In 2004, one of the criticisms of John Kerry that was bandied about was that he was too nuanced. In other words, his views of the world and governmental policy therein were as complex as the issues themselves and therefore not clear enough for a public that wants its leaders to speak to them in as plain English as possible. That’s a sad commentary on American political life but a reality nonetheless. The voting public seems to be more comfortable with either Captain America or Dr. Phil as president than someone versed in the issues and knowledgeable enough to that one cannot simply project a black-and-white view of things and expect to accomplish anything of value. Contrary to what many on the right seem to believe, the world is just not divided into simply good and bad.
I felt sorry for Kerry in that when he was being honest with himself and the public, the message got muddled in our sound byte happy media and he was made to look foolish when he in fact was thoughtful. But if the media and voters were mean toward Kerry for having more than a child’s view of complex issues, those same culprits have been downright cruel to poor old GOP presidential candidate Rep. (TX) Ron Paul.
Paul has been a hoot in the past two debates. He’s been brutally honest and he seems to be one of the few people running for the nomination that actually remembers the GOP platform. The Republican’s used to be about nothing more than restricted government intervention, low taxes and non-interventionist policies. In other words, Republican’s are supposed to believe in leaving people to their own device-win, lose or draw. In social work lingo it’s called “rugged individualism” and it means that you take care of yourself and the government will make sure you keep as much of what you make as you can. It is simple math really. Lower or lowest taxes means that the government is only minimally involved in your inalienable rights. This is why traditionally Republicans have been against social service programs and an interventionist foreign policy. Contrary to what the liberals would have you believe, it’s not because all Republican are old, white ogres who hate people, it’s because entitlement programs and foreign wars costs money and money costs people their freedom and privacy. Paul has been trying to remind people of this in the sparingly little time he’s had at the previous two debates.
In fact, at the Fox debate on 5/15/07, Paul made statements that got him eviscerated by the mind-numbingly oafish pundits as well as a jingoistic spanking from the most liberal of the contenders, Mayor Rudy Giuliani. You can hear Paul’s comments for yourself in the embedded video but the crux of what he said was that if you want to fix the economy you have to cut spending and the best places to cut are the monsters of bureaucratic inefficiency, the departments of Homeland Security, Education and Energy. He also said that the reason we were attacked on 9-11 is because we had been bombing Iraq for about 10 years prior and said attack was retaliatory in nature.
For this, Ron Paul has nearly usurped Hillary Clinton as the Right’s new boogeyman.
The problem is that if you actually took the time to think about, and read about what Paul was saying, he actually makes perfect sense and is telling the awful truth. In our sound-byte happy country, it sounds like he blaming the US for being attacked by Al Qaeda on 9-11. However, if given more time and the ability to set the record straight in an arena where the audience doesn’t have Attention Deficit Disorder, I’m sure he would say the following:
We were in fact bombing Iraq after the first Gulf War. That was part of the containment policy. As a matter of fact, part of the reason the liberals thought that Iraq didn’t have WMD’s is because of said containment policy. We were monitoring them night and day as well as enforcing no-fly zones in the South and over Kurdistan. We were based in Saudi Arabia both during the conflict as well as after the war had ended. This was one of Osama Bin Laden’s big demands of the United States. On top of wanting to convert or murder all infidels, he also wanted the US out of Saudi Arabia, or as he likes to call it, the holy land. Now this little wrinkle hardly gets any mention in the news what with all of the focus on the much more easier understand former issue but it was in fact a serious demand. The problem was that he didn’t have much of a right to make a demand. The Saudi Royal Family had us there by request and stayed in Saudi Arabia at their pleasure. In any case, the attacks by Al Qaeda in the 90’s and then 9-11 were partly his answer to our unwillingness to leave Saudi Arabia. This was Ron Paul’s point. Had Osama Bin Laden gotten his way and been allowed by the Saudi Royal Family to lead the Mujahudeen against Saddam Hussein in Kuwait as he did (with CIA help) against the Russians in Afghanistan, there probably wouldn’t be an Al Qaeda today. However, as history has shown us, that’s not what happened.
The other statement he’s being attacked on is his idea that we should cut the department of Homeland Security (and Education and Energy). Again, in sound-byte land that means he suggesting we do not defend ourselves or protect our national interests in time of war. While that assertion made for great television, it was also idiotic. In the land of attention spans, what Ron Paul was getting was that beyond the National Guard and other branches of the military, the job of safety and security is supposed to fall on state agencies and not some monstrous federal bureaucracy that is so convoluted it can’t function in a time of crises. His point was that you don’t keep people safe by creating more red tape; you do so by giving the state agencies all of the resources they need to get the job done. That doesn’t take more bureaucrats, that just takes good common sense and better budgeting.
It’s the same thing with Energy and Education. Instead of having the government control something that it does not understand and is woefully unqualified to govern, you should allow but to be provinces of state and private enterprise exclusively. It is the job of the governors of each state to manage their own affairs and getting the federal government involved only muddies up the waters. More to the point, you end up, as we have, throwing away billions in tax dollars are bureaucratic machines don’t function very well and don’t actually solve the problem.
Ron Paul’s problem is not that he was wrong, it’s that he was too right for an audience that doesn’t have time for long complicated answers.
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