Who else hates Hillary Clinton?

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Feel free to provide an example of Paul's "crazy" ideas. He has studied economics in detail and published books on the subject, whereas the other candidates just say what the people want to hear without regard to the fact that they cannot possibly fulfill their promises. Paul's a doctor, he's worked in our medical system, so he probably has a better idea of what kind of reforms would be useful their than would a lawyer. Non-interventionism is not "crazy" by any stretch of the imagination. Our intervention in other countries' affairs fosters hatred against America and provides fodder for terrorist recruiting networks. Also, Paul is NOT a white supremacist. For a time, Paul was busy with his clinical practice and was uninvolved with a newsletter that he had previously been running. During that time, some nutcases published some disgusting statements under his name that Paul has completely and unequivocally disowned. He does not believe such nonsense as white supremacy, nor has he ever. Paul is no racist. Barack, on the other hand, likes to be able to play the race card. It sickens me to see people just dismiss Paul as "crazy" when they can't give a single example of what Paul has EVER said that was at all crazy.

Last edited by Orwell on 27 Jan 2008, 8:41 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Except that the corporate elites are among the main driving forces behind Keynesianism, since they derive most of the benefits from corporate welfare, so they would have no incentive to promote an economic view which maintained that excessive government regulation causes more harm than good.

Ron Paul wants to drastically reduce the government in size from what it currently is with little regard to consequences (though like most Republicans he's fine with big government when it means being anti-gay). That, to me personally, is crazy, and shows a lack of concern for issues such as the environment, for instance. Support him all you like, but calling me a sheep or saying I have a "thick skull" does not elevate the discourse. This kind of ad hominem attack doesn't speak very well of Paul's supporters.

It's clear others here have a political philosophy drastically different from my own. I am inherently suspicious of those who claim to do nothing more than emulate "the principles on which the Republic was founded." This is because language is inherently open to interpretation, period. No one can really claim to know "for sure" exactly what the Founders had in mind, or exactly what the Constitution "really means." It's all interpretation. Secondly, this ideology all but ignores the more inegalitarian "principles" upon which the nation was founded in favor of a sugar-coated, patriotic version of the past. That's not for me.

Also, the Founders had a variety of opinions and principles. Compare and contrast the political opinions of Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson for example. The putting of the Founders on a pedestal is just the American version of the common habit of idealizing leaders of the past as somehow semi-divine and more virtuous and wise then modern leaders.

He is a right libertarian (as opposed to, say, Ralph Nader, who is a left libertarian) and, on constitutional issues, a strict constructionist. IMO, that combination is dangerous. Fortunately, he has almost no chance of getting the Republican nomination.

On the other hand, the fact that Paul is even getting some support concerns me. He has a cult following. Anecdotally, I know several illuminati-conspiracy folks who support him. Although I have seen no evidence that Paul himself believes in the illuminati nonsense, his ideas feed into the ideology.



Well, as an American, I could personally care less about the U.S. Constitution. My concern is for social justice, not about turning some document authored over 200 years ago into an idol. If the U.S. Constitution is an obstacle to my view of social justice, I favor ignoring it (or at least parts of it).



Of course. So-called strict constitutional constructionism is an illusion. It reminds me of all the Christian biblicists (fundamentalists, Jehovah's Witnesses, pentecostals, etc.) who all claim to believe literally in the Bible but can't manage to agree among themselves.

Yes. Sometimes these "constitutionalists" seem to me as though they think the Constitution was handed down from God on Mt. Sinai rather than crafted by imperfect human beings, many of whom owned slaves and all of whom wrote the protection of slavery into the nation's founding document.

That's an interesting idea, although I haven't seen it in his speeches. I don't think that race won't affect anyone's vote, but it seems to be much less of a factor in this election than anytime in the past. Why do you think Obama is playing the race card?

Because of his website.

Even though his background is very different from that of most African Americans, he still tries to identify himself as closely as possible with them to ensure that he gets that segment of the vote. There have been a few snippets that I've heard in speeches he's made (not all while running for president, admittedly) that struck me as emphasizing his race as well, but I haven't kept close track of when or exactly what he said.

I only made a "thick skull" reference to emphasize your stubbornness in persisting on a well-refuted claim (namely the libelous accusation that Paul is a racist). Apologies if I was overly insulting. And I never called you a sheep. On to the real issues- Paul certainly has the consequences in mind when he talks about reducing the size of the government- the consequences are why he wants a smaller government. Look at what kind of results we get with federal government interference: has No Child Left behind improved the quality of our educational system? Has FEMA done an adequate job in handling major crises? Most people seem to agree that Medicare and Social Security are a real mess, what do you propose doing about it? Our government currently is far too large by almost any standard, and we have no way to pay for it. Why is it crazy to believe in the free market? How is it crazy to say that people should be able to make their own decisions, without government interference? If you're not harming anyone else, shouldn't you just be left alone to do as you please? Also, where do you get that Paul is anti-gay? Sounds like more uninformed nonsense to me. When asked if he would permit gay marriage, Paul said that he supported the right of the people to enter into any voluntarily made contract they pleased. I also do not see how he shows a lack of concern for the environment. He believes that the protection of private property rights will help foster better stewardship of the environment (which is a pretty valid point), and he has fought to stop federal programs which are damaging to the environment. Sometimes environmental regulations don't work as they are intended to- California has some of the strictest environmental regulations in the country, yet LA is one of the most polluted cities in the world.

Last edited by Orwell on 27 Jan 2008, 8:42 pm, edited 2 times in total.

That could only possibly work out for you if you manage to secure a dictatorship friendly to your views. The Constitution was put in place to limit government and prevent oppression (how successful it has been is a matter of debate). It provides a basis for our system of government and ensures a certain degree of stability- if the government could always do whatever it pleased without restraint, we would see wild swings in policy after each election and widespread chaos when one ideology keeps replacing another in the popular fancy. Some may have a different view of social justice than you, and if the party you support has a bad election year, I'm sure you would love the moderating effects of limited government power to protect you from whatever new policies another group might want to implement. And it is impossible to ignore only parts of it- once you decide that you can ignore, say, the Second Amendment, or the Fourth, you are saying that you can nullify any part of it at your discretion and thus you defeat the purpose of having any written constitution or law code. If you disagree with parts of it that's one thing- by all means, make any legal attempt to revise it. There are parts of the Constitution that I think could be improved upon- it was, as another poster pointed out, crafted by imperfect human beings, and so could most likely be improved. However, I think it's best to make such revision within the system provided for doing so, rather than simply ignoring the Constitution and thus negating the reason we have any of these laws in the first place.
I do not by any means believe the Constitution is perfect- but right now, it's the best we've got.

Supporting social justice over a particular human document is not the same as advocating dictatorship. There are many other possibilities, including writing a new constitution.



Relative to what?

Sorry if this is a bit pedantic, but libel refers to published materials. Anyway, the claim is "well-refuted" only if you choose to believe every word which comes out of Ron Paul's mouth, or those of his supporters. I don't. To me, the white supremacy material associated with him is an issue, one that can't just be wished away. How am I supposed to believe your word, or his, over something that was in fact published?



So clearly the solution is to eliminate FEMA, or the public school system? Maybe you and he think that's a good idea. But I think it's a recipe for disaster. Sorry, I just don't see the private sector on its own providing adequate relief in the case of natural or man-made disaster. There's a reason why people wanted to institute fire stations, the police department, and yes, FEMA in the first place.



I don't want to get into too many nitty-gritty details here, but it is my belief that Social Security is easily salvageable with relatively minor adjustments. Even Ronald Reagan realized that minor changes to the payroll tax (simply to keep up with inflation) do a lot to solve the problem. We don't need to redesign the wheel here, or throw out a system which has actually worked. As for healthcare, I'm an advocate of universal healthcare. It's worked in countless countries--most "civilized" countries, in fact. I doubt you can name of an example of a successful 100% free-market healthcare system.



Because the free market isn't some god that's automatically going to solve everyone's problems. Even your language indicates a problem to me---"believe in the free market"? That's not rationality, that's faith.



Because of the truism that power can't be destroyed. It only shifts hands. You may fear Big Government, but I can assure you that if Big Government ever disappears (not likely), that power is going to go somewhere. I see no reason to see why rule under Big Business is going to be any better--and lots of reasons why it may very well be worse.



Yes, I'm so uninformed that I take seriously the fact that newsletters with anti-gay content were sent under Paul's own name. How very unfair of me. I ought to have known that those letters were in fact written by some sort of invisible Bigotry Fairy.



Again, this kind of thinking fails to comprehend the reason why environmental regulations were instituted to begin with. Sure, there were some thoughtful individuals and corporations who voluntarily incorporated environmentalism into their business practices. They weren't the majority. The fact is, most people aren't going to forgo profit in favor of not polluting quite so much unless they're somehow required to. To me, this is just one of many problems with the "everyone in it for themselves" ideology of libertarianism. I don't see the CEOs of America as the best stewards of our natural resources.



I think you're confusing the cause and effect there. Did environmental regulations actually cause the pollution? That sounds specious. It's more likely that the pollution caused people to institute stricter environmental regulation. As a resident of LA county, I can tell you that the city has actually made some improvements over the past decade--it's still a problem, but it is better than it was and now Houston is the most polluted city in the country. I know that doesn't quite fit with your idea that "any regulation imposed by the government doesn't work."



I think there might be a slight difference between my criticizing the ideas of Paul (a presidential candidate who is not present) and your referring to my "thick skull." I said that I found his ideas crazy and was put off by his history of anti-gay and white supremacist comments. You all but called me stupid. I think there's a slight difference, don't you? I think you're taking this all way too personally, frankly. Not everyone here is going to embrace Paul and your/his ideas (I can't tell the difference). I wish you would refrain from telling me to look up verses in a part of the Bible which I don't adhere to, being Jewish. Clearly the two of us have very different ideas about politics and the world, but there's no need to act as though every differing opinion on the candidacy of Ron Paul is somehow ignorant or stupid or deserving of righteous indignation. I should note that you were the one who bombarded me with Paul propaganda simply because I stated my intentions to vote for Barrack Obama. (Why you thought that there was the slightest chance I might be receptive to your message, I have no idea.)

srriv345- Quite a bit to discuss there. I won't take up space by quoting your last post here, but I'll reply to a few of the issues you brought up. The newsletter you mentioned, though it was under Paul's name, was neither written nor edited by him at the time of those offensive comments, and the bigoted statements included don't match up well with what Paul has said throughout his political career. Considering that you and I both agree that Paul is very consistent, that would suggest that something's not quite right when Paul's newsletter publishes articles that don't match with what Paul has said his entire life. No one has ever been able to find a single example of Paul making any racist or bigoted statement, so they go to this newsletter, with which he was barely even involved for some time. I'll give you that Paul should have kept closer tabs on what was being published under his name, but Paul certainly is no racist. And in responding to my challenge against your anti-gay allegations, you ignored the evidence I gave you from Paul. He would NOT support a move to ban gay marriage, and he has stated that plainly. So how can you still insist that he is anti-gay? You seem to be grasping at straws there. The newsletter may have had Paul's name attached to it, but he was not writing for and editing a newsletter at the same time as he had an active clinical practice.

Next issue- I want smaller government, not no government. I have no problem with maintaining the public school system, but I think it's best left to individual states (which are more directly accountable to the people) to handle education. A federal one-size-fits-all program won't be as efficient as each state setting up its own schools. You give police departments and fire stations as examples of good government interference, and I agree. But those functions are normally handled at a local level because it is more efficient and simpler than a national scheme would be. The key is that America is huge. You say you live in California, which is large enough to easily be its own country. The whole of the US is simply too large to be able to govern efficiently from a central level if you're going to interfere in so many different things. A similar program to FEMA would be perfectly fine, but it won't work if it's one of a couple thousand different things the federal government is trying to organize and fund. Too much potential for a major screw-up like what happened with Katrina if we spread the federal resources too thin.

Health care is a tough issue to tackle. I certainly wouldn't want a pure free market in that sector, but I doubt we could make universal coverage work at a national level. Frankly, most people in our government are incompetent and have failed at what they've been doing. I don't trust them with something as important as health care- nor do I trust Big Business in that regard. Perhaps each state (or in some cases, such as New England, regional groups of states) could provide those services? California is very large, and heavily dominated by liberals. Why don't they establish universal coverage for their state? They could be an example for the rest of the country to emulate if their system works.

On Social Security I will have to disagree with you. In the early days, people took a lot more out of SS than they paid in. The high return they received was paid for by the tax contributions of younger citizens, who in turn relied on the next generation of taxpayers to provide their benefits. Mathematically, the system eventually has to stop paying positive returns and when that happens some people are really going to get it in the shorts. If it's not my parent's generation, it will be my generation. Since we already made promises to those who are currently retired/retiring, I would certainly hope to keep providing them with benefits for as long as possible, but with a gradual phase-out of the SS program. Perhaps once we have dealt with other issues and gotten our economy back on track, we can look at implementing a new retirement program that's a little better thought out.

You're right that power changes hands rather than disappears, but I don't want the power to go to Big Business. Power is less able to be abused if it is widely diffused among different people- the reason for three branches of government with all the checks and balances, bicameral legislature, separation of government responsibilities into state, local, and national levels. Also, Big Business benefits from big government. Most of our politicians have corporate ties. Like W and Cheney weren't looking out for their old buddies in the corporate world? I would certainly want to crack down on corporate abuse and decrease the influence big businesses have on government decisions.

For environmentalism, I wasn't claiming that regulations caused the pollution. I was merely pointing out that there was a significant level of pollution despite the regulations. No, not all regulation is inherently bad, and it can work, but I worry when I see new regulation being supported by people with ties to the industry in question. Big airlines have lobbied the government to INCREASE regulations in order to drive smaller competitors out of business. You have to be careful to look where the regulation is coming from- is it really intended to be helpful (as most probably is) or is there an ulterior motive, such as with the anti-competitive goals of the big airlines? A little regulation can be a good thing. I disagree with Paul's complete hands-off of everything, but I realize that even in a Paul presidency (which I will admit is extraordinarily unlikely) he wouldn't be able to effect that drastic of a change. He would move towards a smaller government, but would be restrained enough by the legislature that we wouldn't be in risk of a situation with too little government involvement.

My main objection to your criticism of Paul wasn't that you had a different opinion, but that you wouldn't give much reason for your opinion other than to write him off as crazy or to accuse him of racism or homophobia. I have no problem with anyone expressing their opinion, and there are certain places where you could definitely raise valid objections to Paul's proposed policies. As for Obama... I dislike many of his positions, but he's better than Hillary and certainly a vast improvement over Bush, so I won't complain if he wins. I initially brought up Paul simply as an example of a politician who I don't believe is self-serving when you said that all of them are. There were other possible examples, such as Kucinich. I only "bombarded you with Paul propaganda" when you made some pretty severe accusations against him. I don't have an issue with people voting for Obama, though in many cases I find some of his supporters to be hypocritical- they want to ignore the unpleasant parts of his record, such as support for the PATRIOT Act, which are verified and undisputed. Many politicians initially supported the Iraq war and later changed their minds- when this is the case I have no issue with that part of their record because they have publicly stated that those votes (and speeches in support of the war) are not what they believe. Also, Obama has made one too many promises he can not possibly keep, though hopefully if elected he'll be able to do some good. My main concern is that he'll become overzealous and try to take on too many issues at once, thereby spreading his resources too thin to make serious progress in any of them.

Finally, I apologize for any comments I've made which have offended you. We all know it gets a little heated on this part of the forum sometimes, but I should not have let it get out of hand. I will shortly be editing out the parts you have objected to.

Whose name was on that newsletter?

Had Hillary's Imaginary Bigot Fairies done that, (supposing that she, like Ron Paul, has them) why do I get the feeling you wouldn't cut her the same slack?

Ron Paul has publicly and repeatedly stated that he finds the comments published in that newsletter to be despicable. He has shown time and time again that he is not one to recant his views or to apologize for saying unpopular things. The fact that he has denounced these newsletters tells me they are probably not his. I mentioned in my last post- many who once supported the Iraq war, have now stated their opposition to it. I am wiling to accept that. Even if Paul ever DID approve of those articles (which he didn't) the fact that he has very clearly opposed such ideas very consistently for a long time following the whole newsletter scandal removes any doubt as to his beliefs on the subject. I'm not going to put any words in Hillary's mouth if I want to criticize her. You can try all you want to dig up mud on Paul, but the fact of the matter is you won't find it unless you make it up. Look up the numbers on how much money Hillary has taken from lobbyists, especially the drug companies. Then look up how much money Paul has taken from them. Look, Paul should have paid more attention to what was going out under his name. It was stupid and irresponsible of him to let others speak under his name for an extended period of time without even bothering to keep track of what they were saying. But he was never a racist. He just wasn't paying close enough attention to a newsletter that he started and then gradually lost involvement with. Find ONE thing actually said or written by Paul that even hints at racism in the slightest bit.

And you're right, I probably wouldn't give Hillary as much benefit of the doubt. That's not because of political preference, however, it's because she already has a track record of being willing to sell out her beliefs. She has already demonstrated to me that she is willing to say whatever is necessary to get elected, and so she has forfeited my trust. Obama I would still give the benefit of the doubt in such a situation, even though I don't like his politics. Gravel always struck me as honest (though his views scare me more than anyone else's) and I would cut him the same slack as I do Paul if such a controversy were to arise around him.

Orwell, thanks for further elucidating your viewpoints and I think I understand them better now. However, I must point out that it was you who brought up the subject of Ron Paul. My original post in this thread mentioned only two candidates by name, and they were Barrack Obama and Hillary Clinton. In response, you mentioned Ron Paul as a positive example. I then explained why I would never even consider voting for him, ever. Perhaps I was a bit flippant in my comments and should not have used certain words, such as the word "crazy", even though they were and still are an honest assessment of my views. I was just perturbed by your attempts to "convert" me to Paul even though I clearly stated a preference for a very different candidate. I am sorry if you were offended by my flippant language; I was just honestly stating my opinions.

After reading your latest post, I realize that we agree more than I had previously thought. Thank you for clarifying, and again, sorry if I overgeneralized. Thank you for letting me know that Paul is more supportive of gay rights than the other Republican candidates; however, I still find his history a cause for concern. If I were running for office in 20 years, someone might pull out this thread as evidence of my views. If I wanted to, I could claim never to have written the things I'm writing now. Wouldn't make it true, though. I understand that you feel differently, though, and I respect that.