The Ron Paul appreciation thread!

[JeffTD]

Honestly, this will be my last reply to you. You continue to take what I say out of context, interpret in a way that requires your own additional input not based off my text, or misread it entirely.

I've been complaining but have offered solutions and policy opinions. Specific ones, at that. I don't know what thread you've been reading for the past 280 posts, but it's clearly not the one I've been posting in. Ron Paul has as much of a plan as I do - one that he thinks is good and well based on his ideology but isn't politically viable. You can't tell me I just sit and bitch and moan without offering solutions if you tout Ron Paul as having them, too.

English motherfucker - do you speak it? I said that eliminating the deficit is not complicated. The concept is not at all complicated. The policies that I've posited are not complicated. You're using some kind of insane logic to extend that to suggest that I'm saying the political process by which it would take place is not complicated, which IS NOT AT ALL WHAT I HAVE SAID.

Again, with the being productive charge, it was in regards to the specific argument we were having. I was not saying "be productive and offer real world solutions that are viable in the current political climate" - I was saying "be productive by offering specific points to base your argument off of instead of just name calling and telling everyone else they're too stupid to understand." How you're still misunderstanding this is beyond me - I've suggested it before and I still think there's a serious language barrier. That's me giving you the benefit of the doubt because barring that, you're retarded.

It's not that he wont get the nomination "out of fraud or whatever the hell else." He's not going to get it because he's not an electable Republican and because Romney already has it. The fact that we have to keep being reminded that Ron Paul is still in the race might as well be evidence that he's not.

Suck shit, smoke weed, fuck cops. I'm done trying to answer your questions and respond to your charges when you cannot or will not read like a human fucking being instead of just regurgitating what I say out of context or with your own special additions thrown in for good measure.

 

[AD Chaos]

I don't think there's a point whatsoever in mentioning policies or solutions that are not viable in real life. That might be just me, though.
Obviously you think there's absolutely no chance at all for RP nor his policies. You could very well be right on that. I (and many others) still think there might, but from the beginning I have admitted such a possibility is quite slim.

There's no misunderstanding here, just a difference of opinion.

About the English bit, I mentioned it to clarify I'm not a native speaker, not for you to use it to dismiss my own arguments, or turn the name calling on me




Cheers

 

[scorpio01169]

Because he could still win, that's why.

No....he cant win, the way the Republicans allocate delegates, They have all but said Romney is the republican choice for president. he would have to almost have to have everyone at the convention to win.

Ron Paul is currently in the race for the nomination. He has supporters.

That's all fine but he has to have FULL support of the Republicans and the FULL support of GOP Delegations, and as it appears he only has about 8%.

He's picking delegates. The guy is honest and he's proposing real change.

Yes he's honest about how he feels about the change he wants to bring to the country, the problem is his vision is dangerous for certain if not most people in this country. I keep hearing that Ron Paul is consistent in what he believes, but being a consistent bigot aint a good thing.

Yeah sure, it has been said many times already it's very difficult for him to get the nomination. And then to become president. And then to kick some asses in Washington and fight corruption. It's all difficult, but everything worth a damn in life always is.

That the problem here, every politician, Democrat and Republican has an agenda, they are all bought and paid for by some interest, Ron Paul happens to be bought by big business, why else would he fight so hard for de-regulation?

 

[MarcusGHedwig]

"pendulous nutsack"

 

[Aaron Smith]

Ron Paul happens to be bought by big business, why else would he fight so hard for de-regulation?

Haha! Wow. Any RP credibility you may have had just went hurtling through a series of massive glass windows.

 

[colonel kurtz]

So then why are we having a discussion about Ron Paul?

Because he could still win, that's why

 

[colonel kurtz]

I don't think there's a point whatsoever in mentioning policies or solutions that are not viable in real life

...which is why most people ignore ron paul, and why he'll never be allowed even the slightest whiff of the white house

 

[JeffTD]

So Romney took all five yesterday and Gingrich is set to drop out of the race by this time next week. I'm really just not seeing this RP thing as even a remote possibility.

 

[Aaron Smith]

RP will have many more delegates in Tampa than the media has been projecting him to, and there's a reasonable chance that he'll have enough to prevent Romney from outrightly accumulating 1,144, which opens the door to him having some influence on the party's platform. His campaign is still very active, it has no debt at all, and he's still able to bring in a few million dollars at a time from his supporters when they hold money bombs. I say, he should keep going as long as he wants to, or until his campaign's money and fundraising ability dries up. The mainstream media's treatment of him has been unfair, the local level GOP leadership's treatment of his supporters in many of the local level caucuses around the country has been deplorable (my own district caucus included, which I attended as a delegate), so any way that Ron is able to continue to turn people away from simply falling in line with the establishment, or at least get them pondering bigger questions than the establishment will ever address (debt, the Fed, and foreign policy are my biggest three), is a good thing in my book.

 

[amarshism]

This is where the gap between faith and reality let's you down.

 

[Cyanide_Anima]

Aaron, you use loaded terms such as "mainstream media", yet you outright dismiss someone's credibility because they happen to notice that RP wants to turn the economy into an unregulated free-for-all... It really sucks that your reasoning skills are that impaired.

RP's policies would be devastating! Deregulation across the board... hmm... sure. The media, corporations and wall street are going would paint a picture of flowers and candy while gang-raping each other and us. Do you believe that things will be all peachy after "big business" gets exactly what they want? Because they will. They would have many of their boundaries taken away which keep the market from completely consolidating.

Why are the paulbots so blind to this? Regulations are in place to protect YOU, the Consumer. Without them these mega corps. would only, ya know, do whatever the fuck they wanted regardless of anyone or the planet's safety. Take a look at the history books, yo. Or is that history all faked by "they" ? Businesses can hardly keep up with standards now, imagine the quality of goods/services we get after there are no well-defined standards. They are called "paulbots" because they cannot think this shit through, they stop their "research" when they arrive at a place they feel comfortable... la-la land.

...and that's just a bit of the downside of RP. There's also his stance on health-care to let the currently *unregulated* natural "health care" alternative garbage to be pushed into the forefront. According to whatstheharm.net "68,379 people killed, 306,096 injured and over $2,815,931,000 in economic damages." Oregon has finally passed a law to prevent dumb-shit parents from preventing their children from seeing real, *trained* medical doctors.

http://whatstheharm.net/children.html

All because of personal beliefs. Kids don't have personal beliefs (...yet). Not only the kids, but c'mon, we also gotta prevent the people who just don't know any better from seeking quacks. These days these naturopaths just dress up in a lab coat and sell us garbage, unregulated. They don't go to medical school, they are not trained in science, they are just not qualified to do what they do and it causes injury to people. Have you ever looking into the theories behind chiropractic, for example? It's based in magic for chrissake. FUCKING MAGIC. But in practice it's just therapy, essentially. The so-called doctors don't even recognize that fact.

If I am going to die of an infection I can go to the doctor and get a pill that will treat and/or cure it. Paulies seem to think this is a bad thing, that making medicine some-what convenient makes it evil or something. But if I go to a touch-healer no amount of prayer, oil rubbing, or chanting will kill the pathogens responsible for my illness. That takes a chemical compound developed by scientists through years of researching biology, organic chemistry, genetics, development, testing, re-testing, etc. to cure. Good thoughts are the basis for natural medicine and that can only get you so far.

Ya know we live in a modern civilized society. Americans are supposed to look our for one-another, look out for the best interest of the whole. The Federal Gov (to an extent) looks out for us, it keeps the Corporate Baddies from completely "taking over". Yes, many of them are involved in gov, and trying to tear down that wall, but at least it's something, an extra barrier that keeps us safer. The paulies I've talked to seem to collectively believe the gov was "put there" to enable big business to do whatever they wanted. That doesn't make any fucking sense, the logic is completely backwards.

I'm amazed at how many supporters of RP there are in my neck of the woods. Crazy. Not that he's going to get elected anyway. Even our barfing news media thinks he's crazy, and they are mostly retarded. I don't personally believe RP has been "bought", I just think he's just another misinformed and unrealistic libertarian.

I smoked some herbage while typing this. Are my arguments invalid now? =P

 

[colonel kurtz]

RP will have many more delegates in Tampa than the media has been projecting him to, and there's a reasonable chance that he'll have enough to prevent Romney from outrightly accumulating 1,144, which opens the door to him having some influence on the party's platform. His campaign is still very active, it has no debt at all, and he's still able to bring in a few million dollars at a time from his supporters when they hold money bombs. I say, he should keep going as long as he wants to, or until his campaign's money and fundraising ability dries up. The mainstream media's treatment of him has been unfair, the local level GOP leadership's treatment of his supporters in many of the local level caucuses around the country has been deplorable (my own district caucus included, which I attended as a delegate), so any way that Ron is able to continue to turn people away from simply falling in line with the establishment, or at least get them pondering bigger questions than the establishment will ever address (debt, the Fed, and foreign policy are my biggest three), is a good thing in my book.

last i saw, romney is being shown to have around 840 delegates, while ron paul has like 79. unless all of santorum and gingrich's delegates flock to paul, he has no mathematical chance

on top of that, stephen colbert has raised more PAC money than ron paul. how serious of a candidate can he be when the host of a political satire show that airs @ 11:30pm on cable tv garners more public support than he does?

 

[JeffTD]

last i saw, romney is being shown to have around 840 delegates, while ron paul has like 79. unless all of santorum and gingrich's delegates flock to paul, he has no mathematical chance

The RP plan hinges on the fact that if a candidate can't get the 1144 delegate votes required in the first voting round at the actual RNC, then bound delegates are no longer bound and can vote for whoever they want in the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, etc... rounds.

That said, I think it's insane to assume Romney isn't going to hit 1144; there are 965 left, he only needs 300, and he's running more or less unopposed.

 

[Aaron Smith]

on top of that, stephen colbert has raised more PAC money than ron paul.

Ron has raised over $37 million, which is far beyond the $1 million or so that Colbert has raised in total. I think you're referring to the ABC article that's been floating around today, something like "Colbert Raises More Than PAC Backing Ron Paul". It may be true that Colbert's PAC has more in the bank right now, but that's because Ron is spending his money on an actual campaign. Also, Ron raises a lot of money directly that doesn't count as PAC money, so anything he has in the bank that was raised directly wouldn't count in the PAC figures that ABC dug up. There's nothing special about his PAC money, when over 90% of his campaign's fundraising isn't funneled through a PAC.

Way to buy into the media's garbage though! Two thumbs up for that. You are a class-A example, right here on these very boards, of how easily the media can sway momentum away from Ron, often by spreading blatant lies or half-truths. They're feeding you a lie that you don't even take the time to research, and then you proceed to dive right into a big, false conclusion:

how serious of a candidate can he be when the host of a political satire show that airs @ 11:30pm on cable tv garners more public support than he does?

 

[outbreak525]

So wait, why Romney?

 

[scorpio01169]

Haha! Wow. Any RP credibility you may have had just went hurtling through a series of massive glass windows.

ok....please explain why someone would base 85% of his campaign is on the free market, and de-regulation? As said before, regulations are in place to protect us. the reason why things are so cheap made in China, is because the workers have no say in how their working conditions are and they have no say in how much they get paid. I mean we pretty much don't have a say in how much we get paid, but we have a choice weather we wanna take a job that pays shit, but that will only get as far as to how desperate you are to find a job. But let Ron Paul have his way, we can almost guarantee, if you get hurt at work, no one will be accountable but you, even if the machine you're working on is defective. Let Ron Paul have his way you will without a doubt find yourself working 40+ hours a week, no overtime and shitty pay. He relies on people having the heart and sense to pay and treat people with respect, but he belongs to a party that says if a man has no insurance and can't afford it.....we should just let him die.

 

[MarcusGHedwig]

Dude, a deregulated economy is like the core principle of the libertarian party They believe that "market forces" (such as competition) will force bad businesses to go under and the good ones to prosper, and that an "invisible hand" will allow the economy to self-regulate and grow - truthfully, I don't know whether RP favors total deregulation, but if he does, then I'd like to submit my two replies to Roy22341 earlier in this thread (read it here, my posts are 103-104) as questions that I feel Aaron has neglected to answer

However, my hope is that Ron Paul is in fact more the type of libertarian Roy described here:

I'm not nearly as hardcore in my libertarian values when it comes to some things as most people. For example - I don't think the FDA or OSHA should be abolished. The government entities that are there to protect people and consumers from corporations are vital - but very often horribly mismanaged, misguided and more often then not are motivated by political and personal gain than for actual protection of consumers.

Like I said, I'm not a hardcore libertarian on a lot of business issues, so when I say free market I don't necessarily mean "robber barons" - I mean government shouldn't pick which companies are winners and losers by giving out bailouts or subsidies. Massive corporations should not be allowed to buy their way out of regulations and rules that smaller companies cannot. Those are the types of things that really prevent the market from doing what it needs to do - its not like I want to see children working in coal mines which is what most people think when they hear libertarian.

EDIT: These two I also consider unanswered

I am not for any on person being denied healthcare if they do not have health insurance or their insurance turns them down, that is pure wrong, but socialized medicine is not the answer. If you knew more on Dr. Paul's stance on healthcare reforms, you would know that he wants everyone to have healthcare and never be denied, but he (like me) does not want the medical expenses to be on taxpayer dollar.

The whole previous page in this thread is full of false know-it-alls that need to do a little bit more research on Dr. Paul.

Firstly, maybe I'm ignorant to his "real" position on healthcare but what you are describing is not what he outlines on his own website or in the debates. Secondly, as Jeff pointed out, someone has to (and does) pay. The problem with the "freedom to fail" argument is that few people want those unable to pay to simply suffer and/or die. So, you either cover them or you pass the cost along to everyone else. The things RP outlines on his website are the best options to maximize the efficiency of our current system but they simply don't account for the "death or bankruptcy" situations that occur everyday. Perhaps the hope is that charities will pick up the slack and lower taxes will allow for more charitable donations but that is incredible leap of faith.

When you as an individual work hard, save your money and invest wisely, you are on the sound financial path. When you spend over your means, keep receiving loans and expect others to eventually pick the tabs for you, you're not.

That all sounds great in a binary world where you either take care of your shit or you don't but it fails to account for the reality that you can be laid off, get cancer, have your house burn down, have a household breadwinner die, etc. etc.
Hard work and wise investment don't preclude the possibility of disaster. They don't even guarantee success. To truly have a "freedom to fail" ideology you have to be willing to let others suffer. Where do orphans, handicapped people and the elderly fit in that system?

Anyway though, what does your statement have to do with RP? Is he in favor of repealing unemployment insurance? Is he in favor of repealing bankruptcy laws? What legislation is he going to proposing that is going to enforce that ideology?

edit: I reread and I believe you're talking about balancing the budget federal and ultimately eliminating the deficit. Still, I think that you are outlining one of the fundamental conservative/libertarian arguments right now and believe my questions regarding individuals and policy are still pertinent.

 

[AllanD]

I really want to see someone try to disprove any of Cyanide's post.

 

[scorpio01169]

Dude, a deregulated economy is like the core principle of the libertarian party They believe that "market forces" (such as competition) will force bad businesses to go under and the good ones to prosper, and that an "invisible hand" will allow the economy to self-regulate and grow - truthfully, I don't know whether RP favors total deregulation, but if he does, then I'd like to submit my two replies to Roy22341 earlier in this thread (read it here, my posts are 103-104) as questions that I feel Aaron has neglected to answer

However, my hope is that Ron Paul is in fact more the type of libertarian Roy described here:



EDIT: These two I also consider unanswered

I think the issue that Roy and others have with the bailouts is false when crediting Obama with the bailouts. The bail outs weren't given to save a corporation as much as saving the workers working for these companies. If we would have let the auto industry die as Mitt Romney suggested, not only the workers for GM would have suffered but the workers who work at companies that supply parts to GM would have been effected, the car dealership employees, the auto repair shops at the dealerships, I think you get the point where I'm going, the chain is almost to no end. we stopped at 9.2% unemplyment. can you imagine where it would have been if all these people had lost their jobs? It wasn't about picking winners or losers, but saving America.

 

[Aaron Smith]

I think the issue that Roy and others have with the bailouts is false when crediting Obama with the bailouts. The bail outs weren't given to save a corporation as much as saving the workers working for these companies. If we would have let the auto industry die as Mitt Romney suggested, not only the workers for GM would have suffered but the workers who work at companies that supply parts to GM would have been effected, the car dealership employees, the auto repair shops at the dealerships, I think you get the point where I'm going, the chain is almost to no end. we stopped at 9.2% unemplyment. can you imagine where it would have been if all these people had lost their jobs? It wasn't about picking winners or losers, but saving America.

First of all, if you take the amount of money spent in Obama's stimulus package ($825 billion, according to the Congressional Budget Office), which was dispersed towards a multitude of directions and purposes, and divide it by the amount of jobs "saved" or "created" since Obama took office (roughly 2 million), you end up with a cost of over $412,500 per job. There is no way that this can be considered a prudent or successful use of money, especially considering that it's all debt-financed.

One thing that people never seem to consider when defending the American auto industry bailouts is the fact that had the failing companies actually been allowed to file for bankruptcy and close their doors, it would have presented an extremely attractive opportunity for foreign auto manufacturers to step in and buy up completely modern, functional factories in the US, and hire many (if not all) of the skilled American workers back to those factories to build their vehicles. Would those employees have been offered the exact same pay as they previously were making? Perhaps not, but would the bankruptcy of the American auto industry amounted in the type of cascading of unemployment that you just describes? No, it wouldn't have. Hell, and if American auto workers being hired back at lower wages bothers someone that much, the government could have directly subsidized their lost income for years and years, for FAR less than the whole auto bailout actually cost.

What bothers me most about the government attempting to financially backstop the economy, be it the auto industry or anything, is the fact that it costs huge sums of money that it simply can't afford. What this all really comes down to is the question of, is our rate of debt accrual sustainable, and what are the eventual ramifications of continuing to accrue over a trillion dollars of debt each year? If you literally believe that our reserve currency status is invulnerable, and that other nations will continue to trust our currency, and purchase our debt into the unlimited future, then I suppose government bailouts make sense. However, I don't think the rest of the world is that dumb, and I don't think the US is so amazing that we can retain our superpower status forever. China doesn't want to "rock the boat" until they're ready to do so, but they're well aware of the situation, and I think we could see some pretty violent downward moves in the value of the US dollar sometime in the coming years, in almost surprise fashion to most people, and the only way to attract people back into the currency and into the Treasury market would be for the Fed to aggressively raise interest rates…which would crush our economy, which from the Fed's own mouth, still needs negative real interest rates in order to "recover" right now, until at least 2014.

Debt, at the levels we're getting to, is like an infection, and to continue to build and "rescue" the economy upon an ever-increasing sum of debt is a mistake.