Ron Paul\u2019s fellow Republicans haven\u2019t just castigated him for his foreign policy positions; they have routinely and resoundingly mocked him.\u00a0 What has the Texas congressman said that is so rationally and morally indefensible?\u00a0 When we move beyond the universe of sound bites that is our contemporary politics and look at Paul\u2019s actual arguments for the views that he holds, the answer to this question hits us like a ton of bricks: nothing.<\/p>\n
In his most recently published, Liberty Defined, <\/em>Paul elaborates at some length on his controversial view.\u00a0 Contra the Republican neoconservative establishment, he thinks the current course of waging an interminable War on Terror for the sake of establishing \u201cdemocratic\u201d governments throughout the Middle East (and beyond?) is most unwise. America\u2019s crusade to transform the world in its image\u2014what else could it be given that we have \u201ctroops in 135 countries\u201d and \u201c900 [military] bases\u201d around the world?\u2014has had the effect of transforming America from a republic into an empire.\u00a0 But empire and liberty are incompatible.\u00a0 Paul is swift and decisive: \u201cThe American Empire is the enemy of American freedom.\u00a0 It is every bit as much the enemy of American citizens as it is of its victims around the world.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n This isn\u2019t hyperbole.\u00a0 As Paul correctly states, an empire \u201cis incompatible with a free society,\u201d for the former \u201crequires perpetual war and preparation for war [.]\u201d As many an observer\u2014students of the classical conservative tradition in particular\u2014have long noted, a \u201cfree society\u201d is at no time more unrecognizable to itself than during times of war.\u00a0 And when this \u201cwar\u201d is undeclared, as is our current War on Terror\u2014that is, when the Constitution\u2019s demand for a declaration of war is ignored\u2014American style liberty is dealt a blow of incalculable proportions. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n War is the quintessential crisis, and as Rahm Emmanuel once succinctly put it, it is imprudent for government to ever \u201clet a good crisis go to waste.\u201d\u00a0 The point is that during a crisis, especially a crisis like war when the governed are threatened by an enemy resolved to destroy them, a free people, in order to satiate its desire for safety and victory, will be more disposed to relinquish its liberties than it otherwise would be.\u00a0 At the same time that citizens become less free, the government becomes less constrained.\u00a0 Paul writes: \u201cWar feeds the growth of the state.\u00a0 The state is nourished on the liberties of the people.\u201d<\/p>\n A second reason that Paul supplies for his opposition to \u201cour foreign policy of interventionism\u201d pertains to the extent to which it debases its supporters.\u00a0 President George W. Bush himself provided a vintage example of this back in 2004 at the Annual Radio and Television Correspondents\u2019 Dinner.\u00a0 Some may recall that at this event, the president presented a slide show of himself searching the White House for the weapons of mass destruction that were never found in Iraq.\u00a0 \u201cTo treat with such levity such a serious blunder (some would call it a lie) that has caused so much death and destruction,\u201d Paul asserts, \u201cis beyond the pale.\u201d\u00a0 Worse, \u201cthose present at the dinner all had a good laugh over it.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Another illustration of this \u201ccallous disregard for decency relating to foreign policy\u201d transpired during Democratic Senator Max Cleland\u2019s reelection race in 2002.\u00a0 Cleland lost both of his legs and an arm while serving in the Vietnam War, yet because he opposed the impending invasion of Iraq, his Republican rivals ran ads depicting Cleland as weak on issues of national defense.\u00a0 Paul explains: \u201cThe ad had Senator Cleland\u2019s face morphed into Saddam Hussein\u2019s while it implied that Cleland didn\u2019t\u2019 care about the security of the American people because he didn\u2019t always vote with President Bush.\u201d\u00a0 Moreover, there were Republicans who \u201ceven insisted that Max Cleland not be referred to as a war hero though he had been awarded a Silver Star for gallantry in action.\u201d<\/p>\n Paul concludes that all of this \u201cwas about as low as one can get in politics.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n The third reason Paul resists with every fiber of his being \u201cour foreign policy of interventionism\u201d is its exorbitant monetary costs.\u00a0 \u201cWhen empires are rich\u2026the people grow dependent, work and produce less, and enjoy the \u2018bread and circuses\u2019 or their \u2018guns and butter\u2019 while drowning in consumer excesses, encouraged by moral decay and financed by debt.\u201d\u00a0 But this only \u201chastens the day of reckoning when the bills come due and the empire collapses.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n As Paul points out, \u201cTea Party activists\u201d who \u201coften claim to oppose the system of tax and spend, bailouts and socialism,\u201d fail to realize that \u201cto the extent that they uncritically defend U.S. foreign policy, they are supporting all the policies they claim to be against.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n The fourth and final reason Paul gives for his position is, quite simply, that it doesn\u2019t work.\u00a0 Our invasions and occupations of Islamic lands, far from rendering us more secure, have made an already dangerous world that much more dangerous, for our aggression only emboldens those against whom our policies are aimed.\u00a0 No amount of\u00a0\u00a0 \u201clying, or denying the\u2026blowback<\/em>\u201d from our actions <\/em>in \u201cother nations, especially Arab and Muslim countries,\u201d can nullify it.\u00a0 And all such lying or denying actually \u201cpresents the greatest danger to our security, freedom, and prosperity.\u201d<\/p>\n In summary, Ron Paul, like the George W. Bush of 2000, favors a more \u201chumble\u201d foreign policy. He opposes the \u201cforeign adventurism,\u201d as he characterizes it, of his neoconservative Republican detractors for essentially four reasons.\u00a0 This militaristic enterprise: undermines our liberties; corrupts the characters of those who endorse it; depletes our resources; and makes us less secure.<\/p>\n The reader is now left with a thought or two to ponder:\u00a0 Is there anything in Congressman Paul\u2019s case against the Republican establishment\u2019s foreign policy vision that warrants the treatment to which it has subjected him?\u00a0 In fact is Paul\u2019s position not eminently sensible?<\/p>\n Jack Kerwick, Ph.D.<\/p>\n originally published at The New American<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Ron Paul\u2019s fellow Republicans haven\u2019t just castigated him for his foreign policy positions; they have routinely and resoundingly mocked him.\u00a0 What has the Texas congressman said that is so rationally and morally indefensible?\u00a0 When we move beyond the universe of sound bites that is our contemporary politics and look at Paul\u2019s actual arguments for the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":399,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-135","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n