Rob Shvern on Politics

There used to be an organization for people who believed in a truly limited government — limited taxes, limited spending, limited interference in individual lives and limited intervention in foreign affairs. That organization was known as the Republican Party. But the only one of those beliefs that still motivates the G.O.P. establishment is limited taxes. In 2008, people who still hold all of them joined the Ron Paul Revolution.

The real significance of the Paul campaign is not the ubiquitous bumper stickers and lawn signs or the online fund-raising records ($6 million in one day, plus another $4 million, hilariously, on Guy Fawkes Day) but the mirror Paul held up to the modern Republican Party. When his fellow candidates denounced big government, Paul was there to remind them that President Bush and the G.O.P. Congress had shattered spending records and exploded the deficit. When they hailed freedom, Paul asked why they all supported the Patriot Act and other expansions of executive power. And when they called themselves conservatives, Paul asked what was so conservative about sending thousands of young Americans to try to transform the Middle East.

Under Bush’s leadership, of course, the Republican Party has been anything but frugal and anything but isolationist. The congressional Republican revolutionaries seemed to lose their zeal for shrinking the federal government once they controlled it, which is one reason voters expelled them from power in 2006. And these days, it’s usually Democrats who call for a humbler foreign policy. Paul’s leave-us-alone libertarianism hasn’t fit in with a party anxious to read our e-mail, improve our values, assert American power abroad and subsidize friendly industries at home. The party’s recent mix of “national greatness” neoconservatives, evangelical theoconservatives and K Street careerists has had many goals, but leaving people alone hasn’t been one of them. That’s why Paul was the one getting booed at G.O.P. debates.

http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,1724358,00.html

MSNBC is a proud subsidiary of GE, a bomb maker. Only pro-war politicians are permitted to discuss their views and argue about the vastness of their war support. All other views, such as opposition to war, are called “extreme” and cannot be considered.

“Let me see if I get this right:

We need to borrow $10 billion dollars from China
and then we give it to Musharraf, who is a military dictator who overthrew an elected government,
and then we go to war, we lose all these lives, promoting democracy in Iraq.”

After months of languishing as a second tier candidate, Ron Paul is flush with cash in the bank and rising in popularity. Though not expected to win, his standing ensures a platform from which he can promote the principles of his campaign. If this video is any indication of what to expect, the GOP race just got a hundred times more interesting.

Despite the bizarre format of the recent debate where candidates were permitted to make noises while Dr. Paul tried to speak, the veracity of his statements showed him as the only honest candidate for the GOP. Highlights from the First GOP Debate: Ron Paul and Lou Dobbs in a meeting of the minds: