Ron Paul and Israel

Military interventionism and Keynesian interventionism are two sides of the same coin

rafifarber The Jewish Libertarian Blog , , ,

The bedrock of Keynesian economics is that depressions and recessions can be avoided by the government printing and spending a bunch of paper. We can all live in a quasi-economic boom forever by the blessed gift of government intervention.

The key mistake made here as we have discussed in this blog before is hubris. Keynesians believe they have finally found the cure to economic downturns in government power. A “new economy” they spoke of before the dot com bubble burst. The “your house will never lose value” mantra of 2002-2006.  They always think they found the key to everyone being rich forever…until all the paper wealth evaporates and the fed has to find another sector to stick it in and tell everyone to go look over there and invest.

Imagine if sleeping were considered “recession”. Then a Keynesian would suggest downing caffeine pills at 3 am and celebrate the fact that you are still awake, though drooling, zombified, and shaking. But you’ve been “stimulated” and the recession of sleep has been countered!

Until of course you run out of caffeine pills and you collapse at high noon in your factory on the assembly line and get tenderized into a car part. That’s when the bubble bursts. So they suggest more caffeine pills and slap themselves on the back with a good raise in printed money salary.

But this post was about military interventionism. Just like economic interventionism, the military kind is based on spending insane amounts of paper money and assuming, with much hubris, that the government can keep the entire world balanced by handing out varying amounts of paper to different dictators and sending in the army all the way to Borneo as needed.

Just as government spending keeps economies in a quasi state of caffeinated zombishness, government spending on the military also keeps the entire world in a piss-offish caffeinated ready-to-strangle-each-other grip until the caffeine runs out and somebody starts WWIII.

Take my country, Israel. American government intervention here has brought us the Oslo Peace Process, which has kept both sides at each other’s throats for 17 years. Or more than that. If we weren’t pressured in ’67 to stop the war, there would be no conflict now. And every time there’s a flare up it just gets worse and everyone intervenes so nobody can win.

How about you just let us go at it until somebody wins and decides what to do with the loser?

There’s some Austrian Economic Foreign Policy for ya.

Ron Paul 2012.

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Why most Ron Paul supporters are wrong about Iran, and why I don’t care

rafifarber The Jewish Libertarian Blog , , , ,

I visit Lewrockwell.com several times a week. I read the economic articles and some of the Ron Paul updates there. The site published one of my articles here that was read by about 100,000 people so I appreciate it, and he and his staff of course do great work, especially with founding the Mises institute in the 80’s.

The problem though with diehard Ron Paul people like Lew is that they have blindspots. Just like Zionist Jews and those who are freaked out by Jihad have blindspots regarding Paul’s foreign policy and cannot possibly entertain the notion that maybe 9/11 was actually partly America’s own fault, Paulians like Rockwell cannot possibly entertain the notion that maybe Iran actually does want to annihilate Israel.

If I had just stumbled onto Lewrockwell.com without being lured into the whole Paul universe and community first with his economic, libertarian message, I would have ran out of that website screaming and calling the ADL. Every day there is another article about how peaceful Iran is and how they would never hurt a fly and whoever believes otherwise is buying propaganda. Read that without understanding the message of liberty and you’re a Jew with the cultural history of Persians trying to annihilate you in the past (read the Book of Esther), you would be instantly repulsed. But when I read it, it only annoys me mildly. Less and less every day.

Two days ago I was listening to the Lew Rockwell show, one of his podcasts, and he was interviewing Bob Wenzel. Lew said something like “We don’t want Iran or Israel to attack each other, but of course Israel is the one that’s threatening and Iran is just being peaceful.”

That turned up the dial of annoyingness from mildly to moderately, and I am a Jewish ultra nationalist. Other Jews would have been horrified by that comment. Why can I stomach these and keep admiring Rockwell when I have what we would call a “nuclear disagreement”?

It has to do with liberty and independence. When people are independent and free, then other people don’t resent them for their problems. While Lew is obviously wrong about Iran being peaceful and he chooses to ignore statement after statement to the absolute contrary (most recently Khamenei saying that Iran must attack Israel by 2014 and killing Jews is a Muslim religious duty) much like an Obama socialist ignores economic reality, he is blind about this not because he hates Jews, but he hates fighting other people’s wars. He just doesn’t want anything to do with it, and Israel has much more influence in America than Iran does, so he blames Israel.

Essentially, if we are to reword what Lew is saying when he says that Iran is peaceful and Israel is the aggressor, we can say that when it comes to America being involved in the whole Iran Israel fight, Israel is much more responsible for bringing America directly into the picture than Iran is. This is what he hates, and because Israel is dragging America into the Iranian mess, he pins Israel as the aggressor. In that way, he’s right.

The reason his statements don’t bother me all that much are that even though he’s wrong, I know full well that he doesn’t hate or love Israel. He really just doesn’t care and doesn’t want anything to do with it or my problems. And I don’t WANT him to care or have anything to do with it either, so Lew and I basically agree. I want to be independent, I don’t want any charity, and I want to take care of my own problems in Israel.

If everyone took care of their own issues, then there’d be a lot less calls to the ADL and the malinvestment that goes into keeping them running will be redirected to something that actually matters instead of something that just makes people resentful of Jews whining about Anti Semitism all the time.

And if you want to make the claim that Iran is the world’s problem and not the Jews’ problem, I’d say, again, stop trying to bring the world into Jewish issues. It really makes them resent us, and if Lew doesn’t hate Jews now, he really WILL if this drags America into yet another war that will destroy his country.

Man up, be a Jew, let’s take out the trash and get some respect. I didn’t get my independence back after 2,000 years to freak out and cry to the world about some Persians trying to kill me. I got my independence back after 2,000 years so I can take care of them myself.

Seth responds: Supporting Ron Paul is suicidal Israeli insanity

rafifarber The Jewish Libertarian Blog ,

This was a good one:

More suicidal Israeli insanity. Ron Paul goes on Iranian TV, calls Gaza a concentration camp, and can’t believe that Palestinians with homemade bombs are the aggressors.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=17dFsK8DSSE
He stresses that Hamas is a democratically elected government. He’s also a frequent guest on the Jew-hating Alex Jones show, his newsletter blamed Israel for the 1993 WTC bombing, I could go on and on. Yeah, he’ll be a great friend of Israel, idiots.

Seth, you don’t have to call us idiots. We’re pretty smart, well thought out, and we are careful with our words. I had an Iranian email me actually about this article saying that freedom can unite even us. And it can. As for responding point by point, I’ve already dealt with this specific video, but I’ll give it another go just for you.

Seth, Ron Paul is not a Jew. To him, “concentration camp” does not bring forth holocaust imagery. He used a bad term, and he should apologize for it. But essentially, he’s right. Gaza is a concentration camp, or more appropriately, internment camp. They have nowhere to go and we’re not letting them go anywhere, so we are the aggressors. If it’s their land, they should be allowed to import and export what they want. If it’s ours, we should throw them out and move back in. But right now, Gaza is a humanitarian disaster that we created. Read Moshe Feiglin’s article The Gaza Flotilla and the Gallant Rapist. He’s saying pretty much the same thing as Paul.

As for Iranian TV, that’s irrelevant. Morechai Kedar goes on Al Jazeera, is he anti Israel?

Hamas IS a democratically elected government. They were voted in in 2007. This doesn’t mean they aren’t evil. They are, and I’d like to kill them. But Paul’s right. We told them to have elections, they did, Hamas won.

Jew-Hating Alex Jones show? Have you ever watched the Alex Jones Show, or is this a line you simply took from someone else?

As for the newsletter issue, that has been beaten to death. Here’s the final word on who wrote those.

Once again Seth, how does an anti Israel candidate defend Israel’s right to bomb Iraq in 1981?

If you want a more thorough assessment of this video you attached, see this post.

Good Shabbos Seth. Rafi the suicidally insane signing off.

 

From Israel: Vote Ron Paul and Let My People Go!

rafifarber The Jewish Libertarian Blog , , ,

Lately I’ve been having trouble sleeping. I sit here in my living room in Karnei Shomron, Israel, on the 8th night of Chanukah, wondering what other miracles lay in store on January 3rd and in the months ahead. The name Ron Paul is constantly at my fingertips. I’ve typed it in so many times the past month it’s insane. I’m experiencing an excitement I’ve rarely ever felt, and I don’t even live in America anymore. During the last Republican debate I woke myself up at 3am Israel time to watch an 8pm EST live stream on YouTube, with no fatigue whatsoever. I’m on overdrive, and I can’t calm myself.

I’ve only recently figured out what this excitement actually is.

I first got interested in the whole freedom movement when I heard that Ron Paul wanted to end all foreign aid, including to my country, Israel. This seemed like a spectacular idea to me. I hate the idea of taking American tax payer money I don’t need. The only reason we take it, by the way, is not because we need it. It’s that we don’t want to feel alone, and Jews always feel a deep existential isolation and loneliness. “As I see them from the mountain tops, gaze on them from the heights, this is a people that dwells alone, not counted among the Nations,” says Balaam of the People of Israel in Numbers 23:9. We still feel that loneliness. So we take the money. It’s shameful, it’s theft, it’s destructive, it’s morally wrong, and it makes people hate us for tying them into a conflict they have no business trying to solve. I wanted it to end and didn’t trust any Israeli leader to give it up on his own, so I looked up more about Ron Paul.

What I found was fascinating. On the forums, I learned of people who, back in ’08, literally gave their lives short of death to this man. Some poured money into his campaign they could not afford to give, and some even lost their marriages because of their single-minded insane dedication. This shocked me. I couldn’t yet understand it, but after a few days of listening to him, it began to click.

What is it about Ron Paul that inspires such extremes? Such maddening support on the one hand, and such fear and loathing on the other? I can give the answer in one word: Soul.

The essential soul of a human being is by definition free. The idea that men are free as determined by God is a concept that is foreign to most men. This is because most men want to control others, to take away their freedom. This is usually referred to as the drive for power. The drive for power is antithetical to freedom because power means the ability to control others. There is only one legitimate thing that power can and should be used for, whether it be military, legislative, or executive power. That is, to legalize freedom.

Ron Paul doesn’t want to be President to “give” me freedom. He doesn’t own my freedom and he didn’t give it to me. The only reason Ron Paul wants to be President is to stop punishing people for using their freedom that is rightfully theirs. He wants no power. This is clear to anyone who listens to him speak.

There are two kinds of human beings. Those who want power, and those who want freedom. You can tell which one’s which very easily. Those who want freedom are straight-edged. They are consistent, principled, and you can feel their human soul when they speak to you. There’s a continuum out there of human souls somewhere in spiritual cyberspace, and when you come into contact with one of these souls, you know immediately, because souls are by definition free. You sense sincerity, realness, consistency, a free human being. If you’re a man who seeks freedom and you come into contact with a real human soul, you become instantly addicted and you swallow up anything you can get your hands on. You want to unite immediately, no matter what you disagree on. There are people in the freedom movement that don’t exactly like Israel, especially me being a “settler” and I don’t care. If they want freedom, I sense it and my human drive for individualism suddenly turns into an intense desire to unite into a collective – but a collective of free individuals. It’s a beautiful dialectic, and it doesn’t matter what we agree or disagree on, as long as we agree on freedom.

You get hooked on Ron Paul and you desperately seek more and more, any video you can find from the past, any speeches you missed, anything he said that you haven’t heard yet, even though you’ve heard it a thousand times already in different words. You can’t help yourself. The voracious hunger to be able to use your God-given freedom takes you over entirely. It’s like you suddenly realize you’re human and the Divine Image with which God created you comes alive and catches fire.

But something else happens to you. Once you get hooked on Ron Paul, you can no longer bear to listen to a man who wants power, and you become instantly disgusted when they begin to speak. Before, they were just boring. Now they’re revolting. Listening to Romney or Gingrich or Bush or Obama makes you sick and you don’t know how Ron Paul gets through those debates without getting nauseous. You see a political veneer in these politicians that’s so transparent it’s like a ghost flapping its ethereal tongue at you. You can’t bear it.

What’s so maddening about hearing Romney or Gingrich talk is that there’s someone standing there saying things, but there’s no soul in it. These are not free men. These are power men. Not that Romney or Gingrich don’t have souls. They do. They are men just like you and I. But they have practically forfeited their souls to try and attain power, to control others with spin and talking points and contradictory statements like “I want to cut the budget and expand the military!” and they’ll say it with a polished tone and a straight face, just like a soulless recording. Their humanity is so buried under the mountain of lies they have told themselves, that neither they themselves nor you can even sense their souls in the human continuum. The scene of a human body speaking but no soul communicating can drive a free man mad.

The reason that Ron Paul never goes down in the polls is that he’s not “convincing” people in the everyday sense that he’s right on whatever issue. He’s activating human souls, lighting spiritual fires one by one speaking about freedom. Once a soul gets activated, and the man realizes that he IS free no matter what people do to him or tell him, there is no turning back. The other candidates are trying to turn heads with snappy one-liners that sound cool. Slaves follow these one-liners like mobs, and follow each other from candidate to candidate. Slowly but surely, Ron Paul activates a few of the individual souls in the mob as they bob from snappy comeback to snappy comeback and he goes up in the polls.

Yet, we cannot expect every man woman and child to understand or get excited about the message of liberty. In fact, most just can’t handle it. Being truly free is as terrifying as it is electrifying. The Bible tells us this very clearly in the story of the Exodus from Egypt. When Moses finally accepts the role of deliverer from God, he was assigned to say the following to my great-grandparents the Israelites:

“Therefore say to the Israelites: I am God. I will free you from the labors of the Egyptians and deliver you from their bondage. I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with amazing signs. And I will take you to be My people and I will be your God, and you will know that I am the Lord who freed you from the labors of the Egyptians.” (Ex. 6:6-7)

And what was my grandparents’ response?

“And Moses told this to the people, but they didn’t listen due to lack of spirit and cruel bondage.” (6:9)

Not everyone can handle the message of freedom. It’s too frightening for some people, and some are just too enslaved. Those are the people that despise Ron Paul, the same types who rebelled against Moses in the desert and attempted to go back to Egypt. Freedom is too much for them and they can’t handle the Divine gift. They want and need someone to control them. Their souls have been too battered by slavery, taxation, and wars.

But nonetheless, God forced my stiff-necked great grandparents to leave Egypt, and as a result I’m here today, preaching freedom once again, fighting not only for America’s freedom, but for my own from America’s influence in my own region.

Vote Ron Paul and let my people go! Stop meddling here and stop trying to buy influence by giving me money. Stop trying to be the all powerful Peace Maker and let us work out the problems here on our own! If we think Iran is a threat, we can handle it and we’ll take the consequences. It’s not America’s problem and you can’t afford another war.

Now I understand why people will give everything to this man. Whenever he’s asked the question, “Would you legalize heroin?” Ron Paul answers, “I want to legalize freedom!” Little do these people understand that freedom is a thousand times more addictive than heroin.

American Jews! Wake up! Set your brothers in Israel free! We were the first nation ever to be set free by God, and we brought the concept of liberty to the world when we left Egypt over 3000 years ago. It’s about time we set the example we were chosen to set.

The writer, Rafi Farber, is a member of Jews for Ron Paul and manages the website World of Judaica. Email him at settlersofsamaria@gmail.com

How I explained my Ron Paul support to a fellow Jew

rafifarber The Jewish Libertarian Blog , ,

Use at your own risk. This is an answer I gave to a fellow Jew who was concerned about Ron Paul’s Israel stance. Not the foreign aid issue, but his calling Gaza a “concentration camp” and seeming unwillingness to help Israel if she found herself in existential danger.

—————-

OK, I guess I’ll put in my final 10 agorot. Take it or leave it. I’ll just have bullet points, I don’t have time to adequately defend what I’m saying here. Just writing it so you can get the surface of my thought process. I’m not trying to convince you of anything. I warn you that I have a radically strong faith that is either blinding me to reality or helping me see the truth. I honestly can’t tell because if I’m blind, I’m blind. This is just what my mind is telling me based on what I’ve seen so far in my life.

1) I take it as a given that Israel will never be destroyed again. This is it, we’re here to stay, no one will destroy our sovereignty. This is an axiom, accept it or not, it’s what my beliefs are based on.

2) You’re right. Ron Paul does not want a special relationship with Israel. To that end, you’re right that if Israel were in existential danger, Ron Paul wouldn’t lift a finger on his own. I am aware of this. But if you go back to point 1), that’s irrelevant for me. And if you’re worried and don’t accept point 1, then if Congress decided to lift its finger, Ron Paul would follow. He would not interfere and discourage congress or go to war kicking and screaming. He would just let congress be because he believes in the separation of Powers religiously. Ron Paul may be a lutheran in name. But his Bible, the book he makes his life decisions on, is the Constitution.

3) Ron Paul is not a Jew. He doesn’t understand the kind of subconscious disgust and revoltion it causes in us Jews when he says we put someone in “concentration camps”. If I were Ron’s campaign manager, I would advise him to apologize for using that word, or at least vow never to use it again. If he wants to distinguish between manzanar and auschwitz, then use the word Internment Camp at least. Even if distasteful, it’s not disgusting. But to him, “concentration camp” is just a word. His grandparents weren’t murdered and burned. He doesn’t have that sensitivity, and we can’t blame him for it. He used it carelessly, and as we all know, Ron Paul is a phenomenally bad speaker.

3) I don’t want a special relationship with America. I want to be friends with them, but I don’t see any of this “special bond” nonsense. They are Esav, we are Yakov, we’re brothers but we are on different paths. Our special bond is with God, not America. Not with the White House. God doesn’t want us to have a special relationship with anyone. We are a nation that dwells alone and we are not counted among the nations. Any attempt to bow to the next Pharaoh Necho will backfire. God will take care of us from his Big Oval Office in the sky.

4) In the video you sent, watch again from 2:40 to the end. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aYNLXYLM44c&feature=player_embedded#%21 He clearly says he has a “personal opinion” that he would not act on because as president he has no right to act on his own peronsal opinions. I trust Ron Paul never to violate the constitution in favor of his personal opinions. If you don’t, then don’t vote for him.

5) He is not a flip flopper on anything. Once again, he has personal opinions that contradict what he says he would do as President. Those are two different planes entirely. He’s running for President. He’s not running for Ronpaulident. He says the US should trade with Israel and be friends even though he thinks we’re doing bad things because he believes in the Jeffersonian ideal of friendship with all, entangling alliances with none. What we do is none of his “presidential” business and he says that openly. 

6) Go back and read Moshe Feiglin’s article on the Marmara. You’ll see he agrees with everything Paul says, except Feiglin doesn’t use the word “concentration camp” because Feiglin is a Jew. Gaza is our fault. We ARE the aggressors, because we’re locking them up there with nowhere to go. Just like America must come to terms with its foreign policy contributing to 9/11, we must come to terms with our own evil policies contributing to terrorism. The land is God’s. To give it to them is evil, and Gaza is OUR fault entirely. We left the land, said it isn’t ours, said it’s THEIRS, destroyed homes and ripped apart families and caused kids and parents to commit suicide in despair that they had lost their lives and incomes. And now we have the CHUTZPAH to blockade the place?! What are we mad? We are the sinners. They’re just arabs. We’ve got to pay them to get out of our land and we’ve got to move back in, or otherwise get out of this whole country and call it quits back to Galut. And the only president who wouldn’t lift a finger if we paid them all to get the hell out our country and killed whatever terrorists remained? It’s the same guy who wouldn’t lift a finger if we were in trouble either. Ron Paul.

7) I think I addressed most things here.

Good Shabbos to you all.

Ron Paul explains his Israel Position

rafifarber The Jewish Libertarian Blog

This is the clearest portrayal of Ron Paul’s views on Israel I’ve ever seen.

http://www.newsmax.com/InsideCover/paul-israel-support-wead/2011/12/07/id/420247

Ron Paul Tells Newsmax: I Support Israel

In an exclusive Newsmax interview, Congressman and Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul confirmed his support for Israel, but cautioned that while the United States should be a “friend” of the Jewish state, America should not be the “master” of Israel.

Paul also says the United States should not dictate Israel’s borders or try to “buy her allegiance” with massive amounts of foreign aid. He argued that foreign aid has actually hurt – not helped – the Jewish state.

The interview was conducted by Newsmax contributor Doug Wead, a presidential historian and New York Times best-selling author.

Paul has recently come under fire from some Jewish groups in America. The Republican Jewish Coalition banned Paul from a debate on Jewish issues in Washington this week because of his “misguided and extreme views,” according to the group’s executive director, Matt Brooks.

Newsmax chatted with Paul to get his side of the issue as the Texas Republican is surging in some presidential polls.

A new Washington Post-ABC News survey in Iowa shows him threatening Mitt Romney as the second-leading candidate behind Newt Gingrich. Paul is now tied with Romney in the early caucus state with 18 percent of the vote, behind Gingrich’s 33 percent.

Rep. Paul’s interview with Newsmax follows:

Newsmax: What should our relationship be with Israel?

Ron Paul: We should be their friend and their trading partner. They are a democracy and we share many values with them. But we should not be their master. We should not dictate where their borders will be nor should we have veto power over their foreign policy.

This is not just about Israel, by the way, this is about how we should conduct ourselves with other countries around the world.

Newsmax: But Israel is not like other countries. We have a large Jewish population in America. What do you say to those who criticize your policy toward Israel?

Ron Paul: I think that some not only misunderstand the American Constitution and the role we should have in the world, they also misunderstand Zionism. Part of the original idea of Zionism, as I understand it, was that there should be Jewish independence and Jewish self-reliance. Today, America doesn’t want anyone to be self-reliant. We want to rule the world and be the saviors of the world and we are going broke in the process.

Newsmax: Some object to your policy of cutting foreign aid to Israel.

Ron Paul: I have objected to all foreign aid. I define foreign aid as taking money from poor people in rich countries and giving it to rich people in poor countries. We just can’t keep doing this. We don’t have the money anymore.

Stop and consider America’s policy: We give $3 billion a year to Israel in loans; and we give $12 billion or more in assistance to Israel’s self-declared enemies. Some of these are countries that say they will drive Israel into the sea.

Newsmax: What do you say to evangelical Christians who want that aid to continue?

Ron Paul: I say to them that our aid in the region is out of balance and it is wrong. Foreign aid does not help Israel. It is a net disadvantage. I say to them that “the borrower is servant to the lender” and America should never be the master of Israel and its fate. We should be her friend.

In October, 1981, most of the world and most of the Congress voiced outrage over Israel’s attack on Iraq and their nuclear development. I was one of the few who defended her right to make her own decisions on foreign policy and to act in her own self-interest.

Newsmax: What then, if anything, should we do for Israel?

Ron Paul: We should share intelligence for mutually agreed-upon goals. We should honor our pledge to refuse any arms sales that would undermine Israel’s qualitative military edge in the region.

But we should stop interfering with them. We should not announce bargaining positions even before she begins her negotiations. We should not dictate what she can and cannot do. We should stop trying to buy her allegiance. And Israel should stop sacrificing their sovereignty as an independent state to us or anybody else, no matter how well-intentioned.

How Ron Paul can get the Jewish Vote

rafifarber The Jewish Libertarian Blog , ,

I’m not sure that it matters so much since Jews vote mostly democrat, but here’s how Ron Paul can get the Jewish vote. This post is of course mostly directed to Paulians with Jewish friends who support Israel.

The first thing to understand about Zionist Jews in America is that they feel terribly alone and scared for their Jewish homeland. They feel they want someone “involved” in the “middle east peace process” and they want American aid more for what it symbolizes than for the actual money. It symbolizes the fact that America backs Israel and it makes them feel less alone. So if you want to break through to a Jew, you have to identify that loneliness and diffuse it.

Tell them that the Jewish State is the strongest in the region and can handle any threat on its own. Tell them that Congress is the most Zionist legislature in the world (it actually is) and if Congress decides to declare war against Iran or join the fight if war breaks out, then Ron Paul would fight it. Paul as president would have no constitutional authority to just fight a war, but if Congress declared one, he would be constitutionally required to fight. This is all true. They have to know this.

About the “peace process” tell them that Israel should be in charge of it, not America. Israel should feel no pressure from the UN or from the US or anyone else, which is why Ron Paul wants to cut off US funding for the UN, leave the UN and butt out of the “peace process”. Tell them you believe Israel is grown up enough to make her own decisions with what she wants to do with the Arabs, and America shouldn’t be involved.

About the money, tell them that Israel won the 6 day war without American aid and she can do it again.

And most importantly, tell them that both Ron Paul and Israel share the value of liberty and mutual respect, and in that sense both will always be friends and Israel will never be alone. That’s in bold. Emphasize it. Let them know you understand this point, and they just might start listening.

The closest thing to a neocon Ron Paul supporter I’ve found

rafifarber The Jewish Libertarian Blog , ,

Just saw this on the Ron Paul forums. This guy is the closest thing to a neocon supporting Ron Paul that I’ve seen out there.

He’s also the closest to my own views on the subject of Islam.

My biggest disagreement with Ron Paul is his view of Islam. He doesn’t see it as problematic as a religion. But then again, it’s not the Christians’ job to fight Islam, as Christianity and Islam are not all that different. Just depends on the century. Sometimes the former is violent and the latter passive, sometimes the other way around. Just ask medieval Spanish Jews. And we’re always in the middle of our bickering children, the Christians and Muslims.

I trust Paul even though he’s a Christian because he’s first and foremost an advocate of Liberty, the penultimate Jewish value. His Christianity is private, subsumed under his independent conscience rather than leading it.

Dealing with Islam is our fight, not the Christians’. It won’t be a fight of bombs so much as a war of ideas. So Ron Paul is not the one to fight it. His job is to set an example of freedom in the world so we can fight our own battles.