Ron Paul's Candidacy - Should You Vote For Him?

[turbo]

If Paul has enough money to stay in it (think Cato/Koch brothers, etc) he will end up being a spoiler that will squander a GOP majority in the House. The "coattail" idea is simplistic, but the truth is that if your party is not enthused about the people at the top of the ticket, they might not flock to the polls, losing votes for your party-mates down-ticket.

 

[mheslep]

If Paul has enough money to stay in it (think Cato/Koch brothers, etc) ...

Please show where Paul gets a significant share of his money from Cato/Koch, if any.

 

[mheslep]

I get the impression that Paul thinks the needy can be taken care of by religious and secular charitable organizations, and state and local governments. But, afaik, history doesn't support that position. ...

Have you spent any time investigating the history?

 

[turbo]

Please show where Paul gets a significant share of his money from Cato/Koch, if any.

Thanks to Citizens United, that cannot be done, and I think you know it. He's the closest thing to a Libertarian that they have, so where do you think they will spend their money or steer their donors? Our elections are now dirtier and less-transparent than ever, and will continue to subvert the will of the citizens until CU is overturned.

 

[mheslep]

People have paid fortunes in Social Security and Medicare taxes, they are then entitiled to receive money back when they can no longer work.

Yep, but they are not entitled to receive several times what they paid in.

 

[mheslep]

Thanks to Citizens United, that cannot be done, and I think you know it.

CU has nothing to do with notification. I think you should retract what you invented and stated as fact.

Our elections are now dirtier and less-transparent than ever, and will continue to subvert the will of the citizens until CU is overturned.

What do you care, with Obama's billion dollar campaign fund and not a word about it? Not a word about his blowing to pieces his public financing pledge in 2008.

 

[turbo]

Yep, but they are not entitled to receive several times what they paid in.

Have you heard of compound interest and inflation? I started paying into SS in the early 60's. If I could only get dollar-for-dollar benefits without interest and inflation being considered, I'd be pretty ticked. That's not what I paid in for.

 

[turbo]

CU has nothing to do with notification. I think you should retract what you invented and stated as fact.

The fact is that CU allows corporate entities to make unlimited ad-buys without ever having to disclose the identities of the donors. I won't retract fact. And please stop calling me a liar.

 

[mheslep]

Have you heard of compound interest and inflation? I started paying into SS in the early 60's. If I could only get dollar-for-dollar benefits without interest and inflation being considered, I'd be pretty ticked. That's not what I paid in for.

I'm referring mainly to Medicare, the 3:1 to 5:1 payout has been discussed in other threads.
http://www.urban.org/uploadedPDF/310667_Straight36.pdf Figure 2.

 

[mheslep]

The fact is that CU allows corporate entities to make unlimited ad-buys without ever having to disclose the identities of the donors. I won't retract fact. And please stop calling me a liar.

You stated:

If Paul has enough money to stay in it (think Cato/Koch brothers, etc) ...

without caveat or an IMO. I'm not interested in tangents about CU. Its very simple. You either i) know Cato/Koch fund Paul via a source, or ii) have an opinion that they do and stated it here as fact. Which?

 

[Jimmy Snyder]

Have you heard of compound interest and inflation? I started paying into SS in the early 60's. If I could only get dollar-for-dollar benefits without interest and inflation being considered, I'd be pretty ticked. That's not what I paid in for.

Private pensions pay interest, but they do not pay for inflation. Yet people buy them without getting ticked at them.

 

[ginru]

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/...es-fierce-battle-conservatives-065415792.html

Wow it's almost like Daily Show deja vu. #1 and #2 pictured prominently while #4 and #5 get video spots. Well, at least Ron Paul got a few lukewarm sentences and a link to a silly article about a twitter joke down at the bottom.

BTW, here's a Q&A article on him. http://news.yahoo.com/q-ron-paul-iowas-third-place-finisher-081000162.html

In it, Paul says:

"I'm super-confident in the message. Of course, I know my own shortcomings in the way I deliver messages, but I think it's the message that makes America great.
What do you mean by shortcomings?
I never use notes. I'm spontaneous and I'm more effective that way. And sometimes they'll say, 'Well, he sort of jumps around.' And I say, well I should jump around. But I survive it all. The message always come through. Today we talked to the high school kids, and it's the same message when I talk to the retired people."

-----------------------------------------------------------
I like that he's honest about what I see as a key weakness. He doesn't deliver the message well enough in playing the campaign game. Romney comes off as polished, well-groomed and well-coached with what I'd assume is a top-notch staff. Paul comes off as a jumpy loon in comparison (though more genuine as well). Perhaps he just needs the right consultant or adviser to give him that needed balance of polished electability with his honest conviction. It seems like much of politics is down to packaged marketing.

 

[Char. Limit]

You stated:
without caveat or an IMO. I'm not interested in tangents about CU. Its very simple. You either i) know Cato/Koch fund Paul via a source, or ii) have an opinion that they do and stated it here as fact. Which?

I don't see how that's fact. If I stated something like this:

If mheslep has enough support to stay in it (think Evo, Micromass, etc.)

That's not stating that you are receiving support from those two users. That simply says "think about people like that". Of course, in this case, I just pulled random names out of my "last people remembered" list.

 

[turbo]

Private pensions pay interest, but they do not pay for inflation. Yet people buy them without getting ticked at them.

Private pension-plans EARN interest, if they are invested properly. Determined-benefit plans (my wife and I each have one from previous employers) have to buy financial instruments. Such pensions are designed to provide adequate benefits to the beneficiaries (yes, even with projected inflation rolled in) but they are not designed to deal with criminal behavior on the part of the banks issuing the "investments" that are supposed to keep the funds healthy.

 

[Tosh5457]

Yes Ron Paul has many radical ideas which I don't agree with, but it's funny how people think that the other candidates are more moderate. Continuing with the same foreign policy and with the gigantic military spending, for example, in my opinion is a radical idea, and the other republican candidates support this.

The policies on drugs are also ridiculous, and they mean a lot of unnecessary government spending.

And the debt is just monstrous, any serious candidate should now be talking on how to reduce the debt.

Ron Paul addresses these problems, and the other candidates just don't seem to care. Yes he has many radical ideas, but don't forget that a president can't pass anything he wants, so I think he'd do more good than bad as a president (unlike the others, who will definitely do more bad than good).

What I don't get is why so many people say Ron Paul isn't a real candidate, and that he never will the elections so the media shouldn't mention him. First of all that isn't democratic at all, every candidate should be respected independent on how he's running and his ideas. And second, then why does the media pay attention to Bachman and Gingrich? Ron Paul has more chances than them, so why doesn't the media pay more attention to Ron Paul than them? Hypocrisy at its finest...

 

[mheslep]

Paul humor.

http://global.nationalreview.com/images/cartoon_010212_A.jpg

 

[Evo]

Paul humor.

http://global.nationalreview.com/images/cartoon_010212_A.jpg

LOl.

 

[ThomasT]

... What I don't get is why so many people say Ron Paul isn't a real candidate ...

I think it's at least partly (mostly?) because that's the image that the mainstream corporate media is promulgating. Just imagine the problems that a Ron Paul with the power of the presidency might cause for the status quo.

This is not to say that I would vote for Ron Paul. I wouldn't. But I don't think he's the least desirable GOP candidate (in GOP field wrt which, imho, all candidates are undesirable for one reason or another).

 

[Evo]

I think it's at least partly (mostly?) because that's the image that the mainstream corporate media is promulgating. Just imagine the problems that a Ron Paul with the power of the presidency might cause for the status quo.

This is not to say that I would vote for Ron Paul. I wouldn't. But I don't think he's the least desirable GOP candidate (in GOP field wrt which, imho, all candidates are undesirable for one reason or another).

Only Santorum is scarier. IMO. But, yeah, even the republicans don't like the line up, 58% polled don't want any of them.

 

[turbo]

I don't know a single Republican who has a "favorite" out of that batch of lukewarm dishwater. It's pretty sad. This country has a pretend "two-party" system in which the top officials in both parties are beholden to the wealthy/big businesses. The GOP has tossed in the towel for 2012, IMO. Not a good thing.

 

[ThomasT]

Only Santorum is scarier. IMO.

I agree that Santorum is worse. And so, apparently, do most Americans ... at least for the time being.

And, while not particularly desirable, imo, a Ron Paul presidency would at least be interesting. Whereas a, say, Mitt Romney presidency would be pretty boring, ie., just more of the same business as usual, imho.

 

[ThomasT]

I don't know a single Republican who has a "favorite" out of that batch of lukewarm dishwater. It's pretty sad. This country has a pretend "two-party" system in which the top officials in both parties are beholden to the wealthy/big businesses. The GOP has tossed in the towel for 2012, IMO. Not a good thing.

I basically agree with this assessment. It's "a good thing" only in the sense that Obama has established, imo, that he's not going to do any great harm ... but then he isn't really advocating, or making happen, changes that I think would significantly improve the lives of average Americans. (Of course, it can be argued that that's mostly due to the intransigence of the GOP dominated congress, which is a topic for another thread.)

 

[Evo]

The thing is that Ron Paul's isolationist ideas (not to mention just being plain idiotic) would cause so much hatred against the US, if any of his crazy ideas were to be implemented, it would be global suicide. Of course, it's because people that understand international politics realize this that he will never be taken seriously.

IMO.

 

[ThomasT]

The thing is that Ron Paul's isolationist ideas (not to mention just being plain idiotic) would cause so much hatred against the US, if any of his crazy ideas were to be implemented, it would be global suicide.

Well, that's an empirical question that can only be definitively answered if America was to implement Paul's isolationist ideas.

Of course, it's because people that understand international politics realize this that he will never be taken seriously.IMO.

But it could be argued that the people who are in positions to do anything about international politics are tools of the status quo. So, it's wrt that consideration that I would consider a Ron Paul presidency to be ... interesting.

 

[Tosh5457]

The thing is that Ron Paul's isolationist ideas (not to mention just being plain idiotic) would cause so much hatred against the US, if any of his crazy ideas were to be implemented, it would be global suicide. Of course, it's because people that understand international politics realize this that he will never be taken seriously.

IMO.

Yes, because USA's current foreign policy definitely doesn't cause hatred against the US. And the terrorists hate USA because they hate freedom, right? It's not because USA has been on the Middle East doing damage and building bases for a long time, and helping Israel?

The other republican candidates will just keep the same foreign policy going, and I don't see how that could be better than what Ron Paul says.

 

[MarcoD]

Yes, because USA's current foreign policy definitely doesn't cause hatred against the US. And the terrorists hate USA because they hate freedom, right? It's not because USA has been on the Middle East doing damage and building bases for a long time, and helping Israel?

Life is never that simple. For all we know, Europe could have been fascist or communist by now, Saddam could have taken over the Middle East and slaughtered half of it, and Israel might have gone down the drains decades ago.

I am not very happy with these wars either, but there are two sides to this coin.

 

[Tosh5457]

Life is never that simple. For all we know, Europe could have been fascist or communist by now, Saddam could have taken over the Middle East and slaughtered half of it, and Israel might have gone down the drains decades ago.

I am not very happy with these wars either, but there are two sides to this coin.

The reasons for USA going to war against Iraq weren't that noble, to prevent Saddam from taking over the Middle East. The fact that US could have or could have not prevent an eventual bigger evil isn't a reason to support a war, especially when there are darker reasons behind that war.

And you can't compare WWII to this... The Axis posed a threat to the Allies back then, and now do you really think Iraq poses a threat to USA? Not even to Israel, with the support they've been getting from US. But on the Israel issue, USA-Israel alliance is one-sided: USA has always helped Israel, but what has Israel done for US? That's not even an alliance, that's just a country that doesn't need aid receiving aid from another country. If it wasn't for the strong political power Israel has on Washington, they'd get nothing. If the corrupt politicians weren't influenced by the pro-Israel lobbies, they'd end the alliance with Israel and let Israel govern for itself.

 

[MarcoD]

The reasons for USA going to war against Iraq weren't that noble, to prevent Saddam from taking over the Middle East. The fact that US could have or could have not prevent an eventual bigger evil isn't a reason to support a war, especially when there are darker reasons behind that war.

And you can't compare WWII to this... The Axis posed a threat to the Allies back then, and now do you really think Iraq poses a threat to USA? Not even to Israel, with the support they've been getting from US. But on the Israel issue, USA-Israel alliance is one-sided: USA has always helped Israel, but what has Israel done for US? That's not even an alliance, that's just a country that doesn't need aid receiving aid from another country. If it wasn't for the strong political power Israel has on Washington, they'd get nothing. If the corrupt politicians weren't influenced by the pro-Israel lobbies, they'd end the alliance with Israel and let Israel govern for itself.

Man, motives are irrelevant. The end result of the Iraq war should have been, in human terms: "-1 massmurdering idiot intent on invading other countries." The end result is now obscured with the equation: "-100K Iraqis dead." So you can see what went wrong, in humane terms, in that war, the rest is irrelevant, and you can see all mistakes from there. Roughly, nobody cares about whether the guy was murdering people with WMDs or kitchen knifes -so the UN presentation was a cock-up,- everybody (now) cares about oil, or other, motives -which could have been avoided with some clear statements,- nobody knows whether US got out of Iraq too early, too late, or just in time, since the "-100K Iraqis" is an awful statistic.

The oil motives, the geographical motives, Israel, the strategic alliance motives, nobody really cares about it long term. The only thing people most people in the world will care about is the humane equation and why that conflict ended with that equation which will spring all mentioned other 'inhumane' motives. And it is all irrelevant, since the only thing which matters is the humane equation.

(Btw, the above is not meant as a critique on the US.)

 

[mheslep]

do you really think Iraq poses a threat to USA?

Who would have thought 20 guys in some commercial airplanes would have posed a threat to the US?

 

[turbo]

I am not very happy with these wars either, but there are two sides to this coin.

The nuts that promoted these wars are very fond of presenting false dichotomies. There is no international/foreign relations issue that has "two sides", and it's high time that somebody in the press mans up and explains that - loudly and over and over again. Politicians are professional liars, and if they can get enough of the public to get behind them, they can do tremendous damage with such simplistic claims.

 

[Tosh5457]

Man, motives are irrelevant. The end result of the Iraq war should have been, in human terms: "-1 massmurdering idiot intent on invading other countries." The end result is now obscured with the equation: "-100K Iraqis dead." So you can see what went wrong, in humane terms, in that war, the rest is irrelevant, and you can see all mistakes from there. Roughly, nobody cares about whether the guy was murdering people with WMDs or kitchen knifes -so the UN presentation was a cock-up,- everybody (now) cares about oil, or other, motives -which could have been avoided with some clear statements,- nobody knows whether US got out of Iraq too early, too late, or just in time, since the "-100K Iraqis" is an awful statistic.

The oil motives, the geographical motives, Israel, the strategic alliance motives, nobody really cares about it long term. The only thing people most people in the world will care about is the humane equation and why that conflict ended with that equation which will spring all mentioned other 'inhumane' motives. And it is all irrelevant, since the only thing which matters is the humane equation.

(Btw, the above is not meant as a critique on the US.)

Ok, you can argue that motives don't count, only the results do. But my initial point was that USA's foreign policy has been causing Middle East to hate them. It's fine that they went after Al-Qaeda, and that they caught Saddam, but why are they still in the Middle East in 2012? Even before the Golf War, USA was already making enemies in the Middle East, and decades later they're still there...

Who would have thought 20 guys in some commercial airplanes would have posed a threat to the US?

So just to make sure they don't get attacked again, US should stay on the Middle East forever?

USA's foreign policy is completely nuts. The military spending is monstrous, especially when US has so much debt. The question is not if US should cut on military spending or not, the question is how much they should cut. And to make those cuts the mentality about foreign policy has to change... USA are in NATO, they're allies with Europe... They don't need a fraction of the military they currently have.

 

[ThomasT]

Yes, because USA's current foreign policy definitely doesn't cause hatred against the US. And the terrorists hate USA because they hate freedom, right? It's not because USA has been on the Middle East doing damage and building bases for a long time, and helping Israel?

The other republican candidates will just keep the same foreign policy going, and I don't see how that could be better than what Ron Paul says.

Your sarcasm is noted and well taken, imo. But, imo, the best foreign policy will be something between Bush-Cheney and Ron Paul. Not that Paul's strict isolationist ideas would necessarily be implemented if he were to be elected, but the prospect of it is enough for me to not vote for him. No country can afford to be isolationist, except maybe Monaco as long as they keep the dice rolling.

 

[mathwonk]

does sarah palin have much chance to win the fields medal?

 

[chiro]

does sarah palin have much chance to win the fields medal?

You should have read her paper on "The topological implications of The bridge To Nowhere". If that doesn't win her a Fields medal, then I don't know what will.

 

[ThomasT]

Is my failure to understand the relevance of the last two posts to a "Ron Paul's candidacy" thread perhaps one reason why I will, presumably, never win a Fields Medal? Not that they weren't humorous.