FreeRepublic on Paul's Support for Military Cuts

[RonPaulFanInGA]

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2623211/posts

A surprisingly mixed bag of comments.

[S.Shorland]

America really is a polarised place,isn't it? RP is going to have a very tough time of it.I hope he chooses to be guided by his principles because he certainly won't be able to avoid upsetting multitudes.If you give up principle for expediency,you won't ever be taken seriously when you try to stand on principle again. $600 BILLION.More than half the World's $1100 Billion defence expenditure.Why do you need bases in Europe,Japan? When you go broke,you'll be screaming for the troops to come home in disarray.

[Adrock]

I would say about 50/50 in the comments. I also found it interesting that the rest of the conservative blogosphere didn't say boo about it (hot air, aceofspades, Michelle Malkin, Ann Coulter, Redstate, Townhall).

[amy31416]

America really is a polarised place,isn't it? RP is going to have a very tough time of it.I hope he chooses to be guided by his principles because he certainly won't be able to avoid upsetting multitudes.If you give up principle for expediency,you won't ever be taken seriously when you try to stand on principle again. $600 BILLION.More than half the World's $1100 Billion defence expenditure.Why do you need bases in Europe,Japan? When you go broke,you'll be screaming for the troops to come home in disarray.

We'll see how he votes, eh?

[sailingaway]

Fox news comments are going crazy, as well.

http://www.markorton.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/us_vs_world-miltary-spending.gif

[ronaldo23]

This will probably be the first major distinction seen by mainstream America between Rand and Marco Rubio, with regards to the freshman tea-partiers. If I remember correctly, Rubio was campaigning on our need to further subsidize Israel and even increase the size of our military, and so I can't imagine he would support defense cuts.

[american.swan]

I think Rand has a very different problem than his father. Ron Paul can just vote NO on basically EVERYTHING and Rand Paul can do the same. That's fine. Where things get sticky, is the ability to hold up bills.

What bills do you block? Which ones do you just vote NO on? The senate is a completely different animal. You have 100 senators all blocking and pushing their pet projects. There has to be more communication going on between senators. This is why Senators are called in the middle of the night to vote on bills they've never heard about. How else are they going to get stuff passed? If the midnight phone calls would stop, and the Senate just follows their own rules, a whole lot less would get done and that would be FANTASTIC.

[sailingaway]

Rand has to be circumspect right now. The left is trying to build a case for getting rid of the filibuster. That is the entirety of what that 'he will shut down government' nonsense was about -- ignoring that 41 would have to vote that way, not 1. They want to do it in the lame duck session, or else pass raising the debt limit in the lame duck session -- which would get rid of leverage for cuts for at least...oh, 8 months or so until they run through their next credit card limit.

[low preference guy]

Rand has to be circumspect right now. The left is trying to build a case for getting rid of the filibuster. That is the entirety of what that 'he will shut down government' nonsense was about -- ignoring that 41 would have to vote that way, not 1. They want to do it in the lame duck session, or else pass raising the debt limit in the lame duck session -- which would get rid of leverage for cuts for at least...oh, 8 months or so until they run through their next credit card limit.

there is no limit to how much they can increase the ceiling by, right?

[sailingaway]

there is no limit to how much they can increase the ceiling by, right?

Right. You'd just hear the horse laugh coming from the other countries having no intention of extending us decent credit beyond what they think will be paid back.

[CheezItsRule]

I would say about 50/50 in the comments. I also found it interesting that the rest of the conservative blogosphere didn't say boo about it (hot air, aceofspades, Michelle Malkin, Ann Coulter, Redstate, Townhall).

Here's Redstate:

http://www.redstate.com/daveoconnor/2010/11/07/defense-a-right-wing-sacred-cow/