Republican RenaissanceRepublican RenaissanceThis is about changing the direction of the Republican Party. This is a call to true conservatives who feel their party has been led astray, steered by ambitious big-government politicians fundamentally indistinguishable from their counterparts on th Articles
The Protest Candidate (or, The Only Republican with Cajones)
2007-11-12 09:24:00 Just stumbled onto a pretty good post here, from the day of Paul's big moneybomb:What do traditional Republican voters do when their party is transformed from a small-government, pro-freedom party with a restrained foreign policy into a big-government, sectarian party with a penchant for interventionism? Well, they could genuflect to the Inquisitors of the conservative movement who now permeate the right-of-center blogosphere. They could allow themselves, the regional and ideological descendants of the party of Teddy Roosevelt, to become enablers of the new party of William Jennings Bryan. Or they could tell the GOP where to go and give four million dollars overnight to this guy:Rep. Ron Paul (Tex.) ended Guy Fawkes Day having done something no Republican has ever done before. He raised almost $4 million over the Internet without spending so much as a thin dime (beyond transaction fees, of course). This sort of thing just isn?t done ? usually you spend between fifty and eighty cent... More About: Protest , Candidate
When Conservatives had a Conscience
2007-11-12 01:27:00 When it wasn't just about grabbing and holding onto power, it was about principles. It was about honoring core beliefs. In 1960, Barry Goldwater took up in his hands the remnants of America's original and long lost tradition when he wrote:"I have little interest in streamlining government or in making it more efficient, for I mean to reduce its size. I do not undertake to promote welfare, for I propose to extend freedom. My aim is not to pass laws, but to repeal them. It is not to inaugurate new programs, but to cancel old ones that do violence to the Constitution, or that have failed in their purpose, or that impose on the people an unwarranted financial burden. I will not attempt to discover whether legislation is 'needed' before I have first determined whether it is constitutionally permissible. And if I should later be attacked for neglecting my constituents' 'interests', I shall reply that I was informed their main interest is liberty and that in that cause I am doing th... More About: Conscience , Conservatives
Paul to Opponents: Why Do You Act Like Democrats?
2007-11-09 16:01:00 From Ron Paul 's interview with The Bulletin in Philadelphia:FF: Since the debates don't allow for direct exchanges, if you could ask your opponents a direct question, what would it be?RP: Why do you act like Democrats ? You do everything the Democrats did. You're doing all the things we accuse the Democrats of doing. You're big spenders and champions of welfare programs, even though you condemned President Clinton for nation-building. And now you're losing your shirt, you lost last year, you're running up the deficit, you're in the entitlement business, you don't care about personal liberties, and you've taken up Bill Clinton's foreign policy [of nation-building]. It doesn't make any sense. Why would you do it if you know it's hurting the party?Money quote number two:I was on the House floor, and at least seven or eight members came up to me and said, "All I see are Ron Paul signs all over my district!" I'm not surprised that the message is such a powerful message, becau...
Ron Paul Slams Bernanke - Update
2007-11-09 02:38:00 Bond traders cheer Paul 's walloping of the Fed Chairman:ABC News runs a decent piece on it, though I quarrel with two items:"But when Paul squared off with Bernanke , things were a bit different. More like Bernanke was dealing with a combative grad student during office hours at Princeton."Paul may not have a Ph.D. in economics, but he is educated. What's going on in the exchange is you have two very different schools of thought that often talk past each other. Bernanke is the econometrician; scientistic and empirical, he loves data and statistics and believes that if you push Button A and pull Lever B, the economy will dutifully respond as it should. Paul adheres to the deductive a priori reasoning that is characteristic of Austrian economics, where one begins with economic laws and follows a chain of logic.Toward the end of the piece, speculation is offered as to the scant coverage of the clash:"It was an interesting exercise in theory, but Paul, even if he were to be elected pre... More About: Ron Paul , Update
The Fifth Wind
2007-11-08 17:00:00 It's shaping up to be a five-way race for Republicans right on into the primaries.Rojas at The Crossed Pond observes:So Robertson says it?s Giuliani. And Weyrich and Bob Jones insist upon Romney. And Brownback wants McCain. And Gary Bauer is leaning Thompson-ish. And nobody knows where the hell James Dobson?s at, save that he doesn?t want Thompson ... Most notable of all is the fact that pretty much everytime you actually ask them, the voters in question opt for Huckabee.I do hope Huckabee manages to hang on through the early primaries. What we'll see then is maximum fracture: the authoritarian Jingoists and Islamophobes neocons for Giuliani, the slightly more-conservative, less-intense hawks for McCain, the Hewitt/RedState/Freeper crowd split between Romney and Thompson, Christianists flocking to Huckabee, and the "Old Right" conservatives and libertarians for Paul.It's remarkably wide open at this point. More About: Wind
New Hampshire Newspaper Interviews Ron Paul
2007-11-08 16:33:00 The editorial board of New Hampshire 's Nashua Telegraph conducts an excellent, lengthy and wide-ranging interview with 2008's substance-over-style candidate:Waiting for Charlie Rose. More About: Interviews , Ron Paul , Paul
Ron Paul Slams Bernanke, Reckless Inflation
2007-11-08 16:30:00 Ron Paul demolishes the fallacy of our monetary policy and takes Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke to school for trying to solve the current crisis with more inflation. Bernanke, the consummate technocrat, can only respond with a typically fuzzy non-answer:First of all, can you imagine any of the other candidates for president talking in any meaningful, intelligent way about monetary policy? I can't. If they know the first thing about it, they certainly don't give any indication. If the subject were ever to come up in a real debate, I'm certain we'd get a lot of blank faces, blinking, and talk-around gibberish. This raises another depressing question: does it matter? We seem to require very little in the way of knowledgeableness from our 'leaders' these days (for evidence one need only look at Rudy The Terrorist Fighter's complete ignorance of the 9/11 Commission Report and relevant scholarship).About inflation, Bernanke avers:"If somebody has their wealth in dollars and they are goi... More About: Inflation , Ron Paul , Flat
Why I Admire Andrew Sullivan
2007-11-08 01:38:00 Because he is honest with himself, capable of reassessment and owning up to mistakes. He isn't the sort of person who, after five years of rising mayhem and strife throughout Project Iraq, breaks into a triumphant jig and hoots, "It's working!" because the number of killings is fewer this month than in some previous ones. He's not obsessed with vindication.I too found currency once, when the dust from 9/11 had yet to settle, in the idea that maybe Iraq was a threat that needed to be 'dealt with'. I wasn't a vocal supporter but I was a tacit one. At some point though you have to face reality, ask the tough questions and put every answer through the gauntlet of skepticism. You have to be able eventually to recognize hubris and folly, and back away from them when you do. I have special admiration for anyone doing it publicly, as he has.I was wrong because a) one critical element of the case for war was simply not there (whether lied about or misrepresented or incompetently judged... More About: Andrew , Sullivan , Ivan , Andrew Sullivan , Admire
Great Reads
2007-11-07 07:38:00 The response following Ron Paul's record-breaking fundraising day has given us several gems worth reading closely:ABC News does a very creditable, balanced story.Glenn Greenwald at Salon does an excellent job of reportage and analysis.Andrew Sullivan at The Atlantic captures it with his usual no-nonsense style.A few random thoughts of my own:Ron Paul isn't just attracting the disaffected youth, as many reports imply. Take my word for it, as someone who has been around a lot of supporters from all across the country and was in Iowa for the August straw poll; Paul has no shortage of support among 40 to 70 year-olds either. And although his opponents and skeptics would have everyone believe his supporters are all fringe characters, anti-war leftists, or independents with an anarchist streak, the truth is that many, MANY of these supporters are bonafide, honest-to-goodness conservative Republicans. The entrenched party establishment has reason to worry.Combine the Paul coalition, his ... More About: Great
I'm Spent
2007-11-06 05:52:00 What an exhilirating ride today. A big shout out to Trevor Lyman, the man who lit the fire! This has been an astonishing feat. $4.2 million, and not a PAC or special interest group in the bunch. Who would have believed it? The media needs a story, well now they've got one.Great job, all!Goodnight.
A Nice Blog Roundup
2007-11-06 05:10:00 From Brad at the Crossed Pond:"Some great quotes, some expressed surprise, some telling silences."[emphasis mine]You can bet that overextended dilettante Michelle Malkin is busy formulating a pouty retort peppered with words like "kooky" and "fringey". RedState's all bunkered up in a siege mentality. Hugh Hewitt has his radio wisecracks down and is on the phone with Dean Barnett practicing his voice modulation. Michael Medved is trying the anti-Semite angle on Guy Fawkes.I can't wait. More About: Roundup , Blog , Nice
Better Spend it Fast!
2007-11-06 04:23:00 Note to the Ron Paul campaign: Better hurry up and spend all that new money quick before Bernanke runs those presses again and cuts its value in half.Even supermodels are smart enough to run away from the collapsing dollar. More About: Fast
A $4 Million Haul for Paul?
2007-11-06 03:26:00 It's within reach, this nice round number. It's a race against the East Coast clock now, which is at 21:41 at this moment. We're clocking $3,328 per minute, which puts us on pace for a $3.89M finish by 24:00 EST. It will take a last-minute burst to get there.FREEEEEEEDOOOOOOOM! More About: Paul , Million
Tapping Into Love
2007-11-06 00:00:00 Ron Paul is tapping into a lot of love. Love for what this country once stood for. Love for the things that made it special and distinct from other societies throughout history. We've lost a few of those things along the way. Things like...the rule of lawindividual libertysocial cooperation and a sound economya modest, decentralized political system, kept strictly in checka rational foreign policy and a strong national defenseWe lost these bit by bit over the years. Many of us on the right?sickened by the neocon hijacking of the Republican Party?despaired of our chances to bring them back. Many on the left have been burned so many times by false promises from charlatans that they plain lost trust.Now, finally, we have a candidate we can believe in. That's what this historic November 5th "bomb" is all about. It represents a demolition of the current order and a reinstatement of original principles. As news of this huge fundraising event spreads, bewildered pundits struggle to get... More About: Tapping
Pedal to the Metal
2007-11-05 16:17:00 As I write this, it appears that donations to the Ron Paul campaign are continuing to accelerate. Thirty minutes ago they were getting roughly $2,800 per minute. Ten minutes ago it was up to $3,198 per minute.I just calculated it again...In the last 10 minutes they took in $35,044; or $3,504 per minute.Unbelievable. More About: Metal , Pedal
5th of November - Off the Charts!
2007-11-05 07:32:00 Wow.I thought I'd stay up a few minutes later than usual to see how the big November 5th plan is working out at the "opening bell" so to speak, and I am...floored.At just over an hour into the day, approximately $170,000 has been raised already. If this pace keeps up, we could break $4 million in 24 hours! Maybe more. That thought is simply stunning. Try to imagine it...it boggles the mind! If it becomes reality, it will be worth its weight in gold for all the media attention it will garner.The Ron Paul campaign has given America and the world one surprise after another, but this might be the biggest one yet. This is a movement that cannot be ignored and will not be denied. History is being made here before our eyes. WE are making it.I will be glued to the computer from dawn 'til dusk today, to watch with amazement as this thing unfolds. More About: Charts , The Charts , Char
"You Can Change the World Within Weeks"
2007-11-02 02:46:00 Thomas Woods writes:"Send this one to every left-of-center friend you have, and ask how often you hear Democrats speak this frankly."Democrat, Republican, whatever; when was the last time you had an opportunity to vote for a candidate who just speaks their mind, plainly and directly? He's the Anti-Hillary. More About: World , Change , The World , Change The World , Chang
The Iran Bugbear
2007-11-01 07:51:00 Norman Podhoretz is obsessed with Hitler. Here's Mr. Neocon himself in a debate with Fareed Zakaria, the latter running laps around the former (transcript). In support of his argument for attacking Iran , Podhoretz mentions Hitler several times, dusts off a quote from Ayatollah Khomeini from nearly 30 years ago, and asserts (without evidence) that the leadership of Iran is irrational and utterly devoid of any instinct for self-preservation.And people think Ron Paul is a crank?!What planet is this guy on, and why is anybody listening to him?Maybe it's as this blogger believes: that there is a contingent in this country that is in thrall to the mythic conception of conflict?taking for granted a universality of values (e.g., democracy); fighting an absolute evil for the future of civilization; perpetually in search of demons to vanquish, so as to test and cement wobbly convictions with "an unceasing string of real and imaginary confrontations".Certainly this is an apt characterizatio... More About: Bear
Excommunicated from the Church of RedState
2007-11-01 02:26:00 My oh my. They certainly are in a tizzy over at RedState. I was banished from their little abbey today?not for breaking the recent rule against speaking the name of Ron Paul?but for expressing my dismay that no one there seemed willing to engage me in a real, substantive debate over foreign policy. I guess it was too much to expect, after all. And when I remarked upon the value of RedState for harvesting an entertaining variety of sardonic quips and insults, one of the priests decided he'd had it up to his clenched teeth and promptly gave me the boot.It is fascinating to observe the hardening of the RedState flock against dialogue that deviates from the revealed word. The puckering rage that grows concomitant to Paul's successes promises to call up talents they never knew they had, pushing them right to the edge of the envelope with exceedingly sharpened barbs. Once all distractive voices are purged, their shop will be transformed into the first-class clearinghouse for uproariou... More About: Church , The Church
Club for Growth: Ron Paul Too Principled
2007-10-31 04:25:00 The Club for Growth on Ron Paul :"While we give Ron Paul credit for his philosophical ideals, politicians have the responsibility of making progress, and often, Ron Paul votes against making progress because, in his mind, the progress is not perfect," Mr. Toomey continued. "In these cases, although for very different reasons, Ron Paul is practically often aligned with the most left-wing Democrats, voting against important, albeit imperfect, pro-growth legislation. Ron Paul is, undoubtedly, ideologically committed to pro-growth limited-government policies, but his insistence on opposing all but the perfect means that under a Ron Paul presidency we might never get a chance to pursue the good too."When "making progress" becomes the explicit touchstone for candidates in our political system, you know we're really in trouble. The primary responsibility that politicians have is to exercise restraint. To administer the apparatus of government in its constitutionally limited sphere of opera...
An Open Letter to Michael Medved
2007-10-29 05:35:00 Dear Mr. Medved,You recently penned a hammy letter to Ron Paul, in which you insinuated that there is something suspect about the candidate whose campaign attracts a few fringe characters.I'm very curious to know where your concern was back in 2000, when one of these same principal characters was very conspicuously supporting your own favored candidate, George W. Bush.I think you owe the public a statement explaining why you chose to keep quiet on that occasion in 2000, declining to petition then-candidate Bush with the same questions you now direct at Paul.As you may imagine, such obvious selectivity contains the odor of rabid partisanship and casts doubt upon your credibility and motives.Will you publicly disassociate yourself from the sleazeball flock of neocon propagandists who gleefully propagate any smear, make liberal use of malicious guilt-by-association tactics, and generally go to any lengths for political advantage? More About: Open , Letter , Michael , Open Letter , Michael Medved
A Foreign Policy Challenge to RedState
2007-10-25 16:12:00 I've posted a letter at RedState, challenging someone there to represent the prevailing viewpoint in a real, substantive debate over the merits of Ron Paul's proposed foreign policy of non-intervention.I've posed the following assertion to start things off:It is in our best interests as a nation to remove our troops as soon as possible from Iraq and to implement a foreign policy which does not employ our military forces except when there is clear and present danger of imminent attack or Congress has found sufficient justification to make a declaration of war.Let's see how it goes.UPDATE - 10/26:No takers yet, but one RedState member has fired a few shots across the bow. Here's the conversation so far:rbdwiggins: Counter-proposal...I dismiss with prejudice your premise that "it is in our best interest" to relinquish control of the Middle East to Iran, and to abandon our allies from the former Soviet Bloc.Of course, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Vladimir Putin would agree with your chi... More About: Policy , Foreign Policy , Foreign , Challenge , Reign
Eulogy for the Republican Party?
2007-10-24 02:48:00 I think this comment from RedState pretty much sums it up:"ron paul, may have fit in the republican party at one time, but he doesn't belong here anymore. we (republicans) have changed along with society. i believe in a somewhat powerful central government. i think constitutionalists like ron paul are too rigid in their interpretation. like you said, even jefferson abused the constitution. why should we allow our hands to be tied behind our backs by some archaic document? it's a guide, not biblical law."Are we approaching a point in our history of another major political party upheaval, à la the Whig/Republican split? More About: Party , Republican Party
Notes on Another Debate
2007-10-22 16:20:00 Another Fox News Republican debate has come and gone, this time in Florida. I'm growing to like Brit Hume more and more. He provides a nice scowling counterweight to the pack of grinning wags squirming behind their podiums to get their punchlines out like Valanch-tutored hosts on Oscar night.Now then.It must be about time for Duncan Hunter and Tom Tancredo to drop out, for their carriages to turn back into pumpkins, as they just don't have anywhere close to the resources needed to go any further. The only reason for the bookends to hang around is to try to shape the debate by hammering home their pet issues?trade policy and illegal immigration, respectively. That said, I have to admit that Tancredo can be pretty darn eloquent from time to time, as he was on the question about health care. When he reminded the audience that the federal government has no place in it, it was vintage Ron Paul with an enviably clear and composed delivery. At any rate, it's time for these guys to go s... More About: Debate , Notes
Iran in the Crosshairs
2007-10-21 12:41:00 Former Bush-Administration officials discuss the dysfunctional foreign policy that has put us on a path for war with Iran ; a policy which every Republican candidate save Ron Paul wants to emulate.Military historian Gabriel Kolko says many in the armed forces think Bush and Cheney (and presumably, by extension, their toady cheerleaders) are "out of control", a claim buttressed by the impressive fact that most campaign contributions from military personnel are going to the two antiwar candidates, Ron Paul and Barack Obama.(Thanks to Georg Thomas for the Spiegel article)
Libertarians Rising
2007-10-19 16:27:00 Michael Kinsley has an interesting, if somewhat misinformed, essay in Time Magazine about the growth of the libertarian movement.After describing libertarianism as he sees it, Kinsley asksAnd what is the opposite of libertarianism? Libertarians would say fascism. But in the American political context, it is something infinitely milder that calls itself communitarianism. The term is not as familiar, and communitarians are far less organized as a movement than libertarians, ironically enough. But in general communitarians emphasize society rather than the individual and believe that group responsibilities (to family, community, nation, the globe) should trump individual rights.I guess "communitarianism" is the new socialism? He goes on to say, in what I'd call the money quote:Libertarians and communitarians (to continue this unjustified generalizing) are different character types. Communitarians tend to be bossy, boring and self-important, if they're not being oversweetened and touc...
Blog Issues
2007-10-17 06:30:00 I'm having blog layout issues. It's beginning to make my head hurt. Blog ger is forcing my right sidebar down to the bottom right-hand corner of the page for no apparent reason. I've tried to eliminate any possible source for the problem and have been fiddling with the code and with different templates for hours, all to no avail. It remains broken and I'm starting to despise Blogger.I'd like to change my layout to two wider columns, but I don't have time to become a Blogger code master. Tips, anyone? More About: Issues , Issue
Tracking Ron Paul
2007-10-16 05:38:00 The RonPaul Graphs site...pretty amazing.Some research on Ron's MSM mentions, blogosphere buzz, and web site traffic, and comparisons with other candidates.MeetUp member comparison across candidates.(Hat tip to Tex at LewRockwell.com) More About: Ron Paul , Tracking
Making Sanity Respectable Again
2007-10-15 06:39:00 It's hard for me to believe that Ron Paul's message is controversial. Was it controversial to criticize Caligula too?Ron Paul's truthful talk on conservatism and foreign policy at the Robert Taft Club in Virginia:Part 1Part 2Part 3Part 4Part 5Part 6
The Catastrophic Flaw
More articles from this author:2007-10-15 05:44:00 It's hubris. It's also a nationalist bunker mentality. These two elements combined make up the recipe for the dish that Gen. Sanchez has tasted and sent back to the kitchen in disgust.WASHINGTON ? Retired Army Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez, who led U.S. forces in Iraq for a year after the March 2003 invasion, accused the Bush administration Friday of going to war with a "catastrophically flawed" plan and said the United States is "living a nightmare with no end in sight."Sanchez described the current troop increase in Iraq as "a desperate attempt by the administration that has not accepted the political and economic realities of this war."So it is that another sparkling plan to hitch American geopolitical solutions to an uncourtable people is dragged, kicking and screaming, to the junkyard. The real tragedy is twofold: that the realization of failure must come to the tide-turners a posteriori when the lifting of a half dozen book covers would have made prophets of them all; and tha... 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 |
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