Ron Paul Liberty Defined and the Ames Straw Poll

Ames, Iowa, and the campus of Iowa State University, country music star Randy Travis, corn dogs, homemade peach preserves, and Buddy Holly’s original Crickets What a setting! And what a message Ron Paul delivered. Dr. Paul’s message was indeed powerful enough to almost catapult Dr. Paul to victory in the Iowa straw poll. A handful of votes more, and a major upset over a home-state favorite would have been headline news across America.

Ron Paul’s message of liberty is concisely outlined in Liberty Defined, in which he writes, “We must strive for truth and the preservation of those values that we are convinced have benefited mankind. We could be successful and preserve the American Republic as it was intended, giving up the militarism of the American Empire. The odds are slim that that will occur without a bloody reaction from those who wield power over the military-industrial complex, our political process, the media, our economy, our monetary system, and our personal lives. … The American people seem overly willing to accept war, economic sacrifice, and loss of liberty as long as the President, whether FDR, Bush, or Obama, claims his actions are well intended and are done to protect our freedoms. Any disagreement means that one does not share a love of freedom. And that is exactly how fear works.”

Ron Paul continues, “Most conservatives, along with many liberals and moderates, support militarism and world occupation, which makes it convenient to believe that military spending is a ‘patriotic’ jobs program. … Military Keynesianism is justified by our foreign policy of occupation and nation building and preventive war. Innocent people die, property is destroyed, and the world is made a more dangerous place. … Too many believe that not supporting a military effort, no matter how wrongheaded it may be, is a sign of weakness and unmanliness. … Look at how long LBJ and Nixon refused to admit the truth even at the cost of tens of thousands of American and Vietnamese casualties.”

Hard to believe, but over 210,000 Americans either lost their lives or were wounded in Vietnam, a figure equaling about two-thirds the casualties of WWI, and for what? Gallup polls suggest, “At least 70 percent of Americans now consider the Vietnam War to have been morally wrong as well as tactically inept.” James W. Loewen, in Lies My Teacher Told Me, points out that attacks on civilians were U.S. policy, as shown by Gen. William C. Westmorland’s take on civilian casualties: “It does deprive the enemy of the population, doesn’t it?”

It is clear that the demonstrating college kids of the sixties were right on Vietnam. Their theme credo, “Hey, hey LBJ, how many kids did you kill today?” rings sadly to this day. Jonathan Kwitny tells readers in Endless Enemies, “During the entire period from 1953-1977, the people in charge of U.S foreign policy were all on the Rockefeller family payroll. Dean Rusk and Henry Kissinger, who ran our foreign policy from 1961 to 1977, were dependent on Rockefeller payments for their solvency.” In Liberty Defined, Ron Paul tells readers, “In 2009, world military expenditures were $1.531 trillion, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute Yearbook of 2010. Fully 46.5 percent of that was spent by the United States. The next highest expense was by China, which comprised only 6.6 percent. … Invading other countries is a bad idea, especially if the goal is to stop terrorism; quite the opposite will be the result. … I favor a non-interventionist position, consistent with what the American Founders favored and what the Constitution enshrines. I would like a policy of peace, friendship, and trade-and no intervention in any country’s internal affairs.”

No presidential candidate in my lifetime has delivered the noninterventionist message of Thomas Jefferson as strongly as Ron Paul has. Dr. Paul is 100% on the money. And not surprisingly, there is no shortage of firepower lined up to attack Ron Paul and his message. In Liberty Defined, Dr. Paul gives readers 50 essential issues that affect America’s freedom. It’s hard to imagine any American not profoundly influenced by what Dr. Paul has to say. Ron Paul is all about our American Constitution and the rights of all individuals and the individual states. In this regard, Dr. Paul would greatly diminish the influence and power of the central government. I support Ron Paul’s thinking on this and believe that Ron Paul’s message sides neither with Republicans nor Democrats. It is a message for individual Americans thinking for themselves and about what is best for America as the true Federal Republic envisioned by our Founders.