Phrontistery: (n) an establishment for study and learning; a thinking place. Providing a place to understand, promote and think about conservatism since 2009.
Although Mitt Romney hasn't officially announced his candidacy for 2012, there are signs that he will announce sometime in mid April. One major hint is that Mitt Romney will officially start accepting campaign donations for 2012 around the same time:
"A top Mitt Romney official told supporters on a conference call Thursday that the former Massachusetts governor is eyeing mid-to-late April to begin raising money for his eventual presidential campaign, according to call participants.
Spencer Zwick, Romney's chief liaison to the fundraising community, informed the group of donors and outside advisers that the governor won't launch a full-fledged campaign by the end of next month but would file the paperwork necessary with the FEC that will allow them to begin bringing in the cash needed to post a big number for the second quarter.
As the nearest thing the GOP has to a front-runner, Romney would like to push back the start of the full-blown presidential campaign for as long as possible, but he also must begin putting a more formalized fundraising infrastructure in place.
"If you're going to raise money this summer and fall you have to create a team and do the paperwork soon," said a Republican on the call.
There is no hard date set yet — or at least outside Romney backers haven't been informed of one yet — for either the initial filing of paperwork or an eventual actual declaration of candidacy. The campaign-in-waiting in Boston wants to be flexible about timing so as not to be locked into a day that could be overwhelmed by other news."
While Mitt Romney has an aggressive fund raising goal of raising $50 million by the beginning of this summer:
"About 100 fund-raisers gathered at Manhattan’s venerated Harvard Club this morning to hear former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney lay out his ambition: Raise $50 million fast.
One Romney fundraiser said the $50 million figure was what the governor wanted to show by early summer, at the time of the first financial filing deadline of what is likely to be his official presidential campaign.
But others said it was the number Mr. Romney said he would need to be competitive through the full primary season, not what he needed out of the gate."
"Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney has quietly launched a 15-city push to secure financial commitments from big-money "bundlers," hoping to reveal a fund-raising network that would establish him as the prohibitive frontrunner for the Republican nomination for president.
Mr. Romney and top aides will meet Thursday in New York with nearly 100 donors—many from Wall Street— at the Harvard Club. Attendees are being asked to raise between $25,000 and $50,000 for Mr. Romney within 90 days, in an effort to post large fund-raising totals quickly, one person familiar with events said."
"Finance meetings are also scheduled for March 30 in Los Angeles, as well as in Detroit, Dallas, Houston and Atlanta, people familiar with plans said. Romney fund-raisers are set to converge on Las Vegas on May 16 for a final push ahead of the first financial filing deadline. The Las Vegas meeting will include a marathon phone-a-thon to reach donors, according to one fund-raiser involved in the plan.
"When the day is done and we're in the thick of a presidential race, money will not be an obstacle for Gov. Romney," said Lewis Eisenberg, a prominent hedge fund manager who will attend Thursday's event.
"By early summer, the world will know what we've done," another prominent fundraiser said."
"Republican Mitt Romney, who is weighing a presidential bid, raised nearly $1.9 million in his federal political action committee during the first three months of the year.
His Free and Strong America PAC gave away more than $400,000 to GOP candidates and conservative causes, according to information released this afternoon by PAC spokeswoman Andrea Saul.
The PAC activity is one sign of Romney's effort to lay the groundwork for a presidential bid. Romney, a former Massachusetts governor, has not declared his candidacy nor started to fundraise for a White House campaign."
Many people are not only eagerly awaiting Mitt Romney's formal announcement to run for President in 2012, but they can't wait to start helping him in any way they can. While there are no campaign offices to volunteer at yet, one of the best ways to help Mitt Romney right now is by donating to his Free and Strong America PAC here.
Mark Levin, conservative talk radio host, has no kind words for the people who support Ron Paul. Take a listen to him talk about how they spam his social media sites and engage in other well known yet annoying behaviors:
My favorite part about Mark Levin's analysis of Ron Paul supporters is that many of them engage in outrageous conspiracy theories and promote anti-Semitism:
"A lot of the people who follow him are truthers, conspiracy theorists behind 9/11. A lot of them are Israel and Jew haters, not all of them obviously. I’m not saying that, but you should see the stuff we had to pull off our sites, so I’m told. Again, I don’t want to accuse everyone of that. That would be ridiculous.”
Ron Paul himself is no different than the people who support him. Ron Paul has a dangerous flirtation, if not outright alliance, with white supremacists and other fringe groups. This fact is well documented to the point that it is undeniable.
In fact, here's a picture of Ron Paul with Don Black, and his son:
If you don't know who Don Black is, you should. He's the founder of the white supremacist website stormfront.org. Its just shocking for any politician, in this day and age, to be standing next to a well known member of the white supremacist movement.
Of course, Ron Paul sees no problem with having a photo taken with a well known racist and has never returned a $500 campaign donation given to him by Don Black. When this issue was raised, Ron Paul tried to act like the issue was no big deal.
Not only does Ron Paul have questionable ties with racists groups, but so does his son Rand Paul.
During the 2008 election, it came to the attention of the media that Ron Paul had a newsletter in his name that contained a lot of hateful language towards homosexuals, African Americans and Jews.
Ron Paul denies that he didn't write these racist stuff and that he was unaware that these racist and anti-semitic articles were being written under his name but takes "moral responsibility" for it anyways. However, one blogger isn't buying into Ron Paul's explanation:
"Rep. Paul is trying to say that the words above weren’t written by him (but rather someone else helping him with his newsletter), but c’mon. Let’s be serious. If they appeared in his newsletter attributed to him then he’s responsible."
Even if Ron Paul himself didn't write the anti-semitic, racist and homophobic articles, there is strong and compelling evidence that Llewellyn Rockwell, who worked as the Texas Senator's congressional chief of staff from 1978 to 1982, and was a vice president of Ron Paul & Associates, wrote these bigoted rants.
However, Eugene Volokh, a prominent lawyer and blogger, notes that even if you buy the excuse that Ron Paul was unaware of what was being written under his name, there is other compelling evidence of his bigotry:
"To me, the most important part of the article is not the possiblity that Rockwell wrote the newsletters but the fact (mentioned only in passing) that Paul apparently supported Rockwell and Murray Rothbard's political strategy of appealing to white racial resentment as a strategy for gaining support for what they called "paleolibertarianism" (a combination of libertarianism and paleoconservatism). According to Sanchez and Weigel, Paul even went so far as to abandon his planned 1992 presidential bid in order to support Pat Buchanan's candidacy, which Rothbard and Rockwell had endorsed. It is difficult to imagine an American political platform much more inimical to libertarianism than Buchanan's combination of protectionism, support for economic regulation, nativism, racial resentment, thinly veiled anti-Semitism, and extreme social conservatism. Unlike the newsletters, Paul's apparent embrace of Buchanan's candidacy and the Rothbard-Rockwell racialist political strategy can't be blamed on the misdeeds of ghostwriters whose work Paul was supposedly unaware of."
With all the of well documented and throughly researched evidence of Ron Paul's bigotry, Micheal Medved wrote an open letter to Ron Paul asking him to affirm or deny his affiliations with bigoted and fringe conspiracy groups:
"Dear Congressman Paul:
Your Presidential campaign has drawn the enthusiastic support of an imposing collection of Neo-Nazis, White Supremacists, Holocaust Deniers, 9/11 “Truthers” and other paranoid and discredited conspiracists.
Do you welcome- or repudiate – the support of such factions?
More specifically, your columns have been featured for several years in the American Free Press –a publication of the nation’s leading Holocaust Denier and anti-Semitic agitator, Willis Carto. His book club even recommends works that glorify the Nazi SS, and glowingly describe the “comforts and amenities” provided for inmates of Auschwitz.
Have your columns appeared in the American Free Press with your knowledge and approval?
As a Presidential candidate, will you now disassociate yourself, clearly and publicly, from the poisonous propaganda promoted in such publications?
As a guest on my syndicated radio show, you answered my questions directly and fearlessly.
Will you now answer these pressing questions, and eliminate all associations between your campaign and some of the most loathsome fringe groups in American society?
Along with my listeners (and many of your own supporters), I eagerly await your response.
Respectfully, Michael Medved"
So far, Ron Paul has never responded to Medved's letter.
For Republican candidates running in 2012, the crowd keeps getting bigger and bigger. Another Republican, Gary Johnson, has made the leap to run for President:
"Politico.com reports that a Johnson advisor said the former governor will skip the step of creating an exploratory committee, opting for an immediate start to his bid for the GOP nomination."
Who is Gary Johnson?
To be honest, I've never heard of Gary Johnson until the news started reporting that he was running in 2012. In all the research I've done on him, he appears to be very much like Ron Paul and share the same libertarian views on domestic and foreign policy issues.
Gary Johnson's Domestic Policy Views
Gary Johnson will be running as a Republican but he will be promoting fierce libertarian approach to domestic issues in America. One article outlines some of his positions:
"For one, Johnson wants to legalize marijuana, and he likes to talk about it. He first raised the issue as governor, and he makes the fiscal case for drug law reforms with talk about the cost to taxpayers of law enforcement and prisons. He would have signed a bill banning late-term abortions, he told me, but he supports abortion rights until viability of a fetus. He enjoys ripping into hard-line immigration policies, as he has called for more visas for American-educated students and future businesspeople."
On other issues, Johnson doesn't bother to hide his disdain for his party's hard-liners. Take the incendiary new immigration law passed in Arizona, for instance:
"I just don't think it's going to work," he says. "I think it' s going to lead to racial profiling. I don't how you determine one individual from another -- is it color of skin? -- as to whether one is an American citizen or the other is an illegal immigrant."
Johnson favors an expansive guest worker program and is uncomfortable with the idea of mass deportations. What about the idea of increasing security by means of a border wall?
"I have never been supportive of the wall," he replied. "A 10-foot wall [just] requires an 11-foot ladder."
"Gary Johnson opposed the war in Iraq as Governor of New Mexico and believes that the United States should withdraw our troops from both Iraq and Afghanistan as soon as effectively possible, believing that neither country poses a current threat to the US.
The United States should not be borrowing money to build roads, bridges, schools and other infrastructure in foreign countries, especially when such help is currently needed at home. Non-military foreign aid around the world is something we can not currently afford."
However, unlike Ron Paul, he does support Israel and would protect that country militarily if needed:
"Governor Johnson supports the right of Israel to exist as a sovereign country and believes that the United States should protect that right militarily if needed."
That is one big difference between him and Ron Paul. Ron Paul doesn't support Israel and doesn't believe we should be providing fiinancial or military support to that country. At least Gary Johnson does. However, his support for Israel contradict his isolationist/non-interventionist positions with respect to other conflicts around the world.
Aren't Ron Paul And Gary Johnson The Same?
Even though he's placed in the same political category as Ron Paul, Gary Johnson insists that there's a big difference between Ron Paul and himself:
Though frequently compared with Paul, the libertarian movement’s closest thing to a standard-bearer, Johnson has been distancing himself from the comparison. While they’re both libertarians, Johnson said, his reputation as “Gov. No” is different from Paul’s moniker “Dr. No.” He has emphasized his record as a governor who was prolific in using his veto pen.
“There was a big difference between Ron Paul and me when it came to the ‘no,’” Johnson recently told POLITICO. “His ‘no’ was philosophical. It was reasoned. It was right. My ‘no’ actually put a stop to legislation. It cut spending. Mine carried further than just ‘no.’ I had to follow through with the debate, discussion and dialogue on why my ‘no’ wouldn’t result in people starving, schools being shut down and the delivery of services to the poor wasn’t going to be curtailed.”
The difference, according to Gary Johnson, is that he's more philosophical in saying "no" whereas Ron Paul isn't. This not a big difference. Its a minor one. Its splitting hairs.They both still say no.
The truth is, there is no difference between these two men. Ron Paul admires Gary Johnson. Gary Johnson endorsed Ron Paul in the 2008 Presidential Primaries:
"When Paul ran for president in 2008, Johnson was the highest ranking public official to endorse him. He later spoke at the “Rally for the Republic,” a parallel Minneapolis convention held when Paul was not invited to speak at the Republican National Convention.
“I love Ron Paul,” Johnson declared to loud applause. “We need to abolish the Federal Reserve.”
They remain friendly. In November, Johnson swung through Texas for several Our America events and paid Paul a visit."
And Ron Paul has said that he would endorse Gary Johnson if he runs in this upcoming election:
"And Paul has said repeatedly he could support Johnson if the former governor ran for president in 2012.
“He’s the most libertarian person — other than myself — that has been talking about it,” Paul told POLITICO in late December."
As much as Gary Johnson likes to protest that he's not the same as Ron Paul, there is really little difference between these two men:
"With the exception of immigration and abortion, the two men speak in harmony on just about every issue. Paul ran for president under the Libertarian Party banner in 1988, and the Libertarian Party unsuccessfully tried to recruit Johnson as a presidential candidate in 2000."
Gary Johnson is pretty much like Ron Paul except that they disagree with each other on immigration, abortion and supporting Israel. However, there is one additional major difference between these two men. Unlike Ron Paul, at least Gary Johnson, as far as I know, doesn't hang out with racists and collect campaign checks from them.
Jim DeMint spoke to social conservatives in Iowa and encouraged them to focus on values rather than on the candidate:
“I hope Iowa will not only be the first state to pick the right candidate… but also the first state to redirect our country to the principles that we want our candidate to carry,” he said. “Those principles that will restore the greatness, the freedom, the opportunity. … We must choose the right principles before we can choose the right candidate.”
What's more important: Theology or Values?
In deciding who is the best candidate for Christian voters, its values that matter, not theology. As social conservatives ponder on which candidate reflect their values, its important for them to realize that a candidate's religion and values are not always on the same page. A candidate might be of your particular faith but not have the same values you hold. On the other hand, a candidate might not be of your faith but cherishes the same values you do.
For example, Harry Reid is Mormon, but I would never vote for him since he doesn't reflect my values. On the other hand, I support Romney, not because of his religion but because of his values.
Likewise, Christians are aware that there are many politicians who are Christians but don't have good values and are not worth supporting. On the other hand, Senator Joesph Lieberman is obviously not Christian, but is a Jewish politician who values reflect the traditional conservative view of America.
This is an important and crucial concept for Social Conservatives to understand that a candidate's religion or the doctrine of that religion is not an important factor in deciding to vote for. The common ground that unite conservatives of all faiths is values. People may not agree the doctrines of various religions, but people can agree on common values that are present in almost every religion.
The Founding Fathers: Theology or Values?
Our Founding Fathers came from various different religious backgrounds, they focused on the common values and beliefs shared by all those who participated in the creation of the Constitution. The Constitution's power and beauty is derived from the fact that it based on broad principles that are cherished by people of all faiths. The Constitution protects people's freedom of religion. It protects people's of speech in which we are free to about things that are important to us such as God, church, prayer and scriptures. All these things are valued by people of all faiths.
While the Founding Fathers wanted religion to play a role in public life, they also wanted to prevent the federal government from endorsing a specific denomination or sect. They also wanted people to vote for candidates running for Congress or President to focus on a candidate's values and not their religion. That is why the Founding Fathers specifically forbid religion as a litmus test in the Constitution.It was intended that a person's faith was never a factor in considering someone for elected office or as a requirement to hold a job in the federal government.
Why did the Founding Fathers focus on values rather than religion when drafting the Constitution?
The reason is because the Founding Fathers were purposely trying to avoid the mistake that Old Europe had made in that there was one religion had the endorsement of the Government at the exclusion of all other religions. In fact, England herself has suffered a wave of political instability as Catholic and Protestants fought to place a Protestant or Catholic King or Queen on the throne.
As a result, the Founding Fathers understood many countries with a religiously pluralistic society, such as England, have struggled to unite their people of different faiths. The solution in Europe was to force unity through governmental endorsement of a particular religion. In other words, they thought religious unity could come from forced conformity to a particular faith. However, that created political and social instability.
The Founding Father had a different yet radical and novel solution to governing a religiously diverse society was to unite people based on common values shared by all faiths rather than uniting people based on a common religion. That is why America was and still is a politically and socially stable country.
The fact that the Founding Fathers understood that values was more important than theology in politics was a ground breaking concept. This radical idea is an idea that gets rarely discussed in classrooms, on television, in churches or at the dinner table with family and friends. Moreover, its a concept that appears to be an idea that social conservatives seems to be unable to grasp.
2012 Election: Theology or Values?
However, Mitt Romney understands this concept. He wants to restore this important idea if he ever has an opportunity to become President. In his speech at the George Bush Presidential Library, he tells American people this:
"Any believer in religious freedom, any person who has knelt in prayer to the Almighty, has a friend and ally in me. And so it is for hundreds of millions of our countrymen: we do not insist on a single strain of religion – rather, we welcome our nation's symphony of faith."
Our country was created on a foundation of common values that unites us as a people regardless of their faith. Any demand that a presidential candidate be of a political faith runs against the very essence of America and that it can tear this country apart.
John F. Kennedy made this same argument in his address to the Greater Houston Ministerial Association during the 1960 Presidential campaign. Being concerned that a Presidential candidate was Catholic or of some other faith was simply unAmerican. He also stated that while a voter's refusal to vote for a candidates based their faith might be an issue in the current election, it might be that the voter's own faith might be the subject of unfair scrutiny by the general public in the next election cycle:
"For while this year it may be a Catholic against whom the finger of suspicion is pointed, in other years it has been, and may someday be again, a Jew--or a Quaker--or a Unitarian--or a Baptist...Today I may be the victim--but tomorrow it may be you--until the whole fabric of our harmonious society is ripped at a time of great national peril."
For the religious right to be politically successful in defeating Obama in 2012, they need to beinclusive, not exclusive. Conservatives will allow Obama to have a second term if they squabble with each other about a candidate's religion. However, we can put a conservative in the White House if we focus on the values that unite us and support a candidate who will fight for the values that we all cherish.
Getting religious conservatives to unite and form a political coalition of conservatives is not impossible, provided people are willing to park their religious baggage at the voting booth.
Although I don't agree with Geraldine Ferraro as a politician, I respect her because she is someone who made history in American politics as the first female presidential candidate.
"Geraldine Ferraro, the Democratic congresswoman who became the first woman on a major party presidential ticket as Walter Mondale's running mate in 1984, died Saturday at the age of 75, NBC News confirmed.
Ferraro died at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston of a blood cancer after a 12-year illness, according to a statement from her family cited by various news organizations.
Ferraro was a telegenic, articulate and fiery three-term New York congresswoman when Mondale picked her from the male-dominated U.S. House of Representatives. Ferraro's presence on the Democratic ticket generated excitement on the campaign trail, particularly among females of all ages."
She paved the way female politicians to aspire to higher office like Sarah Palin and Hilary Clinton. She will always be remembered as the woman who broke the glass barrier in politics and she will most likely inspire women for many generations to make a positive difference in America.
Michelle Bachmann has announced that she is considering joining an already very crowded group of Republican candidates who want to run in 2012:
"The Minnesota Republican plans to file papers for the committee in early June, with an announcement likely around that same time.
But a source close to the congresswoman said that Bachmann could form the exploratory committee even earlier than June so that she could participate in early Republican presidential debates.
"She's been telling everyone early summer," the source told CNN regarding Bachmann's planned June filing and announcement. But the source said that nothing is static."
Her entry into the political race will make the 2012 primaries very interesting. She will obviously appeal to the Tea Party wing of the Republican Party. However, she also appeals to social conservatives and will peel off voters from other potential 2012 candidates like Mike Huckabee, Tim Pawlenty and Mitch Daniels.
However, 2012 will really get interesting if Sarah Palin decides to run. If she does, then it will be an interesting match between two Tea Party leaders who will battle it out for the Republican nomination. But there is strong indicators that suggest that Sarah Palin will not run in 2012. If she doesn't run, then Michelle Bachmann will probably get Palin's endorsement.
Mitt Romney has written a short and simple op-ed over at National Review about what he would do if he were elected President of the United States:
"If I were president, on Day One I would issue an executive order paving the way for Obamacare waivers to all 50 states. The executive order would direct the Secretary of Health and Human Services and all relevant federal officials to return the maximum possible authority to the states to innovate and design health-care solutions that work best for them.
As I have stated time and again, a one-size-fits-all national plan that raises taxes is simply not the answer. Under our federalist system, the states are “laboratories of democracy.” They should be free to experiment. By the way, what works in one state may not be the answer for another. Of course, the ultimate goal is to repeal Obamacare and replace it with free-market reforms that promote competition and lower health-care costs. But since an outright repeal would take time, an executive order is the first step in returning power to the states."
Mitt Romney has been very consistent in his opposition to a national health care plan. He opposed to the idea of a nationalizing our health care system as early as 1993 or 1994 as President Clinton was pushing to pass HillaryCare. He was opposed to opposed HillaryCare 2.0 in 2007.
"Giuliani, McCain, Romney, Huckabee, and Thompson are all opposed to health care reform measures that incorporate universal coverage. Tax breaks, high deductible plans, consumerism – all are fine, but no GOP presidential candidates support universal coverage."
Notice that Mitt Romney was included in that list of 2008 Presidential candidates who opposed universal coverage of health care.
He was still opposed to a universal health care plan while it was being considered by Congress. That bill became known as ObamaCare. Sometime around May of 2009, He offered 6 points of advice in an op-ed to President Obama about how to fix our nation's health care problem. Two months later in July, he continued his attack on ObamaCare by writing an Op-Ed for the USA Today asking why the President was rushing to pass the bill. Once the bill was passed and signed by the President, Romney called for it’s repeal.
Given that Mitt Romney has been, on record since 1993, opposing a universal health care plan that would result in the federal take over of our nation's health care plan, Americans can be confident that Mitt Romney will follow through with his promise to issue waivers to all 50 states so that each state is free to implement their own market based health care plans.
It is popular these days for Republicans and Conservatives to score points with the base by attacking RomneyCare despite the fact that it was the Heritage Foundation who proposed the idea of individual mandates as a conservative alternative to Hillary Clinton's attempt to nationalize the United State's health care program in the 1990s.
However, there have been many conservatives, some who are considering running for President in 2012, who have supported RomneyCare. Some of them still support it. Others have flip flopped on it in which they used to support it and no longer do.
But here's a quick list of conservatives who have either supported or defended RomneyCare:
1. Jim DeMint
Jim DeMint endorsed RomneyCare back in 2007 during an interview in which he had this to say about Mitt Romney's health care plan:
Here's the key quote from the clip above:
"Well, I think that's something we should do for the whole country. The Governor just looked at the numbers like a good business man and realized we could give people private insurance policies cheaper than we could provide free health care. What that does is it spreads out the risk, gets the government out of the Health Care business, and actually makes the HealthCare system work alot better. The legislature in Massachusetts made it a little harder to make these policies affordable. But we've got probably over 20 states that are trying to copy what he did and that's a good sign that people think he's on the right track."
In fact, RomneyCare was the key selling point for why he decided to back Romney in 2007:
DeMint, who spent most of his life in private business, admires Romney’s business background and believes Romney has shown the talent to apply that experience to government. “He has demonstrated, when he stepped into government in a very difficult state, that he could work in a difficult partisan environment, take some good conservative ideas, like private health insurance, and apply them to the need to have everyone insured,” DeMint says. “Those kind of ideas show an ability to bring people together that we haven’t seen in national politics for a while. We don’t need the nation to be more polarized.”
However, Jim DeMint is now flip flopping on his support for RommeyCare. One of Jim DeMint's aide said this recently about RomneyCare:
A source close to the conservative icon emphasized that, despite comments to The Hill indicating that Romney shouldn't shoulder all the political blame for the Massachusetts healthcare plan, DeMint wouldn't endorse Romney again unless he admits the plan was mistaken.
"It's obvious Jim was just trying to be nice to the guy he backed over McCain, as many conservatives did in 2008," the source said. "But he would never consider backing Romney again unless he admits that his Massachusetts healthcare plan was a colossal mistake."
But Jim DeMint softened up his words against Mitt Romney and his health care plan by stating that it shouldn't be implemented at the national level:
"One of the reasons I endorsed Romney is his attempts to make private health insurance available at affordable prices. He set the goal that all folks in Massachusetts would have affordable health insurance. By the time it got through the Democratic state legislature, it had all these mandates on it, requirements about what kind of policies would be bought — the same thing that happened up here — instead of getting people insured, it was a government takeover. So I applaud the goal — my goal is to have every American with a private health insurance plan that they can keep throughout their lives. And so, I still admire him for taking on the task, but I think it's important to recognize that that's not where we want our healthcare to go. States can compete with different plans, but we shouldn't have anything like what they did in Massachusetts at the federal level."
In May of 2011, Jim DeMint is still trying to flip flopping his way out of supporting RomneyCare:
"I got involved with him before that," DeMint explained, "and the concept that was presented to me was the idea of moving people from government plans to private plans. That's what the goal was. That's how my conversations went, and that's how it was presented. But the way it ended up…" he paused to think about about this. "I cannot accept all the mandates, all the government exchanges. And it hasn't worked. I think the goal of figuring out how you can move people from government policies to private insurance policies is a good goal. That's one of the things that attracted me to what he was trying to do. Frankly, with the Democratic legislature in control there, I just think the way it ended up, we wouldn't want it in our state or our country."
"He [Obama] never gave me a call. Neither he nor any of his colleagues [gave me] a call to ask what worked and did not work, and how would they improve upon it and so forth. If what was done at the state level, they applied at the federal level, they made a mistake. It was not designed for the nation."
2. Rick Santorum
Another prominent conservative who was for Mitt Romney before he was against Mitt Romney was Rick Santorum. He endorsed Mitt Romney during the 2008 Presidential elections. Romney's health care didn't seem to be a problem for him then but Santorum has issues with it now:
“I feel we need someone who is a strong, principled conservative who believes not in government mandates, not in government control of the health care system, but in a patient-centered approach to health care,” Santorum said.
Santorum added that both the state and federal laws "tend to drive employers out of the private sector plans because they’re expensive and more people end up on the government plan."
"Really, is there anything more amusing in politics today than watching conservatives abandon Mitt Romney at a furious rate because he had the misfortune of passing a health plan with a Republican idea at its core that, unbeknownst to him, Obama would shortly adopt as his own?"
...
"You see, there was a time when conservatives like Jim DeMint hailed Romney as a true conservative precisely because his health care bill was built on what they said were conservative principles. But now that Obama has reinvented the individual mandate as tyranny, conservatives are beating up on Romney and Romneycare as a convenient way to burnish their own conservative cred with the base."
Many candidates are attacking RomneyCare for political expediency. And the voters will know it.They will see right through it. Moreover, many will accuse them of flip flopping on the issue of RomneyCare. Any attempt to establish conservative cred will not help them but hurt them in 2012.
However, not all conservatives have flipped flopped on RomneyCare. Others have remained consistent in their support for Mitt's Health Care plan as we continue with our list:
3. Newt Gingrich
Jim DeMint isn't the only Republican who has endorsed or defended Romney Care. Another potential 2012 candidate who defended Mitt's health care plan was Newt Gingrich.
The former speaker of the House defended RomneyCare during an interviewed to be aired on an edition of the The Brody File on CBN. Here's what he had to say about RomneyCare:
“Governor Romney’s made very clear that he favors absolute repeal of Obamacare and that he believes it’s not accurate and not fair to try and compare the two and I think you have to start with that and I also think in all fairness to Governor Romney that he vetoed many provisions that the liberal Democrats in the Massachusetts state legislature added to the bill and they overrode his veto so I think if you’re going to go back and look at the original Romney bill you’d have a much better bill and a much more practical bill than what the liberal Democrats did to the legislation because they literally overrode his veto on a whole series of items.”
4. Tim Pawlenty
Newt Gingrich isn't the only potential 2012 candidate to either support or defend Romney Care. Tim Pawlenty was very specific in his endorsement and listed certain parts of Romney's health care plan that he really liked such as the “health care exchange” and an individual mandate.
5. Rick Perry
Another Republican who is often talked about as a potential 2012 candidate is Rick Perry. While Rick Perry never mentions Mitt Romney by name, he does borrow a defense that Mitt Romney uses in defending RomneyCare. Rick Perry argues that states like Texas have a right to implement their own health care plans and that health care reform should be done at the state level and not the federal level.
6. Marco Rubio:
Marco Rubio, a rising star in the Republican party, has also defended RomneyCare. Here's what he had to say about it:
“It’s a work in progress,” Rubio says, speaking of the Bay State program. “There are major distinctions between that and what Obama is trying to do in Washington. For one, it didn’t raise any taxes. Number two, it is not adding to our deficit. That is my biggest objection to Obamacare, although there are many others. My number-one objection to Obamacare is that we can’t afford it, even if it was the greatest idea in the world.”
“Florida and Massachusetts are very different places,” Rubio continues. “All I would say to you is that states were designed to be laboratories for creative thoughts and ideas. That’s what the Framers of our great republic intended. They wanted the states to be the places that came up with innovation and competition. And I’ll tell you what, if Massachusetts gets it wrong and Florida gets it right, people will move to Florida, and businesses will move to Florida, and vice versa. There are just major distinctions between what’s happening in Washington and what I hope states will do. Like I said, what I’m not in favor of is what Barack Obama has done, which is to raise taxes and add to the federal deficit in exchange of taking a step toward a single-payer system in America.”
8. Scott Brown:
Scott Brown, a Republican who was elected to take Senator Kennedy's seat, also defended RomneyCare: 9. Former Senator Judd Gregg and Senator Orrin Hatch also liked RomneyCare: Senator Judd Gregg and Orin Hatch both like Mitt Romney's health care plan and don't think it will be a problem for him in the 2012 elections:
Former Sen. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.), a 2008 Romney supporter who says he’s still a “big fan” of Romney’s, said healthcare will not be a major deal in New Hampshire’s first-in-the-nation primary.
“I don’t think the healthcare bill has a high visibility in the state, but Gov. Romney does,” said Gregg, now a columnist for The Hill.
“I think he’s managed it pretty well,” said Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), a longtime Romney backer who will support the former governor again in 2012. “There’s a difference between the federal government usurping power than for [a state] to do what is its right to do.”
As 2012 rolls around, its worth keeping track of which conservative supported, which ones didn't and which ones flipped flopped on the issue. Its also worth remembering for the upcoming election that Obama pretended to model his healthcare plan after Massachusetts even though he also has flipped flopped on this issue as well.
There is a video that is going viral among conservative websites and blogs in which Rep. John Conyers admits that ObamaCare was a necessary step in the Progressive plan for an eventual government takeover of American health care:
Another Democrat, who is now in the White House, has also admitted that the intent of ObamaCare was to grow the size of the goverment. Listen to Obama's intent behind his health care plan in his interview with John Stewart on the Daily Show. If you don't want to watch the entire thing, go to approximately the 8 minute mark and listen.
As the President stated himself, the "change" in the nation's health care program was to simply make it a framework that will allow for future growth of the federal government. His example of Social Security is used to drive this point home. Social Security was initially sold as support for widows and orphanages but later the "structure" of this program blossomed into a massive entitlement program. He points out that the same is true for every progressive piece of legislation, which includes ObamaCare, in which it started out small but it was never intended to be small. It was designed to allow them to make further "progress" which is another way of saying expanding the government. The implication that Obama is making is that ObamaCare will eventually grow into a single payer program over time.
This isn't the first time Obama has admitted that he wants a single-payer system:
If you couldn't clearly hear what he said in the above clip, here's the what Obama said when he was running for President:
“I happen to be a proponent of a single payer universal health care program. I see no reason why the United States of America, the wealthiest country in the history of the world, spending 14 percent of its Gross National Product on health care cannot provide basic health insurance to everybody. And that’s what Jim is talking about when he says everybody in, nobody out. A single payer health care plan, a universal health care plan. And that’s what I’d like to see. But as all of you know, we may not get there immediately. Because first we have to take back the White House, we have to take back the Senate, and we have to take back the House.”
The reason why Rep John Conyers and Barak Obama's statements are so important is because everybody both on the Left and the Right including pundits, and politicians knew that ObamaCare was created with the intent for it to slowly morph into a single payer program that would result in the government takeover of health care.
However, the "fact checking" website Polifact declared that the idea that ObamaCare was a trojan horse for a single player program was the “biggest lie” of 2010.
Now that we have two prominent Democrats who have admitted, on the record, that getting ObamaCare to morph into a single payer program in the future was the plan from the moment ObamaCare was created.
Who are the liars now? The ones who said that ObamaCare was a trojan horse or the ones who said it wasn't?
There are a few politicians who love jumping into the limelight at every major event. One of those politicians is Sarah Palin. She interjects her self in to every major story whenever possible.
However, there was a moment when she shouldn't have stepped into the limelight. That was when the Tuscon shooting hit the news and people were blaming her as the cause of the shooting. We are just now learning that she was advised to lay low by the owner of Fox News, Roger Ailes. She was told the same thing by other people. However, she decided to ignore thier advice:
Before Sarah Palin posted her infamous “Blood Libel” video on Facebook on January 12, she placed a call to Fox News chairman Roger Ailes. In the wake of the Tucson massacre, Palin was fuming that the media was blaming her heated rhetoric for the actions of a madman that left six people dead and thirteen others injured, including Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords.
Palin told Ailes she wanted to respond, according to a person with knowledge of the call. It wasn’t fair the media was making this about her. Ailes told Palin that she should stay quiet.
“Lie low,” he said. “There’s no need to inject yourself into the story.”
Palin told Ailes that other people had given her that same advice. Her lawyer Bob Barnett is said to have cautioned her about getting involved. The consensus in some corners of Palin's camp was that she faced considerable risks if she spoke out.
But, this being Sarah Palin, she did it anyway.
Ailes was not pleased with her decision, which turned out to be a political debacle for Palin, especially her use of the historically loaded term "blood libel" to describe the actions of the media. “The Tucson thing was horrible,” said a person familiar with Ailes’s thinking. "Before she responded, she was making herself look like a victim. She was winning. She went out and did the blood libel thing, and Roger is thinking, 'Why did you call me for advice?'”
It doesn't matter that the accusations that she was responsible for the shootings was false. She choose to speak out when many people advised her not to respond to the baseless accusations.
What's even more jaw dropping about the whole affair was that many Palin supporters were angry that other politicians didn't come to her defense after being wrongfully accused:
Even before we learn that Sarah Palin ignored the advise to lay low, Mitt Romney, Tim Pawlenty and Haley Barbour were wise not to rise to her defense. First of all, they had no obligations to do so. Secondly, unlike Sarah Palin, these guys knew that laying low and saying nothing was a good idea. They choose to ignore the baseless accusations against her and knew that any attempt to defend her would have resulted in the same backlash she faced when she attempted to defend herself. The public already knew she was being unfairly accused and there was no need to point out that obvious fact.
Had she followed other people's advice, the public would have supported her because they already knew the charges were false. She could have stayed out of the limelight and gone through that incident unscathed. However, she choose to defend herself, despite being told not to, and whatever public support she had began to evaporate. Not only that, but she made the situation worse because her statements about "blood libel" opened her up to another round of attacks.
But Sarah Palin made her choice not to lay low. Not only did she choose to fight this battle even when she told she shouldn't, but as one one blogger noted, Sarah Palin portrayed herself as a Mamma Grizzly and as result, she should be able to handle herself:
"Frankly, I don’t see any reason why Romney would come to Palin’s defense on the whole ‘targeting’ issue. Surely, he recognizes that acknowledging the left-wing’s attempt to turn the tragedy into political gain would, in the end, only give them credibility. In my honest opinion, Palin herself should have just disregarded the smears, continued on with her normal life, and watched the left’s frustration peak as she refused to lend credence to their accusations. The ‘Mama Grizzly’, to my understanding, is a big girl who can fight her own battles."
Now that we know what kind of advice she got before making her statements to the media, why should people like Mitt Romney, Tim Pawlenty and Haley Barbour be labeled as cowards when she disregarded wise advise from several different people to lay low?
Roger Ailes asked a very good question: Why did she go to him for advise and then disregard his advice? Perhaps she loved the limelight too much and thought she could increase her public support against the false accusations against her. After all, her facebook messages, appear on Fox News as a guest commentator, her reality television show and her books all do have an impact on what goes on in society.
Whatever her reasons for inserting herself into the story when told not to, it backfired on her.
And the public is starting to get tired of her. Her desire to make her opinions known on every major political event is starting to hurt, rather than help, Sarah Palin. One conservative who works as a writer for the Weekly Standard, Matt Labash, has compared her to a well known liberal activist who loves to insert himself into every story as well. Matt says that “She’s becoming Al Sharpton, Alaska edition.”
The Eagleton Institute of Politics recently released a poll today showing Mitt Romney as the most popular politician and male in the state of New Jersey:
Mitt Romney 13%
Chris Christie 12%
Sarah Palin 11%
Mike Huckabee 6%
Ron Paul 3%
Michael Bloomberg 1%
Newt Gingrich 1%
Tim Pawlenty 1%
David Petraeus 0%
Michele Bachmann 0%
Scott Brown 0%
Jeb Bush 0%
Others 9%
Don’t Know 42%
Among Men
Mitt Romney 18%
Chris Christie 16%
Sarah Palin 9%
Mike Huckabee 3%
Ron Paul 3%
Tim Pawlenty 2%
Scott Brown 1%
Jeb Bush 1%
Newt Gingrich 1%
Michele Bachmann 1%
David Petraeus 0%
Michael Bloomberg 0%
Others 13%
Don’t Know 33%
Among Women
Sarah Palin 13%
Mike Huckabee 10%
Mitt Romney 7%
Chris Christie 7%
Ron Paul 3%
Michael Bloomberg 3%
David Petraeus 1%
Newt Gingrich 1%
Tim Pawlenty 0%
Michele Bachmann 0%
Scott Brown 0%
Jeb Bush 0%
Others 3%
Don’t Know 53%
This poll indicates that Mitt Romney is quite popular and that he will have an advantage in the upcoming New Jersey Primaries which will be held in June of 2012.
Ruth Griffin, is a powerful Republican woman in New Hampshire, has decided to endorse Mitt Romney in the 2012 election, if he decides to run. In 2008, she was a supporter of Mike Huckabee but will not endorse him for a second time. What was it that made her switch from being a Huckabee supporter to a Romney supporter? You'll be surprised. She's a fan of RomneyCare. Here's what she had to say:
“No. 1, he’s a very capable man and being from New Hampshire, seeing what he did in Massachusetts with the health issues, it was a very successful approach for the people of Massachusetts,” she told POLITICO in a phone interview from her home in Portsmouth. “I think he had the right plan at the right time, and we certainly don’t have that on the federal level now.”
Her endorsement of RomneyCare shouldn't be taken lightly. She knows what she's talking about when it comes to the issue of health care.
"Griffin spent nearly two decades on her state’s health planning and review board, so she saw first-hand how hard it is to control costs (Romney’s program has led to increased costs, one of many objections critics level at it).
"I know that every new trinket that comes out, every hospital wants to get it,” she said. “Unless you’ve got the right boards and commissions to rein them in, you’re escalating the costs of health care.”
She discounted conservative criticisms of Romney’s plan for including an individual mandate on the grounds that he ultimately increased coverage levels."
Ruth Griffin isn't the only person who had decided to back Mitt Romney for 2012. He has also has won endorsements from important Republicans in Florida and New Mexico:
"Mitt Romney has won the support of John Thrasher, Florida Republican state senator and former chairman of the state GOP. "If Governor Romney decides to run for President in 2012, I will absolutely be supporting him and helping him in Florida," Thrasher told the Florida Times-Union. Romney helped fundraise for Thrasher during his 2010 campaign.
New Mexico's Republican Lieutenant Governor, John Sanchez, is reportedly considering a run for the state's open Senate seat. That would pit him against former Rep. Heather Wilson in a GOP primary. Sanchez would reportedly position himself to the right of Wilson, a moderate."
Given that we are supposed to live in the age of civility after the Tuscon shooting and how dangerously close the protesters got to Senator Glenn Grothman which could have jeopardize his life, health and safety; I'd like to propose the "Grothman Rule" for protesting:
1. There shall be a buffer zone of fifteen feet from any protestee (the person who is the target of the protest) entering or leaving an place of worship, medical facilities, abortion clinics, government office, legal institutions, prisons, places for the preparing or burying the dead, or place of employment or place where they conduct business as long as the protestee is within 100 feet of the entrance.
2. Protests shall not be conducted at the protestee's home. That is an absolute, unconditional, unambiguous, mandatory rule. People's homes are absolutely and completely off limits. There are no exceptions.
3. Protests shall not be carried out at a person's place of worship. There are only two exceptions two this rule. Protests are permitted if (a) the protestee is a religious leader of that religious organization or (b) the issue being protested is relevant to the religious organization.
4. Protesters shall not obstruct a person's access to their place of worship, medical facilities, abortion clinics, government office, legal institutions, prisons, places for the preparing or burying the dead, or place of employment or place where they conduct business.
5. There shall be no tampering, interfering, defacing, or destroying the protestee's property or the property of the place of worship, medical facilities, abortion clinics, government office, legal institutions, prisons, places for the preparing or burying the dead, or place of employment or place where they conduct business. That is an absolute, unconditional, unambiguous, mandatory rule. There are no exceptions.
Please distribute this article far and wide and post it on conservative, liberal, libertarian or any other website. It is ok to protest but it is not ok to put people at risk of life, health, and safety no matter how passionate you are about the issue or what the issue is.
I was born at the tail end of the Cold War. I remember when people thought that the Berlin wall would never come down. And yet it did. Less than twenty two years later, the world is changing again in dramatic way. A few years ago, it was unthinkable that protests for freedom would erupt across the Middle East in Iran, Tunisia, Lebanon, Egypt, Bahrain, Yemen and Iraq. Even protests are erupting in China again.
Obama campaigned on a promise of hope and change. Yet, when the moment of real hope and change comes to the Middle East and other nations around the world, he's reluctant to support the people in other nations who want hope and change.
Prior to the the Iranian protests in 2009, President Obama stated that he did not want to interfere with Iran. He made good on that promise by doing nothing when the people of Iran protested. He continues to keep that promise even as cries for democracy sweep across the Middle East.
Even Democrats are flabbergasted by Obama's unwillingness to provide support for protesters on the fear that his Presidential actions would be seen as interfering with the affairs of another nation. Niall Ferguson explains that Obama has and continues to blow it when it comes to these historic events in the Middle East:
"The statesman can only wait and listen until he hears the footsteps of God resounding through events; then he must jump up and grasp the hem of His coat, that is all." Thus Otto von Bismarck, the great Prussian statesman who united Germany and thereby reshaped Europe's balance of power nearly a century and a half ago.
Last week, for the second time in his presidency, Barack Obama heard those footsteps, jumped up to grasp a historic opportunity… and missed it completely.
In Bismarck's case, it was not so much God's coattails he caught as the revolutionary wave of mid-19th-century German nationalism. And he did more than catch it; he managed to surf it in a direction of his own choosing. The wave Obama just missed—again—is the revolutionary wave of Middle Eastern democracy. It has surged through the region twice since he was elected: once in Iran in the summer of 2009, the second time right across North Africa, from Tunisia all the way down the Red Sea to Yemen. But the swell has been biggest in Egypt, the Middle East's most populous country."
The President's desire to follow a non-interventionist policy is the same policy that Ron Paul advocates. Some people think Ron Paul is an isolationist while others argue that he's merely a non-interventionist. Regardless of what you call Obama and Ron Paul's foreign policy decisions, the effect is the same. It is turning a blind eye to what is going on in the world and letting them unfold while withholding praise or condemnation for what is happening.
Refusing to get involved in the affairs of other nations is the most spineless position a President can take. If you cannot fight for a principle, then you have no principle to fight for. If you're not willing to fight for something you believe is wrong, then doing nothing about it is not equivalent to doing something about it. An attempt to be morally neutral is a moral evil.
The refusal to intervene demonstrates that whatever principle you claim to uphold doesn't really matter much to you if you're not willing to go to the mat for it. If one claims to champion liberty and freedom but is willing to be silent or to stand back while dictators beat, shoot and imprison people and not speak out for what is right and good, then freedom and liberty do not mean much to that person.
Furthermore, if someone is seeing evil unfolding before their very eyes and says nothing or doesn't do anything about it, what does it say about the person themselves? I would think that they are morally empty, weak or dysfunctional. Moreover, its hard to take someone seriously when the make an attempt to take a moral stand on a different or unrelated matter in the future. I think isolationism or non-interventionism undermines the credibility and reliability of the person.
President Barak Obama is a good example of both claims here. Since he was silent when the 2009 Iranian protest rolled around, he hasn't been very reliable or credible while a bigger wave of protests have been sweeping across the nation. Moreover, Obama has been morally dysfunctional and empty when it comes to the brutality and killings that the Middle East protesters have experienced. Even though he expressed remorse over the death of an Iranian protester in 2009, His attempt to be even handed, cool and detached is so odd in the face protesters who have been beaten or have been killed.
Ron Paul is well known for his position that America should not be involved in the affairs of other nations. For example, he was the only person to vote against the House Resolution to support Iranian dissenters and here is his explanation for why he voted the way he did:
"I rise in reluctant opposition to H Res 560, which condemns the Iranian government for its recent actions during the unrest in that country. While I never condone violence, much less the violence that governments are only too willing to mete out to their own citizens, I am always very cautious about "condemning" the actions of governments overseas. As an elected member of the United States House of Representatives, I have always questioned our constitutional authority to sit in judgment of the actions of foreign governments of which we are not representatives. I have always hesitated when my colleagues rush to pronounce final judgment on events thousands of miles away about which we know very little. And we know very little beyond limited press reports about what is happening in Iran.
Of course I do not support attempts by foreign governments to suppress the democratic aspirations of their people, but when is the last time we condemned Saudi Arabia or Egypt or the many other countries where unlike in Iran there is no opportunity to exercise any substantial vote on political leadership? It seems our criticism is selective and applied when there are political points to be made. I have admired President Obama's cautious approach to the situation in Iran and I would have preferred that we in the House had acted similarly.
I adhere to the foreign policy of our Founders, who advised that we not interfere in the internal affairs of countries overseas. I believe that is the best policy for the United States, for our national security and for our prosperity. I urge my colleagues to reject this and all similar meddling resolutions."
Its clear from this quote that Ron Paul admires Obama for his commitment to non-interventionism. If you want to see what Ron Paul would look like as President, you don't have to wait and find out because Ron Paul and Barak Obama have the same foreign policy goals.
Ron Paul's voting record clearly demonstrates his commitment to isolationism or non-interventionism. He was the only politician to vote no on a bill to condemn the Chinese government's religious persecution of Falun Gong practitioners in China. Again, he was the lone "nay" voter in the House resolution honoring heroic Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo.
Its not surprising that he was the lone no vote two years ago on a resolution expressing condolences to the people of Burma after they were hit by a devastating cyclone or that he was the only member of the House to vote against a 2007 resolution “noting the disturbing pattern of killings of numerous independent journalists in Russia since 2000, and urging Russian President Vladimir Putin to authorize cooperation with outside investigators in solving those murders.”
He was also the lone voter on H.Res. 180, the "Darfur Accountability and Divestment Act of 2007" which would "require the identification of companies that conduct business operations in Sudan [and] prohibit United States Government contracts with such companies." Its amazing to me that Ron Paul would vote no on businesses who were making money in countries were mass genocide were taking place.
But then again, its not surprising that he would vote no on a resolution that required the Secretary of Defense to keep track of companies operating within the United States that are associated with the People's Liberation Army of China. I am truly baffled by this vote. How does authorizing the Secretary of Defense to track American business who do business with China's army meddling with another country? If Ron Paul thinks there's nothing wrong with America businesses selling products to a foreign enemy, I'd like to hear his explanation of how that will keep America safer or strong.
Not only did Ron Paul vote no in monitoring companies who conduct business in Darfur or with the People's Liberation Army of China, he also voted against HR 1400, which aimed at blocking foreign investment in Iran, in particular its lucrative energy sector. But then again, why make it harder for foreign companies to invest in Iran's energy sector if he thinks that Iran is using these nuclear plants for peaceful purposes?
Ron Paul doesn't always vote no. He did vote "yes" on a law dealing with “Romania’s ban on intercountry adoptions and the welfare of orphaned or abandoned children in Romania.”
Wait a minute. If Ron Paul is against meddling with the affairs of other nations, isn't he interfering with Romania's right to place a ban on intercountry adoptions and the welfare of orphaned or abandoned children?
Ron Paul also voted in favor of House Resolution 364 encouraging Bill Clinton to support a resolution condemning China's violations of Human rights at the next session of United Nations Commission on Human Rights.
What is so ironic about his votes is that he's against the United Nations in all its forms and has voted in support of withdrawing from the United Nations. But hey, he's not against American involvement in foreign affairs so long as its done through an intermediary like the United Nations. I guess Ron Paul favors interfering with other nations so long as we don't do it directly but indirectly.
If you look at Ron Paul's voting record, his position of isolationism and non-interventionism is morally hollow and spineless position. Taking a stand on another country's ban adoptions is easy to do. There's nothing evil or inherently wrong about it. Telling the President to vote in favor of a U.N. resolution doesn't require any moral courage either.
However, there is something evil and wrong with governments who willing to oppress, brutalize or kill their own citizens. And taking a stand against evil governments require a certain amount of moral courage and strength.
As the old adage goes, "all that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing." By refusing to vote yes in support of Iranian protesters, a religious minority in China, or people who have been hit by a devastating cyclone or to refusing to support news reporters who are being killed by their own governments or refusing to monitor business who are making a profit in a country where genocide is taking place or who do business with your enemies, it is allowing evil to prevail because you're allowing evil men to carry on their activities unobstructed, unrestricted and unopposed.
Not only is the refusal to meddle in the affairs of other nations morally hollow and spineless, it is also unrealistic.
One blogger points out that a failure to intervene makes not only makes problems grow bigger when it could have been resolved early but the refusal to interfere doesn't mean others will reciprocate in not interfering with the isolationist or non-interventionist:
"The most simple rule of history, as Paul Kennedy unwittingly provides in the Rise and Fall of the Great Powers, is that if you don’t entangle, “they” will entangle you, and usually from a position of superiority and untapped aggression."
And most often, the refusal to intervene in world events allow bad things to go on longer than they should:
"The twentieth century was a depressing list of lost opportunities to confront extreme leviathans that were once just sea urchins — from Prussian militarism, fascism, and communism to Islamism. Mr. Paul and his allies would do well to understand that it is precisely those entanglements that must and will continue to enhance our security."
If Obama and Ron Paul are willing to stand back and do nothing, then other nations are more than willing to step in and entangle in the affairs of other nations and will go even further to involve themselves in our own country's affairs here at home. In other words, if America chooses not to intervene, then China, Iran, Russia, Venezuela, North Korea or some other nation known for its brutal oppression of it own people and repressing freedoms will be glad to step in.
And once you've decided isolate your self or refuse to entangle with others, it makes it so much easier for them to interfere. Moreover, it gets harder to fight back or assert your national interests once you've resigned from playing on the world stage. That is why foreign aid, diplomacy, economic trade and military might are so crucial to the United States because if we don't intervene, someone else will. Moreover, it will be harder to acquire the needed resources, material and support since our clout will shrink while another nation's power expand.
Ron Paul also thinks that we shouldn't be an ally of Israel. But then again, he doesn't think we should be supporting Taiwain either since he did not support the Taiwan Security Enhancement Act which increases military ties and cooperation with Taiwan. Not surprisingly, he also voted against the U.S.-Taiwan Missile Defense Cooperation bill.
Perhaps the most troubling thing about Ron Paul commitment to non-interventionalism or islolationsim is that Ron Paul claims to be a supporter of the Constitution and freedom yet votes "no" when the opportunity arises to demonstrate that support. As one blogger so angrily points out, Ron Paul's claim to support freedom and the Constitution is contradicted by his voting record and the historical record:
"Ron Paul is the only patriot in America.
(Hey Doktor Senile Fucktard, where exactly in your pocket Constitution does it say the United States can’t give cost-free moral support to democratic movements? You know, because the motherfucking FOUNDERS sure supported nascent democratic movements. Idiot.)"
For example, Ron Paul Voted against the Iraqi Liberation Act of 1998 which would allow President Clinton to give assistance to Iraqis who wanted freedom in Iraq. He also voted against the China Political Freedom bill as well. Strangely enough, he did vote yes on Tiananmen Square Resolution encouraging President Clinton to reconsider attending a formal welcoming ceremony in Tiananmen Square until the Government of the People's Republic of China acknowledges the Tiananmen Square massacre, pledges that such atrocities will never happen again, and releases those Chinese students still imprisoned for protesting that day.
But then again, a vote encouraging the President to reconsider going to a welcoming ceremony held in Tianamen square is an easy and cowardly position to take.
Given that Ron Paul weak and soft position on international issues and national security issues, its not a surprise that the Young Americans For Freedom would finally remove Ron Paul from the organization's National Advisory Board.
Which brings me back to Obama. This is why Obama's foreign policy decisions are the same as Ron Paul's. Obama has a different approach to isolationism or non-interventionism in that he won't intervene unilaterally unless other countries decide to intervene as well:
"The Obama administration also behaves as if the weight of the United States in world affairs is approximately the same as that of Switzerland. We await developments. We urge caution, even restraint. We hope for the formation of an international consensus. And, just as there is something despicable about the way in which Swiss bankers change horses, so there is something contemptible about the way in which Washington has been affecting—and perhaps helping to bring about—American impotence. Except that, whereas at least the Swiss have the excuse of cynicism, American policy manages to be both cynical and naive."
The only difference between Ron Paul and Barak Obama is that Ron Paul will not intervene with another country under any circumstances whereas President Obama will intervene only if other countries want to do so.
Whether Ron Paul or Barak Obama is an isolationst or non-interventionalist, the effect of his foreign policy is the same. Isolationism by any name is still isolationism. Obama and Ron Paul may have different approaches about how to go about implementing their foreign policy views but in the end, final result is the same. It is a refusal to interact with the world and to make decisions that will have an effect on other nations. It is a refusal to take a stand or a position on how other nations behave or act. It is a willingness to turn a blind eye to death and destruction. It is a willingness to take a stand on soft issues but not on hard ones. For some people, it means to draw inward and shut the world out. For others, it means not acting unless there has been an international consensus to act.
As a result, it is a naive, unrealistic and morally cowardly position to take. It is a passive, limp wristed, and leaderless way to deal with the problems around the world. Moreover, often times, isolationist make matters worse because by refusing to take a stand, you let the problem grow bigger rather dealing with it in its infancy. While isolationsit think that they're doing the right thing by not interefering, they're actually doing the wrong thing. Isolationists actually help the bad guys since they can continue with their unobstructed, unrestricted and unopposed.
Which why I find Ron Paul and Barak Obama foreign policy positions to be very disturbing. They have good intentions and desires but the fruit of their beliefs results in bad outcomes. What is even more disturbing is that they are not disturbed by the consequences of their own beliefs. They are willing to stand back and not do anything while people are dying or being abused at the hands of their governments.
I would like to introduce you to a leader who had no qualms with interfering with other nations. He got in the face of evil and challenged them. He was no milquetoast when it came to foreign policy. He was a strong leader who argued that isolationism or non-interventionism is just to surrender and appease your enemies. Listen to this man explain why America must play an assertive role in promoting and defending freedom around the world: