Ron Paul helped bush?
Submitted by NickM RON PAUL 08 on Fri, 08/22/2008 - 15:48
Okay in the micheal ruppert video ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jiDX6UQl2no ) which also says everything in the video is fact, but it says at 2:02 minutes "On september 20, 2001 California congresswomen Barbara Lee (D) cast the only dessenting vote in the entire us congress opposing S.J. Resolution 23 giving president bush free hand to attack terrorists anywhere in the world as he saw fit." Why didnt Ron Paul vote against it?
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How McCain could win and severely damage BHO's party
Last thing in the world I would want to see, but my wife and I had a discussion 2 weeks ago and I came up with a means by which McCain could win and turn the 'talking heads on TV' away from Obama and have them speaking about him for the next coupld weeks at least.
Choose Hillary as his VP pick. There is no way she could ever accept (which works to McCain's advantage, actually), though the offer is one she would really hate to decline. Accepting would destroy the Democratic party (as well as fully illustrate the inherent lack of difference between the two parties for those of the electorate paying attention). She (and likely Bill) would want to accept the offer (how long can McCain live? and then she would be POTUS). Hillary's supporters would give McCain a second look and the press would have a field day. As I stated, there is likely no way she would accept, but the damage would be done and BHO would face a cendidate who out-maneuvered him.
No matter who McCain picked after the Hillary event would be easily accepted and the bounce from the coverage of the event would make McCain seem to be the golden-boy, fence-crosser of the election.
Hillary might even enjoy the spotlight, given her obvious intention to try for POTUS in 2012.
I didn't post this previously because I feared that it would give ideas to people watching these forums, but if I can come up with such a scenario, so can others I figure.
Its likely such a similar scenario could occur with McCain floating Ron Paul as a candidate for VP. Again there is no way I can imagine RP accepting the position as it implies an agreement with the top candidate and a requirement of sharing a stage with him appearing as friends (something I wouldn't want to put Ron through personally). The attention from the media would spin as a way of trying to re-connect with the Conservative base, but it would just be symbolic and not mean anything (and we wouldn't fall for it). (...though as a thought McCain is pretty old and in poor shape)
~Chills
...the President is
The problem language is "he determines." I can understand that the usual process for declaring war does not always apply. But that language hands the whole kit and caboodle over to the president with no strings attached.
Bush could have literally decided on a whim that Canada was responsible for 9/11 and we'd have troops fighting in the streets of Toronto right now. That's essentially why we're in Iraq: Dubya was mad at "Soddom" for making his daddy look like a chump, so he ordered his gang to go beat him up. The decision was just that arbitrary. It wasn't about WMD or even oil, it was about family pride. We're there on a whim.
I suspect Ron Paul was uncomfortable with it for that same reason, but he crossed his fingers and voted for it due to the circumstances.
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Liberty for Dummies
There was a thread about
There was a thread about this sometime ago. He voted for it and he did the right thing voting for it. Here is his statement about his vote:
Mr, Speaker,
Sadly we find ourselves today dealing with our responsibility to provide national security under the most difficult of circumstances.
To declare war against a group that is not a country makes the clear declaration of war more complex.
The best tool the framers of the Constitution provided under these circumstances was the power of Congress to grant letters of marque and reprisals, in order to narrow the retaliation to only the guilty parties. The complexity of the issue, the vagueness of the enemy, and the political pressure to respond immediately limits our choices. The proposed resolution is the only option we're offered and doing nothing is unthinkable. (This line is the essence of why he voted for it and why he should have voted for it. It was the right thing to do.)
There are a couple of serious points I'd like to make.
For the critics of our policy of foreign interventionism in the affairs of others the attack on New York and Washington was not a surprise and many have warned of its inevitability.
It so far has been inappropriate to ask why the U.S. was the target and not some other western country. But for us to pursue a war against our enemies it's crucial to understand why we were attacked, which then will tell us by whom we were attacked.
Without this knowledge, striking out at six or eight or even ten different countries could well expand this war of which we wanted no part. Without defining the enemy there is no way to know our precise goal nor to know when the war is over. Inadvertently more casual acceptance of civilian deaths as part of this war I'm certain will prolong the agony and increase the chances of even more American casualties. We must guard against this if at all possible.
Too often over the last several decades we have supported both sides of many wars only to find ourselves needlessly entrenched in conflicts unrelated to our national security. It is not unheard of that the weapons and support we send to foreign nations have ended up being used against us. The current crisis may well be another example of such a mishap.
Although we now must fight to preserve our national security we should not forget that the founders of this great nation advised that for our own sake we should stay out of entangling alliances and the affairs of other nations.
We are placing tremendous trust in our president to pursue our enemies as our commander-in-chief but Congress must remain vigilant as to not allow our civil liberties here at home to be eroded. The temptation will be great to sacrifice our freedoms for what may seem to be more security. We must resist this temptation.
Mr. Speaker we must rally behind our president, pray for him to make wise decisions, and hope that this crisis is resolved a lot sooner than is now anticipated.
i still say he should have voted against it.
I dont see how it did any good voting for it.
Did Kucinich vote for it?
That'd be hella interesting to know...
i think so
its said barbara was the only one to vote against it
You're right, unfortunately he did
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20020325/nichols
I'm surprised. I expected better from Dennis.
Sept 20
2001
What was the date of the vote?
That makes a big difference.
He did the right thing?
"War is the health of the state" - Randolph Bourne
Furthermore, I bet you if someone asked Ron, he would say that he didn't any want to vote for it at the time but did so out of "political" pressure.
I bet you're dead wrong and
I bet you're dead wrong and that that is never a motivating factor for him. On the other hand, I bet you he did vote for it because he is a human being and doesn't live life with blinders on. Something of that scope happens and supporting the idea of doing something, anything was a good and healthy thing to do. As Ron said himself, "...doing nothing is unthinkable." That's it.
I don't know man
I think it probably was what caused him to vote for him.
Ron is not dumb--he's familiar with libertarian literature on war. I believe he knew nothing good would come of it.
Of course something should have been done about it. Ron was right.
However, I'm sure he would have preferred something much different (ie. congressional authorization to assassinate Bin Laden). However, giving the limited options, I think he decided to vote for it on the basis of not having his re-election chances killed.
I don't understand why you
I don't understand why you are focusing on him as a politician. I don't believe he is a guy concerned about re-elections. And I do believe he thought something good would come of it. However, as he clearly says, he would have definitely preferred putting a ransom on Bin Laden's head use the marque and reprisal legislation in the constitution. Nevertheless, technically something good did come of the bombing. There were beneficial retaliations towards Al-Qaeda and what not in Afghan. That was something useful. It just didn't last long and we mostly have forgotten it.
i do think he is pretty concerned with re-elections after all he
did take a brake from his pres run to focus of his re-election
well
He is CFR scum.
Who, Ron Paul or Michael
Who, Ron Paul or Michael Ruppert. Either way, they are definately not CFR.
People throw that around like they actually have a membership list in their hand.
He made a mistake.
He regrets voting for it.
Nobody's perfect.
Kudos to Barbara Lee though.
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Don't blame me if there's no voice for liberty opposing McCain and Obama in the Presidential debates. I donated to Ron Paul Libertarian, Bob Barr's campaign.
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Don't blame me if there's no voice for liberty opposing McCain and Obama in the Presidential debates. I donated to Ron Paul Libertarian, Bob Barr's campaign.
thats
fair enough
Yup, it's a real shame that he voted
for this. He should have known better--I know he is familiar with Randolph Bourne...
But, I think "political" pressure got to him. He didn't want to look unpatriotic or something to that effect.
I don't know.
On second thought, you've got to stay in the game. If he didn't vote for it, maybe he would have lost his house seat, and maybe he wouldn't have got as far as he did in this campaign. It had plenty of votes to pass anyway, so he knew his vote wasn't going to affect the outcome.
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Don't blame me if there's no voice for liberty opposing McCain and Obama in the Presidential debates. I donated to Ron Paul Libertarian, Bob Barr's campaign.
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Don't blame me if there's no voice for liberty opposing McCain and Obama in the Presidential debates. I donated to Ron Paul Libertarian, Bob Barr's campaign.
That's a good point
It comes down to principle vs. strategy.
It's a tough one...
But there
has also been a bunch of times where he was the lone voter too, so why jump on the wagon for this one? I can totally forgive him for it though as we all kno his intentions have always been to help us, i guess it was just a mistake.
Because this one would be more noticeable?
He might have known exactly what he was doing. He is a politican afterall. I don't think one can be a succesful politician, or even just hold office, without having dirty hands.
He might have been dead in the water by the end of the first debate if an opponent used that against him. There overwhelming support for going into Afghanistan among the public.
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Don't blame me if there's no voice for liberty opposing McCain and Obama in the Presidential debates. I donated to Ron Paul Libertarian, Bob Barr's campaign.
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Don't blame me if there's no voice for liberty opposing McCain and Obama in the Presidential debates. I donated to Ron Paul Libertarian, Bob Barr's campaign.
Dirty hands
Haha, that's a good point. Politicians are rulers--that is they are in the business of dictating what people can do with their lives. So, yes they're hands are filthy.
Ron of course, has the cleanest hands--he has the least aspirations of being a ruler of any politician that I know of...
I saw that
here is what I think but this is just guessing. Remember, when 911 happened Dr. Paul said that he voted to go after Osama in Afganistan. Dr. Paul was thinking more along the lines like going after Pirates. I think IF he did vote for it that may have been what he was thinking. Peace Patriot
Prepare & Share the Message of Freedom through Positive-Peaceful-Activism.
Though the resolution
was clearly much more broad than that.
I read somewhere that at first he didn't want to vote for it, but his staff convinced him to with the argument that if he didn't vote for it, it would probably cost him his House seat.
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Don't blame me if there's no voice for liberty opposing McCain and Obama in the Presidential debates. I donated to Ron Paul Libertarian, Bob Barr's campaign.
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Don't blame me if there's no voice for liberty opposing McCain and Obama in the Presidential debates. I donated to Ron Paul Libertarian, Bob Barr's campaign.
Yes, here's a report by a former staffer
http://www.reason.com/blog/show/120395.html#708717
Well it's reassuring to know, as the staffer indicates, that Ron did not want to vote for the bill, but finally caved solely out of fears that it would sabotage his re-election chances.
Could be. His staff leaves a
Could be. His staff leaves a lot to be desired. Along with Cindy's birthday card, today, came my second HUGE postcard advertising the rally and the C4L, bith of which I have already joined. Do you think they are for the mailmen? Seems like a big waste to me...
when i got a
C4L and Rally postcard I knew all about it but i left it on the table and when my mom saw it she was actually surprised. She voted hillary even though i tried as hard as i could to get her to vote ron. Shes takes Ron Paul a little more serious now.