SmallGovTimes.com

By: Steve Adcock | Published on 10/21/07    

Anyone who watched the Fox News-sponsored presidential debate Sunday night surely took notice of the booing that ensued during Ron Paul's discussion of America's policy of interventionism and meddling in the affairs of other nations. Certainly nobody likes to be booed, but are those boos indicative of a candidate who represents a positive future for America?

Paul correctly noted that America's foreign policy is outrageously expensive, and without huge funding funneled towards an already-bureaucratic military, we simply will not be able to afford our current course of action around the world.

Paul also opined, much to the disgust of the Republican audience, that America cannot so much as defend our own cities, but yet we are “prancing” around the world. Add to that the fact that the United States appears clearly unable or unwilling to protect our own borders, but yet we feel it necessary to defend the borders of other nations.

The more we continue to ignore the clear problems facing America, the longer it will take to pick our nation up out of the literal abyss of big government. It seemed the Republican crowd cheered during Rudy Giuliani's speech, which just so happened to include huge increases in military spending, but booed during Paul's, which included criticism of our extended and expensive foreign policy that meddles in the affairs of other nations.

To the audience and the majority of the Republican party, the remedy to virtually any foreign policy issue is to spend, spend, and spend some more. The party that is supposed to be fiscally Conservative cannot help but stumble over themselves when the subject turns to foreign policy expenditures. To Giuliani, regardless of if it works or not, the solution is money. The solution is taxpayer money.

Boo as you wish, dear Republicans, but your reaction to small government put forth by Dr. Paul places you in the same category as your dreaded opponents, the Democrats. You are part of the problem, not the solution. The only difference between the Republicans and the Democrats, of course, is the location of those dollar signs. Democrats love to socialize domestic initiatives, and Republicans love to socialize our foreign policy with the use of our men and women proudly serving in the military.

The more the Republicans boo Ron Paul, the more I am convinced that Paul is spot on. The more Republicans boo small government, a subject which is clearly foreign to many of them, the more I know that big government is going to prevail with each new Republican, or Democrat, in the White House. The booing tells me that the Republican Party is clearly not ready to embrace what change is and what it means to our supposedly-free society.

Boo as much as you like, but the more booing you do, the bigger our federal government becomes. I can only hope that one day, you will take that energy required to boo the only small government candidate in the field and instead devote it to the cause of freedom, of small government and our long, lost Constitution.

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