Negative issues facing Ron Paul's Candidacy

[KBCraig]

A personal request to lawrnk: since there is no truth to the accusation that Soros and Moveon.org are backing Ron Paul, would you mind editing the subject line in your first post, to change the title of this thread?

I don't expect to change your mind about Ron Paul, but I don't think you want to be intentionally untruthful about him.

[frankie_the_yankee]

They might hate us for that reason, [because we are a Christian Nation] but they attacked us because our forces are stationed in the land of Mecca, and occupying neighboring Arab lands.

Sure. But let's not lose sight of the fact that the recognized government of "the land of Mecca" invited us to put a base there.

So we're not supposed to make deals with the governments of other countries without first checking if it's OK with every flea-bitten group of murderous whack jobs on the planet first?

Rudy Giuliani said he'd "never heard anything so preposterous", which meant he's never read the 9/11 Commission Report, nor the writings of the Michael Scheuer, the former Chief of the CIA's Osama bin Laden desk.

I think that Rudy was just expressing a similar thought to what I just said above only in classier language.

International relations are not fundamentally different from personal relationships. If you kick down your neighbor's door, set up camp in their living room, and announce you're there to solve their domestic problems, you should expect some resistance.

But if my neighbor invites me in and asks me to help him with his problems, and some murderous lunatic from down the street decides that I shouldn't do that, for some sick reason he manufactured in his own mind, that's a different story.

And if that murderous sicko decides to attack me because he doesn't like what I may be doing for my neighbor, should I then conclude I was wrong to respond to my neighbor's invitation? Should I not make an agreement with another person because some crazy violent psycho might not like it?

That's no way to live.

Too many Americans are so abysmally ignorant of history,...

Agreed.

.....that they have no idea that we've been camped out in other people's living rooms for over a century. And those "other people" are not ignorant of history; history is the basis of their culture and their religion, and the most ignorant goatherd among them can recite his bloodline, and all offenses against his ancestors, going back 600+ years.

And if they are going to blame us, and attack us, for acts committed by people who have been dead for hundreds of years, then it says here that we should aggressively defend ourselves until not a single one of those murderous psychos remains alive on this planet.

If they don't like it, maybe they should re-think their centuries-long fixation on blood lust.

So that's the basic problem I have with Paul's philosophy as to foreign policy and relations among nations.

[yerasimos]

So we're not supposed to make deals with the governments of other countries without first checking if it's OK with every flea-bitten group of murderous whack jobs on the planet first?

It is pretty foolish on our part to believe such a dysfunctional bunch of people are able to hold up their obligations of these precious deals, much less survive without some expensive assistance. I consider Islam to be a destructive force, not only to its neighbors but its practioners; better to be an uninvolved, distant observer than to play hero. Without a foreign occupier to unite against, all of the various Islamic factions will turn on each other and weaken themselves, and present less of a threat to us.

But if my neighbor invites me in and asks me to help him with his problems, and some murderous lunatic from down the street decides that I shouldn't do that, for some sick reason he manufactured in his own mind, that's a different story.

And if that murderous sicko decides to attack me because he doesn't like what I may be doing for my neighbor, should I then conclude I was wrong to respond to my neighbor's invitation? Should I not make an agreement with another person because some crazy violent psycho might not like it?

A closer analogy is to pretend for the sake of argument that a neighbor, who you do not know very well, invites you into his home and asks you to help him with his problems, and you naively accept his invitation. Once you arrive at his home, you learn that his psychotic mistresses, spouse and children think you should not be visiting their home, and they start attacking you. In that case you would do well to defend yourself as best you can while getting out of hostile territory as quickly as possible, and never going back there again.

That's no way to live.

I do not believe that is a good enough reason to put yourself at unnecessary risk.

Too many Americans are so abysmally ignorant of history,...

Agreed.

.....that they have no idea that we've been camped out in other people's living rooms for over a century. And those "other people" are not ignorant of history; history is the basis of their culture and their religion, and the most ignorant goatherd among them can recite his bloodline, and all offenses against his ancestors, going back 600+ years.

And if they are going to blame us, and attack us, for acts committed by people who have been dead for hundreds of years, then it says here that we should aggressively defend ourselves until not a single one of those murderous psychos remains alive on this planet.

If they don't like it, maybe they should re-think their centuries-long fixation on blood lust.

We will be able to defend ourselves much more effectively if we mind our own turf and focus on defending our own borders, instead of dissipating money, lives and materiel on foreign soil. Generally speaking, it has taken a ratio of 4-6:1, attackers:defenders, for the attackers to prevail over the defenders on the defenders' turf. (Any graduate of West Point, Annapolis, Sandhurst, etc, please feel free to clarify.) Furthermore, we would be able to negotiate more effectively with other countries wrt missle defense installations (assuming such things are necessary and must be located on foreign lands) if they did not perceive us as war-frenzied conquerors-in-waiting.

I do not believe for a moment that Islamic thugs are just misunderstood and really desperately seeking tender moments of caring and sharing with us. At the same time, we do not need to bomb them into oblivion when they are perfectly capable of and predisposed toward destroying each other if left alone.

Finally, with oil at $100/barrel, I believe the oil majors (both private multinationals and state-owned players) ought to pay the full cost of securing their oil with private security contractors, and not shrug this responsibility onto American taxpayers and buyers of US government debt while their friends in Washington try to pass off the military operations as trying to find WMDs, spreading democracy, or humanitarian relief, or whatever bogus excuse they come up with. Our involvement in the sandbox is just a massive, fraudulent racket that should be stopped immediately.

[flb_78]

[frankie_the_yankee]

I consider Islam to be a destructive force, not only to its neighbors but its practioners; better to be an uninvolved, distant observer than to play hero.

It's not playing hero. We have national interests, and sometimes our country and another have mutual interests. So the question becomes whether we want to give the crazies veto power over actions we may take that we believe to be in our national interest.

And you can't just assume that we could be an "uninvolved, distant observer... ", even if we tried, and that the crazies would leave us alone if we did. You say that they would then have no reason to attack us, but how can you really know? Maybe they will think up some reason that hasn't occurred to any of us at the moment.

Without a foreign occupier to unite against, all of the various Islamic factions will turn on each other and weaken themselves, and present less of a threat to us.

Again, you are taking for granted their definition of "occupier". To them, we were "occupying' Saudi Arabia when the actual government of that land (whatever you or they might think of its legitimacy) had invited us in for reasons of mutual interests. The crazies don't get to define the terms.

A closer analogy is to pretend for the sake of argument that a neighbor, who you do not know very well, invites you into his home and asks you to help him with his problems, and you naively accept his invitation. Once you arrive at his home, you learn that his psychotic mistresses, spouse and children think you should not be visiting their home, and they start attacking you. In that case you would do well to defend yourself as best you can while getting out of hostile territory as quickly as possible, and never going back there again.

Maybe. Or maybe not. One might decide that the neighbor is worthy of help in spite of the added risk. Or the psycho mistress etc. might follow you home and attack/threaten you with unlawful deadly force. So you might have to use deadly force to defend yourself and, after stopping the attack, the attackers may succumb to their injuries.

Analogies can be taken to extremes. And doing so tends to make them less applicable.

We will be able to defend ourselves much more effectively if we mind our own turf and focus on defending our own borders, instead of dissipating money, lives and materiel on foreign soil.

Again, maybe, and maybe not. The French tried something like that with the Maginot Line as I recall. It didn't work. They would have been much better off if they had "pre-empted" Hitler's buildup before he could gather strength.

It's OK to assert that we should pull back to our borders, but you can't automatically assume (or expect others to assume) that doing so will enhance our ability to defend ourselves. It could easily do just the opposite. I can list a number of possible reasons why. One is that it allows enemies to gather their strength and attack at a time and place of their choosing. Another is that our economy requires trade, which means that goods and services have to move in commerce. Without security, our ability to trade would be limited and/or damaged, thus weakening our economy. A weakened (i.e. smaller) economy has fewer resources available to devote to defense.

This is just off the top of my head.

Furthermore, we would be able to negotiate more effectively with other countries wrt missle defense installations (assuming such things are necessary and must be located on foreign lands) if they did not perceive us as war-frenzied conquerors-in-waiting.

No one familiar with the history of the last 100 years would ever seriously perceive us as, "...war-frenzied conquerors-in-waiting." The very notion is preposterous. We have liberated more people from tyranny and rescued more people from genocide than all the other nations that have ever existed put together.

If some crazies think otherwise, it's their problem not ours. If they think otherwise and attack us, we should kill them until there are no more of them left.

I do not believe for a moment that Islamic thugs are just misunderstood and really desperately seeking tender moments of caring and sharing with us. At the same time, we do not need to bomb them into oblivion when they are perfectly capable of and predisposed toward destroying each other if left alone.

Not yet anyway.

Finally, with oil at $100/barrel, I believe the oil majors (both private multinationals and state-owned players) ought to pay the full cost of securing their oil with private security contractors, and not shrug this responsibility onto American taxpayers and buyers of US government debt while their friends in Washington try to pass off the military operations as trying to find WMDs, spreading democracy, or humanitarian relief, or whatever bogus excuse they come up with. Our involvement in the sandbox is just a massive, fraudulent racket that should be stopped immediately.

Well, there we have it. It always comes down to that, right? Bush lied, people died, and if we didn't support Isreal they wouldn't hate us........

When I hear this it always makes me think that it should be the crazies that should be worrying that we might hate them, if they don't stop attacking us, and what could happen to them if we did.

So you would have companies like Blackwater deploy carrier battle groups, combat infantry divisions, etc., which would then be hired by Exxon to secure access to oil markets? (By that I mostly mean guaranteeing free passage on the seas.) And you think that if we did operate like that "American taxpayers" would get some kind of a break? Where will Exxon and Blackwater get the money to acquire all that stuff? Is it going to fall out of the sky? Or might the people who use oil (i.e. all of us) have to pay the bill?

And why single out oil? Shouldn't any company engaging in foreign commerce have to hire its own security?

The idea of making oil companies, for instance, 'pay their own way' as regards security ignores the fundamental fact that companies don't "pay" anything. Their customers are the ones who do the paying.

For the last few thousand years, governments have assumed the job of providing security for their citizens. Indeed, that is pretty much their most important function. To do it, taxes are levied and collected. Military forces are established, etc. These forces may be used wisely or foolishly. That's why we have elections. The elected government determines how, whether, and when the forces are used, for better or worse.

Why should we assume we would be better off if Exxon were making those decisions instead? Who elects them?

And in either case, the cost is the same. Either the company collects the money from everybody that uses oil (i.e. everybody), or the government collects the money from everybody who pays taxes (i.e. everybody).

And if it is thought that other countries are sometimes troubled by the way we deploy and/or use our military now, how might they regard us if Exxon were making those decisions instead of our government? Why would that automatically be better?

[lawrnk]

A personal request to lawrnk: since there is no truth to the accusation that Soros and Moveon.org are backing Ron Paul, would you mind editing the subject line in your first post, to change the title of this thread?

I don't expect to change your mind about Ron Paul, but I don't think you want to be intentionally untruthful about him.

Sure. And I think I changed it to something more fair.
However this report from Drudge isn't good (and he gets 21,000,000 plus hits a day)

Ron Paul Shock Newsletters Unearthed: Claim MLK a Gay Pedophile, Praise David Duke, Speculate 1993 WTC Bombing Was Mossad Job...
http://www.tnr.com/politics/story.html? ... 32a7da84ca

This may be the last of Mr. Magoo if it is ever 10% true.

Am I the only one who thinks he looks exactly like Magoo?

[lawrnk]

A personal request to lawrnk: since there is no truth to the accusation that Soros and Moveon.org are backing Ron Paul, would you mind editing the subject line in your first post, to change the title of this thread?

I don't expect to change your mind about Ron Paul, but I don't think you want to be intentionally untruthful about him.

Sure. And I think I changed it to something more fair.
However this report from Drudge isn't good (and he gets 21,000,000 plus hits a day)

Ron Paul Shock Newsletters Unearthed: Claim MLK a Gay Pedophile, Praise David Duke, Speculate 1993 WTC Bombing Was Mossad Job...
http://www.tnr.com/politics/story.html? ... 32a7da84ca

This may be the last of Mr. Magoo if it is ever 10% true.

Millions of hits I imagine to this article made me try to load it 50 times until I could get it. Therefore, I will post it here.

The New Republic

Angry White Man
by James Kirchick
The bigoted past of Ron Paul.
Post Date Tuesday, January 08, 2008

DISCUSS ARTICLE [80] | PRINT | EMAIL ARTICLE



If you are a critic of the Bush administration, chances are that, at some point over the past six months, Ron Paul has said something that appealed to you. Paul describes himself as a libertarian, but, since his presidential campaign took off earlier this year, the Republican congressman has attracted donations and plaudits from across the ideological spectrum. Antiwar conservatives, disaffected centrists, even young liberal activists have all flocked to Paul, hailing him as a throwback to an earlier age, when politicians were less mealy-mouthed and American government was more modest in its ambitions, both at home and abroad. In The New York Times Magazine, conservative writer Christopher Caldwell gushed that Paul is a "formidable stander on constitutional principle," while The Nation praised "his full-throated rejection of the imperial project in Iraq." Former TNR editor Andrew Sullivan endorsed Paul for the GOP nomination, and ABC's Jack Tapper described the candidate as "the one true straight-talker in this race." Even The Wall Street Journal, the newspaper of the elite bankers whom Paul detests, recently advised other Republican presidential contenders not to "dismiss the passion he's tapped."

Credit: Getty Images
View Larger Image
Congressman Ron Paul.

Most voters had never heard of Paul before he launched his quixotic bid for the Republican nomination. But the Texan has been active in politics for decades. And long before he was the darling of antiwar activists on the left and right, Paul was in the newsletter business. In the age before blogs, newsletters occupied a prominent place in right-wing political discourse. With the pages of mainstream political magazines typically off-limits to their views (National Review editor William F. Buckley having famously denounced the John Birch Society), hardline conservatives resorted to putting out their own, less glossy publications. These were often paranoid and rambling--dominated by talk of international banking conspiracies, the Trilateral Commission's plans for world government, and warnings about coming Armageddon--but some of them had wide and devoted audiences. And a few of the most prominent bore the name of Ron Paul.

Paul's newsletters have carried different titles over the years--Ron Paul's Freedom Report, Ron Paul Political Report, The Ron Paul Survival Report--but they generally seem to have been published on a monthly basis since at least 1978. (Paul, an OB-GYN and former U.S. Army surgeon, was first elected to Congress in 1976.) During some periods, the newsletters were published by the Foundation for Rational Economics and Education, a non-profit Paul founded in 1976; at other times, they were published by Ron Paul & Associates, a now-defunct entity in which Paul owned a minority stake, according to his campaign spokesman. The Freedom Report claimed to have over 100,000 readers in 1984. At one point, Ron Paul & Associates also put out a monthly publication called The Ron Paul Investment Letter.

The Freedom Report's online archives only go back to 1999, but I was curious to see older editions of Paul's newsletters, in part because of a controversy dating to 1996, when Charles "Lefty" Morris, a Democrat running against Paul for a House seat, released excerpts stating that "opinion polls consistently show only about 5% of blacks have sensible political opinions," that "if you have ever been robbed by a black teen-aged male, you know how unbelievably fleet-footed they can be," and that black congresswoman Barbara Jordan is "the archetypical half-educated victimologist" whose "race and sex protect her from criticism." At the time, Paul's campaign said that Morris had quoted the newsletter out of context. Later, in 2001, Paul would claim that someone else had written the controversial passages. (Few of the newsletters contain actual bylines.) Caldwell, writing in the Times Magazine last year, said he found Paul's explanation believable, "since the style diverges widely from his own."

Finding the pre-1999 newsletters was no easy task, but I was able to track many of them down at the libraries of the University of Kansas and the Wisconsin Historical Society. Of course, with few bylines, it is difficult to know whether any particular article was written by Paul himself. Some of the earlier newsletters are signed by him, though the vast majority of the editions I saw contain no bylines at all. Complicating matters, many of the unbylined newsletters were written in the first-person, implying that Paul was the author.

But, whoever actually wrote them, the newsletters I saw all had one thing in common: They were published under a banner containing Paul's name, and the articles (except for one special edition of a newsletter that contained the byline of another writer) seem designed to create the impression that they were written by him--and reflected his views. What they reveal are decades worth of obsession with conspiracies, sympathy for the right-wing militia movement, and deeply held bigotry against blacks, Jews, and gays. In short, they suggest that Ron Paul is not the plain-speaking antiwar activist his supporters believe they are backing--but rather a member in good standing of some of the oldest and ugliest traditions in American politics.




To understand Paul's philosophy, the best place to start is probably the Ludwig von Mises Institute, a libertarian think tank based in Auburn, Alabama. The institute is named for a libertarian Austrian economist, but it was founded by a man named Lew Rockwell, who also served as Paul's congressional chief of staff from 1978 to 1982. Paul has had a long and prominent association with the institute, teaching at its seminars and serving as a "distinguished counselor." The institute has also published his books.

The politics of the organization are complicated--its philosophy derives largely from the work of the late Murray Rothbard, a Bronx-born son of Jewish immigrants from Poland and a self-described "anarcho-capitalist" who viewed the state as nothing more than "a criminal gang"--but one aspect of the institute's worldview stands out as particularly disturbing: its attachment to the Confederacy. Thomas E. Woods Jr., a member of the institute's senior faculty, is a founder of the League of the South, a secessionist group, and the author of The Politically Incorrect Guide to American History, a pro-Confederate, revisionist tract published in 2004. Paul enthusiastically blurbed Woods's book, saying that it "heroically rescues real history from the politically correct memory hole." Thomas DiLorenzo, another senior faculty member and author of The Real Lincoln: A New Look at Abraham Lincoln, His Agenda, and an Unnecessary War, refers to the Civil War as the "War for Southern Independence" and attacks "Lincoln cultists"; Paul endorsed the book on MSNBC last month in a debate over whether the Civil War was necessary (Paul thinks it was not). In April 1995, the institute hosted a conference on secession at which Paul spoke; previewing the event, Rockwell wrote to supporters, "We'll explore what causes [secession] and how to promote it." Paul's newsletters have themselves repeatedly expressed sympathy for the general concept of secession. In 1992, for instance, the Survival Report argued that "the right of secession should be ingrained in a free society" and that "there is nothing wrong with loosely banding together small units of government. With the disintegration of the Soviet Union, we too should consider it."

The people surrounding the von Mises Institute--including Paul--may describe themselves as libertarians, but they are nothing like the urbane libertarians who staff the Cato Institute or the libertines at Reason magazine. Instead, they represent a strain of right-wing libertarianism that views the Civil War as a catastrophic turning point in American history--the moment when a tyrannical federal government established its supremacy over the states. As one prominent Washington libertarian told me, "There are too many libertarians in this country ... who, because they are attracted to the great books of Mises, ... find their way to the Mises Institute and then are told that a defense of the Confederacy is part of libertarian thought."

Paul's alliance with neo-Confederates helps explain the views his newsletters have long espoused on race. Take, for instance, a special issue of the Ron Paul Political Report, published in June 1992, dedicated to explaining the Los Angeles riots of that year. "Order was only restored in L.A. when it came time for the blacks to pick up their welfare checks three days after rioting began," read one typical passage. According to the newsletter, the looting was a natural byproduct of government indulging the black community with "'civil rights,' quotas, mandated hiring preferences, set-asides for government contracts, gerrymandered voting districts, black bureaucracies, black mayors, black curricula in schools, black tv shows, black tv anchors, hate crime laws, and public humiliation for anyone who dares question the black agenda." It also denounced "the media" for believing that "America's number one need is an unlimited white checking account for underclass blacks." To be fair, the newsletter did praise Asian merchants in Los Angeles, but only because they had the gumption to resist political correctness and fight back. Koreans were "the only people to act like real Americans," it explained, "mainly because they have not yet been assimilated into our rotten liberal culture, which admonishes whites faced by raging blacks to lie back and think of England."

This "Special Issue on Racial Terrorism" was hardly the first time one of Paul's publications had raised these topics. As early as December 1989, a section of his Investment Letter, titled "What To Expect for the 1990s," predicted that "Racial Violence Will Fill Our Cities" because "mostly black welfare recipients will feel justified in stealing from mostly white 'haves.'" Two months later, a newsletter warned of "The Coming Race War," and, in November 1990, an item advised readers, "If you live in a major city, and can leave, do so. If not, but you can have a rural retreat, for investment and refuge, buy it." In June 1991, an entry on racial disturbances in Washington, DC's Adams Morgan neighborhood was titled, "Animals Take Over the D.C. Zoo." "This is only the first skirmish in the race war of the 1990s," the newsletter predicted. In an October 1992 item about urban crime, the newsletter's author--presumably Paul--wrote, "I've urged everyone in my family to know how to use a gun in self defense. For the animals are coming." That same year, a newsletter described the aftermath of a basketball game in which "blacks poured into the streets of Chicago in celebration. How to celebrate? How else? They broke the windows of stores to loot." The newsletter inveighed against liberals who "want to keep white America from taking action against black crime and welfare," adding, "Jury verdicts, basketball games, and even music are enough to set off black rage, it seems."

Such views on race also inflected the newsletters' commentary on foreign affairs. South Africa's transition to multiracial democracy was portrayed as a "destruction of civilization" that was "the most tragic [to] ever occur on that continent, at least below the Sahara"; and, in March 1994, a month before Nelson Mandela was elected president, one item warned of an impending "South African Holocaust."

Martin Luther King Jr. earned special ire from Paul's newsletters, which attacked the civil rights leader frequently, often to justify opposition to the federal holiday named after him. ("What an infamy Ronald Reagan approved it!" one newsletter complained in 1990. "We can thank him for our annual Hate Whitey Day.") In the early 1990s, a newsletter attacked the "X-Rated Martin Luther King" as a "world-class philanderer who beat up his paramours," "seduced underage girls and boys," and "made a pass at" fellow civil rights leader Ralph Abernathy. One newsletter ridiculed black activists who wanted to rename New York City after King, suggesting that "Welfaria," "Zooville," "Rapetown," "Dirtburg," and "Lazyopolis" were better alternatives. The same year, King was described as "a comsymp, if not an actual party member, and the man who replaced the evil of forced segregation with the evil of forced integration."

While bashing King, the newsletters had kind words for the former Imperial Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, David Duke. In a passage titled "The Duke's Victory," a newsletter celebrated Duke's 44 percent showing in the 1990 Louisiana Republican Senate primary. "Duke lost the election," it said, "but he scared the blazes out of the Establishment." In 1991, a newsletter asked, "Is David Duke's new prominence, despite his losing the gubernatorial election, good for anti-big government forces?" The conclusion was that "our priority should be to take the anti-government, anti-tax, anti-crime, anti-welfare loafers, anti-race privilege, anti-foreign meddling message of Duke, and enclose it in a more consistent package of freedom." Duke is now returning the favor, telling me that, while he will not formally endorse any candidate, he has made information about Ron Paul available on his website.




Like blacks, gays earn plenty of animus in Paul's newsletters. They frequently quoted Paul's "old colleague," Congressman William Dannemeyer--who advocated quarantining people with AIDS--praising him for "speak[ing] out fearlessly despite the organized power of the gay lobby." In 1990, one newsletter mentioned a reporter from a gay magazine "who certainly had an axe to grind, and that's not easy with a limp wrist." In an item titled, "The Pink House?" the author of a newsletter--again, presumably Paul--complained about President George H.W. Bush's decision to sign a hate crimes bill and invite "the heads of homosexual lobbying groups to the White House for the ceremony," adding, "I miss the closet." "Homosexuals," it said, "not to speak of the rest of society, were far better off when social pressure forced them to hide their activities." When Marvin Liebman, a founder of the conservative Young Americans for Freedom and a longtime political activist, announced that he was gay in the pages of National Review, a Paul newsletter implored, "Bring Back the Closet!" Surprisingly, one item expressed ambivalence about the contentious issue of gays in the military, but ultimately concluded, "Homosexuals, if admitted, should be put in a special category and not allowed in close physical contact with heterosexuals."

The newsletters were particularly obsessed with AIDS, "a politically protected disease thanks to payola and the influence of the homosexual lobby," and used it as a rhetorical club to beat gay people in general. In 1990, one newsletter approvingly quoted "a well-known Libertarian editor" as saying, "The ACT-UP slogan, on stickers plastered all over Manhattan, is 'Silence = Death.' But shouldn't it be 'Sodomy = Death'?" Readers were warned to avoid blood transfusions because gays were trying to "poison the blood supply." "Am I the only one sick of hearing about the 'rights' of AIDS carriers?" a newsletter asked in 1990. That same year, citing a Christian-right fringe publication, an item suggested that "the AIDS patient" should not be allowed to eat in restaurants and that "AIDS can be transmitted by saliva," which is false. Paul's newsletters advertised a book, Surviving the AIDS Plague--also based upon the casual-transmission thesis--and defended "parents who worry about sending their healthy kids to school with AIDS victims." Commenting on a rise in AIDS infections, one newsletter said that "gays in San Francisco do not obey the dictates of good sense," adding: "[T]hese men don't really see a reason to live past their fifties. They are not married, they have no children, and their lives are centered on new sexual partners." Also, "they enjoy the attention and pity that comes with being sick."

The rhetoric when it came to Jews was little better. The newsletters display an obsession with Israel; no other country is mentioned more often in the editions I saw, or with more vitriol. A 1987 issue of Paul's Investment Letter called Israel "an aggressive, national socialist state," and a 1990 newsletter discussed the "tens of thousands of well-placed friends of Israel in all countries who are willing to wok [sic] for the Mossad in their area of expertise." Of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, a newsletter said, "Whether it was a setup by the Israeli Mossad, as a Jewish friend of mine suspects, or was truly a retaliation by the Islamic fundamentalists, matters little."




Paul's newsletters didn't just contain bigotry. They also contained paranoia--specifically, the brand of anti-government paranoia that festered among right-wing militia groups during the 1980s and '90s. Indeed, the newsletters seemed to hint that armed revolution against the federal government would be justified. In January 1995, three months before right-wing militants bombed the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, a newsletter listed "Ten Militia Commandments," describing "the 1,500 local militias now training to defend liberty" as "one of the most encouraging developments in America." It warned militia members that they were "possibly under BATF [Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms] or other totalitarian federal surveillance" and printed bits of advice from the Sons of Liberty, an anti-government militia based in Alabama--among them, "You can't kill a Hydra by cutting off its head," "Keep the group size down," "Keep quiet and you're harder to find," "Leave no clues," "Avoid the phone as much as possible," and "Don't fire unless fired upon, but if they mean to have a war, let it begin here."

The newsletters are chock-full of shopworn conspiracies, reflecting Paul's obsession with the "industrial-banking-political elite" and promoting his distrust of a federally regulated monetary system utilizing paper bills. They contain frequent and bristling references to the Bilderberg Group, the Trilateral Commission, and the Council on Foreign Relations--organizations that conspiracy theorists have long accused of seeking world domination. In 1978, a newsletter blamed David Rockefeller, the Trilateral Commission, and "fascist-oriented, international banking and business interests" for the Panama Canal Treaty, which it called "one of the saddest events in the history of the United States." A 1988 newsletter cited a doctor who believed that AIDS was created in a World Health Organization laboratory in Fort Detrick, Maryland. In addition, Ron Paul & Associates sold a video about Waco produced by "patriotic Indiana lawyer Linda Thompson"--as one of the newsletters called her--who maintained that Waco was a conspiracy to kill ATF agents who had previously worked for President Clinton as bodyguards. As with many of the more outlandish theories the newsletters cited over the years, the video received a qualified endorsement: "I can't vouch for every single judgment by the narrator, but the film does show the depths of government perfidy, and the national police's tricks and crimes," the newsletter said, adding, "Send your check for $24.95 to our Houston office, or charge the tape to your credit card at 1-800-RON-PAUL."




When I asked Jesse Benton, Paul's campaign spokesman, about the newsletters, he said that, over the years, Paul had granted "various levels of approval" to what appeared in his publications--ranging from "no approval" to instances where he "actually wrote it himself." After I read Benton some of the more offensive passages, he said, "A lot of [the newsletters] he did not see. Most of the incendiary stuff, no." He added that he was surprised to hear about the insults hurled at Martin Luther King, because "Ron thinks Martin Luther King is a hero."

In other words, Paul's campaign wants to depict its candidate as a naïve, absentee overseer, with minimal knowledge of what his underlings were doing on his behalf. This portrayal might be more believable if extremist views had cropped up in the newsletters only sporadically--or if the newsletters had just been published for a short time. But it is difficult to imagine how Paul could allow material consistently saturated in racism, homophobia, anti-Semitism, and conspiracy-mongering to be printed under his name for so long if he did not share these views. In that respect, whether or not Paul personally wrote the most offensive passages is almost beside the point. If he disagreed with what was being written under his name, you would think that at some point--over the course of decades--he would have done something about it.

What's more, Paul's connections to extremism go beyond the newsletters. He has given extensive interviews to the magazine of the John Birch Society, and has frequently been a guest of Alex Jones, a radio host and perhaps the most famous conspiracy theorist in America. Jones--whose recent documentary, Endgame: Blueprint for Global Enslavement, details the plans of George Pataki, David Rockefeller, and Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands, among others, to exterminate most of humanity and develop themselves into "superhuman" computer hybrids able to "travel throughout the cosmos"--estimates that Paul has appeared on his radio program about 40 times over the past twelve years.

Then there is Gary North, who has worked on Paul's congressional staff. North is a central figure in Christian Reconstructionism, which advocates the implementation of Biblical law in modern society. Christian Reconstructionists share common ground with libertarians, since both groups dislike the central government. North has advocated the execution of women who have abortions and people who curse their parents. In a 1986 book, North argued for stoning as a form of capital punishment--because "the implements of execution are available to everyone at virtually no cost." North is perhaps best known for Gary North's Remnant Review, a "Christian and pro free-market" newsletter. In a 1983 letter Paul wrote on behalf of an organization called the Committee to Stop the Bail-Out of Multinational Banks (known by the acronym CSBOMB), he bragged, "Perhaps you already read in Gary North's Remnant Review about my exposes of government abuse."




Ron Paul is not going to be president. But, as his campaign has gathered steam, he has found himself increasingly permitted inside the boundaries of respectable debate. He sat for an extensive interview with Tim Russert recently. He has raised almost $20 million in just three months, much of it online. And he received nearly three times as many votes as erstwhile front-runner Rudy Giuliani in last week's Iowa caucus. All the while he has generally been portrayed by the media as principled and serious, while garnering praise for being a "straight-talker."

From his newsletters, however, a different picture of Paul emerges--that of someone who is either himself deeply embittered or, for a long time, allowed others to write bitterly on his behalf. His adversaries are often described in harsh terms: Barbara Jordan is called "Barbara Morondon," Eleanor Holmes Norton is a "black pinko," Donna Shalala is a "short lesbian," Ron Brown is a "racial victimologist," and Roberta Achtenberg, the first openly gay public official confirmed by the United States Senate, is a "far-left, normal-hating lesbian activist." Maybe such outbursts mean Ron Paul really is a straight-talker. Or maybe they just mean he is a man filled with hate.

James Kirchick is an assistant

[Tajovo]

Only truth in that article(propaganda-fest) appears to be that it was written by James Kirchick, beyond that, nada.

[yerasimos]

A cheap smear piece. Ron Paul has been consistently repudiating that schlock for years. Kirchick is said to be an admirer of Giuliani, the latter who cannot stand it when someone gets the better of him (as Ron Paul has done).

[yerasimos]

And you can't just assume that we could be an "uninvolved, distant observer... ", even if we tried, and that the crazies would leave us alone if we did. You say that they would then have no reason to attack us, but how can you really know? Maybe they will think up some reason that hasn't occurred to any of us at the moment.

Like the tattoo says, life is uncertain, death is not. You can get killed walking your doggie along the street, or walking into Starbucks in the daytime. However, I reckon walking into other people’s deadly fights (or starting your own) is a much higher-percentage method to pursue an early demise than minding your own business.

Again, you are taking for granted their definition of "occupier". To them, we were "occupying' Saudi Arabia when the actual government of that land (whatever you or they might think of its legitimacy) had invited us in for reasons of mutual interests. The crazies don't get to define the terms.

Setting aside issues of semantics, we would do well to reconsider accepting invitations to multiple “stupids�.

It's OK to assert that we should pull back to our borders, but you can't automatically assume (or expect others to assume) that doing so will enhance our ability to defend ourselves. It could easily do just the opposite. I can list a number of possible reasons why. One is that it allows enemies to gather their strength and attack at a time and place of their choosing. Another is that our economy requires trade, which means that goods and services have to move in commerce. Without security, our ability to trade would be limited and/or damaged, thus weakening our economy. A weakened (i.e. smaller) economy has fewer resources available to devote to defense.

Military pullback will allow us to regroup and prepare to repel whatever they might try to throw at us, or even allow the Islamocultists to self-extinguish with less collateral damage. There is no way to forestall, prevent or insure against everything, but we can avoid giving the crazies a pretext to target us, keep watch over them from a safe distance, maybe prep the potential battlefield in our advantage and their disadvantage. Protecting commerce can be accomplished more effectively and efficiently closer to our own borders, possibly involving a much smaller, non-military footprint overseas, and via the private sector.

No one familiar with the history of the last 100 years would ever seriously perceive us as, "...war-frenzied conquerors-in-waiting." The very notion is preposterous. We have liberated more people from tyranny and rescued more people from genocide than all the other nations that have ever existed put together.

Can I assume that Britain, France, and the former Soviet Union were our biggest liberations/rescues in the twentieth century? Millions of their young men (and thousands of ours) were slaughtered in the process of “rescuing� those nations. We shut down the Nazis’ death camps after they had already murdered about 12 million people, but did not/could not prevent “Uncle Joe� Stalin from starving the Ukrainians (Holodomor), the Ottomans/Turks from murdering Armenians wholesale, Pol Pot from murdering millions in Cambodia, or Mao from murdering millions in the PRC. (Had these murdered people owned guns, they may have been able to resist being victimized.) Christiane Amanpour howled on CNN about the Serbs and their ethnic cleansing in the Nineties, so we threatened and bombed them into submission to put a stop to their madness, but missed going after the Croats, Bosnians and Albanians when they turned around to do the same thing to Serbs in Krajina, Kosovo, etc. When it comes to liberating people from tyranny and rescuing people from genocide, our spotty record looks great only because virtually every other nation's record is terrible.

Whatever sympathy from other countries we may have temporarily enjoyed after 11 Sep 2001, or goodwill in remembrance for assistance in years past, evaporated completely and was deeply tarnished once the United States preemptively invaded Iraq and pushed aside an evil, overgrown criminal gang (Saddam Hussein and his friends and family) that was arguably and unwittingly doing the world a small favor by keeping the Mesopotamian powderkeg bound tight. From a sixteen-word sound bite to “Mission Accomplished�, we went from being perceived as a temperate, seldom-victimized good-guy to being seen as dangerous and unpredictable. I do not know whether PNAC and the rest of the neoconservative brain-trust will ever figure out the damage they did to this country. Thanks to the intellectual spawn of PNAC and others like them who obsess over “national greatness�, we are now frequently perceived exactly as war-frenzied conquerors-in-waiting.

So you would have companies like Blackwater deploy carrier battle groups, combat infantry divisions, etc., which would then be hired by Exxon to secure access to oil markets? (By that I mostly mean guaranteeing free passage on the seas.) ?

Blackwater and Exxon would have to figure out what they can afford and what they want to pay for. Last I checked, Exxon was doing pretty well.

And you think that if we did operate like that "American taxpayers" would get some kind of a break? Where will Exxon and Blackwater get the money to acquire all that stuff?

Blackwater and Exxon probably have their insurance companies and bond underwriters on speed-dial. Let those guys figure it out. It is their business, not mine--except when they try to nurse upon a public nipple that is effectively filled under duress by you and me.

Or might the people who use oil (i.e. all of us) have to pay the bill?

This would be much more straightforward, instead of running the costs through the government filter. I reckon it would be much more efficient overall.

And why single out oil? Shouldn't any company engaging in foreign commerce have to hire its own security?

Either that, or subcontract it to foreign companies. As I see it, the US government only has a mandate to secure and enforce property rights within the United States, not to police the world.

For the last few thousand years, governments have assumed the job of providing security for their citizens. Indeed, that is pretty much their most important function.

If so, why bother with a CHL if the government is supposed to provide security for you?

To do it, taxes are levied and collected. Military forces are established, etc. These forces may be used wisely or foolishly. That's why we have elections. The elected government determines how, whether, and when the forces are used, for better or worse.
Why should we assume we would be better off if Exxon were making those decisions instead? Who elects them?

Exxon would only have a mandate (via its owners/shareholders) to secure its own property. However, if Exxon’s owners decide Exxon should partner with Saudi Aramco (this is all hypothetical) to jointly protect their jointly-owned/operated oilfields, refineries, etc, they should be free to do so. If guys with Exxon/Saudi Aramco/etc uniforms and badges screw up (instead of people wearing our national flag on their shoulders), any blowback is more likely to be contained to just Exxon/Saudi Aramco/etc. Furthermore, the scale of their mistakes would likely be much smaller as opposed to swarming a whole country with foreign (as perceived by the other country) military personnel.

And in either case, the cost is the same. Either the company collects the money from everybody that uses oil (i.e. everybody), or the government collects the money from everybody who pays taxes (i.e. everybody).

I strongly suspect that the costs of garrisoning foreign oil reserves at public expense are greater than the premium that would have to be paid to accomplish the same (or better) security via the private sector. The private sector is more efficient than the government because the private sector/market operates via two-way price mechanisms. The government does not.

And if it is thought that other countries are sometimes troubled by the way we deploy and/or use our military now, how might they regard us if Exxon were making those decisions instead of our government? Why would that automatically be better?

The scale of blowback-inspiring damage Exxon could do is much more constrained (via the bond market, stock market, shareholder voting, etc) than the scale of such damage the government can do.

[KBCraig]

A cheap smear piece. Ron Paul has been consistently repudiating that schlock for years. Kirchick is said to be an admirer of Giuliani, the latter who cannot stand it when someone gets the better of him (as Ron Paul has done).

More specifically:
http://gays-for-ron.blogspot.com/2008/0 ... ul-is.html

Kirchick said, "Anyways, I don’t think Ron Paul is a homophobe; I’m just cynical and enjoy getting supporters of political candidates riled up. If you were a Giuliani guy I’d have called him a fascist. But I must say, the Ron Paul supporters are the most enthusiastic of the bunch!"

[lawrnk]

A cheap smear piece. Ron Paul has been consistently repudiating that schlock for years. Kirchick is said to be an admirer of Giuliani, the latter who cannot stand it when someone gets the better of him (as Ron Paul has done).

More specifically:
http://gays-for-ron.blogspot.com/2008/0 ... ul-is.html

Kirchick said, "Anyways, I don’t think Ron Paul is a homophobe; I’m just cynical and enjoy getting supporters of political candidates riled up. If you were a Giuliani guy I’d have called him a fascist. But I must say, the Ron Paul supporters are the most enthusiastic of the bunch!"

\

I personally doubt that Ron Paul said much of what was quoted in the article, especially the "fleet footed" type comment.
I think it was careless to allow publications to go unchecked when bearing his name..but..eh.

True or not, the bad news here for Paul supporters is that link was devoured by millions. Drudge had it up a long time, and over 24,000,000 hits came in.

[lawrnk]

A cheap smear piece. Ron Paul has been consistently repudiating that schlock for years. Kirchick is said to be an admirer of Giuliani, the latter who cannot stand it when someone gets the better of him (as Ron Paul has done).

More specifically:
http://gays-for-ron.blogspot.com/2008/0 ... ul-is.html

Kirchick said, "Anyways, I don’t think Ron Paul is a homophobe; I’m just cynical and enjoy getting supporters of political candidates riled up. If you were a Giuliani guy I’d have called him a fascist. But I must say, the Ron Paul supporters are the most enthusiastic of the bunch!"

\

I personally doubt that Ron Paul said much of what was quoted in the article, especially the "fleet footed" type comment.
I think it was careless to allow publications to go unchecked when bearing his name..but..eh. Frankly, a candidate being a homophobe or not doesn't really matter much to me. Gays are not in my top 10 issues this election.

True or not, the bad news here for Paul supporters is that link was devoured by millions. Drudge had it up a long time, and over 24,000,000 hits came in.

[frankie_the_yankee]

However, I reckon walking into other people’s deadly fights (or starting your own) is a much higher-percentage method to pursue an early demise than minding your own business.

All you're doing is citing a difference in policy. That's why we have elections. Paul has his view, and others have theirs. So far, he can't crack double digits. So on current evidence, he isn't winning many people over.

It's OK to assert that we should pull back to our borders, but you can't automatically assume (or expect others to assume) that doing so will enhance our ability to defend ourselves. It could easily do just the opposite.

Military pullback will allow us to regroup and prepare to repel whatever they might try to throw at us, or even allow the Islamocultists to self-extinguish with less collateral damage.

We don't need to regroup. Al Qaeda and our other militant Islamic enemies are the ones who need to regroup, because of the way we've been hounding them and killing them wherever we can find them. Hunkering down behind our borders will allow Al Qaeda, or any other enemy, the time and space they need to regroup and to build their strength while remaining completely unmolested.

Sounds to me like that makes them better off.

Not to say that border security isn't important. It surely is. But it is just one component of an overall security package.

Static defenses are almost never successful. The fundamental problem is that they give the enemy free reign to prepare to whatever extent they choose. And the longer one goes without being attacked, the more the political support for building up and/or maintaining the static defense evaporates. In the end, the static defense is usually overwhelmed by a massed attack at the time and place of the enemy's choosing.

We need to secure our borders AND go after the Islamic militants where they live, wherever we can.

And these are all merely policy differences. Paul has his policy preferences, and he can't crack double digits with them, even with all the money he has managed to raise.

Protecting commerce can be accomplished more effectively and efficiently closer to our own borders, possibly involving a much smaller, non-military footprint overseas, and via the private sector.

Such a radical assertion requires far more evidence than simply theory.

Then there is this little item.

Article 1, Section 8. The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States; but all duties, imposts and excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;

.........

To raise and support armies, but no appropriation of money to that use shall be for a longer term than two years;

To provide and maintain a navy;

To make rules for the government and regulation of the land and naval forces;

Article 2, Section 2. The President shall be commander in chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the militia of the several states, when called into the actual service of the United States;

He shall have power, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, to make treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur; and he shall nominate, and by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, shall appoint ambassadors, other public ministers and consuls, judges of the Supreme Court, and all other officers of the United States, whose appointments are not herein otherwise provided for, and which shall be established by law:

Strange to find supporters of Ron Paul advocating privatizing government functions (raising and maintaining armed forces, conducting relations with other nations) that are explicitly enumerated in the Constitution.

I happen to think we are much better off being able to vote for the people who do these things than if they were "privatized". If some company messes up with its hired security and/or relations with some other country, they will attack all of us, not just the stockholders.

You don't agree, but it seems mainly because you don't agree with the policy choices we have made. That's why we have elections. Those who may share your view are not winning them. In fact, I don't even know of any who are running, including Paul.

No matter who gets elected, we are not going to sell off 75% of our military to Exxon, Blackwater, or anyone else (The Chinese for instance? They are pretty flush with cash these days. I'll bet they'd love to by a few F-22 Raptors, Aegis class boats, or nuclear attack subs. Does Ron Paul advocate that we sell such weapons to "private" Chinese companies? Do you?) and tell them to make their own private arrangements for secure access to trade. If anyone ran on that platform, it is likely that their own mother wouldn't vote for them.

No one familiar with the history of the last 100 years would ever seriously perceive us as, "...war-frenzied conquerors-in-waiting." The very notion is preposterous. We have liberated more people from tyranny and rescued more people from genocide than all the other nations that have ever existed put together.

Can I assume that Britain, France, and the former Soviet Union were our biggest liberations/rescues in the twentieth century? Millions of their young men (and thousands of ours) were slaughtered in the process of “rescuing� those nations. We shut down the Nazis’ death camps after they had already murdered about 12 million people, but did not/could not prevent “Uncle Joe� Stalin from starving..............

I would say we liberated all of Europe and the peoples of the Soviet Union, Japan, and quite a bit of Asia by means of winning WW2 and the Cold War. Now it may be that these results prove not to be permanent, but I'll bet it still makes a heck of a difference to those alive now. And to say that "millions of their young men were slaughtered" in the liberation effort almost sounds like you're saying that it would have been better for them to have continued to live under tyranny and genocide indefinitely. Hitler and Tojo (and yes, Stalin too) were slaughtering people on a pretty massive scale whether we intervened or not.

But it seems that you (reluctantly) agree we liberated more people than all the other nations of the Earth put together since the beginning of time, but complain that we were not able to liberate and/or save everybody. I agree. We are not perfect, and our power was and is not infinite.

But we still did more than all other countries put together. And that's a far cry from fitting your characterization of us as, "..war- frenzied conquorers in waiting".

Whatever sympathy from other countries we may have temporarily enjoyed after 11 Sep 2001, or goodwill in remembrance for assistance in years past, evaporated completely and was deeply tarnished once the United States preemptively invaded Iraq ......

Maybe it didn't so much "evaporate" as be destroyed by a concerted "Big Lie" propaganda campaign orchestrated by our enemies and helped by an unwitting Hate America First Left.

So you would have companies like Blackwater deploy carrier battle groups, combat infantry divisions, etc., which would then be hired by Exxon to secure access to oil markets? (By that I mostly mean guaranteeing free passage on the seas.) ?

Blackwater and Exxon would have to figure out what they can afford and what they want to pay for. Last I checked, Exxon was doing pretty well.

Leaving the government's constitutional powers and duties aside, what would you do if Exxon and Blackwater used their private military power in ways that you don't like? What if Exxon causes some other country to attack us, all of us?

Admittedly, our government can mess up like that too, but at least we get to vote them out if we think they have screwed up too badly. Even during WW2, FDR and the whole government had to stand for election several times.

And you think that if we did operate like that "American taxpayers" would get some kind of a break? Where will Exxon and Blackwater get the money to acquire all that stuff?

Blackwater and Exxon probably have their insurance companies and bond underwriters on speed-dial. Let those guys figure it out. It is their business, not mine--except when they try to nurse upon a public nipple that is effectively filled under duress by you and me.

If some country attacks us it is our business. They aren't going to limit their attacks to Exxon's bond underwriters.

And you're not going to get anywhere taking the attacking country to court.

But again, this is all just a smokescreen. You don't like the policy, and you can't win an election to change it. So instead, we get these radical proposals to "privatize" and even "outsource" foreign and military policy.

Do you think any country would make any kind of deal or agreement with our government (who, remember, has constitutional authority to conduct foreign relations) if they knew that Exxon had a half a dozen carrier battle groups and x-number of nuclear attack subs, air wings, and infantry divisions at their disposal (on retainer as it were) that they could do with as they pleased? What good would our government's word be? They'd want Exxon to sign off on the deal if they had a half a brain.

And who votes for the leaders of Exxon? (Yeah, I know, the stockholders. So Joe Gazillionaire gets a gazillion votes, and I get 100 votes. Sound fair to you, when the decisions may involve life and death for you and your family?) Corporate elections are usually won on the votes of a handful of very large shareholders. It's a far cry from "one man one vote".

I want to see Ron Paul advocate for a system like you are describing.

Or might the people who use oil (i.e. all of us) have to pay the bill?

This would be much more straightforward, instead of running the costs through the government filter. I reckon it would be much more efficient overall.

".......to provide for the common defense....."

And why single out oil? Shouldn't any company engaging in foreign commerce have to hire its own security?

Either that, or subcontract it to foreign companies. As I see it, the US government only has a mandate to secure and enforce property rights within the United States, not to police the world.

You may see it that way. But I see it as, "...to provide for the common defense..." You don't like how we are doing it, and can't win an election to change how we are doing it, so you would have private companies outsource it to (probably) Chinese subcontractors.

What if the subcontractor Exxon chooses is an enterprise of the People's Liberation Army?

For the last few thousand years, governments have assumed the job of providing security for their citizens. Indeed, that is pretty much their most important function.

If so, why bother with a CHL if the government is supposed to provide security for you?

"....to provide for the common defense....." CHL's have nothing to do with it.

Exxon would only have a mandate (via its owners/shareholders) to secure its own property.

How do you know what Joe Gazzilionaire, voting his gazillion share block, might get it in his head to do?

If guys with Exxon/Saudi Aramco/etc uniforms and badges screw up (instead of people wearing our national flag on their shoulders), any blowback is more likely to be contained to just Exxon/Saudi Aramco/etc. Furthermore, the scale of their mistakes would likely be much smaller as opposed to swarming a whole country with foreign (as perceived by the other country) military personnel.

How could you possibly know any of this?

But hey, you could always run for office on that platform. And, getting back to topic, is that Paul's platform? If so, he is being real quiet about it. And if he ever goes public with it, people will be asking the question, "If Ron Paul falls over in a forest and there is no one around to hear it, did it really make a sound?"

And if it is thought that other countries are sometimes troubled by the way we deploy and/or use our military now, how might they regard us if Exxon were making those decisions instead of our government? Why would that automatically be better?

The scale of blowback-inspiring damage Exxon could do is much more constrained (via the bond market, stock market, shareholder voting, etc) than the scale of such damage the government can do.

And if some country or terrorist group doesn't give a fig about the bond market and just wants to wipe Exxon and all the rest of us off the face of the Earth, we could just meet them head on with a phalanx of investment bankers, right?

It's one thing to say our current foreign policy is wrong, or that the Iraq war is a mistake. Paul apparently holds these views and that's fine. He is going before the voters and he will get whatever results he gets.

But to go from there to the idea that having private companies provide for their own security on the high seas and negotiate relations with other countries themselves will somehow give "the taxpayer" a break or will intrinsically produce better policy (for America and Americans) is a huge leap. Especially when the leaders of those companies are chosen through a "one billionaire, one billion votes" type of process.

Does anyone think that George Soros, a big financial supporter of many left wing anti gun groups BTW, would (or does) make decisions based on what is best for America?

Anyway, I amused myself for an hour or so writing this stuff. But I think I've pretty much said my peace at this point.

[yerasimos]

Just to be perfectly clear, I do not pretend to speak for Ron Paul.

Frankie, you raise many “what-if� objections to decentralization and privatization. To be honest, I do not claim to have an answer to every conceivable scenario you conjure. However, I believe that the themes of decentralization, assertion without aggression, preparedness over prediction, etc, deserve to be defended, and if I can accomplish this, then perhaps some of my earlier statements will make better sense and not seem quite so shocking.

In addition, I should have clarified earlier about “securing�oil. On the one hand there is the acquisition of property or drilling rights, etc, in a given area. When Alan Greenspan and the neoconservatives lower their guard and speak candidly about the 2003 invasion of Iraq and how it really was about oil, I deduce they are referring to the idea that unseating Saddam and his gang would make it “open season� on one of the world’s largest proven easily-refined oil reserves and would (ideally) allow oil companies to acquire this high-quality oil at rock-bottom cost. I am not sure whether this has worked out as they had hoped; I doubt it (though the price of oil has multiplied drastically along the way). On the other hand, there is the protection of refineries, pipelines, and shipments. I was under the impression that supertankers were being escorted by naval vessels, when honestly I cannot know for sure whether this is going on or to what extent. I know that in the 1980s, some Kuwaiti supertankers were flagged with the US flag or escorted by US naval vessels to deter meddling. Recent events in the Persian Gulf and Strait of Hormuz lead me to believe that oil shipments enjoy at least indirect protection via the presence of US naval forces in that region.

Profit-seeking companies and individuals will see little purpose in sinking large sums of money into highly-leveraged, non-productive assets such as the military weapons you mentioned in your posts, unless they are in the business of producing them for sale. Such weapons are the creation of governments and defense contractors who are (at best) only loosely constrained by two-way price mechanisms. Organizations whose owners, creditors and customers operate in free, non-captive markets cannot decide to build up massive pseudo-military forces on their own and try to act like Dr Evil and Virtucon without a large number of people learning about it in advance and hedging against it (to protect themselves) or taking their money and business elsewhere (to get better products/service or better returns on their investments). Publicly-traded companies cannot hide behind “national security� or “executive privilege� or write signing statements on toilet tissue without such frauds and deceit eventually being discovered (if not immediately) and then voted against in seconds in the securities markets.

Stated another way, an oil company would not try to purchase outright the US Navy to use for its own purposes, even if it was for sale. Spending their investors’ money that way would not efficiently or reliably generate a return for them, because war is an unpredictable and destructive enterprise. However, I do not believe such a company would recoil from attempting to convince the government to protect their overseas business interests or create more favorable business opportunities on their unique behalf, by diverting publicly-financed military and naval resources away from genuine, common defensive responsibilities closer to home. This abuse of public resources has occurred over and over again, and I have a serious objection to this type of “privatization�.

Assuming the current large-scale overseas military operations are concluded and these resources are redeployed and restricted closer to home, an oil multinational will have to figure out for itself and negotiate more cost-effective, market-acceptable methods of obtaining and protecting overseas business units, just as they do here, without trying to pass the costs to somebody else. If that means they will have to pay more taxes or tribute to foreign governments, then they will have to decide whether it is worthwhile to pursue or continue the relevant businesses. Smaller-scale, cost-effective commercial protection services and methods will have a reduced footprint, will cost less, will be restricted to the protection of life and property only, and will less likely to stir tempers or cause problems for uninvolved participants, including the United States at large, compared to the sledgehammer approach of sending hundreds of thousands of military personnel and PMCs and billions of dollars of equipment to foreign lands to protect oil companies’ shipments and facilities or liquidate competitors in the oil industry.

Continuing with the theme of decentralization, I will say that I feel that individuals ought to be more interested and involved in the defense of their communities and country, that the military employs many talented individuals whose efforts might be put to more valuable use closer to home or within the private sector enriching our economy, and that the oil industry’s interests should not be declared “national interests�. Widespread individual firearm ownership and a perception of "a rifle behind every blade of grass," which discouraged the Japanese from invading the mainland United States during WW2, will go a long way in keeping us safe and discouraging foreign incursions as well as corporate misbehavior. A navy kept mobile yet close to home port will make for a flexible, dynamic outer perimeter defense, and fits within the letter and intent of the Constitution. PMCs on board supertankers can safeguard the transit of oil and also supplement this country’s defenses by acting as low-profile eyes and ears when over the horizon (assuming these contractors are Americans and wish to protect their country, as I expect they would). Less involvement and smaller footprints overseas coupled with strength at home should lead to much more frequent deselection in the crazies’and Islamocultists’ victim selection process.

The discussion veered sideways into the subject of the twentieth century’s wars and genocides. In every single one of those unnecessary tragedies (ie, they never had to happen in the first place, never should have happened, and whatever victories were Pyrrhic due to the immense destruction of lives and property), it was one or more highly-centralized governments that perpetrated the genocides or started the wars, then one or more highly-centralized governments that sponsored their messy conclusions and unwittingly laid the groundwork for repeat acts years later and elsewhere. Indeed, highly-centralized governments proved exceedingly lethal to their citizens over and over again, and yet so many people continue to insist that all must kneel to this Molech.

Ron Paul is the only candidate for president that I am aware of who advocates returning the United States to the decentralization and limits prescribed by the Constitution, limiting the harm the federal government can cause and avoiding repeats of the colossal mistakes of the past century and recent past.