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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
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
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"
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 have a choice between a democrat devil or a republican devil who thinks he has superman underwear
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
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
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".
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!
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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.
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?
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.
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!>
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?
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 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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
Well, in 2000, it would have meant that we'd probably have Gore and not Bush.
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.
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.
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!
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.
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.