My Letter to National Review Magazine re: Why Is Everyone at National Review Anti-Ron Paul?

From: patrickbarron@msn.com
To: letters@nationalreview.com
Subject: Why Is Everyone at National Review Anti-Ron Paul?
Date: Sat, 4 Feb 2012 09:37:12 -0500

Dear Sirs:
I just read the third anti-Ron Paul diatribe in your magazine in two days; this one by Mark Steyn, titled "Paul the Parochial". This follows Kevin Williamson's "Courting the Cranks" and Rob Long's insultingly titled "The Constitution and the Coot". It pains me very much to read these articles, especially since I find nothing in them to justify such an editorial policy. Frankly, when I saw Mark Steyn's piece I thought that perhaps I really was blind to something about Dr. Paul and/or his campaign that I should reconsider. But I found nothing. Instead I found this:

After criticizing the waste and futility of our endless wars, Mr. Steyn writes, "...if I truly mean what I wrote in the paragraph above, then Paul's my man." But, of course, Dr. Paul isn't his man.

Then he criticizes Dr. Paul for being hesitant to exact nuclear vengeance when he writes, "Does that sound like a president who'd drop the big one on Kandahar, never mind Beijing?" Well, I certainly hope our president is hesitant!

Mr. Steyn follows this by asserting that Dr. Paul's promise to end the wars will not really save the U.S. much money, that such a policy is isolationist, and we will be blamed for things we have nothing to do with just like the British are blamed decades after they intervened in these regions. Apparently Mr. Steyn's rationale is if we're going to be blamed anyway we might as well continue intervening.

I looked in vain for a consistent thread of logic or some overlooked trait that would be a deal killer for my support of Dr. Paul. Instead I found this confusing ending, which I quote:

"I wish I could like Ron Paul more, really I do. But libertarian narcissism is as banal as any other strain. Ten years of desultory, inconclusive, transnationally constrained warmongering is certainly a problem. But know-nothing parochial delusion is not the solution."

Now, if anyone can explain the thread of logic in such an ending statement, I'm all ears.

Patrick Barron