Here’s my Augustinian Thanksgiving message.
After the most recent debate, it’s clear that the only plausible candidates are Newt and Romney. I continue believe that Newt is hugely vulnerable to any real examination of his record in the broadest sense, but we’ll see.
I agree with Pete that it would be a shame if immigration did Gingrich in, seeing that he is more right and less demagogic on that issue than Romney.
November 23rd, 2011 | 11:57 am
No, Ron Paul is the only plausible candidate. Gingrich and Romney are regime puppets, and useful idiots.
November 23rd, 2011 | 3:17 pm
Paulbots, how amusing they are.
Something else to be thankful for.
November 23rd, 2011 | 5:13 pm
Mitt would be dead if he took newt’s line on immigration. if I heard him correctly, he did leave a crack open when he mentioned the possibility of “exceptions,” but there is no chance that he will develop that further during the campaign. Newt can be a good talker, and he knows a lot. he is smart in a certain way. But setting the moral issues aside, I wonder if he has the temperament to be POTUS. His facility in debate makes one forget about the matter of temperament…read the good bio sketches on him…
November 23rd, 2011 | 9:08 pm
It’s true about the temperament. People forget how he screwed up his speakership. Not the executive type, as they say. Overall he’s a major league a——-.
November 24th, 2011 | 9:10 am
Kozinksi is anything but a Paul-bot, Steve.
Google Kozniski and the Problem of Religious Pluralism. In that book you’ll find one of the best take-downs of the political philosopher John Rawls out there, and one of the most earnest attempts to actually follow the political philosophy of Alaisdair MacIntyre through to its conclusions.
But it is dismaying that years in the trenches with MacIntyre and such bring one to the prudential heights of…saying things that get one confused with being a Paul-bot.
Still, Thaddeus, glad to have you with us. Your book is amazing, and perhaps someday I’ll write the review I’m supposed to about it.
November 24th, 2011 | 1:18 pm
Carl, perhaps you could ask Dr. Kosinski to expand on his pro-Paul position. I, for one, would like to know why he favors Dr. Paul.
November 24th, 2011 | 1:28 pm
Carl,
That’s wonderful. But if he doesn’t want to be judged a Paul-bot, he might want to understand that calling Gingrich and Romney regime puppets and useful idiots makes him sound like 50′s era Bircher calling Eisenhower a “secret Communist”.
I’m not a particular fan of Gingrich or Romney (or any of the Republican candidates for that matter), but there’s a pretty wide gap between being a mediocre candidate with some wrong-headed policies and being a regime puppet and a useful idiot. Walter Duranty was a useful idiot. The college professors who sucked up to Qaddafi for money were useful idiots. Juan Cole is a useful idiot. Gingrich and Romney, not so much.
November 25th, 2011 | 7:46 am
Steve, that’s the mundane way I think about Romney and Gingrich also.
Thaddeus, if you’ve formulated a theory of why Paul’s libertarianism is the least of all evils for good MacIntyreans out there, or something like that, we at Pomocon would be honored to hear about it first. If you indicate interest here, I can contact you and set things up for your own post.
Or, if you’ve already posted on this at FPR or some other place, could you provide a link?
November 26th, 2011 | 10:40 pm
Carl:
Thanks for your kind words about my book.
Sorry to you all for not explaining my position on Paul and against Gingrich and Romney. I am for Paul, in spite of my disagreements with him on economics (he is too much a libertarian free-marketer for my tastes and the tastes of Catholic Social Teaching) because, among other reasons, he is for peacefully and prudentially dismantling–or at least trying to stop the metastasizistic growth of–the eliter-corporate-controlled war state-empire that is symptomatic of our increasing inverted totalitarianism (see Sheldon Wolin’s incomparable book, Democracy Inc. on this). He is also against the insane idea of war with Iran, wither by Israel or the U.S., and was firmly against the war of aggression against Iraq, as well as the Orwellian Patriot Act, the porno-scanners, etc., and dares to talk politically about blowback from our arrogant and America-hurting occupation of Islamic lands and our blind support of unjust Israeli aggression as the real and reasonable cause of Muslim disdain for American use of force in the Muslim world. This does not excuse Muslim acts of terrorism, of course, but at least Paul isn’t swept up in scapegoating.
Paul Craig Roberts, our own American Jeremiah, puts it best in his latest column:
“In the November 22 presidential “debate,” the candidates, with the exception of Ron Paul, revealed themselves as a collection of ignorant warmongers who support the police state. Gingrich and Cain said that Muslims “want to kill us all” and that “all of us will be in danger for the rest of out lives.”
“Unfortunately for Americans and the world, the US electorate lacks the intelligence and the awareness of their plight as denizens of a police state to elect Ron Paul, the last defender together with Rep. Dennis Kucinich of the US Constitution. Nevertheless, there would be a silver lining in one of the Republican morons being elected president of the “world’s only superpower.” Once the rest of the world realized that a war-crazed idiot had his or her finger on the nuclear button, the rest of the world would organize and close down the Washington horror before it destroys life on earth.”
Speaking of scapegoating: I hope to have an article available online soon that explains the War on Terror as a form of scapegoating, in which I present Rene Girard’s thesis and then apply it to ourselves.
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