Ron Paul’s foreign-policy views have long kept him exiled from the mainstream of the Republican party, but his rhetoric has also contributed to his pariah status.
On Friday’s Tonight Show with Jay Leno, Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul responded to a question about Michele Bachmann by saying, “She doesn’t like Muslims. She hates Muslims. She wants to go get ’em.” This wasn’t the first time Paul has accused another conservative of Islamophobia — over the years he has repeatedly maligned Republicans for their views on Muslims, suggesting that bigotry is either a natural motivation or a necessary justification for the U.S.’s interventionist foreign policy.
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When asked about conservative opposition to the “Ground Zero mosque,” Paul suggested Islamophobia was at the root of the controversy: “They never miss a chance to use hatred toward Muslims to rally support for the ill-conceived preventative wars. . . . This is all about hate and Islamophobia.”
Paul defended the mosque project with a libertarian appeal to property rights and religious tolerance — principles that some opponents of the mosque indeed may have trampled in their protestations that the placement of a “Cordoba House” next to Ground Zero should be prevented. But Representative Paul wasn’t making a point about offensive language or religious freedom, he was arguing that anti-Muslim sentiments delegitimize interventionist foreign policy. “I believe the [mosque opponents’] goal was not only to peddle the hate but to justify the war,” he said in another defense of the mosque. “Of course, we have to have an enemy, and the people have to be hateful of the enemy.”
In one of his recent columns on Lew Rockwell’s website, Paul called for a doctrine of “mutually assured respect,” a new foreign policy that “requires simply tolerance of others’ cultures and their social and religious values, and the giving up of all use of force to occupy or control other countries and their national resources.” That is, if Americans could shed their antipathy toward Islam, we might be less interested in interventionism.
Considering the last ten years of American foreign policy, Representative Paul suggests Islamophobia is both constitutive of and instrumental to interventionism.
But going further back, Paul’s Islamophobia arguments do not apply to a number of the American interventions he has also opposed. For one, the first Gulf War saved an Islamic monarchy from a more secular Baathist regime, for which Paul offered a paranoid explanation: The Gulf War was part of George H. W. Bush’s “New World Order,” “clearly a U.N., political war fought within U.N. guidelines, not for U.S. security.” He also inveighed against the NATO mission to Serbia, which protected Muslim Bosnians from Orthodox Christian Serbs. Paul believed the Serbian intervention would obviously fail to “stop the spread of war throughout the Balkans,” but the large-scale air war would “certainly help the military-industrial complex.”
The United States pursues an aggressive foreign policy to promote its interests and ideals around the globe. This desire, not hatred for Muslims, is why conservatives such as Michele Bachmann advocate a military presence in the Middle East, and take action (in cooperation with Jordan and Saudi Arabia, of all nations) to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon.
Ron Paul believes that American interests and ideals are best served by keeping our troops at home, and is entitled to that argument. Today’s conservative foreign-policy consensus happens to disagree, and holds American interests are best protected by aggressive policies. Paul is often principled and informed when he takes the other side of this dispute — for instance, in debates, he raises the issue of the “blowback,” i.e. retaliation including terrorist attacks, that results from American invasions and occupations.
Paul’s flaws, however, show through when he is tempted to accuse his opponents of something other than having a different foreign-policy calculus. The substance of Ron Paul’s foreign-policy opinions may cause him to be ostracized from the Republican mainstream anyway, fairly or unfairly, but his disrespect for others’ views ensures that he will remain marginal.
— Patrick Brennan is the 2011 William F. Buckley Fellow at National Review.
"Paul’s flaws, however, show through when he is tempted to accuse his opponents of something other than having a different foreign-policy calculus."
In your entire writing of this piece, did you ever stop to think about the fact that Ron Paul's foreign policy has been laughed at and disrespected for as long as he has held office? Now suddenly, he says something a little incindiary about Bachman's foreign policy, and you write an article about his disrespectful "rhetoric". Maybe conservatives should be a little more open to some dialogue on the issue, because we've had the same basic foreign policy for years and years, and it OBVIOUSLY has not worked so well. The world is in turmoil, and we want to keep stoking the fires everywhere around the world? Come on people, wake up!!!
Ron Paul and his loonies like you have always been disrespectful, aggressive, and itching to accuse any dissenter of crypto-fascism. You deserve no respect and you get none. Everyone knows you saps can't be bothered to act like adults. We enjoy your frustration at never getting what you want. And don't think that your little fringe faction won't pay a price if you win Obama the election by voting third party or staying home. You'll always be remembered by the American people for ensuring four more years of the socialist.
Ron Paul and his loonies like you have always been disrespectful, aggressive, and itching to accuse any dissenter of crypto-fascism. You deserve no respect and you get none. Everyone knows you saps can't be bothered to act like adults. We enjoy your frustration at never getting what you want. And don't think that your little fringe faction won't pay a price if you win Obama the election by voting third party or staying home. You'll always be remembered by the American people for ensuring four more years of the socialist.
Paranoia should certainly be a disqualifier from serious consideration.
But on the style matter, it seems that Paul is being asked to abide by rules that his opponents see no need to obey. He is the recipient of more ad hominem slurs and insults that all other candidates put together. Writers and commenters here can't go five minutes without confidently asserting, with no evidence offered, that Paul hates everybody.
Can you blame Paul for speaking somewhat forthrightly himself? What he dishes out is far less than what he takes.
While Paul's detractors decide whether they should bring a knife, a gun, or the whole arsenal to the fight, they demand that Paul himself rigorously obey Marquis of Queensbury rules. How fair or realistic is that?
If you don't like Paul's tone, try getting Paul's critics to fight Paul the way you'd like to see Paul fight Bachman. Blaming the "second guy in" is an unfortunate tradition in hockey and football fights - but understandable, as the official often misses the initial strike. Here, Paul's critics can't plead ignorance of the childish disrespect with which he and his views are usually treated. They just don't like him, so they don't think he has a right to be treated fairly, and it's his job to lie back supinely and take it without struggling.
And when he dares to fight back, they write indignantly about how shocked, shocked they are that political discourse disrespectful of the views and persons of others has been going on.
Yes it's political hardball, but the candidates in this election ought spend more time listening to each other and less time attacking - they might actually pick up on something to help their own campaigns resonate with the people.
Paul's polling numbers are evidence that he's saying something that folks want to hear - his polls sure aren't a result of his looks or personality.
Ron Paul is largely supported by the same paople who supported Pat Buchanan. They are willing to accept almost any kind of wackiness in order to get the kernal of truth they don't think the other candidates have. It's ok if Iran gets nukes and Israel gets wiped off the map, not our problem. It's ok if other countries invade each other, cut off trade and impoverish America, not our business. If China wants to bend the rest of Asia to it's will, cut off the Far East to trade and pressure Australia that's all just fine, as long as we abolish the Fed.
LarryInIowa, sadly your comment only reflects your vacant knowledge regarding Buchannan, Paul or the related intellectual foundation of Conservative &/or Libertarian thinking. You really have nothing to add to the discussion but if you actually wanted to understand more, try reading "Freedom Betrayed: Herbert Hoover's Secret History of the Second World War and Its Aftermath" and then Buchannan's writing on the same subject.
Yeah, those pesky Buchanan supporters. We should stick with the establishment repubs/dermocrats. Hopefully we'll get more of the same from Gingrich, Perry or Romney. $16 trillion more in debt, 6000 more military lives lost, Socialized medicine, automobile makers, student lending, education, etc, etc, etc.
Individual liberties? Never had much use for them.
I am hopeful that America will in my lifetime (I'm 60) change trends and leave the Progressive Nightmare and return to our Federal system within a limited constitutional Republic. George HW Bush and his son pretended to be conservatives from the campaign trail but once in office they both acted like LBJ. This is a pattern that many here especially the editorial board at NR seem to ignore.
The Fed, that’s where he had them. They laughed at him and made jokes, but he proved beyond the shadow of a doubt, and with geometric logic, that a duplicate key did exist, I mean, that the Fed was a satanic plot...
I think you miss the point (or at least part of it). Ron Paul says that those opposed to a mosque celebrating the 9/11 attack simply do so out of religious bigotry and/or to support the industrial-military complex. That's not a response to the legitimate criticism he has received over his foreign policy views. Rather, that sounds more like someone who has already said that the United States deserved the 9/11 attack--and now wants to join the celebration.
I've yet to encounter anyone accusing others of Islamophobia who was not an apologist (or even cheerleader) for terrorism. Ron Paul does not seem a likely candidate to be the first.
You've accused Ron Paul's detractors of being unable to "go five minutes without confidently asserting. . .that Paul hates everybody." I can't say that I've seen such an assertion anywhere (on this site or others). What I have seen is a candidate who is so convinced in his isolationism that he would support a mosque celebrating the great jihadist victory of 9/11 and say that those not joining in the celebration hate Islam.
Yes, I did catch those points of Brennan's piece. The problem is that he isn't really quoting Paul; he takes snippets and applies the worst possible motivation to them; which seem to come from Brennan's mind, not Paul's mouth. So IMO those parts of his argument weren't really worth responding to. Nor were they the main point of the piece or of my original response, which I think is being made indirectly here; these comments themselves, anonymous though they may be, are more personally polite and less accusatory than the tone in which Paul is often addressed and in which Brennan with some justification accuses Paul of using toward Bachman.
In your last paragraph you indulge in some real distortion of your own. Where did Paul ever state that those who don't celebrate a mosque therefore hate Islam? That's obviously twisting all out of shape the tolerance for a mosque (yes, even a mosque some of whose members may approve of 9/11) with "celebrating" 9/11. Most of us likely disapprove of the anti-American, racist rhetoric which spewed forth from Jeremiah Wright and which Barack Obama eagerly lapped up for 20 years. Nevertheless almost all of us would agree with Wright's right to preach his idiocy. Paul would simply grant the same privilege to the planners of the inflammatory ground zero mosque.
In a similar vein, Paul has voted against bans on flag-burning, on libertarian free specch grounds (he's not alone there on the right). Only a deliberately dishonest critic would try to twist that around into, "Ron Paul celebrates flag burning and says that anyone who doesn't cheer on Red Chinese who burn the US flag hates the Chinese."
On ronpaul.com (External Link), Mr. Paul says of those opposing Cordoba House: "This is all about hate and Islamaphobia" Sounds pretty much like he's saying you have to support the mosque or hate Islam.
Incidentally, I would vote against flag burning bans and bans on mosques. But there is a world of difference between the government banning something and calling people bigots for being against the victory celebration mosque.
Vote for him if you like--it's part of what makes the country great. Just please don't get upset when your candidate is quoted slurring people he does not agree with.
You are seemingly insisting that all persons and ideas should be respected but lament that politicians are inauthentic. You praise Paul for speaking forthrightly about his positions but criticize others for their reactions. To put it quite simply, Ron Paul and many (Most) of his ideas are absolutely unworthy of respect and serious consideration. To treat Ron Paul as anything but the fringe figure that he is can only damage the process. This isnt a school board election, it is for President of The United States.of America. While you might think that I am in favor of muzzling Paul or denying him the ability to express his mindless ideas, nothing could be further from the truth. I wish the media had given him more opportunity to voice his paranoia and pablum during the debates. I wish he would have been given a larger share of the national stage to blame the U.S. for 9/11 and to ridicule the Country for every military intervention in his lifetime. As it is, I believe very few reasonable voters find themselves in his camp and that number will dwindle as it becomes time to close the curtain on the booth and pick a candidate.
I think you may have meant to respond to a diferent comment? I didn't say any of that (now I know how Paul feels!) I was responding to the original article about Paul's tone and pointing out the double standard.
Even "fringe" (a matter of opinion BTW, not fact; the left relies on blanket assertions like this all the time to justify crude treatment of conservatives) is a shaky rationale for approving of ad hominem attacks on Paul. A lot of people consider Bachman herself to be quite a fringe figure (vaccines cause what now?) This, in the author's mind and most of ours, doesn't in itself constitute justification for Paul to make personal attacks on her.
What a shame his foreign policy views, when combined with his justification with them, that most people find disagreeable, serve to overwhelmingly obscure his generally sensible, and too often lonely, positions on domestic fiscal policy.
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