Ron Paul Reax

The first wave of responses to my rapid response are already in, and they are a mixed bag. A sampler:

I can’t believe you even support such massive interventionism. Nothing gives us said right in the Constitution. We never invaded war. What about the Federal Reserve? THAT is the most important issue facing America today, the elimination of the Fed, and for some reason everyone except Ron Paul ignores it. We will die from the inside before terrorists kill us. My (And hopefully Paul’s) foreign policy as a Republican conservative is easy: Don’t go invading other people, if they attack us, nuke the hell out of them.

And

Jonah,

Thanks for your article on Ron Paul and the WWTD fallacy. It was

well-reasoned and polite, while both disproving and condemning a

silly worldview.

And thanks for making it two pages. It’s nice to see someone resist

the temptation to shorten every piece to a single-page, single-

scroll, 640 x 480 (with ads!) mini-article. It’s like a 20 minute

sermon: just getting warmed up. Ok, now I’m ranting, sorry.

Great article. Thanks again.

And

Jonah, I think you missed the true meaning of the 50 years of bad policy comment. Paul wasn’t criticizing standing up to the Soviet Union, he was criticizing our standing up for Israel. As someone who’s frequently critical of Israeli policies, this is an argument that I’m far too familiar with. It’s the old; “we never should have been so supportive of Israel”, which is usually followed by “our support of Israel is why Arabs hate us”, and then devolves into tripe like “Jews control Washington”, “ZOG” and all that.

As I said, I tend to be critical of Israeli policies but finding people who share my views who aren’t openly or closeted anti-semites is a difficult task. And Paul’s “50 years of bad policy” is one of their favorite arguments.

And

I’ve been a faithful reader of NR forever,and NRO for a while. Because Ron Paul doesn’t exist as a candidate,your endless debate with him is regrettable. Until conservatives can discuss (1)what went wrong regarding total Republican Domination for six years(2)How to make it right including a definition of what the War on Terror is,and how we define victory,and how we develop strategy/tactics to make that happen(3)and how none of this can happen without a new Commander in Chief,we’re dead in the water,so discuss that next time instead of beating up on the non-entity.

And:

Osama bin Laden does not have to be the voice of the entire MidEast for Paul’s statement to be valid on its face. He only has to be the voice of the people who attacked us. How on Earth can you claim that the motivations of the people who actually attacked us are not “dispositive” to the question of why we were attacked? The 9/11 Commission drew the same conclusion about the terrorists’ motivations that Paul did. Were the members of that commission all dangerous and crazy? And how can we not conclude that Rudy is dangerously uninformed if he’s never heard a theory of the motivations for the attacks that is one of the conclusions of the 9/11 Commission? Was that commission just a joke or a pointless waste of time? How does Rudy expect to be President if he can’t be bothered to review the 9/11 Commission report? What’s next – will Rudy take another candidate to task for having read the Baker Commission report on Iraq? I can see the quote now: “Engage in talks with Iran and Syria? Why, I’ve NEVER HEARD of such an idea!” Whatever.

And: