I like Ron Paul. Yes, I said it. I think he’s a solid conservative and he seems like he believes what he says and says what he believes. I think he would be a good leader and talk honestly with the American People. He seems like the kind of guy that could have a drink at the local pub and shoot the breeze with the customers…and even give them a few good jabs or rip into them for their misguided views. He’s passionate about economic stability and prosperity, fiscal responsibility, personal responsibility, and restoring greatness to our country.

A good portion of his foreign policy is sound as well. I like his idea of letting Israel stand up for themselves without our interference or permission. I like that he wants to stop sending aid to nations and governments who are not our allies. I like that he cares more about the greatness of our country rather than financially supporting countries with despotic regimes or corrupt governments and giving away our taxpayer dollars to many other nations when we are already in monstrous debt. These are good principles to stand on and I applaud the fact that he is committed to them. I would really like to vote for Ron Paul for the title of President of the United States. Even so, I will be voting for another candidate because of this:

He has a fundamental flaw with his beliefs about Islamic fascism and the threat it poses to the rest of the world.

For some reason, Ron Paul believes that it is United States foreign policy that provokes or creates Islamic extremists and that these people, if left alone, will not threaten us in any significant way. This belief that he and many other Americans hold is not only factually incorrect, but it is a deal-breaker for most Republican voters. It is not a position that can or will be supported by Republicans and should not be supported by any informed American. The history if Islamic fascism started not because of American influence, but perhaps because of a lack of it.

The fact of the matter is that the current beliefs held by radical Islamists have their roots in Nazi German philosophy. It was Hitler’s influence (particularly his book, Mein Kampf) on Arab Muslim leaders in the late 1930’s that led to the extremist Muslim philosophies that have become more prevalent in the Middle East and the surrounding regions. Claiming that Western influence - or the influence of the United States in particular - is the cause of radical Islamists cannot be farther from the truth. The United States government was practically uninvolved in Europe and the Middle East when Hitler was rising to power and when he was aligning with Arab nations and religious leaders.

Islamic fascism has been learned and propagated throughout the Middle East and beyond by Muslim teachers and clerics that believe in the idea of Hitler’s anti-Jewish, anti-Christian, and anti-democratic principles. It is in fact the Western way of life that Islamic fascists despise, but it’s not because of our foreign policies. Islamo-fascists despise us because we are seen as a threat to their way of life due to the effectiveness of the Islamist propaganda that was learned from the most definitive propagandist machine ever known to man: the German Nazis. This fascist ideology and the propaganda techniques that ultimately spread it have been co-opted by radical, power-hungry, Muslim clerics who unabashedly inculcate this dogma in their mosques from Indonesia to London.

The only connection that Western policies have with Islamic extremists is the fact that our policies give them additional propaganda to use in their efforts to reach out to more Muslims, not to actually create the initial radicalized sentiment. They use our policies as an added excuse to attack anything that bears the name of the United States or our allies that support and interact with us. However, our policies don’t compel them to do anything they wouldn’t otherwise do. The extremist views have already been learned, adopted, practiced, and taught for a few generations. They are the same views that guided the Nazis’ lust for world domination, except the Islamist views are embedded in religious philosophy instead of secular beliefs – making it much more dangerous and harder to defeat.

Today’s Islamic fascism is not represented by an industrialized nation with a sole military and political figure at the helm that can be beaten with a unified external effort. Islamic fascism is taught by religious leaders and educators as being an integral part of Islam itself and the movement is widespread with no single identifiable head or nation. The believers think that they are being targeted by the infidels and they commit their murders in the name of Allah in order to preserve their religion and culture. Radical Islamists are taught that their actions are in defense of Islam and the only way to save their religion is to destroy anyone who is perceived to threaten it. Death is of no consequence for them because dying for the greatness of Islam is the ultimate sacrifice for Allah and will ensure them a glorious afterlife.

When you combine these ingredients – Arab nationalism, fascist ideology straight from the Nazi handbook, extreme propaganda and the indoctrination of children, a religion with a brutal history and violent teachings that serves as the ultimate authority, and the glorification of death – the possibilities of world tension and inevitable confrontation increase dramatically, as well as the willingness of the extremists to battle to their last breath. We have already seen the beginning, but the end is far from being in sight.

The intentions of the Islamic fascists are clear, and the attacks and threat of future aggressions are very real. Isolating ourselves or ignoring the threat will do nothing to prevent the continued indoctrination of young Muslims and will not prevent future confrontations with us or our allies around the world. It did not work when we faced the same type of ideology leading up to World War II and it will not work today. Ron Paul and the American People who believe that we simply need to focus on our own geographic borders in order to avoid the assaults from Islamic fascists have neither learned from the mistakes of our past, nor have they learned from the mistakes of European nations that allowed Hitler and Nazi Germany to overrun Europe.

So, my inability to vote for Congressman Paul is not based on the entirety of his foreign policy. More accurately, it is his reluctance to acknowledge the severity of Islamo-fascist ideology that, at the end of the day, destroys his credibility on foreign affairs. The writing is on the wall and he either cannot read it, or worse, refuses to read and accept it. When one of the primary goals of our federal government and the office of the President is to protect and defend our nation, ignoring one of the most obvious threats to the civilized world will effectively guarantee defeat in the ballot booth. But if that stated fact ever proves to be inaccurate, then we truly are facing the potential destruction of our free and prosperous culture.