by Daniel McAdams

Recently
by Daniel McAdams: The
Hagel Trap

The front desk
called called nervously as we closed in on a half hour before the
press conference start time on April 17th. Two young men fully dressed
in Ron Paul regalia, but unfortunately of the t-shirt and shorts
variety, were desperate to get in to the press conference announcing
Ron Paul’s new Institute
for Peace and Prosperity. Unfortunately the venue had a dress
code, and shorts and t-shirts were definitely out, Ron Paul fans
or not. The young men were dejected, pleading with the front desk
as I arrived downstairs.

“Please please
if we can put some better clothes on can we come in to the conference,”
they asked desperately. They pointed to a small group going upstairs
in only slightly-more-formal-than-shorts jeans and casual button-down
shirts, who somehow squeaked through the watchful eyes of the establishment.

I smiled and
joked, “surely you can do better than that, but sure come back when
you have changed.”

I rushed back
upstairs to try and handle the million and one details and forgot
about it.

After the conference
up to me came two beaming fellows in matching but hilariously goofy
khaki pants and pink shirts (one not very well-fitting). Twins of
very different races.

“Hey, do you
remember us? We were the guys who showed up in shorts! We ran as
fast as we could to Union Station, grabbed some decent clothes,
told the clerk not to bother to fold them or put them in a bag,
dressed in the street as we ran back to the press conference! And
here we are!”

I was so impressed
with these young men. With their dedication and their determination.
These are the types of supporters that Ron Paul has motivated and
excited throughout the country and beyond. What a thrill to have
people like that interested in Dr. Paul’s new venture. We will strive
to live up to their hopes and expectations.

The press conference
went off without a hitch, as can be seen in the video. It was standing
room only and there were so many friends and colleagues who came
out to see us, including a healthy delegation from the former Ron
Paul Congressional office. Many of these are spread by the winds
to different fields. But as we have all discovered, in a strange
way we are all still colleagues and when we get together we still
speak very much the same language. Even Dr. Paul has noticed this,
remarking the other day how pleased he was that we all seemed to
have a shared identity and retained collegiality.

My friend Oleg
Kravchenko, acting Ambassador from Belarus, showed up to the event.
Regardless of what one may feel about the internal political and
economic dynamics of Belarus, my friendship with Oleg dates back
to our shared opposition to the constant US intervention in the
internal affairs of that country. How many millions of our tax dollars
have been wasted trying to overthrow a leader in Belarus who means
the US no harm and in fact would love to cultivate better relations?
But US foreign policy is a zero sum game – do what we say and we
will subsidize you, resist and we will overrthrow you or bomb you.
There is simply no place for those who would rather pursue their
own economic and political destinies – a phenomenon thhat logic
would suggest is a natural development at the end of communist forced
conformity.

Even many who
call themselves “libertarian” refuse to consider this
part of non-interventionism – leaving the other guy alone even if
you disagree with how he is doing things. Like a know-it-all neighbor,
they demand countries like Cuba and Belarus and China, and so on,
do as we say or else. This is the point where they toss the non-aggression
theory out the window and become indistinguishable from the neo-conservatives.

Oleg was one
of the speakers at Dr. Paul’s regular Thursday luncheon group back
in the Congressional office, delivering a message about the millions
of dollars in lost trade and business opportunities for Americans
in his country because of the wrong-headed US policy of sanctions
to force “democratization.” Is it any more moral for the
US government to deny its citizens the right to invest and profit
from business activity in Belarus than any policy pursued by the
government in Minsk?

This will be
a focus of the Institute – the unintended consequencess of interventionism.
Opposing an interventionist foreign policy is far more than simply
being antiwar. US war on a foreign country is most often the last
stages of a long policy of interventionism and internal manipulation.
Non-interventionism begins with the first stages of attempted manipulation.
From the National Endowment for Democracy, a thirty year plus neo-con
regime change piggy bank, to cut-out funding of NGOs by USAID, who
endeavor to influence elections overseas or to undermine governments
who do not do as they are told, interventionism is at its core a
violation of the golden rule and as such is to be resisted from
its very conception. No more color revolutions in Ukraine, Iran,
Moldova, Georgia, Venezuela, and so on. The track record is a disaster.
And it is immoral. We must do better.

More on the
press conference soon, but in the meantime you can now follow the
Institute on Twitter @RonPaulInstitut and on Facebook
as well.

April
22, 2013

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© 2013 by LewRockwell.com. Permission to reprint in whole or in
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