Tel-Chai Nation

The Weekly Standard reports that crazy Ron Paul's plans for cutting back on spending aren't as coherent as he and his apologists want us to think:

The conventional case against Ron Paul's fiscal policy is that it's unrealistic because it's too bold. That's true enough: Ronald Reagan couldn't abolish one department; Ron Paul wants to abolish five (Education, Energy, HUD, Interior, and Commerce). But there's a much stronger case to be made that Paul's fiscal policy is not that bold at all. It is, in fact, the most timid fiscal policy put forward by any Republican presidential candidate this year.

All across Iowa this week, Ron Paul, the great libertarian hope, has been promising voters that we'll have plenty of money to protect the crown jewels of the New Deal and the Great Society--Medicare and Social Security--if we simply cut "overseas spending."

Including, as the article tells, a lot of the defense budget. When I read those parts, I began to wonder if he's more interested in cutting back on defense than he is in cutting back on domestic spending. Given how dishonest he already is, there's very good reason to doubt he's even serious about finance.

With that in mind, it's fortunate to learn that so far, Paul's numbers have been dropping and Mitt Romney has made his way ahead, as has former senator Rick Santorum. In New Hampshire, Romney's also ahead by at least 20 points (via Hot Air Headlines), and we must certainly hope that'll be the result in Iowa and in New Hampshire later.

Update: and while we're on the subject, James Kirchick wrote another article for the NY Times (via The Weekly Standard) that tells about how he even encouraged violence:

In his newsletters, Paul expressed support for far-right militia movements, which at the time saw validation for their extreme, anti-government beliefs in events like the F.B.I. assault on the Branch Davidians and at Ruby Ridge. Paul was eager to fan their paranoia and portray himself as the one man capable of doing anything about it politically. Three months before the Oklahoma City bombing, in an item for the Ron Paul Survival Report titled, “10 Militia Commandments,” he offered advice to militia members, including that they, “Keep the group size down,” “Keep quiet and you’re harder to find,” “Leave no clues,” “Avoid the phone as much as possible,” and “Don’t fire unless fired upon, but if they mean to have a war, let it begin here.”

The closest Paul has come in his public statements to endorsing violence against the government was during an interview in 2007, when he was asked about Ed and Elaine Brown, a New Hampshire couple who had refused to pay federal income taxes. In the summer of that year, they instigated a five-month armed standoff with United States marshals, whom Ed Brown accused of being part of a “Zionist, Illuminati, Freemason movement.” Echoing a speech he had just delivered on the House floor, Paul praised the pair as “heroic” “true patriots,” likened them to Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr., and compared them favorably to “zombies,” that is, those of us who “just go along” and pay income tax.

This is just one more reason why Paul is most definitely a dangerous figure, and if he could condone this kind of behavior, one can only wonder just how safe the USA would be under a president with a mindset like his.

Labels: anti-americanism, anti-semitism, Moonbattery, racism, RINOs, United States