{"id":9981,"date":"2011-06-03T17:12:29","date_gmt":"2011-06-03T21:12:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/?p=9981"},"modified":"2011-06-03T17:28:21","modified_gmt":"2011-06-03T21:28:21","slug":"ryan-rethinking-presidential-run","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/9981\/ryan-rethinking-presidential-run\/","title":{"rendered":"Ryan Rethinking Presidential Run?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Columnist Michael Barone<\/a> thinks that House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI) may be reconsidering his decision not to run for president in 2012.\u00a0 How else to explain Ryan\u2019s recent pro-American Exceptionalism foreign policy speech<\/a>?\u00a0 Paraphrasing Barone, how often do committee chairmen weigh in on issues outside of their jurisdiction?<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s an excerpt<\/a> from the concluding section of Ryan\u2019s speech<\/a>:<\/p>\n

A more prosperous economy enables us to afford a modernized military that is properly sized for the breadth of the challenges we face. Such a military must also be an efficient and responsible steward of taxpayer dollars in order to maintain the confidence of the American people. The House-passed budget recognizes this, which is why it includes the $78 billion in defense efficiency savings identified by Secretary Gates.<\/p>\n

By contrast, President Obama has announced $400 billion in new defense cuts, saying in effect he\u2019ll figure out what those cuts mean for America\u2019s security later. Indiscriminate cuts that are budget-driven and not strategy-driven are dangerous to America and America\u2019s interests in the world. Secretary Gates put it well: \u201cthat\u2019s math, not strategy.\u201d<\/p>\n

I\u2019ll close on a final thought: Britain\u2019s premature decline was triggered by a crisis of confidence among its political leadership. Once they concluded that they should manage Britain\u2019s decline, it mattered little what Britain was objectively capable of achieving on the world stage. This crisis of self-perception was fatal to Britain\u2019s global leadership.<\/p>\n

Today, some in this country relish the idea of America\u2019s retreat from our role in the world. They say that it\u2019s about time for other nations to take over; that we should turn inward; that we should reduce ourselves to membership on a long list of mediocre has-beens.<\/p>\n

This view applies moral relativism on a global scale. Western civilization and its founding moral principles might be good for the West, but who are we to suggest that other systems are any worse? \u2013 or so the thinking goes.<\/p>\n

Instead of heeding these calls to surrender, we must renew our commitment to the idea that America is the greatest force for human freedom the world has ever seen; a country whose devotion to free enterprise has lifted more people out of poverty than any economic system ever designed; and a nation whose best days still lie ahead of us, if we make the necessary choices today.<\/p>\n

Thank you.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Thank you, Sir.\u00a0 Now, how about running for president to see those choices made?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Columnist Michael Barone thinks that House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI) may be reconsidering his decision not to run for president in 2012.\u00a0 How else to explain Ryan\u2019s recent pro-American Exceptionalism foreign policy speech?\u00a0 Paraphrasing Barone, how often do committee chairmen weigh in on issues outside of their jurisdiction? Here\u2019s an excerpt from the concluding […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[914,70,2526,731,802],"class_list":["post-9981","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-posts","tag-2012-presidential-election","tag-budget","tag-defense","tag-national-security","tag-paul-ryan"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9981","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9981"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9981\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9986,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9981\/revisions\/9986"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9981"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9981"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9981"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}