Ron Paul Rises

[Elrina]

To be very honest, I'm really disappointed that Obama would even let something like the SOPA and NDAA pass. They're essentially bills that should be called Palpetine Bills - they give people the illusion of safety at the cost of their freedom and people cheer that shit.

They basically want to do what they condemned other countries for doing - subverting the will of their people and forbidding communication of disagreement so that people can't protest it.

If voting for Paul meant that shit wouldn't pass because he's not afraid to veto that bullshit, then I would vote for him.

Obama apparently has until the 26th to sign the NDAA, although he has given every indication that he fully intends to sign it and release some kind of "signing statement" when he does. I wouldn't be surprised if he signs it on the 24th or 25th while everyone is celebrating Christmas to try to buy a couple days to downplay the severity before the inevitable backlash.

And SOPA is grounded a little bit, because of some new heavy big money opposition (it seems a bunch of big tech companies pulled their support or something). PIPA is still in the works, however, so something is likely to pass through even if we get fortunate and the backlash against SOPA mostly grounds it, and we have no idea what that final bill will look like until then. Next year is an election year though, so we have (some) hope that they may decide to put it off at least until after next year's elections.

Regardless, NDAA will be signed within the next few days. There are other Cyber Intel bills with bi-partisan support in the works. I just read about the SMISC a couple days ago, and that shit doesn't even sound like it required legislation to start being worked on. There's all kinds of fucked up going on right now in the government in the name of chasing down terrorists and they're turning their eyes domestically, and it doesn't sound like anybody gives a shit about that stuff except Paul. I can handle some crazy for 4 years if he's willing to deal with that shit, and hopefully we'll have a candidate running in 2016 who is less crazy but is willing to follow the same example in the areas that matter.

[Kuya]

We'd be able to survive it for a 4 year term. It would probably actually help, short term, more than anything one of the other candidates would be capable of achieving, when you consider additional regulation will likely be added come the next term to make up for it. Besides, while a lot of the regulation currently on the books was put there with good intentions in mind, a lot of it is complete bullshit the way it's written. They're a good portion of the problem, because of additional bullshit that got added to them by big business lobbying. Wiping the slate for a few years, then having it re-written and re-analyzed before being put back in place isn't the worst thing that can happen.

Oh yeah, and what was that other big thing he'd be able to do again? Without needing the support or approval of congress? You know, the one Obama won't do, and none of the other Republican candidates? Oh yeah.

Stop the never ending war(s) we're currently mired in. Give us a few years of peace, to show that we don't actually need to remain at war, and return money currently being poured into the military budget back into the national budget where it's currently desperately needed. Prevent additional oppressive legislation from passing through like the NDAA. Prevent blatant censorship like SOPA. Actually make it possible to move on from this, instead of miring us into it further and further as every other candidate wants to do until we're so far gone that liberty and freedom are words our children grow up thinking of as privileges of a past society that was "unsafe", while taught and bombarded with propaganda about how fearful people were when they were free. Make it possible for 2016 candidates to know that it's possible to run a campaign that doesn't depend on them toeing the partisan line.

We can survive 4 years of Ron Paul, with the ending of the wars and a few years of diplomacy. It's arguable, however, how many more presidential terms we'll last unscathed with them continuing and more of our freedoms being considered expendable in the name of hunting down terrorists and protecting us from boogeymen. That's assuming we don't decide to attack the wrong country first, who is actually capable of striking back at us. Then it'll be "their fault" they actually fought back, rather than ours, despite us being the ones starting shit.

And it'll just be more excuse to take away more freedoms, especially when protests progress from the Tea Party and OWS, to actual scattered violent rebellion when shit continues to get worse, and suddenly it's our own country we'll be at war with.

People have valid complaints with Ron Paul, I don't deny that, and the mother fucker is definitely a little crazy. But he's the only one who will do some of what needs to be done, where as his downsides are definitely survivable. That can't be said of the other candidates, including Obama, with complete certainty, as these wars drag on and we see shit like the NDAA, SMISC, SOPA, etc. And it will only get worse as time goes on. The checks and balances will keep Paul in place in the areas that they need to, and he'll be able to do what needs to be done that nobody else will, and a fresh candidate in 2016 will be capable of stepping up in a way that wouldn't be possible should anybody else win.

What i don't understand is, what's the point of voting for Ron Paul if you want to decrease militarism and protect civil rights, when you can just vote for a liberal third party candidate instead? You get exactly all the good things you mentioned about RP, but without the stupid. For example, slashing the military budget in half. What's RP gonna do with that money? Cut taxes. Blow up wealth and income disparity even further. Real progressive, right? Meanwhile, a real liberal would reinvest that money into the social safety net and also invest that money into public goods, such as scientific research for health and technology (think the internet or alternative energies).

And you can't even argue that RP is a more realistic candidate than a liberal third party candidate, because the very same argument can be used for voting against RP. Furthermore, like my previous reply to you, you did not take into account what happens when RP is president and both chambers of Congress belong to republicans. The result: Maybe RP won't get to end corporate welfare, but he will sure find success in gutting the social safety net, lowering taxes again (busting the budget, further justifying more social safety net cutting). Yea, the republicans probably won't let him masacre the defense budget, but the rest of government? Have at it RP!

[Kuya]

I'm not sure I'm following you here, are you attempting to suggest that blatant protectionism at the expense of tax payer is not economical oppression? If so, I'm curious how you define a event where the poor pay for the mistakes of the rich. The cynic in me answers my own question by calling it a successful PR campaign. Which strangely leads me into your question:




The simplest answer would be that the form of the government that allows for higher individual freedoms is more successful at maintaining it's political strength. Which is precisely the opposite of what you are trying to suggest, since Syria has been functioning on total control ( state of emergency since like the 1930s?) and United States on it's inception was very limited on how many controls it can impose. Oh, another good example would be comparing USSR to the States.

I define economic oppression as specific attempts to prevent participation in the market or to prevent economic mobility, and not simply favoritism. If we're gonna have different definitions for this word, then i don't care to argue about this any further.

If i understood you right, you are saying that a government that allows for more individual freedoms is stronger politically (?), and the governments in western europe are a better example of that, while syria is an example of how politically unstable governments that have less individual freedom.

I disagree. Both totalitarian and democratic governments (i assume a government with more freedom is a democratic one) can be politically stable, and the real difference between them is how they achieve and maintain legitimacy. A democratic government doesn't have to kill its citizens by the truckloads to maintain legitimacy, because it justifies itself by the perception that it is controlled, to whatever degree, by the average citizen. How a government manages political instability, or whether there is stability or not, is also dependent on the culture and traditions that people use to govern, and whether there is security, a sense of consistency, and at least some economic stability.

But to an anarchist of any sort, all governments have to go. All of these nuances and distinctions, the differences between how states govern, the differences in the culture of governance, don't matter. You want to treat it all as if it were the same little evil. What's worse, you want to pretend that somehow, market processes are more egalitarian than the processes of democratic government. Actually no, what you say is that a society ruled by market processes is more free, with no coercion. More egalitarian treatement and results was never part of the equation, and in fact, you might find such utterences vile.

So people who aren't white, heterosexual, male, and rich, take note, a libertarian society or an anarcho capitalist society is not about maximizing equality, quite the opposite, it's about maximizing freedom. There is no pretense of balance, so caveat emptor.

[Cail]

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A direct-mail solicitation for Ron Paul's political and investment newsletters two decades ago warned of a "coming race war in our big cities" and of a "federal-homosexual cover-up" to play down the impact of AIDS.

The eight-page letter, which appears to carry Paul's signature at the end, also warns that the U.S. government's redesign of currency to include different colors - a move aimed at thwarting counterfeiters - actually was part of a plot to allow the government to track Americans using the "new money."

The letter urges readers to subscribe to Paul's newsletters so that he could "tell you how you can save yourself and your family" from an overbearing government.

The letter's details emerge at a time when Paul, now a contender for the Republican nomination for president, is under fire over reports that his newsletters contained racist, anti-homosexual and anti-Israel rants.

Reports of the newsletters' contents have Paul's campaign scrambling to deny that he wrote the inflammatory articles.

Among other things, the articles called the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. a "world-class philanderer," criticized the U.S. holiday bearing King's name as "Hate Whitey Day," and said that AIDS sufferers "enjoy the attention and pity that comes with being sick."

As Paul made a campaign stop in Manchester, Iowa, on Thursday, his Iowa chairman, Drew Ivers, repeated Paul's assertions that he did not write the articles that resurfaced this week in a report in the Weekly Standard magazine.

Paul has said that he is not sure who wrote the articles that were published under his name. He has said the articles do not reflect his views, and noted that his public stances - supporting gays in the military for example - have run counter to the incendiary statements in the newsletters.

In an interview with CNN's Gloria Borger on Wednesday, Paul said of the newsletter's articles: "I didn't write them. I didn't read them at the time and I disavow them."

When Borger continued to pursue the subject, Paul removed his microphone and walked out of the interview.

"It is ridiculous to imply that Ron Paul is a bigot, racist, or unethical," Ivers said.

However, Ivers said, Paul does not deny or retract material that Paul has written under his own signature, such as the letter promoting Paul's newsletters.

When asked whether that meant Paul believed there was a government conspiracy to cover up the impact of AIDS, Ivers said, "I don't think he embraces that."

Paul's newsletters "showed good factual information and investment information," Ivers said. "It was a public service, helping people understand and equip them to avoid an unsound monetary policy."

"EXTRAORDINARY SOURCES"

The letter promoting Paul's newsletters was written about 1993. It was during a period in which Paul - who left Congress in 1985 after serving about eight years - returned to Washington after a decade's absence.

(For a PDF of the solicitation letter see http://link.reuters.com/vud75s)

The letter was provided to Reuters by James Kirchick, a contributing editor for The New Republic magazine. He says he found the letter in archives of political literature maintained by the University of Kansas and the Wisconsin Historical Society.

Early in the 2008 presidential campaign - in which Paul was a candidate - Kirchick published an article in The New Republic in which he described Paul as "not the plain-speaking antiwar activist his supporters believe they are backing - but rather a member in good standing of some of the oldest and ugliest traditions in American politics."

The letter promoting Paul's newsletters claims that Paul - through what he describes as a network of "extraordinary sources" in Congress, the White House, the Treasury and Justice departments, the Federal Reserve and the Internal Revenue Service - had acquired unique insider information that would his subscribers to "neutralize" the plans of "powerbrokers."

Paul's letter went on to describe various plots and schemes that he had "unmasked," including a "plot for world government, world money and world central banking." He also claimed to have exposed a plan by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to "suspend the Constitution" in a falsely declared national emergency.

Despite being "told not to talk," Paul wrote that his newsletters also "laid bare" the "Israeli lobby, which plays Congress like a cheap harmonica," and a "federal-homosexual cover-up on AIDS."

Paul claimed that his "training as a physician" helped him "see through" this alleged cover-up.

Paul also suggested that a planned U.S. currency with new notes designed to curb counterfeiting and money laundering would result in the distribution of "totalitarian bills" that "were tinted pink and blue and brown, and blighted with holograms, diffraction gratings, metal and plastic threads and chemical alarms."

Paul said the money was designed to allow authorities to "keep track of American cash and American citizens."

He urged the letter's readers to send in $99, which would buy subscriptions to his monthly political and investment newsletters, a copy of his book "Surviving the New Money," an investment manual and access to the "unlisted phone number of my Financial Hotline for fast breaking news."

.

[test123]

It's good to see media digging up this, I think it proves Ron Paul is right about what is going on today. It is a tactic used to divert voters from the big issues, like the debt, war and liberty.

The media should ask Ron Paul about SOPA or NDAA instead of going through old news that holds no merit today.

[kuronosan]

I'm on the fence about some of that. It was a widely-held belief in the 80s that AIDS was a gay disease, whether repub or democrat, racist or not-racist, or just every day person. Fear is a powerful weapon.

Having a hard-on for Ron Paul is a huge mistake, even if his principles seem in line. People need to be careful and realize that when the same happened with Obama and we heard the "YEA DIFFERENT KIND OF POLITICS LOL" rhetoric we still ended up with a President that was ineffective at undoing the bullshit despite the positive social changes.

I'm really skeptical about giving Obama another four years in office if all he is going to do is pander to the Republicans (he even said himself he'd rather be a good one-term President than a mediocre two-term, and his track isn't looking so hot right now), but at the same time just because Paul looks like an attractive candidate is not a reason to vote for him alone.

Perhaps what you should do, test, instead of fellating Paul and his philosophies, is dig up some proof that he's the candidate he says he is. Four years of crazy might do the country good if it puts us in the right direction but the right direction is a little more than cutting militarism and 'state rights'.

Plus, the media should be asking EVERYONE about SOPA and the NDAA because people need to know about it and what it means. Instead, they're interested in talking points, buzzwords, and pleasing their shareholders; this is something that is typical corporate ass-kissing.

That in itself is the true problem.

[Ksandra]

Another reason not to vote for RP (from the birth control thread):

http://www.sba-list.org/sites/defaul...ned_pledge.jpg

[Rhinox]

What I don't understand is why paultards arent happy this is happening? He's finally getting taken seriously. Cant take the heat etc



What's the birth control thread Kathleen ? Is that were you and other BG women go to sync your period?

[Shuvo]

Another reason not to vote for RP (from the birth control thread):
http://www.sba-list.org/sites/defaul...ned_pledge.jpg

Unless I'm misreading it, he's not banning abortions, but just withdrawing federal tax dollars on financing them, right?

[archibaldcrane]

Um, I thought everyone knew that Reagan completely failed in addressing the AIDS outbreak because it would require him to specifically address risky homosexual behavior which he found "too icky to discuss".

AIDS, especially in the 80's, and still very disproportionately now, is a disease that affects gay men the most. Reagan ignored it because of that, and there's nothing wrong with acknowledging that or calling him out for it.

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy S 4G using Tapatalk

[ronin sparthos]

Gotta love when being called out on racist/homophobic statements is something that should be glanced over cause you know.. "everyone was doing it".

[Ksandra]

Unless I'm misreading it, he's not banning abortions, but just withdrawing federal tax dollars on financing them, right?

Were did I say he did? But the first two parts of appointing pro-life people to the Cabinet and Executive Branch, specifying appointing judges who take the constitution at the "original meaning" and then paired with the part of "advance and sign into law a Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act to protect unborn children who are capable of feeling pain from abortion" where do you think that will lead?

You get a bunch of personhoods in the cabinet claiming they feel pain from day 1 and he advances a law related to that, then ya....

[Shuvo]

What I don't understand is why paultards arent happy this is happening? He's finally getting taken seriously. Cant take the heat etc

Where'd you get they aren't happy?

Given his stance on civil liberties I have a hard time believing he wrote those. But, I suppose it's possible, and he may have changed his outward views for the sake of a nomination, which would be disappointing.

It doesn't change the fact that he's better then all the other RNC candidates by far. The ones I've seen in detail anyway, haven't really read up on Huntsmen much and he seems like a good guy. But if Obama doesn't veto NDAA he has nothing on RP. A weak 1 term president might be tolerated but if he can't even stand up to something like that, no point in supporting him at all.

[Shuvo]

Were did I say he did? But the first two parts of appointing pro-life people to the Cabinet and Executive Branch, specifying appointing judges who take the constitution at the "original meaning" and then paired with the part of "advance and sign into law a Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act to protect unborn children who are capable of feeling pain from abortion" where do you think that will lead?

You get a bunch of personhoods in the cabinet claiming they feel pain from day 1 and he advances a law related to that, then ya....

Didn't say you were, I was just asking for clarification. 'Cause unless you're a diehard feminazi (which I don't think you are ) I don't see this something that will singlehandedly put him below all the other republican candidates.

Point 1 - Taking the constitution back to it's original meaning, is more or less what he's been running his entire platform on. He also wants to end the IRS for the same reason.

Point 2 - Sucks, I agree. But won't they all be swithched out again by the next president?

Point 3 - Reasonable. Will just mean they'll need to cough up the 5k to pay for the abortion themselves, either out of pocket or a bank loan.

The end result of it all will be exactly what he's been saying all along. Abortion becomes a state issue only. Most likely most of the southern states will make it illegal, while it should be legal in most of the other states.

[Ksandra]

The end result of it all will be exactly what he's been saying all along. Abortion becomes a state issue only. Most likely most of the southern states will make it illegal, while it should be legal in most of the other states.

which is fucking terrible and a reason to not vote for him (which is what I said when I linked it)

[Churchill]

I don't think the biggest thing this country has to worry about is whether or not the South can't have abortions 2 years from now until there's a new President following Paul, assuming he was elected.

[Shuvo]

which is fucking terrible and a reason to not vote for him (which is what I said when I linked it)

Fair enough. But do you think it's terrible enough to outweigh the trillion dollar wars, the 15 trillion dollar debt, the Patriot Act, NDAA, etc?

RP is not perfect. In fact I disagree with him on probably ~30% of everything he's said. But he needs to be compared to the competition, not some absolute idea of perfection.

[archibaldcrane]

Well Shuvo, you have to consider what Ron Paul will do to eliminate the 15-trillion dollar debt (hint: there's a lot more to it than cutting military spending, and it will be awful)

[aurik]

Education is for the rich.

[Ksandra]

Fair enough. But do you think it's terrible enough to outweigh the trillion dollar wars, the 15 trillion dollar debt, the Patriot Act, NDAA, etc?

I didn't say this was the only reason to not vote for him. This is just something to add to the pile of RP terribleness.

As much as I hate about a lot of what Obama has done, the medicare changes alone are enough for me to take him over someone who would destroy all that.