Thank you Mr. Reynolds for your review. On the contrary, I would encourage those curious about a different way to deal with our government (and deal with the world) to check out Mr. Paul’s short primer on his view of Liberty.
With respect to foreign policy, there seems to be a lot of confusion, which is understandable. Reynolds: “he [Paul] favors much more commercial and cultural engagement with foreign countries, something which, if experience is any guide, is as likely to anger Islamic fundamentalists and other varieties of terrorists and tyrants as is the establishment of foreign bases.”
What experience do you refer to? I used to think the same thing, but I was wrong. The Iranian hostage crisis (for instance) can be directly traced to our overthrow of their democratically elected leader in the 50′s. This resulted in the brutal and much despised Shah (our guy). But since so few Americans were aware of that history, we just grew up assuming those crazy Muslims must just “hate us for our freedoms.” Of course, we are fed that line by our government, so as to cover their collective asses, and redirect our anger away from their foreign policy mistakes.
Building on this, the Ayatollah Khomeini tried to generate a jihad against the US primarily because of the export of our decrepit culture (a description that many on the Christian Right would agree with). It was a failure. We saw lots of flag burning in the streets of Tehran on the nightly news, but little else.
It was not until bin Laden, with his appeal against us for political (not merely cultural) grievances, that a widespread movement would be created to attack the US. Of course our handiwork in Iraq will ensure that bin Laden (and his clones) will continue to call for Jihad against us…because of our foreign policy, NOT because of the Playboy Channel or because women have the right to vote.
Peace be with you.
