June 18, 2007 Issue
Copyright © 2007 The American Conservative
Lone Star
Maverick Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul finds that
being right
is the one thing his party won't forgive.
by Michael Brendan Dougherty
At first glance, he looks like every other congressman in the
Canon
Building. His suit is dark. His tie is striped. He is convivial
with his
colleagues, who genuinely like him. But there is something
different about
Ron Paul.
You can hear congressmen when they walk down the hall, strutting
their own
importance. After all, there are regulations to be implemented,
special
interests to serve, a teetering American Empire that would
collapse without
their management. They wear black or cordovan leather shoes-captoes,
wingtips, and brogues-clacking down the hall, their bellies full
of
medium-rare steak from Capital Grille. They are surrounded by
ambitious
interns and legislative aides. They fiddle with their
BlackBerries. You can't
miss them tromping out of the elevators.
Ron Paul is easy to overlook. He takes the stairs; he does not
have an
entourage. You can't hear him coming because he's wearing plain
black tennis
shoes. In a bag he carries a can of soup that he will heat for
himself in
the microwave in his office. Beneath pictures of Austrian
economists
Frederick Von Hayek and Ludwig Von Mises, he will eat his lunch
alone and in
peace.
What is the purpose of Ron Paul's candidacy for the presidency
of the United
States? Some longshots run because their egos demand it. Others
want to
raise their lecture fees. Some run because they have plenty of
money and
nothing better to do. Following a flood of viewer requests, the
Texas
congressman recently appeared on Fox News to explain himself.
His answer was
buoyant though laconic: "I want to be president because I have
this dream. I'd
like to reinstate the Constitution and restore the Republic."
His answer was
also revolutionary.
Paul's doggedness in advancing the causes of individual
responsibility and
limited government could intimidate almost anyone who clings to
the label
"conservative" or "libertarian." Perhaps that is why he avoids
those abused
designations and calls himself a "constitutionalist." His
philosophy is
simple: "no government intervention, not in personal life, not
in economic
life, not in affairs of other nations."
Naturally he opposes almost everything Congress does. The
physician cum
congressman earned the nickname "Dr. No" early on. His
opposition to what he
considers unconstitutional spending even earned the grudging
respect of GOP
leaders. When Newt Gingrich cracked the whip on party members to
support a
messy budget compromise, he excused Paul from the duty to
support the
budget, and the "Ron Paul exemption" entered the congressional
vocabulary.
What did it take for other members to earn this privilege to
buck the party?
A voting record that opposed all unnecessary federal spending,
even in their
home district. No one else has been granted the exemption.
When Paul does propose legislation, it is simple, direct, and
radical. He's
compiled an impressive list of bills that remain ignored to this
day.
H.R.1146 : To end membership of the United States in the United
Nations.
H.R.776: To provide that human life shall be deemed to exist
from
conception. H.R.1658: To ensure that the courts interpret the
Constitution
in the manner that the Framers intended.
His cheerful consistency doesn't end there. Paul not only votes
against
nearly all government spending, he has refused to be the
beneficiary of it
as well. As a physician specializing in obstetrics and
gynecology, he has
delivered over 4,000 babies. He accepted no money from Medicare
or Medicaid,
often working for free for needy patients. With his support, his
five
children finished school without subsidized federal student
loans. He has
refused a congressional pension.
Monetary policy is the issue that brought Paul into politics in
the '70s.
Having read deeply in the Austrian school of economics, he was
incensed at
Nixon for going off the gold standard and ran in a special House
election in
the 22nd district of Texas.
It still preoccupies him. Paul gave a thrill to surviving
goldbugs in the
first GOP debate this year when he referred to "sound money."
Since
bimetallism and William Jennings Bryan shuffled off the
political stage,
widespread passion about monetary policy has been in short
supply. But for
Paul, the issue is still one that pits the people against the
Beltway: "I
think it's very convenient for them [politicians] not to worry
about
it-whether they are spending money they don't have for a war,
whether you
are liberal and like big welfare or a neoconservative and you
like
entitlements. They know somehow or another if the taxes come up
short, there
is a system, of course they know we borrow it and they complain
about that,
but I complain about the printing to pick up the shortfall. It's
such a
serious problem."
This is what he refers to as the "inflation tax." With a paper
currency,
Paul says, "You get too many bubbles. And people suffer. Whether
it's the
NASDAQ bubble or the housing bubble. It's also the reason people
are poor. .
There is this transfer of wealth from the poor to the middle
class to the
very wealthy. And it leads to conflict. There are lots of people
in this
country who haven't had an increase in real wages in 30 years.
The
Republicans deny it. And the Democrats say, 'Well we need more
taxes on
those who have too much.' They tax productivity to give it to
others. I
would not immediately close the doors on the Federal Reserve.
But the doors
may get closed if there is a monetary crisis. There are no paper
currencies
that last for a long period of time."
While he lost his first re-election to a Democrat, Paul came
back to win in
a 1978 rematch, then won again in 1980 and '82. He later lost a
1984 Senate
GOP primary to Phil Gramm. Not wanting to be a lifelong
politician, he
returned to the practice of medicine full time. Tom DeLay won
his seat.
Paul ran as the Libertarian candidate for president in 1988,
"just to talk
to about the issues" in his own recounting. He drew a meager
0.47 percent of
the vote but found an enthusiastic following.
In 1995, he decided to run for the 14th Congressional district,
which had
been redrawn to include his home in Lake Jackson. His opponent,
Greg
Laughlin, despite being a recent Republican convert, received
the support of
the party establishment, including then Gov. George W. Bush.
Paul's return
to congressional politics was based on the results of the '94
Republican
Revolution: "I thought, 'Maybe they are serious and they will
shrink the
size of big government.'" Paul sighs recalling that burst of
optimism, "but
there was no truth to that."
His second go-around in the capital focused on many of the same
issues that
animated his first tour. His principles never changed, though
some of his
libertarian supporters have been dismayed by his stands on trade
deals and
immigration.
While Paul considers himself a staunch free trader, he opposed
CAFTA and
deplored its predecessor, NAFTA. Paul explains, "I was on the
side of the
protectionists, and I'm not a protectionist. It's not true free
trade. It's
special-interest trade. It's managed trade. . I didn't like the
trade deal
because it was another level of government and a loss of
sovereignty."
On immigration, Paul finds himself on the side of
restrictionists. On
LewRockwell.com, Paul outlined a six-step approach: 1)
Physically secure the
border. 2) Enforce current visa laws. 3) Reject amnesty. 4) End
welfare
state incentives to immigrants. 5) End birthright citizenship.
6)
Standardize legal immigration rules and waiting periods. When
questioned by
Reason about what he'd say to libertarians who disagree with
him, Paul was
brusque: "If they don't agree, they'd have to be anarchists, and
I'm not. -
I do believe in a responsibility to protect our borders, rather
than
worrying about the border between North and South Korea or Iraq
and Syria,
and I think that's a reasonable position."
Increasingly, foreign intervention has come to dominate the
political
discourse. "I had concentrated on monetary policy," Paul said.
"Over the
years I've learned to tie that in with the war policy. You can't
fight wars
without inflation. You never have a war without inflation. . The
'70s were
hectic times. We had 15 percent inflation, interest rates went
to 21
percent, we had the highest unemployment since the Depression.
It came as a
consequence of the philosophy of guns and butter. And of course
the same
thing exists today, except one thing is a lot worse: there are
many more
dollars circulating around the world, and we've lost our
manufacturing
base."
Paul believes the Republican Party lost its way by not remaining
the peace
party. Recently, when speaking to a group of skeptical
conservative
journalists, he pointed out in his grandfatherly tone, "In 1952,
Eisenhower
ran as a peace candidate. In 1968, Nixon ran on obtaining peace
with honor."
Paul also mentions that Bush won, in part, by touting a "humble
foreign
policy." Even warmongers won elections that way: "Wilson ran on
peace. FDR,
same thing."
When he is inevitably asked if he is running in the right party,
Paul states
plainly, "I don't think the Democrats have any intention to
change our
policies in the Middle East. I want the antiwar position to be
traditional,
conservative, and constitutional and not only for the far Left.
I don't
object to the Left being opposed to the war. But that Michael
Moore image is
not going to persuade housewives. I think a lot of Republicans
have
forgotten their traditional position of being antiwar."
Making the antiwar message broadly appealing may be difficult
for Paul
because of his temperament. The exchange between Paul and Rudy
Giuliani in
the South Carolina debate raised Paul's profile nationally but
was thought
to have been the moment when Giuliani won the debate. After Paul
explained
that terrorists attack the U.S. not because they hate our
freedoms but
because they hate our policies, Giuliani rephrased his answer to
suggest
Paul thought America "invited" the attacks. He said he'd never
heard such an
idea and declared it "absurd." Paul didn't back down, but he
gave a
technical response about "blowback" that, while correct, didn't
connect with
the audience emotionally. He was hit hard, and while he didn't
drop to the
mat, he didn't hit back.
At a press conference later, Paul presented a list of books to
inform
Giuliani that, indeed, policies do have consequences. On the
list were the
9/11 Commission Report, Blowback by Chalmers Johnson, and Dying
to Win by
Robert Pape. Michael Scheuer, former head of the CIA's bin Laden
unit and
author of Imperial Hubris appeared alongside Paul. The press
conference
underscored both the strength and weakness of Paul's personality
as a
candidate: his professorial approach makes it difficult to
dismiss his views
as "loony," but the academic style doesn't motivate people to
rally to him.
His manner is always refreshing but rarely stirring.
When asked how he would confront his opponents' charges, Paul's
answers are
as straight and flat as a Texas highway. "The media would love
it if you got
real, real personal. But I just have trouble drifting from the
issue
itself. . I'm challenging them to think about policy. Nobody,
liberals or
conservatives, Republicans or Democrats wants to challenge
overall Middle
East policy. It is sacred. There's oil. There's the neocon idea
of spreading
democracy. There's Israel. You just shouldn't dare challenge our
eternal
presence in the Middle East. So they attack the messenger in a
personal
way."
When asked if any Republican constituents who had initially
supported the
war have thanked him for his foresight, he shrugs and says,
"Some, but not
too many. Someone told me once: 'They never forgive you for
being right.
They'll always forgive you for being wrong if you apologize.'"
Paul understands that electing him president wouldn't by itself
"reinstate
the Constitution and restore the Republic." He is a realist:
"You just can't
turn one switch and solve every problem. You have to build
coalitions. I'd
put a lot of pressure on Congress to live up to their
responsibilities." He
does know what he can do on day one of the Paul presidency. His
first act
would be to begin cleaning up the mess we've made in the Middle
East: "What
you could do in ten minutes to send a signal to the world that
things were
going to be different is tell the Navy to turn around and leave
the shores
of Iraq. We have two aircraft carriers there, another arriving,
and seven
ships that just moved into the Persian Gulf. I would just tell
them to turn
around and leave. Tell the region that this isn't my approach,
and I'm
willing to talk. I think that would immediately raise our
standing in the
world tremendously."
It's a vision that will inevitably be ridiculed as naïve by the
imperial
intelligentsia who helped American into this mess. But it's also
so noble in
its simplicity that it is already causing Americans who are
tired of the
warfare state to look at this mild-mannered physician and see
the politician
they've always wanted: a man of unbending conviction, of proven
fidelity to
a strict interpretation of the Constitution.
After his latest debate appearance, Ron Paul's name leapt ahead
of Paris
Hilton in Google searches. Bill Maher, who had given him a tough
time weeks
earlier on his HBO show "Real Time," became desperate to invite
him back for
this season's finale, declaring "he's my hero."
Grover Norquist has said of the good doctor that in Congress
"one Ron Paul
is grand; and 218 Ron Pauls would be even grander; but 20 Ron
Pauls could
cripple the party since the usual half-steps toward less
government and less
taxation might not find support among the more ideologically
rigorous."
Fanatics, dreamers, and constitutionalists long for the day when
hundreds of
Ron Pauls disinterestedly discuss monetary policy and the
philosophy of the
founders each morning between the trees that line New Jersey and
Independence Avenues. In the afternoon, they can go into the
Capitol and
maintain the Republic by leaving most of us alone. On weekends,
they can fly
home. We'll even let them wear comfortable shoes if they want.
But until the day when scores of Ron Pauls overrun the Capitol
Building in
sneakers, we have one man who heats his own soup and fights for
the
Republic, not the Empire. If America elects him president, he'll
sit atop a
bucking federal beast that withstood the taming of convinced
small-government riders like Ronald Reagan and Calvin Coolidge.
It would be
a wild ride for the thin, unassuming Texan. He might never
forgive us for
putting him in the saddle.
June 18, 2007 Issue
----------------
SEE MANY RON PAUL VIDEO....
http://www.apfn.org/apfn/ronpaul.htm
----- Original Message ----- From:
Sent: Thursday, June 28, 2007 10:05 AM
Subject: Listen to Ron Paul on the Peter Boyles show
> On Wednesday, June 27, Dr. Ron Paul was interviewed by Denver
talk show host
> Peter Boyles from 8:00 am to 8:30 am.
>
> You can listen to the Podcast of the interview on your
computer.
>
> Peter Boyles Podcasts
>
http://tinyurl.com/ygpy8t
>
> Look for June 27, 2007 8:00am
> Peter and Presidential hopeful Congressman Ron Paul talk about
current issues
> from Iraq to immigration
