After listening to so many Republican debates I can no longer count them, one thing became clear: There were almost no significant policy distinctions between the candidates in the domestic arena. All were basically minor differences, although often inflated for political purposes. What set the candidates apart were qualities of personality, electability and experience, not the issues.
Much of the bickering concerned who would best follow through on their conservative principles, something which is of course mere speculation until they are elected.
Only in the area of foreign affairs was there a substantive policy difference and in that area one candidate — Ron Paul — stood out. He was the sole isolationist (or even relative isolationist) on the stage. Every other candidate was considerably firmer than the incumbent president in his or her support for a strong American defense, not to mention for a steadfast opposition to a nuclear Iran. Paul was by himself on the opposite side, further to the left on national defense than Barack Obama.
So it was Ron Paul’s foreign policy views that were repudiated by Iowa Republicans on Tuesday.
And they were roundly repudiated — 79 to 21 by the vote percentages.
Paul was defeated by Rick Santorum, a foreign policy hawk who called Paul’s views “disgusting,” and by Mitt Romney, whose opinions are similar to Santorum’s (as were all the other candidates’ in the Iowa caucus).
Paul sought to place a positive spin on his third place finish in a “victory” speech, but it rang hollow as his son, Senator Rand Paul, standing behind him, conspicuously stopped applauding when his father’s words turned to foreign policy. The Senator had the look of someone who wished he were someplace else.
If he came in last, his foreign “policies” would be repudiating. However, he finished in the top three with 25,000 people voting for him. I’m relieved he didn’t win, but he surely did not lose, he seems to have a lot of support, passionate supporters, and is continuing to build his organization and raise money. In my neck of the woods, his bumper stickers and yard signs are the only one’s I’ve seen and my state’s primary is not coming up really soon. I’m reluctant to count out Paul, yet. I don’t think he’ll get the nomination, but he is garnering support and may be well positioned to be a player in setting the GOP platform. Not good.
This should tell you all you need to know about Paul’s showing last night:
“According to the entrance polls, 38 percent of caucus-goers had never voted in a GOP caucus before; of those, by far the largest share, 37 percent, voted for Ron Paul.” – Jim Geraghty
You had a bunch of Dems showing up, voting for him. He will now exit stage LEFT. Good riddance.
It is likely that many of these first-time GOP caucusers are Democrats, voting for what they perceive as the candidate likely to guarantee an Obama re-election, but it could also be that many of these are young Republicans, who are still full of idealism about how the world should be.
In the best of the scenarios your assessment may be right. But again his blind fanatic hyper liberal followers may be nothing more than our country’s youth, all those who smoke pot and voted for Obama in 2008!!!
Hey even the NEW AMERICAN IDOL has endorsed him. This is the State of America people, a nation like sheep following one dog after another… Sorry for being so blunt, pessimistic and disappointed at the lack and depth of knowledge our people have.
Unfortunately…if Paul makes a “decent” showing…3rd place …He may do a third party ticket…prodded on by the youth, the pseudo republicans (democrats in repub clothing…)
That alone would make the presidency for conservatives of all ilks…out of reach.
I don’t believe Mitt or Santorum can hold their own with BHO in a debate. However, Santorum is more down to earth and perhaps understands, to a greater degree, the workingman .but..I don’t want to vote for any of them to run my country.
..I have a fear that no matter who the next president is..they will not be able to stop what is already in motion .
Perhpas Obama will step down..of course then we have Hillary and Carville to contend with.
Da Doo Ron Paul!
To the tune of Da Doo Ron Ron,
with apologies to Greenwich/Barry and The Crystals
He’s running for the office of the President,
Da doo Ron Ron Paul, da doo Ron Paul!
The Paulians believe that he is heaven-sent,
Da doo Ron Ron Paul, da doo Ron Paul!
Yeah, he’s heard the call,
Yes, his name is Paul,
So, vote for Paul next fall,
Da doo Ron Ron Paul, da doo Ron Paul!
He’s really kind of kooky and he’s not too tall,
Da doo Ron Ron Paul, da doo Ron Paul!
He’s just a little spooky and he’s off-the-wall,
Da doo Ron Ron Paul, da doo Ron Paul!
Yeah, he’s not too tall,
Yes, he’s off-the-wall,
So, vote for Paul next fall,
Da doo Ron Ron Paul, da doo Ron Paul!
He blows ’em all away in all the online polls,
Da doo Ron Ron Paul, da doo Ron Paul!
But only ’cause the polls are always spammed by trolls,
Da doo Ron Ron Paul, da doo Ron Paul!
Yeah, the polls say “Paul!”
Yes, they spam them all,
So, vote for Paul next fall,
Da doo Ron Ron Paul, da doo Ron Paul!
The loonies on the left and right are in his thrall,
Da doo Ron Ron Paul, da doo Ron Paul!
And Truthers oddly trust him; he’s a true oddball,
Da doo Ron Ron Paul, da doo Ron Paul!
Yeah, they’re in his thrall,
Yes, a true oddball,
So, vote for Paul next fall,
Da doo Ron Ron Paul, da doo Ron Paul!
Copious uptwinkles.
STANDING OVATION!
Third place for Mr. Paul won’t bring in any more dough than he has already been getting. The stakes and the states and only go up from now on. Ron is probably done; and if he has one more decent showing I am sure Romney has some opp-research ammo left to put him down with real quick. FLA has 1.9 million primary voters, Iowa had what 130,000? 2 major college campuses is all the base Ron has there. He GONE!!
Hayek was one of the Austrian School economists, as well as being an actual Austrian, along with his mentor Mises (who turned Hayek around from Socialism). “Hayekian” is not a separate school, but a part of the Austrian tradition which accommodates several varieties of emphasis and subtle differences. In any case it’s nice to see the Austrians coming back; they work from easily understood basic principles and are able to illuminate economic events in ways that the intelligent layman can understand. The more fashionable ‘mathematical economists’ thrive, in typical academic fashion, on obscurity and impenetrable jargon; the paucity of useful output from them has probably been a factor in the revival of the Austrian School.
Good article Mr Simon.
I am a supporter of the Austrian School of economics (http://mises.org). And to Brett_McS I can only say: YEP!
twitter.com/ggallman
PJTV subscriber
The more fashionable ‘mathematical economists’ are blithering idiots.
I think the point is rhetorical consistency Keynesianism is a popular phrase for the “London” school of economic thought, where Hayekianism applies the same linguistic concept to the “Austrian” school. A minor point, but a valid one. The problem isn’t that Paul got it wrong, but that he could have improved his rhetoric by consistency. This doesn’t invalidate anything Paul said in that respect, but simply represents a point of style.
I missed a punctuation. There should be a period between “consistency” and “Keynesianism”.
No problem. Sensible people already know that there is a vast chasm between “consistency” and “Keynesianism”.
Austrian economics is the best economic ideology out there for sure. But it’s followers in my opinion are are very dogmatic and schematic – almost cultish. And that detracts from their message, which is sound.
For instance they understand, that there is no gold standard right now. So far so good. But they fail to understand that the gold standard has since been replaced by a de facto real estate “standard”. Today money is literally backed by real estate, the same way it used to be backed by gold. It’s almost as if that near religious attitude restrains them from thinking freely. They are not allowed to deviate from the eternal truths of their “Messiah”. For instance Austrians keep yelling “inflation is coming, inflation is coming”, despite the fact that the plummeting real estate prices right now actually means massive deflation in the short term.
They all seam to embrace their ideology in a kinda smug and self important way without the capability to apply it to the world we actually live in right now.
The ideal world would most certainly be how the Austrians envision it. But the road to that ideal world has to deal realistically with the current situation. And their cultish attitude doesn’t allow that and that makes them appear kooky.
The question is why Ron Paul is garnering this amount of support. There is obviously a fair percentage of conservatives attracted to what he represents.
it seems his message is resonating with conservatives tired of invading foreign countries, tired of wiring trillions to European banks, tired of reading tens of billions wasted on Military and social programs that will never work.
He will not be elected President but will certainly shake up the Gop. If the GOP continues to ignore voters supporting Ron Paul, they will lose the next election to President Obama.
A very large portion of The Ron’s support comes from Democrats who’d rather have The Won face The Ron in the general election than any other Republican.
So you can hardly claim that it’s because of his conservative credentials that he got as many votes as he did.
Remember, IA is an open caucus… anyone can walk in, declare themselves a Republican, and vote the same night. And if you don’t think a large number of Democrats did just that, well, I have a bridge to sell you with a marvelous view of San Francisco Bay.
Any proof? Or are you simply using the all knowing intuition of Neo-Con RINO apologists?
This may come as a big surprise, but a fair number of people think his domestic/economic policies outweigh the negatives of his foreign policies. Not everyone is a “one issue” voter. The truth is that none of these candidates have a chance of seeing their platforms fully implemented with the possible exception of Romney, since his would be the second Obama term and the policies are already being put into place.
Give it a rest. The Iowa circus is over and your guy lost. I suppose Ron’s own son is a “neo-con RINO apologist” too, right?
Did Ron’s son say the democrats voted for Paul, or are you saying he is a democrat.
Next time, try responding to what I posted instead of what you wish I’d posted, frankly I get enough of that from libs.
Next time, try responding to what I posted instead of what you wish I’d posted, frankly I get enough of that from libs.
You don’t really want that, do you? My advice would be to avoid making idiotic statements like this one:
The truth is that none of these candidates have a chance of seeing their platforms fully implemented with the possible exception of Romney, since his would be the second Obama term and the policies are already being put into place.
Really? Whatever. And for the record the U.S. economy might not be able to withstand the [nuclear] fallout from Ron Paul’s ridiculous position of appeasing Iran. The U.S. had economic woes in the 1930s, too. How did isolationism work out back then?
A Paulian speaks truth!
I think this statement is patently wrong. The reason dems and liberal independants like Paul is because he has crossover appeal due to his Libertarian stance on social issues. Many minorities and outside social groups glom to the Democrat party because they are told that the democrats will accept them, while many social conservatives explicitly will not accept things like gay rights, legalization, etc. Many of them are becoming painfully aware of the lie of all of this, and are looking for an alternative (the smart ones at least) Ron Pauls social message resonates with these groups. This also explains the somewhat rabid nature of Paulians. They’ve found a leader they feel accepts them and feel the necessity to lash out at those who they feel unfairly criticize him. Social and Neo cons would do well to take note. This is actually a good thing. Libertarians can very well be the death knell of the modern Democrat party. If Libertarians can siphon off off enough of the social minority base of the Democrat party they can put them in an irreversible tailspin. Thats a win win for everyone.
A win-win for everyone?
So what do us social conservatives win in this little equation of yours? RP is getting liberals because he’s throwing us under the bus.
How is there any win except for the Libertarians who get the support they do because their social policy is similar to a liberal one?
Social issues become a lot less meaningful when you are broke or have no control over your own life. Republicans and Libertarians are pretty similar when it comes to fiscal policy ideas. The only real sticking point is the governments roll in legislating morality. Like I said, I vote republican for the most part because despite my misgivings about what I feel are social conservatives pre occupation with telling me what right and wrong are (BTW I’m a christian, and tend to agree morally with the christian right, buts personally, not legislatively) I prefer to have job options, and the ability to cultivate my own financial destiny. Democrats and their socialist kin are the antithesis of everything this country was founded on. I’d rather argue with you about morality and its role in government, than deal with the constant pressure of fighting off socialist creep in my life. There is no good end to that.
Also I think the characterization of throwing social conservatives under the bus is a tad narrow minded. For years Democrats have managed to stay relevant due mostly to keeping these people under their thumb, regardless of the fact that many of them regarded themselves as fiscal conservatives. It can only be a good thing to pull that constiuency away from the democrats and weaken their stranglehold on American politics. Rather than bemoaning the fact that theses socially liberal people are flocking to Ron Paul we should be happy that we are moving them away from the Democrats and weakening their power base. A two party system where both sides could at least see eye to eye on fiscal restraint would be far and away better than what we are dealing with now.
This makes no sense. I suppose if Ron Paul had received say 40% of the vote, his foreign policy views would have been repudiated by 60 to 40.
Makes sense to me. The point is quite clear.
Actually it just seems like wishing to me. The fact is that Iowa is a very socially conservative state, and being pro life does not a social conservative make. Paul may be pro life, but is also for legalizing drugs and prostitution. Views like that don’t sit well with the social conservative set. He could have easily, and probably more likely was hamstrung by his Libertarian stance on social issues than his foregn policy ideas. When people vote they tend to vote close to home, and Iran is pretty far away from Iowa, but the local meth dealer is two doors down.
Why do Republicans seek Government Solutions (AKA BIG GOVERNMENT) to social issues? Is BIG GOVERNMENT only bad when it comes to regulating Exxon? Why isn’t big government also bad when it comes to regulating marriage, drugs, and alcohol?
The problem is is that Social Conservatives are Big Government Republicans, who want to use the monopolistic power of the Government to force people to comply with their social views.
I actually share many of those views. I don’t think people should do drugs. I don’t think people should drink. I think abortion is a horrible thing. I think you should wear your seatbelt and obey traffic safety recommendations. I do NOT think that the government should FORCE you to comply with my wishes, simply because a majority of people presently agree with me.
God has given us free will, social conservatives are bound and determined to make sure we don’t exercise it.
I agree whole heartedly. Thats why I’m a Libertarian. I realized that Republicans still want to tell you what to do, just in a different way. While I almost always vote for Republicans, because lets not fool ourselves, the modern Democrat party is has gone completely socialist, I still promote libertarian values (aside from weakening our defense) and the libertarian party itself. Republicans and Libertartians should be working together to try to eliminate the democrat party all together, instead of sitting here bickering like a bunch 13 year old girls. This type of divisiveness is exactly what allows the Democrat party to maintain its straglehold on our nation.
Yes, it makes no sense, it’s just another of the usual “wishful commenting” by Mr Simon. It’s like saying that the “non Romney candidate won by 75% while Romney was repudiated 75-25″.
I would say that is a fair statement: 75% of Iowans wanted someone other than Romney. Because Romney was the unconservative, 75% of Iowans were saying they wanted someone more conservative or more libertarian.
Didn’t mean to make a political answer in my original post in this thread, but a statistical one. Mr. Simon has just misread statistical info here, that’s it.
1. This is not a Bernoully (binary) experiment
2.- there is a lot of correlation and cross-information here to state what Mr Simon did state
In order to see how many “repudiate” R.Paul posicions you need something more binary, like an hypothetical contest between Mitt Romney and Ron Paul ONLY.
Then, how many of the other candidates’ people will move and join these two candidates?
Bachmann people is more likely to converge around Paul or Romney?
Gingrich people will flow to Paul or Romney?
While I don’t have the answers to this, an experiment like this is what’s needed to know exactly how many people “repudiate” Mr. Paul’s foreign policy ideas.
For instance, as much as I dislike Paul ideas about foreign policy, I’d very much prefer to vote for him instead of Romney. As somebody already stated: you need to be strong in economy in order to successfully defend yourself (that was all about the fall of former Soviet empire), it doesn’t work the other way.
Therefore, even though I dislike Paul ideas, I don’t “repudiate” them. It seems to me that Paul has understood very well where are the priorities. There is a lot of overlapping information in the last poll to just assume assume that.
I’m actually suspect of the point in this article myself, but the point you make is apples to oranges. Mr. Simon’s point was that there were two foreign policy ideals in the running and Paul’s Dovish foreign policy was defeated 2 to 1 Your point was that a singular candidate being beaten by the combined votes of two others amounts to the same things. Now, my problem is that I believe Paul’s foreign policy has little to do with him coming in third. Most voters don’t vote on foreign policy (I do, and I won’t vote for Paul because of it.) A lot of people are voting on economic issues (yes, even in Iowa) and none of the candidates has exactly the same ideas for economics. Rather than placing “dead last” on Dovism, he placed 3rd on economics, which is pretty good. So, Mr. Simon’s point that this is a repudiation of his foreign policy is probably wrong, though I agree with his assessment of that policy.
Admission, Ron Paul is the absolute best on economics and I wish I could vote for him, but I find his foreign policy ideas dangerous. I wish (if wishes were horses) we could have Santorum and Paul rolled into the same candidate. However, the President really has less power in these factors than we like to think and is mostly important for his veto-power. This is one of the reasons I’m a Gingrich supporter. He may have flirted with the moderate left (and occasionally the very far right), but his overly large ego will lead him toward vetoing everything the Dems come up with just to prove he can and, to me, that’s a good thing.
I agree that many of Ron Pauls foreign policy ideas are naive to the extreme, but honestly foreign policy will be moot soon we don’t get our fiscal house in order. Romney or Santorum, although better alternatives than Obama will do little to address the issue of out of control spending. Their records and stated platmorms pretty show that to be true. I’m willing to set aside my very deep reservations about Ron Pauls Isolationist lunacy, because honestly soon we won’t be able to draw up enough funds to continue our agressive military postures. Jets need feul and soldiers need bullets. All that costs money that soom we will no longer have the ability to borrow. Once our politicians get a little fiscal restraint, then we can argue foreign policy. Fiscal policy is todays problem.
Mores the pity as the endless, infinite wars on brown people and MOOOSLIMS is sending the country bankrupt. Economic collapse might force some rationality on foreign policy, but maybe not, they don’t call it the STUPID party for nothing.
The United States of Argentina – Change your getting…
Good point although what we spend on the military still pails in comparison to nobamas overall budget.
Yes, quite right, it “buckets” in comparison
From your comment, it’s hard to tell if you’re a fan of Ron Paul or a far-left fan of Noam Chomsky.
That alone proves why Ron Paul is not a conservative. Conservatives may oppose foreign entanglements but they don’t oppose America being a superpower. Paul seems to, and you certainly do.
I do like Ron Paul but prefer Newt.But imho policing all of the worlds oceans should not be our job.If China and Russia want to fight,let them,If India and Pakistan have a war what would you have us do? Don*t get me wrong,if Russia comes back into our neighborhood thats different.
Yeah,that’s what the isolationists said about Japan all the way up until December 6, 1941. If the isolationists hadn’t been such a strong political force, perhaps we would have done more to deter Japan from attacking us–you know, like we did to the USSR in the Cold War. You can thank non-isolationist policies for keeping our country free.
Isolationists caused Japan to attack? You really should expand your history lesson beyond what you learned in 3rd grade. The US was engaged in baiting Japan. By shutting off supply routes in China and French Indo-China, the US prompted a retaliatory strike against Pearl Harbor. I’m not saying that it was justified, but it was HARDLY the result of isolationist policies.
@Will,
No, I did NOT say isolationists “caused” Japan to attack. You are the one making illogical flying leaps, not me.
It was no secret that our leadership was not being allowed to develop and implement an effective deterrent strategy. (Hint: an effective deterrent strategy does not entail idling half the naval fleet in Pearl Harbor.) The Japanese, however, miscalculated by assuming their attack would send the US into an internal political fight, not retaliation.
Fortunately, we learned our lesson and applied a deterrent strategy against the USSR. Number of Soviet attacks on US soil? Zero.
OZero has turned our defense into a limp-wristed PC apology for America’s existence. Paul will capitalize on that by repeating history: “If we leave them alone, they won’t bother us.”
It doesn’t matter why our adversaries don’t like us. The fact is, they want us weakened or eliminated. Incessant apologia haven’t worked, and neither will hiding in a corner.
The dirty truth here is that our foreign policy adventures have been relatively inexpensive in comparison both to our overall budget and in an historical context.
Yes the Iraq and Afghanistan wars cost less than the stimulus package.
Came to see Paulbot tears….left satisfied.
i love the smell of burnt Paulbot fantasies in the morning…it smells like…victory
LOL, both of you!
Now now, boys, be nice.
This girl doesn’t play nice when it comes to our country’s future.
Alex – Why is Ron Paul resonating with a substantial proportion of the American people?
People are starting to wake up to the fact that “business as usual” in the form of endless printing, bailouts of cronies (GM,TBTF banks,Soylandra), endless infinite wars on everything and a congress striping away peoples constitutional freedoms (NDAA introduced infinite detention WITHOUT trial for AMERICAN CITIZENS and unaccountable STAR COURTS to determine your innocence or guilt – King George III and Stalin are most pleased) 1 violation of the Rule of Law at a time whilst SPENDING 40% MORE than we earn and pushing our debt to GDP past the 100% Banana republic benchmark is likely to end in TOTAL economic collapse and the creation of a new, destitute third world s**thole I call the -
United States of Mexetina
Ron Paul is the ONLY CANDIDATE who is not “business as usual” and has put forward a plan to actually get our finances under control while we still can.
ronpaul’s support is a mile deep…and an inch wide-he’s got the tinfoil hat vote LOCKED UP
Maybe not locked up.
According to NH poll just released, Paul’s numbers are down in New Hampshire from 16 to 14% just ahead of Huntsman (who’s that?) at 9. Romney at 43. Simon is probably right. Paul has reached his high water mark. Maybe the Neville Chamberlain vote.
Here’s how I imagine Paul looked when he realized he finished 3rd. http://bit.ly/zfxqZ6
Yet we need Ron Paul in same sense we need Ayn Rand. The uncompromising ideologue is the one that pull the entire field, to the right, in this case. That’s why Paul’s economic ideas are becoming mainstream.
When the “extreme” freedom fighter disappears, you’re left with the whining progressive/communist parties and their MSM lackeys who will try to pull everything to the Left. It’s thanks to people like Rand, Friedman, Hayek, Havel, Mises, Pacepa, and yes also R.Paul that we really fight back, set the things straight, level the field and even start pulling everything to the Right.
May the Providence always rise heroes like them.
It would be nice if the uncompromising ideologue could figure out that our military expenditures are less than our entitlement expenditures and that cutting the former won’t allow him to pay for the latter. Principles have to be applied to the real world, not used to hide from it. Paul has helped dumb down a lot of young people on economics and on foreign policy.
No offense to you, but that comment shows a good bit of ignorance to Pauls policy stances on both defense and domestic spending. He is not trying to shuffle expenditures by moving money from defense to domestic spending. He is talking about making drastic spending cuts and what irritates neo conservatives most is that he is not leaving defense spending off the table. The simple fact is that defense spending is the single largest portion of the US budget, and although I disagree vehemently with Paul on many foreign policy issues, I do agree that defense spending is not sacrosanct. The military can find a way to restructure, trim fat and maintain battle readiness with the right command mindset. They might want to start with all the slick sleeve, pencil pushing brass pilfering a paycheck at the Pentagon while avoiding getting their hands dirty in the sandbox.
Have you read this?
http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/ron-paul-great-societys-great-defender_615036.html
I have now. I have to say, I’m not terribly impressed. Although I may argue the age a little bit and push it to 30-35, people have paid into the system, refusing to pay out benefits as promised to a system they paid into is tantamount to theft (not that taxes aren’t theft already) Weekly Standard although I read it sometimes is a fairly establishment republican rag, so I’m not suprised at the vitriol directed at Paul, establishment republicans and libertarians don’t get along very well. It something I’ve always found suprising. Personally, if we were going to have a 2 party system, it should be republicans and Libertarians. The democrats need to go. I think we can agree on fiscal policy for the most part, and argue about social issues once the Democrats are ousted from mainstream politics. Anyway, like I said, I’m not a raving Paulian or Paulite or whatever, but honestly fiscal policy should be the focus in 2012 and no one is better at that than Paul. Although I think he lacks ambition. With 1400 federal agencies I’m pretty sure you could get rid of 700 of them and still retain all necessary government services easliy enough.
Defense spending is actually tied with something else for “the single largest portion of the US budget” and even then, it’s only 20% of the overall budget. See http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/02/01/us/budget.html: the national defense budget is $738 billion out of $3.69 trillion; Social Security budget is also $738 billion.
Thanks for that. I guess I have been working on out of date figures. The numbers are changing so quickly these days its hard to catch up.
Unfortunately, many of the antiwar crowd are ideologues, and continue to spout numbers about defense spending that have not been accurate since John Kennedy was President.
1. Defense spending for a long time has been the single largest portion of the US budget. Not now apparently but until very recently, yes.
2. You’d do well not to lump me in with the anti war crowd. I’ve done my time and have enough blood on my hands to know what I’m talking about. I have no problem with agressively defending my nation. Just because I don’t believe that military spending is sacrosanct, doesn’t mean I think we should just lay down our arms and die. I’m not some tree hugging, fishing eating hippy, and you’d do well to remember that.
Care to give a source for that? What I can find shows defense spending as a percentage of GDP, not overall budget. But even after 9/11, it was less than half what it was in 1962.
I didn’t. I pointed out that many of those promoting this claim of extraordinary defense spending (and which many Ron Paul supporters read, and believe) are incorrect.
Here’s a pretty good resource. Like I said. Until recently defense was the single largest portion of the US budget. That also depends on how you look at the numbers. Most conservatives will lump all entitlement spending together. When you do that it far outweighs defense spending (which is abhorrent in my opinion), but when you break entitlements into their major components, which I feel is a more honest breakdown, defense edged out other federal spending blocks. Now any fool can see that entitlements spending is out of control and needs major reform, but DoD is no spendthrift either, and has a history of wasting vast sums of tax dollars on useless crap. All areas of spending are and should be on the table. To say otherwise is ignoring problems that will later come back and bite you in the ass. I’m not some wierd patchouli smelling peacenik banging on drums and talking about the great spirit over here. I just like to take a honest assessment of a situation and make my conclusions based on the facts at hand.
oops, forgot the resource…… http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/fed_spending_2009USrn
Tea Party
To respond to Roger Simons fear of the ideaolically pure, I would say this. Better one that is ideaoloically pure, than one who is morally bankrupt. I used to be very hawkish on Middle East Policy until I joined the Military. Now 300 trauma encounters later, and much wiser, I’m beginning to see how policies we pursue overseas have unintended consequences at home. America itself is not to blame, but leaders who think that propping up brutal dictators in the name of “stability” rather than promoting our true values of freedom, self reliance, and vibrant free markets gives others abroad the idea that America is a bully. I make no exscuses for our enemies abroad, but one thing is true, our foreign policy is hamfisted, ignorant and poorly executed. It needs a very serious re assessment. I will probably vote for Ron Paul although I disagree strongly with many of his foreign policy ideas. He is the only candidate who expresses a love of true liberty, as well as being the only candidate to propose a very specific budget. Romney is a fake, and although I’ve always admored Newt he’s far to technocratic and I get the impression he will simply shuffle peices rather than make any true lasting changes. In the end though whomever becomes the candidate will get my vote.
Jacob, thanks for your service. Your comments are centered , thoughtful and balanced. I am a Baby Boomer entrepreneur in the Mid south who has seen many of my customers and employees go hungry and lose their homes because of the systematic bankruptcy of the individual wealth in this country.
Government is way too big, way too powerful. Our protection of our borders is a joke for the last twelve years and more. Our top down educational model is a joke (My wife is a life time educator and doubled the size of a Catholic school that was about to close with technology, values, prayer and great, motivated teachers)! The never ending wars is beyond the pale (I was for them until we started droning in Pakistan, carpet bombing in Libya and threatening war on Syria, Iran and anybody else who has oil, a non central bank and Gold in the vaults. We have a President who has shut down oil drilling in Alaska, The Gulf, and the shipments of jobs and oil from canada via the Keystone pipeline.
All Roger wails about is that RP won’t go willy nilly into Iran to kill and an additional million, mostly innocent, Iranian citizens when we are being systematically robbed by the Fed, by the EPA, our food grossly mutated by the FDA, chemtrails in our skies almost every day spewing God knows what, our water flouridated and vaccines created that have helped increase the autism rate to the highest in the world, and nobody else is close.
Thanks Jacob, glad I get that off my chest!
Thanks for the comment. I would like to mention though, don’t let my disgust with our current and past leadership, and the execution of our backwards mostly wasted foreign policy efforts fool you. I have less than zero sympathy for our enemies in the countries we wage war in. In my mind Iran is enemy number 1, they have provided materail and technical support to terrorists in Iraq that was responsible for a large number of US service member and civilian casualties. That may not be their citizens, but it is their army. I would flatten that whole nation and every one in between if it meant that one service members life was spared. That goes for Afghanistan and Iraq. The problems we have in the conflicts we have mired ourselves in, in my mind is not that they are unwinnable, its that current doctrine makes them so. When you go to war, you go all in. Once you’ve subjugated the enemy, then you can start worrying about hearts and minds. Do I think we should be in these places, no. But we are, so we should be crushing our enemies without mercy. Then once they figure out that fighting is useless, you can worry about hearts and minds. Inversely that sendsa a message to other nations that are thinking about acting up, and they might take a step back and re think their strategy.
The thing is your views on foreign policy, as you stated in this post, differ from Ron Paul’s. He isn’t just someone who is okay with “cutting defense”. He is an isolationist. Take it from a former Paulbot, I voted for him in 08. I thought he was the second coming of Thomas Jefferson. Then I realized that the middle east doesn’t hate us because of our military intervention (given their mindsets, they are likely barely even insulted by it). They hate us because we are westernizing them. It is our business, our corporations, our trade that makes them hate us. They don’t hate us for those of them that we kill. They don’t hate us for our “freedom”. They hate us for Coca Cola and McDonald’s. And, from a constitutional (Paulite) standpoint, we have NO right to tell those corporations to stop, therefore we have to accept the consequence that it brings and act accordingly.
Of course they differ from Ron Pauls. I’ve actually been to these places, honestly all the candidates views on foreign policy are naive and poorly formed. Although I can’t say for certain, I’m pretty sure none of them has ever stepped foor in any of these countries. My foreign policies views changed drastically after actually being in Iraq and Afghanistan. Saying that is all thier hatred of our culture is not completely accurate, nor is it accurate as Paul says that its all our interventionist policies that cause their anger. I think both hold some blame for how we are viewed overseas. The image we project in the middle east is not one of expanding freedom and liberal values. Its one of protecting assets at the expense of others freedom. We promote regional “stability” at the expense of others freedom. Add that in with the collossal foreign policy blunders that the US has propogated in the region (any one remember us abandoning the Iraqi rebels after the first gulf war after promising them air support in an uprising against Saddam. As I said, all of the candidates make simplistic statements based on their extremely limited knowledge of the middle east. They have no breadth of experience or knowledge to draw from, so its hard to take any of them seriously. On the other hand Paul is a econ wiz and the only candidate to propose an actual budget. Do you really think any of the other candidates with any momentum (with the possible exeption of gingrich) is going to do anything but kick the can down the road, as we head towards a slow ignomious decline. The US is on the verge of economic collapse, THAT is the real problem. You can’t fight a war with no money, and no one to lend it to you, and we are fast approaching that point. First we start paying our bills, once that is done we can talk foriegn policy.
Honestly though my foreign policy stance is simple. When some one attacks us we stamp them out bratally with zero tolerance. If I had my way Iram would be a burning pile of rubble by now. They’ve been involved in very explicit cooperation with our enemies in Iraq, and whether you believe we should have been there or not, that is not acceptable. I understand the stategy of trying foment a polular uprising and that attacking Iran would solidify popular support against the US, but Obama pretty much screwed the pooch on that one. Because US politics is so fluid the type of long term strategies our foreign policy analysts envision are impossible. Anything we are trying to do has to be able to be completed in 8 years or less. Longer term strategies are a pipe dream.
Now, now. If Paul and his enthusiasts have proved anything, it’s that ideological purity and moral bankruptcy can coëxist quite snugly.
so, you stopped reading at the second line, what a fool! If you had actually read the entire comment you might have had a chance to contribute something positively.
A little fairness, man–we can’t all be rocket scientists and littérateurs like yourself! Still, I’m not sure what part of the original post disproves what I said, or improves the lunatic proposition that “no foreign policy” beats “flawed foreign policy.”
Its still early in the process,its still an open highway. With 5 sons of a dangerous age i seem to have a different opinion in that of course i disagree with having troops in every country! The strongest in a small town shouldn*t necessarily be the cop.The stronger we are the weaker our allies become,and surely we will need them.
“The strongest in a small town shouldn*t necessarily be the cop.”
Who should be the cop in the world?
Who should safeguard freedom of the seas and freedom of the air?
Free trade is only possible if it’s free from piracy and terrorism.
Free trade blossomed in the 19th century under the protection of the British Royal Navy, which swept piracy from the seas with an assist from the new American Navy.
But now Britain has shrunk back to a second-rate power.
If we don’t do the job, who will?
Seriously. How will world peace be maintained without America? And in a globalized world, can America prosper in a world in flames?
“Who should be the cop in the world?”
- No one.
“Who should safeguard freedom of the seas and freedom of the air?”
- Countries should safeguard their own air.
“Free trade is only possible if it’s free from piracy and terrorism.”
- Free trade does depend on getting rid of pirates when they come up, but America doesn’t have to have its fingers in everyone’s pie for that.
“But now Britain has shrunk back to a second-rate power.”
- They are Sepoys of the US.
“How will world peace be maintained without America?”
- The world is at PEACE right now? Good Lord, sir. Sit with me five minutes and I will point out well over A DOZEN wars in full progress at this moment.
“And in a globalized world, can America prosper in a world in flames”
- We’ve done it before.
Back in ’85 I was a huge Bears fan. After “Da Bears” won the super bowl and the teams were leaving the field I watched in horror as the Bears fans started spitting on the Patriots head coach Raymond Berry. I never could get behind the bears again after that. I now watch in horror as the right wing main stream media is doing the same thing to Paul AND his supporters. Isolationist my ass… NOT what he said, NOT what he meant. Distotions and lies. Go ahead, spit on Paul and his supporters. We will end up with a main stream guy that will lose… or win… it won’t matter because NOTHING will change. We will get what we already have. It makes my face burn red to see the likes of Bill, Sean, Mark, and yes PJ Media stoop as low as they have. They have no shame.
You’re slowly coming to the realization that conservative is nothing more than a marketing slogan to the republican establishment and it’s lackeys on talk radio. The only thing they believe in is endless war and sweetheart deals for their friends. The only difference between them and the democrats is who gets the insider deals.
Cliche. Cliche. CLICHE!.
What’s a cliche?
Hugh Hewitt is running promos where he says that he would vote for Obama over Paul. Obama the crypto marxist. So obviously he sees an anti-war president as a greater threat than a marxist one – by his own standards.
Wrong. And I’m actually offended by your post. One, the majority of the vitriol comes FROM the Paulites toward what they call RINOs and “neo-cons” and it gets pretty nasty at times. Two, he most assuredly IS an isolationist and makes no bones about it. Heck, it’s why I voted for him in ’08. I liked the idea of isolationism. We have little patience with Ron Paul’s foreign policy ideals, true. They are not grounded in reality. But most of the pundits go after his ideas, not the man, and often do so civilly, but Ron Paul started this campaign by attempting to vilify every candidate not him. And the supporters…I stopped being a Ron Paul supporter BEFORE I stopped believing in his isolationism and it is precisely because of the nasty attacks you attribute to those who differ with, which actually usually starts with and comes mostly from the Ron Paul camp itself.
The GOP died in Iowa last night. Here’s a toast to four more years of Chairman “O”.
There will be no US foreign policy future if the domestic side is not fixed. I don’t know why this is so hard for so many of you to understand. The US is fast headed to the point where it won’t have the wealth to maintain a multi-fleet navy capable of actually attacking Iran, let alone deploying any substantial amount of ground troops on their soil.
Santorum, Gingrich and Romney are all profligate spenders whose only plan is “cut taxes and cross your fingers that revenues will rise.” Ron Paul was and is the only candidate with a serious proposal to cut the deficit immediately by $1 trillion his first year.
You people are absolutely sickeningly ignorant. You’re as idiotic as the Argentines who supported Peron and his movement and turned Argentina from the 8th largest economy in the world (and a military world power) into a has-been state.
Took the words out of my mouth. Excellent post. When the credit/banking system seizes up due to all the over-leveraging and money printing you’ll realize that our biggest problems are internal. Purist never make statements like “we had to set aside free market policies to save the free market” either. I can sure tell that idea worked out now that another debt ceiling is about to be breached (debt ended the year 103% of GDP). Besides, it’s not idealogical purity to follow the Constitution which is Paul’s main point. Lex Rex.
Our Navies float on a strong economy,and there are many types of wars.We have been loosing the economic and new creative product wars for awhile now.China is schooling us on economic war every day! Our loosing the battle of the market place is sucking jobs out of this country like a vaccum cleaner from Hell!
Okay, all the wonderful comments here have convinced me. I am now a follower of The Ron!
The Ron is pure!
The Ron is true!
The Ron is good!
Whatever The Ron says is true. The Ron cannot be wrong.
It is blasphemous to point out what The Ron said in the past.
It is blasphemous to create an unflattering image of The Ron.
When The Ron dies, He will rise again in two days, beating the previous record!
Disciples of The Ron will publish The Book Of Ron, which will be read by billions.
The Church Of The Ron will replace all previous (false) religions!
/snark off
You guys didn’t think I really meant that, did ya?
Big Winner: 1 vote out of 4 cast
Close 2nd: 1 vote out of 4 cast
Repudiated: 1 vote out of 5 cast
I’m having trouble integrating your realities.
To use isolated numbers like everyone else seems to be doing, it would be safe to point out that it would then seem as if EVERY SINGLE CANDIDATE has been ‘repudiated’.
Indeed. Looking at the raw numbers this morning, the only “sure losers” in the bunch were Bachmann and Perry. The latter is now enroute back to Texas to decide if the campaign is still worth proceeding with.
Gingrich finished behind Paul, and Romney and Santorum edged him for a photo finish. If one or the other hadn’t been there, it could have been either (a) Paul getting buried in a landslide or (b) ending up a close second.
Since both were there, the result looks less like there’s one or two front-runners right now than it does like the title of that old James Coburn movie, “Dead Heat On A Merry-Go-Round”.
The next round of primaries should be interesting, to say the least.
cheers
eon
We used to laugh at Democrats for their Bush-derangement-syndrome. Now I see Paul-deranged columns everyday.
“I have been attacked by some in the comments because I harp too much on Paul”
I salute and thank you. PJM has done a great service by casting a spotlight on Ron Paul, his ridiculous isolationist foreign policy in the age of bio-weapons and radical Islam and his cowardly and dishonest refusal to give a coherent explanation to the massive amount of evidence showing that he was closely associated with and profited hugely from “Ron Paul” newsletters and their regular flow of racist and anti-Semitic content.
Ron Paul is a shady, shifty character who won’t answer a straight question.
He has NO chance of winning national office. He’s a circus freak sideshow.
He’s a waste of time, energy and effort that could be put to much better use in the Republican Party.
I do hope he stays in the race, however. It makes the anti-military, hate the Jews crowd of the left look really ridiculous, because HE is THEIR candidate.
And…if he can capture enough nutjobs…while Romney vs. Santorum rumbles on…nobody will get enough support prior to the convention…and we can bring in the “A” team and discard these backbenchers.
Yet when members of the military are polled, they voice overwhelming support for Ron Paul.
I do share your hope that we get a deadlocked nomination with somebody else picked at the convention.
The hell they do, you worthless bastard.
Sorry, that one moonbat on the base with an Infowars bumper sticker isn’t “the vast majority”.
Deal with it.
Tough talk redskin – watch the firewater and check your sources.
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/12/22/soldiers-choice/
http://content.usatoday.com/communities/onpolitics/post/2011/07/ron-paul-military-campaign-donations-/1
In my calculation all the candidates, using your gauge, were rejected by 75% or more. Simple explanations are more suspect and less useful than simple solutions. Ron Paul has major across the board debits, stemming mainly from lack of leadership. As an example his handling of the newsletter controversity, which will not go away, was Obamaesk. After 20 odd years a reasonable person would assume he would have figured out that a) he screwed up, b) where and how he screwed up, and most importantly c) how to keep from doing so again, instead we get, “Not my fault.” If we want someone who sherks his responsibility in the Oval office, we already have one, no change necessary.
“And when solutions get too simple, it’s been my experience that people have that odd habit of getting in the way.” Here again you misanalyzed the situation! The level of complexity is not relevant to people getting in the way. My experience has been that solutions are like machines, the more moving parts the greater the likely hood of failure. If you disbelieve, I direct you to the U.S. Government solutions, and their elegant costly failures.
Lastly Ron Paul’s solutions are not wrong because they are simple, they are just wrong!
The Senator had the look of someone who wished he were someplace else.
I had the exact thought seeing Rand Paul standing with dad (and mom) in the afternoon before the vote, silent (except when asked a direct question) and looking uncomfortable.
If the hate filled, insult laden responses of supposed conservatives towards many people who consider some of RP’s thoughts is their way of cultivating votes for the Republican candidate, they have a strange way of currying favor for Republicanism.
I have always voted Republican, always supported our wars but am amazed at the vitriol that comes from the Right against anyone who even wants to have a honest conversation about Republican candidates. I am not a Paulbot, would frankly have preferred if Sarah had run, or Paul Ryan though I think he does need seasoning. But the amount of name calling from the Right against people who support or even listen to RP for many of the areas of economics is mind blowing. I wish all of you well and will continue to strive to have the most conservative, values oriented, war only as a last option candidate. Regardless of the name calling, I am all about AOB (Anyone But Obama). But you guys are poisoning the well with your use of snarky criticism, name calling and generic criticisms of Conservatives and Independents who aren’t all in for RINO’s.
Comments like this just crack me up…
You Paul haters seem oblivious to the fact that if Iran nukes us or hits us with a bio-weapon, the US Navy and Air Force can each reduce the entire territory of Iran to radioactive rubble in under an hour after the first strike. There is no proportionality in what we can do to them. They’re like an ankle-biter dog that is threatening to contract rabies and bite us with the full knowledge we can get a rabies shot and kick their head in.
How will we know if a biological weapon (or even a nuclear weapon) came from Iran? Or did it come from North Korea? Or was it independently developed by al-Qaeda? (Not likely, but at least possible.) The danger is that if Iran builds uranium bombs (which are really well suited to terrorism, because they are limited to 400 kt, and are so simple that they require no testing in advance), it will likely arrange for third party non-state actors to deliver them.
Some fair points, but you assume that Iran would be treated like a defendant in an American criminal court if that happened. Al Qaeda and groups like them cannot really function without the support of sponsor states. It’s a fair bet that the US would lash out wildly against every major Islamic state sponsor of terrorism.
What most Paul haters don’t seem to understand is that this is uncharted territory. No state has ever been hit with a genuine WMD terrorist attack of any significance (gas attacks like the Aum Shinryoko attack don’t count). If that happens, no one knows how our government reacts. Depending on the severity of the attack, our own military might retaliate without political authority if the political authority acts too weakly against suspect states.
I cannot picture the U.S. using nuclear weapons on a country on the “we think you probably did this, but we have no clear evidence” basis. That’s why it is important to prevent Iran from getting to this point.
What makes you think that can be prevented? How do you know they don’t already have safehouses for their key researchers in Pakistan or Russia ready for the moment we invade or try to assassinate them? What makes you think they won’t just buy a few off the Pakistanis or North Koreans to get revenge on us if we invade them?
Nuclear weapon production isn’t about the knowledge. Every country has researchers who know how to build uranium fission bombs.
The production facilities are a bit more complicated, and do not spring up over night. Those can be destroyed. A direct attack is almost certainly the worst possible option–except for allowing Iran to start production.
If a covert Iranian lab produces a bio-weapon, passes it through Hezbollah criminal contacts in Latin America, and then smuggles it into the US in a bale of marijuana, how would you go about linking it to Iran? Of course we can just trust Khameni, Ahmadinijad and the IRGC not to do such a nasty thing.
Regarding your dismissal of the threat of Iranian nuclear weapons, the immediate risk would be that it would provide them with a shield from which to expand their radical and aggressive foreign policy and support for terrorism. N. Korea and Pakistan present a modest example of the threat of such “rogue” nations acquiring a nuclear umbrella. The Islamic Republic of Iran would present a much greater threat. Its constitution (see Article 154) explicitly requires it to support “the just struggles of the mustad’afun (oppressed) against the mustakbirun (oppressors) in every corner of the globe”. That’s why they are involved in assassination, subversion and terrorism in the Middle East, Europe and Latin America.
US military might hasn’t seemed to deter the Iranians from terrorism since 1979, including causing an estimated 800 US military dead in Iraq via techniques ranging from improved IEDs to kidnapping. Good luck deterring them after they acquire nuclear weapons.
With what military forces and money are you going to invade a country that is 3x more populous than Iraq while occupying Afghanistan with a significant percentage of our regular army and our nation bleeding out the eyeballs in debt? Paul is the only candidate calling for bringing our troops home and actually genuinely securing our borders and ending this immigration fiasco. That’s the only shot we have against this scenario unless you have a cool $2T and 300k fresh troops to loan the DoD.
If the only threat to the U.S. was terrorists entering our country, the approach that Ron Paul wants might have some merit. (Although the ACLU will never allow it, so it’s only a pipe dream.) The problem is that terrorists represent a serious threat to our trading partners, and over time, they can be neutralized or turned against us by terrorist actions. The U.S. will not last long as an economic power without trade.
1. I’ve read lots of (open source) proposals to eliminate the Iranian regime and its nuke program. Many involve subversion, economic warfare, bombing, SOFs, and even occupation of key points such as Kharg Island. None of these plans involved a multi-corps invasion of 300,000 soldiers.
2. The Iranian threat is not going to go away, even if Ron Paul puts on his red shoes, taps them three times and wishes we were back in 1827. The mullah-regime of Iran will become more dangerous and more expensive to deal with once it fields nuclear weapons and uses them as an umbrella to protect inherent policies of international aggression and terrorism.
And I would point you to the results of the “Millennium Challenge 2002″ war game to remind you that if Iran is half as serious and fanatical as many of you fear, Iran might be able to do far more damage than you can imagine to our forces.
It is an overly simplistic generalization to lump people as “Paul haters”.
No hate, just jaw dropping amazement when he says stuff, as he did in the republican debate just before Christmas, that there is “no evidence” that Iran is developing a nuclear weapon.
The notion that the United States, if attacked, could turn Persia to dust doesn’t reassure me much. And Iran doesn’t yet even have the long range delivery capacity to reach the United States, not even Tel Aviv for that matter. Europe should be uncomfortable with the notion of Iran achieving delivery capacity, being a much closer target.
But that isn’t to say, contrary to RP’s blithe statement, that the Iranians aren’t working day in and day out to remedy those limitations.
There is no hate here for Ron Paul, I can see. Many of us love his economics. But there’s plenty of hate from Paul fans for non-Paul-fans. We’re haters, warmongers, rinos, neo-cons, even idiots; anything they can say to cover up their complete lack of rational argument. I’m no “establishment” guy here, I’m mostly a Randian myself (You’d think that’d make me a Paul fan, right? Yaron Brooke isn’t either, so that’s not really so much the case.) What arguments they do have are outdated statistics, blatant assumptions, appeals to authority (most troops support him is my favorite) and a whole army of logical fallacies typically popular with leftists (most prevalent is false equivalency [they disagree with me; therefore they must hate me], which is the same conservatives are mean because they poke holes in our theories logic the Dems use.)
What you Paulites need to realize is that he could win if it weren’t for you. What hurts Paul’s campaign more than his naive foreign policy is his association with people the mainstream perceive as crazy. You do nothing with your irrational and emotionally charged rhetoric to allay that perception. I know you’re not crazy, for my part I think you’re naive and misguided, but you sure act like you’re crazy. I assume that is because you are passionate. More power to you. But you have to learn temperance. Not only do you offend and insult people like me, which has no bearing on you, but you make the rest of the electorate think you’re crazy, and by proxy, your favored candidate. Also, many of you use the style “He’s the only candidate who can…”. That looks worse from outside than you seem to think. It looks like worship.
For the record, that post wasn’t a “response” to yours, tanstaafl, but a “follow up”.
Ron Paul is the soldier who will not fire his rifle.
old guyinternet tough guy (fixed your username for you!)But if it is not proper, moral and just to fire the rifle at that time, then how is this caricature wrong, or even insulting?
Paul is a savant: brilliant at economics and the role of the state—clueless about defense and foreign policy.
Thats about exactly how I feel about him. He’s clueless on foreign policy, but brilliant with Econ. But to be honest, how many presidents are great foreign policy guys, Reagan was the last one I would say was great, and even he had his flaws. Other than him and possibly Nixon, who was a corrupt, paranoid power monger (not a terrible president though) I can’t think of a single president who I trusted on foreign policy. So they can talk all they want, none of them really know anything until they sit behind the desk and start getting breifed, and even then most of them are pretty clueless
Isolationism used to be a perfectly honorable position. But Perl Harbor and 9/11 demonstrated that it is no longer a practical position for the United States.
We have enemies. They are not going to go away if we try to withdraw from the world. Leaving them undisturbed will only allow them to gather strength.
While I will agree that our enemies will stay, there is no exscuse to continue on the antiquated build up phase that we’ve been in for the past 65 years. Is there really a reason to have 40 bases in Germany? or 20 in South Korea? Maybe one in each of those countries to provide a jumping ground for theatre operations, but we have bases everywhere for no good reason other than we were there once and decided to stay. Its a massive waste of money and resources that could be re allocated to better weapons, lighter armor systems, or more advanced security systems. Instead the military spends its money on rent payments, COLA, and god knows what else to house soldiers in a country that doesn’t want them there for no good reason. Forcing the military to restructure and cut costs is not a bad thing. They are not saints, they wastes millions of dollars on useless crap. And remember, its hard to fight a war when you have no money and no one wants to lend it to you anymore.
Actually, most countries with U.S. bases want them to stay. Iceland, in particular, was quite heartbroken when we left in 2006.
The businesses and governments want us to stay, because they understand how much money a 20 year old with disposable income can spend. General population is usually pretty ambivilent for the most part, or only slightly hostile. The younger population dislikes US presence intensely in most countries because they are ignorant and never held a job or owned a business and don’t understand how much money service members blow on alcohol and other stupid crap. The point, remains the same whether they like us or not, an assessment has to be made whether our presence is tactically necessary, and cost effective. If it isn’t then the base should be shut down.
I was not aware that 20 year old service members were awash in cash. Maybe at Subic Bay, where the surrounding population was desperately poor. But in Germany?
They don’t need to be rolling in the dough. They don’t have to pay for housing or food (for the most part) that leaves alot of free money to blow on booze and well more booze. also factor in tax free deployment money, and you have alot of cash being pumped into the local economy. Some of the towns that were built up around Army bases in Germany flat out disapeared once they shut down (no that I care much) because without SMs blowing thier paycheck partying, and buying crap they don’t need there was nothing left to support the community. The first ones to start crying when a post in Germany gets the axe is the businesses.
Thats because the businesses and government know how much money a young service member can blow in one weekend. Be that as it may, the military needs to re assess the cost and tactical necessity of many of its overseas bases. There is no need for many of them, other than we’ve always been there. A few tactical bases is acceptable. What we have now is vast waste of taxpayer dollars.
Precisely. One has to be prepared to adjust one’s position based on present reality. Obama is doctrinaire, too; in the face of all opposing evidence, he refuses to adjust his position. This makes him stupid and dangerous.
And what would you do, invade a sovereign country that has not actually attacked us?
I do agree on one point that a full drawback within US borders is a huge error in judgement, but at the same time our current footprint is far too large and cumbersome. We need to reassess our force and make it more agile. Having strategically place airbases and naval bases allows our force to strike anywhere in the world if necessary. having hundreds of bases all over the place is just a waste of resources and money.
And oddly enough, even the Bush Administration recognized this, and we closed some foreign bases.
Yeah, and they are making a huge mess of it During execution
Iran has attacked us, repeatedly, through its proxies.
Then what are you waiting for in insisting that we make war on them?
I actually mentioned that in an earlier post
don’t let my disgust with our current and past leadership, and the execution of our backwards mostly wasted foreign policy efforts fool you. I have less than zero sympathy for our enemies in the countries we wage war in. In my mind Iran is enemy number 1, they have provided materail and technical support to terrorists in Iraq that was responsible for a large number of US service member and civilian casualties. That may not be their citizens, but it is their army. I would flatten that whole nation and every one in between if it meant that one service members life was spared. That goes for Afghanistan and Iraq.
I think some people get the impression that if you find defense spending cuts acceptable you are somehow anti war, but just take a look at public schools more money hasn’t helped them much. You can cut back the funding and shed alot of dead weight getting rid of shitbag service members who are already infecting the ranks with thier uselessness and have a stronger more capable force.
Mike T asked: “And what would you do, invade a sovereign country that has not actually attacked us?”
Instead of your hypothetical, let’s talk about Iran, which has been attacking us through terrorism and subversion since 1979 …
The evidence is extensive that Iran supported and engaged in deadly attacks on our soldiers in Iraq (http://www.defenddemocracy.org/media-hit/more-on-irans-brazen-terrorist-plots and http://iranlegislation.wikispaces.com/file/detail/kyl-lieberman+modified+iran+amendment+9-26-07.doc).
So … is Paul prepared to even acknowledge Iran’s acts of war against us?
So why did we invade Iraq instead of Iran, since Iraq never went to war against the US? (If you look at the timeline as a whole, we went to war against Iraq first in Operation Desert Storm and then anything Iraq did to us under the traditional norms of war was a response to our armed aggression against Iraq under the aegis of the UN; Iraq has never been a bona fide aggressor against the United States)
Why is that 9/11 and Pearl Harbour show something to US?
If those episodes showed something, it was to the enemies not to mess with the U.S. of A. That’s what Pearl Harbor and 9/11 demonstrated.
You can’t prevent the appearance of bad people, or the attacking of bad people, you should just be able to retaliate and crush them completely -a posteriori
I’ve been suspicious of Ron Paul’s rise from the beginning. And Iowa’s lax standards that allow voters to switch parties for these primaries makes it all too convenient to orchestrate an “operation chaos” as Limbaugh has mobilized in the past.
I’d say Ron Paul is as electable as Sarah Palin, even though Ron is way ahead of Sarah at this point.
Hooray! With Paul gone we can get back to politics as usual.
Uh, wait. Paul won a huge percentage, irrespective as to who voted. I don’t think Paul can win, though it would be great to have someone in office that knows what little, small federal government would be like. As to foreign policy, do you think threatening war with Iran is sane? My God, that is as stupid as it gets. We are broke, we can’t make war with anyone. Russia and China would not let us touch Iran. Now what would a nuclear Iran do? NOTHING. If they did, they would be wiped off the face of the earth.
Actually if we were going to strike Iran this would be the time. It would be nothing like Iraq or Afghanistan. No nation building. No boots on the ground. We already have plenty of assets in place to do the job and cheaper to do it now than after we ship all that home.
Waiting just allows Iran to build more defenses and missiles. A prolonged buildup would risk China and Russia sending in more assets such as advanced air defense.
They are already giving us the provocation by threatening our carrier and traffic through the Straits. Just sail right in and see what happens. Call their bluff. If we blink now we could lose that vital waterway and encourage more aggression. If they do nothing we still win and dont need to change policy at all. If they try and fire on our ships or mine the straits they will lose what little air force and navy they have and we can hit the nuke facilities at the same time. If they try to retaliate by launching missiles at Israel like Saddam did we unleash the IAF.
The problem with the “what would Iran do = nothing” formula is that it does not answer the question of why they want one so badly to begin with. So much so, that they are trashing their economy and conventional military. This from a nation with a rust bucket navy threatening the 5th fleet for crying out loud. Doesn’t add up. They are not going through all this trouble for nothing.
Those in the GOP Establishment talk about limiting government spending and deregulation, but spending and government reach continue to grow. Those who support Ron Paul do so because he alone takes a sincere and principled position on reducing the size and scope of the federal government. Economic libertarians are an important part of the GOP base yet the most disrespected. Does anyone really believe Romney will be a deficit hawk, or will he be just more of the same?
They continue to grow because Americans don’t stand for much of anything. This country is dying.
Its true his foreign policy views have not resonated with more than a few Americans. Too bad. Roman Republic was a much better place than the Roman Empire. Same goes for the American Republic.
Robert Wright has written a good pice on the morality of Ron Paul’s foreign policy:
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2012/01/the-greatness-of-ron-paul/250827/
The Ron Paul supporter view of history: George W. Bush = Caligula. LoL
20 years of war in Vietnam.
30 minutes in Grenada
40 years if cold war with the Soviets
10 years of war in Iraq
10 years of war in Afghanistan
What did we get out of it? A TSA cavity search and some nice Vietnamese made furniture?
Am I safer? Am I free’er? Am I better off? Do my kids have some kind of a future?
Romney? Santorum? SSDD IMHO.
In 1942 we were isolationists. We were attacked. We turned around and utterly destroyed our attackers. I’m not seeing a downside.
Here is a novel idea. We could start cultivating our domestic energy sources which would hopefully in 10 years or so provide a majority of our domestic energy needs. Then as soon as we have our own oil sources pumping up that sweet, sweet crude, and have the refineries online to make good old petrol, we cal flip the bird to the whole Middle East. Then when we aren’t around anymore, maybe they’ll start to blame China for all their problems.
I saw a hilarious cartoon with Ron Paul dressed up as Uncle Sam, bent over eagerly receiving an Iranian nuclear armed ICBM wielded by an Islamic Mullah.
The only man that can save America!
Not at all fair. I believe that Ron Paul has allowed his desire for a consistent and cheap military policy to delude about the nature of our enemies. I am sure if war started, he would fight back.
The real problem with Ron Paul is that his foreign policy would destabilize the world, and then would would have at minimum multiple regional hot wars between powerful nations…which would most likely turn into a global world war..with far more casualties than these minor squirmishes.
No cost savings there. Though I suppose we could get the economy going again with arms and ammo sales and total war mobilization.
He makes it more likely that we will have major conflicts, with serious expanding threats to our national security. No matter how much he blames the Jews and American foreign policy for the bellicose hostility of the Arabs/Muslims.
Ron Paul is a dangerous nutjob.
That sounds like a vulgar cartoon.
Regarding Paul, I expect that he would, at least, respond to an overt conventional attack against the US. But, that is an easy “A” and not the source of the unease that Reagan Republicans feel towards Paul.
The problem is that, despite Iran’s record since 1979 of covert and unconventional attacks against the US, their aggressive program to acquire nuclear weapons and the clear manifestation of their hostile intent towards the US and our allies, Paul and his extreme supporters pretend it is not a threat (not too different from how they ignore the clear evidence that Paul was closely involved in and profited from his racist newsletters).
Meanwhile, the REPUBLICAN wing of the Republican Party (in contrast with the Teddy Roosevelt/neocon wing of the Party which finds a home here at PJMedia) is fairly pleased with Paul’s 21 percent showing.
http://www.theamericanconservative.com/blog/2012/01/04/does-the-future-belong-to-ron-paul/
Ron Paul is talking about reality – which will rap us on the knuckles sooner than we like. The neocon ‘invade the world, invite the world’ republican wing has destroyed the country and destabilized much of the world. I guess that’s the ‘creative destruction’ they so relish.
One asks, how could they support policies that have :
a. increased Islamic militancy
b. wiped out or threaten to wipe out the Christian populations of middle east countries where Christianity has been a presence for two thousand years.
The answer is pretty simple and pretty ugly too.
Honestly, the idea that our policies increase militancy is a little naive. The US is being used as a scapegoat by totalitarian leaders who use the evil west as a scapegoat to deflect criticism of thier own brutal and opressive regimes. And since thier political leaders and religious leaders are one and the same, its easy to propogate the idea that the vile and evil west is the one responsible for all their worldly woes. At the same time most of these governments are selling us oil and using the money to prop up their corrupt regimes, and letting their people starve. To the militants its a war of ideaology and religion. To the leaders its a convenient way to avoid popular uprising against them. Our constant intervention just re affirms and re inforces the narrative that we are evil and must be destroyed. Our best bet is to cultivate our domestic energy sources, extricate ourselves from the middle east financially, and politically, and let the whole damn region implode. Or maybe they will attack Irael again and they can kick the crap out of them again
if paul had won the lead would have been ” Romney and Santorum come in second and third”
The blatant attempts of the media to smear paul, for allegedly liberal and conservative papers to close ranks shows just how corrupt out system is.
Isn’t it “funny” that the Weekly Standard’s smear of Ron Paul shows up in the liberal NYT?
Even Amy Goodman of Democracy now, tried to undermine Paul’s candidacy.
Why would an ‘antiwar’ reporter verbatim repeat long discredited neocon propaganda?
If Ron Paul’s foreign policy is such a failure, as you claim, why did the establishment media spend so much time pulling news letters from 1992, and all sorts of other silly distractions, that is, when not ignoring him?
The neoconservatives and ‘liberal’ elite have stifled debate on immigration and on foreign policy – effectively keeping it out of the national conversation.
Both current policies will effectively end what’s left of the republic. perhaps that’s the point.
btw Ron Paul Supporter, I meant to direct this question to the writer not you
Ron Paul did not start out with the question of how to make America safer and then craft a policy around that. He begins with a Libertarian principle (non-aggression) and then tries to explain how that will work to make America safer.
He is principled and I have been around libertarianism long enough to understand the idea. In general a hawkish (L)ibertarian is a contradiction in terms.
Libertarianism is not about creating a social utopia. That is what collectivists try to do. It is about individual rights. The old saying is “your rights stop at my nose”.
Some problems arise from this. 9/11 was clearly an act of aggresion and those who were victimized certainly have the right of reprisal. If the threat is continuing (the fist is heading right for the nose) then there is probably also a right.
But at the same time some guy in Iowa who thinks it is all nonsense cannot be forced to send his property (taxes) or in other ways be forced to do anything. Hence Ron’s famous (and laughable) Letters of Marque and Reprisal suggestion. Problem is the resonse is too weak. We had a bounty out for years on Osama’s head but it took years of effort and a Navy Seal team to bring him down.
The second problem is that evil bad guys try to hide their intentions. The question of wheather the fist is approaching nose or not must often be based on probabilities rather than clear evidence.
The Iranian nuke question is a good example of this problem. Ron in this case screws up again by chosing the fantasy that Iran is only reacting to our aggression. He postulates that he understands the motive for the fist in the first place which he cannot. In reality he is only making the facts fit the theory which was a big Neocon problem.
What he would be saying if he were honest is “this is what I believe and to heck with consequences” but that is not possible for a real politician so he does not talk about principles and brings out a crystal ball.
You feel safer now? If all this is about ‘feeling safer’ why do neocons refuse to guard the border?
Why did bush let in record numbers of muslims post 9-11
Do your realize how many muslims are flooding into this country as a RESULT of these foreign wars? It’s only just beginning. Do you know why Britian has Pakis? Do you know why France has Algerians?
Why do neocons continue to support mass immigration?
Why are we still taking in Somali ‘refuges’
This foreign policy is not about securing America. That’s laughable in the face of reality.
Neocons made a big mistake. I am not defending those idealistic policies.
To draw the line between Ron Paul and neocon ideology is false. Nobody wants to do democratic nation building on infertile ground anymore. That might have worked a decade ago.
Anyway libertarian philosophy has always supported open borders. Individuals should be allowed to choose where to live. I support immigration in principle but in US we have this issue of illegal immigration. I think best to absorb as much as we can to grow our economy and workforce.
I do not care if you are Somali or Irish. We can make a policy to allow immigration but there are limits.
I do not care if you are Somali or Irish.
and that’s the problem with neocon/globalist egalitarianism – you ‘assume’ a somali who has an iq of 75 and doesn’t know how to open door handles is no different than someone who has grown up in an industrialized Christinized western country.
Individuals should be allowed to choose where to live.
umm no, nations choose who to let in and who to not let in. Can I choose to live in your house? why do you have a lock? why not just let anyone in?
National governments are supposed to help and PROTECT their own people not ‘the world’.
Nobody wants to do democratic nation building on infertile ground anymore. That might have worked a decade ago.
oh that’s funny because MSM, left and right just got through a nearly year long love fest about the ‘arab spring’.
… but the fact that you would even think it would have worked a decade or so is laughable. Democracy requires homogenous, high trust, high iq societies with a large middle class. it also needs to be deeply rooted in the culture, like, oh, I don’t know the Anglo Saxon peoples who called their kings “first among equals”? doesn’t work so well in low iq, low trust, multiethnic societies (which is where the neocon policies are leading us )
Ok so democracy’s out.. what’s your solution? Bomb syria, bomb iran, bomb iraq some more? You honestly think Iran is a threat to the US ?
How did we get through the whole cold war not bombing the USSR who had 100s of warheads but with we can’t fathom Iran having a nuclear power plant?
Mark my words, major cuts will be coming soon. Unless we opt to fund the government through massive printing. The sooner we come to terms with it the better. Currently we have bases in every country that borders Iran. Which is roughly 11 nations, including several most have not heard off. 1/2 of all money spent on military, is spent by the US.
Sadly we will not cut spending, not of entitlements and not on military. We are in a spending free fall. Nothing but big spenders running.
Things didn’t turn out the way they were supposed to?
Could it be that your lack of belief in ‘reason’ and ‘logic’ and your embrace of a imaginary unfettered bourgeois capitalist parasitic society that has led people into war and reality shows has obviously failed like every other half-baked idea you foist upon the rubes (contract with Amerika, “family values”, teabagging, etc.,), and with that failure, an explosive epiphany of creative angst and ire has been directed at the very values foisted upon the unsuspecting, in turn, causing you to depict, pen in arthritic hand, all that is absurd and ultimately flawed, rejecting any mere pretense of morals or ethical value, all in the name of family, faith, and guns, er, freedom? Or, as some would stipulate, an expressed rejection of that ideology in a deeply personal expression that appears to reject logic and embrace chaos and irrationality. A protest “against this world of other values”. All with proper punctuation and big words that are hard to spell.
Accordingly, this anti-intellectual posturing is the very quintessence that Dadaists in the past used as a protest against the contemporary academic and cultured principles of art and morals. Perhaps, for everything that morality stands for, you wish to represent the opposite. Where morality was concerned with traditional values, you willfully ignore values. Whereas ethics were supposed to appeal to a jaundiced cultural sensibility, your intent was to offend. Through the rejection of traditional society and its carsick ideas of loveliness and respect, your deepest held aspiration is to destroy conventional ethos and aesthetics. Well done! And I really dig how you frame it all in that thread worn dead-dog straw man, the ominous Socialist/Communist/Fascist wet dream/nightmare coupled with Karl Rove’s anticipation of even greater monetary largesse.
With these days consisting of mind-deadeningly 24-7 news cycles and instant microwavable dick filled breakfast tarts with 11 different flavors of pink cheese flavored shit, it’s certainly refreshing to behold something, historically referred to as the sickest, most paralyzing and most destructive thing that has ever originated from the brain of man (Sarah Palin aside). An insane spectacle of collective homicide, but with nice pretty colors and no message? A perfect anathema to Thomas Kincade and his kaleidoscopic abortions?
this anti-intellectual posturing is the very quintessence that Dadaists in the past used as a protest against the contemporary academic and cultured principles of art and morals
too much time in graduate school, Carl, talking to other people out of touch with reality.
In your next life Roger study in school. You flunked math. Paul was only 3% down from the winner.
This.
“It makes my face burn red to see the likes of Bill, Sean, Mark, and yes PJ Media stoop as low as they have. They have no shame.” Yes.
“In your next life Roger study in school. You flunked math. Paul was only 3% down from the winner.” Ditto. And in case Roger didn’t notice, his boy Rick Perry finished fifth behind the most demonized man in the Republican Party, and Ron Paul has raised almost as much money as Perry with his big fat corporate donor rolodex. Or am I missing something? Are Roger and PJM so delusional that they think after Iran gets bombed and gasoline jumps to $7 a gallon Americans are going to come up and hug them and thank them for saving them from the mad mullahs? No, they’re going to say screw President Obama after he narrowly defeats the clueless Romney or Santorum and start sending checks to Rand Paul (if they have any money left, that is).
“Wrong. And I’m actually offended by your post. One, the majority of the vitriol comes FROM the Paulites toward what they call RINOs and “neo-cons” and it gets pretty nasty at times.” I call BS on this one. PJM has been one giant ball of Ron Paul hate for the past two weeks, with the honorable exceptions of Richard Fernandez and Glenn Reynolds — y’know, the people that actually account for 90% of PJM’s traffic!
The most hateful comments about Paul have all tended to come from the same five or six commenters — ConservativeWanderer, CeC, MarcH (who claims to be a former Pentagon contractor and no wonder, in Paul’s world he’d have to find another line of work) and cfbleachers. Mainly cf, CW, and CeC.
Crowing about how the Iowa State GOP got together with some megachurch pastors to bus in enough warm bodies to beat back the hated Paul and the not liked Romney is not exactly a triumph.
And the debate about war with Iran is almost moot, since the war already seems to have started, and neocons (here’s looking at you, Michael Ledeen, and you, Max Boot) have all decided jumping into bed with the Muslim Brotherhood to overthrow Baby Assad is a-ok and patriotic. None of them want to be held accountable for the beatings of Christian Syrian women for going about unveiled, or the expulsions of Iraqi Christians who fled for refuge in Syria from the last neocon war, but there you go. You start bringing all of this up or suggesting that one is not a ‘Truther’ for asking whether the 9/11 Commission told the whole truth (put Vanity Fair on that list), or one is not weak on defense when quoting the former Mossad Chief who says a strike on Iran would be stupid…and they just start the name-calling. They cannot win on facts or logic but only on sheer noise from the likes of Faux News, Rush and all the other dinosaurs who will start losing market share by 2016, also known as the Rand Paul neocon smackdown date.
Being a neocon means never having to say you’re sorry for the real world consequences of your agenda, which when you think about it, is not all that different from the Left. They always get credit for intentions never for actual results too.
Thanks for the honor of including me in the same comment as Michel Ledeen.
I’m still waiting to read your explanation of how it is that Paul could have been an officer in the small company which published racist newsletters in his name, had big paydays from the newsletters, made video appearances in the 1990s to promote the newsletters and still be unaware of their contents.
If you can tackle that maybe you can go back and parse a few other “Paulisms” such as his slander that US forces in Iraq killed a million Iraqis or his pandering to 9-11 “Truthers”.
by Simon’s logic all of the canidates were “repudiated” last night… Simon is a tool and not a very sharp one.
Every dumber than you think, Shoey. I drool and I can barely type. I’m lucky to get up in the morning.
Mr. Simon, I’d like to ask you a question. As a life long libertartian conservative. I’ve been a fan of this site for some time, although I differ from many of my libertarian type brethren on issues of foreign policy, being more aggressive and hawkish myself. I’ve never understood the type of animus I see consistently between libertarian or more socially liberal conservatives and the majority Republican base. I don’t toe the line either way, being very socially liberal, but very pro national defense. In my view Libertarians and Republicans should be working together to eliminate the power of the Democrat party. As a Libertarian I find it very easy to identify with so called liberals who vote Democrat because of social issues, simply as a default position. Just as I’m sure more fiscally liberal types vote republican do to their position on social policy.
Libertarians and Republicans see eye to eye on issues of fiscal restraint for the most part, and to me that should be the biggest factor in deciding a candidates credentials, especially in our current fiscal state. Yet even you demonize Ron Paul on his foreign policy beliefs, disregarding the fact that of all of the current field he is the only one to lay down an agressive fiscal policy in line with what the public is demanding. I do agree that his ideas on foreign policy are extremely naive, but credit should be given for his pushing teh argument on fiscal policy forward. Because contrary to your article here, not on the candidates are on the same page. Especially when you start looking at their fiscal proposals.
I really don’t f@%%**% get it. All of you commenters criticizing RP as if he is a dummy especially on foreign policy but none of you have offered: 1. proof of his “isolationism” 2. what has our use of military force around the world done for us; and 3. any suggestion about what we need to do going forward because obviously with out debt and future unfunded mandated debts we cannot continue our FP in the fashion currently being used. I guess the people of his congressional district are fools, right.
RP is not isolationists. Anyone quote for me where he said he is an absolute isolationist. He is against us using our military around the world to spread “democracy” a misnomer anyway (we are a Constitutional Republic so we should actually be spreading that). The ME will still hate us but at least we will not be losing our blood and treasure on some foreign land. And before any of you really tough-minded folks who espouse using our military around the world as policemen go to any of our miltary hospitals and see what our current foreign policy has done to the lives of our young. Then get back to me…
Why should we have bases all around the world in nations who can defend themselves quite well thank you (Germany, UK, So. Korea, etc)? Our primary force projection is via the US Navy (thank you) anyway. So if someone goes hot, park a Nimitz class carrier and group off shore and cut them loose if you must or just display the flag and it will go quiet soon thereafter. I mean we did so well in Mogadishu with our boots on the ground.
But what eveybody is missing is that we cannot afford to be the world’s policeman. Why is it OUR problem if Iran goes nuke??? Think the EU should be concerned? Israel? How about the Sunni nations in the ME? And what does sneaking a dirty bomb into our nation have to do with RPs foreign policy? Nice bit of deflection or projection there. RP has said he would use our military on our borders. So I’m not getting the connection. Jihadists will try to hurt us regardless of our foreign policy.
Take your best shots at RP but when you look at Dear Leader and what he has done to us and spent us nearly into oblivion and who wants to shred our military-not for budgetary reasons but ideological reasons- RP’s economic policies are the best for America going forward.
Lets agree to one thing. Right now our most pressing issues is our economic situation. I think we can agree that Romney and Santorum are just going to suck when it comes to the economy, so if you don’t like Ron Paul, you may want to jump om the Gingrich or Perry band wagon. Otherwise, no change is coming any time soon. Four years from now we will still be arguing about the economy. I know Perry sucks at debates, but he has a proven track record of results. Gingrich may be an amoral assbag, but he too has a proven track record, and he is a power house debater. He will mop the floor with Obama on the podium. So start cultivating your options, because Romney and Santorum are not it.
…. Mr Perry sucks at debates but has a proven track record of positive results ….
You’re spot on.
And Mr Perry may be our only last best hope.
As an outsider, but a very sympathetic one from OZ, I have to agree with Jacob above.
Your most pressing concern has to be your economy. What was once your powerhouse is now just a rusting bucket, bloated by debt beyond belief.
How does your country ever intend to pay this debt off?
I want your country to do well, because if it does then so does my country, but I fear for the consequences if you continue down the path you have been on these last 3 or 4 years.
Iowa Caucuses are handy not so much for whom is selected but for whom is gotten rid of.
Ron Paul is a 1491-er in foreign policy.
Foreign policy rests on geography, is carried out according to the laws of physics, and within the limits of psychology.
The only 2 reasons for having a country: Defense against foreign enemies; defense against domestic enemies. All other reasons are gravy.
Pearl Harbor: The FDR-Japan conflict was over a specific, narrow thing. France fell in 1940. Japan occupied Hanoi, Haiphong, Cam Ranh Bay, and Saigon. FDR told Japan a nation not friendly to the US would not be allowed to be that close to the Strait of Malacca [only sea link between Indian & Pacific Oceans]. Japan must leave those places. The negotiations proceeded on that until war was their answer.
Isolationist Senators. In the Senate Subcommittee, the 24 P-40s and about ¼ million in concrete+rebar for beach defense on Lingayen Gulf were cancelled by two Senators who did not wish to be provocative to Japan and fan the flames of war. The Imperial Japanese Staff Study detailing feasibility of war said that if those planes had been purchased and defenses done (they read the newspapers), then they would have regarded the Philippine invasion as not feasible and hence the Pacific War not feasible. So, the war decision teetered on an appropriation of about ¾ Million and tipped into into GO by Isolationist Senators being Isolationist.
Pres. Washington said avoid foreign entanglements. They were not needed for a specific reason he did not address; actually, there were no words for it and still aren’t. What he had in mind that would protect the US was the reason that Hessians were hired, that Freeman’s Farm could not be held at Saratoga, that the Southern Front collapsed so the British could winter at pleasant Yorktown. Though no one later grasped what he was getting at, it did work. It was the reason the green-as-grass Maryland Militia was able to whup the British Peninsular War veterans at the Battle of Baltimore and the reason Baltimore was not burned and the reason that the British effort at New Orleans was a messy failure.