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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."

3 of 878 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Thank goodness by Kelbear · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.

  2. What about the CONTRIBUTIONS? by Random+Q.+Hacker · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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!

  3. Re:Real summary. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Come to the real South where you can't avoid blacks, and while there is certainly some racism remaining, there's a lot less of it and what's left is less vehement. The more you interact with another race, the less you are capable of claiming they are fundamentally different and less than you.

    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.