A Dangerous Myth: Peter Schiff Advocates a Neocon Foreign Policy

[Bman]

I think it's a valid query and the stormfront accusation is a cheap shot, no better than Ben Stein's.

Of course it is, but I hate to tell you, when you go around yelling Zionist all day long....

If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and sounds like a duck...

Im kinda starting to realize that Ive been supporting Schiff based on who I want him to be, not who he actually is. I'm familiar with his economic policies (btw, there's another thread here where he admits he isn't committed to ending the Fed, just "reign it in") but knew little or nothing of his other policies. Yes, he's still better than Dodd or the run-of-the-mill RINO or neo-con, but he's not Ron Paul and that's becoming clear. Questioning his allegences in the context of his own comments is valid.

There may be things to question. I cannot deny that. I can also not say I understand your totem pole of importance on what makes someone viable for you to support. What I can tell you is the fact that you came after me for calling someone a stormfront memeber, who called a liberty candidate a zionist shows something that you need to think about before you post a reply.

 

[Bman]

Nowhere on his issues page does it say he wants to abolish the Federal Reserve, or even want to audit it.

http://schiffforsenate.com/?q=issues

YouTube - Peter Schiff on Fox BN End The FED Rally in New York 24 04 2009

 

[American Nationalist]

YouTube - Peter Schiff on Fox BN End The FED Rally in New York 24 04 2009

Yea, he didn't say anything about ending the Federal Reserve in that video.

 

[Daamien]

Yea, he didn't say anything about ending the Federal Reserve in that video.

I don't think he would attend and be a keynote speaker of an End the Fed rally on Wall Street if he didn't believe the Federal Reserve should have powers removed. Schiff believes that the Federal Reserve should not be setting interest rates or vastly increasing the monetary supply to help finance (through inflation) extremely high government spending and distort market forces in favor of consumption and malinvestment rather than savings. While he feels that it would be better for the Federal Reserve to not exist than to exist in its current state, he recognizes that it would be chaotic to completely end the system over night. Ron Paul, the champion of the cause to End the Fed, has similarly stated that he would not abolish the system over night and that it may be more successful and politically achievable to reform for greater transparency and to allow competition. In summation, Peter opposes the Fed like most of us on these forums, but while you and he may agree in principal, he simply differs in practice. Good luck finding another candidate for CT Senator who is more closely aligned with our beliefs if you don't want to support Schiff.

 

[G-Wohl]

I think that in order to best analyze this question, we need to break the answer into two parts: 1. What does he want in his theoretical laissez-faire capitalist society? and 2. What does he want, practically, until something drastically changes?

Peter Schiff was the headlining speaker at the NYC End the Fed rally. I was there; his verbiage definitely suggested that he despised, and wanted to end, the federal reserve bank. However, in recent months, he's been singing a different tune. He's most recently claimed that the federal reserve bank, with much-stripped powers, would be an alright institution to have. There is nothing contrary to the Constitution with this answer. Remember that the Congress has the power to coin money and regulate the value thereof; establishing an institution to do so is perfectly legal.

I think that Peter has been switching to answering with answer #2 because it makes you look far less insane. Remember that a huge majority of Peter's senate campaign will involve him constantly disproving that he is just another Ron Paul nut. An association with Ron Paul is toxic in CT, and I think he's been spot-on with his balancing and with his very common-sense answers to questions like this.

I find both to be unacceptable and certainly not a platform of non-intervention, not to mention either just gives more motivation to terrorists re: blowback. If Iran wants nukes, it's not our problem. Let Israel fight its own wars. If we are attacked then we respond as per the Constitution.

eta: Had to laugh at the scrolling ad at the bottom of the page: "STOP SPENDING! - Peter Schiff for Senate" t-shirt, being advertised on a thread discussing how he would spend tax money to bomb a nation that has never attacked nor even threatened us.

If the United States acted in its own self-interest more of the time, then there wouldn't be anybody left to come blow us up. Had Bush done his job back in 2001/2, there wouldn't be a single Islamist radical left to threaten us. By the way, you're confusing non-interventionism with preemptive tactics - a thing a lot of you "libertarians" seem to not have quite straight. They deal with very different aspects of warfare, and the two should not be considered one-in-the-same as so many here seem to mistakenly think.

Iran has never threatened or attacked us? Did you forget about the first seventy years of the 20th century? Did you forget about Mossadeqh's Iranians nationalizing the productive achievement and hard work of the western (American and British) world? Considering the western powers made productive use of a resource that the Middle Eastern barbarians had no ability to utilize themselves, and then turned around and nationalized all of OUR virtuous hard work through force, I'd say that Iran has thrown more than its fair share of attacks and threats our way.

I don't advocate nation-building in Iran (neither does Schiff, by the way), but damn - that was a stupid thing you just said.

 

[daSHiZZLE]

Peter spokes about why he is reserved on just ending the Fed. His point is, what will replace it? The Federal Government? That is just as bad.

If anyone can find the Wall Street Unspun episode where he talks about this, you can link to the exact minute and second by putting this at the end of the URL ... "#t=10m10s" Just replace 10m and 10s with the minute and second.

 

[No1ButPaul08]

Peter Schiff was the headlining speaker at the NYC End the Fed rally. I was there; his verbiage definitely suggested that he despised, and wanted to end, the federal reserve bank. However, in recent months, he's been singing a different tune. He's most recently claimed that the federal reserve bank, with much-stripped powers, would be an alright institution to have. .

Peter hasn't changed his tune at all. Watch the speech again. Peter suggests we should abolish the Fed or return to it's original mission. He also goes through the careful what you wish for comments with regards to the turning over the printing press to Congress. Pretty consistent with what he's always said

 

[American Nationalist]

I don't think he would attend and be a keynote speaker of an End the Fed rally on Wall Street if he didn't believe the Federal Reserve should have powers removed. Schiff believes that the Federal Reserve should not be setting interest rates or vastly increasing the monetary supply to help finance (through inflation) extremely high government spending and distort market forces in favor of consumption and malinvestment rather than savings. While he feels that it would be better for the Federal Reserve to not exist than to exist in its current state, he recognizes that it would be chaotic to completely end the system over night. Ron Paul, the champion of the cause to End the Fed, has similarly stated that he would not abolish the system over night and that it may be more successful and politically achievable to reform for greater transparency and to allow competition. In summation, Peter opposes the Fed like most of us on these forums, but while you and he may agree in principal, he simply differs in practice. Good luck finding another candidate for CT Senator who is more closely aligned with our beliefs if you don't want to support Schiff.

Actually, it makes total sense, he is trying to gather the support of naive anti FED people when he has no purpose of supporting it's end. It is a win win. He shows up at the rally, naive anti fed people support him, but the Connecticut voters(many of whom are part of the New York financial community) know he won't end it.

The Federal Reserve in it's original state was bad. It's decisions were controlled by private banks who held non transferable shares in the bank. The bank controlled interest rates at the betterment of Finance Capital as opposed to the interests of the American people. The fact is, Peter schiff supports a private owned central bank.

Ron Paul has always been for abolishing the FED, he has said unequivocally he would end it. Of course couldn't end it over night, but he is clear that he wants to abolish it. Peter Schiff is merely criticizing the decisions of the FED and thinks it would be alright if the made "good decisions" and returned to their "original state".

You sound like the Republicans during the primaries and general election. Saying Ron Paul had no shot, don't throw your vote away, vote for McCain because he is better than Obama, he is more "electable than Paul". Sorry, I cannot support a guy who supports the FED and "bombing the crap" out of Iran.

 

[American Nationalist]

Iran has never threatened or attacked us? Did you forget about the first seventy years of the 20th century? Did you forget about Mossadeqh's Iranians nationalizing the productive achievement and hard work of the western (American and British) world? Considering the western powers made productive use of a resource that the Middle Eastern barbarians had no ability to utilize themselves, and then turned around and nationalized all of OUR virtuous hard work through force, I'd say that Iran has thrown more than its fair share of attacks and threats our way.

I don't advocate nation-building in Iran (neither does Schiff, by the way), but damn - that was a stupid thing you just said.

You still didn't explain how Iran attacked America. If you respected the notion of national sovereignty, you would support the right of the Iranians to have control over their own natural resources. Sorry, throwing out BP isn't attacking America. Our CIA took out Mossadegh at the behest of BP, and Iran has rightfully been a hotbed of Anti American sentiment ever since. We took control of their oil from them and established a Dictatorship. America has been the one attacking Iran. Barbarism is going around the world toppling governments for the behest of corporate interests. Iranians wanting control of their own resources is logical, not barbarous. British Petroleum has nothing to do with the American people, they don't represent us, so stop using words like "our"

 

[Imperial]

Actually, it makes total sense, he is trying to gather the support of naive anti FED people when he has no purpose of supporting it's end. It is a win win. He shows up at the rally, naive anti fed people support him, but the Connecticut voters(many of whom are part of the New York financial community) know he won't end it.

The Federal Reserve in it's original state was bad. It's decisions were controlled by private banks who held non transferable shares in the bank. The bank controlled interest rates at the betterment of Finance Capital as opposed to the interests of the American people. The fact is, Peter schiff supports a private owned central bank.

Ron Paul has always been for abolishing the FED, he has said unequivocally he would end it. Of course couldn't end it over night, but he is clear that he wants to abolish it. Peter Schiff is merely criticizing the decisions of the FED and thinks it would be alright if the made "good decisions" and returned to their "original state".

You sound like the Republicans during the primaries and general election. Saying Ron Paul had no shot, don't throw your vote away, vote for McCain because he is better than Obama, he is more "electable than Paul". Sorry, I cannot support a guy who supports the FED and "bombing the crap" out of Iran.

Schiff never said he "supports a private owned central bank". He said he wasn't sure about abolishing the Fed. Not being sure about ending it doesn't equal support. He can be ambivalent about it because he has a good reason - the alternative in the real world would be practically the same.

I am wondering what politicians you are planning on supporting though. Since I am sure you cannot be planning on supporting Rand Paul either (although you have been surprisingly quiet on that forum).

 

[devil21]

Of course it is, but I hate to tell you, when you go around yelling Zionist all day long....

If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and sounds like a duck...

Blah blah blah. Just like Stein's comments. Non-intervention = racism, right?

I'm not insinuating Schiff is or is not a Zionist. Acting as if "Zionist" is an epithet and the mere query as to whether he is or is not a Zionist, considering he's taking the same stance on Iran as every other religiously motivated interventionist, is disingenuous. It is a valid query for those of us concerned with his foreign policy statements so far. And note that Schiff has not made any attempt to clarify those comments so I can only assume he stands by them wholly in the context of their release.

There may be things to question. I cannot deny that. I can also not say I understand your totem pole of importance on what makes someone viable for you to support. What I can tell you is the fact that you came after me for calling someone a stormfront memeber, who called a liberty candidate a zionist shows something that you need to think about before you post a reply.

Uh, viable to support means someone that isn't pushing the same status quo "bomb bomb bomb bomb bomb Iran" nonsense as if he's John McCain or Joe Lieberman. Non-interventionist foreign policy is a central tenet to the Liberty movement and yes, that includes leaving Iran alone. If you haven't realized that yet then maybe you should think before you post on this forum at all. Maybe you're in the wrong place. I hear they support stuff like that over at Hannity forums. Btw, no one said Schiff is a Zionist. An open-ended query is not the same as an assertion.

 

[American Nationalist]

Schiff never said he "supports a private owned central bank". He said he wasn't sure about abolishing the Fed. Not being sure about ending it doesn't equal support. He can be ambivalent about it because he has a good reason - the alternative in the real world would be practically the same.

I am wondering what politicians you are planning on supporting though. Since I am sure you cannot be planning on supporting Rand Paul either (although you have been surprisingly quiet on that forum).

He does support a private central bank, he supports an independent central bank, that means a private central bank.

I support Rand Paul, he supports abolishing the FED. I support Kokesh and I support Traficant.

 

[devil21]

If the United States acted in its own self-interest more of the time, then there wouldn't be anybody left to come blow us up. Had Bush done his job back in 2001/2, there wouldn't be a single Islamist radical left to threaten us.

LOL, you seriously believe that? So you're saying that if Bush had just dropped our nuclear arsenal on the entire middle east that there wouldn't be anyone left to blow us up and therefore nuking 10% of the land mass of the planet would have been a good idea? Wow. I guess I can't say anything that would counter that sort of pure insanity.

By the way, you're confusing non-interventionism with preemptive tactics - a thing a lot of you "libertarians" seem to not have quite straight. They deal with very different aspects of warfare, and the two should not be considered one-in-the-same as so many here seem to mistakenly think.

Actually it's quite simple. Don't attack people that haven't harmed you. That's non-intervention foreign policy in a nutshell. All the posturing about military-this or tactic-that serves no purpose other than to obfuscate that very basic rule of non-intervention. Iran is not a threat to the US and I'm sorry but anyone that believes otherwise isn't viewing the issue objectively. They barely have the capability to defend themselves against their own neighbors. Besides, I'm not even clear on what you mean by "confusing non-interventionism with preemptive tactics". How does one confuse those? They're polar opposites.

Iran has never threatened or attacked us? Did you forget about the first seventy years of the 20th century? Did you forget about Mossadeqh's Iranians nationalizing the productive achievement and hard work of the western (American and British) world? Considering the western powers made productive use of a resource that the Middle Eastern barbarians had no ability to utilize themselves, and then turned around and nationalized all of OUR virtuous hard work through force, I'd say that Iran has thrown more than its fair share of attacks and threats our way.

Do we really need to revisit the history of the whole British oil empire in Iran, the CIA overthrowing the democratic gov't of Iran, the hostage situation, etc? That would be an exercise is revisiting how interventionism fails and leads to blowback and unintended consequences. I'm not saying Iran is a perfect nation (all religiously motivated governments, ours included, are inherently flawed) but claiming that Iran "harmed" the US by throwing out the British crown over their vast oil reserves 60 years ago, which somehow makes us bombing them today acceptable, is just grasping at straws. Would there be a religious government in Iran today if not for the CIA? It's a much deeper issue than you are implying.

I don't advocate nation-building in Iran (neither does Schiff, by the way), but damn - that was a stupid thing you just said.

So you just advocate bombing more civilians in ANOTHER country (what's that, 6 countries now?), spending more money we don't have, and making more enemies around the world, which leads to more terrorism that makes Americans less safe. But whatever you do, don't rebuild it! Yeah that's sound foreign policy right there. Can't argue with that kind of logic Then again, our reputation around the world is now total shit so what do we have to lose...

We should have tried that sooner since it's so much different than our current interventionist foreign policy.

 

[silverhandorder]

So Schiff is against nation building but for bombing only in case of nukes. His platform just became bitter for me. Latest townhall video he clarified this.

 

[josh.schisler]

So you just advocate bombing more civilians in ANOTHER country (what's that, 6 countries now?), spending more money we don't have, and making more enemies around the world, which leads to more terrorism that makes Americans less safe. But whatever you do, don't rebuild it! Yeah that's sound foreign policy right there. Can't argue with that kind of logic Then again, our reputation around the world is now total shit so what do we have to lose...

Nation building means that the U.S. government creates a new system of government in the attacked nation.

Peter Schiff wants to ensure that certain governments do not obtain nuclear weapons, but he wants them to maintain total sovereignty in all other respects.

He advocates bombing specific nuclear weapons facilities.

 

[malkusm]

YouTube - Peter Schiff P3 Wethersfield, CT

Quoting the above video, because it seems that everyone who is labeling Schiff as a warmonger is *conveniently* overlooking this video.

There was a poll today, asking people to respond to Lieberman's comments about Yemen...and I was very surprised to find that more people thought that we should intervene there, before al-Qaeda gains a foothold, than said 'Don't even bother because you can't solve the issue of terrorism by invading another country.' What's your position on our role in Afghanistan, and potentially another situation like this in Yemen?

Well, sure, first of all, from an economic perspective, you know, we can't afford everything that we're doing. We're broke, and we're borrowing all the money from China, and we're borrowing from Japan, and if we're bankrupt, then we can't defend ourselves, period. So we have to get our financial house in order -- that's the best foreign policy we can have, because, as I said -- look at the Soviet Union: the Soviet Union had a huge military, but they collapsed because of their economy, because of the finances. And we're going to have the same fate, if we don't get our house in order.

But as far as what I think our role should be; I think that foreign policy is the most important role of the federal government; that's what it's supposed to do, that's what it's supposed to be spending our tax dollars on, national defense. Just about everything else that the federal government does is unconstitutional. But that is the main role of the federal government, is to protect us.

But I don't necessarily think they make us safer by invading and occupying other countries. Now I was against going into Iraq, when we did, I was very vocal about it, I wrote about it, I said it was going to be another Vietnam...and unfortunately, I was right, I mean, it's not Vietnam from the sense that we've had as many casualties; but we've been there for a long time, and we're not -- I don't think we're accomplishing anything.

I was initially in favor of going into Afghanistan because I thought it made sense -- after all, we wanted to get Osama bin Laden, who actually attacked us -- but here it is, what, 8 years later, he's not even there anymore and we're sending 30,000 more troops in? I don't know what we're doing there.

I don't want to invade all these countries because maybe there might be terrorists there in the future. If there's a credible, actual threat that we need to act on, and act on it strategically, then I might be in favor of it. And I would be more in favor of using our military dollars to create defensive weapons systems, to protect us, to have better security at our borders and our ports, to really protect us here at home, rather than trying to, you know, have such a huge presence overseas, that is very expensive.

And you know, in many cases we stir up a lot of hornets' nests when we do that; and I think if we stay away, and don't involve ourselves so much in other nations' affairs, people won't be as likely to commit acts of terrorism against us in the first place; and if we spend our resources more defensively, we'll have a better chance at stopping the terrorist events that actually do occur.

 

[MRoCkEd]

Matt, it seems people dig for reasons to NOT support candidates.
No wonder libertarians never get anywhere.

A candidate agrees with you on 99% of the issues, but you focus on the 1% and use it as a reason not to support him.

 

[silverhandorder]

I am not attacking Schiff here but he is obviously made his stance on war softer. My point of view as long as Iran does not openly say we are going to bomb you Americans with our nukes (or does not get caught trying to put this plan in motion secretly) there is no reason why they can't have nukes.

However I understand Schiff personally could probably care less about war and cares about not going bankrupt by burrowing more then we can ever hope to pay back.

 

[Imperial]

Iran is not a threat to the US and I'm sorry but anyone that believes otherwise isn't viewing the issue objectively. They barely have the capability to defend themselves against their own neighbors.

While the threat is ENORMOUSLY exaggerated, and to generalize you could say Iran provides little threat to the United States, to say no threat exists would be far too generalized. Iran is a terrorist-sponsoring state, with at least fairly direct links to Hezbollah and more ad hoc links to Hamas. But that doesn't make similar tactics to Iran moral or strategic.

 

[devil21]

While the threat is ENORMOUSLY exaggerated, and to generalize you could say Iran provides little threat to the United States, to say no threat exists would be far too generalized. Iran is a terrorist-sponsoring state, with at least fairly direct links to Hezbollah and more ad hoc links to Hamas. But that doesn't make similar tactics to Iran moral or strategic.

Please cite when Hezbollah or Hamas ever deliberately attacked Americans outside of the confines of occupational blowback (like the Lebanon attack). Bonus points for naming any attacks on US soil with Hamas and/or Hezbollah connections.

Yes, it's exaggerated to the point where an issue is being created out of a non-issue. Is Iran a threat to us in any form if we stopped supporting Israel and stopped interferring in Iran's affairs and threatening them? I think not. Then we would be no more a "target" of Iran than Iceland or Cambodia is. The small threat you refer to is a threat we are bringing upon ourselves, and imho, that's not really a threat at all. The only way you can think Iran is a genuine threat to the US is if you also buy into that "Muslims World Domination(tm)" meme, which is nothing more than religious holy war propaganda.

Matt, it seems people dig for reasons to NOT support candidates.
No wonder libertarians never get anywhere.

Gotta say Im surprised to hear long time RPF members not concerned about compromising their principles for the sake of an election.

Let's make this very clear. Schiff is better than Dodd and I hope Schiff wins. However, he is NOT Ron Paul nor are his views the same and as we get closer to the primary Schiff appears to be moving farther and farther away from the very platform that springboarded his candidacy. That's fine, it's his choice. He's running as a Republican in a socialist state with a hefty helping of religious WoT supporters. But I won't do anything to help him if he's just going to compromise for the sake of being elected. I can't in good conscience support someone who openly talks of bombing Iran over something that is NOT our business. Seems some of us are assimilating into the typical political mindset of bending on principles just to win. I will not.

ETA: Im reminded of the motherly warning "Don't make faces or it'll freeze like that." Start making compromises and it becomes easier and easier each time to the point where you end up just another neo-con or neo-lib sheep that doesn't even remember what your political principles are. It's a start down the slippery slope when "compromising to win" is introduced.