Obama Youth FOR PAUL!

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This.

On many areas of policy, I disagree strongly with Ron Paul. Needless to say, allowing newsletters with racist themes to be published in his tone was stupid at best. The Civil Rights Act and use of the National Guard to desegregate public schools were perfectly acceptable and, in my view, bolster liberty. I do not share Ron Paul's views on abortion; the Federal Reserve system; regulation for the protection of consumers, workers, and the environment; etc. I do not support the Austrian school of economics.

That said, Ron Paul's non-interventionist foreign policy is, at least some regards, an improvement over the Bush-Obama neoconservative position (President Obama's position is mostly President Bush's with better diplomacy); I would support military action in some cases to stop genocide and crimes against humanity. I concur with Ron Paul's view that the executive and other branches of government have vastly overstepped their authority in terms of civil liberties. I consider these quite core issues.

Obama may be all right on a few issues, but he's bad enough on others that it seems he and I simply don't share anything approximating the same political values. Neither does Ron Paul, but I feel he has some potential as a protest vote. Democrats and the Obama team in particular should not assume liberals will vote for them "as the lesser of two evils." I'm ready for some hope and change, real change, and would like to see third-party politics become a more viable choice.

The problem is that there will be democrats and republicans in congress and they'll likely be the same crazy people that are in congress now. Ron Paul actually taking a non-interventionist stance is highly unlikely regardless of what he would like to do.


If Ron Paul wins the primaries, voting for him won't be a protest vote but will likely add to his chances to be president.

Unless the congress actually goes and declares war(something they haven't done since World War II and pretty unlikely unless there is an actual threat) how would they go about doing that? If Ron was president, he would be Commander-In-Chief and would have full power to bring our troops home. Obama has that same power and he has only increased our involvement in these conflicts abroad.

Er... As I recall, Obama actually has been bringing the troops home from Iraq.

-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer

According to the agreement negotiated and signed by George W Bush, yes. Obama maintained the status quo in Iraq (if we ignore the thousands of private contractors still left there), expanded our efforts in Afghanistan, including actions bleeding over into Pakistan which are at best of dubious legality, got us involved in Libya, and has been pursuing illegal bombing campaigns in Yemen and elsewhere. He has also overseen incredibly harsh crack-downs on whistleblowers as part of a full-scale war on transparency in government, continued full steam ahead with the misguided and racist war on drugs, broke records in his pursuit and deportation of illegal immigrants, sought to censor the internet, left Guantanamo in operation, reaffirmed the Bush administration's commitment to torture as a legitimate interrogation tool, expanded warrantless wiretapping, authorized the assassination without trial of American citizens, and most recently signed into law extrajudicial imprisonment with no due process.

Obama is a neoconservative through and through. Look at the actual facts of his record and tell me with a straight face that this isn't true.

Nobody's perfect?

-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer

So Ron Paul is your hope to keep the number of ongoing wars at 6 so that they never become 7?

Good post. Obama hasn't departed at all from Bush's foreign policy except for rhetoric and Bush's wasn't even that much of a departure from Clinton's or etc. The media narrative amongst the Fox News crowd that he's some bleeding heart dove is so ridiculous it's not even funny. On a lot of things, Obama is actually pushing it even further than Bush did. Not saying Bush is any better, he probably would of done the same things but he actually was held semi-accountable for his actions by the media/political opposition. Obama wipes out whole villages in Pakistan and nobody mutters a peep.

As Jacoby has mentioned, the President can withdraw troops using his powers as command-in-chief. Also, I don't realistically expect Ron Paul, Ralph Nader, Dennis Kucinich, or someone like that to be elected President; but I do want to see a more viable environment for politicians and parties outside the Democratic and Republican parties in the United States.

Well, you assume I'd like to see President Barack Obama re-elected but just a little smarted from some of his policy choices over his first term. I doubt he'd change. Voting for third-party and independent candidates is the first step to making their campaigns viable in future elections. My views on civil rights and "the war on terror" approximate those of Glen Greenwald, Greg Laden, and Noam Chomsky. In other words, that puts me closer in the left-libertarian camp than the partisan-Democrat camp. I also find President Obama to be too cozy with Wall Street.

Every election, Democrats rely on the scare tactic that things will be so much worse if we let any Republicans win, and if the Democrats do make big gains, they don't implement a liberal agenda and then blame a Republican minority for their failure. I'm tired of that dynamic.

Why wouldn't he be able to end these wars? Unless you're in the conspiracy frame of mind and think the generals simply won't let it happen and will dispose of him(funny considering your recent posts) Ron would be the Commander-In-Chief of the Armed Forces and it would be at his discretion.

I assumed you wanted to protest vote (mostly because you said so) if that's the case then a vote for Paul or Obama wouldn't work because they are actually likely to get your vote. So you would be better voting for third party or blank if you want to protest vote.

That is hardly an excuse to accept the worst. Compromise is one thing; everyone must compromise to some extent. Utter capitulation on issue after issue is another thing, and a sign of failed leadership at best. But Obama's charge to be a more radical form of exactly the sort of thing he claimed to oppose? That's plainly unacceptable.

The NDAA is a disqualifier. Period. Sure, Obama failed on domestic issues, but the Republicans would be even worse so he still looks marginally better than his opposition. On foreign policy, I was willing to forgive quite a bit of Obama's hawkishness in Afghanistan, to pardon his illegal military strikes in Pakistan, to excuse his interventionism in Libya, hell, even to turn a blind eye to him continuing Bush's pitiful civil rights record on warrantless wiretaps and Gitmo. But he has gone further than any neoconservatiive ever dared to attempt. At this point, would we be any worse off with someone like Perry in charge? I fail to see what more he could do.

When I say, "Nobody's perfect, " I was just being an ass.
Sure, Obama is far from being perfect. Sure, he's turned his back on those deeply held concepts of right and wrong he had run on - his signing of the bill allowing for the indefinite imprisonment of so called domestic enemies of America is truly terrifying. But I tend to believe that the job of the presidency tends to change the man (and maybe someday woman) sitting in the oval office. That's not an excuse, it's just an unfortunate fact of life.
And just because Obama hasn't lived up to promises like shutting down Gitmo yet doesn't mean that that won't be a possibility sometime in his second term. Remember, Obama lived up to his promise to kill Bin Laden and withdraw troops from Iraq - he may still keep other promises.

-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer

To cost Obama Ohio?

http://www.policymic.com/articles/18900 ... l-election