Represenative Ron Paul is marginalized by the party, mainstream media and portions of the blogosphere because he is the only true conservative republican running for president. He supports the constitution and believes that laws should be constitutional BEFORE they are passed. He supports minimal taxes, which has to pass constitutional muster. He supports Congress legally delcaring war, in accordance with the constitution, not passing the buck to the president etc. Representative Paul has voted agains all congressional pay raises, against tax increases, against illegal alien amnesty etc. Representative Paul does not live off the largess of lobbyists, and does not take vacations on the taxpayers dime. Representative Paul actually representst the PEOPLE of his district, not the Republican party, not Corporate america, not special interest groups.

The Bush administration is getting bashed by everybody about the war, huge percentages of americans are against it. Bushes own party is no longer happy about the war. Funny, that when Ron Paul speaks up against it though, he is marginalized.

Excellent Post! Ron Paul is not a "true" conservative; he is an isolationist. There is a huge difference. Sept 11th proved that the oceans no longer protect us. We are a free nation, and unless we are prepared to go lock down, then we must stay on the offensive.

Moreover, our economic security demands we fix what is/was broken. We can not pull out of Iraq because to do so means we leave behind the world's second largest oil field. We leave it to Iran or Syria. Not to mention the civil war which could engulf the whole region, threating to raise oil prices.

We can't get out of the Middle East because our economy is tied to oil and the oil is there. Believe me if we were drilling here and building new refineries, I'd be happy to talk about it, but as long as the Dems are blocking new production and refining capibilites, then leaveing the irrational Muslims to their destructive civil wars is nothing more than a pipe dream.

That David Hasslehoff song is ringing in head, "I lookin' for freeeeedom!"

http://www.youtube.com/verify_age?next_url=/watch%3Feurl%3Dhttp%253A%252F%252Fdigbysblog.blogspot.com%252F2007%252F05%252Fliberation-by-digby-video-is-shaky-but.html%26v%3D77-6OMB50Vo

Bush has freed the people of Iraq. Freed them to exercise their religeous beliefs.

Paul is "marginalized" by his views, which are clearly over the margins. He doesn't give a rip for the Constitution. The Constitution grants great leeway on the pursuit of our foreign policy; Paul would place extreme limits upon it, ones never contemplated by the Founders. Washington's admonition against "entangling alliances" was directed against treaties which would draw us into someone else's war by default (granted, one could consider NATO and SEATO such alliances), NOT against acting in our own self interests.

This isn't someone else's war or some treaty organization's war. It's OUR war.

If Paul's insane policies had been America's from the end of WWII, we would be living in Soviet America today, and the world would be communist - because Libertarians wouldn't lift a finger until they were coming up the Mississippi in rowboats.

It's hard to "marginalize" a moron like that. I'll give Ron Paul this much: by serving in Congress, he is saving lives. How many people would he be treating as a physician if he weren't stroking his ego in DC? They don't know how lucky they are . . .