Am I missing something?
On May 7, 7:29 am, Bruce Majors <majors.br...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Here's a good response in defense of Ron Paul and Gary Johnson (from a
> non-libertarian) against the misallied Christopher Malagisi.
>
> -- Rick Sincere
>
> _http://www.theminorityreportblog.com/2011/05/06/yes-ron-paul-allowed-...
> (http://www.theminorityreportblog.com/2011/05/06/yes-ron-paul-allowed-...)
>
> Yes, Ron Paul Should Be Allowed to Debate
> This post was written by Alex Knepper | 06 May 2011 | _Front Page Posts_
> (http://www.theminorityreportblog.com/category/posts/)
> Christopher Malagisi, writing for the Washington Examiner, pens the
> following in a terribly misguided _opinion piece_
> (http://washingtonexaminer.com/blogs/opinion-zone/2011/05/ron-paul-win...
> ixzz1LbPfRauO) arguing against including Ron Paul in the presidential
> debates:
> << The Republican Party as a whole…is based on five fundamental principles
> – individual freedom, limited government, free markets, a strong national
> defense, and preserving our traditional values and heritage. The modern
> Republican Party is based on the foundation of the conservative movement.
> …
> In order for any modern candidate to win the GOP nomination, they must
> embody these conservative principles, or at least appeal to these
> constituencies. With the exception of primary fiscal issues, Paul and
> Johnson
> consistently deviated and at various points were even hostile to the social
> and
> defense conservative branches.
> Throughout the debate, Ron Paul stated positions that were contrary to
> mainstream Republicans…
> [He and Gary Johnson] are not Republican or traditionally conservative…
> [and] has zero chance of winning… [emphasis Malagisi's] >>
> I certainly don't deny that Ron Paul (and Gary Johnson) hold to ideas that
> diverge sharply from mainstream Republican thought. I'm generally hawkish
> on foreign policy matters, and find most of their beliefs on such matters
> to be wrongheaded.
> The term 'Republican,' however, refers to party affiliation, not to
> political philosophy. Anyone whose priorities are right-of-center can find a
>
> home in the GOP. This is why Ronald Reagan, who famously stated that
> libertarianism represents "the heart and soul" of modern conservatism,
> remains the
> icon of a party in which Mike Huckabee, who _believes_
> (http://www.google.com/search?sclient=psy&hl=en&site=&source=hp&q=mike...
> eat&btnG=Search&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq=&pbx=1) that libertarianism is a greater
> threat to America than liberalism, finds himself leading many presidential
> polls.
> The logic of exclusion would appear to be that candidates who espouse
> heresy should not be considered legitimate Republican candidates and should
> hence be shut out from the debates.
> Really, now? What to do, then, about Rick Santorum, who has previously
> stated that he finds "the whole personal autonomy thing," which Malagisi
> holds as a hallmark of modern conservatism, to be _completely overrated?_
> (http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/rick-santorum-left-right-and-wrong/)
> Consider
> the following quote:
> << This whole idea of personal autonomy, well I don't think most
> conservatives hold that point of view. Some do. They have this idea that
> people
> should be left alone, be able to do whatever they want to do, government
> should
> keep our taxes down and keep our regulations low, that we shouldn't get
> involved in the bedroom, we shouldn't get involved in cultural issues. You
> know, people should do whatever they want. Well, that is not how traditional
>
> conservatives view the world and I think most conservatives understand that
> individuals can't go it alone. That there is no such society that I am
> aware of, where we've had radical individualism and that it succeeds as a
> culture…>>
> Don't get my motives twisted in presenting Santorum's words, here: his is
> a perfectly legitimate argument. It is rooted heavily in Catholic
> teaching, and thinkers like Russell Kirk, who wrote, echoing Edmund Burke,
> that the
> state is a God-ordained institution, rather than a necessary evil, would
> have had a lot to add to it.
> However, no intellectually honest account of it can say that it does
> anything but relegate both individual freedom and limited government to a
> secondary role. In Santorum's philosophy, individualism is good only insofar
> as
> it furthers the primary goals of societal cohesion, strong families, and
> traditional Christian values. I disagree with his assessment, but it isn't a
>
> ridiculous argument. It is unarguably right-of-center and certainly deserves
>
> a place on the debate stage. But if we're going to exclude Ron Paul for
> holding positions that antagonize much of the base, we ought to exclude Rick
>
> Santorum, too (talk about a man who has "zero chance of winning"!).
> Setting aside Malagisi's false claim that Ron Paul is not socially
> conservative (he is pro-life, pro-DOMA, and does not believe in evolution),
> the
> Congressman's views on foreign policy really are rooted in conservative
> claims: he holds a skepticism toward power, an unwillingness to involve
> America
> in what he perceives as other people's problems, and is resistant toward
> the idea of nation-building, which he believes ignores the role of culture.
> I
> think that his premises about our current wars are fundamentally false.
> But his arguments are not illegitimate or somehow 'left-wing.' They deserve
> a hearing — and, more saliently, I think, they deserve to be rebutted. It
> benefits no one to live in an echo chamber, least of all people who hold to
> assertive foreign policy ideas. That's why I want John Bolton to run, too:
> a Bolton-Paul clash would be important and probably substantive. Certainly
> it would benefit us more to hear such an argument than to sit through
> another canned, PR-ready response from a hack like Tim Pawlenty.
> As Malagisi probably knows deep-down, there is no such thing as this
> creature known as the "true conservative." Conservatism proper is a
> disposition, not an ideology. It is an attitude toward life, not a checklist
> of
> particulars that can be legislated from on-high. It remains, as it always
> has
> been, an argument with itself. If Ron Paul is wrong about foreign policy —
> and
> I think that he is — then it's up to others on the stage to demonstrate
> that he is wrong. I hope that they can do that, rather than take the
> cowardly route of shutting him down.
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>
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