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I feel the same way. In fact, I'm sure most of Ron Paul's supports feel the same way. I find his foreign policy views deplorable and offensive. You know what?

by maratd 15y ago

I feel the same way. In fact, I'm sure most of Ron Paul's supports feel the same way. I find his foreign policy views deplorable and offensive. You know what? I will still be voting for him. I'm tired. I'm so tired of the lying. Gingrich, Romney, Obama, Bush, etc. will say anything to get elected. Once elected, they all behave the same way. I'd rather have an honest man I disagree with in the White House, than a man who says one thing, but does another.

nextparadigms 15y ago
I think his foreign policy is one of his strongest policies for which he gets a lot of support. What's funny is that Bush got elected in 2000 for having almost exactly the same foreign policy that Ron Paul has now: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jsvf1HU0KHM http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jsvf1HU0KHM http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I8NhRPo0WAo http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I8NhRPo0WAo
roguecoder 15y ago
He's either lying now about the newsletters or he was lying then and in 1996 and profited from those lies. I don't understand why people think he's an honest straight-shooter, any more than I understood that meme when it was applied to McCain. He's a politician playing a roll, that's all. He's not even a libertarian: he's perfectly fine with States grossly abridging freedom, just not the federal government. It's the same Southern conservatism that has been prominent since they lost the Civil War. Paul was smart enough to realize that you could sell this to a broader audience if you wrapped it in libertarianism is all.
- abstractionupon 15y ago
  You have to understand that he hasn't shifted his positions in 30 or so years, except on DADT and the death penalty. So to say he isn't a straight-shooter is absurd. As for the newsletters, they dealt with economics primarily. Could he have done a better job of overseeing the newsletters? Sure. But they were released over the span of a decade or more and as a whole contained only a few articles with questionable content. I mean, is someone making noise about Gingrich's or Romney's questionable ethics and corruption? Is someone asking why Romney's people bought all the HDD's from Mass. state computers before leaving office? Is someone calling other GOP candidates racist for supporting racial profiling and the drug war? Of course not. But a 20-year old ghostwritten dead horse has been re-re-exhumed and is being paraded on every network "news" show. Am I the only one who sees something wrong with this picture?
- fl3tch 15y ago
  > He's not even a libertarian: he's perfectly fine with States grossly abridging freedom, just not the federal government. Exactly this. He's not a libertarian, he's a states rights guy because he wants the power to do things like ban abortion in Texas. I think he has a very regressive political philosophy, that would empower local governments to discriminate against minorities, women, the disenfranchised, etc. People talk about how he wants to legalize drugs, but he would be perfectly fine with state governments creating even more draconian drug laws.
  - maratd 15y ago
    > He's not a libertarian, he's a states rights guy because he wants the power to do things like ban abortion in Texas. This is not inconsistent with libertarian thought. Protecting life from violence is a primary responsibility of government. If you believe that the fetus qualifies as a life at any point between conception and birth, you would be against abortion. Simple as that. If you want to fault him for believing a fetus qualifies as a life, fine, but that belief in itself has nothing to do with politics.
    - dreamdu5t 15y ago
      The fetus is trespassing on the women's body, and it would be self-defense to remove the invader.
      - maratd 15y ago
        You invite your friend to your home for a party. Your guest walked to your home. A blizzard starts outside. Your friend does something that pisses you off. You kick him out of your home, into the blizzard. He dies as a result. Were you just asserting your property rights or did you commit murder?
        dreamdu5t 15y ago
        When you tell your guest to leave, and they won't, or they don't have anyone to pick them up, and you wanted them gone, you would forcibly remove them from your home and place them outside.
ericingram 15y ago
If you don't agree with Ron Paul, it's because you've spent far less time studying the real implications and economic intricacies as he has. He's right on everything.
- zavulon 15y ago
  I agree with Ron Paul on economy more than any other candidate, but he's racist, anti-semite and a homophobe, or at least pretended to be one in order to get rich, which I find highly unlikely[1][2]. In my opinion, no matter how right on economy he is, we can't have someone like that as a president. [1] http://www.mrdestructo.com/2011/12/game-over-scans-of-over-50-ron-paul.html http://www.mrdestructo.com/2011/12/game-over-scans-of-over-5... [2] http://twitter.com/#!/RP_Newsletter http://twitter.com/#!/RP_Newsletter Edit: sorry if it was tongue-in-cheek! FWIW, I didn't downvote you.
  - white_devil 15y ago
    Why yes, for example this quote from the Ron Paul Newsletter proves that's he's a filthy racist: But outside of a minuscule band of KKK members, there are few whose racism is the defining fact of their lives. Case closed! Ron Paul is a racist!
  - rjbond3rd 15y ago
    Zavulon, why did you think he was rich? He's not. Why do you think he's pretending anything? He's not. Do you know the man, or are you just taking the easy path of buying into the hysteria? He's flawed but you certainly didn't mention his actual flaws, which means you don't know him, you've simply read about him. His worst crime is that he's homophobic on a personal level. But he's not one bit anti-gay on a philosophical level and he has gotten big endorsements from Andrew Sullivan and Dan Savage. So you've lost the anti-gay argument. And ditto for the other accusations. Please don't just be a part of the echo chamber. If you do, you're being rather easily manipulated, sorry.
  - CWuestefeld 15y ago
    he's racist, anti-semite and a homophobe I don't believe that's true. But even if he were, the elegance of his philosophy is such that it renders him powerless to do anything about it. He wants to take power away from the presidency and the rest of the federal government. He's not looking for power to oppress somebody he doesn't like (or favor the corporations he does like). He wants to make it so that it's impossible to curry favor or harm on groups according to a politician's whim.

stcredzero 15y ago

That's only going to work in US politics if someone can figure out a way to remove the fetus witha gun.

shasta 15y ago

You know that bacteria is "life", right? Does the government need to protect them? Obviously you intend "human life", but equally obviously that doesn't just mean living human cells (scratching -- killing skin cells -- isn't murder). The valuable thing worth protecting doesn't obviously begin at conception. On the contrary, it rather obviously doesn't.

maratd 15y ago
> The valuable thing worth protecting doesn't obviously begin at conception. Please let me know at which point it becomes obvious that it is a life worth protecting. It isn't so obvious to me. There is no physiological difference between a fetus that is in a mother's womb and an infant born a few minutes later.

scythe 15y ago

>he's a states rights guy because he wants the power to do things like ban abortion in Texas. No, he's a states rights guy because he's a states rights guy, and he holds to that position even when states pass laws he disagrees with. Look, the two most decentralized first-world countries that I can think of are Canada and Switzerland. These are not draconian racist hellholes; they're considered some of the freest countries in the world. This is a guy who thinks abortion is the most evil thing in the world and still opposes federal laws banning abortion because he thinks it's a state issue. I disagree with him about abortion, but the fact remains: he's not some scheming ne'er-do-well who wants to bring back Jim Crow laws, he's a consistent, ideological antifederalist who thinks decentralization is the way to go. In the majority of recent, real-world instances, local laws have tended to be more liberal than federal laws. We've seen this with gay marriage, we've seen it with medical marijuana, and we've seen it with election reform (see also Calif. Prop. 14); we may very well soon see it with recreational marijuana.

whycombine 15y ago
he's a consistent, ideological antifederalist who thinks decentralization is the way to go. Wouldn't that actually make him a federalist? Federalists support the type of government called a federation, which is what the Articles of Confederation originally created and the Constitution sort of maintained. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federalist http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federalist
fl3tch 15y ago
> Look, the two most decentralized first-world countries that I can think of are Canada and Switzerland. These are not draconian racist hellholes But the South was. You're ignoring the evidence of history. Canada and Switzerland are simply much less diverse, and it's pretty naive to think that racists in Mississippi and Alabama, who never went away, wouldn't seize on the chance to reinstitute something resembling Jim Crow laws. Edit: > No, he's a states rights guy because he's a states rights guy The first rule of tautology club is the first rule of tautology club. He's a states rights guy because he's a Christian fundamentalist who wants the power to enforce his provincial values on others, and the federal government gets in the way of that.
grandalf 15y ago
In the majority of recent, real-world instances, local laws have tended to be more liberal than federal laws. This is an excellent point. It's also far more expensive for lobbying groups to try to influence politicians state by state. Powerful Federal officials represent a one stop shop for buying influence, so decreasing Federal power will reduce corruption.
- espeed 15y ago
  Exactly. And for this reason, would we be served better if there were more members of Congress? (http://www.quora.com/Would-US-citizens-be-served-better-if-there-were-more-members-of-Congress http://www.quora.com/Would-US-citizens-be-served-better-if-t...). How many members would it take before lobbying became prohibitively expensive?
toyg 15y ago
Switzerland is really not a model when it comes to racism. Until very recently, its government was blatantly organized along ethnic lines, with clear glass ceilings for some groups. Public opinion is very conservative on this matter, and most laws are enacted in clearly racist terms.

joshfraser 15y ago

It's easier to switch states than to switch countries. If you don't like the draconian laws in your state you can move to another one that shares your views.

cbs 15y ago
And when I'm out of states that share my views?
- adbge 15y ago
  Try voting.
  - cbs 15y ago
    Well yeah. Thats kind of my point. I was showing the silliness of the statement I was replying to, that somehow if I don't like the laws of my state, I can just up and move to one that does instead of having to try and affect legislative change.
- scythe 15y ago
  Wouldn't you then also be in the wrong country? How could every single state oppose you and the federal government agree?

deleted 15y ago

[deleted]

ithought 15y ago

This is a fantastical framing of the incorporation doctrine. Do you even understand the debate or how historically your position is wrong? Do you realize that as of today not all of the Bill of Rights apply to the states, only some? I don't think states can legally violate natural rights and I think they should adopt and ratify their own Bill of Rights but this hyperbolic sensationalism overlooks the historical context and distorts the original intent of the Constitution. Ron Paul is not against the incorporation doctrine so the states can legally discriminate. He's against it because it's not how the Constitution was written, see history. Our rights pre-exist the Constitution and the states.

andylei 15y ago
unless you're a state politician. then he doesn't care what you do.

ericingram 15y ago

That's a ridiculous position to take. He's not any of those things.

redthrowaway 15y ago

I'm hoping that was tongue-in-cheek.

jbooth 15y ago
You're missing the point - I'm making a historical point. I'm generally of the opinion that more states' rights is generally better as long as it doesn't create a game-theory zero-sum clusterfuck of misaligned incentives, like taxes for crossing state borders or something like that. Some things need a federal guarantee but many can/should be devolved to the states.
- thebigshane 15y ago
  You are absolutely right. And that is what makes the constitution important, to be that "federal guarantee". I'd like to comfort you that "taxes for crossing state borders" could never happen but I'm not sure I can justify that. I was hoping the Commerce Clause would say something there but I couldn't find anything. Maybe somebody else could find something on this bit of a hole in the libertarian philosophy?
  - jbooth 15y ago
    I think most readings of the commerce clause prohibit taxes on crossing state lines, it was just an example of game theory gone awry.