I was amazed at FOX News' openly hostile attitude toward congressman Ron Paul during the "First in the Fall" GOP debate. Of course I was already expecting Sean Hannity's relentless illogical diatribes, but I was shocked to hear moderators openly laughing while asking questions of Paul. Chris Wallace's punditry was detestable - spinning Paul's words from just moments before, equating a troop withdrawal from the Arabian Peninsula to taking "marching orders from Al-Qaeda." (Paul's response was perfect: "We should take our marching orders from our Constitution.") After the debate, Hannity blew off Paul's 33% text-message vote victory, claiming Paul's supporters were somehow able to bypass the one-vote-per-phone restriction. In fact, Ron Paul received as many votes as Mike Huckabee (2nd place) and Rudy Giuliani (3rd place) combined. This was a blowout victory for Paul, and yet FOX declared Huckabee the winner based on a 29-person handpicked focus group? FOX is making it crystal clear who they DON’T want people to vote for in 2008. I sincerely hope Americans aren’t brainwashed by FOX’s not-so-hidden political agenda.
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I remember voting for him in one election, and Wikipedia says he ran in 1988, just months after I turned 18. I'm not sure, but I think Ron Paul may have been the first vote I ever cast for President. What can I say? Voting Libertarian is the prerogative of clever college kids everywhere.
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What the hell is FAUX?
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It's a play on Fox News' name.
Basicly, Fox developed a reputation of reporting highly biased stuff, and out right completely false statements, thus the "Faux News" nickname. | |
His foreign policy sucks and isn't realistic, and he's absolutely insane when it comes to things like dismantling the FBI.
I like his stance on social liberties and the patriot act, but otherwise... EWWWW | |
Maggeh wrote:
It's a play on Fox News' name. I get it! Like a fox! I still don't know who Ron Paul is or what he's doing or why he has a BYOND membership | |
See the problem with propaganda machines? If you do not spout the party line, they try to grind you up! Ron Paul came off as a really straight shooter with positions that reflect alot more common sense and alot less dogmatism than his rivals. He is taking positions that seem to resonate better with average Americans and isn't afraid to criticize the current Republican path. That may get him torpoed in the primaries by hardliners. Then again, it might also re-invigorate more rational Repubs who are fed up with the current bunch.
I was pretty leery of Paul, and still think many of his ideas are completely unworkable, but based on what I've seen so far, I would vote for him in a heartbeat over a McCain, Giulliani, or Clinton (who I am pretty sure will get the Dem nod). Damn what a pathetic bunch of choices... | |
The problem with Ron Paul is that he's unelectable. Many more Republicans or Republican-leaning voters are siding with libertarian issues, but those same voters are also strong on defense and most are turned off by his stance on Iraq and national security in general. Many libertarians are strong on defense too, so he can't even command a lot of his own would-be supporters. He appeals to some in the center, but primaries don't go to the center; general elections do. His odd split on the issues though, tacking left on some and right on others, is likely to make him unappealing to mainstream voters on either side.
His result in that text-message poll probably has a lot more to do with the rabidness of many of his core supporters (I've heard some of them on call-in shows) than any actual general popularity in Republican/conservative circles. In a primary he'd be slaughtered. | |
okay just so we're clear you realize that faux and fox are pronounced completely differently, right?
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Lummox JR wrote:
Many libertarians are strong on defense too, so he can't even command a lot of his own would-be supporters. He appeals to some in the center, but primaries don't go to the center; general elections do. Our current foreign policy isn't based on defense so much as the neo-con "the best defense is a good offense" approach, which is completely different. Ron Paul supports a strong national defense, not a strong presence as police of the world. There's a huge difference. One works; the other pisses off everyone in the world, giving people reason to suicide bomb us. And Ben G, yes, everyone knows that. :P It's a play on the spelling, not the pronunciation. | |
One works; the other pisses off everyone in the world, giving people reason to suicide bomb us. It's odd how suicide bombers seem to fall into a pretty narrow subset of the world population. I can't think of the last time I heard of a German or Japanese suicide bomber [1]. Heck, we lost Vietnam and only managed a truce in Korea, and even they aren't producing a lot of suicide bombers. I just hope someone can figure out the missing factor (PBUH). [1] For my whole lifetime Mitsubishi has been making cars instead of Zeroes. | |
Actually, there were plenty of suicide attacks during our military operations in Viet Nam. One of the more notorious strategies was to have children with de-pinned grenades run towards US soldiers. Booby trapping was also very common.
Germany and Japan and even Korea were a totally different kind of conflict than the post-Korea military actions. Soviet Afghanistan, Viet Nam, etc. are not traditional wars against a traditional power structure representing a national interest. They are asymmetric situations between a traditional war power and a group of guerrilla militants usually allied behind a common philosophy and often with support from more traditional national powers. The failure to recognize this and adapt accordingly is a large reason for the perceived failure in these actions- the standard military power is looking for a "win" in a traditional sense (IE invading a capital, near complete surrender, etc.) that is all but impossible to achieve against a fragmentary opponent. OTOH, the militants just have to stick around and not be totally wiped out. Even if they suffer higher casualty rates, loss of territory, etc. it doesn't really matter because they can simply relocate, re-arm and keep going. LummoxJR: I think you are absolutely correct. To the OP: what you call neo-con approach (and I agree they spearheaded it) has largely become a plank in modern Republican politics, displacing traditional Conservative views critical of nation building and preferring a more isolationist approach. That is one of the reasons that true conservatives have become so critical of Republican politics- it has become militant socialism. A political platform of blind nationalism, moral intolerance, militant socialism and expansive federalism is far more similar to the fascist politics of early 20th century Italy, Spain, and Germany than traditional libertarian American values. If the US economy continues to struggle in the international scene, I do not like to think where this may go and only hope that our larger, more egalitarian voting base keeps it in check (though, remember that every fascist government in Europe was elected...). | |
Jmurph, fair points, but I would raise two objections.
1) Since I was alive (as a baby) during Vietnam, it's fair to say that the Viet Cong used suicide bombers against the US during my lifetime. If the war were still going on, they might still be doing it. But since we lost, they aren't, and if we'd won, they wouldn't be doing it any more, either. 2) Against guerrillas, a nation may certainly decide to give up -- two big examples are Vietnam and, going further back, the American Revolution. I don't think Americans will leave Iraq for lost, though. Why? A few reasons. A) Al Qaeda attacked us, killing more people than the Japanese did at Pearl Harbor, and destroying one of America's most iconic landmarks in the process. Iraq is not Al Qaeda, but at this point, a lot of our opposition is coming from Al Qaeda in Iraq. It's possible that one day Al Qaeda will renounce terrorism, but until that day comes, the American position will (or at least should) be that everyone who affiliates himself with Al Qaeda has signed his own death warrant. B) Iraq's own citizens are becoming more confident that America won't bug out (as we did in the Gulf War -- the movie "Three Kings" was pretty sarcastic about that, though if you look at the same people's reactions to the current war, trying to set things right is apparently even worse). Plus, the insurgents are resorting to Saddam-like tactics to try and keep the citizenry in line. The "preference cascade" effect (the point at which multitudes of previously cowed people suddenly feel confident to express their true opinions) may soon be, or may already be, coming into play there. C) As General Patton noted, Americans hate losing, and we hated losing Vietnam (well, not all of us did, but that's another story... a commie story). Iraq is, in a way, a chance at a do-over -- to show that America still has resolve and still can carry the day when it maintains its will to do so. D) The flypaper strategy. One of the many reasons for the war in Iraq was that it would draw terrorists from all over the Middle East to a single theater. One may argue that the flypaper strategy was insufficient justification in itself for attacking Iraq, but it wasn't offered as justification in itself (John Kerry's own people identified no less than 24 reasons for the war: http://brothersjuddblog.com/archives/016695.html), and no one can deny that foreign terrorists have indeed flocked to Iraq. E) Freeing the Iraqi people from Saddam Hussein was a good thing to do, whether or not it was done for ulterior motives. The Iraqis are -- and if we handle things properly, will continue to be -- better off than they were under Hussein's rule. Liberating non-Americans is not a high priority of American voters, yet historically we seem willing to commit to it over and over again, and once the commitment is made, we like to see it carried to completion. | |
Jmurph:
The Japanese used suicide bombing as well (kamikazes). Gughunter: You might want to consider the motivations for suicide bombing. People don't suicide bomb if they think they can accomplish more by staying alive. Suicide bombing is very much a tactic of desperation. (Suicide bombings are not always terrorist attacks and vice versa.) Considering the Vietnamese, why would Vietnamese continue suicide bombing us AFTER we've withdrawn? It doesn't make sense - it would just provoke us to go back in again. The same can be said of our current situation in the Middle East. Consider, too, that every innocent (and not-so-innocent) person killed as a result of our actions has family and friends who can blame us for their loss. For every terrorist we kill, many more potential terrorists are ready to take his place. (Notice I said "potential".) to no one in particular: People like to say that radical Islamic terrorists attack us because of our freedoms, money, etc., but this is simply not the case. Osama bin Laden has said this himself. "Security is an important pillar of human life. Free people do not relinquish their security. This is contrary to Bush's claim that we hate freedom. ... "Let him tell us why we did not strike Sweden, for example. ... "We fought you because we are free and do not accept injustice. We want to restore freedom to our nation. Just as you waste our security, we will waste your security." - Osama bin Laden a simple solution? Ron Paul's "Marque and Reprisal Act of 2001" http://www.house.gov/paul/press/press2001/pr101101.htm This is a tool the Constitution gives us to fight enemies without borders. Did we make use of it? Of course not. Ron Paul did in fact support going after the terrorists in Afghanistan. But Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan should not be used as justification to attack anyone who doesn't fall in line with our foreign policy (e.g. Saddam). Saddam and Iraq had absolutely nothing to do with 9/11 (way too many people seem to have forgotten). While Bush tried to imply that there was a connection, when he was called out on it he had to admit that there wasn't. But that hasn't stopped FOX News from rewriting history. This wasn't very well organized, but I'll try to sum it up. People will continue to suicide bomb us as long as they're desperate and believe we're the cause of their problems. Staying in the Middle East gives people a reason to hate us and think we're the source of their problems. There are more effective ways to fight terrorists than costly endless war against an enemy we can't realistically identify. | |
I'm gonna call bull here. The argument that killing one terrorist creates N others is pretty much pacifist horse crap. Most of these guys are in very much the sort of mentality that sees weakness in an enemy as a sign that they're winning, and when they can play up the perception that they're winning, they earn a lot more recruits than when they're being decimated. Real life has proven this "We're just encouraging them to escalate" crap to be a complete fiction. (Furthermore, you have to figure their recruiting pool is not infinite and if they tap from it at greater rates, eventually they will outstrip their supply. Simple math is all you need to grasp that this is a lousy argument.)
And suicide bombing isn't merely an act of desperation. Terrorist suicide bombers all believe, to a man (and woman), that they are doing something glorious for their religion, because some radical imam and a bunch of fellow travelers told them so. They're often perfectly healthy people, even young ones. There is no calculation of "Can I accomplish more by living?", but rather "I will be a holy martyr!" Frankly against an enemy like a terrorist organization there is no such thing as a defense that doesn't include a strong offense, especially when the intelligence community, TSA, and DHS are still acting like the frickin' Keystone Kops. It is far easier to catch terrorists in the planning stage than catch them close to their target, and it is far easier to disrupt their plans by attacking them than by leaving them to plan in peace. Of course doing more to cut off their funding helps too, which doesn't require as much investment in force but certainly takes a political will that isn't all there. And the real root cause of all this crap--radical Wahhabist dogma spread far and wide around the world by Saudi money--also needs to be addressed. And no, to those who've said so, this is not a neocon or "militant socialist" thing. Conservatives of any stripe are anything but socialist. Conservatism has also always had a plank of solid national defense, which sometimes does mean fighting a war. Even when America took a more isolationist stance, wars would come about once a generation, and clearly isolationism will not solve this problem. Indeed one of the reasons America was targeted is because the current breed of terrorists, who think like the Taliban, are annoyed at seeing those around them adopting aspects of American culture--and that spreads regardless of our foreign policy. Besides, even if a defense-without-offense approach was at all feasible, it would require a pretty intense effort from government at all levels which would include draconian powers and very very large bureaucracies, and neither of those are compatible with conservatism either. (Bin Laden's quote that they don't hate freedom to the contrary, they do. Many Sunni Iraqis are turning on al Qaeda now because one of the things al Qaeda won't let them do is smoke, and they've been mutilating people who defy them.) And as was partly addressed in Gughunter's post, Saddam's lack of any important connection to 9/11 was pretty immaterial because getting rid of him was part of the overall strategy in mopping up terrorism. Every intelligence agency in the world at the time believed him to have readily accessible stockpiles of WMDs (some components of which have, in fact, been found), which would be disastrous in the hands of terrorists. He also personally funded terrorism by paying off the families of suicide bombers targeting Israeli civilians. The only thing good you could say about his human rights record was that Kim Jong Il's is worse, and he was also fond of destroying the local environment when practicing genocide. (He pretty much decimated the wetlands supporting major Shiite areas, just out of revenge for their supporting his defeat in Desert Storm.) Attracting terrorists to a place that was Not Here and Not All Over where they would be easier to fight was also a major goal, the aforementioned flypaper strategy, and it has largely been a success. Finally, Iraq showed the only promise in the Middle East for becoming a sort of anti-Saudi Arabia, a secular country that could--albeit with difficulty--suport a democracy and break the endless cycles of dictatorships and bloated monarchies there, which is an absolutely vital part in the long-term strategy. In short, Ron Paul just doesn't get it. He is way, way too far left of 95% of the Republican base, which is why in a primary he stands as much chance of winning the nomination as Ralph Nader has of being elected as a lesser god. That's not to say he doesn't have good ideas on other issues (Ron Paul, that is, not Nader), but his stance on the war is mired in a lot of bad logic and bad sense. | |
Lummox JR wrote:
*bullshit* Mhmm, and im the idiot. Bombing the shit out of a country for no reason and on false pretenses causes more people to side with radical groups, common sense. Brainwashed american. The way things work in the middle east, you have an army of your stupidest kids with the lowest potential. You send them in to a country full of people they dont understand, and are afraid of. Whenever some shit goes down the americans either shoot each other because your so confused or an innocent person. You dont give people trials in Gitmo and you dont listen to the UN who calls your wars illegal. Blah blah blah, we are protecting ourselves, fixing the problem by getting them before they get us, yeah right. Your foreign policy IS the problem. Terrorism is winning, because you declared war on it, and you cant beat terror by declaring war. (It causes more terror, no kidding right.) The only way your going to win the war in Iraq, is if you somehow clean up your act and start killing more terrorists than create them. Every innocent person you kill you send their brothers and fathers and sons to a place of hatred and vengence. You create terrorists when you force people into a corner, Every man in the world would retaliate just like the people in iraq have. You americans dont put yourselves in their shoes. Imagine if russia bombed the crap out of you and occupied your territories. Youd be blowing up whatever you could too, youd be pissed. | |
Lummox:
Suicide bombing IS an act of desperation. How many suicide bombers don't feel that their lives are worthless? that death and the possibility of a glorious afterlife isn't better than the Hell they live in today? that vengeance isn't worth more than their seemingly-valueless life? And how many do it simply to support their families, for the money their families receive once they've carried out their attack? That imam might do everything possible to convince the suicide bomber that he's doing it for Allah, but in the end, it's the despondent suicide bomber that carries out the attack, NOT the imam. We had plenty of information about 9/11 before it happened, and did we act upon any of it? NO! The problem wasn't that we weren't over there actively fighting terrorists. The unmanageable bureaucracy that was unable to process the threats was the problem. We did catch them in the planning stages; we just refused to do anything about it. And what did we do in response: We made the bureaucracy more inefficient by adding the Department of Homeland Security!? I agree with you that tracking terrorist funding sources is an important issue. However, we don't need hundreds of thousands of men and women overseas in the desert to do that. As far as our excuse for going to war: http://youtube.com/watch?v=yBHAX0vf5P0 Sure, it's good that Saddam's gone, the present clusterf*** in Iraq notwithstanding. The ends don't justify the means. Ron Paul is neither a pacifist nor an isolationist. He's a non-interventionist. This entails keeping out of other peoples' POLITICAL business and resorting to force only for national defense. (That doesn't include defense of oil interests.) What's more, it's up to Congress to declare war, not the president, so this shouldn't even be an issue. But we've strayed from the Constitution; now look where we are. | |
Masterdan wrote:
Lummox JR wrote: "An Army of your stupidest kids"? Where do you get off? Seriously, US soldiers aren't these freakbags that are just handed a rifle and tossed into the desert, they're trained thoroughly enough to accomplish their job, which is to kill the enemy. i'm tired of you and the brits taking pot shots at our military, when yous isn't faring any better. And, from what I've seen, the Allied occupation force has killed more than they've had KIA/WIA, which would mean training isn't the problem. I love how you quote one word, then try to make a case off of that one word, rather than try to counter his argument like everyone else in the discussion. And as far as everyone going to the cause...that's the real *bullshit* to your case. Did you see Vietnam? All of those anti-war, peace waving hippies were much against what the country was doing. Again, there are plenty of anti-war people marching outside of Washington every day, despite us being at war. And Russia bombing America? Not only do I see that not happening in the near distant future, but again, you're dead wrong. Case in point: I would emigrate to Russia to fight for my ancestors without giving a second glance. I'm sure there'd be plenty of other people either in the same boat as me, or just too afraid(unlike the soldiers enlisted/drafted) to take the call to arms. Stay in the Anime forum, with people on your competency level. | |
Considering the Vietnamese, why would Vietnamese continue suicide bombing us AFTER we've withdrawn? It doesn't make sense - it would just provoke us to go back in again. That's why I included that part about "If the war were still going on, they might still be doing it. But since we lost, they aren't, and if we'd won, they wouldn't be doing it any more, either." Consider, too, that every innocent (and not-so-innocent) person killed as a result of our actions has family and friends who can blame us for their loss. For every terrorist we kill, many more potential terrorists are ready to take his place. (Notice I said "potential".) As Lummox pointed out, the Wahhabists only have a finite number of believers. It may be large, but it is finite. And they have the disadvantage of being essentially irrational and suicidal, which does not work well against an enemy that is essentially rational and life-affirming. People like to say that radical Islamic terrorists attack us because of our freedoms, money, etc., but this is simply not the case. Osama bin Laden has said this himself. The idea that the American electorate cares the slightest bit about what Osama thinks -- especially after killing over 3,000 of us -- is exactly the kind of idea that makes Ron Paul unelectable. | |
FOX news are a bunch of ignorant retards. I'm sure most of americans knew that already though.
Ron Paul has been sticking with everything he believes in and is a genuine candidate. He definitely has my vote.