As I view the contradictory and relativist muddle that is the Ron Paul presidential campaign, I am grateful that I eschewed libertarianism as a political principle in favor of constitutional conservatism. Notwithstanding that, I confess finding much to admire about Ron Paul, the 1988 Libertarian Party presidential nominee.

He is a M. D. specializing in obstetrics, pro-life, who served his country as an Air Force flight surgeon.

He is adamant about abolishing much of the federal government based upon lack of constitutional foundation and ineptness and inefficiency. Here’s a list of things Paul wants to end because they have had failures in the past, or he sees them as useless:

the CIA,

the FBI,

the Department of Homeland Security,

the FDA,

the IRS,

Medicare,

DEA,

Our membership in the UN,

in NATO,

in NAFTA

in CAFTA.

That’s the short list.

This is my biggest problem with Ron Paul. He offers no constructive thoughts, only destructive ones. He doesn’t think a single thing can be made to work if it failed even once.

Bad intelligence information on terrorism? Abolish the questioned agency completely, don’t try to reform it.

All the same, you have to admire a guy who is familiar with the more obscure portions of the US constitution. I refer to Article 1, section 8. There it says the Congress shall have the power to declare war but also (in an obscure portion) “to grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal.” This issue was raised by Dr. Paul after the September 11, 2001 attacks, and again on July 21, 2007, defining the attacks as an act of “air piracy.”

He introduced the “Marque and Reprisal Act of 2001,: which would have granted the president the authority to use Letters of Marque and Reprisal against the specific terrorists, instead of warring against a foreign state. The common understanding of the term is a seizure of property or sometimes persons of a foreign state for redressing an injury committed by that state. It would be a lesser act than to declare war. Some libertarians contend that the “Declare War Clause” requires Congress to authorize wars whereas the “Marque and Reprisal Clause” requires Congress to authorize lower-level hostilities whether by private forces or privateers. Citing practice in revolutionary times, some scholars maintain that the Marque and Reprisal Clause was originally understood to give Congress the power to vest sovereign authority to use force against enemy nations and their subjects with private forces only; thus Congress could approve so-called privateers to engage in military hostilities with neither funding from government or oversight,

The Marque and Reprisal Clause has not been used since the War of 1812 and not considered since the presidency of Andrew Jackson.

I can even see the eccentric Dr. Paul proposing an army of mercenaries and privateers called the Jack Sparrow brigades, as Paul would extend national security directly to the private market.

This brings us to what is undoubtedly Paul’s biggest problem in securing the presidential nomination of the GOP. Many Republican voters see this war, however imperfectly managed; as an existential struggle for the nature of our republic and civilization. It is clear he does not.

Consider this exchange between Chris Wallace and Paul at one of the FOX presidential debates:

MR. WALLACE: So, Congressman Paul, and I’d like you to take 30 seconds to answer this; you’re basically saying that we should take our marching orders from al Qaeda? If they want us off the Arabian Peninsula, we should leave? (Laughter.)

REP. PAUL: No! (Cheers, applause.) I’m saying — (laughter) — I’m saying we should take our marching orders from our Constitution. We should not go to war — (cheers, applause) — we should not go to war without a declaration. We should not go to war when it’s an aggressive war. This is an aggressive invasion. We’ve committed the invasion of this war, and it’s illegal under international law. That’s where I take my marching orders, not from any enemy. (Cheers, boos.)

But, the Constitution gives no marching orders as to waging war. It leaves the decisions of war and peace in the hands of the commander in chief as executive of foreign policy whose war making power is to be broadly construed, and the congress, together as a prudential judgment to be made by the representatives of the people.

Some one this ignorant of the fundamentals of this most important constitutional principle should reconsider his claim to be a strict constitutionalist.

. The Constitution states that one of the powers of Congress is to “declare war” (Art. I, Sect. 8). This says nothing about requiring any sort of “formal declaration of war” requested by the President. When Congress “authorized the use of force” in 2003, that this was a declaration of war in everything by name (actually, a resumption of war after the cease fire which suspended the previous hostilities which Congress had authorized in 1991).

In my estimation, the whole “There was no declaration of war” argument by the anti-war crowd is constitutional myth based upon ignorance of the actual text of the document that Ron Paul claims to hold so dear

Paul asserted that the Iraq war is illegal under international law since the U.N. Security Council’s nine members didn’t approve of our invasion. But the United States does not require foreign approval to act in what its leadership perceives to be in the best interests of the nation. Lacking UN approval no more makes a war “illegal” than does lacking the approval of the NEA.

Paul says the Bush administration hasn’t gotten anything right in Iraq: no al Qaeda connection, no weapons of mass destruction. Bush never claimed al-Qaeda connections. He claimed “terrorist” connections (a broader claim), which were both widely known and subsequently shown (again) to be true. Nobody gives financial support to Palestinian terrorists unless they have connections to terrorism. Nobody sets up training facilities in the desert so that terrorists can practice hijacking airliners unless they have connections to terrorism.

As for WMDs, they were found. Not in the quantities that many thought that they should have been, but they were found. Mustard gas, Sarin-laced artillery shells, and other chemical weapons, as well as evidences of a nuclear program buried hither, thither, and yon. And of course, the unexplained truckloads of….something…..shipped across the Syrian border in the weeks leading up to the war. Perhaps they were vouchsafing Saddam’s teddy bear collection?

There was an Al-Qaeda connection in Iraq, Bin Laden sought refuge in Iraq as far back as 1999, Zarqawi was in Iraq after seeking medical attention in the late 1990s, was working on chemical weapons in Northern Iraq as late as 1999, these weapons (Sarin and VX gas) were intercepted on their way into Jordan where the intent was to kill up to 80,000 people in two attacks. Are we to believe that was going on in Sadaam’s police state without Saddam’s knowledge? Zarqawi was in Iraq again in late 2002/early 2003 for medical attention again after being wounded in Afghanistan. He stayed there and became the leader of Al-Qaeda there after the war against Iraq was concluded.

Al Qaeda did issue a fatwa: the United States committed three “crimes”: military occupation of the Arabian peninsula, U.S. aggression against Iraqis, and U.S. support for Israel and refusal to recognize Palestinians.

Which leads us to perhaps the single greatest philosophical flaw in Ron Paul’s way of thinking – the belief that American foreign policy ought to be determined, not by American interests, but by the desires and wishes of Islamist Nazis who have openly stated their desire to destroy our society. Since the 1950sand as far back as the late 18th century the US has had to deal with the bloodthirsty nature of radical Islam. In 1786 with the government under the Articles of Confederation, Jefferson and John Adams went to negotiate with Tripoli’s envoy to London, Ambassador Sidi Haji Abdrahaman or (Sidi Haji Abdul Rahman Adja). They asked him by what right he extorted money and took slaves. Jefferson reported to John Jay, the then secretary of foreign affairs, (a post which later under the constitution would become secretary of state) and to the Congress:

“The ambassador answered us that [the right] was founded on the laws of the Prophet (Mohammed), that it was written in their Koran, that all nations who should not have answered their authority were sinners, that it was their right and duty to make war upon them wherever they could be found, and to make slaves of all they could take as prisoners, and that every Muslim who should be slain in battle was sure to go to heaven.” Not much change since then, huh?

Ron Paul has a morally relativistic view of our adversaries and this nation’s justifications for this conflict. In Paul’s view, the U.S. invasion of Iraq worked to encourage al-Qaida. “The motivation by suicide terrorists is that we have invaded territory that is not ours,” he argued. Ron Paul told Bill O’Reilly in a recent interview on the “O’Reilly Factor” Iran is acting logically and defensively and he does not fear them.

Paul’s popularity derives in no small part due to sudden support from Democrats. Before researching his background I thought he sounded like a good candidate. He wants to end the Iraq war, have tighter borders, lower taxes and decrease spending, The problem doesn’t lie with his policies and ideas, but rather his execution of said policies. How to end the war in Iraq: immediate pullout not only from Iraq, but from the whole of the Middle East. Never mind the slaughter that will occur with our exit. Paul, by the way, denies that this will happen—this perhaps being the corollary to the people who said Iraq would be an easy win.

We couldn’t have an oddball presidential candidate without him being accused of racism, not these days anyhow. Paul fits the bill.

He made this comment back in 1992, “If you have ever been robbed by a black teen-aged male, you know how unbelievably fleet-footed they can be.” Later he would say the age to be prosecuted as an adult should be lowered to 13 because “black males age 13 who have been raised on the streets and who have joined criminal gangs are as big, strong, tough, scary and culpable as any adult and should be treated as such.” White Supremacist Website and forum Stormfront.org has come out in support of Paul, as has former Ku Klux Klan member and politician David Duke. I do not believe in guilt by association, but as someone who has chased a fair share of black criminal miscreants, I can assure Dr Paul that some of them were indeed swift but some were quite sluggish as well, which should remind him of the danger of stereotyping.

I have been very critical of Ron Paul. But I think America is better served for having Ron Paul in the thick of the fray. He Is more than just a Republican in Libertarian drag. He is a man of intelligence and his own peculiar vision in a crowd of sound bytes. I hope that this thorn in the side of the America’s political establishment does a lot more damage before he’s through.

Reagan got elected in 1980 by finding a way to build a bridge between the “Religious Right” disaffected Democrats and low-tax libertarians—but he made his national mark with an audacious speech in support of Barry Goldwater’s failed 1964 campaign.

The Republicans also seem to forget about how they achieved power in 1994 by proposing the “Contract with America” and promising a return to congressional and spending restraint.

Virgil noted that “fortune favors the bold.” Looking at Ron Paul, that may not be true.

But Paul’s boldness could help rattle the conventional wisdom of today’s Republicans and elevate the national discourse and direction. If so, he’s a vital factor in the field.

Even if few vote for him.

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Frank Penn is a decorated veteran of Vietnam and a former Chicago police officer.