The Frightening Surge Of Ron Paul
By Vince Leibowitz on Nov 18, 2007 in 2008 Presidential Race ![[Post to Twitter]](/wp-content/plugins/tweet-this/icons/tt-twitter.png){kind=icon}
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Those of us in Texas who have followed Ron Paul’s lackluster tenure as a pseudo-right wing Congressman are, admittedly, distressed by this news:
Paul’s supporters raised $4.2 million online in 24 hours, breaking previous campaign fundraising records.
Another event is scheduled for Dec. 16, when supporters will use the anniversary of the Boston Tea Party in an attempt to raise $10 million from 100,000 people giving $100 each.
Suddenly, Paul has more cash than Sen. John McCain and trails front-runners Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney.
Three polls in New Hampshire show Paul with 7 percent of the Republican vote, up from the 3 percent he posted in a September poll by Zogby International.
This week, John Zogby, the pollster, told Sean Hannity’s radio show that Paul could take 15 percent to 18 percent of the GOP vote in New Hampshire, which would surprise many Republicans and embarrass the front-runners.
Paul also is surging in Nevada, where a recent Zogby poll showed him with a jump from 1 percent to 7 percent.
I was going to say, “Ron Paul’s supporters must be stupid.” But, that’s rude and the fact is, Congressman Paul’s supporters aren’t “stupid,” they are simply “mis-informed.”
I simply cannot fathom how Ron Paul could amass such a huge following of supporters without one of them having actually checked his record as a Texas Congressman to determine whether he would actually make a good president.
For one thing, a lot of Ron Paul’s supporters are typical “middle class” Americans. So, wouldn’t those supporters find it interesting that, during his tenure in Congress, he’s been screwing the middle class like a $30 whore outside the Washington Monument?
He’s voted in favor of issues that help the middle class less than 30 percent of the time. Of course, Paul’s supporters will come back with a retort that will include the words “constitution” and “gold standard” in the same sentence which, like most of what Paul says, is designed to sound good and make sense but does neither.
What’s so dangerous about Paul is that, because of his pseudo-Libertarian philosophy, he’s able to take things that do not make sense, couple them with ideas that do make sense. He’s like a toddler who eats two foods that don’t go together (like salami and bananas) and then pukes them up on the kitchen floor:
Paul wants to abolish the Department of Education and the Internal Revenue Service, and he is opposed to trade pacts such as the North American Free Trade Agreement.
Abolish NAFTA? Sure, score one for Paul! Get rid of the U.S. Department of Education and the IRS? Do OBGYN’s still sniff ether like the guy in Cider House Rules, because you couldn’t work harder to come up with two more conflicting ideas of government cuts if you were stoned and throwing darts a copy of the federal budget.
This is the problem, and the attractiveness, to Paul’s pseudo-Libertarian philosophy: you can just sit there and say that damned near anything is unconstitutional and outside what the framers intended. Hell, you can just get pissed off at a federal agency because they don’t return your calls and take to the floor of the House tomorrow and declare them unconstitutional. Pissed off by the Small Business Administration? Vote for Ron Paul, he’ll abolish them! FEMA make you mad? Send Ron Paul $100 and he’ll add them to the list of government agencies he wants to get rid of. Do those FDIC signs on bank windows annoy you? Get a Ron Paul Yard Sign and he’ll do away with them, too.
Don’t like harvest gold colored appliances? No worries, Ron Paul can just say they weren’t what the “framers intended,” and they’ll be gone. Neighbor’s cat annoying you with its catterwoling at night? No problem! Ron Paul is so constitutionally selective he can make your neighbor’s cat and only your neighbor’s cat totally unconstitutional just by saying so, raising online contributions, and having his supporters agree with him.
The only thing that amuses me about Paul and his supporters is this: by the time the GOP convention gets here, even if the nomination is already decided, that party is going to have to do way more than the DNC did in 2004 to accommodate Kucinich’s movement people just so the Paul supporters don’t stage a rump convention, storm the place with used teabags, or whatever else they can think of.
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Awesome example of a straw man fallacy. The one and only thing Paul could reverse immediately would be foreign policy and the size of some very expensive executive branch agencies. And that alone would liberate us a great deal. Beyond that, he’ll just be using the bully pulpit of the oval office (which is all he is Constitutionally permitted to do in this case) to start minimizing or eliminating the worst offenses against the Constitution. The whole “gold standard” thing would be as simple as repealing taxes on bullion and letting the market do the rest.
Ron Paul is not so radical as you seem to think. I believe the psychos like Clinton, Obama, Giuliani and Romney who would continue torture and throw us pell-mell into a nuclear confrontation with Iran are the radicals.
Hahhaaaaaaaa, I am laughing sooooooo hard. What is wrong with you liberals who breathlessly are afraid of taking your life out of the hands of GOVERNMENT?
I’m a 35 year teacher and would LOVE the feds to get out of education since they do NOTHING to help it.
Frightening? The only thing that is frightening is the surge in socialism this country’s citizens seem to have accepted.
Ron Paul is the best thing to ever happen to this country. He has educated more people on why the FedRes is illegal, and so is the IRS.
Rock on Ron, he is gaining steam by the day.
Do your homework buddy and stop being such a commie. There are NO other acceptable candidates. Most of them, esp. Hillary, are criminals. How we let these fringe elements even get that far is what is truly FRIGHTENING.
hahahaha!! You’re going to have to do better than that if you plan on discrediting Dr Paul. You see it’s not the Man, it’s the Message. Dr Paul has a 30 yr record for you to research. State and Local Governments are more than able to Educate their children. Sending Billions of Tax Dollars to Federal Theives is not going to be acceptable any longer. Ron Paul is CHANGE! I don’t have time to debunk your baseless attack point by point, i just want to basically Laugh in Your Face, stay tune for Dec 16th the Next MONEY BOMB and you’ll see that is a Historic Movement. Prepare to be SHOCKED!
I am a career Naval officer who has always been politically neutral–but voting for Ron Paul is about voting for America and our Constitution. The reason he receives more military contributions than any other candidate is because he is the only candidate who takes our oathes to the Constitution seriously. He is also the only candidate from either party that advocates a foreign policy that is not insane–did you know he is the only candidate who has ruled out a nuclear first-strike against Iran?? As someone who may one day control nuclear weapons, I find the other candidates willingness to attack Iran quite frightening.
Ron Paul is the only candidate who will end the war in Iraq, the mindless killing, and pull the plug on our imperialist foreign policy. Frightening indeed.
I know his voting record well–it is precisely why I support him–he has a record of impeccable integrity. The middle class? Abolishing the federal reserve and returning to a sound currency backed by gold will be the best thing we can do for the middle class. Beyond that, I say the Constitution is more important than class divisions–even though I know Karl Marx, and Hillary Clinton, (and the other so-called Republicans) may disagree.
I am now supporting Dr. Paul with my wallet and my heart, and many of my colleagues are sold on him too.
stealthc noted:
I believe the psychos like Clinton, Obama, Giuliani and Romney who would continue torture and throw us pell-mell into a nuclear confrontation with Iran are the radicals.
I reply:
Think what you will, but there would be chaos in the streets with Ron Paul, because he’d essentially dismantle most of the federal government.
Ron Paul NH Noted:
It amuses me that you think Hillary Clinton, et al are “fringe elements.” Ninety percent of the population thinks that Ron Paul is the fringe element.
Mr. Jeep Deep Noted:
I reply:
Have you actually researched Ron Paul’s real record? Have you taken the time to examine all of his votes in Congress? Are you aware that he’s rarely cast a pro-consumer vote in his entire tenure in Washington?
Are you aware that he is so out of touch with his own district that people down there are breathing a sigh of relief in hopes he won’t be running for re-election this cycle?
Did you also know that Ron Paul took money from the very corrupt politicos you Paul supporters are against? He’s taken thousands from Tom DeLay’s Americans for a Republican Majority PAC, over $42,000 from the oil industry, and voted to allow indicted House leadership members to consider serving in their leadership positions!
Ron Paul is not, as you say, “CHANGE.” Rather, he is more of the same corrupt Republican cronyism of the Tom DeLay era.
JP Noted:
So, abolishing overtime protections, which Ron Paul voted to do, is good for the middle class?
And how about that voting record of “impeccable integrity,” as you say? He voted to allow indicted leadership members to continue serving and also voted to weaken House ethics provisions. You call that integrity? You can’t be serious.
I know one thing. No one will be tortured by the government under President Ron Paul. The police state apparatus of the Patriot Act will be abolished. We will only go to war if attacked, and not just because we feel like it. And finally, we won’t be wasting hundreds of billions of dollars annually on “defense”.
“BOO-EEK!!! BOO-EEK!!! BOO-EEK”
What’s that sound? It’s the sound of someone scaring themselves silly. Here’s another example: “The sky is falling! The sky is falling!” – C. Little
Here’s an amazing example: “Ron Paul is so constitutionally selective he can make your neighbor’s cat and only your neighbor’s cat totally unconstitutional just by saying so, raising online contributions, and having his supporters agree with him.” Holy cow, my neighbor’s cat?! Who knew? If my neighbor had a cat, and I was an authoritarian, I might be tempted to try that.
Mr. Leibowitz, I gotta hand it to you, this is the funniest stuff I’ve read all day.
Oh Vince, what ever were you thinking posting something about Ron Paul is his home state…and by home state I of course mean the internet, and more specifically, second life…the place where all of his supporters live. You have balls my friend. I’m surprised your website is still up. These Ron Paul supporters can be a little defensive.
That said, you hit the nail on the head on this one. I find it hilarious that a man who bemoans the overextension of executive power under the Bush administration would propose such drastic changes without stopping for a second to consider that practically NONE of the changes he’s proposing can be brought about without Congress. Last time I checked, the libertarian party didn’t have too many seats in that particular branch of government (or any other one). Thus, Ron Paul would most likely become the most useless president since Warren G Harding.
Also, I think that possibly the only positive thing to come from a Paul candidacy would be the resurgence of some of the not-so-wacko CIVIL libertarian philosophy that used to be prevelant in the GOP.
DShankTU:
Thanks! I think one of those RP supporters must have broadcast this post to one of their lists or something, because the comments are much higher than average around here. And, this doesn’t count about 20 comments I deleted simply because I didn’t think people calling me a “motherf***er,” “dips**t,” “commie” without actually having anything whatsoever else to say were particularly constructive.
Misinformed, eh? That’s rather ironic considering the utterly biased content of this piece.
I love how you put words into his mouth and do not let him or his supporters speak for themselves. Ron Paul is the true inheritor of Goldwater and Reagan’s libertarian mantle.
I challenge you to read or watch Reagan’s 1964 speech endorsing Barry Goldwater, which is
available at http://www.reaganfoundation.org/reagan/speeches/rendezvous.asp or http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4770988975023965161 and tell me that Ron Paul is just a ‘pseudo-libertarian,’ as his views echo his predecessors. I urge you to do a little more research on the subject.
Of course, that would take a little more effort than your stream of consciousness blathering.
DShankTU: “I find it hilarious that a man who bemoans the overextension of executive power under the Bush administration would propose such drastic changes without stopping for a second to consider that practically NONE of the changes he’s proposing can be brought about without Congress”
Well, see, it’s okay when Ron Paul does it, because, because clearly he and only he is in touch with what the framers wanted.
By the way, can anybody tell me what’s up with the Ron Paul eEVOLution (with the backward “LOVE” emphasized)? What is this? Peace, love, and Ron Paul? Isn’t he, you know, conservative?
Oops, that’s supposed to be “rEVOLution”
You get the idea.