Letters to the Editor
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Orcinus goofed if he thought most of Ron Paul's support is deluded liberals
That three and a half million in a day publicity stunt the Paul campaign organized must have spooked Dave N. into desperate and David Brooksian type measures. There aren't many anti-war right wingers out there, perhaps half a million, more or less. But they are the ones behind Paul and can easily afford to fund him. He has been a fixture at the Randolph Bourne Institute's Antiwar.com for years, along with Patrick Buchanan. After Paul places maybe third in NH and fourth or worse everywhere else as the pro-war Republican majority buries him, Orcinus can get some principles about the Dig Up an Unpopular Crank Who Said Something Nice About Our Opponent routine.
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Mr. Greenwald and everybody,
I was the person who wrote the original comment which contained a review of some of Ron Paul's legislative proposals. Dave Neiwert then quoted it, including the summary descriptions from the Thomas website. The more, shall we say, editorial language describing the proposals is mine.
You can criticize Dave for quoting me. But when you challenge the actual words, remember the correct target: Yours truly.
Since I have you here, let me explain the original purpose of my research.
It was directed toward Democratic primary-voters. I have been perplexed by the apparent (anecdotal?) fact that some liberals and progressives (that is, respectively, centrists/middle-of-the-road voters and democratic-socialist movement types who sometimes get sucked into the electoral side of politics) were championing Paul's presidential campaign. This seemed strange to me, because on the majority of issues he is not their kind of guy. So, I wanted to make sure they knew the other parts of his record.
Maybe some of the liberals and progressives will still like him. Maybe the conservatives and propertarians will still like him. But such support should be based on a more complete understanding of his views, rather than on one or two issues (no matter how important they may be).
And for the Republican primary-voters here, I seriously do hope you can move your party away from its authoritarian direction. Such a change would be good for all of us, lowering the stakes. Would it be worth writing the campaigns of the other GOP candidates, to tell them _why_ you're going to vote for Ron Paul? Keep it up, and you might re-direct the party over time. Same for you Democrats who will vote for Kucinich or Dodd or whoever.
So, target's over here, people. But keep in mind that it's late and I'm going to bed. Good night.
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I grew up all over the place....
...alternating between schools that were populated with military dependents (mostly on SAC bases), and schools that weren't (near my mother's family).
In general, the schools receiving the extra money from the government to cover the cost of educating the children of (non-property-taxpaying) military personnel were better.
And they weren't necessarily standardized. Just better.
If this maladministration really wanted to support both the troops and the educationally disadvantaged, they would not have been trying to cut funding intended to benefit the schools of military brats, but would be funding them better, and funding other public schools (that needed it) similarly. NCLB has been a real bust.
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I'm tired of reading threads devoted to Paul... but to repeat: Yes, he's very engaging and makes an excellent impression whenever I happen to catch him on TV. And RMP made an excellent point about how much more effective Paul's supporters would be if they were to adopt his genial manner themselves...
But like many others, the only issue on which I completely agree with Paul is the invasion of Iraq.
I know there are women who support him, but I honestly suspect that most of his support comes from men. As the husband of a blogger/commenter somewhere in cyber-space (I don't remember where) asked his wife (after an epiphany)... (I'm paraphrasing) "...so, the abortion issue is really about whether or not women will be able to participate fully in our society?"
Bingo!
[Count me among those for whom life really begins with the first breath.]
And contraception would probably not be available (to the degree it is) without government support and intervention. And that's very recent. Wasn't so long ago, that one's health care provider might have been willing to pay for Vi*agra or C*alis, but not for contraception. Go figure. And I wouldn't be surprised to find it's still true of some providers.
Full Disclosure: Sometime last month I saw a news story correlating spacing of births with a mother's mortality. Too many children born too close together often means an earlier death for women. I was not surprised, since my own mother had six of us in ten years and died prematurely in her mid-fifties. So, yes, family planning-- in all of its forms-- really is a life and death issue. You'd think an ob/gyn of Paul's generation might have noticed such a trend, too, if only anecdotally. And that it might have had some influence on his notion of the proper care due to women of child-bearing age.
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@ Trefayne
Thanks for tagging up. You're right. It's getting late here, too. Thanks for the background. The thread will still be here in the morning.
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oh-bystander. please ignore me?
Of a soft body, and those who will preach morality? okay. Oh- a tiptoe through the night air-cold,
suddenly
in the squeaky halls.
(forgive me?) her mouth on mine...ah-O-smack!
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What about "life begins at conception?"
Mona,
You addressed birth control, but not Paul's support of the idea that "life" begins at conception. (Of course it exists. What doesn't exist is a human being.)
Every time I've seen a flurry of support for Paul, none of his cheerleaders, while praising his support for "freedom," ever seem willing to address this subject. Sure, Paul claims to want to hand the abortion question back to the states by overturning Roe V.Wade. The ultimate result of such an act would be to eliminate access to abortion in 75% or more of the states, forcing women to resort to back-alley abortions. It won't end abortions, it'll just make them deadly. (Abortion numbers are actually higher in states that have cultures strongly opposed to it.)
As far as I'm concerned, Paul's desire to get out of Iraq doesn't make up for his willingness to remove the basic rights of over one half of the population ... and yes, I mean the ones who have fully-developed brains, not blastocysts.
I used to read Glenn religiously. I don't think I'll be doing that quite so much. He seems, like all the Paul supporters and apologists whose comments I've read, to feel that "I don't agree with all of Dr. Paul's positions" gets him off the hook as far as the anti-choice position is concerned.
I wonder what percentage of Paulites are women? (Mona is proof that some do exist.( At least the ones who are openly anti-choice are honest, if hypocritical in their glorifaction of the "freedoms" Ron Paul will grant them.