Thursday, April 12, 2007

Texas Congressman Ron Paul's first extensive trip to Iowa has got to be considered a success especially after the massive crowd he received in Ames tonight. The room was set up for 200 people and it was standing room only. While the event was co-sponsored by the ISU College Republicans, it was a diverse crowd with about half of the room students and the other half non-students. Clearly, the Congressman's campaign has to be pleased with the initial public response to his presence.

After I introduced the Congressman, he started his remarks by talking a little about himself but mostly dove right into the subject of his lecture, which was about re-establishing constitutional government in the United States. I must admit that I did not agree with the Congressman on everything he said, but by in large, I found a lot of what he had to say to be refreshing. The Republican Party and a lot of its members need to sit down and listen to Paul on many issues because one of the reasons we lost in November is because we strayed away from many of the principles that Ron has so much credibility on.

There was one main aspect of his remarks that I fundamentally disagreed with him on. That was the war. However, after listening to his speech, I atleast could say that I came away with an appreciation of his perspective and an understanding of his thought process. If you are a supporter of the current policies of the United States in the Middle East, you are not going to be comfortable listening to him. You may even find yourself a little agitated.

However, Paul is not one of those Republicans who bashes the war because it is the politically popular thing to do. Congressman Paul has opposed it from the start. He does it because he believes that the executive branch, under the Constitution, does not have the authority to declare war and that the power should rest with Congress. He believes that the war is unconstitutional and that we were mislead into the conflict. He supports bringing the troops home now.

As with a lot of people who are against the war, I have yet to hear what they suggest doing in the future about terrorism. By leaving Iraq, terrorism isn't going to go away. Even if we would have never gone into Afghanistan or Iraq in the first place, we'd still be having to deal with terrorism. It's going to be a struggle that we must face for possibly generations. I wish he would have elaborated on that more, but I'm sure there will be time for that in the future.

Where I found lockstep agreement with Paul was on the ideas of personal responsibility, limited government, slashing spending, cutting taxes, and individual liberty. He spoke about all these issues in depth during his 45 minute speech and 20 minutes of Q and A. Republicans did and perhaps still have lost their way on some of these core principles and Congressman Paul has a well established track record of being true to his word.

He spoke quite eloquently about what the founder's intent was for the Constitution and our government and believed that what we have now is not at all what they had in mind. He argued that many legislators and judges only abide by the Constitution when it is convenient for them to do so. He talked about the need to get judges out of lawmaking and even about overturning Roe v. Wade and having each individual state decide their own abortion statutes and frankly most laws period.

His comments about the 10th Amendment could not have been more accurate and I am really glad there is a Republican in the race talking about giving states their power back. He also talked about how more competition should be instituted into the education system and that Washington should get its hands out of that field. I agree with that because I think schooling is best administered locally and not nationally.

He talked about the need to freely trade and that government should not be supporting a welfare state because the rate of government growth is by no means sustainable. He warned the college students in attendance about the dangers of continuing these sorts of economic policies because it is only driving up inflation and detracting from the value of the dollar.

Agree with him or not, Congressman Paul has a rock solid set of core values. You cannot help but respect him for that. I do not recall hearing a Republican, of his elected stature, comment with such articulation about individual liberty, personal responsibility, and limited government in some time. It was definitely refreshing. There are a lot of Republicans out there who would be wise to sit down and listen to him for an hour.

Overall, I was pleased with the Congressman and I know he was pleased with his visit to Iowa State. After speaking at the lecture, he attended a private reception put on by the College Republicans and that was a nice event. He intends to run an aggressive campaign here in Iowa and is in the process of getting staff in place and ramping up the fundraising a little.
Ron believed that having the caucus system was what the founders intended. He believed that they would have wanted to have candidates going to talk to small crowds and speaking from the heart and not have it be a money primary race.

Ron's brand of Republicanism is definitely heavily spiced with Libertarianism; however, he is worth listening to. If you are a true conservative, you'll find yourself agreeing, nodding your head, and applauding more often than not.

When Ron comes back to Iowa, go see him. If nothing else, you'll find yourself renewed in the cause of limited government and individual liberty.


by Don McDowell
* *

http://cycloneconservatives.blogspot.co ... -iowa.html