Posted by
Charles Lewis on Tuesday, November 06, 2007 11:08:34 AM
by Charles R Lewis
(Salutation)
As to your "debate" points:
There are both Biblical and common sense reasons to
favor Israel over her genocidal anti-Christian terrorist enemies, as well as to
oppose her leadership, which is as treacherous in fostering her demise (and
giving away the Holyland to antichrist forces) as ours is in fostering
ours.
Ron Paul never gave anybody any indication he was
planning to run till the day he announced, whereas Tancredo - a supposed ally -
publicly brooded over his entry for 2 years. This dual candidacy is nothing if
not redundant, and Paul's huge negatives - especially among Christian
conservative Constitutionalists like me - make him unelectable in the generals,
whereas Tom's ownership of the invasion issue gave him across-the-board appeal.
In the GOP brouhaha, however, Paul's harping on the supposed no WMD matter
resonates pretty well - not as well as it would with Dems, but enough for him to
elbow out Tom (and - especially in light the latter's performance in those
pre-campaign web polls - shut down America's true political hope). And to whom
else but Tancredo would Paulistas otherwise be lending their
support?
You see, I disagree categorically that the WMD
issue is minor. By taking the exact wrong position on the nature of the lies
surrounding them, Paul has struck a chord with the isolationist right, a small,
but vibrant segment (hero: the enigmatic Pat Buchanan) that serves as a
quasi-fifth column for the reds and ragheads that go around the world
infiltrating their enemies (including us) to their hearts' content and cry foul
when we do anything with even a 1% resemblance to that on behalf of our
interests. These misguided individuals (whom David Horowitz has dubbed the
"America Hating Right") have attracted quite a coterie from among the ranks of
more patriotic "enligtened rightists" like myself (and you), mostly because of
Paul's excellent (but mostly symbolic) record of principled stands in the
House.
Most alarmingly, Paul has registered at least a
significant blip among supposed Christian conservatives. This is the most
distressing and the hardest to comprehend of the going phenomena, especially
given Paul's weaknesses on abortion, gay marriage, gays in the military, prayer
in school, marijuana, prostitution, euthanasia, and the like.
As for the "small quantity" of WMD's found in Iraq,
first, we'll never know how many were found, as the Admin put a lid on "initial
test results" very early in the war after word leaked about at least 4 apparent
sure things, each of which it had clumsily explained away. We do know that
only Freedom of Info Act access led Rick Santorum to the uncovering of an
incredible 500 the Bushites had never bothered to call to our attention. Add to
that the even greater amount revealed earlier in Ricard Miniter's
Misinformation, the convincing pinpointing of a bigtime stash by David
Gaubatz, the overwelming evidence of Russian involvement in the shipping out of
huge stores in the days before the war, confirmation of same by Iraqi General
Sada, the Salman Pak discovery of a 9/11 mock-up complete with manuals, the
staggering investigative discoveries of Jayna Davis proving Saddam's goons were
responsible for the Oklahoma City bombing, and the fact that the Bushites
positively stonewalled all of this, and I would surmise that only the willfully
blind would fail to see the pattern.
Specifically, the fact that Saddam deigned to kill
hundreds of innocents in OKC certainly indicates he was a threat (what would it
take - beyond the slaughter of 200+ innocents, many of them children, on
American soil - for you to consider a military response justified? I have to
think 99% of Americans, if they knew the Okla City truth, would disagree with
your position). And the fact that - even after the final ultimatum against any
type of resistance - Hussein shot at our planes daily gave us justification
enough to take him out. But the Bushites never mention any of this, because it
serves their One World political purposes to vindicate the UN and elect a
marxist Democrat congress to rubberstamp NAU, UNCLOS, CODEX, mental health
screening, amnesty/citizenship for invaders, open borders, perecution of border
agents, and much more, all of which garners opposition almost exclusively from
Republicans.
We have to be the least "imperial" superpower in
history, and only communists and Paulistas call us "imperialists." If we were
imperialists, we could have co-opted Europe and Japan after WW II (and hundreds
of millions of Eastern Europeans would have been a lot better off under our
"imperialism" than the true Russian imperialism under which they wound up).
This characterization has been used repeatedly by the commies. It's part of
their "accuse your opponent of doing exactly what you're doing" strategy, which,
I believe, can even be found in their literature. Where in the Constitution, by
the way, is there a prohibition against imperialism? if there is, then we're 37
states over our constitutional limit.
As for the world's policeman bit, I'm sure you know
I do not feel our leadership has America's interests at heart. However, I do
know that, left unfettered, the communists and their islamist surrogates would
swiftly snatch up the rest of the world and set their sites on us. And the more
we shrink from standing up to them the more emboldened they become. Of course,
if we were at all serious about protecting America we'd close the
borders, deputize every government employee to root out every illegal alien at
every opportunity, invade the mosques and purge them of WMD's, shut down the
madrassas and terror camps that dot our landscape, and follow Tancredo's advice
to let it be known that in the event of a WMD attack here Mecca's
toast.
As for amending the Constitution, we passed the
Defense of Marriage Act, to absolutely no effect. Ditto for state ballot
initiatives throughout the country. So Paul has no alibi on that one. And none
of the other issues involve amendments; they're all legislative. At this point
your defense of Paul dissolves into apparent pure rationalization.
As far as Paul's critics digging up dirt about him,
les critiques, c'est moi. I know of no other Paul opponent who's come
up with anything like the compendium I've gathered. The tactic of the
establishment Republicans has been simply to ignore him, even as he wins debate
after debate as per online polls (which I consider legit, by the way). If these
politicos were to reveal the things I've uncovered, it would likely mean a shift
of support from Paul to Tancredo, and that's the last thing they
want.
As for drawing inferences from Paul favoring ACLU
(or, worse, NEA) policies being "guilt by association," mea culpa. In
the future, I'll restrict my inference drawing to less objective criteria. Such
shameful reasoning on my part is a little like concluding someone has pedophile
issues just because his opinions dovetail with those espoused by NAMBLA. Excuse
me for jumping to conclusions; I won't be so judgmental in the
future.
I don't know about you, but to me a moribund
Democrat Party and a dead in the water UN, while they might not solve all our
problems, would certainly represent steps in the right direction; I wouldn't go
out of my way to keep either on artificial life support (would you?), especially
since I consider them both consumately evil.
But that's beside the point. A political party
(like, say, the GOP) in an apparent fight to the death with the Dems and in an
ostensive monumental dispute with the UN would assuredly be expected to welcome
the neutralization of either (as opposed to the fostering of a major electoral
victory for the former and a huge PR win for the latter, en route to the "LOST"
of what's left of our sovereignty to it). The
fact that the Republican leadership chose those negative results over those
readily available positive ones speaks volumes.
I do agree wholeheartedly with your final
paragraph. But that's one of my best reasons for preferring Tancredo to Paul.
Paul's a polarizer who turns off at least as may conservatives as he turns on.
If he can't even unite the conservative movement, how's he going to bridge the
gap between us and the libs (who characteristically shout down the rare
conservative campus speaker, while giving standing ovations to islamofascist
dicatators who've vowed to blow our heads off)?
On the other hand, Tancredo is the recognized
master of an issue on which 80% of Americans agree (and 80% of these folks
consider it a critical issue). He's the one that could have united
these disparate elements.
Berdj, on several occasions I've been able to
de-program brainwashed youngsters who considered themselves liberals and prove
to them that all of their core beliefs were conservative. And in a few
minutes. All I did was present the liberal and conservative points of view on
topics from property rights to "Tax Freedom Day" to ANWR to SDI to partial birth
abortion to environmental tyranny...and simply ask the subject to choose between
these positions. In every case, they chose the conservative side (duh), and in
every case they were astonished to learn that it was conservatives with whom
they agreed.
We need to be converting "liberals" who
don't know they're essentially conservatives, not "uniting" with dyed in the
wool marxists. And as to calling people names, I'll refrain from the "Ronsie
(Ward Churchill) Paul" monicker. It was getting old anyway.
PS
Almost forgot:
I believe in principles, not individuals.
Individuals let you down - every time - unless we're talking about
Christ.
I held Ron Paul in highest esteem for years. But
when he diverged dramatically from the principles I treasure I chose the
princples over the individual; I had no choice.
I've known for some time that many in our movement
lack the strength of core principles. Apparently what core beliefs they have
are insufficient to overpower the cult of the Paul personality, even when
they're confronted with overwhelming evidence. Perhaps it's the knowledge that
it's now or never for America, and, beyond that, it's all wishful
thinking.
I know that Tom Tancredo (ACLU rating: a more
reasonable 9%) has few or none of those Paul liabilities. Pity he's no longer a
factor, thanks to Paul.