the party of principle is no more...the big tent hath folded...and only under a slight pressure...
After the 1st round of GOP-ardy on May 3rd, ABC "gaffed" and neglected to mention Texas Libertarian Congressman Ron Paul in their post debate poll. turns out, Paul won that debate handily. Oops.
In MSNBC's post debate polling, Paul won as well. C-Span's polling made Paul the winner as well. And on the ultra conservative website, "The Drudge Report," Paul finished a close 3rd at the top of the 10 man pack.
Not to mention his YouTube video, which was the most watched political video and 8th overall the week after people got introduced to an actual conservative libertarian. He was the most searched name on Google and Yahoo, and the 3rd most mentioned in the blogosphere, beating out Paris Hilton at a time when Hilton was all over the news in regards to her sentencing for a probation violation.
And so much more. Essentially, Congressman Paul became the hottest thing not only in the GOP, but in politics as he delivered his message of limited government and a humble foreign policy in the Reagan tradition.
Then came the Fox debate earlier this week. In the debate, Rudy Giuliani intentionally misstated Paul's position for cheap applause lines to the selected audience onhand. But that didn't stop Paul's message, a message many Americans know, but refuse to admit, that our foreign policy since WWII in the middle east has been reckless and irresponsible. Our interventions for the last almost 60 years have driven up resentment and hatred for the United States and the West. That doesn't mean we "deserved" to get attacked by cowardly terrorists by any means. But to ignore that cause and effect puts us in a position like we are in Iraq.
Congressman Paul, like the majority of Americans, and the world, aren't afraid to stand up and take a real hard look at ourselves, the world and what exactly happened to get us where we are.
Some of the public needed "evidence" that we shouldn't be invading a sovereign Iraq, which posed no imminent threat to us whatsoever and was every bit as much of an enemy to the people who attacked us as we are. He simply stuck to his principles. Principles, that were shared by all real "constructionist" people. 9-11 seperated the men from the boys in that respect. While virtually every American supported our invasion of Afghanastan, as well as the rest of the world, including most Arab nations. Including Iran, there was a more significant dissent when it came to Iraq.
Congressman Paul was one of those dissentors. And he, like many, was not some "democratic, left wing loon." He simply followed the Constitution and the philosophies laid out by our founders who envisioned a non-interventionist foreign policy. A foreign policy that didn't try to nation build or spread democracy with a gun. A foreign policy principle that didn't change because some neocons wanted to scare the country into a war that was sold on 1/2 truths at best, and lies at worst. Congressman Ron Paul knew that this path of intervention would only increase hostilities and make America weaker.
And he was 100% right.
So it's no surprise that after the Fox debate, a livid Sean Hannity, as he saw Paul leading their post debate polling and lackey Michael Steele used almost every minute of airtime trying to discredit Paul and have him "banned from future debates." When they finally gave Congressman Paul a chance to speak, Hannity fillibustered and cut Paul off to squelch his message. At the end, Hannity conveniently ignored the Libertarian's challenge of a 1 on 1 debate where he couldn't just outshout the soft spoken 71 year old Congressman.
And we get reports of Newscorp (who owns myspace) blocking messages about him. Yahoo censoring out his supporters. And people doing everything and anything they can to push his words and message out of the dialogue.
Is the GOP that scared? Are they really that intimidated by a candidate with little funding and a principled message. The actual principles that our founders and great heroes to the party like Ronald Reagan embraced? It looks they are.
What happened to the "big tent?" What happened to being the "party of principle?"
The 'party of principle" is embracing candidates who reject their stands on most every social issue. Candidates that "flip-flop" all over the place trying to pander to enough people to get nominated. Candidates that are having great revelations and epiphanies, not on the road to damascus, but on the road to DeMoines. Candidates that simply don't share their religious, moral and life values because the neoconservative spin machine is so afraid of a candidate that stuck to his Reagan-esque principles on foreign policy while the chickenhawk neoconservatives, who make a practice of pissing on the Constitution for their own means, revved up their propoganda machine.
Rudy Giuliani is some great protector? The man who ignored the sage advice to put his emergency operations center underground in Brooklyn? No, Rudy thought it best to put it right in the very towers that tumbled. He wasn't "walking the streets" because he cared. He was walking the streets because his management center got destroyed.
Most conservative NY mayor? To paraphrase another, that's like being "the thinnest kid at fat camp."
And when is anyone gonna ask Mitt Romney if he believes Jesus Christ was divine? Or if he believes that Jesus is really Satan's brother? Or simply let him get away with equating Christianity with Mormonism as if they were the same religion or just "religious cousins." The fact is that Islam is as related to Christianity as Mormonism is. And Islam doesn't try to turn Christ into Satan's sibling.
In 1992, the Democratic party shut out Governor Bob Casey from speaking at their national convention. They are still criticized for that, and rightly so. But the GOP should check itself before continuing that argument in the way they are organizing to silence the good and honorable Congressman who simply has a different view on Iraq. A view that is based in our founding father's principles.
And they might be successsful in their quest to silence Congressman Paul. But unfortunately for them, they will never silence the rest of us until US foreign policy is responsibly returned to it's humble intentions and genuine goodwill towards other nations.
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