Paul: 1, Giuliani: 0
Alexander S. Peak16 May 2007
After the GOP Presidential Debate on Fox News Tuesday Night, Fox News conducted a survey which concluded that U.S. House Representative Dr. Ron Paul (Texas) and Governor Mitt Romney (Massachusetts) won the debate against the eight other opponents. This is, of course, great news for the supporters of these two candidates.
However, much of the excitement of the night involved former New York mayor Rudolph Giuliani, who used a straw-man argument against Dr. Paul. Giuliani stated, in reply to Dr. Paul’s comments, “That’s really an extraordinary statement, as someone who lived through the attack of September 11th, that we invited the attack because we were attacking Iraq.”
But where did Paul state that we “invited” the attacks? What Paul did was explain their motivation for attacking us, i.e. our interventionist foreign policy, or more specifically, our continued presence in the Middle East.
Libertarians had been saying for generations that our offensive foreign policy would come back to haunt us, that our reckless policy of foreign interventionism may someday lead to tragic, deadly attacks against the United States and its citizens. September 11th, 2001 unfortunately proved us libertarians correct.
Paul simply acknowledged the truth: that our foreign policy spurred the attacks. Mr. Giuliani’s use of the term “invited” implies that Paul is of the opinion that the attacks were just, and thus Giuliani employed a straw-man argument.
A straw-man argument is a logical fallacy wherein a person or persons will claim that his, her, or their opponent or opponents believe in something that they do not actually believe in. This is the straw-man. Subsequently, the person or persons arguing can tear down the straw-man easily, while never having to argue against the actual position held by his, her, or their opponents.
Dr. Paul’s comments were extremely important, as they highlight the key for protecting American interests. This key is, clearly, not to continue a failed foreign policy, a foreign policy which spurs terrorist rebellion, but instead to return to a sound foreign policy, a foreign policy of non-interventionism as advocated by our Founders.
Giuliani’s unwillingness to even consider these points just goes to show how disconnected he is from the American people.
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