Ron Paul

[The Omega Concern]

ron paul gets 20% of almost nobody to vote for him in a state the size of my back yard! how is that news?

seriously, wtf

Betty White would pull more votes than ron paul. And she'd make more fucking sense too.

The news is that the establishment first tried to ignore him and now that they can't they have to resort to other tactics.

Just go back to watching MSNBC and Fox News and pretend your informed because only someone brainwashed by that lot would be surprised at Paul's ascendance to this point in his campaign.

[MyOneAndOnly]

I have nothing against giving opposition views a platform. I support it whole heartedly. What I have a problem with is when people's views are crap. The problem with contrarian politics in the USA is that too many people choose to support retarded alt political views, just because they hate the establishment. Just because Paul runs contrary to the establishment doesn't mean his ideas/beliefs/opinions aren't total bullshit.

Nobody should get a gold fucking star if their ideas are horrible. Almost NOTHING Paul stands for makes any fucking sense at all. And the media is giving him a pass on all of it. His racist newsletters alone should preclude him from being a viable candidate for Hazzard County dog catcher, let alone president!

Case in point, the financial system. Yeah, it's a mess. But sucking the cock of Austrian Economics is not the answer, in fact its a cure that's worse than the disease. It's the economic equivalent of a doctor using bloodletting to cure a virus.

Paultards is a fitting name for a bunch of cult followers.

[jczeroman]

Originally Posted by Irridescent Fairysex

I came to this thread hoping for some jczeroman's posts but I was DISSAPOINT.

When someone posts something worth my time (such as your fine post) then I will show up.

[Debaser]

.

They too needed emancipation.
--Ulysses S. Grant

As I often do on this blog, I'd like journey back to the Crack era--the late 80's and early 90's --when the general sense was that the black youth of America had lost their minds. All across our cities, young black men were bleeding in the streets. All of us had friends who were dead or jailed. All of our high school classes included at least one young woman who was a mother or about to be. All the brothers were out.

It was a good time to be young and angry, to retreat to into the audio chaos of Chuck D, retreat into the writings of Malcolm X, and fantasize about revolution. The verdict of the young held that our leadership was desolate--boycotting South Carolina for some expected slight, trying to secure entrance into a country club, picketing Denny's, or fighting over Affirmative Action at Harvard Law. We didn't know anyone at Harvard Law, and so we fumed. What we wanted was a great messenger who would talk to us, instead of talking to white people. You see, whatever our anger, we were American (though we would have said different) and believed in our talent to reinvent ourselves and compete with the world.

The need was real. And the man who best perceived that need -- Louis Farrakhan -- preached bigotry, and headed a church with a history of violence, and patriarchal and homophobic views. We knew this. Some of us even endorsed it. A few of us debated about it. But, ultimately we didn't care. Farrakhan--and his cadre of clean disciplined black men and modest, chaste black women--spoke to our deep, and inward, sense that we were committing a kind of slow suicide, that--as the rappers put it--we were self-destructing.

Throughout the late 80s and early 90s, Farrakhan's beguiled young African-Americans. At the height of his powers, Farrakhan convened a national meeting of black men on the Mall. (Forgive my vagueness. The number is beside the point. It was a group of dudes.) The expectation, among some media, was for violence. What they got instead was a love-in. I was there. I don't know how to describe the feeling of walking from my apartment at 14th and Euclid, down 16th street, and seeing black women, of all ages, come out on the street and cheer. I can't explain the historical and personal force of that. It defied everything they said we were, and, during the Crack Era, so much of what we had come to believe.

I think about that moment and I get warm -- and then I think about Farrakhan and I go cold. The limitations of the man who'd orchestrated one of the great moments of my life were evident as soon as he took the stage and offered a bizarre treatise on numerology. The limitations became even more apparent in the coming months, as Farrakhan used the prominence he'd gained to launch a world tour in which he was feted by Sani Abacha and the slave-traders of the Sudan.

During Farrakhan's heights in the 80's and 90's, national commenters generally looked on in horror. They simply could not understand how an obvious bigot could capture the imagination of so many people. Surely there were "good" Civil Rights leaders out there, waging the good fight against discrimination. But what the pundits never got was that Farrakhan promised something more--improvement, minus the need to beg from white people. Farrakhan promised improvement through self-reliance--an old tradition stretching back to our very dawn. To our minds, the political leaders of black America had fled the field.

I've thought a lot about Farrakhan, recently, watching Ron Paul's backers twist themselves in knots to defend what they have now euphemistically label as "baggage." I don't think it makes much sense to try to rebut the charges here. No minds will be changed.

Still let us remember that we are faced with a candidate who published racism under his name, defended that publication when it was convenient, and blamed it on ghost-writers when it wasn't, whose take on the Civil War is at home with Lost-Causers, and whose take on the Civil Rights Act is at home with segregationists. Ostensibly this is all coincidence, or if it isn't, it should be excused because Ron Paul is a lone voice speaking on the important issues that plague our nation.

I have heard this reasoning before.


As surely as Ron Paul speaks to a real issue--the state's broad use of violence and surveillance--which the America's political leadership has failed to address, Farrakhan spoke to something real, something unsullied, which black America's political leadership failed to address, Both Paul and Farrakhan, in their glamour, inspired the young, the disaffected, the disillusioned.

To those who dimly perceived something wrong, something that could not be put on a placard, or could not move the party machine, men such as this become something more than political operators, they become symbols. Substantive charges against them, no matter the reasons, are dismissed. The movement they represent means more. But as sure as the followers of Farrakhan deserved more than UFOs, anti-Semitism and conspiracy theories, those of us who oppose the drug-war, who oppose the Patriot Act deserve better than Ron Paul

It is not enough to simply proffer Paul as a protest candidate.One must fully imagine the import of a Paul presidency. How, precisely, would Paul end the drug war? What, exactly, would he do about the Middle East? How, specifically,would the world look for women under a Ron Paul presidency?

And then the dispatches must be honestly grappled with: It must be argued that a man who could not manage a newsletter should be promoted to managing a nuclear arsenal. Failing that, it must be asserted that a man who once claimed that black people were knowingly injecting white people with HIV, who fund-raised by predicting a race-war, who handsomely profited from it all, should lead the free world. If that line falls too, we are forced to confess that Ron Paul regularly summoned up the specters of racism for his own politically gain, and thus stands convicted of moral cowardice.

Let us stipulate that all politicians compromise. But the mayhem and death which attended the talents of Thomas Watson and George Wallace renders their design into a school of sorcery all its own. In that light, it is fair to ask if Ron Paul was willing to sacrifice black people to garner the support of the bigoted mob, who, and what, else might he sacrifice?

I have some thoughts on the matter:

"We quadrupled the TSA, you know, and hired more people who look more suspicious to me than most Americans who are getting checked," Paul says. "Most of them are, well, you know, they just don't look very American to me. If I'd have been looking, they look suspicious ... I mean, a lot of them can't even speak English, hardly. Not that I'm accusing them of anything, but it's sort of ironic."


Presumably, this too, is just another unfortunate slip. Surely it says nothing about Paul's actual views.

I do not mean to be unsympathetic here. It is regrettable to find ourselves in this untenable space, where all our politicians cower and we are bereft of suitable standard-bearers. I would like nothing more than to join my friends in support of Paul and exhilarate in a morality unweighted by the ugly facts of governance and democracy. But the drug war is not magic. It is legislation passed by actual politicians, themselves elected by actual by Americans. Unbinding that war demands the same.

The fervency for Ron Paul is rooted in the longing for a reedemer, for one who will rise up and cut through the dishonest pablum of horse-races and sloganeering and speak directly to Americans. It is a species of saviorism which hopes to deliver a prophet onto the people, who will be better than the people themselves.

But every man is a prophet, until he faces a Congress.

[Trotskilicious]

ron paul is a fucking joke

you want media attention guys here it comes it's going to make you all look fucking dumb, which you are. Nimrod, Omega. Why do you think we call you Paultards.

Get real.

[Eulogy]

that's kind of nice but it has entirely too much hand-wringing

dismissing ron paul is not nearly as difficult as that

edit: in reference to what debaser posted

[The Omega Concern]

Trots, Eulogy,


even scottytheoneand at least attempts to make an argument. Granted, he doesn't pull it off, but at least he tries.

[killtrocity]

shut up, no one cares what you think

[Trotskilicious]

yeah it's not really necessary to make an argument against someone being president that doesn't believe in federal government


SWANSON 2012

[MyOneAndOnly]

Originally Posted by The Omega Concern

Trots, Eulogy,


even scottytheoneand at least attempts to make an argument. Granted, he doesn't pull it off, but at least he tries.

OH, I pull it off!

[Debaser]

.

I don't put much stock in politicians, so I've only twice donated to political campaigns. In 2006, I tossed a few dollars at the Democrat running for Senate against the loathsome Rick Santorum. It could have been a three-headed goat, for all I cared, but Wikipedia says it was Bob Casey. (You're welcome, Bob.) And late in 2007, I gave $50 to Ron Paul. I was working at the time for the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank, but it wasn't that I had any plans on voting for him. I liked the congressman’s anti-war rants in the 2007 GOP debates, not least because they made Rudy Giuliani delightfully apoplectic. So I chipped in.

Paul’s candidacy that year, as we all know, didn’t lead him to the White House or anywhere close. But he evidently wasn’t discouraged. Four years later, Paul is not only back on the campaign trail, he's doing better than ever in the polls. And I'll admit I still vibrate happily to his indignant disquisitions on foreign policy. (Why shouldn't Iran have nukes!) I just can't get myself to regret that $50 when I hear him say "blowback" in the vicinity of Mitt Romney.

Yet it irks me that, as far as most Americans are concerned, Ron Paul is the alpha and omega of the libertarian creed. If you were an evil genius determined to promote the idea that libertarianism is a morally dubious ideology of privilege poorly disguised as a doctrine of liberation, you'd be hard pressed to improve on Ron Paul.

Much of Paul's appeal comes from the impression he conveys of principled ideological coherence. Other Republican presidential aspirants are transparently pandering grab-bags of incoherent compromise. Ron Paul presents himself as a man of conviction devoted to liberty, plain and simple, who follows logic's lead and tells it plain. The problem is, often he’s not.

According to Paul's brand of libertarianism the inviolability of private property is the greater part of liberty. And Paul is crystal-clear about the policy implications of his philosophical convictions about property rights. As Paul writes in his 2009 book Liberty: A Manifesto, the income tax implies that "the government owns you, and graciously allows you to keep whatever percentage of the fruits of your labor it chooses." To Paul, the policy upshot is evident: "What we should work toward ... is abolishing the income tax and replacing it not with a national sales tax, but with nothing." Whatever you think of this, you can't accuse Paul of dancing around the issue. However, Paul is not so dogged in consistently applying his principles in other domains.

In the Appendix to his most recent book Liberty Defined, Paul usefully lists "The ten principles of a free society." First among these is the proposition that "Rights belong to individuals, not groups..." The second asserts that "All peaceful voluntary economic and social associations are permitted..." So, if groups have no rights, Americans as a group have no collective right to impede non-American individuals in the exercise of their rights to free movement and association (which, Paul insists, "derive from our nature and can neither be granted nor taken away by government"). These are principles that ought to lead straightaway to the conclusion that anything but a policy of open borders and open labor markets is violation of fundamental individual rights, and Paul does recognize this, sort of. "In the ideal libertarian world, borders would be blurred and open," he admits in the immigration of Liberty Defined.

But suddenly we find Paul dancing daintily around the policy sombrero. "Civilization,” he writes, “has not yet come even close to being capable of such a policy, though it engages in some historical discussion."

So when it comes to protecting the wealth of propertied Americans, Paul is an absolutist who will brook no compromise. Taxation is slavery! But when it comes to defending an equally basic, principled commitment to free immigration and unrestricted labor markets, Paul develops a keen sensitivity to complicated questions of feasibility, hemming and hawing his way to a convoluted compromise that would continue to affirm the systematic violation of the individual rights of foreigners who would like to live and work in America, and those of Americans who would like to live and work with them.

"I strongly believe in the principle of peaceful civil disobedience," Paul begins in a chapter on that subject. "Those who resist the state nonviolently, based on their own principles, deserve our support," he says. But when it comes to mostly poor foreigners who break immigration laws that straightforwardly violate Paul's own principles, the congressman can hardly summon a flicker of sympathy. "The toughest part of showing any compassion or tolerance to the illegal immigrants … is the tremendous encouragement it gives for more immigrants to come illegally and avoid the wait and bureaucracy," Paul writes. In other words, if we allow ourselves to go soft on brown people with bad English, even more of them may wish to exercise their "individual rights that derive from nature and cannot be granted or taken away by government."

As a rule, libertarians have an unhealthy tendency to apply their principles without due regard to America's history of state-enforced slavery, apartheid, and sexism, or to the many ways in which the legacy of these insidious practices persists to this day. Paul represents this tendency at his worst. The Civil Rights Act of 1964, Paul has argued, led to "a massive violation of the rights of private property and contract, which are the bedrocks of free society."


It’s hard to interpret Paul’s position on this matter in a kind light. During the last campaign season, James Kirchick revealed in the pages of this publication that in the late 1980s and early 1990s Paul had published newsletters under his name containing rank bigotry against African Americans and gays. Paul claimed he did not write the columns in question or even know about them. Whether you believe that or not, the newsletter scandal highlighted Paul's longstanding ties with figures, such as Lew Rockwell, with a history of catering to racist and nativist sentiments for political gain.

But let’s give Paul the benefit of the doubt, and assume his opposition to anti-discrimination legislation is a principled stand untainted by prejudice. Even then, it’s not so clear his stance is underwritten by his stated principles. Paul's third principle of a free society says that "Justly acquired property is privately owned by individuals and voluntary groups, and this ownership cannot be arbitrarily voided by governments." I follow Ron Paul enthusiasts in endorsing this principle wholeheartedly. Nevertheless, it's hard to say exactly what "justly acquired property" amounts to in a country built in no small part by slave labor on land stolen from indigenous people. How much of Thomas Jefferson's property was justly acquired?

These issues get complicated fast. Most of us think there's a sort of statute of limitation on the sins of our fathers, and for good reason. But it’s absolutely undeniable that the distribution of property and power in America partly reflects hundreds of years of constant and systemic violation of precisely those rights Paul claims to prize. Anti-discrimination legislation indeed puts some limits on rights to property and free association. But in light of America's cruel history of official social, legal, and economic inequality, it's hard to see these limits as "arbitrary," even if we want to pretend, for the sake of social peace, that the distribution of property reflects a history of mostly just acquisition.

Again, it appears that Paul is least tolerant of ambiguity and complexity when it muddies the case for protecting privilege. To deny that structural discrimination, with or without the backing of the state, can limit an individual's liberty more injuriously than a sales tax requires the triumph of dogmatism over commonsense. But Paul’s career is a case study of such bullheadedness. Not only does he deny that anti-discrimination statutes have anything to do with promoting liberty, he insists, again and again, that anti-discrimination policies have only heightened resentments between man and woman, black and white, and do nothing whatsoever to improve social amity. He would have us believe that the enormous gains over the past several decades in racial and gender equality, the dramatic rise of mixed-race marriages, and the happy detente in the gender wars have all occurred despite recent attempts to rectify centuries of legal oppression through law.

In any case, the philosophical basis of Paul's property-rights absolutism is mysterious. Like many libertarians, Paul sees ironclad property rights as a straightforward implication of the moral impermissibility of coercion in human affairs. But, of course, a system of property is itself a system of coercion. If I cannot waltz into your home, raid your fridge, and make myself a hoagie, it is because you might shoot at me or call the cops to drag me off at gunpoint. If you're like me, you think the enforcement of property rights through the use of violence, or the treat thereof, is justified. But it does need to be justified.

Here’s my best attempt: A system of secure property rights is conducive to a society of peaceful cooperation that benefits even the least among us. The important thing for libertarians to remember—and the thing that Ron Paul forgets, or, rather, never knew—is that a system of secure property rights is a means to a peaceful society of mutual benefit, not an end in itself. And there are other legitimate public goods beyond the police protection of property rights. The need to finance the provision of these goods can justifiably limit our property rights, just as a system of property can justifiably limit our right to free movement. The use of official coercion to collect necessary taxes is no more or less problematic than the use of official coercion to enforce claims to legitimate property.

Of course, those who suffer most from the absence of adequate public goods are the poor and powerless. So it’s sadly no surprise that this isn't one of those issues that compels Paul to consider the complexities of political practicability. What good are taxes anyway when, as Paul argues, “[t]he only people who benefit are the bureaucrats, and the special interest recipients of government spending programs”? Recipients like poor kids who go to public schools.

Thanks to Ron Paul, libertarianism of a certain stripe may be more popular than ever, and its influence on the Tea Party and the broader conservative movement is not hard to see. All the same, this brand of libertarianism is never going to "cross the chasm," as the marketing folks like to say. It's destined to remain a minority creed, and that’s not because most Americans are stupid or immoral. It’s because libertarians have done a terrible job countering the widespread suspicion that theirs is a uselessly abstract ideology of privilege for socially obtuse adolescent white guys. Ron Paul sure isn't helping.

[The Omega Concern]

originally posted by Trotskilicious:

yeah it's not really necessary to make an argument against someone being president that doesn't believe in federal government

Right. What the fuck does that even mean? Doesn't "believe" in Federal Government? What kind of fuck-all commie brainwash is that sentence?

Federal Reserve is a private enterprise that's been ponzi-sheming the world for decades now. Granted that makes it awfully big and influential and the perception that we can't do without it, but the central banking boys have been sucking billions and trillions off the top for so long because the leadership in our Federal Government is so weak. He wants to change that and those awake to the scheme see he's the only chance we got, slim as it is.

Ron Paul is the only candidate that has the guts to speak against the two pillars of our society thats been suppressing humanity for so long: the central banks and the military industrial complex.

[The Omega Concern]

originally posted by scottytheoneand:

Almost NOTHING Paul stands for makes any fucking sense at all.

o.k. this is why you come off to me as a dumbass. Maybe you are, or not...I don't really care either way, but...


Look further at Ron Paul and his supporters, his top 3 campaign contributors have been thus far, in this order:


Vets and enlisted men from the Navy.

Vets and enlisted men from the Army.

Vets and enlisted men from the Air force.


Considering his point of view on foreign policy, you may want to find out why his so-called isolationist 'dovish' position regarding national defense resonates with so many military men.

[redbreegull]

Originally Posted by The Omega Concern

Considering his point of view on foreign policy, you may want to find out why his so-called isolationist 'dovish' position regarding national defense resonates with so many military men.

gee I just can't figure out why people from the armed forces might not want to get killed

[MyOneAndOnly]

Originally Posted by The Omega Concern

o.k. this is why you come off to me as a dumbass. Maybe you are, or not...I don't really care either way, but...


Look further at Ron Paul and his supporters, his top 3 campaign contributors have been thus far, in this order:


Vets and enlisted men from the Navy.

Vets and enlisted men from the Army.

Vets and enlisted men from the Air force.


Considering his point of view on foreign policy, you may want to find out why his so-called isolationist 'dovish' position regarding national defense resonates with so many military men.

that doesn't make any sense.

you're saying that Ron Paul's views are correct because veterans support him.??

[duovamp]

Can't believe I read that Ron Paul essay above.

I just don't understand the goal of his belief system. It seems like if you're going to enforce a set of rules for a people to follow, it should serve a purpose you want to achieve. So his goals for society follow his beliefs, rather than his beliefs following his goals. What will this achieve and how is it better? I can't stand how people think freedom for its own sake could have any merit in structuring a society. The hang up on personal property sounds like the same old crap - people just want to aggressively hold on to and acquire goods. ...But does that serve a purpose, or, at the very least, improve anything? At best, all I can see libertarian dreams accomplishing is further social and economic stratification, and even more intellectual stagnation. Don't let government tell me what to do even though I elect those jerks! Let businesses tell me what to do! They'll surely help us all.

[Debaser]

Originally Posted by duovamp

Can't believe I read that Ron Paul essay above.

Why not. It's a worthwhile essay by one of the few libertarians I respect.

[duovamp]

Because I had much better things to do with my lunch break than get mad at Ron Paul about stuff.

[killtrocity]

http://www.littleredumbrella.com/201...ing-sucks.html

Every single one of the candidates currently running for the Republican nomination is a walking disaster. But one of them, Texas congressman Ron Paul, seems to be getting a disturbing amount of support from liberals. Mostly that's because his nut-job libertarian views happen to not sound so nutty on a handful of issues. He wants to end the War on Drugs. He is against the death penalty. He would not support a constitutional ban on gay marriage. He was opposed to the War in Iraq and wants to end all American military intervention abroad. All of that sounds pretty good to us left-wing types — downright refreshing coming from a Republican. Some progressives have claimed they'd rather vote for him than for Obama. Even Occupiers have sung his praises.

But if you're a liberal who supports Ron Paul, you either haven't been paying enough attention or you're out of your fucking mind.

Here are 20 reasons why:

1. He wants to repeal the Civil Rights Act. That's the 1964 law that made segregation illegal and outlawed discrimination on the basis of race, colour, religion, sex or national origin. Paul claims it infringes on people's freedom. If a restaurant or hotel wants to ban African-Americans, he believes they should be allowed to. As he put it in a speech to Congress: "the forced integration dictated by the Civil Rights Act of 1964 increased racial tensions while diminishing individual liberty."

2. He's also against the Americans With Disabilities Act. That's the 1990 bill passed by the first President Bush, which followed up the Civil Rights Act by making it illegal to discriminate against someone because of a disability. Paul wants it gone, too.

3. He is against public health care. You know how you think Americans are crazy because they can't do any better on universal health care than the watered down bill Obama got through? Well, President Ron Paul would do much, much worse. He thinks that in an entirely private system, poor people would have all of their needs taken care of by charitable doctors who would be willing to work for free. Ron Paul, by the way, is a medical doctor.

4. He wants to dissolve the public education system. He promises to eliminate the Department of Education entirely and leave the question of whether to offer any public education at all up to local governments. He calls public education "socialist" (which we actually agree with, but he, unlike us, doesn't think that's a good thing) and says, "I preach home schooling and private schooling." According to an interview, "The Department of Education has given us No Child Left Behind, massive unfunded mandates, indoctrination, and in some cases, forced medication of our children with psychotropic drugs. We should get rid of all of that..."

5. He thinks global warming is a hoax. In his words, it's "the greatest hoax, I think, that's been around in many, many years — if not hundreds of years". But that's just the tip of the crazyberg. Ron Paul winning the presidency would be a disaster for the environment. He wants to completely disband the Environmental Protection Agency, abolish environmental regulation, and lift, it seems, just about all the restrictions on drilling for oil. Including in National Parks.

6. He doesn't believe in evolution. When asked about it in 2007, he was pretty clear: "I think it’s a theory. The theory of evolution. And I don’t accept it as a theory."

7. He's against federal safety standards. So that means no federal testing to make sure the products you're sold won't kill you. Or that, say, the airplane you're on won't fall out of the sky. In fact, he's in favour of completely disbanding the Federal Aviation Authority, which does stuff like hire air traffic controllers to make sure planes don't collide in the air. He has argued against the Federal Drug Administration, which makes sure pharmaceuticals are safe to take. ("People weren't dying from bad drugs before we had the FDA," he has said, "I mean, it just didn't happen.") And forget Ralph Nader's successful crusade to enforce the wearing of seat belts. Ron Paul is ideologically opposed to the federal government making sure cars even have seat belts. "I mean, do we need the federal government to tell us whether we buy a safe car?"

8. He is radically pro-life. And vehemently opposed to a woman's right to choose. He signed the "personhood pledge" making the rounds on the current campaign, suggesting that abortion should be legally considered to be the same thing as murder.

9. He wants to do away with all foreign aid. Paul's isolationism sounds good to liberals when he's talking about his refusal to invade other nations. But the United States government, under President Paul, would send no funds to the developing world to help combat AIDS or famines or natural disasters or anything else.

10. He would pull out of the United Nations. He openly claims the United Nations is part of a plot to create one world government. "If we continue down the UN path, America as we know it will cease to exist." And not only does he want to withdraw the U.S. from membership, he wants to evict the United Nations from their headquarters in New York.

11. He's against the minimum wage. Instead of making sure that people are paid at least a minimum amount for their work, he believes companies should be allowed to pay whatever ever they like, with the law of supply and demand determining just how little. Lower wages, he argues, would actually help poor people by creating more jobs.

12. He is a gun nut. Our eyebrows are already raised by anyone who claims that having firearms is a "God-given right", like Ron Paul does. But he doesn't stop there. He wants to repeal the legislation that requires a background check when you buy a new gun — you know, to make sure you're not, say, a fugitive from justice, a violent offender, or currently stalking someone. Back when there actually was a ban an assault weapons, he was, of course, against the ban. And now that there isn't, he wants to make sure Obama doesn't get the chance to bring a new one in.

13. He believes we're waging a war against Christmas. In his words, he claims that "the elitist, secular Left" are waging an "ongoing war against religion" to "transform America into a completely secular nation, a nation that is legally and culturally biased against Christianity." And as if that wasn't crazy enough, he adds, "Christmas itself may soon be a casualty of that war."

14. He wants to get rid of income tax. He is against taxation in general, of course, which most liberals would disagree pretty strongly with. Especially when it comes to the income tax. It's generally recognized as the most direct way to make sure that poor folk don't have to give up more of their earnings than rich folk do. But Paul wants to get rid of it entirely.

15. He voted to build a fence along the border with Mexico. In fact, he's pretty radical when it comes to the whole question of undocumented immigration. He has backed off on the fence issue (because, he says, it might be used to keep Americans in) but he has also argued that Emergency Room doctors shouldn't have to treat immigrants without documentation. And that he wants to end birthright citizenship, which says you're an American citizen if you were born in America, whether or not your parents were citizens themselves.

16. He's against the Occupational Health and Safety Act. That's the law that gives Americans the right to a safe workplace, and makes sure an employer doesn't force employees to work in a dangerous or unhealthy environment. That, Paul figures, is unconstitutional. It limits the employer's freedom to put workers in harm's way.

17. He wants to U.S. to seize control of the Panama Canal. Paul's isolationism doesn't seem to apply to the Panama Canal. The United States signed a treaty back in the 1970s gradually ceding control of the canal to the government of Panama. But Paul wants to overturn that. Because if the U.S doesn't seize control of it, he claims some hostile regime might seize control of it instead.

18. He thinks interstate highways are unconstitutional. You're probably getting the impression by now that Ron Paul thinks that pretty much everything the federal government does is unconstitutional. That's because Ron Paul thinks that pretty much everything the federal government does is unconstitutional. He has even argued against interstate highways, saying Eisenhower knew he was bending the law when he built them. Paul figures they're a violation of states' rights.

19. He seems pretty homophobic to us. Paul actually gets a lot of credit for being the one Republican candidate who isn't homophobic, mostly because he says that the federal government has no business telling people what to do in their private lives and he's come out against a constitutional ban against same-sex marriage. But it's really not that clear where he stands. His reason for being against the ban is that he believes marriage laws should be left up to individual states or to the church. When some states began to pass laws legalizing same-sex marriage, he fought to make sure other states wouldn't have to recognize those marriages as legal. He's also for don't-ask-don't-tell and has voted to de-fund any organization which "presents male or female homosexuality as an acceptable alternative life style or which suggest that it can be an acceptable life style". As for his own personal attitude toward the gay community? Well, an ex-staffer who defended Paul against charges of homophobia did so by claiming he only knew of two times Paul did something homophobic: the time he swatted away a gay man's hand rather than have to shake it, and the time he refused to go to the washroom at the same time as a gay guy.

20. And he seems pretty racist too. Paul has been haunted by accusations of racism pretty much the whole campaign long. And with good reason. He used to publish newsletters, under his own name, which said unbelievably racist things. Things like, "I think we can safely assume that 95 percent of black males in that city are semi-criminal or entirely criminal." And, "If you have ever been robbed by a black teenaged male, you know how unbelievably fleet-footed they can be." For years, he refused opportunities to distance himself from those comments and those newsletters. Now, finally, he has, saying that they were written by other people, without his knowledge, and that he doesn't share those views. But that's not the only thing that makes us worried. More recently, he complained about the Transportation Security Administration hiring visible minorities to do airport screenings. Again, in his own words: "We quadrupled the TSA, you know, and hired more people who look more suspicious to me than most Americans who are getting checked... Most of them are, well, you know, they just don’t look very American to me."

[Trotskilicious]

21. Ron Paul wants to look at your vagina.

[MyOneAndOnly]

i don't believe there are many libs supporting ron paul. you could probably find a few if you dug hard enough, but it won't amount to any significant number.

Nobody's voting for him in his own party's primaries, but he'll soldier on. Because being the leader of a cult has its responsibilities.

[Tchocky]

What if...Ron Paul was a unicorn that shits rainbows??

[DiscoJon]

Anyone see that his fucking idiot kid got held up by the TSA?

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0112/71818.html

IT WAS A GLITCH! NOT A ZUCCHINI WRAPPED IN TIN FOIL!!!

[killtrocity]

Originally Posted by scottytheoneand

i don't believe there are many libs supporting ron paul. you could probably find a few if you dug hard enough, but it won't amount to any significant number.

I think most of them are young people... I know plenty of people who like Ron Paul just because of the weed thing, or apolitical people who like Ron Paul because he is anti-establishment but would otherwise be liberal if they sat down and outlined their beliefs. I still kind of admire him myself, but could never vote for him

[killtrocity]

What's madding about that chunky old white guy in the suit above is that he's almost right, but for some reason draws the conclusion that expansion of government is the main problem with society as opposed to concentration and centralization of capital. Well, I mean the reason is obvious, he's a rich dude who's philosophically opposed to taxes. What's madding though are white trash folks who can't afford healthcare working at the local Wal-Mart that destroyed all the local businesses in bumblefuck and then think government is the enemy because they listen to the fat asshole in the suit with the red tie or their preacher. Keep government out of my Medicare!

[Trotskilicious]

Originally Posted by scottytheoneand

i don't believe there are many libs supporting ron paul.

i see that you don't live in austin, then

[Trotskilicious]

i had an ultra lib rad fem (lol) art school student roommate back in san antonio and one day she put up a ron paul sign in her window

i was like "omg lol ron paul really"
and she got really indignant and told me a few things that i wasn't listening to
then i broke down libertarianism, mentioned he didn't believe in evolution or dinosaurs
she said NUH UH and went in her room
i assume she did research because the sign came out of her window the next day

[Trotskilicious]

you realize that even if america "goes down the toilet" it's still going to be better off than Russia, right

[MyOneAndOnly]

Originally Posted by killtrocity

I think most of them are young people... I know plenty of people who like Ron Paul just because of the weed thing, or apolitical people who like Ron Paul because he is anti-establishment but would otherwise be liberal if they sat down and outlined their beliefs. I still kind of admire him myself, but could never vote for him

I don't admire crazy people. Sticking to your convictions is not honorable if your convictions are horribly wrong, which is the case when it comes to Paul, his followers and his idiot son.

Paul has very very little support nationally, both in the republican party and in the general voting population. He's barely pulling double digits in his own primaries this year, and that's in states where as little as 5% of voters are bothering with the primary.

What Paul has is a very animated but small base of support. He goes a long way on that little base, though.

As with anybody running for public office, you'll get some number of people crossign the political divide to support the candidate. The best way to judge his ability to attract "Libs", though, would be to measure what percentage of his supporters are registered dems and progressives. I suspect that it's at best no better than the typical crossover vote that any GOP cadidate for President gets.

[MyOneAndOnly]

Originally Posted by Trotskilicious

you realize that even if america "goes down the toilet" it's still going to be better off than Russia, right

America's toilet is Russia's drinking fountain