Constant Conservative Ron Paul...

[arnie666]

I think he has some good ideas,but he is a bit eccentric and many of his supporters certainly are batshit insane. Many far right racists and conspiracy theorists have attached themselves to him .Ron Paul is loved on stormfront. After some embarassing incident regarding something his supporters got up to,I forget now what it was,he was questioned about it by some reporter. Paul replied how he couldn't control his supporters,they are not his problem,they are who they are and had this really blank stare like he was completely unaffected by it.

If he truly wants to be president of the united states what does it say,when he can't be a leader to his supporters and he washes his hands of them? How will he fare when he has to meet the likes of Putin? He can't build a wall around america for fucks sake and put some kind of forcefield in the sky. I also think he is too old to be president ,something none of his supporters want to talk about. And just to say,I thought Mcain was too old as well.

Saying that, when the republican kick the current idiot out of the whitehouse, they should certain give Paul a job helping to sort out the economy.He has some good ideas.

[Ben]

[Ben]

[Ben]

I think he has some good ideas,but he is a bit eccentric and many of his supporters certainly are batshit insane. Many far right racists and conspiracy theorists have attached themselves to him .Ron Paul is loved on stormfront. After some embarassing incident regarding something his supporters got up to,I forget now what it was,he was questioned about it by some reporter. Paul replied how he couldn't control his supporters,they are not his problem,they are who they are and had this really blank stare like he was completely unaffected by it.

If he truly wants to be president of the united states what does it say,when he can't be a leader to his supporters and he washes his hands of them? How will he fare when he has to meet the likes of Putin? He can't build a wall around america for fucks sake and put some kind of forcefield in the sky. I also think he is too old to be president ,something none of his supporters want to talk about. And just to say,I thought Mcain was too old as well.

Saying that, when the republican kick the current idiot out of the whitehouse, they should certain give Paul a job helping to sort out the economy.He has some good ideas.

Ron Paul does have some good ideas. Specifically foreign policy. (And, too, he has said if the Republican Party preach fiscal conservatism, well, then they've to address the bloated military budget. I mean, if you look at the deficit. Well, what's causing it? Well, it's the inefficient health care system and the corrupt/bloated/insane military budget.
A president Paul would address military expenditures at a pretty fundamental level. I mean, policing the world will lead the U.S. to bankruptcy, as he has so often pointed out.
And:
He, as a doctor, said we should treat drug addiction as a health issue. And not a legal issue. This, too, would bring about a tremendous amount of savings.
I, actually, am not fully aware of who his followers are. Anyway, it's not good to rally around one person, as it were. To base a movement on one person, I think, is terrible for democracy. Ya know, Ron Paul saying something and his "followers" nodding in agreement isn't good for democratic values, for democracy itself. I mean, true and meaningful democracy means everyone participates. Following a leader, as it were, is not democracy.
And:
We certainly have elections. But we don't have meaningful democracy. Ya know, we push a lever every four years. And then go away. And watch TV, revel in sports, do our daily undertakings.... The point being, um, I don't think a Paul presidency would bring about a more meaningful democratic society.
There would be some changes. But the overall mechanisms, as it were, would stay in place. Actually, the concentration of private capital &/or corporate control, as it were, might get worse. So, a Paul presidency could be, actually, a serious assault on democracy.
I don't think we should have blind faith in politicians. I don't think we should be irrational. (But, well, politicians count on it. Politicians want uninformed voters making irrational choices. It worked for Obama. People were in a frenzy. They were completely irrational. And uninformed. They didn't realize that Obama was and is deeply conservative. By conservative I mean corporatist.
People, in an irrational frenzy, voted for Obama because they thought he'd bring about CHANGE and take on the banks and the corporate elite, as it were. But, well, where did he get his funding from? The banks -- ha ha ha!)
Anyway, the point being: It's '08 all over again. Instead of the irrational frenzy directed at Obama, well, this time it's Paul....

[trish]

On Aug 27th in regard to Irene, Ron Paul said, "We don't need FEMA, that's what the Second Amendment is for."

WTF!? The man never was too smart, but now he's lost it. What is he suggesting? People caught in the hurricane should guard themselves with firearms? Maybe you should shoot your neighbor before his rational self-interest usurps your own. Or maybe he's suggesting you shoot those would be government rescuers. You don't need those FEMA fuckers helping out and getting the way of good old fashioned looting. Maybe shoot Irene if she wanders too close.

He also said that it's not the purpose of government to protect the people! We know he would eradicate FEMA, but now the FDA, the military, the intelligence agencies, the Federal, State and Municipal police, and fire departments are evidently being called into question. Do you really need the fucking Federal government to protect your business from being extorted by local mobs? Do you really need Federal assistance when an earthquake rips up your town and causes a nuclear meltdown in a nearby reactor? According to Ron Paul the answer is: Hell No You Don't! It's not the purpose of government to protect the people.

[Ben]

Thom Hartmann points out that under a Paul presidency inequality will get much worse.
Well, if you look at who are making staggering income gains, it's the top 0.01 percent of the population.
Their incomes are shooting through the stratosphere. (Ron Paul will be great for them. And not too good for the vast majority of the population who've seen their incomes stagnate or decline since 1980.
And, of course, this is the result of government policies... which as Adam Smith pointed out: the principal architects of policy are going to steer government policy to favor their interests. And who cares what happens to the vast majority of the population.
So, Paul will exacerbate this problem... of income inequality. But the truly vexing thing about Paul: he's very good on some issues.)

[Ben]

[Ben]

This is where I agree w/ Ron Paul:



This is where I disagree:



Even the PUBLIC OPTION would've been a good step forward. Give people the choice whether they want private -- or the public option.
Oh, no! Socialism -- ha ha ha!
As the writer and essayist Gore Vidal has said, We've socialism for the rich and free enterprise for everyone else....

[Ben]

[Stavros]

Paul of course is right about al-Qaeda's justification for the attacks on America, it is documented and makes sense when seen in the context of what happened between 1990 and 2001; and he has a valid point about the difference between military spending and defence spending. But surely that goes to the core of Eisenhower's warning about the Military Industrial Complex as a merger between the needs of defence and the business of weapons procurement and I don't see how he can disentangle the two were he to become President. The question is, does the Federal budget prioritise defence spending more than is justified? I can't answer that; as I am not a US citizen; other than a general feeling that we all spend too much on the hard stuff and not enough on the soft stuff (building alliances, for example) -which at the moment Britain is not much good at.

In addition, there are 'hidden' issues in the defence budget, for example the proportion that is spent on 'non-military' items which can cost billions of dollars a year (troop monitoring, environmental clean-ups at bases; maintaining bases in countries where there is no conflict, eg Germany); the cost of maintaining a nuclear capability which means, in effect, billions of dollars spent on parking fees for machinery that never moves, and so on.

Then there is the role played by Congress/House in the procurement chain which is fixated on diverting federal funds to local districts for the creation of a part of a weapons system, aeroplane, submarine -you name it- which ends up spreading around the creation of something that might be out of date in ten year. The Stealth Bomber is a good example -developed in secret in the 1980s to target the USSR's nuclear bunkers, by the time it became public the Cold War was over but the unique cost of this innovative plane -$2bn or thereabouts each in 1989- made it look like a honey pot to politicians; so the contractor, Northrop came up with a compensation plan for an ambitious bomber that would spread the contracts for building it across -wait for it, 383 Congressional districts! A good example of how defence spending becomes interwoven with politics -one wonder if the same level of spending could have been targeted at servicemen and women returning from some theatre of war with horrific injuries and also in many cases psychological needs.

It is a complex issue, this week in London there is an arms fair to which certain governmnts have sent delegates -Bahrain for example- and in the Uk there has always been some phobia about defence spending so that when cuts are made, the Chancellor is applauded for his 'courage'; but as Paul suggests, if you get your foreign policy right, you might not need to spend so much on the military anyway.