Voices

Home Voices News Past News Videos Books Action Donate Submissions Mission Links

11/02/07

01:58:41 am, Categories: Voices, 890 words

Ron Paul Reality Check

Joel S. Hirschhorn

We! (The People) / My Town

As self-professed champion of the Constitution, presidential candidate Ron Paul has missed a monumental opportunity to educate Americans about the criminal behavior of Congress in violating their oath of office. Even more important, he has not taken advantage of his 15 minutes of fame to promote the nation’s first-time use of what the Founders gave us in the Constitution in case the public lost confidence in the federal government - the Article V convention option.

Paul clearly recognizes the many failures of the federal government. Maybe as a member of Congress he just does not have the courage to confess that he too has been part of a long-standing refusal by Congress to obey Article V of the Constitution. Why don’t passionate Paul supporters see his lack of integrity, guts and consistency?

Support for using the Article V convention option should be a litmus test for any presidential candidate, which is reasonable considering that Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt supported it.

First, let’s be clear that Paul has no problem in seeing the need for constitutional amendments. For example, he has been a proponent of an amendment that would not allow children born in the USA from illegal parents to become citizens. Second, he has maintained throughout his career his love and respect for our Constitution. Third, he has carefully refused to publicly state his views on the provision in Article V of the Constitution for the use of a convention of state delegates to make proposed amendments as the alternative to Congress proposing amendments (the only procedure used for 220 years). Fourth, he has made no attempt to pass any law that would modify, clarify or expand the single requirement now in Article V for a convention. How can a champion of the Constitution remain so silent on Congress’s refusal to honor over 500 applications from all 50 states for a convention that more than satisfies the one and only requirement in Article V?

Anyone who studies the history of attempts to get the first Article V convention will learn that it has consistently been opposed by people and groups on the political left and right that are part of the nation’s elitist political status quo establishment. So here is Ron Paul, supposedly an honest non-elitist political maverick that does not fit into the political establishment, yet too cowardly to stand up to the political establishment by backing the use of the Article V convention option. Paul has had virtually no real impact on what Congress has done, yet he does not support the convention option that would circumvent the power of Congress. What does he have to lose?

Of course, if all the passionate supporters of Paul would spend more time investigating all his congressional activities, they would find a lot more to seriously question. A chief example is that he has routinely inserted earmarks for pork spending to make constituents in his district happy. Then he hides behind his votes against the spending bills containing his earmark spending items. But those earmarks remain in those spending bills passed by Congress. Tell me, is that really virtuous behavior? His earmarks increase federal activities and spending. Many have been for projects by the Army Corps of Engineers, many to funnel money to the Texas Department of Transportation (including one for repairs to the Galveston Trolley system), and one for Texas A&M University/Galveston Campus to convert the Texas Clipper for educational purposes; maybe this was the $30 million for the Texas Maritime Academy to refurbish a ship. And then there was the $8 million for the marketing of wild American shrimp and $2.3 million to pay for research into shrimp fishing. This seems like pretty conventional Republican politics. This year Paul has requested about $400 million worth of federal spending for his district – not exactly consistent with Paul’s rhetoric on reducing federal spending and taxing. His duty is to inform his constituents about the wrongness of earmarks, not capitulate to their requests.

There is still time for Paul to search his soul and find the courage to either to support use of the Article V convention as the route to achieving deep political reforms that Congress itself will never have the integrity to propose through constitutional amendments, or to step up and make the case for an amendment that would remove the never-used Article V convention option.

Here is some irony. With our thoroughly corrupt and rigged political system Ron Paul has absolutely zero chance of becoming the Republican presidential nominee, regardless of his high level of grassroots support. Odd then that Paul has not supported the one and only route to profoundly changing this awful political system. It is the method our Founders gave us with the Article V convention option. Indeed, his lack of support for using the Article V convention option seems to makes him a part of the political establishment, which is consistent with his recent announcement that if he does not get the Republican nomination he will not run as a third party candidate.

¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤

[Joel S. Hirschhorn can be reached through www.delusionaldemocracy.com and is a co-founder of Friends of the Article V Convention at www.foavc.org.]

SOURCE: http://www.mytown.ca/ev.php?URL_ID=121252&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201

5 Voices

Comments, Pingbacks:

Comment from: klutometis [Member]

Your over-rigorous, condemning tone strikes us as nit-pickish; get Ron Paul into office, then we'll wrangle over details.

He has the best chance of honoring Article V after election.

11/02/07 @ 03:15

Comment from: rj [Member]

klutometis,

You should not concern yourself with Mr. Hirschhorn's "tone", but with the FACT that Ron Paul does not have a chance in Hell to become the next President. Above all, you should be extremely concerned with the FACT that all elections from here & forward will be rigged and that VOTE COUNTING NOW IS SECRET. Now people have been deprived of the possibility of verifying whether the votes have been counted honestly or not. This very fact means that the American people is not living in a democracy. (The US was a constitutional republic anyway, and now even this has been destroyed.)

klutometis, please read the following People's Voice article and comment:

CONGRESS ABOUT TO "JUST SAY YES" TO PERMANENT SECRET VOTE COUNTING

"The candidates who "win" do so because Big Money and the government behind the Government already have created the election results that they want and they will tailor the exit polls correspondingly as well. The campaign is in itself a major propaganda effort aimed at persuading the voters that their votes count. It is not important at all what they vote for. The important thing for the government behind the Government is that the voters be present at Election Day. The voters have nothing to do with the particular result. They just have to be present at Election Day and go through the motions of "voting" in order for the charade to go on. The "election results" HAVE BEEN PREPARED IN ADVANCE, WILL BE ELECTRONICALLY PUMPED INTO THE VOTING SYSTEMS AND WILL BE PRONOUNCED AS "THE VOTE OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE". People will believe this. -But the true vote of the people WILL NEVER BE KNOWN."

It follows from this, klutometis, that the ONLY reasonable thing to do from now on is to BOYCOTT THE "ELECTIONS":

"Massive, unprecedented nonvoting has the power to produce systemic political reform by defiantly discrediting, dishonoring and de-legitimizing America’s fake democracy. When I choose not to vote I do not make the votes of others more important. Their votes already serve an evil system. The critical choice is to vote or not vote, not picking a particular Democrat or Republican." (Joel S. Hirschhorn)

rj

11/02/07 @ 03:40

Comment from: DetainThis [Member] · http://detainthis.wordpress.com

Good morning, Joel.

You wrote:

"Paul clearly recognizes the many failures of the federal government. Maybe as a member of Congress he just does not have the courage to confess that he too has been part of a long-standing refusal by Congress to obey Article V of the Constitution. Why don’t passionate Paul supporters see his lack of integrity, guts and consistency?"

This argument reminds me of those who say they would support Ron Paul if only he would come out and champion the cause for 9/11 Truth, or Impeachment, or this, or that, at every turn in his campaign. And since he doesn't quench their one-drink thirst for truth and justice, they go apeshit on him — calling him hypocritical, timid, or deceitful — and ultimately, not worthy of their votes. What a hoot.

So, he hasn't yet enunciated to your satisfaction his view on an Article V convention.

Okay. Fair enough. Be upset. But answer this: Who has?

Exactly. No candidate has (at least as far as I know). Otherwise, I surmise, you'd be supporting that candidate instead of spending your time bashing Paul for not coming out on it.

Here's an idea: Attend the next Ron Paul rally nearest you, and ask him personally. If your vote hinges so crucially on that one issue, then you'd probably do well for yourself and your sanity to do so.

And let's assume he does support it; what could he lawfully do — as a loner in Congress, or as President — to change things?

And on the earmark issue:

"[H]e has routinely inserted earmarks for pork spending to make constituents in his district happy. Then he hides behind his votes against the spending bills containing his earmark spending items," you wrote.

Ah yes. The earmark/pork fallacy — another short-lived, Paul-bashing headline in the War Street Journal and on Fox Noise Channel. The following excerpt should expose for what it is that ill-aimed dook-fling of a charge.

Writes Lew Rockwell:

"The charge is that Ron's office has requested various spending grants for his district, at the behest of constituents. The charge is apparently true.

"In the same sense, if a constituent is not getting his food stamps, Ron's office--he is a Representative, after all--will try to help.

"Neither of these things means that Ron Paul supports federal public works spending or food stamps (though he'd rather see such spending, if it must happen, take place in Texas or Iowa than Iraq or Afghanistan). He votes against all such spending bills, and--of course--has the best record on spending in modern Congressional history.

"Ron Paul is being attacked here for being a good politician. Indeed, he is a superb politician, adept at assembling coalitions, building support for libertarian ideas among non-libertarians, knowing the proper timing for iniatives and campaigns, and garnering public loyalty despite smears and libels. It's how he's won ten times, against entrenched incumbents and Bush-supported challengers."

[http://www.lewrockwell.com/blog/lewrw/archives/014476.html]

And in Paul's own words, from the link provided by LRC:

"Though much attention is focused on the notorious abuses of earmarking, and there are plenty of examples, in fact even if all earmarks were eliminated we would not necessarily save a single penny in the federal budget. Because earmarks are funded from spending levels that have been determined before a single earmark is agreed to, with or without earmarks the spending levels remain the same. Eliminating earmarks designated by Members of Congress would simply transfer the funding decision process to federal bureaucrats rather then elected representatives. In an already flawed system, earmarks can at least allow residents of Congressional districts to have a greater role in allocating federal funds – their tax dollars – than if the money is allocated behind locked doors by bureaucrats. So we can be critical of the abuses in the current system but we shouldn't lose sight of how some reforms may not actually make the system much better.

"The real problem, and one that was unfortunately not addressed in last week's earmark dispute, is the size of the federal government and the amount of money we are spending in these appropriations bills. Even cutting a few thousand or even a million dollars from a multi-hundred-billion dollar appropriation bill will not really shrink the size of government.

"So there is a danger that small-government conservatives will look at this small victory for transparency and forget the much larger and more difficult battle of returning the United States government to spending levels more in line with its constitutional functions. Without taking a serious look at the actual total spending in these appropriations bills, we will miss the real threat to our economic security. Failed government agencies like FEMA will still get tens of billions of dollars to mismanage when the next disaster strikes. Corrupt foreign governments will still be lavishly funded with dollars taken from working Americans to prop up their regimes. The United Nations will still receive its generous annual tribute taken from the American taxpayer. Americans will still be forced to pay for elaborate military bases to protect borders overseas while our own borders remain porous and unguarded. These are the real issues we must address when we look at reforming our yearly spending extravaganza called the appropriations season.

"So we need to focus on the longer-term and more difficult task of reducing the total size of the federal budget and the federal government and to return government to its constitutional functions. We should not confuse this welcome victory for transparency in the earmarking process with a victory in our long-term goal of this reduction in government taxing and spending."

[http://www.lewrockwell.com/paul/paul392.html]

Oh yeah. A big-time elitist. A big-government coward. A statist in anti-state garb. Uh huh.

Again, I ask, with all due regard: If you won't be voting for Ron Paul on account of his refusal to speak out on Article V conventions, then for whom will you cast your vote? I'm guessing no-one. The again, I could be wrong; but if I am wrong, then why spend so much time trying to convince others not to vote for Paul, while apparently spending little or no time supporting other candidates, or at least suggesting an alternative candidate? Just wondering...

–DT

11/02/07 @ 05:44

Comment from: Theresa [Member]

Yes, this is something that should be addressed, but maybe he was busy creating legislation to counter the problems that now are desperately facing our country. ie. The American Freedom Campaign. http://www.americanfreedomcampaign.org/storage/afagenda/documents/AFA%20Act%20text.pdf

I think this trumps the first in priority, don't you?

-Theresa Smillie

PS, why do you have a picture of the Granny Warriors Bus linked to this article LOL?

11/02/07 @ 06:34

Comment from: ras1142 [Member]

If you have better candidate for President please name them. I didn't think so, RON PAUL is are last and only chance to reverse the damage that has been do to our CONSTITUTION, None of the other candidate hardly mention our CONSTITUTION, All the top tier candidates from both party's are either members or CFR,or are funded by the TC Global Elite and if elected will follow the CFR, Global agenda, Witch is open borders and the formation of the North American Union. So if you pick one of these top tier candidates,Better go to night school,WAIT STOP FORGET THAT go to day school because you wont have a job anyway and LEARN SPANISH..........WAIT on second though your vote wont count anyway, think KLUTOMETIS is right its a fixed game and the mass media deception lets the American voters THINK they can PLAY.

11/09/07 @ 03:17

Your donation helps provide a place for people to speak out. thepeoplesvoice.org P.O. Box 159113 Nashville, TN 37215
Not tax deductible. editor@thepeoplesvoice.org

Search the Site

Search the Internet

Referred by Liberty

Newsletter

Posts by day of the Month

Search

Syndicate this blog

RSS 0.92: Posts, Comments
RSS 1.0: Posts, Comments
RSS 2.0: Posts, Comments
Atom: Posts, Comments

What is RSS?

thepeoplesvoice.org

FAIR USE NOTICE: This site contains copyrighted articles and information about environmental, political, human rights, economic, democratic, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. This news and information is displayed without profit for educational purposes, in accordance with, Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107 of the US Copyright Law. Thepeoplesvoice.org is a non-advocacy internet web site, edited by non-affiliated U.S. citizens. editor