Category Archives: Ron Paul

Update II: Beck: 'I'm With Ron Paul' (Breaking From The Pack)

Debt, Foreign Policy, Founding Fathers, Glenn Beck, Homeland Security, libertarianism, Ron Paul, War

A good few posts ago, I observed that “in his groundbreaking series on the American Progressive Movement, Fox News personality Glenn Beck, previously an unambiguously pro-war military-booster, was inching towards examining his support for the kind of state expansion (via warfare) the founders would have abhorred.

Glenn made the final leap today to a non-interventionist foreign policy emphasizing American interests and self-defense and no nation building. He said the words, “I am with Ron Paul.” This could be good for the country—unless Beck is forced by his backers (FoxNews) to back down.

For example, this reasonable remark of Obama’s is drawing FoxNews ire:

“It is a vital national security interest of the United States to reduce these conflicts because whether we like it or not, we remain a dominant military superpower, and when conflicts break out, one way or another we get pulled into them. And that ends up costing us significantly in terms of both blood and treasure.”

I will post the Beck YouTube feature as soon as it’s up (readers are welcome to beat me to it).

Update: “America Is a Republic, Not an Empire” by Glenn Beck:

“The example we set now is what pisses everyone off: We say we’re going to spread democracy, but we bed dictators, we bow to Saudi princes, when it’s to our advantage. George Washington wanted us to be like the Swiss: Enemy of none, friend to all. Places like Germany — hey, we’re glad you are all straightened out, but we’re pulling out, you’re on your own. We’re not staying. We need to get out of the Korean Peninsula and Japan. No longer will we be the world’s loiterers.

The United States spends approximately $102 billion annually to maintain troops, equipment, fleets and bases overseas — if you count Iraq and Afghanistan it jumps to $250 billion. Well, I’m tired of being the world’s policeman. And in many cases we are the world’s loiterers. We need to have a “no loitering” policy.

That policy comes from the progressives. The Republicans say we’ll send in the “green helmets” and just nation build our way to global security. The liberals want to do it through the United Nations; they want to send in the “blue helmets” — which we pay for.

This doesn’t work. I don’t want to nation build. I don’t want a global government or military force.

And for all the Don Rumsfelds out there watching who are cursing me out right now because they think no time is a good time to cut defense spending. Well, maybe this will help. This chart shows who accounts for all military spending in the world.

Almost half of all military spending in the world — 47 percent — is America. The next biggest spender is Europe — that’s not even a country, they spent $289 billion on military-related expenses. We almost spent that much outside our country for our own defense!

So don’t tell me we can’t afford to cut back. Clearly we can.

And when we are in a situation like Afghanistan, we fight to win it. With all of our technology today, why can’t we get in and out of Afghanistan in a couple of years? Because the politicians have their grimy little fingers on everything. Take the military off the leash; if you decide to go to war, unhook those dogs and get the hell out of the way.”

Update II (April 16): Together with the Cato Institute, the author of the blog Downsizing the Federal Government in particular, Beck has been running pragmatic, hour-long workshops on where and how much to slash. Pretty much everything. The man is a force of nature.

Back to the matter of Beck’s “I’m with Ron Paul on foreign policy” statement: This too is a very important development. Beck is pulling away from the neoconservative pack at Fox. By declaring war on their gratuitous wars he has driven a wedge between himself and the likes of Hannity, O’Reilly, Krauthammer, Kristol, and all the followers (I don’t know a Republican ditto head who doesn’t go along with the war-all-the-time = a strong national defense formula). The unity of the ditto heads on war policy was unshakable.

Again: By denouncing the war talisman, Beck, a major star on the Right, has created oscillation in the ossifying GOP. He has broken a united front which—thanks to the likes of Hannity, Coulter, Malkin, O’Reilly; National Review, Weekly Standards—seemed unchallenged.

Update II: Beck: ‘I’m With Ron Paul’ (Breaking From The Pack)

Debt, Economy, Foreign Policy, Founding Fathers, Glenn Beck, Homeland Security, libertarianism, Ron Paul, War

A good few posts ago, I observed that “in his groundbreaking series on the American Progressive Movement, Fox News personality Glenn Beck, previously an unambiguously pro-war military-booster, was inching towards examining his support for the kind of state expansion (via warfare) the founders would have abhorred.

Glenn made the final leap today to a non-interventionist foreign policy emphasizing American interests and self-defense and no nation building. He said the words, “I am with Ron Paul.” This could be good for the country—unless Beck is forced by his backers (FoxNews) to back down.

For example, this reasonable remark of Obama’s is drawing FoxNews ire:

“It is a vital national security interest of the United States to reduce these conflicts because whether we like it or not, we remain a dominant military superpower, and when conflicts break out, one way or another we get pulled into them. And that ends up costing us significantly in terms of both blood and treasure.”

I will post the Beck YouTube feature as soon as it’s up (readers are welcome to beat me to it).

Update: “America Is a Republic, Not an Empire” by Glenn Beck:

“The example we set now is what pisses everyone off: We say we’re going to spread democracy, but we bed dictators, we bow to Saudi princes, when it’s to our advantage. George Washington wanted us to be like the Swiss: Enemy of none, friend to all. Places like Germany — hey, we’re glad you are all straightened out, but we’re pulling out, you’re on your own. We’re not staying. We need to get out of the Korean Peninsula and Japan. No longer will we be the world’s loiterers.

The United States spends approximately $102 billion annually to maintain troops, equipment, fleets and bases overseas — if you count Iraq and Afghanistan it jumps to $250 billion. Well, I’m tired of being the world’s policeman. And in many cases we are the world’s loiterers. We need to have a “no loitering” policy.

That policy comes from the progressives. The Republicans say we’ll send in the “green helmets” and just nation build our way to global security. The liberals want to do it through the United Nations; they want to send in the “blue helmets” — which we pay for.

This doesn’t work. I don’t want to nation build. I don’t want a global government or military force.

And for all the Don Rumsfelds out there watching who are cursing me out right now because they think no time is a good time to cut defense spending. Well, maybe this will help. This chart shows who accounts for all military spending in the world.

Almost half of all military spending in the world — 47 percent — is America. The next biggest spender is Europe — that’s not even a country, they spent $289 billion on military-related expenses. We almost spent that much outside our country for our own defense!

So don’t tell me we can’t afford to cut back. Clearly we can.

And when we are in a situation like Afghanistan, we fight to win it. With all of our technology today, why can’t we get in and out of Afghanistan in a couple of years? Because the politicians have their grimy little fingers on everything. Take the military off the leash; if you decide to go to war, unhook those dogs and get the hell out of the way.”

Update II (April 16): Together with the Cato Institute, the author of the blog Downsizing the Federal Government in particular, Beck has been running pragmatic, hour-long workshops on where and how much to slash. Pretty much everything. The man is a force of nature.

Back to the matter of Beck’s “I’m with Ron Paul on foreign policy” statement: This too is a very important development. Beck is pulling away from the neoconservative pack at Fox. By declaring war on their gratuitous wars he has driven a wedge between himself and the likes of Hannity, O’Reilly, Krauthammer, Kristol, and all the followers (I don’t know a Republican ditto head who doesn’t go along with the war-all-the-time = a strong national defense formula). The unity of the ditto heads on war policy was unshakable.

Again: By denouncing the war talisman, Beck, a major star on the Right, has created oscillation in the ossifying GOP. He has broken a united front which—thanks to the likes of Hannity, Coulter, Malkin, O’Reilly; National Review, Weekly Standards—seemed unchallenged.

Update V: Paul WINS Straw Poll At CPAC (‘Beltway Politburo Worried’)

Conservatism, Elections, Glenn Beck, IMMIGRATION, Republicans, Ron Paul

Rep. Ron Paul has won the straw poll at the 2010 CPAC convention, the Conservative Political Action Conference. Out with the regimists!

This is an informal poll; it’s not a well-controlled one. Out of 10,000 conference attendees, approximately 2500, very motivated Paulites voted, which means that they might have slanted the outcomes. On the other hand, it is quite possible that the Tea Party element has assumed control of the conservative movement.

Will they see to it that the bums and their statist sycophants—the Bill Bennetts, Ann Coulters, Rush Limbaughs of the world—are tossed out and replaced with strict Constitutionalists such as Peter Schiff and Rand Paul?

Perhaps as the republic tanks, the people are finally rising…

Update I: Glenn Beck commences the keynote address, and declares: “The Republicans have not had that come-to-Jesus moment.” And: “I am a Republican and I have a problem”—this moment of GOP contrition and recognitions has not transpired, says Beck.

About the Republicans’ quest for that Big Tent: “What is this, a circus?”

My version: “If the Republicans don’t stop their love affair with idiots, it’s not a bigger tent they’ll be seeking, but a giant tin-foil hat.”

At this stage, Beck has descended into America boosterism. The evening is young. Let us hope he does not waste the opportunity to substantially bash the GOP and zero in on economics, monetary policy; in other words, deliver some Paul pearls.

Glenn: “To restore America, we need less Marx and more Madison.”

Praises Calvin Coolidge.

Finally a fleeting Beck Breakthrough: “We don’t need to export democracy; the best example to the world is to lead by example.” But short lived. He fails to return to this vital point.

Beck then makes a huge historical and philosophical faux pas reading the progressive Emma Lazarus’s “The New Colossus” as if hers were the richly textured words of a Thomas Jefferson. Lazarus was a progressive interloper, whose sonnet ushered in all the maxims of mass immigration we’ve come to know.

Update II: Beck’s address was not the stuff of tea parties. He hit all those soaring notes the sentimental yentas on his show and in his audiences love to hear. But as for substance: he gets an “F.”

Update III: Back to Paul. ABC leads with the news that “Conservatives [Have Picked]: Ron Paul For President In 2012.”

Update IV (Feb. 21): Hours after we reported it here on BAB, CNN joins a growing chorus among MSM in acknowledging That This Is News: “Rep. Ron Paul surprise winner of CPAC presidential straw poll.” Whoever asserted that the “the 74-year old libertarian hero” would be in his 80s in two years was sprouting nonsense on stilts. Paul will be young enough to dismantle whole departments; dismiss large sections of the oink sector, and allow us all to begin breathing life into the economy again.

Update V (Feb 22): “The small Beltway Politburo that runs CPAC is worried,” writes Tom Tancredo at WND.COM:

the Beltway Politburo strives to demonstrate their superior cleverness by undermining the grass-roots consensus. On two key issues, CPAC offered detours and blind alleys, not leadership…
Whereas grass-roots conservatives and millions of 912 patriots – along with 80 percent of the American people – understand the need for border security as a precondition for immigration reform, CPAC board member Grover Norquist is busy launching a new project in support of the Obama administration’s plan to grant another amnesty to 20 million illegal aliens. Neither border control nor immigration enforcement was included as a topic for any of the CPAC general sessions.

Updated: The Fair Lady Endorses The Randian

Elections, libertarianism, Liberty, Neoconservatism, Outsourcing, Republicans, Ron Paul, Sarah Palin, Technology

Sarah Palin has donated the maximum allowable in support of Rand Paul’s bid for the Kentucky U.S. Senate seat. Neoconservatives are furious. David Horowitz’s new NewsReal blog offers an attempt at an analysis of the contradictions of a Palin endorsement of a Paul.

Since very few brain cells went into designing the site, I will be unable to quote from it. Not only is NewsReal incredibly busy in a bad, ADHD kind of way, but someone really “clever” has ensured one cannot “Ctrl c” so as to “Ctrl v” any excerpts therefrom. In other words, you can’t cut and paste for quotation purposes.

I’m certainly not going to bother typing this stuff out—no body is. Maybe the web designer thought that the originality of the contents warranted anti-copying software.

Rand Paul’s site, on the other hand, is original in all the right ways and reproducible. Sarah for Rand is here. And yes, “Rand is for real”:

Rand Paul is beating all U.S. Senate candidates in both parties and … has huge Tea Party and grass roots support driving his overwhelming success against establishment politicians and their budget-busting ways.

If Sarah helps send Tea Party Paulites to DC, and snubs establishment Republican oinkers—she will have done America more good than most.

Update: On the petty issue of being able to “cut n’ paste” from the NewsReal blog: Could it be that the webmaster fixed the flaw following my post? I suspect so.

The facility is working now, but another reader informed me just a couple of hours back that “cut & paste” was possible, albeit by right clicking only on the text. I’m glad the facility is working now, pursuant to my complaint.

As to the busy, boggling nature of the site: I fully admit that the youth is more inclined than me to white noise. I like clean, clear, and unfussy. However, as Hollywood has made clear for decades, the older generation has nothing on the youth when it comes to technology, style, smarts, etc.

Enable sarcasm. I live with someone who makes the innards of the toys and telephones our deeply stupid, attention-deficient mites depend on to sustain brain waves. He himself doesn’t use all that crap technology (other than a PC and a cell, when needed). Telling, ha? Most thinking people like clear, clean, and unfussy.

The white-noise producing toys, by the way, are usually made by older people (with advanced engineering degrees)—often Asians, many of whom are older—beavering away under one or two really smart Americans (also older), all in an effort to keep the brainwaves of the younger generation (mostly Americans) from flatlining.