the case against ron paul

[killerweed420]

I'm sure Ron Paul has alterior motives too, all politicians do, but atleast he seems to speak the truth most of the time and in plain english so Americans can understand it.

[Markass]

I do not support Ron Paul.

The only thing I like about him is his views on personal liberty, which I think is important in this era of the Patriot Act and other attacts on individual Constitutional rights.

But most of his views I think are crazy. I do not like his anti-envionmentalist record. We are approaching a tipping point with regard to Global Climate Change, and he is not remotely prepared to deal with that.

I believe in personal liberty, but I do not extend those rights to corporations the way Ron Paul does. Corporations need to be regulated, and he does not believe in that.

His monetary policies with regard to the Federal Reserve and the gold standard are wrong and will not work.

I believe we need to be engaged in the world, be strong members of the UN, have strong aliances with other countries, and maintain our military presence in the countries where we have commitments. Ron Paul does not agree with that.

I think when people sense a crisis, they tend to turn to an outsider as a "savior," and I think Ron Paul has represented that to some poeple. But the more I learn about him, the less I like.

A non-intervention foreign policy is what we need...Commerce with all nations, alliance with none...

The more I've heard about Ron Paul the more I like..I would've never thought I would register to vote being this young, until I heard a politician that speaks truth rather than what he thinks people want to hear.

We're going bankrupt..we don't have the money to support our world empires..It for some reason makes more sense as far as security goes to have all of our soldiers in our country protecting our borders...rather than the borders of europe, or the middle east..

How did we get attacked again? I don't think it was military action from a country...they had to hijack an airplane..They learned to fly in America..the land of the free..as long as airports are secure I don't see them having near the amount of resources needed for an attack on American soil..Are we worried that they're going to get on a boat and sail this far with enough soldiers and firepower to attack the united states?? Cause I can tell you that I damn sure am not..

There is a crisis in America..The federal government steps all over state law when it comes to medical marijuana, that my friend is a crisis in it's own..what happened to federalism? What happened to the founders' idea of freedom from government? The american dollar's value is the lowest it has been in years..anytime the government needs to spend more money, they turn to simply printing more onto paper..

The government's role is not to raise me from cradle to grave, it is for me to raise myself, for me to decide what to say no to.

[dragonrider]

I refuse to listen to an idiot. For one thing he failed to list his sources for the exception of that essay written by Ron Paul dealing with christmas...which I don't particularily agree with 100 percent but he does make a good point on it. Also if he really did have close ties with oil companies he would certainly be doing better in the polls. Throughout the essay he takes many of his sentences out of context such as this one. "Fear is constantly generated by politicians to rally the support of the people. Environmentalists go back and forth, from warning about a coming ice age to arguing the grave dangers of global warming". He's not necessarily anti environment but rather anti fear and he's right. Fear is a huge tool used by authorities to get what they want. That was the main point he was trying to get across not "I'm anti environmentalist". And for that matter who the hell cares if he's an environmentalist. He's for the states to decide that rather than the Federal Governemt to decide it. And as far as trying to repeal the 14th amendment, I'm all for that. I mean if two illegals come into the country and have a kid he or she should also be associated with their parents. The bottom line is there are things which I do not agree with him on but there are many things which happen to be some of the most important issues for me which I totally agree with. This douche bag hasn't proven anything crazy about Ron Paul.

First. let me say that I agree, the article was not very well written. This is not where I got my ideas about Ron Paul. I was not referring to this article or this quote about global warming when I said he has a poor environmental record. When you ask, "who the hell cares if he's an environmentalist," the answer would be I do for one. I'm sure a lot of other people do too. You said, "He's for the states to decide that rather than the Federal Governemt to decide it." And my understanding is that he also would rather see many environmental issues handled as indivudual property rights issues. Those kinds of approaches do not work. The environment is an interconnected system that is larger than property lines and state borders. Problems related to the environment require solutions that cross property lines and state borders, even international borders. It won't work if you leave it to individuals or individual states. To me, the environment is an important issue, and I do not think I've been duped by environmental fearmongering.

A non-intervention foreign policy is what we need...Commerce with all nations, alliance with none...

The more I've heard about Ron Paul the more I like..I would've never thought I would register to vote being this young, until I heard a politician that speaks truth rather than what he thinks people want to hear.

We're going bankrupt..we don't have the money to support our world empires..It for some reason makes more sense as far as security goes to have all of our soldiers in our country protecting our borders...rather than the borders of europe, or the middle east..

How did we get attacked again? I don't think it was military action from a country...they had to hijack an airplane..They learned to fly in America..the land of the free..as long as airports are secure I don't see them having near the amount of resources needed for an attack on American soil..Are we worried that they're going to get on a boat and sail this far with enough soldiers and firepower to attack the united states?? Cause I can tell you that I damn sure am not..

There is a crisis in America..The federal government steps all over state law when it comes to medical marijuana, that my friend is a crisis in it's own..what happened to federalism? What happened to the founders' idea of freedom from government? The american dollar's value is the lowest it has been in years..anytime the government needs to spend more money, they turn to simply printing more onto paper..

The government's role is not to raise me from cradle to grave, it is for me to raise myself, for me to decide what to say no to.

Ron Paul likes to characterize his foreign policy as non-interverntionist, but it actually goes a lot further than that. The idea of "commerce with all, alliance with none" is not realistic in our interconnected global world now, and it wasn't even realistic when Jefferson said it 200 years ago. Many of our alliances are designed to protect our commerce and our trading partners who we need in order to prosper in a global marketplace. Military and trade alliance is crucial to preserving stability in our world. Policies of non-intervention and isolation have led to some of the greatest disasters of foreign policy in the last century. Sometimes you need to defend your interests beyond your own borders, and when your interests coincide with those of other countries, alliances are beneficial. It's ridiculous to think we need to withdraw to our last line of defense and bring our military back to our own borders. I think the only reason that this idea gets any traction at all is that we have had such a disaster with the idiotic "preemptive" war in Iraq. That war was interventionist in the extreme and has proven a disaster. But the choice is not between the neo-con, forward-leaning, regime-changing extreme, and the Ron Paul fortress USA extreme. Neither one of those extremes is sound policy. Instead we need to be out in the world, protecting our friends and having them protect us, while acting responsible and not being the global bully.

On the Federal Reserve issue, I would say that Ron Paul does not understand a modern economy. The government does not just print money to pay off its debts. If that were the case, we would have runaway inflation out of control. Inflation has been under pretty good control for nearly 30 years. Currencies do fluctuate in value against each other and the dollar trades lower now than in the very recent past, but I do not think it points to a major crisis in monetary policy. The idea of a gold standard in a modern economy is ludicrous. Currency does not need to be tied to a commodity. There isn't enough gold in the world to equal the value of the US economy. The value of the dollar derives from the ability oif the economy to generate wealth and the value of the wealth already created. The reason there are more dollars in the world now is because there is actually more wealth in the world now.

Another thing that many people do not understand is that mild inflation is not necessarily a 100% bad thing. It does diminish the value of a dollar of wealth, so it wolrks against your money in the bank. But it also diminishes the value of the money you owe. So if you have a mortgage, a car loan, or a credti card balance, inflation works in your favor --- the dollar you eventually pay back is woth less than the one you borrowed. If you own something of value other than just money in the bank, for example you own a house, your asset holds its value in the face of inflation. Ron Paul focuses on the loss of value of dollars saved, but doesn't mention how inflation is mostly a wash for most people who own some assets and use credit, as long as it is under control and kept to a few percent, which is one of the roles of the Federal Reserve.

I think Ron Paul wants to live in a world that is a lot simpler than it actaully is. We live in a complex and interconnected world, and the ideas about withdrawing from our alliances, leaving environmental policy to states and individuals, and going to a gold standard reflect some kind of desire to return to a simpler time that is gone, and maybe never even exsited at all.

[suhl]

im not an enviornmentalist by any means, but at this stage in the game you cannot just say let's totally ignore it. i don't like government either.

and no that article wasn't great, but for people with short attention spans it got the point across.

[Dream of the iris]

well shit....your right. I'm man enough to know when to stand down on a debate. Everything you just said was absolutely correct. I think I favor him so much because I'm sick and tired of how the World ended up. Its bullshit that we live in an interdependent world. thats why we have all these problems like in Darfur. The reason why we arn't interveneing is because thats where China gets most of their oil. But World Politics shouldn't have ended up this way but it did...I really do want to live in a simpler time but those days are over. God damnit people! We ruined it for ourselves!