[Parenthetical - I was working on a post about this subject to post here, when I got a comment at the Daily Dose (Ron Paul's Official Blog) that prompted me to alter it to post in response. Rather than hack it up to post here, I am posting it (nearly) verbatim. Here is the link to the original comment from Aubrey, to which I responded.]

I agree Aubrey. I don’t believe a third party run is a tactic to win the Presidency. For that, we have to win the GOP nod. The third party run is about moving liberty back to the forefront. Can you imagine Dr. Paul in a three-way debate with Hillary & Romney? It is about the message. If we can get respect for our position by eschewing a third party run, then great. If we get the same treatment we’ve gotten thus far – we are sneered at and marginalized if we are acknowledged – then a third party run should happen.

In a nutshell – If we don’t win the nomination outright, my feeling is that Dr. Paul can do the most to promote the liberty movement by not just packing up and going home.

If it is a brokered convention scenario, and we are not in a position to be calling shots – I think a third party break is a good tactical move. If we are in a position to have influence with delegates, then demand a seat at the table one way or the other.

I could live with a VP Paul. Unfortunately, none of the GOP candidates could. Just having him on the stage with them diminishes their stature. Again, I think a third party run would be a reasonable response to being denied a voice in shaping things.

Maybe Dr. Paul as the head of the RNC? It worked for Dean. I almost fell out of my chair thinking about that one! Can you imagine the discussions about the platform???

Can we still win the GOP nod? You betcha. But we aren’t exactly the odds-on favorite. The good news – we’re about the only one’s who haven’t been the odds-on favorite in the last 3 weeks. We’re just sitting back and collecting a few delegates here and there. Who else has the money to guarantee they’ll be in it till the end?

Mitt has his own money, but what if something comes along to knock him out of the race? There’s a diminutive doctor from Texas with $20,000,000 cash on hand and a few hundred thousand rabid volunteers, hanging out toward the back of the pack. Some might even say pacing himself. Like the tortoise who knew it was a long race, and that to win the day he had to keep something in the tank.

Did I hear that Dr. Paul was an avid runner? Possibly competitively (in his younger days)? Hmmm…. maybe he is pacing himself.

Just 9 more minutes till I can help gas up the tank. I hope everyone who reads this will do the same.

So it turns out that our fearless leader isn’t the only one who’s gone gaga over the doctrine of preemption.

Gen. Yury Baluyevsky, chief of the Russian general staff, said should Russia or any of its allies be substantially threatened, nuclear weapons could be part of a Russian armed response, RIA Novosti reported.

 

“We do not intend to attack anyone, but consider it necessary that all our partners clearly understand, and that no one has any doubts, that the armed forces will be used to protect the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Russia and its allies, including preventative action, and including the use of nuclear weapons,” the general said.

So while we’re busy threatening preemptive nuclear attack on Iran, it seems the Russians have really taken a shine to the concept.

If you’re a fan of the ‘War on Terror’, then this should be great news for you. Oh, wait – the Russians don’t see eye to eye with us on what constitutes a terrorist. They wouldn’t preemptively nuke us, or our allies, would they?

We hope not, of course. But this is more of the unintended consequences that Ron Paul has been talking about. We’ve pulled our finger out of the dike, and now preemptive nuclear strikes are on the table. What moral high ground do we claim to deny the Russians the same prerogatives we claim for ourselves?

The answer: There is none. We gave up any moral authority on the subject of invading countries who haven’t attacked us, and we’re on record claiming a right to use nukes in just such a scenario.

Congratulations, King George. You’ve unleashed the ‘Bush Doctrine – Russian style’, on the world.

Are we safer yet?

Is that the line-up come super Tuesday? Will John even have the cash to make a credible showing?

I continue to see a very good possibility that there will be no clear front runner after super Tuesday, though Mitt really is in a commanding position tactically (despite McCain’s plurality in South Carolina). If he wasn’t such a hobbled candidate fundamentally, I’d be thinking he had an air of inevitability. But he is badly damaged goods, between the nature of his campaign’s money and his multiple flip-flops (do I see some super Tuesday ads with video of Mitt imposed into a pancake, saying one thing in his own words, right before a spatula comes out to flip the pancake and Mitt’s position????).

Ron Paul is truly the stalking horse in the race. If McCain’s name recognition keeps him in the race, and the field gets down to just these three, what alternative do real conservatives have? Are they willing to vote for a guy they hate – McCain; or a guy who can be demonstrated to have changed who he is – not just since he was Governor, but several times since Iowa; or will they look for an alternative? Will they pile on the Bloomberg groundswell (God forbid)?

In spite of what the punditry says, Ron Paul’s chances are better today than at any time since he announced his candidacy. There is a lot of work to be done, and I hope he’s seeking out some savvy media folks to help us kick in the next leg of the campaign.

And in the end, if all that happens is we get more exposure but fall short of the goal, we’re in that much better shape to launch a third party bid. I believe Paul when he says he has no intention of running third party. I also know that the pressure will be intense for him to keep it going – with millions of dollars still in the bank and all.

John McCain is broke and out of line with 70% of the party. Mitt Romney is just a broken candidate. What’s gonna happen? Tough to say, but I have every confidence we won’t be inaugurating Mitt or John in January 2009.

Just remember – Ronald Reagan was written off as a vanity candidate who didn’t have a chance to win even after super Tuesday in 1980. WE all know how that worked out.

Ron Paul for President!

Rudy got thoroughly thumped by Ron Paul again…… and I believe that smell is his decomposing corpse somewhere down in the sunshine state.

One has to wonder if this is what has done his campaign in:

It just might be, but I suspect that it might have even more to do with this:

I had wanted to write about economics today, but I suppose there is plenty of doom and gloom in the big media. Not that there aren’t good fundamental reasons for it – I just decided I’d go a little different direction.

As a long-time libertarian and Ron Paul supporter, I’ve grown accustomed to being called idealistic to a fault and labeled as basically dismissive of opposing points of view. I’d say I’m guilty, and don’t intend to change anytime soon. So why do professing libertarians tend to be this way? Why are we intellectually intolerant of competing worldviews? Good questions that deserve a stab at an answer.

Libertarians necessarily view the world idealistically, and give little weight to pragmatic arguments that don’t comport with our basic belief that no one has the right to run the life of anyone else. This is the core of libertarianism, and any deviation represents (to us) a moral infraction.

The indignation you see from libertarians on the subject of taxation (that can come across as being rigid and inflexible) is rooted in that basic premise. The most basic right among natural rights (beyond the right of each to their existence) is the right of property. This right is seen as inviolable, in that I have no morally compelling reason to appropriate the belongings of my neighbor without his consent. It doesn’t matter that I might deem that I could use his belongings more efficiently, or that I might think him undeserving of his property. The inverse is also true, that my neighbor cannot morally lay claim to any portion of my own labors. This is the golden rule in action.

The immoral act, according to libertarians, does not become less immoral as a groundswell develops in favor of confiscating my neighbor’s belongings. Let’s see how that works.

To the scenario detailed above, we add a third neighbor, who agrees with me that our neighbor has more wealth than he deserves, and is not using it wisely. We now have a majority. Does it become moral for us to appropriate his belongings for the ‘common good’ – as determined by those doing the appropriating ? If the wealthier neighbor disagrees with our determination, is there any manner by which we can affect such confiscation without employing force or the threat of force? If he resists, is forcibly taking his belongings justified?

If your answer to those questions is no, you just might be a libertarian too.

To be certain, society is more intricate and complex than interactions between me and my neighbors. The pertinent question becomes – How big does the clamoring mob have to be before theft stops being theft and becomes good government? Is adding a third neighbor on the side of seizure enough? The entire neighborhood? The whole city?

To the libertarian, there is not a quorum so large that it ever becomes moral to steal the rightful property, fairly earned by their labors, of any individual. Any suggestion that there is a point at which the would-be plunderers of his wealth gain a moral imperative for the theft is in direct contravention of the libertarian’s understanding of morality.

If you don’t share our outlook on this subject, you might be able to gain insight into our viewpoint with an analogy. Most human beings find rape to be an evil without excuse or redeeming trait – correctly, of course. If a particular isolated town has 500 men and only 50 women, these are obviously ripe conditions for social unrest. Only 10% of the men can have their primal needs met (assuming a traditional, one-man-one-woman paradigm). The same principle of scarcity that existed when we were talking about my neighbor’s belongings is in play in this analogue. Is there ever a point at which the needs of the majority (by my count, the 450 men left to ‘fend for themselves’) become more important than protecting the rights of the other 100 people (50 men and 50 women) who have entered into voluntary association with one another? Does a majority vote render the social proscriptions against forcibly appropriating the body of another person less relevant? Does the vote of the 450 relegate the rights of those 50 women null and void in the pursuit of the common good?

My answer is a resounding no, whether the right at issue is that of those 50 women to be free from physical violation or of my neighbor to dispose of his wealth as he alone sees fit. Rationalizing can make both instances of popular immorality expedient; but there is no amount of rationalizing that can ever render the actions moral.

It is from this basic concept that all libertarian thinking emanates. To a libertarian, the arguments are equivalent. Understand this and you will have a much better frame of reference for understanding the perception that libertarians are intolerant of opposing viewpoints – just as the reader is likely a libertarian on the subject of rape, and intolerant of the pro-rape arguments. Are you ever asked to defend your ‘rigid, inflexible’ positions for opposing relativistic arguments justifying rape?

Beyond the philosophical argument, it is tough to deny that collectivist policies do not generally comport with a free society.

This video certainly isn’t new to the assembled Paul backers, but I simply wanted to have quick access to a URL of the video for easy dissemination.

Whether you love or hate Ron Paul (or still aren’t sure who that is) , every American should be offended at a news organization unilaterally deciding who is a serious candidate and what ideas are worth considering.

For the contextual understanding of those not familiar with this situation, this is from the South Carolina debate held on January 9. The previous week, Fox News held a candidate forum (their euphemism for a debate without lecterns) in New Hampshire, and Ron Paul was not included. That in spite of the fact that he was fresh off a 10% showing in Iowa – resoundingly beating the included Rudy Giuliani (3.5%) – and in New Hampshire was polling well ahead of Da Maya and Fred Thompson (also invited), and close to the Iowa winner Mike Huckabee. Objective criteria could have been cited to limit the debate to just the top 3 (McCain, Romney and Huckabee), but not for the configuration that was invited. Fox didn’t even feign that objective criteria was employed in determining the invitees. They alone decided to invite those they deemed as ‘electable’.

After having it crammed down their throats, Fox invited Paul to the SC debate. Obviously, there was a bad taste in their mouth over the fallout from excluding Paul in the forum. In addition to jeers from Paulites, their competitors repeatedly noted the arrogance of Fox to exclude a candidate who had pulled in 10% of the votes in Iowa based on their own judgment of what constitutes ‘electability’. Even Shepherd Smith and Greta Van Sustern (two of Fox’s bigger names) lobbied for Paul’s inclusion in the forum, to no avail.

For Mr. Cameron and the rest of the motley gang at Fox, I have a better question.

“Mr. Cameron – on the subject of credibility – Do you have any, sir?”

There’s a lot of handicapping of the republican horse race out there, and I’ve decided to throw my two-cents in on the subject.For all intents and purposes, 80% of the ‘front-running’ field is on life support. John McCain has yet to do much, and is anathema to most of what constitutes the ‘base’ of the party. I can’t imagine the scenario that sees him as the party’s nominee.

You can stick a fork in Thompson and Giulliani – they are both cash starved, riding on name recognition and praying that McCain and Romney have stage lights fall on them at the next debate. Huckabee is in a little better shape financially, but in my opinion isn’t electable as a republican and cannot get the nomination. Of course, many huckabuddys say the same thing about my guy (We might both be right). At least Huckabee has some real, live, breathing supporters out there in the grassroots. He has that much in common with Ron Paul, though Paul has more of the truly energized, boots on the ground volunteers.

There is really only one candidate (besides Paul) who I believe can ride this thing out all the way without some huge watershed event. Mitt Romney. Mitt has the enviable assets of cash on hand and media acquiesence, and the advantage of these cannot be overestimated. Of course, he also has some hinderances.

One hindrance is that all of his cash came from two places that are ripe for demagoguing; If it didn’t come from PACs or lobbyists, it came directly out of his pocket.

Does a self-financed campaign have a single thing to do with his position on the issues, or whether he’d make a good president? No. Can a decent ad campaign make his self-financed run look like vanity from a spoiled little rich kid who has decided he can buy his way into the white house? Yeppers. This one isn’t that hard to demagogue. Throw in that the rest of his money comes from the seediest places possible in the minds of the electorate, and there is an excellent angle to take Mr. Romney down.

And then there is the Mormon thing. In spite of the odious nature of ruling him out because of his religion (in my worldview, it is odious anyway), it is going to be a deal-breaker for some of the most hard-core Christian Conservatives. You know – the one’s who aren’t much for listening about policy, but care greatly that their candidate works the name of Jesus into every possible nook and cranny at every single stump speech. I say that as a self-professed Christian and conservative. I think most of these folks are on the Huckabee train for now.

So let’s say that Thompson vanishes after South Carolina, and Rudy after Florida; We’re down to a 4-man race (a 3-man race if you’re watching the race on Fox). At that point, McCain and Huckabee will in all probability be even worse off than they are now on cash, and there might be intense pressure for one of the two to get out of the race. If Huckabee is still in the race at that point (and I fully assume he will be), I expect that he’ll fold up the tent and endorse McCain.

McCain badly needs some sort of draw to fundamentalist Christians, and announcing that Huckabee is his first choice for VP is a strategy I see as probable to try and co-opt those supporters. Huckabee lacks the foreign policy and national stage experience that most voters find important, and a stint as McCain’s VP might be appealing enough to get Huck out earlier than he might have otherwise been willing to do. It doesn’t directly help their cash position, though it might bring in a little more money.

Leaving a 3-way race heading into super Tuesday: Romney, the daddy-warbucks candidate; McCain, the most-hated republican candidate; and Paul, the fringe-kook-rascist-unelectable-(insert adjective of derision here) candidate. Would any of the Huckabee voters have a problem with McCain, even with Huck on the undercard? You bet they would. Is Romney, a *gasp* – Mormon cultist – a better alternative? I can forsee many Huckabee voters – maybe even the majority – joining on the Paul bandwagon by default. I mean, hey – he’s a Baptist too! And what of the Thompson voters? If they weren’t voting for him because they loved ‘Law and Order’, then odds are Paul will be the truest reflection of their worldview, though the jingoists among them may find McCain a better option. At any rate, Paul get some of that vote. The Giulliani vote probably wouldn’t shift much to Paul. Simultaneously, Paul will certainly pick up some current supporters from McCain and Romney as voters actually hear his name and learn a little about him. He’s still smarting from the name recognition deficit, but his piles of cash and soon to be diminishing field can’t do anything but help that.

I’d be hard-pressed to argue any scenario where Paul is the favorite, and won’t try to do it. I can see the scenario playing out as I’ve delineated to this point. From there, Paul needs a watershed of his own to break through in a three way field. I think the tools are there, if fate simply falls our way. The most likely threat to this scenario is a Romney surge that has him moving into Super Tuesday with a groundswell of momentum. Barring that, I’d say Paul’s chances aren’t dead, in spite of the media’s death knell chorus that played as soon as they announced his candidacy.

It may be that Paul can assemble a team of adept marketers who can capitalize on the Anti-Paul media bias and make that our watershed event. Everyone likes to root for the underdog, and everyone likes to feel like they possess some secret knowledge eschewed by conventional wisdom. If Paul can effectively tap into those sentiments and add in a few friendly cart-path bounces (to borrow a golf euphemism) along the way, we could see the unthinkable happen. I wonder what Brit, Carl, Shawn and the rest of the disgraceful excuse for a newsroom over at Fox would have to say……