How to Convert a Die-hard Huck Supporter?

[deanne]

have you got Ron's book A Foreign Policy of Freedom? I got it for 13 bucks on amazon, and i'm impressed. it is a collection of his speeches to the House throughout his 10 terms. it shows the administration's hunger for going to war with iraq in '98. Paul makes clear the congress and president's lack of regard for human life (troops) through unnecessary foreign adventure. he refers to foreign aid as a weapon, and shows that congress is not concerned with humanitarianism. also, Paul consistently points out that we hold back Israel in their attempts to work with their neighbors; we inhibit peace.

for me, i constantly have the Book of Judges (Old Testament) on my mind. I forget which chapter, but you'd be able to find it - the people are crying 'give us judges to rule over us'. That means rulers - they want people to rule over them and tell them how to live. God is clearly against this because it stems from a desire to replace obedience to God with government rules. I'm no history scholar, but I see our Constitution and the design of our government, in part, being informed by Judges, because it seeks to limit centralization of power at every possible point. We are not supposed to be ruled by men who are appointed at the whim of the people, who act as kings and impose arbitrary rules, favors, sentences, gifts, etc upon us - they become gods, and we become idol worshipers. Obedience to the Constitution is our best chance for allowing true, meaningful, independent godliness to flourish - neither inhibited nor promoted by the state. Maybe this sounds a bit off the wall - but there is a whole homeschooling movement behind this notion of history - I have several books and tape sets that reflect both a Christian and Paulian view in combination. Huckabee is the worst offender in that case - because of his severe proposed and practiced violations of the constitution. He really frightens me. Thank goodness he's totally unelectable.

 

[phoenix1861]

Here are a few things you might try:

1) Show him the following articles by Christian pastor Chuck Baldwin. They clearly spell out Huckabee's shady past. Can this man really be trusted to be who he says he is?

http://www.chuckbaldwinlive.com/c2007/cbarchive_20071102.html
http://www.chuckbaldwinlive.com/c2007/cbarchive_20071127.html

2) Show him the following article where Huckabee, when asked about whether he could support the other GOP candidates, appears to single out Ron Paul as the most difficult choice. Huckabee seems to have more problem supporting a Christian who has been faithful to his wife for 50 years, is pro-life and pro-liberty, and has a firm reputation (even in the eyes of opponents like John McCain) as being the most principled man in Washington, than he has supporting a cross-dressing, multiple divorcee, pro-choice liberal? That says something significant about the Huckster, and your friend would be blind not to see it:

http://thehill.com/leading-the-news/huckabee-doubts-rudy-will-get-nod-2007-10-31.html

3) Remind him about how, during their famous debate exchange, Huckabee virtually admitted that it was a mistake to go into Iraq, and then point out how Dr. Paul knew that it was a bad idea from the beginning. This is further compounded by the fact that Huckabee fell for the war spin concerning Iran and was ignorant of the NIE report findings, whereas Ron Paul doubted that 'intel' from the beginning and was proven right yet again.

Thus, by the implication in Huckabee's own admission and by recently uncovered intel, Paul has better foreign policy sense than Huckabee does. This is rather important when considering whether to commit America's forces to action, including where our "honor" is concerned. The world already has little respect for us. Following Dr. Paul's foreign policy would never have engendered the anti-American sentiment we've seen during the Bush presidency. We have certainly lost more "honor" under Bush than we have gained. Additionally, some 5000 Americans would still be alive if we had followed Dr. Paul's advice from the beginning, and Osama bin Laden would likely be dead (think of how we could go after him if we weren't mired in Iraq). Also, think of what would have happened to our "honor" had we gone ahead and attacked Iran, as Bush would likely have done had public sentiment not been so heavily against him. The revelation of this new intel following strikes against Iran would have finished our reputation abroad.

4) Show him the articles that talk about how Huckabee may be a likely choice for VP should Giuliani win the nomination. There is more and more talk of this out there (again, how could a conservative Christian partner with Giuliani in govt?):

http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewPolitics.asp?Page=/Politics/archive/200712/POL20071206b.html

5) Endorsement from Michael Peroutka, the Constitution Party's former presidential candidate. The CP is known for its decidedly Christian leanings:

http://people.ronpaul2008.com/endorsements/2007/12/19/michael-peroutka/

6) Pastor and clergy endorsements for Dr. Paul:

http://www.ronpaul2008.com/endorsements

7) http://www.christiansforronpaul.com/home.htm

8) My blog post recommending Ron Paul to Christians:

http://jeffersonian73.blogspot.com/2007/10/open-letter-to-christians-regarding.html

 

[JohnM]

If war/foreign policy is the only issue, I think Redmenace has it about right.

Who attacks the US? Mexico? Canada? Russia? China? No. It's terrorists. How do you protect yourself against terrorists? Notice that they tend to come from the Middle East and they tend to be Islamic. Which countries do they attack? The ones who have been involved in the Middle East - the US, the UK, Spain. How many Islamic terrorist attack have there been against Sweden, Switzerland, and Ireland? None.

Image you build a nice house in the country and want to be very, very safe. You build it with the strongest materials, you have every kind of system to detect intruders, and you have a 10 foot electric fence all around it. You are safe from most things. But you are not safe from hornets. There is no way you can ever be 100% safe from hornets. But you can improve your chances of not being attacked substantially if you don't grab a stick and poke every hornet's nest you see.

And Islamic terrorists are basically hornets. Deterrence doesn't work with them. The best thing to do is to try to avoid making them mad.

 

[preserveourliberties]

Huckastooge just went on Hannity and said that we can't assume that the Islamic fundamentalists will leave us alone if we stop fighting. He says they want to kill us.

 

[AceNZ]

Huckastooge just went on Hannity and said that we can't assume that the Islamic fundamentalists will leave us alone if we stop fighting. He says they want to kill us.

Ah, but the part they always leave out is WHY do they want to kill us?

 

[mtmedlin]

Go economic on him. We can defend ourselves with a strong offense or a strong defense. STRESS that both will work but a strong offense is very expensive and will bankrupt this country. Whereas a strong defense will still keep this country safe AND have left over money to pay down our debt and lower taxes which will stimulate the economy.

 

[Mahkato]

Go to arkansasleader.com and search the editorials for Huckabee. Plenty of material there. They absolutely hate him.

 

[hopeforthefuture]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5uk-T46soz8

 

[JohnM]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5uk-T46soz8

Useful video. Mike Huckabee's comment about the need for 'honor' is open to critique and probing on a number of levels.

Dr Paul's brief answer was, essentially "What you mean by honor is 'saving face'" - which is an important point.

Another angle is to ask at what point you know that the job is done and that you can go home? Are you just looking for the first opportunity when you can leave and put a reasonable spin on it, regardless of whether you have really achieved your military or strategic objectives. If honor / reputation is the all-important thing, then strategic objectives become less important, which is, I submit, not particularly honorable.

A third angle is to ask the question "So we should never have left Vietnam until the communists were beaten?" If so, we might still be there today.

A forth angle is to say that honor is about doing what is right and honorable, and since the US was the aggressive party in this war, the honorable thing to do is to admit that we were wrong.

 

[jclay2]

I am trying to convince my gf mom who is a pastor's wife away from huckabee. Lets just say I gave up. Even though I completley cornered her with Ron Paul's points on foreign policy like 20 times, she refused to give up. In fact, she couldn't even give me a single retort in our 30 minute discussion and was often speechless. What was more discusting was when I told her about huckulberry's record on spending. She openly admitted to me that spending did not matter to her. Honestly there are just some people that will not give up their Limbaugh/hannity/Levin ideologies, especially on the foreign policy. YOu should have seen it when I asked her why the terrorist attack us. She said because the united states was the best. I asked her to come up with evidence that supported that and she was unable to.

 

[thisisgiparti]

Tell him we can't afford the war. Talk about the dollar crisis and how the economy is going to tank b/c of our debt.

That's a good point. Did your neighbor watch the ABC debate? Did he hear Ron Paul talk about how the incredible rise in gas prices and the rapidly dropping value of our dollar are inversely proportionate? Ron Paul mentioned an article in the Wall Street Journal. You can find it online, probably on this forum, and you can also google the debate transcript for that segment. Terrorists could never possibly charge us as much for gas as our own inept foreign policy costs us.

Then we finance these wars - I say these, because there is talk of spreading the war into Iran, Syria, Lebanon and Pakistan - by borrowing money from Red China, a brutal regime with strong anti-American sentiment, and the Arab States. Remember when in an earlier debate, Ron Paul was asked if he thought Dubai should be allowed to buy shares on the NASDAQ. If you remember, he was rather noncommittal about it. Why? Because, if the US pursues its present course, this will be an inevitability. Our deficit is becoming unmanageable, and our citizens are indebted for a few generations now. The wars are not paying for themselves, and our enemies are playing a very shrewd game of economic chess.

Other countries would like to topple our status as a superpower. So, they finance and harbor these petty, rogue terrorists and rattle our cages. In the mean time, we have arrangements with Third World countries where we pay them exorbitant foreign aid to help them fight our cause, but no country will realistically do this. All sovereign nations will place their own interests first, and a true alliance cannot be bought. It is a mutually beneficial arrangement.

The US foreign policy of propping up dictators like Pervez Mushareff breeds resentment throughout the world, is unrealistic and often blows up in our face. (My Turkish friends have a saying - no matter how many times you shake it, the last drop always ends up in your pants.) We supported Saddam Hussein before, and we've created a dangerous situation in Iraq. In Pakistan, the 10 billion we recently gave Mushareff was spent on fighting India. We tried to restore elections there, and Benazir Bhutto was assassinated. Whether she would still be alive or not had she stayed in exile is debatable, but foreign policy on our part definitely put her life in danger.

As for Iraq, we invaded their country and destabilized their government. They are in the middle of a civil war now. Because we are seen as aggressive, we cannot play a part in their peace-making process. Any leaders or policies we recommend will be greeted with suspicion, because they will think we mean to occupy their country indefinitely. There may come a time when we trade freely with them, but the best thing we can do with that country, for the Iraqi people, is leave as soon as possible. Saddam Hussein is dead. There is great honor in allowing people to heal and live their own lives freely. These are the traditional beliefs of the conservative Republicans, and they have been successful.

Our country should focus on a strong national defense now. The US is spread too thin throughout the world to protect Americans here. Our borders are broken, and we have an immigration problem that has been left alone for too long. A large population of our people are about to retire, and we need to make sure their social security is there for them. Young people have expressed that they would like to opt out. Ron Paul is aware of that, and the biggest issue we face is repairing our economy, improving the value of the dollar and getting out of all these trade deals that are costing Americans jobs. Many Americans could lose their homes because of this housing crisis. Ron Paul is the only candidate on both sides talking about these issues. He knows what needs to be done to balance the budget. At the same time, he is a veteran who receives more money from both retired and active duty military personnel and who will make keeping Americans safe a priority if elected.

 

[thisisgiparti]

One more thing I'll add is that you should read Dick Armey's article on how Huckabee could destroy the Reagan conservatives. He could fracture the party, because he is a one issue guy.

 

[noztnac]

Ask him if he smokes or supports people's right to smoke.

 

[santopia]

What foreign policy would Jesus have?

 

[Sutton]

Huckabee rightly pointed out that some of the immigration laws are driven by bigotry when he was in Arkansas. I'd play off of that and point out that a lot of foreign policy is driven off of bigotry.

There are people who think that all "ragheads" are the same, and can't be bothered to tell the differences between Arabs, Persians, Kurd, Palestinians; or Shia, Sunni, etc..

Huckabee isn't one of those, I think, but on the war he's playing into their hands by still backing the invasions and aggressive foreign policy. I think that Gov. Huckabee was right about racism and immigration, he just needs to take another step back and look at foreign policy, too.

 

[TSOL]

Huckabee blinks too much. Have you watched him talk ? Blink Blink Blink Blink Blink Blink Blink Blink Blink Blink Blink Blink

That's a sign of stress and discomfort.

 

[Derek Johnson]

because Boortz loves him. Show him 'Money Masters'...

 

[spudea]

show him this video!!! It helped on my stubborn war supporting friend as well!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OS2fI2p9iVs


Our own Comptroller of the Government Accountability Office (GAO) details the coming crisis and the ONLY way for the United States to survive BANKRUPTCY is to tremendously cut spending. And the most effective, and quickest way to cut spending, is in the foreign policy and wars!

 

[ItsTime]

DO NOT BOTHER look for those who have not made up their minds

 

[pooty]

the war

let your friend know the true reason for this inane war.In 1952,during his farewell address to the nation,president Dwight Eisenhower warned us of the military industrial complex.We payed no attention.We are in Iraq number one for oil to supply our military machine and number two for the profit of defence contracters.Look at the money being poured into Iraq.There is so much money that thier actually losing it.How would he like to have the nine billion that was lost so far?Why has congress not ended the war they were elected to end?It wouldn't be because thier campaign coffers are swelling with blood money from defence contracters would it?They claim thier supporting the troops but how?They give Bush whatever he wants to continue the war.What that says is to support the troops we need to give them more bombs,cruise missles,ammunition,etc.,etc.when common sence says bringing them home where they are not shot at is more inline with supporting them.Congress does nothing but support the munitions mfgs.