by: Les Carpenter
This fiscal conservative and social libertarian certainly does not agree with or advocate all of Senator Rand Paul's positions. Nor is it clear at this point the Senator from Kentucky has the attributes to eventually assume and execute the duties of the presidency of the United States of America. However, the points the Senator makes in the following video with respect military action and how our nation has reacted to current world events, especially in light of our Constitution, are worth serious consideration. Our world has changed and continues to change at an ever accelerating pace.
With the above in mind can someone, anyone, point out errors in Senator Rand Paul's speech? If so what are they and why do you believe they are errors in judgment?
Full text of the Senator's speech and be found BELOW THE FOLD.
Via: Memeorandum
Cross Posted @ Rational Nation USA
Good questions.
ReplyDeleteIt's fairly easy to be correct when arguing in broad generalities especially those that appeal to patriotic themes. The specifics however often reveal the motivations behind the reasoning and motivation is the mother of many iniquities. Take his view of Afghanistan: He says he was for going into Afghanistan to punish it for housing BIn Laden, or at least that was the reason Bush gave us. Bush and Paul were against "nation building" but I'd bet that was precisely the thing behind going there and staying there from the beginning since when we did find him he had been in Pakistan for years. Even Bush admitted, if I recall correctly, that Afghanistan wasn't actually about Osama.
It remains about thinking that establishing a Western Liberal Democracy by closing our eyes and holding elections which I think Rand would agree is the same stupid mistake the West has been making around the world for a very long time. So I agree with Paul about the naivete while wondering if he isn't still supporting it because we have no particular interest in that country and they certainly don't have a population willing or able to be converted. And of course It's not about how many al Qaeda leaders we've killed, it's about a religion that has fanatical support around the world. Drone strikes? They would and do hate us for killing any Muslim, any time.
When he started, I wondered how long it would take him to switch from high sentence to base ( and somewhat inaccurate) Obama bashing. About 9 minutes, it seems.
Yes, only Congress can declare war. It hasn't since 1941 and pointing out Obama's failure to do this and that when he's been blocked from doing anything at all and has been condemned simultaneously and threatened with impeachment for taking actions that he was later condemned and threatened with impeachment for not doing. Remember when Clinton's attack on Al Qaeda were "Monica missiles" and he was "wagging the dog?"
Has anything changed? Tell us what you would and can do and let's skip the ad hominem.
Yes, we've had a fractured and foolish and self-defeating foreign policy since Washington, but solving that is not as simple as electing a "strong leader" and subjecting him to that barking and dishonest and crooked rabble we call Congress. Is making it all about Obama a way to distract from a tradition of deposing elected governments, supporting cannibalistic tyrants just because the Russians supported a different one -- a way to distract from policies based on short term and usually misguided interests of the military/industrial complex and give status to someone's electoral campaign? I think so. The party that supports him told us the very same things about Bill Clinton, mocking his actions against Al Qaeda, predicting economic collapse and sounding oh so fiscally responsible. Is this the same thing? I ask because nothing they predicted about Clinton was true, because they turned peace and prosperity into depression, debt and the most expensive war in history. I worry because nothing they've so far predicted about Obama has come true and I don't see that on the practical level, on the level of things that a president can actually do, he's differentiated himself from other candidates.
Again, all things seem possible when we stick to flag waving and talk about freedom, but a man committed to treating Americans and their problems like Wal-Mart employees doesn't seem to be a choice for me. A government that governs least may be I fear, a weak, inept and defenseless government handicapped by a ruling monied class out for it's own interests.
How would he use what resources and options right now, today, to face the situation as it is in Syria and Iraq? What does he think about the 6 years of predicting failure when unemployment is lower than under any recent Republican? Why does he oppose minimum wages when real world experience contradicts what Republican theory predicts? That's the sort of thing I want to hear.
ReplyDeleteI supported Ron for a while because we did agree on certain principles, but lost the faith when it came to specifics, because the world is all about minutia, not about flag pins and marching bands. Still I listen and yes he makes points, but I'm a pessimist because I think the president isn't the issue, it's the American People at fault for American failures. We don't know what we want or what we need or why we need it and if any one of us figures it out, the rest will trample him into the slime.
Still I listen and yes he makes points, but I'm a pessimist because I think the president isn't the issue, it's the American People at fault for American failures. We don't know what we want or what we need or why we need it and if any one of us figures it out, the rest will trample him into the slime.
ReplyDeleteFairly accurately reflects my views at this point.
Rand, like all politicians irrespective of party remains somewhat close to the base. If they don't they stand zero chance of success.
Pessimism with a healthy dose of cynicism is where I'm at these days,. As life goes on and the "FreeThinkes" of the day continue to march in lockstep.
Time to hit the gym.
Me too, time for some motorcycle therapy.
ReplyDeleteFor me, Rand Paul has always presented a mixed bag of tricks and treats for Halloween.
ReplyDeleteIn the past, I applauded his statements concerning inequities in our criminal justice system, especially the failed “war on drugs” and our apartheid of mandatory sentencing laws that incarcerates a disproportionate number of minorities. Giving him credit where credit is due, Rand Paul spoke where few others have dared to tread.
In contrast, his foreign policy speech is downright Paleolithic. Paul starts from this premise: “The truth is, you can’t solve a dignity problem with military force […] We need a foreign policy that recognizes our limits …”
I was half expecting a “treat” along the lines of Andrew J. Bacevich in The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism, a sharp analysis of delusional thinking behind America’s foreign policy blunders and military misadventures.
From the end of WWII through the Cold War, Bacevich says, the American concept of “freedom” has been heavily invested in “consumption” made possible only by securing an “abundance” of resources. It explains foreign policy objectives and military interventions whose sole purpose is to secure the necessary resources to feed this vicious cycle.
Instead of a treat for Halloween, Rand Paul dispenses an old trick: “That the exceptional ideas that formed our republic unify us in the defense of freedom, and we will never back down in the defense of our naturally derived, inalienable rights.”
Ahh, here are those same code words - “exceptional” and “freedom” and “inalienable rights” - that have gotten us stumble-down drunk into the quagmires of the past 60 years.
Old wine … a path we can no longer afford.
Exceptional, freedom, and alienable rights. I am a firm believer in all three. here's why.
ReplyDeleteFor me:
Freedom means doing what you wish in so long as it does not infringe on the freedoms of others. It should be understood as meaning within the contexts of ethical, moral, and legal.
Inalienable rights are rights all individual by virtue of their humanity posses. The most important aspect to recognize is that everyone has the same rights at birth and that no one has the inalienable right to infringe on another's rights or do bodily or psychological harm to another. The lone exception... an act of self defense against an aggressor attempting to harm you or another.
Exceptional, if Americans ever achieve the above we will indeed be exceptional.
I'm sure there are many who may disagree. Perhaps we all should become Buddhists.
The words "exceptional" and "freedom" and "alienable rights" sound warm and fuzzy on paper; but these have not traveled well in foreign lands mostly because Americans have not practiced what they preach. We have propped up brutal dictatorships, not because these represent our national values, but because these support our economic interests or spheres of influence. Too many military interventions were motivated by resource protectionism - oil, mineral, territories, transportation links - and people at the gravity end of our bombs viewed us as colonialists and carpetbaggers - as well as hypocrites. American interventions have not achieved peace and stability - merely more resentment and a radicalized local population.
DeleteOur foreign policy establishment all too often ignores - or is deliberately tone deaf to - the history, culture and values of other nations. We use and abuse economic policy and make it subservient to foreign policy by entering into asymmetrical trade relationships with nations that offer far lower wages under wholly unregulated conditions - thereby selling our own people short. In effect, our foreign policy has resulted in lower wages, higher unemployment, bankrupt businesses, outsourcing, and a substantial lowering of American standards of living.
We need new thinking, not a rehash of delusions that wrought hardship on our citizens and military quagmires abroad.
The words "exceptional" and "freedom" and "alienable rights" sound warm and fuzzy on paper; but these have not traveled well in foreign lands mostly because Americans have not practiced what they preach.
DeleteNo argument here. I guess what I am saying is respect for our stated values is what we should be prcticing, should always have practiced, and have perpetually fallen short of this.
With respect to traveling well in foreign lands. I guess this is applicable' Seek first to understand then to be understood. ( I think Steven Covey penned those words.) American presidents since TR have (progressively) strove to shape the world in our image.
My concern is not merely limited to the injustices we have brought to the people of foreign lands, but what we have done to ourselves - our people who have lost jobs and businesses, and our families who have lost loved ones in mismanaged wars. What will happen to American ideals and culture when the only high value jobs left are in the military-industrial complex? Scary thoughts unless we come up with some new ideas.
DeleteI mention Andrew Basevich in my comment above because he is an influential conservative-libertarian scholar whose writings have a broad base of appeal; his book is a worthwhile read.
I believe we need a national economic policy that looks to strengthen the manufacturing industrial sector, the financial sector, and labor to improve our global competitiveness and at the same time work to grow our manufacturing base at home. Establish a secretaries position that would oversee the nations economic interests rather than the haphazard patchwork we have with corporate interests over shadowing national economic interests.
DeleteWe nee business, labor, and government working together within the framework of national policy to strengthen us in the expanding global market. I recommend the book "Three Billion New Capitalists."