Can we get real about Ron Paul?

reply to post by captainplanet


But I think you have to agree that for a person that is try to scream that the system is wrong is hypocritical of him to indulge himself in actions that he supposedly despise.

It looks phony IMO, he is part of the problem and he's supporter are not willing to ackowledge that, they rather embrace him as this iconic figure when in all reality he's not that different than any other politician that is competing against him.

reply to post by Bunch


You can argue it’s hypocritical if you want, I guess. But I disagree, I think he did his job first as a representative and second as a constitutionalist. He didn’t show bias by denying his district a voice based on his ideals. They asked for something and he passed it onto a vote, where he voted no. I’m perfectly fine with that.

We don’t acknowledge that he’s phony because no one has shown us why we should.

Bunch...you seem to be horribly misinformed....working off either bad, or incomplete information, and you also seem to be lacking in your understanding of how much of an effect the media can have, and what their role is in modern elections. Your english is also not good. Were you born here?

My first instinct is to say something derogatory, but i'll hold back on that, out of respect for this place. What i will say is go and read, and educate yourself, before speaking any further about Dr. Paul.

Double post

[edit on 30-12-2007 by Bunch]

reply to post by Daedalus


Frankly I can care less about what you think about my english, I don't need to answer you if I was born here either, none of those have anything to do with what is being discussed here.

On topic, I have my opinion, if you happen to disagree then do like the others respectable members here had done which is explain why they disagree.

Your attempt to denigrate me is way in line with what I have encounter from other Ron Paul supporters, not here in this thread, but overall, which says a lot about who really supports this Dr.

Edit to add:

At the end of the day your
vote count the same as mine, 1

BTW, I'm a Iraq War veteran with 2 tours under my belt, what have you done for your country of late?

[edit on 30-12-2007 by Bunch]

[edit on 30-12-2007 by Bunch]

reply to post by Bunch


you've got me all wrong, friend....i wasn't trying to denigrate you, i was simply trying to determine if you were an immigrant or not, because it seems like english isn't your first language, because of the spelling errors, and improper usage of certain words. I was simply curious.

as to opinions, there's opinions, then there's basing an entire argument on incomplete, or completely incorrect or inaccurate information. i'm simply trying to make you aware that you're going off bad info, and that you should actualy do some research before speaking out on something.

reply to post by Daedalus


Thanks for clarification, if you read my second post in this thread you could clearly see why I don't see myself voting for Paul.

I like to think of myself as a person that does his homework when it comes to analyze each candidate and where they stand on the issues and how they are as individuals, my disagreements with Dr. Paul come strictly on my assesment of were his stands on the issues as I explain in this thread, and all that info I have researched it from his own website, from the news and from the debates.

Maybe we just have to agree to disagree on this one.

Edit to add:

About your point about inmigrants, are you implying that inmigrants don't have a word in this country politics? Because that would basically DQ 100% of the population.



[edit on 30-12-2007 by Bunch]

Originally posted by Bunch
reply to post by Daedalus

 

Edit to add:

About your point about inmigrants, are you implying that inmigrants don't have a word in this country politics? Because that would basically DQ 100% of the population.

i'm not sure how you arrived at this conclusion.....that's not at all what i said. All i said was that it seems like english isn't your first language.

But since you asked...Legal immigrants, yes...they should have a say, because they're citizens. Illegal immigrants should have no say, whatsoever because they violated our boarders, and are harming this country. Simply put, they do not belong here.


Anyway, as to your other point....you said you did your homework, but your posts say otherwise. you seem to have either misunderstood what you read, or completely ignored large portions of it.

Take this as an example....you spoke before about taxes.....

Dr. Paul seeks to eliminate the federal income tax....you wonder how he's going to do this without damaging the system. He seeks to change the system. By eliminating wasteful government agencies, shrinking down the size of the federal government, and doing away with the "federal" reserve. If the federal government is smaller, then you don't need as much money to operate it. It would be like if i have 6 employees, and i only need 3..if i fire 3 of them, i'm saving money, AND i can give the remaining 3 a little bit of a raise....the end result is that i've got more money, they've got more money, and we're ALL happier, and better off.

That's part of what he wants to do....By eliminating the ridiculous federal income tax, we get to keep ALL of the money we go to work to earn(minus, of course, any state taxes, and social security, however, i think he wants to restructure that as well), so we've got more money, and we're more likely to spend that money at the marketplace, thereby stimulating the economy.

you also talked about education....yes, of course there would be federal guidelines that would need to be followed...but actually running the educational systems would be handled on the state level. He's looking for as little federal involvement as possible.

I agree with the tax thing, because i'm sick of busting my ass nearly every day, only to find out on payday, they've scalped a bunch of money off my paycheck, so they can continue to send soldiers off to iraq to die, and continue to give the frackin' mexicans free everything, when i gotta work my ass off for everything. i didn't agree to pay for this crap, and i shouldn't have to.

I agree with the shrinking of the government, because they've gotten too big, too powerful, and they have far too much control, and influence over the average citizen's life.

I agree with getting rid of the "federal" reserve system, because privately owned banks should first of all not be carrying the title "federal", when they are in fact nothing of the sort, and a private entity should not be responsible for managing this country's monetary system.

I agree with pretty much everything the man stands for, because it means freedom and prosperity...something the other crooks applying for the job won't even try to give us, which is why i'll be voting for him even if i hafta write him in.


Anyway, there were a bunch of other things you talked about that were misunderstood, i think.....if you wanna repost them, i'd be more than happy to clarify, if i can.

reply to post by Daedalus


Thanks for a very informative response, I think you have done more to explain to me how the man is going to make all his ideas work than the man himself.

Either way is a hard task what he is proposing and like I have said before I agree that this country needs fixing, and there is a lot of useless junk programs and agencies that could be slash. I just disagree with how he propose to go about it.

Also I'm worried about what he's foreign policy goals, sounds like he wants to isolate the US, in matters of national security which I think is a mistake, I don't think that by leaving the middle east the extremist would leave us alone, you can correct me if I'm wrong.

reply to post by Daedalus

It would be like if i have 6 employees, and i only need 3..if i fire 3 of them, i'm saving money, AND i can give the remaining 3 a little bit of a raise....the end result is that i've got more money, they've got more money, and we're ALL happier, and better off.

Except for the three people you fired who are now unemployed.

I find it rather worrying that the typical response to increasing dissatisfaction with the ruling party and slowly growing problems like unemployent, bad health care, bad education programs etc. is to propose more and more radical ideas.
They get people's attention, yes, but give me one example where those ideas were actually realized within one or two terms of office.
The problem seems to be that both major parties are too afraid of constant shifts of balance and too occupied denouncing each other to implement long-tern strategies.

Then again, I don't live in America.

I don't even know why I care.

I've been active in most RP threads and am an avowed RP supporter. I see the same arguments against him almost every time. The most common is his 'radical' positions to abolish or restructure certin Federal agencies (most notably the IRS, Dept of Education and CIA). All three os these agencies have been dysfunctional for years. Even some of their own heads admit as much (see: FDA and FAA).

People panic when the status quo is challenged. They say they want change but they want changes that don't change anything. Dr. Paul's position is simply that government spending far exceeds tax revenue and it cannot be sustained. Period. Most of the other candidates are talking tax cuts and sustaining the wars. How? The same way GWB has done it. Give some 'feel-good' tax cuts to appease the masses and then borrow billions a month from foreign governments to finance our economy. Are you kidding? And you would vote for ANYONE who supported this kind of economic management?

The fact is, Dr. Paul is trying to give this country a long-overdue whack upside the head. The economy is being mismanaged. It has to stop. We cannot continue spending trillions a year on our foreign adventures while our economy and infrastructure crumble. We simply cannot afford it.

Federal spending has got to be slashed immediately and a good portion of that has got to come from foreign expenditures (military and otherwise). By reducing federal spending the income tax can be eliminated thereby pumping a significant amount of spending power back into the economy. Look into the history of the income tax and you'll quickly see that it hasn't been around all that long.

Here in Massachusetts they built the Mass Turnpike starting in the 1950's. 'They' said they'd collect tolls just long enough to cover the cost of construction. The actual cost was covered years ago. But we still have tolls and they just went up again. Now to cover the $12B cost over-runs of the Big Dig (thanks Mitt. Good job dude). The income tax was supposed to finance the war. The first one.

Before you write-off Ron Paul I suggest you look into why he proposes what he does. They're not, as has been suggested, 'feel-good' positions. Ron Paul addresses the elephant in the living room that all the rest of the candidates simply want to ignore. Deficit? What deficit??

reply to post by Bunch


You should watch interviews he's done...they're all over youtube. He explains what he wants to do, and how he wants to do it. I wouldn't be backing the man if he didn't make sense.

In response to the point about the middle east....this goes hand in hand with his foreign policy strategy....He's said this in one of the republican debates. The extremists from the middle east are only attacking us, because we've been attacking them. It's not because they hate our freedom, or are jealous of our way of life. It's because we're rich, arrogant (and for the most part) stupid people...we're a very decadent, lazy civilization, and the people in charge here like to throw around their weight, as if we own the whole goddamn planet. We take what we want, attack who we want, do what we want. I think china is the only country on earth that wastes more than we do.

We've been bombing middle eastern countries for years....meddling in middle eastern affairs for decades...put quite simply: they hate us because we're over there, playing in their sandbox.

We violated their boarders, meddled in their affairs, landed military forces on their soil, and have, and still are, exploding munitions in their town's cities, and neighborhoods....as they see it, they're defending against a foreign invader, just as we would be doing, if we were in their position. This is really not that difficult of a concept to process, and i really don't get why so many people have such a problem with it.

By pulling out of the middle east, and having as little involvement with the affairs of other sovereign countries, not only can we perhaps recover some measure of dignity, but it will also give us the ability to focus our efforts internally....protecting, and helping our own country, and our own people, instead of worrying more about foreign nationals, than about american citizens.

reply to post by Daedalus


Thats a lot of wishful thinking IMO, this kind of wishful thinking is the one that has been proven wrong on other situation.

Like Dick Cheney saying that the insurgency was in their last throes, like Rumsfeld saying that we were going to be receive in Iraq with open arms, like Clinton believing that OBL was not able to mount an attack on US soil, like Bush saying that his tax cuts and FTA'S were good for the economy.

Much of Ron Paul platform in regards to economic and foreign policy rest on the wishful thinking that his actions are going to cause an absolute positive reaction, underestimating the problems that these action can create if they do not create the action the he hopes it will.



[edit on 2-1-2008 by Bunch]

reply to post by captainplanet


As I said, it's not the asking for earmarks that's the problem. It's what a congressman is supposed to do for his district, after all. The problem is his presidential platform, which decries doing this, which decries corporate welfare - while he himself engaged in the practice by giving federal money to corporations just for the asking.

The point of the thread is "Getting real on Ron Paul" and the reality is that his votes conflict with his platform, his previous statements conflict with his current statements, and he has absolutely no power to enact his "Paulicies" if elected, unless he suspends the constitution that he's only partially read..

reply to post by The Walking Fox

The point of the thread is "Getting real on Ron Paul" and the reality is that his votes conflict with his platform,

Reality...

His votes are perfectly on par, he voted against the earmarks, other people voted them in. Not many people challenge his voting record, it's pretty perfect.

his previous statements conflict with his current statements,

Reality...

He's been right for years, he didn't just come up with this stuff.



I guarantee you he has less flip-flops then anyone else running.

and he has absolutely no power to enact his "Paulicies" if elected, unless he suspends the constitution that he's only partially read..

Reality...

He has just as good a chance of making good decisions as president as anyone else, the rest is up for grabs like anyone else. He wont be suspending what's left of the constitution which he has voted in line with his entire career, but he will be doing everything in his power to restore it.

I have to say, I was just about to make a similar thread about this topic.

Been reading the papers today, and we Europeans look at Ron Paul and are very confused. Firstly, his policies are, quite frankly, ludicrous. The idea of American isolationism could work in the 21st Century is wishful thinking.

Secondly, as I read in The Independent today, Paul wants to abolish health care, social security, the minimum and return America to the size it was in the 18th Century . Removal and rejection of American influence in the UN and other international organisations are a list of absurd arcane liberty thinking Ron wants to achieve as President.

Please tell me dear members of ATS you wouldn't vote for a politician on that platform?

reply to post by infinite


With all due respect, infinite, you have not studied Dr. Paul's positions well at all. Yes, he wants to reduce the size of federal government significantly --- as well he should. The United States has been operating on a massive deficit for a long time and it is bankrupting us.

He DOES NOT want to do away with healthcare. The man is a physician for God's sake. He wants the Federal government out of healthcare. They have proven they are incapable of doing it. The massive beauracray makes it too expensive and ridiculously inefficient.

He IS NOT promoting isolationism. He wants the US out of other country's business. He wants us to stop meddling in other's affairs. Is there truly anyone in the world that doesn't want this? Additionally, he wants to end international military adventurism thereby significantly reducing our multi-trillion-dollar foreign expenditures.

What he IS promoting is a return to the government as proscribed in our Constitution. Returning rightful authority and responsibility to the States and reestablishing civil liberties and the rule of law. Our country has gotten seriously off-track because of ruthless and powerful people who have subverted our government. And as a result of an anesthetized populace. Dr. Paul is simply trying to get us back on-track.

There are a lot of folks invested in the status quo that fear what Dr. Paul stands for. They have launched a relentless misinformation campaign to make his policies appear 'crazy'. The media (a wholly owned subsidiary of the military industrial/big business cabal that is behind our current plight) play right into this. Dr. Paul has been marginalized, excluded and ignored by the media here in the US throughout the campaign.

Research him.

reply to post by infinite


Actually I'm confident the great majority of us would, and those living in the US -- will. It seems as though you're fine with the status quo. Unfortunately for you, most are not happy. Most can see the real danger in leaving things be, and fortunately for the US, they aren't so pessimistic about Ron Paul being President as you are.

[edit on 3/1/08 by Navieko]

Originally posted by jtma508
He IS NOT promoting isolationism. He wants the US out of other country's business. He wants us to stop meddling in other's affairs.

The guy thinks the US should stay at home and shut up shop.

Lets take immigration, if you are born in the United States, you won't get automatic citizenship if your parents were illegal residents if you get President Paul. So, he wants to alter your constitution and international law by denying you a birth right to citizenship of the nation you are born in? That's a huge violation of human rights.

A remember a friend of mine in New York informed me Ron Paul has even criticised the Civil Rights Act (no wonder he received donations from White supremacists)

There are MUCH better candidates running for the tickets than Paul

reply to post by infinite


The Constitution does not confer automatic citizenship for someone born in the US of non-citizens. It's not Dr. Paul's opinion, it's what the Constituation says. Look it up.

As for shutting-up shop. That's BS. He proposes trade with everyone; cooperation with everyone; entangling alliances and meddling with no one. That is NOT isolationism.

The whole racism/white supremacy thing is sheer BS. The NYT had to print a retraction of an article they published to that effect when they found the quotes attributed to Dr. Paul were bogus. You're drinking the KoolAide the MSM is serving. Research him yourself. Don't take things second hand. They're doing evrything they can to discredit Dr. Paul. If you read what he publishes, what he has said and then decide he's not your cup-of-tea then fine. But to regurgitate stuff you've heard from people as fact is irresponsible and unfair.