The Army, the Navy, and the Air Force

Thanks, Andrew, for the good news that employees of the U.S. military are backing Ron Paul.

Alas, only if the president were elected by popular vote would Ron Paul have a chance of winning.

But it seems he’d have a good one.

Unfortunately, getting him nominated by the Republican party is, to say the least, unlikely. Afterall, it would mean a nearly wholesale repudiation of everything they have stood for during these tragic eight years.

At this point, I have a feeling the Republicans will nominate Giuliani, and the Democrats will nominate Clinton.

Thus, I’m reminded of a science fiction movie that played during time of the last election. It was called “Alien versus Predator” and I wondered if the creators of the film’s tag-line were laughing up their sleeves: “Whoever wins…we loose.”

In the (likely) event that the next race will be between Giuliani and Clinton, that tag-line will again, I fear, become apropos.

God save America.

If Ron Paul wins, I’ll move back stateside!

And I will immigrate to the United States!

Lies, imposture, Robbo! I am a loyal subject of His Apostolic Majesty, King Ottó and I have sworn an oath to the current Magyar Köztársaság.

Rob, you should know by now that Fark would never miss an accent in his own name!

Andrew,

You are making the same mistake made by others who have been trumpeting this story: failing to look at the numbers. First, this “study” took into account civilians working for the military, as well as civilians working for Veterans Affairs and anyone else even affiliated with the military – not just soldiers. Second, it only takes into account those who listed the military as their employer. For example, some who gave to McCain put “USN” or “USMC” next to their name, but put “Retired” under employer. Altogether, McCain and Paul have 78 “military” donors between the two of them. The $$ amount (6,000 per service) is also rather insignificant when taking into account the amounts raised by candidates and the fact that more than 1/3 of that total can come from one person.

Last, and most important, John McCain (very much in favor of the surge and vigorously fighting the war) had more than twice the number of individual donors as Ron Paul. Ron Paul’s 23 donors just wrote big checks ($1,000-2,300). McCain had far more donors, but ones who could only write smaller checks. Unfortunately, there’s no way to tell by this figures the ages of the soldiers, to tell if they are more recently out of active duty or have spent a number of years in retirement and at another job and more able to write bigger checks. In any case, you’re hardly going to begrudge military personnel for not being able to write huge checks, are you?

The bottom line is, if you really want to go by this study, McCain wins 55-23, and the surge continues.

http://alendalux.blogspot.com/2007/07/military-money.html

Along with Alenda Lux, I think the number of individual donors is more significant than the amounts donated.

I also would be more likely to support Ron Paul if he didn’t keep saying strange things like this:

“This whole notion that we have … a constitutional responsibility to go about the world and make the world safe for democracy; that vision, that idea has to be rejected.”

Well of course that should be rejected. Any fool can read the constitution and see that there’s nothing in there about making the world safe for democracy. Which is exactly why none of the other candidates have said that we have such a constitutional responsibility.

It’s easy to be victorous in battle when you’re using your sword to lop the heads off of an army of scarecrows.

The real question is, where should sane folks alight if Ms. Clinton prevails? I propose Malta as a most favorable prospect.

Ms. Lux’s response distorts the issues.

She writes “Second, it only takes into account those who listed the military as their employer” makes no sense. Surely she understands that donors are obliged by law to list their employer.

She writes: “Unfortunately, there’s no way to tell by this (sic) figures the ages of the soldiers, to tell if they are more recently out of active duty or have spent a number of years in retirement and at another job and more able to write bigger checks.”

Anyone who fails to disclose their present employer while donating is committing a crime. Is she implying widespread criminality among McCain or Paul’s donors?

She also spins away the most crucial point: Ron Paul’s donations, despite barely any (approving) mention in the media and no constituency in big business, are growing exponentially.

McCain, with the establishment, a wife not poor by any standards, and a corporate constituency behind him, has less cash on hand than Paul. This does say something about how the American public perceives Paul.

Mr. Howard may not understand that Ron Paul believes that candidates act as they believe the constitution mandates they do, and that therefore, any candidate enamored of regime change in Iraq, Iran or Darfur implicitly believes in a mandate for such intervention.

I personally do not yet know for whom I’ll vote, but I am ever so grateful to Dr. Paul for asking hard questions, and eschewing the customary DC gravy train.

Fortunately, it is highly unlikely that Ms. Clinton will prevail!

Although I imagine most readers of Andrew’s blog (and The New Criterion) generally avoid Harper’s, there is an important and alarming piece on Giuliani in this month’s issue.

As for now, Dr. Paul has my vote.

Uhh, Steven – did you even bother to look at the links I provided that had contributions broken down by individual? Maybe FEC has them listed somewhere and they’re just not in this chart, I don’t know and, honestly, I don’t care.

Furthermore, many people listed their “Employer/occupation” as “Retired.” We have no way of knowing if any of those people are former military.

Please read the information provided next time before you ask stupid questions.

It is the very opposite of “stupid” to call a poster who appears at best disingenuous, and possibly worse. Mr. or Ms. Lux – if that is a real name – made so many misrepresentations that it is by no means rude to question his or her good faith.

Mr. Cusack wrote about active duty military and DoD employees, “Observers extrapolated those donors who listed the branches of the military as their employer to see who our fighting men (and women) were backing in the presidential election.

Mr. or Ms. Lux then dishes up the red herring of retirees “Unfortunately, there’s no way to tell by this figures the ages of the soldiers, to tell if they are more recently out of active duty or have spent a number of years in retirement and at another job and more able to write bigger checks. Retirees had never been mentioned in the article.

Said poster argued their point using a breathtaking misrepresentation of campaign finance reform. Donors are required to list their employers; and yet Lux writes Second, it only takes into account those who listed the military as their employer. As Lux notes, those who are retired listed “retired” as their employer. As I correctly noted, the only way this poll can be wrong is if there was criminal activity.

Another bad misrepresentation comes with the insinuation that the only thing that counts are the number of donors. The bottom line is, if you really want to go by this study, McCain wins 55-23.

Anyone with more than a passing understanding of the electoral process understands that on election day, the only thing that matters is the number of votes. But in the period preceding the election, especially at the begin of the campaign, the dedication and enthusiasm of a candidate’s supporters are far more indicative of the future health of the campaign than simple head counts, particularly for a little known candidate who is steadily making his way up in the polls.

It’s well known that when it comes to discussing politics on the internet, some post on the internet out of conviction, others because they are paid to peddle “talking points” and “spin.”

Dr. Paul is courageously questioning the status quo, as he always has. It is as clear as the fact that night inevitably follows day that he will eventually garner the attentions of the internet’s squad of flying propaganda monkeys.

Politely regardless of Mrs. Peperium’s quip about the “moron’s vote,” Dr. Paul has my vote. Politics, like Protestantism, is about compromise. The good medico simply doesn’t.

I saw some of Paul’s supporters appearing side by side with LaRouchians at a rally a few weeks ago in Philadelphia. It was a perfect match.

I’m mystified: How can you vote for someone who doesn’t even know the meaning of the word “empire”? A typical high school student would do better with that word than Paul does.

Just to pick at one statement out of so many foolish ones by Paul quoted above: Who says we have a “constitutional responsibilty to go around the world and make the world safe for democracy”? Talk about building a straw man…

Mr. Salmon, when the French were forced to leave their African colonies (empire), they did. But they left the French Foreign Legion behind to serve as bodyguards to the new “independent” presidents. If / when the new presidents crossed the Elysée, the French would withdraw the bodyguards for a few hours or days, and lo and behold, there would be a coup d’etat, and the French would unfailingly offer the “protection” of the Foreign Legion to the new president. As an aside, the former French colonies in Africa are in a *much* better shape than the former British colonies. They have yet to produce an Idi Amin.

Fox nutwork news has yet to do a special on this, but there are a number of countries (many Arab countries, Germany, Japan, Greece, Italy, some African countries, some Eastern European countries) where the American government has clout not very different than that of the French in their former African dominions.

Ron Paul uses an eclectic idiom, but he doesn’t deal in strawmen; both Woodrow Wilson and FDR prided themselves on their “spreading democracy” and “making the world safe for democracy.” Wilson insisted that Blessed Charles of Austria be removed for this very reason.

A democratic system entails a certain economic system, in which contributions from big business fund the campaigns of politicians willing to give big business everything it wants. More than a little of the opposition to non-democratic forms of government among business leaders stems from the fact that viable monarchies would greatly complicate their lives.

Perhaps we could do with a post explaining why there is a picture of the last Austro-Hungarian Emperor in the top right-hand corner of a blog full of dreary liberal rants AGAINST imperialism! Is this some brand of American irony that is too subtle for hick Euro-folks like me to understand?

I think one would be hard pressed to claim the Holy Emperor as a supporter of this kind of imperialism, which is liberal internationalism. It was liberal internationalism that lost him his thrown, after all.

If Mr. McCarthy would like to aide the enemies of tradition — the enemies of all that is good and holy — by spreading liberal internationalist democracy around the globe, that’s his (and Woodrow Wilson’s) business, not mine!

The Emperor Charles, a supporter of Wall Street neo-Wilsonian liberal internationalism! Now I’ve heard it all! Thank you Oliver McCarthy for providing the laughs for the evening.

If only we had more men like Charles, we’d be rid of the evil men like Bush, Blair, Brown, & co.

I join with Mr. Cusack in shouting from the rooftops: À bas les libéraux!

With apologies to Mr. McCarthy, but I seem unable to find any “liberal rants” among Mr. Cusack’s posts.

Andrew,

Reading how Obamma is up for bombing Pakistan, I realise again what a pricipled, plain-spoken, common sense candidate Dr. Paul is.

“I understand that President Musharraf has his own challenges, but let me make this clear. There are terrorists holed up in those mountains who murdered 3,000 Americans. It was a terrible mistake to fail to act when we had a chance to take out an al Qaeda leadership meeting in 2005. If we have actionable intelligence about high-value terrorist targets and President Musharraf won’t act, we will.”

Obamma

I shudder reading such ‘newspeak’ phrases as “actionable intelligence” and “high-value terrorist targets.”

And people say he is “articulate.”

Good work, Andrew. I lift a glass to you and the old republic. And I think I’ll send you a little gift in the mail for your efforts.

TTFN, JR

Actually, most people would consider the idea of President Bush being a liberal internationalist a good deal funnier.