In it we learn that neo-conservatives philosophy is based on Machiavellianism. It’s the elitist mentality that neo-cons know what is good for all citizens and can morally (in their eyes) use all means necessary to reach that perceived good. We also learn that the roots of neo-conservatism come from the left.

Now that Usama bin Laden nightmare is dead the neo-conservatives need a new nightmare to justify the continued global war on terror. At first they tried to spread general fear about a retaliatory strike. This is a real and genuine fear; however, it isn’t quite enough for them. They need a face of terror–a single person. Initial indications are this new face of terror will be Usama’s 20 year old son Hamza. He already has a nickname, “The Crown Prince of Terror” as evidenced in this recent article from The Telegraph:

Hamza, thought to be the youngest of the Saudi-born warlord’s sons, has been described as the “crown prince of terror”. He featured on an extremist website to mark the third anniversary of the July 7 London bombings in which 52 people died. He read a poem called for “destruction” of America, Britain, France and Denmark.

Intelligence agencies believe he was being groomed as a possible future leader of al-Qaeda.

He was implicated in the assassination of moderate Pakistani leader Benazir Bhutto in 2007.

Well, it didn’t take them very long did it? Hopefully it won’t take 10 years, billions of dollars, and countless lives, to find bin Laden 2.0. No doubt we will begin hearing about how the son is even more evil than the parent was.

In any case, I long for the day when our troops can come home from all over the world and we can expend our resources on true defense and better intelligence-gathering rather than the expensive nation-sitting we do now.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dK8Y2nO_8TM

Compare that interview with the rather hard-hitting tough journalistic interview Judge Andrew Napolitano did last night with The other Donald:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-cqq-WxhRM

And here is the Judge after the interview, saying that Rumsfeld described the interview as the “toughest” he’s had. I’m thinking he wishes he’d rather be asked if he’s a lizard by Louis CK than be interviewed by the Judge again.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gpYe0MgEsI0

During Trump’s speech there were some vocal activists shouting out Ron Paul’s name, among other things. At one point when Trump mentioned there were no good GOP candidates the shouts of Ron Paul became too much for him. The video below shows what happened:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H_-0hMID67A

Yes, the out-of-touch celebrity with lots of money reacts by telling the crowd that Ron Paul has zero chance of winning. I immediately said something that was later echoed by Rand Paul, “Trump has an even less of a chance of winning than Ron Paul”. That was only the beginning.

Next, Rand Paul delivered his excellent speech highlighted by the following quote, “If you refuse to acknowledge that there’s any waste in the military budget, you are a big government conservative.” Watch Rand Paul’s entire speech here.

Immediately following Rand Paul’s speech, it was time for the presentation of the Defender of the Constitution award to none other than Donald Rumsfeld. Giving Rummy this award is the equivalent of giving Ron Paul the Warmonger of the Year award. It truly boggles the mind. This was, naturally, not lost on the Ron Paul faithful still in the ballroom. Some loud boos were heard. Some shouts of “war monger” were heard. And a great number of people just stood up and walked silently out of the room in protest.

My initial take on this is that it’s OK to boo and shout from the point of introduction up to the point where the speech begins. Then the respectful thing to do would be to be silent or walk out silently. The minute you interfere with their speech you are being a thief of free speech and that’s not very libertarian is it?

However, this is Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld we are talking about. Do they deserve respect? Perhaps if they respected human liberty and actually defended the Constitution those boos today would have been cheers instead.

After dinner we attended the Liberty Forum with Ron Paul, Rand Paul, Jack Hunter, and Thomas Woods. It was a laid-back affair and enjoyable but was without the fiery speeches that marked last year’s Liberty Forum at CPAC when Judge Andrew Napolitano brought the house down with his great speech. I for one missed the Judge tonight.

Day 1 of CPAC was quite eventful. I’m sure tomorrow will bring more interesting moments. Ron Paul speaks in the main ballroom tomorrow afternoon and the cerebral strategists and the balls-to-the-wall activists will be there to applaud, cheer, or jeer. No matter what the media writes or other conservatives say, the goal will always be to promote liberty in the best way they as individuals see fit. And no matter the results, at least they are out here doing something for the cause of freedom.

http://ohmygodronpaulwilleatallofourbabiesandourbabiesbabiesandtheirbabiesbabiesuntiltherearenobabiesleft.com/

————————–

By Richard Deekbag

What a joke! All these idiots complaining about their junk being touched by the TSA. I say we should just stand there and take it like real men. I say, “If it’s for national security then TOUCH MY JUNK, PLEASE!!” It’s the patriotic thing to do. If you opt-out of the junk-touching then the terrorists win, pure and simple. If you opt-out of the junk-touching then you hate America!!

I do think there is room for the TSA to improve this process though. It appears that all females get to be felt up by female TSA agents and all males get to be fondled by male TSA agents. This is a discriminatory practice. The TSA should ask the traveler if he or she is a homosexual. If the answer is affirmative then the traveler should be appropriately touched by a member of the opposite sex.

Yes, all touching in the name of national security is appropriate. Other than that small change I applaud the great work of the TSA over the past few weeks. The skies are infinitely safer and there can be no one who says they aren’t friendlier with this policy in place. In fact, they just published a children’s book to help children adapt to the new policy. Here’s is the cover:

This is a great effort by the TSA. They didn’t have to do this. In fact I heartily recommend you contact the TSA via their TalktoTSA website and let them know how much you appreciate them caring enough to do a free hernia check on children as well as adult air travelers. They are so damn good at it they don’t even ask you to turn your head and cough!

Now let’s turn our attention to the terrorist-harboring, enemy combatant-infested, treasonous organization known as Wikileaks. The bottom line is that everyone associated with Wikileaks should be waterboarded for fun and then executed. As patriotic Americans we cannot tolerate having the truth told about government lies. We must protect the lies! These bald-faced lies are crucial for national security!

The American people need to understand that truth is treason when it comes to protecting the homeland. They act like the government exists solely for them! How utterly ridiculous! They need to pay attention in the public school classroom so they learn some important lessons about their government.

Government is their God and their God is good. America is not a nanny-state as some say. It is a God-state. It always does what’s in the citizenry’s best interest whether they like it or not. Everything it touches turns into a success story! All the wars are won and over quickly. There is very little national debt. The budget is balanced year after year, when adjusted for inflation. And of course, the government protects the free market by regulating it perfectly! But I digress.

Here is something that cannot be just a coincidence. Head of WikiLeaks, Julian Assange has a curious middle name. It is a name he has in common with another man who is wrong on every damn thing. Assange’s middle name is Paul. I, am of course, talking about the crazy, kooky, and quixotic Congressman from Texas, Ron Paul.

It’s obvious that Ron Paul needs to have his head examined. Paul has come out in support of Wikileaks revealing the truth about our government. This amounts to treason. Congress recently censured Charlie Rangel for ethics violations. His violations pale in comparison to Ron Paul’s constant violations. Ron Paul should be censured and thrown out of Congress. After all he actually believes in and follows the Constitution. How utterly ridiculous!

So to recap, Americans should live by these tenets:

1. The first person to use “National Security” as an excuse, always wins!
2. Touch my junk, please! It’s patriotic!
3. Touch my junk, please! Or the terrorists win!
4. Julian Paul Assange should get a medal… tied around his neck and be dropped from a plane over the Pacific Ocean.
5. Truth is treason, government lies must remain secret! It’s patriotic!
6. Truth is treason, government lies must remain secret! Or the terrorists win!
7. Ron Paul believes in the Constitution. Censure Him!! And don’t get me started on his supporters.

America! F@%& YEAH!,

Richard Deekbag

————

Please take some time to watch video of the debate embedded below. It truly demonstrates the dividing line between non-intervention and intervention. Both Fein and Kuhner provide excellent arguments, however I feel that Fein missed an opportunity to point out a serious flaw in Kuhner’s interventionist logic.

First, Kuhner does not dispute and therefore admits Fein’s assertion that the war on terror is a perpetual war. Later, Kuhner cites putting the Japanese in interment camps during WWII was a necessary and temporary evil. He argues that during times of war we must be willing to sacrifice some of our liberties so that we can be more free down the road once the fighting is over.

Fein could have jumped on this point by asking Kuhner the following question:

If we are in a perpetual war aren’t the civil liberties sacrifices we are making also permanent?

Equating the war on terror with WWII is like saying Coca-cola and orange soda taste the same. I bet Kuhner and his interventionist peers would be unhappy if they ordered a Coke and were brought orange soda instead.

httpvp://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=60EDBA3CAFE9867F

William Kristol and Redstate.com’s, Erick Erickson are among those calling for Steele’s resignation. Here is what Steele said that drew their ire:

“Keep in mind again, for our federal candidates, this was a war of Obama’s choosing,” Steele said. “This is not something the United States had actively prosecuted or wanted to engage in.”

“It was the president who was trying to be cute by half by flipping a script demonizing Iraq, while saying the battle really should be in Afghanistan,” Steele said, referring to Obama’s insistence during the presidential campaign that the U.S. should be focused on Afghanistan instead of Iraq.

“Well, if he’s such a student of history, has he not understood that, you know, that’s the one thing you don’t do, is engage in a land war in Afghanistan? All right, because everyone who has tried, over a thousand years of history, has failed. And there are reasons for that. There are other ways to engage in Afghanistan.”

First of all, these remarks seem quite benign to me, especially since Steele clearly does not want to bring the troops home. He just disagrees with the method by which the war is being fought. However, it also seems to me that he’s going a bit Ron Paul here. He did pick up a copy of Paul’s “End the Fed” at CPAC earlier this year. Perhaps that is what his fellow neo-conservatives hear in his words. We all know how much they despise the truth, er… I mean, Ron Paul.

The Left (and Right) are attacking Steele too, for saying “this was a war of Obama’s choosing.” As much as they may not want to admit it, that statement is also true. The U.S had a presence in Afghanistan during the Bush years, but all the effort was happening in Iraq. The U.S. was doing little more than occupying Afghanistan at the time Obama was campaigning on taking the “necessary” fight away from Iraq and into Afghanistan and Pakistan. Then he followed through on that promise by increasing the forces in Afghanistan to nearly 100,000. Calling Steele a liar for saying it was a war of Obama’s choosing is willful ignorance.

I suppose politics wouldn’t be politics if politicians didn’t get fired (or forced to resign) for telling the truth.

Kristol ends his “Steele must resign” public letter with the following words:

There are, of course, those who think we should pull out of Afghanistan, and they’re certainly entitled to make their case. But one of them shouldn’t be the chairman of the Republican party.

Maybe one of them shouldn’t be the chairman of the neo-conservative wing of the Republican Party, but one of them most certainly should be the chairman of the Republican Party as a whole.

Neo-conservatives are the domestic terrorists of politics. They hijacked the conservative and traditional “Old Right” Republican Party from Taft, Goldwater, and Reagan. They were able to culture a Wilsonian foreign policy within the GOP ranks in the aftermath of 9/11.  Having a GOP chairman who’d like to pull American troops out of Afghanistan would mark the end of this Wilsonian, neo-conservative, hijacking. Keep in mind Steele never said he wanted to “pull out of Afghanistan”. This is an intellectually dishonest pre-emptive attack by Kristol. How appropriate for a neo-conservative.

For your further consideration:

Below you will find audio of conservative radio talk show host Jason Lewis excellently defending Steele and the “humble foreign policy” of our Founders on Independence Day (July 2nd). He even later name-drops Ron Paul as an example of a conservative who gets it.  If you’d like to listen to more of Lewis (and I highly recommend you do) see his “on demand” page. For those with little time, I’ve pulled some audio from his July 2nd show here:

Download audio file (jasonlewis-conservative-foreignpolicy-07022010.mp3)

Some may take issue with myself or Lewis including Ronald Reagan as one who practiced a “humble foreign policy”. In fact, many neo-conservatives idolize Ronald Reagan as a war hawk. But was he really a hawk?

For your further consideration, Jack Hunter on Reagan’s “hawkishness”:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HZICDg0FOUI

Even if Michael Steele is not going down the conversion process toward Ron Paul on foreign policy, the fact that these attacks and discussions are happening at all suggest the neo-conservatives may be shrinking in number with their backs against the wall.

Perhaps Obama’s plan for “change” will create change in a way he had not unintended. Maybe his brand of socialism and corporatism is clearing the way for  “Old Right” conservatives to grow in number and eventually wrestle the Republican Party back from its neo-conservative hijackers.

Yes, the day may come when we’ll see more and more lawmakers give speeches like this recent one from Ron Paul:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ij8x2issnpA

In his opening statements to the audience, Ash commented: “[The troops] also wonder why the President of the United States cannot bring himself to admit that the United States is in a long-term war with enemy jihadists, who seek to destroy us.” Several panelists, including the chief architect of the Patriot Act, went on to defend the Patriot Act as a set of wartime powers necessary to protecting freedom; as former Attorney General John Ashcroft had explained earlier in the day, “the purpose of security is to reinforce and enhance freedom.” Or, as George Orwell famously listed as a slogan of “the Party:” Freedom is Slavery.

To this, the short response is: If these “wartime powers” are so essential to maintain America’s national security and the freedoms of its citizens, why not declare a war? The heart of the matter, of course, runs much deeper. As Glenn Greenwald wrote in his New York Times bestseller, How Would A Patriot Act?, the goal is not to uphold or defend the Constitution at all, but rather to utilize fear to undermine it:    

“We do not have a government where the president can break the law in secret and then tell us not to worry about it because it is being done to “protect” us. We have never had a system of government operate on such paternalistic and blindly loyal sentiments. And we have never before been a nation living in such fear that, in exchange for promises of protection and safety, we are told that we must allow the president to seize those very powers which the Constitution prohibits.”

The guise, initially sold to the American public by Republican Party leadership, was that these powers would only be temporary. In the CPAC panel, Rep. Dan Lundgren [R-CA] said as much, proudly touting the fact that he helped to implement the so-called “sunset clauses” in the original legislation. However, this reassurance by the leadership of both parties of the validity of things called temporary wartime powers falls short, both historically and by the literal definition.

As has been evidenced by the history of government – and even if we restrict our study only to the history of American government – the government is very hesitant to cede any of the powers it fought so hard for, or any of the money it looted from the taxpayers. Consider the despicable practice of military conscription and the associated Selective Service System in the United States. The original Selective Service Act of 1917 was implemented under a declared war, but set the dangerous precedent that the federal government had the authority to force American citizens into military service without their consent. The draft was discontinued in 1920 at the completion of World War I; however, Selective Service was established as a government entity.

By the time World War II had begun, Selective Service was used as a resource to conscript male citizens, even before war had been declared. Drafting continued until 1946, and the Act of 1917 was allowed to expire shortly thereafter; however, a new Selective Service Act was passed in 1948, not only with no declared war, but absent the threat of one. Although the draft is not active today, the Selective Service System is still with us, and has transformed itself from a temporary wartime power to conscript into a permanent registration of citizens in a time of peace, required of anyone who wants a government loan or job.

The examples are seemingly endless: The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation was established in 1933 as a temporary government corporation, only necessary for recovery from the Great Depression, until it was made permanent in 1935. More than 500 dormant legal provisions are re-activated in every instance in which the President declares a state of emergency – most of which were created as temporary powers deemed necessary to deal with the crisis or threat of the day. More alarming, perhaps, is the fact that recent Presidents have utilized the “state of emergency” declaration for such imminent threats as swine flu.

Needless to say, the new powers conferred upon the President by the Patriot Act are unlikely to be documented by history as temporary powers, especially considering that it has now been reauthorized three times: in 2005 and 2006, and most recently this month, when Congress slipped the reauthorization inconspicuously into a bill called the “Medicare Physician Payment Reform Act.”

However, even if these gross atrocities against the Constitution and civil liberties were somehow necessary to defend the nation in a time of war, they would not be valid for the simple reason that we are not at war. Such a declaration would force the hands of government officials to either present these powers as the permanent injustices that they are, or to discontinue them at war’s end. As such, the endless “War on Terror” will continue undeclared: the current strategy affords the President the luxury of using the powers no Constitutional scholar knew he had, while shielding him from well-deserved ridicule and outrage for doing so. And, as both parties have demonstrated, neither is about to eliminate powers that “their President” might like to use once elected.

Unfortunately, members of the military are making the ultimate sacrifice, not for the national security of America, but for the job security of its politicians.

Quite often, however, the Constitution is lost on many when the topic of discussion turns to foreign policy and the so-called “War on Terror.” At a recent GOP primary debate that I attended (sponsored by the local Tea Party), several candidates were asked about national security, the role of America’s foreign policy, and what to do about the rising threat of Iran. Despite drooling over their love of the Constitution for the rest of the evening, the candidates didn’t mention the founding document once in their responses to these issues. One of the candidates, in fact, could be quoted as saying “If Israel bombed Iran, I’d slap them on the back and buy them a drink.” Several other candidates pledged their allegiance to defending Israel at all costs. Another candidate responded that the goal of American foreign policy should be to “help nations” and to “pressure nations that do not comply.” All of these statements drew more cheers than boos from the crowd.

From whence springs this disconnect between so-called “constitutionalists” and their eagerness to abandon all mention of the Constitution as it relates to our world empire? Since the GOP establishment takeover of the national Tea Party – seems funny that the rugged individualism that the Tea Party movement represents would even have a national organization, doesn’t it? – it seems that most of the Tea Parties have devolved into throngs of Republican dissenters who only take issue when “the other guy” is the one shredding the Constitution, while using the Amendments, clauses, and Founders’ quotes that support their agenda.

To start, any war is inherently unconstitutional unless formally declared. Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution grants Congress the power “To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water.” Despite the insistence among today’s neoconservatives to refer to Afghanistan and Iraq as “wars” rather than “occupations,” such a declaration has never been made. In fact, today’s “wars” resemble the Founders’ reason for granting the most crucial elements of foreign policy to Congress rather than to the executive branch. James Madison summarized it in an address to the Continental Congress:

“In time of actual war, great discretionary powers are constantly given to the Executive Magistrate. Constant apprehension of war, has the same tendency to render the head too large for the body. A standing military force, with an overgrown Executive will not long be safe companions to liberty.”

If the Tea Partiers are truly small-government conservatives who wish to know and adhere to the will of the Founders, they would do well to recognize that Mr. Madison’s words have come to fruition: Our head, the government, has become much too large for our national body. That standing military force stands not only within our borders, but in the far reaches of the globe. That overgrown Executive has been a constant over the last half-century, and has been no safe companion to liberty indeed. It is no less essential – and perhaps more so – to limit the powers of our government’s military conquest than it is to limit their power to spend, if a responsible government is the goal. Conservatives should demand, at the very least, that these wars be declared through the formal Congressional process.

Getting back to the actual language of the Constitution, however, provides an alternative to the wars altogether. Many objectors to declaring the war have stated that, because this war is on terrorism and not on a nation, it would be impossible to define the enemy in such a way as to make the declaration valid. (Apparently, the fact that Congress passed a resolution entitled “Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution of 2002” in lieu of formally declaring war on the nation is lost on these revisionists or those who lead them.) The Constitutional solution to such a war – a war on a multi-national terrorist organization with specific individual targets – is to use the second part of the aforementioned statement: Letters of Marque and Reprisal.

Remember the “deck of cards” employed by the Bush administration to identify the highest-ranking members of the Baath Party during the first few years of America’s occupation of Iraq? If the U.S. wanted to abide by its supreme law – and if George W. Bush wanted to uphold his noninterventionist campaign rhetoric – it would have gone after these targets specifically by issuing letters of marque and reprisal against each of them. These letters would have put bounties on the capture of these individuals, and mercenaries (or perhaps the Iraqi citizens themselves) would have been given ample incentive to bring these people to justice. Such a strategy would have cost us very little money, and very few American lives, when compared to our current state of affairs, and it would have kept the restrictive checks of the Constitution intact. A similar strategy could have been employed with Osama bin Laden, members of the Taliban, members of Hamas, and so on.

Tea Partiers, however, seem none too interested in hearing and processing the Constitutional merits of the Bush administration’s foreign policy decisions. Most often, such emotional appeals as “Everything changed on 9/11!” are utilized in defense of legal ignorance – as if, for the first 214 years of the Constitution, there were no organizations or individuals in the world with the desire or capability to incur violence upon citizens. Never mind that the first recorded incident of air sabotage occurred in 1933, that the Statue of Liberty was bombed by Croatian nationalists in 1980, or that “terrorism” as a term is indefinable and that a “war” on such a subversive tactic could never be won. Much like the federal “War on Drugs” or the “War on Poverty,” a war on an idea is perpetual so long as individualism creates differences of opinion, lifestyle, religion, and personal ability.

If Tea Partiers want to be influential and philosophically consistent, they will study and consider the Constitutional merits of all current political issues, not just those that advance their own political objectives. Ignoring the Founders’ words on foreign policy, while quoting them on domestic and fiscal issues, is hypocritical at best. Perhaps, at the very least, they will begin to make the serious inquiries on foreign policy that Ron Paul has raised: “Besides, how are we going to pay for it?”

The results can be found here, but if you’d rather not click over there…

————————————————-

So the neo-conservatives that were angered at Ron Paul’s performance in the CPAC straw poll now have another election to whine about. Ben Bernanke was probably hoping for a Paul loss as well.

There’s still hope for the anti-Ron Paul contingent though. They can campaign for the Democrat to unseat Paul in the general election. To that I say, good luck!

So if you believe Ron Paul is crazy on foreign policy I ask you to watch the following videos and learn why it’s quite possible Ron Paul is actually the sane and constitutional one on foreign policy.

If you don’t have 90 minutes to spare to watch both videos in their entirety then go to 16:55 of the 2nd video and just watch Jacob Hornberger’s speech. If you do have 90 minutes then please watch both parts in their entirety. This video is from last Saturday afternoon at CPAC 2010 from a panel discussion called, “Why Real Conservatives Are Against the War on Terrorism”.

The panel is made up of:

• Philip Giraldi, former CIA officer.
• Karen Kwiatkowski, retired U.S Air Force, Lieutenant Colonel whose assignments included duties as a Pentagon desk officer and a variety of roles for the National Security Agency.
• Bruce Fein, associate deputy attorney general from 1981 to 1982 under President Ronald Reagan.
• Jacob Hornberger, Founder and President of The Future of Freedom Foundation.

CPAC 2010: “Why Real Conservatives Are Against the War on Terrorism, Part 1″ from The Future of Freedom Foundation on Vimeo.

CPAC 2010: “Why Real Conservatives Are Against the War on Terrorism, Part 2″ from The Future of Freedom Foundation on Vimeo.

I then made my way to the friendly environs of the Young Americans for Liberty Youth Summit. This young group of American patriots left me impressed. There is no doubt that these students of today will be the liberty leaders of tomorrow.

Following the summit was a panel of speakers discussing why good conservatives are anti-war. The room was packed with two rows of people standing in the back. Philip Girardi, Karen Kwiatkowski, Bruce Fein, and Jacob Hornberger took turns speaking. All were excellent, but for me, Jacob Hornberger, was the best at clearly articulating all of the major arguments for a non-interventionist foreign policy. He did it with passion. It rivaled Judge Napolitano’s speech from the Liberty Forum the other night.

As I was sitting there amongst my libertarian-conservative brethren I couldn’t help but dream that some day maybe a panel like this will be in the main ballroom and the interventionists would be the smaller wing of the party relegated to a tertiary room during the conference. In fact, taking my dream further, I think it would be appropriate to one day see a lone neo-conservative “activist” handing out paper flyers to people preaching an interventionist foreign policy, only to see every single flyer crumpled up in the trash later in the day.

Upon leaving the talk I noticed a long throng of people waiting to get into the main ballroom. I chose not to wait in the line and instead sat down in a nice comfortable chair inside one of the overflow rooms to await the straw poll results and to watch Glenn Beck’s closing keynote.

After enduring a few speakers it was time to announce the straw poll results. As the data was revealed bit by bit my excitement grew because the data being presented suggested a potential Paul victory. The kicker was Jim DeMint getting the most votes for the best “image” poll. DeMint is a huge backer of Ron Paul’s Federal Reserve audit and I knew that there was no one else on the list that a Ron Paul person could support.

When they revealed the poll results, sure enough, Ron Paul won with 31% of the vote. This drew loud boos from the main ballroom, but in my overflow room there were mostly clapping and cheers. If you boo Ron Paul then you boo your Constitution.

CPAC offers a Saturday only pass, which is likely the reason, there were so many boos in the ballroom. The Saturday pass people filled up the main room early in the afternoon, then around 4pm I witnessed a volunteer tell people that it was unlikely that they would get in to the main room. This left many Ron Paul supporters filtering into the overflow rooms.

The straw poll results are not a true measure of a candidates likelihood of winning. The results demonstrate that Ron Paul has one of the most active and dedicated group of supporters in the Republican Party. Paul was the leading straw poll winner during his presidential campaign of 2008. This win could mark the 1st win for his 2012 campaign, if he chooses to run again.

Then it was time for Glenn Beck. There are many Ron Paul supporters who despise Beck. I’m not one of them. I think Beck is really good at what he does and he proved it last night. He hammered on Republicans and Democrats. He utilized some Ron Paul (and Tom Woods) talking points.

First, he educated people on the recession of 1920-1921 and compared it to the Great Depression showing that cutting spending and lower taxes help the economy. Then, in the only portion of his speech that touched on foreign policy, he professed we shouldn’t go overseas looking to spread democracy. Instead, Beck said we should set an example for other countries to emulate. I suppose I could have done without the now ubiquitous “morning in America” Reagan homage and hearing him say “I love Dick Cheney” just before being critical of good ole’ sure-shot Dick.

You can watch the entire Beck speech here at CSPAN.

You can view the full CPAC 2010 Straw Poll results here [PDF].

I leave CPAC with hope for the future of America. As long as organizations like the Campaign for Liberty and the Young Americans for Liberty exist, there will always be hope for freedom.

The idea would be to trade in America’s my-gun-is-bigger-than-yours foreign policy for a more constitution-oriented, defense-focused effort. Sure, it would permit the terrorists to openly claim victory. So what? This is the kind of victory that, in the end, helps reduce terrorism. Once victorious, what is their recruiting incentive?

I know what you’re thinking: “But they hate us because we are free! They’ll just continue what they are doing!”

“They hate us because we are free” is the neo-conservative equivalent of the “truther” claim that “9/11 was an inside job”. Just because it becomes a convenient narrative for pundits on either side doesn’t necessarily make it true.

Read Robert Pape, Michael Scheuer (former head of CIA’s Osama bin Laden unit), or Osama bin Laden himself to find out that the real motivation for Al-Qaeda is our persistent interventions in the Middle East.

Even if the “freedom hate” argument were true, is that hate deep enough to turn non-extremist Muslims into suicide bombers? Successful suicide bombers do not live very long. New recruits are always needed. It’s an infinitely easier path toward graduating from the University of Al-Qaeda with a degree in suicide bombing if the instructors can point to America as an occupier, torturer, and murderer. Without America’s presence Al-Qaeda leaders would have zero credibility if they attempted to paint America with such a brush. Continuing our interventions gives their leaders perfect suicide bomber recruit-fodder.

I find it sadly humorous that Obama gets criticized from the Right on foreign policy. They label him weak, yet he’s merely continuing the same policies that made Bush a hero to those very same people. Hypocrisy abounds. The original Tea Party was made up of patriots who protested an overseas intervention. Today the Tea Parties are over-run with a faction, commonly called “tea-ocons”, that supports America behaving like Britain did back in the 1770′s. These are flawed principles unworthy of the Tea Party moniker.

Many people who oppose government-run health care love to point out how government is inept at everything it does. You’ll get no argument from me on that, but if that is true then why do many of these people also believe that the government can be successful in bullying the world toward freedom? It’s an absurd notion. To win the “War on Terror” we must withdraw and call it a tactic for victory rather than a strategy for admitting defeat.

Once the bully’s gun rises, liberty becomes impossible.