Owner: Republican Renaissance URL:http://republicanrenaissance.blogspot.com Join Date: Sat, 02 Jun 2007 22:18:38 -0500 Rating:0 Site Description: This is about changing the direction of the Republican Party. This is a call to true conservatives who feel their party has been led astray, steered by ambitious big-government politicians fundamentally indistinguishable from their counterparts on the lef Site statistics:Click here
On the Ground in Iowa, Part II 2007-08-25 13:35:00 Two weeks have passed since my last post, from Iowa. I meant to follow up with another right away, but have been busy with, among other things, creating a video about Dr. Paul which I just uploaded. It should appear on Google Video soon (too long for YouTube).There has been a lot of good stuff written by others already, so I'll keep it short. Here are my belated conclusions about Iowa:There are two kinds of votes cast in the straw poll - votes for ideas and votes for festival. The former are tougher to get while the latter only require putting on a good show and serving a better plate of barbeque than the next tent. I found the atmosphere to be more carnival-like than I expected. It's been reported that Mitt Romney spent over two millions dollars on this thing, and it wouldn't surprise me to learn that it was actually more than that. From the looks of it Brownback probably spent about as much as he had, and I don't think there will be enough gas in his tank to go a lot further.One
America on the Brink of Bankruptcy 2007-08-28 09:24:00 This segment of 60 Minutes needs to be seen by every America
n.Alexander Tytler is said to have remarked that a democracy can only survive until the people realize they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. We need a President who is not like every other politician. In short, a person with the courage and conviction to stop our ballooning welfare state and runaway militarism. There is only one person in the 2008 race who fits that description.While career politicians who lust after power and plaudits dissemble, nuance and triangulate their way to applause lines, saying whatever they think they need to say in the moment to get elected, Ron Paul stands in stark contrast to these frauds. He speaks the plain truth and has done so consistently throughout his entire public service. The only way to know that you're looking at the genuine article is to examine their record, and Paul's record speaks for itself. There is no guessing about it. It needs no spin from high-priced c Read more:Brink
Honesty and Integrity... 2007-08-27 02:28:00 ...the issues that carry the day. The following is a splendid blog post that deserves sharing.How and Why I Picked My 2008 CandidateI am not someone who, by nature, trusts those in power. Power corrupts people; I have seen this to be true. The very first requirement for me to ever get excited about a political candidate or office holder is they MUST have integrity and a sense of duty to the people. It is frustrating watching so many national politicians take turns going down in flames, their dirty little secrets out: bribes and corruption; moral scandals; flip-flopping and selling their votes. It's tough to find real integrity. I think maybe Obama has it. Not completely sure, but I'm trusting his record and his words for now. I think McCain has done a good job voting his conscience from what I can see. But the man that has stood out to me the most in the integrity department this election is, far and away, Ron Paul. I respect Obama, but I don't agree with him on many socialist ideas Read more:Honesty
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Is Ron Paul Top-Tier? 2007-08-31 19:45:00 Some of us have known it for awhile. Others are just catching on.I can't wait for the 3rd Quarter fundraising numbers. We are playing to win, folks.If you haven't already done so, now is the time to contribute. If you care about liberty, about reducing government power, reducing debt, and about bringing honesty and integrity to politics, let it never be said that you did nothing. The opportunity is knocking. Make your stand with us. Read more:Ron Paul
The Republican Schism 2007-08-29 20:54:00 The Republican
Party is at war with itself. Never have the differences between its factions been so jarring. On one side are traditional small government conservatives, standard bearers of the Goldwater and Reagan era legacy. On the other side are big government neoconservatives and Jingoists. The battle for the soul of the party has been joined. In some ways it resembles the eve of 1994.One thing is clear. In order to have even the slightest hope of winning in 2008, the Republican Party must be whole and it must be able to attract some moderate Democrats. But there is only one candidate capable of building that coalition. Right now Ron Paul is bringing together libertarians, traditionalists, independents, and Democrats. Social conservatives are split, with some counting themselves on Paul's side and others drifting—primarily on a current of Islamophobia—into an uneasy alliance with the neocons. There are also those, particularly in the world of punditry, who have painted themselv
Pumping and Printing 'til the Wheels Come Off 2007-09-21 01:42:00 Ron Paul speaks the truth about inflation...about the stealing of value from those depending on savings and people living on fixed incomes, the higher cost of living for the poor, the inevitable and unsustainable malinvestment that gets a bailout every time it's properly liquidated by the market.Of course, Bernanke the consummate technocrat responds with one of his typical non-answers.Today the value of the U.S. Dollar dropped below the Canadian Dollar for the first time in 30 years or so, and is now hovering around parity. And the charlatans still aren't done inflating and trying to gin up the economy with cheap credit. The currency is being debased like mad to prop up the whole house of cards. It spells certain doom for prosperity in America unless we stop it now.As Jim Rogers put it: "Every time the Fed turns around to save its friends on Wall Street, it makes the situation worse ... If Bernanke starts running those printing presses even faster than he's doing already, yes we are Read more:Printing
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Brilliant Remarks at a Crummy Debate 2007-09-18 20:41:00 The format was good but the content of the debate, most especially the questions featured during the "lightning round", were so abjectly stupid I had to pinch myself. "Press the button if you would support a federal policy that grants amnesty to Satan." What a mind-numbingly useless affair. But Paul's 4-minute closing statement miraculously nudged it away from a total waste of time. Rather electrifying, really:I also loved the moment when he castigated the others for the way their high-minded ideas about national sovereignty evaporate when it comes to going along with the United Nations, WTO, etc.Classic. Read more:Brilliant
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Ron Paul's Seattle Visit 2007-09-16 13:21:00 I've been listening to politicians answer questions for a long time. The talented ones have developed the ability to respond to any query by steering back to their memorized talking points, designed to (a) tout their strength on an issue (usually with a liberal sprinkling of emotive words like "honor", "family", "strength", etc.), and/or (b) smooth over any apparent contradiction between their past history and the position they believe the bulk of the electorate is presently in the mood for. The unfailing pattern is one where the length of answers exceeds their substance by a margin of at least 5 to 1, and notes are struck which are eerily similar to the ones heard in car dealerships whenever a customer wavers over the optional undercoating.Ron Paul
does something most politicians do not. He actually answers the questions he's asked. Directly. Openly. He doesn't use every question as a springboard to wax poetic about his record, his faith, or his family upbringing. He talks in real Read more:Seattle
On the Anniversary of 9/11...Remember, But Learn Too 2007-09-11 22:00:00 The anniversary of 9/11 has come and gone, and from all quarters of the media we've been taken down the path of rememberance. It's appropriate, but I would argue not enough. The date should also be marked for a commitment to learning about the reality of our foreign policy and its repercussions, as well as the nature of the enemy we face.To that end, I will further argue that anyone who has not yet read Through Our Enemies' Eyes and (especially) Imperial Hubris by Michael Scheuer is not serious about understanding what is going on. Scheuer was, until his resignation in 2004, a 22-year veteran of the CIA and station chief of the Osama bin Laden task force. There may not be any ONE expert on bin Laden and al-Qaeda, or the Middle East region in general, but his is a voice and analysis that is indispensible for anyone who really seeks to understand what is happening and why.We owe it to ourselves and to those who were victims on 9/11 to consider our foreign policy from a rational and kn Read more:Anniversary
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"How to Stop a War" 2007-09-09 03:33:00 That's the title of an interesting book by military historians/strategists James Dunnigan and William Martel. The subtitle "The Lessons on Two Hundred Years of War and Peace", and sub-subtitle "How and Why Wars Start...and How We Can Prevent the Next One" piqued my curiosity so I picked it up. The book's irreverent title belies the seriousness of its contents. The conclusions reached therein rest on data gleaned from a study of over 500 wars and near-conflicts. What the authors found were some remarkably consistent patterns.As I paged through the book, published in 1987, I thought of how unfortunate it was that it wasn't in more people's minds (mine included) five years ago when the clamor for war was being urged along. If it had been, a colossal mistake might have been avoided...actually, given the character of those in charge that probably isn't true; but it might very well have been recognized sooner for what it was, and just maybe the damage could have been minimized and somew
"Paul Has His Facts Straight." 2007-09-08 14:12:00 Column from The Street:In an effort to boost his media exposure, presidential candidate Mike Huckabee has tried to discredit Rep. Ron Paul's responses in the GOP debate Wednesday in New Hampshire.Thursday, Huckabee called Texas Rep. Paul's comments during the debate "ludicrous" and "unacceptable." The former Arkansas governor conflated a previous debate comment with Wednesday's debate to suggest that Paul blamed America for 9/11....Chris Wallace asked Paul if he would pull troops from Iraq in spite of predictions of a bloodbath, al Qaeda camps and death for U.S. supporters in Iraq.Paul's spirited answer: "The people who say there will be a bloodbath are the ones who said it would be a cakewalk, it would be slam dunk, and that it would be paid for by oil. Why believe them?"He was alluding to Vice President Dick Cheney's prediction that we'd be greeted in Iraq "with candy and flowers." Paul Wolfowitz, a former Bush aide, claimed that Iraqi oil would pay for the entire war, and some Read more:Straight
Dubious Honor 2007-09-07 23:02:00 It came up in Wednesday night's debate on Fox. More than once, in fact.Honor.What "honor" really seems to boil down to for the GOP Jingoists is the belief that we can't leave until we've beaten the savages into a submissive posture and our forces can stride over prostrated bodies on their way off the dune. The plumed helmet adorers take the same view of honor as Sheikh Abdullah Azzam: "History does not write its lines except with blood. Glory does not build its lofty edifice except with skulls. Honor and respect cannot be established except on a foundation of cripples and corpses."Ron Paul delivered in rebuttal the most exceptional line of any debate thusfar: "What do we have to pay to save face?"And just like that, the curtain was thrown aside.Seeking honor in a flag pitching ceremony atop a mountain of corpses is both horrible and horribly immature. Costuming the whole affair in the freshly-pressed outfit of an illegitimate, westernized and U.S.-approved government only adds the a
Ron Paul SMASH!!! 2007-09-07 22:38:00 A beautiful post by Brad at his blog The Crossed Pond. Sizing up the debate last night:Ron Paul
, unlike mostly everybody else on the stage, was clearly the candidate driven by ideas, and all his answers reflected that. HE had a purpose, a reason for being there, and it showed. I remain of the opinion that people aren’t as dumb as we give them credit for. They know real leadership when they show it, and Ron showed it.And that was the second reason it was a great performance. For the first debate to kick off the “real” campaign season, Ron Paul has to start making every time out count. Hour long speeches where he goes in depth about his policies and ideas are great, if you get a voter there, but when you’ve got 9 minutes in an hour-and-a-half long debate, and you’re sharing the stage with 9 other guys, you’ve got to make those minutes count, and that was the real breakthrough of Ron’s performance. He made every minute count. I guarantee that every single voter who watched
The Logic-Meter is Broken 2007-09-05 21:54:00 There were some good exchanges during tonight's Republican debate on Fox, but one in particular stood out for its strange logic.All the candidates on the stage, with the exception of Ron Paul, advanced the notion that Iran cannot be allowed to build nuclear weapons because (it is implied) they are irrational people who are guided by a voice in their heads to commit wholesale slaughter of others for the sake of their god. Then, just minutes later, Giuliani and Romney both indicated in their answers that Iran was rational enough to back down and negotiate if confronted with enough missiles and naked power. Since both postulates cannot be true, the question that should be asked is, which is it?Either Iran is a deranged lunatic nation—in which case the only solution is their complete and indiscriminate eradication; or they are a nation of people capable of rational calculation—in which case they should be talked to and dealt with diplomatically, without all the incessant bluster and b Read more:Logic
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Ron Paul, Statesman 2007-09-04 22:15:00 Fantastic speech in Ft. Worth:I also want to draw attention to two other excellent videos of interviews recently given, which demonstrate Ron Paul
's solid understanding of economics. Other candidates either don't understand or don't care about the economic issues we face. But sacrificing brains and principles for ignorance and ambition is a poor trade, no matter how appealingly the latter is packaged.MSNBC, Morning Joe:CNBC, Kudlow & Company:
Ron Paul Video Requests 2007-09-03 23:06:00 Since posting the 47-minute video I created—Ron Paul
: A Man for All Seasons—I've received many requests for a higher-quality version of it, suitable for burning to DVD. Anyone who would like the file can e-mail me and I will send you a link to download it. The file is 535 MB, encoded in WMV at a bitrate of 2.1 mbps. This larger file includes more than 3 minutes of new material.I'm not experienced at making DVDs, but I believe the file must be converted from WMV format to MPEG-2 in order to play it back on any DVD player. I don't know if there will be any noticeable loss in quality from the conversion. Since many of the clips used were obtained from others and were not the highest quality resolution to begin with, I can't say what they will look like when played on a TV screen. Hopefully it will be passable. Read more:Requests
PBS Debate 2007-09-27 20:44:00 An initial observation, about 45 minutes into the PBS Republican Debate
. I'd like to hear someone mention that federalism - or the principle of subsidiarity - is the only way to have genuine self-government. As tempting as it may be to look to the national government to spread some good uniformly across the country, it inevitably takes control over the machinery of government away from most people, and especially from those who have reason to feel disenfranchised. Our government as it exists today is in the hands of professional politicians, policy wonks, and lobbyists. So many people today harbor an intrinsic distrust of bigness in the corporate world, but have no qualms where government is concerned. That's the opposite of the system our founders designed. The vast majority of governmental power should reside in local communities and states, where it can be watched and accessed by ordinary individuals. The bigger and more centralized a government gets, the less responsive and less
NewsHour Interview with Ron Paul 2007-10-12 23:29:00 This may be the best interview I've seen yet.PART 1:PART 2:When the man has more than 30 seconds to answer a question, he is riveting. He simply must get an hour with Charlie Rose.
Washington Post Gets Sloppy on Ron Paul 2007-10-12 09:23:00 The Washington
Post is on a roll lately. They've managed to glaringly misrepresent presidential candidate Ron Paul
in not one, but two recent articles.The first instance was Thursday's column by Michael Shear, entitled Ron Paul: Give Peace a Chance. In the opening lines of the column Mr. Shear writes:Republican presidential hopeful Ron Paul said today that he could see no possible reason to ever launch military action or initiate a warThis is grossly inaccurate. If you watch the video of the interview and listen closely to what is being said (05:06), it is clear that Paul was responding to the question of whether he saw a need for war under present circumstances. His comments were immediately prefaced with the clarifying question, "Under current circumstances, in the world today?"He certainly did not say what Mr. Shear wrote—that he could see no reason for war EVER. Mr. Shear's error makes Paul seem like a strange peacenik, which is exactly how his less scrupulous opponents have Read more:Washington Post
Honesty is Compelling 2007-10-11 22:07:00 Blogger Nathan writes:I’m pretty liberal. In fact, I’m very liberal. At least in the sense that I like gays. But I also like the idea of small government that stays out of our business, because I think that small government promotes civil rights.So recently I’ve been really thinking a lot about Ron Paul. I don’t agree with all of his positions, like his stance on abortion. But he is so principled and consistent, that it is hard not to like him. Heck, I even donated money to him.I guess the question is how do I feel about this? Out of all of the candidates running, I think I like him the most, from either party. There aren’t really any democrats that excite me.What is wrong with me?Are we about to see the biggest political coalition ever forged? Read more:Honesty
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Questions for CNBC.com Editor 2007-10-11 23:06:00 Allen Wastler, Managing Editor
at CNBC.com, wrote an open letter explaining his decision to take down the post-debate website poll when it became obvious that Ron Paul was winning it by a large margin. I e-mailed him some questions about that:Dear Mr. Wastler,There were a few of points that struck me as curious in your letter, and I respectfully request your elaboration:(1) Regarding the flooding of the poll by Paul's supporters...why is it, in your opinion, that the other campaigns - particularly the ones with a lot more resources than Paul's - were not able to muster the same kind of response? Surely their supporters are just as capable of flooding your poll in the same way. If you can reach any conclusion other than (a) they don't have nearly as many supporters or (b) their supporters aren't very enthusiastic about their choice, I'd sure like to know. And if either of the aforementioned explanations are true, don't you think it's an important - indeed, newsworthy - thing? Why
The "Wingification" of the GOP 2007-10-10 09:22:00 The National Journal bumps Ron Paul up a few places, and inadvertently says something jarring:Look who's crashing the party! His $5 million is impressive because no one on the GOP side is raising BIG bucks. And don't write off Paul's supporters as simply angry anti-U.N. black helicopter types. There's been anger from the GOP's less-government libertarian wing for some time, and Paul may be becoming the protest vehicle for those folks. [emphasis added]They're not the first to say it but it reminds me, like a bad dream stuck on repeat, just how far the Party has drifted from its moorings. Libertarian wing? Does anyone remember when small government was what the Republican Party was all about? Used to be, if you could name one thing Republicans stood for it was less government. Nowadays it's a wing. How sad.
On the Latest Non-Debate 2007-10-10 09:18:00 Matt Towery says what needs to be said:Isn’t it time everyone owns up to the fact that - had he not been labeled “a nut” by the establishment early on - Ron Paul is by far the most interesting candidate in the entire GOP field? Don’t these other guys get it that repeating the same old tired phrases about “economic growth” and “free markets” are just driving their most conservative base into fits of rage?He captures the one-inch-deep characters exactly right:As for the Mitt and Rudy show, what a battle over nothing. Romney looks like the Ultra Bright toothpaste pitchman and Rudy looks like a character out of the Harry Potter series. They split hairs as they all propose basically the same policies and dodge their pasts, either personal or political.He has a suggestion:So here’s a challenge to all “debaters” in these snore-a-thons. Use the old debate technique of doing everything in threes. In other words, if asked what your plan is on energy, say, “I have three ma Read more:Debate
Shameful 2007-10-10 00:21:00 I don't even know where to start with that sham of a debate that just went down in Michigan, but how about this: The thing was two hours long. Ron Paul got four minutes of that, total. FOUR MINUTES. Some of the other candidates seemed to ramble on that long just in one answer.It's absolutely disgraceful. That wasn't a debate, it was an echo chamber.The GOP had better start taking the Ron Paul campaign seriously because if they do not, Hillary or no Hillary, they will go down in flames in 2008.Correction: Looks like he got a little under six minutes. Breakdown is here.
Wilsonian Redux 2007-10-09 23:27:00 In 1918, Presdent Woodrow Wilson committed U.S. forces to the territory north of St. Petersburg, to help fight the Bolsheviks during the Russian Civil War. By 1919, 5,000 American troops were in the northern Russian theater, intervening on the side of the anti-Bolsheviks. The plan, of course, backfired, resulting in a hardened Bolshevik opposition.In June of 1919 the U.S. Senate passed a resolution asking Wilson to explain his reasons for sending troops to fight and die in Siberia. Republican (that's right, Republican) Senator William Borah exposed Wilson's strategy of sliding into war through the back door, saying that "while Congress has not declared war, we are carrying on war with the Russian people. We have an army in Russia; we are furnishing munitions and supplies." The good Senator harshly condemned what had been revealed as nothing more or less than a policy "to intervene by military force in the internal affairs of Russia and to establish a government that will be satisfac Read more:Redux
National Review: Preparing for a Ron Paul Surprise 2007-10-09 08:23:00 Dave Kopel, writing for The National
Review Online, has produced a very positive column today about Ron Paul
. Fewer and fewer, it seems to me, are the "Ron Paul is great but doesn't have a chance" narratives, and more numerous are the articles that express either all-out vitriol or insipired optimism. Good to see.Here's an excerpt:This weekend, I attended and spoke at the Second Amendment Foundation’s annual Gun Rights Policy Conference, which was held at a convention center in northern Kentucky, a few miles away from Cincinnati. What I saw and heard there changed my mind about the viability of Ron Paul’s presidential candidacy; Paul is going to far outperform the expectations laid out for him....Most impressive, however, was the large crowd of young people who showed up to hear Paul’s speech. They were enthused and energized, many of them sporting Ron Paul Revolution t-shirts. (The shirts are very clever, since they use “Revolution” to also say ““LOVE”,” which make Read more:Surprise
Cafferty on Paul 2007-10-08 23:13:00 CNN's Jack Cafferty explains the differences between Ron Paul and the rest of the cookie-cutter political elites.:
A Letter to Ron Paul Supporters 2007-10-04 22:58:00 $5.1 million raised, reportedly with an average donation of around $40. That works out to something like 127,000 of us. An incredible number at this stage in the process, and we should all be immensely proud of what we've accomplished together thusfar. The world is on notice.I feel compelled to reach out my fellow supporters and to say a few words. They are solely my own, and I hope you'll forgive my presumptuousness. What I want to say is this: We've gone further already than most of the world ever expected, but now is not the time for resting on our laurels. With just a few months remaining, we're now officially in crunch time. This is it. This is fourth down. This is when fortunes are determined.We cannot let up.The campaign—the movement—needs every last penny we can scrounge. For many of us, this won't be easy. It means real sacrifice. In my case I'll be paying my donation off for the next year. But if you're like me, what choice do you have? Personally, this is a mor Read more:Ron Paul
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