The Triangle

Issue date: 1/25/08 Section: Ed-Op

The Internet has been buzzing with conversation concerning Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul, an OB/GYN physician who has delivered over 4,000 babies, an Air Force surgeon during the Vietnam War and a Congressman from Texas with 17 years of service in the House of Representatives. Nicknamed "Dr. No" by his colleagues for voting against legislation that is not authorized or legal by the Constitution, Ron Paul frequently finds himself alienated by other members of congress, free from special interests and lobbying.

This candidate, all but written off by the mainstream media as an unelectable possibility for president, has generated incredible support due to his message of individual freedom and the importance of relying on the Constitution in the federal government. Ron Paul's voting record is unusually consistent; he voted against the Iraq War at its inception, he voted against the Patriot Act, and voted against raising his own pay and that of other congressman. Ron Paul has displayed a history of integrity and is a solid Republican, voting for both tax cuts and cuts in federal spending.

The truly astonishing attribute of Ron Paul is his anti-war stance; he is the only candidate out of all the Republicans to support a complete, immediate withdrawal from Iraq, citing that our presence in the Middle East causes terrorists to become more emboldened, a fact which was backed up by the CIA's Bin Laden unit. Ron Paul frequently states historical occurrences where our aggressive pre-emptive foreign policy has caused blowback, such as the Iran hostage crisis and Saddam Hussein's reign over Iraq, all of which are factually backed results of interventionism. Because of this, Ron Paul has taken a fierce non-interventionist stance, noting the cost of maintaining our troops overseas and the incredible folly of sacrificing American blood to expand our "empire overseas." A last, desperate attempt by opponents to label this as isolationism has been quickly swept aside as Ron Paul states that he desires open trade, travel, and communication with other nations.

One of Ron Paul's top priorities is to cut the bureaucratic, avaricious federal programs which have done extremely little to assist the American citizen. The Department of Education and the Department of Homeland Security are two of the programs that gather a large amount of tax money from Americans and offer little in return. An example of this is the No Child Left Behind Act, which caused the budget of the DoE to rise 69 percent from 2002 to 2004, and has provoked heavy criticism from all political spectrums. Ron Paul also wants to remove the IRS and the Federal Reserve to counter inflation and the current falling value of the American dollar, and has been called "The Taxpayer's Friend" by John Berthoud, president of the National Taxpayer's Union. With the removal of taxes, and the removal of the programs that require those taxes, Ron Paul aims to phase out each individual tax one by one. Americans fought in the Revolutionary War to keep from being overtaxed and manipulated, and it's only impeccable timing that Ron Paul gives us this chance to bring back the results of that conflict.

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