Libertarians: Heart and Soul of the GOP, or Progressive Screw?

Ronald Reagan famously said ”the very heart and soul of conservatism is libertarianism.” Yet Ron Paul’s ascent in the recent Republican primaries has given focus to the rift between the libertarian wing of the GOP and it’s more traditionally conservative base. The young Republicans who support Ron Paul do so with great fervor, but seem to have little patience for any other Republican candidates. Meanwhile, supporters of those other candidates discount Rep. Paul as a viable candidate, and many openly declare they won’t support him if he wins the nomination. Still others think “What about the children?!?” ”Why can’t we all just get along?!?” So who’s right? Me, of course! Sadly, explaining why I’m right requires an essay/blog post/this thing you’re reading.

There are things I like about Paul and things with which I don’t agree. I think that’s true of pretty much all the candidates. Still, Paul’s record on predicting the economic failures of Government involvement is stellar (though it’s really not hard to have a good record here, you just always bet against the Government). First, we should see where the differences of opinion lie between these two branches of the Republican base.

Perhaps scariest of all, Paul has spawned a Blue Republican movement, whereby Democrats register Republican to screw around in business that isn’t theirs. This is because Paul wants to legalize marijuana. Well, kinda sorta anyway. He just doesn’t want the federal Government to keep it illegal. It should be a states’ rights issue. He thinks the same is true for gay marriage and abortion. Note that this doesn’t mean he morally supports any of these issues; he just doesn’t see any Constitutional authority for the federal Government to give decrees from on high. Yet what scares his conservative opponents the most is likely his stance on national defense/foreign policy. As such, this is the issue I’ll tackle.

Paul is against American action in Libya (and was against it in Iraq as well). He often has his views labeled “isolationist.” Perhaps worst of all, he somewhat blames America for 9/11. That’s a tough pill to swallow for any patriot. At one of the thousand primary debates this election season, Paul got booed for making this claim. Since I’m both tired and lazy, I’m not going to keep searching for a transcript of the debate , nor am I willing to transcribe it myself. You can read his position here.

Paul’s primary claim is that terrorists hate us because we’re in their hood. There’s some evidence to prove this claim (like al Qaeda saying it, if you consider them a trustworthy source) but there’s also evidence against this premise. Like when Egypt killed a bunch of Coptic Christians. But given the fact that the Muslim nations with which we’re dealing apparently know even less about the world than MSNBC viewers, I think Paul’s claim deserves at least a bit of respect. If you didn’t know about a provoking incident like 9/11, and then some people showed up with bigass guns and tanks and bombs, you might be a little ticked off too. Surely SOME terrorists mostly hate America because they want us out of their country so they can keep cutting up vaginas and stoning young girls for the audacity of getting raped. Since so many of these people are obviously completely off their rockers, we think Santorum has a good point that a lot of them hate us simply because we’re not batshit crazy. As such, our conclusion is that both men are right.

We know that’s not the answer you want, but it’s the truth. Paul’s views deserve a good look because we spend a lot on national defense – often without question – but we can’t ignore the fact that radical Islam contains a lot of idiots who just want us dead because we like to play Halo 3 and listen to Garth Brooks and not treat our women worse than our dogs. Fact is, those “let’s all get along” people are right too, and I’m one of them. His Holiness the Obamalama is ruining our country (and costing me a fortune in anger management classes). You know who would ruin our country a lot less? Ron Paul, Rick Santorum, Newt Gingrich, a rabid wombat, etc. You don’t have to agree with every candidate on everything. You can debate their supporters all you want, I encourage it! The Founding Fathers had a whole heckuvalot of debate about independence. But, in the end, they got it done. We have to learn from them. We can vigorously argue and foam at the mouths with each other, but in the end we’re all united in the cause for independence against King Obama.

Tune in next week (or whenever we get around to it) for our next post: How Liberals Want to Roll Back the Enlightenment. See you soon!