Love him or hate him, he’s not like the other candidates from either party. Which means he hasn’t got a chance. On the other hand, given how little most people really want any of those other candidates….
How to make sense of the Ron Paul revolution? What’s behind the improbably successful (so far) presidential campaign of a 72-year-old 10-term Republican congressman from Texas who pines for the gold standard while drawing praise from another relic from the hyperinflationary 1970s, punk-rocker Johnny Rotten?
Now with about 5 percent (and climbing) support in polls of likely Republican voters, Paul set a one-day GOP record by raising $4.3 million on the Internet from 38,000 donors on Nov. 5 — Guy Fawkes Day, the commemoration of a British anarchist who plotted to blow up Parliament and kill King James I in 1605. Paul’s campaign, which is three-quarters of the way to its goal of raising “$12 Million to Win” by Dec. 31, didn’t even organize the fundraiser — an independent-minded supporter did.
When a fierce Republican foe of the wars on drugs and terrorism is able, without really trying, to pull in a record haul of campaign cash on a day dedicated to an attempted regicide, it’s clear that a new and potentially transformative force is growing in American politics.
[…]
[H]is philosophy of principled libertarianism is anything but negative: It’s predicated on the fundamental notion that a smaller government allows individuals the freedom to pursue happiness as they see fit.
And how insane an idea is that!
Robert Heinlein was a libertarian and described the ideals well, ‘freedom to starve’. While I do respect people that believe in the libertarian movement, as opposed to my complete and utter lack of respect for anyone that believes in the current repugnican platform, I do not agree with this movement.
I am still of the belief that the basic services necessary for human health and survival, health care, water, education, etc., should be provided by the government, not by a corporation. The problem with having any of these services provided by the private sector is that our laws patently forbid any attempt to do the job well.
Our corporate laws require that corporations maximize shareholder profit. When a corporation is providing these services, this translates literally into a mandate to do the best job that corporation can possibly do to avoid providing the services they were hired to provide.
This is why even a thoroughly incompetent and/or corrupt government will still do a better job of these things. At least they have a mandate to provide the service, rather than to avoid providing the service.
hes from texas, no way in hell am I voting for another president from texas.
I prefer the Preamble as stated,”We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.” Than to some cooperations point of view with their (wet us all (like on the windows of pickups)) trickle on down economy.
“hes from texas, no way in hell am I voting for another president from texas.”
Bush was born in CT, Paul in PA. I’d vote for him (as a conservative dem) but I doubt he’ll get the party nomination. They’re still in love with Rudi or that has been actor guy.
“Bush was born in CT, Paul in PA.”
political career is all that matters, Texas politicians who moved up to president have been disasters 3/3, no reason to make it 4/4
It’s too bad but this poor guy doesn’t have a hope in hell.
First of all, he’s different. How many Americans are going to vote for ‘different’? That’s why Americans always elect the same scumbag politicians over and over and over again.
Second, seemingly endless generations of politicians, once elected, have done the opposite of what they said they were going to do – or something much, much worse!
No-one’s going to take a chance on this guy doing the exact opposite of what he says he’s going to do.
Goodbye Ron Paul. Hello generic scumbag politician.
‘Who the Hell is this Ron Paul guy?’
Well, among other things, he’s a right-to-lifer who would eliminate the minimum wage and OSHA as well as the estate tax. He’s for the socially destructive principle of ‘every man for himself’, and if you’re not up to competing for your very survival, then die, mo-fo. Social safety net? No way, José, it’s the law of the jungle, social Darwinism.
America’s current emphasis on competition over coöperation is a major factor in how the govt has come to serve ever-larger corporate interests at the expense of the general populace. The last thing we need is more of this pro-plutocrat, anti-citizen shit.
No, thank you. Send him back to his well-deserved obscurity. And be quick about it.
He’s a religious nut case from Texas. Need I say more?
Oh yea, and an old fart. I’m ready for a 35 year old to be in office.
Yea, and I’m sure you’ll all be cheering when he eliminates government programs too. I’d say you guys are cafeteria libertarians.
wow you guys are exactly what’s wrong with america. you vote based on superficial prejudices & impressions.
give this guy a chance and read up on him and what he’s all about.
he’s way better solution than elitist neo-con/ dem bastards.
by the way, dennis kucinich is dem’s “ron paul” if you want to stay dem.
dennis or ron for ’08
Who the hell is this Ron Paul guy?
Someone who will never get elected President, that’s who.
I’m surprised John C hasn’t put his two cents in here. He has discussed Ron Paul numerous times on his No Agenda podcast with Adam Curry, which you can find at http://www.podshow.com/shows/?mode=detail&episode_id=88510
Obviously I’ve been listening to John for too long and can’t miss a chance to do a shameless plug, now drink up.
To be fair, he’s not for ‘every man for himself’, and social darwinism. He’s just against forcing people to contribute to it.
You don’t want poor people to be put out on the street and starved to death? Neither do a lot of people evidently, even with a large tax burden, America is the most charitable country in the world.
Ron Paul wants to give you back the 30% or so of your paycheck back from the income tax, if you put part of that 30% into a charity that provides for those people, you’ll most likely be doing them more of a favor then it going to welfare (which has about a 70% overhead, vs the 25-30% overhead that most private charities have. Welfare is more welfare for the middle class bureaucrats that make it up, and its set up in such a way as to build dependancy on it.)
He also wants to make it so that people who put money into savings and that those who do wont get screwed by inflation and so rely less on government programs down the road (and Im not talking about the gold standard, which he most likely couldn’t get through since he’d need the support of congress, but by curtailing government spending so we don’t need to print a bunch of money we have to pay back with interest to pay for it and cause a loss of confidence in our government and our dollar.)
Really, Ron Paul wouldn’t be able to do most of what he wants, and most of what people fear he wants to do. As probably one of the few people on the podiums to actually read the constitution, he knows what he can and cant do as president. His promises are more to try and work with congress to accomplish what he can, but not to force it and go outside the constitution like some presidents…
The most likely result of a Ron Paul presidency wouldn’t be a massive collapse of the government and its pet projects (he’d still need support from congress for alot of things, which doesn’t seem too likely), But a reigning in of a runaway government, of an overreaching pseudo-empire, and of a wanna-be police state.
Ron Paul is exactly like all other politicians.
He was say ANYTHING to get your vote. Promise ANYTHING to get your support and will do NOTHING of what he says as he would be outnumbered two to one by the other branches of government.
He would be a lame duck IF and that is a big one, he won.
Supporting Ron Paul is political joousting with windmills.
Cursor_
You may not agree with Ron Paul on every single one of his positions (I know I don’t, and I’m a supporter) He is 1 of only 3 presidential candidates who oppose the PATRIOT Act (Ron Paul, Mike Gravel, and Dennis (The Menace) Kucinich). And he actually voted against the war in iraq from the beginning, and he predicted the disaster.
And you have to respect him for the fact that he never weavers in his political opinion, if you don’t believe me, do a youtube video search for Ron Paul in 1988. And he doesn’t say one thing, and vote another way, he votes the way he says. I am a very liberal democrat, and have been my entire life, but I don’t have faith in any of the democrats (besides maybe Mike Gravel), Dennis Kucinich drives me nuts, and he’s a flip flopper, has proposed bills later to vote against them, all kinds of crazy stuff in his voting record. Plus, i think Ron Paul is needed just to stablize the economy, because we can’t keep spending the way we are, the democrats just keep proposing more spending we can’t possibly manage. Once we end the war in iraq, and stop wasting so much money on these pointless wars, THEN maybe we could manage to do stuff like universal health care.
In the case of Hillary vs Rudy, i think i’d need to vote third party.
Of all the unappealing Presidential candidates, Ron Paul is the least appealing one not named Hillary Clinton. I wish Stephen Colbert had decided to make a serious and nationwide run at the Presidency, because he would have been the one guy I’d have voted for.
Well, go ahead and vote for any other candidate if you want more war, more military, more government, and more debt. They are all the same, controlled by the same corporations and foreign governments. If you want to at least scare these parasites, vote for Ron Paul.
The first things I heard about this man were all bad — I’ve never been one to listen to rumors. Then I read his book, “A Foreign Policy of Freedom” because I wanted to see for myself. See, I didn’t like any of the candidates and I was truly looking for someone to support.
If you are only working with rumors in your judgement of this guy, you should read this book — unless you don’t believe in open minds. Everything he predicted 20 years ago has come to pass and could have been avoided. He predicted the problems we are facing today — damn near every one of them.
If you want a chance to dig out of the mess we are in, you should read up on this guy.
If every person who says, “He wont win!” would vote for him, he just might.
He seems like a decent guy to me. I might vote for him if he were not a Republican. The last GOP I voted for was Ron Reagan – then he got sucked into the religious right black hole.
I will NEVER EVER vote for another republican again – NEVER, EVER, NEVER, EVER again.
Believe me the elite is scared of Ron Paul.That why I read Fed raid Liberty headquarter to do something that is connected to him.Since the raid Ron Paul Liberty dollar went up in value on Ebay
Scott:
Our corporate laws require that corporations maximize shareholder profit. When a corporation is providing these services, this translates literally into a mandate to do the best job that corporation can possibly do to avoid providing the services they were hired to provide.
However, in an actual (okay, theoretical, and we know how far that is from Functional) situation where there is COMPETITION (not the current situation by any stretch of the imagination… consider the many co-operative organizations between supposed competitors), the individual who doesn’t like Company X can go to Company Y because Y is more willing to provide better services than X.
J/P=?
It amazes me that before even one vote has been cast it has been decided who will win. Yet when a canidate comes along who has the same ideals as our founding fathers he can’t win. These are the very same ideals this country was based upon, we were taught in school and the very reason why we all love our country. Looking at both sides and you will find people so far removed from those ideals it is truly scary. Just take a look at the current Republician “frontrunner” Rudy Giuliani. Google his name with the word firefighter or just go here http://therealrudy.org/radios and you will quickly find out just how much of a “hero” they think he is. No matter what research these all the canidates and make the best choice for our country not based on what the talking heads at the MSM tell us. I still believe there is Hope for our country and so do millions of others. Ron Paul can win and if the Nov. 5th Money Bomb wasn’t enough proof of his large support base wait till you see the Dec. 16th Tea Party.
I’m not a fan of “Trickle Down Economics” so I’m not 100% for Paul, but there are plenty of issues where I am in full support.
Specifically, Unlike Republicans, (and most Democrats even), Paul is against Corporate welfare. Between tax breaks, subsidies and grants, and mandates, corporate welfare costs this country at least as much as welfare for the poor. Thank the corporate lobbyists for this scheme.
#1
> The problem with having any of these services
> provided by the private sector is that our
> laws patently forbid any attempt to do the job well.
With respect to education, you are on shaky ground. If we are talking pre-college education, in CA, private education is miles better on average and at the top than the public sector by a long, long, long shot. The LAUSD is the most mismanaged government organization I’ve seen in quite some time. The government works best at setting and enforcing standards and letting the private industry find inventive ways of meeting that standard but it only works if they actually enforce it.
Regarding Ron Paul, I generally like him but his views on the gold standard and school prayer are ridiculous. I would probably still vote for him given that I agree with most of what he says. Kucinich lost my vote the moment he claimed he saw a UFO.
>>if you put part of that 30% into a charity
>>that provides for those people, you’ll most
>>likely be doing them more of a favor then it
>>going to welfare (which has about a 70% >>overhead, vs the 25-30% overhead that most >>private charities have.
What kind of drugs are you on, dude??? Federal and state welfare programs have LESS THAN 20% overhead.
http://mediamatters.org/items/200509210009
Private charities vary greatly, but the worst of ’em rival credit card companies in their predatory practices. Just about NONE of the money goes to help the so-called beneficiaries.
You’re not thinking straight, Thomas. So what if Kucinich says he saw a UFO? So have I. So have quite a few debunkers. And millions of other people all over the planet.
All any of us claim to have seen is a Flying Object that was Unidentified. That’s all the term means and nothing more than that. Completely rational and commonplace.
If he had said he had seen something of extraterrestrial origin, then I’d say ‘get the butterfly net.’
25, you forgot HOW business likes to cover things UP in the USA…
They make sub companies to Bring in their product, masked as a Separate Distributor, and they might create 1 or 2 of them.. But they STILL get money from these sources.
Walmart TRIEd to get into the market and wasnt ALLOWED access to the Distribution at a reasonable price..
So they Jumped the boat and went DIRECT, and make the Foreign makers BID for them to SELL their products..
I would like to see something happen, with the GOV.
There is a law that the US gov can NOT run in a competing business, IF that business is available.
This bring up 2 problems…
1. do we have ANYTHING that can compete with foreign services, IF NOT why are we TAXING it at the Dock.
2. Service such as CELLPHONE/CABLE, cost to muc and are behind the times in TECH. Does this ALSO work if the US GOV implements HIGHER TECH, and starts it OWN business model? And then sells the services TO those other companies.
#30
Actually, I’m thinking quite straight. If Kucinich thought it was an Earth-bound UFO and he was having a bit of fun with the media, then sure. However, the way he responded we are led to believe that he did not think the UFO was from our planet.