You Gotta love this guy.

RP for President- 2012.

He is a wierd little man but at least he tells the truth as he sees it. Better than anyone on the R side and certainly the current B.S.er in chief.

Yesterday I gave money to a politician for the first time ever....and it went to Ron Paul. $20.12 to be exact. I'm not optimistic on his chances, so I thought I'd spend my money while he was still in the race. Hope I'm wrong......

The "teabaggers" ARE the ones supporting him. At least more so than any other "party".

It's the neo-cons that detest him.

The Pauls are both poster boys for the 'Baggers...though Rand climbed a little farther out on the dingbat branch on the TeaBag Tree than his old man did...but not much farther.

Fish on...

Todd

Why do they hate America anyway?

You know AM that is not true of either party. Now that they are locked in a philosophical dance of the the swan is not new. You can walk it through our history as a nation and it has always been this way. Federalist / States rights, Pro slave / anti slavery, isolationist / enter WW1, same for WW2, Nam / anti war, hell it has been all over the place down to Teddy and the Bull Moose party. We are a young country with a narrow attention plan but as always we will survive the present despite the D & R's not because of their brilliance.

Representative Paul is a legislator who is a principled libertarian. I disagree with many things he believes in BUT at least he is not like the leadership of both the D & R's who would sell all of us down the shiter to advance their agenda and pocket books. He stands by his beliefs and puts them forward in a straight forward honest open manner, seldom seen now a days.

Rewrite the tax code? Hell get rid of it and flat tax straight across the board, oh forgot the the elected trash could not buy votes and parade around claiming to help the working stiff and poor or saving the constitution. Both parties are pure garbage.

And for what it's worth .... a flat tax wouldn't even come close to working. I appreciate the simplicity of the idea, though. A flat tax would kill the mid income and low income folks dead dead dead.

Sorry missed the humor, or the dark side of the humor. Your right should have got it kid.

Ah the flat tax, yes it would work. After deductions and all the BS I pay 10% to the IRS. Get rid of the IRS, flat tax all 10%, and as for the poor, Christ half the country does not pay income tax anymore. It is not just the upper income that gets out of dodge on taxes half the country does not pay. The two parties have been bribing people for so long it is expected! Tax exemptions / programs = votes.

My thoughts exactly.

If people didn't for the first person who was for gay marriage or against a woman's right to choose we might get somewhere. Unfortunately that's what hits the news and that's what people get worked up about.

All the while we just continue on our bleed to bankruptcy agenda. It wouldn't take too long for our country to get back in the black if our politicians didn't have to repay their debts to those who pull their strings.

Flat tax. Ron Paul. Or, anyone who puts the country in front of their own re-election.

I don't like Ron Paul's stance on abortion, and a few other items. I do like many of his other ideas, such as the flat tax.

The thing that confounds me the most about him is that while being a pretty straightforward Libertarian, how can he be against such a basic right as the right to choose to become a mother, or not to?

That being said, he is not morally corrupt like the bulk of D's and R's.

I see big differences between Ron Paul and the baggers. Rand, I won't comment on, don't really see much substance.

Ron Paul was around and talking a right to middle libertarianism lonnnnggg before the teabaggers existed. He is very sharp, and has an understanding of history that none of the baggers even think is important. Palin and Bachman are populist but as ignorant as can be.

The youtube posted here makes some excellent points about real issues, and the issues are worth discussing even if folks are of differing viewpoints, and Ron Paul is really good at stimulating that discussion, which is what I like about him.

I used to like Noam Chomsky for the same reasons, a bright guy who understands history and the issues and is really good at lighting up issues. I am less impressed by his work over the past 5-7 years, too strident, I think age is catching up with him.

With respect to the debt limit, I think Ron Paul makes a good point. Default now or default later, and choose the method of default. I firmly believe the debt limit will be raised, stemming disaster for another, later day. But it won't change the basic dynamic that we are broke and can never pay off this debt.

Raising the debt limit is choosing to put off the inevitable pain hoping that conditions will be better in the future. I don't think that is true but am pretty confident that's what will happen.

And get ready for 2012, when the Republicans are elected, the SHTF based on delaying the default, and then the Rs take the heat, and then we ping pong back again.

A pox on both their houses.

Flat tax and everybody pays.

Argh.....flat tax won't work for the majority of folks. Perhaps you could show just how it would work.
I will try to find some links and do some calcs as well, and we will see.
Flat tax WON'T work......at least in any way that wouldn't really give the rich a huge break.....oh, never mind......you ARE the rich, right?

I don't ever remember him advocating the flat tax. No tax perhaps, but not the flat tax. When pressed on the issue once I heard him state, if elected, he would essentially acquiesce and support a flat tax over the current tax code if that's all he felt he could get passed. Which is likely to be the case.

Personally, I could go either way on abortion. Either by doctor or by coat hanger, abortions will take place if they're legal or not. I do however understand how a Libertarian could come to a pro-life stance understanding the non-aggression axiom.

If you believe that child in the womb is a life, at whatever stage, then you must also conclude that individuals right to life supersedes the mother's decision to chose whether or not she wants to be a mother. One could argue that if she's pregnant, she's already made that decision (less rape of course).

I once, in person, heard Paul describe his personal stance on abortion and how he came to it. Early in his career as a young obstetrician he watched his first abortion procedure. It was a late term abortion being performed in the third trimester of pregnancy. Once the fetus was extracted it was placed in a bucket and left to suffocate. It left a mark on him and, in his opinion, performing abortions was a violation of his hippocratic oath to protect life. He's never been a pro-life crusader. He just believes it's a state issue and the fed really has no business legislating such things.

Economy, foreign policy, the guy is on the money. Integrity like no other. Just a matter if there are enough bi-pedal hominids walking around out there intelligent enough to pull the lever for him.

We shall see.

I was listening to an economist on the radio a couple weeks ago, forgot his name, but the telling point was that all this debate about the "debt ceiling" is just a distraction (how strange of politicians to use that technique, eh?). There is no ceiling. It's a made up concept, dating to 1917 and WWI. Oh, Congress can say there is, but ultimately there's nothing stopping the country from borrowing more money as long as there's someone willing to buy the bonds. The steadily increasing amount of debt we're taking on is more of a concern than any perceived ceiling.

And the amount of debt is a smaller issue than the stale economy. This guy's view is that our focus should be on stimulating economic activity first, and deal with the debt via a vibrant economy. We've been in a position to do that before, and could do it again. Unfortunately Congress tends to use vibrant economic activity as a stimulus to over-spend instead of debt reduction, or in the Bushco instance, decrease taxes and borrow and spend like the proverbial drunken sailor. The ability of the nation to pay off debt is evident, it's the willingness to do so that is absent.

Another interesting point of the economist is that Moody's and other ratings are irrelevant. They've all been wrong as many times as they are right and should not be a reason for choosing a specific action.

Ron Paul is barely an alternative for me. The abortion issue is a deal breaker in his and every candidate's case. The human condition, culturally and genetically, totally ingrains the concept of sex for sport among men. Anything to the contrary is simply religious or philosophical dogma and therefore irrelevant to the discussion. Consequently turning the tables on women and saying that by choosing to have sex, they've already choosen to become pregnant or take the chance of becoming pregnant is absurd at best and idiotic by any other measure.

The gay rights issue is a close second. I estimate a politician's intelligence and integrity by the distance he or she is willing to put between government and homosexuality. It's none of the gov'ts.' business, so the more the gov't. interference, the less I would support that candidate. Why can't the assholes just keep it simple and stay the fvck out of other people's lives?

Anyway, Ron Paul, dedicated as he is, is just making a mountain out of a mole hill. Better he should focus his skills on how our minimally taxed corporations and super-rich, who only create jobs in third world nations instead of in the U.S., are going to get this country out of the recession via the spending cuts he supports. He oughta' tell us what that looks like, and especially why it would work.

Sg

Moody's

They're the dickheads that rated all those securities based on toxic mortgages as AAA, right?

Funny,

That's pretty much RP's exact stance on gay rights. You aren't endowed rights because you belong to a group. You are endowed rights because you are an individual.

More over, rights are not granted by goverments. That would assume they had the power to grant them. They exist to protect them. If they have the power to grant them, they have the power to take them away. Ask any German circa 1933.

I would never let any candidates stance on abortion become a deal breaker when deciding who to vote for. Roe v. Wade will never be overturned and that is a simple fact of life. Abortion is a wedge issue bantied about to create debate where it shouldn't exist. On a philisophical level one could debate about the right to life and at what point of fetal development it should exist. Other than that it's a mute point to discuss.

Regarding the debt ceiling, you are correct in that we could essentially borrow into infinity if someone is willing to buy the paper. Although when you create false demand by having your central bank purchase the debt you're playing a dangerous game.

Ron Paul's version of "libertarian" when it comes to gay rights, not to mention minority rights, is not only "not give them special rights because they are______ (fill in the blank)", but also to allow anyone who wants to discriminate against them do so to their hearts' contents...

Which is retarded, racist, and speaks directly to the dimwits who are funding both him and his son...you know who you are.

Fish on...

Todd

Personally, I could care less about a candidates views on abortion or homosexuality, because those issues are germane when evaluating the candidates qualifications that truly pertain to the role we are electing him or her for.

The president really doesn't get involved in all that fluff anymore... let's talk about the really big problems our nation faces, which POTUS does have influence on, and will be responsible for, and what his position is on those matters. This is where RP shines IMO, because he isn't afraid to speak his mind on the real root cause's of our nations problems, stands up against the establishment, and he isn't "owned" by groups of lobbyists. He's the type of guy DC needs.