The Political Bear

Published by bear

If you haven’t visited The Cranky Conservatives blog, you should. Cranky is …… well, a cranky catholic conservative that provides consistently well done blog posts regarding politics, the church, and of course baseball.

Today, Cranky wrote a post regarding Ron Paul’s vote against a resolution that condemns China for their treatment of Tibet. Here is a quick excerpt:

It’s true that the vote was largely symbolic and meaningless, but that doesn’t make Ron Paul any less of an attention-voting loser by being the sole dissenting vote in a resolution condemning China over Tibet. To make matters worse, it’s not as though Ron Paul has consistently voted against such measures, as AllahPundit and comment JohnTant point out in the body of the post.

I was writing a comment in response to his post, but at the end I decided that I needed to check my premise as well. Below is my comment (that I am turning into a post):

Check your premise.

I would focus on the fact that the resolution itself is attention seeking and pointless. This resolution is not in response to China’s treatment of Tibet, it is in response…late response….to the reaction of people in San Francisco to China’s treatment of the people in Tibet.

I understand that you might not accept Rep. Paul’s reading of the constitution, I personally don’t agree with many of his views and I haven’t yet researched the depths of the writing and politics that went into the constitution as you have, but would you have voted for this legislation? Would you not have considered it a waste of time?

He could have explained it differently, but I am glad that someone stood up to this reactionist foreign policy. They could be debating a housing bailout, a bloated budget, capture and trade legislation, Bridge funds, SCHIP, Medicare Trigger Legislation, Unemployment Insurance Reform, Fairer taxes for two earner couples, Social Security Reform, …etc.

And no, you don’t really say that would support the resolution, but attacking Paul’s reading of the constitution on a shaky premise is not the right start.

Footnote: I am not sure if I should call a resolution “foreign policy”, but if you are defending it as foreign policy then I will use your words.

End Comment

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My comment was in frustration of the acceptance of the resolution by seemingly everyone, but on a re-read………. after I settled down….. all Cranky is doing is attacking Paul’s use of the constitution as his reasoning for not voting on the resolution.

It is a good attack, but after checking my premise and then Cranky’s I am siding with myself (always the good bet). While his argument is probably correct, the overarching issue is that Paul should never have had to take that vote.

Apr 10, 2008
Filed under: analysis, Constitution, Cranky Conservative, Ron Paul