[Peace-discuss] Paul, peace candidate?

[C. G. Estabrook]

	The case for a Ron Paul presidency
	Justin Raimondo
	July 27, 2007 10:00 PM

http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/justin_raimondo/2007/07/the_case_for_ron_paul.html

In trying to figure out how to explain Ron Paul to a British audience, I 
looked - in vain - for someone on the current British political scene to 
compare him to.

The Conservatives, with their support for the British welfare state, and 
their pro-Bush foreign policy, hardly come close, and, even looking back 
in history, it is hard to find an approximation. We have to go all the 
way back to the nineteenth century, to the antiwar, anti-imperialist 
"Little England"-ism of Richard Cobden, John Bright, and the Manchester 
School, before we find a halfway apt comparison.

Looking at the American political landscape for antecedents, we don't 
find many until we get to the 1930s, where critics of the New Deal and 
Franklin Delano Roosevelt's rush to war arose on the American Right.

Today's rightwingers are as far away from Paul, philosophically, as 
anyone on the left. In fact, Paul probably has more in common with many 
leftists because of his thoroughgoing opposition to American imperialism 
and the idea that Washington is the world's policeman. Indeed, the 
head-on clash between the neoconservative worldview and an older 
conservative perspective on foreign policy occurred during the South 
Carolina Republican party debate, in which Rudolph Giuliani claimed not 
to have ever heard an explanation such as the one Paul gave for the 9/11 
terrorist attacks on the US. Said Paul:

     Have you ever read the reasons they attacked us? They attack us 
because we've been over there; we've been bombing Iraq for 10 years.

     We don't understand the irrationality of Middle Eastern politics. 
So right now we're building an embassy in Iraq that's bigger than the 
Vatican. We're building 14 permanent bases.

     What would we say here if China was doing this in our country or in 
the Gulf of Mexico? We would be objecting. We need to look at what we do 
from the perspective of what would happen if somebody else did it to us.

A foreign policy based on prudence, non-interventionism, and the pursuit 
of American interests narrowly defined - this is Paul's truly 
conservative view of international affairs. It is the exact opposite of 
what is espoused by the radical utopians who hijacked American foreign 
policy during the reign of Bush the Lesser.

On the domestic policy front, the weird inversion of traditionally 
conservative principles - less government, less regulation, 
decentralisation of power, and emphasis on individual rights - has 
continued unabated during the Bush era. The Patriot Act, the Military 
Commissions act, the legislative evisceration of habeas corpus, and the 
rise of the surveillance state - Ron Paul stood like a rock against the 
War Party's relentless assault on civil liberties at a time when it was 
unpopular to do so.

Quite naturally, the political establishment is trying to downplay the 
Ron Paul phenomenon, but the market, as always, reigns supreme, and 
Paul's growing popularity is evidenced in his fundraising success: this 
quarter, he comes in third in the Republican field, ahead of former 
frontrunner John "Bombs Away" McCain, and does so with a solid 
constituency of dedicated and very active supporters, especially among 
the young. Paul's message of personal liberty and a sane foreign policy 
resonates with the 20-something set, and as the candidate travels around 
the country, attracting relatively large crowds, youthful faces predominate.

His rising status as the candidate of the youthful Republican set is 
enhanced by the fact that he seems unlikely to be a cult hero of any 
sort. With his easygoing, unpretentious manner and undisputed sincerity, 
Ron Paul comes across as authentic. He's no actor: here, at last, is a 
man who lives by his principles. Paul refuses to take his generous 
congressional pension, and disdains all the other perks and privileges 
of his office. As a doctor, he wouldn't accept Medicaid payments, and 
forbade his children from taking any federal aid for their education.

The 71-year-old country doctor - Paul's an obstetrician who has 
delivered thousands of babies - with his socially conservative lifestyle 
and somewhat ornery manner, is an unlikely hero to the younger 
generation. Yet the 10-term Republican congressman from a conservative 
Gulf coast Texas district of farmers - quintessential Bush country - 
shows signs of becoming the Eugene McCarthy of the new millennium.

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