I missed this Budweiser ad when it originally ran, but is it is the classic tribute to America and the events of 9/11. I salute the Anheuser-Busch Companies for the presentation.
I can’t think of a better way to remind us all of what has gone before and to give my best wishes to all for a safe holiday and a Happy New Year.
In these pages I try to present articles that I find interesting. I try to review articles that I may not agree with in order to have a context for understanding the differences of opinion that I see. I frequently present points of view that are conservative – not only because I agree with them but because I believe that my readers might miss them otherwise. The liberal positions are well covered by the mainstream press and not as difficult to find. As my intent is to present educational and critical opinions, I have not hesitated to present material that I disagreed with when it appears to be well written and of interest to me or my readers.
So I approach today’s selection with some trepidation in that I seem to disagree with virtually every sentence contained in it. I am a believer in the concept that everybody is entitled to their own opinions – but not their own facts. And this author seems to create his own facts as he goes along. I see little support for any of his assertions and my recollection of history and my recollection of information about the topics he presents is very different from his.
But it is for my readers to decide. You will read his presentation and decide with each paragraph whether you find his position believable and supported by facts or whether you are becoming the victim of propaganda designed to impact your view of the events discussed. I will tell you that it is evident that a large segment of the population will agree with his assertions. I do not.
My source: http://talkabout.hmbreview.com/topic.php?t=1113
You’re Damn Right I’m Angry. Why Isn’t Everybody?
Beyond the Coastside, posted by Progressive, a resident of Half Moon Bay, 17 hours ago
by David Michael Green
I write articles each week with titles like “Everything I Need to Know About the Regressive Right I Learned In Junior High“, or “Conservatism Is Politics For Kindergartners“, or “Schadenfreude Is My Middle Name“.
I regret doing so very much. Believe it or not, I really don’t like spewing venom, sarcasm and rage all over my computer keyboard.
I particularly don’t like it because I have friends who are conservative, and it’s not my nature to trash-talk anybody, let alone friends.
Indeed, none of this is in my nature. I don’t start fights and I don’t go looking for them. I’m not an angry, bitter or mean-spirited person. But I can understand how I might be seen as such in the absence of the appropriate context, and it truly chagrins me that I might be so misperceived, and so negatively.
But I don’t intend to change, and I don’t intend to stop making the arguments contained in my rants. I’m angry for a very good set of reasons, and I’m angry because I care about my country just the way conservatives claim to. I’m angry, in short, because I’m a patriot and defender of the ideas that America is supposed to stand for. And what I really want to know is why those on the right aren’t equally outraged?
I was a teenager when Nixon was being Nixon, destroying democracy at home, napalming civilians in Vietnam, conducting secret wars in Laos and Cambodia, employing racism to win elections. At that age I knew enough to dislike what I saw (and what I learned of what Nixon and McCarthy had done to innocent Americans even earlier, before I was born, in order to serve their political ambitions), but I didn’t know enough yet to feel genuine rage at what regressives were doing to my country and to the world.
I began to experience those feelings in my twenties, first as truly sociopathically insane gun laws in this country helped to claim the life of John Lennon, and then as Ronald Reagan began to systematically turn his back on the poor and the middle-class in order to further enrich the country’s already wealthy economic elites. I also felt deep shame and outrage that America - the country that had supported if not literally created every two-bit dictator in Latin America, ‘our backyard’, (and well beyond) for a century - began to murder Nicaraguan peasants in order to halt their struggle to free themselves from the economic and political tyranny of one of those Washington-run caudillo clients, the sickening Somoza regime.
Then I watched in disgust as Newt Gingrich and his merry band of infantile hypocrites impeached a president for lying about a consensual sexual affair, while they were themselves all doing worse, like dumping a wife while she was lying in her hospital bed recovering from cancer surgery, or fathering children with a mistress, or carrying on many years-long affairs.
All of this was truly noxious. Nothing to that point had prepared me, however, for the regressive politics of our time. And they have turned me very angry indeed.
Regressives like to call people like me Bush-haters, and so it is important to address that claim before proceeding, because the entire intent of hurling that label at the president’s critics is to undermine their credibility. If you simply hate the man, they imply, you’re not rational, and your critiques can be dismissed. But it isn’t that simple - not by a long shot. First, it should be noted that the regressive right is far wider a phenomenon than just one person. It currently includes an entire executive branch administration, almost (and, just a year ago, more than) half of Congress, a majority of the Supreme Court and probably a majority of the lower federal courts, a biased-to-the-point-of-being-a-joke mainstream media, and tons of lobbyists, think tanks and profitable industries.
But as to George W. Bush, himself, I suspect it’s quite fair to say that most Americans and even most progressives did not originally despise or loathe him. I didn’t. I certainly didn’t admire the guy, nor did I think he was remotely prepared to be president of the United States. (Nor, by the way, was I particularly impressed with Al Gore in 2000.) Bush campaigned as a center-right pragmatist (a “compassionate conservative”, in his words), much as his father had been, and I expected that’s how he would govern if elected. You know, more embarrassing most of the time than truly destructive.
I mention all this because it is important to note what has - and what has not - been responsible for my/our anger, and to make clear that attempts to dismiss that anger as some Bush-hating bias or predisposition are false, a ploy to destroy the messenger when one doesn’t care for the message he’s carrying. If Bush had governed like he campaigned I’m sure I would have disliked him, but neither hated him nor his policies, nor experienced the rage that I feel about what he’s done to the country and the world. Frankly, my feelings toward another center-right Bush presidency would have likely been largely the same as my feelings toward the center-right Clinton presidency which preceded it.
But he hasn’t governed anywhere near to how he campaigned, and he wasn’t even elected properly, and I do in fact feel huge anger at the damage done. Moreover, I cannot for the life of me imagine how anyone - even conservatives - could feel differently. Even the wealthy, to whose interests this presidency is so wholly devoted, have to sleep at night. Even they have children who will inherit a broken country existing in an environmentally and politically hostile world, though no doubt they figure that big enough fences, mean enough private armies, and loads of central air conditioning will insulate them from the damage.
I don’t mind that the Bush campaign fought hard to win the 2000 election. That was certainly a legitimate goal for them to pursue. But it nauseates me beyond belief that their agents in the Florida government disenfranchised tens of thousands of African Americans in order to keep them from voting Democratic. And it sickens me that they gathered up a bunch of congressional staffers pretending to be an angry local mob and stormed election canvassers, using pure Gestapo techniques to shut down the most fundamental act of democracy, counting the votes.
I don’t mind that the Bush campaign took the election to the Supreme Court, even though they were simultaneously accusing the Gore folks of being litigious. What disgusts me beyond words is that a regressive majority of the Court anointed Bush president in a sheer act of partisan politics. And that they were so anxious to achieve that end that they repudiated all their own judicial politics previously espoused in case after case - from states’ rights, to equal protection, to judicial restraint. And that they were so conscious of what they were actually doing that they took the unprecedented step of stating that no lasting principles were involved in the matter, that their decision would forever apply to this case and this case only.
Once in office, there was still the possibility that the administration would govern as it had campaigned, as a rather centrist, status quo-style government, perhaps especially tempered from arrogance and overstretch by the knowledge that the country was deeply divided and that Bush had in fact actually lost the popular vote. In fact, though, they did precisely the opposite.
The first order of business, certainly the top priority for the administration, and arguably the only thing they were ever completely seriously about, was their tax restructuring program. It was grim enough that the tax cuts, as under Reagan, where dramatically tilted in favor of the wealthy. But what made them especially disgusting was that - again, as under Reagan - these wholesale revenue reductions were not only not accompanied by expenditure cuts, but in fact were coupled with increased spending. Can you say “voodoo economics”? Bush’s father once had, before he treasonously changed his tune to win the vice presidency (leading to the presidency) for himself. But he was right the first time, before he put personal ambition and transparent insecurity ahead of the national interest. And thus we’ve witnessed the only possible result of the combination of massive revenue cuts and continuing spending increases: astronomical debt, now well over nine trillion dollars in total, and rapidly growing. What I want to know is how can we - especially so-called family-oriented, so-called fiscal conservatives - not be outraged, not be scandalized, not be boiling with anger at the debt we have transferred to our own children, all so that we could avoid paying our own way, like every generation before us has?
I am outraged as well at how the administration polarized the country in the wake of one of the greatest traumas it had ever experienced. Let us leave aside the ample evidence demonstrating that the Bush team was asleep at the wheel before 9/11 - or perhaps far, far worse - a set of facts which is noteworthy in part because progressives did not use them to attack the president and score cheap but easy political points. But the administration did precisely that. It is disgusting - and it fills me with anger - how they used a national security crisis to win partisan political contests. How they scheduled a vote on the Iraq war resolution right before the midterm elections of 2002, thus politicizing the gravest decision a country can make by forcing Democrats to choose between voting their conscience and campaign accusations of being soft on national security.
It boils my blood that these chickenhawks - almost none of whom showed up for duty in Vietnam when it was their turn - could dare to accuse Max Cleland of being weak on national security, a guy who gave three of his four limbs to that very cause on the battlefields of Southeast Asia. How could they run ads morphing his face into Saddam’s or bin Laden’s, when his opponent - of course - took Vietnam deferments, just like Cheney and Ashcroft and the rest? And how could they accuse him of being weak on national defense because he opposed the bureaucratic reshuffling to create the Homeland Security Department, when Bush himself had also opposed it? That is, before Rove politicized it by inserting union-busting language applying to tens of thousands of civil servants covered by the act.
It nauseates me beyond words that this president could use the tragedy of 9/11 to justify invading a country which had nothing to do with that attack whatsoever. It enrages me that those who had the courage to oppose this policy so transparently deceitful (and it truly was - from the proof of the Downing Street Memos, to Colin Powell’s charade at the UN, to the assurances that the US knew where the WMD were, to the rejection of the weapons inspectors’ request to have two more months to finish the job) were labeled as traitors and worse for telling the truth. And that 4,000 Americans and over a million Iraqis have died for these lies.
And speaking of treason, what sort of looking glass have we all fallen through when the government of the United States exposes its own CIA undercover agent in order to punish her spouse for revealing administration lies about the war? When did that cease to be a cause of outrage, especially among our super-patriotic friends on the right?
How is it possible not to be angry looking at the destruction of Hurricane Katrina, and the bungled response of the government before, during and after that tragedy? Indeed, even journalists who had spent so many years licking government boots that their tongues had long ago turned black were moved to outrage at the magnitude of that failure, with the president meanwhile on a stage in San Diego pretending to play guitar at a Republican fundraiser.
I am outraged, as well, by one of the most insane and avoidable tragedies of all human history, the slow-motion holocaust of global warming. How can anyone not be angry at a political movement and a government that puts the short-term profits of one or two industries ahead of the viability of the entire planet? How can anyone not be mortified as we one-twentieth of the world’s population, who generate one-fourth of the greenhouse gases causing the problem, not only do nothing about the problem, but actively block the rest of the world from saving all of us from this folly?
I’m furious because the Bush administration and its ideological allies have shredded the Constitution at every turn, destroying the institutional gift of those they pretend to revere (but only when it’s convenient to upholding their own depredations). This president, who has gotten virtually everything he has ever wanted throughout his life and his presidency, once privately exclaimed in frustration at not getting something he wanted when he wanted it, “It’s just a goddam piece of paper!”, and that is precisely how he has treated America’s founding document. His signing statements - probably over a thousand in count now - completely obliterate the checks and balances principle of the Constitution, its most central idea. His admitted spying on Americans without warrant smashes the Fourth Amendment. His fiasco in Guantánamo and beyond mocks due process and habeas corpus guarantees. His invasion of Iraq against the international law codified in the UN Charter, to which the United States is a signatory, violates the Constitutional requirement to hold such treaties as the highest law of the land. Altogether, Americans have never seen a presidency with such imperial ambitions, and anyone who cares about the Constitution should be furious. A year from now, it is quite possible that Hillary Clinton will be president of the United States (ugh). Would our conservative friends silently countenance, let alone viciously support, such a monarchy in the White House if it belonged to Queen Hillary rather than King George? I think not.
We could go on and on from here. This administration and the movement it fronts at least gets high marks for consistency. Everything they touch turns to stone. There’s Pat Tillman and Terri Schiavo. There’s the politicization of the US Attorneys and the corruption of DeLay and Abramoff. There’s North Korea, Pakistan and the Middle East. There’s the shame of torture and rendition. There’s the wrecking of the American military and of the country’s reputation abroad. There’s Afghanistan and the failure to capture bin Laden. And much, much more. But above all, and driving all, there’s the kleptocracy - the doing of everything in every way to facilitate the looting of the national fisc.
What an unbelievable record of deceit, destruction, hypocrisy, incompetence, treason and greed. What a tragic tale of debt, lost wars, stolen elections, environmental crises, Constitution shredding, national shame and diminished security.
All done by the very most pious amongst us, of course. Merry Christmas, eh? I guess those are our presents, all carefully wrapped in spin, contempt, and preemptive attacks on any of us impertinent enough to say “No thanks, Santa”.
So, yeah, you’re goddam right I’m angry about what’s been done to my country, and what’s been done by my country in my name.
How could anyone who claims to care about America not be?
Dr Ron Paul, Congressman from Texas and odd man out in the Presidential primaries continues to raise money and attract ink in commercial barrels. I still do not find his opinions to be mainstream – but I am not as sure that is a bad think as I once was.
I bring Dr Paul to my readers in two articles today. The first has Matt Towery asking the headline question – Would Reagan vote for Ron Paul today (if the tombstones in Chicago can vote – why not). But Matt is completely serious. His point is that Reagan was much more restrained in his responses to problems in the world than current politicians – as is Dr Paul.
The second is an excerpt of Dr Paul’s interview with Tim Russert on Meet the Press on December 23, 2007. Tim is, in my view, one of the finest interviewers in the business. He is more likely to ask the tough questions than most and, while he is, I think, a liberal in his own mind, he is a fair interviewer who asks the same questions of both sides of the spectrum.
The question on the minds of both commentators is where will Dr Ron Paul be in this election. If not the Republican nominee, will he run as an independent and, if so, which camp(s) will he draw his support from. The second year of primary coverage looks a lot more interesting than the first – on both tickets.
My source: http://www.townhall.com/columnists/MattTowery/2007/12/27/would_reagan_vote_for_ron_paul
Would Reagan Vote for Ron Paul?
By Matt Towery
Thursday, December 27, 2007
On Christmas Day, I glanced at the memorabilia from my years in politics. The photos and notes from Newt Gingrich. Candid shots of me with the likes of Jimmy Carter and of the brilliant mastermind of his presidential victory, Hamilton Jordan. Next were shots of me posing with Bill Clinton and then with both President Bushes.
And oh yes, here was a young U.S. Senate aide Matt Towery with one Ronald Reagan.
Everyone knows there are plenty of people with photos of themselves with politicians. And there are loads of people who were close to Reagan. Many of them have both the credentials and the motives -- especially the motives -- to refute what I am about to write. Certainly my friends who still consider themselves respected experts and D.C. insiders would never dare write what follows. They would be cast off into the outer circles of the political establishment.
Personally, I could care less. So here goes.
Reagan was once an Iowan. He once broadcast University of Iowa football games, and he later was "discovered" by Hollywood when living in Des Moines.
It is my personal belief that if Reagan were alive and living in Iowa today, and he had to choose among the Republican presidential candidates, that he would likely choose the man the GOP establishment and national media have written off -- Congressman Ron Paul.
To begin with, there is little doubt that for at least foreign policy, Reagan was basically a non-interventionist. He bragged about the fact that the United States did not occupy foreign countries. He stressed in virtually every speech about the "Evil Empire" of the Soviet Union that they must be brought down, but not by use of force or war. When provoked by Libya's Muammar al-Qaddafi, the Osama bin Laden of the 1980s, Reagan used strategic bombing next to the quarters in which al-Qaddafi was sleeping to bring the brash "terrorist" to his knees.
Even the vicious murder of more than 200 troops in Lebanon did not provoke invasion or war. Instead, Reagan removed U.S. presence there in order to cool down an ultra-hot situation.
Oh yes, we did invade Grenada. More a military exercise than a true battle.
As for domestic policy, again Reagan's philosophy seems closer to that of Paul's than any other Republican candidate today. Reagan constantly railed against big government. In speech after speech, he emphasized the need to adhere to the Constitution, and to respect the powers of the individual states. Sound familiar?
As for some of Dr. Paul's more far-fetched positions, they may be "out there," but it wasn't hard for me to find quotes from Reagan that reflected nearly the same sentiments. For example, Paul's concerns about a monetary system based on something closer and closer to worthless paper was similarly expressed by Reagan as early as 1964 when he stumped for Barry Goldwater for president.
In a speech that year, Reagan expressed concerns about America losing its monetary independence. And, eerily, he alluded to fears about foreign nations owning American currency.
As I try to remind my friends who were around in 1980, Reagan was considered by the mainstream Republican establishment to be as kooky as many label Paul as being.
Gerald Ford in 1980 was quoted in Time Magazine as saying that Reagan was "unelectable." It is no wonder that when Reagan challenged Ford some four years earlier for the GOP nomination, Paul was one of only a handful of sitting congressmen who supported Reagan's effort.
What Paul lacks is Reagan's movie-star looks, and the credibility that comes with having been governor of California. Even without those attributes, Paul has managed to become the first Republican candidate I've seen since 1980 that can draw huge crowds so devoted to their candidate that they seem almost cult-like in their zeal. Believe it or not, that's what we thought of the Reagan crowds that gathered early in his bid for president in 1980.
The fact is that Reagan tamed both his rhetoric and the implementation of his agenda to meet the realities of the presidency. My guess is that were Ron Paul to have such a chance, he would inevitably do the same.
I still believe that between the Republican Party's longing to appear "mainstream" and the national political media's fear of appearing to give in to "fringe elements," that Paul's quest for the nomination will fall far short in the end.
But as I have said before, Lord help both parties if he decides to run as a third-party candidate. They may not like what he might say, but he would darn sure say it.
As Reagan said once said when a debate moderator cut him short, "I paid for this microphone." Paul might just buy one of his own.
My Source for Meet the Press transcript: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22342301/
Excerpt from Meet the Press transcript for December 23, 2007 with Tim Russert and Dr Ron Paul.
Dr. Paul, welcome to MEET THE PRESS.
REP. RON PAUL (R-TX): Thank you. Nice to be here.
MR. RUSSERT: Let's start right at the very top, the issues. This is what you have been saying on the campaign stump, "I'd like to get rid of the IRS. I want to get rid of the income tax." Abolish it.
REP. PAUL: That's a good idea. I like that idea.
MR. RUSSERT: What would happen to all those lost revenues? How would we fund our government?
REP. PAUL: We have to cut spending. You can't get rid of the income tax if you don't get rid of some spending. But, you know, if you got rid of the income tax today you'd have about as much revenue as, as we had 10 years ago, and the size of government wasn't all that bad 10 years ago. So there're sources of revenues other than the income tax. You know, you have, you have tariff, excise taxes, user fees, highway fees. So, so there's still a lot of money. But the real problem is spending. But, you know, we lived a long time in this country without an income tax. Up until 1913 we didn't have it.
MR. RUSSERT: But, but you eliminate the income tax, do you know how much lost revenue that would be?
REP. PAUL: A lot. But...
MR. RUSSERT: Over a trillion dollars.
REP. PAUL: That's good. I mean, we--but we could save hundreds of billions of dollars if we had a sensible foreign policy.
MR. RUSSERT: Well...
REP. PAUL: And if you go--if you're going to be the policeman of the world, you need that. You need the income tax to police the world and run the welfare state. I want a constitutional-size government.
MR. RUSSERT: Would you replace the income tax with anything else?
REP. PAUL: Not if I could help it. You know, there are some proposals where probably almost anything would be better than income tax. But there's a lot of shortcomings with the, with the sales tax. But it would probably be slightly better than the income tax--it would be an improvement. But the goal is to cut the spending, get back to a sensible-size government.
MR. RUSSERT: But if you had a flat tax, 30 percent consumption tax, that would be very, very punishing to the poor and middle class.
REP. PAUL: Well, I know. That's why I don't want it.
MR. RUSSERT: So you have nothing?
REP. PAUL: I want to cut spending. I want to get a--use the Constitution as our guide, and you wouldn't need the income tax.
MR. RUSSERT: Let's talk about some of the ways you recommend. "I'd start bringing our troops home, not only from the Middle East but from Korea, Japan and Europe and save enough money to slash the deficit."
How much money would that save?
REP. PAUL: To operate our total foreign policy, when you add up everything, there's been a good study on this, it's nearly a trillion dollars a year. So I would think if you brought our troops home, you could save hundreds of billions of dollars. It's, you know, it's six months or one year or two year, but you can start saving immediately by changing the foreign policy and not be the policeman over the world. We should have the foreign policy that George Bush ran on. You know, no nation building, no policing of the world, a humble foreign policy. We don't need to be starting wars. That's my argument.
MR. RUSSERT: How many troops do we have overseas right now?
REP. PAUL: I don't know the exact number, but more than we need. We don't need any.
MR. RUSSERT: It's 572,000. And you'd bring them all home?
REP. PAUL: As quickly as possible. We--they will not serve our interests to be overseas. They get us into trouble. And we can defend this country without troops in Germany, troops in Japan. How do they help our national defense? Doesn't make any sense to me. Troops in Korea since I've been in high school?
MR. RUSSERT: What...
REP. PAUL: You know, it doesn't make any sense.
MR. RUSSERT: Under President Paul, if North Korea invaded South Korea, would we respond?
REP. PAUL: I don't--why should we unless the Congress declared war? I mean, why are we there? Could--South Korea, they're begging and pleading to unify their country, and we get in their way. They want to build bridges and go back and forth. Vietnam, we left under the worst of circumstances. The country is unified. They have become Westernized. We trade with them. Their president comes here. And Korea, we stayed there and look at the mess. I mean, the problem still exists, and it's drained trillion dollars over these last, you know, 50 years. So stop--we can't afford it anymore. We're going bankrupt. All empires end because the countries go bankrupt, and the, and the currency crashes. That's what happening. And we need to come out of this sensibly rather than waiting for a financial crisis.
MR. RUSSERT: So if Iran invaded Israel, what do we do?
REP. PAUL: Well, they're not going to. That is like saying "Iran is about to invade Mars." I mean, they have nothing. They don't have an army or navy or air force. And Israelis have 300 nuclear weapons. Nobody would touch them. But, no, if, if it were in our national security interests and Congress says, "You know, this is very, very important, we have to declare war." But presidents don't have the authority to go to war.
MR. RUSSERT: You...
REP. PAUL: You go to the Congress and find out if they want a war, do the people want the war. But it's totally unnecessary. I mean, that, that, to me, is an impossible situation...
MR. RUSSERT: If...
REP. PAUL: ...for the Iranians to invade Israel.
MR. RUSSERT: This is what you said about Israel. "Israel's dependent on us, you know, for economic means. We send them" "billions of dollars and they," then they "depend on us. They say, `Well, you know, we don't like Iran. You go fight our battles. You bomb Iran for us.' And they become dependent on us."
Who in Israel is saying "Go bomb Iran for us"?
REP. PAUL: Well, I don't know the individuals, but we know that their leaderships--you read it in the papers on a daily--a daily, you know, about Israel, the government of Israel encourages Americans to go into Iran, and the people--I don't think that's a--I don't think that's top secret that the government of Israel...
MR. RUSSERT: That the government of Israel wants us to bomb Iran?
REP. PAUL: I, I don't think there's a doubt about that, that they've encouraged us to do that. And of course the neoconservatives have been anxious to do that for a long time.
MR. RUSSERT: Would you cut off all foreign aid to Israel?
REP. PAUL: Absolutely. But remember, the Arabs would get cut off, too, and the Arabs get three times as much aid altogether than Israel. But why, why make Israel so dependent? Why do we--they give up their sovereignty. They can't defend their borders without coming to us. If they want a peace treaty, they have to ask us permission. They can't--we interfere when the Arab leagues make overtures to them. So I would say that we've made them second class citizens. I, I think they would take much better care of themselves. They would have their national sovereignty back, and I think they would be required then to have a stronger economy because they would have to pay their own bills.
MR. RUSSERT: You talked about September 11th in one of the Republican debates back in May, and this is what you said.
(Videotape)
REP. PAUL: They don't come here to attack us because we're rich and we're free. They come and they, and they attack us because we're over there.
MR. RUSSERT: "Because we're over there." And then you added this on Tuesday: "But" al-Qaeda has "determination. The determination comes from being provoked."
How have we, the United States, provoked al-Qaeda?
REP. PAUL: Well, read what the lead--the ringleader says. Read what Osama bin Laden said. We had, we had a base, you know, in Saudi Arabia that was an affront to their religion, that was blasphemy as far as they were concerned. We were bombing Iraq for 10 years, we were--we've interfered in Iran since 1953. Our CIA's been involved in the overthrow of their governments. We're bought right now in the process of overthrowing that nation. We side more with Israel and Pakistan, and, and they get annoyed with this. How would we react if we were on their land--if they were on our land? We would be very annoyed, and we'd be fighting mad.
MR. RUSSERT: So under your doctrine, if we had--did not have troops in the Middle East, they would leave us alone.
REP. PAUL: Not, not immediately, because they'd have to believe us. But what would happen is the incentive for Osama bin Laden to recruit suicide terrorists would disappear. Once we left Lebanon in the early '80s, the French and the Americans and Israelis left Lebanon, suicide terrorism virtually stopped, just like that. But while we were there, that was suicide terrorism killed our Marines, because we were in Lebanon. So we have to understand that. We have to understand how we would react if some country did to us exactly what we do to them, and then we might have a better understanding of their motivation, why somebody would join the al-Qaeda. Since we've been over there al-Qaeda has more members now than they did before 9/11. They probably had a couple hundred before 9/11.
MR. RUSSERT: It sounds like you think that the problem is al-Qaeda--the problem is the United States, not al-Qaeda.
REP. PAUL: No, it's both. It's both--al-Qaeda becomes the violent. It's sort of like if you step in a snake pit and you get bit, you know, who caused the trouble? Because you stepped in the snake pit or because snakes bite you? So I think you have to understand both. But why, why produce the incentive for these violent, vicious thugs to want to come here and kill us.
MR. RUSSERT: Do you think there's an ideological struggle that Islamic fascists want to take over the world?
REP. PAUL: Oh, I think some, just like the West is wanting to do that all the time. Look at the way they look at us. I mean, we're in a, we're in a 130 countries. We have 700 bases. How do you think they proposed that to their people, saying "What does America want to do? Are they over here to be nice to us and teach us how to be good Democrats?"
MR. RUSSERT: So you see a moral equivalency between the West and Islamic fascism.
REP. PAUL: For some people, some radicals on each side that when we impose our will with force by a few number of people--not the American people--I'm talking the people who have hijacked our foreign policy, the people who took George Bush's foreign policy of a humble foreign policy and turned it into one of nation-building which he complained about.
MR. RUSSERT: The president himself?
REP. PAUL: The president himself has changed the policy. You know, I mean, he ran--I liked the program he ran on. That's what I defend. And--but all of a sudden--and it didn't change after 9/11, it changed the first meeting of the Cabinet according to Paul O'Neal. He says immediately it was on the table. When, when were we going to attack Iraq?
MR. RUSSERT: You mentioned September 11th, a former aide of yours, Eric Dondero said this. "When September 11th happened, he just completely changed," talking about you. "One of the first things he said was not how awful the tragedy was, it was, `Now we're going to get big government.'" Was that your reaction?
REP. PAUL: Well, I'm, I'm surprised somebody like that who's a disgruntled former employee who literally was put out. But, yes, thought...
MR. RUSSERT: He said he quit because he disagreed with you.
REP. PAUL: Yeah, no. The point is, Randolph Bourne says war is a helpless state. I believe that statement. When you have war, whether it's a war against drugs, war against terrorism, war, war overseas, war--the mentality of the people change and they're more willing to sacrifice their liberties in order to be safe and secure. So, yes, right after 9/11 my reaction was, you know, it's going to be a lot tougher selling liberty. But I'm pleasantly surprised that I'm still in the business of selling liberty and the Constitution and there's still a lot of enthusiasm for it. So all the American people don't agree that we have to have the nanny state and have the government taking care of us. So I have been encouraged. I might have been too pessimistic immediately after 9/11 because, in a way, it has caused this reaction and this uprising in this country to say, "Enough is enough. We don't need more Patriot Acts, we don't need more surveillance of our people. We don't need national ID cards. We don't need the suspension of habeas corpus. What we need is more freedom." So in one way I was pessimistic, but in another way, now, I'm more encouraged with the reception I'm getting with this message.
MR. RUSSERT: And you actually go further. You said this. "Abolish the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Central Intelligence Agency and dismantle every other agency except the Justice and Defense Departments." And then you went on. "If elected president, Paul says he would abolish public schools, welfare, Social Security and farm subsidies."
REP. PAUL: OK, you may have picked that up 20 or 30 years ago, it's not part of my platform. As a matter of fact, I'm the only one that really has an interim program. Technically, a lot of those functions aren't constitutional. But the point is I'm not against the FBI investigation in doing a proper role, but I'm against the FBI spying on people like Martin Luther King. I'm against the CIA fighting secret wars and overthrowing government and interfering...
MR. RUSSERT: Would you abolish them?
REP. PAUL: I would, I would not abolish all their functions, but I--the, the, the...
MR. RUSSERT: What about public schools? Are you still...
REP. PAUL: OK, but let's go, let's go with the CIA. They're, they're involved in, in, in torture. I would abolish that, yes. But I wouldn't abolish their right and our, our requirement to accumulate intelligence for national defense purposes.
MR. RUSSERT: But if you...
REP. PAUL: That's quite different.
MR. RUSSERT: But if you eliminate the income tax, you take away half the revenues for the federal government. What you're left with is the Defense Department, Social Security, Medicare and pensions. Everything else is gone. So you have to start making choices if you're going to keep...
REP. PAUL: All right. We can. The big one is overseas expenditure. You have to develop a transition. You have to start paying down the deficit, balance the budget. But you have to say I believe the most reasonable place to save is in foreign policy, hundreds of billions of dollars. Because it gets us into trouble, it ruins our national--our defense is poor now. Then the Department of Education, who--we elect conservatives to get rid of the Department of Education. We used to campaign on that. And what did we do? We doubled the size. I want to reverse that trend.
MR. RUSSERT: What about public schools?
REP. PAUL: That's what I'm trying to...
MR. RUSSERT: Are you still for...
REP. PAUL: No, I'm not--I've never, I've never taken the position--is it in my platform? And...
MR. RUSSERT: It was--when you ran for president in 1988, you called for the abolition of public schools.
REP. PAUL: I, I bet that's a misquote. I, I do not recall that. I'd like to know where that came from, because I went...
MR. RUSSERT: And Social Security? You're OK with Social Security now?
REP. PAUL: I think we need to get--give--offer the kids the chance to get out. But right now, if I don't--if we don't save the money, we can't take care of the other. For instance, Social Security, I never voted to spend one penny of Social Security money. So I'm the one that has saved it. Now, if I save the money in this military operation overseas, I say take that money--and, and I say this constantly--don't turn anybody out on the streets. People we have conditioned--yes, technically we shouldn't have them, and it'd be nice to get rid of them, but I would say take care of the people that are dependent on us. Let them--and the only way you can do that is cut spending. If we don't, they're all going to be out in the street. Because right now Social Security beneficiaries are getting 2 percent raises, their cost of living is going up 10 percent. A dollar crisis is going to wipe them all out. That's my point.
MR. RUSSERT: When I looked at your record, you talked about big government and how opposed you are to it, but you seem to have a different attitude about your own congressional district. For example, "Congress decided to send billions of dollars to victims of Hurricane Katrina. Guess how Ron Paul voted. `Is bailing out people" that choose--"that chose to live on the coastline a proper function of the federal government?' he asks." And you said no. And yet, this: "Paul's current district, which includes Galveston and reaches into" the "Brazoria County, draws a substantial amount of federal flood insurance payments." For your own congressional district. This is the Houston Chronicle: "Representative Ron Paul has long crusaded against a big central government. But he also" "represented a congressional district that's consistently among the top in Texas in its reliance on dollars from Washington. In the first nine months of the federal government's" fiscal "2006 fiscal year," "it received more than $4 billion." And they report, The Wall Street Journal, 65 earmark-targeted projects, $400 million that you have put into congressional bills for your district, which leads us to the Congressional Quarterly. "The Earmark Dossier of `Dr. No.' There isn't much that" Ron--Dr. "Ron Paul thinks the federal government should do. Apparently, though, earmarks" for his district "are OK. Paul is the sponsor of no fewer than 10 earmarks in the water resources bill," all benefiting his district. The Gulf Intercoastal Waterway: $32 million. The sunken ship you want to be moved from Freeport Harbor. The Bayou Navigation Channel. They talk about $8 million for shrimp fishermen.
REP. PAUL: You, you know...
MR. RUSSERT: Why, why would you load up...
REP. PAUL: You got it completely wrong. I've never voted for an earmark in my life.
MR. RUSSERT: No, but you put them in the bill.
REP. PAUL: I put it in because I represent people who are asking for some of their money back. But it doesn't cut any spending to vote against an earmark. And the Congress has the responsibility to spend the money. Why leave the money in the executive branch and let them spend the money?
MR. RUSSERT: Well, that's like, that's like saying you voted for it before you voted against it.
REP. PAUL: Nah! Come on, Tim. That has nothing to do with that.
MR. RUSSERT: If, if, if you put it in the bill and get the headlight back home...
REP. PAUL: No, I, I make the request. They're not in the bills.
MR. RUSSERT: ...and then you, then you know it's going to pass Congress and so you, you don't refuse the money.
REP. PAUL: Well, no, of course not. It's like taking a tax credit. If you have a tax credit, I'm against the taxes but I take all my tax credits. I want to get...
MR. RUSSERT: But if you were true...
REP. PAUL: ...the money back for the people.
MR. RUSSERT: If you were true to your philosophy, you would say no pork spending in my district.
REP. PAUL: No, no, that's not it. They steal our money, that's like saying that people shouldn't take Social Security money.
MR. RUSSERT: For...
REP. PAUL: I don't advocate that.
MR. RUSSERT: All right, let me ask you this...
REP. PAUL: I'm trying to save the system, make the system work.
MR. RUSSERT: Let me ask you this...
REP. PAUL: But no, I think you have it all mixed up. Now, you're confused.
MR. RUSSERT: All right. It's all facts.
REP. PAUL: You're confused.
MR. RUSSERT: This is The Wall Street Journal. You load up the bills with special projects...
REP. PAUL: I--no, no, no. No, you don't.
MR. RUSSERT: You do. You do. You deny that you have, you have...
REP. PAUL: How many of them ever got passed? But the whole point is, we have a right and an...
MR. RUSSERT: They pass. You vote against them, but you take the money.
REP. PAUL: You don't quite understand.
MR. RUSSERT: OK.
REP. PAUL: They take our money from us, and the Congress has the authority to appropriate, not the executive branch. And I'm saying that I represent my people. They have a request, it's like taking a tax credit, and I put it in--the whole process is corrupt so that I vote against everything.
MR. RUSSERT: All right, let me ask you this. But if...
REP. PAUL: I vote against it, so I don't endorse the system.
MR. RUSSERT: But when it passes overwhelmingly, you take the money back home.
REP. PAUL: I don't take it. That's the system.
MR. RUSSERT: The system.
REP. PAUL: I'm trying to change that system. To turn it around and say I'm supporting this system, I find it...
MR. RUSSERT: Well. Well...
REP. PAUL: ...rather ironic and entertaining.
MR. RUSSERT: Well, when you stop taking earmarks or putting earmarks in the, in the spending bills, then I think you'll be consistent.
Let me ask you about this...
REP. PAUL: Turn--you...
MR. RUSSERT: Let me ask this. Term limits. You ran on term limits. "I think we should have term limits for our elected leaders." You've been in Congress 18 years.
REP. PAUL: But I never ran on voluntary term limits. There's a big difference. I didn't sign a pledge for a voluntary term limit. Matter of fact, some of the best people that I worked with, who were the most principled, came in on voluntary term limits. Some of them broke their promises, and some didn't, and they were very good people. So some of the good people left. And it's true, I, I didn't run on that, Tim, you're wrong on that. I support term limits. You know, I, I, and I voted all--we had 16 votes one time on term limits, and I voted yes for them.
MR. RUSSERT: Yeah.
REP. PAUL: But voluntary term limits is a lot different than compulsory term limits. It's good to have a turnover, but that isn't the solution either. It's the philosophy of government that counts. It's only...
MR. RUSSERT: But if you believe in the philosophy of term limits, why wouldn't you voluntarily...
REP. PAUL: Well, it's, it's one of those, it's one of those things that's not on--I mean, you don't see that out I'm campaigning on that. I mean, I don't think it's--I don't think it's the solution. Philosophy is the solution. What the role of government ought to be, so if you have a turnover and the same people come in and they believe in big government, nothing good is going to come of it.
MR. RUSSERT: Let me ask you about immigration because that's a big issue here, and there has been a profound change. Back when you ran for president, 1988, libertarian, you said, "As in our country's first 150 years, there shouldn't be any immigration policy at all. We should welcome everyone who wants to come here and work." You've changed your view.
REP. PAUL: And, and during that campaign, I remember I got into trouble with Libertarians because I said there may well be a time when immigration is like an invasion and we have to treat it differently. And I think, in one sense, with the welfare state out of control--see, my approach to immigration is somewhat different than the others. Mine is you deal with it economically. We're in worse shape now because we subsidize immigration. We give food stamps, Social Security, free medical care, free education and amnesty. So you subsidize it, and you have a mess. Our hospitals are being closed. Conditions have changed. And I think that we should have--and, and 9/11 has occurred. Why shouldn't we be looking at people coming in? So there's--this, this means that we should look at immigration differently. It's an economic issue more than anything. If our economy was in good health, I--believe me, I don't think there'd be an immigration problem. We'd be looking for workers and we would be very generous.
MR. RUSSERT: You say you're a strict constructionist of the Constitution, and yet you want to amend the Constitution to say that children born here should not automatically be U.S. citizens.
REP. PAUL: Well, amending the Constitution is constitutional. What's a--what's the contradiction there?
MR. RUSSERT: So in the Constitution as written, you want to amend?
REP. PAUL: Well, that's constitutional, to do it. Besides, it was the 14th Amendment. It wasn't in the original Constitution. And there's a, there's a confusion on interpretation. In the early years, it was never interpreted that way, and it's still confusing because people--individuals are supposed to have birthright citizenship if they're under the jurisdiction of the government. And somebody who illegally comes in this country as a drug dealer, is he under the jurisdiction and their children deserve citizenship? I think it's awfully, awfully confusing, and, and I, I--matter of fact, I have a bill to change that as well as a Constitutional amendment to clarify it.
MR. RUSSERT: Let me ask you about drugs and go back again to your '90--'88 campaign and see where you stand today. "All drugs should be decriminalized. Drugs should be distributed by any adult to other adults. There should be no controls on production, supply or purchase for adults." Is that still your position?
REP. PAUL: Yeah. It's sort of like alcohol. Alcohol's a deadly drug, kills more people than anything else. And today the absurdity on this war on drugs, Tim, has just been horrible. We now, the federal government, takes over and rules--overrules state laws where state laws permit medicinal marijuana for people dying of cancer. The federal government goes in and arrests these people, put them in prison with mandatory, sometimes life sentences. This war on drugs is totally out of control. If you want to regulate cigarettes and alcohol and drugs, it should be at the state level. That's been my position, and that's where I stand on it. But the federal government has no, no prerogatives on this. They--when they wanted to outlaw alcohol, they had enough respect for the Constitution to amend the Constitution. Today we have all these laws and abuse, and they don't even care about the Constitution. I'm defending the Constitution on this issue. I think drugs are horrible. I teach my kids not to use them, my grandchildren, in my medical practice. Prescription drugs are a greater danger than, than hard drugs.
MR. RUSSERT: But you would decriminalize it?
REP. PAUL: I, I, I would, at the federal level. I don't have control over the states. And that's what the Constitution's there.
MR. RUSSERT: Let me ask you about race, because I, I read a speech you gave in 2004, the 40th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act. And you said this: "Contrary to the claims of" "supporters of the Civil Rights Act of" '64, "the act did not improve race relations or enhance freedom. Instead, the forced integration dictated by the Civil Rights Act of" '64 "increased racial tensions while diminishing individual liberty." That act gave equal rights to African-Americans to vote, to live, to go to lunch counters, and you seem to be criticizing it.
REP. PAUL: Well, we should do, we should do this at a federal level, at a federal lunch counter it'd be OK or for the military. Just think of how the government, you know, caused all the segregation in the military until after World War II. But when it comes, Tim, you're, you're, you're not compelled in your house to invade strangers that you don't like. So it's a property rights issue. And this idea that all private property is under the domain of the federal government I think is wrong. So this--I think even Barry Goldwater opposed that bill on the same property rights position, and that--and now this thing is totally out of control. If you happen to like to smoke a cigar, you know, the federal government's going to come down and say you're not allowed to do this.
MR. RUSSERT: But you would vote against...
REP. PAUL: So it's...
MR. RUSSERT: You would vote against the Civil Rights Act if, if it was today?
REP. PAUL: If it were written the same way, where the federal government's taken over property--has nothing to do with race relations. It just happens, Tim, that I get more support from black people today than any other Republican candidate, according to some statistics. And I have a great appeal to people who care about personal liberties and to those individuals who would like to get us out of wars. So it has nothing to do with racism, it has to do with the Constitution and private property rights.
MR. RUSSERT: I was intrigued by your comments about Abe Lincoln. "According to Paul, Abe Lincoln should never have gone to war; there were better ways of getting rid of slavery."
REP. PAUL: Absolutely. Six hundred thousand Americans died in a senseless civil war. No, he shouldn't have gone, gone to war. He did this just to enhance and get rid of the original intent of the republic. I mean, it was the--that iron, iron fist..
MR. RUSSERT: We'd still have slavery.
REP. PAUL: Oh, come on, Tim. Slavery was phased out in every other country of the world. And the way I'm advising that it should have been done is do like the British empire did. You, you buy the slaves and release them. How much would that cost compared to killing 600,000 Americans and where it lingered for 100 years? I mean, the hatred and all that existed. So every other major country in the world got rid of slavery without a civil war. I mean, that doesn't sound too radical to me. That sounds like a pretty reasonable approach.
MR. RUSSERT: You're running as a Republican. In your--on your Web site, in your brochures, you make this claim: "Principled Leadership. Ron was also one of only four Republican Congressmen to endorse Ronald Reagan for president against Gerald Ford in" '76. There's a photograph of you, Ronald Reagan on the right, heralding your support of Ronald Reagan. And yet you divorced yourself from Ronald Reagan. You said this: "Although he was once an ardent supporter of President Reagan, Paul now speaks of him as a traitor leading the country into debt and conflicts around the world. "I want to totally disassociate myself from the Reagan Administration." And you go on to The Dallas Morning News: "Paul now calls Reagan a `dramatic failure.'"
REP. PAUL: Well, I'll bet you any money I didn't use the word traitor. I'll bet you that's somebody else, so I think that's misleading. But a failure, yes, in, in many ways. The government didn't shrink. Ultimately, after he got in office, he said, "All I want to do is reduce the rate of increase in size of government." That's not my goal. My goal is to reduce our government to a constitutional size. Completely different. I think that--matter of fact, he admitted in his memoirs that he had a total failure in Lebanon, and he said he relearned the Middle East because of that failure. And so there--he--you know, he...
MR. RUSSERT: But if he's a total failure, why are you using, using his picture in your brochure?
REP. PAUL: Well, because he, he ran on a good program, and his, his idea was a limited government. Get rid of the Department of Education, a strong national defense.
MR. RUSSERT: George Herbert Walker Bush, this is according to Ron Paul: "`Bush is a bum,' Paul wrote in" "November" 15th, "1992 issue of his newsletter, the `Ron Paul Political Report.'" And asked about the current President Bush, whether he voted for him in 2004: "Paul says no: `He misled us in 2000.'" Asked if he voted for Bush in 2000. No, "`I didn't vote for him then, either. I wasn't convinced he was a conservative.'" And actually, in 1987, you submitted a letter of resignation to the Republican Party: "I therefore resign my membership in the Republican Party and enclose my membership card." If Reagan's a failure, Bush 41 is a bum, and you didn't vote for Bush 41--41's a bum and 43 you didn't vote for, and you resigned from the Republican Party, why you running as a Republican candidate for president?
REP. PAUL: Because I represent what Republicanism used to be. I represent the group that wanted to get rid of the Department of Education, the part, that part of the Republican Party that used to be non-interventionists overseas. That was the tradition, the Robert/Taft wing of the party. There was a time when the Republicans defended individual liberty and the Constitution and decreased spending. So the radicals, the ones who really don't belong in the Republican Party and why the Republican Party is shrinking, why the base is so small, is because they don't stand for these ideals any more. So I stand for the ideals of the Republican Party. I've been elected 10 times as Republican. I've been a Republican all my life except for that one year that I ran as a Libertarian. But, no, I represent the Republican ideals, I think, much more so that the individuals running for the party right now.
MR. RUSSERT: If, if you do not win the Republican nomination for president, will you run as an independent in 2008?
REP. PAUL: I have no intention to do that.
MR. RUSSERT: Absolute promise.
REP. PAUL: I have no intention of doing that.
MR. RUSSERT: Well, but no intention's a wiggle word.
REP. PAUL: Well, OK, I deserve one wiggle now and then, Tim. I mean, what the devil...
MR. RUSSERT: So no--so no Shermanesque statement.
REP. PAUL: You know, I...
MR. RUSSERT: "I will not sun as an independent."
REP. PAUL: Well, I can be pretty darned sure that I have no intention, no plans of doing it, and that's about 99.9 percent. I don't like people who are such absolutists, "I will never do this, or I will win, I'm going to come in first." I don't like those absolutists terms in politics.
MR. RUSSERT: But the door's open a little bit.
REP. PAUL: Not very much. It really isn't. I, I don't--Tim, we just raised $10 million in two days. We haven't even had a race, we have February 5th coming up. We have a campaign to run. Why--do you ask all the other--how many other candidates have you asked, "Are you going to run as a third party candidate if you don't win?" Have you asked John McCain that?
MR. RUSSERT: Well, if someone has a history of running as a third party candidate, sure. You ran in '88 as a Libertarian.
REP. PAUL: Yeah, well, I know...
MR. RUSSERT: It's a logical question.
REP. PAUL: ...but there are independents. So I--ask them, too.
MR. RUSSERT: I will.
Before you go, Mike Huckabee, Republican candidate for president, ran this commercial for Christmas and many thought that the shelf in the back looked like a cross. You were asked about it on CNN and this is what you said.
REP. PAUL: It reminds me of what Sinclair Lewis once says. He said when fascism comes to this country, it will be wrapped in the flag, carrying a cross.
MR. RUSSERT: What does that mean?
REP. PAUL: What? Fascism or the definition of fascism?
MR. RUSSERT: Do you believe that Mike Huckabee is...
REP. PAUL: Oh, I didn't say that. I said it reminded me--as a matter of fact they caught me completely cold on that. I had not seen the ad, and they just said there was a cross there. And, you know, it was an instantaneous reflex because I knew of Sinclair Lewis about being cautious, because, you know, I--what prompts this is things like the Patriot Act. You know...
MR. RUSSERT: Let me go back...
REP. PAUL: No, no. If you're not a patriot...
MR. RUSSERT: But let me go back to this ad. You do not believe that Mike Huckabee, that ad commercial represents the potential of fascism in the form of a cross.
REP. PAUL: No. But I think this country, a movement in the last 100 years, is moving toward fascism. Fascism today, the softer term, because people have different definition of fascism, is corporatism when the military industrial complex runs the show, when the--in the name of security pay--pass the Patriot Act. You don't vote for it, you know, you're not patriotic America. If you don't support the troops and you don't support--if you don't support the war you don't support the troops. It's that kind of antagonism. But we have more corporatism and more abuse of our civil liberties, more loss of our privacy, national ID cards, all this stuff coming has a fascist tone to it. And the country's moving in that direction. That's what I'm thinking about. This was not personalized. I never even used my opponents names if you, if you notice.
MR. RUSSERT: So you think we're close to fascism?
REP. PAUL: I think we're approaching it very close. One--there's one, there's one documentary that's been put out recently that has generated a lot of interest called "Freedom to Fascism." And we're moving in that direction. Were not moving toward Hitler-type fascism, but we're moving toward a softer fascism. Loss of civil liberties, corporations running the show, big government in bed with big business. So you have the military industrial complex, you have the medical industrial complex, you have the financial industry, you have the communications industry. They go to Washington and spend hundreds of millions of dollars. That's where the control is. I call that a soft form of fascism, something that is very dangerous.
MR. RUSSERT: For the record, the Sinclair Lewis Society said that Mr. Lewis never uttered that quote.
REP. PAUL: But others refuted that and put them down and said that--and they found the exact quote where it came from.
MR. RUSSERT: To be continued. Dr. Ron Paul, be safe on the campaign trail. Thanks for sharing your views.
REP. PAUL: Thank you. Nice to be here.
In one of the most bizarre publicity coups of the last year we were treated to the spectacle of Al Gore being named as a co-recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize. Mr Gore has brought forth as his signature issue a thesis of imminent disaster of global warming and sudden climate change that is man made in its causes and requires incredible expenditures and behavior changes to avoid catastrophe of Biblical proportions.
I consider myself to be a conservationist. I recognize that we are all stewards of the earth with responsibilities to generations to come in our use of raw materials and the health of our environment. I certainly do not want to destroy the planet at a time when I have no place else to stand. But beyond that, I have a problem with the hype and intellectual dishonesty of the global warming alarmists, including Mr Gore, because, in my view, it just isn’t true.
The trustees of Nobel can give away their prizes as they see fit, but in this years award, in addition to Mr Gore, they named the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Among the rising tide of scientific professionals who are speaking out against the flawed conclusions that Mr Gore is representing as fact are a number of members of the very same IPCC that was selected to share the prize.
So what is the problem – and what harm is there in Mr Gore and his global warming cult mentality. Economics deals in the allocation of scarce resources within a market system. Priorities are set by the values of the society and of the stakeholders in the system. My concern for Mr Gore is that he attempts to divert billions of dollars into programs and impacts to solve a problem which may not exist, and if it exists, is not within our control. In typical liberal feel good policy making, we can ignore serious issues which could really benefit the people or the environment while we exhaust our resources chasing a false premise which is without scientific foundation or proof.
Weather is a local phenomenon which is constantly changing and may produce varied impacts in any region at any time. Climate, on the other hand, is a world wide system which is not yet fully understood by the scientific community. The Al Gores of the airwaves speak of generalities using anecdotal evidence (if any) of local weather to support their theory that the world is going to hell in a handbasket. It appears that their numbers are flawed, their conclusions are not supported and their predictions so far have been demonstrated to be wrong.
I have written previously about scientific opposition by qualified researchers to the hype and bandwagon mentality of the press and politicians. Today I point to an article by Cal Thomas who shares his views on the subject. (and who shows the uncommon good sense to agree with me)
My source: http://www.townhall.com/columnists/CalThomas/2007/12/25/secular_fundamentalists
Secular Fundamentalists
By Cal Thomas
Tuesday, December 25, 2007
You don't have to be religious to qualify as a fundamentalist. You can be Al Gore, the messiah figure for the global warming cult, whose followers truly believe their gospel of imminent extermination in a Noah-like flood, if we don't immediately change our carbon polluting ways.
One of the traits of a cult is its refusal to consider any evidence that might disprove the faith. And so it is doubtful the global warming cultists will be moved by 400 scientists, many of whom, according to the Washington Times, "are current or former members of the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) that shares the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with Mr. Gore for publicizing a climate crisis." In a report by Republican staff of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, these scientists cast doubt on a "scientific consensus" that global warming caused by humans endangers the planet.
Like most cultists, the true believers struck back, not by debating science, but by charging that a small number of the scientists mentioned in the report have taken money from the petroleum industry. A spokeswoman for Al Gore said 25 or 30 of the scientists may have received funding from Exxon Mobile Corp. Exxon Mobile spokesman Gantt H. Walton dismissed the accusation, saying, "the company is concerned about climate-change issues and does not pay scientists to bash global-warming theories."
The pro-global warming cultists enjoy a huge money advantage. Paleoclimate scientist Bob Carter, who has testified before the Senate Environment and Public Works committee, noted in an EPW report how much money has been spent researching and promoting climate fears and so-called solutions: "In one of the more expensive ironies of history, the expenditure of more than $50 billion (US) on research into global warming since 1990 has failed to demonstrate any human-caused climate trend, let alone a dangerous one," he wrote on June 18, 2007. The $19 million spent on research that debunks the global warming faith pales in comparison.
Also included in the Republican report are comments by Dutch atmospheric scientist Hendrik Tennekes: "I find the Doomsday picture Al Gore is painting - a six-meter sea level rise, 15 times the IPCC number - entirely without merit. I protest vigorously the idea that the climate reacts like a home heating system to a changed setting of the thermostat: just turn the dial, and the desired temperature will soon be reached."
Oklahoma Senator James M. Inhofe, ranking Republican on the Environment and Public Works Committee, said the report debunks Mr. Gore's claim that the "debate is over." In fact, the debate hasn't even begun because the global warming cultists won't debate. Despite numerous challenges, Al Gore has refused to debate the issue with any credible scientist who is a skeptic. Shouldn't the winner of the Nobel Peace Prize be willing to debate such an important issue? What does he have to fear? If his theory cannot stand up to scientific inquiry and skepticism, it needs to be exposed as a false religion and himself as a false prophet before he and his followers force us to change the way we live and alter the prosperous society that generations of Americans have built.
Gore and his disciples will still be living in their big houses, driving gas-guzzling cars and flying in private jets that leave carbon footprints as large as Bigfoot's, while most of us will be forced to drive tiny automobiles and live in huts resembling the
Before adopting any faith, the agendas of the people attempting to impose it, along with the beliefs held by them and their disciples, should be considered. Gore and company are big government liberals who think government is the answer to all of our problems, including problems they create. In fact, as Ronald Reagan often said, in too many cases government is the problem.
The secular fundamentalists who believe in Al Gore as a prophet and global warming as a religious doctrine are being challenged by scientists and others who disbelieve and who think we ought to be spending more time on developing new technology and energy sources for the future and not preaching gloom, doom and retreat. Let them debate the issue. If they won't, we can only conclude that all they are spewing is hot air.
