Ron Paul just ended his campaign

I thought it was refreshing to have someone who didn't pander or engage in demagogery. While he did stumble in his response to Giuliani's bluster, Dr. Paul answered clearly and directly the questions put by the debate moderators, articulating what used to be regarded as main-stream conservatism. Frankly, the other candidates are a sad commentary on what the Republican Party has become.
 
Dust Monkey:
Paul shot himself in the foot. America is not responsible for 9/11. Anyone who thinks that has their tinfoil too tight
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Dr. Paul did not declare America responsible for 9/11. What Paul did was point out that for many [many] years America's interventionalist policies have made America look worse in the international arena by and large, and definitely not more sympathetic. Whether you agree with our nation-building/ overthrowing governments policy or not, you should be able to acknowledge that not too many outside the borders of the US view our "foreign policy" with much regard.

Let’s consider two examples – Iran and Iraq.

When Iranians took U.S. embassy officials hostage during the 1979 Iranian Revolution, I think that it would be safe to say that most Americans had no idea why the Iranian revolutionaries were so angry at the United States. No doubt Americans assumed that the revolutionaries simply hated America for its freedom and values.

But Iranians knew that in 1953 the CIA had surreptitiously entered Iran and fomented a coup that resulted in the ouster of Iran’s democratically elected prime minister, a man named Mohammed Mossadegh. Not surprisingly, Mossadegh was highly respected by the Iranian people, and he also was selected as Time magazine’s Man of the Year.

Ousting Mossadegh from power, the CIA replaced him with the shah of Iran, who, with his savage secret police force, proceeded to oppress, brutalize, and torture the Iranian populace for the next 25 years.

It was no different with respect to the Iraqi people. While President Bush today bases his invasion of Iraq on the notion that Saddam Hussein was a dangerous dictator who was trying to secure weapons of mass destruction, he fails to mention that U.S. officials, including President George H.W. Bush, had been strong supporters of this dictator throughout the 1980s. In fact, the current President Bush also fails to mention that it was the United States and other Western countries that furnished Saddam with biological and chemical weapons along with nuclear technology.

Then, when Saddam became the new official enemy of the United States after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the U.S. government, in combination with the UN, proceeded to implement what is arguably the most brutal set of sanctions in world history. Over the course of more than a decade, the sanctions contributed to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi children. Ramzi Yousef, one of the 1993 terrorists who attacked the World Trade Center, angrily cited the sanctions as one of the reasons for that attack. Later, two high UN officials resigned in protest against what they termed U.S.-government–caused genocide. The most authoritative studies have concluded that approximately 300,000 children lost their lives from infection and illness attributed to the sanctions. But when U.S. Ambassador to the UN Madeleine Albright was asked by 60 Minutes whether the deaths of the Iraqi children had been “worth it,” she answered that, yes, the deaths had been “worth it.”

Then there were the illegal “no-fly zones” over Iraq, which had been authorized by neither the U.S. Congress nor the UN. The missiles fired by U.S. warplanes in the enforcement of the “no-fly” policy killed an untold number of additional Iraqis.

Finally, there has been the brutal invasion and occupation of Iraq, a country that never attacked the United States or even threatened to do so, which has resulted in the deaths and maiming of hundreds of thousands of more Iraqis (a recent study by researchers at Johns Hopkins University put the number at more than 650,000), not to mention the conversion of Iraq into a hellhole and wasteland of violence and destruction.

It is almost incredible that, although U.S. intelligence agencies have recently concluded that the invasion of Iraq has increased the threat of terrorism against the United States, there are still U.S. officials who maintain that all the bad things that the U.S. government did in the Middle East had nothing to do with the anger and hatred that led to the 9/11 attacks. It’s all because they hate America’s “freedom and values,” not because the U.S. government has killed, tortured, abused, and humiliated people in the Middle East for years.
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http://http://www.lewrockwell.com/hornberger/hornberger127.html
 
Support Ron Paul!

Tell everyone you can about the man, Send youtube links of him kicking ass in the debates. Send list of his voting records. Donate! Donate! Donate! I dont make much money but this is the first time I have donated to a candidate's campaign. I am taking all the funds profit and expenses I make selling these decals and donating it to Ron Pauls Campaign.

The internet is a powerful thing guys, I saw on FAUX and Friends this morning the blond guy say that Ron Paul must have done so well because of online communities messing with the results. Dont they realize that the online community is "the People" now! You would have thought they would have been ready for this, I guess not. They are still trying to say that we are hacking the results.
 
Like it or not, Paul will be remembered for saying "9/11 is our fault". Thats what is going to come of this debate.

As far as the telephone polls, the are statistically useless. Every single one of the natoinal polling organizations is still giving Paul a token 1% because they don't want to get into fractions.

As far as my personal bias towards Paul, I do have a bias. However I'm biased towards my rights. All of these people with the all or none mentality have no earthly idea what none will be like and I don't want to suffer for their stupidity.

Paul is unelectable. This is a fact that cannot be argued with. As result, the choice is hoe much you value your gun rights, your tax cuts, and your SCOTUS appointments. A house divided means either Madame Hillary or Commander in chief obama.

I doubt the warm fuzzies people will get for voting for Paul will be able to tie them over for that administration, and the possibly permanent effects thereafter.
 
That so many readers of this forum subscribe to the statement voiced by Ron Paul that the U.S. brought 9/11 upon itself if both frightening and disheartening. From the true crazy conspiratorists to those who feel the need to blame America for Islamic terrorism, we have a sizable number of forum participators who are more than out of touch with reality. When the pro-2A movement is filled with the crazies, its gives support to those who hate guns and those who own them. It reinforces the image of the paranoid, disgruntled while male who is armed to the teeth and sure that the government is sending the black helicopters to get him. It allows liberals who oppose our gun rights to self righteously see themselves as superior to the clearly deranged and ignorant gun owner. Those of you who think we caused 9/11, or that Pres. Bush knew or actually executed the destruction of the Twin Towers and Pentagon, probably hate the NRA and believe they are part of the New World Order. God help us.
 
You're right vito. How could anybody possibly hate America, the greatest country on earth. :rolleyes:

Anyway, moving past the "I'm just a flag waving American" (musical notes), Stage2, if you really think that, why do you think he got second place in approval as to who won the debate? Right below Romney and well above "america's Mayor"
 
Ron Paul hit the nail on the head.

We were sold a false war in Iraq. We have not found any stategic WMDs and there was no real Iraq-9/11 connection. The White house has already admitted this and other mistakes in Iraq. Colin Powell has admitted to being given bad information. George Tenet's book just came out with some criticism. He was the big player in making the war and he got the big presidential medal on the way out.

Bin Ladens plan was to suck the US into a war in a place like Iraq and slowly bleed us till we left. Bush and his neocon crowd gave it up to Bin Laden on a silver platter.

Our foreign policy in the Middle East has been to support authoritarian regimes at the expense of the citizens of those countries. I can see how recruits could be coaxed for that reason alone. Not to mention stuff like Abu Gharib, supporting torture, Guantonamo and the kangaroo courts down there.
Most folks just scoff at it because it was only muslims that we did it to. I guarantee if they did it to a white christian person in a jail here folks would be up in arms. We tell them about freedom and liberty on one hand while being hypocritcal on the other hand. The people in the middle east see that.

1.2 The New Strategic Communication Environment

Anti-American attitudes. Opinion surveys conducted by Zogby International, the Pew Research Center, Gallup (CNN/USA Today), and the Department of State (INR) reveal widespread animosity toward the United States and its policies. A year and a half after 15 going to war in Iraq, Arab/Muslim anger has intensified. Data from Zogby International in July 2004, for example, show that the U.S. is viewed unfavorably by overwhelming majorities in Egypt (98 percent), Saudi Arabia (94 percent), Morocco (88 percent), and Jordan (78 percent). The war has increased mistrust of America in Europe, weakened support for the war on terrorism, and undermined U.S. credibility worldwide.

Media commentary is consistent with polling data. In a State Department (INR) survey of editorials and op-eds in 72 countries, 82.5 % of commentaries were negative, 17.5% positive.3 Negative attitudes and the conditions that create them are the underlying sources of threats to America’s national security and reduced ability to leverage diplomatic
opportunities. Terrorism, thin coalitions, harmful effects on business, restrictions on travel, declines in cross border tourism and education flows, and damaging consequences for other elements of U.S. soft power are tactical manifestations of a pervasive atmosphere of hostility.
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http://www.acq.osd.mil/dsb/reports/2004-09-Strategic_Communication.pdf

We tend to see things though our filters and say to hell with the rest of the world if they dont like it. Then we dont understand the hostility towards us.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder....

put yourself in some muslims shoes and think about what they would see based on the FYI they get.
 
...why do you think he got second place in approval as to who won the debate? Right below Romney and well above "america's Mayor"
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Might it be that is not all that relevant of a question?

IMHO, there are much more important opinions to be taken into account than the pool of those polled. At this point, it is much more important to only take into account 2 pools of people, since without the support of both of these pools any Republican candidate stands ZERO chance of making it through the primaries:

1> Those people who actually contribute to Republican candidates, the Republican Party and assorted Conservative political action organizations. These folks are the ones who determine the size of the respective war chests going into the primaries. If you chap them, you won't be able to get your message out, and therefore you won't make it through the primaries.

2> Those people who will actually vote in the Republican primaries.

My take on this is that since that poll does not take either of those 2 groups into account, lending them extra weight that is their due, it is pretty much useless in determining whether Rep. Paul has any real chance of making it through the primaries. I personally think that if the above 2 groups were to be polled, Rep. Paul would fair MUCH more poorly. In that respect, I happen to agree with the OP. Rep. Paul has pretty much killed any chance of success he might have had as a candidate.
 
Keep in mind that while Dr. Paul came in second place for this debate (many would say first place) He overhwhelmingly came in at first place among the polls for after the first debate. He's not a fluke...he's America's last, best hope.
 
We supported Saddam against Iran and the Russians, due to Cold War expediencies, and Iraq used chemical weapons against the Iranians during that time. If you don't think that had any influence on attitudes in that region towards the US, you're kidding yourself.
 
Why Hasn't Rudy Giuliani Read...



Why Hasn’t Rudy Giuliani Read the 9-11 Commission Report?

May 16, 2007

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

ARLINGTON, VA – During the "First in the South" GOP debate in South Carolina last night, one thing was made clear: Rudy Giuliani does not understand how to keep America safe.

When Congressman Ron Paul, who has long served on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, explained how 50 years of American interventionism in the Middle East has helped compromise our national security, Giuliani interrupted saying he had "never heard anything so absurd." This statement is particularly troubling coming from the former mayor who tries to cast himself as a security expert, since Dr. Paul's point comes directly from the bi-partisan 9-11 Commission Report.

"Rudy Giuliani has tip-toed around the issues of abortion, guns and marriage. The only issue he has left is security, and he doesn't even get that right," said campaign chairman Kent Snyder. "It is clear from his interruption that former Mayor Giuliani has not read the 9-11 Commission Report and has no clue on how to keep America safe."
 
Right..Giuliani is either an ignorant lout..or a LIAR. Does he honestly expect anyone to believe that he has never heard that argument before? Come on...I heard about it long before I ever even became interested in politics.
 
Exactly - Giuliani saw a chance to raise the 'I was THERE on 9-11' flag again. He performed adequately in that situation, but thats it. Nothing but a blatant attempt to distract from his lack of credentials.

Let's not forget his lawsuit to sue gun manufacturers. This man is no friend to American freedom.
 
The more I think about last night's debate, the more I think the original post got it backwards. I think he may have inadvertently become a serious contender with that comment, particularly if the fireworks play out over the next few days of news cycle.
Looking at the polls (right direction/ wrong track, Iraq approval, presidential approval, etc) the numbers are dismal. So far in the crapper, it isn't just liberals that feel that way. Which'd mean that a fair chunk of Republicans are disillusioned as well. And watching the entire field screaming "me too!" for the chance to align themselves with the neoCon philosophy and distance themselves from him....he may have just picked up that voting bloc by default.
The other bloc will end up splitting their support between the 9 others.
 
I would hope that the American people are not as mind-bogglingly stupid as the audience that cheered Rudy last night and that Paul's campaign is not over but in fact more powerful.

He's absolutely right and if the rest of the conservatives in this country would take their blinders off they would see that.
 
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