Ruminations on Neo-Isolationism and its Dangers

Once again, been doing some ruminating, this time on the Ron Paul brand of neo-isolationism. I've decided that it's a fundamentally flawed policy for several reasons:

1. The central premise itself is fatally flawed. The idea is that if we ignore the world, the world will ignore us. Sorry, folks, but putting our collective hands over our ears, closing our eyes, and singing "lalalalalala" at the top of our lungs won't stop other nations from knocking on our door--or knocking over our skyscrapers either. History shows this clearly; the last time isolationism was seriously tried in this nation was during the 1920s and 1930s. It ended rather suddenly on one Sunday morning in December, 1941.
2. There is also an idea that if we stop "meddling" in the Middle East, that things will calm down. Again, this is not in line with reality. Like a cop standing on a corner keeps neighborhood kids from causing too much trouble, America's presence in the Mideast has helped keep the violence from getting worse. Just imagine what the turbulent Mideast would look like if those bent on violence weren't afraid of American planes, bombs, tanks, and troops showing up if they went too far.
1. A corollary to this is that America is primarily responsible for the restraint shown by Israel. If we stopped asking Israel to hold back on their responses to Arab violence, it doesn't take a lot of imagination to understand what would happen... just look at the Six-Day War, for example, and Israel's bombing of Iraqi nuclear facilities in the 1970s.
3. There's also, among at least some proponents of neo-isolationism, a concept that the people of the Middle East are not worth shedding American blood to help. This one doesn't need a lot of comment from me, so I will just say that people are people, they all bleed red, and to single out one group as unworthy of our help is distasteful in the extreme.

Bottom line, neo-isolationism quite simply won't work. It will not deliver what it promises, because the entire idea is screwy. Maybe that's why the wackos that follow Ron Paul like the idea.

I Couldn't Have Taken Ron Paul Apart Better Myself

Professor Bainbridge takes apart Ron Paul's candidacy in a way I wish I'd done myself. It's one of those hard articles to excerpt, so just click the link in the title and read it for yourself.

By the way, Bainbridge points out his blog's comment policy, in part (or in toto) because of the well-documented online antics of the Ronulans. Therefore, permit me to remind everyone that my comment policy is posted here, and that it includes my right to delete or edit any post for any reason... and it's a sad thing when I have to remind the followers of any candidate about policies like that.

Values Voter Debate Review (Candidates)

As noted in Values Voter Debate Review all the candidates had ample time and opportunity to answer questions. The only candidates who were short changed were the four not participating. In Values Voter Debate Review (Extended), covered some of the questions and answers I thought were interesting.

In this post will try to concentrate on each candidate, in no order, just as they come to my mind. Video clips of the debate are starting to show up on YouTube. Search page results of debate videos.


Alan Keyes - The newcomer to the race, but not to campaigning. Powerful speaker, maybe a bit overdone for a debate forum. Sure he's great at speeches and on the stump. Much the same positions as the other participants, just more insistent on their place in our nation and government. Could only help himself by participating. Doesn't have a chance.

Duncan Hunter - Usual solid performance. Emphasis on building the fence and stopping illegal immigration, tying it to strong families and values. Consistent in hitting on unfair trade agreements with China and the looming military standoff.

John Cox - Someone most of the public isn't even aware of. A businessman, non-politician. Says the GOP has lost it's way because there are too many career politicians. Running as true outsider. Took to task the Congressmen on the stage for losing their way along with the rest of the party and not making enough of an effort to stop it as it was happening.

Mike Huckabee - As noted in the initial review, the runaway winner of the straw poll of the Values Voter delegates. Right in his element in this setting, in front of the sponsoring groups. The guy has perfect timing and pitch. I think most of his answers ended and the chime went off indicating end of his time. Emphasized his ten years as governor and three as lieutenant governor. When informed he had four minutes for his closing remarks, always the Baptist preacher, quipped, "With four minutes, I have time to take an offering. If I could ask the ushers to come forward."

Sam Brownback - Played to Sam's strong suit: Abortion, family, values. No surprises from Sam. Emphasized the work he's done in the Senate on these issues. Losing points advocating for guest worker programs while the nation's sentiments are distinctly 'secure the border first'. IMO, his best debate performance, but not good enough to help him among primary voters.

Ron Paul - No surprises. Had more time than usual to explain and expound on his position and beliefs. Paul hammered on his usual smaller government theme. He's not losing any support there. But, he went into his illegal war in Iraq, leave everyone alone, mind our own business routine. Emphasized the Christian them of the just war and says ours is not. Got a direct question concerning libertarianism and he answered it quite well. Wish I had a transcript. Maybe it's in one of the video clips.

Tom Tancredo - Of course, Tank hammered home the illegal immigrant issue and tied it in with American values and family. Addressed his controversial stance on suspension of all immigration until we are able to assimilate the immigrants now here. Thought he had one of the best closing remarks. Said even though he didn't agree with everything all the other candidates believed, he was proud to among them as he considers them all men of integrity and principle. I liked that.

If you think I didn't capture the essence of a particular candidate, oh well. As I said, my observations and impressions. So, what you read is what stuck with me and what I recalled from reading my notes. I'm sure everyone who watched garnered different things from each candidate.

All in all, I liked the whole debate and think it was great the non-top tier candidates got so much time to answer questions. The shame is that more people couldn't have seen it. I'd be interested in finding out how many viewers and listeners the debate had.

The only real losers in this debate were the four candidates who didn't show up.

Values Voter Debate Review

None of the candidates on the debate stage last night can legitimately claim they were short changed on time. The debate format was very fair and equitable. In the first round, each candidate got to answer each question. The second round consisted of a series of yes or no questions that the candidates responded to by illuminating a green or red light on the front of their podium. Round three was a series of questions posed to a specific candidate, but each candidate was asked a question.

The four absent GOP candidates were represented on stage by an unused podium. Each candidate had a set time to answer questions in each round and each was allotted a two minute time bank they could use to finish answers or extend or elaborate on answers or rebut another candidates answer. All the candidates did quite well in staying in allotted time. Only a couple of the candidates had used all of their extra two minutes at the end of the debate.

The debate kicked off at 7:30 PM Eastern. About twenty minutes was taken up with opening remarks by the debate hosts, prayers and a choir. In no way did those preliminaries cut into the time for the main event. The entire program lasted three hours; about two hours and forty minutes of that was devoted to the questions and answers.

All the groups that participated in the debate invited delegates to the debate who would vote in straw polls before and after the debate. Janet Folger explained they went to great lengths to make sure these delegates were representative of values voters and were in no way connected or associated with any of the candidate. Folger went to great lengths to make clear these straw polls are not like the straw polls we are accustomed to, as the candidates did not bus in their supporters, buy tickets or provide food or entertainment. It was a straw poll of strictly values voters.

(All emphasis in quoted passages were in the original text.)

“Unlike other straw polls where candidates have bussed in supporters or paid for their tickets, forty national leaders chose hundreds of delegates who accurately represent America’s largest voting block,” said Mat Staver, Chairman of Liberty Counsel, and Values Voter Debate committee member. “This is the most important straw poll yet.”

During the question and answer periods the delegates had a means to indicate their reaction to each candidate's answers. There was no on air indication of what those reactions were and I have not found anything after the fact showing those results.

Before the debate the delegates voted on which candidate they favored at that time. After the debate they voted once again and the debate sponsors tabulated the results to see what shifts took place from hearing the candidate's answers to the questions.

I missed the first few minutes of the after debate wrap up. The after debate results showed that the four absentee candidates had all suffered losses from the before debate polling. Ron Paul also suffered a big drop but still polled in the top three or four in the after debate poll.

“The big losers last night were the no-show candidates Fred Thompson who placed at 4 percent, Rudy Giuliani and John McCain who each received 1 percent and Mitt Romney who was the only candidate to receive zero votes at the end of the night.

Considering the audience and the questions, unsurprisingly, Mike Huckabee came out the big vote gainer and runaway winner in the after debate straw poll. Folger seems to think this might coalesce values voters behind Huckabee's campaign.

“While many very good candidates attended the event, Governor Mike Huckabee was the clear winner,” said Janet Folger, President of Faith2Action and member of the Values Voter Debate committee. Huckabee received nearly five times the votes of the other candidates.

Again, there is no place I've found that shows the before and after polling results. All this is from releases from the debate and what I jotted down as they were explaining the results.

This debate was almost tailor made for these seven participating candidates. Even though some of the questions might have been a bit controversial for the four absentees, I don't see how they gained anything by skipping this forum, and think some of them lost quite a bit of credibility by not showing up. Even if their positions on some of the issues are not totally in line with groups sponsoring the debate, their appearance would have at least shown they are willing to face those who do not totally agree with them.

I can't help but wonder how the democrat presidential candidates would fare in this debate, being asked the same questions. There's obviously a reason they all declined an invitation to participate in a similar format sponsored by the same groups.

I'll make another post with some specifics from the debate and my impressions and observations of the candidates.

Ron Paul Radio with John Ziegler

Ron Paul did appear live, in studio, with KFI's John Ziegler Tuesday night.

Audio of the interview, about thirty minutes.

Below are my impressions of the interview. There is no transcript and I'm not going to go through the thirty minute clip several times to get exact questions and quotes. If you disagree with what my opinions and impressions are of the exchange, then click on the audio link and listen for yourself.

Ziegler bills himself as more libertarian than any other political leaning, but more cynical than anything. Despite his common ground with Paul's libertarian beliefs, the exchange sometimes turned testy and contentious.

Zig and Paul have differing opinions and viewpoints on the Iraq War and much of the interview was spent on that subject. One thing that Paul always brings up about Iraq is that it's un-Constitutional, because Congress didn't declare war. Yet, during the same interview Paul said he voted for the Afghanistan War. But that's not a declaration of war either. Much the same means and language have been used for both both military actions.

Most of the time I think Paul is just bent out of shape because it doesn't say United States Declares War on ________ at the top of the legislation.

Paul wouldn't even consider that the war in Iraq is simply the resumption of hostilities due to Iraq's breach of the Desert Storm cease fire agreement.

Ziegler turned the exchange to 9-11, as would be apt for the date, and especially Paul's views on the cause. Zig pointedly asked Paul if he was in the same camp as the 9-11 troofers. Paul adamantly denied that, saying he's not in the LIHOP/MIHOP* extreme. However, he does think we don't know the whole truth about 9-11, how we got there and what actually happened. Paul is not satisfied with the findings of the 9-11 Commission, nor, apparently, any other results of any investigations. However, sounds like he is of the belief we brought it upon ourselves - we deserved it.

I don't know how Paul thinks he's going to find a totally impartial, truth at any cost, body of people to find the whole truth and nothing but the truth in this day and age. Good luck on that.

In summation, Ron Paul has some good things to say and certainly has some valid points on the size and function and role of government. What he doesn't address is how he would be able to accomplish anything as President. If elected, even as a Republican, he would have no natural caucus in Congress. He might be able to cobble together a few from each side and get some legislation passed - but not very often. He could veto a lot of bills, which I predict would get overridden quite often.

As Ziegler pointed out to Paul during the interview it's not practical to make decisions today on what you should or should not have done in the past, but based on where you are today. I feel like Ron Paul would want to roll back our government to 1800. That's just not practical. Even if he's absolutely, 100% right, it's not practical - nor doable.

I was, have been, disappointed that no one has asked Paul about his invoking international law in one of his answers during the FOX debate in New Hampshire. I want to know how that squares with Paul's Constitution.

There's common ground I could find with some of Ron Paul's positions, just not as President. I simply cannot buy into Ron Paul's vision of foreign policy, especially not at this point in history. It's so one hundred years ago.

*Let it happen on purpose/Made it happen on purpose

Ron Paul on KFI - Should be Good Radio

Ron Paul is scheduled for an on air interview tomorrow, Tuesday, September 11, 2007, with John Ziegler of KFI AM 640 (listen to streaming audio here). The interview is set for the seven o'clock hour (Pacific).

If Ron Paul makes the appearance, it should be a good time. John Ziegler is an excellent interviewer and won't pull any punches with Paul. Zig will go right at Ron Paul on his 9-11 troofer positions. There could be fireworks - or at least we can hope.

A year or two ago, Mary Mapes appeared on John Ziegler's show after she released her book about the TANG Memos. It was obvious Mapes and her publicist did not do their research on Zig. He sucked her right in and it was almost the end of the segment before she caught on that he was not sympathetic to her position.

GOP Straw Poll - August 2007

I usually put up the Pajamas Media weekly straw poll - on the Mondays that I remember to do it. For instance, I completely space it last Monday.

But, this is my favorite straw poll on the 'net - GOP Straw Polls. Their downfall is they don't run it every month, so it falls off people's (mine) surfing habits. This is the straw poll for August, the previous one was put up in May. I don't know how long August's has been up, but it wasn't there a couple of weeks ago when I last checked. The polls are usually open for voting until the next one is started.

What makes this poll so good is you can filter the data to see what kind of voters are favoring one or the other candidate. Ron Paul is not included this time. Why not? Because the people who vote for him in these internet polls are not serious. The last poll had Paul with the most votes, but when you clicked on the filter to show who else his supporters found acceptable, well, not surprisingly, Paulbots found no other candidate acceptable.

Despite Paul's absence from the August GOP Straw Poll, they seem to be getting their whacks in. Click on the Ultra-Conservative (#10) filter and the leading votes are for none with only a couple of other candidates as acceptable. My guess is a lot of Paulbots, with their main man cast out, are voting for none.

Hillbilly White Trash has a reference to the Paulbot syndrome on the GOP Straw Poll:

Here is a statement by Matt Margolis on his decision to exclude ass-clown Ron Paul from this month's GOP straw poll:

UPDATE: Some of you may be wondering about the absence of Ron Paul from this months straw poll. Let me explain. After my decision to include Ron Paul in the previous poll, I monitored (to the best of my ability) the efforts by Paul's online supporters. With the help of other bloggers, we discovered a sophisticated coordinated effort to spam the poll, obfuscate their actions, and even cheat the poll.

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Lem adds:

The fact that the Paul campaign was asking directly about the security measures indicates that the gaming of online polls is not just the work of overzealous supporters with lots of time on their hands (because the part-time jobs at McDonald's aren't very demanding). The attempt to create a distorted image of Paul's true level of support is apparently a deliberate strategy of the Paul campaign.

So much for Libertarians being "principled".

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