Ron Paul – the Messenger

Shoot the Messenger

Ron Paul has taken on the role of the Messenger. For his trouble, we shoot at him, because of our tendency to shoot the messenger. He does refuse to fall down. He has seen major parts of his annoying messages acknowledged by primary voters and his fellow candidates and repeated by the media. The result of his tenacity is that now many Americans believe the Federal Reserve is not a sacrosanct, un-attackable, permanent institution. The same goes for Ron Paul’s positions on the 10th Amendment, border closing and reducing spending by $1 trillion a year.

Peace through Strength

The complaint by Republicans about Ron Paul’s insistence on Congressional approval for military actions is valid. Ronal Reagan’s reaction to insurgent actions where U.S. citizens were at risk was to join the UK and invade the Falkland Islands. George HW Bush’s reaction to Sadam Hussein’s invasion of Kwait was a swift war on Iraq. His reaction to Noriega’s drug cartel controlled Panama was to invade Panama and arrest Noriega. The world’s reaction to these actions was to perceive the U.S. as unbeatable. This is our new deterrence strategy of peace through strength. We proved we will show up with full force and the President can do it without the Congress. The attacks on 9/11 effectively challenged that position, George W. Bush’s response to proceed with long term land invasions was too expensive. The development of unmanned aircraft drones has been added to our capabilities as an option to land invasion. We find ourselves scrambling to reconfigure our military to be able to react to anything and we are broke.

Our Global Military Presence

The reaction to Ron Paul’s position on closing our nonessential foreign military bases needs to be analyzed more thoroughly. Even our bases in Germany can be defended by proximity to the middle east where the action is. Our bases in Japan can be defended by proximity to China’s military resurgence. The practical questions involve our allies’ willingness and ability to take over the “policeman” role in their own neighborhoods. Each of our 900 military bases needs to be considered for closure based on its current strategic value. Where strategic value is low, or easily replaced with more aircraft carriers in the region, these bases should be closed. Also, where allies are ready and able to take over more responsibility, they should be encouraged to do so.

Ron Paul’s Military

The fact that Ron Paul’s biggest supporters are current members of the U.S. military is one conundrum worthy of some analysis. It may be that because these soldiers have participated in the rebuilding of other countries, they are cognizant of the costs and have determined that we can’t go on like this forever. They saw the money being spent first hand; we only heard of the money being borrowed and printed. Our mild reaction is easily explained by Glen Beck’s demonstration of a frog being boiled slowly. Our economy is getting progressively worse slowly, by degree. Unless we’ve been laid off and lost our ability to pay our bills, it just feels a little warmer every year.

Democrat Sabotage

If we had been allowed pursue full-out domestic oil and gas drilling over the past 40 years, we would be in a much better position to back off in the middle east. Because we allowed Democrats and Environmentalists to sabotage domestic oil and gas production, we find ourselves scrambling . Our tendency to be everywhere is destroying our economy with excessive government spending.
Securing the Mexican border and deporting illegal immigrants is another issue Democrats blocked. We were incredulous watching Republicans failed to accomplish these tasks.

The EPA has quietly obstructed infrastructure maintenance for decades using the Clean Air Act. It has accelerated its attack to remove our private property rights using the Clean Water Act.

The Community Reinvestment Act and HUD rules forced banks to approve home loans to non-creditworthy loan applicants. The mortgage-backed securities for these bad mortgages caused the 2008 Meltdown and the beginning of our 2nd Great Depression.

Federal Legislation

We were aghast to watch the Congress pass Obama-care without reading it. We were amazed that junk bills routinely filled all Omnibus Bills and Continuing Resolutions. We recognized that Congress needed most of its responsibilities taken away.

The 10th Amendment Movement

It became clear to us that the federal government was incapable of handling their responsibilities in 2008. Our reaction was the Tea Party. We knew that the Judiciary had conspired to interpret the Constitution into oblivion. We knew that the federal government had ruined entire industries by subsidizing and over-regulating them. We noticed that the Constitution and 10th Amendment limited the federal government to exclude the departments that were doing the most harm. The budgets for these unconstitutional departments totaled $1.4 trillion a year. Our simple solution to balance the federal budget is to dissolve these federal departments and transfer these responsibilities to the states.

Ron Paul’s Objective

It’s clear that Ron Paul will continue with the campaign because he sees us hearing his positions, considering them and adopting them. He knows that Newt Gingrich and Ron Santorum will continue to embrace his positions. Whoever embraces the bulk of his positions on core issues is likely to be the conservative nominee. The next question will be if Romney Republicans will rally or go for the conservative argument that the winner must be the exact opposite of Barack Obama.

Norb Leahy, Dunwoody GA Tea Party Leader