I’ll bet you’ve never personally performed open heart surgery. You haven’t? Really? In that case, I don’t want your stinkin’ opinion on how the government should best distort the health insurance markets with artificial incentives. You probably also haven’t dropped acid in the last ten years. Given that painful deficiency on your CV, I don’t want to hear any of your sanctimonious blithering about The War on Drugs.

I assume, furthermore, that you’ve never been behind enemy lines, staggering home through the bad guys’ wire with your small intestine in one your canteen cups.* If such is the case; then you, like Newt Gingrich, have no right to have an opinion on issues of international military involvements.

So argues Dr. Ron Paul, who has the unique moral authority to decide whether John Huntsman really has American values. As Devine Emperor of Truth and Logic; Dr. Paul hath (self)-righteously decreed that Newt Gingrich has no right to an opinion on matters of war and peace.

“I think people who don’t serve when they could and they get three or four or even five deferments aren’t — they have no right to send our kids off to war, and not be even against the wars that we have, (My bolding)” Paul, a former Air Force flight surgeon, said. “I’m trying to stop the wars. But at least, you know, I went when they called me up.”

– Congressman Ron Paul.

The entire reason people serve in the US Military is to defend and uphold the US Constitution. The entire reason that politicians and their enemies make arguments based upon “Chicken-Hawking” is to deprive people who have not been under enemy fire, of the right to participate in the vital national conversation involving war and peace. It’s a way for great and courageous defenders of the US Constitution like Dr. Ron Paul to strip others of their rights under the 1st Amendment.

This would make Dr. Paul a smug and arrogant elitist pig. He is as revolting on the issues of war and peace as President Obama is with regards to social issues. It makes me think that Dr. Paul is a bitter clinger who desperately holds on to his 9-11 Conspiracy Theories and his Racist literature and his proposed Fed audit.

As one who wore the uniform briefly, I can understand a teaspoon’s measure of Ron Paul’s frustration over the civilian leadership of the armed forces. It has to be one of the more vexing aspects of the entire US Constitution when Von Clausewitz of the 9-11 LIHOP Theories ponders the document. But that’s exactly the point. You and I don’t have to like Mr. Gingrich’s resume on military issues in order for him to have a right to express his views.

Ultimately, “Chicken Hawking” is the revolting logical inverse of the argument that a former military person would make a great foreign policy president. I doubt there is a single opponent of the Iraq War who spent all of 2005 thinking “Ya know what? I don’t like this whole Iraq War thing. However, George W. Bush and John McCain have landed fighter jets on an aircraft carrier before. Based upon that, I have no valid point of view on whether the GOP has a correct policy via-avis the Iraq War.”

That’s the astonishing thing about the entire “Chicken Hawk” branch of logical fallacy. Not a single practitioner of it will ever admit that a more experienced member of the military that holds a diametrically opposed point of view on some defense-related issue has a God-Given right to serve the Ron Pauls of the world a big, steaming cup of STFU. This situation sends them appealing to all-important bastions of authority like Gen Wesley Clark.

Thus, Ron Paul’s use of the “Chicken Hawk” smear to demean one of his opponents in the GOP Primary reminds me of what is wrong with American Democracy. Here we have a former military member, sworn to uphold and defend the US Constitution, attempting to deprive an opponent of his right to speak based on pure CV snobbery. This is not courageous libertarian constitutionalism. It is post-modern feudalism instead. Elitist Pigs like Ron Paul, who use their resumes and life experiences as a weapon to silence the points of view they don’t want to hear, are an enemy of American Democracy.

* – If any members of our rich and vibrant RS community have done all three, than what in the heck are you doing wasting time on the Internet? Get out there and fix all the world’s problems!