Posted by
Tonewah on Friday, December 14, 2007 11:41:00 PM
Whenever you hear the name Ron Paul in the media, it's qualified with the terms 'dark-horse', 'fringe', 'long-shot' or some other derogatory adjective. Maybe I'm wrong, but it seems there has been a bias against Paul since he announced his candidacy. Even when Huckabee was trailing Paul in the polls, which only recently changed, the former Arkansas governor was rarely given these negative monikers. Duncan Hunter and Tom Tancredo, who barely show up in the polls, have rarely been given these epithets, either. Why?
Is it Ron Paul's stance against the continued military presence in Iraq? But that doesn't make him fringe, it makes him the only GOP candidate holding firm to the Republican party platform. Non-interventionism is a long-held Republican policy. You go to war when it's necessary, and come home when it's over. The Democrats are the ones who want a global US presence, overextending and overspending until we can't sustain our own economy.
So if it's not Iraq, what makes him 'fringe'? He is for dramtically smaller government by doing away with all the acronym agencies. Many still remember Ronald Reagan's speech during the 1964 GOP convention when he railed against these exact same bureaucratic departments, calling for their abolition. That certainly doesn't make Paul in the fringe. If anything, it puts him at the forefront of conservative thought.
Is it his hard-money arguments? With the rapid drop in the value of the dollar, many see a precious metals standard as the only viable alternative. Even Alan Greenspan, former FED chairman and often target of Paul's economic criticism now seems to agree with the congressman, indicating that a dual-currency system would be a very good option. This most assuredly doesn't make him a 'fringe' candidate.
I can't find a reason to call Ron Paul 'fringe'. Why, then, do the media outlets continue to perpetrate the myth that this is the case? Are they in possession of some information that would make this apparent? Or maybe it's because he doesn't cow to the media conglomerates. The vitriol heard in the voices of the personality-pundits as they emphasize the word 'fringe' certainly does make one suspicious.
I argue that the new conservatives, or neo-conservatives, as they call themselves, are the 'fringe'. They're the ones who've hijacked the GOP, making it a left-leaning, neo-fascist party. They even go as far as to accuse those who are traditional conservatives of being radical outsiders. These 'neo-cons' who pay lip-service to traditional values, while doing their best to destroy them are the real 'fringe'.