ZGram - 3/11/2003 - "Ron Paul: A Far-Right Texan Inspires Antiwar Left"

[irimland@zundelsite.org]

ZGram - Where Truth is Destiny

March 11, 2003

Good Morning from the Zundelsite:

A lot of readers have complained to me that they have been dropped 
from my ZGram list.  We are still having technical problems.  Please 
check and try to subscribe again within a week.  It is not my fault, 
and we are trying to fix our malaise.  Meanwhile, check for updates 
on the Zundelsite, and please don't get mad at me or think I 
disregard your loyalty.  I am so swamped with work I sometimes eat 
breakfast in late afternoon.

To get today's ZGram out of the way, I send you this - an update on a 
man I have long admired.  Ron Paul, to me, is the quintessential 
American - the kind I used to encounter when I was still on the road 
as a freelance writer and convention speaker and did lots and lots of 
programs for Rotarians. 

I guess these days I would have a hard time getting a speaking 
invitation at a Rotary Luncheon if I tried to tell them that my 
husband has been kidnapped through the interference of another 
country and now is held as a hostage for an American website.  Want 
to bet?

[START]

A Far-Right Texan
Inspires Antiwar Left

By SHAILAGH MURRAY
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

WASHINGTON -- A far-right Republican congressman from Texas is 
looking like a voice of reason to the antiwar left.

Ron Paul is a political iconoclast who takes his libertarian ideology 
seriously. He's a cheerful advocate of all sorts of unpopular causes 
like abolishing the federal minimum wage and returning to the gold 
standard.

That few of his ideas will ever catch on doesn't deter him one bit. 
Rep. Paul's nickname is "Dr. No" because he votes against so many 
things, often alone. Despite his lack of clout in Congress, he ran as 
the Libertarian Party's presidential candidate in 1988, drawing less 
than one half of 1% of the vote.

But on an Iraq war Mr. Paul is finding plenty of allies, especially 
at the other end of the political spectrum. Unlike his fellow Texas 
Republican in the White House, the retired obstetrician believes 
Saddam Hussein poses no direct threat to Americans and wants the U.S. 
to mind its own business. A fiscal conservative, he also believes the 
country can't afford the war's potentially staggering cost.

"Ultimately, our money, weapons, and interventionist policies never 
buy us friends for long," Mr. Paul wrote in one of his recent 
columns, which are published on a range of Web sites, including 
libertarian and Christian. "And more often we simply arm our future 
enemies."

Rep. Paul attracts special attention across the Atlantic, far more 
than in the mainstream U.S. media that largely ignores him. Writings 
such as his 35 "Questions That Won't Be Asked About Iraq" have 
appeared in French, German, Russian, Italian and Swiss publications. 
The congressman's 3,200-word "Statement Opposing the Use of Military 
Force in Iraq" was posted on the progressive New Zealand publication 
Scoop, two days after its Oct. 8 delivery on the House floor.

Mr. Paul has even inspired an antiwar group, the Washington-based 
National Peace Lobby Project. It was formed Feb. 6 to promote a 
resolution introduced by Mr. Paul and Oregon Democrat Peter DeFazio 
that would repeal the authorization of military force in Iraq that 
Congress granted to Mr. Bush last year.

Project founder Jenifer Deal is a Washington actress and D.C. Green 
Party official. "What we have here is a nexus of ideological 
concerns," Ms. Deal says of her alliance with Mr. Paul. It doesn't 
faze her that she disagrees with the congressman on almost every 
other subject. "If he were a fascist Klansman, I would obviously have 
misgivings," she says. "But I actually think Ron Paul has tremendous 
moral courage."

Mr. Paul's aggressive stand, a stark contrast to most mainstream 
politicians reluctant to challenge the president, hasn't hurt him 
with his southeast Texas constituents -- in fact, he is more popular 
than ever.

In November, weeks after joining just five other Republicans voting 
against giving Mr. Bush authority to go to war, Mr. Paul was 
re-elected with 68% of the vote. It was his most lopsided victory 
ever. "It's so clear where he is, and that works for him," says Rep. 
Lloyd Doggett, a liberal Texas Democrat from an adjoining district.

Mr. Paul believes that, privately, he has much broader support within 
his party. "If this had been a Clinton war, the majority of 
Republicans would be with me," he says, noting that most of his 
colleagues refused to support North Atlantic Treaty Organization 
airstrikes in Kosovo.

Mr. Paul's swath of rural Texas stretches southeast from Austin to 
the Gulf of Mexico. The region is populated by farmers and small-town 
folk who voted twice against President Clinton and overwhelmingly 
backed Mr. Bush. Mr. Doggett describes the mood as "rugged 
individualism and independence of the Texas frontier spirit."

Mr. Paul, in an interview, attributes his record re-election margin 
to the combined forces of independent-minded "Ross Perot types" and 
Democrats who are upset that their national party leaders aren't 
rigorously challenging Mr. Bush on Iraq. Local Republicans, too, have 
misgivings about their former governor's actions. "I think people are 
a little apprehensive about what's going on," says Mary Wyatt, leader 
of the Republican Party in Victoria County. "President Bush has a 
tremendous level of support here, but everyone is concerned."

THE LONELY CRUSADER

Right-wing and antiwar, Ron Paul is in a category all to himself on 
Capitol Hill.

* Born: Aug. 20, 1935, in Pittsburgh

* Occupation: Obstetrician/Gynecologist

* Ideological Inconsistency: A libertarian who supports a government 
ban on abortion

* Political Inspirations: "Doctor Zhivago;" Austrian economist and 
free- marketeer Ludwig von Mises

* Radical Positions: Wants to abolish the IRS and federal drug laws

* Infamous Quote: "I fear, and there's a lot of people in this 
country who fear, that they may be bombed by the federal government 
at another Waco." -- (C-Span, February 1997)

Source: Congressional Quarterly

When the Texas Republican Party sent a questionnaire to state 
politicians in 2000 on core issues, Mr. Paul, 67 years old, wound up 
95% in sync with the party platform, helped by his opposition to 
abortion and his staunch support of gun-owners rights. Plus, there is 
his advocacy for the smallest possible government. He refused to 
accept Medicare and Medicaid when he ran his medical practice and 
won't apply for a government pension.

For all his Washington bashing, Mr. Paul is known in his district as 
an effective congressman. Paul staffers are whizzes at tracking down 
a Social Security check. And while he votes against all spending 
bills, he has found a way to deliver some of the highway and Army 
Corps of Engineering pork that his sprawling coastal district craves. 
He gets the money shifted from previously authorized funds that were 
originally directed elsewhere.

Don Truman, another Victoria Republican who runs a family storage 
business, didn't support Mr. Paul earlier in the legislator's career, 
but has grown to admire how he sticks to his beliefs. "He's 
consistent and he's a very honorable person," says Mr. Truman. 
"People are willing to give him a little more allowance on certain 
things because they respect him."

The goodwill isn't universal. Some Republicans have cast support for 
the war as a patriotic litmus test. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, 
also of Texas, last September called Mr. Bush's Iraq critics 
"hand-wringers and appeasers." Mr. Paul says he has never exchanged 
harsh words personally with his Republican colleagues. After Mr. Paul 
and the five other Republicans voted against the Iraq resolution, 
House Speaker Dennis Hastert said on Fox News that he respected the 
group's stance.

Mr. Paul doesn't even bother to attend the administration's war 
briefings: "I don't want to get confused by their propaganda." His 
alliance with the left -- the "NPR crowd," as aide Jeff Deist calls 
it -- makes him a little uncomfortable, but not so much that he's 
backing down. He may even attend an antiwar student rally in a few 
weeks, at the liberal oasis of the University of Colorado-Boulder.

(SOURCE:  http://online.wsj.com/article_email/0,,SB104725224693862700,00.html )