Reagan Mantle Too Big for Ron Paul

Libertarian conservatives have been busy artificially bolstering the myth that their presidential candidate of choice, Ron Paul, has a strong grass-roots base and wide appeal. During Fox News’ sophomoric cell phone text message voting during the second GOP presidential candidates’ debate, Ron Paul’s boosters voted early and often, causing the post-debate results to appear skewed toward the opinion that Paul was the winner of the debate, despite his trip to the proverbial woodshed courtesy of Rudy Giuliani for his argument that America brought 9/11 upon itself. Initially I thought that perhaps some of Paul’s poll votes were coming from Democrats hoping to dilute strong performances by Giuliani or Romney by voting for the least likely and most provocative of the candidates. However, comments posted by Paul supporters on conservative Internet sites or in blogs indicate that Paul is viewed by some as the only true conservative in the race and a champion of the constitution. Of course, Paul himself declares that he stands for the constitution, and on the surface that sounds like an honorable position to hold.

When it comes to government spending and government involvement in social matters, Paul’s urgings to limit government only to the duties expressly permitted by the constitution have appeal and resonate well in conservative circles. What conservative doesn’t want to see certain federal governmental departments disbanded and their duties reverted back to local and state authorities? What conservative doesn’t want to see the dreaded income tax disappear? To some conservatives, the economic/social aspects of Paul’s libertarian-leaning principles are a siren song by which they wish to be led, if only someone holding those views could actually secure the GOP nomination. Paul clearly is not a candidate that can win a national election, and for clear-thinking conservatives who can look past their own personal benefits from no income tax and smaller government, the reason for Paul’s lack of appeal is easy to identify.

Ron Paul is no Ronald Reagan. Paul’s supporters may claim he is the true representative of conservatism in the current candidate field, but Paul has an Achilles heel that keeps Reagan conservatives and Regan Democrats alike from ever considering him as anything more than a campaign footnote: He is selective about which portions of the constitution he would adhere to strictly, and “provide for the common defense” is not among them.

In the second GOP candidates’ debate, Paul stated the following:

They attack us because we've been over there. We've been bombing Iraq for 10 years. We've been in the Middle East [for years]. I think [Ronald Reagan] was right. We don't understand the irrationality of Middle Eastern politics. Right now, we're building an embassy in Iraq that is bigger than the Vatican. We're building 14 permanent bases. What would we say here if China was doing this in our country or in the Gulf of Mexico? We would be objecting…

…They’re not attacking us because we’re rich and free, they’re attacking us because we’re over there.

Reagan directly repudiated Paul’s isolationist foreign policies 23 years ago on the beach at Normandy, France, a site where American intervention in foreign affairs proved most decisive in freeing Europe from Nazi enslavement:

The Boys of Pointe Du Hoc
June 6, 1984, Normandy

We in America have learned bitter lessons from two world wars. It is better to be here ready to protect the peace, than to take blind shelter across the sea, rushing to respond only after freedom is lost. We've learned that isolationism never was and never will be an acceptable response to tyrannical governments with an expansionist intent. But we try always to be prepared for peace, prepared to deter aggression, prepared to negotiate the reduction of arms, and yes, prepared to reach out again in the spirit of reconciliation.

Reagan conservatives and Reagan Democrats need look no further than Reagan’s statement to find sufficient reason to shun Ron Paul’s isolationist ideas. Paul claimed during the second GOP candidates’ debate that the U.S. has been bombing Iraq for 10 years, as if it were unjustified and indiscriminate bombing of cities. That is patently false. Prior to Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2003, the U.S. had occasionally bombed Iraq’s air defense stations or shot down Iraqi aircraft because Iraq regularly violated the no-fly zone enacted by the cease-fire that halted the first Gulf War. Paul chooses to ignore the fact that the Gulf War was, as Reagan prescribed, a “response to a tyrannical government with an expansionist intent.” Saddam invaded neighboring Kuwait solely for expansionist and economic motives. He wanted Kuwait’s oil and Kuwait’s ports, and Kuwait’s accumulated wealth, and so decided to take it by force. World leaders in 1991 had the fortitude to band together and, led by the U.S. military, pushed Saddam back behind his original borders. Had Saddam not violated the terms of the cease-fire by targeting our aircraft, there would have been no need for any further bombing. The defense of the no-fly zone lasted from 1991 until Operation Iraqi Freedom made it a moot point by removing Saddam from the equation because of his failure to abide by any of the UN conditions for the cease-fire enacted in 1991. Thus the current Operation Iraqi Freedom is merely a resumption of hostilities and is a continuation of the Gulf War.

Saddam, like Hitler, was removed, and rebuilding a nation and protecting it from foreign interference by those with designs on fomenting chaos, much like post WWII, is why our troops remain in Iraq. Had Ron Paul been president instead of Truman or Eisenhower, all of Germany would have fallen under Soviet occupation and Japan would have been overrun by Soviet or Chinese forces seeking retribution because Paul would have pulled American troops out of both places and brought them home immediately upon conclusion of the war. There would have been no Marshall Plan, no rebuilding and friendship alliance with Japan. No BMWs; no VWs; no Hondas; no Toyotas. Likewise, in Paul’s isolationist world, there would be no democratic South Korea. There would only be communist Korea, since Paul would not have committed U.S. troops to defend the free people of South Korea.

Ron Paul wants America to approach foreign policy with a pre-WWI mentality, when the mindset centered on the idea that America should not involve itself in any foreign war, and we nearly allowed all of Europe to be defeated by Germany. That war was so destructive that the isolationists redoubled their efforts between 1919 and 1941 to keep America from ever entangling itself in a foreign war. That isolationism resulted in Nazi occupation of continental Europe and Scandinavia, and horrific bombings of England. It also cost 6 million Jews their lives while Americans, who thought then as Ron Paul now does about intervention, stood silently on the sidelines of history, much to their condemnation.

Paul’s supporters should consider another sentence from Reagan’s powerful speech at Normandy. His explanation for why America’s military remained in Europe to confront potential Soviet aggression long after WWII, was simple, profound, and prophetic of our continued presence in Iraq:

Today, as forty years ago, our armies are here for only one purpose: to protect and defend democracy.

Regardless of how Iraq’s democracy came into existence, it is there now. Iraq has a constitution. Iraq has a democratically elected parliament that represents the wide variety of religious and tribal divisions of its population. It is imperfect, and it is often contentious, but so was America’s in its early years. The question Paul should be forced to address is, “Does America have a duty or role in history to protect and defend democracy in the world?” As an isolationist he will argue that such is not America’s role as it is not defined in the constitution. Reagan understood history far better than Paul, who would like to believe that the world begins and ends at America’s shores and nothing that occurs in foreign lands is worthy of intervention unless American interests are directly threatened. Technically speaking, from an economic/trade point of view, would it have made any difference to isolationists like Paul if Europe had been enslaved by Hitler as long as Hitler let America alone? America could have conducted normal trade in goods with Nazi Europe, including lucrative arms sales. Rescuing Britain, France, and Italy from Nazi control certainly involved an enormously “entangling alliance,” something George Washington warned of and Paul concurs with wholeheartedly. Why then did America free Europe and remain there in defensive posture for decades? The answer, as Reagan stated so perfectly, is that isolationism has never been and never will be an appropriate response to tyranny. Tyranny must be confronted wherever it exists, defeated, and replaced by freedom. Ron Paul would rather put his head in the sand and selfishly keep democracy and liberty all to himself.

Reagan understood something that Paul does not: America does not hold an exclusive right to freedom. America does not possess liberty out of luck or superior intellect. America is free and powerful because it is destined to use that power to spread and preserve freedom throughout the world. Paul’s strict but selective constitutional adherence seems to ignore that the right to liberty is identified in the Declaration of Independence, not as an American, English, or French right, but a right that belongs to all men, presumably even those in the Middle East whom Paul would abandon as apparently unworthy of these Jeffersonian words:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

This is the great issue of our time, and Paul falls woefully short in his willingness to engage in the defense of freedom. His GOP opponents more closely resemble the Reagan tradition. For example, when asked in the third GOP candidates’ debate what was the most important moral issue facing America, Giuliani replied that the greatest moral issue is whether America will share its blessings of freedom and liberty with the rest of the world. Conservatives should not allow themselves to be fooled by the Ron Paul Internet “phenomenon.” Paul was declared the winner of two GOP candidates’ debates by MSNBC, CNN, Politico, Slate, ABC News, and myriad other left-leaning media sources. A review of Wikipedia’s Ron Paul page certainly could leave an undiscerning reader with the idea that Paul has widespread support and is whipping all comers in the GOP debates. The liberal slant is obvious. Clearly from an ideological perspective liberals do not embrace Ron Paul’s libertarian views, so why is he the darling of the media and many Internet blogs? Quite simply, it is because Paul is 2008’s Ross Perot. If even 3 percent of conservative voters are swayed by Paul, it could spell the difference in a tight race and throw victory to the left, just as Perot’s theatrics did in 1992 and 1996. The left knows this and is in fact counting on it for victory.

Libertarian conservatives should not worship Paul as the constitutional savior they hold him out to be, and Reagan Conservatives and Reagan Democrats should remember that Paul is an isolationist hoarder of liberty, unwilling to preserve it among nations who possess it or share it with oppressed peoples who long for it and implore America to help them obtain it.

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Ron Paul, Ronald Reagan, Conservatism, Libertarian, Isolationism, Interventionism, Iraq War, Democracy, Presidential Candidates