Chris K. sends me an excerpt from the latest issue of "Imprimis," the neocon newsletter published by Hillsdale College. In particular, he highlights a ridiculous smear of Ron Paul by one Charles Kessler, the Harvard-educated professor of government at Claremont McKenna College and editor of the rabidly pro-war and pro-state Claremont Institute's "Review of Books" (Rumsfeld was the winner of Claremont's "statesman of the year" trophy last year). Here's the smear:
"From . . . the libertarian point of view, or the view associated this year with Ron Paul -- every dollar that government spends comes at the cost of freedom. The premise of this view is that government and freedom are opposites -- that all government is oppression. By this way of thinking, limited government is simply limited oppression . . . . Interestingly, this notion does not come originally from any libertarian thinker or friend of freedom. It comes from Machiavelli, the great analyst of open and hidde power, of force and fraud."
"Against this view stand the America founders . . ."
Kessler is telling a Machiavellian lie. He's not that stupid. He knows that if Ron Paul is known for anything he's known for his devotion to constitutional government. Kessler knows that that includes Article I, Section 8, which delineates the delegated or legitimate powers of the federal government, as granted to it by the citizens of the sovereign states. He knows that Ron Paul is therefore not an anarchist. He's heard him say during the GOP debates that he's for a strong national defense that defends America, for instance, and that he carries a copy of the Constitution around with him everywhere he goes.
Kessler is lying through his teeth. He's a fake and a fraud masquerading as some kind of expert on "the founders." What a pile of horse manure the Claremont Institute is. Claremont supports the war in Iraq and the Wilsonian policy of endles war in the name of "democracy" and "nation building." And they have the chutzpah to tell the Big Lie that "the founders," presumably including Washington and Jefferson, would supposedly approve.
