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Ron Paul Effectively Ending Presidential Campaign
New submitter Dainsanefh sends this quote from the LA Times:
"Ron Paul, Mitt Romney's lone remaining rival for the Republican presidential nomination, announced Monday that he would stop spending money on the party's 11 remaining primaries, in effect suspending his campaign. ... Apart from President Obama and Romney, Paul has raised more money than any other White House contender this year – more than $36 million. His calls for strict adherence to the Constitution and his no-nonsense manner have spawned a vocal and well organized group of followers, but not enough to give him a realistic shot at the presidency."
He is no longer seeking primary votes, and is instead focusing 100% on taking delegate positions. This race is not over.
He's trying to put like minded people in as state GOP officers, and to amass delegates. And he'll keep doing that until all the primaries and caucuses are over this summer.
Space game using normal deck of cards: http://BattleCards.org
He is not actively campaigning in the primaries because he is focused on the delegate process. He has a plurality of delegates in more than 5 states, so he will be on the ballot at the convention. If he stops Romney from getting the majority, then 2nd round of delegates can all vote for whoever they want to.
He stopped spending money on ads, and is diverting the money to the state conventions (where he's winning). It seems a logical stance to take if his goal is to win the delegate vote.
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
Saw him give a speech in Idaho, it was a fantastic experience. Just thought it was odd the local organizers that got on the mic to introduce him first gave a speech espousing the ideals of the christian nation and a strong military budget. While when Paul actually got on stage he said exactly the opposite. Limited foreign involvement, liberty as an ideal for the inclusion of all beliefs, etc., etc. Maybe he would of had a better shot if he wasn't surrounded by people spouting the same old tired right wing talking points.
On the Oregon Cost born and raised, On the beach is where I spent most of my days
Government just got a tiny bit smaller!
For your security, this post has been encrypted with ROT-13, twice.
Anyone else see that as a scathing social commentary regarding American political priorities?
Doesn't matter, voting for him anyway.
Hey, it could be worse: I could be planning to vote for one of the candidates owned by Goldman Sach's.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
>Runs out of money
>Stops spending money
And, thusly, the hopes and the dreams of half of Slashdot's libertarian kook fringe, have been dashed...
Come on, all together now:
AAAAAWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!!!!!
I'd like a citation from the articles where Paul or his manager say We are "ending" the campaign. Please.
IF you're going to act like FAUX News with distortions
THEN I'd like you to back up that distortion with direct-linked quotes
ELSE retract. Thank you.
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
What vested interest decided to totally ignore Ron Pauls campaign. "Paul came in third in the Iowa Republican Caucus held on January 3, 2012", despite a total media blackout. Faux News even had to dub-in some boos when he won some vote. I guess the main problem with Paul is he hasn't been bought-and-paid-for unlike the rest of the candidates.
AccountKiller
I think most centralist will side with Paul on many issues. Who wants the leader of the free world to look like a Treasure troll who's losing his hair right? But since the invention of TV, the prettier candidate has always won since JFK. Gore vs. Bush was probably the only exception. But who knows what really happened with Florida right?
I think Rand Paul will be a serious contender for the GOP ticket in 2016. He'll have many of the views that make Ron popular, but better looking and be serious considered for the ticket.
He is the only candidate that talks truth, which of course makes him unelectable.
No one ever wants to vote for reality.
Don't know something? Look it up. Still don't know? Then ask.
I'm from the UK and so have no vested interest but I am a bit of a Ron Paul fan and this article smacks of the same shit that saw him completely ignored in almost every single MSM news piece and article on the GOP nomination race.
In space no-one can hear your vuvuzela.
You see, you have a government and that's the problem. With me, RP, you get rid of that pesky government and if you don't have a government then how can you have a problem?!
That's okay, if he's not on the ballot come November I'll write in his name anyway.
I disagree with Ron Paul on a lot of stances, including most of his core ones. However, of all the politicians I've followed for any kind of time (which is only a few dozen), he has been the most steadfast in his ideals (i.e. he doesn't change with the direction of the wind) and he'll tell it like it is. I also completely agree with his States' Rights stance. While I think he would make a terrible President, I think he makes a great candidate since his participation usually calls out the other guys on something or other, and he at least questions the status quo. I will write him in because I want to encourage him to continue running for President (but never win.)
Also because the other choices don't interest me in the least.
you have a choice between a democrat devil or a republican devil who thinks he has superman underwear
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
He says, anything I Ron Paul agree with is constitutional, and anything I don't is not... I feel really sad that people are taken in by this guy eg, if Texas wants to enact a law saying gays and blacks have to sit at the back of the bus, thats OK with R Paul
What he is saying is that it's not okay with him as a person, but that he would not be able to support it in good conscience as a president, if elected.
The Paul campaign is redirecting their attention to the delegate strategy---which is turning out to be very successful. This is being discussed at The Daily Paul. They predicted that the media would intentionally misrepresent this as Ron Paul ending his campaign, and they were right.
Liberty in your lifetime
You must not be familiar with Celine's Third Law: "An honest politician is a national calamity."
Sounds crazy until you start thinking of politicians who weren't sellouts, then it suddenly makes a lot of sense.
There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
Amusing that so many people claim the Constitution as their banner and claim it represents their precise political views, when it predates basically all modern political discourse and their own views are so reprehensible. Amusing that the Libertarians might claim to be the same party as the Democratic-Republican Party, or the Federalist Party, and claim all sides of the First Party System as themselves.
For every problem, there is at least one solution that is simple, neat, and wrong.
Randians and reality are utterly unacquainted with each other.
DRM: Terminator crops for your mind!
Ron Paul is a lunatic. The 20% of his potentially useful commentary is ruined by the 80 % of his lunatic rants such as :
1 The gold in the U.S. Treasury is not 99 percent fine but only 96 percent.
2. Eliminate the Department of Education ( Thanks for contributing to U.S. illiteracy and innumeracy )
3. The U.S. should return to the Gold standard ( You forgot something, the WORLD dropped the gold standard ).
Yours In Novosibirsk,
K. Trout, C.I.O.
P.S.: Ron Paul's agenda is further the political career of his nutjob son, Rand Paul. I'll this wacko for a later essay.
At least he tries to stick to his interpretation of it rather than just doing whatever the fuck he wants. I'm pretty sure if you had a good enough argument about why his views on the constitutionality of a matter were incorrect, he would at least consider it. The Constitution isn't perfect, which is why there's still a lot of debate on some ambiguous matters, but there are plenty of politicians who blatantly ignore it. I'd rather have someone who is at least interested in following the Constitution, even if I disagree with his or her interpretations of it. It's better than someone who has no respect for it and will do whatever they please with utter disregard for the Constitutional legality of it.
>>> if Texas wants to enact a law saying gays and blacks have to sit at the back of the bus, thats OK with R Paul
Um no. The Supreme Court already ruled that segregation is a violation of the equality amendment. (14? 16? I forget). As for Obama's position: Marriage licenses are not granted by the Congress. They are granted by the People and their Legislatures. The U.S. has no authority to overrule what local people desire, anymore than the E.U. has the authority to force the Greeks or Poles or Spaniards to issue gay marriage licenses.
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
What, so the only way for us to get oil is to invade oil rich countries?
Are you suffering from some form of organic brain dementia, by any chance?
I'm still planning on voting for him.
I think that the two party system we have is inherently broken. Do I think Paul would be the best president? not by a long shot. Do I think he would shake things up enough? hopefully.
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Yeah, it has nothing to do with Paul's extremely unpopular opinions on most topics and crazy old man demeanor. People "just can't handle the truth".
He is the only candidate that talks truth, which of course makes him unelectable.
i am not familiar with this strange new kind of "truth: you are referring to. ron paul's ideas would bring great opportunity for a very select and small number of people and oppression and misery for many, many, more. on top of that, much of it requires him to do things that are not within the power granted to the president.
No one ever wants to vote for reality.
no paullower would recognize reality if it bit them in the ass.
and yes, that was my comment. but because i have pissed off the slashdot paullowers i am not allowed to post more than twice a day under my own name on slashdot..
If you hate a machine and don't know what to do, throw a monkey wrench at it. At the very least, the grinding of gears will make for a change of pace.
VOTE RON PAUL!
---
ECHELON is a government program to find words like bomb, jihad, plutonium, assassinate, and anarchy.
Do I think Paul would be the best president? not by a long shot. Do I think he would shake things up enough? hopefully.
... and that's why the House of Reps needs him exactly where he is. He does a great job putting what brakes he can on legislative excess before things get out of the committees he's on. People who want him to run for President don't often think of how well he does keep things shaken up. His positions fit his current position just right.
I've pretty much decided to vote for the lesser evil this year. Pretty sad to think that Cthulhu is the lesser evil when compared to Mickey Mouse.
/* TODO: Spawn child process, interest child in technology, have child write a new sig */
He's just focusing on the state conventions instead of the popular votes, which is a completely healthy and viable strategy.
For instance, he lost the Nevada Primary: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/02/04/nevada-caucus-results-2012_n_1254069.html
Only to win almost all the actual delegates later on: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/post/ron-paul-wins-majority-of-nevada-delegates/2012/05/06/gIQA1An15T_blog.html
This is not a campaign in decline, just one that's only spending money where it counts, instead of wasting it on beauty contests.
Actually, I don't think he would consider it, or more importantly, wouldn't consider the real fix. Constitutional revision to improve our system of government's foundational principles would enable a lot of impediments to be fiedx, or at least foster some discussion on how we really want to run things.
Instead, we have people like Ron Paul who puffs out his tune, and closes of his ears.
He doesn't want discussion. He's not open to it. He puts up a flat wall of rhetoric that offers no opening.
Maybe to you he sounds principle, to me he seems dogmatic.
He states that the government doesn't have the right to tell people how to think. If someone is racist and murders a black person for being black he's not going to say that man should get away with it. The man should be condemned for murder still. Why would anyone think the government knows best for how I think. BTW I'm Native American (something that makes me laugh about the illegal immigrants woe's) and my people were raped, murdered, then condemned to true ghetto's. It's wrong to discriminate, but it's far more wrong for the government to tell me how I think is wrong. As long as I don't impede on others rights I should be able to consume what I like, say what I like, do what I like.
Always remember you supposedly have the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Those who forget that don't belong here, and that goes for most of our current politicians. Note, I also mostly vote typically democratic, as I believe "Obamacare" falls under the right to life, and both parties disagree with my right to liberty. One win is better than none.
TL;DR Summary: Ron Paul believes in the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness and the government doesn't have the right to tell a man how to think.
WTF Slashdot, why do I have to login 50 times to post?
Except that he is currently retiring and not running for the House again this time around. So you won't have him anywhere.
Not that that's a bad thing. Someone up above said "he is the only candidate that talks truth"; this only applies where "truth" includes insane goldbuggery, hermitic levels of nativism and xenophobia, extreme isolationism, and a standard monologue that ought to begin with "ok, everyone put on your tinfoil hats now."
Ron Paul is to the Republicans what Lyndon LaRouche was to the Democrats - a weirdo who attached himself to their party for his own goals and who manages to get by on a cult-of-personality effect while never remotely breaking into the mainstream because when you get right down to it, his "fundamental principles" have been disproven by history time and again.
That's overstating his actual influence - Paul is like Kucinich in that he's a mostly powerless gadfly. If Paul were in a top leadership position, or in the Senate with its ridiculous holds, he might have some real influence over policy.
"I'm still planning on voting for him."
So he's basically the Ralph Nader of the 2012 election. Great.
That's pretty technical terminology
[condescending-wonka.jpg]
I bet you must have some serious medical credentials
DRM: Terminator crops for your mind!
The problem is that for every truth he speaks, he also speaks a dozen absurdities. He's ignorant of history, economics and governance. He'd make the worst kind of leader; the kind that blindly pushes through on purely ideological grounds. Beware the fanatic.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
I'm writing him in in November no matter what happens.
Indeed. Ron Paul's supporters on /. seem to get a considerable number of mod points, and use them not to mod down ill behavior, but anyone who dares speak against Paul or his hard Libertarianism. If they abuse mod points to such a degree, imagine what would happen if you gave them real power.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
When Obama was born, the marriage of his parents would have been illegal in a good chunk of the United States. The Supreme Court put a stop to that in 1967. The Fourteenth amendment gives the Federal Government a tremendous amount of power to overrule what local people desire, because so many local peoples desired that severely tanned individuals not be citizens. Ironically enough the very states that Obama would leave those decisions to were forced by the federal government to allow marriages like that of his parents within his lifetime. I wonder if the irony is lost on him. He's a constitutional scholar, so you'd think he'd be aware of that.
I'd like to see someone ask Romney how he feels about interracial marriage. And whether his great-grandfather was right to run off to Mexico to be a polygamist. I'm sure his response would be amusing.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
What tha fuck does this have to do with a slash and a dot? or a pound and bang for that matter? WTF?? How the fuck is this news for nerds? What the fuck is happening to Slashdot lately? Useless unrelated political crap and Google bashing is about all you find these days.
Yeah, so you really should stop reading the articles. And posting about them, especially stop posting about them.
<Complete your profile by adding a signature!>
His calls for strict adherence to a rather peculiar and narrow interpretation of the Constitution that more closely resembles the thinking of the Antifederalists that were against the US Constitution rather than the thinking of the Federalists who ratified it.
Arsenic vs Nicotine. THERE IS A DIFFERENCE! ;-)
Any good choices are marginalized as being fruitcakes.
It is fitting that Obama smokes.
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
"I think the two party system we have is inherently broken, so I'll vote for a Republican."
goldbuggery
Yeah that's right. Tell me, what has had value for thousands of years. I guess that preferring a metal that has had value for thousands of years and will have value as far as we can tell for thousands more, over a piece of paper that politicians can print pretty much at will, makes hima loon.
nativism and xenophobia
TY, I learned a new word. He thinks that we have laws for immigration that should be followed and that the current immigration process should be streamlined. I guess that's xenophobia? lol
extreme isolationism
So you walk around neighbourhood with a fully loaded M16, and occasionally march into random people's houses and order them around with a gun to their faces? No? well then you must be an extreme isolationist!
cult-of-personality
Anyone who says that ron paul has a cult of personality is just beyond eliousonal about him. He is uncharismatic, he runs on sentences, he jumps around in his statements. If there's a ron paul cult, it's because he's spent 30 years or so in public office, standing by his principles while everyone mocks him.
yeah, tell me how voting for the lesser of two evils thing has been working out?
You like Ron Paul because he "talks truth", we like spazdor for the same reason.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
The VP has a tiebreaking vote in the Senate.
Actually, the VP can preside over the Senate all the time, but usually leaves that to the Senate's president pro tempore for routine business
That's the legal power, others have spoken on the political power.
I listen to both RIAA and non-RIAA stuff if I like the music, tangential business/politics nonwithstanding.
He isn't advocating a straight move back to the gold standard for one. It is an important teaching point about sound money though (gold would arguably be the most sound money historically). He advocates for mostly open borders for immigrants, saying that it isn't a problem if the economy is sound (enough jobs to support them). And yes, he doesn't want to have overseas bases everywhere. He wants international relations to be based on trade, not carrier groups.
If all you are trying to do is make a statement, may I suggest stopping by American's Elect? It's our best shot at getting a common 3rd party candidate on all ballots this year. Libertarians are also on most of them.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Does that mean he's doing a good efficient job of ending it all? Because I don't think 'stop' is in the RonPaul vocabulary
It turns out that the Republican National Committee has inadvertently disqualified Mitt Romney -- either that or they open themselves to a class action law suit which would require them to cough up tens of millions of dollars to Ron Paul supporters.
On 4/25/2012 the RNC made this statement:
"Governor Romney's strong performance and delegate count at this stage of the primary process has made him our party's presumptive nominee," Mr. Priebus said. "In order to maximize our efforts I have directed my staff at the R.N.C. to open lines of communication with the Romney campaign."
and
"It's my intention to have a seamless and complete merger between the presumptive nominee and the Republican National Committee," Mr. Priebus said. "That means political, communications, fund-raising, research and the chairman's office, along with the governor's main operational team, are completely merged."
The RNC's rule number 11 ( which can be found on page 13 here http://www.gop.com/images/legal/2008_RULES_Adopted.pdf ) States:
"(a) The Republican National Committee shall not, without the prior written and filed approval of all members of the Republican National Committee from the state involved, contribute money or in-kind aid to any candidate for any public or party office except the nominee of the Republican Party or a candidate who is unopposed in the Republican primary after the filing
deadline for that office."
(b) ... No person nominated in violation of this rule shall be recognized by the Republican National Committee as the nominee of the Republican Party from that state."
That the Republican Party is a "private" organization with its own rules doesn't permit it to defraud the public -- not even if that public is its own members. People have joined the Republican Party and made monetary donations on the reasonable presumption that the RNC would follow its own rules IT HAS ADVERTISED TO THE PUBLIC. The damages are actual and the fraud deliberate. Triple damages are due to all who have contributed to Republican candidates for President and the RNC is liable.
Seastead this.
I actually don't like Ron Paul.
I just don't like assholes, blowhards, and fanboys. Whether they are arguing from a position I agree with or not.
There is absolutely no objective measure by which spazdor's comment is insightful. You would have to already agree with it, not mention being totally okay with stereotyping an ill-defined group of people and insulting them, and in that case it's not truly insightful - you already accept it as fact.
Some people are stupidly invest in some things or people. Guess what: the both of you are too, the irony is that you put it on display while making fun of others for doing the same thing.
i am not familiar with this strange new kind of "truth: you are referring to. ron paul's ideas would bring great opportunity for a very select and small number of people and oppression and misery for many, many, more
Except that the country's current course, with the utterly corrupt people currently in charge, is already bringing great opportunity for a very select and small number of politically-connected people and big corporations, and misery for many, many more. I don't see how having Paul in charge would be any worse. Instead, it'd probably be better, though not ideal: at least we'd get: 1) an end to the War on Some Drugs, along with all the federal spending on that, plus all the destructive effects it's having (creating a whole class of people who can't work and are forced into a life of crime), 2) an end to most of the foreign wars and empire-building and military bases overseas, along with a huge reduction in military spending, 3) for the liberals, gay marriage in some form, or at least no federal prohibitions on it, and 4) no more totally useless and insanely costly "stimulus" packages which give $22k Cisco routers to every puny little school in West Virginia. With all these cutback of things that are really hurting the economy and nation, then after Paul's gone we could get back to restoring additional government services that actually help instead of hurt. Effectively, having Paul in office would be like hitting the "reset" button on the government, something it desperately needs at this point.
However, as is obvious now, he's not going to be elected, and we're either going to get Romney or Obama (most likely Romney, though in practice there won't be any real difference between the two). So our nation is going to continue to go out of control until the whole thing collapses like a house of cards.
Yeah, that's another good comparison.
The problem with these guys is that they have forceful personalities conductive to a cult-of-personality campaign and organization style. So they say a few things that make sense (in a "blind pig finds an acorn every once in a while" sense) and then certain people are willing to jump on board with everything else they say without considering what's being said because "this guy started out making sense."
Consider the guy above you: "Tell me, what has had value for thousands of years. I guess that preferring a metal that has had value for thousands of years and will have value as far as we can tell for thousands more, over a piece of paper that politicians can print pretty much at will, makes hima loon."
Actually, the problem with goldbuggery is that it cannot work in the modern economic system for two reasons:
#1 - Most of the gold in the world is being used for industrial applications.
#2 - Even absent #1, there is not remotely enough gold in the world for even one major nation to create a "backing" system to allow people to trade in their currency for raw gold.
Additionally, even if that did exist, gold puts immense downward pressures on currency and economics. So much so that even at the beginning of the US, we actually existed on a silver standard, and only created a silver-to-gold exchange ratio in 1792 due to a shortage of enough silver to back the currency. The 1792 expansion was - tadahh! - the government instantly creating money by adding another so-called precious metal to the currency base.
Historically, goldbuggery and silverbuggery were pretty much at odds, and there was constant changing and exchanging of the two metals with other countries that were engaging in the same foolishness and setting their own silver-to-gold exchange rates. The Independent Treasury Act of 1848 caused a lot of gold to migrate to the British due to a skewed exchange rate; this also caused the gold rush of 1849, because gold was so overvalued by law. Constant changes in the availability of one metal or the other - due to finding of new veins for mining - would cause devaluation or overvaluation in one locality or another.
In short: hitching your finances to goldbuggery and silverbuggery is insanity. And it seems the only people who can't figure that out (the "never learned history so they're doomed to repeat it" crowd) tend to be on the Ron Paul side of the political spectrum.
As a Democrat, I don't mind that. Third party candidates hurt the candidate they have the most in common with, like how Nader hurt Gore/Kerry and Perot hurt H.W./Dole.
I hate the two party system but history has shown that voting for a third party/independent only hurts one's cause. As an alien on The Simpsons once said, "What are you going to do, vote for a third party candidate? Go ahead, throw your vote away! Mwahahahaha!"
"From the depths of my skeptical and rationalist soul, I ask the Lord to protect me from California touchie-feeliedom."
if he's ignorant of economics, what would you say about the rest of the politcritters? He's rather well versed in economic theory but he sticks to the oldschool. I bet 90% of capitol hill doesn't know what 'keynesian' means. Same with history, he knows well who started the whole middle east mess with Iran and shit (CIA 1953), i wouldn't be so sure your average D.C. dweller knows that.
The game is all about the nonsense. The nonsense is the funding and more importantly the publicity.
What bugs me the most is the people who vote and why. Often times they want to "vote for the winner." They think this is a sport where they are choosing who they think will win. WTF?! Also, people don't vote for who they think will not win. Are they under some illusion they are placing a bet and will win something? People are so hung up on "losing" or "being wrong" that they forget they are actually participating in something that actually plays a role in setting directions and making changes.
There are a LOT of people who like Ron Paul but will not vote for him because they think he can't win. I wonder how people get these strange ideas into their heads. They say things like "unelectable." I can't for certain say what that's supposed to mean, but when it comes from news media, it definitely means "your vote is 'wasted' on him!" Really? What's a wasted vote? The only wasted vote is one which is not cast.
I get the psychology. I totally get it. I just don't like that people are REALLY that stupid. If people think of it like a sport, they are forgetting that they ARE PLAYERS in the sport. It's like "I'm not going to try to score because I think the other players on my team suck." Well guess what? You suck because you're not playing right!
Ron Paul... he wouldn't have been effective. But the next one to follow him would have been. We have a system of "good ole boys" that needs to be purged and reformed in a big way.
Because all of our problems are caused by the fed and none of those racist newsletters with his name on it are his.
Seriously. We're in serious trouble. We need serious people. We need serious economists and policy wonks.
Tearing it all down because of ideological purity isn't serious. It isn't even close. It's childish and stupid.
Non impediti ratione cogitationus.
This is a really sad day but he hung in there to just about the bitter end. He really is the only viable candidate to be the next president of the United States. I was proud to cast my vote for Ron Paul in the primary. If Mitt Romney were smart, he'd reach out to Ron Paul to be his Vice President. Somehow, I don't think Romney will, but he should.
I bet 90% of capitol hill doesn't know what 'keynesian' means.
Not true. Roughly 50% of Congress knows it means "socialist."
Ceci n'est pas un sig.
Ron Paul has been frozen out by the mainstream media for decades, from Faux News to the liberal media. His rising popularity shows that people are waking up, albeit, late. Too bad, he could have saved us a few trillion in waste, crimes and losses.
Interesting, it usually shows up as support for right-wing positions. With gay marriage, it depends on the state. Medical marijuana is one of the few left-wing states' rights issues that comes to mind.
I listen to both RIAA and non-RIAA stuff if I like the music, tangential business/politics nonwithstanding.
I don't know, I'd say the kind that blindly pushes through on purely campaign donation grounds is even worse, and far more common. At least when you put a bunch of competing idealists in a room they tend to argue themselves to a standstill, and anything they do agree on is likely to be at least somewhat reasonable. Put a bunch of fund chaser's in the same room and they'll all realize they were all bought by a small handful of moneyed interests, and whatever they agree on will almost certainly not be good for the common ma.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
Apparently you're referring to the notion that Ron Paul is a great admirer of Ayn Rand and/or follows her philosophy. I hadn't heard that before, and a brief search turned up no real support for that view*. Your post is at best woefully incomplete and at worst simply irrelevant. How you got so many up-mods is beyond me.
* One site implies that Ron Paul's son Rand Paul was named in Ayn's honor, but his actual name is Randal and his wife shortened it to Rand from Randy. Another article says "Dr. Paul has said he is a great admirer of Ayn Rand", though I was unable to locate any direct quote to support this statement. This article is similar. I was unable to locate anything short of a few fringe views. Libertarians and libertarianism was apparently influenced by Ayn, but by no means exclusively.
goldbuggery
Yeah that's right. Tell me, what has had value for thousands of years. I guess that preferring a metal that has had value for thousands of years and will have value as far as we can tell for thousands more, over a piece of paper that politicians can print pretty much at will, makes hima loon.
Inflation is necessary for the proper functioning of the economy. You may be scared to death of inflation, but if it did not exist, peoples' natural tendency to save would act like brakes to slow down commerce activity. Nobody thinks that hyperinflation is a good idea, and the federal reserve does a really good job of preventing it. But inflation that varies between 0% - 5% per annum helps to encourage people to invest now rather than sit on piles of money that do nobody any good.
How can you be sure this is correct? A pile of money sitting on the ground all year long does nobody any good. Its net value to the economy is zero. Whether that money is paper or gold, it accomplishes nothing. On the other hand, a pile of money that is used as tender to exchange value between people lots of times generates tons of activity; it enables people to work, to feed their families, to buy entertainment, to do pretty much anything. Part of the reason the American economy is so huge and other countries' economies are so small is that America has lots of transactions that multiply the value of the currency that is in circulation.
Don't be scared of "politicians printing money". You should be much more scared about what will happen when people realize that gold is getting scarce and they should just buy it and sit on it and never spend it.
nativism and xenophobia
TY, I learned a new word. He thinks that we have laws for immigration that should be followed and that the current immigration process should be streamlined. I guess that's xenophobia? lol
America's immigration laws are self-defined. We wrote them, so we decide what is legal and what is illegal. It's purely a farce to say "This kind of immigration is illegal so they shouldn't do it." The opposite is true: we didn't want it to happen, so we made it illegal. Laws preventing people from migrating to America are a recent invention, and frankly they're doing more harm than good.
There are tons of talented people all around the world who wish they could live in America and start businesses and buy houses. We have lots of unemployed people who would love to work for a talented Chinese scientist or Indian doctor. We have tons of empty houses and it would be really neat if enterprising Latin Americans bought these homes and occupied them. Why aren't we willing to change our immigration laws to encourage people to immigrate?
ron paul's ideas would bring great opportunity for a very select and small number of people and oppression and misery for many, many, more. on top of that,
That's what we have now. The US is a police state. Why the FUCK would limiting the ability of gov't to fuck over and imprison people make that any worse?
where are the amendments, you know, the legit way to fix problems? pretty much all of the last century was about the Supreme Court piling politically convenient shit upon more shit which led to a situation where the federal government can do anything the fuck they want, eg use interstate commerce clause to bust you for a plant that never left your house.
I can't comprehend how all these ridiculous interpretations can fly considering explicit, black-on-white 'federal govt is limited' in the constitution.
I guess that preferring a metal that has had value for thousands of years and will have value as far as we can tell for thousands more, over a piece of paper that politicians can print pretty much at will, makes hima loon.
Gold's value swung wildly throughout history, causing massive short-term inflation and deflation. That is far more damaging than long-term inflation, which is easily avoided by not sitting on a pile of cash, which should be treated like a barter stand-in and not a gold equivalent.
Further, the same limited quantities that give gold the value you desire also make it too scarce for a growing economy.
And then there is the inability to "print" money. Ron Paul would probably put this in the "plus" column, but I think that governments will spend recklessly whether they can print money or not. Most of modern Europe is evidence that governments will borrow heavily even if they have no ability to print money. World history is chock-full of "Greeces", well before the federal reserve system was invented. In the US, we had plenty of bank failures, financial panics, and major recessions while on the gold standard. The federal reserve system gives the government more tools than it had prior to it's invention.
So in short, the main thrust of the pro-gold argument is that people who stuff their mattresses full of cash would be better off in the long run. No argument there. Of course they could be buying gold and stuffing that in their mattresses right now, so I'm frankly at a loss as to why we should give up all the advantages of the federal reserve system for such people.
Which gets me to the reason we tend to dismiss Ron Paul as a crazy person. What I wrote isn't remotely controversial. Banking has been a mess since it was invented - one of the core issues of our young country involved banking. We tried several national models, all of which had at least one spectacular failure. I'm under no delusion that the current Federal Reserve is the ultimate solution, but it seems to work better than it's predesessors. Ron Paul seems like a really intelligent guy, and he's also pretty well educated. So it really seems... odd... that he comes to the conclusions that he does on this matter. My conclusion is that his mind works in a way that is very different from my own. I could be the crazy one, but from my perspective he is the one drawing irrational conclusions.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Why does gold have value, though? For the exact same reason the US Dollar, or any other currency has value. Because we say it does.
I'm sure we'll see you again next Presidential cycle Ron or perhaps you can do what your sleazy scumbag son did regarding his physician's license-
http://allbleedingstops.blogspot.com/2010/06/rand-paul-self-certified-physician.html
and self-certify yourself as President:
You know he would if he could .
The chances are slim that someone's vote for Romney/Obama will really even matter either. The only time your vote really matters is if there is 1 vote separating the candidates. As a Libertarian, Romney is not my cause. Frankly, I see little difference between Romney and Obama when it comes to the major issues. Perhaps Romney will be slightly better than Obama or slightly worse but not much will change. Very little changed from Bush to Obama, both moderates in their party, I can see less change from the super-moderate Romney to the moderate democrat Obama. So I will be voting with my conscience this November and will either be writing in Paul or voting for Gary Johnson for president. It doesn't mean that I'm supporting Obama because I wouldn't ever vote for Romney (or Obama for that matter).
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
Well, in 2000, it would have meant that we'd probably have Gore and not Bush.
The US is a police state.
Go spend some time in North Korea, or any other actual police state before you say that.
But I gave Jeng's comment exactly the response it deserved.
You spat out a sweeping generalization based on your personal prejudice. Have you actually ever met any "Randians" or Libertarians, or does all you know of them come from /. forum discussions? Assume I'm one of them. We've never met, yet you presume you can read my mind? That's chutzpah. You know a lot less than you think you know.
Are you aware that Ron Paul once (?) ran as the Libertarian Party's presidential candidate? Are you aware that Rand disagreed vicerally with many Libertarian points of view?
Yeah, you gave it exactly the response it deserved, eh?
"Tongue tied and twisted, just an Earth bound misfit
Um... How would there be oppression and misery? Somehow having a coherent foreign policy of free trade and not ZOMG BOMB EVERYTHING!!!1!11!1!1 is oppressive? Somehow opposing the unconstitutional detaining of American citizens is oppressive?
Very little that he wants to do is beyond the power of the president. If you want to talk about going beyond the power of the president how about you talk to Obama (and Bush) for starting wars without congress's approval and in the case of Obama ordering the execution of an American citizen without trial or due process via a drone strike.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
Yeah, a lot of the candidates lately have been pretty similar.
Bush I and Clinton were nearly indistinguishable from an economic perspective. Dole would not have rocked the Clinton boat too much. Bush II was pretty different from Gore, but even he kind of surprised everyone out of the gate by greatly expanding Medicare. Again, Kerry seems like he would have been different - but then again, Obama seemed different as well, and where has that gotten him? He followed the Bush timeline to leave Iraq, increased troop levels in Afghanistan, continues to push record levels of illegal immigrants out of the country, kept Guantanamo open, kept the Bush financial bailout rolling, renewed the Patriot Act, and of course greatly expanded Medicare. I'll grant you that McCain would have never dusted off and passed the old Republican Heartland Institute health care plan. And on social issues, it is unlikely that he would have ended don't ask, don't tell.
But wow, get away from the largely symbolic "wedge issues" and the parties don't really have much differentiation.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
We have "serious people" Bernake is the most serious of academic economists, of course he is running the country into the ground. The educated economists that caused the hyperinflation in Germany, Zimbabwe, Hungary, etc. were "serious people" often the best in their fields. What then do you propose? Keynesian economics have failed. The collapse of the European economy and the ongoing collapse of the American economy is proof of that.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
Read up the chain! spazdor's comment is flamey and probably more inciteful than insightful... but Jeng basically insults everyone who doesn't agree with Ron Paul, saying they won't vote for "reality". spazdor just turned the comment around on Jeng.
I obviously didn't mod his post up, and I probably wouldn't have since I don't think flame wars deserve mods - but I can understand why it got up-voted. He shut up someone who was preaching to all of us poor ignorant rabble, some of whom happen to have mod points.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Congratulations You have just won an award in question begging.
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Correct, what you wrote is flat out wrong
A short term swing in the value of gold is one of the things that make crashes and bubbles short and self-limiting. When the government can print money or borrow without practical limit, we have a great depression or the morass we're in now.
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Fox News is neither conservative nor liberal; they are all about ratings and will say damn near anything or support any position that is controversial and draws viewers to increase advertising revenue. They're not above even fabricating stories (see the moniker Faux News) or wiretapping in order to increase viewership.
I don't trust any of the news channels, really, except CSPAN (which really isn't news, per se, but public affairs coverage so bias is less likely). I'll view multiple sources, consider the sources and the intent, and arrive at my own conclusions. The truth usually lies somewhere between Faux News' spin and MSNBC's and CNN's. The unfortunate thing is that journalistic integrity ceased to exist long before most of us were born.
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
When the government can print money or borrow without practical limit, we have a great depression or the morass we're in now.
Actually, at the time of the Great Depression the US was still on the gold standard.
Paulians: they never let facts get in the way of a good rant.
Dr. Paul's ideas would be fine for certain countries of Europe, like maybe Norway, Sweden, Finland, or Switzerland.
You must be living in the US... It shows, I'm sorry to mention, because of your comment's utter display in geopolitical illiteracy.
With respect to Scandinavia, you presumably ignore that they enjoy some of the highest standards of living, best education, best healthcare and best pensions in the world. Along with one of the highest tax rates. That's not exactly Ron Paul material, but they're quite happy with it.
As for Switzerland, you might be unaware that there's a rampant and growing "screw rich foreigners, they deserve to get taxed more" sentiment. As in an über-tax the blasted creeps who buy Swiss Francs as a store of wealth, screwing exports in the process kind of sentiment. Not precisely Ron Paul material either.
The truth is closer to this: one of Ron Paul's biggest fans in Europe in France's xenophobic extreme-right wing National Front leader Marine Lepen. And the poor curmedgeon desperately sought --and failed-- to avoid her when she visited the US a few months back.
Some commentators on this side of the pond are in line with Paul's ideas, mind you. They've been continually arguing in the past years that his views ought to be applied almost verbatim in Greece. But then, the Greeks recently had an election, and they'll likely do a new election shortly, from lack of a government majority. These may very well bring "screw the banksters, and the rich, we'll just default, expropriate and hang them" extreme-left wings to power, with "screw the banksters, and the foreigners, we'll just default, expropriate and shoot them" neo-nazis as one of the opposing parliament groups.
It's not a pretty sight...
Food for thought.
Well it seems to work in Greece.
thegodmovie.com - watch it
The Paul campaign is concentrating on the delegate races, not the primaries. The campaign continues, and there will be plenty of Ron Paul supporters at the convention in Tampa, just as we've been seeing in the state caucuses and conventions to date.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Gold has value (as a currency) because it has actual utility, is divisible, is widely accepted, is scarce, and has a historical record of stability much better than paper currencies. Its actual utility outside of its use as currency is not too far from its value as currency. Paper currency can be used as kindling, insulation, and not much else outside of its use as currency, and its trade value is a high multiple of its actual utility. Pre WWII German paper money, Confederate States of America paper money, etc. are practically worthless now. Gold, unlike paper, is not a solipsist fantasy.
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at least we'd get: 1) an end to the War on Some Drugs, along with all the federal spending on that, plus all the destructive effects it's having (creating a whole class of people who can't work and are forced into a life of crime), 2) an end to most of the foreign wars and empire-building and military bases overseas, along with a huge reduction in military spending, 3) for the liberals, gay marriage in some form, or at least no federal prohibitions on it, and 4) no more totally useless and insanely costly "stimulus" packages
Actually, all you would probably get is a President who would advocate and lobby Congress for those things. The problem many of the Ron Paul supporters seem to forget is that no President is an island unto himself. Congress holds the purse strings, so it can undercut any of his ideas that they don't agree with. And given that many of his ideals are less than tasteful to both sides of the aisle, I doubt very much that he would be a very effective President. Even his veto power on any bill would be in jeopardy if Congress were sufficiently united to muster the necessary 2/3 majority.
He would not have the power to unilaterally abolish 4 federal agencies or the Federal Reserve. He would not have the power to unilaterally cut the defense budget (or any other part of the budget other than perhaps the Whitehouse budget). I do believe he could probably make good on his promise to bring all troops home - unless Congress could find a way to prohibit any federal monies from being used for such a purpose before he could take Office.
Libertardianism ...
I love it when you guys invent cute little epithets like that. I also wonder if you even remember what word that tard bit comes from. Was it bastard, or retard? I don't think anyone's ever told me.
I know because I am a recovering randroid.
Nobody's perfect. I'll blame your teachers. I had some fairly mediocre ones too, but better ones (Rothbard, Hayek, von Mises, Bastiat) wrote books that I could study on my own. Greenspan got pretty much all of it wrong too, so you've got company. I never understood what anyone saw in that boring old spouter of platitudes. You're going to make him the Chairman of the Federal Reserve, then wonder why the economy's in the toilet?!?
Oh well. It's all just philosophy and politics, and those don't do miracles.
"Tongue tied and twisted, just an Earth bound misfit
Which gets me to the reason we tend to dismiss Ron Paul as a crazy person. What I wrote isn't remotely controversial. Banking has been a mess since it was invented - one of the core issues of our young country involved banking. We tried several national models, all of which had at least one spectacular failure. I'm under no delusion that the current Federal Reserve is the ultimate solution, but it seems to work better than it's predesessors. Ron Paul seems like a really intelligent guy, and he's also pretty well educated. So it really seems... odd... that he comes to the conclusions that he does on this matter. My conclusion is that his mind works in a way that is very different from my own. I could be the crazy one, but from my perspective he is the one drawing irrational conclusions.
I think probably the complexity of the Federal Reserve's actions are beyond the comprehension of a lot of people. I certainly don't understand it completely. Most people think the Fed "prints money" but from what I can tell that's only technically true when new cash or coins are required; the Federal Government is authorized to invest (effectively limitlessly) as they see fit, and by buying and selling short term bonds they are able to influence the money supply. This does not even require a Federal Government or Federal Reserve; all it requires is an entity with a big enough pool of money to influence the entire national (and potentially global) economy. An entity with control of a couple trillion dollars could probably do essentially the same job as the Fed, but they would probably be unmotivated to do so. In fact, an entity with a few trillion dollars to throw around almost exactly describes the Fed. Traditional money creation by fractional reserve lending is where the money supply actually comes from, afaik, and not directly from the Fed. The Fed simply tries to control the rate of money creation by being the biggest banks' largest customer. Deposit a lot of money, and presto the currency expands. Withdraw the money, and the currency shrinks. Ultimately as the economy grows the Fed itself requires a bigger pool of money to operate but afaik they always turn a profit simply by acting as the lender of last resort and facilitating the overnight loans between member banks. Forgive me if I get the details wrong but I did spend the last 10 or 20 years in the camp of people who essentially thought the Fed was busy churning out crisp new dollar bills or running while(1) { cash++; }.
All that said, I think Ron Paul probably opposes the idea of fractional reserve lending to begin with which probably influences his opinion on how the money supply should behave. Without fractional reserve lending the money supply doesn't inflate without ad-hoc printing or (importantly) the creation of currency directly backed by actual wealth. Examples of non-bank money creation are stock exchanges and monthly accounts-payable and accounts-receivable balances. There are other potentially viable options for managing the money supply, but I haven't really investigated how many of them Ron Paul has looked into or supports.
When you write "power", I assume you mean "legal power". Exceeding the legal power of the president has been an almost monotonically increasing function for over 200 years, and Obama has so outrageously flouted the law that his actions bear no resemblance to the legal limits. It is precisely Ron Paul's greatest value that he will prevent this abuse by withdrawing previous illegal executive orders, vetoing illegal laws, and refusing to make new illegal actions.
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Well, this could quickly turn into a novel. (And and Ayn Rand has shown us, a novel is the "perfect" vehicle for a political manifesto!)
I'm multitasking at work at the moment but I promise to come back to this thread tonight and give you something more substantial. My claim is not, as you've characterized it below, that supporting Ron Paul is completely untenable without self-deception, but that the Randian-Libertarian philosophy taken as a whole is.
There are certainly individual issues on which Paul is totally correct, and that's why I suggested downthread that under some circumstances he might make a great VP. But those individual issues, to me, don't nearly outweigh the issues he's wrong about - and more pertinently, I don't think those issues are the real reason for his 'underground' popularity - even among many of the people who cite them. You might conceivably disagree with me on whether the good outweighs the bad, and on that basis you might indeed be a perfectly intellectually honest Paul supporter. But the Randian Libertarian movement in the USA is not predominantly made up of that kind of supporter. The reasons why I think that, are what could turn this comment into a novel.
Same as it ever was. :)
DRM: Terminator crops for your mind!
Amount of Gold Bullion in the world today: Roughly a cube the size of a tennis court.
Amount of Gold Bullion for which gold certificates are in trade: about 3 such cubes.
None of your claims about gold hold true when you realize that two thirds of the people who think they own gold just have a certificate to a piece of metal that doesn't even EXIST !
More accurately, for every person who actually owns some gold, two other people have legal proof that they are the owners of that same gold.
Turns out that long after kings stopped debasing currency with gold-plated lead corruption didn't end. Corrupt bankers found ways to print gold and sell the same gold to multiple investors.
Sorry pal, but gold is no more "real" as a currency base than paper money or any other kind. Fuck logically speaking bitcoins are a truer currency than gold because at least so far nobody has found a way to fake them or give the same bitcoin to more than one recipient.
Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
Perhaps you don't really understand US politics. A President only administers the laws given them and blocks change via veto. However US mass media celebrity focuses in on the President as leader, even when the power for change only lies with the congress and senate.
It is all an illusion to get the gullible public to focus in on the President and largely ignore the congress and senate primaries, the only places to pay attention to if you want laws to be changed.
The Tea Baggers sponsored directly by corporations specifically the Koch(head) boys demonstrated exactly how control can be obtained in the primaries and yet dozy Democrats completely ignored them yet again allowing Obama who clearly betrayed progressive issues a free run as well as a whole swag of blue dog democrats in both houses.
Want hope and change then focus in on the congress and senate primaries, want trapped in despair then pay attention to the empty mass media presidential show.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
Um no. The Supreme Court already ruled that segregation is a violation of the equality amendment.
Ron Paul disagrees with this ruling ("activist court," etc.) and would push for a constitutional amendment undoing that ruling.
and 90% of Congress knows that the brown towelheads hate America for her unmatched freedom and prosperity.
While on the Gold Standard, the banks were still under the Federal Reserve, who dictated monetary policy rather than let "the market" figure it out. I don't know if the end result would have been better or worse, but part of what Ron Paul and other gold-buggers rail on is the lack of accountability and the "legislation" of our monetary supply/demand. Give the banks the ability to create their own money and let the consumers decide which to use. (and yes, while competing currencies would be very inconvenient for the consumers, I can hazard a guess that fiat, paper-money would be ditched almost wholesale to be replaced with precious metals and/or redeemable certificates for precious metals.
If you were me, you'd be good lookin'. - six string samurai
Please god tell me you are not my bus driver. Or work on intensive care. Or a nuclear plant. Well, pretty much anywhere. Please tell me you are sitting in your mothers basement with nothing more dangerous around you then a tool to access all the knowledge in the world and a unhinged mind... OH FUCK!
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Very true. Ron Paul would take on the federal reserve corporation unlike barry has done or the McCain would have. The globalist money manipulation is at the root of the global recession and long term trade imbalances. Only Ron Paul has the gumption to challenge the banksters. America is a great experiment and we need to go back to having 50 sub-experiments as was intended with the 10th Amendment and States rights, something Ron Paul has always been fully in favor of. I hardly agree with all of Ron Paul's political beliefs but his adherence to limited Federal government would leave me with more influence in deciding political matters locally rather than in the corruption that comes with the centralization of power in DC.
If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be-T J
Ron Paul authored a bill to allow competing currencies so it is not accurate to say he is only for imposing an exclusive gold or silver standard. Maybe even a bitcoin currency would be fully legal tender under a Ron Paul presidency :)
If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be-T J
I think you may have missed his point ...
He should have made a better point. :-) I love to think back to that grizzled old baseball coach storming out onto the diamond to scream at his pitcher, "Throw strikes, damn it!" Stop pussyfooting around, ffs.
But it's hard to tell for sure because he then goes on about how supporting Paul is logically untenable without self-deception.
Yeah, like Mitt Romney tells it like it is, and Obama's never gone back on his word or flip-flopped, and Ms. Clinton's State Dept. is perfectly aligned with White House policy, and we'd all love to have Sarah Palin handed the nuclear football, and thank gawd for the MafiAA's defence of imaginary property.
I don't much care what people think of me or my views or beliefs, but if they'd just try to learn something if there's anything in what I write that they might find worth learning, that'd be enough. Trite "gotcha" comebacks don't get anyone anywhere. If I had my choice of laws to pass, it would be you have to read through things three times, then wait two minutes thinking about it before replying. Then proofread it. :-)
Bon chance, and TANSTAAFL.
"Tongue tied and twisted, just an Earth bound misfit
but even he kind of surprised everyone out of the gate by greatly expanding Medicare.
If by "greatly expanding Medicare" you mean "gave the pharmaceutical industry an infinite supply of blank-checks" then yes.
Required reading for internet skeptics
Maybe you should read more of Ron Paul's writings because he address all of your points. He doesn't favor a gold or silver standard. He favors allowing competing currency. If people freely choose to use gold or silver or whatever as money it should be allowed. It can be used today because the government has legal tender laws and taxes "capital gains" if the government devalues the dollar relative to gold or silver. If people were allowed to choose what they want to use for money it would eliminate all of the problems you mention.
I love Jesus, except for his foreign policy.
Libertarianism isn't "the truth". It's exchanging one form of tyranny (the federal government) for thousands of others with far less accountability (corporations.)
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
He isn't advocating a straight move back to the gold standard for one. It is an important teaching point about sound money though (gold would arguably be the most sound money historically). He advocates for mostly open borders for immigrants, saying that it isn't a problem if the economy is sound (enough jobs to support them). And yes, he doesn't want to have overseas bases everywhere. He wants international relatins to be based on trade, not carrier groups.
Quoting this AC because he is exactly right. Most of Ron Paul's criticism is based on misinformation, bought and paid for by those who have the most to lose under an RP presidency; corporate conglomerates that control both sides of the isle.
Fanboy Status: Apache Flex, C#, Eclipse, KDE, Pirate Party, Ron Paul, Slackware, Windows 7
Nixon officially ended the US gold standard in 1972. In the decades since, with the federal reserve corporation fully in control of monetary supply, the common American has seen their income stagnate for the past three decades while the top 10%, who coincidentally are financially well connected to the moneyed banks and corporations, have been reaping all the income gains and increases in wealth. Income disparity has never been greater in America than now. Is that a mark of success? With the economy in the anemic condition it is in and the federal reserve corporation has no more monetary gimmicks to play we all shall see what the real economy is when it finally corrects itself. I for one side with great Americans such as Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson that central banking is vile and contrary to Republican principle.
If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be-T J
We have "serious people" Bernake is the most serious of academic economists, of course he is running the country into the ground. The educated economists that caused the hyperinflation in Germany, Zimbabwe, Hungary, etc. were "serious people" often the best in their fields. What then do you propose?
So you are arguing we elect a jackass instead of someone serious? Ron Paul forthwith!
You what now?
If our money were backed by gold and silver, people couldn’t just sit in some fancy building and push a button to create new money. They would have to engage in honest trade with another party that already has some gold in their possession. Alternatively, they would have to risk their lives and assets to find a suitable spot to build a gold mine, then get dirty and sweaty and actually dig up the gold. Not something I can imagine our “money elves” at the Fed getting down to whenever they feel like playing God with the economy.
Paulians don't even know what they're talking about when they claim to be quoting Ron Paul. If that isn't evidence of a cult of personality disorder, I don't know what is.
Posting to undo accidental mod point
$_ = "wftedskaebjgdpjgidbsmnjgcdwatb"; tr/a-z/oh, turtleneck Phrase Jar!/; print
You're both acting just as bad as Jeng.
True - but the thread was worthless at the very tippy top. Nothing good is coming from a thread that starts by calling Ron Paul followers cultists.
So pick a side and flame away!
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Ayn Rand (Anna Rosenbaum was her real name I think) was certainly a Libertarian in her political beliefs. What would now be considered a pretty standard Limited Government Libertarian. The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged no doubt have influenced some people toward Libertarian ideas. Perhaps Robert Heinlein's The Moon is a Harsh Mistress has as well.
I don't believe the connection between Ayn Rand and Libertarians is unfair. Randians will almost certainly be Libertarians, but Libertarians are not necessarily Randians. I am a Libertarian despite the fact that I at least somewhat disagree with Rand's position on ethics. Rand also stressed a kind of pacifism where force can only be justified in defending yourself from harm. An idea which I think resonates quite well with many Libertarians as a principle behind their belief in political freedom.
Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it? That's what it is to be a slave.
Because all of our problems are caused by the fed and none of those racist newsletters with his name on it are his.
So, who do you think caused the problems? Oh, and sound-bite rhetoric's not advancing anything. Did you hear Romney makes his dog ride on the roof of his car, Hillary Clinton's against net censorship despite what her boss wants, and the DHS is building internment camps for all of you?
Seriously. We're in serious trouble. We need serious people. We need serious economists and policy wonks. Tearing it all down because of ideological purity isn't serious.
Ideological purity? How's about we all just open our eyes and recognize the thing's broke and it's never going to do what you "Twinkle, twinkle" [bats eyes] are hoping it to do until someone bites the bullet and fixes the thing. Wishing ain't gonna make it so.
Let go of your sound bites, your prejudices, and your pre-conceived notions and honestly ask yourself what's it going to take to fix it. Violent revolution? The heads of the 1%ers rolling in the streets? No-one's going to enjoy that, trust me.
"Tongue tied and twisted, just an Earth bound misfit
I hate the two party system but history has shown that voting for a third party/independent only hurts one's cause.
Neither of the two major parties represent me, so voting for them is, for me, completely and utterly pointless. That would be throwing my vote away.
And the only reason this is remotely true is because enough people have this mentality. They simply give up before they even try, and since enough people are like them, their prediction comes true. Yes, the system is completely broken and skews towards the two major parties, but that's no reason to just give up.
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
that supporting Ron Paul is completely untenable without self-deception, but that the Randian-Libertarian philosophy taken as a whole is.
The fact that you know so little about the topic that you assert that Libertarianism = Randianism leads me to believe that you have absolutely no idea what you are talking about. I would love to see the proof that either Randian or Libertarian philosophy is "untenable". Of course you can't be bothered because you are just trolling.
Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it? That's what it is to be a slave.
Are you referring to East and West Germany in terms of a "proof"? AFAIK the only Libertarian societies that have ever existed on this planet are the early US and France for a very short time after the French Revolution. So presumably your 'proof' would have to refer back to the 18th century. A comparison of 18th century economics in the US vs. England would be an interesting comparison. I'm skeptical that you can prove what you claim, but I would certainly be interested in reading an unbiased comparison from that time.
Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it? That's what it is to be a slave.
You are missing the point. The policy he is promoting is to allow competing currencies. Based on history he expects that gold and silver will naturally return as the money people will want to use. But if people want to keep using dollars when given the freedom to use whatever they want he would be fine with that. He just doesn't expect that to be the case.
I love Jesus, except for his foreign policy.
I disagree. A President doesn't have the power to DO a lot of things without help from Congress, however he certainly has the power to NOT DO a lot of things, no matter what Congress thinks. Paul has been called "Dr. No" for a good reason.
Can he abolish Federal agencies? No. But he can force everyone to go home and not do their jobs. Can he unilaterally cut the defense budget? No, but he can make everyone go home; he is the Commander-in-Chief, after all. He can order all the troops to come home and bake cookies for their enlistment terms if he wants. Can he change marijuana law unilaterally? No, but he can direct the DEA to stop enforcing that law and allow states to do what they want while he's in the White House. He can also pardon everyone convicted of a marijuana-related crime, making federal and state efforts all useless. Finally, he can also put a quick stop to the TSA's shenanigans.
It can be used today because the government has legal tender laws and taxes "capital gains" if the government devalues the dollar relative to gold or silver.
I assume you meant can't here. So you're saying that all Ron Paul is really arguing for is to remove cap gains on commodities? I mean, I don't really get the legal tender part, you can always exchange gold or whatever for dollars, if you want to use that to pay your taxes. Or are you saying, it should be a law that you're allowed to use anything you want to pay for anything else? That seems like utter chaos...
Either way though, that seems like a far shot from what he typically talks about with fiat currency being the primary cause of asset bubbles.
He is the only candidate that talks truth, which of course makes him unelectable.
No one ever wants to vote for reality.
Here's my standard challenge to the Ron Paul supporters:
Ron Paul has been a representative for about 20 years, with some interlude.
Please name a few parts of his agenda you support; no need to be all inclusive. Now, during the 20 years he was in office, what tangible gains has he made towards the items you named?
For example, if you support his desire to bring troops home, can you show evidence that he's brought one single troop home?
If you support his desire to cut taxes and regulations, can you name one bill that has saved taxpayers so much as a penny, or one bill that has taken a single regulation off the books?
Considering his record is essentially 20 years of keeping a seat warm, can you explain why you expect he would be more successful as President?
Nixon officially ended the US gold standard in 1972
That's only sort-of true. He actually just killed the Bretton Woods reincarnation of it, which wasn't really gold-backed currency but an agreement to hold the price of gold to $35 per ounce. Since much of the world was pegged to the dollar, this acted a lot like a gold standard.
In the decades since, with the federal reserve corporation fully in control of monetary supply, the common American has seen their income stagnate for the past three decades while the top 10%
Wait a minute... are you blaming wage stagnation on a single factor?
Income disparity has never been greater in America than now. Is that a mark of success?
First of all, that is not true - we are back to the income disparity levels seen in the first half of the 20th century. Second, no I don't consider it a mark of success. Care to explain how the gold standard will erase that disparity? Clearly we've seen that kind of disparity prior to the ending of the gold standard.
I for one side with great Americans such as Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson that central banking is vile and contrary to Republican principle.
I'm an Alexander Hamilton fan myself... well, maybe not his politicians-for-life opinions :)
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Wouldn't it be better to vote for an actual Libertarian candidate? I don't really agree with Libertarians calling themselves Republicans. I don't know much about Paul's positions other than he ran many times as a Libertarian candidate. I believe I heard that he is pro-life, which is a position I think most Libertarians disagree with. If true then that is at least some justification to attempt to get a Republican nomination.
I never really agreed with Ron Paul as the Libertarian candidate. To me, he just isn't charismatic enough. For a Libertarian candidate to have any chance of winning at all he'd have to be even more charismatic than Reagan was and Paul is anything but that. Perhaps his son would fare better though.
I think most of the people who might otherwise consider running as a Libertarian presidential candidate don't because they don't believe there is one chance in a million that they could actually win. I think it may someday be possible for a sufficiently charismatic Libertarian candidate to run for president and win, but only after we have become even more of a police state than we are now. Once we truly reach a V for Vendetta or 1984-ish government it will be a whole lot easier for people to vote Libertarian. We are headed in that direction at a rapid pace even with a democratic president, but I believe it could take as long as another half century before we truly reach a point where anti-government feelings are high enough to attempt to turn back the clock to something much closer to the kind of republic that the Founders envisioned.
It is my belief that those of us who are Libertarian will have to sacrifice a great deal more as a group if we want to truly be free. I'm thinking of something along the lines of The Moon is a Harsh Mistress meets the Free State Project except maybe on Antarctica or one of the islands in the Southern Ocean. Some place on earth that no one cares about enough to fight for.
Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it? That's what it is to be a slave.
How is a bank that is 100% controlled by the federal government, with all profits returned to the US Treasury, a "private" bank?
Some people get really hung up on semantics.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
At the very least, the grinding of gears will make for a change of pace.
You know what really grinds my gears? People who's policies were tried in the 19th century and utterly failed to come up with good results.
I am officially gone from
In 2008, you could make a plausible case that the media didn't pay attention to him, but this time you're dead wrong. He was in all the debates and got plenty of face time with major news outlets. He was even the center of his own news cycle when the racist newsletters came up again, a reminder that media attention cuts both ways.
Keynesian economics have failed. The collapse of the European economy and the ongoing collapse of the American economy is proof of that.
You clearly have no clue what Keynesian economists actually want to do, because the European countries that are currently in massive trouble did exactly the opposite of what Keynes advised: They cut government spending drastically during a recession trying to keep their budgets balanced. It didn't work for Herbert Hoover either.
You probably never studied actual Keynesian economics, but simply understood it to mean "spend lots of money the government doesn't have under all circumstances". That's not what Keynesians actually advocate - they instead argue that government should spend more money during recessions and then save money / pay down debt during booms. And yes, that's different than the Democratic Party line.
I am officially gone from
1) Fiat currencies have been destroyed by hyperinflation a thousand times over. Their values regularly go to zero. Gold doesn't.
So don't try to hold large amounts of fiat currency. Use it as a barter replacement and move on. If gold is so great, buy gold.
2) The notion that it is easy to avoid the punishing effects of inflation are so short sighted and ignorant it's hard to fully comprehend.
Which is why I didn't suggest that. Short-term inflation and deflation is horrible and destructive. I was referring to long-term deflation.
Telling people on a limited or fixed income that the solution to inflationary pressures is to just throw money into the stock market - the only thing with a chance of beating our current 6 to 7% inflation rate - is really no different.
Since you picked the 6-7% inflation number, you are obviously including energy and food. Care to explain how a gold standard will make oil less scarce or finite?
Europe is printing at warp speed via the ECB. They do not have a gold standard.
Europe is not printing - at least not like we did - that is the crux of the argument going on over there. Germany is terrified of inflation and will not print their way out of the crisis. Just this week, the elections changed the equation of power over there and I believe they have agreed to basically emulate the "quantitative easing" that the US did. Anyway, Greece can't print their own currency, which is forcing them to live within their means, which is killing their economy. This is what happens during a cash crunch under a gold standard as well, which is why I pointed to Greece as an example. True, QE will eventually cause inflation, but I maintain that long-term, predictable pain is better than the short-term shock the Greeks are going through.
The stated policy of the Federal Reserve is that the TBTF banks will be given infinite money if needed. Little people and even little banks? Screwed.
So what is your proposal? I have a feeling it isn't "learn lessons from the last fiscal crises and tweak the central bank", but rather, return to some era you have decided is the golden age. Am I right? People 200 years ago were not happy with the banking system, which is why they changed it in the first place.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
For those too lazy to look it up: http://www.aynrand.org/site/PageServer?pagename=education_campus_libertarians
If you were me, you'd be good lookin'. - six string samurai
Dude, your name itself is a troll and/or flamebait. -ronpaulisanidiotisanidiot
A short term swing in the value of gold is one of the things that make crashes and bubbles short and self-limiting.
Please read up on the history of financial panics and recessions and the Great Depression and then re-read your reply. I'm not asking for a lot of your time - perhaps an hour. We had many really terrible financial situations in the US while on the gold standard. As usual, someone was nice enough to compile a list over at Wikipedia.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
The ticket to win 538 electoral votes.
New Economic Perspectives
I bet Ron Paul could fare better as Democrat honestly, just reduce his most extreme conservative positions, ignore Obamacare, go hardcore pot legalization, anti-war, anti-contractor-fraud, etc. He'd beat any other democrat in all the red states, so the democrats would simply roll over and try calling him a centrist compromise. There aren't many Republicans with any sanity, but they'd all be forced to vote for him in the general election.
The Christian religion has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world. -- Bertrand Russell
Hard to recall seeing a /. headline that got the story so wrong.
See you in Tampa!
"Somebody has to do something. It's just incredibly pathetic it has to be us."
--- Jerry Garcia
I can't fault your anti-gold argument, its spot on. The gold standard thing is stupid. I tend to like Ron Paul because he is the only one who puts the government in its proper place on social issues...and that is, not pushing social agendas.
That said, there is another side to the printing of the money. The fed system gives us the worst of both worlds. On one hand the government can't really print up money. So they spend by driving up a huge debt. Then, when printing money is called for, its handled by the fed who hands out sweetheart loans to the people who need it the least.... hell, they can turn around and lend it to the government for a profit, and then never pay it back.
Its like wealth distribution.... to the top.
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
For those too lazy to look it up: Rand on ... pretty much everyone ack then.
Thank you. That's nicely done (the site). I'm going to enjoy seeing what I can find there.
I was there. Back then, I split $people up into, "Hippies", "Freaks" (or "phreaques" -), and anyone over twenty. The Hippies went to Goa (or grew up and went back to school), the phreaques built the modern world (or washed out and went into selling it; hi guys; no offence intended :-), and everyone else was either a boss or a cow-orker [sic], or a customer, or one of numerous versions of busy-bodies ranging from that old bat or fart living next door to "The Authorities" (cops, gov't, licencing bureaus, lawyers, bouncers, teachers, mall cops, (you get the idea) et al (in decending order of respect from me)).
The funny thing for me is I've always been a Randroid, since long before I even heard of her or saw any of the movies. I'd really like to know where that in me came from (and it certainly wasn't handed down by my parents or family).
It's an interesting phenomenon. It's even more interesting that I was a lot more Hippie back then than phreaque. I wouldn't expect those to fit well together; sixties Woodstock, The Doors, Jimi Hendricks, Concert For Bangladesh ... and all this Rand/Libertarian/philosophy/Rothbard ...) stuff, all in one room?
Tooduls. [sic]
"Tongue tied and twisted, just an Earth bound misfit
And I can hazard a guess that spacemen will drop out of the sky and host a tea party in my living room - doesn't mean it's remotely likely.
Half of America basically refuses to use PAPER money, choosing instead to be subject to the horrors of modern banking for the convenience of debit cards. You think people are going to put up with direct gold/certificate exchange if given a choice?
Describe this actual utility, please - particularly in context of the average citizen.
He doesn't want discussion. He's not open to it. He puts up a flat wall of rhetoric that offers no opening.
I want to imagine that's vision. I also suspect he's already heard every argument you could put to him. He knows/thinks he knows what you need/want, and knows that's what's gone on so far isn't working, so he wants to try it his way. What've you got to lose? What you're doing now isn't working.
"Tongue tied and twisted, just an Earth bound misfit
So how do you square this with his vehement defence of the Defence of Marriage Act?
Mart
"I know I will be modded down for this": where's the option '-1, Asking for it'?
He is the only candidate that talks truth, which of course makes him unelectable.
No one ever wants to vote for reality.
'I don't think there's any need to advocate selfishness amongst human beings. I don't know what your impression has been, but some things do not need reinforcement'
--Christopher Hitchens on Ayn Rand, 'no-positivism' in "The Moral Necessity of Atheism"
You think that CSPAN is trustworthy? This happened yesterday. Take a look. It's only 18 seconds. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pots7T4vOT8
The problem is that for every truth he speaks, he also speaks a dozen absurdities. He's ignorant of history, economics and governance. He'd make the worst kind of leader; the kind that blindly pushes through on purely ideological grounds. Beware the fanatic.
Good thing that president is not a dictator. On the matters where he'd actually have a direct and immediate say, like the wars, his position is actually sane. On everything else, he'd basically just veto everything that would come from the Congress for 4 years, which would almost certainly be a net positive (just consider what a budget passed with 2/3 majority would have to look like... heh).
Describe this actual utility, please - particularly in context of the average citizen.
Gold can be used to greatly increase a man's pleasure in life by giving gifts of it in the form of jewellery. I would compare the utility of gold to the utility of flowers. I can put my wife in a good mood by giving her either. Don't even try and tell me that's not useful.
http://marriedmansexlife.com/
And the US founders predate Rand by centuries. And as a philosopher John Locke also predates Rand by centuries. The Founders were most certainly Libertarians. So, I don't agree that Libertarians are necessarily Randians. Ayn Rand had an entire philosophy. Not just politics, but ethics, epistemology, and metaphysics too. The name 'Libertarian' refers to only a political philosophy, which Miss Rand most certainly did not start. Although she may have revitalized it. Nice try at a straw man. You don't seem to have the slightest idea of what you are talking about.
Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it? That's what it is to be a slave.
We have "serious people" Bernake is the most serious of academic economists, of course he is running the country into the ground. The educated economists that caused the hyperinflation in Germany, Zimbabwe, Hungary, etc. were "serious people" often the best in their fields. What then do you propose? Keynesian economics have failed. The collapse of the European economy and the ongoing collapse of the American economy is proof of that.
Fiscal austerity in a liquidity trap is not Keynesian, so to claim it has failed is reading from a fraudulent playbook.
Let's try a serious stimulus (this time) to let states rehire teachers and police, extend the school day and resume civics, music, arts, theater, sports after-school programs, and get some national infrastructure projects going. Let the Fed finally fulfill their dual mandate to maximize employment by bumping inflation up to 4% to get big business spending instead of stuffing bonds into their mattresses. Let's see to it that no child in this country goes without healthcare or food. Let's make sure banks that are insured by our tax dollars aren't taking depositor money to Vegas.Hell, while we're at it and on Slashdot, let's nationalize the last fscking mile and create an even field for all comers as ISPs again, opening the doors of competition for a new generation of high-tech entrepreneurs.
Let's pay for it by borrowing at negative rates while we have them and getting serious about collecting taxes from corporations who sit on war chests and individuals who make enough in a day to pay my entire yearly budget three times over - but pay about half the tax rate I do. Let's make some common-sense efficiency changes to entitlement programs that will not curtail services but will reduce overhead and duplication of effort. LET'S ELIMINATE THE DHS IN ITS ENTIRETY. Let's stop feeding the new Jim Crow incarceration industry with our money by criminalizing things like pot and bullying, and instead address the underlying societal factors that drive people to destructive behavior, saving money and creating futures (with better paying jobs, and thus a stronger tax base) for 10% of the population where before they had none.
This isn't an exhaustive list, and most of these aren't my ideas, but they ARE my idea of a good goddamn start.
"All these years believing you're the signified monkey, only to find out you're just a big hunk of nobody cares."
can you explain why you expect he would be more successful as President?
In regards to bringing the troops home, I expect he would be more successful as President because he would then be the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces.
I'm not a US citizen so I'm not really a Ron Paul supporter, just saying.
http://marriedmansexlife.com/
I was so hoping Ron Paul would cause Mitt Romney as much trouble as Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum combined.
"You'll get nothing, and you'll like it!"
In short: hitching your finances to goldbuggery and silverbuggery is insanity.
As apposed to the exponentially growing debt based fiat money we all enjoy now? How sustainable is this system exactly? When it does fail, will it be worse than gold and silver could ever had? Were economies supposed to grow as fast as they did in the last 100 years?
I don't know the answers to these but it would reinforce your case against gold and silver a lot more than just saying it is insane. However, I do agree that gold and silver as money are insane but much less so than the magic show we have now.
I tend to agree. If the USA wasn't running wars with no clear finish line to support military industrial complex lobbyists and interest groups you would have trillions of dollars to spend on health, education, infrastructure etc. Seriously how do you guys do it? Even if you spent those trillions on subsidies to get manufacturing back into your country you would be better off than waging a single war (let alone at least three - drugs, iraq, afganistan), you'd have a stimulated economy and jobs. Instead your letting China buy your bonds so you can expose yourself to even higher debt levels... the very country that we continually get told is hacking you guys left right and center. The very country that has all the ex-USA jobs shipped overseas, while those with jobs piss into the wind to bail out gready wall street execs and coprorations with more rights than the people and cash to nullify the law. At the same time you ship your youth off to be killed and injured by people on the other side of the world who will continue to do so because of religious belief. It's not a war to them, it is a way of life, fighting them just fuels their hatred. In return you generate more agression towards your country which only then serves to provide an excuse for your civil and human rights to be taken away right in front of your faces and your children molested and radiated at airports. You guys truely deserve the title 'Planet America' because you are so far down the WTF hole the rest of the world is stunned and views you in some kind of alternate reality. I don't know if Ron Paul can fix this but you have to do something massive and out of the box or you guys are screwed. I'm not hating on Americans but seriously the rest of the world has a front row seat to a film called 'How to implode an empire'.
Users... the only thing keeping 1st level support from being the bottom feeders.
He is the only major party candidate that talks truth, which of course makes him unelectable.
FTFY
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I'm still planning on voting for him. I think that the two party system we have is inherently broken.
I don't endorse candidates in a race in which I don't have an interest, but let me propose another option for you.
Realistically, either Obama will be re-elected or (slightly less likely) Romney will be elected. Nothing will stop that. Your best bet now is to get someone else in the presidential debates who will ask the right questions and shake things up. That someone else is not Ron Paul. To get into the debate under the current rules, you need to poll 15% nationally. There's only one person who is even close to that: Buddy Roemer, who is currently at 7%.
I have no idea what his platform is, but Lawrence Lessig is backing him, so he's clearly an anti-corruption candidate.
You can vote for whomever you like in November, but you might want to follow the Lessig path in the mean time.
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How about you spend some time in Sweden, or any other country where cops don't kick pregnant ladies in the belly, before you defend the US in this matter. Everything is relative you know - North Korea being really bad doesn't make America great.
Correct, but getting Ron Paul's follower's support is key #1 to the Republican strategy.
One has to ask, in the light of reports, what kind of supporters these are.
>"The ongoing collapse of the European economy"...
I don't think you know what the word "Keynesian" means. Sweden is doing fine.
or is Slashdot posting this garbage in a desperate effort to recruit more readers?
Like the History Channel, which no longer has shows about actual history and instead has "Ancient Aliens", "Swamp People", "Ice Road Truckers", "Axe Men" and other such crap?
>That's not exactly Ron Paul material, but they're quite happy with it.
I live in Denmark and I'm not happy with it.
What do I think caused the problems?
Subprime lending with super low interest rates artificially inflating housing prices motivated by irrational self interest in the form of bonuses and spiffs by bankers, lenders and other financial institutions.
Also, short sighted whiny business owners who declare that we can't bother possibly raise wages with relation to inflation because that would be un-American. How dare people earn a living wage!
You probably tuned out because I didn't scream "GOVERNMENT!" and instead went with a more nuanced answer.
What's going to fix our problems isn't at the end of a gun or radical Governmental upheaval in favor of a libertarian ideology.
What's needed is a massive shift in cultural mores and norms finally saying that the fucking rich aren't paying their fair share and are actively trying to hoard what wealth they have in fear of it going away.
Being taxed at 3 or 4 or even 10 percent higher marginal tax rates with no tax loopholes by being paid in stock or other instruments isn't going to be the end of the world.
Non impediti ratione cogitationus.
Hiya Reality! Here put these little squares of blotter paper on your tongue and make a wish!
*Repent!Quit Your Job!Slack Off!The World Ends Tomorrow and You May Die!
How is a bank that is 100% controlled by the federal government, with all profits returned to the US Treasury, a "private" bank?
This is the same response I gave to the same statement here on Slashdot a few years ago:
I've always assumed the Fed was a legit organization, but this statement intrigues me. It assumes the Fed makes a profit. What if the Fed didn't profit, but rather lost money? Wouldn't that mean they handed out a bunch of money without getting paid back? Sounds like someone still profited..
And how do they determine what is profit? Perhaps the Fed earns 5 billion in interest from legit loans to banks. They also drop 5 billion in loans to certain unnamed parties but the recipients go bankrupt and the money isn't repaid. Did the Fed break even? Somebody walked away with 5 billion..
Also, if the Fed is handing out loans at a lower interest rate than the market, wouldn't that put the recipients (banks) at a consistent advantage to every other borrower (individuals)?
So even if the Fed isn't technically private, its operations may be private enough to allow shady practices.. with billions/trillions of your money.
Actually Woodrow Wilson predicted that having Germany pay reparations was a REALLY bad idea. It wasn't the hyperinflation that screwed Germany it was the war reparations.
Those who do not understand history are doomed to become libertarians.
Keynesian economics hasn't failed. It didn't fail for most of the 20th century and only started failing when we let morons like Arthur Laffer and Alan Greenspan run things.
Non impediti ratione cogitationus.
right wing suffers from a collective mental disorder characterized by faulty logic and an inability to understand history.
The left wing does the same thing... at an extreme look at Venezuela. Whatever your feelings about Chavez in particular, it's probably not a great idea to create a dictator position no matter how much you like the guy currently in power.
In the US, the left's default position is to let the government fix a problem, just as the right's default position is to remove the government to fix a problem. In reality, problems are each different and you can't just blindly apply an ideology to fix them all in the same way. Sometimes tight government regulation is worth the drawbacks, and sometimes you don't want to live with all extra corruption, graft, and inefficiency that so often invades government involvement.
Anyway, you are right - banks should be banks... nominally, big safe places to pile cash. Humans have a very low tolerance for loss, so risky investments trigger panics, which is not what you want in your core banking system.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
There's campaign talk (e.g. "Read my lips, no new taxes") and then there's making good on campaign talk.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
What happens if you're on the gold standard and someone brings down 100 years worth of production all of a sudden?
The beginning of the end for America. Romney v. Obama is a joke. Let the American landslide begin...or continue.
Maybe you aren't being targeted by a small handful of zealots... maybe it's just that a whole bunch of regular people think you're kind of a dick?
And hey, maybe it's both.
We still have the oldest democracy still in existence... working pretty well. How's that sarcasm thing been working out for you?
I8-D
The whole argument against deflation is a bogus one sold back in the day to justify price controls for farm commodities. Farmers didn't like it when they came up with better production methods or added capacity only to watch the prices drop, just as they should. Also farmers tended to hold large amount of debt and were more than happy to take a loan and buy stock, land, and equipment and pay the debt back with devalued (inflated) currency.
Of course once the gov't figured out they could tax the public just by printing currency they were on board.
For those of you are having a hard time grasping exactly what inflation is. Think of it this way. If you had a dollar and you wanted two so you ripped it in half would you really have two or would have two pieces worth half as much? That's exactly what happens when the goverment prints money, except of course they are not giving you the other pieces back of your now ripped in half dollars they are putting them in their own pockets.
Most things do not go up in price every year usually they go down, it's just that the value of your dollar is simply going down faster than companies can come up with ways of making things cheaper. Think about what that really means to your set amount of income now that most businesses are no longer giving "cost of living" increases every year.
Why does gold have value, though?
Sex and/or electronics.
So even if the Fed isn't technically private, its operations may be private enough to allow shady practices.. with billions/trillions of your money.
What you said makes sense, but people thought of that already. Not only are the Fed's books open, but you can get to them online.
But anti-Fed people never comb through the books and cite specific transgressions, instead they talk in broad strokes. My impression is that they don't really know what they are talking about and haven't really done any research or they would be able to list some specific incident.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
So they spend by driving up a huge debt. Then, when printing money is called for, its handled by the fed who hands out sweetheart loans to the people who need it the least.... hell, they can turn around and lend it to the government for a profit, and then never pay it back.
Well, sort of. The Fed doesn't borrow money or spend money they don't have... that's Congress. The fed doesn't "print" money, but they can pull any number out of thin air and put it on their balance sheet. Recently, they used this ability to buy a bunch of Treasury bonds from the bond market (Quantitative Easing). The Fed did loan out money as part of the recent bailout, but that was rare (unprecedented?) and controversial. It was also specifically authorized by Congress. They also had the "TAF" program, which auctioned very short-term (30-90 days) loans when the liquidity crisis hit. Yes, the loans were "below market interest rate" but at that point the market was so screwed up that there was no "market", thus the Fed stepping in. The "excess profit" the banks made was $13 billion, which is indeed a nice gift at taxpayer expense - but the amount of money loaned out was a staggering $1.2 trillion, so $13 billion represents only 1%, just to add some perspective back in. You are on-par with the student loan interest subsidy at that point.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
You'll find that 'Randians', as you call them, refer to themselves as 'objectivists'. It's what Ayn Rand named her philosophy, and if you do a little reading, you'll see the differences between objectivism and most flavors of libertarianism.
There are wild, varying degrees of 'libertarianism' as well. So far as I can tell, the only constant is a desire for a small Federal government and a preference for states' rights. I identify as libertarian, and NO, I don't think we should shut down law enforcement or the postal service or switch back to the gold standard. I want an end to the drug war, and end to the pointless global conflicts we're constantly embroiled in, a reduction in wasteful government spending, and a shift back to states' rights (instead of one-size-fits-all legislation). I'd also like the income tax to be replaced with the FairTax (basically a national sales tax with an annual 'pre-bate' to account for the poverty level).
Neither the Democratic or Republican party are for me. The Dems want big spending and social programs, the GOP wants to criminalize potsmokers, blow up brown people, and outlaw homosexuality.
So, yeah, I was a Ron Paul supporter and will be writing in his name on the ballot... again.
Describe this actual utility, please - particularly in context of the average citizen.
Gold can be used to greatly increase a man's pleasure in life by giving gifts of it in the form of jewellery. I would compare the utility of gold to the utility of flowers. I can put my wife in a good mood by giving her either. Don't even try and tell me that's not useful.
So lets make flowers = money, then we can say money grows on trees!
A stable currency cannot cause short-term inflation and deflation.
Right, which is why I said that gold was not stable historically. It was stable in dollar terms, because the dollar was defined in terms of gold. But compared to other commodities, it historically has been volatile on a short-term scale. Look at a chart of historic CPI (estimated, obviously). Can you really look at that data and say that we were better off with the gold standard? You have several swings up and down that exceed even the worst we've seen in the 70s.
That's exactly what happens when the goverment prints money, except of course they are not giving you the other pieces back of your now ripped in half dollars they are putting them in their own pockets.
Easily dealt with by not holding on to cash and instead treating it as a proxy for barter. Inflation discourages cash hoarding, which is a good thing. Hoarding leads to shortages. In the old days people would start hoarding cash at the first hint of a down economic cycle and then there wouldn't be enough circulating cash for the economy to function properly. Do that now and you risk losing money as it is "torn in half" as you say. In the last financial crisis, people hoarded cash anyway - but you know what? The government was able to pull as much money out of thin air as was necessary to keep the economy from shutting down.
Most things do not go up in price every year usually they go down
Manufactured goods? Sure, that's mostly true. Energy? Not really. We are using up the easiest-to-access sources of energy first, and it costs more to get a barrel of oil out of the ground than it used to. Since agriculture these days is so tied to petroleum, food cost goes up as well. Inflation on manufactured goods is so low as to be almost insignificant - most "inflation" these days is not inflation at all, but a slow rise in the price of petroleum that is very real. Here's a neat gold-oil price chart that shows how in recent times, we'd have an increasing oil price even if we were on a gold standard. The chart is a bit dated, but it should be sufficient to demonstrate my point.
Think about what that really means to your set amount of income now that most businesses are no longer giving "cost of living" increases every year.
Personally, I'd love an automatic raise every year. From an economic perspective, though, this seems like a bad idea. You don't want anything "automatic", because it spoils efficiency. In fact, one of the advantages of steady low inflation is that it allows real wages to go down - people don't normally react well to a wage decrease even when it is warranted.
In other words, people are not perfectly rational and so we should not expect our financial system to be, either. It has to be engineered to be compatible with the human psyche.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
When you write "power", I assume you mean "legal power". Exceeding the legal power of the president has been an almost monotonically increasing function for over 200 years, and Obama has so outrageously flouted the law that his actions bear no resemblance to the legal limits. It is precisely Ron Paul's greatest value that he will prevent this abuse by withdrawing previous illegal executive orders, vetoing illegal laws, and refusing to make new illegal actions.
Please demonstrate what Obama has done to "outrageously flout the law," Mr Limbaugh.
I bet 90% of capitol hill doesn't know what 'keynesian' means.
Not true. Roughly 50% of Congress knows it means "socialist."
No, the republicans only THINK they know what it means to be "socialist" when they attach that label to democrats.
I see the Paultards are out in force, modding down comments like the above for daring to besmirch the good name of St.Paul of Pittsburgh.
Ron Paul has a lot of ideas, unfortunately none of them are novel. He seems to think the past was better than the present (it really wasn't, by virtually any measure.) And while he talks about "freedom" and "liberty," in reality he is primarily a states' rights supporter. The "freedom" you'd get is freedom from the federal government, but never mind that the states would have free rein to screw you over. If states want to codify various kinds of oppression and discrimination, well, that's their right. He just wants to turn the US into 50 small countries, instead of a union of 50 states.
His ideas about things like going back to the gold standard would disrupt the economy so badly, it'd make the Great Depression look like a day at the circus. He doesn't seem to care about the consequences of his policy goals, he just wants to see them happen, no matter the cost. He has no sense of what's practical or reasonable. He's an dyed-in-the-wool idealist, and giving a person like that genuine power is frightening. You need people in government who understand that it's not "my way or the highway," but rather that government is made up of different people with different goals serving different interests, who need to cooperate and compromise so that everybody gets some of what they want, even if nobody gets all of what they want. They also understand the proverb, "the perfect is the enemy of the good." Paul wants to live in a "perfect" world, by his definition of "perfect." And he doesn't seem to care who'd get hurt by it.
Check out my world simulator thingy.
the GOP wants to criminalize potsmokers, blow up brown people, and outlaw homosexuality.
The GOP does seem to want to criminalize potsmokers and blow up brown people, but the mainstream GOP doesn't want to outlaw homosexuality, just gay marriage. Even then the party is very fractured in that view, for instance with Dick Cheney for gay marriage and GW Bush for civil unions, last I heard. Santorum and Bachmann do represent a significant part of the GOP, but even they weren't calling for the reenactment of anti-sodomy laws as far as I can tell. (Santorum said some crap* around 2003 that might be interpreted that way, but it's such an unpopular view to limit what people can do in their bedrooms that even he stopped short of advocating legislation against sodomy.)
(* "sodomy laws properly exist to prevent acts which undermine the basic tenets of our society and the family.")
What I don't understand is why does Ron Paul seem to focus exclusively on the presidency.
Why not gather a bunch of like-minded people, who would pledge to uphold his ideals, and try to get them into Congress?
Granted, I don't follow US politics closely so I may be missing something.
You've hit the nail on the head there. Stuff (like oil and bread and TVs) is stuff, and really that's what matters. Gold, dollars, euros, seashells etc. are just mediums of exchange and/or units for keeping the score.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Couldn't have said it better myself. The market isn't some natural thing that conveniently sorts everything out. It will always be regulated to some extent, and it should be designed to serve us, not the other way around. No one's saying we've got the perfect solution (there most likely isn't one), but it makes no sense to go back to a system that has failed time and time again, when our current system has produced more prosperity (with some admitted caveats) than any other system in human history. Kind of hard to argue with that degree of success, in spite of its shortcomings.
I would argue that we should work to address those shortcomings, not throw out the whole system. But the "throw it out and start from scratch" model seems to be the strategy Paul wants to use for everything.
Check out my world simulator thingy.
Plus bearskins. And hot chicks.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
gold is real.
just because idiots trade between themselves pieces of papers doesn't change that fact that there's real gold.
just because they like to use real words in their betting system doesn't change that there's real gold that you can buy and make plates out of to eat from, real gold to braid your hair with so that it's shiny a 1000 years later when someone digs up your body in it's shiny golden casket. if it had been a silver casket it wouldn't be half as stylish or 1/100th shiny. gold has inherent value regardless of culture. seashells, tooth of your fallen enemies etc not so much.
I can sell you bitcoin derivative papers if you really wish to buy though.
the lesson of course is to not buy a paper that says you have gold but instead buy real gold with a receipt.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
Randians will almost certainly be Libertarians, but Libertarians are not necessarily Randians.
I prefer to call them Randroids.
Taking guns away from the 99% gives the 1% 100% of the power.
Outside of Jewelry ? Good luck with that. You do realize that actual gold coins are priced way outside the average small investor's income... for a year... right ?
Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
Indeed, if civilization collapses, having gold won't matter--he who has the guns can just take the gold.
Check out my world simulator thingy.
I'll do you one better: labor. Work. Be it done by a human, an animal, or a machine, work has value. Its value is not set in stone, of course, but it is the absolute most basic unit of trade. "I'll do this for you if you'll do this for me."
Incidentally, this is why I think the money supply must inevitably increase over time, because the amount of work being done is also always increasing (due to a rising population/larger workforce/better technology.) However, this also debases the value of work, since like anything else, greater supply means less value. Result: inflation.
This is the basic reason why I think tying the value or form of currency to a specific, finite resource is nonsensical.
Check out my world simulator thingy.
It seems to me like Paul's "competing currencies" idea would do nothing but introduce an astonishing level of inefficiency to economic transactions.
"What is this Upper New Jersey quatloo worth?"
"I dunno, how many Purple Floridians will you give me for it?"
"I think one of those is worth fifteen CitiBucks, but I haven't checked since last week."
A standard currency is a very strong normalizing force on the economy--people don't have to worry about their medium of exchange because it's well-understood and everybody's using the same one. In daily life, this is essential. I sure as hell wouldn't want to have to keep track of a dozen or more different exchange rates/valuations to figure out what my money is worth. Might as well turn every private citizen into a currency speculator.
Check out my world simulator thingy.
There were too many things going on in that election, from the Supreme Court to electronic "voting" machines, to say that one variable (i.e. Nader) would have swung everything in the other direction. People should vote their conscience.
"What the American public doesn't know is what makes them the American public." -Ray Zalinsky (Tommy Boy)
Why should the money supply not grow with the economy? Why should we force ourselves into a deflationary spiral?
Check out my world simulator thingy.
LaRouche is a perfectly apt comparison. He and Paul are both cult-of-personality extremists who engage in rank tinfoilhattery.
Check out my world simulator thingy.
Surprised it took me this long to find a post talking about the vast media conspiracy to discredit Ron Paul. This, in spite of the fact that Paul has gotten much more attention than his polling levels could possibly justify. But yeah, there is a "media blackout" and the establishment is out to get him. Shit, the news media even treat this kook with kid gloves. He just doesn't appeal to most people. Sorry. Get over it.
Check out my world simulator thingy.
I hate the two party system but history has shown that voting for a third party/independent only hurts one's cause. As an alien on The Simpsons once said, "What are you going to do, vote for a third party candidate? Go ahead, throw your vote away! Mwahahahaha!"
But it seems you missed the irony of that scene. In that episode the choice was between an alien determined to enslave the human race, and an alien determined to enslave the human race. In that situation a fellow suggests voting for a third party, and is still told he would be throwing his vote away, thus showing the stupidity of the argument!
So, as Ranier Wolfcastle said, "That's the joke!"
"What the American public doesn't know is what makes them the American public." -Ray Zalinsky (Tommy Boy)
>>>Ron Paul would push for a constitutional amendment
You couldn't be any more wrong than if your name was Wrong Wrongenstein. When an Anti-gay marriage amendment was voted on, Congressman Paul voted "no". It's funny watching you people make false claims.
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
It depends on your view whether a fetus is considered "life". It isn't completely irrational to take that stance. It is much the same as whether or not those in long-term comas should be considered a "life".
Gold has value (as a currency) because it has actual utility
It's utility is as a conductor. And the value of that is nowhere near the price of gold today. So that can't be it.
> As for Switzerland, you might be unaware that there's a rampant
> and growing "screw rich foreigners, they deserve to get taxed
> more" sentiment. As in an über-tax the blasted creeps who buy
> Swiss Francs as a store of wealth, screwing exports in the
> process kind of sentiment.
Actually you are unaware or uninformed. Swiss have little against the rich...themselves being pretty well-off for the most part (compared with other places).
The tax you're referring to is basically a flat-tax for rich foreigners living in Switzerland but who are not working there (if they would, they'd pay normal taxes on their wages).
Instead it's based on their living expenditures and thus the tax for these very well-off foreigners is in most cases *significantly lower* than for folks, swiss or foreigner, who are actually working for a living. So if anything, the Swiss feel, that the same (tax) rules should apply to everybody.
What this has to do with swiss francs and exports, probably only you know (again...those folks LIVE there by choice, not because they feel philantropic about the swiss economy!).
But what makes the joke so horribly true is that you really are throwing your vote away by casting it for a third party, especially if you live in a swing state.
If it weren't for the Nader votes here in Ohio - just here in Ohio - then Gore would have been elected in 2000. So here, votes do matter. If I lived in California or Texas I may be inclined to make a statement vote.
The part about the joke I disagree with is that both candidates are evil aliens determined to enslave the human race. While neither party is ideal, the G.W. Bush presidency underscored how much less ideal one party is than the other. That Simpsons episode came out before the G.W.'s presidency and it was reflecting this sentiment that there was no difference between the parties so who you vote for doesn't really matter. After all the havoc that Cheney and Rove unleashed on the world from 2000-2008, I don't see how anyone can defend the belief that both parties are equally bad. The Democrats are incompetent. The Republicans are evil.
"From the depths of my skeptical and rationalist soul, I ask the Lord to protect me from California touchie-feeliedom."
The problem is there is already a monkeywrench in it. Pretty much nothing has gotten done since 2010. They can't even agree on frigging lower court justices. Another four years like this and our entire federal Judicial system is liable to break down. And that's just one example.
If that's really what you want, then the sensible thing to do is vote for Obama and otherwise straight Republican. As long as they have at least 40 senate seats, and/or between 50 and 66% of the House (majority, but not enough to override vetoes) you'll be happy.
Gridlock 2012!
When an Anti-gay marriage amendment was voted on, Congressman Paul voted "no".
For exactly the same reasons: he feels that discrimination should be dealt with at the state level at worst, and preferably by "the market."
Um, that's not what hyphenated ideology names mean. Would you say the "Marxist-Leninist Party" in Canada http://www.mlpc.ca/ has done so little research that they think Leninism = Marxism? Or do you think maybe they were trying to name a hybrid philosophy which is not adequately captured by either -ism on its own?
If you've flipped past Fox News at any point in the past 5 years or so, you can not have missed the millions of self-identified "Libertarians" whose talking points sound more like John Galt than Nozick. You've seen those, right?
DRM: Terminator crops for your mind!
He may speak what he believes is the truth, but seeing that he believes that humans didn't evolve from a common ancestor with the great apes, I have to believe that he is wrong, at least about that.
He has also been demonstrably wrong about his predictions of inflation due to the "printing of money" in response to the financial crisis of 2007-present.
If "reality" means "god did it" like Ron Paul believes, I'll stick with my testable, materialistic fantasy, thanks.
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I have to agree with your take on Paul's brain. I'm at a loss how a doctor could no believe in evolution. After all, nothing in biology makes sense...
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Wow. Some douche-bag modded my comment down one point. Hello!? This is Slash DOT...It is not some political blog. Would you care to explain yourself, Mister Minus-One mod-der?
From the exact same article you linked to, just four paragraphs down:
"Ron Paul believes that the first step towards monetary freedom is to allow open competition in currencies. Once gold and silver are allowed as legal tender and can be sold without sales tax, everyone can use them to store their wealth and to pay for the things they want to buy. The Federal Reserve will finally have a very compelling motivation to stay honest and maintain the value of the dollar because if they don’t, they will simply lose all their customers.
Ron Paul has been an advocate of the gold standard and open competition in currencies for many years."
The funny thing for me is I've always been a Randroid, since long before I even heard of her or saw any of the movies. I'd really like to know where that in me came from (and it certainly wasn't handed down by my parents or family).
Well, Rand's "philosophy" is basically just a justification for sociopathy, so it wouldn't be surprising if you arrived at it independently...assuming you have no empathy and one hell of an unjustified ego. No idea if that's true of you, but i can't really think of any other circumstances under which one could come up with such a simplistic, blatantly incorrect worldview.
It's not like it's a particularly insightful or deep "philosophy".
One way of looking at it is take Liberalism, reset it as a religion instead of a philosophy and insert a big chunk of sociopathy and a brief skimming of, "The Wealth of Nations" ignoring Smith's cautions about too little regulation of the market.
Another way of looking at her "philosophy" is take Marx's "Communist Manifesto", drop the ending where he predicts Capitalism collapsing on itself when too much wealth gets filtered upward as we're seeing today. Rand ignores that very real very obvious issue and pretends that it will magically all work out. Obviously, this isn't happening and won't happen.
That's why nobody with any sense takes Rand seriously as anything but a sociopathic hack writer.
I've read good things about Gary Johnson.
So I went to his website and realized i couldn't vote for him. He doesn't understand the economy: "Stop spending on the fiscal stimulus, transportation, energy, housing, and all other special interests. The U.S. must restrain spending across the board." and he has wacky ideas: "Abolish the Internal Revenue Service."
If you believe the government should levy taxes (which he apparently does, as he supports the "fair tax"), then something (a department, or an agency) has to exist to make sure people pay those taxes. The idea that we should "abolish the IRS" and then create a new agency to manage the "fair tax" is nothing more than pandering or insanity.
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I don't know if that's such a great idea.
Well, there was that whole "assassinate a citizen without due process" thing...
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Is that why most people prefer to call you retarded?
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
Being taxed at 3 or 4 or even 10 percent higher marginal tax rates with no tax loopholes by being paid in stock or other instruments isn't going to be the end of the world.
That's crazy! Instead, we should go back to the halcyon 1950's! You know, that time the Republicans like to talk about as being so great? That time with a 91% marginal tax bracket on the highest earners!
Awesome furniture, accessories and cabinetry in Santa Rosa, CA: http://humanity-home.com/
Well, there was that whole "assassinate a citizen without due process" thing...
When the citizen is at war with the country, how does it differ from assassinating non-citizens?
Question: what happens to the unspent campaign contributions?
oldhack: "Security is a waste of money until shit hits the fan. 5 minutes later, it becomes waste of money again. "
No, the Democrats are just as evil. Their use of divisive "group" politics where they attempt to split people and pit them against one another is proof enough. They do a better job of hiding it from the ill informed, but their sadistic tendencies are clear.
I was deeply impacted by the debates between Obama and McCain. It was two guys trying to one-up each other on what new government programs they would institute. No discussion about how all these new programs would be paid for, or how they fit within the overall framework of governance. Just, "I'm going to give you stuff if you vote for me." That's a sadistic lie.
The re-passage of things like the Patriot Act and the midnight signing of a law that eliminates habeas corpus from a bipartisan Congress only adds to the proof that both the major parties are evil.
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
Income disparity has never been greater in America than now.
And that is the the Federal Reserve's fault... how?
I for one side with great Americans such as Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson that central banking is vile and contrary to Republican principle.
It may be vile, but it's less vile than the alternative.
Pretty simple actually. The vast majority of that bill is correct from a state's rights standpoint. Section 3 (already ruled unconstitutional) is the only sketchy territory and Ron Paul has never "vehemently" supported Section 3. In fact, his stance on Section 3 remains largely unknown. Decent article here covers it: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-groshoff/ron-paul-homophobic_b_1171695.html
No, but he can direct the DEA to stop enforcing that law and allow states to do what they want while he's in the White House.
No, he can't. That's the President's job: to enforce the laws. A President who refused to enforce the laws would be setting himself up for impeachment.
??? What the hell do you think freedom is if not state's rights? Anarchy? It's a pretty simple equation...the closer government is to the local level, the "more free" you are. And the reason for that is that local municipalities are far more likely to represent your interests than non-local. And yes, this does mean the "freedom" to do alot of stupid shit a bunch of people in another state may not agree with. But that is what "freedom" means.
Well whether it's a good idea to have a gold standard or not (and we'll just say not for a flower standard), gold does have utility. When people say it doesn't I really wonder what is going on with them. Perhaps they are asexual?
http://marriedmansexlife.com/
An interesting concept but thats still a finite amount of gold, even when it's amount seems astronomical in surface value. Consider what was the cost to acquire this haul? moving that much mass in gold from space would cost a fortune in itself so I am not sure that that "small" and limited amount of inflation would vastly effect the perceived value of gold long term any more then finding a mother lode. While the amount of value stealing inflation from running a printing press at little to no cost for nearly a hundred years is far more shattering then your scenario.
When a government with a finite amount of money requires more money for what ever reason (perhaps one the public is not in favour of such as going to war?) they need to ask for more money through direct taxes to the people. When they have a federal reserve system they just get the bank to run off some more money (inflation), and pass the debt for the no value paper money back to the people, who then have to create something of value to pay for the debt of the money that never had any value of it's own. Inflation is stealing.
Also there is interest on this no value money. Consider that it is illegal to charge unreasonable interest rates for a loan. charging any interest on money that does not truly exist or have it's own value seems unreasonable to me.
Well, I think the illegality is more clear in the citizen case. I didn't follow the case that closely, but I don't understand why he wasn't tried in absentia, and then killed.
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Yeah, good luck with that. Such court cases take forever to work out. By the time they managed to get Paul out of office, his term would be over anyway.
Even under Bush, the DEA didn't really bother much with medical marijuana, and no one impeached him for that. It's Obama that's been going after the medical marijuana dispensaries with enormous zeal.
I can understand that some of Paul's stated goals are attractive to people.
But what I can't understand is how anyone who considers themselves even remotely scientifically minded, would choose to support someone who is purely ideologically driven.
Why aren't we trying to support candidates that actually look at studies, facts, policies that have been field tested around the world, and then make decisions on those things instead of an ideology? It seems to me that unwavering ideology is just as dangerous as unwavering religious beliefs when it comes to policy decisions.
If people voted for those who told the truth then politicians would not tell lies.
People vote for those who lie because they would rather a lie than the truth.
This is true no matter which horse you back.
I do find though that Ron Paul will tell uncomfortable truths where others will lie. Not to say that he is always correct, but what he says he believes to be the truth.
Romney is nothing but lies and calculated half truths. I don't think that Romney believes any part of his platform. That greedy little fuck is only running for his own ego and of course the one thing he does believe in, money.
Don't know something? Look it up. Still don't know? Then ask.
Well, I think the illegality is more clear in the citizen case. I didn't follow the case that closely, but I don't understand why he wasn't tried in absentia, and then killed.
Probably because this is a military case, not a criminal case.
. The U.S. has no authority to overrule what local people desire
Which is what Obama said.
"The president stressed that this is a personal position, and that he still supports the concept of states deciding the issue on their own."
Heh, Dufus! He ran as a third party candidate. He got absolutely NO leverage. At least running as a Republican has moved the Republican base to something a little more sane than "allow the Democrats to spend us bankrupt, while invading every other country in the world"
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
Posting AC so that everyone doesn't know what a dumbass you really are?
The NA's were consistently pushed off of good, arable lands to places that would barely support animal life above the size of insects. The were ripped from their cultural underpinnings which would allow them to fend for themselves, and shoved into a culture of government dependencies. Education was non-existent or a joke.
Reservation. Ghetto. Tomaeto. Tomahto. Either way, you're an idiot.
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
I'm sorry, but a law specifically designed to overrule state laws cannot, by definition, be correct from a states' rights standpoint. Minor quibbling over subsections does not detract from the purpose of the Act: to declare gay marriages that are legal under State law null and void. It is the federal government using its power to meddle in social affairs of the States.
I'm afraid your idol has feet of clay.
Mart
"I know I will be modded down for this": where's the option '-1, Asking for it'?
No no, you're describing the historical state of affairs. It has changed in recent years because demand for the franc has been so strong that their central bank cannot keep the currency down. This then hurts exports, and thus growth, and the Swiss at large are growing angry.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-17275880
No he does NOT think states should discriminate. He lived through the segregation as a doctor, and yet still treated blacks in direct violation of the law.
Where the hell do you people come-up with this "Paul is racist" stuff? Probably the same place you invented the idea that Obama is not a citizen. For the record, the former NAACP Chair said, "The charge is ridiculous. I have known Congressman Paul for many years and he is in no way prejudiced against black persons."
As for individuals YES they have the right to discriminate. It's called freedom. It is why the Supreme Court has said the KKK, as onerous as that group is, has a right to exist. Vice-versa blacks have a right to discriminate too... such as excluding whites from attending their churches, or businesses, or homes. I may not agree with that stance, but I do think people have the freedom to choose that path in life.
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
Things like bread don't get more expensive because of shortages though, they get more expensive as the value of the dollar is diluted. where as gold technically has not.
I heard an interesting quote about gold in that 2000 years ago you could take an ounce of gold and buy a fine pair of shoes, a robe and a belt, just like nowadays you could get a fine pair of shoes a suit and a belt for about an ounce of gold.
Things appear to have gone up in price but that is simply because inflation devalues the dollars, like watering down juice.
That is why you buy the actual metal and not just a piece of paper that says "Gold" on it.
No he does NOT think states should discriminate.
"Should" and "should be allowed to" are two different concepts. Even ignoring his stance on discrimination in and of itself, his priority is "states' rights." Ron Paul's politics view the Fourteenth Amendment as federal overreach, and whatever his views of the ends, for him they do not justify the means.
For the record, the former NAACP Chair said, "The charge is ridiculous. I have known Congressman Paul for many years and he is in no way prejudiced against black persons."
[citation needed]
a right to discriminate too... such as excluding (...) attending their churches, or businesses, or homes. I may not agree with that stance, but I do think people have the freedom to choose that path in life.
Thank you for demonstrating my point. You insist that private business has the right to do whatever it wills regardless of whether it operates a public space or not. I imagine you feel the same way about building codes.
I've been telling Republicans to use their own brains and vote for Paul because with Paul you get:
1. The Republican votes you get with any Republican.
2. The Libertarian vote - probably more Libertarians (note the big L) like myself would vote for Paul instead of our own candidate because we know he'll have a better chance of winning and he's one of us.
3. Lots of independents.
4. Lots of other third party votes.
5. Blue Democrats.
With Romney they get:
1. The Republican votes you get with any Republican.
Sure Romney can beat Paul when all you consider is Republicans, but Paul beats Romney AND Obama when you consider everyone. The Republicans might win with Romney, but it's going to be a difficult race. Paul would have made it close to a sure thing. Now it's time for dirt digging and mud slinging.
The preceding post was not a Slashvertisement.
My point is proven when you start saying that "wise people try to acquire things that maintain value."
If a rich person acquires a dollar and sits on that dollar, refusing to use it, that dollar does nobody any good. It's just a piece of paper in a safe.
The only way in which that dollar can be useful to anyone is if it causes person A to do work in return for person B's dollar, so it can then be given to person C, and so on. We want to encourage spending, because spending is how money generates utility in the economy. Our goal is not for everyone to have a pile of dollars underneath their mattress, it is for people to have the purchasing power necessary to buy the things they want. Forcing gradual inflation on people, as painful as it may be, is a way to prevent people from sitting on cash and not spending it.
Surprised it took me this long to find a post talking about the vast media conspiracy to discredit Ron Paul. This, in spite of the fact that Paul has gotten much more attention than his polling levels could possibly justify. But yeah, there is a "media blackout" and the establishment is out to get him. Shit, the news media even treat this kook with kid gloves. He just doesn't appeal to most people. Sorry. Get over it.
You can't honestly expect me to believe this when I have seen it for _myself_ first hand? Can you? Do you even follow the news on a regular basis? I do, and it is clear that there is a coordinated effort in the news media to discredit _any_ ideas that do not conform to the status quo. Do you think this has anything to do with the fact that 90% of media in the US is owned by 6 companies? Here's a hint, it does.
I am a liberal. I voted for Obama. I don't think Ron Paul is a godsend. I sure as hell think he's better than the other choices.
Fanboy Status: Apache Flex, C#, Eclipse, KDE, Pirate Party, Ron Paul, Slackware, Windows 7
Overrule state law? The entire point of the law is to ensure that no state is forced to recognize a same-sex marriage treated as a marriage in another state. That is protecting state law. Did you even read the damn thing, or do your liberal blogs start and stop at Section 3?
Things like bread don't get more expensive because of shortages though, they get more expensive as the value of the dollar is diluted. where as gold technically has not.
Bread is probably a bad example, simply because grain production is so dependent on petroleum.
Your shoes, robe, and belt example is a good one, though. That's absolutely true, and that's largely because those items haven't really changed much in terms of technology or construction method. So, yes, the price has gone "up" in currency terms, but does it cost you more hours of work to get those shoes? That's the only important measure.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
You forgot Apple Sucks!
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Which is effectively nullifying those marriages already performed. Do you even think beyond your bigoted little world in your mom's basement?
"I know I will be modded down for this": where's the option '-1, Asking for it'?
can you explain why you expect he would be more successful as President?
In regards to bringing the troops home, I expect he would be more successful as President because he would then be the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces.
I'm not a US citizen so I'm not really a Ron Paul supporter, just saying.
I'm was somewhat hyperbolic. It's entirely likely that some private in Rep Paul's district wrote him to complain that a drill sergeant was being mean to him in basic, and it's very likely that Paul's staff did the paperwork to get the kid out of the Army, getting him a discharge for "failure to adapt to military life". That kind of stuff happens all the time, and that would mean that, technically, he brought a single troop home.
As president, while he can put out arbitrary orders, he still has to explain his plans to the joint chiefs for them to actually carry them out. They will then explain why no one has done it before, to include the top secret stuff. After all, Obama ran on essentially the same theme, and he couldn't even close Guantanamo. The main issue is that withdrawing our forces can exacerbate instabilities that lead to wars, thus defeating the purpose of drawing down in the first place. (At which point he might argue to the chiefs, "but we created those instabilities in the first place!" To which they'd respond, "that may be true, Sir, but that doesn't change the situation we're dealing with.")
What Paul could do is promise to make significant progress towards disengaging in a few specific places, but he doesn't. He claims, sweepingly, that he'll bring the troops home, without saying how the hell he'd do it. And this is part of a general indicator: he claims the impossible because he doesn't expect to win. That's how you differentiate a serious candidate, they'll dictate realistic, achievable goals. Paul has never done that.
You either believe in freedom, or you don't. If a black person is allowed to keep whites from attending his restaurant, church, or home, then he is a freeman. If a black person is not allowed to do that, and forced to let whites into his private buildings, then he is just a serf to the government.
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
restaurant, church, or home
At least one of those doesn't belong in that list. Most people do not solicit the general public to freely enter their home.
then he is just a serf to the government.
You can cook for yourself and eat whatever you choose, but if you try to serve the food you prepare to the general public, you are expected to adhere to health regulations. Does that make you a "serf to the government?"
You can build whatever kind of structure on your property and live in it however you choose, but if you use the building as a storefront, you are expected to adhere to building and fire codes. Does that make you a "serf to the government?"
Thats one way to look at it. Actually all it does is specify how the issue is to be treated between states, not within them. A state is free, under DOMA, to do whatever it likes, leaving no other state able to challenge it.
In fact, some analsys shows that this, in fact, helped Gay marriage take hold, since it provided space for states to experiment in that area without any other state being able to say anything about it.
Frankly, I think the whole thing is a silly issue. The state, or federal government really doesn't need to recognize marriage at all, and the fact that so many things are tied to marriage is really more because of lazy, shortsighted law making than anything else. Marriage can and should be reduced to nothing more than a set of rights that can be assigned via contract, to one or more other parties. There, solved for everyone, including gays and polygamists.
In any case, I have lived in MA since before this whole issue came up. DOMA didn't make anything null or void here. It just said that other states were free to do their own thing, which, as much as I disagree with them for doing it, I have to say, is their right.
Though by "disagree" I mean "would like to thank" because, anything that drives more gay people with their lower average rate of child raising, and economy boosting resultant disposable income to my state is something I approve of. I wish every state but mine would make it illegal to even be gay. Please, bring them all here. We are loving it here.
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
Libertardianism ...
I love it when you guys invent cute little epithets like that. I also wonder if you even remember what word that tard bit comes from. Was it bastard, or retard? I don't think anyone's ever told me.
Let me clear it up for you:
libretardian - retarded libertarian
libastardian - libertarian born out of wedlock
liberturdian - libertarian so young (or old) that he needs diaper-changing
No it isn't. In the state they were performed, the marriage is recognized -- it is never nullified. As a state issue, why should one state be able to force another state to recognize the marriage? At that point, it becomes a federal issue.
I believe same-sex marriages should be legalized and afforded all the benefits that come from said union. Put the tunnel vision away and recognize that not everyone fits a stereotype that lets you conveniently segment society into "those with me" and "those against me".
No, thats exactly what I am saying. There is no need to treat married couples differently in taxes and other legal matters. They have, because they were lazy and shortsighted.
Giving gays marriage is fine with me. However, its a silly, shortsighted, and lazy fix. It also leads to the need to fix it again later when people start asking...well why can't 3 people get married? Well guess what.. same arguments apply.
I say fix it all...do away, completely, with all "Marriage" as a legal concept...and fix the laws to just give a person rights which can be assigned via contract. Much better, more robust fix, and fixes the situation going forward.
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"