Go to any Ron Paul event and it strikes you immediately: What’s up with all the young people?
The 75-year-old Texas congressman packs halls on college campuses. His campaign volunteers often look too young to shave. And even at a recent New York City book signing, it’s surprising how many teenagers and 20-somethings are lined up for an autograph, clutching Paul’s new book, Liberty Defined.<>
With the official announcement, Paul now has a long journey ahead until 2012. His poll numbers are better than expected. His followers are greater than in 08′ and his chances are actually reasonable. He has the charisma, the dedication, and the message. He will undoubtedly face all the same oppositions he had in 2008, except now he has new opponents. With the exception of Gary John, a libertarian, Paul is the only vocal opponent of America’s entangling alliances overseas. Chances are his message will begin to resonate with the American people. His words and his forceful conviction on foreign policy are sure to receive a welcome from mainstream American voters.
Key to this entire presidential race is New Hampshire. The “Live Free” state is generally libertarian and an important part of the Paul strategy.<>
Stossel writes:
The man who likely has done more than anyone to put the libertarian philosophy of freedom and small government on the political agenda probably will make another run for the presidency: U.S. Rep. Ron Paul.
Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2011/05/11/john-stossel-ron-paul-libertarian-agenda-getting-respect/#ixzz1M6e1LyS8<>
This is a lengthy profile of Newt Gingrich some years ago well worth re-reading.
The Tea Parties only embrace half of the Gingrich vision, the one that ties bureaucracy and corruption around the neck of the Democratic party like a dead cat. But some of the policy proposals he’s thrown out over the years suggest that Gingrich also supports massive government spending on education, technology, high-speed trains, national parks, health care, Social Security, and a host of odd pet projects: compulsory gym class for every public-school student in America, forcing teachers to take attendance every hour, paying kids to read, even compulsory health insurance — isn’t that exactly like the “Obamacare” that drives the Tea Parties mad?
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I hope to re-start my Ron Paul podcast. 2007’s podcast was quite successful; attracting at one time over 500 listeners. The purpose is to offer people commentary on the latest in Paul’s presidential run, and also summarize Paul’s position on a variety of topics. Hope to do my first one in the next 10 days.<>
Brian Doherty analyzes Juan William’ and Hugh Hewitt’s assessment of Ron Paul. It is quite a fascinating piece. Doherty concludes:
Calling Paul marginal at this point requires not merely ignoring good and necessary ideas. As Juan Williams explains nicely, it requires ignoring objective facts. Which the likes of Hewitt will be happy to do forever to shut up Paul’s message, and his fans.
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Popular author and New Testament scholar N.T. Wright has accused the world of giving America a free pass for violating Pakistan’s sovereignty and killing an unarmed man during the recent attack that killed Osama bin Laden.
The former bishop of Durham sent a short statement to The Times’ religion correspondent Ruth Gledhill in which he pointed out that Americans would be “furious” if Great Britain’s military had staged an unannounced raid against hypothetical Irish Republican Army terrorists and killed them, unarmed, in a Boston suburb.
The only difference, Wright says, is “American exceptionalism.”
“America is allowed to do it, but the rest of us are not,” said Wright, who is now the research professor of New Testament and early Christianity at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland. “By what right? Who says?”
President Obama, Wright says, has “enacted one of America’s most powerful myths,” the vigilante hero going outside the law to execute “redemptive violence” against an enemy who has rendered the legitimate authorities impotent. “This is the plot of a thousand movies, comic-book strips, and TV shows: Captain America, the Lone Ranger, and (upgraded to hi-tech) Superman. The masked hero saves the world.”
While this myth may have been a necessary dimension of life in the Wild West, Wright says, it also “legitimizes a form of vigilantism, of taking the law into one’s own hands, which provides ‘justice’ only of the crudest sort.”
“What will we do when new superpowers arise and try the same trick on us?” he asks. “And what has any of this to do with something most Americans also believe, that the God of ultimate justice and truth was fully and finally revealed in the crucified Jesus of Nazareth, who taught people to love their enemies, and warned that those who take the sword will perish by the sword?”
Wright, a prominent figure in the Church of England, has gained fame on both sides of the Atlantic for his academic and popular writings on the New Testament and the historical Jesus. Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams also commented on bin Laden’s death this week, admitting to “a very uncomfortable feeling” about reports that bin Laden wasn’t armed when he was killed “because it doesn’t look as if justice is seen to be done.”
“When we are faced with someone who was manifestly a ‘war criminal’ as you might say in terms of the atrocities inflicted, it is important that justice is seen to be observed,” Williams said.
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Kuyperian Commentary Podcast
