Tuesday, June 12, 2012

2012 Texas GOP Convention Report, Part 3

Ron Paul

There were a lot of Ron Paul supporters at the Convention.  Some people see that as a bad thing.  I do not.  Most of my discussions with other Republicans have gone something like this:
Me: I really like Ron Paul. I agree with probably about 85% of what he says.
Other Person: Me, too.
Me: His foreign policy scares the crud out of me, though.
Other Person: Me, too.
Me: I may not want him as President, but I wish we had about 250 of him in the U.S. House and 60 in the Senate.
Other Person: Me, too.

To be fair, there are some who find Paul to be completely scary and maybe even crazy.  Typically, those folks are what we fondly call "Establishment Republicans."  Traditional Conservatives and Tea Party types actually have far more areas of agreement with Ron Paul than they have areas of disagreement.

I am not thrilled with some of the deceptive tactics undertaken by the Paul supporters in their efforts to get elected as delegates to the National Convention, but I can understand their frustration.  If they tell the whole truth, they have almost no shot of being selected, and that would also be unfair.

The Republican Party needs to figure out how to reach out to Paul's supporters to bring them into the fold.  These folks will not be co-opted, so if that is the plan, it is doomed to fail.  Imagine how great it would be if we could harness that enthusiasm going forward.  On the other side, the Paul supporters who take the "nobody but Ron Paul" position should not be surprised when other Republicans aren't too enamored with them.

Ron Paul has pointed out some significant problems with the way we do government at the Federal level.  His proposed approach would be too much, too fast, but he is one of the few who stays true to the ideal of limited government, and that should be embraced, not feared.

3 comments:

Jensational said...

Now you KNOW I just can't resist replying to your post, ;-).

Three points I want to touch on.

First, I think you have it backwards on reaching out to bring us into the fold. Although, we are frustrated at not being accepted for simply mentioning the man's name, we do not want to be brought into the fold, so to speak. I get what you're saying but for a really long time, we've let republicans take the reigns and it has ended up taking us to the brink of communism and bankruptcy. When did it become OK to vote for things like HR 347 and NDAA and vote to raise a debt ceiling and still call ourselves cnservative? We want no part of that. Moderate republicans and RINOs have turned the republican party into a bunch of RINO wussies. Our goal is to bring the republican party BACK to it's real conservative roots - the Constitution - Period. No discussion. So far, here in Texas, we have accomplished a lot and are continuing to put people in positions where they can do some good.

Second, when you have two candidates that only differ in skin color and one of them has already started the destruction of this great nation and the third candidate has served his country, knows economics and money like the back of his hand, has never voted to raise the debt ceiling, taxes or to give our soveriegnty to the Chinese, you're right! It's the only sane choice. Right now, at this moment, is there any other candidate to choose from that can actually run on his own personal record of integrity and costitutionalism other than RP? I mean, let's think about this logically: You can either choose from men who openly support and/or implemented CISPA, HR 347, Law of the Seas Treaty, Patriot Act, NDAA, 4 illegal wars or you can pick the one man that has voted against each and every one of these in the name of freedom and/or liberty. Not to mention our sovereignty.

Third: There are things even he said will take some time to get started. This is what media doesn't report and why one must go see him in person. Although he wants to cut a trillion dollars from the budget in the first year, they are things that are not going to have an immediate,negative effect, except for maybe the dept of education because it will cause a slight burp in the way states will have to accomodate - but it can be done. Cutting the Dept of Educaton brings back power to the states and hopefully back to our local districts and finally back to the parents - no more letting the feds educate our kids with what they think they need to learn. Cutting agencies that have done more harm than good (HUD, Commerce, Interior) will also cut hundreds of billions of dollars and will get them out of our lives as well. Yet, he has said many times that most of the changes he wants to make with the IRS, the Federal Reserve and others will definitely take some time and he has never claimed that he can get it done in 4years. There are many other points to be made but I don't want to clog your blog, hehe.

If you would like to know more about his foreign policy, please ask. One more thought on that, though. You must remember......if Iran wants a bomb, they will get a bomb (like pakistan did) and probably are almost there anyway. But if we start putting foreign policy over our own economic and domestic policies when we are in the mess that we are in, then we have aleady lost this great nation.

~Peace~

The Radical Texan said...

Jen, Thanks for your comments. My only response will be to point #1. Right now, Ron Paul's support is a small minority within the party. By necessity, y'all are the ones seeking a place in the party. I know you don't like hearing that, but it's simply the way things are. And, I think that some of the tactics employed and attitudes displayed by some hinder the possibility of finding ourselves unified.

Jensational said...

Agreed there are some turds in the RP movement that would be best left in the field but for the most part, we're good people and respectful of others. I have met some of the Paul-bots. I prefer the Paulians. But every party has a few wingnuts, the repubs, the dems and the libertarians. You can't label an entire group because 2% of them are loony. But when one group won't let another participate, it's not the fault of the ones wanting to participate. It's the fault of those keeping it from happenig. Gotta get ready for work. It's 820am and my hair is still in a towel. haha