Excuse me, I just come from an area where every single call of states rights has equaled oppression for minorities. Forgive me if I don't think that the states are capable of "extending freedom" with greater states rights.

Some of the wonderful states rights my wonderful southerners championed:

Slavery
Jim Crow
Child Labor
Keeping Labor Unions Out

Thats just a few.

Screw Alexander Hamilton, the Illuminati/Rothschild/Bankers agent.

Hamiltonians wither at your masterful and completely logically sound ad hominem.

Fuck Alexander Hamilton again. I wish I could put Andrew Jackson in a time machine and send him back to 1787 so he could gut Hamilton like a slaughtered calf.

Here's my ad hominem: Andrew Jackson was way too busy learning how to slaughter any people that weren't white to worry about Hamilton in 1787.

Rick Reuben wrote:

o_d_m wrote:Excuse me.

The power of the states needs to be managed like any other power. Federal power was behind the slaughter of Native Americans

Maybe I didn't read it right, but didn't you say, just a few posts back, that you were in Andrew Jackson's corner? He most certainly was behind the slaughter of Indians. That was, as they say, his "thing."

"John Marshall has made his law, now let him enforce it."

Not such a good guy, that Old Hickory.

-A

Rick Reuben wrote:The way I look at the Indian slaughter and Jackson is kind of the way I look at the Bombing of Dresden and the allied commanders. If Eisenhower didn't carry out the orders to incinerate Dresden, some other General would have. If Jackson didn't lead the attack on the Seminoles, some other white guy would have.

Please, rationalise this further.

Rick Reuben wrote:Federal power was behind the slaughter of Native Americans, the theft of land from Mexico, the Spanish-american War

Rick Reuben wrote:"How did we pay our bills before 1913?" ... " We didn't have a warfare state and an empire".

Rick Reuben wrote:

alex maiolo wrote:Maybe I didn't read it right, but didn't you say, just a few posts back, that you were in Andrew Jackson's corner?

I said he would be a good candidate to be sent back in a time machine to slaughter Alexander Hamilton. I admire Jackson for his fury against the banks. I don't endorse everything he ever did, although he did make my list of 20 Greatest Americans. The way I look at the Indian slaughter and Jackson is kind of the way I look at the Bombing of Dresden and the allied commanders. If Eisenhower didn't carry out the orders to incinerate Dresden, some other General would have. If Jackson didn't lead the attack on the Seminoles, some other white guy would have.

So you believe that how he handled the banks is more important than how he handled the native americans? For me, his racism and treatment of the Indians is what defines him.
Meaning, in many ways, Nixon was a good president. He got us out of Vietnam and established relations with a Communist country, China.
But Watergate and Cambodia - those stick in my mind. That defines the Nixon presidency.

Jackson was known as a sexist and racist during a time when those things were acceptable. When racist sexists say "damn, that Old Hickory is one racist sexist dude," that means something.
Also, the man thought the earth was flat. 300 years after even the most simple people had changed their minds on that one, ol' Sun Revolves Around The Earth thought sailors were in jeapordy of navigating their way into space.

My guess is that Jackson hated banks and the establishment the way modern simpletons hate secular society, science, and all of the fancy pants things that leaves the simple people behind.
"All that fancy stuff ain't for us."
Perhaps he just got the banks thing right by accident through reverse snobbery.

I really have no dog in this fight, but that's how I've always thought of Jackson - the redneck president of his day. I'm no presentist. I think he was a dick in his day, unlike, say Jefferson, who may not stand up to modern scrutiny, but played by the rules of the time.

Also, Dresden was bombed because it was a railroad hub, our ally at the time, Stalin, was hot for that distribution post to get leveled, there were reserves of petrolium stored there, and, let's face it, there was the revenge issue. That's why we *kept* bombing it after the job was done, as tragic as that is in retrospect.
It was like Hiroshima: "ready to give up yet or do you want some more?"
It was an example - a way to show the Nazis that they didn't have a chance, and that example killed a lot of innocent people.
London was bombed for 220 nights straight, 100,000 Brits died, and no civilian was spared. War is hell, and the allies wanted to settle a score, no doubt. When Germans speak of the tragedy of Dresden, I hear them, I really do, but many people in London, Manchester, Liverpool and Coventry don't, and I understand why.

Dresden was a (very heavy handed) response.
The Trail of Tears was raw agression.

Your Dresden analogy might work better if some Indians had marched some whities across the country as revenge for the Trail Of Tears, but that didn't happen.
Basically, Jackson hated Indians. He thought they were dumb and didn't give one shit that no settlers would have lived to form the US had they not helped us. There's no doubt that another president might have done the same. As I often quote, we get the governement we deserve, and Americans probably wanted an Indian killer.
Doesn't mean it was right though, and his triumphs don't excuse it.
Ignoring that is like saying George Bush was basically OK because he kept taxes down. The Iraq War? Erosion of Civil Liberties? No matter, my paycheck got a little bump.

-A

"Rothschild" is one of Maiden's best tunes. Definitely.

I don't know Rick, I've read dozens of books and essays on James Joyce and they have "Rothschild" on every page.

Modernism was heck of conspiracy, huh.

Rick Reuben wrote: To sum up: Andrew Jackson did more to benefit Americans ( the conquering Americans ) with his war against the bankers' cartel than he did to harm Americans by being an Indian-killer. Jackson was a killer for our side, the White Man's side. If you choose to reject the White Man's side on this issue, then you must leave the victory party and turn in your spoils.

So Alex is either a white-supremacist patriot (on your side) or an unpatriotic hypocrite (on the Indians' side). The best thing about this false dilemma is the way it braids a half dozen other rhetorical fallacies into its defense of a state-consolidating proto-genocidaire.

The IDF would have a ways to go before it could claim to have cleansed 100 million acres for the the ethnic gene pool of Israel. And "Old Hickory" did it without cluster bombs or bulldozers, or Jew-bankers.

I have labouriously copied and pasted this largely as it appeared on Facebook; the only parts I've omitted are where I discuss the Democratic candidates I'd be in favour of, none of whom are named "Clinton," and a brief exchange where the Ron Paul supporter invites me to his house to "watch some movies." In the interests of fairness, I've included his replies. I've also combined responses, so some of the thoughts will look a little disjointed, as if they were minutes or hours apart.

I wrote:Ron Paul's economic positions show little foresight and a remarkable lack of social responsibility. People have latched onto him because he's a conservative candidate who opposes the War On Iraq and isn't in favour of what CJME likes to call "the nanny state" - they haven't really noticed his other positions. He's absurdly gun-happy, opposed to network neutrality for no reason besides a vaguely ideological one and seems to be generally opposed to federal funding for the states and municipalities. All his economic and political positions don't seem to be thought out in a context further than next month, really.

Ron Paul supporter wrote:that is so ridiculously far off, research it, watch his debates before you beak the guy

I wrote:What did I miss? His xenophobic, anti-immigrant and conspiracy-theory-laden interview with the John Birch Society (http://www.jbs.org/node/2961)? His belief that the Kyoto Accord and the branch of environmental science which conceived it are directly and purposely anti-American (http://www.house.gov/paul/tst/tst97/tst121597.htm)? The record of which way he voted on a bill (http://www.house.gov/rothman/news_relea ... tsheet.htm) which was designed, pure and simple, to ban federal contracts with companies that endorse the Sudanese genocide - namely, no(http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2007/roll764.xml)? And how about the fact that he was the SOLE congressman to vote against the thing?

But wait, there's more! His love of the antiquated "gold standard" (http://www.google.com/search?q=+gold+si ... tnG=Search)! His belief that welfare encourages illegal aliens (http://www.lewrockwell.com/paul/paul269.html) - and in fact advocates secure borders before assistance to the underprivileged! His anti-abortion bill - remember, life starts at conception (http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c109:H.R.776.IH:)!

Oh, he's also opposed to public education.*

(http://www.schoolandstate.org/home.htm)

Ron Paul supporter wrote:wow.... you got so much wrong there i dont know where to start, i guess ill go with education, he is completely for public educaton, he is against the government department of education because since they came into power american grade averages have dropped to below some 3rd world countries, next the gold standard, anyone who opposes the gold standard knows nothing of economy which instantly eliminates the rest of your beaks on his economic stance

some sort of currceny standard is necessary to minimize inflation, right now canadian and american money is backed by absolutely nothing, in the early 1930's paper money would say directly on it that it is worth gold, now a days they say its legal tender, meaning there is nothing backing it, money can be made at the flick of a switch as opposed to being based on the amount of gold available

get the facts straight and dont rely on mass media to tell you those facts, look a little harder

oh, and who do you like anyways, please say giuliani

I wrote:...mass media? Half of those came from Ron Paul himself, half of those were facts from Congress itself.

...This is a fascinating way of diverting the argument away from Ron Paul's racism though.

Ron Paul supporter wrote:lol man, you cant just make outrageous claims like that about a candidate, watch his debates

I wrote:http://www.nizkor.org/ftp.cgi/people/g/ftp.py?people/g/gannon.dan/1992/gannon.0793

There's an article from Ron Paul's old 'zine. Also, from a Houston Chronicle article from Ron Paul's 1996 campaign for Congress:

"Under the headline of 'Terrorist Update,' for instance, Paul reported on gang crime in Los Angeles and commented, 'If you have ever been robbed by a black teen-aged male, you know how unbelievably fleet-footed they can be.'"

Ball's in your court.

Finally, some rebuttals. First, gold is a finite material and therefore a poor choice to tether your money to since it basically permanently limits how much money you can make. If your economy winds up crashing anyways (see: The Great Depression) then you are in effect screwed. John Maynard Keynes, the economist who helped get Britain out of the Depression, despised the gold standard. But then again he was of the opinion that a government ought to intervene to alleviate the fiscal issues that something like the Depression would bring with it and therefore he and Ron Paul would have probably butted heads a lot.

If he's not opposed to the idea of public schooling then what is he doing signing that proclamation for the separation of school and state? Did you even read the website? Listening to his debates is one thing but doing a little research into his policies is another thing entirely.

Oh and finally, he's still supporting the atrocities going on in Sudan. Keep in mind that when that vote came up, he didn't abstain, he wasn't absent. He voted AGAINST banning government contracts with companies that support the Sudanese Genocide.

As an afterthought**, besides dismantling the mechanics of a democratic and equal government's abilities to provide anything above basic necessities for its people (and even dismantling some of those mechanics while he's at it), why would Ron Paul make a good candidate? Knowing all this stuff about him means I'm incapable of even coming to that conclusion, let alone devising reasons for it, so I'd like to know why you support him, especially as a Canadian.

Ron Paul supporter wrote:well to render your longest post on my wall completely void, all i need to say is, do you even know how to great depression happened? in 1929 there was the market crash, this happened do to a loan that people had been buying in the 20's called a Margin Loan. A Margin Loan allowed you to pay 10% of a stock and receive 100% of that stock, everyone was making lots of money. If the lender for a Margin Loan called back the loan, it all had to be repayed within 24 hours. In 1929 when the market crashed it was due to nearly all of the Margin Loan's being recalled at once. Many banks had to close because they could not return the peoples money for them to pay off the lenders. This lead to the depression. The federal reserve which was established in 1913 through the federal reserve act is the corporation that prints all american money. It is a private corporation in no way controlled by the government. Instead of increasing the money supply for the nation during the depression to lead them out they continued to decrease it and lead to more hardship. In the mid 1930's the government told the people that all gold they owned must be turned into the government to support the country. After this, more money was printed but was no longer backed by gold and was called "Legal Tender". It is considered one of the greatest robberies in history when every american citizen lost their wealth to the federal reserve and received worthless paper in turn.

The main reason I support ron paul is because he plans to abolish so many of the useless arms of the government and he will force the closure of the federal reserve. It will prove to the world that a central bank like the reserve that is run by a private corporation can not be in control of a nations money supply. Just as J.D. Rockefeller said, one of the founders of the federal reserve, "Give me control of a nations money supply and I care not who makes the law."

John you need to look into the things he plans to abolish like Deparment of Education, Department of Homeland Security, Patriot Act and so on. Ron Paul is a true republican and respects only the constitution. He wants to limit the power of the government and return it to the people. "They must find it difficult, those who have taken authority as the truth, rather than the truth as authority." Gerald Massey

I wrote:I know about margin loans, yes. The gold standard didn't outright cause the Depression but made it incredibly difficult to rise above it since you couldn't just mine your way into a valuable dollar again. Incidentally my history class was about Canada in the Great Depression and I wrote a paper about the 1935 election, so I'm not an expert on the time but I do know my stuff about it. "Worthless paper" is a sticky term because the fact of the matter is that the dollar is worth something. It's tradeable by goods and services.

Ron Paul incidentally has a problem with the imbalance between Asian economies and the American one, but implementing the gold standard won't be a magic cure-all to ensure that the Asian economies suddenly divesting themselves of their American holdings wouldn't cause a collapse.

I wouldn't have such a problem with Ron Paul if it wasn't for the really shady, unexplainable stuff he gets up to - weird conspiracy theories, associations with white supremacists, the direct support of genocide. Up to a certain point he just seems like your garden-variety, mild-mannered libertarian, all opposed to big government and in favour of civil liberties. He just has unseemly elements about him too that would not be excellent qualities in a president. I think if he could legitimately distance himself from all of that he would make a much better candidate.

That summary at the end is bogus to make him feel better. I have a huge problem with Ron Paul, he's a misinformed, selfish prick. CRAP.




*I'll clarify this outside of the context of the conversation so I don't get pointed to the notion that Ron Paul merely opposes federal involvement:

Website for the Alliance For The Separation Of School & State wrote:We believe parents, and not the state, should be in charge of their children's education. That control may take many forms and levels of involvement, but the state will never be part of the picture.

If this seems like an impossible idea, consider that 8 million children already learn free of state control. We're not starting from scratch here. The snowball of educational independence is already rolling.

Paul's a signatory of the Alliance's charter.

**Yes, I use "finally" twice and then add an afterthought.

There seems to be plenty of cognitive dissonance about this. The problems that we keep having to face, from the Iraq war, the "war" on drugs, wire tapping, spying on citizens, erosion of our rights, terrorism, agencies wasting money, awful public education, inflation, endless bureaucracy, are problems either created or exacerbated by our government, yet the answer is, more government? I don't understand this way of thinking.

We can argue about this until the 2012 election, but when these problems get bigger at the hands of another Bush, or an Obama, tell me how you'll feel. Changing the head of the government still leaves it's old body behind. The only thing this latest crop of candidates can offer is bread and circuses.

Johnny C wrote:

Website for the Alliance For The Separation Of School & State wrote:We believe parents, and not the state, should be in charge of their children's education. That control may take many forms and levels of involvement, but the state will never be part of the picture.

If this seems like an impossible idea, consider that 8 million children already learn free of state control. We're not starting from scratch here. The snowball of educational independence is already rolling.

I hope you've actually thought about this before you disregard it because of the messenger. Home schooling, or at least affordable private education is a way better option than public school, in it's current form. The ability to become a smarter, and generally more enlightened person hasn't come from public education. If only I had looked into home schooling instead of high school.