First Principles

Ron Anderson at Local So-and-So explains why he’s still in Paul’s camp, in spite of The Newsletters.  Ace of Spades explains why he is not.  (Hint:  It’s much, much, much more than newsletters.)

On my deployments to the Persian Gulf, the Iranians would come take a look at us from time to time. This is a patrol boat watching us as we conducted anti-smuggling boarding operations in 2001. They would also send out "fishing" dhows to disrupt fueling operations just by getting in the way and other sorts of things. And this was a "quiet" time in US-Iranian naval involvement - the incident with the USS Vincennes was sparked by out and out attacks from similar Iranian patrol craft.

I respect where Ron (Anderson) is coming from, but I’m with Ace.  If Ron Paul had been President in the late 30s/early 40s, we might have come out of the Depression faster, but Germany would have developed the Bomb before we did, and we would have been fighting Japan and Germany mostly on American soil with vast damage to our own economic infrastructure (not to mention all those dead people and enslaved nations).  The soundest monetary policy in the world won’t help you when your factories are all blown to rubble.

Hitler won’t be working on the A-Bomb in 2014, but Iran certainly will be.  “But wait!” you might say.  “I thought Paul said Iran was just minding their own business.  You mean they aren’t?”

A federal judge in Manhattan has issued a default judgment against the Islamic Republic of Iran, its top officials and various political and military subdivisions in finding that the defendants provided direct and material support to al-Qaida in connection with the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks.

This isn’t a surprise to anyone who’s been paying attention to Iran since about 1979.  But while I don’t think anyone has the appetite to go to war with Iran (although they certainly seem to be daring us to take a shot these days), it’s worth remembering that they are still there, they don’t like us, that they are overtly hostile towards us, and that they have been for some time.  A nuclear armed and uncontained Iran is no less an existential threat to our continued existence than the horrific economic policies of the current Administration.

If Iran (or some other Muslim nation) feels there will be no consequence beyond a nasty letter from the UN if they make good on their repeated promises to “wipe Israel off the map,” no one should doubt that they will start wiping with any means at their disposal.  And a Middle East without Israel as a both an outpost of liberal democracy and a geo-political-military counterweight would be terrifying indeed – not to mention the horror of genocide.

Isolationism is neither in the interests of the USA specifically or the cause of liberty generally.  While President Obama doesn’t understand this adequately, he at least understands it better than Ron Paul.  Paul’s brand of aggressive isolationism and willful blindness to evil as it brews and strengthens overseas is suicidally dangerous, and I can’t vote for a guy for President who acts suicidally towards my country.