KenH's New Original Ron Paul for President Thread

Ron Paul's Base Could Give Him Post-Primary Influence, Experts Say

www.cnsnews.com/ViewPolitics.asp?Page=/Politics/archive/200712/POL20071218b.html


In other words, we Ron Paul supporters aren't going away if Ron Paul does not win the GOP presidential nomination.

 

"Paul’s remarks this morning covered his core argument -- of returning to policies rooted in the principle of freedom. “If I had to summarize one word of what the campaign is all about, it’s champion the cause of freedom, and the Constitution that protects our freedom,” he said. The idea of freedom is still new in the history of the world, he said, and that it was why the U.S. was “the freest and the most prosperous.” “But something’s happening today, because everything has been undermined,” he continued. The result is a foreign policy that has America viewed as “a bully,” and a monetary policy that has led the money to borrow money “from the communists.” "

- rest at http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2007/12/19/525674.aspx

 

Andrew Sullivan's Endorsement of Ron Paul

"But the deeper reason to support Ron Paul is a simple one. The great forgotten principles of the current Republican party are freedom and toleration. Paul's federalism, his deep suspicion of Washington power, his resistance to government spending, debt and inflation, his ability to grasp that not all human problems are soluble, least of all by government: these are principles that made me a conservative in the first place. No one in the current field articulates them as clearly and understands them as deeply as Paul. He is a man of faith who nonetheless sees a clear line between religion and politics. More than all this, he has somehow ignited a new movement of those who love freedom and want to rescue it from the do-gooding bromides of the left and the Christianist meddling of the right. The Paulites' enthusiasm for liberty, their unapologetic defense of core conservative principles, their awareness that in the new millennium, these principles of small government, self-reliance, cultural pluralism, and a humble foreign policy are more necessary than ever - no lover of liberty can stand by and not join them.

He's the real thing in a world of fakes and frauds. And in a primary campaign where the very future of conservatism is at stake, that cannot be ignored. In fact, it demands support.

Go Ron Paul!"

- rest at http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2007/12/ron-paul-for-th.html

 

The Importance of Fiscal Responsibility in Government

by Congressman Ron Paul(R-TX)

​

As the year draws to a close, the battle over spending in Washington is heating up. The Democrats want to expand government healthcare, while the President has vetoed the second attempt to expand SCHIP.

The latest version of the State Children's Health Insurance Program would have expanded the entitlement program and raised taxes, just as the earlier version did and the President showed fiscal restraint with his veto.

Reducing our entitlement programs here at home is not against saving the children, as the rhetoric goes, it is about saving the country's economy. The fact is we have huge trade imbalances, massive deficits, and a $9 trillion national debt, which balloons to $60 trillion if unfunded future liabilities in social security and other promises we have made to Americans are included.

We are at a crucial point in history right now. We must think very carefully about our next moves. There is coming a time, if we continue on this path, when all that our tax dollars and government revenues will be able to do is pay interest on the mountain of debt we have compiled in the past few decades. That will mean no government programs or services of any kind will be funded, yet future generations of Americans will still struggle under a crushing tax burden with nothing to show for it. That is why fiscal restraint and common sense with the budget are so vitally important in government.

The difference now is that our printing presses at the Federal Reserve are getting worn out as we have expanded our money supply to the breaking point with yet another rate cut this week. As the dollar falls, it is losing its reserve currency status as many countries are shifting to the Euro or the Chinese yuan or other currencies. The more that trend continues, the weaker we become on the world stage. Those foreign governments and entities that enabled us to spend so much for so long are wearing thin and cutting us off.

The truth is our enemies won't need a nuclear weapon to harm us if we keep spending phantom dollars at the current rate. In fact, they won't need to do anything but sit back and watch as we spend ourselves into oblivion. Historically, empires fail because they run out of money, or more accurately, run out of the ability to spend or inflate. Unfortunately, that is exactly the direction we are headed. We need to control spending, immediately, before it is too late.

I applaud the President for his veto of the SCHIP expansion bill. It is a step in the right direction. But it is just one small step. What our economy needs right now is to go full gallop away from the tax and spend policies that have gotten us into this mess.

- www.house.gov:80/paul/tst/tst2007/tst121607.htm

 

Looks like the Paul campaign considers California in play now

The Ron Paul campaign just keeps growing and growing and growing...:thumbs:

Ron Paul Campaign Hires California State Coordinator


ARLINGTON, Va.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Holly Clearman has been hired as the Ron Paul 2008 presidential campaign’s California State Coordinator. The move reflects Texas Congressman Ron Paul’s status as a rising contender for the Republican presidential nomination.

“I am honored to be a part of this campaign,” said Holly Clearman, a third generation Californian and former schoolteacher. “I’m thrilled to do my part to spread Dr. Paul’s message of freedom, peace and prosperity.”

Clearman has been the Southern California State Coordinator since October, and is ready for the challenge of delivering the entire Golden State for the Texas congressman in the February 5th primary.

Congressman Paul’s campaign has significant, growing support in the state of California. In addition to over six hundred registered volunteers in San Diego County, the Texas Congressman has several thousand registered volunteers in California, including over six hundred in Los Angeles County, and six hundred in the Bay Area.

Dr. Paul finished second in the Southern California Republican Straw Poll on December 6th, following his first place finish in the Fresno County Republican Straw Poll on November 15th.

- www.businesswire.com/portal/site/google/index.jsp?ndmViewId=news_view&newsId=20071220006188&newsLang=en

 

Excellent Analysis by Daniel McCarthy

"Fortunately, socially conservative religious voters do not have to settle for Mike Huckabee; there is an alternative to him, Romney, and Giuliani. That alternative is the other second tier candidate who has vaulted into the top echelon, Dr. Ron Paul. The Texas congressman has the fundraising that Huckabee doesn’t; in terms of the money he’s pulling in—Paul is on target to raise $12 to $15 million for the final quarter of 2007—he’s on par with Giuliani and Romney. Where Huckabee is poor on the panoply of traditional conservative issues, Paul is rock solid. Paul, in ten terms in Congress, has never once voted to raise taxes. (And he doesn’t believe in any of that “revenue neutral” hokum.) Paul has always been for border enforcement and denying illegal immigrants taxpayer benefits. And Paul was one of the very few Congressional Republicans to see the folly of the Iraq War, which he voted against, right from the beginning. Paul is steeped in the Old Right, indeed old American tradition of avoiding entanglements and unnecessary wars. Huckabee is known as Tax-Hike Mike. Ron Paul, on the other hand, is “Dr. No” for his refusal to vote for any legislation that cannot be squared with a strict reading of the Constitution.

His social conservative credentials are 24 karat as well: as an ob-gyn, he has personal experience with life in the womb that undergirds his staunch opposition to abortion. His support for a federal ban on partial-birth abortion is, to the best of my knowledge, the only instance of Paul overriding his strict commitment to states’ rights for the sake of another cause. Paul is for overturning Roe v. Wade and sending abortion law back to the states, where it constitutionally belongs. His approach to opposing gay marriage is also federalist—rather than endorsing a constitutional amendment to federalize marriage, Paul would like Congress to restrict the federal courts’ power over defining marriage, which would allow the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act to be the unchallenged law of the land. States could still redefine marriage if they chose—but courts could not impose one state’s laws on every other. It’s not the solution that every Christian conservative wants, but it is the one that does least violence to the Constitution.

Paul’s commitment to law—be it divine law, natural law, or civil constitutional law—ought to be one of his most attractive qualities for Christian conservative voters. Paul understands the idea of law as a bond and limit on human desire and activity: alone of the 2008 Republican presidential contenders Paul understands that just laws have their source in something other than human whim. Consider the difference between Ron Paul’s response and Mitt Romney’s answer when each was asked by Iowa talk radio host Jan Mickelson whether Roe is the law of the land. “It is now,” said Romney, which prompted Mickelson to tell him, “… the Supreme Court doesn’t make law. They can’t make law. There’s only three sources of law and the court’s not one of them.” Ron Paul’s answer: “Well, they call it the law of the land but I want to clarify that by getting rid of it. This is one example of the courts overstepping their bounds tremendously…” Paul then goes on to explain that here, too, a constitutional amendment is not necessary: Congress already has the power to restrict the federal courts’ jurisdiction. So why, asks Mickelson, didn’t the putatively antiabortion Republicans do that when they held the majority in Congress?

Paul: “Well I think it’s insincerity in what they say when they campaign, and they don’t follow through, and they sort of pander to get votes and then they don’t want to rock the vote.”

Mickelson: “So they come out here to the cheap seats and serve up pro-life rhetoric and go back to Washington and go back to doing their thing.”

Paul: “Get the pro-life vote and then go and not offend the people who believe in abortion, and try to ride the rail in the middle of the road, and too often they get away with it. I think I have the reputation for doing what I say, and voting that way, and my voting record shows that.”

Paul has picked up support from several influential Christian conservative writers, including Chuck Baldwin and Laurence Vance. He’s making inroads at the grassroots level as well. But so far, he hasn’t attracted the kind of mass “values voter” following that has been propelling Huckabee’s effort. If support for Huckabee is intended as a political calculation on the part of grassroots Christian conservative, it’s a mistaken one: the underfunded Huckabee might pull off an upset against Romney in Iowa, but he has little hope of beating “Rudy McRomney” for the Republican nomination—or beating Hillary or Barack next November. A tax-and-spend liberal like Huckabee has as little chance of uniting the Right as the untrustworthy Romney and socially liberal Giuliani. Paul, on the other hand, already has the support of libertarians and antiwar moderates. If the Christian grassroots voted according to conservative principle and added their weight to Paul, he would have a very good chance indeed of beating the whole New York / Massachusetts / Chicago slate of candidates in both parties.

But the 2008 contest poses serious tests for Christian conservatives: a test of whether their commitment to conservatism extends beyond social issues, and a test of whether they can resist the folksy charms of a good ol’ boy from Arkansas—many Evangelicals, after all, fell for the last Arkansas governor to run for president in 1992, which was one of the secrets of Bill Clinton’s first victory. If the grassroots don’t resist the siren call of Tax-Hike Mike, they might yet remain anti-abortion, but in every other respect they’ll have ceased to be a religious right and will have become a new, and dangerous, religious left."

- rest at www.takimag.com/site/article/huckabee_the_new_huey_long/

 

John McLaughlin Names Ron Paul "Person of the Year"

www.lewrockwell.com/blog/lewrw/archives/017931.html

 

John Zogby: Ron Paul Will Surprise

Ron Paul: He's going to do better than anyone expects. Look to Paul to climb into the double-digits in Iowa. Why? He's different, he stands out. He's against the war and he has the one in four Republicans who oppose the war all to himself. Libertarianism is hot, especially among free-market Republicans and 20-somethings. And he's an appealing sort of father figure. He's his own brand. All he needs to do is beat a couple of big names in Iowa, then New Hampshire is friendlier territory. After all, the state motto is "Live Free or Die."

- www.newsmax.com/newsfront/Zogby:_Ron_Paul_Will_Surp/2007/12/21/59011.html

 

Ron Paul Tied With Rudy Giuliani in Iowa

www.newsmax.com/politics/Ron_Paul_Tied_With_Rudy/2007/12/20/58588.html

 

What Does Freedom Really Mean?

My friend who hosts the local radio talk show read this over the air this week.


What Does Freedom Really Mean?

by Ron Paul, February 7, 2005

“…man is not free unless government is limited. There's a clear cause and effect here that is as neat and predictable as a law of physics: As government expands, liberty contracts.” - Ronald Reagan

We’ve all heard the words democracy and freedom used countless times, especially in the context of our invasion of Iraq. They are used interchangeably in modern political discourse, yet their true meanings are very different.

George Orwell wrote about “meaningless words” that are endlessly repeated in the political arena*. Words like “freedom,” “democracy,” and “justice,” Orwell explained, have been abused so long that their original meanings have been eviscerated. In Orwell’s view, political words were “Often used in a consciously dishonest way.” Without precise meanings behind words, politicians and elites can obscure reality and condition people to reflexively associate certain words with positive or negative perceptions. In other words, unpleasant facts can be hidden behind purposely meaningless language. As a result, Americans have been conditioned to accept the word “democracy” as a synonym for freedom, and thus to believe that democracy is unquestionably good.

The problem is that democracy is not freedom. Democracy is simply majoritarianism, which is inherently incompatible with real freedom. Our founding fathers clearly understood this, as evidenced not only by our republican constitutional system, but also by their writings in the Federalist Papers and elsewhere. James Madison cautioned that under a democratic government, “There is nothing to check the inducement to sacrifice the weaker party or the obnoxious individual.” John Adams argued that democracies merely grant revocable rights to citizens depending on the whims of the masses, while a republic exists to secure and protect pre-existing rights. Yet how many Americans know that the word “democracy” is found neither in the Constitution nor the Declaration of Independence, our very founding documents?

A truly democratic election in Iraq, without U.S. interference and U.S. puppet candidates, almost certainly would result in the creation of a Shiite theocracy. Shiite majority rule in Iraq might well mean the complete political, economic, and social subjugation of the minority Kurd and Sunni Arab populations. Such an outcome would be democratic, but would it be free? Would the Kurds and Sunnis consider themselves free? The administration talks about democracy in Iraq, but is it prepared to accept a democratically-elected Iraqi government no matter what its attitude toward the U.S. occupation? Hardly. For all our talk about freedom and democracy, the truth is we have no idea whether Iraqis will be free in the future. They’re certainly not free while a foreign army occupies their country. The real test is not whether Iraq adopts a democratic, pro-western government, but rather whether ordinary Iraqis can lead their personal, religious, social, and business lives without interference from government.

Simply put, freedom is the absence of government coercion. Our Founding Fathers understood this, and created the least coercive government in the history of the world. The Constitution established a very limited, decentralized government to provide national defense and little else. States, not the federal government, were charged with protecting individuals against criminal force and fraud. For the first time, a government was created solely to protect the rights, liberties, and property of its citizens. Any government coercion beyond that necessary to secure those rights was forbidden, both through the Bill of Rights and the doctrine of strictly enumerated powers. This reflected the founders’ belief that democratic government could be as tyrannical as any King.

Few Americans understand that all government action is inherently coercive. If nothing else, government action requires taxes. If taxes were freely paid, they wouldn’t be called taxes, they’d be called donations. If we intend to use the word freedom in an honest way, we should have the simple integrity to give it real meaning: Freedom is living without government coercion. So when a politician talks about freedom for this group or that, ask yourself whether he is advocating more government action or less.

The political left equates freedom with liberation from material wants, always via a large and benevolent government that exists to create equality on earth. To modern liberals, men are free only when the laws of economics and scarcity are suspended, the landlord is rebuffed, the doctor presents no bill, and groceries are given away. But philosopher Ayn Rand (and many others before her) demolished this argument by explaining how such “freedom” for some is possible only when government takes freedoms away from others. In other words, government claims on the lives and property of those who are expected to provide housing, medical care, food, etc. for others are coercive-- and thus incompatible with freedom. “Liberalism,” which once stood for civil, political, and economic liberties, has become a synonym for omnipotent coercive government.

The political right equates freedom with national greatness brought about through military strength. Like the left, modern conservatives favor an all-powerful central state-- but for militarism, corporatism, and faith-based welfarism. Unlike the Taft-Goldwater conservatives of yesteryear, today’s Republicans are eager to expand government spending, increase the federal police apparatus, and intervene militarily around the world. The last tenuous links between conservatives and support for smaller government have been severed. “Conservatism,” which once meant respect for tradition and distrust of active government, has transformed into big-government utopian grandiosity.

Orwell certainly was right about the use of meaningless words in politics. If we hope to remain free, we must cut through the fog and attach concrete meanings to the words politicians use to deceive us. We must reassert that America is a republic, not a democracy, and remind ourselves that the Constitution places limits on government that no majority can overrule. We must resist any use of the word “freedom” to describe state action. We must reject the current meaningless designations of “liberals” and “conservatives,” in favor of an accurate term for both: statists.

Every politician on earth claims to support freedom. The problem is so few of them understand the simple meaning of the word.

*Politics and the English Language, 1946.

- www.ronpaul2008.com/articles/161/what-does-freedom-really-mean/

 

I ordered two Ron Paul for President bumper stickers the other day. Hopefully, they will be here in time to enter 2008 with them on my car.

 

As each day passes Ron Paul appears to be becoming more and more electable:

Zogby: Ron Paul will surprise

Ethan Boivie
Posted at 11:13 pm in White House-2008

Pollster John Zogby, in his thoughts on the Republican field, declared that Ron Paul will “do better than anyone expects.” Zogby predicts double digits for Paul in Iowa, where a Washington Post/ABC News poll already showed Paul tied with Rudy Giuliani. In a crowded field, Paul stands out to young voters and free-marketers. Also, as the only anti-war Republican, he is poised to snag the roughly 1/4 of Republican voters opposed to the war.

After Iowa, Paul should have an easier road in libertarian-friendly New Hampshire and Michigan, where moderate voters, often ignored by pollsters, have been throwing support at Paul. Also promising for Paul is a Rasmussen report that Mike Huckabee’s favorability ratings plummeted in the last week amid extensive background checks. If Zogby is correct, with surprising showings in early states, Paul could replace Huckabee as the latest media darling just as the primary season hits its stride.

- http://politicalderby.com/2007/12/21...will-surprise/
​