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Has Ron Paul Quit?
Lally Singh sends us to the inside-the-Beltway blog Wonkette for a quick take on a letter Ron Paul sent to his supporters. In this analysis, Dr. Paul has basically called it quits. "Late Friday night, Dr. Congressman Ron Paul posted a letter to his fans basically saying it's over, but he will continue talking about his message, and plus it would be completely embarrassing for him if he also lost his congressional seat."
I am not in the cult, but I am very happy Ron Paul is running.
I saw my father change his political affiliation for the first time since he originally registered at the age of eighteen because of Ron Paul's message. That in itself is worth a lot.
I wouldn't necessarily have voted Paul, but I am glad my dad found a message to break through his increasingly jaded and hopeless view of American politicians.
Maybe the astroturfing and spam can finally end now. Ron Paul definitely gets the award for most annoying campaign ever. I've never received spam in my inbox from any of the other candidates. And if I have to ignore one more invitation to a Ron Paul supporters group on facebook I'll scream.
One question though: what happens to all the money he raised? I'm sure he hasn't burned through all of it, and he raised a lot from what I've read. Now that he's running a "leaner" campaign he will be using it even slower.
If you build it, nerds will come. Soylentnews.org
I've always thought the Soviet Union failed because it expected human nature to change. While it was saying, "From each according to his ability and to each according to his need," the people were saying, "As long as they pretend to pay us, we'll pretend to work." Guess which slogan had more power.
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The reason is that tech people and libertarians tend to overlap as demographics. There are more of the former than the latter, but if you know what a Venn diagram is, you won't have problems understanding that.
For the record, Ron Paul is a REPUBLICAN with some libertarian ideas - NOT a "libertarian", even though he ran once or twice on the Libertarian Party ticket. He's more of what they call a "paleoconservative" than a "libertarian". There is a wide variety of "libertarians", both left and right. The ones that end up in the Libertarian Party tend to be, as Bob Black once said, "Republicans who smoke dope."
And his support didn't come from "white supremacists" - that was bullshit media spin based on a couple donations.
I'm an anarchist myself, so I couldn't care less, but it was fun to see him skewer the other Republican candidates with their militarism and economic stupidity.
If McCain becomes President, we'll be at war with Iran AND Pakistan within six months - and the US economy will completely collapse as China dumps the dollar because they were cut off from Iranian oil and gas. Electing that senile old fool is a vote for the destruction of the United States.
Unfortunately, electing either Obama or Clinton will end up in the same place - it will just take a little longer as they screw around with "diplomacy" before starting their wars. Neither of them, let alone McCain, have any clue about US foreign policy.
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
Gold is tangible, gold is scarce, but valuable? The high value of gold is built on intangible desires just like the value of paper and ink that we place on money. It's metal. I don't have gold, I don't have any use for it, and I don't want the metal. I want the cash value of gold though.
A gold standard is just changing one object for another as a unit of exchange. You can use deer skins, rocks with holes in them, it's still money. If you want serious value behind the unit of exchange, exchange a valuable unit like a car or piece of machinery. Except those don't fit so well into a pocket. So you exchange cash. But cash makes your pocket fat, so we carry credit cards.
The real goal of a gold standard is to combat uncontrolled money expansion. There are a number of ways to accomplish that without arbitrarily pivoting on some random and irrelevant metal.
Ron Paul has some good ideas I'd support, but the gold standard isn't one of them.
No matter who wins this race, it is NOT the same old entrenched politics.
My personal preference, in order of who I think would be best for the country, is Obama, Clinton, and McCain to win. Now, having said that, I have to admit, I don't see McCain winning as all that bad.
Yes, he will continue the war in Iraq. But you know what? Unlike George Bush, I think he has the competence to continue it in a manner in which we don't alienate the entire world and look like idiots to those who want us all dead. Don't get me wrong, I don't have anything against our troops fighting the war. In fact, I have an immense respect that I could never convey adequately. But when I think of how Bush has misused them... Well, being a Vietnam War prisoner, I don't think McCain will take our soldiers' lives so capriciously for the sake of building "political capital."
You know what I think is most exciting about John McCain? He hasn't kowtowed to the Jesus Crispies, and he's cleaning the clocks of people who do. If he can successfully show Republicans with brains (yes, contrary to popular belief, there are some) that you can be a conservative without being a sycophant to the religious nuts out there, that would represent anything BUT entrenched politics.
So yeah, I hope Obama wins. And barring that, I hope Clinton wins. But if neither of them do, unlike I've ever felt about George Bush, if John McCain wins, he'll have my support as President and Commander-in-Chief. Unlike the last two elections, I don't see this country as being a miserable failure at everything in the next four years no matter who wins.
The Republican party is large and diverse, and not all Republicans are for small government. This includes the current President. Having come of political age in the early 1990's, most of the Republicans I know are for small government and are very much against domestic surveillance and entanglement in foreign wars. I am a young guy, but I have watched for years and years as pro-business lackeys have been propped up into power in the party while the small-government pro-freedom Republicans have been railroaded out the back door. The unfortunate truth is that a great deal of the pro-freedom, small-government crowd ARE a little wacky (see: reinstitute the gold standard, abolish central bank, sorry if I'm offending anyone but those are crazy) and many I have met (I doubt most though) are at least latently racist. I have been a sorry witness to racist asides and outbursts from some of these people that have made me question my party affiliation. This is makes them unpalatable to many in the party, who believe it or not are not racist and do not hate blacks and Jews and are embarrassed by the association with some of these people. Then there are the evangelicals in the Republican party, who often ally with the pro-business crowd and have gelled where pro-business party members use the evangelicals for vote consolidation and many evangelicals have been brainwashed into believing pro-business politics even where it hurts people.
I cannot believe no one has mentioned the contributions yet! Is Ron Paul going to keep the tens of millions in contributions that he barely spent? Is this going to disillusion a whole generation of politically active geeks?
Ron Paul should donate a large portion of that money to the EFF, ACLU, and anyone else staying in the fight for our civil liberties! We did not contribute for his reelection to congress!
I'm ashamed to say so, but for me it's absolutely the opposite. I grew up in an all-white town and did not have a hint, not a hint of racism when I left for college. Then I got here, where there're tons of black people, and ever since --- but really only in the last year or two --- I've slowly gained racist tendencies and thoughts.
I don't believe I'm prejudiced against black people; I believe I evaluate each person on his own merits. But I'm an extreme victim of confirmation bias; it really seems to me like a higher percentage of the black people I come into contact with on a daily basis are thugs, idiots, and/or jerks than the people of every other race.
Maybe it's just a culture thing; I'm not as accustomed to black culture's annoyances as I am to white culture's annoyances. Whatever it is, it scares me a little that I feel like I'm getting more racist with experience instead of less.
I'm highly ashamed to admit this, but I felt like a counterexample should speak up.
Well in the current United States, largely apathy is king.
...Rome...
Ppl want to be entertained, bread and circuses and all, much like
So when ppl mention that the Federal Reserve really isn't federal, they
think your a nut job by default and don't bother to even read about it.
http://www.libertydollar.org/ld/federal-reserve/
It is all verifiable.
It is all true.
But they dismiss it with a wave, so they can get back to the Computer, TV,
and watch their sports, boink their significant other, or read a book
about some made up shit that does not even exist.
In the meantime, the Fed loans the government its own money at 'interest'.
It is boring though, doesn't really entertain ppl, so it doesn't get much brain time.
My grandfather when I was a small child decades ago warned us about how bad
this would get, and I didn't really understand him then.
After many years, and a fair bit of reading and discussing with very intelligent
ppl in and out of the united states, I now see the shell game for what it is.
Some of the ppl that backed Ron Paul felt much like those ppl in V for vendetta
and are sick of blood sucking bastards that are ruining our country, and
charging us interest to do it to boot !
When the collapsing dollar dies, and the Amero is brought in to replace it,
the NAU is formed, the RealID and DNA database, and it suddenly dawns on you
that all of this was mentioned, you were warned and it was all in writing
by government officials in plain sight.
Lou dobbs covered the NAU forming, and the fact that there was no vote.
The Trans Texas Corridor was to be paid for by US tax dollars, but sold
to a Spanish billionaire who would run it as a for profit toll road
that we paid to build.
Fortunately the good ppl of Texas caught this and killed it, but it will
be back, and Rick Perry governor of Texas is in on it with them.
If you get a chance watch 911 press for truth to get a good Idea just how
bad things are getting, for the non religious folks also watch Zeitgeist the movie.
Also money as debt is a good primer for the Federal Reserve banking system.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-9050474362583451279
Most ppl will ignore this and plod on, just another brick in the wall.
Ex-MislTech
google "32 trillion offshore needs IRS attention"
The plain fact is, people want to vote for a 'winner' and allow the MSM to dictate who that should be. Ron Paul was excluded from debates when Guilanni was not because he was deemed 'not viable'. Turns out, they had that backwards. I have NEVER felt more jaded towards politics as I do right now. Observe:
1) For a candidate to win, MSM support is required
2) MSM is in favor, some directly and others indirectly, of 'news worthy' wars and other events
3) The best interests of the average American ARE NOT in line with the best interests of the average MSM corporation
Therefore: Allowing the media to select our election candidate is nothing short of complete insanity. Anyone that didn't vote for Paul ought to be committed, as they cannot form simple value judgments without the support of the idiot-box.
And, by the way, if we ever want this to REALLY change, we're going to have to bring the word 'revolution' back to an earlier meaning. Those powerful people are entrenched, folks, and it's all YOUR fault.