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Politics : Liberalism: Do You Agree We've Had Enough of It? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Joe Sixer who wrote (12526)	8/1/2007 9:21:09 PM
From: Ann Corrigan	Respond to of 224729

Paul should join forces with the candidate he finds most qualified to be POTUS. Possibly he'd be asked to take the VP slot.

To: Joe Sixer who wrote (12526)	8/1/2007 11:09:21 PM
From: Ann Corrigan	Respond to of 224729

Ron Paul: Idea-Driven, Decent, Unworthy By Mark Davis, Aug 1, 2007 Some say that after eight years of President Bush, the nation would not elect another Texan or another Republican. But Ron Paul shatters both stereotypical definitions, simultaneously bringing him waves of criticism and armies of new fans. He has no chance of winning the 2008 Republican nomination, but unlike, say, Tommy Thompson or Sam Brownback, he seems to know that and even admit it. Ideas are what matter to the congressman from Lake Jackson, Texas, and those ideas have won him 10 elections from a voter base that admires his curious blend of social conservatism, populism and libertarianism. That libertarian streak, in particular, gives me much to admire about him. He opposes gun control and abortion like most mainstream Republicans, but he brings a special courage to his passion for cutting the size of government by as much has half. Republicans talk a good game about making government smaller but have abjectly failed. They generally advocate less government than, say, Democrats, but the old joke is still true: What's the difference between Republicans and Democrats? You'll get bigger government under either, but the Republicans will tell you they feel terrible about it. Dr. Paul's genuine devotion to profoundly smaller government - and, thus, profoundly lower taxes - earned him the 1988 Libertarian Party presidential nomination and the half of 1 percent of the vote that usually goes with it. Nonetheless, I share his dream that one day Americans will realize that government should do no more than the limited list of tasks clearly spelled out in the Constitution. Until then, you can find him speaking to groups of schoolchildren too young to vote, hoping to spread the honorable concept of such limited government into future generations. This is a small part of the portrait of Ron Paul that leads to the unavoidable conclusion that he is a gentleman cut from the finest human cloth. He is unfailingly polite, carries none of the condescension or affectations that power can often bring, and he still seems to have the aura of genuine caring that led him to deliver babies for free for needy Brazoria County families back in his obstetrician days. So let us stipulate that Dr. Paul may be one of the more decent people ever elected to Congress. Now to the issue of his run for the White House, where the news is not so happy. A corner of American economic thought is skeptical of the Federal Reserve and laments our departure from the gold standard, now obsolete across the globe. But the Ron Paul take is that the Fed and its various chairmen have acted as sinister puppeteers doing the bidding of an ill-defined elite. It is the Ron Paul take on fighting terror that makes him unfit for even the briefest consideration for the presidency. In the now-famous May 15 GOP debate in South Carolina, he stood out among the crowded field by blaming America for 9/11. "We've been over there," he lectured. "We've been bombing Iraq for 10 years. ... What would we say here if China was doing this in our country?" That phony equivalency rises to the level of sheer moral idiocy, and it doesn't stop there. Dr. Paul's longstanding unfortunate tendency is to rope Jesus into his war objections. Today, the notion of going to war to actually prevent additional terrorism strikes him as antithetical to the concept of a "Prince of Peace." We should expect sixth-graders to recognize that peace is not the mere cessation of hostilities. Peace is what you get when the good guys win. Joined by a host of Democrats who clearly do not view America as "the good guys," Ron Paul has shown he is one of many otherwise respectable Americans wholly unworthy of the White House. Mark Davis is a columnist for the Dallas Morning News