First Principles

Over the weekend a Ron Paul supporter dropped off this brochure at my house.  And by “dropped off” I mean “jammed it under my front door so it was actually inside the house when my wife got home.”  (Note to all campaign volunteers – when you do something that creates even the slightest appearance of you having actually broken into my house, I am LESS likely to vote for your preferred candidate.)

It’s an interesting brochure – lots and lots of charts and numbers and YouTube suggestions.  It’s apparently NOT paid for by the Paul campaign, but is rather an “independent” expenditure by volunteers who buy the pieces and then distribute them on their own.  (More details here.)  That seems a little weird to me – what would be the point of distributing campaign literature in such a roundabout way?  Maybe it’s just an attempt to make it look more grass-rootsy, I don’t know.  But my flags always go up a little when a candidate doesn’t have to claim expenditures – and the source of that money – on their regular reports.

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But that’s not what really got my attention.  Instead, it’s an issue with one of the images that in all fairness, you have to be pretty nerdy to spot right away.  In the “National Defense” section, there’s this picture of various warships steaming in formation:

That ship in the front?  It isn’t an American ship.

The one behind it is – I think it’s the USS San Jacinto.  But the third ship back isn’t American either.  The last one in this formation is an American destroyer, and is flying a bog-ol’ battle ensign to prove it (I love it).  But half of the ships in this formation aren’t US ships.

I have no idea what this says or means – probably nothing except that someone got a little careless with their Google image search.  But whoever put this together didn’t know or care about what was in their image of “the military” as they were being a little sanctimonious about how Ron Paul is the only candidate who really loves the troops, and that annoys me.  Part of loving/respecting/supporting the troops it to know what they’re actually doing.

I think this resonated with me because it illustrates the reason I find Ron Paul so unacceptable as a CinC candidate.  He speaks of “peace” but doesn’t understand the importance of projecting power abroad in order to dissuade other nations or entities from coming over here and taking a shot or two.  (Pound for pound, there’s no better vehicle for “Peace Through Strength” than a strong Navy that regularly deploys all around the planet.)

Paul supporters love to talk about the ephemeral difference between “isolationism” and “non-interventionism”, but they don’t understand that you just cannot have free and robust international trade without a strong and globally present Navy to protect those trade routes.   It’s an issue we’ve dealt with as a country since our founding.

(Incidentally, I can’t identify the nation of origin of those other two ships – if any of my readers who have cracked a recce guide more recently than I have can, I’d very much appreciate it!)

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Really, though, the worst image on this brochure takes me back to the front of it.  It (inadvertently, of course) does a good job illustrating one of my core problems with the Paul campaign – it is in so many ways a cult of personality.  The image is just a little too heroic, and a little too evocative for my comfort of some far more odious political marketing…

Incidentally, Ron Paul also wrote a "manifesto".

Any good marketing piece sums up the central argument of its product with a couple of well placed images.  This piece ironically did exactly the opposite for me, neatly summarizing all my discomforts with Ron Paul.

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I do want to make one anticipatory response to comments I’m sure to get.  I’m not “vilifying Dr. Paul” as I was recently accused of doing.  I know he’s not a secret communist, and that whatever supporter independently put this thing together certainly means well.  And while I don’t support him, I’m glad he’s in the race and shining a light on economic topics that would otherwise be ignored.

But it’s certainly not “vilifying” a political candidate of any kind – and especially one running for the most powerful position in the Free World – to closely and critically examine them.  I simply disagree with many of his positions, and find this particular marketing tactic rather troublesome.