I feel the same way. In fact, I'm sure most of Ron Paul's supports feel the same way. I find his foreign policy views deplorable and offensive.
You know what? I will still be voting for him.
I'm tired. I'm so tired of the lying. Gingrich, Romney, Obama, Bush, etc. will say anything to get elected. Once elected, they all behave the same way.
I'd rather have an honest man I disagree with in the White House, than a man who says one thing, but does another.
I think his foreign policy is one of his strongest policies for which he gets a lot of support. What's funny is that Bush got elected in 2000 for having almost exactly the same foreign policy that Ron Paul has now:
He's either lying now about the newsletters or he was lying then and in 1996 and profited from those lies.
I don't understand why people think he's an honest straight-shooter, any more than I understood that meme when it was applied to McCain. He's a politician playing a roll, that's all. He's not even a libertarian: he's perfectly fine with States grossly abridging freedom, just not the federal government. It's the same Southern conservatism that has been prominent since they lost the Civil War. Paul was smart enough to realize that you could sell this to a broader audience if you wrapped it in libertarianism is all.
You have to understand that he hasn't shifted his positions in 30 or so years, except on DADT and the death penalty. So to say he isn't a straight-shooter is absurd.
As for the newsletters, they dealt with economics primarily. Could he have done a better job of overseeing the newsletters? Sure. But they were released over the span of a decade or more and as a whole contained only a few articles with questionable content. I mean, is someone making noise about Gingrich's or Romney's questionable ethics and corruption? Is someone asking why Romney's people bought all the HDD's from Mass. state computers before leaving office? Is someone calling other GOP candidates racist for supporting racial profiling and the drug war? Of course not. But a 20-year old ghostwritten dead horse has been re-re-exhumed and is being paraded on every network "news" show. Am I the only one who sees something wrong with this picture?
> He's not even a libertarian: he's perfectly fine with States grossly abridging freedom, just not the federal government.
Exactly this. He's not a libertarian, he's a states rights guy because he wants the power to do things like ban abortion in Texas. I think he has a very regressive political philosophy, that would empower local governments to discriminate against minorities, women, the disenfranchised, etc. People talk about how he wants to legalize drugs, but he would be perfectly fine with state governments creating even more draconian drug laws.
>he's a states rights guy because he wants the power to do things like ban abortion in Texas.
No, he's a states rights guy because he's a states rights guy, and he holds to that position even when states pass laws he disagrees with.
Look, the two most decentralized first-world countries that I can think of are Canada and Switzerland. These are not draconian racist hellholes; they're considered some of the freest countries in the world.
This is a guy who thinks abortion is the most evil thing in the world and still opposes federal laws banning abortion because he thinks it's a state issue. I disagree with him about abortion, but the fact remains: he's not some scheming ne'er-do-well who wants to bring back Jim Crow laws, he's a consistent, ideological antifederalist who thinks decentralization is the way to go.
In the majority of recent, real-world instances, local laws have tended to be more liberal than federal laws. We've seen this with gay marriage, we've seen it with medical marijuana, and we've seen it with election reform (see also Calif. Prop. 14); we may very well soon see it with recreational marijuana.
In the majority of recent, real-world instances, local laws have tended to be more liberal than federal laws.
This is an excellent point. It's also far more expensive for lobbying groups to try to influence politicians state by state. Powerful Federal officials represent a one stop shop for buying influence, so decreasing Federal power will reduce corruption.
> Look, the two most decentralized first-world countries that I can think of are Canada and Switzerland. These are not draconian racist hellholes
But the South was. You're ignoring the evidence of history. Canada and Switzerland are simply much less diverse, and it's pretty naive to think that racists in Mississippi and Alabama, who never went away, wouldn't seize on the chance to reinstitute something resembling Jim Crow laws.
Edit: > No, he's a states rights guy because he's a states rights guy
The first rule of tautology club is the first rule of tautology club. He's a states rights guy because he's a Christian fundamentalist who wants the power to enforce his provincial values on others, and the federal government gets in the way of that.
>Canada and Switzerland are simply much less diverse
Switzerland has four official languages. It's also right next to Germany, which has a history of racism that would scare a Mississippian. Canada, too, has plenty of diversity; 16.2% of people belong to a visible minority:
>The first rule of tautology club is the first rule of tautology club.
It's not a tautology. I was saying that his anti-federalism is de novo, i.e., without ulterior motives, which has been supported by every single thing he has ever said.
>He's a states rights guy because he's a Christian fundamentalist who wants the power to enforce his provincial values on others, and the federal government gets in the way of that.
There is absolutely no evidence whatsoever to support this belief and I've provided substantial evidence against it in the above post.
The beginning of the "states right" movement in the 60s (1860s or 1960s, take your choice), was primarily motivated by race. Cletus was not an austrian economist.
I think the post you're replying to is going a little too far but there absolutely is a connection between states' rights and racial issues. That's why the stuff in the newsletter is resonating. Those who are in favor of states' rights on other issues (as I am to an extent) would be well-served to recognize this connection.
Any centrally controlled system will edge one way or another compared to decentralized units. If you take one example (a specific race issue) and generalize, then you'll conclude (as you seem to have done) that centralized control is superior.
The benefits of a large shift in power toward the states are too numerous to list, but to name a few:
- Look at the issues discussed in national political campaigns. They are unduly biased by the issues relevant to swing states, and candidate promises (and laws) end up exerting federal control over swing state issues simply to help candidates win Federal office.
- Voter empowerment. The washington establishment is so big and unwieldy that it takes lots of money to get one's voice heard. With increased power at the state and local level, individuals could more easily focus their activism efforts in ways that would create the biggest benefit.
- The biggest issue is experimentation. With 50 different "experiments" in democracy (state laws) there is hope of actually realizing that a law is bad. Our current system picks a single winning approach before any has been tried and then loyal partisans stick to it and ignore all evidence. How much better would it be to observe how 50 different entities solve similar problems. Like any optimization problem, this might at times be a less efficient approach, but it'd do far better at global optimization.
You're missing the point - I'm making a historical point.
I'm generally of the opinion that more states' rights is generally better as long as it doesn't create a game-theory zero-sum clusterfuck of misaligned incentives, like taxes for crossing state borders or something like that. Some things need a federal guarantee but many can/should be devolved to the states.
You are absolutely right. And that is what makes the constitution important, to be that "federal guarantee".
I'd like to comfort you that "taxes for crossing state borders" could never happen but I'm not sure I can justify that. I was hoping the Commerce Clause would say something there but I couldn't find anything. Maybe somebody else could find something on this bit of a hole in the libertarian philosophy?
> it's pretty naive to think that racists in Mississippi
> and Alabama, who never went away, wouldn't seize on the
> chance to reinstitute something resembling Jim Crow laws.
He's the naive one? Frankly, what you're suggesting is absurd and borderline offensive. As if the enlightened North and federal legislation are all that prevents the re-institution of Jim Crow laws! Give me a break.
>The “good ole boy” network alive and well in Mississippi? Not hardly. Our new “network” consists of more black elected officials than any other state in the country – a number that grew from a mere 81 in 1970 to 897 in 2000.
Mississippi is as racist today as Russia is Communist. Give me a break.
Creating 99% black districts to consolidate the black vote into the smallest number of seats isn't really support for your position, even if the people doing it are pure post-racial political optimizers (they're not post-racial).
Also, I don't know how old you are, but you do realize that many southern people from 50 short years ago are still alive, right? You're positing that right after the civil rights act was passed, all those people firehosing black people and setting the dogs on them and stuff, they just changed their minds and did a 180? And raised their kids that way?
Every state gerrymanders. Mississippi is hardly alone on this.
>In the state of Ohio, a conversation between Republican officials was recorded that demonstrated that redistricting was being done to aid their political candidates. Furthermore, the discussions assessed race of voters as a factor in redistricting, because African-Americans had backed Democratic candidates. Republicans apparently removed approximately 13,000 African American voters from the district of Jim Raussen, a Republican candidate for the House of Representatives, in an attempt to tip the scales in what was once a competitive district for Democratic candidates.
The South was as racist as the North, at the time. Y'all just got better press about it.
Everyone knows about the sunset laws below the Mason-Dixon: hardly anyone knows that many small towns in Wisconsin had the same laws right up until 1970. The very worst - in my opinion - fights over desegregation happened in Yankee-land when schools started busing white kids to black schools and visa-versa.
Switzerland is really not a model when it comes to racism. Until very recently, its government was blatantly organized along ethnic lines, with clear glass ceilings for some groups. Public opinion is very conservative on this matter, and most laws are enacted in clearly racist terms.
> He's not a libertarian, he's a states rights guy because he wants the power to do things like ban abortion in Texas.
This is not inconsistent with libertarian thought. Protecting life from violence is a primary responsibility of government. If you believe that the fetus qualifies as a life at any point between conception and birth, you would be against abortion. Simple as that.
If you want to fault him for believing a fetus qualifies as a life, fine, but that belief in itself has nothing to do with politics.
You invite your friend to your home for a party. Your guest walked to your home. A blizzard starts outside. Your friend does something that pisses you off. You kick him out of your home, into the blizzard. He dies as a result.
Were you just asserting your property rights or did you commit murder?
When you tell your guest to leave, and they won't, or they don't have anyone to pick them up, and you wanted them gone, you would forcibly remove them from your home and place them outside.
You know that bacteria is "life", right? Does the government need to protect them? Obviously you intend "human life", but equally obviously that doesn't just mean living human cells (scratching -- killing skin cells -- isn't murder). The valuable thing worth protecting doesn't obviously begin at conception. On the contrary, it rather obviously doesn't.
> The valuable thing worth protecting doesn't obviously begin at conception.
Please let me know at which point it becomes obvious that it is a life worth protecting. It isn't so obvious to me. There is no physiological difference between a fetus that is in a mother's womb and an infant born a few minutes later.
It's easier to switch states than to switch countries. If you don't like the draconian laws in your state you can move to another one that shares your views.
Well yeah. Thats kind of my point. I was showing the silliness of the statement I was replying to, that somehow if I don't like the laws of my state, I can just up and move to one that does instead of having to try and affect legislative change.
If you don't agree with Ron Paul, it's because you've spent far less time studying the real implications and economic intricacies as he has. He's right on everything.
I agree with Ron Paul on economy more than any other candidate, but he's racist, anti-semite and a homophobe, or at least pretended to be one in order to get rich, which I find highly unlikely[1][2]. In my opinion, no matter how right on economy he is, we can't have someone like that as a president.
I don't believe that's true. But even if he were, the elegance of his philosophy is such that it renders him powerless to do anything about it.
He wants to take power away from the presidency and the rest of the federal government. He's not looking for power to oppress somebody he doesn't like (or favor the corporations he does like). He wants to make it so that it's impossible to curry favor or harm on groups according to a politician's whim.
Zavulon, why did you think he was rich? He's not. Why do you think he's pretending anything? He's not. Do you know the man, or are you just taking the easy path of buying into the hysteria?
He's flawed but you certainly didn't mention his actual flaws, which means you don't know him, you've simply read about him.
His worst crime is that he's homophobic on a personal level. But he's not one bit anti-gay on a philosophical level and he has gotten big endorsements from Andrew Sullivan and Dan Savage. So you've lost the anti-gay argument.
And ditto for the other accusations. Please don't just be a part of the echo chamber. If you do, you're being rather easily manipulated, sorry.
You know what? I will still be voting for him.
I'm tired. I'm so tired of the lying. Gingrich, Romney, Obama, Bush, etc. will say anything to get elected. Once elected, they all behave the same way.
I'd rather have an honest man I disagree with in the White House, than a man who says one thing, but does another.