How many Democrats really want to vote for someone who thinks that Lawrence v. Texas was decided incorrectly and that the states should be allowed to govern sexual conduct and not only homosexual sexual practices? Consider that his beliefs would not only roll back Roe v. Wade but Griswold v. Connecticut. How many votes would that lose him once it was pointed out? Elimination of the Federal Reserve, FDA, Social Security (I don’t care if he says it will be gradual, he still wants it eliminated.), Medicaid, Medicare etc. will not win him supporters in the general population. But his supporters are incapable of recognizing these facts. They think Paul believes in liberty when in fact all he believes in is that liberty should be able to be restricted at the state level if you’re on the wrong side of the minority/majority relationship. It isn’t that hard to find 37,000 delusional people in a country of over 300 million.

Justin Gardner at Donklephant has a great reaction roundup post as does Joe Gandelman at The Moderate Voice. Most fun is the sniping between Andrew Sullivan and David Frum…. I’ve just got to say, Frum?s post is one of the odder things I?ve read in…

lol – Yeah, I expect I have been “having difficulty coming to terms” with this incarnation of the GOP for a while. That said, I don’t like being grouped among the “older, traditional” elements of the GOP. Traditional – ok, that older bit bothers me. By contributing to Ron Paul, perhaps I now can be grouped in the “younger, traditional” elements, and we can relegate Irving Kristol and his ilk to the older, non-traditional, criminally insane element of the Republican Party.

It is a basic assumption of neoconservatism that, as a consequence of the spread of affluence among all classes, a property-owning and tax-paying population will, in time, become less vulnerable to egalitarian illusions and demagogic appeals and more sensible about the fundamentals of economic reckoning.

http://www.weeklystandard.com/Utilities/printer_preview.asp?idArticle=3000&R=785F27881

But my favorite:”No complicated geopolitical calculations of national interest are necessary.”

And your Zen for the day, hummmmm…..’And it is a fact that if you have the kind of power we now have, either you will find opportunities to use it, or the world will discover them for you…”

You’re just having difficulty coming to terms MW.

The older, traditional elements in the Republican party have difficulty coming to terms with this new reality in foreign affairs, just as they cannot reconcile economic conservatism with social and cultural conservatism.

“And lastly, ABC News wonders “Who Are Ron Paul’s Donors?”

Well, David Frum, I’m one of them, and no – - I never contributed to or voted for Ralph Nader. Don’t particularly agree with Michael Moore either. Or Howard Dean.

Gotta say, Frum’s piece is one of the odder things I’ve read in a while. In a very short post he compares Paul to Ralph Nader, Michael Moore, and Howard Dean, but draws a distinction between Paul and Perot. Well, I guess I gotta be happy with that I always thought Perot was a few bricks short of a full load.

The only way you can make any sense out of whatever the hell it is that Frum is attempting to say, is by presuming that Frum thinks that anyone who is against the war, regardless of their views on other issues like constitutional protecitons, fiscal responsibility, and individual freedom, is a Nader/Moore Liberal. Paul is as close to a polar opposite of a Nader/Moore liberal as one can get.

Frum is my designated poster boy for the new intellectual bankruptcy of the right. “You are against the war? Well, then obviously you are a liberal Democrat.” In the world according to Frum, being a Republican is identically equal to support for the war. Just weird.

It’s a wake up call, and we’ll see if the GOP picks up the phone. If they don’t I’ll be sounding a louder alarm by voting Democrat just to make a point.

Financing social issues are irrelevant when we we’re this far in the hole, and policing the world isn’t our responsibility. It’s a luxury we can’t afford right now.

And eating out of the hands of the big money interests may keep the politicians (and their masters) fat, but it’s starving the rest of us. At some point cannibalism looks mighty appealing.

-Chad