[wvns] Ron Paul's "Fringe Views" Supported By The Majority of Americans

Ron Paul's "Fringe Views" Are Supported By The Majority of Americans
Latest smear attempt from whiny academic riddled with errors and lies

Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet
Wednesday, November 14, 2007
http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/november2007/141107_fringe_views.htm

The ad hominem slur with which political science major Stuart Baimel
entitles his recent Stanford Daily hit piece, Ron Paul is insane, and
the cacophony of errors which subsequently dominate the essay, just
goes to show how much academia is rigged towards grooming compliant
plebs for the establishment and not really about educating anyone.

"After reading about Ron Paul's record-breaking fundraising day a
couple of weeks ago, then seeing it touted in a recent Daily op-ed, I
was concerned. Paul and his views lie on the fringe; it's never a good
sign for social stability when fringe candidates get so much support,"
whines Baimel.

Ron Paul's views lie on the fringe? Absolute bullshit. It seems that
Baimel has unfortunately thrown thousands of dollars at a political
science degree in vain - and I - the University dropout - am going to
have to give him a proper education.

(Article continues below)

Ron Paul's central "fringe view" as Baimel would have it, is his
anti-war stance. The Texas Congressman is the only Republican
candidate to advocate an immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops from
Iraq, indeed, he is the only truly anti-war candidate of the
frontrunners from either party.

Is being anti-war a fringe view in late 2007? Let's take a look at the
polls.

NBC News/Wall Street Journal Poll

"In general, do you approve or disapprove of the job that George W.
Bush is doing in handling the situation in Iraq?"

Disapprove - 68%
Approve - 28%
Not Sure - 5%

"When it comes to the war in Iraq, which of the following statements
comes closer to your point of view? The most responsible thing we can
do is find a way to withdraw most of our troops from Iraq by the
beginning of 2009. The most responsible thing we can do is to remain
in Iraq until the situation in the country is stable."

Withdraw most troops by 2009 - 55%
Remain until country stable - 40%
Unsure - 5%

ABC News/Washington Post Poll Nov. 1-5, 2007

"All in all, considering the costs to the United States versus the
benefits to the United States, do you think the war with Iraq was
worth fighting, or not?"

Not worth it - 63%
Worth it - 35%
Unsure - 2%

Pew Research Center for the People & the Press survey conducted by
Princeton Survey Research Associates International Oct. 17-23, 2007

"Do you think the U.S. should keep military troops in Iraq until the
situation has stabilized, or do you think the U.S. should bring its
troops home as soon as possible?"

Bring home as soon as possible - 54%
Keep in Iraq until stabilized - 42%
Unsure - 4%

CNN/Opinion Research Corporation Poll. Oct. 12-14

"Do you favor or oppose the U.S. war in Iraq?"

Oppose - 64%
Favor - 34%
Unsure - 2%

ABC News/Washington Post Poll. Sept. 27-30, 2007

"Do you think the United States should keep its military forces in
Iraq until civil order is restored there, even if that means continued
U.S. military casualties; OR, do you think the United States should
withdraw its military forces from Iraq in order to avoid further U.S.
military casualties, even if that means civil order is not restored
there?"

Withdraw forces - 54%
Keep forces - 43%
Unsure - 3%

Ron Paul is the only frontrunner from either party that has advocated
an immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq. Is this a fringe
view? No - it's the majority view in America today, as every single
poll attests to, yet Baimel's major in political science seemingly
doesn't teach him how to do a Google search.

The rest of Baimel's piece is riddled with gross inaccuracies. He
attacks Kucinich for supporting the impeachment of Bush and Cheney,
another "fringe" sentiment according to Baimel.

Wrong again.

A new poll out today from American Research Group finds that 55% of
voters believe that George W. Bush has abused his powers in a way that
rises to the level of impeachable offenses. 52% of voters believe that
the same is true of Vice President Dick Cheney.

Last time I checked, 55% was a majority, not a fringe viewpoint.

Another one vote per IP MSNBC online poll shows 89% support impeachment.

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Baimel smirks that Ron Paul is "Content to let genocide, wars of
aggression, and human rights violations occur abroad with nothing more
than a "moral statement" from the U.S.," intimating that the Neo-Con's
butchering of Iraq, which has killed conservatively 655,000 Iraqis
since the 2003 invasion and a further 1 million at least as a result
of bombings and sanctions since 1990, was somehow a benevolent cause.

Does over 1.5 million dead Iraqis, around half of them children, as a
result of U.S. foreign policy qualify as genocide, Mr. Baimel?

Presumably, Baimel entitled his piece "Ron Paul is insane" in an
attempt to get a reaction - knowing that the statement itself is
manifestly incorrect and is merely an inflammatory gimmick to attract
attention and make himself feel important. Well mission accomplished,
Stuart, because you're going to be on the receiving end of a fair few
opinions over the next few days.

Feel free to politely e mail Baimel with the truth about Ron Paul's
"fringe" views, and maybe it won't be too late to give Stuart a real
education after all.

===

Reader comment:

Congressman Paul is clearly a strong advocate of "state's rights."
He opposes US involvement in international organizations such as the
UN and the ICC
He is in favor of capitol punishment as a state (not federal) prerogative
He still defends his past opposition to the Civil Rights Act of 1964
He surprisingly opposes campaign finance reform
He is in favor of the legalization of narcotics
He is opposed to affirmative action
He opposes universal healthcare

While these are all positions that are very problematic for me, in and
of themselves, the position that is MOST problematic for me (at the
present time) is his very harsh, repressive and fundamentally
counterproductive position on immigration - as it pertains to the
overall health and welfare of America as a civil society (and concern
for the "least of these").

===

WVNS Replies

Unfortunately we don't have a lot of choices here. You want Rudy
Giuliani, who dressed up as a woman and marched in the gay pride
parade, or you want Hillary, who strongly supported the genocidal
sanctions against Iraqi children while she was First Lady? Both of
them have promised AIPAC to bomb Iran. Also, Obama is beholden to
AIPAC. At this point, there is nothing more important than pulling our
troops out of Iraq, Afghanistan, and everywhere. I heard that Cynthia
McKinney might run as a Green, but her chances of winning are slim
because the Green Party has no money and has very few active
volunteers. Ron Paul actually has a fighting chance to stop the wars
because he has a strong base of support among the Young Republicans
who are very enthusiastic and remarkably sane. He wins every debate
because he makes a "self-interest" argument for ending the wars which
works with Americans. Even Jay Leno respected him.

Ron Paul is a Constitutionalist and a non-interventionist. Everybody
disagrees with him about something. The leftists hate him because he's
anti-abortion. But again, we have to put aside our personal opinions
and stop the war immediately or lose our democracy. We only have one
chance left. The only thing that can unite Americans is the
Constitution (as flawed a document as it is - but it's better than the
lawlessness of Bush).

Ron Paul approaches the Constitution almost like an Islamic jurist. He
did not say he didn't think universal health care might be a good
idea. He said it's not in the Constitution that the US government has
the role of providing health care. If you want to do it, then you have
to amend the Constitution. If you allow Congress to do things that the
Constitution doesn't allow, then we no longer have a constitutional
democracy. They can declare war without an act of Congress, they can
cancel your currency value, they can put you in jail without evidence,
etc.

I have never come across him saying anything racist. He did say, "I
certainly join my colleagues in urging Americans to celebrate the
progress this country has made in race relations. However, contrary to
the claims of the supporters of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the
sponsors of H.Res. 676, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 did not improve
race relations or enhance freedom. Instead, the forced integration
dictated by the Civil Rights Act of 1964 increased racial tensions
while diminishing individual liberty." That is certainly true. He
didn't say he was against integration, he's against the expansion of
Federal powers. The situation for blacks and whites has worsened since
the 1960s because our economy is going down the drain due to our
foreign policy. Even if you disagree with him, he has a rational
argument for his views, he is not a racist frothing at the mouth.

The current drug policy in the United States is completely irrational.
The CIA invades a country, forces them to grow drugs, then the CIA
brings it into the country and sells it to the police, who then sell
it to the drug mafia, and then we spend billions of dollars putting
people in jail for non-violent crimes. By decriminalizing drugs, and
dismantling the CIA, as Paul proposes, you will have far fewer social
problems created by criminal mafias and gangs because something like
cocaine would no longer be profitable. And our tax money would no
longer pay for these drug wars. That was also the approach in the
early days of Islam. Scholars, including Caliph Ali refused to
criminalize intoxicating herbs because there was nothing specifically
in the Quran outlawing any plant. There was no criminal offense for
hashish or opium, and usually they were prescribed by doctors as
medicines. Avincenna (I forgot his name in Arabic) talks a lot about
the medieval Muslim uses of what we now consider to be "illegal"
drugs. The drug wars have cost US taxpayers billions of dollars and
have not improved anything. So it's useful to look at how America used
to deal with these issues. Did you know that George Washington grew
marijuana on the White House lawn? Farmers used to pay their taxes
with hemp. The laws changed due to pressure from special interest groups.

I am aware of the "states rights" issue regarding slavery, however in
this day and age, states rights gives you protection from Bush. For
example, gay marriage is a states issue, so any state can decide it
doesn't want to have gay marriage. If you gave the Feds the authority
to make that decision, a special interest lobby could convince the
federal government to legalize gay marriage for the entire country. So
there are pros and cons to Ron Paul's positions.

Dr. Paul is a moral person so I'm sure that minorities could work with
him to end poverty in ways that conform to the Constitution. What
most average black people want is more money to live and fewer men in
jail. So again, smaller government would decrease the individual
burden on average people to sustain an empire with their taxes and
we'd have less poverty. In Roxbury here, the black community has been
having a lot of meetings to figure out what to do because even though
they succeeded in getting federal funding for all kinds of stuff, the
crime in the neighborhood is just getting worse and worse. So, the
socialist approach isn't working and Ron Paul's approach - locally
based government, is what the black community is doing anyway, out of
necessity. The #1 concern for black youth right now is not wanting to
get killed in Iraq. Paul has a young black following.

Bottom line, we have to stop the war. RP is approachable. He is
neither a criminal nor insane. As long as you can make an argument
from the point of view of the Constitution you can get by. Sort of
like when you are dealing with the Taliban, you have to make your
argument based on Quran/Hadith and they will listen.

About immigration, I think it's a non-issue for most Muslims since
they tend to immigrate here legally. I suspect that the anti-Mexican
rhetoric is playing to popular sentiment, yet with his "small
government" proposal, we'd have less of a police state working night
and day to deport the Mexicans, so they still might be better off with
Ron Paul, and also, fewer Mexicans would join the US military and kill
Muslims in order to get a green card, if there was no war. Ideally,
the US should have a less predatorial relationship with Mexico so that
their country would not be so impoverished that their young people
would all have to leave home.

I think the bottom line with what you are saying though is that
"ideally" you want some kind of socialist welfare system with open
borders. However, what we have right now is Bush and a government that
has descended into lawlessness. No amount of protesting is going to
automatically transform what we have into a socialist utopia. In fact,
the US is bankrupt. So either we give in to complete tyranny, or we
cling to the Constitution. I don't see any other choice. There is no
other candidate who has indicated willingness to uphold the
Constitution when it comes to declaring wars, detainee rights, etc.

Sincerely
Karima

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