Rush Limbaugh: "Ron Paul doesn't give a d**m about National Interests"

Yesterday Rush Limbaugh lambasted Ron Paul's position on foreign policy as being Libertarian, mockingly characterizing it as, "We got no business going anywhere, and US national interests be d****d."

Ron Paul is perfectly candid about his foreign policy platform, and it has been consistent for as long as he has been in public office. To read it, please refer to Ron Paul on War and Foreign Policy.

Let us consider first the allegation that Dr. Paul thinks "we've got no business going anywhere." Dr. Paul has never stated this. As a libertarian, he believes you and I have an inherent right to travel and move wherever we want, as long as we're not violating private property or national security.

Mister Limbaugh attempts to imply that Dr. Paul disagrees that we should be able to 'go somewhere' in our 'national interests'. Yet Dr. Paul supports this unequivocably in his policy statement, "Let us have a strong America, conducting open trade, travel, communication, and diplomacy with other nations." To conduct trade, travel and diplomacy, we generally do 'go somewhere' in our 'national interest', and so the claim that Ron Paul opposes this is neatly laid to rest. Or is it?

The truth is, when Mister Limbaugh says 'go somewhere', he really means 'kill people'.

If a man breaks into someone's house and kills that person to satisfy his 'personal interest', he has committed a murder. Murder is against the ten commandments and a mortal sin in the Christian faith. It is a violation of fundamental humanistic ethics (Kantian imperative). In civilized society, it is against the law. The fact that murder also constitutes a severe violation of libertarian ethics (do not initiate force or fraud), hardly makes the Libertarian ethos weirdly unique.

When a nation invades another nation in its 'national interest', it is committing aggression and many murders. This likewise is a violation of the ten commandments, humanistic ethics and international law. It is, in the words of the Nuremberg judgements "The supreme war crime, from which all other war crimes are born."

Rush Limbaugh has laid, in a package of a few words, a crass yet coy turd of Newspeak. Within lies the sinister assumption that the United States of America has the natural right to kill people by 'going anywhere', if deemed in its 'national interest'.

"Oh! I was just going somewhere... to get something."

At this point I would ask the reader to reflect. Do you think it's right to kill people, when you go somewhere? Is it cool, chic and fun? Are you good, or evil?

Even if we fail to rise out of the ethical and moral gutter of complete hypocrisy, we must rationally ask whether our recent wars of aggression are truly in our selfish 'national interest'. Neither the elective war against Afghanistan nor that against Iraq has benefited the American people as a whole. In the former case, we restored a vastly lucrative trade to heroin peddlers in central asia, and in the latter, kept vast quantities of Iraqi light crude off the market in preparation for the day when our oil barons can sell it to us for $120 a barrel. Is Mister Limbaugh implying that it is in the United States' national interest to flood our shores with heroin and grant the oil multinationals profits 'beyond the dreams of avarice'?

The wars Mister Limbaugh so loves may profit some of the most nefarious elements of the underworld and the richest of corporations, but they come at a terrible economic cost. The economic activity and material investment in war machinery does not flow back into the economy in the form of goods and services you and I can use; instead they flow into a black pit. At best the bullets and bombs lie in storage until they are scrapped - at worst, they are used to destory the life and industry of another nation. This is not a conservative or liberal opinion; it is economic fact.

Lastly we must deal briefly with the 'good versus evil' narrative parrotted incessantly by our politicians and the mainstream media. It is a facile fairy tale for simpletons. It is a comic book story. While it is true that attacks have occurred against Americans, we must keep these in proportion viewed against the hundreds of thousands killed needlessly, directly by the aggessive international policies espoused by the likes of Mister Limbaugh. If killing is evil, we have to admit that our foreign policy hasn't been very good lately.

Let me return to the words of Dr. Ron Paul, "The war in Iraq was sold to us with false information. The area is more dangerous now than when we entered it. We destroyed a regime hated by our direct enemies, the jihadists, and created thousands of new recruits for them."

We have paid a terrible price for listening to men who advocated that we 'go places' in our 'national interest', for they have lied. They have abused our trust and we shall believe them no more.

The Ron Paul Answers Web Log

Here you will find answers to accusations, misunderstandings and misrepresentations directed at Republican candidate Dr. Ron Paul, followed by appropriate quotations and rebuttals from Ron, and from the writers, philosophers, founding fathers who have left us a legacy of wisdom in the printed word.

I do not pretend to speak for Dr. Paul - which is why I first put Ron's verbatim statements and links in response to each topic raised here. However as someone who has studied the important issues of the day and can bring an international perspective to their place in history, I feel it is my solemn duty to add my own voice to the chorus of human beings who are now standing up to the empire of lies -- to fight for what is beautiful and true.

My name is of neither of great reknown nor of importance here. Let the answers speak for themselves, for as Dr. Paul himself likes to say, "Ideas matter."