Well Guess What? It WAS!!!
Even A Texas Republican Can See It!!
By Winter Patriot on 1/28/2005, 11:46pm PT  

Guest blogged by Winter Patriot

By Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX)
Delivered to the U.S. House of Representatives
Wednesday 26 January 2005

America's policy of foreign intervention, while still debated in the early 20th century, is today accepted as conventional wisdom by both political parties. But what if the overall policy is a colossal mistake, a major error in judgment? Not just bad judgment regarding when and where to impose ourselves, but the entire premise that we have a moral right to meddle in the affairs of others? Think of the untold harm done by years of fighting - hundreds of thousands of American casualties, hundreds of thousands of foreign civilian casualties, and unbelievable human and economic costs. What if it was all needlessly borne by the American people? If we do conclude that grave foreign policy errors have been made, a very serious question must be asked: What would it take to change our policy to one more compatible with a true republic's goal of peace, commerce, and friendship with all nations? Is it not possible that Washington's admonition to avoid entangling alliances is sound advice even today?

and so on...

The key virtues of this speech, from my point of view, are in its origin and its structure. It comes from a Texas Republican and that means they can't all be all bad! And your Republican friends and neighbors might even read it --- as long as they're not too radical! Then there's the structure: the speech is fairly short, and the sentences are fairly short too. So Ron Paul doesn't cause the sorts of problems that Miguel Valenzuela gave us yesterday.

On the other hand, Ron may be flying by the seat of his pants here, in the sense that he's heading in the right direction, but some of his questions still seem a bit confused and we're happy to offer some assistance. For instance, in his opening paragraph, Ron Paul said:

Think of the untold harm done by years of fighting - hundreds of thousands of American casualties, hundreds of thousands of foreign civilian casualties, and unbelievable human and economic costs. What if it was all needlessly borne by the American people?

Earth to Ron? Earth to Ron?

Did you say "hundreds of thousands of foreign civilian casualties"?

It's millions of foreign civilian casualties, Ron. Tens of millions, perhaps. We killed about 2 million people in Vietnam alone ... so I think it's only fair to ask you: How did the phrase "hundreds of thousands of foreign civilian casualties" get into a speech about the effects of American foreign policy over the last fifty years?

And what was that again? "What if it was all needlessly borne by the American people?"

You know what, Ron? I've got an even better question for you: What if less than five percent of it was borne by the American people? And what if the rest of the damage was borne by the other 95% of the people in the world? What would you think about that?

What else can you call it, Ron? What else can you say when a multi-colored planet of SIX BILLION people is held hostage --- on the brink of implosion --- by the mad thrashings of a red white and blue monster of only 300 MILLION?

But in any case, there's another wrong word in that question. "What if it was all needlessly borne by the American people?"

No, Sorry, Ron. What if it was all needlessly inflicted by the American people?? Arggghhh!!

But at least Ron's asking better questions elsewhere, such as:

What would it take to change our policy to one more compatible with a true republic's goal of peace, commerce, and friendship with all nations?

Right on, Ron! Good for you on this one! You're starting to get it, and we support you! We've been giving you a bad time, but it's all in good fun! You da Mannn! And keep asking those tough questions!

Which he does, in fact. There's a fine series of tough questions later on in Ron Paul's speech, and you can find the entire thing here What If (It Was All a Big Mistake)? at truthout.org.

While you're at truthout.org, have a look at this one, too: Bush Faces New Skepticism from Republicans on Hill . You can also bookmark truthout.org, if you haven't already done so. It's a good place to re-visit. Hint, Hint!

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