He wants to end our overseas adventures and with the savings shore up Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. He does believe they're unconstitutional but he's not about to put those that have paid in their whole lives or those that are dependent out on the street. He does want to allow those 25-years-old or younger to opt-out.

 

His plan is to eliminate the following five: Energy, HUD, Commerce, Interior, Education. He would eliminate most jobs through attrition. Certain vital functions such as Nuclear oversight will be rolled over into other departments.

 

 

It wouldn't be in his power to let the states do anything. As long as they're not violating the Constitution he wouldn't have a say. He personally believes marriage should be left up to the individuals involved and should not be subject to any governmental interference.
 

 

I don't know the specifics of the legislation in question but he often votes against bills that he might otherwise vote for if it contains even one thing he disagrees with.

 

 

We're a guest in their country. Makes sense to me.
 

Constitutionally the additional information is not required. If the government wishes to add additional requirements they can always amend the Constitution.
 

 

He believes it should be left up to the states and the federal government shouldn't get involved.

 

 

He believes it should be left up to the states and the federal government shouldn't get involved.
 

 

Just because he's against certain anti-trust legislation doesn't mean he's pro-monopoly. He never wants to punish a business for being too successful. He would argue most monopolies are a product of government and business collusion. Products of crony capitalism not free market capitalism. If companies cut corners and break the law they should be punished.
 

 

He wants a full audit of the Fed and to legalize a competing gold currency.

 

 

He wants environmental protections to be even stricter than they are now and believes private property rights properly enforced would provide just that. He isn't against all environmental regulations.

 

 

He believes both violate private property and free contract.
 

 

He's not crazy about the idea of people coming to America illegally just to give birth. He doesn't believe emergency rooms should turn away any patient, illegal or otherwise.
 

 

He offered to pitch in his own money and suggested other Congressman do the same to purchase it without government funds.

Edited by Barry Woodward - 12/20/11 at 4:40am

Look at some of the lunatic policies that make it in some of the states, Barry. Do you really think these local governments should have total control over abortion/racial discrimination/drugs/welfare safety nets? His intention to sign over education alone to total state control would set learning in America back forty or fifty years.

In before someone says "kicking the can down the road."

 

 

 

http://www.theonion.com/articles/this-war-will-destabilize-the-entire-mideast-regio,11534/

OK, I'll bite:

 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/dec/19/bastardised-libertarianism-makes-freedom-oppression

 

 

This bastardised libertarianism makes 'freedom' an instrument of oppression

 

"It's the disguise used by those who wish to exploit without restraint, denying the need for the state to protect the 99%"In the name of freedom – freedom from regulation – the banks were permitted to wreck the economy. In the name of freedom, taxes for the super-rich are cut. In the name of freedom, companies lobby to drop the minimum wage and raise working hours. In the same cause, US insurers lobby Congress to thwart effective public healthcare; the government rips up our planning laws; big business trashes the biosphere. This is the freedom of the powerful to exploit the weak, the rich to exploit the poor."

 

I'm all for Ron Paul running and I even hope he wins Iowa. I admire a man who's stayed more consistent on his beliefs than most of the rest of the politicians out there.

 

However, I'm diametrically opposed to a lot of his specific beliefs and therefore think he must be stopped short of the presidency.

 

For starters, we need more regulation, not less. The existing regulations need to be enforced and where necessary improved. The reality is, without control, there's sufficient people who can't be trusted that will wreck things for everyone if left unchecked.

 

You get things like medical drug companies doing tests on experimental medications in India that would never pass an ethics committee here. You've even had people not even aware they're taking experimental medications, let alone signed consent (people have possibly died because of this).

 

You get things like what Enron did to California before their house of cards collapsed (See "The Smartest Guys in the Room")

 

You get things like vulture funds buying debt from Bosnia (probably illegally) for $3 million and then taking the source of the debt to court (Democratic Republic of Congo) for $100 million and trying to seize their assets and jeopardising cholera treatment there (and they're totally unrepentant about this).

 

You get a list I could make much longer of indecent behaviour by amoral people who will do anything to make money regardless of the cost unless there's laws and enforcement preventing them and punitively dealing with them when they try to break the law. I know the system is weak but it's making it stronger, not weaker (or heaven forbid eliminating it) that's the solution.

 

Even when people don't mean to do the wrong thing that's damaging to others, they sometimes don't see the consequences, that's why we need laws and regulations to help guide people away from damaging behaviour. Sad to say, there's a long history in finance, medicine, toxic waste disposal, safety regulations and many more where people and organisations have shown themselves totally incapable by design or incompetence to effectively self regulate.

 

Depressing when a satirical newspaper can hit perfectly both what went on to happen with a serious piece of text as well as predict what was the counter argument and its actual strength (none) by those in favour of the war (and were completely wrong).

 

Long before most of the so called serious media and in 2003 no less. 

I don't. Not when those beliefs are consistently cuntish and evil.

 

SIDE NOTE: According to my computer's spell check, "cuntish" is actually a word. I learned something today.

I like the idea that a conviction politician actually exists, as opposed to being something like unicorns. I hope the existence of at least one leads to the idea catches on, though with ideas I actually could support. For starters, loosening (and abolishing) regulations sounds like a recipe for (even more) disaster.

 

Small steps I guess though.

this.... /\ /\ /\

 

I'm sorry for feeding the RP evangelist in this thread....

 

There is something to be said for consistency but, with regards to politics, I would have much more respect for a person who can admit he/she is/was wrong and is willing to change his/her position when confronted with facts that contradict his/her original beliefs.

 

The problem is that the current incarnation of the GOP is, that like many religions, think of themselves as infallible.....and that's really dangerous.

Edited by VTRan - 12/20/11 at 10:08am

Ron Paul is an Ayn Rand worshiping nutjob, so much so that he named his retarded offspring RAND Paul. Ayn Rand was a disgusting little elitist troll who's mind was poisoned by her parents about the evil Bolshevik's during the Russian Revolution. From this moment on, she spent the rest of her life advocating a philosophy of greed and self-interest which is why she's followed by sociopaths the world over. Fuck her and fuck Ron Paul who, despite saying one or two sensible things, looks like he's ready to cut his balls off while waiting for word from Ceiling Cat to snuff himself.

In fairness to Ron, he didn't actually name his son Rand after Ayn Rand. It's short for Randal.

I guess that's the eternal dilemma. You want someone who's flexible but not so flexible that they're a rank opportunist. Some respectable core beliefs are always nice.

Dammit, there's already a 6-7 page Ron Paul thread going on.   Even though it's not a technical derail, it feels like one.

Yeah, don't we already have a thread for Barry to tell us we're all unanimously wrong about Ron Paul?

 

 

I don't get how one can say "we shouldn't do this because it's not explicitly outlined in the Constitution", but then be against the Constitution when it comes to determining who is a citizen or not.

This is exactly what so many on the right get wrong.  The Constitution is a living document.  

Apparently to some, it's only a living document when it comes to immigrants and their children.

"All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside." - 14th Amendment

 

I don't understand how they get away with demonizing immigrants.  Other than indigenous people, that's what all of who live here are.  It's in our DNA as a country.  If anything, their toxic witch-hunting is antithetical to our founding principals.  I just don't see how they open their mouths and say half the crap they say and be able to look themselves in the mirror.  History won't be kind to these f***ers.

You'd think Libertarianism's ironic failure to gain traction in the marketplace of ideas would be enough. Some people really fall hard for the lie that government is the only agency out to oppress you.


The anti-immigrant hysteria comes from the same place as the literally blasphemous use of Christ's name to stir hatred against our fellow Americans: from our deep denial, as a nation, that we're all boat people. We envy anyone with a sense of having roots, so we imagine the patriarchs of the Old Testament looking like the actors of European descent who played them in Cecil B. DeMille movies. We imagine them speaking English. We weave this cultural tapestry where instead of celebrating the high-minded ideals of the Enlightenment for the human innovation that they are and trying to come ever closer to living true to them as a society, we imagine America to be a continuation of Bronze Age rabbinical tradition. The worst offenders even claim capitalism to be a continuation of First Century Christian thought. All so we don't have to look at ourselves and see immigrants.

 

Hahahaha ... so if I come to the US illegally, I'm not subject to the jurisdiction of the authorities? That would mean I could commit any crime I want to and you couldn't do anything about it, look up what jurisdiction means in the first place.

 

No wonder Uncle Paul wants to abolish the department of education ...

 

Ron Paul is a global warming denier;

 

 

http://www.ronpaul.com/2009-11-04/ron-paul-on-fox-business-its-business-as-usual-in-washington/

 

 

You keep quoting the Constitution.  Just because you can quote it doesn't mean you know what it means. 

 

What, exactly, are you trying to say by underlining "subject to the jurisdiction thereof"?  If what you're trying to say is that it applies only if you're here legally, that's demonstrably and completely wrong.

Anyone who says otherwise Cap is an idiot who has no idea what he/she is talking about.  The whole point of the 14th Amendment was to avoid this debate.

 

If you were born in the US, you're a US citizen.  Let's posit for the sake of debate that the "anchor baby" phenomenon is worth the hysteria.  Too bad.  It's an unintended consequence of the text of the 14th Amendment and we either change it or live with it.  There are debates on the ratification of the 14th Amendment wherein Congressmen discussed this very point: whether the children of Chinese immigrants who were here illegally working on the railroads were US citizens if born within the US.  The answer to that query was yes.

 

And the Amendment was ratified.

 

ETA: I'm sorry for derailing this thread, but Barry is so woefully misinformed about the Constitution and its meaning that it enrages me when he uses it to justify the incorrect views of a crackpot politician.  For god's sake man, have a little empathy for your fellow man.  Politics is about accommodation and helping your fellow human being improve him/herself.  It's not about who can collect the most points for being ideologically pure.  You can't stitch a nation as large and diverse as this one (today or when there were just 13 colonies) and make it work on rigid rules that must be observed for the sake of supposed ideological purity.

 

Which brings me back to the current crop of Republican nominees.  Say what you want about Obama, but the man tries to govern.  All of the current crop of Republican candidates have shown time and time again that leading, to them, is their way or the highway.  That's not being a leader, that's being an obstinate and recalcitrant idiot who'll never get things done.  As much as I bag on Obama for trying to compromise with Republicans, I give him the respect he deserves for trying to deal with these cynical thugs in the House (see, e.g., the BS on the payroll tax).

 

That's why I'm voting for him in 2012.  And that's why the Republican party is a joke.  (my poor attempt to tie this back into the convo)

Edited by Spook - 12/20/11 at 2:42pm

 

I'm not trying to say anything personally. I'm trying to accurately represent Ron Paul's views on this issue. They are not my own. He has a different interpretation of that part of the amendment and the underlined section is the reason he gives.

 

 

Other than quoting the 10th and 14th Amendments, what misinformation have I posted about them?

 

 

I'm filled with empathy and I'm not convinced Ron Paul isn't.

 

Ron Paul on Univision

Edited by Barry Woodward - 12/20/11 at 3:04pm

I'm not watching 8 god damned minutes of a Ron Paul interview to figure out what the fuck it is you're trying to say.  Either tell me how I'm wrong or shut the fuck up about things you don't understand.

To your first point, debating with you is impossible because you hide behind this bullshit screen of "oh I'm just telling you what Dr. Paul says; I'm not defending his views."  That's chicken shit and you know it.  I bring substantive evidence that your implication regarding the interpretation of the 14th Amendment is wrong, and you post a YouTube clip?  Again, what the hell?  And finally, Ron Paul can believe anything he wants, but he's flat out wrong.  His opinion about the meaning of the 14th Amendment matters as much as yours.  He's not constitutionally charged with the interpretation of the Constitution--the Supreme Court is.

 

To your second point, give me a break.  You specifically highlighted text in the 14th Amendment in response to Cap's point, implicating that illegals' US born children aren't entitled to citizenship because they're not subject to the jurisdiction of the United States.  Which, as I mentioned, is wrong.  The framers of the 14th Amendment thought so and the Supreme Court thinks so.  That's the end of the story.  Your point (implied or otherwise) is a a frequent right wing talking point that is a flat out lie.

 

ETA: when did facts become "opinions" to which everyone is entitled in this country?  Good god.

 

lol @ Spook getting his JD on.

Gotta use it for something now that I'm in-house.

Politico is reporting tonight that former New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson has abandoned the race for the Republican Party's nomination in order to seek the Libertarian Party's nomination for President in 2012.

In November, Johnson filed FEC and FCC complaints against the CBS television network for excluding him from the Republican debates (arguing that CBS had broken campaign finance laws by "supporting candidates it favors.")

This is why Ronald Reagan was a great President

 

Talked about the Soviet Union as an "Evil Empire": then negotiated an Arms reduction treaty with the head of the Soviet Union. Talked about the evils of Government for decades, then grew the Military budget by leaps and bounds. Lowered Taxes, then raised them as needed (that last he regretted. He also regretted not being able to reduce the size of the Federal Government due to Bureaucratic and Congressional resistance).

 

I don't see anything approaching flexibility, rationality, or even Conservatism (in the Burkean sense) in any current GOP contender. What I see are a group of Radicals.

Ronald Reagan was a fucking awful president. Saying one thing and doing another is not flexibility, it's opportunism and demagoguery.

He hated the Soviet Union and what it represented. The military buildup was intended to serve as a deterrent and to help rollback Soviet aggression around the world. When Gorbachev made peaceful overtures, Reagan saw the opportunity to defuse tensions and perhaps eliminate nuclear weapons altogether (this was Reagan's stated goals).

 

On taxes: don't forget Reagan (like any President) is engaged in a dialectic with Congress. Reagan got a big tax cut in his first year: then had to backtrack under pressure from the Democrats, led by Tip O'Neill.

 

On size of government: He never stopped believing that less government was better he simply was unable to implement that part of his agenda. A fact which he regretted.

So I reject your analysis.

Edited by Cylon Baby - 12/20/11 at 10:12pm

You're both right. With regard to Reagan & the Soviet Union, history has demonstrated that he was the right guy we needed to dialogue with Gorbachev. But when it came to domestic policy. Reagan was a fucking demon.

The major achievement of Reagan IMO is that he brought a sense of self confidence back to the US. I know that is hard to quantify and that Reagan pissed off as many people as he inspired.

But after the nightmare of the Nixon administration and the Malaise of the Carter years (and it was a malaise; Carter was the most un-inspiring President) Reagan was a breath of fresh air. He turned the tide of opinion that America's best days were behind it. People forget that Democracy and Free Markets are a "Confidence game" in the best sense of that word. People who are disheartened do not vote or participate in Civic life. They also don't do crazy ass things like start new businesses, think up new products etc.

 

I do find it interesting that on both the Domestic and the Foreign Policy fronts, Reagan operated with a restraint that is now lacking, or put differently, he opened two Pandora's Boxes:

 

Afghanistan, well we know about that.

 

Supporting the Evangelicals. Reagan talked the talk, but he never seriously tried to make abortion illegal (for example), and at the time alienated many Religious Right supporters (another thing that's been forgotten).

I agree with you on the optimism thing.  He played the role and his abilities were masterful.  But I have issues with this:
 

 

His massive tax cut dropped the top marginal rate from 72% to something like 26%.  All the subsequent tax increases mostly hit the middle and working classes, including the record highest tax hike (66%) on small businesses.  Reaganomics was economic engineering straight up, and the beginning of the end for the middle class.  He seeded what would grow into a big oak with that "The nine scariest words are 'I'm from the government and I'm here to help.'" thing.  We're seeing what that yielded--trust yourself, look out for yourself, the government is not you, it's a useless, outdated institution.  And all this time he was growing government and ballooning the deficit for the sake of his massive tax cut for the wealthy.  He also stopped enforcing the Sherman Anti-Trust Act, opening the door the monopoly capitalism that's today choking the economy, and even though he was for unions, he broke their back with the air traffic controllers' strike and started the death march for unions that we're seeing the results of today. 

 

I have a lot of other problems with Reagan, but in terms of actual policy, he was vastly to the left of what's laughably called the GOP today.  I mean, Reagan wanted zero nukes.  But what he actually did, as opposed to the character he played, has devastated this country.

Edited by yt - 12/21/11 at 7:21am

Without Ronald Reagan my parents would have never left El Salvador, met up, and given birth to me! And boy would that have sucked!

 

Admittedly a few things had to happen to make them leave the country and hook up, but I think we can slightly ignore that.

There's an excellent documentary called "My Perestroika" which interviewed 5 students who were from the same Russian High School (with the great name of High School Number 47 or something like that). It wasn't a 7 Up sort of thing. They started with the present day (they're all in the early 40s now) and periodically looked back at different parts of their lives through documentary footage, they looked at all of the key events of their lives in the 80s, 90s and so on, they experienced all the big political events. What's going on now in Russia, they've seen it all before.

 

The thing is, the Soviets didn't particularly care for being called an "Evil Empire". The film didn't cover this but I've seen it elsewhere, their people had their own particular fears and were just as worried about a nuclear first strike on them as well. They actually didn't want to end the world either, strangely enough. (We nearly learned this the hard way though simulated Western Military exercises in Operation Able Archer being mistaken for possibly the real thing and the Soviets had their leaders with their fingers over the buttons, they thought a first strike was being planned).

 

Which leads me to my point in a roundabout fashion, Ronald Reagan would go on to be asked if he still believed if the Soviet Union was an "Evil Empire".

 

He said no.

 

While standing next to Mikhail Gorbachev

 

in Red Square.

 

I can't see the current bunch of Republican clowns admitting they were wrong (or at least being able to change their minds) about anything anytime soon.

On the downside, the US hasn't always been favourable for Central or South America as history has shown.

 

Now whether you wouldn't have existed or just been someone else instead, I'm not sure; I don't exactly know how that works.

"... for the sake of his massive tax hike for the wealthy ..."

 

Do you mean tax cut yt?

 

 

 

I was being VASTLY sarcastic about that.

I figured. It's a fine Australian tradition to take something and run with it.

 

Into the ground whenever possible. 

Yes.  This is what happens when you post late at night.  :/

Pretty much our government from head to toe right now.  

 

I will be incorporating a similar strategy that I used voting either the first or second time Clinton ran for prez--I will vote against each and every incumbent that I can.

Hilarious.

 

 

Ahahahahah!  Whose idea was it to have him leap in like some giant, oversexed Kermit?

Catlike!

 

By the end of the ad, it's as if we're meant to think, "Oh, that Rick - he's such a little scamp!". For Pete's sake, this guy is running for President. He's such a dolt, it's almost adorable. Like a puppy that's got it's head stuck in peanut butter jar.

I've never been sold on the idea that Reagan somehow saved the world from communism. He played a role, yes...at the expense of bloating the military-industrial complex to ludicrous levels and getting in bed with horrible dictators and fanatics (like those Hussein and Bin Laden fellows) in the name of "fighting the greater evil". Ignoring that the USSR was a shambles of its former self at the time and could have been blown over by a stiff wind, as the Chernobyl disaster should have made clear. Granted, Reagan was being fed crappy information by people with a vested interest in military contracts--essentially the same people who were the architects of the Vietnam and later the Iraq wars, these fuckers have been lurking the halls of government for decades--but the guy was a cowboy, a movie star who tried to turn international politics into Star Wars for fuck's sake. Pretty much everything we hate about the modern GOP, most especially the image-over-substance thing in which making people feel proud and patriotic is more important than actually doing good (which Cylon, bafflingly, seems to see as a good thing), can be laid at Reagan's feet. If he was more "moderate" than the modern GOP, it's because the right had only gotten started on reframing the debate, so the kind of arrogance and Orwellian doublespeak we're now used to wouldn't have flown at the time.

 

Basically Reagan seems to have MAYBE slightly accelerated a historical inevitability (that Berlin Wall was coming down no matter who had been president in the 80s) at the expense of creating a myriad new foreign policy problems for America and the world over the coming decades. All while concentrating wealth upwards, setting back the environmental movement by years, and demonstrating a stunning lack of leadership if not outright callousness on social issues like the AIDS epidemic and poverty. But hey, at least he made America feel good about itself again!