September, 08 2008, 05:00pm EDT
Ron Paul Revolution Against Empire and Draft
Matt Welch of Reason.com, says Ron Paul's supporters feel shut out of political process
WASHINGTON
In a recent interview with Matt Welch, editor-in-chief of Rreason.com, he says the Republican Party has changed since the 1990s when it was against nation building and was opposed to President Clinton's attempts to use military abroad. He says the modern Republican Party has changed significantly on this issue and Ron Paul was the only person in the primary campaigns vocal on the issue of pulling out of Iraq.
Welch says the support behind Paul is mainly due to his central message: "He has a simple three-pronged message, 'I don't want to manage your money, I don't want to manage your lives, I don't want to manage the world, I don't want to run the world', basically, that has great resonance to a lot of people in an era where the American federal government runs any number of things along those lines. So he was able to attract people from all over the political spectrum."
In his speech, Paul says America has weakened its national defense and those who want to reinstitute the empire will reinstitute the draft. Welsh says Paul was only trying to excite his audience and that the draft is not something McCain is interested in reinstituting. "He is sounding an alarm for something that is not necessarily likely to happen. John McCain is actually pretty explicitly anti-draft for a variety of reasons, but both he and Obama want to increase the military pretty significantly, and spend a lot more money on the military, and put aside a more, sort of, permanent war footing."
Watch the full story on The Real News Network
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