Grant
Now, at the risk of offending, I submit to you that candidate Mitt Romney , even though he is LDS, is very much unacceptable. Please, compare his voting record, his speeches and positions to those of Congressman Ron Paul's and remember this:
"We live in an age of deceit. .. Even within the Church we have been warned that 'the ravening wolves are amongst us, from our own membership, and they, more than any others, are clothed in sheep's clothing, because they wear the habiliments of the priesthood.' (J. Reuben Clark, Jr., CR, April, 1949, p. 163.)"
Congressman Paul is THE only candidate, from either of the two major political parties, that has shown he understands the proper role of government and that he understands and adheres to the principles written in our Constitution.
All the other Republican and Democratic candidates reveal themselves as lusting for power, to be in various stages of corruption, using weasel words with coached speeches and phrases intended to deceive a dumbed-down American public. This deception is facilitated by a mainstream press that has become dominated by a corporate establishment that has a globalist agenda. This agenda requires reduced national sovereignty. All these other candidates approve of this agenda.
The only things that stand between this agenda and it's ultimate goal of centralized global governance are;
1. a militarily strong America
2. a financially solvent America
3. an economically strong America
4. an independent America
5. and .. the Constitution of the United States of America
Congressman Ron Paul's candidacy is a direct threat to this agenda for he alone, among these "establishment candidates," supports all five of the above. Most importantly, his voting record as a Texas Congressman, his speeches as displayed on his website, and his responses during the primary "debates," reveal him to be candid, honest, wise and uncorrupted by the temptations of power that swirl about Washington D.C. He understands the founding principles of this nation and has the integrity to support and defend the Constitution.
Specifically, we Latter-day Saints have been called upon to support and defend our Constitution and this nation, both of which have unique roles to play.
President Ezra Taft Benson counseled the LDS faithful as to their "civic responsibilities" in July 1972's Ensign, writing;
"We honor our founding fathers of this republic .. God raised up these patriotic partners to perform their mission, and he called them "wise men." (See D&C 101:80.)"
"The First Presidency acknowledge that wisdom when they gave us the guideline a few years ago of supporting political candidates 'who are truly dedicated to the Constitution in the tradition of our Founding Fathers.' (Deseret News, November 2, 1964.)"
"Our wise founders seemed to understand, better than most of us, our own scripture, which states that 'it is the nature and disposition of almost all men, as soon as they get a little authority . . .they will immediately begin to exercise unrighteous dominion.' (D&C 121:39.)"
"To help prevent this, the founders knew that our elected leaders should be bound by certain fixed principles. Said Thomas Jefferson: 'In questions of power then, let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution.'"
"These wise founders, our patriotic partners, seemed to appreciate more than most of us the blessings of the boundaries that the Lord set within the Constitution, for he said, 'And as pertaining to law of man, whatsoever is more or less than this, cometh of evil.' (D&C 98:7.)"
"President J. Reuben Clark, Jr., put it well when he said: 'God provided that in this land of liberty, our political allegiance shall not run to individuals ... our allegiance and the only allegiance we owe as citizens ... of the United States, runs to our inspired Constitution which God himself set up ... This principle of allegiance to the Constitution is basic to our freedom. It is one of the great principles that distinguishes this 'land of liberty' from other countries.' (Improvement Era, July, 1940, p. 444.)"
"The warning of President Joseph Fielding Smith is most timely: 'Now I tell you it is time the people of the United States were waking up with the understanding that if they don't save the Constitution from the dangers that threaten it, we will have a change of government.' Conference Report, April, 1950, p. 159.)"
"Another guideline given by the First Presidency was 'to support good and conscientious candidates, of either party, who are aware of the great dangers' facing the free world. (Deseret News, November 2, 1964.)"
"President Clark warned us that 'we stand in danger of losing our liberties, and that once lost, only blood will bring them back; and once lost, we in this church will, in order to keep the Church going forward, have more sacrifices to make and more persecutions to endure than we have yet known...' (CR, April, 1944, p. 116.)"
"The Lord holds us accountable if we are not wise and are deceived."
We LDS have received much counsel regarding our responsibilities toward government, almost too many to list in this letter, however, I add a few more:
"Next to being one in worshipping God, there is nothing in this world upon which this Church should be more united than upholding and defending the Constitution of the United States." (Statements on Communism and the Constitution of the United States. Deseret Book Co., 1966 p. 6)
"We must choose righteous men, good men to fill these positions ." . (Joseph F. Smith, Journal of Discourses. Vol. 25, p. 251)
.".. the fundamental principle of the gospel, free agency..this principle is (1) essential to man's salvation; and (2) may become a measuring rod by which the actions of men, of organizations of nations may be judged." (Gospel Ideals, pp. 299-300) President David O. McKay
." We therefore commend and encourage every person and every group who is sincerely seeking to study Constitutional principles and awaken a sleeping and apathetic people to the alarming conditions that are rapidly advancing about us." (Improvement Era, June 1966, p. 477) President McKay
"No greater immediate responsibility rests upon members of the Church, upon all citizens of this Republic and of neighboring Republics, than to protect the freedom vouchsafed by the Constitution of the United States." President David O. McKay
If we sit idly by, unmoved by the special knowledge which has been given, we are told our state will be awful. Latter-day Saints have been directed to give heed to the Lord's commandments concerning the laws of the land. We have been told to support that law of the land which is constitutional and not tamper with it:
"Therefore, I, the Lord, justify you, and your brethren of my church, in befriending that law which is the constitutional law of the land: and as pertaining to law of man, whatsoever is more or less than this, cometh of evil."(D&C 98:6-7)
"Wherefore honest men and wise men should be sought for diligently, and good men and wise men ye should observe to uphold; otherwise whatsoever is less than these cometh of evil." (D&C 98:9-10)
....... unless the people of America forsake the sins and the errors, political and otherwise, of which they are now guilty and return to the practice of the great fundamental principles of Christianity, and of Constitutional government... politically we shall lose our liberty and free institutions. Heber J. Grant
Now, at the risk of offending, I submit to you that candidate Mitt Romney , even though he is LDS, is very much unacceptable. Please, compare his voting record, his speeches and positions to those of Congressman Ron Paul's and remember this:
"We live in an age of deceit. .. Even within the Church we have been warned that 'the ravening wolves are amongst us, from our own membership, and they, more than any others, are clothed in sheep's clothing, because they wear the habiliments of the priesthood.' (J. Reuben Clark, Jr., CR, April, 1949, p. 163.)"
Wednesday
THE QUOTABLE RON PAUL
On Hate Crime Legislation
Last week, the House of Representatives acted with disdain for the Constitution and individual liberty by passing HR 1592, a bill creating new federal programs to combat so-called "hate crimes."... HR 1592, like all hate crime laws, imposes a longer sentence on a criminal motivated by hate than on someone who commits the same crime with a different motivation. Increasing sentences because of motivation goes beyond criminalizing acts; it makes it a crime to think certain thoughts.
Criminalizing even the vilest hateful thoughts – as opposed to willful criminal acts – is inconsistent with a free society (May 9, 2007).
On Censorship and Racism
Let’s be perfectly clear: the federal government has no business regulating speech in any way. Furthermore, government as an institution is particularly ill-suited to combating bigotry in our society. Bigotry at its essence is a sin of the heart, and we can’t change people’s hearts by passing more laws and regulations…. Racism is simply an ugly form of collectivism, the mindset that views humans strictly as members of groups rather than individuals. Racists believe that all individuals who share superficial physical characteristics are alike: as collectivists, racists think only in terms of groups. By encouraging Americans to adopt a group mentality, the advocates of so-called "diversity" actually perpetuate racism. Their obsession with racial group identity is inherently racist.
The true antidote to racism is liberty. Liberty means having a limited, constitutional government devoted to the protection of individual rights rather than group claims. Liberty means free-market capitalism, which rewards individual achievement and competence, not skin color, gender, or ethnicity (April 18, 2007).
On the Federal Budget
The fiscal year 2008 budget, passed in the House of Representative last week, is a monument to irresponsibility and profligacy. It shows that Congress remains oblivious to the economic troubles facing the nation, and that political expediency trumps all common sense in Washington. To the extent that proponents and supporters of these unsustainable budget increases continue to win reelection, it also shows that many Americans unfortunately continue to believe government can provide them with a free lunch.
To summarize, Congress proposes spending roughly $3 trillion in 2008. When I first came to Congress in 1976, the federal government spent only about $300 billion. So spending has increased tenfold in thirty years, and tripled just since 1990.
About one-third of this $3 trillion is so-called discretionary spending; the remaining two-thirds is deemed "mandatory" entitlement spending, which means mostly Social Security and Medicare. I’m sure many American voters would be shocked to know their elected representatives essentially have no say over two-thirds of the federal budget, but that is indeed the case. In fact the most disturbing problem with the budget is the utter lack of concern for the coming entitlement meltdown (April 3, 2007).
On Immigration Reform
The much-vaunted Senate "compromise" on immigration is a compromise all right: a compromise of our laws, a compromise of our sovereignty, and a compromise of the Second Amendment. That anyone in Washington believes this is a credible approach to solving our immigration crisis suggests just how out of touch our political elites really are (May 31, 2007).
On Protecting the Border
The talk must stop. We must secure our borders now. A nation without secure borders is no nation at all. It makes no sense to fight terrorists abroad when our own front door is left unlocked.
On Ending the War in Iraq
As I wrote when this measure first came before the House, we have to make a clear distinction between the Constitutional authority of Congress to make foreign policy, and the Constitutional authority of the president, as commander in chief, to direct the management of any military operation. We do no favor to the troops by micromanaging the war from Capitol Hill while continuing to fund it beyond the president’s request.
If one is unhappy with our progress in Iraq after four years of war, voting to de-fund the war makes sense. If one is unhappy with the manner in which we went to war, without a constitutional declaration, voting against funding for that war makes equally good sense. What occurred, however, was the worst of both. Democrats, dissatisfied with the way the war is being fought, gave the president all the money he asked for and more to keep fighting it, while demanding that he fight it in the manner they see fit. That is definitely not a recipe for success in Iraq and foreign policy in general.
What is the best way forward in Iraq? Where do we go from here? First, Congress should admit its mistake in unconstitutionally transferring war power to the president and in citing United Nations resolutions as justification for war against Iraq. We should never go to war because another nation has violated a United Nations resolution. Then we should repeal the authority given to the president in 2002 and disavow presidential discretion in starting wars. Then we should start bringing our troops home in the safest manner possible (May 1, 2007).
On True Patriotism
Madam Speaker, for some, patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel. For others, it means dissent against a government's abuse of the people's rights…. The true patriot is motivated by a sense of responsibility and out of self-interest for himself, his family, and the future of his country to resist government abuse of power. He rejects the notion that patriotism means obedience to the state. Resistance need not be violent, but the civil disobedience that might be required involves confrontation with the state and invites possible imprisonment (On the floor of the House, May 22, 2007).
Last week, the House of Representatives acted with disdain for the Constitution and individual liberty by passing HR 1592, a bill creating new federal programs to combat so-called "hate crimes."... HR 1592, like all hate crime laws, imposes a longer sentence on a criminal motivated by hate than on someone who commits the same crime with a different motivation. Increasing sentences because of motivation goes beyond criminalizing acts; it makes it a crime to think certain thoughts.
Criminalizing even the vilest hateful thoughts – as opposed to willful criminal acts – is inconsistent with a free society (May 9, 2007).
On Censorship and Racism
Let’s be perfectly clear: the federal government has no business regulating speech in any way. Furthermore, government as an institution is particularly ill-suited to combating bigotry in our society. Bigotry at its essence is a sin of the heart, and we can’t change people’s hearts by passing more laws and regulations…. Racism is simply an ugly form of collectivism, the mindset that views humans strictly as members of groups rather than individuals. Racists believe that all individuals who share superficial physical characteristics are alike: as collectivists, racists think only in terms of groups. By encouraging Americans to adopt a group mentality, the advocates of so-called "diversity" actually perpetuate racism. Their obsession with racial group identity is inherently racist.
The true antidote to racism is liberty. Liberty means having a limited, constitutional government devoted to the protection of individual rights rather than group claims. Liberty means free-market capitalism, which rewards individual achievement and competence, not skin color, gender, or ethnicity (April 18, 2007).
On the Federal Budget
The fiscal year 2008 budget, passed in the House of Representative last week, is a monument to irresponsibility and profligacy. It shows that Congress remains oblivious to the economic troubles facing the nation, and that political expediency trumps all common sense in Washington. To the extent that proponents and supporters of these unsustainable budget increases continue to win reelection, it also shows that many Americans unfortunately continue to believe government can provide them with a free lunch.
To summarize, Congress proposes spending roughly $3 trillion in 2008. When I first came to Congress in 1976, the federal government spent only about $300 billion. So spending has increased tenfold in thirty years, and tripled just since 1990.
About one-third of this $3 trillion is so-called discretionary spending; the remaining two-thirds is deemed "mandatory" entitlement spending, which means mostly Social Security and Medicare. I’m sure many American voters would be shocked to know their elected representatives essentially have no say over two-thirds of the federal budget, but that is indeed the case. In fact the most disturbing problem with the budget is the utter lack of concern for the coming entitlement meltdown (April 3, 2007).
On Immigration Reform
The much-vaunted Senate "compromise" on immigration is a compromise all right: a compromise of our laws, a compromise of our sovereignty, and a compromise of the Second Amendment. That anyone in Washington believes this is a credible approach to solving our immigration crisis suggests just how out of touch our political elites really are (May 31, 2007).
On Protecting the Border
The talk must stop. We must secure our borders now. A nation without secure borders is no nation at all. It makes no sense to fight terrorists abroad when our own front door is left unlocked.
On Ending the War in Iraq
As I wrote when this measure first came before the House, we have to make a clear distinction between the Constitutional authority of Congress to make foreign policy, and the Constitutional authority of the president, as commander in chief, to direct the management of any military operation. We do no favor to the troops by micromanaging the war from Capitol Hill while continuing to fund it beyond the president’s request.
If one is unhappy with our progress in Iraq after four years of war, voting to de-fund the war makes sense. If one is unhappy with the manner in which we went to war, without a constitutional declaration, voting against funding for that war makes equally good sense. What occurred, however, was the worst of both. Democrats, dissatisfied with the way the war is being fought, gave the president all the money he asked for and more to keep fighting it, while demanding that he fight it in the manner they see fit. That is definitely not a recipe for success in Iraq and foreign policy in general.
What is the best way forward in Iraq? Where do we go from here? First, Congress should admit its mistake in unconstitutionally transferring war power to the president and in citing United Nations resolutions as justification for war against Iraq. We should never go to war because another nation has violated a United Nations resolution. Then we should repeal the authority given to the president in 2002 and disavow presidential discretion in starting wars. Then we should start bringing our troops home in the safest manner possible (May 1, 2007).
On True Patriotism
Madam Speaker, for some, patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel. For others, it means dissent against a government's abuse of the people's rights…. The true patriot is motivated by a sense of responsibility and out of self-interest for himself, his family, and the future of his country to resist government abuse of power. He rejects the notion that patriotism means obedience to the state. Resistance need not be violent, but the civil disobedience that might be required involves confrontation with the state and invites possible imprisonment (On the floor of the House, May 22, 2007).
OPEN LETTER TO ORTHODOX CHRISTIANS
Dear brothers and sisters,
The 2008 US presidential election is almost a year and a half away, and yet the various campaigns are in full swing. With states vying to move the primary season up into late 2007, it is time that we as citizens of the United States start to think about who we would like to see elected to the White House next year.
Before I express my own thoughts about the upcoming election, let me begin with a couple of obvious, but nonetheless vital, observations. First of all, reasonable people – and certainly the reason-endowed sheep of Christ’s flock – can disagree about political philosophies and the relative virtues and vices of particular candidates. I do not believe that there is one "Orthodox" answer to some of the questions that I will raise below. In other words, I will question neither the purity of your faith nor the sincerity of your commitment to Christ if you disagree with my thoughts.
Such circumspection is necessary because our Lord did not deliver to us any particular "political philosophy." When the Pharisees tried to trap Him with a question about money He replied simply, "Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and unto God the things that are God’s." Later, the Pharisees accused Him of trying to put Himself in the place of Caesar. When Pilot asked Him about this He replied, "My Kingdom is not of this world." St. Paul admonished Christians to obey those in civil authority – even though they were pagans – but later writers, living under intense persecution, were somewhat less enthusiastic about their allegiance to the Roman Empire.
Finally, in the fourth century the Roman Empire underwent a slow and sometimes painful process of Christianization. (Eusebius’ rose-colored version of events needs to be taken with a grain of salt.) This eventually gave rise the Byzantine theory of "symphony" between Church and state. There is no question that the conversion of the Empire had many benefits, chief among them the development of a genuinely Orthodox culture – with all of its artistic, literary, and architectural achievements – and greatly increased missionary expansion. At the same time, however, there was always a very real danger of identifying – confusing, really – the state with the Kingdom of God. Indeed, the actual history of Roman Orthodox symphonia is a decidedly mixed bag. Our calendar is full of saints who suffered exile and even torture at the hands of the "most pious Christian Emperors" (Athanasius, Chrysostom, and Maximus to name but three). The point is that Orthodox Christians throughout history have lived all over the world under quite diverse political circumstances. While Byzantine symphonia holds an honored place within the history of the Church, one cannot claim with any theological seriousness that this is the only Orthodox political philosophy.
This leads me to my second observation, which is that contemporary American culture is far removed from that which has developed within traditionally Orthodox lands. Therefore, I do not for one minute believe that the political principles that I shall advocate below are necessarily exportable to other cultures. Frankly, I would be delighted to see the restoration of an Orthodox monarchy in Russia. (For the record, I do not subscribe to the Third Rome theory.) However, there is absolutely no chance whatsoever of such a thing happening over here. And frankly, I would not want it to happen even if it were possible because our culture is so profoundly different from the Russian culture, which is the product of a thousand years of Orthodox influence.
Keeping these observations in mind, we must begin with the principles that make the American system unique in the world. Certainly most of the nations of the developed world could be termed "democracies" in some sense, and yet it is clear that our political culture is quite different from that of France or Germany, or even Mother England for that matter. The political principles that undergird the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution are technically known as "political liberalism" and go back to the empiricist philosopher John Locke. ("Liberalism" in this sense is quite different from the typical modern use of the word.) The differences between Locke’s approach and that of Continental philosophers like Rousseau and Kant are crucial to understanding the uniqueness of the American political system.
According to Locke and his spiritual heirs such as Thomas Jefferson, the function of government is to secure the liberty of individual citizens. Thus, the American political philosophy begins with the individual. Of course, for the Orthodox, individualism is a very problematic notion, one that is intimately connected to our understanding of the Fall of Man. Yet, we must keep in mind that no secular political philosophy could possibly do justice to the Orthodox concept of persons-in-communion. Given the choice between secular individualism and secular collectivism, a good case can be made that individualism is preferable.
The belief that the purpose of government is to secure the liberty of its citizens necessarily entails limited government. The equation is quite simple: the bigger the government is, the more it tries to do, the less freedom is available to its citizens. The purpose of government within the American tradition, then, is neither to make its citizens righteous nor to take care of them from the cradle to the grave, but to protect their God-given liberty.
The American form of political liberalism is not a perfect system by any stretch of the imagination, and we must always be wary of granting America a sort of messianic status as some Evangelical Protestants have done. Nevertheless, I firmly believe that given our political, social, and cultural history, the kind of government envisioned by Jefferson is by far the best form of government for Orthodox Christians in America who wish to live their lives in pious obedience to the Gospel and the Tradition of the Church.
This political system will not guarantee righteousness – no government can – but it does guarantee the fundamental conditions of liberty in which a life of true evangelical righteousness can blossom. Neither will this system guarantee that every citizen is "taken care of." Yet, we must not forget that the admonition to feed the hungry and clothe the naked was addressed to the Church, not to Caesar. Sometimes we confuse the two and expect the government to do our work for us. This is an abdication of our evangelical duties to the poor, not their fulfillment. At any rate, a limited government would mean a more expansive role for the Church within society, whereas an expansive government necessarily means a diminished role for the Church. For example, the Roman Catholic Church in California has had to alter its participation in the state’s adoption system because of state rules regarding same-sex couples. Government involvement always involves government regulation.
This example, however, illustrates the fact that the kind of government we have now at all levels bears little resemblance to the system envisioned by Jefferson and the other founders of our Republic. All three branches of the federal government – branches that were created precisely as checks on each other’s power – systematically ignore the limits imposed upon the federal government by the Constitution. The Congress passes all manner of legislation not authorized by the Constitution, limiting the freedom of the public through an ever-increasing network of laws and taxes, while at the same time almost completely abdicating its constitutional duties in regard to foreign policy and war. Presidents, for their part, routinely abdicate their duty to veto unconstitutional legislation and act as a check on congressional spending and instead have taken to themselves the almost monarchical power to promulgate their own laws (Executive Orders) and to wage war without a congressional declaration. (The last time Congress declared war was 1941.) And rather than keep the other two branches of government in line with the Constitution, the judicial branch instead rewrites legislation or invents new laws simply by fiat. (That is how we ended up with Roe vs. Wade.)
In short, the problem we face is that while the constitutional form of government envisioned by Jefferson may well be the best form of government within our cultural context, yet, quite clearly, this is no longer the kind of government we actually have. The question is whether or not this form of government can be restored to the American people. I believe that it can and that the presidential election of 2008 is the key to this restoration.
I am 43 years old and for the very first time I will be voting for a presidential candidate rather than against the other guy. I am convinced that Congressman Ron Paul of Texas, a candidate from the Republican Party, is the single most important presidential candidate in my lifetime. I make this bold statement because he is the first presidential candidate that I have ever heard who clearly understands the philosophical foundations of our republic and who is committed to governing in accordance with the Constitution – including abiding by the limitations placed on the power of the president.
In more than seventeen years as a US congressman, Ron Paul has never voted for an unbalanced budget. He has never voted for legislation that is not authorized by the Constitution. He does not even participate in the congressional pension plan. His consistent, principled stand for constitutional government has earned him the nickname, "Dr. No."
While opposing runaway congressional spending, Congressman Paul has also been an indefatigable opponent of runaway executive power. Committed to the constitutional principle that only Congress can declare war, he voted against the resolution approving of President Bush’s war plans for Iraq. (Congress refused to actually declare war, so they passed the buck by granting the president the "authority" to go to war.) Furthermore, he voted against the Patriot Act, which represents one of the gravest threats to individual liberty in American history. He stood almost alone among Republicans in this. (He also opposed President Clinton’s illegal war against our brother Serbs!)
Some have tried to portray this position as being contrary to conservative and Republican principles. Yet, Congressman Paul knows well that non-interventionism is the traditional Republican stance. The foreign policy of the present Republican administration is designed by a clique of former Trotskyites who have embarked on an imperialistic program of perpetual war abroad and ever-greater government power at home. Ron Paul understands that…
• There is nothing conservative about an undeclared war against a country that has not threatened us.
• There is nothing conservative about threatening other countries (Iran) with a pre-emptive nuclear strike.
• There is nothing conservative about "spreading Democracy" at gunpoint.
• There is nothing conservative about suspending or ignoring habeas corpus.
• There is nothing conservative about warrantless searches.
On the contrary, these are all the actions of leftist, totalitarian governments. The failures of the Bush administration are not the result of traditional Republican principles; they are the result of the abandonment of traditional Republican principles. Quite frankly, Ron Paul is the only traditional Republican in the race.
Now I am not claiming that Ron Paul is perfect, and neither is he. Paul is not running for "Savior of the World," but for president of the most powerful nation on earth – a nation that is so far removed from its founding principles that it is now one of the greatest threats to freedom in the world, both at home and abroad. The United States has certainly become a threat to our Orthodox brethren around the world. Witness the US-backed persecution of our brethren in Kosovo and Palestine.
Certainly the Christians in Iraq are much worse off now than they were before the US invasion. Furthermore, if current policies continue in place, we will be headed for an inevitable confrontation with a resurgent Russia. Our children and grand-children may be in for another Cold War – only this time we may just be the Evil Empire.
I believe that Ron Paul is uniquely qualified to turn our country from this disastrous course and return her to her constitutional foundations. In particular, he possesses two character traits essential for this task. These are traits to which every Orthodox Christian should aspire: personal integrity and humble obedience.
It is a sad commentary on our society that integrity is not a trait we have come to expect from our politicians. As the GOP candidates crawl all over themselves to claim the flag of being for "family values," it is fascinating that the (current) top four candidates (including Fred Thompson) have seven wives between them.
Ironically, the Mormon is the only one who is not a serial bigamist! In addition to the fact that Ron Paul has been married to the same woman for fifty years (five children, seventeen grandchildren), his voting record after more than seventeen years in Congress is the very picture of consistency and principled dedication.
Indeed, he seems to be from another century altogether. The Scripture enjoins us: "Let your ‘yea’ be ‘yea,’ and your ‘nay’ be ‘nay.’" Whether you agree with all of Ron Paul’s positions or not, you know exactly where he stands today and can be assured that he will not change his principles tomorrow for the sake of political expediency.
Within our ascetical literature, one virtue stands out as the surest way to achieve Christ-like humility and love, and that is the virtue of obedience. When Ron Paul became a US Congressman he took an oath to "support and defend the Constitution of the United States." That oath has determined every vote he has cast in the House of Representatives. In other words, he placed himself in obedience to the Constitution. He has never voted for a House bill that is not specifically authorized by the Constitution. Again, I am not suggesting that Congressman Paul is an Orthodox saint; he isn’t. But his humble obedience to his oath of office is an example for us all. He certainly behaves as "one under authority." (Imagine how much better off our Church would be in North America if our bishops always acted in accordance with the canons!)
Furthermore, as a conservative Protestant and as an obstetrician by trade, Congressman Paul has consistently opposed abortion – far more consistently than most of the other Republican candidates. Most importantly, however, Paul opposes abortion on sound constitutional as well as religious grounds. This means that he will be able to make a clear and credible case why the most fundamental right of all – the right to live – must be guaranteed to the unborn.
I have never contributed to a presidential campaign before. I have never put a political bumper sticker on my car before. And I have never written a letter like this before. I have done all three because for the first time in my life I truly believe that there is a chance to return this nation to the rule of law under the Constitution. Traditional Republicans feel betrayed by the Bush Administration, and anti-war and pro-civil liberties Democrats are beginning to see through the hypocrisy of their own candidates. The time is right for a man like Ron Paul, and Ron Paul is precisely the man we need for these times. As Judge Andrew Napolitano recently commented after reviewing a litany of tyrannical, post 9/11 "homeland security measures": "We need a Ron Paul in the White House more desperately now than we ever have at any time in our history."
If you are interested in learning more about Ron Paul, please go to RonPaul2008.com.
Asking for your prayers for our Nation, I remain,
Yours in Christ,
Clark Carlton
The 2008 US presidential election is almost a year and a half away, and yet the various campaigns are in full swing. With states vying to move the primary season up into late 2007, it is time that we as citizens of the United States start to think about who we would like to see elected to the White House next year.
Before I express my own thoughts about the upcoming election, let me begin with a couple of obvious, but nonetheless vital, observations. First of all, reasonable people – and certainly the reason-endowed sheep of Christ’s flock – can disagree about political philosophies and the relative virtues and vices of particular candidates. I do not believe that there is one "Orthodox" answer to some of the questions that I will raise below. In other words, I will question neither the purity of your faith nor the sincerity of your commitment to Christ if you disagree with my thoughts.
Such circumspection is necessary because our Lord did not deliver to us any particular "political philosophy." When the Pharisees tried to trap Him with a question about money He replied simply, "Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and unto God the things that are God’s." Later, the Pharisees accused Him of trying to put Himself in the place of Caesar. When Pilot asked Him about this He replied, "My Kingdom is not of this world." St. Paul admonished Christians to obey those in civil authority – even though they were pagans – but later writers, living under intense persecution, were somewhat less enthusiastic about their allegiance to the Roman Empire.
Finally, in the fourth century the Roman Empire underwent a slow and sometimes painful process of Christianization. (Eusebius’ rose-colored version of events needs to be taken with a grain of salt.) This eventually gave rise the Byzantine theory of "symphony" between Church and state. There is no question that the conversion of the Empire had many benefits, chief among them the development of a genuinely Orthodox culture – with all of its artistic, literary, and architectural achievements – and greatly increased missionary expansion. At the same time, however, there was always a very real danger of identifying – confusing, really – the state with the Kingdom of God. Indeed, the actual history of Roman Orthodox symphonia is a decidedly mixed bag. Our calendar is full of saints who suffered exile and even torture at the hands of the "most pious Christian Emperors" (Athanasius, Chrysostom, and Maximus to name but three). The point is that Orthodox Christians throughout history have lived all over the world under quite diverse political circumstances. While Byzantine symphonia holds an honored place within the history of the Church, one cannot claim with any theological seriousness that this is the only Orthodox political philosophy.
This leads me to my second observation, which is that contemporary American culture is far removed from that which has developed within traditionally Orthodox lands. Therefore, I do not for one minute believe that the political principles that I shall advocate below are necessarily exportable to other cultures. Frankly, I would be delighted to see the restoration of an Orthodox monarchy in Russia. (For the record, I do not subscribe to the Third Rome theory.) However, there is absolutely no chance whatsoever of such a thing happening over here. And frankly, I would not want it to happen even if it were possible because our culture is so profoundly different from the Russian culture, which is the product of a thousand years of Orthodox influence.
Keeping these observations in mind, we must begin with the principles that make the American system unique in the world. Certainly most of the nations of the developed world could be termed "democracies" in some sense, and yet it is clear that our political culture is quite different from that of France or Germany, or even Mother England for that matter. The political principles that undergird the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution are technically known as "political liberalism" and go back to the empiricist philosopher John Locke. ("Liberalism" in this sense is quite different from the typical modern use of the word.) The differences between Locke’s approach and that of Continental philosophers like Rousseau and Kant are crucial to understanding the uniqueness of the American political system.
According to Locke and his spiritual heirs such as Thomas Jefferson, the function of government is to secure the liberty of individual citizens. Thus, the American political philosophy begins with the individual. Of course, for the Orthodox, individualism is a very problematic notion, one that is intimately connected to our understanding of the Fall of Man. Yet, we must keep in mind that no secular political philosophy could possibly do justice to the Orthodox concept of persons-in-communion. Given the choice between secular individualism and secular collectivism, a good case can be made that individualism is preferable.
The belief that the purpose of government is to secure the liberty of its citizens necessarily entails limited government. The equation is quite simple: the bigger the government is, the more it tries to do, the less freedom is available to its citizens. The purpose of government within the American tradition, then, is neither to make its citizens righteous nor to take care of them from the cradle to the grave, but to protect their God-given liberty.
The American form of political liberalism is not a perfect system by any stretch of the imagination, and we must always be wary of granting America a sort of messianic status as some Evangelical Protestants have done. Nevertheless, I firmly believe that given our political, social, and cultural history, the kind of government envisioned by Jefferson is by far the best form of government for Orthodox Christians in America who wish to live their lives in pious obedience to the Gospel and the Tradition of the Church.
This political system will not guarantee righteousness – no government can – but it does guarantee the fundamental conditions of liberty in which a life of true evangelical righteousness can blossom. Neither will this system guarantee that every citizen is "taken care of." Yet, we must not forget that the admonition to feed the hungry and clothe the naked was addressed to the Church, not to Caesar. Sometimes we confuse the two and expect the government to do our work for us. This is an abdication of our evangelical duties to the poor, not their fulfillment. At any rate, a limited government would mean a more expansive role for the Church within society, whereas an expansive government necessarily means a diminished role for the Church. For example, the Roman Catholic Church in California has had to alter its participation in the state’s adoption system because of state rules regarding same-sex couples. Government involvement always involves government regulation.
This example, however, illustrates the fact that the kind of government we have now at all levels bears little resemblance to the system envisioned by Jefferson and the other founders of our Republic. All three branches of the federal government – branches that were created precisely as checks on each other’s power – systematically ignore the limits imposed upon the federal government by the Constitution. The Congress passes all manner of legislation not authorized by the Constitution, limiting the freedom of the public through an ever-increasing network of laws and taxes, while at the same time almost completely abdicating its constitutional duties in regard to foreign policy and war. Presidents, for their part, routinely abdicate their duty to veto unconstitutional legislation and act as a check on congressional spending and instead have taken to themselves the almost monarchical power to promulgate their own laws (Executive Orders) and to wage war without a congressional declaration. (The last time Congress declared war was 1941.) And rather than keep the other two branches of government in line with the Constitution, the judicial branch instead rewrites legislation or invents new laws simply by fiat. (That is how we ended up with Roe vs. Wade.)
In short, the problem we face is that while the constitutional form of government envisioned by Jefferson may well be the best form of government within our cultural context, yet, quite clearly, this is no longer the kind of government we actually have. The question is whether or not this form of government can be restored to the American people. I believe that it can and that the presidential election of 2008 is the key to this restoration.
I am 43 years old and for the very first time I will be voting for a presidential candidate rather than against the other guy. I am convinced that Congressman Ron Paul of Texas, a candidate from the Republican Party, is the single most important presidential candidate in my lifetime. I make this bold statement because he is the first presidential candidate that I have ever heard who clearly understands the philosophical foundations of our republic and who is committed to governing in accordance with the Constitution – including abiding by the limitations placed on the power of the president.
In more than seventeen years as a US congressman, Ron Paul has never voted for an unbalanced budget. He has never voted for legislation that is not authorized by the Constitution. He does not even participate in the congressional pension plan. His consistent, principled stand for constitutional government has earned him the nickname, "Dr. No."
While opposing runaway congressional spending, Congressman Paul has also been an indefatigable opponent of runaway executive power. Committed to the constitutional principle that only Congress can declare war, he voted against the resolution approving of President Bush’s war plans for Iraq. (Congress refused to actually declare war, so they passed the buck by granting the president the "authority" to go to war.) Furthermore, he voted against the Patriot Act, which represents one of the gravest threats to individual liberty in American history. He stood almost alone among Republicans in this. (He also opposed President Clinton’s illegal war against our brother Serbs!)
Some have tried to portray this position as being contrary to conservative and Republican principles. Yet, Congressman Paul knows well that non-interventionism is the traditional Republican stance. The foreign policy of the present Republican administration is designed by a clique of former Trotskyites who have embarked on an imperialistic program of perpetual war abroad and ever-greater government power at home. Ron Paul understands that…
• There is nothing conservative about an undeclared war against a country that has not threatened us.
• There is nothing conservative about threatening other countries (Iran) with a pre-emptive nuclear strike.
• There is nothing conservative about "spreading Democracy" at gunpoint.
• There is nothing conservative about suspending or ignoring habeas corpus.
• There is nothing conservative about warrantless searches.
On the contrary, these are all the actions of leftist, totalitarian governments. The failures of the Bush administration are not the result of traditional Republican principles; they are the result of the abandonment of traditional Republican principles. Quite frankly, Ron Paul is the only traditional Republican in the race.
Now I am not claiming that Ron Paul is perfect, and neither is he. Paul is not running for "Savior of the World," but for president of the most powerful nation on earth – a nation that is so far removed from its founding principles that it is now one of the greatest threats to freedom in the world, both at home and abroad. The United States has certainly become a threat to our Orthodox brethren around the world. Witness the US-backed persecution of our brethren in Kosovo and Palestine.
Certainly the Christians in Iraq are much worse off now than they were before the US invasion. Furthermore, if current policies continue in place, we will be headed for an inevitable confrontation with a resurgent Russia. Our children and grand-children may be in for another Cold War – only this time we may just be the Evil Empire.
I believe that Ron Paul is uniquely qualified to turn our country from this disastrous course and return her to her constitutional foundations. In particular, he possesses two character traits essential for this task. These are traits to which every Orthodox Christian should aspire: personal integrity and humble obedience.
It is a sad commentary on our society that integrity is not a trait we have come to expect from our politicians. As the GOP candidates crawl all over themselves to claim the flag of being for "family values," it is fascinating that the (current) top four candidates (including Fred Thompson) have seven wives between them.
Ironically, the Mormon is the only one who is not a serial bigamist! In addition to the fact that Ron Paul has been married to the same woman for fifty years (five children, seventeen grandchildren), his voting record after more than seventeen years in Congress is the very picture of consistency and principled dedication.
Indeed, he seems to be from another century altogether. The Scripture enjoins us: "Let your ‘yea’ be ‘yea,’ and your ‘nay’ be ‘nay.’" Whether you agree with all of Ron Paul’s positions or not, you know exactly where he stands today and can be assured that he will not change his principles tomorrow for the sake of political expediency.
Within our ascetical literature, one virtue stands out as the surest way to achieve Christ-like humility and love, and that is the virtue of obedience. When Ron Paul became a US Congressman he took an oath to "support and defend the Constitution of the United States." That oath has determined every vote he has cast in the House of Representatives. In other words, he placed himself in obedience to the Constitution. He has never voted for a House bill that is not specifically authorized by the Constitution. Again, I am not suggesting that Congressman Paul is an Orthodox saint; he isn’t. But his humble obedience to his oath of office is an example for us all. He certainly behaves as "one under authority." (Imagine how much better off our Church would be in North America if our bishops always acted in accordance with the canons!)
Furthermore, as a conservative Protestant and as an obstetrician by trade, Congressman Paul has consistently opposed abortion – far more consistently than most of the other Republican candidates. Most importantly, however, Paul opposes abortion on sound constitutional as well as religious grounds. This means that he will be able to make a clear and credible case why the most fundamental right of all – the right to live – must be guaranteed to the unborn.
I have never contributed to a presidential campaign before. I have never put a political bumper sticker on my car before. And I have never written a letter like this before. I have done all three because for the first time in my life I truly believe that there is a chance to return this nation to the rule of law under the Constitution. Traditional Republicans feel betrayed by the Bush Administration, and anti-war and pro-civil liberties Democrats are beginning to see through the hypocrisy of their own candidates. The time is right for a man like Ron Paul, and Ron Paul is precisely the man we need for these times. As Judge Andrew Napolitano recently commented after reviewing a litany of tyrannical, post 9/11 "homeland security measures": "We need a Ron Paul in the White House more desperately now than we ever have at any time in our history."
If you are interested in learning more about Ron Paul, please go to RonPaul2008.com.
Asking for your prayers for our Nation, I remain,
Yours in Christ,
Clark Carlton
WHAT I THINK....MICHAEL SCHEUER
Amidst the cacophony of everyday events around world, people outside the United States ought to cock an ear toward America States and listen closely for the quiet but resonant voice of a Texas gentleman named Dr. Ron Paul. Dr. Paul is a retired obstetrician, a 10 term Republican congressman from the 14th district of Texas and a Republican candidate in the 2008 race for the US presidency. And if you listen closely to Dr. Paul, you will hear the only authentic American voice in a field of nearly twenty presidential candidates from both parties.
It is, these days, both trite and inaccurate to say that “America is a nation of laws and not men.” Since 1945, for example, U.S. presidents routinely have involved the United States in wars that Congress does not declare, notwithstanding the U.S. Constitution’s clear mandate that only Congress can declare war. For more than thirty years, successive U.S. Congresses and presidents have refused to enforce border control and immigration laws already on the books, thereby abetting the deterioration of America’s social cohesion, social and educational services, and national security. And for just as long, presidents, congressman, and senators of both parties have ignored the interests of everyday Americans to earn donations and retirement sinecures – both, really, barely disguised bribes – from the U.S.-based military industry, the multinational oil companies, and foreign lobbies flush with money, such as those representing Israel and Saudi Arabia. The foreign lobbies are particularly despicable because American parents pay for U.S. politicians’ kowtowing for money to these foreign entities with the lives of their soldier-children and their savings. Sadly, therefore, it is a bad joke to say that America is today a country of laws not men.
But that is why Dr. Paul’s voice is important and, increasingly, is being listened to by Americans. It also the reason that the slander machines of the Democrat and Republican parties, U.S. military-related industries and their financiers, and the foreign lobbies are working overtime to discredit and ridicule Dr. Paul. These self-appointed elites know that Dr. Paul’s voice is not only the authentic voice of Americans and their historical experience, but also potentially the voice of their doom, because impotence, shame, and drastically less war-profiteering will be theirs if the rule-of-law endorsed by Mr. Paul is reestablished in the United States.
Mr. Paul places his faith in the Constitution of the United States and the legacy left to Americans by their founding generation. The republican government created by America’s revolutionary generation was meant to be the agent of an expanding domain for freedom, liberty, prosperity, and equal opportunity at home. It was never intended to be the militarized installer of those attributes abroad. “Wherever the standard of freedom and Independence has been or shall be unfurled, there will her [the United States’] heart, her benedictions, and her prayers be,” said Secretary of State John Quincy Adams, in 1821, in words that Americans are today being reminded of by Dr. Paul.
But she does not go abroad, in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own. … She well knows that by once enlisting under other banners than her own, were they even the banners of foreign independence, she would involve herself beyond the power of extrication, in all the wars of interest and intrigue, of individual avarice, envy and ambition, which assume the colors and usurp the standard of freedom. The fundamental maxims of her policy would insensibly change from liberty to force. … She might become the dictatress of the world. She would no longer be the ruler of her own spirit.
Dr. Paul speaks in the tradition of Secretary Adams, and in plainer words he speaks against – indeed, he damns – the bipartisan American governing class which, since 1945, has “insensibly chang[ed] from liberty to force” the spirit of the American nation and people. In his campaign, Dr. Paul draws attention to the disasters in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan that have resulted from U.S. interventionism, and from the U.S. elite’s arrogant and foolish determination to be the “vindicator” of avaricious and ambitious foreigners who conceal their lust for arbitrary power behind the words of the American founders. He accuses and rebukes the bipartisan U.S. elite for having involved America in endless wars – especially religious wars – in which no genuine U.S. interest is at stake, and for having brazenly reached into the pockets of Americans and stolen their money to support and/or protect states – Saudi Arabia, Israel, Egypt, etc. – that have drawn America ever more deeply into wars that are none of our business or concern.
If you listen to Mr. Paul you will hear a man devoted to his country’s welfare and his countrymen; knowledgeable about and respectful of its history; realistic about the increasingly barbaric world in which it exists; and, most of all, fully aware of the fragility of America’s republican experiment and its absolute dependence on the constant nurturing provided by the rule of law. If elected, Mr. Paul would reshape America in a direction that would be in America’s best interests.
• Going to war would once again require a formal, constitutional declaration by the U.S. Congress; the world would see America involved in far fewer wars, and none started by the whim of a single man and the foreign-influenced ideological clique around him. And when war was declared, America’s foes would absorb an application of U.S. military force that would both utterly destroy them and their supporters, and serve as a warning to other miscreants bent on doing America harm.
• Immigration and U.S. borders would re-subjected to the rule of law, and America would get the flow of immigrants it needs in an orderly manner and based protecting national security and, only then, on the needs of the country’s society and economy.
• Foreign aid would be eliminated and defense spending better targeted to real threats so as to end the tax-tyranny of a perennially spendthrift federal government; reduce the amount of debt held by foreigners, especially that held by regimes such as China and Saudi Arabia; and encourage the reemergence of the traditional but long dormant pay-as-you-go thriftiness of individual Americans and their families.
• Most important, the world would see a massively reduced U.S. voice, presence, involvement in events that have no conceivable impact on U.S. national interest. Other nations would have to begin looking out for themselves; they will have to amicably settle their religious, ethnic, tribal, and territorial spats or fight each other to the death – no U.S. cavalry will be riding to the rescue.
As you listen to Dr. Paul, you will hear his opponents describe him as an evil isolationist, but neither Dr. Paul nor America has ever been isolationist. Indeed, the term “isolationist” is merely a deceptive slur that America’s bipartisan elite hurls at those citizens who prefer not to waste their wealth or children’s lives in other peoples’ wars. Since its inception, the United States has been a trading nation and a country fully involved in economic, scientific, educational, and commercial affairs around the world. At its best, America has been sturdily non-interventionist, recognizing both that it has more than enough to do to expand liberty’s domain and the equality of opportunity at home, and that non-essential foreign adventures can only slow or even undo liberty and opportunity for Americans at home.
In an America led by the non-interventionist Dr. Paul, the world would see a more confident and less aggressive nation; a nation more humble, prosperous, and equitable; and a nation willing to let all other nations and peoples work out their own destinies, peaceably or violently, as they wish. America would get back to its own business and interests, and the rest of the post-Cold War world’s nations would be left alone to try, at long last, to grow into responsible adults.
It is, these days, both trite and inaccurate to say that “America is a nation of laws and not men.” Since 1945, for example, U.S. presidents routinely have involved the United States in wars that Congress does not declare, notwithstanding the U.S. Constitution’s clear mandate that only Congress can declare war. For more than thirty years, successive U.S. Congresses and presidents have refused to enforce border control and immigration laws already on the books, thereby abetting the deterioration of America’s social cohesion, social and educational services, and national security. And for just as long, presidents, congressman, and senators of both parties have ignored the interests of everyday Americans to earn donations and retirement sinecures – both, really, barely disguised bribes – from the U.S.-based military industry, the multinational oil companies, and foreign lobbies flush with money, such as those representing Israel and Saudi Arabia. The foreign lobbies are particularly despicable because American parents pay for U.S. politicians’ kowtowing for money to these foreign entities with the lives of their soldier-children and their savings. Sadly, therefore, it is a bad joke to say that America is today a country of laws not men.
But that is why Dr. Paul’s voice is important and, increasingly, is being listened to by Americans. It also the reason that the slander machines of the Democrat and Republican parties, U.S. military-related industries and their financiers, and the foreign lobbies are working overtime to discredit and ridicule Dr. Paul. These self-appointed elites know that Dr. Paul’s voice is not only the authentic voice of Americans and their historical experience, but also potentially the voice of their doom, because impotence, shame, and drastically less war-profiteering will be theirs if the rule-of-law endorsed by Mr. Paul is reestablished in the United States.
Mr. Paul places his faith in the Constitution of the United States and the legacy left to Americans by their founding generation. The republican government created by America’s revolutionary generation was meant to be the agent of an expanding domain for freedom, liberty, prosperity, and equal opportunity at home. It was never intended to be the militarized installer of those attributes abroad. “Wherever the standard of freedom and Independence has been or shall be unfurled, there will her [the United States’] heart, her benedictions, and her prayers be,” said Secretary of State John Quincy Adams, in 1821, in words that Americans are today being reminded of by Dr. Paul.
But she does not go abroad, in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own. … She well knows that by once enlisting under other banners than her own, were they even the banners of foreign independence, she would involve herself beyond the power of extrication, in all the wars of interest and intrigue, of individual avarice, envy and ambition, which assume the colors and usurp the standard of freedom. The fundamental maxims of her policy would insensibly change from liberty to force. … She might become the dictatress of the world. She would no longer be the ruler of her own spirit.
Dr. Paul speaks in the tradition of Secretary Adams, and in plainer words he speaks against – indeed, he damns – the bipartisan American governing class which, since 1945, has “insensibly chang[ed] from liberty to force” the spirit of the American nation and people. In his campaign, Dr. Paul draws attention to the disasters in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan that have resulted from U.S. interventionism, and from the U.S. elite’s arrogant and foolish determination to be the “vindicator” of avaricious and ambitious foreigners who conceal their lust for arbitrary power behind the words of the American founders. He accuses and rebukes the bipartisan U.S. elite for having involved America in endless wars – especially religious wars – in which no genuine U.S. interest is at stake, and for having brazenly reached into the pockets of Americans and stolen their money to support and/or protect states – Saudi Arabia, Israel, Egypt, etc. – that have drawn America ever more deeply into wars that are none of our business or concern.
If you listen to Mr. Paul you will hear a man devoted to his country’s welfare and his countrymen; knowledgeable about and respectful of its history; realistic about the increasingly barbaric world in which it exists; and, most of all, fully aware of the fragility of America’s republican experiment and its absolute dependence on the constant nurturing provided by the rule of law. If elected, Mr. Paul would reshape America in a direction that would be in America’s best interests.
• Going to war would once again require a formal, constitutional declaration by the U.S. Congress; the world would see America involved in far fewer wars, and none started by the whim of a single man and the foreign-influenced ideological clique around him. And when war was declared, America’s foes would absorb an application of U.S. military force that would both utterly destroy them and their supporters, and serve as a warning to other miscreants bent on doing America harm.
• Immigration and U.S. borders would re-subjected to the rule of law, and America would get the flow of immigrants it needs in an orderly manner and based protecting national security and, only then, on the needs of the country’s society and economy.
• Foreign aid would be eliminated and defense spending better targeted to real threats so as to end the tax-tyranny of a perennially spendthrift federal government; reduce the amount of debt held by foreigners, especially that held by regimes such as China and Saudi Arabia; and encourage the reemergence of the traditional but long dormant pay-as-you-go thriftiness of individual Americans and their families.
• Most important, the world would see a massively reduced U.S. voice, presence, involvement in events that have no conceivable impact on U.S. national interest. Other nations would have to begin looking out for themselves; they will have to amicably settle their religious, ethnic, tribal, and territorial spats or fight each other to the death – no U.S. cavalry will be riding to the rescue.
As you listen to Dr. Paul, you will hear his opponents describe him as an evil isolationist, but neither Dr. Paul nor America has ever been isolationist. Indeed, the term “isolationist” is merely a deceptive slur that America’s bipartisan elite hurls at those citizens who prefer not to waste their wealth or children’s lives in other peoples’ wars. Since its inception, the United States has been a trading nation and a country fully involved in economic, scientific, educational, and commercial affairs around the world. At its best, America has been sturdily non-interventionist, recognizing both that it has more than enough to do to expand liberty’s domain and the equality of opportunity at home, and that non-essential foreign adventures can only slow or even undo liberty and opportunity for Americans at home.
In an America led by the non-interventionist Dr. Paul, the world would see a more confident and less aggressive nation; a nation more humble, prosperous, and equitable; and a nation willing to let all other nations and peoples work out their own destinies, peaceably or violently, as they wish. America would get back to its own business and interests, and the rest of the post-Cold War world’s nations would be left alone to try, at long last, to grow into responsible adults.
AN OPEN LETTER TO THE REPUBLICAN PARTY
"Policy toward Iraq is ... not designed to protect U.S. national security. It is instead a threat to our security because it may lead to war and loss of American lives, increase terrorism and certainly an additional expense for the U.S. taxpayer. The hyped rhetoric coming from Washington which describes Hussein as the only evil monster with which we must deal in the world is a poor substitute for wise counsel. "
~ Rep. Ron Paul, Letter to President Bill Clinton, November 19, 1997
"If we don't stop extending our troops all around the world in nation-building missions, then we're going to have a serious problem coming down the road."
~ Gov. George W. Bush, Presidential debate with Al Gore, October 3, 2000
Many conservatives have said that they agree with Republican presidential candidate Rep. Ron Paul on just about everything, but they just can't see things his way when it comes to dealing with the Middle East. Paul's views – correctly or incorrectly perceived – could well be a deal breaker for some in the base of the Republican party who look for strong presidential leadership to protect us from foreign threats. This open letter is an attempt to persuade you that Paul has been, and continues to be, right about the terrorist threat and what should be done about it.
Ron Paul understands something that the other candidates from both parties apparently cannot: Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda is a relatively small organization with limited reach. The attack of September 11th was a desperate act from a desperate group who has failed miserably in their quest to conquer and unify the Islamic world. They do not control a single state on earth. By all indications Bin Laden, al Zawahiri and their closest followers remain isolated in the no-man's-land between Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Al Qaeda is not an Islamo-fascist caliphate on the march, but they have attacked us and remain a threat. It is al Qaeda – not extremism everywhere – that Dr. Paul means to fight. Responding appropriately demands a cold and objective assessment of the situation, not unchecked, knee-jerk emotion.
Let us start with the question "Why did they attack us on September 11th?"
Dr. Paul's fellow GOP candidates may publicly denounce him all they want for his view that the September 11th hijackers, their accomplices and financiers were motivated by a hatred of American policy in the Middle East. The terrorists themselves cite U.S. support for Israel and an indefinite military occupation of the Saudi desert, necessary for the enforcement of the blockade and no-fly zones against neighboring Iraq during the 1990s.
Similarly, former Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, a primary architect of the Iraq invasion, explained to Vanity Fair magazine soon after the fall of Baghdad, in May, 2003, that the ability to move the bases from Saudi Arabia to Iraq was a great benefit of the war because it detracted from one of bin Laden's motivations for attacking the U.S.:
"There are a lot of things that are different now, and one that has gone by almost unnoticed – but it's huge – is that by complete mutual agreement between the U.S. and the Saudi government we can now remove almost all of our forces from Saudi Arabia. Their presence there over the last 12 years has been a source of enormous difficulty for a friendly government. It's been a huge recruiting device for al Qaeda. In fact if you look at bin Laden, one of his principle grievances was the presence of so-called crusader forces on the holy land, Mecca and Medina. I think just lifting that burden from the Saudis is itself going to open the door to other positive things."
According to authors Lawrence Wright, Terry McDermott, Michael Scheuer, Loretta Napoleoni and James Bamford, the purpose of al Qaeda terrorism, and specifically the September 11th attacks, was to provoke a reaction. Bin Laden and his partner Zawahiri have both explained that they already saw the U.S. as being in a state of war with them, but through their own governments and from far away North America.
Their strategy was to hit us hard enough to provoke a full-scale invasion of Afghanistan. Essentially, their goal was to recreate their war against the Soviets a generation before – a war that they, of course, consider to be the primary cause of the USSR's collapse. In other words, they meant to lure our military to their sandtrap to bleed our treasury dry, forcing our empire out of their region for good.
In this sense, Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld's decision to keep the invasion "light and fast" – at least at first – was smart insofar as it would deny the terrorists the quagmire they sought to provoke. Unfortunately, the administration's decision to topple Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq stole defeat from the jaws of victory, ridding the largest Arab state of its secular and formerly Western-backed dictator and creating a second chance for bin Laden to claim gains against the United States.
Years before 9/11, In February 1998, Dr. Paul told the Congress:
"Mr. Speaker, the Saudis this past week expressed a sincere concern about an anti-American backlash if we start bombing Baghdad. We should not ignore the feelings of the Saudis. If a neighbor can oppose this bombing, we should be very cautious."
Later that year, while Bill Clinton was shooting cruise missiles at antibiotics factories and empty training camps in Afghanistan, Ron Paul spoke from the floor of the House of Representatives, warning the public and the Congress that our policy was in fact making enemies of our former friends, the mujahedeen warriors of Afghanistan (who he had opposed funding in the first place during his stint in Congress in the 1980s):
"Osama bin Laden and his Afghan religious supporters were American allies throughout the 1980s and received our money and training and were heralded as the Afghan 'Freedom Fighters.' Even then, bin Laden let it be known that his people resented all imperialism, whether from the Soviets or the United States. ...
"[T]he region's Muslims see America as the imperialist invader. They have deeply held religious beliefs, and in their desire for national sovereignty many see America as a threatening menace. America's presence in the Middle East, most flagrantly demonstrated with troops and bases in Saudi Arabia, is something many Muslims see as defiling their holy land. Many Muslims – and this is what makes an extremist like bin Laden so popular – see American policy as identical to Israel's policy; an affront to them that is rarely understood by most Americans.
"Far too often, the bombing of declared (or concocted) enemies, whether it's the North Vietnamese, the Iraqis, the Libyans, the Sudanese, the Albanians, or the Afghans, produces precisely the opposite effect to what is sought. It kills innocent people, creates more hatred toward America, unifies and stimulates the growth of the extremist Islamic movement and makes them more determined than ever to strike back with their weapon of choice – terror."
You can see now why Ron Paul did not endorse Bill Clinton's endless bombing campaigns back then and why he opposed the war in 2003. He saw the consequences of U.S. policy on their way back when most were caught up with the dot-com bubble and White House sex scandal.
Between these two warnings from Dr. Paul about the possible terrorist blowback from U.S. foreign policy, Osama bin Laden had re-released his 1996 "fatwa" against the United States. Titled "Declaration of War Against the Americans Occupying the Land of the Two Holy Places" (the Arabian peninsula), he invoked support for Israel, the occupation of Saudi Arabia, the backing of local dictatorships and the continuous bombing of Iraq as his major grievances against U.S. policy.
For those determined to see bin Laden as simply a cold-blooded murderer who hates us because we are free, what is important to understand is that no matter what he actually believes, his message is one of specific complaints against U.S. policy. And it is this, as Ron Paul noted back in 1998, that makes bin Laden's message useful in gaining new recruits to his "jihad."
Even though some on TV complain that recognizing these facts somehow implicitly excuses the actions of those who attacked the United States, this, of course, is a red herring. Nothing could excuse the acts of September 11th. A Congressman identifying the motives at play is not justifying the attacks any more than when a local DA tries to figure out why someone has committed any other crime. If we believe that the terrorists are motivated to attack us because we have freedom, or have yet to invade their countries and give them freedom, then our policy prescriptions for multiple regime changes across the Middle East can only make matters worse. With opinion of the United States falling all across the world, and especially in the Muslim world, the continued presence of U.S. combat troops on Arab soil makes attacks against this country much more likely, not less. Paul voted to give the president the authority to use military force against bin Laden's group in Afghanistan and has repeatedly stated that were he president, actually doing so would be a top priority.
Not only did Paul foresee the problem with terrorism stemming from our continuous bombing campaign in the 1990s, he also predicted the consequences in Iraq were Saddam and the Ba'athists to fall. In the February '98 speech quoted above, he also asked:
"And even if we do kill Hussein, what do we do? We create a vacuum, a vacuum that may be filled by Iran. It may be filled by some other groups of Islamic fundamentalists."
The invasion of Iraq created what the CIA calls a "training and recruiting ground" for al Qaeda wannabes in that land, though it seems the low numbers of so-called "foreign fighters" being brought into "al Qaeda in Iraq" have had even less influence than the skeptics had predicted.
These al Qaeda wannabes in Iraq have worn out their welcome with the local Sunni insurgency and have not been able to mount attacks outside Iraq. The local Sunnis tolerated them only as long as they were useful in fighting the occupation. The locals were able to flick off "al Qaeda in Iraq" like a switch when they felt like it, as seen in the 2006–2007 "Sunni Awakening" in provinces where they had been welcomed.
The president threatens that if the U.S. withdraws, Osama bin Laden and his followers could somehow take over Iraq and create a new terrorist state bent on attacking the America. This just does not hold water. Osama's movement remains small and marginal. The "central front" in the fight against them is in the Waziristan region of Pakistan, not in far away Iraq.
The end of Saddam's rule has also empowered Iran, which has used the democracy provided by the American occupation to get their proxies elected to power. The Bush administration apparently tolerated this for no other reason than that the pro-Iran factions needed the U.S. occupation and so welcomed it, while the nationalist Shi'ite leaders like Muqtada al Sadr insisted on withdrawal. Were the American occupation to end, it is much more likely that nationalist types such as Sadr's Mahdi Army would drive the Iranians back to Persia.
Ironically, the U.S. has spent 2007 accusing Iran of backing and waging war against American forces in Iraq through the Sadrists, who are not Iranian proxies and who are not fighting the occupation. They have provided no evidence that this is the case and our Shi'ite allies in Iraq have nothing but praise for Iran's support of their government.
When it comes to Iran, Ron Paul's view isn't much different than that of Gen. John Abizaid, George Bush's former head of Central Command. The General stated recently that Iran is not much of a threat and still would not pose one were they to obtain nuclear weapons – an achievement they are years away from, according to Mike McConnell, Bush's National Intelligence Director.
The Iranians pose no real threat to Israel or the West. Their nuclear enrichment equipment is nothing more than first-generation crap bought second-hand from the Pakistanis, every bit of which is monitored by international inspectors. Ninety percent pure Uranium-235 or Plutonium-239 is needed to make an atom bomb; the Iranians have yet to enrich their uranium higher than 4 percent and could not do so in the presence of the International Atomic Energy Agency monitors and sensors. Harvesting plutonium from their nuclear reactors would take years and likewise could not even begin without everyone knowing.
Iran's much touted "support for international terrorism" has nothing whatsoever to do with Osama bin Laden, al Qaeda or the September 11th attacks on this country. Iran supports Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in the Gaza Strip. While often times extremely violent, these groups are not global in their reach, are not enemies of the United States and pose no threat to this country.
It has been claimed that the president of Iran, who actually holds the power of a glorified Secretary of the Interior, has threatened to "wipe Israel off the map," in a speech in October, 2005. But according to those who are fluent in Farsi, he said no such thing. What he said was that the "regime" over Jerusalem would one day "vanish from the page of time." This was not even a subtle or implied threat, much less a promise of imminent attack. The fact also remains that Iran has no capability to destroy Israel, conventionally, with nukes they don't have or through nearly powerless groups like Hamas.
No country in the world would attempt to "annihilate" Israel. The politician who did so would be dooming himself and his entire nation to perish in nuclear flames. Israel has at least 300 nuclear bombs and the delivery systems necessary to "wipe Persia off the map" in the space of an afternoon. As Paul has noted, the U.S. triumphantly faced down the Soviet Union (who actually were an existential threat), while our modern day think-tankers say the only way to deal with nearly-helpless Iran is with preemptive war.
Many Americans believe they need the government to defend them from "radical Islam," but those who hold truest to enforcing the strictest interpretations of Islam as a way of life have no chance of gaining or maintaining real dominance over humanity in the 21st century. Even if 100 impossibilities found Osama bin Laden leading the new caliphate in the Middle East, it would be as doomed as Communism was in the last century. Do we really fear that a stateless band of pirates in exile in the Hindu Kush will destroy us? Have we so much confidence in the capabilities of those who had to steal our planes in order to launch their Kamikaze attack and so little belief in the resilience of our own civilization?
Speaking of (Japanese Shintoist and Buddhist) Kamikazes, why should we believe that terrorism is intrinsically connected with Islam at all? Suicide bombings are rife in Sri Lanka where neither side is Muslim. By contrast, radical Islam is prevalent in Sudan, where it has no relationship to the current widespread violence (both sides are Sunni Arabs) and there has never been a suicide bombing. Did radical Catholicism motivate the IRA?
In the book Dying to Win: The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism, Dr. Robert A. Pape's research shows that suicide terrorism is a strategic response to occupation by foreign armies, plain and simple. The only role religion plays in this struggle, according to Pape, is that the willingness of the occupied to resort to suicide attacks increases when the occupying army is made of people who come from far away, look different and believe differently due to the fear that their entire way of life will come under attack.
Americans are the same way. Our irrational fear that Arab Islamic terrorists from the Middle East are coming here to force us all to convert to Wahhabism has convinced us to spend thousands of lives, trillions of dollars, pass a pile of new laws and nearly break our defenses in our efforts to preempt them. Now that's suicide.
The hyperbole about "radical Islam" has also helped to obscure divisions among those who oppose the U.S. in the Middle East and Central Asia. Even presidential candidates speak as though al Qaeda, the Ayatollahs in Iran, Sunni radicals in Palestine and Hezbollah in Lebanon are all one unified threat that must be "preempted." This may be good for defense manufacturing firms and votes, but if we can't even tell who our adversaries are, what distinguishes one from another, how are we supposed to win the fight?
A recent local newspaper story from Dr. Paul's Texas Gulf Coast district quoted one of his constituents complaining that if Paul were elected president and withdrew U.S. troops from the Middle East, we would have no oil at all. This is just not the case. In fact, it is the economic theory of mercantilism that Adam Smith refuted in The Wealth of Nations back in 1776.
It is not necessary for the Japanese, Chinese or Swiss to send armies to the Middle East in order to get the petroleum their economies demand. They simply buy it on the market like anything else. The only reason one would need the Marine Corps to "secure" the oil is to ensure which companies get to do the pumping and distributing. The fact that the price of oil is now approximately triple what it was before the war ought to tell us that someone is benefiting. But who? Is it you and me? Or is it politically connected big-wigs such as oil company shareholders and executives? The oil will always be for sale. Even if unfriendly regimes sit on the wells and sell only to others, it will free up other supplies elsewhere in the market and we'll be just fine.
It is a mistake to think of Ron Paul's foreign policy as some sort of liberal exception to the rest of his conservative outlook. Instead, his views follow the tradition of the Old Right Taft Republicans. They opposed foreign interventionism for the same reason America's founders did – out of caution for the inevitable domestic detriments that accompany permanent military establishments. It has only been since the Vietnam War era that the antiwar position has been perceived as the province of hippies and leftists. Paul's prescriptions for dealing with the world are the most conservative in the race. Meanwhile, the current National Security Strategy – unlikely to change substantively under Giuliani, Romney or Hillary administrations – is itself a radical doctrine, called "Hard Wilsonianism" by its closest adherents. Paul's policy is to pull back the empire in order to preserve the republic and the Constitution from the radical changes brought about by avoidable conflict. These are conservative principles of independence and prudence, friendly relations and open trade. As Gov. George W. Bush once advised,
"[U]se of the military needs to be in our vital interest, the mission needs to be clear, and the exit strategy obvious. ... I think one way for us to end up being viewed as the ugly American is for us to go around the world saying, 'We do it this way. So should you.' ... I think the United States must be humble ... in how we treat nations that are figuring out how to chart their own course."
Sooner or later the U.S. must leave Iraq – for financial reasons if nothing else – and the jihadists will attempt to claim credit for it no matter when it happens. Leaving Iraq and the larger Middle East as a matter of principle, however, is the only way to do so with any hope of restoring some of the integrity that has been lost since the invasion. Dr. Paul believes we have no business maintaining a world empire and that its consequences cost us far more than the gains. A withdrawal from Iraq under a Ron Paul administration would not be a victory for the terrorists, but an event to which they quickly become irrelevant bystanders.
When someone finally captures or kills Osama bin Laden and his few hundred followers, the larger "Global War on Terrorism" must end as well. The sooner the U.S. disengages from the Middle East, the quicker al Qaeda's support will dry up. International cooperation from the various national police forces and intelligence agencies will be plenty to handle the problem. The more America intervenes in the affairs of others, the more blowback we can expect to suffer, but it is not too late to put our country back on the right track.
~ Rep. Ron Paul, Letter to President Bill Clinton, November 19, 1997
"If we don't stop extending our troops all around the world in nation-building missions, then we're going to have a serious problem coming down the road."
~ Gov. George W. Bush, Presidential debate with Al Gore, October 3, 2000
Many conservatives have said that they agree with Republican presidential candidate Rep. Ron Paul on just about everything, but they just can't see things his way when it comes to dealing with the Middle East. Paul's views – correctly or incorrectly perceived – could well be a deal breaker for some in the base of the Republican party who look for strong presidential leadership to protect us from foreign threats. This open letter is an attempt to persuade you that Paul has been, and continues to be, right about the terrorist threat and what should be done about it.
Ron Paul understands something that the other candidates from both parties apparently cannot: Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda is a relatively small organization with limited reach. The attack of September 11th was a desperate act from a desperate group who has failed miserably in their quest to conquer and unify the Islamic world. They do not control a single state on earth. By all indications Bin Laden, al Zawahiri and their closest followers remain isolated in the no-man's-land between Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Al Qaeda is not an Islamo-fascist caliphate on the march, but they have attacked us and remain a threat. It is al Qaeda – not extremism everywhere – that Dr. Paul means to fight. Responding appropriately demands a cold and objective assessment of the situation, not unchecked, knee-jerk emotion.
Let us start with the question "Why did they attack us on September 11th?"
Dr. Paul's fellow GOP candidates may publicly denounce him all they want for his view that the September 11th hijackers, their accomplices and financiers were motivated by a hatred of American policy in the Middle East. The terrorists themselves cite U.S. support for Israel and an indefinite military occupation of the Saudi desert, necessary for the enforcement of the blockade and no-fly zones against neighboring Iraq during the 1990s.
Similarly, former Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, a primary architect of the Iraq invasion, explained to Vanity Fair magazine soon after the fall of Baghdad, in May, 2003, that the ability to move the bases from Saudi Arabia to Iraq was a great benefit of the war because it detracted from one of bin Laden's motivations for attacking the U.S.:
"There are a lot of things that are different now, and one that has gone by almost unnoticed – but it's huge – is that by complete mutual agreement between the U.S. and the Saudi government we can now remove almost all of our forces from Saudi Arabia. Their presence there over the last 12 years has been a source of enormous difficulty for a friendly government. It's been a huge recruiting device for al Qaeda. In fact if you look at bin Laden, one of his principle grievances was the presence of so-called crusader forces on the holy land, Mecca and Medina. I think just lifting that burden from the Saudis is itself going to open the door to other positive things."
According to authors Lawrence Wright, Terry McDermott, Michael Scheuer, Loretta Napoleoni and James Bamford, the purpose of al Qaeda terrorism, and specifically the September 11th attacks, was to provoke a reaction. Bin Laden and his partner Zawahiri have both explained that they already saw the U.S. as being in a state of war with them, but through their own governments and from far away North America.
Their strategy was to hit us hard enough to provoke a full-scale invasion of Afghanistan. Essentially, their goal was to recreate their war against the Soviets a generation before – a war that they, of course, consider to be the primary cause of the USSR's collapse. In other words, they meant to lure our military to their sandtrap to bleed our treasury dry, forcing our empire out of their region for good.
In this sense, Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld's decision to keep the invasion "light and fast" – at least at first – was smart insofar as it would deny the terrorists the quagmire they sought to provoke. Unfortunately, the administration's decision to topple Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq stole defeat from the jaws of victory, ridding the largest Arab state of its secular and formerly Western-backed dictator and creating a second chance for bin Laden to claim gains against the United States.
Years before 9/11, In February 1998, Dr. Paul told the Congress:
"Mr. Speaker, the Saudis this past week expressed a sincere concern about an anti-American backlash if we start bombing Baghdad. We should not ignore the feelings of the Saudis. If a neighbor can oppose this bombing, we should be very cautious."
Later that year, while Bill Clinton was shooting cruise missiles at antibiotics factories and empty training camps in Afghanistan, Ron Paul spoke from the floor of the House of Representatives, warning the public and the Congress that our policy was in fact making enemies of our former friends, the mujahedeen warriors of Afghanistan (who he had opposed funding in the first place during his stint in Congress in the 1980s):
"Osama bin Laden and his Afghan religious supporters were American allies throughout the 1980s and received our money and training and were heralded as the Afghan 'Freedom Fighters.' Even then, bin Laden let it be known that his people resented all imperialism, whether from the Soviets or the United States. ...
"[T]he region's Muslims see America as the imperialist invader. They have deeply held religious beliefs, and in their desire for national sovereignty many see America as a threatening menace. America's presence in the Middle East, most flagrantly demonstrated with troops and bases in Saudi Arabia, is something many Muslims see as defiling their holy land. Many Muslims – and this is what makes an extremist like bin Laden so popular – see American policy as identical to Israel's policy; an affront to them that is rarely understood by most Americans.
"Far too often, the bombing of declared (or concocted) enemies, whether it's the North Vietnamese, the Iraqis, the Libyans, the Sudanese, the Albanians, or the Afghans, produces precisely the opposite effect to what is sought. It kills innocent people, creates more hatred toward America, unifies and stimulates the growth of the extremist Islamic movement and makes them more determined than ever to strike back with their weapon of choice – terror."
You can see now why Ron Paul did not endorse Bill Clinton's endless bombing campaigns back then and why he opposed the war in 2003. He saw the consequences of U.S. policy on their way back when most were caught up with the dot-com bubble and White House sex scandal.
Between these two warnings from Dr. Paul about the possible terrorist blowback from U.S. foreign policy, Osama bin Laden had re-released his 1996 "fatwa" against the United States. Titled "Declaration of War Against the Americans Occupying the Land of the Two Holy Places" (the Arabian peninsula), he invoked support for Israel, the occupation of Saudi Arabia, the backing of local dictatorships and the continuous bombing of Iraq as his major grievances against U.S. policy.
For those determined to see bin Laden as simply a cold-blooded murderer who hates us because we are free, what is important to understand is that no matter what he actually believes, his message is one of specific complaints against U.S. policy. And it is this, as Ron Paul noted back in 1998, that makes bin Laden's message useful in gaining new recruits to his "jihad."
Even though some on TV complain that recognizing these facts somehow implicitly excuses the actions of those who attacked the United States, this, of course, is a red herring. Nothing could excuse the acts of September 11th. A Congressman identifying the motives at play is not justifying the attacks any more than when a local DA tries to figure out why someone has committed any other crime. If we believe that the terrorists are motivated to attack us because we have freedom, or have yet to invade their countries and give them freedom, then our policy prescriptions for multiple regime changes across the Middle East can only make matters worse. With opinion of the United States falling all across the world, and especially in the Muslim world, the continued presence of U.S. combat troops on Arab soil makes attacks against this country much more likely, not less. Paul voted to give the president the authority to use military force against bin Laden's group in Afghanistan and has repeatedly stated that were he president, actually doing so would be a top priority.
Not only did Paul foresee the problem with terrorism stemming from our continuous bombing campaign in the 1990s, he also predicted the consequences in Iraq were Saddam and the Ba'athists to fall. In the February '98 speech quoted above, he also asked:
"And even if we do kill Hussein, what do we do? We create a vacuum, a vacuum that may be filled by Iran. It may be filled by some other groups of Islamic fundamentalists."
The invasion of Iraq created what the CIA calls a "training and recruiting ground" for al Qaeda wannabes in that land, though it seems the low numbers of so-called "foreign fighters" being brought into "al Qaeda in Iraq" have had even less influence than the skeptics had predicted.
These al Qaeda wannabes in Iraq have worn out their welcome with the local Sunni insurgency and have not been able to mount attacks outside Iraq. The local Sunnis tolerated them only as long as they were useful in fighting the occupation. The locals were able to flick off "al Qaeda in Iraq" like a switch when they felt like it, as seen in the 2006–2007 "Sunni Awakening" in provinces where they had been welcomed.
The president threatens that if the U.S. withdraws, Osama bin Laden and his followers could somehow take over Iraq and create a new terrorist state bent on attacking the America. This just does not hold water. Osama's movement remains small and marginal. The "central front" in the fight against them is in the Waziristan region of Pakistan, not in far away Iraq.
The end of Saddam's rule has also empowered Iran, which has used the democracy provided by the American occupation to get their proxies elected to power. The Bush administration apparently tolerated this for no other reason than that the pro-Iran factions needed the U.S. occupation and so welcomed it, while the nationalist Shi'ite leaders like Muqtada al Sadr insisted on withdrawal. Were the American occupation to end, it is much more likely that nationalist types such as Sadr's Mahdi Army would drive the Iranians back to Persia.
Ironically, the U.S. has spent 2007 accusing Iran of backing and waging war against American forces in Iraq through the Sadrists, who are not Iranian proxies and who are not fighting the occupation. They have provided no evidence that this is the case and our Shi'ite allies in Iraq have nothing but praise for Iran's support of their government.
When it comes to Iran, Ron Paul's view isn't much different than that of Gen. John Abizaid, George Bush's former head of Central Command. The General stated recently that Iran is not much of a threat and still would not pose one were they to obtain nuclear weapons – an achievement they are years away from, according to Mike McConnell, Bush's National Intelligence Director.
The Iranians pose no real threat to Israel or the West. Their nuclear enrichment equipment is nothing more than first-generation crap bought second-hand from the Pakistanis, every bit of which is monitored by international inspectors. Ninety percent pure Uranium-235 or Plutonium-239 is needed to make an atom bomb; the Iranians have yet to enrich their uranium higher than 4 percent and could not do so in the presence of the International Atomic Energy Agency monitors and sensors. Harvesting plutonium from their nuclear reactors would take years and likewise could not even begin without everyone knowing.
Iran's much touted "support for international terrorism" has nothing whatsoever to do with Osama bin Laden, al Qaeda or the September 11th attacks on this country. Iran supports Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in the Gaza Strip. While often times extremely violent, these groups are not global in their reach, are not enemies of the United States and pose no threat to this country.
It has been claimed that the president of Iran, who actually holds the power of a glorified Secretary of the Interior, has threatened to "wipe Israel off the map," in a speech in October, 2005. But according to those who are fluent in Farsi, he said no such thing. What he said was that the "regime" over Jerusalem would one day "vanish from the page of time." This was not even a subtle or implied threat, much less a promise of imminent attack. The fact also remains that Iran has no capability to destroy Israel, conventionally, with nukes they don't have or through nearly powerless groups like Hamas.
No country in the world would attempt to "annihilate" Israel. The politician who did so would be dooming himself and his entire nation to perish in nuclear flames. Israel has at least 300 nuclear bombs and the delivery systems necessary to "wipe Persia off the map" in the space of an afternoon. As Paul has noted, the U.S. triumphantly faced down the Soviet Union (who actually were an existential threat), while our modern day think-tankers say the only way to deal with nearly-helpless Iran is with preemptive war.
Many Americans believe they need the government to defend them from "radical Islam," but those who hold truest to enforcing the strictest interpretations of Islam as a way of life have no chance of gaining or maintaining real dominance over humanity in the 21st century. Even if 100 impossibilities found Osama bin Laden leading the new caliphate in the Middle East, it would be as doomed as Communism was in the last century. Do we really fear that a stateless band of pirates in exile in the Hindu Kush will destroy us? Have we so much confidence in the capabilities of those who had to steal our planes in order to launch their Kamikaze attack and so little belief in the resilience of our own civilization?
Speaking of (Japanese Shintoist and Buddhist) Kamikazes, why should we believe that terrorism is intrinsically connected with Islam at all? Suicide bombings are rife in Sri Lanka where neither side is Muslim. By contrast, radical Islam is prevalent in Sudan, where it has no relationship to the current widespread violence (both sides are Sunni Arabs) and there has never been a suicide bombing. Did radical Catholicism motivate the IRA?
In the book Dying to Win: The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism, Dr. Robert A. Pape's research shows that suicide terrorism is a strategic response to occupation by foreign armies, plain and simple. The only role religion plays in this struggle, according to Pape, is that the willingness of the occupied to resort to suicide attacks increases when the occupying army is made of people who come from far away, look different and believe differently due to the fear that their entire way of life will come under attack.
Americans are the same way. Our irrational fear that Arab Islamic terrorists from the Middle East are coming here to force us all to convert to Wahhabism has convinced us to spend thousands of lives, trillions of dollars, pass a pile of new laws and nearly break our defenses in our efforts to preempt them. Now that's suicide.
The hyperbole about "radical Islam" has also helped to obscure divisions among those who oppose the U.S. in the Middle East and Central Asia. Even presidential candidates speak as though al Qaeda, the Ayatollahs in Iran, Sunni radicals in Palestine and Hezbollah in Lebanon are all one unified threat that must be "preempted." This may be good for defense manufacturing firms and votes, but if we can't even tell who our adversaries are, what distinguishes one from another, how are we supposed to win the fight?
A recent local newspaper story from Dr. Paul's Texas Gulf Coast district quoted one of his constituents complaining that if Paul were elected president and withdrew U.S. troops from the Middle East, we would have no oil at all. This is just not the case. In fact, it is the economic theory of mercantilism that Adam Smith refuted in The Wealth of Nations back in 1776.
It is not necessary for the Japanese, Chinese or Swiss to send armies to the Middle East in order to get the petroleum their economies demand. They simply buy it on the market like anything else. The only reason one would need the Marine Corps to "secure" the oil is to ensure which companies get to do the pumping and distributing. The fact that the price of oil is now approximately triple what it was before the war ought to tell us that someone is benefiting. But who? Is it you and me? Or is it politically connected big-wigs such as oil company shareholders and executives? The oil will always be for sale. Even if unfriendly regimes sit on the wells and sell only to others, it will free up other supplies elsewhere in the market and we'll be just fine.
It is a mistake to think of Ron Paul's foreign policy as some sort of liberal exception to the rest of his conservative outlook. Instead, his views follow the tradition of the Old Right Taft Republicans. They opposed foreign interventionism for the same reason America's founders did – out of caution for the inevitable domestic detriments that accompany permanent military establishments. It has only been since the Vietnam War era that the antiwar position has been perceived as the province of hippies and leftists. Paul's prescriptions for dealing with the world are the most conservative in the race. Meanwhile, the current National Security Strategy – unlikely to change substantively under Giuliani, Romney or Hillary administrations – is itself a radical doctrine, called "Hard Wilsonianism" by its closest adherents. Paul's policy is to pull back the empire in order to preserve the republic and the Constitution from the radical changes brought about by avoidable conflict. These are conservative principles of independence and prudence, friendly relations and open trade. As Gov. George W. Bush once advised,
"[U]se of the military needs to be in our vital interest, the mission needs to be clear, and the exit strategy obvious. ... I think one way for us to end up being viewed as the ugly American is for us to go around the world saying, 'We do it this way. So should you.' ... I think the United States must be humble ... in how we treat nations that are figuring out how to chart their own course."
Sooner or later the U.S. must leave Iraq – for financial reasons if nothing else – and the jihadists will attempt to claim credit for it no matter when it happens. Leaving Iraq and the larger Middle East as a matter of principle, however, is the only way to do so with any hope of restoring some of the integrity that has been lost since the invasion. Dr. Paul believes we have no business maintaining a world empire and that its consequences cost us far more than the gains. A withdrawal from Iraq under a Ron Paul administration would not be a victory for the terrorists, but an event to which they quickly become irrelevant bystanders.
When someone finally captures or kills Osama bin Laden and his few hundred followers, the larger "Global War on Terrorism" must end as well. The sooner the U.S. disengages from the Middle East, the quicker al Qaeda's support will dry up. International cooperation from the various national police forces and intelligence agencies will be plenty to handle the problem. The more America intervenes in the affairs of others, the more blowback we can expect to suffer, but it is not too late to put our country back on the right track.
WHAT I THINK....LEW ROCKWELL
Congressman Ron Paul has been working for decades to bring economics to the forefront of political life. In doing so, he has raised topics that nearly everyone else in public life wants buried.
But isn't economics a dull topic, interesting only to Wall Street traders and government bureaucrats? Isn't it just about math and graphs?
Not in Ron's view. He has an intensity of passion for the discipline of economics that follows up on what Ludwig von Mises believed. Economics is the pith of material life. It is the core body of knowledge that seeks an explanation for all material phenomena as it is affected by human choice. Economics is as unavoidable in politics as gravity is in the natural world. It is a ubiquitous reality whether we speak about it openly or not.
Therefore everyone should be interested in economics. The choice we make about our economic system will determine whether we rise or fall as a people, whether our families will thrive or die, and whether the future itself has a future.
The cause-and-effect relationship between bad policy and bad economic outcomes, however, is not always obvious. We need teachers and public intellectuals to point out the connections between the money supply and inflation, between regulations and slow growth, between protectionism and lowered living standards, between public ownership and the decline of innovation.
The relationship is most clearly spelled out in the Austrian tradition represented by Carl Menger, Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk, Ludwig von Mises, F.A. Hayek, Henry Hazlitt, Hans Sennholz, and Murray Rothbard, for here we have a body of economic logic that refines and improves classical doctrines to permit us to understand cause and effect in economic life. Dr. Paul has read these authors in detail, and learned from them. He has gone further, in a pioneering way, to apply them to political life. In so doing, he has earned for himself a high place in the annals of history.
There are easier roads to political success than using every opportunity to speak on economic issues. Why did he choose this path? Not merely to spread knowledge for its own sake. He believes that public awareness and knowledge is the key to establishing and keeping freedom, which is the basis of civilization itself. Without a deep and abiding love of freedom in all spheres of life, the government can ravage the human population. But for a people who love liberty, no power is strong enough to finally take away the right to pursue happiness.
Others who came before Dr. Paul in this respect are people like Cobden and Bright in England, Frédéric Bastiat in France, and Thomas Jefferson in America. All of them spoke the great unspeakable truth that there are forces operating in the world more powerful than the whims of the political class. Every effort at centralized planning, and every attempt to legislate political dreams, bumps up against economic law. Economics is the great brick wall, a thousand feet thick, that limits the maniacal dreams, benevolent or malevolent, of the political imagination. We ignore these economic forces at our peril.
In Dr. Paul's view, if we seriously paid attention to the teaching of economics, and the population understood those truths, the central bank would be closed, the bureaucracies would be shut down, taxes would be repealed, spending programs would be abolished, and regulations would be stripped from the books – for all these efforts to manage society not only fail to achieve their stated objectives; they also reduce our living standard and artificially restrict the scope of freedom in our lives.
So there is a reason why politicians ignore the problem of economics, and why they prefer to characterize it as a narrow field dominated by number crunchers who care only tangentially about issues that impact the rest of society. Instead, officials speak vagaries about leading the country into the future and meeting human needs because this sort of language empowers the political class.
I have no doubt that the contents of this book will make even some of his supporters uncomfortable. The right imagines that it supports free enterprise, but even in the area of trade and money? Even to the point at which the state is denied permission to undertake tasks such as imposing sanctions on unfriendly foreign regimes? The left might like his antiwar positions, but what if giving up war mongering also requires rethinking the merit of the redistributionist welfare state?
Dr. Paul writes that freedom is all of a piece. You can't pick and choose. Moreover, it is impossible to speak of the future or of human needs without trusting economic freedom and disempowering the state to intervene in every area of life. Without sound money, there is no protection for savings and property, nor capital accumulation, nor long-term investment, nor entrepreneurship, nor social advance. Without the right to own and control property, we have no real say over our lives. Without the freedom to make contracts, to take risks, and to live in whatever peaceful way we choose, there is no hope for the future.
A state strong enough to redistribute wealth at a whim will not hesitate to wage war, impose sanctions, take away privacy, and violate core human rights. A state strong enough to wage war will not think twice about redistributing wealth and running a cradle-to-grave welfare state. These are truths that the right and left need to deal with. Nor are half-way measures a permanent fix. Real Social Security reform returns the financial responsibility for old age to the institutions of a voluntary society. Real reform in foreign policy means eliminating all restrictions on trade.
We have to consider the courage it takes to speak this way in times when the common belief is that the government can and should do all things. Ron Paul dares to ask us to rethink the way the world works, to have confidence in the ability of society – meaning the millions of individuals of which it is constituted – to manage itself. He is uncompromising not because he is inflexible or unthoughtful, but because he has vision and faith to see the unseen benefits of freedom and to ask us to do the same.
In this volume are collected the wise statements from the nation's leading teacher of free-market economic principles. One is struck by his consistency and willingness to state the truth, even when it is unpopular to do so. He is right to believe that the most important step in this struggle is to state the truth, openly and without fear.
In many ways, these speeches and essays amount to a chronicle of incredible failure: for the state has failed in a million ways to protect and defend our material well-being, and its very attempt has come at great cost.
But it is also a chronicle of hope that if we are willing to listen and learn, we can choose a different future for ourselves, one that removes responsibility for economic well-being from the government and gives it back to those to whom it belongs: the people in their capacity as living, choosing, creative human beings. Now that is leadership, properly construed.
But isn't economics a dull topic, interesting only to Wall Street traders and government bureaucrats? Isn't it just about math and graphs?
Not in Ron's view. He has an intensity of passion for the discipline of economics that follows up on what Ludwig von Mises believed. Economics is the pith of material life. It is the core body of knowledge that seeks an explanation for all material phenomena as it is affected by human choice. Economics is as unavoidable in politics as gravity is in the natural world. It is a ubiquitous reality whether we speak about it openly or not.
Therefore everyone should be interested in economics. The choice we make about our economic system will determine whether we rise or fall as a people, whether our families will thrive or die, and whether the future itself has a future.
The cause-and-effect relationship between bad policy and bad economic outcomes, however, is not always obvious. We need teachers and public intellectuals to point out the connections between the money supply and inflation, between regulations and slow growth, between protectionism and lowered living standards, between public ownership and the decline of innovation.
The relationship is most clearly spelled out in the Austrian tradition represented by Carl Menger, Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk, Ludwig von Mises, F.A. Hayek, Henry Hazlitt, Hans Sennholz, and Murray Rothbard, for here we have a body of economic logic that refines and improves classical doctrines to permit us to understand cause and effect in economic life. Dr. Paul has read these authors in detail, and learned from them. He has gone further, in a pioneering way, to apply them to political life. In so doing, he has earned for himself a high place in the annals of history.
There are easier roads to political success than using every opportunity to speak on economic issues. Why did he choose this path? Not merely to spread knowledge for its own sake. He believes that public awareness and knowledge is the key to establishing and keeping freedom, which is the basis of civilization itself. Without a deep and abiding love of freedom in all spheres of life, the government can ravage the human population. But for a people who love liberty, no power is strong enough to finally take away the right to pursue happiness.
Others who came before Dr. Paul in this respect are people like Cobden and Bright in England, Frédéric Bastiat in France, and Thomas Jefferson in America. All of them spoke the great unspeakable truth that there are forces operating in the world more powerful than the whims of the political class. Every effort at centralized planning, and every attempt to legislate political dreams, bumps up against economic law. Economics is the great brick wall, a thousand feet thick, that limits the maniacal dreams, benevolent or malevolent, of the political imagination. We ignore these economic forces at our peril.
In Dr. Paul's view, if we seriously paid attention to the teaching of economics, and the population understood those truths, the central bank would be closed, the bureaucracies would be shut down, taxes would be repealed, spending programs would be abolished, and regulations would be stripped from the books – for all these efforts to manage society not only fail to achieve their stated objectives; they also reduce our living standard and artificially restrict the scope of freedom in our lives.
So there is a reason why politicians ignore the problem of economics, and why they prefer to characterize it as a narrow field dominated by number crunchers who care only tangentially about issues that impact the rest of society. Instead, officials speak vagaries about leading the country into the future and meeting human needs because this sort of language empowers the political class.
I have no doubt that the contents of this book will make even some of his supporters uncomfortable. The right imagines that it supports free enterprise, but even in the area of trade and money? Even to the point at which the state is denied permission to undertake tasks such as imposing sanctions on unfriendly foreign regimes? The left might like his antiwar positions, but what if giving up war mongering also requires rethinking the merit of the redistributionist welfare state?
Dr. Paul writes that freedom is all of a piece. You can't pick and choose. Moreover, it is impossible to speak of the future or of human needs without trusting economic freedom and disempowering the state to intervene in every area of life. Without sound money, there is no protection for savings and property, nor capital accumulation, nor long-term investment, nor entrepreneurship, nor social advance. Without the right to own and control property, we have no real say over our lives. Without the freedom to make contracts, to take risks, and to live in whatever peaceful way we choose, there is no hope for the future.
A state strong enough to redistribute wealth at a whim will not hesitate to wage war, impose sanctions, take away privacy, and violate core human rights. A state strong enough to wage war will not think twice about redistributing wealth and running a cradle-to-grave welfare state. These are truths that the right and left need to deal with. Nor are half-way measures a permanent fix. Real Social Security reform returns the financial responsibility for old age to the institutions of a voluntary society. Real reform in foreign policy means eliminating all restrictions on trade.
We have to consider the courage it takes to speak this way in times when the common belief is that the government can and should do all things. Ron Paul dares to ask us to rethink the way the world works, to have confidence in the ability of society – meaning the millions of individuals of which it is constituted – to manage itself. He is uncompromising not because he is inflexible or unthoughtful, but because he has vision and faith to see the unseen benefits of freedom and to ask us to do the same.
In this volume are collected the wise statements from the nation's leading teacher of free-market economic principles. One is struck by his consistency and willingness to state the truth, even when it is unpopular to do so. He is right to believe that the most important step in this struggle is to state the truth, openly and without fear.
In many ways, these speeches and essays amount to a chronicle of incredible failure: for the state has failed in a million ways to protect and defend our material well-being, and its very attempt has come at great cost.
But it is also a chronicle of hope that if we are willing to listen and learn, we can choose a different future for ourselves, one that removes responsibility for economic well-being from the government and gives it back to those to whom it belongs: the people in their capacity as living, choosing, creative human beings. Now that is leadership, properly construed.
Tuesday
WHAT I THINK....THOMAS DiLORENZO
For more than a century now, Americans have lived in what pundit George Will once called "Hamilton’s Nation." Will was referring to the fact that government policy has long been primarily guided by the Big Government, interventionist political philosophy of Alexander Hamilton. Liberal writer Michael Lind edited an entire book of essays celebrating this fact entitled Hamilton’s Republic. About every other month or so, neoconservative pundit David Brooks authors another New York Times or Wall Street Journal op-ed urging a "revival" of the Hamiltonian political agenda, as though it needs reviving.
To repudiate Hamilton’s political legacy is, according to Hamilton biographer Ron Chernow, "to repudiate the modern world" itself. Brooks and William Kristol began their crusade for "national greatness conservatism" with a September 15, 1997 Wall Street Journal article that urged Americans to "reinvigorate the nationalism of Alexander Hamilton, Henry Clay and Teddy Roosevelt."
In his book, Alexander Hamilton and the Persistence of Myth, historian Stephen F. Knott informs us that Hamilton should be given ALL the credit for "the America that explored the outer reaches of space, welcomed millions of immigrants, led the effort to defeat communism, produced countless technological advances, and abolished slavery and Jim Crow . . ." When Time magazine asked him who his heroes were shortly after the Republican takeover of Congress in 1994, House Speaker Newt Gingrich named Hamilton first (followed by John Wayne, Kemal Ataturk, and Father Flanagan).
What most Americans probably know about Hamilton is that he was a founding father, one of the authors of The Federalist Papers, and that his picture is on the ten-dollar bill. But he was much more than that, as the above-mentioned writers surely know. As Jeff Taylor remarked in Where Did the Party Go? William Jennings Bryan, Hubert Humphrey, and the Jeffersonian Legacy, "Hamilton, under the influence of the two political theorists most distasteful to Jefferson, Hobbes and Hume, was frankly the champion of the leviathan state." This is why in my forthcoming book, Hamilton’s Curse, I discard Ron Chernow’s advice about "repudiating the modern world" and explain why Hamilton’s political and economic legacy must be repudiated if America is to ever again be known as the land of the free.
Hamilton’s Curse
Hamilton worshipped government power for its own sake, and sought a government that would seek "imperial glory" (his words). He disrespected people like Jefferson who believed the primary purpose of government should be the protection of natural rights to life, liberty and property. He frequently complained of "an excessive concern for liberty in public men" and called for a government of "more energy." As Clinton Rossiter wrote in Alexander Hamilton and the Constitution, "Hamilton . . . had perhaps the highest respect for government of any important American political thinker who ever lived." His "overriding purpose" was "to build the foundations of a new empire" that could "reach out forcefully and benevolently to every person." (Forcefully, yes; but government is never "benevolent.")
Hamilton was the founder of the American nationalist tradition. As Clyde Wilson has pointed out, there is a sharp difference between nationalism and patriotism. Patriotism is "the wholesome love of one’s land and people," says Professor Wilson. Nationalism, on the other hand, is an "unhealthy love of one’s government, accompanied by the aggressive desire to put down others – which becomes in deracinated modern men a substitute for religious faith." Patriotism is necessary for people who wish to preserve their freedom; nationalism is not. In fact, it is always a great enemy of freedom. There is little wonder why so many contemporary statists, from "liberal" historians to the neocon establishment, idolize Alexander Hamilton.
And what does "Hamilton’s Republic" look like, from a government policy perspective? It is one that is run by a dictatorial chief executive with king-like powers, for one thing. At the Constitutional convention Hamilton presented his real agenda: a "permanent" president who would appoint all the governors, and who would have veto power over all state legislation. "A king!" is what his Jeffersonian detractors accused him of asking for, and they were right. He failed at the convention, but few could deny that modern American presidents are every bit as king-like as Hamilton wanted them to be – and more. How else could one describe a president who can bomb any country in the world at will, and without the least bit of congressional approval?
Hamilton lied through his teeth in The Federalist Papers when he spoke favorably about states’ rights and federalism, for his proposal for a "permanent president" would have all but destroyed any semblance of true federalism or "divided sovereignty," as James Madison labeled it. That destruction was essentially accomplished in 1865, after which the states became mere appendages of the central government. The final nails in the Jeffersonian, states’ rights coffin were pounded into place in 1913, with the advent of the Federal Reserve, the income tax, and the Seventeenth Amendment providing for the direct election of U.S. senators. In Hamilton’s Curse I call this the "Hamiltonian Revolution of 1913."
Hamilton was a frenetic tax increaser as the nation’s first Treasury Secretary. He championed a standing army as well, not so much to defend against foreign invaders as to intimidate Americans into paying all those burdensome taxes he had in mind for them. He proved this when he accompanied George Washington and 10,000 conscripts into Western Pennsylvania during the Whiskey Rebellion, a tax revolt over Hamilton’s federal whiskey tax by Pennsylvania farmers. Hamilton wanted to hang the two dozen or so tax protesters that were rounded up, but George Washington pardoned them all, infuriating the nation’s first Tax Collector-in-Chief.
The relentless crusades for the imposition of heavier and heavier taxes on everything and anything by all levels of government that curse America today are part and parcel of the Hamiltonian tradition. Hamilton never supported the idea of income taxation per se, but the centralization of political and economic power in Washington, D.C. that the federal income tax accomplished in 1913 can be considered to be the very pinnacle of Hamiltonianism.
Hamilton was an advocate of military adventurism in pursuit of what he called "imperial glory." Jefferson, Madison, and other founders thought this was the surest route to destroy American liberty, and they were right. Today, Hamilton’s agenda of the pursuit of "imperial glory" is called "national greatness conservatism."
It was Hamilton who fathered the idea of a central bank run by politicians in the nation’s capitol. As such he is America’s founding father of central banking and all the economic miseries it has created, from the Great Depression to stagflation to the bursting of the latest housing price bubble.
With regard to economic policy, Hamilton was a British-style mercantilist who wanted to use the coercive powers of the state to subsidize selected businesses, who would in turn support the state and its growth. He was the founding father of "crony capitalism." Americans had just fought a revolution against such a system, and Hamilton wanted to turn around and adopt that very system in America. His political heirs finally succeeded during the Lincoln administration, and have been building on that "success" ever since.
Hamilton was also a protectionist who believed in some of the most bizarre theories used to justify government interference with free trade, such as his complete discounting of any value at all being attached to transportation costs. (His political disciple Lincoln would later repeat these hoary superstitions.)
Hamilton championed the creation of a large national debt for the sake of having a large national debt. The reason he gave for this was that the owners of the debt would be the more affluent people of the country, who would then be tied to the government and always be supportive of it, just as welfare recipients are today. They would be sure to support future tax increases, he reasoned, to ensure that they would not be shortchanged on their principal and interest. "A national debt, if it is not excessive, will be to us a public blessing," he said.
Thanks a lot, Al. Today’s national debt exceeds $9 trillion, and that figure does not count the additional tens of trillions of dollars in unfunded Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, and government pension liabilities. Every baby born is already thousands of dollars in debt.
A man as politically astute as Hamilton was most certainly had to be aware that the nature of politics would guarantee that a national debt would quickly become "excessive." (And it did.) He spent his entire adult life lobbying for "excessive" government and demeaning and scheming against those, like Jefferson, who opposed it. (Jefferson, in contrast, once said: "I consider the fortunes of our republic as depending, in an eminent degree, on the extinguishment of the public debt").
Hamilton was also the founding father of constitutional subversion. In contrast to Jefferson’s strict constructionist views, which sought to use the Constitution as a limitation on governmental powers, Hamilton thought of the Constitution as a document that could be "reinterpreted" by clever lawyers like himself and his political compatriot, Chief Justice John Marshall, to provide a "rubber stamp" on almost any governmental activity. He was the inventor of the subversive notion of "implied" powers of the Constitution. As Rossiter explained (approvingly): "It seems certain that Hamilton would have affixed a certain certificate of constitutionality to every last tax . . . . Hamilton took a large view of the power to tax because he took a large view of the power to spend."
Having failed to create a "national" government at the Constitutional convention, Hamilton and his colleagues set out to pervert the document and "remold the Constitution into an instrument of national supremacy," wrote Rossiter. Hamiltonian judicial activists have succeeded beyond anything Hamilton could have imagined.
Hamilton did not lobby for the notorious Sedition Act that was enacted by his own Federalist Party (and which essentially made it illegal to criticize the government), but he did support it once it became law. Thus, he can also be considered to be one of the founding fathers of governmental assaults on free speech.
Hamilton’s Republic is a republic of excessive public debt; inflationary finance fueled by a central bank that is the cause of perpetual boom-and-bust cycles; a dictatorial executive branch aided and abetted by "black-robed deities" who have "reinterpreted" the Constitution so much that the founders would not even recognize what is called "constitutional law"; a tax burden that is even more excessive than that borne by medieval serfs; a standing army that is misused at the expense of genuine defense of America; an arrogant, imperialistic, and monopolistic government in Washington that rarely pays any attention at all to the citizens of the once-sovereign states; government policy that routinely benefits big, politically-connected businesses and wealthy individuals at the expense of the rest of society (neo-mercantilism); and protectionism.
Every one of these policies has been a curse on America. That is why every one of them, from central banking to public debt to judicial activism, was vigorously opposed by Hamilton’s nemesis, Thomas Jefferson, and his political heirs, until they were finally snuffed out for good by the Lincoln regime and the near total monopoly of power that the Republican Party enjoyed for the ensuing six decades.
The next time you hear Congressman Ron Paul, Republican candidate for president, calling for the abolition of the Fed and the income tax; a defense policy that defends America; drastic reductions in executive power; free trade and free markets; and a return to Constitutional principles, including the principle of states’ rights, you are being given a chance to finally put an end to Hamilton’s curse. Ron Paul is our Jefferson. Every other presidential candidate, Democrat and Republican, is a Big Government Hamiltonian, through and through.
To repudiate Hamilton’s political legacy is, according to Hamilton biographer Ron Chernow, "to repudiate the modern world" itself. Brooks and William Kristol began their crusade for "national greatness conservatism" with a September 15, 1997 Wall Street Journal article that urged Americans to "reinvigorate the nationalism of Alexander Hamilton, Henry Clay and Teddy Roosevelt."
In his book, Alexander Hamilton and the Persistence of Myth, historian Stephen F. Knott informs us that Hamilton should be given ALL the credit for "the America that explored the outer reaches of space, welcomed millions of immigrants, led the effort to defeat communism, produced countless technological advances, and abolished slavery and Jim Crow . . ." When Time magazine asked him who his heroes were shortly after the Republican takeover of Congress in 1994, House Speaker Newt Gingrich named Hamilton first (followed by John Wayne, Kemal Ataturk, and Father Flanagan).
What most Americans probably know about Hamilton is that he was a founding father, one of the authors of The Federalist Papers, and that his picture is on the ten-dollar bill. But he was much more than that, as the above-mentioned writers surely know. As Jeff Taylor remarked in Where Did the Party Go? William Jennings Bryan, Hubert Humphrey, and the Jeffersonian Legacy, "Hamilton, under the influence of the two political theorists most distasteful to Jefferson, Hobbes and Hume, was frankly the champion of the leviathan state." This is why in my forthcoming book, Hamilton’s Curse, I discard Ron Chernow’s advice about "repudiating the modern world" and explain why Hamilton’s political and economic legacy must be repudiated if America is to ever again be known as the land of the free.
Hamilton’s Curse
Hamilton worshipped government power for its own sake, and sought a government that would seek "imperial glory" (his words). He disrespected people like Jefferson who believed the primary purpose of government should be the protection of natural rights to life, liberty and property. He frequently complained of "an excessive concern for liberty in public men" and called for a government of "more energy." As Clinton Rossiter wrote in Alexander Hamilton and the Constitution, "Hamilton . . . had perhaps the highest respect for government of any important American political thinker who ever lived." His "overriding purpose" was "to build the foundations of a new empire" that could "reach out forcefully and benevolently to every person." (Forcefully, yes; but government is never "benevolent.")
Hamilton was the founder of the American nationalist tradition. As Clyde Wilson has pointed out, there is a sharp difference between nationalism and patriotism. Patriotism is "the wholesome love of one’s land and people," says Professor Wilson. Nationalism, on the other hand, is an "unhealthy love of one’s government, accompanied by the aggressive desire to put down others – which becomes in deracinated modern men a substitute for religious faith." Patriotism is necessary for people who wish to preserve their freedom; nationalism is not. In fact, it is always a great enemy of freedom. There is little wonder why so many contemporary statists, from "liberal" historians to the neocon establishment, idolize Alexander Hamilton.
And what does "Hamilton’s Republic" look like, from a government policy perspective? It is one that is run by a dictatorial chief executive with king-like powers, for one thing. At the Constitutional convention Hamilton presented his real agenda: a "permanent" president who would appoint all the governors, and who would have veto power over all state legislation. "A king!" is what his Jeffersonian detractors accused him of asking for, and they were right. He failed at the convention, but few could deny that modern American presidents are every bit as king-like as Hamilton wanted them to be – and more. How else could one describe a president who can bomb any country in the world at will, and without the least bit of congressional approval?
Hamilton lied through his teeth in The Federalist Papers when he spoke favorably about states’ rights and federalism, for his proposal for a "permanent president" would have all but destroyed any semblance of true federalism or "divided sovereignty," as James Madison labeled it. That destruction was essentially accomplished in 1865, after which the states became mere appendages of the central government. The final nails in the Jeffersonian, states’ rights coffin were pounded into place in 1913, with the advent of the Federal Reserve, the income tax, and the Seventeenth Amendment providing for the direct election of U.S. senators. In Hamilton’s Curse I call this the "Hamiltonian Revolution of 1913."
Hamilton was a frenetic tax increaser as the nation’s first Treasury Secretary. He championed a standing army as well, not so much to defend against foreign invaders as to intimidate Americans into paying all those burdensome taxes he had in mind for them. He proved this when he accompanied George Washington and 10,000 conscripts into Western Pennsylvania during the Whiskey Rebellion, a tax revolt over Hamilton’s federal whiskey tax by Pennsylvania farmers. Hamilton wanted to hang the two dozen or so tax protesters that were rounded up, but George Washington pardoned them all, infuriating the nation’s first Tax Collector-in-Chief.
The relentless crusades for the imposition of heavier and heavier taxes on everything and anything by all levels of government that curse America today are part and parcel of the Hamiltonian tradition. Hamilton never supported the idea of income taxation per se, but the centralization of political and economic power in Washington, D.C. that the federal income tax accomplished in 1913 can be considered to be the very pinnacle of Hamiltonianism.
Hamilton was an advocate of military adventurism in pursuit of what he called "imperial glory." Jefferson, Madison, and other founders thought this was the surest route to destroy American liberty, and they were right. Today, Hamilton’s agenda of the pursuit of "imperial glory" is called "national greatness conservatism."
It was Hamilton who fathered the idea of a central bank run by politicians in the nation’s capitol. As such he is America’s founding father of central banking and all the economic miseries it has created, from the Great Depression to stagflation to the bursting of the latest housing price bubble.
With regard to economic policy, Hamilton was a British-style mercantilist who wanted to use the coercive powers of the state to subsidize selected businesses, who would in turn support the state and its growth. He was the founding father of "crony capitalism." Americans had just fought a revolution against such a system, and Hamilton wanted to turn around and adopt that very system in America. His political heirs finally succeeded during the Lincoln administration, and have been building on that "success" ever since.
Hamilton was also a protectionist who believed in some of the most bizarre theories used to justify government interference with free trade, such as his complete discounting of any value at all being attached to transportation costs. (His political disciple Lincoln would later repeat these hoary superstitions.)
Hamilton championed the creation of a large national debt for the sake of having a large national debt. The reason he gave for this was that the owners of the debt would be the more affluent people of the country, who would then be tied to the government and always be supportive of it, just as welfare recipients are today. They would be sure to support future tax increases, he reasoned, to ensure that they would not be shortchanged on their principal and interest. "A national debt, if it is not excessive, will be to us a public blessing," he said.
Thanks a lot, Al. Today’s national debt exceeds $9 trillion, and that figure does not count the additional tens of trillions of dollars in unfunded Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, and government pension liabilities. Every baby born is already thousands of dollars in debt.
A man as politically astute as Hamilton was most certainly had to be aware that the nature of politics would guarantee that a national debt would quickly become "excessive." (And it did.) He spent his entire adult life lobbying for "excessive" government and demeaning and scheming against those, like Jefferson, who opposed it. (Jefferson, in contrast, once said: "I consider the fortunes of our republic as depending, in an eminent degree, on the extinguishment of the public debt").
Hamilton was also the founding father of constitutional subversion. In contrast to Jefferson’s strict constructionist views, which sought to use the Constitution as a limitation on governmental powers, Hamilton thought of the Constitution as a document that could be "reinterpreted" by clever lawyers like himself and his political compatriot, Chief Justice John Marshall, to provide a "rubber stamp" on almost any governmental activity. He was the inventor of the subversive notion of "implied" powers of the Constitution. As Rossiter explained (approvingly): "It seems certain that Hamilton would have affixed a certain certificate of constitutionality to every last tax . . . . Hamilton took a large view of the power to tax because he took a large view of the power to spend."
Having failed to create a "national" government at the Constitutional convention, Hamilton and his colleagues set out to pervert the document and "remold the Constitution into an instrument of national supremacy," wrote Rossiter. Hamiltonian judicial activists have succeeded beyond anything Hamilton could have imagined.
Hamilton did not lobby for the notorious Sedition Act that was enacted by his own Federalist Party (and which essentially made it illegal to criticize the government), but he did support it once it became law. Thus, he can also be considered to be one of the founding fathers of governmental assaults on free speech.
Hamilton’s Republic is a republic of excessive public debt; inflationary finance fueled by a central bank that is the cause of perpetual boom-and-bust cycles; a dictatorial executive branch aided and abetted by "black-robed deities" who have "reinterpreted" the Constitution so much that the founders would not even recognize what is called "constitutional law"; a tax burden that is even more excessive than that borne by medieval serfs; a standing army that is misused at the expense of genuine defense of America; an arrogant, imperialistic, and monopolistic government in Washington that rarely pays any attention at all to the citizens of the once-sovereign states; government policy that routinely benefits big, politically-connected businesses and wealthy individuals at the expense of the rest of society (neo-mercantilism); and protectionism.
Every one of these policies has been a curse on America. That is why every one of them, from central banking to public debt to judicial activism, was vigorously opposed by Hamilton’s nemesis, Thomas Jefferson, and his political heirs, until they were finally snuffed out for good by the Lincoln regime and the near total monopoly of power that the Republican Party enjoyed for the ensuing six decades.
The next time you hear Congressman Ron Paul, Republican candidate for president, calling for the abolition of the Fed and the income tax; a defense policy that defends America; drastic reductions in executive power; free trade and free markets; and a return to Constitutional principles, including the principle of states’ rights, you are being given a chance to finally put an end to Hamilton’s curse. Ron Paul is our Jefferson. Every other presidential candidate, Democrat and Republican, is a Big Government Hamiltonian, through and through.
Monday
PAIN AT THE PUMP
This past week Americans traveled approximately 2 billion miles to celebrate the Thanksgiving holiday with family and loved ones. While you cannot put a price on time with family, Americans sure felt the pain of higher fuel prices at the gas pump. It is time to take an honest look at the government's direct and indirect role in inflating those prices.
Taxation is the most direct way government increases Americans' cost at the pump. The national average price of gas now is well over $3.00 per gallon now, $4 in some areas. Federal taxes take 18.4 cents, while state and local taxes average another 28.5 cents per gallon. That's an average of 47 cents per gallon Americans are paying just for government, but that is just the tip of the iceberg. Less directly, our loose monetary policy gives taxpayers double jeopardy at the pump, simultaneously increasing prices and undermining purchasing power. Wages always lag behind price increases, making average Americans feel as though they can never quite keep up, never quite get out of debt. Not to mention the ripple effect of higher diesel costs on the trucking industry. When trucking and shipping is more expensive, everything is more expensive.
The indirect costs government imposes on gas prices are much more serious. A major bottleneck that causes gas prices to surge is our very meagre and vulnerable refinery capacity due mostly to regulatory red tape. Environmental regulations and litigation have kept our existing refinery capacity barely adequate. In fact, no new refineries have been built since the 70's and these are operating at capacity, which makes our gasoline market especially vulnerable as demonstrated by skyrocketing gas prices in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina when many coastal oil facilities were brought to a halt. In addition, many foreign refineries don't have the ability to produce the specialized blends of gasoline mandated by our government, and therefore 90% of our gasoline is refined in the United States under extreme regulatory burden. When our domestic refineries are damaged or jeopardized, there are few options other than soaring prices or long lines.
I've introduced The Affordable Gas Price Act (HR 2415) to deal with some of these issues. My bill would suspend Federal fuel taxes when prices rise above $3.00 a gallon, giving some immediate relief at the pump. It would also repeal misguided legislation that causes more investment in attorneys and nuisance litigation than in actually producing affordable gasoline and strengthening our refining capacity. Also, it would open up ANWR for oil exploration and repeal the federal moratorium on off-shore drilling.
Much of government intervention in the oil industry in the past has been counter-productive and has resulted in disastrous unintended consequences. This Thanksgiving, I am grateful for every mile Americans can still afford to travel to be with family. I am working hard in Congress to reverse the costly trend of government interference and return markets, including oil markets, to true economic freedom.
Taxation is the most direct way government increases Americans' cost at the pump. The national average price of gas now is well over $3.00 per gallon now, $4 in some areas. Federal taxes take 18.4 cents, while state and local taxes average another 28.5 cents per gallon. That's an average of 47 cents per gallon Americans are paying just for government, but that is just the tip of the iceberg. Less directly, our loose monetary policy gives taxpayers double jeopardy at the pump, simultaneously increasing prices and undermining purchasing power. Wages always lag behind price increases, making average Americans feel as though they can never quite keep up, never quite get out of debt. Not to mention the ripple effect of higher diesel costs on the trucking industry. When trucking and shipping is more expensive, everything is more expensive.
The indirect costs government imposes on gas prices are much more serious. A major bottleneck that causes gas prices to surge is our very meagre and vulnerable refinery capacity due mostly to regulatory red tape. Environmental regulations and litigation have kept our existing refinery capacity barely adequate. In fact, no new refineries have been built since the 70's and these are operating at capacity, which makes our gasoline market especially vulnerable as demonstrated by skyrocketing gas prices in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina when many coastal oil facilities were brought to a halt. In addition, many foreign refineries don't have the ability to produce the specialized blends of gasoline mandated by our government, and therefore 90% of our gasoline is refined in the United States under extreme regulatory burden. When our domestic refineries are damaged or jeopardized, there are few options other than soaring prices or long lines.
I've introduced The Affordable Gas Price Act (HR 2415) to deal with some of these issues. My bill would suspend Federal fuel taxes when prices rise above $3.00 a gallon, giving some immediate relief at the pump. It would also repeal misguided legislation that causes more investment in attorneys and nuisance litigation than in actually producing affordable gasoline and strengthening our refining capacity. Also, it would open up ANWR for oil exploration and repeal the federal moratorium on off-shore drilling.
Much of government intervention in the oil industry in the past has been counter-productive and has resulted in disastrous unintended consequences. This Thanksgiving, I am grateful for every mile Americans can still afford to travel to be with family. I am working hard in Congress to reverse the costly trend of government interference and return markets, including oil markets, to true economic freedom.
OPEN LETTER TO ARAB-AMERICANS
Arab-Americans need to hear Ron Paul's message, because serious concerns about the fate of US foreign policy and civil liberties captivate the minds of Arab-American Muslims, as well as Arab-American Christians, who actually comprise more than half of the community. My Open Letter will therefore be inclusive in nature and address all denominations.
It is interesting to note that those who advocate this unifying approach have been disparaged by the wedge-driving, divide-and-conquer neocons as "dhimmis" or "Islamo-Christians" – or whatever today's new vocabulary is on the Word-a-Day calendar of the American Enterprise Institute – for not accepting their erroneous worldview, in which Semitic people (and by Semitic, I mean Semitic) are mindless sectarian robots genetically programmed to kill each other and incapable of peaceful co-existence.
I suppose this letter will also cause some consternation for the likes of my fellow Melkite Catholic, Deacon Robert Spencer, who recently wrote two unflattering articles about the Arab American Institute (AAI) Leadership conference, at which Ron Paul was the only Republican candidate to speak – he dazzled the crowd last month in Dearborn, Michigan, as I will discuss below. I am pleased to report that Spencer did not directly attack Ron Paul in his criticisms of the event, one of which was published on the ever-beloved FrontPageMag.
Now, we most certainly recognize the danger posed to all of us by the fear-mongering approach to governing practiced by the current ruling elite in DC, which is why we support our courageous "Champion of the Constitution," Congressman Ron Paul. But I personally make particular note of the predicament faced by Muslims in America. Why? Well, my last name, Ajjan, is Arabic – my ancestors came to the United States from Syria nearly a century ago. The name means "mixer," as in someone who prepares dough or cement, and it bears no religious significance. Thus, one can find Ajjan families with sons called George and Elias (common Christian first names in the Middle East) as well as genealogies full of Muslim names like Mohamed or Ali.
In that vein: suppose, if we do not succeed in getting Ron Paul elected, that some shady bureaucrats in Washington decide to advance their own political objectives by casting a very wide net for "Islamofascists" on American soil, i.e. every Muslim, for starters. Will they bother to distinguish one Ajjan from another? Should I trust the Federal Government to omit me from their list of terror suspects to round up? After all, someone who has taken vacation in Syria (a country, which unlike Saudi Arabia, is classified as a "state sponsor of terrorism"), and who writes for a website proudly identified as "anti-state," must be a threat! Dare I argue with the Blackwater-esque thugs they likely will send door-to-door to impound me and others with the "wrong" last names? (Note to self: prepare an "Open Letter to Arab-Americans on Behalf of the 2nd Amendment" to educate the community on provisions afforded by the US Constitution for dealing with such circumstances.)
No, we will all suffer together. But aside from that unpleasant line of thought, I am pleased to write this Open Letter, because one of the most appealing and refreshing elements of Ron Paul's campaign is his insistence on the power of his message to unite Americans of all races, colors, creeds, socio-economic backgrounds, occupations, etc. Dr. Paul campaigns in a non-discriminatory manner almost to a fault. As cited by Thomas Woods in his Open Letter to the Catholic Community, Ron Paul began his speech at the AAI conference by bluntly stating that he would not be pandering, and that he would address Arab-Americans just as he would any other assembly of voters he might encounter on the campaign trail. That is indeed worthy of admiration, but as Walter Block correctly states:
"There are a lot of people who view the election not from [the] general perspective of the public good, but rather on the basis of their own more narrow interests. Forget whether or not this is a good thing; it is part of reality that we supporters of Ron need to take into account."
Accordingly, I recently received an email from a die-hard Ron Paul supporter that I met at the AAI conference. She had noticed the "Home Schoolers for Ron Paul" link on www.ronpaul2008.com and suggested that we petition the Ron Paul campaign to add a link on their homepage entitled "Arab-Americans for Ron Paul." I argued that this approach, if originating from the campaign itself, would too closely resemble the divide-and-conquer tactics used by all the other candidates. Regardless of one's ethnic origin, one could always be a "gun owner for Ron Paul" – that is an inclusive demographic. But for Ron Paul to solicit supporters based upon definitively exclusive subsets of the population would contradict his philosophy. That is why Walter Block is spot-on when he advocates that we as Ron Paul supporters must independently reach out with more specific agendas.
But the non-pandering approach favored by Ron Paul does not at all suggest that he lacks acute awareness of Arab-Americans' and Muslims' specific concerns. That is why he told the AAI assembly:
"The freedom message brings all of us together, whatever our religion is, or whatever our beliefs are, and wherever we came from, because freedom is not judgmental. It allows people to make their own choices as long as they don't use force to impose their will on us. So this brings people together, and this is what has been happening in this campaign. People from all walks of life are coming together."
and defined his campaign as one that is:
"...merely standing up for our Constitution, and we stand for our Constitution as it protects ALL Americans."
He closed by describing what he called "the essence of what America is all about":
"We don't have rights because we belong to a group. We don't have rights because we're women, or belong to an ethnic group, or a religious group. We have rights because we are individuals and we should be treated as individuals and we should never get special benefits. But we should NEVER have punishments because we belong to a particular group either."
A cynical individual might not be impressed with mere words. But Ron Paul's voting record more than backs up his egalitarian principles, as he was one of only 3 Republicans to vote "no" on the USA PATRIOT Act. Many of its opponents are well acquainted with Sections 213, 215, 216, and 505, but perhaps not with Section 102, which is supposedly designed to protect the civil rights of Muslims and Arab-Americans specifically. But as Gary North has warned, "When you see a high-falutin' title like this, you can be certain of one thing: Its promoters intend the opposite." In any case, Ron Paul voted against the Patriot Act because, in his words:
"The Act contains over 500 pages of detailed legalese, the full text of which was neither read nor made available to Congress in a reasonable time before it was voted on – which by itself should have convinced members to vote against it. Many of the surveillance powers authorized in the Act are not clearly defined and have not yet been tested. When they are tested, court challenges are sure to follow. It is precisely because we cannot predict how the PATRIOT Act will be interpreted and used in future decades that we should question it today."
(Incidentally, what many people may not realize is that this law's title is an Orwellian acronym for Uniting and Strengthening American by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism. I wonder if perhaps its backers would also approve of legislation aimed at Maintaining Obsessive Hatred Against Muslim Extremist Detainees, in which case they'd be voting for the MOHAMED Act.)
And don't forget Ron Paul's absolute rejection of a national ID card, or any other kind of government spying on its own citizens. Those who shudder to think that one day their US passports will have an embedded green crescent, or that their emails will be tagged with the letter "M," owe it to themselves and their posterity to vote for Ron Paul.
In addition to his devotion to civil liberties, the dramatic foreign policy changes brought about a Ron Paul Presidency would also be welcomed by the Arab-American community. Naturally, the US invasion and occupation of Iraq – not to mention the possibility of war with 70 million Iranians – has left a very bad taste in the mouth of Arab-Americans and American Muslims. Ron Paul, of course, opposed this ill-fated military boondoggle since before its inception, and makes it clear that he would also strongly oppose a war with Iran. Again, he told the AAI audience:
"For us to be so fearful and so intimidated from a country, whether it's Iraq or Iran, that they might attack us? How are they going to attack us, even if they had a nuclear weapon? How or why would they attack us? This whole thought that all of a sudden Iran is the Hitler of the day and that we have orient ourselves and do everything in attacking this country – that is not for me to defend that country or their leadership, there's a lot of bad people over there, but my concern is making sure that we don't have bad POLICY in this country, that's our responsibility."
Likening his platform to that of then-Governor George W. Bush when it comes to a non-interventionist foreign policy should also attract Arab-Americans, as Bush did very well among that demographic in the 2000 presidential election. Additionally, the explicit blame Ron Paul places on the neoconservatives will win him many fans – as members of the community are well aware of the role that small cadre played in setting this whole Iraq debacle in motion.
"Just think, our current President, in the year 2000, ran on a program of no nation building, a humble foreign policy, diplomacy and talking to people. And yet what has happened? Exactly the opposite. And now we're engaged because of the advice of the neoconservatives who have hijacked our foreign policy – that we as Americans are expected that we are so good and so wonderful and so perfect that we have the responsibility of forcing our way on other people, even if it takes killing them to make them live like we do. I think that's an INSANE foreign policy."
Ron Paul cuts right through the flowery rhetoric about spreading freedom and democracy, and his words on that topic ring true to many in the Arab-American community, who know from their own personal experience that a Jeffersonian democracy does not spring up overnight anywhere in the world just because we wish it to be so. Unlike the neoconservatives, who claim to care deeply for peoples in Arab and Muslim lands, but insult them by advocating one-size-fits-all regime change, Ron Paul acknowledges that he is not at all an expert on foreign cultures and political attitudes. When I told him about my own trip to Baghdad in the aftermath of the US invasion, and my observation of the adverse impact that a military occupation had on the Iraqis' collective dignity, he humbly inquired, "Isn't that really important to people over there?" When I validated his supposition, he added, "well, just think how we'd feel if China invaded us..." A Ron Paul foreign policy would be based upon common sense, and focused on the only thing we possess sufficient and trustworthy knowledge to determine: what is good for the American people themselves.
Those interested in Ron Paul should also closely consider the hands-off approach to Israel that he advocates. At first glance, those against US military aid to Israel, which includes most in the Arab-American community, would be delighted. But Ron Paul's policy is also a double-edged sword, as Walter Block explained in his Open Letter to the Jewish Community:
"There are numerous cases where the U.S. has obviously handcuffed the Israelis, not to the benefit of the latter..."
Does this mean that one should equate Ron Paul's non-interventionist policy with turning loose a pit bull? I offer a resounding NO. A dramatic change in the client-state relationship between the US and Israel would radically alter internal Israeli politics and foreign policy. Knowing that special interests would no longer dictate their country's destiny, the silent majority of Israelis wishing to terminate the conflict definitively on the basis of land-for-peace would be emboldened.
Contrarily, the bellicose elements of Israeli society, without the US Armed Forces at their beck and call, would be cast to the political margins. No wonder a Meetup group for Ron Paul has sprung up in Israel itself!
Is this to suggest that America would isolate itself from the Middle East? Not at all. Ron Paul told the AAI crowd:
"We do not have to be isolationists. That's a false charge when they say, 'oh, isolationism – we want to withdraw'. And I don't want to, as a matter of fact I don't like protectionism, I like trade, I like low tariffs – tariffs are taxes. We want to trade with the world and talk with the world."
During a question-answer section, he was further pressed by those who fear that America would be totally diplomatically withdrawn, sparked by Ron Paul's criticism of the UN, an institution that many Arab-Americans view favorably. Dr. Paul wisely explained that his concerns were not based upon a desire to ignore the views of others, but rather a belief that America need not abdicate its sovereignty to the UN in order to engage diplomatically.
"Does that mean that we want to be isolationists and not talk to people? No, it's actually the opposite. It's just that we don't want to force our way on people. In Washington, too often we only have only 2 choices: we either bomb people and tell them they'll do as we tell them, or we have to subsidize them and give them all the foreign aid they want. I would say that there's a third option, and that is to talk to people, trade with people, be friends with people – try to influence the world through involuntary means, set good examples."
So let it never be said that Ron Paul is ambivalent about peace in the Middle East. He made it clear when addressing our group that he would be happy to invite other nations, such as Israel and her Arab neighbors, to use the United States as neutral territory where they could talk through their differences, with the caveat that the United States not mandate and subsidize the outcome. That would be a foreign policy in which we could all take pride. Ron Paul's views fascinated a staffer of the Egyptian embassy who observed the conference, even after I reminded him that "no more foreign aid" cuts both ways – Egypt, too, would lose its annual 10-figure stipend.
In closing, I am reminded of a famous and beloved Arabic slogan:
al-din lilah, wa al-watan liljamia
"Religion is for God, the nation is for everyone"
The idea expressed therein is certainly not unique to Arabic culture, but the underlying concept has inspired many leaders and statesmen throughout the centuries. That includes a group of revolutionary late-18th-century former Englishmen, who expressed it as such: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof."
I was reminded of the connection two years ago, at the Arab American Institute's annual banquet, called the Kahlil Gibran Spirit of Humanity Awards, at which Mustapha Akkad received a posthumous honor. Akkad, who perished alongside his daughter in a terrorist bombing in 2005, was a Syrian-American film director who created the Halloween horror movies, in addition to The Message, an acclaimed film about the prophet Mohamed. When Akkad's son Malek accepted the award on behalf of his late father, he told the audience that his father had felt more free to practice Islam in the United States than he had ever felt anywhere in the Muslim world.
Anyone who believes that America must stand for the free practice of religion, be he Muslim, Christian, Jewish, etc., knows that the 1st Amendment and the Bill of Rights must be defended vigorously and unequivocally. Only one candidate for President has spent his entire career as a citizen-statesman doing exactly that: Dr. Ron Paul.
It is interesting to note that those who advocate this unifying approach have been disparaged by the wedge-driving, divide-and-conquer neocons as "dhimmis" or "Islamo-Christians" – or whatever today's new vocabulary is on the Word-a-Day calendar of the American Enterprise Institute – for not accepting their erroneous worldview, in which Semitic people (and by Semitic, I mean Semitic) are mindless sectarian robots genetically programmed to kill each other and incapable of peaceful co-existence.
I suppose this letter will also cause some consternation for the likes of my fellow Melkite Catholic, Deacon Robert Spencer, who recently wrote two unflattering articles about the Arab American Institute (AAI) Leadership conference, at which Ron Paul was the only Republican candidate to speak – he dazzled the crowd last month in Dearborn, Michigan, as I will discuss below. I am pleased to report that Spencer did not directly attack Ron Paul in his criticisms of the event, one of which was published on the ever-beloved FrontPageMag.
Now, we most certainly recognize the danger posed to all of us by the fear-mongering approach to governing practiced by the current ruling elite in DC, which is why we support our courageous "Champion of the Constitution," Congressman Ron Paul. But I personally make particular note of the predicament faced by Muslims in America. Why? Well, my last name, Ajjan, is Arabic – my ancestors came to the United States from Syria nearly a century ago. The name means "mixer," as in someone who prepares dough or cement, and it bears no religious significance. Thus, one can find Ajjan families with sons called George and Elias (common Christian first names in the Middle East) as well as genealogies full of Muslim names like Mohamed or Ali.
In that vein: suppose, if we do not succeed in getting Ron Paul elected, that some shady bureaucrats in Washington decide to advance their own political objectives by casting a very wide net for "Islamofascists" on American soil, i.e. every Muslim, for starters. Will they bother to distinguish one Ajjan from another? Should I trust the Federal Government to omit me from their list of terror suspects to round up? After all, someone who has taken vacation in Syria (a country, which unlike Saudi Arabia, is classified as a "state sponsor of terrorism"), and who writes for a website proudly identified as "anti-state," must be a threat! Dare I argue with the Blackwater-esque thugs they likely will send door-to-door to impound me and others with the "wrong" last names? (Note to self: prepare an "Open Letter to Arab-Americans on Behalf of the 2nd Amendment" to educate the community on provisions afforded by the US Constitution for dealing with such circumstances.)
No, we will all suffer together. But aside from that unpleasant line of thought, I am pleased to write this Open Letter, because one of the most appealing and refreshing elements of Ron Paul's campaign is his insistence on the power of his message to unite Americans of all races, colors, creeds, socio-economic backgrounds, occupations, etc. Dr. Paul campaigns in a non-discriminatory manner almost to a fault. As cited by Thomas Woods in his Open Letter to the Catholic Community, Ron Paul began his speech at the AAI conference by bluntly stating that he would not be pandering, and that he would address Arab-Americans just as he would any other assembly of voters he might encounter on the campaign trail. That is indeed worthy of admiration, but as Walter Block correctly states:
"There are a lot of people who view the election not from [the] general perspective of the public good, but rather on the basis of their own more narrow interests. Forget whether or not this is a good thing; it is part of reality that we supporters of Ron need to take into account."
Accordingly, I recently received an email from a die-hard Ron Paul supporter that I met at the AAI conference. She had noticed the "Home Schoolers for Ron Paul" link on www.ronpaul2008.com and suggested that we petition the Ron Paul campaign to add a link on their homepage entitled "Arab-Americans for Ron Paul." I argued that this approach, if originating from the campaign itself, would too closely resemble the divide-and-conquer tactics used by all the other candidates. Regardless of one's ethnic origin, one could always be a "gun owner for Ron Paul" – that is an inclusive demographic. But for Ron Paul to solicit supporters based upon definitively exclusive subsets of the population would contradict his philosophy. That is why Walter Block is spot-on when he advocates that we as Ron Paul supporters must independently reach out with more specific agendas.
But the non-pandering approach favored by Ron Paul does not at all suggest that he lacks acute awareness of Arab-Americans' and Muslims' specific concerns. That is why he told the AAI assembly:
"The freedom message brings all of us together, whatever our religion is, or whatever our beliefs are, and wherever we came from, because freedom is not judgmental. It allows people to make their own choices as long as they don't use force to impose their will on us. So this brings people together, and this is what has been happening in this campaign. People from all walks of life are coming together."
and defined his campaign as one that is:
"...merely standing up for our Constitution, and we stand for our Constitution as it protects ALL Americans."
He closed by describing what he called "the essence of what America is all about":
"We don't have rights because we belong to a group. We don't have rights because we're women, or belong to an ethnic group, or a religious group. We have rights because we are individuals and we should be treated as individuals and we should never get special benefits. But we should NEVER have punishments because we belong to a particular group either."
A cynical individual might not be impressed with mere words. But Ron Paul's voting record more than backs up his egalitarian principles, as he was one of only 3 Republicans to vote "no" on the USA PATRIOT Act. Many of its opponents are well acquainted with Sections 213, 215, 216, and 505, but perhaps not with Section 102, which is supposedly designed to protect the civil rights of Muslims and Arab-Americans specifically. But as Gary North has warned, "When you see a high-falutin' title like this, you can be certain of one thing: Its promoters intend the opposite." In any case, Ron Paul voted against the Patriot Act because, in his words:
"The Act contains over 500 pages of detailed legalese, the full text of which was neither read nor made available to Congress in a reasonable time before it was voted on – which by itself should have convinced members to vote against it. Many of the surveillance powers authorized in the Act are not clearly defined and have not yet been tested. When they are tested, court challenges are sure to follow. It is precisely because we cannot predict how the PATRIOT Act will be interpreted and used in future decades that we should question it today."
(Incidentally, what many people may not realize is that this law's title is an Orwellian acronym for Uniting and Strengthening American by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism. I wonder if perhaps its backers would also approve of legislation aimed at Maintaining Obsessive Hatred Against Muslim Extremist Detainees, in which case they'd be voting for the MOHAMED Act.)
And don't forget Ron Paul's absolute rejection of a national ID card, or any other kind of government spying on its own citizens. Those who shudder to think that one day their US passports will have an embedded green crescent, or that their emails will be tagged with the letter "M," owe it to themselves and their posterity to vote for Ron Paul.
In addition to his devotion to civil liberties, the dramatic foreign policy changes brought about a Ron Paul Presidency would also be welcomed by the Arab-American community. Naturally, the US invasion and occupation of Iraq – not to mention the possibility of war with 70 million Iranians – has left a very bad taste in the mouth of Arab-Americans and American Muslims. Ron Paul, of course, opposed this ill-fated military boondoggle since before its inception, and makes it clear that he would also strongly oppose a war with Iran. Again, he told the AAI audience:
"For us to be so fearful and so intimidated from a country, whether it's Iraq or Iran, that they might attack us? How are they going to attack us, even if they had a nuclear weapon? How or why would they attack us? This whole thought that all of a sudden Iran is the Hitler of the day and that we have orient ourselves and do everything in attacking this country – that is not for me to defend that country or their leadership, there's a lot of bad people over there, but my concern is making sure that we don't have bad POLICY in this country, that's our responsibility."
Likening his platform to that of then-Governor George W. Bush when it comes to a non-interventionist foreign policy should also attract Arab-Americans, as Bush did very well among that demographic in the 2000 presidential election. Additionally, the explicit blame Ron Paul places on the neoconservatives will win him many fans – as members of the community are well aware of the role that small cadre played in setting this whole Iraq debacle in motion.
"Just think, our current President, in the year 2000, ran on a program of no nation building, a humble foreign policy, diplomacy and talking to people. And yet what has happened? Exactly the opposite. And now we're engaged because of the advice of the neoconservatives who have hijacked our foreign policy – that we as Americans are expected that we are so good and so wonderful and so perfect that we have the responsibility of forcing our way on other people, even if it takes killing them to make them live like we do. I think that's an INSANE foreign policy."
Ron Paul cuts right through the flowery rhetoric about spreading freedom and democracy, and his words on that topic ring true to many in the Arab-American community, who know from their own personal experience that a Jeffersonian democracy does not spring up overnight anywhere in the world just because we wish it to be so. Unlike the neoconservatives, who claim to care deeply for peoples in Arab and Muslim lands, but insult them by advocating one-size-fits-all regime change, Ron Paul acknowledges that he is not at all an expert on foreign cultures and political attitudes. When I told him about my own trip to Baghdad in the aftermath of the US invasion, and my observation of the adverse impact that a military occupation had on the Iraqis' collective dignity, he humbly inquired, "Isn't that really important to people over there?" When I validated his supposition, he added, "well, just think how we'd feel if China invaded us..." A Ron Paul foreign policy would be based upon common sense, and focused on the only thing we possess sufficient and trustworthy knowledge to determine: what is good for the American people themselves.
Those interested in Ron Paul should also closely consider the hands-off approach to Israel that he advocates. At first glance, those against US military aid to Israel, which includes most in the Arab-American community, would be delighted. But Ron Paul's policy is also a double-edged sword, as Walter Block explained in his Open Letter to the Jewish Community:
"There are numerous cases where the U.S. has obviously handcuffed the Israelis, not to the benefit of the latter..."
Does this mean that one should equate Ron Paul's non-interventionist policy with turning loose a pit bull? I offer a resounding NO. A dramatic change in the client-state relationship between the US and Israel would radically alter internal Israeli politics and foreign policy. Knowing that special interests would no longer dictate their country's destiny, the silent majority of Israelis wishing to terminate the conflict definitively on the basis of land-for-peace would be emboldened.
Contrarily, the bellicose elements of Israeli society, without the US Armed Forces at their beck and call, would be cast to the political margins. No wonder a Meetup group for Ron Paul has sprung up in Israel itself!
Is this to suggest that America would isolate itself from the Middle East? Not at all. Ron Paul told the AAI crowd:
"We do not have to be isolationists. That's a false charge when they say, 'oh, isolationism – we want to withdraw'. And I don't want to, as a matter of fact I don't like protectionism, I like trade, I like low tariffs – tariffs are taxes. We want to trade with the world and talk with the world."
During a question-answer section, he was further pressed by those who fear that America would be totally diplomatically withdrawn, sparked by Ron Paul's criticism of the UN, an institution that many Arab-Americans view favorably. Dr. Paul wisely explained that his concerns were not based upon a desire to ignore the views of others, but rather a belief that America need not abdicate its sovereignty to the UN in order to engage diplomatically.
"Does that mean that we want to be isolationists and not talk to people? No, it's actually the opposite. It's just that we don't want to force our way on people. In Washington, too often we only have only 2 choices: we either bomb people and tell them they'll do as we tell them, or we have to subsidize them and give them all the foreign aid they want. I would say that there's a third option, and that is to talk to people, trade with people, be friends with people – try to influence the world through involuntary means, set good examples."
So let it never be said that Ron Paul is ambivalent about peace in the Middle East. He made it clear when addressing our group that he would be happy to invite other nations, such as Israel and her Arab neighbors, to use the United States as neutral territory where they could talk through their differences, with the caveat that the United States not mandate and subsidize the outcome. That would be a foreign policy in which we could all take pride. Ron Paul's views fascinated a staffer of the Egyptian embassy who observed the conference, even after I reminded him that "no more foreign aid" cuts both ways – Egypt, too, would lose its annual 10-figure stipend.
In closing, I am reminded of a famous and beloved Arabic slogan:
al-din lilah, wa al-watan liljamia
"Religion is for God, the nation is for everyone"
The idea expressed therein is certainly not unique to Arabic culture, but the underlying concept has inspired many leaders and statesmen throughout the centuries. That includes a group of revolutionary late-18th-century former Englishmen, who expressed it as such: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof."
I was reminded of the connection two years ago, at the Arab American Institute's annual banquet, called the Kahlil Gibran Spirit of Humanity Awards, at which Mustapha Akkad received a posthumous honor. Akkad, who perished alongside his daughter in a terrorist bombing in 2005, was a Syrian-American film director who created the Halloween horror movies, in addition to The Message, an acclaimed film about the prophet Mohamed. When Akkad's son Malek accepted the award on behalf of his late father, he told the audience that his father had felt more free to practice Islam in the United States than he had ever felt anywhere in the Muslim world.
Anyone who believes that America must stand for the free practice of religion, be he Muslim, Christian, Jewish, etc., knows that the 1st Amendment and the Bill of Rights must be defended vigorously and unequivocally. Only one candidate for President has spent his entire career as a citizen-statesman doing exactly that: Dr. Ron Paul.
Friday
WHAT I THINK....SANDRA HAMILTON
When I was a child I had a great deal of hope in my life. My living conditions were not that great; I won’t go into details but let’s just say I was much happier when I was alone. But no matter what I had a great deal of hope. Life was filled with wonder and excitement and I knew, just knew that when I grew up things would all be better. I kept hearing that life isn’t fair when I believed deep in my heart that it should be. I was pretty sure that as soon as got out into the world on my own, I would find that life that was fair.
Then I grew up and things were not all I expected. I became jaded and disillusioned. The basic truths of human existence – don’t steal, be nice to each other, etc. I found broken on a regular basis by the government – an entity I was taught I was supposed to admire. I read about wars that had no meaning, I saw people being attacked by the men in uniforms that were supposed to be our protectors. I witnessed laws that made had no reason for being, laws against things that hurt no one and seemed to only be there because someone didn’t like something. It made no sense.
Where was this world I was expecting? Where was the dream land of equality and fairness and common decency? I was so sure that world existed and I was crushed when I found out that it didn’t.
Life went on. I adjusted. A subtle discord crept into my being. I internalized the meaning of malaise and sadly accepted that there was nothing I could do about it. Oh, I do not mean to say that I walked around weeping all of the time, but there was a "grayness" I felt that I don’t really know how to put into words. The worst part of it all was the feeling of complete helplessness. I felt that the dream I had hoped for had no chance of existing and I had no way to affect that fact.
Then I started reading things written by Ron Paul. He gave me hope that I am not alone in my dreams. Here was a man that seemed to share those dreams. I began to feel that the world does have one ray of sunshine in it. He made me think that my desires are not unattainable and that believing in liberty and freedom is not a hopeless cause. He gave me justification for every argument I had ever had on the subject. I can once again state with supreme confidence that life should be fair or at least that we should strive for fairness and not just abandon the attempt before we get started.
Ron Paul says things that are deeply planted in my heart. I do not know where they came from, but he brings an explanation for these things. Ron Paul explains why believing in liberty is not just for dreamers, but it is a gift for all mankind. Dr. Paul shows that freedom needs protecting, but it is worth protecting and yes, he will protect it! To me, Ron Paul is a sort of defender of the soul. Maybe he needs an action figure made in his image? The great Ron Paul with his cape flying, running to rescue the Constitution as it takes blow after blow! Tune in next week when we see Ron Paul save a civil liberty from crashing to the ground below!
I think that is why I have become so enamored of his campaign. Oh, he may not win, but maybe he is planting a seed somewhere. Or, he could win and that would really be amazing. Either way, he has brought sunshine to that grayness I used to feel. I once again feel hope. I feel that a world of which I had only dreamed is possible. I think I know how the founding fathers must have felt. I finally understand a cause worth dying for. I have everlasting gratitude for the men who fought the revolutionary war. Once again we are fighting the same revolution.
Here are the kinds of things that Ron Paul wants to do that I am so grateful to hear: he wants to abolish the IRS. Well, I think that if you work for your money you ought to keep it. Nothing seems less fair than having to give so much of my money away to pay for things that I abhor.
Ron Paul wants to end the war in Iraq. I believe deep in my soul that people should not kill each other except in defense. It is a part of me. It always has been. I have never wanted a war of aggression. I want to help our soldiers. I believe they have been lied to about the length of their tours of duty and that they are doing their best, but they were never meant to be over there that long. I believe they are trapped. I think that is awful. I believe Ron Paul wants to save them and again I feel hope.
Ron Paul wants to bring an end to the war on drugs. I have seen what this "war" is doing to the lives of so many people in this country. I see a "war" that is not waged on people equally. I see a "war" that has torn apart whole neighborhoods. I see people thrown in jail unequally in terms of race. That hurts my soul. I see people thrown in jail for doing almost nothing. I cannot understand how alcohol and caffeine are legal and other substances are not. I cannot understand how one person can go to a doctor for a prescription for a substance, but if another person takes that same substance without the prescription they can go to jail for life (if they have done it for a third time). How does that make any sense?
I see whole families ripped apart over and over as men are rotting in prison while women try to raise the children alone and all over a non-violent crime where no one got hurt. I see rapists and murderers get less time than a person who does crack. I cannot understand that and again, my soul aches. I believe Ron Paul wants to help these people and end this awful "war" and again, I have hope.
Over and over Ron Paul does things to restore my liberty and my freedoms. I feel the hope that the chains will drop and I will be free. I long for the day that I do not have to feel afraid when I make a comment on a telephone in jest. I yearn for the time when I get to keep the fruits of my labor. I hope that someday I will once again be able to see a way to save for the future. Right now, it seems silly to put any money away as it loses its value day after day. I work harder, put in more hours and still I have less buying power than I did twenty years ago. I am swimming as fast as I can only to find I have not moved an inch. Ron Paul wants to end the things that create monetary inflation and again, I am filled with hope. I can only dream what it would be like to actually get ahead.
Ron Paul is my hope. He has shown me that my dreams can happen. He has taught me that I don’t have to give up, there is one person out there working for me. For me. Imagine that? I am not a big corporation, I am not rich, and here is a politician who wants to become President to make my life freer, to make other people’s lives freer, to end some of the dreadful suffering so many are facing. Here is a man that does not believe we should accept the byline that "life isn’t fair." He seems to think life should be fair and he will work towards that end.
Whether or not Ron Paul wins, I feel that hope is not gone in this country. The great land of America is still here. It just may be buried a little right now.
I never understood campaigning for a candidate before. I have never donated money to a campaign before. I barely ever spoke of politics and certainly couldn’t have cared less before. Now, I finally have a man to vote FOR. Whether I get to pull a lever or have to write his name on a card, nothing will feel sweeter than voting for Ron Paul.
Then I grew up and things were not all I expected. I became jaded and disillusioned. The basic truths of human existence – don’t steal, be nice to each other, etc. I found broken on a regular basis by the government – an entity I was taught I was supposed to admire. I read about wars that had no meaning, I saw people being attacked by the men in uniforms that were supposed to be our protectors. I witnessed laws that made had no reason for being, laws against things that hurt no one and seemed to only be there because someone didn’t like something. It made no sense.
Where was this world I was expecting? Where was the dream land of equality and fairness and common decency? I was so sure that world existed and I was crushed when I found out that it didn’t.
Life went on. I adjusted. A subtle discord crept into my being. I internalized the meaning of malaise and sadly accepted that there was nothing I could do about it. Oh, I do not mean to say that I walked around weeping all of the time, but there was a "grayness" I felt that I don’t really know how to put into words. The worst part of it all was the feeling of complete helplessness. I felt that the dream I had hoped for had no chance of existing and I had no way to affect that fact.
Then I started reading things written by Ron Paul. He gave me hope that I am not alone in my dreams. Here was a man that seemed to share those dreams. I began to feel that the world does have one ray of sunshine in it. He made me think that my desires are not unattainable and that believing in liberty and freedom is not a hopeless cause. He gave me justification for every argument I had ever had on the subject. I can once again state with supreme confidence that life should be fair or at least that we should strive for fairness and not just abandon the attempt before we get started.
Ron Paul says things that are deeply planted in my heart. I do not know where they came from, but he brings an explanation for these things. Ron Paul explains why believing in liberty is not just for dreamers, but it is a gift for all mankind. Dr. Paul shows that freedom needs protecting, but it is worth protecting and yes, he will protect it! To me, Ron Paul is a sort of defender of the soul. Maybe he needs an action figure made in his image? The great Ron Paul with his cape flying, running to rescue the Constitution as it takes blow after blow! Tune in next week when we see Ron Paul save a civil liberty from crashing to the ground below!
I think that is why I have become so enamored of his campaign. Oh, he may not win, but maybe he is planting a seed somewhere. Or, he could win and that would really be amazing. Either way, he has brought sunshine to that grayness I used to feel. I once again feel hope. I feel that a world of which I had only dreamed is possible. I think I know how the founding fathers must have felt. I finally understand a cause worth dying for. I have everlasting gratitude for the men who fought the revolutionary war. Once again we are fighting the same revolution.
Here are the kinds of things that Ron Paul wants to do that I am so grateful to hear: he wants to abolish the IRS. Well, I think that if you work for your money you ought to keep it. Nothing seems less fair than having to give so much of my money away to pay for things that I abhor.
Ron Paul wants to end the war in Iraq. I believe deep in my soul that people should not kill each other except in defense. It is a part of me. It always has been. I have never wanted a war of aggression. I want to help our soldiers. I believe they have been lied to about the length of their tours of duty and that they are doing their best, but they were never meant to be over there that long. I believe they are trapped. I think that is awful. I believe Ron Paul wants to save them and again I feel hope.
Ron Paul wants to bring an end to the war on drugs. I have seen what this "war" is doing to the lives of so many people in this country. I see a "war" that is not waged on people equally. I see a "war" that has torn apart whole neighborhoods. I see people thrown in jail unequally in terms of race. That hurts my soul. I see people thrown in jail for doing almost nothing. I cannot understand how alcohol and caffeine are legal and other substances are not. I cannot understand how one person can go to a doctor for a prescription for a substance, but if another person takes that same substance without the prescription they can go to jail for life (if they have done it for a third time). How does that make any sense?
I see whole families ripped apart over and over as men are rotting in prison while women try to raise the children alone and all over a non-violent crime where no one got hurt. I see rapists and murderers get less time than a person who does crack. I cannot understand that and again, my soul aches. I believe Ron Paul wants to help these people and end this awful "war" and again, I have hope.
Over and over Ron Paul does things to restore my liberty and my freedoms. I feel the hope that the chains will drop and I will be free. I long for the day that I do not have to feel afraid when I make a comment on a telephone in jest. I yearn for the time when I get to keep the fruits of my labor. I hope that someday I will once again be able to see a way to save for the future. Right now, it seems silly to put any money away as it loses its value day after day. I work harder, put in more hours and still I have less buying power than I did twenty years ago. I am swimming as fast as I can only to find I have not moved an inch. Ron Paul wants to end the things that create monetary inflation and again, I am filled with hope. I can only dream what it would be like to actually get ahead.
Ron Paul is my hope. He has shown me that my dreams can happen. He has taught me that I don’t have to give up, there is one person out there working for me. For me. Imagine that? I am not a big corporation, I am not rich, and here is a politician who wants to become President to make my life freer, to make other people’s lives freer, to end some of the dreadful suffering so many are facing. Here is a man that does not believe we should accept the byline that "life isn’t fair." He seems to think life should be fair and he will work towards that end.
Whether or not Ron Paul wins, I feel that hope is not gone in this country. The great land of America is still here. It just may be buried a little right now.
I never understood campaigning for a candidate before. I have never donated money to a campaign before. I barely ever spoke of politics and certainly couldn’t have cared less before. Now, I finally have a man to vote FOR. Whether I get to pull a lever or have to write his name on a card, nothing will feel sweeter than voting for Ron Paul.
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