Ron Paul and Some "Yeah, Buts"

Written by Douglas Wilson

Thursday, 22 December 2011 09:06

I wanted to take just a minute to offer a few "yeah, buts" to David Bahnsen's recent assessment of the average Ron Paul fan, which you can read here. David's a good guy, and I sympathize with a lot of what he is saying here -- but not with all. I have no reason to doubt David's sociological experiences with the hard right crowd, experiences I have shared a little bit, at least enough to testify to. Okay, he's on to something there.

But here is the first "yeah, but." I have also spent a great deal of time around respectable squishy conservatives, the kind who want to do whatever the liberals want to do, only more slowly and with a respectable amount of grumbling. I am referring to the kind who always seem to get the nomination. If the average Ron Paul fan is mediocre, then so is the average Romney fan, and so on down the line. It turns out that the average political activist from whatever camp is . . . average.

It would hard to maintain that the last half century of Republican statecraft has been dominated by excellence. There have been exceptions, of course, and I would nominate Reagan. So in the same way David acknowledged that there are exceptions among Paul supporters, there have been exceptions among Republicans generally. But for the most part, conservatism overall has also been characterized by mediocrity. This is not a denial of David's point -- merely an expansion of it.

The second "yeah, but" is this. Sometimes I think we level the wrong charge -- like calling a homicide/suicide bomber "cowardly." Yeah, he's got a lot of problems, but cowardice would not be one of them. So I would be more likely to say that the Ron Paul fans are fanatically hard-working and dedicated, not lazy. You don't do what Ron Paul is currently doing in Iowa because your workers won't get off their butt.

The third "yeah, but" is in response to this:

"It took us over 100 years to become this progressive and nanny-dependent as a society. It took over 100 years for the citizen to beg the government to do as much as it does for the citizen, and for the government to oblige said citizen. It will not be undone in 100 minutes."

Actually, at the rate we are going, it will soon be undone in about ten minutes. When we run out of money, we will have run out of money. When we are Greece, we will then be Greece. When there is no financial back-up, there will be no financial back-up. Here is a helpful little visualization I have linked to before. Make sure to scroll down to the bottom, and reflect on the fact that we are spending multiples of that amount of money annually, and we are doing so without being in possession of that amount of money. That is the kind of tab we are running up, and this is being done by all the smart people, by the non-mediocrities. And when we hit the wall, the resulting involuntary budget cuts will make Ron Paul look like a commie.

Last point. I really am not a Ron Paul fan. But I am a fan of having something happen in Iowa that might make the Republican establishment wet their pants. That would be good for the Republic, not to mention entertaining for the children. Don't tell me all the places where Ron Paul doesn't make sense. I know all about that. Tell me why the respectable conservative establishment will not sign on to certain critical measures where Paul is the only one who is making sense. Tell me again how many trillions of dollars the Fed has pumped into our economy in recent years without consulting anybody, without a single vote, and with no subsequent accountability. Why isn't it possible to get courageous objections from establishment conservatives? Why will the eventual nominee soft soap this whole thing?

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Last Updated on Thursday, 22 December 2011 10:02

Comments

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Valerie (Kyriosity)

Thursday, December 22, 2011 9:27 am

You got a little overenthusiastic with that link and pasted it twice. Here 'tis once: http://www.pagetutor.com/trillion/index.html

Douglas Wilson

Thursday, December 22, 2011 10:03 am

Valerie, thanks. Should be fixed now.

Joseph Hession

Thursday, December 22, 2011 11:33 am

It confuses me as to why there are people out there who say, "I agree with 75% (or 90%) of what RP says, but I don't agree with that...", then they go throw their support behind a Gingrich or Romney who they only agree with 25-50% of what they say.

Strange.

EDIT: BTW, I'm not accusing you of that...just making an observation that appears to be true of Bahnsen.

Tammy Burns

Thursday, December 22, 2011 11:35 am

I am a Ron Paul supporter and his article is so wrong. I am for small local businesses and small local government. The wars are for the corporate interests, not the people. We need to bring the troops home and follow the constitution. We need to get the power back into the states where the people can watch over it more carefully as was stated in the Federalists papers #51. Men aren't angels so we need to be able to hold them accountable.

Michael C - Reluctant Convert

Thursday, December 22, 2011 1:23 pm

Although I agree with Ron Paul on the majority of his policy prescriptions, I couldn't bring myself to vote for him last election cycle because I was wary of his foreign policy. Since then I've moved towards a less ambitious foreign policy, and I plan to vote for Ron Paul this time around.

I've spent a fair amount of time around RP supporters, and I'd agree that they can be fanatical and shrill. To accuse them--and Ron Paul, by extension--of being characterized by philosophical inconsistency is completely off base. Elsewhere on the internet, evangelicals are criticizing RP supporters for their rigid adherence to an esoteric libertarian political philosophy that no one else can understand. I'd say that in general Paul supporters are more interested in ideas and philosophical consistency than the average Republican voter. To link RP supporters to OWS and imply that Paul's followers favor the "end of private property" seems disingenuous.

The Paul supporters I know are not personal failures. They are ivy league grads, business owners, sought-after consultants, and even NY Times best-selling authors. I'm not sure what motivates the effort to marginalize Paul and his supporters. Argue about his positions, but the attempt to shame people who support him seems underhanded.

Matt Weber

Thursday, December 22, 2011 1:38 pm

I don't think you understand something about how the government works. It doesn't 'run out of money' like you or I would. Since the government's payouts are in dollars and the government also prints dollars, this is simply not an issue. There's no catastrophic crash on the way. Greece is a bad parallel, because Greece couldn't print Euros to devalue its debt.

Ron Paul can't win the presidency. Even if the newsletter garbage doesn't scare away all the fake conservatives, his proposed policy positions would. Republicans now have to defend most of the welfare state to win elections. And in any case, if he did win, he couldn't put anything very interesting through congress. Obamacare barely made it through, and that was a popular idea put forth by a popular president.

But, the one reason to vote for Ron Paul would be an end to foreign adventurism. This is something the president can do entirely on his own, with no Congressional authorization. If Ron Paul is elected, Afghanistan is done, Iran does not become the next producer of American corpses, and the military might actually see some honest to goodness actual cuts.

Douglas Wilson

Thursday, December 22, 2011 2:39 pm

Matt, printing dollars into hyper-inflation is simply another way of hitting the wall. Greece is done because they can't print Euros, but if they could print Euros, it would happen just as surely.

Matt Weber

Thursday, December 22, 2011 3:36 pm

But we're not talking about hyper-inflation, just good old-fashioned regular inflation. How many years of 2.4% before you have hit the wall? Despite the US government's debt, it is no danger of insolvency, and doesn't even have anyone refusing to lend to it. It's quite a situation, but the regime is proving far more resilient than many conservatives would like to believe.

JP1	Thursday, December 22, 2011 6:04 pm

They've predicted Hyper-Inflation every year for 30 plus years and it still hasn't happened. Nowhere close.

The country still has a National Income of $15 Trillion, I imagine most here who have a mortgage don't have a personal Income near what their Debt is.

Tim Enloe

Thursday, December 22, 2011 3:03 pm

I read the linked piece by Bahnsen, and another one of his linked from that (http://www.davidbahnsen.com/index.php/2011/05/21/the-undiscerning-and-dangerous-appreciation-of-ron-paul/), and I have to say I'm very disappointed in both.

It's hard to understand how a very intelligent man like Bahnsen can say that believing the Constitution is a flawed document that facilitates a statist regime is ipso facto a crazy position to hold. It's also hard to understand how he fails to make the necessary distinction between "isolationism" and "non-interventionism," and that he says that while he agrees America is spending its way into oblivion, he's preparing to write a column on the "immorality" of Paul's foreign policy.

As for Paul's associations with Rockwell, it may be that Rockwell has some kooky views, but would Bahnsen appreciate his whole political philosophy being declared "insane" by some extreme anti-theonomy critic? Perhaps the whole body of Greg Bahnsen's work ought to be dismissed on the basis that there are some kooky cranks out there who practically foam at the mouth as they beat others over the head with fanatical Van Tilianism and its various weird offspring. Yes, Bahnsen, this is a fallacious argument from association, and you shouldn't even float it.

I'm also struck by the strange blind spot that exists in Bahnsen's appeal to postmillennial rhetoric. I see this often in postmils: the idea that just talking about how one day this is all going to work out is supposed to be thought of as a substantial, politically practical position. Sure, it's going to take generations to undo Leviathan, but if we don't start the process, nothing but rhetoric will passed down to the next generation. "Postmillennially speaking..." can be another phrase that encourages intellectual laziness. Bahnsen says let's not start with Ron Paul, because he's a kook associated with kooks. Let's fine someone else to be the spokesman for liberty, he says. Fine, Mr. Bahnsen, who do you have in mind? Is anyone else (outside of politically irrelevant marginal thinkers in micro-Reformed denominations) even remotely talking about the kinds of changes we need to see begin to occur? Who else is there but Ron Paul? "Postmillennially speaking," we might just have to start with a tainted guy like Paul if we have any hope of actually getting anywhere. Political perfectionism sure isn't going to make it happen.

David L. Bahnsen

Thursday, December 22, 2011 7:34 pm

Tim - I think you have to start with someone who can get elected. Someone of RP's beliefs and associations can't and won't, and for the first time in his life the last 12 hours have represented the very beginning of the exposing I have been waiting for. I think you really badly misunderstood my first article. I don't think my dad should be lambasted for knowing kooks, but that's because he wasn't a kook. Ron Paul does not KNOW Lew Rockwell; he IS Lew Rockwell. And the only reason that Ron doesn't say that himself is because no one has been willing to ask him in all three of these creepy Presidential runs. I am criticizing Ron for being the kook who hates the Constitution, believes 9/11 is America's fault, thinks the Jews cause all the world's problems, and believes that the Trilateral Commission is running the world. I criticize Ron because I want sound monetary policy, not because I don't want it. And when the guy leading the charge for sound monetary policy accompanies it with a claim that the Fed was secretly funneling money to Saddam, or Watergate, or whatever, he ruins the credibility of the cause I believe in. It wasn't his kooky friends doing that; it was him. So I am not saying, "let's not start with RP because he is associated with kooks". I am saying, let's not start with RP, because he is one of the kooks, and he has told me all the things I accuse him of here TO MY FACE. Half of it is on YouTube for those who want to say it.

And then, maybe another time, we can see if the leading political voice of some kind of postmillennial charge can be someone who believes what he believes about Iran. Sorry. It's not going to happen.

I do respect and appreciate your concern with my articles and hope this comment provides some clarification. Between you and me, I am actually holding back.

Tim Enloe

Thursday, December 22, 2011 9:13 pm

Thanks for your answer, Mr. Bahnsen. I don't know that RP *is* Lew Rockwell, and since I haven't immersed myself in Rockwell, I don't know, as you apparently do, that Rockwell is "insane." It's hard to judge the accuracy of many of your assertions, in and in part that's because it's difficult to get past your inflammatory rhetoric.

Please understand that I wouldn't actually dismiss your father's work the way I stated above; I was attempting to illustrate what I think your argument against Paul was doing.

I don't share your apparent commitment to the American "empire," though I will be interested in reading your forthcoming explanation of how Paul's foreign policy is "immoral." That's a very strong word to use. I also don't share your apparent view that criticizing the Constitution as a flawed document that can be used to enable statist power grabs is somehow fundamentally unreasonable. I further don't share your apparent fear of Iran, and even if Paul does underestimate the threat of Islamo-fascism, it's not unreasonable to say that if we stop violating just war standards by bombing these places back into the Stone Age, killing lots of innocents in the process and pretending it's our moral duty to make everyone else be "democratic," we might just have less trouble with them.

Basically, it's your rhetoric at these points that I find most objectionable. Perhaps your admitted long, painful experiences with the nuttier side of Paul supporters doesn't help you be the best critic of Paul.

David L. Bahnsen

Friday, December 23, 2011 6:53 am

Tim - I would suggest that the rhetoric of the RP fans (and in this post, you yourself join in it) is the fundamental issue when it comes to foreign policy. You say you are not "committed to American empire", and accuse me of being committed to it, and somehow forget to mention that America doesn't occupy one single country on earth. So if that is empire, then I want to be one. It is unfortunate, but the "imperial" and "neocon" and "empire" language is part of the reason the RP crowd does not deserve to be taken seriously in foreign policy. I did not assert Lew was insane in my first article; I provided a dozen examples, and more importantly, gave my readers the easy formula to find out for themselves. Go commit yourself to reading his blog for ten minutes per sday every day for a month. That will do it. You chose to change the gist of this dialogue into a disagreement on foreign policy, and I don't have the time to do that in a comments section on a blog. I will just say that (a) I do not subscribe to the just war theory; (b) If I did I would still find RP's foreign policy despicable; (c) You shouldn't accuse me of being excessive in rhetoric.

Tim Enloe

Friday, December 23, 2011 9:32 am

Mr. Bahnsen, calling the U.S. an "empire" is not merely rhetoric. There are a dozen or more scholarly books out there that use that term of our foreign policy. Even if the arguments are wrong, the fact that the books exist, and are written by reputable scholars in their fields, shows it is not merely rhetoric to make the claim.

I would like to know what you put in place of just war theory. Whatever it is, I trust you won't be so hasty as to claim that people who believe in it are fundamentally unreasonable. It's a long standing Christian tradition, so making foreign policy arguments based on it is in no way out of bounds rationally.

Lastly, what would you say if I took your Rockwell test and did NOT come to the conclusion that he is "insane"? What is your standard for "insanity"?

Tim Enloe

Thursday, December 22, 2011 9:22 pm

Also, Mr. Bahnsen, "electability" is too slippery a criterion to use in judging these matters. You don't know, but merely assert your opinion, that RP is unelectable, and you offer in your articles no real alternative to him. None of the other candidates, except perhaps Perry with his derivative plan to shut down a few Departments and get rid of the current tax code, are even remotely talking about the sorts of substantial changes we need to see begin to happen. Where do you propose that the changes that you correctly say are going to take generations to implement, can begin in THIS election cycle? Postmillennial hope is great (I'm postmil myself), but too often I see its future-oriented appeal being substituted for real substantive political wisdom in the here and now.

David L. Bahnsen

Friday, December 23, 2011 7:14 am

Tim - I will make two quick points. Electability is not very slippery. It is easy for me to say that RP is not electable. I know it is true, and obviously you know it is true too. Sometimes we are allowed to use empirical evidence combined with overwhelming instinct. I know what is out there about Ron. WITHOUT it being out there, he has never won a single primary and has run for President seventy times. But I am more than willing to concede the point: If you want to believe he is electable, I will not argue with you. I will believe he is not, and you will believe he is, and we will see how that works out.

But here is the larger point I wish to make that perhaps you and I will have some common ground on. I do not believe the grand postmillennial hope lies in the Oval Office. I believe the goal AT THIS POINT in time is to see the culture changed, and if someone put a gun to my head and said "what is the KEY institution from which that will happen", I would say that it would be from changing the way kids are educated. So, I think a generation of different schooling would be the lowest hanging fruit. I would like to see the church changed too, but that is more of a lost cause than politics as far as I am concerned (AT THIS POINT in time). So within the Presidential political realm, I merely think we need someone who will not pass legislation that changes the permanent landscape of America as FDR and LBJ and now BHO have. We need someone who will not appoint activist progressive judges to the bench(es). We need someone who will work reasonable and aggressively with Congress to manage the budget and spending. But saying "we need someone who will cut $14 trillion from the budget tomorrow" seems juvenille to me. I am tired of ignorant Christians blaming the politicians for the spending that the PEOPLE have demanded from them. The people need to change. Period. In the meantime, I am happy with any of these other imperfect folks (Romney, Gingrich, Perry, whatever) if they can beat with Obama, protect America from her enemies, cut taxes, etc. Defeating Obama is the need of THIS HOUR, AT THIS POINT in time. I would love to join the RP world in DEMANDING that 100 years of excess be repaired tomorrow. But unlike the RP world, I actually want to see it repaired. And they have no prescription pad in their pocket whatsoever.

Please do not take me not writing back as being rude (assuming you reply). i just doubt I will be back on the site for a bit with the holidays and end of the year business matters. Feel free to email me personally DavidBahnsen@gmail.com or on Facebook.

Tim Enloe

Friday, December 23, 2011 9:38 am

Mr. Bahnsen,

I'm not sure why you think your views are just "obvious." "Obvious" is a word that functions within a paradigm, and since I apparently don't share your paradigm, I don't "obviously" know that RP is unelectable. In fact, it looks to me like we may be facing a paradigm change in political thought.

That said, I agree with most of your last paragraph. Education is the key, yes. Not the Church, not the Oval Office, not the Congress. Still, our institutions are the mechanisms by which change is expressed. They can effect change, as you yourself admit via the examples of FDR, LBJ, and BHO. It may be that even if Paul couldn't do most of the things he wants to do, what he could do could help spur the cultural changes that need to happen. In fact, if he got in, that would already be an indication of a cultural change in the works.

I hope you have a good holiday season, and for whatever it's worth, I apologize if I gave any unnecessary offense.

Tim Enloe

Friday, December 23, 2011 10:01 am

For instance, think about a world without the Department of Education. What might that do for the cause of educating the next generation in the way it needs to be done? Nobody else but Perry is talking about that kind of change.

JP1	Thursday, December 22, 2011 6:02 pm

A Majority of Paul's Supporters are College Age and Under 30's, they organize well because they don't have jobs and can spend all their time spamming the internet.

Further, Paul has strong ties and Alliances with Progressivism. Paul polls worst amongst the Tea Party and best with Democrats. which is natural, since at his core he's an Anarchist that has been allied with the Progressive left all along and is totally opposed to Conservatism.

Lastly, the "establishment" isn't scared of Paul. If he wins Iowa it guarantees a fast Romney nomination. Given his past is now coming out that is alot less likely.

David L. Bahnsen

Thursday, December 22, 2011 7:37 pm

JP1 - This is actually the only real criticism I would have of Pastor Wilson's piece. He is really misreading what is happening in Iowa (or at least was happening until today). If Romney is the "establishment" guy, then the "establisment" is THRILLED with Ron Paul winning (or doing well) in Iowa.

Adam McIntosh

Wednesday, December 28, 2011 5:04 pm

JP1,
If "conservative" means doing nothing about abortion, violating war policy of Deut. 20:10-15 and rejecting God's requirement of just weights and measures, then yes, count Paul out. (While you are at it, count me out, as well.) Your statements above are nothing more than hasty generalizations and guilt by associations - both logical fallacies. By all means, please direct me to some resource that describes your views on conservatism, the role of civil govt, foreign policy, etc. Otherwise your remarks are irrelevant and ineffective.

David L. Bahnsen

Thursday, December 22, 2011 7:45 pm

Pastor - I kind of agree with a lot of what you say here. The only thing I think being missed is the reality of what we are dealing with. I am not really looking for "some imperfect GOP candidate" to be the guy to think incrementally and start incrementally; I am more looking for US to USE THAT GUY to think and start an incremental improvement. To me, a guy who comes in and cuts taxes and puts solid justices on the bench is moving the needle. As you say more than anyone I know (and you say it articulately and forcefully and RIGHTLY), the REAL fertilizing is not going to come - indeed, it is not even supposed to come - from the politicians. If a Bush/Romney/Newt/blah blah can improve what the progressive leftist strategists are doing, reverse or slow a little of the tide, and buy us time while the real culture-changers do their work, then yes, that is good enough for me. It just puts a lot of responsibility on us culture-changers. I am up for it - I swear. So are you. I don't think the RP fans are, and that was the point of my piece. They are not culturally (or in their case even politically) engaged. They are rock-throwers. It isn't working.

I made this point in a reply to Tim Enloe, but the other thing I would say is this: If one believes Ron is right about monetary policy (some time I would rather talk to you off line to explain how bad their rhetoric really is on this), then the last thing they want is Ron Paul leading the charge. Dick Armey, for example, shares many of the same economic presuppositions Ron does. Dick was the Majority Leader in the House. Dick passed legislation. Dick did stuff - really, really good stuff. And Dick told me that I would never believe how much Ron set back the cause of monetary reform in the House. Surely there are more Dick Armey's out there - guys who understand sound money far better than Ron Paul but do not accompany it with kookiness - not merely sociological kookiness, but ideological kookiness.

Anyways, I appreciated you interacting with my piece and I would love to one day do a deeper dive with you as to why America is not Greece, and what the velocity of money is. In the meantime, I'll also add that your CT piece on Hitch was absolutely phenomenal.

Merry Christmas, Pastor.

Michael C

Thursday, December 22, 2011 10:06 pm

David, I think Ron Paul's last two presidential runs have been primarily about civic education.

Will he get the nomination? No, it seems unlikely. But he is exposing millions of people to ideas that no one else in the Republican party will talk about. Conservatives are being challenged to consider that their distrust of Big Government should extend to foreign policy and the Federal Reserve. He's significantly shaped the discourse in the current Republican primary, and that's a valuable thing.

Despite his bumbling debating style, Paul has succeeded in changing people's minds. For instance, he's getting plenty of college-aged voters to question the idea of the welfare state. That's the kind of culture-changing that has to precede any rollback of the current mess.

A friend recently said that he thinks Ron Paul may be the 21st century's Goldwater, an underestimated candidate who energized a movement, refocused the Republican party's policy priorities, and prepared the way for a new generation of liberty-loving crusaders. I certainly hope so.

I'm not optimistic about the short-term political outlook with or without Ron Paul, but my vote in the 2012 primary will be a protest vote against business as usual, a vote for Paul's ideas to be heard.

Tim Enloe

Thursday, December 22, 2011 11:58 pm

Well said.

Tammy Burns

Friday, December 23, 2011 11:00 am

The corporations have become the empires. The wars are for natural resources that the corporations want to tap.

Ron Paul is known as Dr. No because he has been the only no vote on some bills because the issues should be left up to the states.

The lobbyists don't visit Ron Paul. He is one of the few candidates who hasn't traveled to the Trump tower.

Ron Paul speaks out against corporatism and crony capitalism.

Ron Paul is right about abortion and drugs. They should be left up to the states.

Joseph Hession

Friday, December 23, 2011 11:45 am

Dear Mr. Bahnsen,

Read "Legacy of Ashes." Our country seems to operate on an underlying assumption that we should mold nearly every situation in nearly every part of the world. Sometimes we do it covertly, sometimes passively, sometimes aggressively. But our CIA ops over the last few scores paint a pretty clear picture of our imperial hubris. Our current foreign policy is what's immoral.

Joseph Hession

Friday, December 23, 2011 11:48 am

Dear Mr. Bahnsen,

To your point that we shouldn't expect our 100 years of excess to turn on a dime since it took 100 years to get there....
Doesn't the revolutionary nature of the origin of this nation undermine that claim?

jeremiah black

Sunday, December 25, 2011 2:21 pm

We all loved Greg Bahnsen. At least I did. He taught us everything we know about Christian apologetics, and because of that we tend take his son David respectfully whenever he voices an opinion. But the truth is that David Bahnsen has shown himself to be a hysterical and unchristian liar time and time again whenever the subject of Ron Paul comes up. And in just his most recent bile purge, Bahnsen has written:

"(Ron Paul) hates the Constitution, believes 9/11 is America's fault, thinks the Jews cause all the world's problems, and believes that the Trilateral Commission is running the world."

It's tough to even know where to begin with this hateful and irrational garbage. Ron Paul obviously doesn't hate the constitution since his voting record is the most constitutionally sound of anyone's in DC- certainly more so than someone like Gingrich. The phrase "is America's fault" is nothing more than a cheap smear designed to awaken the indignant, idolatrous nationalist in all of us. The FACT of the matter is that the US government has had a bad habit of going around the world and toppling other country's governments and establishing unpopular dictatorships in their place. This causes resentment amongst the people of those countries towards the US, and we Americans suffer greatly as our foolish government's actions accomplish little except engendering anger towards the US. This happens time and time again, and it's hard to imagine a less controversial position. It's also hard to imagine a more dishonest way to phrase that than "blaming America for 9/11". To the Christian who holds only Christ as perfect and knows our godless government's tendency to bungle most everything, this is hardly a radical proposition. But to the idolater like Bahnsen, such thoughts are blasphemy against the holy flag.

"Thinks the Jews cause all the world's problems"? My gosh, where did this come from? Well, it comes from nowhere and is just simply another cheap smear. And the same might be said of his Trilateral comment.

Interestingly, Bahnsen has NO problem lavishing praise on Romney, the Mormon whose "church" denies the deity of Christ, rests on anti-Christian heresy, and is more than a bit "kooky" itself, quite frankly. And Bahnsen also has no problems lavishing praise on Israel, a nation united in its opposition to Jesus Christ and who has driven and purged scores of Christians from its borders. But in Bahnsen's twisted world, hatred of God's Word is just fine, and discrimination against Christians is just fine, abortion of the unborn is just fine, cheating on all your wives is just fine, but NOT giving free taxpayer money to foreigners that deny Christ is UNACCEPTABLE!

Like many neo-conservatives, Bahnsen left biblical Christianity behind long ago, and decided to embrace the Republican party political machine instead. This explains why, instead of becoming upset at the violation of Christian principles, Bahnsen gets most upset at those that would question the holy republican party, and instead of arguing from Christian principles, Bahnsen prefers to lob political smears instead. It's not that Bahnsen simply has incorrect ideas that need to be corrected. It's that Bahnsen is rotten with idolatry that needs to be repented of. Until then, he has removed himself from any intelligent Christian debate on the matter.

Gil Shivers

Monday, December 26, 2011 9:09 am

First of all: getting on the ballot would seem to be high on the “electability” list, if Virginia is any indication, Paul is one of the most “electable” Republicans at this point.

And yeah, all those Tea Party types are just a bunch of mediocre, ne’er-do-well wasters, not worth paying any attention to them.

Now let me put on my tinfoil hat and turn up the Shrill-O-Meter for the rest of this.

I spent some time on Thursday and again this morning looking over the Bahsen Viewpoint, specifically looking for TARP and Fed loan input. Noticed that he is still a “National Review kind of conservative”. Did not find much about what we could or should have done, found a lot of book-reviewing and position-developing. Not much on which to build a platform. Maybe I missed something?

What I have found is stuff like the following from this article http://www.davidbahnsen.com/index.php/2010/03/08/hank-paulson-tarp-and-an-economy-on-the-brink/:

"I believe a worldview is required that can make heads or tails of the TARP, specifically, and overall government response, generally. I am still fine-tuning my beliefs about what exactly should have been the proper response."

"I do not believe that the motivation of the Treasury Secretary was to expand the role of government in our lives. I have absolutely no doubt in my mind that he believed (and still believes) that there was no choice at all if we were to avoid financial armageddon"

So, have those beliefs gotten any firmer? If not, then that would explain why Mr. Bahnsen and I will be on the same planet / different political worlds for a while longer.

I know that Morgan Stanley did not ask for the TARP money, I know that it was forced on them. I also know that it was a National Review kind of president that signed off on TARP, and the Treasury Secretary of a National Review kind of administration that forced the money on Morgan Stanley. I think I have had my quota of National Review kind of conservatives.

And how 'bout those Fed loans?
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-11-28/secret-fed-loans-undisclosed-to-congress-gave-banks-13-billion-in-income.html

Easy to call your firm "healthy" when you've got 100 billion in the kitty from Uncle Sam.

I don't think Ron Paul would have signed TARP, nor would he quietly leave a system in place where banks can get secret emergency loans from the Fed.

Ron Paul, y'all.

Frank Golubski - Rice bowls and The System

Monday, December 26, 2011 1:35 pm

Bahnsen: "I work as a senior vice president at a company with 62,000 employees [and] manage the financial well-being of 150 high net worth individuals, families, and institutions ..."

Yup. Definitely no underachieving, mediocre Ron Paul supporter there. (Like, say, Peter Schiff...)

But Gil's comments and questions re. Bahnsen's perspectives on the fed, Morgan Stanley, TARP etc. make me wonder:

Let's suppose for the sake of discussion that under President Ron Paul, our nation manages to audit and abolish the Fed, and return to honest money.

When regular folks like us can once again plan for retirement by simply saving (rather than engaging in risky investing and speculating just to try to stay ahead of inflation), what happens to the rice bowls of guys like Bahnsen then?

So maybe Ron Paul poses him a particular kind of danger? Just sayin' ...

Frank Golubski - Who's financing whom?

Saturday, December 31, 2011 3:16 pm

In DLB's piece, he says: "I know the people who have REALLY financed Ron Paul (sorry, guys, but your $10 donation didn’t buy those ads in Iowa last week)."

Check out this comparison of the top contributors to Mitt Romney and Ron Paul.

Then see my 12/26 comment about rice bowls.

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About the Proprietor

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