Ron Paul vs. His Supporters

Ron Paul shares the central element of his would be foreign policy with what was Obama’s own campaign version of foreign policy and I suspect still is Obama’s  deep belief;  it’s all America’s fault. This   is basically a summary of both men’s outlook on the world. Unlike Obama, Ron Paul chooses to be more precise and actually specifies the destruction of the CIA and the drastic reduction in our military as the way to turn the world into Shangri La.

Of course most Americans don’t share the view that we are evil and that if we just turned into wimps the rest of the world, who unlike us is inherently good, would turn the planet into heaven on earth. That is truly a ridiculous idea but let’s leave that for another time and let’s focus on the topic of this article, namely how Ron Paul is very much at odds with a good part of his supporters and the latter don’t even seem to realize it.

In keeping with his  policy – and by the way he shares this with  Obama’s and Ahamdinejad’s and Chavez’ and the late Osama bin Laden’s  and Marx and Mao, and just about every other mass murdering dictator in history – Ron Paul actually stated and I am paraphrasing that  we  are attacked by terrorists because we  meddled in the Middle East . Those attacks include of course 9/11. It’s Ron Paul’s contention that America is at least in part at fault for 9/11, again let’s leave refuting that for an upcoming post and focus on  the subject at hand – namely how that puts Ron Paul squarely at odds with a big chunk of his supporters.

Ron Paul’s most ardent supporters may even refuse to acknowledge the existence of one single solitary Muslim terrorist!

You see, the majority of Ron Paul’s supporters don’t actually believe that 9/11 was caused by Islamist terrorists, but rather by either the Bush administration,  or the Israelis, or an international conspiracy, or, yes, the Illuminati,  or Jesuits ( I kid you not about the last two),  or a combination of all of the above.  In fact, in conversations I’ve had with some of Ron Paul’s most ardent supporters, many even refuse to acknowledge the existence of one single solitary Muslim terrorist!

You can verify this on your own.  If you happen about a Ron Paul supporter on Facebook or Twitter, ask them about Muslim terrorists.  It won’t take long to discover that many of them will tell you that there is no such thing and that either the media is lying about them or that the CIA manipulated the terrorists….or some other cockamamie story

And this is where Ron Paul is directly at odds- at least I hope that he is – with his supporters.  While Ron Paul is out there telling us that Muslim terrorists are attacking us because we are evil, his supporters don’t believe that, but rather believe that we attacked and continue to attack ourselves.
It’s really incredible to watch the complete lack of linear logic on display and I’ve had a little bit of fun with some of the Ron Paul supporters on Facebook with this.

If you ask them, they will tell you that Ron Paul is correct, Islamist terrorists are attacking us because of our involvement in the middle east and then in the  same breath also deny that 9/11 was a terrorist attack or deny the existence of any Islamist terrorist altogether.

It is exactly this kind of non linear rhetoric that makes it impossible for the vast majority of Americans, libertarians included, (Note: Ron Paul actually lost the race to be the Libertarian nominee for President) to tale Ron Paul’s supporters seriously.