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IPFS News Link • Ron Paul Says...

Understanding the Ron Paul Moment, Ten Years On

• https://www.libertarianinstitute.org

"Most people, in fact, will not take the trouble in finding out the truth, but are much more inclined to accept the first story they hear." ? Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War

"They hate what they see right here in this chamber: a democratically elected government. Their leaders are self-appointed. They hate our freedoms: our freedom of religion, our freedom of speech, our freedom to vote and assemble and disagree with each other." ? President George W Bush, 2001

"And we're at the very beginning stages of a very brutal and bloody conflict, of which if the people in this room, the people in the church, do not bind together and form what I feel is an aspect of the church militant, to really be able to not just stand with our beliefs, but to fight for our beliefs against this new barbarity that's starting, that will completely eradicate everything that we've been bequeathed over the last 2,000, 2,500 years." ? Steve Bannon, Speech Before Human Dignity Institute, Summer 2014

On March 12, 2007, a Republican Congressman from Texas filed to begin a quest for the presidency that he knew he couldn't win. Speaking a month earlier, on February 19th 2007 in a video released to announce the formation of an exploratory committee, Ron Paul outlined a key reason for his motivation to run:

"A financial crisis is looming and our foreign policy of empire building cannot last. Both conditions threaten our prosperity, safety, and above all our liberties."

As with so many things that Dr. Paul said in the heady days of the early Ron Paul movement, these two points later crystallized dramatically during the campaign. The housing and financial crisis would soon engulf the whole financial system. Much sooner than this would come Paul's challenge on the fallacies of empire building.

"A Nation under great stress is ripe for a change. A major change in direction is not a theoretical dream, but actually quite possible."

Paul launched his campaign not to dominate his fellow Americans, but to educate the population about freedom and produce the type of change towards freedom in society that he was hoping for. The past years of the Bush administration had been disastrous for the country, with several boondoggle wars and a looming financial crisis, and Paul was certain of it. He thought there was hope for America, and his rhetoric was upbeat and positive, talking about the great energizing that would take place. The second Republican presidential debate took place in South Carolina in May 2007. South Carolina has a large population of soldiers and their families, and so it was particularly striking that in such a place, Paul chose to hold his ground when attacked by Rudy Giuliani on the nature of the American overseas presence and the threat it posed to the American people. The whole exchange is worth watching:

Watch the video here.

Here are the key points:

"[I]ntervention was a major contributing factor. Have you ever read the reasons [al Qaeda] attacked us? They attack us because we've been over there; we've been bombing Iraq for 10 years. We've been in the Middle East – I think Reagan was right: we don't understand the irrationality of Middle Eastern politics. So right now, we're building an embassy in Iraq that's bigger than the Vatican. We're building 14 permanent bases. What would we say here if China was doing this in our country or in the Gulf of Mexico? We would be objecting. We need to look at what we do from the perspective of what would happen if somebody else did it to us."

And, when challenged by Giuliani to retract, Paul stood his ground:

"I believe very sincerely that the CIA is correct when they teach and talk about 'blowback.' When we went into Iran in 1953 and installed the shah, yes, there was blowback. A reaction to that was the taking of our hostages and that persists. And if we ignore that, we ignore that at our own risk. If we think that we can do what we want around the world and not incite hatred, then we have a problem.

They don't come here to attack us because we're rich and we're free. They come and they attack us because we're over there. I mean, what would we think if we were – if other foreign countries were doing that to us?"

It's clear that Paul believes that US Middle Eastern involvement has helped to create the environment in which Islamic terrorism has flourished. Even when challenged in front of millions of people, he wouldn't back down from this assertion. In the post-debate spin room, Paul thought his campaign was over. About that he was wrong.

This moment, more than any other, galvanized support around Paul and launched the movement that would bring him to national prominence. He had challenged the establishment narrative about the attacks, wouldn't relent, and he was being left for dead by the pundits, even though he won their own poll. They said that getting slapped by Rudy Giuliani would "get him a lot of ink," and further suggesting that he wouldn't be allowed to participate in the next debate, because his campaign was done for. Sean Hannity, in a previous form, attacked him personally for these assertions, on which we look back with no irony. His campaign had only just begun.

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