# The Media Treatment of Rand Paul - Knee Jerk Reactionism by Mental Midgets **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [May 23, 2010, 8:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-media-treatment-of-rand-paul-knee-jerk-reactionism-by-mental-midgets/540445 "2010-05-23T08:12:52Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 20
**Author:** ![Chimera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Chimera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chimera)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2010, 2:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-media-treatment-of-rand-paul-knee-jerk-reactionism-by-mental-midgets/540445/381 "2010-05-30T14:15:40Z")
> [@astro](#): > > **Your** attitude that you will have to press your rose scented kerchief against your nose, and repress a disgusted shudder as you hoist up your philosophical petticoats to enter the mud wrestling pit of politics, and possibly _compromise_ is telling of just how utterly puerile your attitudes are with respect to dealing with the complexities of the real world. Oh come on! Surely they can get elected to the legislature and keep their ideological purity and not vote for anything against their principles, right? Which means that they won’t cast a single vote. 😛 And they’ll spend their entire time in government frustrated and sterile, producing NOTHING because their unwillingness to compromise on anything renders them incapable of cooperation and participation. But at least they’ll have the comfort of their convictions. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2010, 2:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-media-treatment-of-rand-paul-knee-jerk-reactionism-by-mental-midgets/540445/382 "2010-05-30T14:23:02Z")
> [@astro](#): > > . . . just how utterly puerile your attitudes are . . . Let’s avoid getting personal. [/Modding] ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2010, 2:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-media-treatment-of-rand-paul-knee-jerk-reactionism-by-mental-midgets/540445/383 "2010-05-30T14:25:54Z")
A good friend of mine wrote something on Rand Paul, mentioned [on this website.](http://blogs.alternet.org/speakeasy/2010/05/30/alternet-reader-utterly-destroys-rand-pauls-consistent-philosophy/) ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2010, 2:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-media-treatment-of-rand-paul-knee-jerk-reactionism-by-mental-midgets/540445/384 "2010-05-30T14:30:04Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > Googling, it appears that either he does want it repealed, or thinks it doesn’t qualify as valid law, or both. Googling, it appears that extra-terrestrials walk among us, and that the Virgin Mary can appear on a piece of toast. ---
**Author:** ![42fish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/4/b487fb/32.png) [@42fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/42fish)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2010, 4:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-media-treatment-of-rand-paul-knee-jerk-reactionism-by-mental-midgets/540445/385 "2010-05-30T16:12:51Z")
> [@jrodefeld](#): > > Unbelievable. How many times have we gone over this shit? Ron Paul NEVER WROTE THOSE LETTERS. I’m not even going any further down that path. You better come up with something better than that. (1) I never said he wrote them; I said he allowed them to be published under his name (2) As a reminder, the question I responded to was not “Show Ron Paul is a racist” but “Name something Ron Paul did that was stupider than Sarah Palin” (paraphrased, 'cause I ain’t going back through this thread for the exact wording). Is it your contention that allowing racist statements to be issued in your name (regardless of wether or not you wrote them) is in fact a brilliant tactic? ---
**Author:** ![jrodefeld](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/59ef9b/32.png) [@jrodefeld](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jrodefeld)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2010, 6:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-media-treatment-of-rand-paul-knee-jerk-reactionism-by-mental-midgets/540445/386 "2010-05-30T18:16:36Z")
> [@DanBlather](#): > > You are misunderstanding his post. He’s not saying that too much govt regulation is never a problem, he’s saying that when Libertarians look at a problem they always assume it is because of too much regulation, and never consider that it may be the opposite. It’s a True Scotsmen situation. > > I don’t like Libertarians \*or \* Chavez because they are both ideologues. I am a libertarian and I never “assume” a problem is due to too much regulation. I apply rational economic laws that I learned from the great Austrian School economists to understand the effects of a centrally planned economy. The differences between what a liberal would understand about the current financial situation and what a libertarian understands is as follows: 1. A liberal would say that our problems came because we “deregulated” Wall Street and the banks and that allowed them to engage in excess speculation that caused the meltdown. This at first seems rational and I am sympathetic to this view. Except that we didn’t really deregulate, regulatory agencies failed to do their job. 2. A libertarian understands that our problems come from a fiat monetary system and excess credit created in secret by the Federal Reserve system the floods the market (really only the banks and favored industries) with easy money which blows up an unsustainable bubble. This creates moral hazard and encourages reckless speculation. Furthermore, governmental programs like Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac encourage banks to make loans to people to buy houses who could never afford those houses with teaser rates and enticing deals. This created an unsustainable bubble that was destined to crash. It was the collusion between big business and big government that created this mess, NOT the Free Market. The answer, obviously, is to expose the Federal Reserve, Audit them and restrain monetary policy and eliminate secret bailouts. Then we should cut corporate welfare and subsidies and reestablish Free Markets and Capitalism (including allowing any and all bankruptcies). We should cut government spending and strive to balance the budget. And we should eliminate most regulations (they don’t work anyway). We should have anti-fraud laws, enforce contracts, strive for equal justice under the law (no special treatment for favored interests) and protect the environment from pollution. Other than that we should have an unregulated free market which functions due to consumer demand and sinks or swims on its own merits. Contrary to what many are taught this would make business much more honest and accountable and the de linking of government and business would be the best thing we could do to preserve prosperity and prevent corporate crime. This isn’t some blind faith placed in “markets”, it is an intellectual understanding of economic liberty and the benefits of such a system. Read more about it here: > **[Douglas E. French](https://mises.org/profile/douglas-e-french?d7_alias_migrate=1)** > > Douglas E. French is President Emeritus of the Mises Institute, author of Early Speculative Bubbles & Increases in the Money Supply, and author of Walk Away: ---
**Author:** ![jrodefeld](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/59ef9b/32.png) [@jrodefeld](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jrodefeld)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2010, 6:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-media-treatment-of-rand-paul-knee-jerk-reactionism-by-mental-midgets/540445/387 "2010-05-30T18:26:37Z")
> [@Bosstone](#): > > Start with a certain level of regulation. Remove some regulation. Situation worsens. Clearly the answer is we didn’t deregulate _enough_! This displays stunning ignorance and a very shallow understanding of economics. \*\*Regulation cannot possibly compensate for unwise monetary policy and excess deficits and corporate handouts. \*\* It can’t be done. If we replaced our monetary system with honest money (money backed by a commodity) the situation would improve dramatically. It would force our government and wall street to behave ethically and it would remove the power from the banks and place it with the people, where it rightfully belongs. The question you need to ask yourself is this: **Why on earth would the Banks and Wall Street behave responsibly and act ethically if they can simply print as much money as they need on demand? Also, why would businesses make responsible choices if they know they will be bailed out?** What makes you think that some bureaucratic government regulatory agency is going to compensate for this? ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2010, 6:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-media-treatment-of-rand-paul-knee-jerk-reactionism-by-mental-midgets/540445/388 "2010-05-30T18:36:16Z")
You also display stunning ignorance and a very shallow understanding of economics. \*\*“Honest money” cannot possibly compensate for unregulated financial game playing. \*\* It can’t be done. And there is no evidence, anywhere, that under a reliance on some imaginary “honest money” the situation would improve dramatically. If you want to pretend that governments and finaciers behaved ethically in the days of hard currency, then you have eliminated yourself from consideration as a serious participant in this discussion. > [@jrodefeld](#): > > The question you need to ask yourself is this: > > Why on earth would the Banks and Wall Street behave responsibly and act ethically if they can simply print as much money as they need on demand? There is no reason to believe that they would. On the other hand, how does changing the basis of money automatically mean that they would behave ethically? We would still need regulation, it would simply be over a different set of rules. ---
**Author:** ![jrodefeld](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/59ef9b/32.png) [@jrodefeld](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jrodefeld)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2010, 6:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-media-treatment-of-rand-paul-knee-jerk-reactionism-by-mental-midgets/540445/389 "2010-05-30T18:38:31Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > Okay, apparently you don’t in fact understand the technical-term sense of “market failure”. Brief explanation: > > “[Market failure](http://tutor2u.net/economics/content/topics/marketfail/market_failure.htm)” isn’t just a general expression meaning loosely “any situation in which a market did not happen to work well”. It’s an economics concept implying, to get technical, that there’s a Pareto sub-optimal allocation of resources, and consequently that the normal operation of market mechanisms doesn’t result in economic efficiency. > > There are specific types of situations that are designated as “market failures”, because they violate the required conditions for the efficient operation of free markets. The one that I mentioned in a previous post as affecting healthcare markets is _positive externalities_, meaning that some positive effect(s) of a good are too widely dispersed beyond the individual consumer for the producer to be able to successfully charge the consumer for them. For instance, the improved public health and financial stability resulting from universal health insurance coverage are very positive effects for society as a whole, but individual consumers don’t perceive them as individual benefits that they should pay for in their individual premiums. > > In short, you’ve interpreted my argument exactly backwards. I’m not arguing that health insurance is an example of a free market. My point is that because of the existence of this and other market failures in the healthcare industry, _ **health insurance is NOT in fact an example of a free market, and intrinsically CAN’T WORK as a free market** _. Not if its ultimate purpose is to serve the social goals that I mentioned above. > > What does that have to do with the reason that insurance exists in the first place? Insurance, from the citizen’s point of view, exists to fulfill a social goal: namely, to make health care more accessible and affordable by spreading its costs throughout a broader risk pool. Whether or not insurers are allowed by the government to cherry-pick customers via risk appraisal is irrelevant to the more fundamental question of why insurance exists at all, which is what I thought we were discussing until you went off on a tangent. The notion that health can’t operate as a free market is ludicrous. It isn’t a free market and hasn’t been for decades. Costs have skyrocketed and quality has gone down. This is in relation to increasing government involvement. It has already failed. You should learn a bit more about free market economics and the real solutions to health care. From A Four-Step Health-Care Solution by Hans-Hermann Hoppe, the great Austrian thinker and libertarian intellectual: \*It’s true that the U.S. health care system is a mess, but this demonstrates not market but government failure. To cure the problem requires not different or more government regulations and bureaucracies, as self-serving politicians want us to believe, but the elimination of all existing government controls. It’s time to get serious about health care reform. Tax credits, vouchers, and privatization will go a long way toward decentralizing the system and removmg unnecessary burdens from business. But four additional steps must also be taken: 1. Eliminate all licensing requirements for medical schools, hospitals, pharmacies, and medical doctors and other health care personnel. Their supply would almost instantly increase, prices would fall, and a greater variety of health care services would appear on the market. Competing voluntary accreditation agencies would take the place of compulsory government licensing–if health care providers believe that such accreditation would enhance their own reputation, and that their consumers care about reputation, and are willing to pay for it. Because consumers would no longer be duped into believing that there is such a thing as a “national standard” of health care, they will increase their search costs and make more discriminating health care choices. 1. Eliminate all government restrictions on the production and sale of pharmaceutical products and medical devices. This means no more Food and Drug Administration, which presently hinders innovation and increases costs. Costs and prices would fall, and a wider variety of better products would reach the market sooner. The market would force consumers to act in accordance with their own–rather than the government’s–risk assessment. And competing drug and device manufacturers and sellers, to safeguard against product liability suits as much as to attract customers, would provide increasingly better product descriptions and guarantees. 1. Deregulate the health insurance industry. Private enterprise can offer insurance against events over whose outcome the insured possesses no control. One cannot insure oneself against suicide or bankruptcy, for example, because it is in one’s own hands to bring these events about. Because a person’s health, or lack of it, lies increasingly within his own control, many, if not most health risks, are actually uninsurable. “Insurance” against risks whose likelihood an individual can systematically influence falls within that person’s own responsibility. All insurance, moreover, involves the pooling of individual risks. It implies that insurers pay more to some and less to others. But no one knows in advance, and with certainty, who the “winners” and “losers” will be. “Winners” and “losers” are distributed randomly, and the resulting income redistribution is unsystematic. If “winners” or “losers” could be systematically predicted, “losers” would not want to pool their risk with “winners,” but with other “losers,” because this would lower their insurance costs. I would not want to pool my personal accident risks with those of professional football players, for instance, but exclusively with those of people in circumstances similar to my own, at lower costs. Because of legal restrictions on the health insurers’ right of refusal–to exclude any individual risk as uninsurable–the present health-insurance system is only partly concerned with insurance. The industry cannot discriminate freely among different groups’ risks. As a result, health insurers cover a multitude of uninnsurable risks, alongside, and pooled with, genuine insurance risks. They do not discriminate among various groups of people which pose significantly different insurance risks. The industry thus runs a system of income redistribution–benefiting irresponsible actors and high-risk groups at the expense of responsible individuals and low risk groups. Accordingly the industry’s prices are high and ballooning. To deregulate the industry means to restore it to unrestricted freedom of contract: to allow a health insurer to offer any contract whatsoever, to include or exclude any risk, and to discriminate among any groups of individuals. Uninsurable risks would lose coverage, the variety of insurance policies for the remaining coverage would increase, and price differentials would reflect genuine insurance risks. On average, prices would drastically fall. And the reform would restore individual responsibility in health care. 1. Eliminate all subsidies to the sick or unhealthy. Subsidies create more of whatever is being subsidized. Subsidies for the ill and diseased breed illness and disease, and promote carelessness, indigence, and dependency. If we eliminate them, we would strengthen the will to live healthy lives and to work for a living. In the first instance, that means abolishing Medicare and Medicaid. Only these four steps, although drastic, will restore a fully free market in medical provision. Until they are adopted, the industry will have serious problems, and so will we, its consumers.\* Lets try it for once. The other option, complete government control and “universal” socialized medicine is unavailable to us. Our government is bankrupt and they cannot possibly afford such a cost. Ten or twenty years of the above solution will yield the greatest health care system in the world. ---
**Author:** ![jrodefeld](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/59ef9b/32.png) [@jrodefeld](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jrodefeld)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2010, 6:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-media-treatment-of-rand-paul-knee-jerk-reactionism-by-mental-midgets/540445/390 "2010-05-30T18:49:57Z")
> [@Fear\_Itself](#): > > In the context of the portrait of libertarianism posed by the OP, yes, that is what I am saying. The OP has consistently portrayed Rand Paul as a constitutional scholar who sees the Constitution as a suicide pact that is inviolate. I don’t know if that applies to all libertarians, but my comments are directed at the OP and his portrayal of Rand Paul and his particular flavor of libertarianism. This is completely wrong and not at all part of what I believe. I absolutely believe the Constitution can and should be changed over time. I believe in the process of amending the Constitution. Thats how we ended slavery, prohibited alcohol (an acknowledged mistake) then repealed that prohibition, allowed women to vote and many more things. The point is, the process should be slow and deliberate. But we shouldn’t just ignore the Constitution as many do now. The point is you can’t ignore the law because you don’t like it or because it is inconvenient. You have to work to change the law in the proper manner. I have no problem with that. I don’t know where you got the idea that I did. ---
**Author:** ![jrodefeld](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/59ef9b/32.png) [@jrodefeld](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jrodefeld)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2010, 6:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-media-treatment-of-rand-paul-knee-jerk-reactionism-by-mental-midgets/540445/391 "2010-05-30T18:58:00Z")
> [@](#): > > That’s not what I said. > > Other than the text of the document itself, we have no way of knowing the “original intent” of the many, many signers who left no written commentary at all. Remember, we not only have Congressmen in Washington voting on these amendments, but legislators in all the individual states voting during the ratification process. In fact it is quite easy to understand the intent of a majority of the founders and authors of the Constitution. There is much writings available from them. Here is a sampling: The Federalist Papers: [Campaign for Liberty - Reclaim the Republic. Restore the Constitution.](http://www.campaignforliberty.com/pillars/federalistpapers1.php) The Letters of Thomas Jefferson: 1743-1826: [http://odur.let.rug.nl/~usa/P/tj3/writings/brf/jeflxx.htm](http://odur.let.rug.nl/~usa/P/tj3/writings/brf/jeflxx.htm) The Anti-Federalist Papers: [http://www.constitution.org/afp/afp.htm](http://www.constitution.org/afp/afp.htm) The Articles of Confederation: > **[The Articles of Confederation – The U.S. Constitution Online –...](https://www.usconstitution.net/articles-html/)** > > Also see the Constitutional Topics Page for this document, a comparison of the Articles and the Constitution, and a table with demographic data for the signers of the Articles. Images of the Articles are available. Contents Preamble Article I – Style... “THOUGHTS ON GOVERNMENT” by John Adams: > **[John Adams Thoughts on Government](http://www.liberty1.org/thoughts.htm)** There is plenty more where that came from. But don’t pretend that there is no way to figure out what the founders believed. That is nonsense. > [@](#): > > Well, I’ll admit that I didn’t read the entire OP, and I doubt many other have. Can you cite the part where he says this-- ie, that the Constitution should never be amended? Well, that is the problem. I spend a bit of time writing my thoughts down in a well thought out, structured essay and nobody reads it. Yeah, I never said anything remotely like the Constitution should never be amended. If people don’t even take the time to look at what I post, people put forth ignorance and ascribe to me views that I don’t hold. > [@](#): > > That doesn’t make sense. Changing the constitution by amendment cannot be construed as violating the constitution, since the constitution allow for amendments. Exactly. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2010, 6:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-media-treatment-of-rand-paul-knee-jerk-reactionism-by-mental-midgets/540445/392 "2010-05-30T18:59:33Z")
> [@jrodefeld](#): > > 1. Eliminate all licensing requirements for medical schools, hospitals, pharmacies, and medical doctors and other health care personnel. Their supply would almost instantly increase, prices would fall, and a greater variety of health care services would appear on the market. The law of unintended consequences dooms this one. It takes a serious investment in time and money to become a Medical Doctor. If we deliberately create a situation in which pay will fall, we will actually wind up with fewer people entering the profession. We have already done that to a certain extent. One reason why so many M.D.s are foreign and many are women is that men, still culturally perceiving themselves to be family breadwinners, have increasingly chosen to avoid the field of medicine on the grounds that they will never be able to repay the debts while supporting a family. Eliminating all serious credentialling will merely increase the number of homeopathic and similar quacks into the industry. > [@jrodefeld](#): > > Competing voluntary accreditation agencies would take the place of compulsory government licensing–if health care providers believe that such accreditation would enhance their own reputation, and that their consumercare about reputation, and are willing to pay for it. Nah. It just means that the quacks who can come up with the biggest advertising budget will swamp the actual practitioners who know what they are doing. > [@jrodefeld](#): > > Because consumers would no longer be duped into believing that there is such a thing as a “national standard” of health care, they will increase their search costs and make more discriminating health care choices. See above. ---
**Author:** ![jrodefeld](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/59ef9b/32.png) [@jrodefeld](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jrodefeld)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2010, 7:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-media-treatment-of-rand-paul-knee-jerk-reactionism-by-mental-midgets/540445/393 "2010-05-30T19:09:32Z")
> [@acsenray](#): > > How do you know that Congress has not “declared war” since 1941? > **[Declaration of war by the United States](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Declaration_of_war_by_the_United_States)** > > A declaration of war is a formal declaration issued by a national government indicating that a state of war exists between that nation and another. A document by the Federation of American Scientists gives an extensive listing and summary of statutes which are automatically engaged upon the United States declaring war. > For the United States, Article One, Section Eight of the Constitution says "Congress shall have power to ... declare War." However, that passage provides no specific format for... The last formal declaration of war was in 1941. Don’t you think we have been in too many wars since then? Congress has been cowardly in their desire to give up their Constitutional duty. Like in the Iraq war, Congress (especially the Democrats) didn’t want to be held accountable if the war went badly. Instead they said to Bush, “you go to war if you need to”. Then later they would say, “but we didn’t think he really would exercise that power”. It is ridiculous. A brave Congress could have avoided this whole fiasco by asserting their Constitutional prerogative over declaring war. ---
**Author:** ![jrodefeld](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/59ef9b/32.png) [@jrodefeld](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jrodefeld)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2010, 7:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-media-treatment-of-rand-paul-knee-jerk-reactionism-by-mental-midgets/540445/394 "2010-05-30T19:25:05Z")
> [@FinnAgain](#): > > It is, it illustrates how dogmatic, narrow and inflexible certain people’s interpretation of the Constitution are, coupled with the fact that they think any other interpretation is impossible. > > The Constitution doesn’t say “any use of force must be a declared war, and only Congress can declare that war.” It simply says that one if Congress’ functions is the declaration of war. The president has the authority to respond to imminent crises such as an invading force or other emergency threat to national security. This has virtually never happened in more than 200 years of existence. Any deployment of troops overseas to engage in hostilities or occupy a nation requires a formal declaration of war from Congress. Any true scholar of the Constitution understands that the reason is to make war an infrequent occurrence that is carefully debated and considered. What issue do you have with this? Do you like war? If you at all care about having a government that supports peace you should demand that our government never engage in war except with a formal declaration after significant debate and proof that our national security is threatened. ---
**Author:** ![jrodefeld](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/59ef9b/32.png) [@jrodefeld](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jrodefeld)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2010, 7:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-media-treatment-of-rand-paul-knee-jerk-reactionism-by-mental-midgets/540445/395 "2010-05-30T19:32:07Z")
> [@pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](#): > > So you’re a better libertarian than Rand Paul? The man you refer to as brilliant? What does that make you? Mega-brilliant? I think his father, Ron Paul is brilliant. Rand Paul has promise. It is too early to tell how he will be as a politician. There are a couple issues I disagree with him about. I’m not going to drop my support because he is doing what it takes to get elected. ---
**Author:** ![jrodefeld](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/59ef9b/32.png) [@jrodefeld](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jrodefeld)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2010, 7:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-media-treatment-of-rand-paul-knee-jerk-reactionism-by-mental-midgets/540445/396 "2010-05-30T19:39:16Z")
> [@Robot\_Arm](#): > > No Child Left Behind took effect in 2002. > > Do I understand this correctly; you want to reduce the federal deficit by sending $8,000 to every school-age child in the country? > > For that matter, you seem to have argued that federal reimbursement of Medicare and Medicaid patients has destroyed the quality of health care, but you want federal reimbursement for all K-12 education? We already spend that amount on public schools. Just taking that money and allowing students their choice of schools would be an easy way to improve the quality of education in this country. Most libertarians don’t say we should eliminate public schools. We should give them competition. We should eliminate Federal involvement. Maybe over time we could have a society that can educate its children without government involvement at all, but this is a hard pill to swallow for most people. This would be a great intermediary step. If government schools can’t keep up and everyone chooses to take the voucher and go to a private school, then government schools will effectively be phased out over time. This is a very reasonable transition program to prove to people how superior private education is to public education. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2010, 7:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-media-treatment-of-rand-paul-knee-jerk-reactionism-by-mental-midgets/540445/397 "2010-05-30T19:39:24Z")
> [@jrodefeld](#): > > [Declaration of war by the United States - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Declaration_of_war_by_the_United_States) > > The last formal declaration of war was in 1941. What does the Constitution actually _require_ in the way of a declaration of war? ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2010, 7:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-media-treatment-of-rand-paul-knee-jerk-reactionism-by-mental-midgets/540445/398 "2010-05-30T19:45:41Z")
> [@jrodefeld](#): > > Any deployment of troops overseas to engage in hostilities or occupy a nation requires a formal declaration of war from Congress. This would come as a bit of a surprise to the various presidents who authorized engagement with French ships over the matter of French interference with U.S. shipping in 1798, the engagement with the Barbary Pirates beginning in 1801 and again in 1815, and similar events that were undertaken “overseas to engage in hostilities” without declarations of war. ---
**Author:** ![FinnAgain](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/finnagain/32/12500_2.png) [@FinnAgain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FinnAgain)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2010, 7:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-media-treatment-of-rand-paul-knee-jerk-reactionism-by-mental-midgets/540445/399 "2010-05-30T19:52:48Z")
> [@jrodefeld](#): > > Any deployment of troops overseas to engage in hostilities or occupy a nation requires a formal declaration of war from Congress. Any true scholar of the Constitution understands So cite where in the Constitution it actually says that. Unless of course you’re wrong. ---
**Author:** ![Leaper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/4bbf92/32.png) [@Leaper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaper)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2010, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-media-treatment-of-rand-paul-knee-jerk-reactionism-by-mental-midgets/540445/400 "2010-05-30T19:55:45Z")
> [@jrodefeld](#): > > I think his father, Ron Paul is brilliant. Rand Paul has promise. It is too early to tell how he will be as a politician. There are a couple issues I disagree with him about. I’m not going to drop my support because he is doing what it takes to get elected. As I said before, this does not fill me with much comfort; it tells me “my principles are subservient to my need to get (re)elected.” Why should we believe that he’ll suddenly become more libertarian once elected? He even told Time Magazine that he’s NOT a libertarian. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-media-treatment-of-rand-paul-knee-jerk-reactionism-by-mental-midgets/540445.md?page=19) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-media-treatment-of-rand-paul-knee-jerk-reactionism-by-mental-midgets/540445.md?page=21)