Posts Tagged → candidate
Ron Paul, Kook Supreme
Presidential candidate Newt Gingrich says that Ron Paul is no better than Barack Hussein Obama.
From what I’m hearing among friends, that observation is shared wisdom across a lot of political territory.
And I have to agree. After reading Ron Paul’s newsletter, I’ve concluded that he is a conspiracy theorist and a hater of Jews. You cannot qualify for president with those qualities. Ron Paul is a supreme kook. But don’t just take my word for it, look up his newsletter yourself.
But just Paul’s isolationist foreign policy view alone is enough to make him kook-fringe. Had Ron Paul been president in the 1970s or 1980s, America would have soundly lost the Cold War to the Soviet Union, and the world’s political arrangement would look dramatically different than it does today, much worse for freedom and America.
Going back in time just a few decades more, to right after World War Two, isolationism was a dead idea, for good reason, as Hitler had used it to exploit Western Civilization’s weaknesses to his advantage. Hitler used isolationists’ unwillingness to stop him to almost beat them.
Democracy has always been a slow-growth idea, and if not for pro-democracy, pro-America idealists John F. Kennedy, Richard Nixon, and Ronald Reagan, America would have lost the Cold War and democracy would have been limited to just a few nations, instead of being the ideal now sought today around the world.
Ron Paul wants to take American foreign policy back 100 years, to a pre-technology environment, where missiles did not exist and nuclear bombs were unimaginable fantasies. Fortunately or unfortunately, technology has arrived. While technology strengthens America, it also shortens the reaction time that Americans have to direct and indirect threats around the world. Isolationism means giving up all of America’s early warning and fast-response capabilities. It means that we Americans will be at the mercy of our enemies, and Ron Paul knows this. It makes me wonder what he really wants, or if he really understands what his beliefs will mean for average Americans.
All of the risks and rewards that Kennedy, Nixon, and Reagan took and won for America, and global democracy, will be lost under Ron Paul’s bizarro world view.
Today, Iran has supplanted 1930s Hitler Germany as the supremacist movement to kill, or be killed by it. Ron Paul says that Iran deserves to have nuclear weapons if Iran wants them. Despite knowing what Hitler and the Soviet Communists did, and what Iran is doing now, Ron Paul still wants America to retract under its tortoise shell. It’s lunacy.
Ron Paul, still a kook.
Santorum Opportunism Pisses Off Penn Staters
I like him, but last week, presidential candidate Rick Santorum appeared to be riding the Penn State scandal as a wave to carry along his campaign. Penn State should not play in a bowl game, Santorum said, regardless of the football team’s final standings.
As I write this, Penn State has just defeated Ohio State and looks to be headed to a well-deserved bowl game.
Why would Santorum have anything to say about the scandal beyond some well-placed and justified reflections on the university’s failed leadership? Why would anyone seek to punish the players, whose hard work deserves to be rewarded?
Well, over the years Rick has made a name for himself as a voice for morality and clarity in a world full of moral relativism, and I often support him. Even when I occasionally disagree with a particular position he may take, I appreciate and support his outspoken advocacy for morally clear decision making in government.
Rick certainly has a lot of friends in Pennsylvania, and he can normally count me among them.
However, I share the reaction among many Penn Staters who are pissed off at Rick over his recent criticism. It appears to be nothing more than political opportunism by a candidate seeking to get his name into the headlines. By criticizing the Penn State football team, Santorum appears to many to be trying to take advantage of a difficult situation to make himself look good, or to attract attention to himself.
He would not be the first political candidate to do that, but for someone who has been rightly recognized for having clear thinking, this looks like aberrant and mean-spirited thinking.
In 2000 and 2006 I was a volunteer on both of Santorum’s re-election campaigns, and if he were doing better in the polls, I might volunteer for his presidential campaign now. But what I am looking for right now is a statement from Rick that he mis-spoke, and that he does not want to punish a group of people who had nothing to do with the scandal, or further damage Penn State.
Penn State is already going through a lot of difficulties, and it will continue to do so for years to come, not to mention the kids who were (allegedly) subjected to Sandusky’s abuse. Santorum’s criticism does nothing to remedy the situation; it only throws fuel on the fire, punishes more innocent people, and further damages Penn State’s standing.
Come clean, Rick, admit that you made a mistake. If you do that, I think you’ll prove to people that you are indeed a good guy, and not the opportunistic headline grabber that you recently appeared to be.