He’s nuts? Your going to have to do more to back that statement up. Actually, immigration is the only area where I disagree somewhat with Ron Paul, but I certainly don’t consider his position “nuts”. In fact he has said over and over that immigrants are not really the problem. They are scapegoated due to our own weak economy. If we get our house in order we would have no trouble having a very generous immigration policy. Theres nothing crazy about that.
We don’t have to agree with whether he could win or be a contender. But his popularity has increased way beyond what was seen in 2008. It hasn’t stopped. He has a grassroots army. And the Tea Party people (at least some of them) would support him. The fact is very few people were thinking about economic issues during 2007-2008. Now they are focused on Wall Street, the Federal Reserve, and fiscal policy. His views have gone mainstream in many ways. Nobody attacks him in the media anymore, and he is widely acknowledged as having been right.
Why don’t you tell me a little more about why he is “nuts”?
There are issues I agree with Paul, and you, about. But this is crazy talk. There is no North American Union on the way. There is not going to be an Amero. Or a Superhighway. It’s paranoia.
I think you’re kidding yourself on this one. He had a small but enthusiastic base of support in 2008. Some of them are probably still with him, but that was his moment in the sun. Now other candidates are trying to peel off those voters and tap into larger waves of national discontent. Those aren’t just Paul voters anymore.
But most wouldn’t. There are a lot of Christian conservatives in there, and I don’t think he has the credentials.
That’s because they’re not paying attention to him anymore. Nobody’s attacking Tom Tancredo or Mike Gravel either.
You can put lipstick on a pig, but he has said he wants to “abolish” Social Security.
That’s from the 2008 Republican debate at Boca Raton.
I have already stated why liberals will not support Ron Paul because of his social views. If a liberal has been alienated by Obama for not being liberal enough, then they will look at Ron Paul and see something much, much, MUCH worse.
The number of liberals who are going to say, “I think I want to support someone who wants to undo Social Security, health care, and education in order to legalize drugs and put us on the gold standard” is near zero. I mean, seriously, get real.
I’ve lived in DC for quite some time and I’m probably more familiar with him than most of his followers. The only difference here is that you seem to have been bitten by some kind of cult of personality.
Former president of the Harvard Law Review isn’t intelligent? If you can’t admit that Obama is a smart guy, I’m not sure how I can take your other views seriously.
Exactly right. My view is that if things get bad enough (they are well on their way) there will be a demand for substance over style. If there is a complete economic collapse and people start waking up we could see someone like Ron Paul get elected. I feel that 2012 will be unlike any other election year, thats why there is a possibility.
Okay, sanctions are going to kill many many innocent people in Iran. Sanctions are the first step to war. We had sanctions on Iraq throughout the 90s which lead to the invasion in 2003. Over a million Iraqi women and children died due to those sanctions. History is repeating itself. Why on earth can’t Iran have a nuclear weapon? They are surrounded by nuclear capable nations. Plus they have never been found to be in violation of the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty. What gives us the authority to put sanctions on a nation that has done nothing wrong?
We did not have complete economic collapse in the Great Depression, and we are in considerable better shape now. By your own calculation, the likelihood of Ron Paul getting elected is exceedingly remote.
the OP made exactly one important, undeniable point: the Republican field for 2012 looks VERY weak.
Barack Obama SHOULD be extremely vulnerable, but I don’t see a single likely candidate who’d be favored to beat him. If Obama is facing a ticket of Mitt Romney and Tim Pawlenty (not unlikely), well, just who’s supposed to get excited about that?
But Ron Paul is no solution. He has ZERO chance of winning the GOP nomination. And the more people learn about him, the less they’ll like him. I don’t say Paul himself is a racist or anti-semite, but there’s no doubt that a HUGE percentage of his followers are, and that doesn’t seem to bother him. He’s a loony fringe candidate on a wide varierty of issues, and that will only become more apparent if he ever gets the media exposure his followers think he deserves.
I think Obama is looking at the same situation Bill Clinton was in around 1994. His policies are unpopular, and that will cost his party dearly in Congress… but Obama himself will probably be re-elected handily, because his opponent is likely to be as stiff and unsellable as Bob Dole.
Without knowing what’s being discussed, I don’t think you can say that. Iran is not a poor country and its infrastructure was not just destroyed by wars the way Iraq’s was 20 years ago.
No, they are not. The US has had (pointless) sanctions on Cuba for 50 years and there has been no war with Cuba. The US has had sanctions on Iran for 30 yeasr and there’s been no war with Iran. Sanctions helped end apartheid in South Africa without a war.
That’s ridiculous and completely wrong. There was a war against Iraq in 1991, and that’s what led to the sanctions. The sanctions were supposed to keep the Iraqi from getting weapons or from murdering large numbers of Kurds and Sunnis. And they worked well despite all the corruption in the oil for food program. And the sanctions did not lead to the invasion in 2003. What caused the war in 2003 was George W. Bush getting elected and getting an opportunity to invade a country he wanted to take a shot at.
That’s not true, and it’s not going to be true no matter how many times you say it. That statistic was debunked years ago. The real numbers are tragic but nowhere close to “over a million.”
The extensive terrorist ties don’t give you any pause?
If you count sharing a border with Pakistan and being somewhat near Israel as surrounded, yes. And you could count Russia if you wanted, but Russia seems to get along with Iran just fine.
What would that prove? North Korea isn’t in violation either - they dropped out of the treaty when they didn’t feel like abiding by it anymore.
Define “nothing wrong.” Because with Iran, a repressive theocracy with ties to Islamic fundamenalism, that’s going to be a stretch. And I’m not sure who you think needs to confer that authority. If the UN is convinced it’s a bad idea for Iran to have nuclear weapons and that sanctions will help, they’ll do it. If not, they won’t. I’m not sure about the tactic and I am not sure anything can be done to stop Iran from developing nuclear weapons in a couple of years, but to act all shocked about it and assert that sanctions will lead to mass deaths and was is misguided.
In any case, and on top of all that stuff, a war against Iran is militarily and economically unfeasible. And thank goodness for that, or Bush would have done it when he had the chance. There’s no way Obama is going to do that.
Eh, post Gold Standard is the system globally since effectively the disaster of the Great Depression, which sane economists tie in no small part to that standard.
Yup, right straight, looks far better than an adjustment required under a Gold Standard (and the US is doing damned sight better than many others).
Over the time period the gold standard was relegated to its rightful place in the dustbin of superstitious ideas, global standards of living have sky-rocketed. So yes, thanks again for confirming the point. Although to be fair this is doubtless only in part to the abandonment of the primitive superstition relative to “shiny metallic ores” as some mystical totem of exchange value.
US argument, shrug. Can’t speak to the US on that, doubtless though has fuck all to do with being on Gold Standard (wager you saw your greatest expansion of Middle Class post gold standard).
Ditto
Best I can say about this is that relative to the USA, this is pure post-hoc ergo prompter hoc fallacy as I can assure you, on gold standard European governments demonstrated great skill in running up great skill in running up vast amounts of national debt to the point of default.
Basically, fuck all to do with anything.
Eh?
Well that makes no sense.
No actually one is more likely to say, “Well as in the vast long experience of human economic experience with monetary standards, nothing resists bad habits”
Much better, you explain where you got this entirely peculiar idea - on both fronts…
Okay, pull out the one smear that is always used against Ron Paul (given his spotless record over thirty years). He didn’t write those comments. He was away from politics for a decade and lent his name to a newsletter that hired and fired people he never met. His only wrongdoing was not paying closer attention to what was going on.
So, THAT IS NOT WHAT RON PAUL THINKS! He has never said anything remotely like that. This is a ridiculous smear that won’t tarnish his pristine legacy. Instead of pulling out long resolved guilt by association smears, stick to the issues.
Whether you choose to believe it our not, Ron Paul and the libertarian message has a lot of black supporters. Black people are abandoning Barack Obama as they realize that he is simply kowtowing to the the white power stucture. Black people were hyped up about the first black president and are realizing that he is just like all the others. Nothing has changed for the betterment of African Americans in this country. In fact, unemployment has dis proportionally affected minorities.
The POLICIES that Ron Paul advocates would help poor Blacks and Latinos much more than the policies of Obama or the Democrats.
Some of this is completely bullshit. Ron Paul doesn’t oppose Stem Cell research. He may oppose federal funding (he opposes federal funding for a lot of things). He has said over and over that the State shouldn’t be involved in marriage at all. Also, he does oppose abortion, but he feels the federal government should neither oppose nor support abortion (this is actually the Constitutional position).
Whether liberal will support him is an open question. If they learn the truth about the Federal Reserve learn some economics, they certainly will. He is on the side of truth. Why don’t you spend a little time, read some of his books and understand the issues a little better?
Yeah, “nonsense” like the government lied about the Kennedy assassination (they did). There were also cover-ups regarding 9/11, certain people were protected and nobody was prosecuted. There are no conclusions or evidence of an inside job, but considering how critical an event 9/11 was, why not open up the investigation again? We should always be able to review issues like this, even the Kennedy Assassination. By keeping them secret it feeds into the Conspiracy theories. If there is nothing to them, why not allow independent investigations into 9/11 to disprove all of the conspiracy theories out there and put the issue to rest?
Well, in my case, I’ve got to say “No”. I see no reason to assume that Iraq would any more hand over a nuke to their pet terrorists than we or the Soviets did to our pet terrorists. Nations just don’t hand over that sort of thing to loose cannons like terrorists.
