A Political Thread

[WTL]

***This thread deals with politics. There are always a few people who complain about politics on the board. The solution is simple; dont read this if that is you. There are no funny jokes, word games or bad farks hidden within, so no excuse....Now, if you are interested in foreign policy, read on.***


I am trying to answer 3 questions.

1. Why the position taken by Ron Paul on foreign policy makes pretty good sense, and is nowhere near what Michelle Bachman characterized as "dangerous".

2. What are your opinions on originalism (the idea that when interpreting the Constitution, we try to ascertain the view of those who wrote the document)?

3. What is your opinion on the Courts using judicial precedent in their judgments?

__________________________________________________ ______________---------------------------------------------------------------------


This is going to be a long and detailed post, and should be, as the subject is of vital importance – the difference between war and peace.

For those who don’t wish to read the long version, I am going to try to enclose a synopsis of a paragraph;

There is widespread disagreement among even the intelligence community as to whether Iran poses any threat to the US, or even immediate Israeli interests. Do not fall for the canard that there is a consensus that Iran is an existential threat, and therefore anyone who differs in line, is crazy, irresponsible or as Bachman stated “giving the most dangerous national security response of all time.” The hyperbole on their part is actually indicative of the inherit weakness of position, and a fear that certain entrenched segments of the GOP have of the new guard of the Republican party being less interested in war and more in peace and prosperity. In actuality, it is Bachman who holds the minority position – she is the dangerous one – the one whose would take us into unnecessary war as an easy way of achieving political support.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

There are a few principals which Paul normally tries to get out there during a debate, but due to his age, lack of graceful speaking style and the complexities of the matters he normally sounds weaker. But the positions, if you read them, are well thought out. I did this originally in word, and when I transferred it to post it screwed a little with the format of the outline, but oh well. You will get it.


1. Being the world policemen encourages the Axis of evil. They dig it. They want us in Iraq and Afghanistan. They want us in South Korea. It gives the dictators in their ****y little countries the political cover to blame every domestic problem on the Americans, and it also gives them a reason to try to act strong.

a. See Sadaam Hussein intentionally fool the international community into thinking he had large stockpiles of WMD. Why would he fake it as if he had WMD? Because Saddam was not worried about the US, he was worried about the Shiites in his own country. The threat of WMD kept his own people in line…so he lied about having it. He might have had a few shells of mustard gas left over, and that’s it. Playing like he was the mortal enemy of US interests also energized his Baathist base.

b. See Ahmidinejad and when he came to power – 2004. Why? Because we were in Iraq. He played fear of US influence in the region into a winning tactic for getting into power in Iran.

c. Why did we not intervene in the “Green Revolution”? Because somebody smartly realized that once the Americans touch something, it turns to**** in the eyes of those people. Its like picking up a baby bird that falls out of its nest. Doesn’t matter if the US has the best intentions. We get blamed. Why should we want to continue allowing ourselves to get blamed when we risk our soldiers for humanitarian reasons (IE Somalia), and end up screwing this up worse than it was before?

d. Look at Hugo Chavez. Why does he always spend 3 hours a night on state TV downing the US? Because he is trying to be Pepsi to our Coke. He is one of the primary anti-US guys left, and there is a market for that. And the more we openly attack him, the more his stupid supporters in the Venezulean slums rally behind him.

e. Are these examples too foreign to comprehend? OK, look at Rudy Guiliani “The American Hero”. What, precisely, did he do in the aftermath of 9/11 that was so heroic? Beats me. He was presiding Mayor of the hardest hit city. Yet by doing what any other mayor in America would do in that situation, he became a hero.

f. Look at George W. Bush. He too, stayed pretty calm and did relatively little following 9/11 for a few months. While he was doing little, his poll numbers went to 90%. That’s a record for a modern president. He got the same bounce that Ahmadinejad would get if we attack Iran.

g. Look at Pakistan. Do we attack Pakistan? No. Why? They have nukes. So, we have to treat them with kid gloves.

h. Look at North Korea. Do we attack North Korea? No. Why? Cause they have nukes. So, we treat them with kid gloves.

i. Look at Libya. Do we attack Libya? Through intermediaries, yes. Why? They don’t have nukes. And we talked the dumb bastards out of getting them. – Put that all together, and what do you have? US hyperinvolvement creates incentives for countries to get Nukes. Its like a get out of jail free card. We are behind these *******s coming to power, and then behind their desire to arm up. Its actually a rational reaction on their part. If the threat of US involvement wasn’t looming over each of these countries, there would not be as large of an incentive to develop nukes.

2. It is a principle long adhered to among Republicans that sometimes, the thing that sounds right, that sounds good in a soundbyte, is actually a bad policy.

A. Anybody who has ever argued against taxes for the wealthy, against the safety net, against social security, against the department of education understands this principle. Where else does it apply?

a. Foreign Policy is the greatest area where this principle applies. In foreign policy, the rough riders are the ones who are beloved. The aggressive, the heroic, the belligerent. Cheat on your wife? Well, just go bomb a Balkan country and we’ll forgive you. Is your popularity waning? Lets settle that old score in Iraq. Want to look tough on communism? Hey, lets send advisors to that Southeast Asian country that the French got beat down in, to help the natives fight off a popular communist revolution. What happens if a boat in a harbor explodes in port in Havana, and the popular wisdom is that it was sabotage? Well, lets blame the Spanish and take all their empire!

b. I wont delve into whether the war with Spain was wise, or WWI or WW2. But lets look at the modern American wars.

i. What did we solve in Korea? We set a precedent where the President can act unilaterally, involve us in a war with no end, and there we remain, almost 60 years later.

ii. Vietnam. Without hearts and minds, you cannot win. And you don’t win hearts and minds by sending in the Marines. 58,000 American men dead.

iii. Kuwait. It could have been the feelgood story of American involvement. We did everything right. We had a huge, international coalition. We were protecting a smaller country against a bully. We had a US interest in the area (oil). We won quickly and decisively. But then we lost. Why? Cause we didn’t kill Hussein, and the problem festered. So the lesson is we should have killed Hussein then. Although that would have probably led to the same insurgency that we saw in the early 2000s, and the strengthening of Iran just 12 years after their revolution (itself a reaction to US involvement in the 1950s). Are you people getting the point? When we get involved and we lose lots of men and money, we lose. When we get involved, and achieve our shortterm goals, and lose few men, we still lose.

c. Also thought I would remind everyone that Saddam was an ally. So was Bin Laden (we created the Mujahadeen, just as Pakistan created the Taliban). So was Stalin. So was Qhadaffi. We have a history, in American foreign policy, of being for it, before we were against it, before we were for it.

b. But if this foreign intervention is so foolish, why do we keep doing it?

a. First, we have to distinguish ourself from the Left in all areas. The Left is supposed to be wrong on every single issue. So when a lefty calls for peace, it is the natural reaction to deride it.

b. Religious reasons. I don’t want to hit too hard on this, but some fundamentalist Christians who still hold sway believe that there is religious justification for our support of Israel. These factions identify with the hardline Israeli interests, not the more moderate Israelis who agree with land for peace and some concessions/diplomacy, and thus think that we must do whatever we can to take the military burden off of Israel as they fight to survive. The other night, I saw Bill OReilly call Dr. Pauls’ comments during the debate stupid. Then he preceded to downplay Paul’s citing a US intelligence expert who claimed to know nothing concrete of Iranian intentions, and then OReilly declared he trusted Mossad (Israeli Intelligence)’s statements about Iran’s capabilities more than our own. My jaw just about hit the floor. Here we have that boor OReilly calling Ron Paul stupid, and in the same sentence, outsourcing American security and interests to Israel’s most militant interests! How dare he! But this man directs others to think a certain way. Anybody reading this must admit that Fox News and the line most of their commentators espouse has a direct and strong influence on all the grannies and grandpas watching.

c. The military industrial complex. Anytime someone tries to poopoo talk of this as being a conspiracy theory, remember who coined the phrase. The split in the Republican party between anti-war conservatives and pro-war conservatives occurred in the early 50s. Taft was running and set to win the nomination. He was against most foreign involvement,. He was known as “Mr. Republican”. Fear of Mr. Taft led people to draft Ike to run against Taft. Ike of course won, Taft died a couple years later, and national security/anticommunism have been two planks of the GOP ever since. But before Taft died, he and Ike actually became friends. After Taft had died, in his last speech as President, Ike, the military general, the one hand selected to prevent the GOP from returning to non-interventionism, echoed the old rights’s concerns about the military industrial complex. American spends 3 times as much as any other country on defense. Don’t doubt the complex exists.


3. What could be?

a. Every time there is a budget battle in Washington, the democrats use national security as a pawn to scare republicans into not cutting enough, either taxes or spending. What if the GOP were to suddenly turn non-interventionist? It would give the GOP a huge advantage in budget negotiations, as we can now find that we can cut a huge amount of Pentagon spending, find common ground with bewildered democrats, and push through a plan that has a fighting chance of at least reducing the current debt madness we are embroiled in. Which leads me to Dr. Pauls last point, normally.

b. We are effectively broke. Right now we have the option of an orderly withdrawal of US forces. Soon, that will no longer be an option. It is akin to both the fall back of the British and Roman empires. They intervened abroad until they were dead in the center. The British were lucky to be allies with the Americans in WWII. The Romans weren’t so lucky, and were sacked. We are becoming the sick old superpower, that everyone knows is going to fall. But it is reversible,. The American century was not so because of our bombs, subs, ships or soldiers. All the other countries have had the same. It was our century because our economy became so explosive, so vital, that we became the indispensable world power. That power came from American ingenuity at home, innovation, hard work, resources, law, freedom, all the core components of Dr. Paul’s domestic policy. Dr. Paul’s foreign policy works primarily because his domestic policy is so strong. With it, we will see a quick depression – and then a liquidation of the malinvestment of the last decade. After 2, maybe 3 years of a contracting economy, housing prices will be at equilibrium, debt will be manageable, and the economy will explode again. Why? Because of the American people. Don’t ever trust a politician who says they will deliver jobs. That is the province of the American people, applying their skills, knowledge, innovation and desire to create production, which is the engine of wealth. It is only up to the government to create the environment that jobs are created in, with order, and law and justice and free enterprise.


One last thing. The Constitution vests the full power to declare war in the US Congress. Paul is no longer running for Congress. He is running for President. He is the only candidate running for President in the last 14 years who actually believes that it is the role of congress, and not the President, to declare war. As such a strict constitutionalist, should Congress declare war, even if Paul disagrees, I believe that he will do his duty as commander-in-chief. It is important to note that the primary power that people have been downing Paul for, is, according to Paul, not one of the powers he wants.





You asked me about my thoughts on originalism in interpretation and adherence to judicial precedent. I think that trying to determine the original meaning of the Constitution is what the first purpose of the Supreme Court should be. If the original meaning of the text is clear, its not the duty of the Court to try and get around it. The problem with this is the necessary and proper clause, which authorizes Congress to do what is necessary to carry out its enumerated powers. It effectively expands power, as it should –without the clause, Congress would be pretty impotent even to carry out its enumerated powers. Then you have judicial interpretations of the meaning of the commerce clause, which in my opinion after NRLB steel and especially Wikard v. Filburn went off the reservation. The Court tried to reign in the expansion of the clause in the mid 90s, but it really had little practical change IMO. The upcoming Obamacare case will be huge, but I’m afraid it will be upheld unless they want to turn their back on Wickard.

Respect for judicial precedent is one of those things that makes good sense, but only to a point. People need to know what the law is, and have a rational basis to believe it will probably remain the same. But when there are so many bad precedents set, like I would argue Roe and Wickard and Kelo, those do need to be overruled. Oftentimes the Court uses respect for precedent as an excuse for whatever they may find. The shocking, perhaps not too shocking thing I think people find when they study constitutional law is the variation in the Courts opinions, the weird angles, the places where even people who are supposed to be textualists stop reading the plain text (Scalia, from time to time can be accused of not following the text despite his reputation). Its an incredibly hard job to apply a 200 year old document, and the question is, when arguments can be made for either interpretation, which one do you choose? The tiebreaker is often personal political ideas, hidden by clever justifications, or sometimes, adherence to precedent.