The Secret to Rand Paul’s Foreign Policy: His Father

[jct74]

The Secret to Rand Paul’s Foreign Policy: His Father

The Secret to Rand Paul’s Foreign Policy: His Father
If you want a real insight into how Rand Paul truly views the world, check out his dad’s record in Congress during the Cold War.

W. James Antle III
09.12.14

Rand Paul is struggling to demonstrate that a presidential candidate can be skeptical of military adventures while still being tough on foreign enemies when necessary. And so far, all he is getting for his trouble is charges of flip-flopping.

Is there any recent precedent for a reluctant but strong warrior in Republican politics? Paul has been citing Ronald Reagan, but there is another, and perhaps more surprising, model: Ron Paul, the Kentucky senator’s own father.

This may seem counterintuitive. While the elder Paul’s two Republican presidential campaigns put noninterventionism back on the political map, his rhetoric is often a textbook example of how not to sell such foreign-policy ideas to the wider GOP base.

Ron Paul’s first stints as a Republican congressman from Texas were during the 1970s and ‘80s, however. As a libertarian-leaning lawmaker, he frequently disagreed with his GOP colleagues on foreign policy back then too. But, unlike some more militant libertarian thinkers, Ron Paul never dismissed the threat of communism during the Cold War.

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read more:
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articl...to-understand-rand-paul-s-foreign-policy.html

 

[TaftFan]

If Ron had condemned radical Islam during his runs like he did with communism in the 70s, he would have done much better. Instead, he came off as blaming America and coddling evil. Occasionally, I think he does do it because he gets set in his perspective, but overall he just has trouble articulating his message.

 

[Christian Liberty]

If Ron had condemned radical Islam during his runs like he did with communism in the 70s, he would have done much better. Instead, he came off as blaming America and coddling evil. Occasionally, I think he does do it because he gets set in his perspective, but overall he just has trouble articulating his message.

I think there may be a way to do this without advocating intervention (Rand did a good job with it actually with the whole "no aid to America's enemies" bit) but I think its absolutely absurd to suggest that the US government isn't also evil. And, "America" is responsible for murdering tens of millions of its own... as a whole more than Adolf Hitler did. People just need to wake up and realize that however their country may compare to all the others in the world, it is most certainly not "holy" or "good."

 

[Ronin Truth]

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The Founding Fathers Were Right About Foreign Affairs
by Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX)
April 16, 2002​

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Last week I appeared on a national television news show to discuss recent events in the Middle East. During the show I merely suggested that there are two sides to the dispute, and that the focus of American foreign policy should be the best interests of America – not Palestine or Israel. I argued that American interests are best served by not taking either side in this ancient and deadly conflict, as Washington and Jefferson counseled when they warned against entangling alliances. I argued against our crazy policy of giving hundred of billions of dollars in unconstitutional foreign aid and military weapons to both sides, which only intensifies the conflict and never buys peace. My point was simple: we should follow the Constitution and stay out of foreign wars.

I was immediately attacked for offering such heresy. We've reached the point where virtually everyone in Congress, the administration, and the media blindly accepts that America must become involved (financially and militarily) in every conflict around the globe. To even suggest otherwise in today's political climate is to be accused of "aiding terrorists." It's particularly ironic that so many conservatives in America, who normally adopt an "America first" position, cannot see the obvious harm that results from our being dragged time and time again into an intractable and endless Middle East war. The empty justification is always that America is the global superpower, and thus has no choice but to police the world.

The Founding Fathers saw it otherwise. Jefferson summed up the noninterventionist foreign policy position perfectly in his 1801 inaugural address: "Peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations – entangling alliances with none." How many times have we all heard these wise words without taking them to heart? How many champion Jefferson and the Constitution, but conveniently ignore both when it comes to American foreign policy? Washington similarly urged that the US must "Act for ourselves and not for others," by forming an "American character wholly free of foreign attachments." Since so many on Capitol Hill apparently now believe Washington was wrong, they should at least have the intellectual honesty to admit it next time his name is being celebrated.

In fact, when I mentioned Washington the other guest on the show quickly repeated the tired cliche that "We don't live in George Washington's times." Yet if we accept this argument, what other principles from that era should we discard? Should we give up the First amendment because times have changed? How about the rest of the Bill of Rights? It's hypocritical and childish to dismiss certain founding principles simply because a convenient rationale is needed to justify foolish policies today. The principles enshrined in the Constitution do not change. If anything, today's more complex world cries out for the moral clarity provided by a noninterventionist foreign policy.

It's easy to dismiss the noninterventionist view as the quaint aspiration of men who lived in a less complicated world, but it's not so easy to demonstrate how our current policies serve any national interest at all. Perhaps an honest examination of the history of American interventionism in the 20th century, from Korea to Vietnam to Kosovo to the Middle East, would reveal that the Founding Fathers foresaw more than we think.​

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http://www.antiwar.com/paul/paul30.html

 

[Vanguard101]

Ron Paul the warmonger. Oh how the fake purists lost

 

[TaftFan]

Ron Paul the warmonger. Oh how the fake purists lost

He sounds like Larry McDonald and Pat Buchanan rhetoric wise during the Cold War.

 

[NewRightLibertarian]

If Ron had condemned radical Islam during his runs like he did with communism in the 70s, he would have done much better. Instead, he came off as blaming America and coddling evil. Occasionally, I think he does do it because he gets set in his perspective, but overall he just has trouble articulating his message.

Communism was a real threat though. I agree that he could have had much better messaging. Pat Buchanan says essentially the same thing as Ron Paul on foreign policy, but has never taken nearly as much flack.

 

[RonPaulFanInGA]

Ron Paul the warmonger. Oh how the fake purists lost

Let's not forget that Ron Paul was also for the War on Drugs when he ran for Congress as a non-incumbent in 1996.

Sometimes, you have to face political reality, at least when you're actively trying to change politics for the better as Ron Paul was, and not just commenting on the internet.

 

[politics]

How to make someone say what you want, a practical case:

How to make someone say what you want, a practical case:
1. Take some phrases from a cold war context, it doesn't matter if those ideas are from different years and circumstances as long as they can fulfill your hawkish desires.
2. Then you mix, you put that all together on the same article,
3. And then you add a title that shows exactly your opinion about the subject, and your purpose with it.

To show what Ron actually thinks about intervening in foreign countries, in Syria for instance, wouldn't be easier just to ask him? Maybe he has something to say about unintended consequences of your actions.

 

[jmdrake]

If Ron had condemned radical Islam during his runs like he did with communism in the 70s, he would have done much better. Instead, he came off as blaming America and coddling evil. Occasionally, I think he does do it because he gets set in his perspective, but overall he just has trouble articulating his message.

At no point doing the cold war was prevailing theory on how to fight communism to undermine the U.S. constitution. By contract when it comes to terrorism we keep being told we have to "sacrifice liberty for security". Really it's the neocons and neolibs who say the terrorists "hate us for our freedom" that are really the "blame America first" crowd. What is America defined by? Are we defined by what our foreign policy is, or by the freedoms we (used to) enjoy?

 

[Feeding the Abscess]

At no point doing the cold war was prevailing theory on how to fight communism to undermine the U.S. constitution. By contract when it comes to terrorism we keep being told we have to "sacrifice liberty for security". Really it's the neocons and neolibs who say the terrorists "hate us for our freedom" that are really the "blame America first" crowd. What is America defined by? Are we defined by what our foreign policy is, or by the freedoms we (used to) enjoy?

Bill Buckley famously said that we had to put up with leviathan in order to fight communism.

Thankfully, Ron abandoned hawkish rhetoric and ideas and embraced peace as time marched on.

 

[Vanguard101]

It sounds like Paul was as bad as Reagan until the late 00s. Terrible man. He's so much like his son.

 

[jjdoyle]

If Ron had condemned radical Islam during his runs like he did with communism in the 70s, he would have done much better. Instead, he came off as blaming America and coddling evil. Occasionally, I think he does do it because he gets set in his perspective, but overall he just has trouble articulating his message.

He didn't come off as blaming America, he came off as stating truths and facts about our foreign policy. If you can't think logically about what he was saying, and are a brainwashed Fox News viewer (see can't think logically), then the propaganda of "blaming America" is what you were told to hear.
BUT, on this, Rand is still missing a key point that could very easily swing this topic. I'll give it to Rand and his team, for $73,000.

 

[William Tell]

Good article, love that it mentioned the New American.

 

[Christian Liberty]

Let's not forget that Ron Paul was also for the War on Drugs when he ran for Congress as a non-incumbent in 1996.

Sometimes, you have to face political reality, at least when you're actively trying to change politics for the better as Ron Paul was, and not just commenting on the internet.

Proof that Ron ever supported the war on drugs?

I saw a video from 1988 where Ron very bluntly opposed the war on drugs. I also know he opposes it now.

 

[Brett85]

Proof that Ron ever supported the war on drugs?

I saw a video from 1988 where Ron very bluntly opposed the war on drugs. I also know he opposes it now.

He came out and said that he was opposed to drug legalization in order to win his Congressional race in 1996. I'll try and see if I can find the link.

 

[CPUd]

Let's not forget that Ron Paul was also for the War on Drugs when he ran for Congress as a non-incumbent in 1996.

Sometimes, you have to face political reality, at least when you're actively trying to change politics for the better as Ron Paul was, and not just commenting on the internet.

There really wasn't an internet in 1996, well there was, but it looked like this: