Ron Paul

Extensive regulation of the economy, anti-discrimination controls over our social and commercial transactions, affirmative-action programs, calls for illegal amnesty, and a runaway national debt scarred Republican policy before Obama came along. An extensive study of Romney’s administration in Massachusetts shows that even in the area of judicial appointments this now reborn “conservative” candidate was at least as liberal as his Democratic predecessor.

And there is hardly a liberal position Newt Gingrich has not advocated. Until recently Newt was in favor of deficit spending and expanded social programs, as well as helping himself to Freddie Mac funds. He also favored sanctions on the former white South African government, pressed for the MLK national holiday, and has reamed out Georgians who display Confederate symbols in public. On immigration Newt differs little from Obama except for the fact that Bam actually wins minority votes by favoring amnesty for illegals.

Gingrich claims to represent “foreign policy conservatism,” but this takes such bizarre forms as describing the Palestinians as an “invented people” and promising to appoint the ranting John Bolton as Secretary of State. Mitt is no slouch in the “foreign policy conservatism” department and would have us appoint democracy inspectors to different parts of the developing world to help their governments become like ours. Listening to such “conservatives,” one gets the idea that we should be dropping bombs for educational purposes over regions where women are required to wear veils.

There is a growing minority on the right which is turned off by such ranting. These dissenters are not typically “pure-octane” isolationists, and they may not fully agree with Paul’s dismissive attitude toward nasty foreign powers. Like me, they may wish that there was some middle path between Paul’s attempt to ignore international relations and the saber-rattling that dominates GOP presidential politics. Equally exasperating is the GOP establishment and Murdoch media empire’s refusal to recognize the Bush Administration’s egregious ineptitude and its critical role in contributing to Obama’s problems. Bush was an activist president in the worst sense, and the eagerness of his party’s propaganda organs to get back to something like his administration is an outrage.

For those of us on the right who do not wish to get back to Karl Rove’s utopia, Ron Paul offers at least an opportunity to protest. Unlike George Will, some of us are no happier with the Reps than we are with the Dems. We are therefore willing to put up with four more years of Bam rather than replace him with a GOP technocrat who combines social democracy and crony capitalism with armed crusades for “human rights.”