I do not just toss these labels around as epithets as you are sometimes wont to do...
Settle down, big boy. Obama's a Marxist, not because of what he's done(although that's partially it), but because of who he is and what he wants to do. The Democratic Party is socialist, not entirely because of what they've done(although that is a HUGE part), but because of who controls them, what they want to do, and their general philosophies. Just because you don't believe in the concept of stealth leftists doesn't mean they don't exist.
You hate Obama. The Tea Party people/independents hate big government.
Those are not the same things.
The Tea Party people, like me, hate Obama
because he is big government. It's
precisely the same thing.
It's all one policy. Your foreign policy positions are inconsistent with your economic positions. A warfare/security state is not any more compatible with small constitutional government than a welfare state.
If RP made his quasi-isolationist argument from a financial standpoint, he would be in great shape, like I keep saying. But libertarians of his and your ilk seem to think the type of freedom we enjoy comes with no responsibilities whatsoever. How about those living under tyranny, being tortured or killed while we enjoy our capitalist paradise, living our whole lives in freedom? Have we no obligation to work within our entire means to ensure they receive the freedoms we so liberally enjoy? Does "freedom" suddenly change definitions once one steps outside of our borders?
This is the problem with Ron Paul - he never acknowledges the moral element of the argument that pro-Iraq War or pro-interventionists make. In his eyes, it's a pure profit motive, spurred on by greedy oil companies or defense contractors or some other such boogeyman.
Personally, I don't know how it doesn't bother people that Chinese Falun Gong practitioners are being literally murdered every day because of their beliefs. And who knows, maybe it does bother some here. But does that mean at the end of the day we just throw up our hands and say, "Well, yeah I feel bad, but there's nothing we can do..."? That's not good enough for me. I
literally believe in the "First they came for the..." maxim - if the brutal ruling elite view their own people in that way, what's to stop them from viewing neighboring nations that way too? Does anyone actually think some of these dictatorships are content with simply coexisting, satisfied with their power and not interested in expansion? If domestic rule of law means so little, why would international rule of law mean anything more?
Maybe that does conflict with the view that government should be small, limited, and tight in its spending. But there's all types of avenues and leverage one can apply. Embargos, exclusion from international organizations, etc.. But the American leadership seems weak and fickle, so if at the end of the day they clumsily try to help another people through raw, brute military force, I'll uneasily support it. But remember that unlike a welfare state which carries on into perpetuity, the goal of global liberation is achievable and one that eventually ends. It's kind of like when we went to the moon - sure, it cost a lot, but it was an ambitious goal and America will forever live in history for accomplishing it.
And btw, settle down with the indirect insults, they're getting pretty tedious.
