Ron Paul, Hugo Chavez, and the Cuban Missile Crisis

Last night, Ron Paul participated in the Republican Presidential debate broadcast on the Univision channel. Questions were ones of particular interest to the Latino population.

For most of the night, Ron Paul got huge cheers and even apparently a standing ovation at the end. But one answer he gave received lots of boos:

We should talk to Chavez. We talked to Stalin, Kruschev, and Mao. We’ve talked to
the whole world. Actually I believe we’re at a time where we ought to
talk to Cuba, open travel with Cuba, trade with Cuba. We create the
Castros and the Chavezes of this world by interfering and
creating chaos in their countries, and they respond by throwing out
their leaders.

Yes, he was booed for saying we should actually talk to Chavez! The thing is, the crowd was overwhelmingly supportive of him when he said to get out of Iraq, no nation building, etc. Either there’s some blind hypocrisy going on or it was the Giuliani Brigade again.

Paul mentioned Kruschev. One of the worst crises our country was in was the Cuban Missile Crisis. We came that close to nuclear war. The issue was Soviet nuclear missiles in Cuba, 90 miles from the US border in Florida, which was a response to our missiles next to the Soviet border in Turkey. How did Kennedy resolve this issue?

Contrary to what we were told in school (or, at least, what I was told in school–I’m a Cold War Kid, so maybe it’s not so propagandized now), Kennedy found the solution by agreeing to take down our missiles in Turkey, as well as agreeing not to invade Cuba, in exchange for the Soviet missiles being removed. It was the result of a lot of talking between Kennedy and Kruschev. Kennedy lost appeal with the Generals, who thought they should invade immediately (which would almost certainly have prompted a nuclear response), but ultimately it was the right choice, and the only one that could have worked.

In fact, as a direct result of this, a special telephone line was set up between Moscow and DC so that the two leaders could talk easily when they needed to.

The whole idea of just invading, fighting people you don’t like or don’t agree with, is taking the easy way out. It’s a lot harder to swallow your pride, admit that maybe you’ve made at least one or two missteps, and work to correct them for the sake of peace and prosperity. It’s people who don’t have the strength to do that who resort to force and military might.

Yes, that means they’re cowards. Let me be clear: George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Rudy Giuliani, John McCain, and all the rest of them are cowards–doubly so because of the precious liberties they have infringed and want to continue infringing. Only Ron Paul, like Kennedy before him, has shown himself to have the true strength of character we need to make this country safe and secure, at peace, while still preserving the freedoms we cherish.

That’s why we need him in the White House. That’s why no one else will do.

3 thoughts on “Ron Paul, Hugo Chavez, and the Cuban Missile Crisis

  1. Well said Shane. You hit on it when you talked about the idea of admitting mistakes. Of all the (many) policy and philosophical points I disagree with the Bushies on, this is the one that puzzles me the most. The man is pathalogically incapable of ever admitting he was wrong.
    Unfortunately, while I like Ron Paul’s willingness to stick it to the other Republican candidates, I just can’t support him. His abortion stance is enough to turn me off. I hate to use the D-word, but I know a certain former NC senator running for president who is pretty frank about the mistakes he made on Iraq and what we need to do to fix things. Think we can get you to vote for a Democrat? 😉

    • Not THAT Democrat.

      As for Dr. Paul’s stance on abortion, actually, on a Federal level it matches my own: he’s against a Federal abortion ban, and believes (as do I) that it should be an issue for the states. Nothing in the Constitution gives the Federal government the power to decide this issue.

      Let the states handle it.

  2. I’m voting blind hypocrisy. I’m a terrible misanthrope and in my experience people tend not to have any coherent political outlook and simply have their heads full of slogans and easily-digested bumper-sticker stances.

    I support abortion, but the pro-lifers’ argument is (or can be) consistent with libertarian philosophy.

    If a fetus/baby/whatever you want to call it is a person, that has rights, then killing it is murder, woman’s convenience or not. It’s not about sticking hands in a uterus or whatever the slogans say–it’s about protecting the rights of the unborn child, to them.

    I disagree, and think philosophy of mind really comes into play here, but Paul’s personal abortion stance is respectable.

    Naturally, abortion should be a state issue anyway. The fact that this issue has been done to death and different regions of the country have people that view the issue so differently is precisely why we have states and state jurisdictions in the first place!

    As for John Edwards, uuuuugh. Not only are most of his policies terrible, but his opposition to Iraq, like most politicians, is out of sheer convenience. The fact that he is yet another politician banging the drums for war with Iran should clue you in about him… Iraq is a symptom of a much greater problem, although it’s being packaged as THE problem.

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