Ron Paul?

No way he will get the nomination
Total votes: 67 (64%)
He has a chance of the nomination, but he could never beat the Democrats
Total votes: 4 (4%)
Paul in '08!
Total votes: 33 (32%)
Total votes: 104

Presidential Contender: Ron Paul

1482
Rick Reuben wrote:
Mark Lansing wrote:For what it's worth, I voted for Dennis Kucinich in the Michigan primary, who I think has been devalued as a candidate in the press far more than Ron Paul, and doesn't have an army of brainwashed lackeys giving him money, either.

Hilarious. You think the mainstream press has been harder on Kucinich than Paul?? And by the way: if you argue that the mainstream media has maintained a coordinated anti-Kucinich posture, then that means that you accept that the media is controlled. Next step is to follow the money and look at who has the power in the newsrooms and you'll be on your way.


Dude, I contribute to FAIR and read EXTRA on a regular basis. You are NOT telling me anything I don't already know. Or are they part of the Evil Empire, too?

And yes, I DO think the media has been harder on Kucinich. At least the media occasionally reports about Paul's wacko supporters. I don't see even that much about Kucinich.
"Everything should be kept. I regret everything I’ve ever thrown away." -- Richard Hell

Presidential Contender: Ron Paul

1483
Skronk wrote:James Kirchick is a sorry excuse for a journalist. Typical smear bullshit.


The only interesting thing about the Kirchick nonsense is that it all came from libertarians. There is a nasty pro-war and markedly libertine strain of libertarianism that loathe the Paul candidacy and are fueling the newsletter smear. And as mentioned before, Kirchick is a Giuliani guy.

Presidential Contender: Ron Paul

1484
Skronk wrote:
big_dave wrote:
Skronk wrote:You didn't get the memo about James Kirchick?

here

here


Hatchet jobs.


James Kirchick is a sorry excuse for a journalist. Typical smear bullshit.


I'd agree but for two points. The Paulite responses are even more ad hominen and bitchy than the original argument, and do not really manage to refute the accusations. Secondly, the insane NWO, racist, nationalist and anti-semetic bullshit published under Paul's name was published no matter who points out that it was. A lot of Paul's support for libertarians, particularly online does come from nationalist, NWO-fearing, anti-semetic hatemongers and their rage is directed towards the fact their fringe-right opinions are mocked by the media, not at the fact those opinions exist at all.

The lack of response from Paul, plus the "he didn't say it himself, he merely created the forum for it to be expressed"-style responses from his supporters echoes his direct UK equivalent, Nick Griffin. Who is also rabidly free-market, anti-NWO, nationalist, pro-Gold and sketchy about race. Minus the trivial, crass, peace'n'drugs platform of course.

Presidential Contender: Ron Paul

1485
big_dave wrote:
Ron Paul, The Revolutionary Freedom Master wrote:The notion of a rigid separation between church and state has no basis in either the text of the Constitution or the writings of our Founding Fathers. On the contrary, our Founders’ political views were strongly informed by their religious beliefs. Certainly the drafters of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, both replete with references to God, would be aghast at the federal government’s hostility to religion. The establishment clause of the First Amendment was simply intended to forbid the creation of an official state church like the Church of England, not to drive religion out of public life.The Founding Fathers envisioned a robustly Christian yet religiously tolerant America, with churches serving as vital institutions that would eclipse the state in importance. Throughout our nation’s history, churches have done what no government can ever do, namely teach morality and civility. Moral and civil individuals are largely governed by their own sense of right and wrong, and hence have little need for external government. This is the real reason the collectivist Left hates religion: Churches as institutions compete with the state for the people’s allegiance, and many devout people put their faith in God before their faith in the state. Knowing this, the secularists wage an ongoing war against religion, chipping away bit by bit at our nation’s Christian heritage. Christmas itself may soon be a casualty of that war.


He is insane.

Presidential Contender: Ron Paul

1489
steve wrote:And working conditions, pay rates, employee equity and the general welfare of the working poor were what, better before all this nasty regulation and unionization?

Markets, meh.

Markets only work for a few very specific, very fluid commodities. If you're buying hundreds of tons of sand or feed corn or potassium nitrate, then it doesn't really matter who you buy them from, and market forces will establish the price you pay for them, often standardized to the fraction of a penny from every vendor.

But if you go to the corner store and you need tomatoes, you'll buy the tomatoes if they look good, won't buy them if they look bad, and price variations of, say, 20-50 percent won't make any difference in the number of tomatoes you buy. That the same tomatoes are available a mile away for less will make no difference, because you're standing there in front of them, and they look good enough.

Markets are basically bunk for anything with a perceived value other than a commodity value, including labor. I get paid more than some engineers, less than others, and I'm pretty sure there's no market deciding that. I've set my rates at a level I can survive at, and which doesn't make me feel like a creep. Other engineers try to extract every penny they can from their clients, and they still get work.

Look at water. It's delivered basically free into the homes of nearly everyone, yet people will pay up to $20 a gallon for it if it's bottled for them, and many different brands of chemically identical water each have market shares at different prices. If markets were as infinitely powerful as libertarians imagine, then all those bottled water companies would go broke, or at least charge the same for their identical products.

Libertarians hang everything on the power of markets, but markets are basically bullshit. They only work in certain narrow classes of transactions, and pretending that they are everywhere and omnipotent is ridiculous. Extending the market model to public services and obligations like education, health care, police work, prisons, military support, fire and emergency response, etc. has been an unmitigated disaster, warping public policy and spending to the benefit of the corporations "competing" for the business.

Things needed as support and infrastructure for a whole society which require extensive investment and universal access are best handled by government, otherwise poor people (also poor neighborhoods, cities and states) get very little benefit from them, and everyone ends up paying more than necessary for them to support the unquenchable lust for increased profit.

Just look at incredible waste of the private sector war infrastructure and the insane incarceration rates needed to justify privatized prisons.

Quit appealing to market forces. They are bunk.


Well, since this is a thread about Ron Paul and not libertarianism, I don't want this to get railroaded too much into a discussion about the latter. But as to your first point:

And working conditions, pay rates, employee equity and the general welfare of the working poor were what, better before all this nasty regulation and unionization?


Ron Paul has openly admitted that on issues such as slavery, child labor, etc. the United States 'got it wrong'. However, he has made a point to differentiate between government regulation and government ownership. I remember in one of his earlier interviews Ron Paul said the government either 'bans or subsidizes' in domestic policy. In the foreword to A Foreign Policy of Freedom Lew Rockwell casts U.S. Foreign Policy in a similar light, something to the effect that it 'bombs or subsidizes'.

For all I've heard and read, Ron Paul advocates a system of government that can uphold laws of liberty and individual freedom (of which your above conditions violate), yet stay out of the ban or subsidize cycle that we are too familiar and comfortable with these days.

As to the rest of your post, Rick basically addressed that the way I would have. Ron Paul alone cannot dismantle the government in the way so many people fear. He would be the first to acknowledge that in his superior understanding of the role of the executive branch. I prefer to vote for him based on what he can do (limit spending, quit subsidizing foreign and domestic programs with fiat currency, get out of the war), and not on what he cannot do.
"The best argument against democracy is a five minute conversation with the average voter."
-Winston Churchill

Presidential Contender: Ron Paul

1490
Rick Reuben wrote:I like to go back in the Ron Paul thread and find babbling liberals flip flop all over themselves. Especially when these same liberals get up on their high horses about 'past statements', even past statements that Ron Paul never made. Let's look at past statements:
NerblyBear on July, 26, 2007 wrote:I'm no big fan of Democrats, but I'd love to see Obama get the ticket.

Hillary is creepy and palpably dishonest. I detest her.

I think it might end up being Edwards, though, unfortunately. He seems like another Clinton to me.

And then:
NerblyBear, October 5, 2007 wrote:
VOTE EDWARDS. Period.

Huh??

It gets better.
NerblyBear January 5, 2008 wrote:I remember Hillary responding to a question about her faith, and she said, "You know, I come from a political background that shuns talking about faith, because so many politicians use it as a ticket to immediate credibility. And I distrust that." It made me like her more than all of the other candidates combined.


Yeah, I got nothing.

I don't know what I was smoking on those days. I try to be consistent, but sometimes I'm just unable to make up my mind.

Final answer: Vote Edwards. Best health care plan.
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