Fidel Posted March 7, 2008 Report Share Posted March 7, 2008 Who would have thought that my hero is.... an American! Kinda goes against my anti American image.. Please take the time to , and let me know what you think. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Flashermac Posted March 8, 2008 Report Share Posted March 8, 2008 Good man but too much of an outsider to have had any chance for the nomination. He's an MD and served on active duty with the USAF, unlike the folks running the USA. He's more a Goldwater type Republican - which means small government and non-intervention in foreign affairs. I know a lot of folks who swear by him, by the mainline politicians will never take him seriously. Without foreign intervention and big government spending, they'd never get richer! Link Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Julian2 Posted March 8, 2008 Report Share Posted March 8, 2008 Comes across as a nice guy. Unfortunately political parties distance themselves from people like that so they never really get a shot at high office. They don't really attract the big political donation dollars do they? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CTO Posted March 8, 2008 Report Share Posted March 8, 2008 Can't find his voting record, has he been a senator? his web site is VERY slow. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Flashermac Posted March 8, 2008 Report Share Posted March 8, 2008 The internet's slower than frozen dung for me too this morning. Link Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Julian2 Posted March 8, 2008 Report Share Posted March 8, 2008 You can always try that farrago of decadent leftist Western lies Wikipedia. Wiki Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Flashermac Posted March 8, 2008 Report Share Posted March 8, 2008 The internet's slower than frozen dung for me too this morning. Link Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rogueyam Posted March 8, 2008 Report Share Posted March 8, 2008 Can't find his voting record, has he been a senator? his web site is VERY slow. Ron Paul is a Republican member of the House of Representatives from a district in Texas. His voting record is very Libertarian: anti-taxes, anti-regulation, anti-war. He is also pro-life (anti-abortion) and for greater border security and no amnesty for illegal immigrants. Finally he supports strict constitutionalists for judgeships like Scalia, Thomas, Roberts, and Alito. I wish we had a few hundred more like him in Congress. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
.. Posted March 8, 2008 Report Share Posted March 8, 2008 Libertarian and Ron Paul supporter. Why am I not surprised? I was a libertarian once, but then I grew up. Iâ??ll just point out that in the fictional Libertopia that some of these folks talk about, youâ??d have nothing. The people who are most vicious, who have the least compunctions about killing, would own everything you have. Iâ??ve seen it happen in nation after nation â?? Somalia, Afghanistan, the various Trashcanistans in central Asia, hell, in the ghetto of Detroit city back when I was growing up there â?? and thatâ??s how it always works out. No government means rule by the most vicious. Government is a necessity because government is how We the People join together in the common defense (itâ??s right there in the preamble of the Constitution, if you bother to read it) to keep these goons in their proper place (i.e., either in our employ as our enforcers, or in prison). Now, I believe in government being in its place -- limited to what We the People need, not trying to step in where it isn't wanted or needed -- but government itself is one of those things that just has to be if you want civil society rather than law of the jungle. Regarding taxes to support that government, hereâ??s my deal on all this: Folks who make a lot of money (like me, BTW â?? I ainâ??t a millionaire, but let's put it this way, as I just did a couple of days ago, I can get rid of a 7 month old laptop computer to buy the latest and greatest one without a second thought, and pay for the new computer with cash without too much thinking about it) benefit the most from civil society, whereas the gang bangers I once hung out with back in my days as a poor high school student benefit least from a civil society. If a homeless man's lean-to in the woods burns down, he loses everything he has but a few trips to his local charities to pick up used clothing and bedding and such and heâ??s back where he started. My house burns down, I lose tens of thousands of dollars worth of stuff as well as a three-quarter-million-dollar home. So itâ??s only fair that I pay more towards maintaining civil society â?? the roads, cops, fire departments, schools, etc. needed to keep society functioning in a smooth and efficient manner. Making sure that the general population is too occupied and well-entertained and too engaged in working hard and getting ahead to get the torches and pitchforks out and burn down my expensive home with me in it is a Good Thing, itâ??s either that or hire lots of them with guns and kill the rest and frankly that usually doesnâ??t turn out well (not the least because some of these poor people, if we giveâ??em education and such, can turn out to be productive members of society that I can get a lot of work out of in the end â?? I know this â??cause I was one of them thirty-five years ago). So even though Iâ??m in the 33% tax bracket, paying the taxes to maintain civil society doesnâ??t bother me one bit. Iâ??ve lived the law of the jungle, Iâ??ve seen it close up down the barrel of a gun on the wrong end of it and even on the right end of it, and it simply is incompatible with the values needed for a productive society. But thatâ??s where the â??screw the poorâ? mentality gets you â?? law of the jungle, Mexico North, a dangerous place where people get kidnapped off the streets in plain daylight by armed gangs and held hostage, where the only people who are safe are the small number of oligarchs who huddle behind their glass-and-razorwire-topped walls with their dozens of armed guards when theyâ??re not swooping through the streets in heavily armored limos, Mexico North. If you want the U.S. to be Mexico North, why donâ??t you just move to Mexico? Their taxes are half those of the United States, so surely itâ??s a paradise? Kinda like Thailand, right? But then, thatâ??s me living in the real world again, rather than in some fictional la-la land that exists only between the pages of bad science fiction novels (and yes, I read all those bad science fiction novels myself when I was a young man, but see, hereâ??s the thing â?? *I GREW UP*). The notion that maintaining a civil society that protects my wealth requires that I spend some money caring about people other than myself to make sure they have an opportunity to get ahead too is heresy in fictional la-la land, but in the real world, if you forget this factâ?¦ Mexico North. Hope you end up on the right side of those razorwire-topped walls, or that youâ??re one vicious SOB who can get in good with a drug gang, if thatâ??s your vision. Sorry if you feel this is snarky and mean. It is very true IMHO. If you disagree, then tell me why, not just attack me personally (tho' I could give a fuck if you do the latter LOL). Regards, SD Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rogueyam Posted March 8, 2008 Report Share Posted March 8, 2008 Wow! You were really looking to come uncorked, eh? 1. I'm not a Libertarian, I'm a Reagan/Buckley Conservative (to paint with a broad brush). 2. I did not and would not support Ron Paul for President. I might prefer all Democrats and squishy Republicans in Congress to be replaced by Libertarians but I'd like to keep the few good Conservatives we've got in there too. The Chief Executive really needs to be a Conservative, though. 3. All that fiery folderol about the Law of the Jungle and Mexico North was quite enlightening, NOT. The Law of the Jungle has nothing to do with either Conservatism or Libertarianism. Both rely on government for national defense, criminal and civil law enforcement, and naturally monopolistic infrastructure (e.g. most roads, most utilities, etc.) among other things. 4. Ditto on the speciousness of the "provide for your fellow man" sermon. There is a huge difference between charity and entitlement, between opportunity and support. I have seen in my own lifetime the social and psychological degradation that inevitably results from and comes to define the welfare state; in the Ninth Ward of New Orleans, in Detroit, and in West Oakland too. People getting less capable, less confident, more demanding, and more violent generation after generation. And all the while arrogant, sanctimonious lefties saying that the worsening problems are due to the greedy rich being too selfish to provide even more of the same poison that brought those folks so low to begin with. Feh. The only thing that really works is the only thing that has ever really worked: liberty. Private property and private enterprise, free markets, pluralism and individuality, strong families, education, hard work, and Judeo-Christian morality. That "it takes a village" crap won't work any better in the US than it does (supposedly) in Africa. Mexico has never had liberty and that's why it sucks. Europe has tasted it but is now largely throwing it all away due to decadence and cowardice. China and India and Russia will probably never get there, or at least not anytime soon. There are too few there who can even really imagine liberty, and the violence and competition might not leave them time to learn. You seem to think that it is rich Westerners who are holding the world back from its orgiastic future. I think it is Conservative Westerners that are preventing the world from reverting to its savage past. I don't think we can both be right. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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