Thanks for the backup, even if it was begrudgingly acknowledged. Not given Rosa Parks the Gold Medal is the most insane argument for him being a racist I have ever heard.
What is the problem you have with the Federalist Papers and the Constitution? I think most Americans would do well to read both.
Thanks for your contribution to this thread!
Quite a few of us here have already read them.
Modern? You mean Newsweek, The National Enquirer, Celebrity Tabloids, The Audacity of Hope, No Compromise: The Case for American Greatness (Mitt Romney) and any other flavor of the month political book?
Yeah, much more serious and timeless than Common Sense, The Federalist Papers, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison and the articles written by the Founders, right? The truth doesn’t come in model years. You seem to think that anything more than thirty years old is irrelevant and worthless.
The great Austrian economists such as Ludwig von Mises, FA Hayek, Murray Rothbard and Henry Hazlitt provided us timeless wisdom about economic truth and the benefits of a free economy. They provided groundbreaking work on the origins of recessions and depressions and the nature of the business cycle.
What exactly do you mean “centuries out of date”?
I believe he was responding to a list posted by your ally in this thread. Please take a few moments to review his contributions to your cause.
The distribution of wealth has gone crazy, but this statement is too vague to really mean anything.
Ridiculous. The UN does not dictate US foreign policy, and the US has always been more than willing to ignore the UN when that suits its interests. Democrats and Republicans agree on that point. It’s the same for any other nation and that’s why the UN is so ineffectual.
Agreed.
“Entangling alliances” needs to be more specific.
I agree.
Most corporate subsidies are unnecessary stupid giveaways. I do think there’s a role for the government to play in encouraging technological innovation, but that’s not what it happening now for the most part. “End too big to fail” does not mean anything out of context. The bailouts were awful and more financial curbs are needed, but a collapse of the global economic system would not have been good for anyone.
The Fed is your bugbear, not mine.
Definitely.
The wiretapping and domestic spying portions need to go.
Meaning what?
I agree, but I don’t think one is coming.
Agree.
I’m inclined to agree, but “doesn’t harm anyone else” is defined differently by different people.
I agree.
Horrible and callous idea.
I have qualms about funding for private religious schools. I’d be willing to consider this.
Where is there no competition?
What are FedEx and UPS - not to mention the Internet? And doesn’t Amtrak compete with other forms of travel like cars and planes?
A ridiculous idea.
That’s doubly or triply ridiculous.
Your concerns about the UN are baseless, so this is completely unnecessary. I’m not a fan of the way the IMF works but I think aid to developing nations is a worthwhile idea.
Right, like in Iraq… except we didn’t have a UN resolution there. Depending on the country’s aims, the UN is a fig leaf or a mediation. The UN does not make wars happen.
Actually, not so much. I would prefer to discuss how we fix the problems we are facing today. Its fine to discuss early American presidents, but not really relevant to what we are facing today.
I think we have established that I (and Galileo Galilei) think that Ron Paul has a chance to win the nomination in 2012. Most of you disagree. Fine.
What I would like to focus on is what you all think of Ron Paul’s practical solutions to the imminent problems we are facing, fiscally as well as in foreign affairs. That would be a more constructive use of our time.
Sarcasm: not just an SDMB moderator, it’s your friend. 
Anyway I just posted a response to your post about your beliefs, so maybe we can work from there.
It wasn’t long ago that Rand Paul had no chance to win. For some people, giving up the ghost is not easy.
Let’s start with something easier; Does Ron Paul have a chance to win the Ames, Iowa Straw poll in August 2011?
[YES]
Fair enough.
Well, here’s what I wrote in response to what you described as Ron Paul’s most important practical solution:
So that’s one reason why I think your so-called “number one thing we could do” as a “practical solution to an imminent problem” is actually of no real practical use.
Its not a direct quote. It is a paraphrase of the argument Ron Paul would make based on his positions. He has said over and over that he supports a transition plan which would make these programs solvent while he cuts spending elsewhere avoiding a dollar crisis.
The point is, the notion that people who are dependent on government assistance have anything to worry about with a Ron Paul presidency is completely false.
You’re trying to get everybody to skip over the “does it matter?” question. So let me refresh your memory about the 2007 Ames poll. In 2007, Mitt Romney won the poll. John McCain did not bother competing in the poll, finished TENTH, and eventually won the nomination. Ron Paul got 13 times as many votes as McCain, but he did not win Iowa. He did not win a single state. Sam Brownback and Tom Tancredo both finished ahead of Paul, in second and third place, and neither of them even made it to the Iowa caucus the following winter. A poll of a few Republican voters in August does not say anything about how the entire state party will feel about the candidates half a year later, and it says even less about primary or general election voters around the country.
History has proven the exact opposite, and others have given examples in this thread and you’ve responded by ignoring the examples. So let me ask the same question again, and maybe this time you’ll answer it. In the early 1980’s, gold was often above $900 per ounce. In the mid and late 1990’s, gold has dropped to the low $200’s per ounce, a 75% decline. If you doubt these facts, you can check historical gold prices on many economic websites.
How does the fact that gold didn’t maintain its value over that period of time square with your claim that gold maintains its value over long periods of time?
Oh, silly me. All this time I thought that individual rights, democracy, and moral strength played a role. Now it turns out that those things are all irrelevant and that the quality of money is the only thing that matters.
How do you know that they are not Dr. Paul’s? Given that you’ve been forced to admit that nearly everything you’ve posted on this thread is untrue, why should I trust you on this point?
Palin is polling very poorly at this time, only a few points ahead of Ron Paul in national polls despite immense media coverage. On top of this, she does not have much of an organization and has less money than you’d think. If Palin does poorly at the Iowa straw poll (which I expect), I think she will drop out and endorse Ron Paul. She has already endorsed Rand Paul. She is also making a lot of money and having fun traveling around the country giving speeches. If she runs, she will be inflicted with 24/7 savage attacks with very unlikely prospects of success.
You heard it hear first from Galileostradamus.
PS
Brownback and Tommy Thompson dropped out in 2007 before the first primary.
As Bridget Burke said, I was responding to Galileo Galilei and not you. That said; yes, thirty year old texts are generally grossly inferior, and centuries old ones are normally useful only for historical purposes. It’s called progress.
I mean “superseded by more advanced knowledge back when steam engines were high tech”.
EDIT: And ignore my earlier comments about “Rand”, as I thought the Rand in question was Ayn Rand.
Let me tackle a few foreign policy questions.
I think the idea that the UN tells us what to do or is a danger to us is completely baseless. The UN is a useful forum that has no means whatsoever to tell the United States what to do. It is unfortunate that Ron Paul goes so far as to criticize the UN for honoring sites of historical importance for the whole world (e.g., designating Independence Hall as a World Heritage Site). We should not withdraw from the UN.
I think NATO is important as a political organization that links the United States to our friends in Europe. NATO is different after the fall of the Berlin Wall, but that doesn’t mean it should go away. Our NATO allies like our alliance with them, and unilateral withdrawal would be a huge slap in the face to them. It would do more damage to our international relations than anything else done in the past century. Ron Paul is wrong to advocate this.
I think we ought to be engaged in the Pacific Rim, including close security agreements with Japan. Our alliance with Japan has stabilized the Japan-China-Korea relationship for half a century, and our abandonment of the alliance would cause Japan to rearm. That would increase tensions in the Pacific, and could lead to war that would seriously harm our globalized economy. Similarly, if North Korea invaded South Korea, we should come to the aid of our ally. Ron Paul agrees with none of that.
I think the war in Afghanistan is justified, and Obama is pursuing the right course by starting to withdraw troops next year.
I believe there is waste within our foreign aid budget, but I do not believe there is anything whatsoever inherently wrong with foreign aid. It is a very small percentage of our budget and I do not accept Paul’s proposal to eliminate US foreign aid.
It’s May 2010. Your straw polls are 15 months away, and the primaries are mor than a year and a half away. It is too early for the polling to mean anything.
But she can raise money much more easily because she was the VP candidate in 2008 and is in great demand as a speaker, hard as that is to believe.
The straw poll does not matter. And there is no way she is going to quit before anyone votes. That happens to candidates with little name recognition and who can’t raise money. That’s not her.
He’s not competing with her.
And establishing herself as one of the leading conservatives in, which Ron Paul still is not, outside of one corner of the Internet. She’s made money for herself and is showing she can raise money for a campaign.
She lives for that.
I have already linked to a clear example of a case where Ron Paul voted for an award that was not authorized by Congress. Here’s the link again, to save you the trouble of searching for it. Perhaps you were hoping that I’d forgotten that? If so, you’re out of luck.
But let’s imagine a hypothetical scenario where your lame excuse was true. If so, it was extremely bad politics on Ron Paul’s part. You don’t get elected President by being the one person in Congress to metaphorically spit in the face of Rosa Parks regardless of what reason you give for it.
Also, needless to say, my post was about two topics, the Rosa Parks award and the celebration of the Civil Rights Act. You only addressed the award while ignoring how Paul voted on the Civil Rights Act.
I presume he did so because he wanted money. Groping for people’s money on that day does not honor Martin Luther King, Jr. It dishonors the man.
Basically Paul is saying that he’ll oppose racism when doing so jives with his message, and ignore it on other occasions. His argument is utterly fallacious. It’s “government that divides us along racial lines”? Really? So there was never any private institution that excluded blacks in the old South? No restaurant, bar, stadium, or other commercial enterprise ever stuck a “No Negroes” sign on its door? I think both you and Dr. Paul should study the history of the period a little more before endorsing statements like that.
Other posters have already shredded your claims on those issues quite thoroughly, hence there’s no need for me to do so.
Well, I’ve already posted a question about the historical downfall of gold prices. You didn’t answer it. I asked whether you could name the supposed piece of legislation containing funding for the NAFTA Superhighway. You didn’t answer that. I asked whether you could provide any evidence of plans for the North American Union. You didn’t answer that. etc…