A conservative blogger's reaction to Ron Paul's debate performance:
Ron Paul is now starting to scare me. Glenn Reynolds calls him a kook, but that is charitable. He is worse. Paul gives me the willies. Something about watching him talk about "neo conservatives" in tonight's debate with his neck rigid and his hands clutching made me tense with memories I didn't like. The joke is over. There is something spooky about Ron Paul and something even spookier about his acolytes whose devotion pushes them to support him in online polls like cyber-brown shirts. They have made a mockery of the Pajamas Media Straw Poll (you should read our email--the Paulites filled with vitriol and obscenity when their candidate falls below one percent and drops off; reams of others writing us in despair to blackball him forever and return to the poll to normalcy).
The Fox News flash poll has also been destroyed by the Paulites who again pushed their candidate to victory tonight with 35% of the vote;Huckabee had 18 percent. Giuliani trudged along in third at 16. What does this mean? Paul still does not register on national polls. In fact, tonight he was devastated by Mike Huckabee, but that doesn't bother his acolytes whose belief in their leader is religious. I have no such belief in any politician and find that highly dangerous. Twentieth Century Europe was turned into a charnel house from such belief in leaders. Of course, the Paul crowd despises such comparisons but they are not the most sophisticated of people. His supporters live in a kind of libertarian-geek-neverland far from the reality of the lives of the rest of us. Trapped behind their computers, they want to squeeze the world into the models, but it just won't fit. They also have a kind of America first-ism that smacks of xenophobia. This is not a cocktail I care to drink.
FWIW, WHile I like Glenn Renolds, and used to read his blog quite regularly, he's NOT a social conservative, and I am equally wary of his agenda... though I really like the work he's done trying to reduce government spending.
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I'm not slow; I'm special. (Don't take it personally, everyone finds me offensive. Yet somehow I manage to live with myself.)
I notice that the piece you quoted is all about emotion, and not about policies at all. It is a scare tactic, nothing more. They can't refute his politics, so they try to make people scared of Ron Paul. That piece was one long ad hominem.
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If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude than the animated contest of freedom, go from us in peace. May your chains sit lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen! - Samuel Adams
BTW, may I mention that language like this is one reason why I left the republican party. If they consider the candidate who most closely resembles my political views as a "kook", then the party has moved far away from where it once was. You'd think that a party supposedly interested in unity would be much more interested in attracting potential voters instead of alienating them. You have to hand it to the Democrats, at least; as much as the different factions hate each other, they make the appearance of a united front. Pres. Bush even goes so far as to use vituperative words against those in his party who don't support his political positions. such as that travesty of an immigration bill that he tried to push through.
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If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude than the animated contest of freedom, go from us in peace. May your chains sit lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen! - Samuel Adams