Slashdot Mirror
Ron Paul Campaign Answers Slashdot Reader Questions
On January 15th we asked you for tech-oriented questions we could send to the various presidential candidates, and you responded like mad. The candidates were the exact opposite: not a single one answered emails we sent to their "media inquiry" links or email addresses. Slashdot has more readers than all but a handful of major daily papers, so that's kind of strange. Maybe they figure our votes aren't worth much or that hardly any of us vote. In any case, the Ron Paul campaign finally responded, due to some string-pulling by a Slashdot reader who knows some of Ron Paul's Texas campaign people. Perhaps other Slashdot readers -- like you (hint hint) -- can pull a few strings with some of the other campaigns and get them to communicate with us. Use this email address, please. But first, you'll probably want to read the Ron Paul campaign's answers to your questions (below).
1) Global high tech
In the last year, India and China have both announced and made progress towards implementing their own space programs. How should America respond to such growing technological boldness in such countries? Is it a threat or an opportunity?
Ron Paul campaign:
America should stop subsidizing the defenses of the rest of the world and worry more about its own national security interests, including its interests in a viable space program. As president, I will also work to remove barriers to private space flight.
2) Why Can't I Get a Straight Answer?
I've noticed that a number of candidates (I'm not naming names) and a number of administration officials will not answer a question in a clear and concise fashion. The subject could be anything from "Do you think waterboarding is torture?" to "What will be your stance toward the war in Iraq if you are elected?"
So my question to you is, "Do you think that I want someone in that office (Whichever one it is) who is deliberately attempting to deceive me?"
Even if you don't answer this question, I hope you think about it the next time someone asks you a question.
Ron Paul campaign:
The American people should expect clear and direct answers to their questions. Not only have I always strived to clearly state my position on issues, but my voting record backs up my commitment to the free-market, limited government philosophy I espouse on the campaign trail.
3) Marijuana
I'm a college graduate with a decent job in a technical field. I pay my taxes, my debts are minimal. I get along well with others, and am close to my family. I like to think that I am a good citizen and contribute to society. Yet because I smoke marijuana instead of drinking beer when I come home from work, my government has declared war on me.
My question is this: Do you believe I belong in jail? If so, why? If not, what are you going to do to protect me from being arrested?
Ron Paul campaign:
I oppose federal laws outlawing marijuana and I oppose federal interference with state medical marijuana laws.
4) What do you think about technology?
Can you clarify your policy around fair use of digital media and content? More specifically, can you explain how you will balance the rights of the average citizen to use digital content in "fair use" ways (backups, time-shifting, parody, etc.) with the need for corporations to protect IP investments? With the previous two administrations we have seen an erosion of fair-use rights via the DMCA and copyright extension bills. As President, will your policies tend to favor these trends or reverse them?
Ron Paul campaign:
I favor enforcement of intellectual property rights; however, some of the steps taken to protect these rights impose unreasonable burdens on the consumers and even raise civil liberties concerns. As president, I will seek a balance between the interest of copyright holders and consumers of digital media.
5) What do you think about patents?
People complain about taxes being the main hindrance of innovation, but when someone creates a new product, be it an iPhone or a Blackberry, they aren't looking out for the tax man. The main hindrance to American technological innovation is a patent system that rewards people for sitting on ideas and punishes those who create new products.
It has become an accepted fact that when you create something new, you will likely have to pay companies that had nothing whatsoever to do with your invention, just because they filed a patent while never intending to actually produce or sell anything.
As President, would you fix our broken patent system?
Ron Paul campaign:
Patents have a role to play in encouraging innovation. While I do not have a plan for patent reform yet, I would want to work with Congress to make sure that the US patent system encourages and rewards innovation. Making sure the patent system is fair to small business and entrepreneurs, rewards the actual inventors of a product, and does not tilt the playing field to large corporations will be a priority in my administration's approach to patent law.
1) Global high tech
In the last year, India and China have both announced and made progress towards implementing their own space programs. How should America respond to such growing technological boldness in such countries? Is it a threat or an opportunity?
Ron Paul campaign:
America should stop subsidizing the defenses of the rest of the world and worry more about its own national security interests, including its interests in a viable space program. As president, I will also work to remove barriers to private space flight.
2) Why Can't I Get a Straight Answer?
I've noticed that a number of candidates (I'm not naming names) and a number of administration officials will not answer a question in a clear and concise fashion. The subject could be anything from "Do you think waterboarding is torture?" to "What will be your stance toward the war in Iraq if you are elected?"
So my question to you is, "Do you think that I want someone in that office (Whichever one it is) who is deliberately attempting to deceive me?"
Even if you don't answer this question, I hope you think about it the next time someone asks you a question.
Ron Paul campaign:
The American people should expect clear and direct answers to their questions. Not only have I always strived to clearly state my position on issues, but my voting record backs up my commitment to the free-market, limited government philosophy I espouse on the campaign trail.
3) Marijuana
I'm a college graduate with a decent job in a technical field. I pay my taxes, my debts are minimal. I get along well with others, and am close to my family. I like to think that I am a good citizen and contribute to society. Yet because I smoke marijuana instead of drinking beer when I come home from work, my government has declared war on me.
My question is this: Do you believe I belong in jail? If so, why? If not, what are you going to do to protect me from being arrested?
Ron Paul campaign:
I oppose federal laws outlawing marijuana and I oppose federal interference with state medical marijuana laws.
4) What do you think about technology?
Can you clarify your policy around fair use of digital media and content? More specifically, can you explain how you will balance the rights of the average citizen to use digital content in "fair use" ways (backups, time-shifting, parody, etc.) with the need for corporations to protect IP investments? With the previous two administrations we have seen an erosion of fair-use rights via the DMCA and copyright extension bills. As President, will your policies tend to favor these trends or reverse them?
Ron Paul campaign:
I favor enforcement of intellectual property rights; however, some of the steps taken to protect these rights impose unreasonable burdens on the consumers and even raise civil liberties concerns. As president, I will seek a balance between the interest of copyright holders and consumers of digital media.
5) What do you think about patents?
People complain about taxes being the main hindrance of innovation, but when someone creates a new product, be it an iPhone or a Blackberry, they aren't looking out for the tax man. The main hindrance to American technological innovation is a patent system that rewards people for sitting on ideas and punishes those who create new products.
It has become an accepted fact that when you create something new, you will likely have to pay companies that had nothing whatsoever to do with your invention, just because they filed a patent while never intending to actually produce or sell anything.
As President, would you fix our broken patent system?
Ron Paul campaign:
Patents have a role to play in encouraging innovation. While I do not have a plan for patent reform yet, I would want to work with Congress to make sure that the US patent system encourages and rewards innovation. Making sure the patent system is fair to small business and entrepreneurs, rewards the actual inventors of a product, and does not tilt the playing field to large corporations will be a priority in my administration's approach to patent law.
an email link? on the front page of /. ?
I'm sure there will be no abuse or spam with that one.
To me the answer to question 2 very much conflicts with the answer to question 1.
I am a viral sig. Please copy me and help me spread. Thank you.
So, like, I'm confused. Who is actually answering these questions here? The title and story intro say the questions are answered by the "Ron Paul campaign." So does that mean this is, in fact, Ron Paul himself answering, or his people, or a combination, or...?
His answer to question #3 contradicts his resolution in answer to question #2.
Which is a less than huge surprise, considering how leading most of those questions were!
Seems like the libertarian version of a typical politician - light on details, light on commitment, and exactly what the audience was looking for.
They're so dreary, they claim he's a "nut" but then don't really name any specifics. "Oooh, Ron Paul is a nut! He'll, umm, get rid of federal reserve 3 days after he's sworn in!!!". Nonsense.
He doesn't stand the slightest chance of making it to the election. Anyone supporting his is totally wasting their effort and cash.
Athiesm is a religion like not collecting stamps is a hobby.
If he actually answered the questions himself, or someone who has their ideals aligned with Ron Paul on his staff that is technically savvy.
The answers, although answered, were rather short, and someone ambiguous in my opinion. But atleast he (or someone in his office) responded.
I came, I conquered, I coredumped
"Barriers to private space flight" unfortunately includes gravity. Sorry, but there is no good answer to dealing with competitive space programs without using the word "program."
I'm overwhelmed by RP's insight and commitment to these issues, and can't wait to put him into a leadership position.
A post a day keeps productivity at bay.
Not trolling at all here, but I was rather underwhelmed by the responses.
Basically, the responses given by the Ron Paul campaign carried the tone I expected (more focus on personal liberties and free market) but were truly lacking in depth. For once, it would be nice to get a more detailed response from a politician, and not just the typical buzzword jockeying.
Of all the candidates, this was the one I least expected generalizations and "typical response" muck. Oh well... at least they responded... I guess...
Proudly supporting the Libertarian Party.
They're Republicans who want to smoke pot and get laid.
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
...I still support Ron Paul and am very vocal in proposing him as a choice to my many family, friends and customers who do vote.
Nonetheless, these answers were a bit short and vague, but I do agree with how he answered them. Ron Paul's greatest asset is that he does listen. I have an interesting story dating back many years to a gold conference I attended in San Mateo. Ron Paul was a keynote speaker there, and after his speech, everyone left the convention room to gather for drinks and snacks. Outside the room, I started speaking with some younger folk who gathered outside the convention room (the average age of people in the room was probably 70, and I was the only person under 40 who wasn't a nurse of an old person in a wheelchair). Even almost a decade ago, Paul had young fans who would gather to talk to him outside of the official convention. As I spoke to these teenagers and young adults, many from the convention gathered to hear me out. After about 45 minutes of fielding questions, the crowd finally dispersed, and then I noticed that Dr. Paul was in the crowd listening. A congressman who took time out from his then-hectic schedule to actually hear me speak about gold and freedom. We spoke for a few minutes, and since then I've regularly talked to him at other conventions he's attended. It's ridiculous to me to think that a popular congressman would take even a few minutes out of his life to listen to anyone but lobbyists, but Paul has done it again and again with people around him. Even during the current campaign I've seen Paul spend hours after a speech to shake hands, answer questions bluntly, and sign pocket Constitutions.
Paul's most magic words I've heard him speak is to say that as President he doesn't have the power that people would want HIM to have. He admits that the President's powers are very limited, and his sole purpose to be President is to use the bully pulpit to raise awareness on Constitutional issues. He would be wonderful with the veto pen, and he would call our big business and lobbying groups for their actions, as he has done (on C-SPAN) over his many years in Congress.
On the war issue that many neoconservatives hate him for, Paul has said repeatedly that he is against undeclared wars. He's also said that Presidents are to follow Congress on declaring war or refusing it. This means that Paul _would_ go to war if Congress declared it, even in Iraq. He's putting politicians in their responsible positions by demanding that they follow the Constitution.
Paul wants the Federal Department of Education gone, because they make a mess of education. He also admits he can't do it alone. He wants the IRS gone, because of its unconstitutionalist, but he can't do it alone. A vote for Paul is NOT a vote for getting rid of anything, or stopping a war, or ending rampant government growth -- it's a vote to put a freedom lover in the most powerful bully pulpit, to remind the politicians and the masses that freedom and responsibility are the individual's right to protect and follow through on.
Even though I don't vote, I support voters who make clear choices based on the Constitution that we believe in to protect the freedoms that I believe are God-granted, or inherent at birth for all people in all countries. Paul's message is powerful in that he's not looking to lead people, but to follow them, and protect their freedoms so they can make responsible, or irresponsible choices, and learn lessons from those choices. He's not looking to stop abortion, but to stop Federal involvement in an issue that is debatable as a "murder" cause. The definition of murder is a State issue, and Paul wants to force the issue there. I appreciate his candor and honesty even though I disagree with many positions of his.
I'm glad he answered these questions simply, because it allows you to see that Paul believes the President is near powerless, except for the veto pen and the bully pulpit.
I've been a fan of Ron Paul for a very long time. I voted for him 12 years ago in my high schools "mock election". He continues to support limited government in all aspects of our life, pretty much a polar opposite of Hillary and Obama.
The main question I have for Ron regards education. We have slipped horribly by giving control of the school system to the government. Sure, our government isn't that bad. I can think of much worse governments out there. But, does it really matter? Why does the government decide what to teach our kids? Why do they decide whether to teach evolution or creation? Why do they decide where the children go for field trips? Why can't those decisions be given back to parents? Ron, what plan do you have to eliminate the government's role in education?
Free unix account: freeshell.org
the fact is that politicians don't respond to you unless it's in their interest (i.e. votes or notoriety) not the public's interest. That kind of constituent scorning only increases after they're elected. I'm very familiar with politicians in that I was a reporter for mainstream media for seven years before my current job with IT, and I learned the hard way that politicians rarely give anyone the time of day. They're mainly interested in garnering committee appointments for power's sake.
The fact that you want to have sex with Ann Coulter is the main reason you're going to vote for Hillary Clinton is revealing of some deep psychological problem. You should get help.
If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine.
Just blowing off steam. Sheesh.
This is classic political bullshit. They're just answering in a way that makes you think he's all about YOU! (rolls eyes)
IF the others would respond, it would just be more of the same.
Ron Paul... the spoiler vote for the republicans in 2008.
Crap!
If I wanted my mind made up for me, I'd do it myself!!
And I'm overwhelmed by my inability to preview my own post, to see that Slashdot stripped out my 'sarcasm' tags!
A post a day keeps productivity at bay.
the story of the ron paul candidacy is the story of the legions of contrail conspiracists, racists, libertarians, alternative utopian fruitcakes, and other wildcard assorted crackpots on teh intarwebs banding together and choosing their representative. never before in american politics has such a force like the internet allowed such disparate trollish lunatic fringe voices to band together and coordinate their efforts
long live the internet. allowing crackpot internet types to choose the troll candidate for presidency since 2007
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
None of the answers say anything. And the questions are stupid; are these issues really the most important things to slashdot readers? I'd just love to have one debate/interview here that didn't involve, whatever your position, a pot question. Anyhow, Paul's answers are no different than any other politicians. This was, is and will be a waste of time. Now brace yourselves for a flurry of bumper sticker vandals hijacking the thread.
Please don't use "umm" or "err" or "erm".
These were good questions and it is a shame that most of the candidates (or at least their staff) did not make an effort to respond to them. An easy way to express outrage is to vote for Ron Paul in the primaries. Write him in if you have to. It probably won't affect the outcome, but a surge in votes for Ron Paul will give future candidates an incentive to be more responsive to requests from alternative sources of media.
Except this time, make it clear how many subscribers are actively reading slashdot. Instead of some crackpot geek site they'll see it as a forum for a significant amount of voters. Or maybe they just don't think geeks vote :)
To heck with this Ron Paul guy. I want Ru Paul for President!
Just be sure to wear the gold uniform when you beam down -- you know what happens when you wear the red one.
It is highly unlikely then Ron Paul will win the Republican nomination. This is unfortunate because he is an extremely smart man who is consistent in his policies. His voting history carries this out. Not only that, be he is the only candidate that seems to have a solid understanding of sound economic fiscal policy.
Even more unfortunate, we will soon be left with elections that are exactly as they have been in the past: A choice between the lesser of two evils.
Tell me, of the 4 front-runners (Clinton, Obama, Romney, McCain), who deserves your vote? The answer is: None of the above.
[ exhale a sigh of desperation ]
Five questions, and you waste one on, "Have you stopped beating your wife", I mean, "Why do you lie to us", I mean, "why can't I get a straight answer"?
What do you expect the candidate to say? All the questions were pretty sucky, IMO.
It being Ron Paul, I wish one of the questions was, "How can you, as a doctor, be a evolution denier? And will you, once President, have a scientist explain what a theory is?
We wouldn't allow a person who believes in a flat earth to become President. We wouldn't allow a holocaust denier to become President. Why would we allow an evolution denier to become President?
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
Not to say that I had high hopes anyways, and maybe I haven't been here long enough (c. 2005), but this the most dissapointing interview I've seen. There is so little content to each answer. This has just reinforced to me that the whole of Ron Paul's plan has evolved to little more than shouting "THE CONSTITUTION" and "LESS GOVERNMENT" every chance he gets. He was actually the only one that I figured would respond, as his base is most active on the web. I had hope for him. But now, I really feel a no response would have been better.
Making sure the patent system is fair to small business and entrepreneurs, rewards the actual inventors of a product, and does not tilt the playing field to large corporations will be a priority in my administration's approach to patent law.
So what? How does that translate into policy?! He espouses "straight answers" and then gives a completely ambgiuous one in the same interview.
I got a catholic block.
More non-answers from a guy who claims to be running on a "not more of the same" platform.
/Quote
For instance:
Quote:
2) Why Can't I Get a Straight Answer?
Ron Paul campaign:
The American people should expect clear and direct answers to their questions.
3) Marijuana : My question is this: Do you believe I belong in jail? If so, why? If not, what are you going to do to protect me from being arrested?
Ron Paul campaign:
I oppose federal laws outlawing marijuana and I oppose federal interference with state medical marijuana laws.
Does anyone else think that Answer #2 conflicts with Answer #3? Did he just not answer the guy's direct question? (i.e. "what are you going to do to protect me from being arrested?")
Another non-answer: "As president, I will seek a balance between the interest of copyright holders and consumers of digital media. "
I must say, after all the hoopla about this guy being a "real candidate", I'm not impressed. He sounds like more of the same to me.
-- "In order to have power, I must be taken seriously." -Mojo Jojo
I'd like to know what you mean by eliminating the government's role in education. Are you only talking about abolishing the Federal Department of Education? Or do you also want to see compulsory attendance laws and child labor laws repealed, and public schooling abolished?
I write sci-fi for metalheads
If two things wish to have gravity with each other, such as say the Earth and the Moon, that is fine. However, if you choose not to enter into a gravity contract with the Earth, you will be free of gravity under the Ron Paul administration.
Now, do you see why gravity is no longer a barrier to space flight?
Maybe they figure our votes aren't worth much or that hardly any of us vote.
I know this story is slanted such that we are supposed to feel that only Ron Paul cares enough about us to actually respond, but the truth of the matter is that despite slashdot's large readership, a significant fraction of the readership is not eligible to vote in U.S. elections, whereas large U.S. newspapers can boast a much larger percentage of eligible U.S. voters. Also, politicians still pay more attention to print publications than to internet publications. Print media still holds more respect. One of my coworkers once told me he had e-mailed his resume to 100 companies and not gotten a single response. I told him that I would bet money that he had sent his resume by regular mail to the company that he would have gotten multiple responses. Of course, that would have cost him over $40 in stamps, plus more effort to address everything. This is the same reason you are more likely to get a response from a politician if you send them a letter than an e-mail. You have to put more effort into a letter, so they are going to pay more attention to it.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
You serve politicians up questions like that, where their answers will either alienate the Slashdot population or the general electorate, and you expect answers? Come on. Those were cherry picked by Ron Paul fanboys. The pot smoking question especially.
I write sci-fi for metalheads
President Bush wanted to chime in as well, and ./ also has Bush's response: http://www.soundboard.com/sb/Monkey_Sounds_audio.aspx .
I hope everything is clearer now. It's funny how Ron Paul haters love to point out he will never win. Well, his views won't die, and Nader had no chance either, but how many votes did he win in FL, 100k? And how many votes were in dispute with Bush, less than 1000?
I get the feeling big media, fox news, and hardcore dems or repubs love to live in denial that he isn't a threat.
3 seemed like a pretty straight forward answer. He oppose Federal Marijuana laws and federal interference with state laws regards Medical Marijuana.
Hell, it's the only thing he has said that I like, and I don't smoke pot.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
... and I can tell you that the only reason these answers are so short is because the campaign was incredibly crunched for time due to all the Super Tuesday business.
/any/ US presidential candidates who stand for actual liberty and peace issues, much less that they will take notice of our corner of the Net.
I have been involved in politics before, and I can honestly say our friends in the campaign really went above and beyond the call of duty to get us these answers only a few hours after I made the initial telephone calls.
We should be thankful there are
-Will the Chill
*sig not available at this time due to long Super Tuesday voting lines*
Creator of RPerl, Scouter, Juggler, Mormon, Perl Monger, Serial Entrepreneur, Aspiring Astrophysicist, Community Organiz
I almost want to say "Why bother?" because the responses were so short. I'm no Libertarian or Ron Paul supporter, but at least when Michael Badnarik answered Slashdot's questions, he wrote more than a short paragraph on each.
Small potatoes make the steak look bigger.
Ron Paul is still the biggest spammer on the Internet today, and should be imprisoned for same.
I seem his name much more frequently than viägra, online degrees, and fake rolex. I am tired of it. I doubt I am alone.
We are all very curious. How precisely is Ron Paul against women's rights?
I don't read or respond to AC posts
So he, or his campaign, agrees that the American people should expect clear and direct answers, and then prevaricates and fails to answer the question.
I'm not an American voter so while his advocacy of clear and direct answers doesn't apply to me I'm not quite sure of how dedicated he is to that philiosophy from the answer given.
1) Global high tech
...It is very cold in space.
In the last year, India and China have both announced and made progress towards implementing their own space programs. How should America respond to such growing technological boldness in such countries? Is it a threat or an opportunity?
Khan Paul campaign:
Do you know the Klingon proverb that tells us revenge is a dish that is best served cold?
2) Why Can't I Get a Straight Answer?
I've noticed that a number of candidates (I'm not naming names) and a number of administration officials will not answer a question in a clear and concise fashion. The subject could be anything from "Do you think waterboarding is torture?" to "What will be your stance toward the war in Iraq if you are elected?"
So my question to you is, "Do you think that I want someone in that office (Whichever one it is) who is deliberately attempting to deceive me?"
Even if you don't answer this question, I hope you think about it the next time someone asks you a question.
Khan Paul campaign: Oh, I've given you no word to keep, Admiral. In my judgement, you simply have no alternative.
3) Marijuana
I'm a college graduate with a decent job in a technical field. I pay my taxes, my debts are minimal. I get along well with others, and am close to my family. I like to think that I am a good citizen and contribute to society. Yet because I smoke marijuana instead of drinking beer when I come home from work, my government has declared war on me.
My question is this: Do you believe I belong in jail? If so, why? If not, what are you going to do to protect me from being arrested?
Khan Paul campaign:
I've done far worse than kill you. I've hurt you. And I wish to go on... hurting you. I shall leave you as you left me, as you left her. Marooned for all eternity, in the center of a dead planet. Buried alive... buried alive.
4) What do you think about technology?
Can you clarify your policy around fair use of digital media and content? More specifically, can you explain how you will balance the rights of the average citizen to use digital content in "fair use" ways (backups, time-shifting, parody, etc.) with the need for corporations to protect IP investments? With the previous two administrations we have seen an erosion of fair-use rights via the DMCA and copyright extension bills. As President, will your policies tend to favor these trends or reverse them?
Khan Paul campaign:
You see, their young enter through the ears and wrap themselves around the cerebral cortex. This has the effect of rendering the victim extremely susceptible to suggestion. Later as they grow follows madness.. and death.
5) What do you think about patents?
People complain about taxes being the main hindrance of innovation, but when someone creates a new product, be it an iPhone or a Blackberry, they aren't looking out for the tax man. The main hindrance to American technological innovation is a patent system that rewards people for sitting on ideas and punishes those who create new products.
It has become an accepted fact that when you create something new, you will likely have to pay companies that had nothing whatsoever to do with your invention, just because they filed a patent while never intending to actually produce or sell anything.
As President, would you fix our broken patent system?
Khan Paul campaign:
No. No, you can't get away. From hell's heart, I stab at thee. For hate's sake, I spit my last breath at thee.
Khan Paul 2008
Slashdot Burying Stories About Slashdot Media Owned
I'm not sure what in particular concerns you regarding women's rights here - probably abortion. If you won't vote for anybody solely based on that one issue, well then not much can bee done. As far as church/state goes - I can't imagine that a libertarian would be big on integrating religion with the national government (establishment clause and all that).
However, the thing I really object to in your post is the suggest that these are all Ron Paul is about. I'm sorry - regardless of your your position on libertarianism or a few particular issues, you have to admit that Ron Paul's platform is fundamentally different from just about everybody else in the running. He would push for major change in comparison to what has been done in the past.
You can certainly debate whether this change would be good or bad, but you can't dismiss him as a typical politician who disagrees with you in two areas...
I write sci-fi for metalheads
Why can't anyone do something? You've either got to believe marijuana should be legalized or want him in jail. You can't work with congress to "balance" rights between corporations and consumers either. Who is more of a citizen, joe or bob's Inc. ? Stop writing laws left and right that try to fix things. half the time a corporate hand is influencing the law a lot more than a real citizen. Then we've got backwards laws protecting things that dont need protection and the people who do have voting cards are the ones worse off. Just nit-picking real quick here, but come on....it IS the SAME stuff we hear from the other candidates. Seek balance? When you seek there is a chance you don't find. Every presidential candidate talks like this but when they get into the office they just play political grabass all day rather than get stuff done. When you are the president who is supposedly elected by the people, then if the people want something, you make it happen. You are the president, sure you gotta play along with the corporate congressmen but if you actually had resolve, vision blah blah etc then you'd realize that you are at the top and it's the best time to make the people's wishes come true if that is what you are about. If all candidates "seek balance" then why even talk about it? I want to know who IS going to do something and when they plan to do many things I want, I'll vote for them. This two party system is a joke. When we get presidents like the current one, it is clear they had a completely different mindset going into presidency. The people wanted a war? Eat my ass you fake clowns. BTW "national security interests, including its interests in a viable space program"... if you place a space program under the national security interests umbrella then average citizens can't hope for much. Space is not a security interest, rather it is the great beyond. It is the future and a place of dreams. Why is everyone thinking of it as a security interest? So we can write a million laws from the hand of people who never have known average, and the real average joe sits on this rock forever.
Not just leading, but real "softball" questions. I'm surprised they didn't ask if he likes puppies. I'm pleased to learn he believes in providing direct answers to direct questions and I'd like some answers to questions such as:
Do you believe the current levels of illegal immigration are harmful to America in terms of economy and culture? If so, how do you propose to reduce/end illegal immigration?
Do you believe in open borders -- unrestricted immigration?
In Republican debate #2, you implied that America was not attacked on 9/11. What words, the, would you use to describe the events of that day -- the murder of thousands of people by organized foreign nationals subsidized by States, the destruction of hundreds of millions of dollars in property and the follow-on damage to our economy?
Should those on welfare be disallowed from voting?
What restrictions to firearm ownership do you support?
Do you believe the Federal government has exceeded the authority granted to it by the Constitution? If so, how do you propose to return America's Federal government to the limited powers proscribed therein?
How will you reduce America's dependence on foreign oil?
Is healthcare a right?
Please give you opinion regarding Kelo v. City of New London (Supreme court deciison which gives municipalities broad powers to seize private property for the purpose of increasing tax revenues).
etc.
Frankly, I'd like answers to those questions from ALL politicians. It would be a step forward, instead of the current internecine squabbling : the "he said/she said/you made the girl cry" pandering Soap Opera.
Well that was brief. Regardless, I take the stance that if a presidential candidate says they don't have a policy at the current moment on a certain issue, then we should not expect not to when they become president no matter how much they pander to our questions here and now. I mean, they always state that they haven't looked into something *but* "when I become president..." da dah da da and create a cursory answer. Don't buy into it. Don't put your eggs in a basket which might exist.
I am a very strong Ron Paul supporter, and I don't fault RP's campaign for the weak answers to these weak questions, but come on, Slashdot is a treasure trove of aggressive argument, and it lobs these softball pitches? Embarrassing.
My Freakin Blog
That's news to me. Got a citation for us?
Completely false. The proper social hierarchy seems to go something like this.
Whites>Asians>Indians>Hispanics>Blacks
Of course I left out several of the muddied races and their infantile ilk but you get the general idea!
Paul wants the Federal Department of Education gone, because they make a mess of education.
Our education system is a mess, but I'm not sure it's the DE's fault. Partly it's the fault of parents who don't take an interest or actively participate in their own child's education. Partly it's a funding system that penalizes poor neighborhoods. Partly it's the politicization of education, and not just by the DE.
What is Congressman Paul's suggestion for fixing our education system?
As for his campaign's answers: they were generally vague and not very informative. The answer to question 4 was essentially a restatement of the (very leading) question. I actually know *less* about his positions than I did going in, because I assumed he *had* positions.
I do like his support of the Constitution. I don't like his ideas of privatizing national infrastructure. I do like his ideas on the limited effectiveness of the President. I don't like his ideas on patents. ("Patents have a role to play in encouraging innovation." This is a baseless assertion with no supporting evidence, an axiom of ignorance.) I don't know what I think of his ideas on space exploration, since his campaign didn't answer that question well, though I *really* like the idea of reducing military spending to a level consistent with national defense, and not world offense.
So, while his goal of supporting the constitution is admirable, there are practical questions that are left unanswered.
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.
He's actually made pretty clear some of his positions on technology, I'll give him that.
In general, Obama is:
a) in favor of investing in education
b) against the NASA manned program to the moon and mars. I believe he was going to use that money to fund some third world development fund.
c) is absolutely in favor of copyright protection in general, and is committed to the DMCA in particular.
d) is in favor of environmental technology in general, ethanol in particular (thanks Iowa!)
e) deploy next generation broadband
f) in favor of net neutrality
This is my sig.
1: Who cares about all those other countries.
2: I'm the only one who tells the truth.
3: Bongs for everyone.
4: I'm a typical politician.
5: I'm a typical politician.
-Ted
-=-=- Quantum physics - the dreams stuff are made of.
I used to vote Libertarian, and I don't smoke pot. I do enjoy getting laid, though. And I miss being able to fly without being frisked coming and going with no explanation other than "it's your turn".
I write sci-fi for metalheads
Asking Ron Paul questions about what he'd do if he was President is like asking me. I have as much chance of becoming President as RP does.
Advice: on VPS providers
Is not an in-depth detailed plan of "How I would do it!". But did anyone really expect a 14 page answer or more than a couple of sentences?
Essentially, his statement was: free of capital by cessation of policing the world and subsidizing German, Japan, Korea, and hundreds of other nations. And reduce or eliminate the barriers (ie: government restrictions, FAA, etc) on private space flight.
Seems like a pretty good answer to me...clear, honest, concise. Maybe it's the concise part you have issue with. Yes, any response to these questions will be vague and mainly a 2 sentence sound bite. But this is NOT a forum on said issue. Just a question and answer. Expect it to be a very similar response to a 30 second debate answer.
He is saying two things:
1) I have no plan
2) I plan to have no plan
He's a quasi libertarian, the whole goal of him reaching the white house is to reduce the federal government's role in pretty much everything.
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
Two out of five questions have nothing to do with technology. And, one of the three is only marginally about technology.
Fail.
There is no "-1 offended" or "-1 you don't agree with me" mod options for a reason.
that if a fringe party or candidate wins, all of the wrongs you listed gets reversed. as if war suddenly won't happen anymore. as if everybody will be fiscally responsible all of a sudden. rainbows and unicorns will become plentiful too. you believe the hype
no, all that will happen is that the legacy of the fringe candidate or the fringe party cannibalizes the base of the democrats or the republicans, and simply replaces them. in all ways. until after a few years, you can't tell the difference between the previously fringe and the well-established at all
but don't take my word on it, read about the whig party. it happened before, and it almost happened with ross perot in the 1990s, and it might happen again if the republicans or the democrats leave their base feeling very disenchanted
and btw, this shift to entrenched behavior by the fringe HAS to happen. you have to pander to the great moderate middle in order to retain power. and this is a GOOD thing: democracy ensures that the moderate middle is satisfied, resulting in a stable government and society. of course, this is not so good for the malcontents on the fringe of the left and right. but again, it's a GOOD thing the fringe left and the fringe right are never electable in a democracy. the fringe is fringe for a reason: their agenda does not match the agenda of the people. therefore, their agenda should not be in the halls of power. simple (and for those who think gw bush is a radical rightist or bill clinton is a radical leftist: this speaks more information about your own fringe status in the opposite direction than any truth of the right ideoogical orientation of these presidents: a little to the right, and a little to the left)
all that really happens in elections with relatively popular fringe candidates like ron paul is that if the fringe party is from the right, it fractures the right's support base and the lefty candidate wins (ross perot got bill clinton elected). if the fringe party candidate is from the left, it fratures the left's support base and the righty candidate wins (ralph nader got george bush elected)
so, being a democrat myself, i fully support the ron paul candidate. most of his fringe supporters would otherwise vote republican. therefore, ron paul ensures a democratic victory
so go ron paul!
(snicker)
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
My question is this: Do you believe I belong in jail? If so, why? If not, what are you going to do to protect me from being arrested?
Ron Paul campaign:
I oppose federal laws outlawing marijuana and I oppose federal interference with state medical marijuana laws.
Oh, 3 questions, and er,.... no answers to any of them. Especially to "what are you going to do..."
If you don't vote, then your opinion doesn't count for much, does it?
Why don't you quit blabbermouthing for "insightful" posts on slashdot, and instead do something that makes a difference like try to get the man some delegates! I mean, damn, what the hell.
I'm pretty disappointed in his answer to this, as he's supposed to be the candidate who cares about the Constitution. If the Supreme Court says an apple is really an orange, that's not going to get me to start calling apples "oranges".
IP is not property. I hold hundreds of copyrights, two of them registered with the US Copyright office (Library of Congress) with ISBNs. But I do not own the works I hold copyright to; nobody owns them. Constitutionally, I hold a limited time monopoly on the reproduction of those works. Not the works themselves. The copyright is supposed to get me to make more works, which will pass into the public domain.
It can be argued that my copyrights are my property, but it cannot be argued that I own the works themselves.
I would rather the candidates be asked how long a copyright should remain in effect. Personally I think it should be 20 years. I also think the law that makes singers' and musicians' recordings "works for hire" should be repealed, and I'd like to know what the candidates' views on this are.
-mcgrew
Today's journal is, oddly, on-topic. You may find it offensive.
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
Essentially, his answer to question #3 is "the federal government should leave it to the states". Fair enough for a candidate for a federal office.
But as Serenissima already posted, the answer to question #4 does fail to keep the promise from question #2.
C - the footgun of programming languages
To me, it's a question of, "Where do we want to put our resources?"
Do we want to invest in a better future, or in things/people that have already failed and are waiting for Darwin to claim their ticket?
I've now had a lifetime of watching social programs try to help the unhelpable, and fail. I agree I'd rather not abandon them, but I've also come to feel that the money we spend on the failing is better spent on educating promising kids, making new technologies, cleaning up our environment, libraries, museums and colleges.
I'm not alone in this, and this isn't my idea alone. A lot of us have after seeing what has and hasn't worked, started to question the way we're doing things.
In my city, the people who are homeless are generally insane and often commit petty crimes. They don't like to hang around institutions, which is the only place we're going to have for them. They can't have jobs or take care of homes. Unless you jail them, they'll be on the street. What do we do in this hopeless situation?
Or do we take the money, send bright kids to college, and recognize that nature has always been red in tooth and claw?
Note that his positions are generally for State laws over Federal. Here, he simply opposes federal laws against marijuana. He says nothing about State laws, so you'd still probably be in jail. So, smoke 'em while you've got 'em.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
My wife has a cat. Cat is the wrong word for it though. Foul retching hell beast, spawn of Satan, demon of the abyss, etc... are more appropriate descriptors. The thing is ancient (it's unnaturally long lifespan obviously due to some pact with the devil), demanding, cunning, and smarter then it has any right to be.
Anyways, Saturday night I went up to the bedroom to tuck in for the night and I saw that the foul hell beast had harfed all over my favorite jeans. When I informed my wife about what the demon spawn had done, her reply was "at least she didn't puke on the bed" with a smile.
Point being, cat harf is cat harf and political BS is political BS, regardless of where it lands and how long it took to come up with. The only thing of value is the response.
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
...the questions are stupid; are these issues really the most important things to slashdot readers? I'd just love to have one debate/interview here that didn't involve, whatever your position, a pot question. In this context it is not just a weed. It is a symbol for all of the ways that governments interfere with our lives for insufficient reasons. The pot question is really asking: "Are you going to leave me alone as long as I'm not hurting someone else?" And most politicians come back with a convoluted answer about protecting the world from the evils of pot, which translates as: "No, I'm not going to leave you along. I think that I know how to run your life better than you do."Ron Paul told us that the feds will leave us alone when he is president.
I liked the fact that on the question about why candidates don't give clear answers to direct questions, the direct question ("Do you think that I want someone in that office ... who is deliberately attempting to deceive me?") isn't answered directly. How hard would it been to throw in a "No, I don't think you want to be deceived, and you shouldn't be deceived. (So vote for me.)"?
Part of it probably is that the answers to the questions are very short. 1-2 sentences each. Kinda surprising, since I'm used to politicians pontificating. At this point, I'm not sure if the answers are short because Ron Paul avoids hot-air and prefers brevity, or if the campaign views answering the questions as a burden, and can't be bothered to elaborate. (Given the lack of response on the other candidates, I'm leaning toward the latter. - Seriously, it sounds like something an untrained, fourth-tier flunky cobbled together in five minutes from old press releases.)
Sorry, but Ron Paul is against womens rights, and is just another vector to get more religion into the government.
Both statements are absurd.
we asked you for tech-oriented questions we could
3) Marijuana
I'm a college graduate with a decent job, (...) I smoke pot (...) etc, etc, etc
And that's a tech-oriented question because...?
You're nit picking. The current US President would declare war on "the gravity" in order to accelerate the space program.
I am a coordinator of the Ron Paul Grassroots efforts in DFW, Texas. And my /. UID length is real, I didn't buy this account.
/. is not really a huge voting bloc, and they have dozens of interviews like this they are trying to respond to right now.
We're all pretty busy, which is one reason these answers are so short. I did see them before they were published, but not in time to get them to beef them up some, or I would have. Yes, they didn't get who they were talking to necessarily. At the same time,
Anyway, like I said, busy, but I can watch this thread some today and try to help clarify things for people. I won't claim my answers are the campaign's but I have represented them at events in the past and speak to people in the campaign and the Paul family daily so I have at least some claim to being able to get it right.
With respect to Ron Paul, you could not possibly be more wrong even if you tried 1,000,000 times to best yourself in how wrong you are about his views on government-mandated abortion rights.
The sharp edge of a razor is difficult to cross. Thus the wise say the path to salvation is hard...
i trust the wisdom and true intelligence of the so-called uneducated moderate masses way more than i trust the indoctrinated rightists and leftists
but don't take this random slashdotter's opinion for granted, read up on jacques ellul:
http://www.swaraj.org/shikshantar/propaganda.htm
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Ron Paul is a licensed gynecologist. I'd love to see him greeting a foreign dignitary from one of those backwards countries where women remain veiled at all times and have no rights at all (you know the places). Then, as he shakes their hand and leans in for the photos, he smiles and whispers "By the way, I'm a gynecologist by trade. Guess where my hands have been!" It would make for some really fun photos.
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
:(
Hash: SHA1
Dr. Paul,
Thank you for participating here at Slashdot. This site I have affectionately called the "center of my world" for many years. I should note to you that I would die to protect you Sir in order to bring back a sound monetary system to our nation.
"Intellectual Property" is a term used these days to encapsulate ideas of copyright, patent protection, a hint of trademark. But this term is a misnomer. As we all recognize some legitimacy to each of the three, we cannot condone the banner "Intellectual Property".
Software is a special case concerning Patents. Europe doesn't even have patents on software. Software is a mathematical function which exists in nature. As such it must not be given special protection.
The area of software should receive great and special attention with an emphasis on preserving the freedoms to create and share. Much has changed in the last two decades. No longer does the US Government need to encourage nor protect innovation in the realm of software. Authors are freely collaborating with any and all who would care to participate for the benefit of self and others. Users can no longer trust software which they cannot trust how it was written.
Patents in software and in communications are hampering growth in software. Only very large corporations can sustain these insane litigation awards for patent infringement. Small, innovative companies are freightened to try bringing things to market for fear of being sued.
You understand the "Inflation Tax" better than 99.9% of the population. Let me introduce you to another tax called the "Patent Tax". Some have estimated that $20 of each copy of Microsoft Windows goes towards paying legal fees and licensing of patents. Why should schools have to pay for copyright when copies for educational purposes are supposed to be free?
Free Software authors have developed systems to be freely used by the public and now an enemy rears it's ugly head saying "That software infringes on hundreds of our patents". I'm sorry we are writing code from scratch and we imitate best practices within the industry to serve the public good. If Microsoft had their way they'd be enslaving every Linux user claiming that they've used software that doesn't pay for licensing fees.
I could go on and on about this. When elected, please pay a great deal of attention to the Electronic Freedom Foundation ( eff.org ).
Encryption.
Please before you are elected President of these United States of America, generate a PGP (GnuPG is better) key. This way we can determine whether writings from you are truely from you as others can determine that this message is also mathematically authentic.
Economy:
Thanks for suggesting the book "The Creature from Jekyll Island". I read 120 pages of it so far.
I lost the silver Ron Paul coin that you signed
Yours Truely,
Joseph William Baker
Burlington, Wisconsin
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If you support the only presidential candidate who truly stands for peace and freedom, join with us to solidify the "Techies for Ron Paul" movement. We helped get these answers posted to Slashdot, and we're absolutely dedicated to getting Ron Paul elected.
Our primary goals: $10M raised and 10K votes pledged
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-Will the Chill
Creator of RPerl, Scouter, Juggler, Mormon, Perl Monger, Serial Entrepreneur, Aspiring Astrophysicist, Community Organiz
libertarianism appeals to earnest but naive college students with too many philosophy books under their belt, but without any real life experience, who build castles in the sky in their minds about how the world should or would or could work if people just started behaving in ways people have never behaved in any culture or time period since the dawn of mankind
it also appeals to rural folk, who don't understand how they fit into the larger world, and firmly believe themselves to be islands completely owing nothing to anyone else (you and your limited government paean). what they are of course is coccooned within a larger country and system upon which the relative peace and quiet of their worlds depend. but it is hard to see that from the hinterlands until madness marches across the countryside, which it does, unfortunately, in societies that have abandoned the simple common human responsibility we have to take care of each other. in other words, all of the bounty of your life depends upon the statehood you despise. but you can't see the connection, because you are blind to it. but it is there, making the entirety of your life possible, because you can't see the connection, doesn't mean anything except you are blind to your place in the world and civilization. we need a strong state
libertarianism also appeals to 40 something selfish assholes behind on their alimony payments, corrupt and personally bankrupt about any give and take in their lives. nothing more needs to be said of such people. we understand them, and we understand why libertarianism appeals to them on a deep level
libertarianism is nothing but a code word for selfishness, dressed up in political signals and philosphical portents. but if you dress up a cheap whore in a fine dress, she's still a cheap whore. so it is with libertarians and anyone who spouts that nonsense
i put it this way: human nature is both altruistic and selfish. any political philosophy you present to the world has to address both sides of this coin, or you have built a political philosophy which is a nonstarter in the real world, because it doesn't jive with the nature of the humans you are attempting to impose it on
we all understand why communism doesn't work: it depends upon altruism, and doesn't address human selfishness. in a communist system, selfishness still exists, in the human beings in the system, but unaddressed by the system imposed upon them, and so selfishness eats communism apart from the inside
if you will, if a whole country suddenly went libertarian, you'd have the exact same problems as a communist country, in reverse along the axis of human selfishness-altruism. it would fail. as miserably and as surely as communism did. for the same reasons, in mirror image reverse
libertarianism is a gem of modern foolishness, and you are a glorious fool if you swallow the pap called libertarianism
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
It was not "his own newsletter". Some ppl were simply publishing that under his name.
CNN interview
My worst enemy gave me a copy of Windows for Christmas.
you honestly think that is what motivates me?
(scratches head)
i am at an utter loss to understand how you arrived at that conclusion. what is it that i am supposed to be scared of in your mind?
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Um... Romney? There's a 90% chance that McCain will seal the nomination TODAY.
Nonsense. It is: Me>everyone else.
Slashdot: Playing Favorites Since 1997
wait, casino indian or slurpee indian?
Really it should be Whites>Asians=Slurpee Indians>Chief Running Bear>Hispanics>Blacks
What's the point in publishing the answers, when the answers are so vague that people actually have to interpret what he means by them. If people can't even agree about the answer being a yes or a no, then it's not really an answer.
Basically, his answer to the fair use question was "yes, no and maybe" all at once. He answered whatever you wanted him to answer, depending on how you interpret his answer.
Blog -
Even if you don't answer this question, I hope you think about it the next time someone asks you a question.
Ron Paul campaign:
The American people should expect clear and direct answers to their questions. Not only have I always strived to clearly state my position on issues, but my voting record backs up my commitment to the free-market, limited government philosophy I espouse on the campaign trail. What the fsck has giving a straight answer have to do with commitment to free market and limited government? Do they (Ron Paul campaign) have such a short attention span, or do they expect that their voters have? I felt like someone spat on me, when I read those answers.
I have seen this sort of BS in all of the answers. Either Ron Paul doesn't care enough to think about these answers himself and lets his minions do the job (but they did it SO poortly!), or his logic device is fried and severely compromised.
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
The sole purpose of smoking pot, for the vast majority of those who do, is to get stoned. Even those who claim it's for "medical use."
I don't think these answers were written by RP; compare to his overview of Mises and Austrian Economics below or to his recent speech on economics in Seattle. He is very thorough, these "answers" are anything but. Perhaps he was consulted briefly by a staffer but wasn't told or didn't realize the size of the Slashdot audience (which is actually a bit surprising, but then again as much as he loves the Internet he isn't a geek). I think he would have personally answered the questions if he knew his answers were going to be read by several million readers world-wide (or whatever the Slashdot audience is).
Also worth mentioning is that Ron Paul is not pro-legislation. Much of the questions asked assume the introduction of some type of program or legislation (it seems), but that is not what RP is about. He is about getting rid of shit that doesn't belong. He has said on numerous occasions that he "would never use executive orders to legislate, but would use executive orders to cancel-out bad [pre-existing] executive orders".
Mises and Austrian Economics: A Personal View [PDF]:
http://www.mises.org/books/paulmises.pdf
Ron Paul on economics (Seattle, Jan 31 2008, six parts ~ 50 minutes -- several versions on YouTube this one seems the best):
part 1
part 2
part 3
part 4
part 5
part 6
Official YouTube site (plenty of stuff here):
http://www.youtube.com/user/RonPaul2008dotcom
Official Website:
http://www.ronpaul2008.com
Oddly enough- we do.
And 1.3 billion dollars would fund a nice little chunk of space program.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_aid_to_China
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
cause he'll be lucky to beat that nut Huckabee...even still, 3rd place is his best option.
You are a free person who is a citizen of a Republic. Here in America, we elect people to make plans for us, because we are free, and we choose to do that. Sorry if you don't like that, but the majority of citizens do, so it is unfair of you to force your 'no government is good government' view on the rest of us.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
Here you go.
He's also written extensively on economics, monetary and foreign policy, and there's a large archive of his speeches in congress here.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
you need to take the first step, to bring yourself into reality. a good first step would be, repeat after me: "a fringe candidate will not make war magically disappear"
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
It hardly seems slanted towards Congressman Paul's campaign. The candidates were the exact opposite: not a single one answered emails we sent to their "media inquiry" links or email addresses.... In any case, the Ron Paul campaign finally responded, due to some string-pulling... Roblimo goes on to beg readers to nudge their favorite politicians so they can respond to Slashdot's 'softball' questions and be appropriately put-down. Look at the voting records for all these candidates, and Dr. Paul's is the only consistent one.
http://www.signaturemachine.com/
http://www.signaturemachine.com/products/demo_page.htm?source=google_ad&gclid=CKujifnPrZECFQlxOAodakCHdg
Actual signing speed will be faster than displayed on this video.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
Bah. He gave a perfectly clear, direct answer to the question. It's not the answer YOU wanted to hear, and he did choose to answer a slightly more general question than was asked, relying on your ability to apply simple logic to find the answer to the question asked.
For those who can't make the necessary logical steps themselves, I'll walk you through them:
RP said he opposed federal laws banning marijuana, and federal interference in state marijuana laws. That means that he'd make sure the federal government didn't have any laws that you could be arrested for. So he'd protect you from arrest by the feds. It also means that he would not interfere with state laws. So he wouldn't protect you from arrest by your state.
All of this assumes that he could actually change federal law, which the president can't, and RP isn't going to be president anyway, but that's understood by everyone.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
Thank You! I kept wondering why I kept thinking that the name Ron Paul sounded like the name of a transvestite. I could not figure out where I was making that connection. Ru Paul explains it.
They are, according to his website. Frankly, I think we should go further, but getting the gorram Feds out of the way is an acceptable start.
I write sci-fi for metalheads
http://www.aspiesforronpaul.com/
I don't vote for the person I believe has the best chance of winning; I vote for the person I believe would do the best job for the office they seek.
The only votes that are wasted are cast by those who compromise their principles or sell out their beliefs because they don't believe their candidate has a snowball's chance in Hell of winning.
I am a Republican and I voted for Ron Paul in New York's primary today, even though I know that:
a) all electoral college delegates will go the Democratic nominee because the ratio of Dems to Reps in the state is on the order of 8:5 and this is a winner-take-all state.
b) Ron Paul has two chances of winning the Rebpublican nomination from this state: slim and none.
But, I will have voted for the person I think will best serve the nation's interests, so MY vote was not wasted.
is the cannibalization of one the parties, a la the decline of the whigs
two party politics is all about math. we have two parties because our voting system maximizes to this existence. other countries have multiple parties. but you don't want to know about the lack of principles going on there (socialists getting into bed with archconservatives in order to form coalitions, etc.)
in other words, the more things change, the more they stay the same. and your complaint: the callowness of politics, is a tale as old as time, and will be with us forever
and no, dorothy, there really is a moderate middle. the so called red state blue state bullshit is a divisive myth, not a divisive reality. the vast majority of americans agree with each other on the vast majority of important topics, republican or democrat
you need to get used to the way politics works. you're not giving up on your ideals, you are beginning to understand reality
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
He is running for a federal position. He believes the federal has no business in this as a matter of constitutional principle. Any personal opinion he may have on pot is therefore irrelevant.
If he were to get his way people should be asking their state elected officials this question, not him.
The Captain James T. Kucinich campaign had a one word rebuttal to this:
Khaaann!!!
Gentlemen! You can't fight in here, this is the war room!
Let me see if I have this straight: Paul's website is a sales pitch, but the wishy-washy answers Roblimo got from the Paul campaign and posted as the article isn't? As far as I'm concerned, there's no difference between the two. Both are claims as to where Ron Paul stands on particular political issues. That is all they are: sales pitches.
You can call me cynical, but as far as I'm concerned, all news is propaganda. Hard facts are diamonds trapped in a matrix created by the manner in which a journalist chooses to present the facts. Read a news article, and you are not just getting the facts, but the journalist's (or his editor's) perception of the facts.
This post is also propaganda, like every other post here.
I write sci-fi for metalheads
Is it still called voting if you use a screwdriver and a usb thumbdrive to do it?
Looks like whoever replied was in a bit of a rush...but nevermind. It would have been nice to link each answer to the Constitution, like Paul normally does. What does it say about IP in there?
Right now there are millions of Christian fundamentalists who will tell you that you are stupid to think any of these things matter because the morality of the country is going down the tubes and we're straying from God's word, and that's what will destroy us.
anthropomorphic talking christmas turd
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Sure, he should at least be (very lightly) commended for admitting he hasn't thought about it, rather than giving a bullshit answer.
But why hasn't he thought about it? All of RP's policy decisions come down to this decision: is the power mentioned in the Constitution? If so, then it merits resolution, else the 10th Amendment prohibits it. Well, IP is there, right in Article 1 Section 8. There are so few issues actually at stake, once you look at it in this manner, so I'm kind of disappointed that he doesn't have a position on this one.
More to the point, I find it hard to believe. Maybe we really did get a bullshit answer. That doesn't really line up with what we know about the guy, but nevertheless I'm getting a whiff of it.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
"Little is much when little you need."
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who need answers to more serious issues, just go to his website you idiots.
Yes, by all means put your eggs in the basket with a hole in the bottom instead.
"No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare."
--James Madison
Given the way candidates are nominated, I don't think third parties really have much of a chance.
What I'd like to see (though, I'm sure there's a flaw in it somewhere) is for all the states to have partyless primaries, like Louisiana, where everyone running for prez is on the same ballot, and the two top vote getters go to the general election in November, even if they're from the same party.
Of course, it has been noted that even this system locks out third parties, because the two top vote getters will always be the favorites of the two main factions. Say candidate A is the favorite of faction A, and candidate B is the favorite of faction B, and nobody in faction A would ever consider candidate B as a second choice, and nobody in Faction B would ever consider candidate A as a second choice. But if there is a moderate candidate C that everyone could live with, even if not their favorite, C doesn't have a chance in the Louisiansa system.
I would modify that system such that everyone votes for TWO candidates in the partyless primary. So that everyone gets to vote for their favorite, and second favorite. That way Candidate C ends up in the general election.
So perhaps Emrys can improve on the following ...
The first two official answers were completely inconsistent with each other, in that the first statement was as distant from a "straight answer" as anything that the regular batch of politicians might have said.
Please do the question justice.
http://godsipod.com/podcast_res/israel_anderson/audio/IA_080202.mp3
Thank you, Emrys! That was very informative.
1) The affairs of others are not our concern.
2) Could you please rephrase that as a question?
3) By stressing the word "federal" I can hopefully avoid alienate voters by coming out as pro-drugs (which is an issue not important to me), and instead stress my stand on "small government" (which is important to me).
4 and 5) The issues are not important to me. Obviously a balance between rewarding creation and the interest of the public is needed. I'll figure out what that balance is after I get elected president.
Okay, so RP is running on the purist federalist philosophy. Dandy.
Given that most of the administration in Washington is largely in the business of collecting and redistributing funding to the states with standards compliance requirements attached, does he honestly think that removing the federal component will make a stick of difference to the average American on the ground? The programs will still exist and the revenue will need to come from somewhere. I get the home-rule states' rights bit, but I rarely hear the fanbois cooing over anything but the prospect of cutting their tax bill, which isn't likely even if we burnt Washington to the ground.
That funding is from the UN, The USA is not the only member of the UN, so probably doesn't contribute the whole amount itself. Perhaps you want to find out what proportion the US contributes, but since I'm not a US citizen or tax-payer, I don't care.
Ron Paul (or whoever actually wrote the answer to the first question) said that he intends to withdraw funding for the defence of other countries, the aid to China that you linked to was for socio-economic development not defence.
Did you actually read what you linked to? Because it doesn't look like it. The link you gave doesn't even give any information on recent funding (the most recent figure from that link is 4 years old), so China may not even be getting that much now.
That having people stationed all over the world and going on wars of adventure on shaky evidence might just not be the best use of taxpayer money. So yes, shave the defence fund.
Yes, those people call themselves "Republicans" and "Democrats" and they are the majority.
That is why libertarians exist; and also why they lose.
The vast majority thinks the government exists to be their mommy, and their political parties have turned this cowardly and un-american outlook into the primary legislative theme of almost every representative. This in turn has led directly to the essential irrelevance of the constitution with regard to law, uncontrolled government expansion, loss of liberties, privacy and property, and a general feeling of helplessness when government abuse is directed, as it eventually is, at one's self.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
It makes no difference to me, since I myself didn't ask the questions. Chances are that you didn't get to ask either. Slashdot's editors did; they picked the questions and passed 'em along to the appropriate flunky at Ron Paul's campaign HQ.
I write sci-fi for metalheads
I figure you's keepin' the other third cuz we's gooder at sports. Am I right, honky?
Knowing that he'll only be able to keep 1 of his 100 billion, he'll likely not even try for the 100 billion and the economic advantage it would have brought to the country. Thus we all lose by over-taxing him to a point you think is reasonable. BTW, you're only 1% away from being pure communist.
> Even God killed Judas.
Care to give a citation for that? The only reference I can find is in the Bible and it indicates that Judas committed suicide.
Hey, if you'd done that, maybe Fred Thompson would still be in the race. Now he'll probably sign up for another lame TV show. If it turns out that he's the big cheese behind the Dharma Initiative, I'm holding you guys responsible!
Ron Paul only opposes using eminent domain outside the scope of that power granted to government. He doesn't have a problem with constitutional eminent domain, such as you own the land where the city wants to put the new courthouse.
I'd be curious to know what Mr. Paul thinks is needed to be done in healthcare-- with the industry now primarily in the control of insurance and pharmaceutical companies, causing the costs to skyrocket-- just what exactly is the libertarian "free market" solution? Seems to me the "free market" solution is currently in operation there, and is spiralling out of control. The only way you can "open up competition" in healthcare is to remove patent protection on prescription drugs, and that may have the side effect of reducing incentives on drug development. This may be a very hard question, and I think a candidates answer to it would be crucial to their thinking processes (or lack thereof). However, I don't see many people even asking it...
I'm very surprised the slashdot community I regard as an intelligent group who tends to avoid knee jerk reactions and not draw opinions without being somewhat informed of the facts decided to tag the Ron Paul article with words like 'bigot, racist'. Are we turning into Digg?
because people arguing for giving the least to public institutions are bountifully generous givers to charity
you've swalloed the hype man. a politicla theory that is little more than selfishness is not a mainstay of charitable giving. doesn't even remotely pass the laugh test
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Who the hell thinks it's free? The states know full well the money came from their taxpayers. Most of that money goes to programs enacted and administered at the state level. Absent the federal tax intermediary or program administration, the states will just tax their citizens directly.
The majority of Americans live in states where removing the federal administration and financing of those programs will do absolutely nothing to remove the programs or the funding, it will just shift the path of the receipts and will in many cases result in a net INCREASE in cost for those states that currently receive more from Washington than they remit.
But I'm looking at a banner for Obama '08 on the front page.
Nonsense, all of the presidential candidates belong to secret societies, pretty much all of which have reformed enough to allow in the occasional black, asian, hispanic, indian... even the occasional butch female. How dare anyone insinuate!
so let me get this straight, that you actually believe this:
a "political theory" (read: shallow selfishness masquerading as something deeper) based on giving as little as possible to public institutions, is going to release the floodgates on massive charitable giving
doesn't even begin to pass the laugh test
you want to tell me, you want me to believe, that a group of people arguing for giving the least to public institutions are... drum roll please... going to become bountifully generous givers to charity in the utopia of libertarianism
pffffffffffftttttttttttt
my only question is: can i smoke what you are smoking to believe that flaming giant pos?
here, i'll give you the benefit of the doubt: assuming there are some idiotic naive twits who actually believe that a "philosophy" founded on giving as little as possible to the concept of the public good is going to mean more charitable giving
let's just go with the idea that there are actually people that naive in the world. there probably are in fact
now, if you are such a naive twit: in the boundless limits of your imagination, you can't imagine that this "philosophy" will appeal, in the overwhelming majority, to people who are, frankly, nothing but selfish aholes, who will in fact not give one penny even if they are filthy rich?
impossible, right?
my god the naivete
unfortunate ugly truth of this world: for many people, even if they appreciate the concept of a need to invest in the public good, you still have to force them to do that. that if you make it voluntary, only a fraction of people will give
ugly
but iron clad truth
sorry to burst your bubble, my naive friend
(snicker)
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
If anyone points out he didn't write those comments, you can claim that as a practicing doctor, his involvement in a political newsletter is representative of his involvement in the country as president.
You can't take the sky from me...
Yes, but intelligent people aren't fooled by politics as usual. The candidates want people they can easily manipulate into voting for them with rhetoric or prizes (tax breaks, pork). Not people who they have to impress with actual qualifications and viewpoints on issues they are expected to uphold once in office.
How is question 3 a "tech-oriented question"?
Most of these questions were extremely slanted to the answer desired instead of being open-ended.
And why not a question like: Windows, Apple or Linux and why?
If you've never been modded as "flamebait" or "troll," you've never tried to argue a minority viewpoint here!
But his answer fits perfectly with his philosophy. As a proponent of the federal republic, anything he would say about internal state laws like this would be purely personal opinion and as utterly meaningless as the "Diamonds or Pearls" question asked of Clinton at one Democratic debate. And Ron Paul isn't prone to meaningless pander.
Sorry. America can't get out of Saudi. The Saudis are propping up the US dollar by accepting paper as payment for oil, and thereby the whole US economy and military machine.
What I find ironic is that all this goes back to Nixon.
Deleted
It's a really interesting point - and oddly obvious, yet no one notices. Let's pretend the war will only cost $1 trillion dollars. OK. Now, How much oil is in Iraq? Well according to the .gov they have 112 billion barrels of oil. I'm going to be generous and round it off to 120 billion, just because I'm nice, and I suck at doing math on the fly. So, divide 1 trillion by 120 billion and you get $8.3 per barrel. BUT: it doesn't work that way. for one thing, you never pull 100% of the oil out. Normally, it's around 50% or so when you start retreating and give up around 75%. So, let's be generous and pretend they will pull 80%, or 100 billion barrels out. That's $10 a barrel. However, there are MANY people looking to buy this stuff, and there is domestic consumption to consider. If the USA pulls 25% of this over to the states, then we're talking $40 a barrel surcharge on EVERY BARREL OF OIL.
So, when the base cost is $100 a barrel, America will be paying $140 a barrel.
Brilliant. And that's being bend over backwards generous. Frankly, I think the reserves are over estimated by at least 30% and that the quality is crap and they won't get more than 65 - 70% of it out in total and the USA likely to get perhaps 25% of that, which would make the surcharge more like $60 - 80 a barrel.
The answer is: it is always cheaper to buy something than steal it.
RS
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
You can't take the sky from me...
If it's customs, then the appropriate question would have been would you push to allow imports? But that question was not asked.
If it's interstate commerce, then there is the possibility of a role. But the fed's original role for such commerce was mainly to make sure the states operated on a level playing field, not to prohibit. Even then, it's a question that was not asked, as it also doesn't have anything to do with a regular user going to jail.
And he did nothing to stop it, until he we caught out... what does that say about him? Never mind that the people who wrote it under his name were employed by him to do so.
... and then they built the supercollider.
You're making the common mistake of confusing the "economic point of view" with "valuing everything in terms of money". Yes, economists do use money to measure most things, but only because it's the best proxy we can find for what we actually want to measure: utility (think of it as happiness).
So, yes, the money spent on the mentally ill and unemployable (MI&U)might outweigh the money they generate, but – as you said yourself – "that's not what most people consider acceptable for the first world". That is, if we stopped funding the MI&U, people (the nation) would be unhappier. If this decrease in happiness is greater than the greatest amount of happiness we could generate with the money we stopped spending on the MI&U (the first-best alternative - tax cuts, schools, lollipops for all), then it would make economic sense to keep funding the MI&U
Economists – we're here to make you happy
Antiquis temporibus, nati tibi similes in rupibus ventosissimis exponebantur ad necem.
How many /.ers are US voters, though?
(Actually, that would make for an interesting poll. "I voted for Bush" can be the CowboyNeal option.)
- RG>
Hey pal, this isn't a pleasantforest, so don't waste my time with pleasantries!
I normally wouldn't answer a rant like yours, but I feel I must as it's been rated "insightful" for some frightful reason. Guess I'll be losing my Karma.
You are wrong. Most people do not want to have the gov't be their mommy. Most people either feel helpless to fix the system, are just greedy, or don't think at all. They know the government is broken, but don't feel that they can do anything about it. One man I know feels that the tax cuts are wrong, and that W. has betrayed his conservative ideals, but this man still wants his tax cut money. Why? Because he says that the system is so far gone, he may as well "get his". I think that if you ask around, most people will say they just "want theirs". Greed is good, right Mr. Libertarian? Problem is, if we don't work together sometimes things just don't work.
Gagh, you made me defend centrists. Now I must shower.
Moderation +3
40% Informative
Someone's moderating drunk, that's the only explanation I can think of.
You can't take the sky from me...
Am I the only one who finds diversity (i.e. confusion) among the laws of a single country a bad idea?
Likely, no, but there is something to be said about value of diversity as well, if one considers that competition of ideas is a good thing (and central planning does not work).
Imagine a country where, say, California can implement a full-fledged worker's paradise, and, say, Texas a hard big-business friendly set of policies with you (and me) free to chose (move and take our, preferrably gold-backed, $$ with us) to either one of 48 other places in-between. Eventually laws and people might settle into a configuration which maximizes everyone's happiness (or, at least, minimizes pain).
How's that for an idea?
Paul B.
But this is our country. If you don't like the rules, you are free to enact changes, as long as the majority agree with you. If you don't like the rules and don't want to work through the proper channels to change them, your only other option is to leave. Let's say you go to someone's house, and they demand you give them money. You don't want to give them money to stay there, and insist that they do not have the right to demand money from you, as you didn't agree to it. You are asserting that you have the right to trespass on another person's property. The US is the property of the US citizens, and we have collectively agreed that there will be certain rules that everyone who lives here follows. You do not have the right to claim the moral high ground and to say that we have no right to make you follow our rules on our property. You are free to leave our property if you don't like our rules, but you can't just demand that we change them because you don't like them.
No one is arguing that you have the right to do whatever you want on your own property if that property is unencumbered by other agreements. All property in the US is encumbered by other agreements. If you don't like the agreements that encumber property here, you are free to buy property elsewhere. You don't have the right to unilaterally decide that property in the US will not be encumbered by those agreements. Sure, you can attempt to get others to agree with your selfish and self centered ideas, but fortunately, only a small minority of crazy libertarians agree with you, and as we've seen, libertarians don't and can't control any nation or state in the world because too few people agree with their insane and selfish ideals.
Good luck with your childish "You're not the boss of me!" political "philosophy." Just leave the rest of us out of it. If you want to live like that, go find somewhere else to do it. Don't try to steal our country, make one of your own.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
Why was Spain attacked by middle eastern terrorists? Or the UK, for that matter?. Because Spain and the UK were involved in your interventionist foreign policy.
Also, Spain has been at war with islam for nearly a millennium. Go crack open a history book and a newspaper or two, sheesh!
You can't take the sky from me...
I'll say it again, If you don't like it, get the hell off of our property. Go try out your insane ideas of governance with other people who agree with you. You don't have the right to force US Citizens to go along with you. This is our country, we make the rules collectively, and if you don't like it, no one is forcing you to stay. Go somewhere else to try your libertarian ideals. Maybe if the rest of us see how well they work, we'll agree to go along with you. So far, you libertarian types have not stepped up to the plate. You can't seem to make a go of it on your own, so you want to steal our country and our infrastructure for your little experiment.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
I think the candidates want as many votes as they can get. Maybe they feel can get better returns by spending their time on David Letterman, or on some other media outlet. However, I don't think that they look at slashdot and go "oh that's where the smart people are. It's not worth trying to sway them with my viewpoints" I think that whoever at those offices read the email and said "What's a /.? Damn hippies can't even use letters in their names!"
To some extent, I agree with you that a free market requires some regulation. Otherwise it is feudalism. However:
Your MS example is fatally flawed in two ways:
1) The regulation has not worked on the federal level either. We are at what? 15 years now and how much taxpayer money with *no change whatsoever*? One thing to realize with some of the state vs. federal or government vs. non argument is that where the less regulated option does not work in theory, the more regulated option fails repeatedly in practice. The *customers* are still giving them money. * I was in a discussion with folks recently who do certified organic farming. The guy from the USDA comes in, looks at their farm, checks their papers, and drives off. They could spray plutonium on their fields the moment his pickup leaves that driveway, and they would still be "certified organic." * SEC regulations did not stop Enron. Although some investors who bothered to do their own market analysis and arithmetic and smelled something rank avoided the mess, the others felt safe *because of* the SEC and got hooked. There are trade-offs to both sides, each case is different, and regulation can often bite in very perverse ways.
2) As the previous poster pointed out, the office suite monopoly is enforced by government IP laws. In your state vs. MS example, and in the face of less restrictive IP law (protecting interoperability rights, for example), someone could just reverse engineer the thing legally, MS would not be able to bludgeon startups into non-existence, and a lot of other things. Making these laws sane would not eliminate the problems, but they might eliminate 90% of them, and then you could come up with a rational and targeted solution for 8%, and just suffer with the 2% that will never be solved no matter what.
A counter-example where I would agree with you solidly is utility regulation. Everybody is all about "deregulating" utilities without thinking about why they were regulated in the first place: natural monopoly and the last mile problem. Basically, you can't have two competing power companies both running competing telephone poles into the same city and the same houses, and somebody has to maintain the lines if they are shared (a big expense and one the utility has some unique knowledge for handling). Additionally, you have the problem that utilities would waste resources competing over lucrative urban customers (more than one customer per pole) and ditch the rural customer (several dozen poles per customer). So, we granted regional utilities a monopoly on urban areas in exchange for a requirement that they service the last mile without prejudice. Now we have "municipal electric" coops taking over the urban areas and expect utilities to compete over rural customers? Are people on crack?
You can't take the sky from me...
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I wish I had minions...
You can't take the sky from me...
If you live in New York, you can't mail order power from Arizona. There is no way to tell specific electrons where to go; they follow potentials. When demand shifts and the grid suddenly has to cross-ship power to balance itself out, transmission lines not meant to take that load can and do fry.
You cannot just let everyone put power into the grid willy nilly, not unless you want it to be real dark half the time and the fire department to be real busy the other half. Power does not just have to be there, it has to be *clean*: right voltage and amperage, right polarization, and *in sync* with the rest of the grid. Spikes or brown outs, bad polarization or out of sync power can cause fried equipment, can cause fires, it can cause serious damage to the turbines of other generators. This is what happened in New York a bit ago where they lost power Upstate for a couple of *months* in some places. It started with one plant putting out badly polarized power. Another plant had to shut down to avoid damage to its turbines. This meant that power had to suddenly cross the grid in a way it wasn't supposed to and things fried. Because of "deregulation," nobody had a clue whose problem it was, how to find out what went wrong, or how to fix it.
You can have people putting small amounts of power into the grid and this is especially helpful during peak load or if those small power sources can come online quickly when needed. (Coal plants put out a lot of power efficiently but take hours to warm up and come on line. Natural gas plants are wasteful but can be running from a cold start in 15 minutes). Somewhere, though, you have to have *baseline power*-- a source that is large enough to meet a chunk of the demand, is steady and stable, and has turbines with enough mass to absorb significant surges or spikes. The momentum of the turbines (and force of the magnetic field) actually helps to clean up the power. Hydro, nuclear, and coal are the best sources for baseline power in this respect, especially nuclear. Beyond that, there needs to be clear lines of responsibility for who is in charge of synchronizing power (making sure sine waves and polarity match up) and who decides when sources need to come on and off-line (and prepare other plants for the resulting effect on the grid).
"De-regulation" in the face of these issues is nuts, not because of economics, but because of physics. The fact of natural monopolies (who owns the poles?) and the last mile problem (why compete for a rural customer?) makes it a potential economic problem as well.
The gold standard would be the worst thing we could adopt. It's fine and good in theory, until you realize the US doesn't have any gold reserves anymore. They were all stolen. Fort Knox is pretty much empty.
The gold standard would put us even more at whim of the international bankers than the privately-owned for-profit Federal Reserve bank.
For more study on this subject, search Google video for "Money Masters" and "Money as Debt".
How about a link where somebody isn't getting paid for it. http://www.signaturemachine.com/products/demo_page.htm
"Who cares who Spain morally supported? Is holding an opinion justification for mass-murder now? The fact of the matter is that we have a heck of a lot more reasons to justify taking out their people than they do to take ours out. If they were to lay down their arms today and promise to stop attacking us then there is a really good chance this war would end. Unfortunately, the same can't be said for us laying down our arms."
Morally supported? Opinion? They had *troops* on the Arabian peninsula. Does freedom of speech include shooting people now?
That is also, incidentally, why Al Qaeda has not launched any attacks in the States recently. They said in one of their strategy documents in 2004 that attacking us at home was not their best strategy, Instead, they were going to attack countries that were part of our coalition (with troops in the region) to get them to pull out so that we had to bear the cost ourselves. They thought that once we realized how much running an empire was costing, *we'd stop doing it*. They were right on Spain: they attacked and Spain withdrew. Most of our other allies have scaled back support and the wars are costing us a fortune. They were wrong on the effect: we aren't smart enough to balance our checkbook.
Murdering civilians for no good reason is wrong. We should probably think about that too. We should probably have thought about that before we turned Afghanistan into a bloodbath (in the '80s) and armed bin Ladin. You might remember we turned the whole region into a battleground in WWII as well. Unfortunately, they don't separate us very well from the Russians and the Germans either, so the distrust of us "Westerners" goes rather deep, just in the modern age.
The problem with blaming the victim at this point is figuring out who it is.
Were these questions answered today or in the past few days? If so, I understand the answers not be up to par. Super Tuesday is a pretty big deal. Also, to all the Ron Paul haters: Where are your candidate's answers?
You can't take the sky from me...
The vast majority thinks the government exists to be their mommy, and their political parties have turned this cowardly and un-american outlook into the primary legislative theme of almost every representative.
The majority thinks that a representative government exists to serve their interests and values. That is a decision any organized community is entitled to make. Whether the money goes to erect a traffic light on main street, pay for the health inspector at the local meat packing plant, or or help provide a minimum income for the disabled is simply a matter of choice.
That was the finest summary of the Middle-East conflagration I've seen. That's a 5-insightful if I've ever seen it. Well done! Of course the peace-at-all-cost crowd here will mod it flamebait, troll, etc. because, well, that's what they do. Rather than challenge ideas, they attempt to silence the speaker.
Like they saying goes: if you're catching flack, it means you're over the target.
The federal government exists to serve the specific goals enumerated in the constitution. The president swears to "preserve, protect and defend" the constitution; congressmen and all executive and judicial officials swear to "support and defend" the constitution. This is the constituting authority for the federal government. If the government is to expand its authority beyond those things specifically laid out in the constitution, then it must amend the constitution. All power taken outside that which is specified in the constitution is taken illegitimately, and certainly all power taken that is specifically forbidden — for instance, the power to make ex post facto laws — is illegitimate. When power is taken without authority, that power is of no different character than that which is exercised by a dictator or a monarch. The constitution allows for change, because it was well understood that the document could persist as the basis of government into times when situations demanded revision; this process is called amendment, and generally speaking, it is being roundly ignored in favor of outright power grabs.
The majority could not quote you the constitution chapter and verse if you stopped them on the street. They couldn't even enumerate the amendments. Why don't you try asking ten random people? They have no idea why the federal government actually exists. Then ask them if they think the feds should be protecting them from child molesters, raiding people's houses in California for using Marijuana, and controlling who has guns. Guess what answers you're going to get. They'll be "mommy" answers.
The decision on how the federal government is to serve their interests and values has already been made. If they want to change it, they need to instantiate the amendment process. In the meantime, those powers descend to the states and the people. It specifically says so — can you guess where?
Yes indeed. The choice of the state government, and the people, not the federal government.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
You are full of shit. Period.
Nothing in his congressional record, personal life, nor his medical practice leads one iota of credence to the newsletters. In fact, it's just the opposite.
Would the president of the NAACP back someone like you just described? Of course not. Would someone that you just described deliver babies for free to African American and Hispanic families that were too poor to afford it? No.
He was running a full time medical practice and left the newsletters in care of people he thought he could trust. That was a mistake, as there were those who had a different agenda. At least he admitted he had been careless, unlike MOST of our elected officials (Iraq War).
His actions speak a lot louder than the words written by some assholes who had a vendetta. Here's a challenge for you. I want you to find one, just one instance where an action in his personal, medical, or political life shows paranoid racism. You won't find one.
He's not a libertarian. He's a constitutionalist. There is a difference.
~X~
~X~
Oh, but they do. Ask people if they think the feds should be raiding people's homes in California for using Marijuana. Ask them if they think the feds should be controlling who has access to guns. Ask them if they think the feds should be making laws about sexuality. Ask them if they think the feds should be concerning themselves with burning flags. Ask them if the feds should be making national databases of criminals. Ask them if the FBI and the DEA are legitimately constituted agencies. Go ahead, ask. If you just ask these questions and don't set them up as clear violations of constitutional authority, people will generally just nod. I've asked, I continue to ask; it is my way of agitating. Then I explain that there is no authority given to the feds for these things and that the state and local governments can be given that authority if the people so choose, that's the constitutional design, and this makes sense to them (of course — it was designed to make sense by people who were quite bright and very intent on trying to get it right.) When I do my asking, the answers are generally the same, most people, and by that I mean almost everyone I ask, think this is all ok, and furthermore, they are unable to tell me what the constitution says. Without that knowledge, it isn't hugely surprising that they don't understand the basis for the feds being out of hand, but nonetheless, that is the case.
No. Greed is ultimately destructive. The urge to grow, develop and expand knowledge, technology, medical care and creature comforts, however, is highly positive. Greed is what drives the federal government today. They are the penultimate example of people involved in a power grab.
Problem is, the federal government isn't doing the job it was constituted to do, and it has used force to steal the power to work together within the states, from the states, thereby making the people unable to work together in favor of their own interests. You act like I'm an advocate of chaos or lack of control; I most assuredly am not. However, if the government does not obey the law, then what controls it? Nothing — and that is both the problem in an anticipatory sense, and in the contemporaneous sense. Today, we have a government making war on a people who did not attack us. It is making ex post facto laws. It has turned the commerce clause on its very head. It has usurped powers that belong to the states and the people. It has grievously violated every one of the bill of rights (amendments one through ten) with the single exception of amendment three. The president is acting as if he is literally above the law, when the constitution specifically says otherwise. It has suspended habeas corpus outside of a time of war. It has made treaties and then not honored them. It has taken money and property from its citizens without trial. In short, the federal government is completely out of control. Any impression that anyone has that it isn't out of control is the result of propaganda. And as for your remark, sir, the implication that we have to let the fed abuse us in order to work together is both disingenuous and without any basis in reality.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
We fund China by borrowing trillions of dollars from them to fund our wars. That money is borrowed with interest, we are paying them billions just so we can fight an unconstitutional and unjustified war.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
While Ron Paul is pro-life he would let each state decide for themselves to allow abortion or make it illegal. To him it's all a matter of states' rights.
His stance on abortion is one I disagree with but for now I generally support Ron Paul. I am both pro-life and pro-choice.
FalconShould there be a Law?
Playing cop and peacemaker and bully across different parts of the world is expensive and contrary to our national interests. If you reverse course on those policies, you allow of lower taxes by cutting the actual need for the money. That in turn allows the country to focus on 'true national interests' which includes private research of all sorts.
Hey, didn't you know logic and reason aren't allowed?
FalconShould there be a Law?
to the best of my understanding there it is a stretch to say that there is a direct correlation between paying less taxes and creating more national debt.
When your income goes down either you cut spending or you go into debt. Not only has the US federal government cut income, taxes, but it has also ballooned spending. When Bush was sworn into office in 2001 there was a budget surplus of, if I recall right, $300B. Now under Bush the USA has the highest budget deficit it has ever had.
What's so hard to understand about that?
Paying more taxes does not make the economy healthier.
Agreed. However when taxes are cut spending needs to be cut as well. We can start by getting rid of waste. Paying more than a half billion dollars ( $740B so far for the world's largest embassy) for a new embassy in Baghdad? That's absolutely ridiculous. With that kind of money you could hand every Iraqi $10,000 and still leave pocket change. How many Iraqis would then hate the US?
FalconShould there be a Law?
The problem with the 'let the states do it' concept is that the states end up in a 'race to the bottom'. Politicians go grubbing for tax revenue and what happens? Corporation X, Y, and Z come along and say
Race to the bottom? Where are this corporations going to get workers? Many people can move to someplace else. For those who can't afford it when Corporation Y moves into an area Corporation X will have competition for employees and therefore will pay more. Both Honda and Toyota have opened new factories in the US and are beating Detroit's big three. The jobs created pay better than the jobs the area already had.
'well, if you just gut your environmental laws, and forgive 90% of our taxes, and gift us with 40 million bucks to boot, maybe we'll build a factory in your state.
So then the voters need to hold their government responsible. Oh, and I'll add that because pollution crosses manmade lines on paper, or a monitor, the environment is one area the feds should be able to set minimum standards. Actually here I'd prefer something international.
Uncle SAM is big enough and the US (even now) is too big a market collectively to be entirely powerless against that. Even so you see what kind of govt we have now? Put it all on the states, it will be 10x worse.
No, it would cost powerful corporations more to bribe local officials, who are directly responsible to local voters, than it costs to bribe federal officials. As Walmart is finding out local opposition is getting stronger. At the federal level there's not much that can be done but at the local level people have more power.
While we ALL like the theory of 'small government', the reality is we live in the 21st century, not the 18th century, and pretending we can go back to an 18th century model of government is just that, pretending.
No it not, it's trying to do something. Those like you, from what you say (pretending), would have people roll over. As the old saying goes, all that's required for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.
Paul likes to say his voting record is consistent with his beliefs, but it isn't entirely so.
Please show examples of this to support your contention Ron Paul's voting record does not match his beliefs.
FalconShould there be a Law?
We need these large, permanent bases if we are to keep our ability to strike anywhere quickly with a consistent flow of supplies.
There is no need for the US to strike anywhere quickly, there's no reason for US military forces to be spread all over the world. Fact is is there's no credible threat to US security other than by politicians and terrorists. And the military won't help with either of these.
FalconShould there be a Law?
Ron Paul is opposed to the unconstitutional involvement of the federal government. He correctly reminds us such charitable and social programs belong at the state level.
Meanwhile, you sound like a goat bleating "Long live Microsoft!" with the false and weak excuse that the web will die unless chaotic tag soup continues in perpetuity.
Well he couldn't just outright say he would legalize personal ICBM's. Goodbye NRA, hello N(ICBM)A.
We fund China by borrowing trillions of dollars from them to fund our wars. That money is borrowed with interest, we are paying them billions just so we can fight an unconstitutional and unjustified war.
And Ron Paul would end that war.
FalconShould there be a Law?
He wants to go back on the gold standard. Because, yunno, we never had any economic problems in the 19th century.
No, but we had the Great Depression while we were on the Gold Standard. And the US did have depressions in the 1800s. There was one in 1807, another in 1837, and two more in 1873 and 1893.
FalconShould there be a Law?
I doubt he'd be for increasing NASA's budget, a federal agency. That would contradict what he's been saying all along in terms of reducing the size of our federal government.
Ron Paul's opposed to funding of NASA. While I support space exploration I don't think government can do any better than private enterprises can.
FalconShould there be a Law?
What private ventures are these that are putting sciecne satellites in orbit and sending probes to other planets?
And what are these enterprises supposed to do, compeat with the government when the government makes all the rules?
And his racism
Yea, like releasing all nonviolent drug offenders, most of whom are not "white", is racist. "Ron Paul associates the Drug War with racism, and wants to put an end to both."
FalconShould there be a Law?
C) Torture? What, this water-boarding stuff? Duress, I agree. But torture? Show me the wounds and the scars left by water-boarding, and I might grant you torture.
Torture doesn't need to leave physical scars, torture is "any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental" is inflicted intentionally. Or is it that you think if a scar isn't visible it isn't torture?
FalconShould there be a Law?
How can someone running for the Republican party possibly be a Libertarian?
Ron Paul first ran for president in 1988 as a Libertarian. The Libertarian Party got it's start in the 1970s when some Republicans became disillusioned with Nixon.
FaclonShould there be a Law?
For what it's worth, if you submit a resume to a large company (fortune 500), the first round of examination is automated. If you include lots of good buzzwords relevant to a job that you are interested in, it will head to the top of the heap. It's just like a Monster job search: Find the right job vs. find the right employee. If you send in a paper resume, it adds a step: scanning. And it isn't the hiring manager who will be scanning it. Results will vary, of course.
I've always been a Libertarian.
I started out as a Democrat. In 1980 I voted for Carter, then in 1984 for the Democrat candidate though I don't recall the person's name. Things changed in 1988, that year I was deputized to register people to vote. As part of it we were given a list of political parties recognized by the state, and later the names of the candidates on the ballot. I saw Ron Paul running as the Libertarian candidate and not knowing anything about him or the party I did some research. Thereafter I've considered myself a small "l" libertarian.
FalconShould there be a Law?
Because a personal preference of an operating system has absolutely no bearing on politics whatsoever?
Ok, so it might have a tiny bit if he for some reason totally is supportive of monopolies and unethical business practices, but seriously, if someone is going to vote for a president simply because he uses Linux... :)
I don't know about the Laffer Curve, not much at least, but I've read how there's some controversies about it.
Only way to find out is to adjust the tax rates, then leave them alone for a while and check REVENUE, not DEFICIT. Deficit can go up or down in ways unrelated to tax revenues
The problem I think is is you can't really know if adjusting tax rates will affect revenue. For instance what if tax rates are adjusted either up or down while at the same tyme there's a slowdown in the economy. Or say an adjustment is made when a new technology comes along that improves output.
Having said this, I don't want you to think I support high, or low, income taxes. I don't, I don't support personal income tax at the federal level. The only income tax I believe in is a tax on the profits a corporation makes, ie the dividends a corporation pays out. If someone wants the limited liability of a corporation then they can pay for it. At the state level, if the people there are ok with a state income tax then they can have one. But I'd rather not.
FalconShould there be a Law?
And for those that might want to know my personal opinions on the subject, I think Bill Clinton said it best. Abortions should be legal, safe, and above all else rare.
That says it best alright. I am both pro-choice and pro-life.
FalconShould there be a Law?
I think that if you ask around, most people will say they just "want theirs".
I don't think is it terribly greedy to want a portion of my income back from the government. They sure as hell are not going to use it efficiently.
Greed is good, right Mr. Libertarian?
Being free to choose how *my* resources are spent is good. But I can see where you might interpret "wanting greater personal responsibility and independence" as wanting too much.
I doubt that you can speak for "most people." And since you are condescending enough to state that most people are "helpless, greedy or don't think at all," I doubt that "most people" want you representing them. While you are enjoying your shower, ask yourself why it is that people might not look forward to "working together" with a person like yourself.
You should go back to not answering rants.
Two consenting adults should be allowed to trade with each other at whatever terms they voluntarily agree upon.
There are limits to that. Because as you have just phrased it, debtor armies and slave labor would be entirely acceptable.
I don't know that the person being enslaved would think it's voluntary.
FalconShould there be a Law?
I was in a discussion with folks recently who do certified organic farming. The guy from the USDA comes in, looks at their farm, checks their papers, and drives off.
I've heard of some organic farmer who since the federal government took over the organic label have decided to give up on organic certification. This is because the costs of the certification has gone up a lot for them while their income hasn't increased. So what some do is continue operating as they did when certified organic but they won't pay for certification. I heard this is popular in California.
FalconShould there be a Law?
How is it that the Federal government is bad when the state government is good? That is illogical.
Under federal control you have one lab, whereas with the states in control you have 50 labs. Each state can try something. And if it works then other states can try it. Or if it doesn't work the state can try something that works for another state.
FalconShould there be a Law?
By the way: in my opinion, a true libertarian must be against the limitation of liability that shareholders enjoy. The libertarian ideal of "free-market capitalism" only works when our freedom is counterbalanced by we having absolute responsibility for our actions. And you only get that, at the speculative market, once purchasing shares of a company links you, your well-being, your future, your destiny, to those of that company. At the prospect of you going on jail if the company commits a crime, even if you only own a single share. Do this, and you'll notice corporations becoming very good neighbors from day to night.
What you could do is revoke the Corporate Charter of corporations.
FalconShould there be a Law?
You present a strong argument for a core tenet of Republican beliefs, namely, a smaller Federal government. That is actually one belief I share with Republicans
Small government hasn't been a tenet of the Republican Party in a long tyme. The current admin, Bush Jr's, is creating an intelligence state. And Reagan built up the police state Nixon started. Of course Democrats aren't for small government either. They want big social services programs. The only political party in the US that has Small Government as it's platform is the Libertarian Party.
FalconShould there be a Law?
It is actually more complex than this because you need to take into account time. The cost of the war is upfront but the oil is only produced over a period of time so it's value of this needs to be discounted. Iraq is currently only producing 2 million barrels per day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_reserves#Iraq/. I can't be bothered doing the full calculations, but at the 30 year bond rate of 4.5% after 30 years this $1 trillion turns out to be $3.74 trillion yet we only get 60 billion barrels of oil out of Iraq. This is $62 per barrel. Using your assumption that only 25% of this flows to the USA this is a subsidy of more than $240 per barrel!
Automated DNA sequencing software
Gold is the best commodity I've seen that keeps it's value.
Although recently I've become aware of the central banks of the world conspiring to manipulate the price of gold in the markets to mask inflation of currencys. See http://www.goldrush21.com for more details. These whistleblowers spent $265,000 on a full page color ad in the January 31st, 2008 Wall Street Journal.
I've heard that gold should be at about $5,000 per ounce right now considering how much the dollar has devalued.
END the Federal Reserve Systems!!!!
(I usually sign my posts with GnuPG signatures, but slashdot's "Lameness filter encountered. Post aborted" message indicated "Reason: That's an awful long string of letters there.".)
Gagh, you made me defend centrists. Now I must shower.
Yeah, it really sucks. But heay, it's only once every four years.
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- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
Simple solutions for simple Minds. Now what was the problem again?
Except they were supposed to be "tech-oriented questions" (their idea, not mine!) What does legalizing pot have to do with that? (Or question 2 for that matter.) There are a lot of more relavent questions that could have been asked. Such as his position on stem cell research, global warming, Kayoto treaty, H1B workers, etc. They wonder why no one is answering the qustions? Personally, had I been a candidate and gotten this set of questions, I wouldn't have bother to answer them either!
My question was more of a spoof of the famous "boxers of briefs" question some idiot asked Clinton when he ran for office. But it would have been interesting if any candidate actually knows what Linux IS. Or hell, that he knows what a computer is. You certainly are not going to get a lot of support for the tech community if you elect some guy who, for example, doesn't know how to answer an email.
If you've never been modded as "flamebait" or "troll," you've never tried to argue a minority viewpoint here!
Do you think there's a bunch of people who make less than $90,000 and then an empty void until you get people making a $50 million a year? You're just another nothing who has bought into the whole class warfare claptrap.
http://www.mhall119.com
No offense, but most of your questions really aren't any better. You need to learn to phrase questions in a way that doesn't reveal an infantile understanding of the issues. To pick on a few:
"Is health care a right?" You mean a natural right? A constitutional right? Why not just ask, what is your opinion on universal health care?
"Should those on welfare be disallowed from voting?" I just can't see how someone with an understanding of welfare could seriously ask such a question. Should those with frequent flier miles be disallowed from complaining about airlines?
I thought they were just slashdot-asked questions, hehe.
Thanks for bringing the level of discourse up to a higher level. However, when using the word "Period" as a sentence in an of itself, its is primarily done as the termination of an argument. I understand that you had just delivered your most intelligent point but it wasn't the best choice.
Other than publishing the newsletters, and writing the newsletters? How about his association with the von Mises Institution and Lew Rockwell (his former staffer)?He hasn't.If he wanted to keep his medical license, yes.
Oh well if thats what he said, then nevermind. I could never imagine someone lying to cover up a racist past.
But I'll bite. Ron Paul has extensive ties to the League of the South, a neo-Confederate group that advocates secession, a "return" to Christian law and racial violence.
Someone should tell Ron Paul that.Or his association with the John Birch Society, a far right wing society with both racist and conspiracy theory views.
And the only problem there is that really a "state" should be limited to about 25 million people. Larger populations produce unaccountable governments that are essentially "federal" governments.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
Not really, they just want the majority of votes in a state. If we had a direct democracy then they would be interested in getting as many votes as they could.
So they go for the low hanging fruit and move on to the next state.
That's the catch here, the candidates generally don't have solid viewpoints on anything. Having solid viewpoints means taking sides in arguments, which means you lose the support of everyone whose side you're not deemed "on". That's why they give vague answers to everything, so they can respin their previous statements to suit whatever the sentiment-of-the-week is in the country on an issue.
People have already complained about Ron Paul's response here, because he didn't really answer most of the questions. Of course he didn't! Otherwise he wont be able to say the exact opposite later on if he needs to. That's why the other candidates didn't answer, either. The questions they were sent are written in a way that makes it hard to answer without setting a precedent for their views on issues, and they can tell deflecting by answering an unrelated question wont pass unnoticed here.
It's just not worth the hassle/possible alienation of other voters to them.
Except for the part about weed, this interview is completely useless.
http://www.usadaily.com/article.cfm?articleID=227844
The president and 20 year long friend of Ron Paul defended him. Ron Paul has also written a treatise about how to eliminate racism, which seems rather odd for someone who would be a racist.
Lew Rockwell and the Mises institute ARE NOT FRIENDS of Paul. You will find that they have been attacking Paul almost non-stop. Lew Rockwell was fired I believe. It was Lew and pals who orchestrated The New Republic release. Not exactly something you do to someone you support.
As far as your "extensive ties" go, I can find no such evidence other than some PO blogs and people thinking that Ron Paul supports them. There was one story in the USA Daily, but it was retracted on the basis that they could not find any credible sources to back it up. Other than that there doesn't appear to be any credible information.
The John Birch Society support Paul for his constitutional views. Other than one speech he gave (on constitutional principles no less), I don't find any other ties to the group. The same with the league of the south. They support him because of his views on the Constitution and states right.
I do not see any PAC money coming from these groups. Nor do I see Ron Paul actively endorsing or supporting these groups either. I don't see it in his congressional record, and certainly not in his public record. You would think that if what your saying is true, the mainstream media would have picked it up and utterly destroyed him with it.
But I suppose you want to make a leap from some of the crazies supporting Ron Paul to Ron Paul being a crazy himself. o_0
The only thing I've managed to find with any racism at all has been the newsletters. Everything else has been word-of-mouth or unsubstantiated, uncorraborative stories. How about something from real source or news outlet.
But since your so keen on on political wrong-doings and such, try this site http://www.judicialwatch.org/. Obama has quite a record. Another one for more recent statements is factcheck.org.
~X~
~X~
Some links:
Lew Rockwell Blog
LewRockwell.com Ron Paul News
Past articles by Congressman Ron Paul on LewRockwell.com
Hmm... these don't seem like things that are critical of Paul, do they? in fact, they seem like the work of an ardent supporter.
"MIT betrayed all of its basic principles."
The initial sibling comment has shown your claims regarding Lew Rockwell are obviously false.
Ron Paul is the "Distinguished Counselor" of the Ludwig von Mises Institute. They publish his latest book - forward by Lew Rockwell.
Ron Paul also openly associates himself with their of the John Birch Society and thinks its ridiculous that someone would think its bad that he would.
Clearly you aren't interested in the truth, just in backing your guy. I linked several times to news sources. You then criticize my sources and link Judicial Watch of all places as a source when the first adjective it uses to describe itself is by political ideology ("conservative"). Even your second mentioned site identifies judicialwatch as "a conservative legal group that dogged the Clintons through the 1990s with a stream of document demands and related lawsuits" not a reliable source of facts.
It's a big fucking problem, and hopefully GWB will go down in history as a war monger and a destroyer of economies. Not like when people these days try to claim Regan was some kind of hero.
Yea, I don't understand how people can say Reagan was a small government conservative. Reagan expanded government more than many apparently believe. Some tyme back "Reason" magazine had a feature going through many of the things Reagan did to expand the federal government.
FalconShould there be a Law?
Whats keeping any reform minded party from succeeding is any anti-war message. Let's get something straight. AMERICANS LOVE WAR. Sure the iraqi war isn't popular, but not because of a philosophical opposition to war in general...its just that we are losing and Americans hate to lose wars, so we get stubborn and dig our heels in until it becomes so huge a disaster we finally have to give up, but not before blaming hippies, liberals, dancing peace activists, PETA, and treehuggers for it all. Ron Paul will never win because of his anti-war stance, same reason why Dennis Kucinich will never win.
Call it a "rant" if you must, but had I the mod points, I would have liked to mod that comment from +4 to +5.
It hits the nail on the proverbial head.
The fact that some people would want the tax "rebate" money Bush is proposing, yet fully understand what bad fiscal policy the whole thing is does NOT in any way, shape or form make them a hypocrite. I consider myself in this camp, and it's NOT a simple matter of throwing my hands up in the air, saying "It's beyond fixing, so want mine out of the mess!"
It's an understanding that the American people are WAY over-taxed at the Federal level. As a Libertarian myself, I'd love to see the entire IRS dismantled/abolished. If that's too "pie in the sky" to ever really happen, ok. Then I'd settle for removal of many of the govt. offices that are unnecessary and inefficient. I'd agree with such ideas as dumping NASA and privatizing space exploration, and probably even scaling back the FDA. Homeland Security would be gone in a flash, for sure. Given that mentality, it's perfectly logical I'd take any money back I can get from the feds! I'd rather have what I earned for myself than letting them mis-use it!
I can't say I have seen more eloquent explanations of what has been going wrong with the Federal Government. This, sir, is almost on par with the Declaration of Independence. Very well done, indeed.
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"At which point, both democracy and economics are going to make everyone from my generation and those that follow my generation into slaves to the needs of the elderly,"
:).
:).
How about just stop fighting stuff like obesity and smoking so much? Then there won't be so many elderly
Definitely educate everyone of the dangers etc, but don't ban smoking, and don't ban fattening foods.
Have education campaigns and _tax_ the stuff more. You want to ban smoking in bars? Don't. Just tax bars that allow smoking more.
Then if people still want to do that sort of stuff and die earlier, let them! Maybe give the exceptional "contributors" a medal or cert for their sacrifice for the country
People say lung cancer treatment is expensive. But so is the other sort of cancer treatment.
People die eventually - most antismoking studies ignore that, and/or do bullshit stuff like factor in lost _future_ earnings as a cost. I've looked at so many, they all "spin" it.
If more people stop dying from heart disease (obesity) and lung cancer (smoking), more of them will start dying of other cancers or stroke (see Japan for examples). And those are expensive too - plus you have to support them for many more years.
If people actually smarten up and take actions to live longer without having to be _forced_ to, that's a good thing, and I'm sure they'll also be smart enough to figure something out.
I must say that in Japan there's a high smoker ratio, but they still don't seem to drop dead as early as one would expect.