Letters to the Editor
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One Candidate Missing...
It is interesting (and discouraging) to note that the one candidate who looks at the current foreign policy differently than all others, Ron Paul, gets no mention. He is a contender and his principles and thoughts address all areas of your letter, but these facts appear to matter little to you. In this weeks Republican debate, Dr. Paul noted to both McCain and Romney that they were arguing about a war and a [foreign] policy that they both actually agree with. Rather a senseless argument. As you say, people are tiring of this approach to getting elected. Yet, you ignore completely the man who sees an entirely different view and who would take an entirely different approach.
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Ron Paul supports the right of Christian supremacists to force their sexual morality on others via the state
i.e he is "pro life" so the reason Paul's support is relatively small is that most people are either for theocracy or against it. The pro-theocracy crowd is committed to the Christian right and the republican party and the anti theocracy crowd isn't going to support someone who is not already anti-theocracy. The number of people who both know the facts and believe that this issue can be ignored is fairly small.
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@ Elephantass
Read this
http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003705961
and then shut up about it.
Al Quaeda didn't appear in Iraq until the media began to dutifully report it, and lo, they made it true, even though it isn't. (And what the hell are American military doctors doing in Iraq in the first place? Borrow some critical thinking skills and justify that one.)
Again, this isn't about leftwing/rightwing, political crap, doesn't matter how often you inject it into your argument. This is about people like you who refuse to think critically, and eat the pablum they are being fed like good little soldiers.
This isn't about hating Americans. This is about looking with utter disbelief and growing horror at what America has become in such a short time, and hoping against hope it isn't contagious.
As for the offense to civilization, try looking in the mirror.
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Not all Republicans run on "War against Islamofascism"
Mr. Cole makes excellent points against all Republican presidential candidates - except one: Ron Paul. Mr. Paul has never resorted to the scurilous fear-mongering of the other Republican presidential candidates. Moreover, unlike all of the remaining candidates, Republican and Democrat, Mr. Paul has consistently voted against the unconstitutional, unprovoked war of aggression and conquest against Iraq, and all of the supplemental bills funding it. Now that Dennis Kucinich has dropped out of the race, Mr. Paul is the only valid peace candidate. He is the only one who repudiates U.S. imperialism and pre-emptive war. If you love peace, the rule of law and limited government based on the separation of powers, VOTE FOR RON PAUL!
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@elephant icon
Why do you equate hating war with hating America?
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Ron Paul, the litmus test for journalists
If a "journalist" declines mentioning Ron Paul in an article where he should be mentioned, chances are that the "journalist" is a warmongering shill for the warbuckers, not that it is against the law or anything.
There is another alternative theory that Is plausible. If Mr. Cole gets his news from where everyone else gets it, then it is entirely possible that he has no idea who Ron Paul is.
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One Republican Candidate Shows Empathy For Muslim Nations
Repeatedly in the Republican presidential debates I have heard Dr. Ron Paul apply the fundamental principle of Christianity, the "Golden Rule", to assess the problems the United States is having in relation to Islamic nations. All the other potential leaders, including the Democrats, must have very weak imaginations not to be able to envision a scenerio that reverses the current one, in which a hypothetical "United States of Arabia" had invaded Texas on the pretext of ousting its governor and was fighting guerrilla Christian insurgents trying to rid their state of the offending occupation forces.
The American government's meddling in the internal affairs of other countries and the use of government data gathering and military might to support the corporate exploitation of resources and to open up commercial markets has got to be resented as a cultural assault. The insensitivity of America's approach to the Middle East has made a monumental hash of our relations with Islamic states and engendered the resentments that are now manifested as violence against us.
Ron Paul advocates a return to America's traditional stance in the world of friendly neutrality and non-interference with the internal affairs of other nations. That is the way of a republican democracy; the alternative is empire, with its hierarchical concentration of wealth and power and its disregard for human freedom.
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GOP BOOGIE MEN
The modern Republican Party has never met a potential boogieman that it didn't embrace! This is yet one more trick from their box of dirty tricks that they've been using to get elected to office.
If there were no terrorists, the GOP would invent some for all of us to hate and loathe and be afraid of.
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The real blowback
You characterize all the Republican candidates as "sloganeering against Muslims" - but you are wrong. Ron Paul is a Republican who has consistently defended Muslims against this racist sloganeering.
You describe a condition that "may well haunt the party this November", but actually you are setting up that very condition. Obviously you want this "haunting" to occur since you did not mention the one Republican candidate who has not participated in the Muslim racism exhibited by the other candidates.
The real "blowback" will be seen in Ron Paul getting American Muslim votes, as well as votes from Republicans who are fed-up with and embarassed by the racism of McCain/Romney/Huckabee.
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I think I get it now...
@elephant icon
Why do you equate hating war with hating America?
-- rupert_c
Well, I don't, for starters.
I guess I was thrown by phrases like "ugly American" and the American "propaganda machine". And vague (apparently deliberately vague) references to how the "remote" detonations of market bombs were accomplished. (By the CIA? By Dick Cheney, froma a command bunker in Virgina?) Oh, and rationalizations over whether the market-bomb cariers were or were not Downs' Syndrome teens. Hello? Is it okay, is it any less monstrous, if they were differently handicapped? Call me thin-skinned, I guess.
If nobody here hates America, that's great! We're starting off on the same page that way! We're all in agreement, I take it, about protecting the country from those who would attack it, right?
Some of the comment-writers apparently think that I am too thick-headed to understand that they are saying, "I don't hate America, I just hate the American government."
So, why is it that if someone like Cheney or Bush says, "We have no grievance with the Muslim faith, and wish no harm upon peace-loving Muslims. But we shall fight, with every resource at our disposal, any person or group of persons who espouse terrorism, and any nation that tacitly or actively supports terrorism;" why is it that those words are somehow regarded as illegitimate and unbelievable?