Ron Paul Revolution!!!!

[cunt sauce]

it is common knowledge that Venus is the hottest planet in our solar system.

But how can this be possible? Mercury is the closest to the sun right?

On Mercury, all of the sun's energy reflects off of the surface and is radiated back into space because Mercury does not have an atmosphere. Venus on the other hand, has an atmosphere that is mostly made up of carbon dioxide (96%). the majority of the heat that penetrates the atmosphere and reflects off the surface is insulated by a blanket of greenhouse gas. Its kind of like putting more clothes on in the winter. Your coat traps the heat that your body generates and keeps it near you. The only difference being something inside you is generating the heat, it isn't an external source like the sun.

[lord_casek]

casek can you please explain to me your understanding of the "theory" of climate change. drop the political aspect and just tell me what scientific research you have observed. you have a pretty strong viewpoint, so it would seem that you would have a great understanding of this topic, but i have not once seen you bring any science into this. all of your "research" that you have cited is from google searches. none of them are science related at all, and it goes back to my point that the current debate on climate change is not a scientific debate, it is a political debate. stop listening to what other people have to say about the social aspects of this and read a fucking science book. its pretty simple.


Look, I've never claimed to be a scientist. My understanding of what is happening is mainstream science, though. It seems to me that we are in a cycle. Both in our solar system
and on our planet.

The obvious lack of sun spots, the melting of ice caps on several planets in our solar system, etc. leads me to believe that is affecting the earth much more than mankind's pollutants.

However, I do believe we're doing some bad to the planet. I'm obviously not dumb enough to think that there's no affect. I just don't think it's as serious as people claim.

I think people like Al Gore and Maurice Strong are taking advantage of people and making themselves much more wealthy.

As for my research and what I quote on here: I point people to books, interviews, videos,
whitepapers as much as I can.

[cunt sauce]

Look, I've never claimed to be a scientist. My understanding of what is happening is mainstream science, though. It seems to me that we are in a cycle. Both in our solar system
and on our planet.

The obvious lack of sun spots, the melting of ice caps on several planets in our solar system, etc. leads me to believe that is affecting the earth much more than mankind's pollutants.

However, I do believe we're doing some bad to the planet. I'm obviously not dumb enough to think that there's no affect. I just don't think it's as serious as people claim.

I think people like Al Gore and Maurice Strong are taking advantage of people and making themselves much more wealthy.

As for my research and what I quote on here: I point people to books, interviews, videos,
whitepapers as much as I can.

Basically nothing you have brought up has any scientific merit. Attacking Al Gore because he stands to make a profit isn't attacking the Global Climate Change "Theory". Like someone before mentioned, its attacking the fundamentals of capitalism.

What you said about the world going through cycles is very true! But it takes longer than 30 years to go through the changes we have gone through. Try thousands and thousands.

And yes global climate change is being sensationalized in the media, but what isn't? It is still a very serious issue though, but the end isn't coming in 30 years, It's coming in a couple hundreds of years if we stay on the same path.

Environmentalists are kind of anthropocentric. The environment ain't going no where, if the planet gets too hot for humans to survive there were will still be reptiles, insects, bacteria etc. The main focus is to insure human life on this planet.

[lord_casek]

Basically nothing you have brought up has any scientific merit. Attacking Al Gore because he stands to make a profit isn't attacking the Global Climate Change "Theory". Like someone before mentioned, its attacking the fundamentals of capitalism.

What you said about the world going through cycles is very true! But it takes longer than 30 years to go through the changes we have gone through. Try thousands and thousands.

And yes global climate change is being sensationalized in the media, but what isn't? It is still a very serious issue though, but the end isn't coming in 30 years, It's coming in a couple hundreds of years if we stay on the same path.

Environmentalists are kind of anthropocentric. The environment ain't going no where, if the planet gets too hot for humans to survive there were will still be reptiles, insects, bacteria etc. The main focus is to insure human life on this planet.


Sun goes through 7 year cycles. No thousands of years for that to happen.

Prove to me that we will be gone in a couple of hundred years. You don't know that any more than a scientist. Any scientist.

Let me make an outlandish claim: Tomorrow Apothis (the asteroid) is going to be determined to be on direct trajectory to smash the holy mother mary shit out of us.
If we don't start recycling more newspaper right now, we'll go up in flames!

Save the earth, nigga.

[Mainframe]

^The polar bear community is disappointed by your ignorance.

http://www.justinbuist.org/blog/images/polar-bear-face-palm_thumbnail.jpg

[lord_casek]

C'mon, mainframe, it's the only truth you will get. No one knows when the human race will cease to exist. Whether it be by something we did to our planet or whether it be by the giant asteroid Apothis. No one really knows.

[lord_casek]

Wind resistance
MIT analysis suggests generating electricity from large-scale wind farms could influence climate — and not necessarily in the desired way.

http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2010/climate-wind-0312.html

[cunt sauce]

the study didn't take a carbon offset into account. if the electricity generated from the wind turbines had to be generated by coal (or oil or gas, etc.)

what would the temperature change be?

the authors themselves note in the article that there are many limitations on the work at present and much more research is needed.

casek, you are all over the place man, can't you just admit you were wrong, or at least admit you don't know enough about these topics to really justify having such a strong viewpoint???

[lord_casek]

the study didn't take a carbon offset into account. if the electricity generated from the wind turbines had to be generated by coal (or oil or gas, etc.)

what would the temperature change be?

the authors themselves note in the article that there are many limitations on the work at present and much more research is needed.

casek, you are all over the place man, can't you just admit you were wrong, or at least admit you don't know enough about these topics to really justify having such a strong viewpoint???


You're arguing against MIT. Not some guy on the internet. Remember that.

I'm sure the good folks at MIT would run circles around you.

You greenies point to science a whole lot, but when science goes against you it seems to
be ignored or you try and "kill the messenger".

[cunt sauce]

You're arguing against MIT. Not some guy on the internet. Remember that.



the authors themselves note in the article that there are many limitations on the work at present and much more research is needed.


“We’re not pessimistic about wind,” he said. “We haven’t absolutely proven this effect, and we’d rather see that people do further research.”
-Ron Prinn, TEPCO Professor of Atmospheric Science

Wang and Prinn suggest that using wind turbines to meet 10 percent of global energy demand in 2100 could cause temperatures to rise by one degree Celsius in the regions on land where the wind farms are installed, including a smaller increase in areas beyond those regions. Their analysis indicates the opposite result for wind turbines installed in water: a drop in temperatures by one degree Celsius over those regions.

And again not once in the article do they speak of the offset carbon emissions.

[lord_casek]

“We’re not pessimistic about wind,” he said. “We haven’t absolutely proven this effect, and we’d rather see that people do further research.”
-Ron Prinn, TEPCO Professor of Atmospheric Science

Wang and Prinn suggest that using wind turbines to meet 10 percent of global energy demand in 2100 could cause temperatures to rise by one degree Celsius in the regions on land where the wind farms are installed, including a smaller increase in areas beyond those regions. Their analysis indicates the opposite result for wind turbines installed in water: a drop in temperatures by one degree Celsius over those regions.

And again not once in the article do they speak of the offset carbon emissions.


A temperature reading of 1 degree celsius is equivalent to a fahrenheit reading of (32 + 1.8) = 33.8 degrees fahrenheit

[cunt sauce]

A temperature reading of 1 degree celsius is equivalent to a fahrenheit reading of (32 + 1.8) = 33.8 degrees fahrenheit

“We’re not pessimistic about wind,” he said. “We haven’t absolutely proven this effect, and we’d rather see that people do further research.”
-Ron Prinn, TEPCO Professor of Atmospheric Science
[/QUOTE]

[lord_casek]

So, besides the noise pollution, there will be a substantial rise in temps? Sounds nice.
All they need now is some emf's from generating electricity....oh, wait,,,,,

[cunt sauce]

maybe we should just start using decomposing polar bears as biofuel.

[cunt sauce]

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2007/06/02/ron_paul/story.jpg

forget the youtube videos spewing with emotional rhetoric (obama-like strategery)
anyone who votes should use this site. don't watch ads or network news.
http://www.ontheissues.org/ron_paul.htm

Abortion is murder. (Apr 2008)
Get the federal government out of abortion decision. (Nov 2007)
Wall Street is dumping its trouble onto Main Street. (Sep 2008)
Federal Reserve creates money and prints it out of thin air. (Jan 2008)
We can’t afford a trillion-dollar war in Iraq. (Jan 2006)
Protect all voluntary associations; don’t define marriage. (Oct 2007)
Rights belong only to individuals, not collective groups. (Dec 1987)
Voted NO on Constitutionally defining marriage as one-man-one-woman. (Jul 2006)
Voted NO on making the PATRIOT Act permanent. (Dec 2005)
Voted NO on Constitutional Amendment banning same-sex marriage. (Sep 2004)
Opposes death penalty at state and federal level. (Jan 2008)
War on drugs is out of control; revert control to states. (Dec 2007)
Legalize industrial hemp. (Jan 2007)
Legalize medical marijuana. (Jul 2001)
Rated +30 by NORML, indicating a pro-drug-reform stance. (Dec 2006)
Present scientific facts that support creationism. (Sep 2007)
Big Oil profits ok; Big Oil subsidies are not. (Jun 2007)
Voted NO on starting implementation of Kyoto Protocol. (Jun 2000)
Big Oil profits ok; Big Oil subsidies are not. (Jun 2007)
Neglected property rights during the industrial revolution. (Jan 2008)
Voted YES on withdrawing from the WTO. (Jun 2000)
Those who attack bilingualism are jealous & feel inferior. (Dec 2007)
Voted YES on more immigrant visas for skilled workers. (Sep 1998)
Terrorists attack us for our actions abroad, not our freedom. (Jun 2007)

he means well, i actually like him quite a bit, i just think that government regulation may be needed right now to control business on an industrial level.

http://www.ontheissues.org/images/s070_080.gif

does anyone know his view or voting record on agricultural subsidies? besides the enviro thats another major issue with me. i can't seem to find anything about it on the net. i'm assuming he's against them as he is with most federal subsidies. corn subsidies are pretty crazy, casek you should look into them if you haven't already. our taxes are going to farmers so they can grow field corn at a production price that is higher than what it's sold at. all to be refined into processed foods, or fed to animals that evolved to eat grass not grain (e.coli, higher fat content). there should either be subsidies for healthy foods to drive the prices down on fresh produce instead of cheap mcdonalds cheesburgers, or there should be no subsidies period. i think affordable healthy food is a fundamental human right. obesity and poverty shouldn't correlate.

[lord_casek]

maybe we should just start using decomposing polar bears as biofuel.


That's fine. Their population is exploding.

Your second question: http://www.votesmart.org/voting_category.php?can_id=296

[cunt sauce]

Voted against:
$5 billion annually through 2012 for corn, wheat, soybeans, rice and cotton producers

cool.

this whole libertarian thing really would work if our legal system was better. when joe schmoe uneducated poor guy gets his personal property rights trampled on, how is he supposed to win a lawsuit against a supercorp? there aren't public appointed lawyers for civil suits, so it is up to him to win a court case on his own or try and hire a crappy lawyer with the little money he does have. it seems like whoever can pile the most money onto the table is going to win. the libertarian approach in our current system only allows justice to those with enough money to defend themselves. in my opinion with my current understanding of things of course.

[lord_casek]

Voted against:
$5 billion annually through 2012 for corn, wheat, soybeans, rice and cotton producers

cool.

this whole libertarian thing really would work if our legal system was better. when joe schmoe uneducated poor guy gets his personal property rights trampled on, how is he supposed to win a lawsuit against a supercorp? there aren't public appointed lawyers for civil suits, so it is up to him to win a court case on his own or try and hire a crappy lawyer with the little money he does have. it seems like whoever can pile the most money onto the table is going to win. the libertarian approach in our current system only allows justice to those with enough money to defend themselves. in my opinion with my current understanding of things of course.

I think there was probably something unConstitutional in that bill. Might do yourself a favor and read it?

[cunt sauce]

enlighten me.....

[lord_casek]

Sorry, I don't want to read a bill atm. I'm busy working on a laptop.

[cunt sauce]

a laptop that contains COLTAN omg. coltan harvesting contributes to the genocide in rwanda OMG.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coltan

OMG were all hypocrites using the internet.

[lord_casek]

a laptop that contains COLTAN omg. coltan harvesting contributes to the genocide in rwanda OMG.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coltan

OMG were all hypocrites using the internet.


Yeah, jeez. Now I'm gonna have to do exactly what I've been doing.

[Decyferon]

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2007/06/02/ron_paul/story.jpg

forget the youtube videos spewing with emotional rhetoric (obama-like strategery)
anyone who votes should use this site. don't watch ads or network news.
http://www.ontheissues.org/ron_paul.htm

Abortion is murder. (Apr 2008)
Get the federal government out of abortion decision. (Nov 2007)
Wall Street is dumping its trouble onto Main Street. (Sep 2008)
Federal Reserve creates money and prints it out of thin air. (Jan 2008)
We can’t afford a trillion-dollar war in Iraq. (Jan 2006)
Protect all voluntary associations; don’t define marriage. (Oct 2007)
Rights belong only to individuals, not collective groups. (Dec 1987)
Voted NO on Constitutionally defining marriage as one-man-one-woman. (Jul 2006)
Voted NO on making the PATRIOT Act permanent. (Dec 2005)
Voted NO on Constitutional Amendment banning same-sex marriage. (Sep 2004)
Opposes death penalty at state and federal level. (Jan 2008)
War on drugs is out of control; revert control to states. (Dec 2007)
Legalize industrial hemp. (Jan 2007)
Legalize medical marijuana. (Jul 2001)
Rated +30 by NORML, indicating a pro-drug-reform stance. (Dec 2006)
Present scientific facts that support creationism. (Sep 2007)
Big Oil profits ok; Big Oil subsidies are not. (Jun 2007)
Voted NO on starting implementation of Kyoto Protocol. (Jun 2000)
Big Oil profits ok; Big Oil subsidies are not. (Jun 2007)
Neglected property rights during the industrial revolution. (Jan 2008)
Voted YES on withdrawing from the WTO. (Jun 2000)
Those who attack bilingualism are jealous & feel inferior. (Dec 2007)
Voted YES on more immigrant visas for skilled workers. (Sep 1998)
Terrorists attack us for our actions abroad, not our freedom. (Jun 2007)

he means well, i actually like him quite a bit, i just think that government regulation may be needed right now to control business on an industrial level.

http://www.ontheissues.org/images/s070_080.gif

does anyone know his view or voting record on agricultural subsidies? besides the enviro thats another major issue with me. i can't seem to find anything about it on the net. i'm assuming he's against them as he is with most federal subsidies. corn subsidies are pretty crazy, casek you should look into them if you haven't already. our taxes are going to farmers so they can grow field corn at a production price that is higher than what it's sold at. all to be refined into processed foods, or fed to animals that evolved to eat grass not grain (e.coli, higher fat content). there should either be subsidies for healthy foods to drive the prices down on fresh produce instead of cheap mcdonalds cheesburgers, or there should be no subsidies period. i think affordable healthy food is a fundamental human right. obesity and poverty shouldn't correlate.

From what you have mentioned here, I would agree with him on the majority of things, the only issue I would have is the environmental ones, I think the US should be more aware of its impact environmentally.

I also agree with your statement about government regulation of business, but in order to have good regulation you need to be able to trust the people in power who are making the decisions.

[Pew_Pew_Pew]

http://www.vigilantcitizen.com

Read the shit about Lady Gaga. It's a conspiracy! Monarch programming! *screams and runs*

[ILOTSMYBRAIN]

Ron Paul's approach to environment is simple, the government should stay out of it.

Don't like it? It's probably because you think the government should be involved in almost every aspect of your life. No surprise there though. Most people expect government to provide them with EVERYTHING.

Thank you welfare state, for warping generation's of people into assuming there will be a safety net provided for them forever.

People act as if this dude promotes pollution. But if you understood Libertarian philosophy, you would understand the approach he has to it, it all comes down to private property rights.

[Mainframe]

Ron Paul's approach to environment is simple, the government should stay out of it.

Don't like it? It's probably because you think the government should be involved in almost every aspect of your life. No surprise there though. Most people expect government to provide them with EVERYTHING.

Thank you welfare state, for warping generation's of people into assuming there will be a safety net provided for them forever.

People act as if this dude promotes pollution. But if you understood Libertarian philosophy, you would understand the approach he has to it, it all comes down to private property rights.


Wow. You're so smart dude. Please enlighten me. I don't get Libertarian philosophy, I'm so brainwashed I just can't understand it! I'm a government dupe! I've been reading the wrong books this whole time. The Lord of the Rings was just a Libertarian allegory. Fuck.

Does it validate your ego to feel intellectually disenfranchised?

[ILOTSMYBRAIN]

Did I accuse anyone of being brainwashed? Or being a government dupe? lol.

Don't see it in that post. Again you are taking what I am saying out of context.

Continue being a jackass though. It suits you.

If you already understand, that post obviously wasn't directed towards you. Didn't realize this was a two way conversation.

[Mainframe]

ha. it's fun to come on here when I'm drunk and troll the self-righteous libertarians who take themselves too seriously.

but yeah, keep the government out of environmental issues. fun little notion to kick around, too bad it has no bearing on reality.

[tabula_rasa]

mainframe, you're a real american hero

http://www.yojoe.com/action/86/86card/mainframe.jpg





:rolleyes:

[El Mamerro]

A temperature reading of 1 degree celsius is equivalent to a fahrenheit reading of (32 + 1.8) = 33.8 degrees fahrenheit

I hope you're not suggesting that an increase of 1°C from the current temperature is equivalent to a increase of 33.8°F from the current temperature. That would be a crass misinterpretation.



Ron Paul's approach to environment is simple, the government should stay out of it.

Don't like it? It's probably because you think the government should be involved in almost every aspect of your life. No surprise there though. Most people expect government to provide them with EVERYTHING.


No, it's the opposite. Ron Paul's approach to the environment is such, because he thinks the government shouldn't be involved in anything.

As much as I agree with the fact that the government is involved in too many things it shouldn't be right now, there is simply no other way to deal with the environment than to order people to get their shit together.

There is literally zero incentive for the free market to enact an environmentally friendly policy. None. The consumer public will never demand it to the extent that will cause a shift in the market's behavior towards the environment. It is painfully clear that the decision to change towards a sustainable lifestyle will never come out of the pure hearts of consumers who have spent decades being conditioned to a market of overconsumption and extreme resource drain. Someone or something HAS to step in and change the way things are done.

If the government is not the one to step in and enact this change, then tell me, who is?

[angelofdeath]

There is literally zero incentive for the free market to enact an environmentally friendly policy. None. The consumer public will never demand it to the extent that will cause a shift in the market's behavior towards the environment. It is painfully clear that the decision to change towards a sustainable lifestyle will never come out of the pure hearts of consumers who have spent decades being conditioned to a market of overconsumption and extreme resource drain. Someone or something HAS to step in and change the way things are done.

If the government is not the one to step in and enact this change, then tell me, who is?

i think you just have a faulty understanding of how markets and private property rights would address these problems.

for instance, we dont have a free market and absolute property rights.
lets take energy. we have the price anderson act that limits the liability of nuclear power companies. toxic waste in your back yard? tough shit! they arent liable. thanks to the gov.

lets look at garbage disposal. since the cost of garbage disposal is socialized or municipalized... we dont really pay the actual cost of disposal. plastic bags are a hot topic. lets assume they are very damaging to the environment. but lets also assume the average house hold essentially pays NOTHING to dispose of garbage (sure they pay taxes for garbage disposal, but these are unseen to most people and the cost is the same for everyone no matter what they throw out) it doesnt matter whether they throw out paper (more environmentally friendly than plastic) or plastic or nothing at all. they still pay the same amount. and since the municipality owns the garbage dump, they socialize the cost of disposal. where as in a free market with private trash pick up and a private waste dump... the dump owner would obviously charge you much more to dispose of the plastic bags than the paper bags or better yet, no grocery bags at all. by charging more, he reduces the amount of plastic going into the ground. so if you then fully realize that throwing away a plastic bag costs say 5$ per bag to get rid of, and a paper bag costs .20$ to get rid of, which one are you going to ask for at the grocery store? or maybe you'll just be really smart and bring your own cloth bags.

pollution is nothing but a trespass. someone has no right to pollute your property than you do to trespass in someone elses house. companies are not really liable for their pollution. the government has determined certain levels are fine. in american history, property rights used to be upheld. when factories were putting out horrible waste in the air... they would get sued for the trespass onto peoples property. sometime around the progressive era and the 'need' to make america an imperialist power and compete with britain to be #1, the courts started ruling against private property owners in favor of the businesses in order to defend the 'common good' which was industrialization.
you had industrialists starting to use anthracite coal which was cleaner burning instead of the dirty sulphur coal because they were liable for pollution. then you have the pittsburg lobbyists coming in getting laws passed to protect the dirty coal.
i dont think you understand the complexity of the system and how at odds everything and how there is not a free market in these matters that respects property rights.

given that with every regulation a government passes it creates a multitude of new problems which require further legislation to attempt to correct... i believe that relying on the government to solve environmental problems is silly and inefficient. i also believe that relying on benevolence will only get you so far. which is why we need to motivate good old fashioned human self interest as pointed out in the examples above. if a company is going to be sued by everyone for polluting, they will invest in cleaner fuels, pollution controls, etc. if you have to bear the full costs of disposing of plastic, you will not use it or use much less. instead of grocery bags made from plastic, maybe the only plastic bags that will be used would be IV bags in hospitals. but once again govt has distorted property rights and free exchange.

just sayin'

[ILOTSMYBRAIN]

ha. it's fun to come on here when I'm drunk and troll the self-righteous libertarians who take themselves too seriously.

http://images.icanhascheezburger.com/completestore/2009/4/20/128847382161081996.jpg

[El Mamerro]

just sayin'

...the same stuff we've been hearing from you for years that seem to hold no bearing on the reality of human society and behavior.

To humor you though, I don't see in your example exactly why a private disposal company would have an incentive to charge more for plastic bags. It takes the same amount of cost and effort to toss both in a landfill. The environmental choice MUST be the more profitable one, or else it won't happen.

And the whole pollution argument we've been over already. In the past, I offered the bee example, which I believe you dismissed with no convincing argument... I own a property that happens to house several bee hives that pose a threat to my family's health, so I decide to eliminate them completely. My neighbor's farm down the road all of a sudden loses its primary pollinators and suffers catastrophic losses before he realizes what happened.

Pollution is complex and incredibly hard to quantify for individual cases. Delving into the minutiae for every particular case would create a legal quagmire, hold the courts up, and waste a tremendous amount of money in the study and research of every specific claim. And anyways, companies get sued by everyone already, but they command incredibly powerful teams that are able to steamroll past the common man very easily and make it very undesirable and unworthy of their effort. Your approach is naive. Environmental affairs must be mostly taken care of with broad, overarching strokes, because the environment affects us all in broad, overarching ways.

You also clearly don't realize that pollution and environmental damage is very often intangible and offers no immediate "pain" that would cause people to react in time to stop before irreversible damage is made. People are not gonna sue a company because they're making the air brown, they'll do it years down the road when they start dying of lung cancer and the environment is already beyond repair.

And so I restate my case, the only way the environment will be taken care of by the market is if it's more profitable than not taking care of it. The way our society and culture is structured, not taking care of it is more profitable in the short term, therefore it will not be taken care of. People like Al Gore step up, say "oh hey let's make money by saving the environment" and people jump down his throat for it. I mean dude, wise up, cause it's either that approach, or the government. You can't have your cake and eat it too.

[cunt sauce]

this iz it

[angelofdeath]

To humor you though, I don't see in your example exactly why a private disposal company would have an incentive to charge more for plastic bags. It takes the same amount of cost and effort to toss both in a landfill. The environmental choice MUST be the more profitable one, or else it won't happen.

economics 101?

if a plastic bag does indeed impact the environment the way we are told, then obviously it is a given that it really costs more to dispose of than paper. a land owner trying to get the most use out of his private dump is going to charge more to have plastic dumped into his site. if paper will decompose and allow him to keep putting more junk in his landfill, this will be cheaper. plastic which takes up space will be more expensive to dump.
economics 101.
do you understand profits, loss, incentives, operating costs etc?

And the whole pollution argument we've been over already. In the past, I offered the bee example, which I believe you dismissed with no convincing argument... I own a property that happens to house several bee hives that pose a threat to my family's health, so I decide to eliminate them completely. My neighbor's farm down the road all of a sudden loses its primary pollinators and suffers catastrophic losses before he realizes what happened.

i dont remember a bee example. but i'll respond now.

the simple answer is for the farmer to put bees on his property.
these just seem like little technical problems to me. its like saying.... since bridges in the US on public roads are build through socialist funding... how will be build a bridge in a free market?
are you saying that you have no right to eliminate this pest?
do you further not approve of pest control because that den of rattle snakes on your property might be utilized by a neighbor for eating rats?
you can reductio to down to lots of things.
if we allow free markets and private property in food, we will all starve because the rich will just buy and control all the food and everyone will starve. but seems to me grocery stores are profiting off of hunger and people are profiting off of the food they are getting from them otherwise the trade wouldnt take place.

Pollution is complex and incredibly hard to quantify for individual cases. Delving into the minutiae for every particular case would create a legal quagmire, hold the courts up, and waste a tremendous amount of money in the study and research of every specific claim. And anyways, companies get sued by everyone already, but they command incredibly powerful teams that are able to steamroll past the common man very easily and make it very undesirable and unworthy of their effort. Your approach is naive. Environmental affairs must be mostly taken care of with broad, decisive strokes, because the environment affects us all in broad, decisive ways.

ah, it would create legal quagmires and hold up courts.. just like murder cases and that damn DNA and forensic evidence? given that we already have laws that forbid murder, there shouldnt be any right? if we just pass a law that forbids pollution or impact on the environment, everything will be fixed right?

remember that truth that every intervention creates many more problems that require further legislation. which is why we have a state that never stops growing.
take the private dump example again.
most municipal dumps forbid you to dump in very harmful things like oil paint and chemicals because they have no real price system as it operates on the socialist model. so what do we have? we have people that dump all their old paint cans in private dumpsters and on private or public property out in the woods. the dump near me only allows 2 old tires dumped per month. what happens to all the surplus tires? dumped over the side of a hill back out of the way some where.
seems like everything is working great.
whereas if we had a price system... you would just be charged a hell of a lot more to dispose of this stuff at a dump.
then we would have people saying that evil capitalist dump owners are 'gouging' the public.
although what it really means is to reduce using stuff that is harmful to the environment because it costs more to dispose of.

whereas if we had a free market at the dump... the tire solution would be solved the way it is solved for those in the auto repair industry. a guy comes around, you pay them 2 bucks a tire and they take them away. do they throw them in a land fill? since they profit off of recycling they resell the good used tires to used tire distributors or sell them to customers who want to buy them and put them on the car for them. they sell some to tire recyclers. they try to reuse as much as they can because it ultimately costs them a lot of money to actually have throw these tires in a dump

even if you do disagree with using courts as the best way of combatting trespass/pollution.... why not allow it to happen? why not support this as well as environmental legislation? why not atleast de-insulate these industries from liability and let them deal with their own liabilities?


And so I restate my case, the only way the environment will be taken care of by the market is if it's more profitable than not taking care of it. The way our society and culture is structured, not taking care of it is more profitable in the short term, therefore it will not be taken care of. People like Al Gore step up, say "oh hey let's make money by saving the environment" and people jump down his throat for it. I mean dude, wise up, cause it's either that approach, or the government. You can't have your cake and eat it too.

your analysis is faulty because we dont have a free market. like i said most companies are immune from alot of the liabilities. like you pointed out, big companies have lots of money invested in lobbyists and lawyers and buy legislators to allow them to basically do what they want. because our government is set up as a democracy where anyone can get what they want, instead of a government that solely exists to protect property and liberty.

benevolence is a horrible way to get anything done.
you have to motivate self interest.

why do timber companies take care of their property? they harvest timber off their tracts, re seed, take care of the plots so they can log it again in years to come. the incentive is there. since benevolence to save the environment wont work, and since state power wont work to save the environment the best way is to motivate good old fashioned evil human self interest.
according to what you are putting forth, every timber company just simply is worried about this instant right now and not anything else. so they must all be clear cutting all the property they can get their hands on and letting it rot, right?

another thing that is left out is the price system.
talking about natural resources.
since the 1890's they have been saying we only have 10 more years of oil. they dont take into account when you have higher prices people use less of it. price of gas goes up, people use less. then you have the government stepping in to prosecute 'price gougers' when actually these people should be commended because they are actually regulating the supply of something. if the price is high people then start trying to figure out more efficient ways to fuel their cars.

[cunt sauce]

im not going to read the whole thing, but i will attack the first thing that you said.

things don't really compost in landfills, they just sit there. there is a clay layer around them which prevents this from happening. they do tend to leak often though, which is when you here about battery waste getting into our groundwater yadda yadda

[El Mamerro]

I'm not gonna go point by point cause your science is faulty right from the start. The difference in time decomposition and space displacement between paper and plastic is still completely negligible to a landfill owner. Plastic will take thousands of years to decompose, treated paper will take decades (they do not properly decompose in landfills). The amount of space "liberated" by decomposing paper is negligible, and only significant after an extended period of time at which point the business could very well be obsolete. Science 101.

Timber companies take care of their property in as much as it allows them to operate efficiently as a business. They can and do create long-term damage to the environment that does not affect their short-term life span as businesses.

Self-interest regulates actions that are relevant, at the most, to <100 year lifespans, and generational transfers within that. The environment and the natural world do not operate on that schedule. People taking action in the interest of a 20yr business does not in any way translate to benefit an environment that functions on a whole other scale of time and progression. This is why we keep on making decisions that will make things REALLY shitty for people born in 2080, because whatever happens then is of no relevance whatsoever to a business/individual that is operating/living now.

The bee thing I posted just to show an example of why thinking property rights are the be-all-end-all solution for natural management is profoundly flawed. Sure, the farmer could put new bees in his property, but he may have ruined his soil in the collapse and not be able to get his farm running profitably again. I am not saying the first person did not have a right to get rid of the bees, only showing how making decisions purely out of self interest can generate massive unbalances in natural systems that are completely intertwined among our properties. Humans have come up with the concept of property rights in order to advance as a civil society, but that doesn't mean those principles are fundamental to the way nature works.

[angelofdeath]

being the moderate kind of guy i am AND given the controversy and claims that surround various 'settled science' AND given the claims of 'experts' the government relies on...... (they really got iraq and the ice age in the 1980's right didnt they?)

i'd at least ask for the several states to be in charge of various environmental measures as per the 10th amendment instead of having one huge policy across the whole country. given the track record of the government. at least allow some sort of competition to see who really knows the deal and see what really works.

as for the garbage example, i was dealing mainly in on paper calculations not the actual 'real' world. the real world is totally subjective to human action. obviously i dont know the exact cost of plastic bag disposal. i said...'assume plastic costs more to dispose of because it impacts the environment much more than other bags.'

although a 'garbologist' william rathje has found that plastic isnt bad for the environment at all. he claims its the paper that is the main problem. like yellow page books.

the system of private property is the ONLY way that properly allocates resources. the socialism calculation debate has been going on for a long time and the austrians have won the debate.

to think that a bumbling huge bureaucratic federal government, ruling the lives of 300 million diverse peoples, can some how cure the environment through socialist policies is what is profoundly flawed.

another problem i have with the so called environmental movement, not only do they consider dissent on their ideas equivalent to holocaust denial, they do not take human living standards into account at all. some of these people promoting overpopulation propaganda write articles literally wishing away all the worlds people then claiming then that 'things begin to look fairly good for the environment.' lets face it. nature in its raw form is nasty and cruel. humans have to impact it in some way. otherwise we would all be living in caves. literally.

final point:
if the socialist system of resource allocation is the best, then at least the highly collectivist countries behind the iron curtain might of been economic basket cases, but at least their environments should of been perfect, right? but wait.... seems i remember reading that smoking was forbidden on boats in various lakes in the USSR because if a lit cigarette hit the water.. it would IGNITE. hmmmm.
i know i know, we just need the right planners and everything will be right.
just like if we just elect the RIGHT president, everything will be fixed in the US. yeah. this has been working out real good for the last 200 years.

[frankiefiver]

lets look at garbage disposal. since the cost of garbage disposal is socialized or municipalized... we dont really pay the actual cost of disposal. plastic bags are a hot topic. lets assume they are very damaging to the environment. but lets also assume the average house hold essentially pays NOTHING to dispose of garbage (sure they pay taxes for garbage disposal, but these are unseen to most people and the cost is the same for everyone no matter what they throw out) it doesnt matter whether they throw out paper (more environmentally friendly than plastic) or plastic or nothing at all. they still pay the same amount. and since the municipality owns the garbage dump, they socialize the cost of disposal. where as in a free market with private trash pick up and a private waste dump... the dump owner would obviously charge you much more to dispose of the plastic bags than the paper bags or better yet, no grocery bags at all. by charging more, he reduces the amount of plastic going into the ground. so if you then fully realize that throwing away a plastic bag costs say 5$ per bag to get rid of, and a paper bag costs .20$ to get rid of, which one are you going to ask for at the grocery store? or maybe you'll just be really smart and bring your own cloth bags.




I have seen you bang on about this idea a few times now. Unfortunately it would simply not work. Individuals faced with a high price to dispose of rubbish would tend towards disposing of it illegally rather than pay. In my mind a more practicable solution would be to assign a value to rubbish, like bottle collection in Germany (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Container_deposit_legislation) for example, which would provide incentive to individuals to participate in a rubbish collection and recycling program. Similarly, an entirely free market solution to reducing carbon will not work because, relative to the immediate profit available, there is very little incentive to think of the long term environmental effects. What we have at the moment is a very large carrot and the rumour that a stick could be coming sometime in the future. In order for a free or even mixed solution to be effective the weighting of incentive vs disincentive needs to be relatively even for the majority of participants. Property rights and neo-liberal economics is not able to provide a balance regarding this issue.


if the socialist system of resource allocation is the best, then at least the highly collectivist countries behind the iron curtain might of been economic basket cases, but at least their environments should of been perfect, right?
I think you miss the point completely when you start to argue free market vs social economy. From an environmentalist perspective the issue is not about which rigid, and dated, ideology to stubbornly stick to in order to find a solution. It is about a pragmatic approach to solving an impending problem.

[angelofdeath]

I think you miss the point completely when you start to argue free market vs social economy. From an environmentalist perspective the issue is not about which rigid, and dated, ideology to stubbornly stick to in order to find a solution. It is about a pragmatic approach to solving an impending problem.

the underlying ideologies are the same. property held by the government in the name of the collective people for the 'common good.'

as far as 'pragmatism...' im not concerned at all with that if it is violating rights. i mean we could claim the nazi police state was 'pragmatic' in regards to its virtual elimination of street crime.
not only that, but given the poor track record of nearly everything the government has done/is doing... and given the already poor track record it has at protecting the environment, i dont trust the govt to the do job at all. the govt cant win a fight with a couple thousand untrained arabs in the middle east, cant keep drugs out of max security prison, tried to cure poverty 50 years ago and they have failed, cant secure the US's borders, it cant even run a government monopoly of mail delivery and turn a profit. last projection i heard was that the USPS is they are gonna lose 250 billion over the next 10 years.

but in any case, if people cant see the case for ending municipalized garbage dumps, they cant see the case for just about any other activity of a free people to engage in.

but being the moderate guy i am, i wouldnt be so critical of the enviro-fascism that makes up the environmental movement if they didnt do such ridiculous things. like:

they federalize family farms by deciding after a couple hundred years, that a small section of the acreage is actually a federally protected marsh. and then they eliminate anyone to touch it even though it has been part of the farm for decades and decades... thereby putting this farmer out of business.

in certain areas of the country, if an endangered species is spotted on a farm, the land is federalized. which is why the policy of the 3 S's was invented. shoot, shovel and shut up. because if word gets out, they lose their land.

if crazy shit like this wasnt going on... i wouldnt be so critical.
although, still at the bare minimum all that i ask is you allow the several states to decide these policies instead of the federal government and see who does the best job, then follow that example. to think that a centrally managed bureaucracy could set environmental policy and actually have it work for a country as big as the US, with 300 million people, is just insanity.

how many more tasks can we give this inept government and expect great results? i think its the definition of insanity to do the same thing over and over again and expect different results. governments fail. no changing that.

[Decyferon]

AOD why do you give so many rights to states being run themselves rather than a central government, there is no difference, it is still the same politicians, same agendas, why break it down to a localised level when there doesn't appear to be any benefit of this?

I'm also of Mams thinking in that nothing will happen unless governments step up and take major action, there is no incentive for business to do anything about the environment unless it is going to mean they increase their profits, that is the bottom line, companies that pollute more should be taxed more, simple as that, penalise them for polluting or being un-green and you will soon see them doing something about it.

Also, I think comparing the environments of behind the iron curtain era countries is silly, both America and USSR were in a 'cold' war and were more focussed on other issues as the environment wasn't such an issues back then as it is nowadays. Also, no one is saying socialism is the answer to the environmental problem, just that governments need to step up and force change.

[lord_casek]

AOD why do you give so many rights to states being run themselves rather than a central government, there is no difference, it is still the same politicians, same agendas, why break it down to a localised level when there doesn't appear to be any benefit of this?

I'm also of Mams thinking in that nothing will happen unless governments step up and take major action, there is no incentive for business to do anything about the environment unless it is going to mean they increase their profits, that is the bottom line, companies that pollute more should be taxed more, simple as that, penalise them for polluting or being un-green and you will soon see them doing something about it.

Also, I think comparing the environments of behind the iron curtain era countries is silly, both America and USSR were in a 'cold' war and were more focussed on other issues as the environment wasn't such an issues back then as it is nowadays. Also, no one is saying socialism is the answer to the environmental problem, just that governments need to step up and force change.


Because it is intended for all the states to be a government unto themselves.


"States rights movement and the Ron Paul reality are seeds that have been planted"


NewsWithViews.com | 5, 2009
By Geoff Metcalf
"The fabric of American empire ought to rest on the solid basis of the consent of the people. The streams of national power ought to flow from that pure, original fountain of all legitimate authority." --Alexander Hamilton
Apparently several U.S. States have taken the first steps to claim sovereignty under the United States Constitution 10th Amendment. You may not have seen or heard about this from the Main Stream Media, but the ripple is as real as a sunrise.
Arizona, New Hampshire, Missouri, and Washington state are in various stages of legislatively declaring their sovereignty. Several states are giving notice the Federal Government should actually abide by the terms enumerated in the U.S. Constitution. They probably won’t succeed any more than Ron Paul did, but both the states rights movement and the Ron Paul reality are seeds that have been planted…and require attention and nurturing.(full article at link)
http://www.newswithviews.com/metcalf/metcalf278.htm

[angelofdeath]

AOD why do you give so many rights to states being run themselves rather than a central government, there is no difference, it is still the same politicians, same agendas, why break it down to a localised level when there doesn't appear to be any benefit of this?

you are correct... all states are corrupt, whether its a local state government or a federal government.
there are two points though.:

the constitution demands all powers not enumerated in article 1 section 8 are left to the states

but more importantly... we would have 50 'solutions' to a problem instead of one. based on the hayekian notion that out of these 50 we would find the best example. hell, if we actually had a state come up with a real working model, then you could sell this to public on the national level, with a constitutional amendment of course.

in the end, these days, i support NO government control except protection of life liberty and property. but if i dont support decentralization it would be like not supporting tax cuts when in reality im in favor of abolition of 95% of the taxes we pay

Also, no one is saying socialism is the answer to the environmental problem, just that governments need to step up and force change.

call it what you want. most environmentalists back either a full on socialist model or a economic fascist model with a veneer of property rights and full government regulation and control. given that governments under communist control holding the means of production in the name of all the people for the common good, SHOULD according to the theories of the environmentalists have had great environments.

as for your other statements... you hold the marxian view of the economy, i hold an austrian view of the economy.
nuff said on that .

here is no incentive for business to do anything about the environment unless it is going to mean they increase their profits, that is the bottom line, companies that pollute more should be taxed more, simple as that, penalise them for polluting or being un-green and you will soon see them doing something about it.

but i will comment on this.

what is wrong with allowing people to hold businesses accountable as well? as i pointed out, governments PROTECT the so called rights of these companies to pollute AND to have given them through statute limited liability.

another argument can be made that it is rich countries, that is free countries with economic prosperity have better environments than other countries that are poor and under a quasi socialist rule. why? the leisure time afforded by the free market as well as the quality of life and standard of living allow people to spend more time taking care of concerns about the environment.

speaking from personal experience... privately held farms in an area i am familiar with are squeaky clean and environmentally friendly. if i walk from one of these properties on to the national forest, you have poisoned springs, slashed old growth timber, and trash everywhere.
just sayin.

in the end, i'll reiterate. to think that government can do ANYTHING the best is just setting yourself up for failure. you will be let down. as i said, if they cant keep drugs out of max security prison or catch a couple arabs in the middle east, they are NOT going to be able to save the environment for you

[Pew_Pew_Pew]

although a 'garbologist' william rathje has found that plastic isnt bad for the environment at all. he claims its the paper that is the main problem. like yellow page books.


I've enjoyed reading your debate. However your point about William Rathje is flawed. Plastic *IS* bad for the environment. PVC plastic leeches a chemical known to cause cancer. Not the PVC piping you're familiar with. PVC plastic is used to package everything in those hard to open clamshells. Yellow page books are collected by schools in my area, they have a contest to see how many books a classroom can collect and then they get a party or whatever. These yellow pages are then recycled.

Regarding your comment about the $5 to trash a plastic bag vs paper. Would the garbage man come by and sort through your garbage making sure you didn't throw away a plastic bag? How would we collect our garbage if not with a kitchen tall plastic bag during the week?

Seems very inefficient to work in the real world.

[angelofdeath]

I've enjoyed reading your debate. However your point about William Rathje is flawed. Plastic *IS* bad for the environment. PVC plastic leeches a chemical known to cause cancer. Not the PVC piping you're familiar with. PVC plastic is used to package everything in those hard to open clamshells. Yellow page books are collected by schools in my area, they have a contest to see how many books a classroom can collect and then they get a party or whatever. These yellow pages are then recycled.

Regarding your comment about the $5 to trash a plastic bag vs paper. Would the garbage man come by and sort through your garbage making sure you didn't throw away a plastic bag? How would we collect our garbage if not with a kitchen tall plastic bag during the week?

Seems very inefficient to work in the real world.

im not taking a stand on whether plastic is good or bad for the environment, i merely pointed out rathje to show that a 'garbologist' basically holds that plastic isnt as bad as people think just to sort of show the debate isnt really 'settled.' i'll leave it to the experts.
this really isnt the debate in my opinion. as the principle behind my arguments would be the same for whatever material is more harmful to the environment. it costs more to dispose of those things than things that are environmentally friendly, but due to socialized garbage collection and treatment, you dont know the actual cost of disposal.

a few years back i read about a teacher who had a project going on for part of the school year. it involved students for something like a half hour a day sorting garbage. putting green bottles in this bin, brown bottles in that bin, paper here, plastic there. a newspaper came out, wrote story about it. the teacher posed for the camera's, smiling, etc. the reporter decided to stick around after the students left. she talked to the janitor. the janitor proceeded to tell the reporter that they just dump all the 'sorted' garbage into one single dumpster out back when asked what the school does with the students project. the janitor went on to tell the woman that the market was saturated right now from so much chip board and recycled paper products, etc that the recycle company was charging people to pick up the paper and plastic and that they just throw it in the trash dumpster.

and the teacher knew this, but decided to keep the charade going. she even kept up the charade to a news outlet. the reporter confronted the teacher after school and when asked about where the trash went... she shrugged and said she 'doesnt have the heart to tell the kids.' she said the really important thing is that the kids 'feel good' about 'doing' something. this is basically the fantasy level we are dealing with.

as for your last comment about would the garbage man sort through your paper and trash... i'd answer that with... the market determines that. its a technical problem. since we are talking in abstracts and in example and not in actual human action, one can only guess. it could be done by weight, overall content, etc. this is like asking...'but if we allowed the free market to set prices for food and groceries, how will they be distributed and how ill people get fed?' bastiat pointed out how paris got fed and answered this very question. spontaneous market order of willing participants engaging in voluntary acts of self interest.

when you take scrap iron/steel to a scrap yard for instance they pay you for how much you bring in and by taking a glance at the overall structure of what you are bringing in. if you bring in a truck full of 90% brake rotors, you get top dollar for 'heavy crusher steel.' if you bring in a junk car, you get paid the junk car rate which takes into account all the plastic and non steel junk they have sort out with their machines. however the real incentive lies in what the junk yards do that take junk cars to a steel crusher. they strip the cars completely. no plastic at all, just plain steel... and of course they get twice as much money for the cars since they dont have to 'sort' the materials out.

[Decyferon]

I'm just happy to my my council tax to the local authority and let them deal with the garbage issue, I got too much going on to bother thinking about any of that crap, it doesn't interest me and if it was down to me I would just dump the lot at the tip, however I pay my council tax, the binmen empty my bins, the recyclers come orund once a week, i put all my recycling into one box, they sort it as they put it into the truck, why anyone would want to get involved in the issue anymore than that is beyond me.

[angelofdeath]

I'm just happy to my my council tax to the local authority and let them deal with the garbage issue, I got too much going on to bother thinking about any of that crap, it doesn't interest me and if it was down to me I would just dump the lot at the tip, however I pay my council tax, the binmen empty my bins, the recyclers come orund once a week, i put all my recycling into one box, they sort it as they put it into the truck, why anyone would want to get involved in the issue anymore than that is beyond me.

it would be no different with a free market trash pick up service. you would just have to pay the real cost of trash disposal, which it turn protects the environment.

[russell jones]

Let's cut through the straw man arguments and get to the heart of the issue AOD: there is no free market solution for global warming. Discuss.

[cunt sauce]

Let's cut through the straw man arguments and get to the heart of the issue AOD: there is no free market solution for global warming. Discuss.

correct there is no free market solution for global warming, but i am going to go even further...

there is no political answer to the degradation of our natural world. industrialized society is and always will be unsustainable because it requires the importation of resources. there needs to be a revolution of society to change this planet, not a reform of politics.

to hell with ron paul, obama, mcstain, bush, nader, all of them. it is all a distraction. we need to prick out the problem of society at its source. industrialized civilization.

http://www.janssenpharmaceutica.be/images/Randstad_1.jpg

needs to turn into

http://www.wagga.nsw.gov.au/resources/images/Indigenous1.jpg

[Zig]

correct there is no free market solution for global warming, but i am going to go even further...

there is no political answer to the degradation of our natural world. industrialized society is and always will be unsustainable because it requires the importation of resources. there needs to be a revolution of society to change this planet, not a reform of politics.

to hell with ron paul, obama, mcstain, bush, nader, all of them. it is all a distraction. we need to prick out the problem of society at its source. industrialized civilization.

http://www.janssenpharmaceutica.be/images/Randstad_1.jpg

needs to turn into

http://www.wagga.nsw.gov.au/resources/images/Indigenous1.jpg

yes lets de-industrialize the world, and reduce the population to save the planet... oh and humans are a virus...

/sarcasm

[cunt sauce]

"This civilization is killing the planet. They say that one sign of intelligence is the ability to recognize patterns. I’m gonna lay out a pattern here and let’s see if we can recognize it in less than 6,000 years. When you think of the hills and plains of Iraq, do you normally think of cedar forests so thick the sunlight never touches the ground? That’s how it was before. The first written myth of this culture is that of Gilgamesh deforesting that area to make cities. Plato complained that deforestation was drying up springs and destroying the water quality in Greece. The forests of North Africa went down to make the Phoencian and Egyptian navies. We can go north and ask, Where are the lions who were in Greece? Where are the indigenous of Europe? They’ve been massacred, or assimilated—in any case, genocide was perpetrated against them by definition because they’re no longer there.

If you start asking questions, the questions just keep moving back and back and back. This is a pattern that’s been going on for a long, long time. This culture has been unsustainable from the beginning. On a finite planet, you would think that we would think about that. You can’t exploit a planet and live on it too. At this stage, since there are no new frontiers to exploit, the planet’s falling apart."

[ILOTSMYBRAIN]

Yo bro let's go see Avatar in 3D again!

[cunt sauce]

:lol: :lol: :lol:

[cunt sauce]

I hope you're not suggesting that an increase of 1°C from the current temperature is equivalent to a increase of 33.8°F from the current temperature. That would be a crass misinterpretation.





No, it's the opposite. Ron Paul's approach to the environment is such, because he thinks the government shouldn't be involved in anything.

As much as I agree with the fact that the government is involved in too many things it shouldn't be right now, there is simply no other way to deal with the environment than to order people to get their shit together.

There is literally zero incentive for the free market to enact an environmentally friendly policy. None. The consumer public will never demand it to the extent that will cause a shift in the market's behavior towards the environment. It is painfully clear that the decision to change towards a sustainable lifestyle will never come out of the pure hearts of consumers who have spent decades being conditioned to a market of overconsumption and extreme resource drain. Someone or something HAS to step in and change the way things are done.

If the government is not the one to step in and enact this change, then tell me, who is?
i have a question for you or any other moderator willing to respond... does the company providing the electricity necessary to run 12ozprophet offer renewable sources? in my area you can pay a little bit extra for wind powered electricity and the extra tax goes towards building more wind turbines (around $5 extra a month for the average home). do you guys take advantage of this (if possible)? the reason why i ask is because a lot of people want things to change but no one is willing to do them on their own. i agree govt regulation is absolutely necessary, but the consumer makes a big difference too!

thanks!

[cunt sauce]

waiting... waiting


Leaning, leaning, safe and secure from all alarm. Leaning, leaning, leaning on the everlasting arms

[El Mamerro]

As far as I know, no. We have pretty much no say on the dealings behind this site, but if it was my call, I'd definitely look into it. On a personal level I can't even begin to list the number of things I've done to cut on my energy footprint and reduce waste. And yet it's still too much. As individuals dependent on an excessively wasteful culture, there are limits on how much we can scale back without dramatically affecting our ongoing lives in a negative manner. I believe it is entirely possible to live our rich, energy-hungry lives if we take a stand together as a planet and pool our best resources into cracking sustainability.

All I can gather from responses to the dilemma presented is the equivalent of "But... but... who knows, as long as it's not the government!". Oh wait, governments protect the right for companies to pollute. Excellent, you have pointed out one key thing we can get started on overturning. The private waste disposal example doesn't quite cut it and the reasons have been explained. Let's keep on going, what else can we do?

Obviously regulations are a big deal to most of you, but I don't think government intervention begins and ends with just that. What about incentives? Oh, right, those require money, which come from taxes, which you don't want to pay more of (cause you have no say on how they're doled out... but what if you did?).

If we have basically established that the free market cannot solve the problem (it can't act directly on it due to lack of profit incentive), and neither can the government (it can act directly, but will almost certainly do it quite badly), what is the alternative we have to go forward on? If nothing shows up, we have to choose one of the two. Until I hear a better answer, I can only side with the one with the greater possibility of enacting change.

[Decyferon]

I'm with you Mams, until business works out a way to profit from making changes to the environment for a positive then they will not do anything, governments at least have a responsibility to do something about it, whether through incentives for business or tax breaks for cleaner energy etc. It is clear it is an important issue across the world so government hands are kinda forced to do something about it.

Yea I'm not happy to pay more taxes for this, but I think our tax money can be spent much wiser, the amount of waste that comes from the governement process could be slimmed right down, there are too many offices within the government that essentially do the same thing, when they start cutting the beauracratic red tape and all the huge back office departments then they can focus those tax savings to the economy and environment.

[Zig]

http://rawstory.com/rs/2010/0414/obama-dead-heat-ron-paul/

personally i think ron paul would lose in an election against obama, and i'm honestly on the fence about whether or not i even want to see a ron paul presidency come to fruition because i'm sure if he ever got in office things will be a lot different from what i imagined.

[ILOTSMYBRAIN]

To be honest I'm not sure how it would play out.

I do think it would be very entertaining for a political nerd like myself. Two polar opposite's. Two people who can handle a debate, and have huge followings.

I personally think it would come down to the wire. I also doubt we would have to worry about some sort of political scandal, involving some random woman, or some drug problem.

It would probably be the best thing for this country, even if the man I'm pulling for loses. Wait...did that have some kind of homosexual undertone?

:X

[russell jones]

http://rawstory.com/rs/2010/0414/obama-dead-heat-ron-paul/

personally i think ron paul would lose in an election against obama, and i'm honestly on the fence about whether or not i even want to see a ron paul presidency come to fruition because i'm sure if he ever got in office things will be a lot different from what i imagined.

Paul hasn't been properly vetted. If he was, and people find out his views mean no public schools, no student loans, no environmental laws, no government regulation of any kind of industry, gold based currency, no workplace laws, no minimum wage, no overtime for 40 hour work weeks, no social security, medicare, no federal disaster assistance, etc.... I could go on and on. Once people find that out, his numbers would drop to the floor.

[lord_casek]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FohIXoeaPGE&feature=player_embedded

[ILOTSMYBRAIN]

Bill Clinton, just said something along the lines of tea party extremist's possibly doing something like the Oklahoma City bombing.

[angelofdeath]

top this:

fans of mastadon, stoner rock, doom metal, between the buried and me fans, and members of bands with 'nordic' band names are 'tea baggers', 'angry white men,' neo confederates, racists, nazi's and part of the violent arm of the 'tea party movement.'

you heard it here first... according to chris matthews and the SPLC, hipsters with painted fingernails listening to between the buried and me and dancing to such bands are extremist racist angry white men

http://www.charlestoncitypaper.com/SouthernAvenger/archives/2010/04/17/heavy-metal-or-hate-angry-white-people-take-over-music-farm


wow.
just fucking wooowwwwww

[lord_casek]

top this:

fans of mastadon, stoner rock, doom metal, between the buried and me fans, and members of bands with 'nordic' band names are 'tea baggers', 'angry white men,' neo confederates, racists, nazi's and part of the violent arm of the 'tea party movement.'

you heard it here first... according to chris matthews and the SPLC, hipsters with painted fingernails listening to between the buried and me and dancing to such bands are extremist racist angry white men

http://www.charlestoncitypaper.com/SouthernAvenger/archives/2010/04/17/heavy-metal-or-hate-angry-white-people-take-over-music-farm


wow.
just fucking wooowwwwww


I have a friend who works for C SPAN who I keep trying to get to urine balloon Matthews.
He insulted Tucker Carlson, but I didn't request that.

Matthews is just up to his old tricks of being a dipshit for attention.

[ILOTSMYBRAIN]

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/07/opinion/07kristof.html

Posting this here, just to provide an example that downgrading the military isn't a bad thing.

[Zig]

you know what is funny is i don't even really see ron paul as a revolutionary, just more as a restorationist. but i guess restoring the constitution and bill of rights in our day and age is revolutionary, and if you look at it that concept can be viewed as a continuation of the american revolution.

[Zig]

Paul hasn't been properly vetted. If he was, and people find out his views mean no public schools, no student loans, no environmental laws, no government regulation of any kind of industry, gold based currency, no workplace laws, no minimum wage, no overtime for 40 hour work weeks, no social security, medicare, no federal disaster assistance, etc.... I could go on and on. Once people find that out, his numbers would drop to the floor.

i wouldn't be so sure about that, and not to mention that just because a president takes office doesn't mean he can institute all of his ideas. look at obama.

a lot of the things you're mentioning, public schools, student loans, environmental laws, government regulation, fiat currency, minimum wage, etc. are all malfunctioning or failed policies anyway. :rolleyes:

[skengmanmode]

fuck this racist capitalist, and fuck America's constitution

[russell jones]

i wouldn't be so sure about that, and not to mention that just because a president takes office doesn't mean he can institute all of his ideas. look at obama.

a lot of the things you're mentioning, public schools, student loans, environmental laws, government regulation, fiat currency, minimum wage, etc. are all malfunctioning or failed policies anyway. :rolleyes:


I don't know what you are trying to say about Obama and Paul... considering Obama had one huge goal accomplished within a year of taking office.

[ILOTSMYBRAIN]

He's just trying to say that you wont be able to put into policy everything that you would like as the President.

Regardless to who you are.

[russell jones]

Paul wouldn't be able to accomplish anything, because he would find few friends in Congress. The only things he could do would involve executive orders, which he would be reticent to use, and pull troops out of foreign theaters, which is fine by me.

[angelofdeath]

i think the main thing paul could do was essentially order the executive branch to stand down. cease enforcement of unconstitutional federal laws, drug war, gun war, stop using the patriot act, MCA06, and like you said, start dismantling the over seas empire, etc etc.

[skengmanmode]

start dismantling the over seas empire, etc etc.

unless he is planning on ending capitalism, this would be pretty hard. The empire is not due to a few bad apples colluding in congress or the white house, it is to keep the world open for business (by force). In the age of monopoly-capital when domestic investment outlets diminish (the work by David Harvey, John Belamy Foster, Magdoff and Paul Sweezy is good on this if anyone is interested), the US needs the world open for exploitation - the empire ensures this.

So unless Ron Paul is secretly planning on leading the working class to build socialism and overthrowing capitalism, there's not much he can do.

[Zig]

unless he is planning on ending capitalism, this would be pretty hard. The empire is not due to a few bad apples colluding in congress or the white house, it is to keep the world open for business (by force). In the age of monopoly-capital when domestic investment outlets diminish (the work by David Harvey, John Belamy Foster, Magdoff and Paul Sweezy is good on this if anyone is interested), the US needs the world open for exploitation - the empire ensures this.

So unless Ron Paul is secretly planning on leading the working class to build socialism and overthrowing capitalism, there's not much he can do.

"Capitalism should not be condemned, since we haven’t had capitalism. A system of capitalism presumes sound money, not fiat money manipulated by a central bank. Capitalism cherishes voluntary contracts and interest rates that are determined by savings, not credit creation by a central bank. It’s not capitalism when the system is plagued with incomprehensible rules regarding mergers, acquisitions, and stock sales, along with wage controls, price controls, protectionism, corporate subsidies, international management of trade, complex and punishing corporate taxes, privileged government contracts to the military-industrial complex, and a foreign policy controlled by corporate interests and overseas investments. Add to this centralized federal mismanagement of farming, education, medicine, insurance, banking and welfare. This is not capitalism!" ~ Ron Paul http://www.house.gov/paul/congrec/congrec2002/cr070902.htm

[ILOTSMYBRAIN]

unless he is planning on ending capitalism, this would be pretty hard. The empire is not due to a few bad apples colluding in congress or the white house, it is to keep the world open for business (by force). In the age of monopoly-capital when domestic investment outlets diminish (the work by David Harvey, John Belamy Foster, Magdoff and Paul Sweezy is good on this if anyone is interested), the US needs the world open for exploitation - the empire ensures this.

So unless Ron Paul is secretly planning on leading the working class to build socialism and overthrowing capitalism, there's not much he can do.


You serious?

I don't think that is accurate at all.

Ron Paul and....socialism?

ROFL!

[Zig]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5VYUlxyuyo0&feature=player_embedded

[Zig]

Rachel Maddow hit-piece on Rand Paul
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-3O2rBz9gwo&feature=player_embedded#!

Basically trying to portray him as a racist.

I really hate that dike (oops.) Free speech :) (joking)

[angelofdeath]

the smear campaign has begun

[Zig]

Rand Paul Says He's Being 'Trashed Up and Down' by 'Democratic Talking Points'
http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/2010_Elections/rand-paul-fires-back-critics-civil-rights-act/story?id=10705651

[lord_casek]

I've been keeping up with this smear campaign against Rand. It's fucking ridiculous. I guess we've hit that point where the norm in the U.S. is a lack of understanding of our Constitution
and those who follow it.

[russell jones]

Rachel Maddow hit-piece on Rand Paul
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-3O2rBz9gwo&feature=player_embedded#!

Basically trying to portray him as a racist.

I really hate that dike (oops.) Free speech :) (joking)


Not a hack job at all... he refused to answer straightforward questions about his well publicized views. I don't think he is a racist, but he needs to be forthcoming no matter how it makes him look to others.

[lord_casek]

Not a hack job at all... he refused to answer straightforward questions about his well publicized views. I don't think he is a racist, but he needs to be forthcoming no matter how it makes him look to others.


He should have asked Rachel if she thought it would be ok for a black business to refuse Klansmen service.

[ILOTSMYBRAIN]

Not a hack job at all... he refused to answer straightforward questions about his well publicized views. I don't think he is a racist, but he needs to be forthcoming no matter how it makes him look to others.


What about the point he makes about Byrd filibustering that same bill, himself, and he happens to be a Democrat.

Rand like he says was 2 when the 64 Civil Rights Act was passed. He has never campaigned to repeal this bill. He was basically talking semantics when it came down to certain parts of the bill that apply to private businesses.

So...yeah, if this isn't a biased attack to portray someone as a racist, I really don't know what to say.

And I'm sure that the same smear tactics wouldn't be used against the majority of the people this chick has on her show.

For example..."he holds an unacceptable view on civil rights".

What a fucking joke.

[Zig]

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/05/23


Maybe we can finally have a serious discussion in this country about the lunacies of libertarianism.

I doubt it. This is, after all, America. I doubt we'd know an intelligent political discourse if it whacked us upside the haid.

But now we have Rand Paul, son of Ron, marching toward the United States Senate, with a mission to "take back our government". Oh boy.

I might be able to get a little bit excited about that if it really was his goal. The truth is that the American government exists almost entirely to serve the interests of the American plutocracy. If libertarians want to break that evil connection, well, then, definitely give me a shout. I'll be glad to pitch in.

But, of course, you pretty much never hear them talk about that part as they rant about the evils of government.

What do libertarians actually want, Herr Doktor? It's not entirely clear to me that they know themselves. They're pretty good with the shibboleths, but always seem to have trouble beyond that. That's because it is precisely on the other side of the sappy slogans where the contradictions of libertarianism come glaringly into focus. This is the place where naive but kindly people would say "Wot, I signed up for that?", and that's exactly why libertarians don't want to go there.

Such avoidance of reality is not only rarely a problem in American political discourse, it's nearly a national religion. In this sense, the discussion Rand Paul had with Rachel Maddow the other night was doubly instructive. First, because Paul - the national savior on horseback du jour - was reduced to repeated instances of the most basic, and base, political maneuvering in order to come to grips with the implications of his own ideology.

And, second, because Maddow gave us a partial reminder of what good journalism would actually look like in America. She didn't actually get quite all the way to where she should have gone, but her polite, thoughtful and semi-relentless questioning of her guest was as foreign to what passes for journalism in this country today as would be six-headed fourteen-dimensional gaseous creatures from a distant galaxy. Maddow is fast becoming a national treasure, which says a lot about her, but, regrettably, a lot more about her colleagues in the ‘news' business.

There are several key explanations for the rise of the insane right over the last three decades, but surely one of them has been the compliance of the mainstream media. Politicians have been able to make the most absurdly ridiculous and hypocritical statements without fear of being called on them. And if they ever were, they need only repeat the same line in some slightly different variation, and that's the end of the affair - media lapdogs are well trained to cease and desist. One of Maddow's great virtues - which ought to be a sine qua non for anyone calling themselves a journalist - is her doggedness.


Check out the reddit comments:
http://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/c7ako/the_discussion_rand_paul_had_with_rachel_maddow/

I'm just smh at this. I'm not even libertarian either.

[angelofdeath]

i'll explain the issue so everyone can get on with their lives.

rand paul supports the parts of the civil rights act which over turn state laws enforcing of segregation in public institutions.
the philosophical libertarian position on the 'touchy' part that everyone is going into hysterics over is quite simple....
libertarians make no distinction between private property such as a house and private property such as a business. whereas everyone else some how has decided that private property that is employed for 'public accommodation' the government has a right to tell property owners, the supposed sole controller and master of their own property, whom to associate with. if we are to get in the business of telling people who they are to associate with, why cant we force neo nazi time on rachel maddows show or force neo nazis to attend her cook outs... or why cant we, as casek said above, force blacks to associate with klansmen? if we take this into a few other areas, we can see how hypocritical the leftist position is. they will say that one has the right to discriminate against who joins the black caucus, but a private property owner cannot engage in a transaction without government interference.
further, if we are to say that there is a positive obligation on the part of the property owner to serve someone (that is that one is forced to serve someone) then why are we as property owners allowed to discriminate against drunk people? against naked people? people who carry weapons into places that serve alcohol? what do you think the left would do if using the civil rights act, we started overturning local laws forbidding the carrying of firearms into places that serve alcohol? if property owners arent allowed to associate with who they want to, and if peoples rights are violated if they are discriminated against due to some mythical conception of a positive obligation, why are we allowed to ban smokers from private property?

not only was segregation govt sanctioned and enforced, integration of a voluntary sort would land you in front of the judge. slavery lasted as long as it did because the govt recognized a property right in humans and the legal system defended this system for hundreds of years. does anyone think for one second that if some corporation started refusing to allow black people or hispanics on to their property in 2010 or made them pay at separate check outs that this place would not be either out of business due to loss of revenue or boycotted out of existence in about 12 seconds?

to not say that a private property owner doesnt have the right to 'discriminate' is simply silly.
considering how hysterical the left is about how greedy capitalists want to exploit everyone, do we really think that the greedy companies are going to immediately ban all black people from businesses if that part of the civil rights act was repealed? (mind you, rand paul does not support repealing it at all, but im just saying....) is a black mans money just as green as a white mans?
we discriminate all the time. when i chose my wife i discriminated against half the entire human race because i wanted to marry a woman. the black caucus discriminates against non blacks. the boy scouts discriminates against men and females. the catholic church wont marry non catholics.

furthermore if we are to ban, by govt force, abhorrent things like free speech or associations, we cease to be a free society.

[Zig]

yea... i mean I get it, and like i said i don't even consider myself a libertarian. i'm really struggling to understand what is so difficult to grasp by the majority of people. it's really quite ridiculous to see a candidate made out to be some sort of bigot or racist because of these touchy areas of the ideology. everyone is commenting (not just on the internet) and basically trashing libertarianism... claiming it would bring us back to segregation and discrimination. Maddow knew what she was doing... yet the majority are siding with her and calling this good journalism? things really are beginning to turn upside down...

i think it also stems from the hatred of the Tea Party movement too, since he is "their" candidate. A lot of people HATTTE that movement (I kind of do too.), because of all the goons that hopped on board like Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin etc. It really became a right-wing movement, and since Rand Paul is a Republican they associate him with all of that right-wing stuff. So when he says things like "We're here to take back our government" people on the left are thinking he means from the evil black man in office. I mean this is the simplistic way a lot of Americans view politics I believe.

[ILOTSMYBRAIN]

not only was segregation govt sanctioned and enforced, integration of a voluntary sort would land you in front of the judge. slavery lasted as long as it did because the govt recognized a property right in humans and the legal system defended this system for hundreds of years. does anyone think for one second that if some corporation started refusing to allow black people or hispanics on to their property in 2010 or made them pay at separate check outs that this place would not be either out of business due to loss of revenue or boycotted out of existence in about 12 seconds?


This whole post was on point, but the first two sentences in this paragraph explain the REAL situation.

[angelofdeath]

i'm really struggling to understand what is so difficult to grasp by the majority of people. it's really quite ridiculous to see a candidate made out to be some sort of bigot or racist because of these touchy areas of the ideology. everyone is commenting (not just on the internet) and basically trashing libertarianism... claiming it would bring us back to segregation and discrimination.

i think it also stems from the hatred of the Tea Party movement too, since he is "their" candidate. A lot of people HATTTE that movement (I kind of do too.), because of all the goons that hopped on board like Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin etc. It really became a right-wing movement, and since Rand Paul is a Republican they associate him with all of that right-wing stuff. So when he says things like "We're here to take back our government" people on the left are thinking he means from the evil black man in office. I mean this is the simplistic way a lot of Americans view politics I believe.

what it boils down to in my opinion is legislating morals.
the left is so against this, and rightfully so, but has no problem telling people who to associate with. is racism awful? surely. but people do awful things all the time. even the ACLU defends the nazi's right to assemble and say that they hate jews, etc. the question becomes should their be a penalty for saying bad things or withholding services? a free society says, no. anyone has a right to associate with whoever they want to. the other side argues that we must, to borrow recent rhetoric, put our boots on the throats of property owners, deny them control of their domain and tell them who to associate with in the name of making things more 'free' for others. this is a conflict of rights. you cannot trample someone's rights in order to make someone else be more 'free.'
true negative liberties simply mean that you can do whatever you want to as long as you inflict no physical harm to anyone elses life, liberty or property with no positive obligations. you refusing to associate with someone who is shirtless or shoe less, drunk and obnoxious or whatever in your store, does not negatively affect the rights of the person who was discriminated against as this person has no claim on your property or services. might it make them feel bad or piss them off? sure, but there is no actual rights violation.

and surely this is a reaction to the tea party movement. the left has the best tactic in their arsenal. a supposed moral high ground on 'race' issues. if you dont 100% tow the statist party line on the issue, your racial sensitivity is immediately brought into question and you are then forced to defend your character as opposed to talking about the issues at hand.

this is the perfect way for these people to take the focus off of rand paul trying to cut spending or abolish some sacred federal department. since rand paul is obviously not well trained and experienced in deal with the smear machine, he is gonna have a tough row to hoe. however in a news media that only deals with 3 second sound snippets and not full philosophical debates, he cannot win this battle.
all rachel maddow wants is a sound clip of rand saying..'yes i support repeal of the civil rights act provision integrated woolworths lunch counters...' and then they can spin off of this, without ever even thinking about trying to understand the actual position. if it is explained that a 'lunch counter' is the same thing as a house as far as private property goes, and that a black home owner doesnt have to allow klansman in his house.... people might start to actually see the position.

i always had trouble with this. it always made sense to me that govt played a role in telling business owners that they had to serve certain types of people. but as you start thinking more about the issue actually being a property rights issue, you technically do have a right to 'discriminate' no matter how stupid it might be. in the same manner you have the right to say abhorrent things.

i have a feeling that despite all this stuff going on this will actually boost rand paul in the end as most of america is on to the race card players and the splc race hustlers

[Cunt_Eastwood]

24'd^

Hit the nail on the head.

Rand Paul's policy is solid. I respect the hell out of him for turning down a ''meeting the press'' and being smart enough to know not to go and let them grill him like hes some kind of racist and attack his charector.

He probably got more publicity by giving the media the four. Its hard these days to like a politician, but this kid's alright.

[Mr.Write]

Politics are boring. Ron Paul is a dead end. For entertainment purposes only. Its all about the art of distraction. Last time i farted smelled freakin deliciouse.

[Zig]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqiUl3OtnDE&feature=player_embedded

Speaking on BP, etc.

[weirdone]

from what i understand on this its not much different that palin calling obama and canada a bunch of socialists when she was trying to bash the healthcare bill, then took her kid to canada for medical care.
the states is truly at the bottom of the barrel when it comes to retarded double talking politicians, some of the shit they say actually calls me to question if the majority of he people watching these clips on fox or wherever actually, even for a second, could ever beleive a word out of all your lying ass saps. i know if voting changed anything itd be illegal but christ i think i could honestly spin peoples words better than half the idiots they have in office or who are a part of the opposition (if thats how its referred to in the states?)

but yea im not one who should listen to politics especially from the states i guess, it makes the stereotype of all americans being idiotic biggots who are only concerned about themselves and their views very easy to beleive

[Zig]

Military Spending Must Be on the Table
http://original.antiwar.com/paul/2010/06/28/military-spending-must-be-on-the-table/


This past week various news events once again made it abundantly clear that our foreign policy is an abject failure. Unfortunately, in spite of this, the administration is determined to stay on this destructive course, despite any past promises to change it. For Afghanistan especially, if ever there was an opportunity to admit shortcomings and change strategies along with leaders, this past week was it.

There really is nothing for us to win in Afghanistan. Our mission has morphed from apprehending those who attacked us, to apprehending those who threaten or dislike us for invading their country, to remaking an entire political system and even a culture. I remain highly skeptical that, as foreign occupiers, we can ever impose Western-style democracy on another country. Our troops have debilitating restrictions on defending themselves against enemies, which are so often indistinguishable from civilians. They also face dire setbacks in winning hearts and minds when innocents are mistakenly harmed, which happens all the time. We can never make friends this way; the tactic never works.

This is an expensive, bloody, endless exercise in futility. Not everyone is willing to admit this just yet. But every second they spend in denial has real costs in lives and livelihoods.

Many of us can agree on one thing, however. Our military spending in general has grown way out of control. This is largely because fiscal accountability in military budgeting is seen, by many, as weak on defense. This is absolutely wrong and a dangerous way to think. It is certainly possible for the military to waste money, or to spend money counterproductively, and indeed it has. But out of political correctness, the military has been getting blank checks from the administrations and Congress for far too long.

It is important to defend our soil, but let us defend our own soil instead of defending Europe’s soil. Our willingness to defend Europe enables their lavish social spending at our expense, while they criticize our model of capitalism. It is time they allocated the money for their own defense. The same goes for Korea, Japan, and other countries like Egypt and Israel.

It is also important that while our troops are in combat, our soldiers have what they need to do the best they can, even if we disagree with why they are there. It is an embarrassment that some soldiers and families have had to buy body armor at their own expense when billions are awarded to politically well-connected defense contractors for weapon systems that don’t work, are over-budget, and are past deadline. This is the kind of waste that needs to end. I firmly believe that there is enough waste in the military budget that we can both save money overall and at the same time be safer.

Of course, the obvious way to save money and be safer is to stop meddling in the affairs of foreign countries and just bring our troops home. This will happen eventually if our empire, like every other fallen empire, insists on spending itself into collapse. If we want to avoid this, we must look into ways to bring our costs under control. Military budgets must be on the chopping block along with everything else.

[El Mamerro]

There really is nothing for us to win in Afghanistan.


Off topic, but...


WASHINGTON — The United States has discovered nearly $1 trillion in untapped mineral deposits in Afghanistan (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/international/countriesandterritories/afghanistan/index.html?inline=nyt-geo), far beyond any previously known reserves and enough to fundamentally alter the Afghan economy and perhaps the Afghan war itself, according to senior American government officials.

The previously unknown deposits — including huge veins of iron, copper, cobalt, gold and critical industrial metals like lithium (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/l/lithium_metal/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier) — are so big and include so many minerals that are essential to modern industry that Afghanistan could eventually be transformed into one of the most important mining centers in the world, the United States officials believe.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/14/world/asia/14minerals.html

[ILOTSMYBRAIN]

Yes, 1 trillion in untapped mineral deposit's sure make up for a three trillion dollar war.

Way to look at it in a "the glass is half full" kind of way.

Just to add something else, what are we going to do, steal these resources from the Afghan people whom which should receive most of the profits?

I mean, wouldn't that further the Taliban agenda, wouldn't that alienate the people further away from the United States? Aren't we running COIN, isn't that counter productive?

Regardless these wars need to end, and the only thing that seems to be happening is further aggression.

[El Mamerro]

3 trillion? I didn't know it was that high... most numbers I find off a quick search (http://www.costofwar.com/) put it way below that.

Regardless, it is *something* to look forward to in terms of any sort of gain. What our options could be, how we would work with Afghanis, and how the Taliban would react, is discussed in the article.

The value of the newly discovered mineral deposits dwarfs the size of Afghanistan’s existing war-bedraggled economy, which is based largely on opium production and narcotics trafficking as well as aid from the United States and other industrialized countries. Afghanistan’s gross domestic product is only about $12 billion.

“This will become the backbone of the Afghan economy,” said Jalil Jumriany, an adviser to the Afghan minister of mines.

Instead of bringing peace, the newfound mineral wealth could lead the Taliban to battle even more fiercely to regain control of the country.

The corruption that is already rampant in the Karzai government could also be amplified by the new wealth, particularly if a handful of well-connected oligarchs, some with personal ties to the president, gain control of the resources. Just last year, Afghanistan’s minister of mines was accused by American officials of accepting a $30 million bribe to award China the rights to develop its copper mine. The minister has since been replaced.

The Pentagon task force has already started trying to help the Afghans set up a system to deal with mineral development. International accounting firms that have expertise in mining contracts have been hired to consult with the Afghan Ministry of Mines, and technical data is being prepared to turn over to multinational mining companies and other potential foreign investors. The Pentagon is helping Afghan officials arrange to start seeking bids on mineral rights by next fall, officials said.

[ILOTSMYBRAIN]

I was including the numbers from the Iraq war.

[El Mamerro]

They're included in that link too, still just says over $1 trillion.

[ILOTSMYBRAIN]

After further research, you are correct.

Still, doesn't make it worth it.

[Zig]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=skWt4uUwzSs

[wearekilluminati]

yo seriously if you are a ron paul supporter..........................your late for work..................................wake the fuck up..................................

[Zig]

Ron Paul's Full Speech at CPAC 2011: The Brushfires of Freedom Are Burning!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JM8d_Arjz6g

Paul gets CPAC crowd on their feet
http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2011/02/11/paul-gets-cpac-crowd-on-their-feet/


Washington (CNN) - Texas Rep. Ron Paul addressed the Conservative Political Action Conference Friday, repeating the mantra of limited government that has rocketed him to stardom among a certain segment of conservative activists.
Easily garnering the most enthusiastic applause of the day, Paul advocated for a complete governmental retreat in every realm of society.

"We've had way too much bipartisanship for about 60 years," said Paul, in comments that drew one of many standing ovations during the 25-minute speech. "It's the bipartisanship of the welfare system, the warfare system…it all goes through with support from both parties. "

"There is truly a revolution going on in this country. We live in a time where we don't just need a change in attitude and a change in ideas," Paul also said. "We need to change our philosophy about what this country is all about. "
Paul, who ran a quixotic presidential bid in 2008 that caught fire with many fiscal conservatives and libertarians, added the crisis in Egypt is further proof American needs to disentangle from its foreign engagements.

"We need to do a lot less, a lot sooner, not only in Egypt, but around the world," he said. "The people don't like us propping up our dictators no more than we would like it if a foreign country propped up a dictator here."

Paul was the winner of the straw poll here last year, and, judging by the reception of the over-capacity crowd, is a favorite to win again. This year's straw poll will be closely watched given the annual event has become an early testing ground for potential GOP presidential candidates.

[christo-f]

I listened to that CPAC speech and I read some of his other stuff. Now I won't talk about his ideas for domestic policy and culture because that I something I have very little knowledge on.


HOWEVER, his foreign policy ideas.....


Sorry, this guy is so far off the mark on how things work that it is simply astounding. Anyone who has sat through International Relations, Political Economy, International Security 1001 or even just read a history book will know how far off the mark this guy is on the basic mechanics of how international relations and security works.

He really does not understand the system. Toe even entertain the idea that leaving the Middle East and Japan will make everyone happy and the US safer is just childish and makes me think this guy is basing his judgement on emotion and wishes.


I don't want to talk the guy down because he seems like he has heart and I like that. But real is real and his forpol platform is like that of a person who has never studied or even mored outside the region and interacted with other strategic decision makers but still thinks he understands them.



I have nothing against his domestic or ideological position so this is not a personal attack, I don't care if it's him or Santa Claus saying this stuff. It's an objective opinion based on depth. He aint got shit when it comes to foreign policy, none at all.

[Zig]

I listened to that CPAC speech and I read some of his other stuff. Now I won't talk about his ideas for domestic policy and culture because that I something I have very little knowledge on.


HOWEVER, his foreign policy ideas.....


Sorry, this guy is so far off the mark on how things work that it is simply astounding. Anyone who has sat through International Relations, Political Economy, International Security 1001 or even just read a history book will know how far off the mark this guy is on the basic mechanics of how international relations and security works.

He really does not understand the system. Toe even entertain the idea that leaving the Middle East and Japan will make everyone happy and the US safer is just childish and makes me think this guy is basing his judgement on emotion and wishes.


I don't want to talk the guy down because he seems like he has heart and I like that. But real is real and his forpol platform is like that of a person who has never studied or even mored outside the region and interacted with other strategic decision makers but still thinks he understands them.



I have nothing against his domestic or ideological position so this is not a personal attack, I don't care if it's him or Santa Claus saying this stuff. It's an objective opinion based on depth. He aint got shit when it comes to foreign policy, none at all.

i don't agree with everything and anything ron paul like a lot of his supporters, and i actually would rather not see a RP presidency because I know things will be much different then his rhetoric if he actually got voted into office. it would probably end up like an Obama situation I think, where it sounds all nice on paper but when it actually gets down to it the execution is much different than expected.

simply saying he doesn't comprehend the mechanics of foreign policy though is a bold statement. i think, at the very least, the man has a strong understanding of what it is our nation, at it's foundations, expected of it's own foreign policy such as non-interventionism. i think the man probably does have an understanding of how today's modern foreign policy operates, yet he is fundamentally against what it has become and politically positions himself as an opposition to that rather than to simply go along with it because "it is what it is", or because that is how things are. it's good to see that sort of conviction from a politician when it comes to the issue of foreign policy, and I personally believe America is in need of someone who takes this rare, and admittedly a bit of a radical, approach to the way our nation deals with other nations around the globe because in my opinion continuing what is the norm of international relations and "security" has transformed America into something that it should never have become and has only really benefited the military industrial complex, not the average American citizen who I believe RP looks out for more than anything.

[angelofdeath]

"i think the man probably does have an understanding of how today's modern foreign policy operates, yet he is fundamentally against what it has become and politically positions himself as an opposition to that rather than to simply go along with it because "it is what it is", or because that is how things are."

truth


i know christo comes from a 100% statist perspective and all that and i dont see a need to discuss various specific policies because i come from a moral/natural rights perspective and he doesnt see a need to respect these positions so there is no way to possibly argue these out... but i'd like for christo to touch on the concept of blow back. and if this position of RP's is fantasy. does this also mean that michael scheuer is full of BS when he talks of this same position? (MS as in the same guy who headed the CIA's bin laden unit)

blowback not only makes perfect sense, but i know for example that if russia started putting military bases in the US and occupied it the way the US occupies foreign countries, everyone i know would be out taking pot shots at russian convoys if not engaged in outright war against them. its interesting to note that americans dont want to accept this concept, mainly because the US govt will not allow (and rightly so) any one near the US. i just think its about time we afforded the rest of the world the same.

now, enter in various comments about how i dont understand the world, how the world will collapse without totalitarian governments telling everyone how big their toilet bowls and reading our emails, etc etc.

but the RP approach is to speak in broad generalities. he wants to reexamine the roll of government in domestic and foreign affairs. will the world look different if ron paul could reengineer foreign policy? yup. for better or worse? it depends how much you value freedom.

one thing that i always found funny with statists is they typically think the world can only work one way because of the current set up of governments, etc. its as if we had food distribution off the back of army trucks and someone says..'hey, i think the market could do a good job at this!' and he gets shouted down with calls of ..'hahaha, you idiot, you think the MARKET can deliver food! you dont know the first thing about life!'
that seems to sum up the opposing position pretty good.

[lord_casek]

I don't think Christo understand Ron Paul very much at all.

I'm fine with that, He can't vote here.

[wearekilluminati]

yo seriously if you are a ron paul supporter..........................your late for work..................................wake the fuck up..................................



fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me!

[lord_casek]

Yeah, it's obvious you haven't got anything worth reading to say.

[angelofdeath]

i think he is just part of the venus project or something

[lord_casek]

More like the penis project.

[wearekilluminati]

lol. more like i got a life project. what i meant is millions of people around the world were fooled by the whole hope,change, i am Jesus Christ and im going o fix the world campaign. during that whole campaign i would tell people that don't get your hopes up on this fool. and the responses that i would receive were your a jerk, your an imbecile, you don't know what you are talking about, get the fuck out. were going to have the first black president and your talking shit. lol yea laughable responses now.
well whole and behold! like i said ya think im this troll dumb ass, and i could really give a fuck. but in reality there's more than just a thematic screen name to me, but that's for you not to know.

n e how im just saying fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me.


does my post make more sense to you now. lol

all im saying don't be so gullible on topics we face now


investigate investigate investigate and surely your investments wil pay off.


peace mutha fuckas.....

[wearekilluminati]

More like the penis project.
more like you know where to put it project

[Zig]

whole and behold


:lol:

[lord_casek]

lol. more like i got a life project. what i meant is millions of people around the world were fooled by the whole hope,change, i am Jesus Christ and im going o fix the world campaign. during that whole campaign i would tell people that don't get your hopes up on this fool. and the responses that i would receive were your a jerk, your an imbecile, you don't know what you are talking about, get the fuck out. were going to have the first black president and your talking shit. lol yea laughable responses now.
well whole and behold! like i said ya think im this troll dumb ass, and i could really give a fuck. but in reality there's more than just a thematic screen name to me, but that's for you not to know.

n e how im just saying fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me.


does my post make more sense to you now. lol

all im saying don't be so gullible on topics we face now


investigate investigate investigate and surely your investments wil pay off.


peace mutha fuckas.....


Should've been more clear. I think we've all done our homework on Ron Paul.
We know where he stands.

[christo-f]

i don't agree with everything and anything ron paul like a lot of his supporters, and i actually would rather not see a RP presidency because I know things will be much different then his rhetoric if he actually got voted into office. it would probably end up like an Obama situation I think, where it sounds all nice on paper but when it actually gets down to it the execution is much different than expected.

I think that's a pretty rational and mature way to see it.

simply saying he doesn't comprehend the mechanics of foreign policy though is a bold statement. i think, at the very least, the man has a strong understanding of what it is our nation, at it's foundations, expected of it's own foreign policy such as non-interventionism. i think the man probably does have an understanding of how today's modern foreign policy operates, yet he is fundamentally against what it has become and politically positions himself as an opposition to that rather than to simply go along with it because "it is what it is", or because that is how things are. it's good to see that sort of conviction from a politician when it comes to the issue of foreign policy, and I personally believe America is in need of someone who takes this rare, and admittedly a bit of a radical, approach to the way our nation deals with other nations around the globe because in my opinion continuing what is the norm of international relations and "security" has transformed America into something that it should never have become and has only really benefited the military industrial complex, not the average American citizen who I believe RP looks out for more than anything.

There are a few things that he's said that indicate either he doesn't understand how things work or he is speaking in emotive terms which may imply that he is a populist.

Two examples are:

He was saying in that CPAC talk that the US gives Mubarak aid and he implied that is what is filling his bank account (actually I think he even said it directly). This is totally incorrect as it was military aid that was being given, which means that money is then used by Egypt to by US military kit. That means the money is going in to American banks, not Mubarak's account (disregarding the more granular argument of the mil-industry and the corruption that exists there as that is separate).

To see military aid the way RP put in that speech is totally inaccurate.

In an article I read about he and Kucinich lately he was talking about the bases in Japan (can dig article up if required) and said that the US shouldn't be paying to protect Japan and they should shoulder that responsibility themselves. Two problems with that off the top of my head, 1. Japan DOES pay the US money to have the US there, it doesn't happen for free. 2. Those bases are in the US interest for so many reasons.

Japan has already shown that it is capable and willing to build a large and strong military force and use it against pretty much fucking anyone and everyone. That was only 60 odd years ago. Japan has the second most powerful navy in the world, they can be nuclear armed within months if they choose to be and they are the third largest economy in the world and a very large population compared to most other countries. If they chose to militarise they have the industrial capability and capacity to very quickly build a serious offensive force.

They could very easily and very quickly become a serious competitor to the US and that is something that the US would much prefer to preclude. So, the US provides military protection (which Japan pays for because it doesn't have to spend its money on building shit to do it) and this takes away the need for Japan to militarise and give themselves the capability to challenge US interests in the west PAcific. That's something that is VERY much in the US interest. If the US left and Japan militarised again it would be EXCEEDINGLY more expensive than keeping marines, aircraft and a carrier based there.

Secondly, Russia has nuclear submarines based in Kamchatka and nukes in Vladivostok. They will soon be deploying Mistral amphibious craft to their Pacific fleet and these are serious offensive weapons. China is drastically expanding its military offensive power with power projection capabilities. This then gives them the capability to shut down key water ways such as the South China Seas and the Malacca Straits. These are one of the two most important water ways in the world, if they were dominated by one country this would be SUPER expensive for the US, more so than keeping a base in Japan.

You remove the bases from the western Pacific countries like Philippines, Taiwan, Thailand, Australia, Singapore, etc. will know that they cannot rely on the US for political and military protection and they will have no choice but to go over to China or Russia who are both strategic competitors of the US. That can mean anything from blocking votes in the UN, to the blocking of market access for the US and its allies all the way to military balancing and access denial to key water ways. How expensive do you think that would be compared to keeping a base in Japan?


Then RP said something even more stupid, "How would the US like it if China put a base in New York?".

Really? REALLY?! That's just childish to think that international security works on a system of fair play!! The US doesn't give a shit if it upsets China that a base is in Japan. It wasn't too long ago that Chinese soldiers were killing US servicemen in a number of different countries. The reason why the US bombed the Chinese embassy in Belgrade in 1996 was because the Chinese were feeding the Serbs intelligence on the US that put your guys at risk. China made itself a competitor of the US when the Communists attacked and killed the US backed nationalists in the 1940s. To say that China's strategic competitor status is due to US aggression towards it is to totally ignore history and what happens every day now.

Nations compete, people have to accept that. There has NEVER been a stage in history where nations have all worked together for mutual benefit or the greater good. IT would be great if it did happen and it's not impossible. But the way nation states work now is in competition with each other. So if the US was to turn isolationist enmity or aggressiveness toward US interests would NOT just disappear. Even worse it would give belligerent nations the opportunity to take advantage of the US.

A change in US behaviour does NOT equal a change in behaviour of everyone else. Look at the whole Obama thing. He wanted the 'reset' button with Russia and gave his 'I love Muslims' speech in Egypt. What changed? Nothing. The US does not set the pace or system for global behaviour, the fact that there is no higher authority than the nation state means that there is no global law, it's anarchy. Just because the US changes doesn't mean the system changes.


If RP wants to count the costs of forward deployment he needs to balance it against the costs of isolationism.

[christo-f]

"i think the man probably does have an understanding of how today's modern foreign policy operates, yet he is fundamentally against what it has become and politically positions himself as an opposition to that rather than to simply go along with it because "it is what it is", or because that is how things are."

truth


i know christo comes from a 100% statist perspective and all that and i dont see a need to discuss various specific policies because i come from a moral/natural rights perspective and he doesnt see a need to respect these positions so there is no way to possibly argue these out... but i'd like for christo to touch on the concept of blow back. and if this position of RP's is fantasy. does this also mean that michael scheuer is full of BS when he talks of this same position? (MS as in the same guy who headed the CIA's bin laden unit)

blowback not only makes perfect sense, but i know for example that if russia started putting military bases in the US and occupied it the way the US occupies foreign countries, everyone i know would be out taking pot shots at russian convoys if not engaged in outright war against them. its interesting to note that americans dont want to accept this concept, mainly because the US govt will not allow (and rightly so) any one near the US. i just think its about time we afforded the rest of the world the same.

now, enter in various comments about how i dont understand the world, how the world will collapse without totalitarian governments telling everyone how big their toilet bowls and reading our emails, etc etc.

but the RP approach is to speak in broad generalities. he wants to reexamine the roll of government in domestic and foreign affairs. will the world look different if ron paul could reengineer foreign policy? yup. for better or worse? it depends how much you value freedom.

one thing that i always found funny with statists is they typically think the world can only work one way because of the current set up of governments, etc. its as if we had food distribution off the back of army trucks and someone says..'hey, i think the market could do a good job at this!' and he gets shouted down with calls of ..'hahaha, you idiot, you think the MARKET can deliver food! you dont know the first thing about life!'
that seems to sum up the opposing position pretty good.


The problem with the isolationism that the constitution saw is that was written a few hundred years ago. Since then a lot has changed: industrialisation, ships made out of metal with big guns, world war one, world war two, nuclear weapons, the spread of Marxism/communism, massive international trade, export dependent economies, energy and raw material access, long range bomber, submarines, aircraft carriers, the internet, interbank loans, etc. etc.

These things COMPLETELY change the world and thus how one needs to act in it. Doesn't mean we have to act this way but it does mean that the game changes. So the view of how govt should work in sovereign issues may not be too different but the world changes. The US could have stayed isolationist whilst the world changed and there is a good example of what happened to a country that tried this.

From the 16-1700s China was trading with the British and some other countries by sea (as opposed to the Silk Road land route). They chose not to go to the UK to trade as well and ignored most of what the UK wanted to sell. This created trade imbalance (among other grievances). The British saw that the Chinese had created gunpowder, took it back to Europe and created cannons. That weapon then proliferated throughout Europe and they then made their way back to China and blasted the fuck out of the Chinese coast with their new weapons (the two Opium Wars). China had never seen these weapons before and had no defences. They lost HK to the Brits, half of Shanghai to the French, Americans, Japanese, etc. Qingdao to the Germans and so on and so on.

If the Chinese had not have been isolationist they would have had knowledge of the cannon well before they suffered from it. They would have been prepared and able to defend themselves. That is a very simple example of how risky isolationism can be but it is a very real one.

Blowback is a Chalmers Johnson theory, which I am familiar with. I am unaware of how RP uses it as well as Scheuer. If you'd like me to comment on that you'll have to forward it to me.

The idea of Russia putting bases in the US etc. is a bit of a non-starter, really. All the countries that the US has bases in give permission for the US to be there. If it wasn't for the US bases in Japan and Germany they would not be the world's 3rd and 4th largest economies today. The US doesn't force its way in to countries to make bases (ah, except for Iraq and Afghanistan. I was against the Iraq war for strategic and tactical reasons. Rumsfeld is a fucking moron and I think those arguing against the war on practical reasons have pretty much been justified based on the outcome).

Japan WANTS the US base, ROK WANTS the US base, Kyrgyzstan is making huge dollars out of the Manas air base. The lilypad bases set up in Romania etc. are all there with permission and sometimes through requests by Eastern European countries. Poland is BEGGING for US bases in their country.

Forward deployed bases in places like Japan (7th fleet), Bahrain (5th fleet) have kept strategic water ways such as the Malacca Straits and the Hormuz strait open. That means that EVERYONE in the world gets to use them to trade and transport energy and so on.

China openly says that without the US dominance of the oceans there is no way they would have been able to grow their economy at 10%+ every year since the 1990s.


You talk about Russia setting up bases in the US, why?! The US doesn't have bases in Russia. They have some in the former Soviet Union but they are independent countries that benefit from the US presence, shit they ASK the US to come in a lot of the time?

So I can't understand why you and RP talk about Russian/Chinese bases in NY because the US is not doing that to Russia or China. Secondly, do we all forget that Russia DID have bases in Cuba and installed nuclear missiles there in the 1960s??!!

There seems to be this underlying culture with you guys that they US dictates the way the international system works. Comments like "if RP reengineered forpol" are really weird to me. Are you saying if RP reengineered forpol for the whole world? IF so, well of course it would change as it would if you did, I did or fucking Van Gogh did. But come on, that's never going to happen and sounds a little crazy, how is any one person ever going to dictate the foundations of forpol for the world??!

IF you mean if RP could reengineer forpol for the US would the world look different? Yeah it would but that is because countries would REACT tot eh change, not FOLLOW it.

If the US stopped protecting Taiwan, what do you think China would do? I can pretty much say they wouldn't be thinking "Well, the US has removed their influence and weapons from Taiwan, that really changes things and I guess we won't invade them. Instead we will recognise their independence and support their democracy".

What do you think would happen to Saudi Arabia and Kuwait if the US pulled out of the Gulf? Do you think Iran would say, "Well, the US has gone now and that was the only problem we ever had. Let's all hang out and drink coffee together and be friends!!"

No, China would invade Taiwan and reintegrate it under its authoritarian system, just as it is doing to HK now. Iran would blockade KSA, take Bahrain (as it has said it would) and it would then dominate the Middle East.

Just because the US changes doesn't mean everyone else does too.



So, an isolationist US would equal:

Increase of Russian, Chinese and Iranian influence.
That would mean access denial to the Persian Gulf and Suez Canal along with the South China Seas and the Malacca Straits. The outcome of that would mean energy prices would rise DRAMATICALLY, access to raw materials would become more complicated and expensive due to declining access to key water ways and export markets as well as cheap labor bases would be closed off to the US (as well as a HUGE amount of US interests throughout the world would be nationalised and the US couldn't do shit because mobilising to take them back would be so damned expensive).


The cost of living in the US would triple within 5 years and your access to products would decline MASSIVELY. The US (And the world) would be forced to totally change their societies, culture and economies. That may result in a nice, green, egalitarian society like we all want it to be. It could also change in to a messy, polluted, authoritarian state where people screw each other over for resources and access (thinking China today here). There is no reason to say that this change would bring about the results that you want for your country. The only thing we can say for sure is that it would bring change, TOUGH change and it would be decades before the country stabilized again, if it didn't break apart or get eaten by Russia, China or Iran first.

[christo-f]

lol. more like i got a life project. what i meant is millions of people around the world were fooled by the whole hope,change, i am Jesus Christ and im going o fix the world campaign.

I often wonder if Obama was also fooled by this stuff. Did he actually think he could just close Gitmo and everything would go smoothly? Did he think that Russia even WANTED to press a reset button and did he actually think that his pretty words in Cairo and new years messages to Iran would change anything at all?! I really wonder if he did think that or if it was just electioneering.

Reset button, pffft. Russia just retook Ukraine, showed the FSU states that the US won't come to their rescue by invading Georgia and showed the Central Asian states that they are still Russian by overthrowing Bakiyev in Kyrgyzstan. Not only that but they are setting up an new Soviet Union, so to speak with the CIS states and the Customs Union with Kazakhstan and Belarus.

Why the fuck would Russia want to reset, they're on a fucking roll and gaining strength. And that goes back to my argument above and yours as well. Just because the US changes doesn't mean the world wants to will or even can. And that's the same as changing the President of the US. Ron Paul may say he wants to change the way the US acts in the world but the range of decisions that can be made by a president in forpol are really limited. Not many people are going to make decisions that spell disaster and that really cuts down the room to move for a President. So I actually agree with Penilluminatis, Obama, McCain, Paul, Jesus Christ, makes relatively little difference in the end as they are very limited by the system and what other countries decide to do.

[russell jones]

Two examples are:

He was saying in that CPAC talk that the US gives Mubarak aid and he implied that is what is filling his bank account (actually I think he even said it directly). This is totally incorrect as it was military aid that was being given, which means that money is then used by Egypt to by US military kit. That means the money is going in to American banks, not Mubarak's account (disregarding the more granular argument of the mil-industry and the corruption that exists there as that is separate).

.

Good point. I studied International Relations and Third World countries a little in college, and that is what I found most enlightening. Foreign aid almost always means that the money comes back to us in some way, whether it is giving money to buy weapons from US suppliers, or it is investing in infrastructure so that US businesses can operate. IMF money now functions as a loan sharking operation backed by US bonds. When I hear people complain about "all the money going overseas" it makes me laugh about how ignorant they are. Everything we do, we do because it benefits us (at least in the opinion of policy makers), not because of some sort of altruism.

[wearekilluminati]

Is Stratfor Credible?


--------- National Security Agency director Michael Hayden tried to explain to his wife the difference between the black-and-white world of facts and the gray world of intelligence this way: ”If it were a fact, it wouldn’t be intelligence.”

That neatly sums up the challenge I have had assessing the general question of Stratfor credibility. Stratfor is in the business of selling intelligence to subscribers, which is of interest to those of use who don’t work for the CIA. Even if I was officed at Langley, the frenzy we’ve seen over “intelligence failures” implies that infallibility is a scarce commodity.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------


How do we assess and grade Stratfor credibility? Michael J. Sniffen wrote on the general credibility challenge in this 5/18/2004 AP article Citizens, officials have hard time deciding what is credible.

Inside the FBI, Mefford said, “‘credible intelligence’ is a term taken very seriously. It always referred to information we believed to be reliable.”

Nevertheless “credible intelligence is a very subjective term,” Mefford added. And the analysis of intelligence “is not a science; it’s an art.”

With those caveats I’ve undertaken to search out evidence pro or con on Stratfor’s record since their founding in 1996. It is difficult to extract a one sentence summary from all this, but I’ll attempt this:

1.Stratfor is not a “silver bullet” – like other sources, the reader still has to do his own thinking, contrasting and correlating.
2.Stratfor is not a member of the journalism herd – that has value.
3.When I see a Stratfor bulletin relevant to my issues, I’ll read it carefully and include it as input.
4.I’ll continue to file their bulletins so I can look back and assess how they are performing.
What did I find useful on the Web? Numerically, there are certainly more favorable than unfavorables. The unfavorables that I’ve found are mostly of two types: (a) a disagreement with a Stratfor conclusion – on issues I would classify not as fact, but as opinion; and (b) “Hrrrrmph. Stratfor is like the US version of Debka. Occasionally right, usually completely fictional.”

this on is for you cristof with love of course

[Zig]

christo you make good points, and there is even some of RP's domestic positions that I also disagree with but no one is perfect, and a judging whether or not to vote for someone as leader of your nation shouldn't be based on his/her rhetoric and idealogical view alone. i would also base my decision on merit, integrity and overall character, all of which i believe RP shows strong signs of having among other qualities that are in my opinion, presidential.

with that said, i'll post the full transcript of his CPAC speech so we aren't misquoting the man, out of respect for him of course:

http://www.clipsandcomment.com/2011/02/12/transcript-ron-paul-speech-at-cpac-2011/


Ron Paul: Thank you very much, thank you. Great to see you everybody, great to see you, I’m glad to see the revolution is continuing. Well, we have first seen some of the results of the revolution of a few years ago and that was last year’s election, and understand we had a few new members sent to Congress, and we have you to thank you for. But I do want to take a moment to take a little special privilege and say, we also had a new Senator from Kentucky, and we like that too. So there’s a lot of exciting things going on, there is truly a revolution going on in this country, and we’ve been dealing with this and encouraging it, because I do believe that we live in a time where we do need a change in attitude, a change in ideas. We don’t need to just change the political parties, we need to change our philosophy about what this country is all about.

This past week, we had a pretty good victory for the Freedom Movement, we had a vote come up all of a sudden under suspension and it had to do with the PATRIOT Act, and the PATRIOT Act we know has nothing to do with patriotism, they always name it opposite of what it is. The PATRIOT Act is literally the destruction of the 4th Amendment, that’s what it’s all about. Now, the one thing in Washington they haven’t quite understood is what’s happening in grassroots America, because they assume that everybody love the PATRIOT Act, we’ll bring it up under suspension and pass it automatically. Well, we didn’t get a majority vote but they didn’t pass it automatically with a two third vote, sending a message that this country is waking up, and we want to protect our civil liberties as well as our economic liberties.

This week I was scheduled to be on a financial program, I’ve been on a few of those lately, talking about things like the Federal Reserve and a few other things. But I never got around to talking about this program this week about the Federal Reserve, because all of a sudden there was a speech to be given by Mubarak about his potential resignation, of course he resigned today. So that was the subject, but a lot of people now say “what should our position be? What should our position be about finding the next dictator of Egypt?” And I would say “we need to do a lot less, a lot sooner, not only in Egypt but around the world.”

Some people want to argue about that and say we have a moral responsibility to spread our goodness around the world and it’s our obligation to do this. But let me tell you, fiscal conservatives should look at this carefully, how much did we invest in that dictator over the past 30 years? $70 billion, we invested in Egypt. And guess what? The government is crumbling and the people are upset, not only with their government by they’re upset with us for propping up that puppet dictator for all those years. Now to add insult to injury, where do you think the money went? To Swiss bank account, that family, the Mubarak family had 40, 50, 60 billion – nobody knows – stashed away in other countries, other areas of your money and that is true.

Then you know, it used to be the conservatives were against foreign aid, I’m still against foreign aid for everybody. Now I was saying that I used to describe foreign aid, foreign aid is taking money from the poor people of a rich country and giving it to the rich people of a poor country. And there can’t be a better example of that than what we did with Egypt, we took money from you, made people poor, it contributed to our debt, billions and billions of dollars and all we get is chaos from it and instability, there’s nothing wrong with what the founders talked about. They talked about having friendships and trade and getting along with people and staying out of the entangling alliance and the internal affairs of foreign nations when it’s none of our business.

Now we’ve been doing it for a long time and you get periods of relative stability, there was relative stability when we were propping up the show, but it ended up with bad results, we ended up with Ayatollah and now we have a problem on our hands. But all the Middle East is unstable because of this, now it’s Tunisia, next it’s Egypt and it’s going to keep going because all the problems are there because the people don’t like us propping up their dictators no more than we would like it if a foreign country came in here and propped up a dictator in our country. But the real danger is that this will most likely spread and when it gets to Saudi Arabia and there’s disruption there, then you are going to see some real problems and it will be a partial consequence of our flawed foreign policy and temporary stability does not guarantee stability that we need around the world. And besides, we just flat out don’t have the money, and we shouldn’t be doing it.

Just remember the Soviet system did not collapse because we had to fight them, they collapsed for economic reasons, guess where their final plunge was on their empire, Afghanistan. So it makes no sense for us to think that we can keep troops in 135 countries, 900 bases and think we can do it forever. So no matter how badly you want us to do that, it’s time to reassess that foreign policy. It’s time for us to bring troops home, we’ve had troops in Japan since World War 2 and in Germany, why are we paying for their defense? Now, there’s been a lot of talk about the budget deficit and that’s something that I was concerned about, just a few years back like 1976, and that’s why I haven’t voted for any appropriation bills during that period of time either. But people are starting to recognize it’s bad, we have to do something about it, we have to have a balanced budget amendment and all these things.

But, unfortunately even in spite of the improvement in the Congress right now, we don’t have the votes which is tragic, it’s going to continue, and we’re going to continue to bail out, we’re going to continue to spend the money, nobody wants to cut, I am sure that half the people in this room won’t cut one penny on the military, and the military is not equated to defense, defense spending is one thing, military spending is what Eisenhower called the “military industrial complex” and we have to go after that. But let’s say government as you all, I am sure would agree is out of control and it’s very hard for us to get a handle on it. So let’s say we even theoretically and a miracle happen and we balance the budget where we are today, it would be still a disaster because we’re spending too much money.

But it wouldn’t change a whole lot, when a crisis comes guess what happens? Guess who does the bailing out? The Federal Reserve used $4 billion to pass out without congressional approval and most people say “Oh, well that’s the Federal Reserve job to do that.” No it is our job to check up and find what the Federal Reserve has done, audit them and find out who their buddies are that they’re taking care of. The Federal Reserve creates money out of thin air, they can loan to banks, central banks of the world, to other governments and international financial institutions and we’re not even allowed to know, they resent the fact that when I ask these questions, that they don’t have to give us information that’s why the bill to audit the Fed is the first step to ending the Federal Reserve.

But the Federal Reserve will end itself because they will destroy the dollar, since the Fed came into existence since 1913, they’ve eliminated 98% of the value of the 1913 dollar and its continuing erosion, they pumped at first when the crisis hit $1.2 trillion and another $600 billion and believe me, there is an economic law that says you just can’t continue to do this. So Congress has responsibility, they should cut back, but Congress has a responsibility to protect the value of the currency and that means that we have the moral and the legal authority to put checks on the Federal Reserve system.

There’s been a lot of talk about bipartisanship after election, we need bipartisanship, and in some ways that might be true, but I’ll tell you what I think about it, I think and I believe that we have had way too much bipartisanship for about 60 years. We have bipartisanship on medical care, you say “yeah, the current administration is giving us bad new medical care.” But what is done on the other administration, we’ve been involved for a long time. It’s the bipartisanship of the welfare system, the warfare system, the monetary system, the challenge to our civil liberties, it all goes through with support from both parties. So there’s way too much bipartisanship. This should be a challenge of the issue of philosophy, good philosophy versus bad philosophy.

And when you can agree on something you should make coalitions with whomever will agree with you and come together. But I’d like to see some bipartisanship though, what I would like to see is take those big government conservatives who love to spend money and never cut their efforts and their spending and get the big government liberals where they want to spend and never want to cut and let them get together and say “it’s time, this deficit is good” let’s have a little bit of bipartisanship and cut both.

There’s been talk lately about American exceptionalism, man we like to talk about that, I think we certainly live in an exceptional country, we have been blessed, it’s been the greatest country, most freedom, most prosperity. My concern is I’m afraid we’re losing it, I’m afraid we’ve given up on our devotion to liberty, that’s where our problem is. But where I think we go astray on this exceptionalism is there are some people and sometimes they’re referred as neoconservatives and they’re sort of neo-Jacobins where they believe that we have this moral responsibility to use force to go around the world and say “you will do it our way or else.” Well force doesn’t work, it never works.

The best way to get people to act more like us if we’re doing a good job, is for us to have a sound economy, a sound dollar, treat people decently, have a foreign policy that makes common sense, treat people like we want to be treated, and then maybe they would want to emulate us and say “freedom does work and we ought to try it.” But we can’t force it on other people. There’s one general rule about what we should expect from government. The first amendment is a great amendment, freedom of expression is protected, the government shall write no laws in reference to our freedom of expression, it doesn’t say that we’re to have an expression of only the noncontroversial ideas, it’s freedom of expression.

Now, most people are pretty good on the First Amendment, but where they slip up is; they say “The government should write no laws about the freedom of activity,” so the Liberals want to talk about how to regulate your economic activity, how you spend your money and others want to regulate your personal lifestyle, but government should not be regulating us and we should adapt one other principle for that to work. We should all swear off the use of violence against our neighbors, our friends who are other countries. The purpose of all political activity from my view point is to promote liberty. Liberty is the most important element, liberty comes from our creator, it doesn’t come from our government. If we have a free society, we can go about our business and do our very best work toward virtuous things and work toward excellence.

When government takes over the role of making us virtuous and making us excellent and redistributing the wealth, they only do it at the expense of liberty and that’s why we’re in such terrible shape today, it’s cause we’ve allowed the government to be so much involved. Government should never be able to do anything you can’t do. If you can’t steal from your neighbor, you can’t send the government to your neighbor to steal for you, there should be no redistribution of wealth. The exciting things that are happening today and get’s me energized is coming to events like this and meeting with the young people and going to the campuses and finding put what young Americans for liberty have done, and believe me the ideas and the principles of liberty are alive and well in the next generation and there’s every reason in the world for us to be optimistic about what’s coming.

I would like to make one suggestion before I close; just to think about because it’s not a perfect solution, but especially the young people, what if could, if I had the authority to do, what if I could offer you and say “look, we’re not doing such a good job in government these days, we make promises and we don’t know about the future. But would you consider opting out of the whole system under one condition, you pay 10% of your income, but you take care of yourself, don’t ask the government for anything.” Tragically you’re probably going to have the opportunity because government is in the process of failing and they can’t deliver on the goods, just as the Soviets couldn’t deliver the goods and maintain their empire, we will have those same problems domestically and we face serious economic problems as this dollar crisis evolves.

But let me close with comments from a Sam Adams, he says “Don’t worry about it if we’re not a majority, all we need is the minority keen on spreading the brushfires of liberty in the minds of man.” That is what we need to do and believe me, the brushfires are burning, they will not be able to squelch the brushfires, they’re burning and they’re spreading and people are getting excited, because they’re starting to separate it out, what true liberty is all about, what market liberty, personal liberty is and what it means in foreign policy, what it means in our traditions, the American tradition, what it means because the Constitution confirms and confirms with what I’m saying. There is no authority in the constitution to have a Federal Reserve system, no authority for the welfare state and no authority for the police state, it’s not there.

So we should all assume personal responsibility for promoting the ideals of liberty, and one thing that Samuel Johnson always advised when they were in the dire consequences of the problems of the revolution, he said “We cannot present long faces to the people to [...] at that time, because it will make them realize how tough things are.” So we should not have long faces, we do not know exactly what tomorrow will bring, but I do know that the effort is worthwhile and I do know that you can have a lot of fun defending liberty, and believe me, if you understand liberty and realize it’s the only humanitarian system existed ever on mankind, I’ll tell you what, if you learn about it study and know free market economics and fight for this, I can guarantee you, you will sleep better at night, you will enjoy your life and you will feel like you’re doing something worthwhile. Defend liberty!


because, i honestly hate picking other people's posts apart line by line and analyzing what you've said... i'll just make my response here on a few of your points without directly quoting you.

on your point about what RP said concerning Mubarak's money and where it comes from... i don't necessarily think there is any concrete evidence to support RP's claim that money we've sent to Egypt for their military was in fact pocketed by Mubarak and ended up in his swiss bank accounts, however on the contrary there really isn't any evidence to refute that claim either. quite frankly, i don't know how that man is so rich and if you happen to know why then please enlighten me because for all i know the man was accumulating large amounts of money and wealth from some form of corruption in my opinion, and i wouldn't be surprised if it ends up coming to light that Western funding assisted in that accumulation somewhat. regardless of the matter, i believe RP's point that propping up dictators in foreign nations goes against the average American citizen's interests.

as the world changes, so have our policies and responsibilities and i agree with you that just because we change doesn't mean the rest of the world will. however, i agree with RP's fundamental differences with the way we currently operate and just because his rhetoric sounds isolationist doesn't necessarily mean that his actions as a president will be a direct reflection of that rhetoric. he could get into office and be much wiser about the way he approaches changing our current form of foreign policy, and overall his direction could accommodate the world and benefit it much better than having another politician in office who would just continue down the current path of escalation. i see RP as a dissenting president, who is bold enough to make radical changes to a system that has gone awry and has strayed far from it's original path. that alone would get my vote, simply because he positions himself as the opposition to that trend. take into consideration the fact that rhetoric is simply rhetoric, and once someone takes office their actions don't always necessarily reflect that down to a T. i believe RP is a very intelligent, wise, sophisticated individual who has a deep understanding of our Constitution, our history, and our rights as human-beings and that alone is respectable enough for me to vote for him as a leader of our nation and let him make the tough decisions.

[christo-f]

christo you make good points, and there is even some of RP's domestic positions that I also disagree with but no one is perfect, and a judging whether or not to vote for someone as leader of your nation shouldn't be based on his/her rhetoric and idealogical view alone. i would also base my decision on merit, integrity and overall character, all of which i believe RP shows strong signs of having among other qualities that are in my opinion, presidential.



And mate, that's about all we, as voters can really do. Using that perspective I also give RP credit. I trust the big two in my country about as far as I trust myself to learn from a hang over. Neither do I vote for any major party. I vote for an independent not because I think they could do the job any better or not even because I think they have a chance of getting in. Simply because they have the courage of their convictions and they actually stand for something. That alone is more than I can credit mainstream representatives with.


As for the Mubarak $$$, yeah, I'd bet my third testicle that his wealth was not achieved by honourable means. I just suggest that the way it was interpreted by RP in that speech was very misleading and simplistic to a point that it discredited an argument that with greater insight may have been more accurate while still making the same point.

The average American interest, the defining of what that is, is really the center of the issue. That really needs to be determined before any of us can have a real discussion on what US forpol should be. Unfortunately I don't think anyone has that info so I/we tend to err on the side of security, which also means we err on the side of belligerence a lot of the time. That comes back to the blowback theory and more investigation on that is needed before anyone can have a credible opinion (as in everyone, not just us oontzers). Maybe caution over trust creates greater risk in the long run. Definitely a valid question and one that certainly weighs heavy in academia but not so much in policy making processes. Maybe for good, maybe for bad. I'm not the one to say. But certainly a question that should be at the center of all forpol formulation and evaluation.

[angelofdeath]

i think are you dwelling to much on the mubarak thing.
the point he was trying to make was the US gave egypt 30 billion, they used it to buy weapons, they used those weapons to oppress their people and now the US is rattling their sabers about mubarak and 'human rights.'
i think you are focusing to much on technicalities and semantics instead of the big picture. i think we can all agree that foreign aid results in taking money from middle class US citizens, giving it to a dictator to buy weapons (and mercedes) which then in turn puts it into the bank accounts of the military industrial complex. you make it sound that taking money from citizens and it ending up in the hands of wealthy militarist entrepreneurs is the same as the citizens getting their own money back.
another thing RP says...'the FED prints money out of thin air!'
i'd imagine if you were a monetary geek you would say 'dude, he is absolutely full of shit! he doesnt know how the system works!' when in fact the FED doesnt necessarily print the money anymore, they just buy bonds from the treasury by putting 0's on the treasuries bank account and no money came out of the FED's account, but the effect is just the same as printing money.

i dont want to get into this huge debate about the intricacies of various strategic policy concerns, because you operate under the assumption governments can and should do whatever they want to achieve certain things. i operate under the assumption that the US government should follow its own laws and their foreign policy should reflect a stand for liberty and freedom, not domination and empire. but i will touch on the russia/china/blowback thing.

you want to dwell on the fact that i said russia. lets change it around a tad. RP's and michael scheuer's entire theory of blow back goes as follows. the US government has intervened in more ways in the middle east than one can count. it supports one dictator in one war against another, then gives money to the other guy, CIA actions overthrow governments and install US puppets, foreign aid distorts things, muslims hate israel; the US's govt's biggest ally etc etc. bin laden was the US govt's man in the 80's fighting the russians, saddam was our man around the same time, tables turn, US defends kuwait, puts bases on sacred muslim soil, imposes sanctions and embargoes that kill thousands, wars kill thousands, muslims get pissed about these actions and start blowing up buildings, then they fly a plane into the twin towers. US goes to war 'stan, then iraq turning everyday people into insurgents the more they are present. muslims consider the US their enemy and they have to deal with all these interventions causing blow back

so lets apply it another way. we had nukes within miles of russia's territory, but if russia was putting nukes in canada, we'd flip. if russia, the US govt's enemy was putting military bases in the UK or near it, we'd flip. if russia instituted embargoes that kill thousands on US allies, we'd flip. all these policies have blow back.

look at more examples of blow back. guy in the north east is harrassed by zoning enforcers for 15 years... one day he flips, starts shooting cops and judges. US govt kills 80 people at a church in texas in 1993. 3 years later on the same day as the final assault some guy blows up a federal building where the raid was planned. this is blow back.

economics teaches all government interventions have unintended consequences. RP understands this and is simply saying that various US policies create unintended consequences. im not saying that mcveigh was right in blowing up the OKC building or arabs are right for flying planes into buildings, but it does us all a world of good to understand WHY people are motivated to do these things. the arabs own explanations put to all the things i listed...bases on holy lands, war, intervention, etc etc

for what its worth, RP is not an isolationist. he is a non interventionist. just like switzerland. he believes in free trade and talking to people just like switzerland.
and switzerland seems to be doing pretty good, infact they kept themselves out of WW2 when germany was knocking on their door.

it boils down to this.... people who seek liberty believe in using violence only in defense. we do not believe in screwing with other peoples business. i dont mess with my neighbor, the government shouldnt mess with any of us and it surely shouldnt be telling the world how to run its own business. the US foreign policy is based on the idea that we can bring democracy to the world at the point of a gun. i 100% disagree with this position both from a moral perspective and from a practical perspective.

[christo-f]

i think are you dwelling to much on the mubarak thing.
the point he was trying to make was the US gave egypt 30 billion, they used it to buy weapons, they used those weapons to oppress their people and now the US is rattling their sabers about mubarak and 'human rights.'
Well if that is what he was saying he would be incorrect as well. It's not the army that is the main oppressor in Egypt it is the internal security services, the police and CSF. They don't use Abrams tanks, F-16cs and PAC-3 systems to oppress. They use batons, tear gas, small arms and simple man power and surveillance. If you do some homework on the issue you will see that these are not the things that get bought with the US military aid. So, if that is what RP is saying, he is wrong again.


i think you are focusing to much on technicalities and semantics instead of the big picture.

Ah, hang on a second. A politician made a direct call, that's what happen. Are you saying that he should not be held accountable for those calls? Are you saying that his statements are not as important as some nebulous 'big picture' that he never actually articulated?

I'm not sure that is a good standard to hold politicians to.

i think we can all agree that foreign aid results in taking money from middle class US citizens, giving it to a dictator to buy weapons (and mercedes) which then in turn puts it into the bank accounts of the military industrial complex. you make it sound that taking money from citizens and it ending up in the hands of wealthy militarist entrepreneurs is the same as the citizens getting their own money back.

No I don't, show me where I said that.

I even mentioned that there is an issue with the military industry and corruption, you didn't see that? Why did you just ignore that and try and put words in to my mouth?

Two reasons why I am not going to it; firstly is because THAT'S NOT WHAT RP SAID. He made calls about US aid and mubarak's bank account, not the mil industry. Second, I don't know enough about it to have an opinion, however I'm pretty sure if I sniffed hard enough I'd smell a mountain of shit. I have no doubt they are swine, but I'm talking about what RP actually said.



another thing RP says...'the FED prints money out of thin air!'
i'd imagine if you were a monetary geek you would say 'dude, he is absolutely full of shit! he doesnt know how the system works!' when in fact the FED doesnt necessarily print the money anymore, they just buy bonds from the treasury by putting 0's on the treasuries bank account and no money came out of the FED's account, but the effect is just the same as printing money.

Did you COMPLETELY miss the part where I said I'm only talking about foreign policy, because I don't know anything about domestic issues?

Did you seriously miss that??!!


i dont want to get into this huge debate about the intricacies of various strategic policy concerns, because you operate under the assumption governments can and should do whatever they want to achieve certain things.

I'm sorry, I'm going to have to read that as you not knowing your shit. All my argument here is that RP doesn't have much of a knowledge at all on how foreign policy works based on his exact words. I'm not saying it is right or wrong, the whole discussion you want to have. I am just saying that he does not grasp what is actually happening now. Once again, I'm not saying he is right or wrong or that I agree with any political philosophy, I am just saying his explanations of what is happening now is totally inaccurate.


i operate under the assumption that the US government should follow its own laws and their foreign policy should reflect a stand for liberty and freedom, not domination and empire. but i will touch on the russia/china/blowback thing.

you want to dwell on the fact that i said russia.

Before I read any further, if you can't defend the words you use you need to chose your words more wisely.



lets change it around a tad. RP's and michael scheuer's entire theory of blow back goes as follows.

Once again, it is not their theory, it is Chalmers Johnson's theory. The book that started it all was even called Blowback. I've read it, I've written about it, I know it.



the US government has intervened in more ways in the middle east than one can count. it supports one dictator in one war against another, then gives money to the other guy, CIA actions overthrow governments and install US puppets, foreign aid distorts things, muslims hate israel; the US's govt's biggest ally etc etc. bin laden was the US govt's man in the 80's fighting the russians, saddam was our man around the same time, tables turn, US defends kuwait, puts bases on sacred muslim soil, imposes sanctions and embargoes that kill thousands, wars kill thousands, muslims get pissed about these actions and start blowing up buildings, then they fly a plane into the twin towers. US goes to war 'stan, then iraq turning everyday people into insurgents the more they are present. muslims consider the US their enemy and they have to deal with all these interventions causing blow back

Yes, if I could put it more accurately, true to the actual theory and succinctly, the theory is that foreign policy can have unintended consequences that result in harm to the national interest. The popular and very good examples are bin Laden and Saddam Hussein.

so lets apply it another way. we had nukes within miles of russia's territory, but if russia was putting nukes in canada, we'd flip. if russia, the US govt's enemy was putting military bases in the UK or near it, we'd flip. if russia instituted embargoes that kill thousands on US allies, we'd flip. all these policies have blow back.

Ah, have you read history? You realise that this actually happened, right? Cuban missile crisis, 1962, JFK?!

Now to look at the placing of strategic weapons like that is misleading. These decisions don't happen in a vacuum, there is a whole dynamic that leads up to that decision. The one about US placing missiles in Turkey was that after WWII Russia and the US became strategic competitors and look at the immediate few years after. The Russians deployed their military and interior security services, set up massive gulags, oppressed millions and held countries through force and walls.

What did the US do? It rebuilt Japan and Germany, opened the US markets to them to help them rebuild in return for bases to guard against Russian expansion. If you wanted to leave Germany, France, Sweden, etc and move to the Soviet Union, you were free to. However if you wanted to move out of the Soviet Union you were denied this freedom (unless your name was Lee Harvey Oswald, of course....).

Many countries (such as Poland, Czechoslovakia, the Baltic States, etc.) were part of the Warsaw Pact/USSR through Russian force, they had no Choice. NATO membership was completely voluntary and the West never took any country by force after WWII and all countries since 1991 in the EU and NATO expansion have done so voluntarily.

That just gives you an idea why the US placed missiles in Turkey, a NATO country. Because these countries WANTED THE US TO DEFEND THEM against Russian expansionism. Just like the Mujahudeen specifically asked for US help fighting the Russians.

These decisions weren't made in a vacuum, they were a result of Russian foreign policy, so one may say that it was blowback against them. You may also argue that the missile placement in Turkey was a tactical mistake, etc., sure, you could do that. However if the US did not have an aggressive foreign policy the USSR would EASILY expanded to cover Europe. Then your strategic competitor will own all of Eurasia and the bulk of the world's energy and industrial capacity.

How safe do you think that policy would have been for the US? You seem to like liberty, freedom and all these things, I would have thought you'd have been happy about the US winning the Cold War......, a war they didn't necessarily start either. PRetty sure the US didn't create the 1916 revolutions in Russia....

look at more examples of blow back. guy in the north east is harrassed by zoning enforcers for 15 years... one day he flips, starts shooting cops and judges. US govt kills 80 people at a church in texas in 1993. 3 years later on the same day as the final assault some guy blows up a federal building where the raid was planned. this is blow back.

Once again, foreign policy dude. Let's stick to whipping a live horse, for once.

Secondly, he theory of blowback is a theory of foreign policy, it does not accommodate individual actions. Let's try and remain focused and accurate. Foreign policy, Chalmers Johnson.

economics teaches all government interventions have unintended consequences. RP understands this and is simply saying that various US policies create unintended consequences. im not saying that mcveigh was right in blowing up the OKC building or arabs are right for flying planes into buildings, but it does us all a world of good to understand WHY people are motivated to do these things. the arabs own explanations put to all the things i listed...bases on holy lands, war, intervention, etc etc

Yeah, sure, I agree with that (and that also comes back to my other argument of people being irrational beings. We cannot tell the future and calculate all contingencies and therefore there are decisions that have negative outcomes based on unforeseen consequences. That makes rational decision making impossible).

However the theory of Blowback doesn't mean you shouldn't have a foreign policy!



for what its worth, RP is not an isolationist. he is a non interventionist. just like switzerland. he believes in free trade and talking to people just like switzerland.
and switzerland seems to be doing pretty good, infact they kept themselves out of WW2 when germany was knocking on their door.

You're comparing a tiny country with a tiny population that is landlocked, surrounded by mountains and has a service economy to a MASSIVE country with a MASSIVE population that has oceans on BOTH sides and a mixture of an agricultural, industrial and service economy.

Think about how completely unworkable that comparison is. Geography and population size alone protects Switzerland more than people owning weapons. Ocean approaches are great force multipliers ONLY IF YOU CONTROL THEM. If you don't control them they become force multipliers for the attacker and you are pretty much fucked. Coastal denial is a VERY hard thing to achieve. Based on Geography alone, the US HAS to expand its defensive view to the western Pacific and the Eastern Atlantic. That means you have to have resupply bases and allies on the other side of the world just to protect your approaches.

The US has very little choice on whether they are in Asia or Europe and if you'd like historical evidence, Pearl Harbour. If you guys hadn't have been there the battle would have been fought in your cities instead of the Pacific islands. You see what I'm getting at here? The US has no choice but to extend its reach and to gain allies to help it do so. It's just a reality of you geography, not my statist beliefs or realist foundations.


it boils down to this.... people who seek liberty believe in using violence only in defense. we do not believe in screwing with other peoples business. i dont mess with my neighbor,

Sure, but that's not going to stop your neighbour from messing with you. And warfare is different than small scale/small arms combat. having a defensive position allows your enemy to surveil you, gain intelligence, undermine your defences and take whatever time they need to build up their offensive strengths whilst you just sit there and wait. Being static is what China did and the West came in and took their coast from them. The defensive position is usually the weakest because unless geography assists you, you do not have the initiative.



the government shouldnt mess with any of us and it surely shouldnt be telling the world how to run its own business. the US foreign policy is based on the idea that we can bring democracy to the world at the point of a gun.

Hang on, one minute you are saying that the US supports dictators and the next you are saying that the US forces countries to become democratic. You're contradicting yourself and not making sense.


Not proof read and


CAPS LOCK IS FOR EMPHASIS AND TO ATTRACT ATTENTION. I am not yelling at you and don't want it to come across that way.

[christo-f]

To add to that, it seems that the argument you should be making is that the US forpol needs to have greater vision and foresight.

That's something I could only agree with for most nations. The best example of this is the invasion of Iraq.

Most monumental forpol failure I know of in my lifetime.

[angelofdeath]

Did you COMPLETELY miss the part where I said I'm only talking about foreign policy, because I don't know anything about domestic issues?

Did you seriously miss that??!!


i only pointed this out to show how you are making a mountain out of a mole hill.
in fact, i know 100% being the statist that you are, you'd say the exact thing i said about 'printing' money if you talked about such issues.

I'm sorry, I'm going to have to read that as you not knowing your shit. All my argument here is that RP doesn't have much of a knowledge at all on how foreign policy works based on his exact words. I'm not saying it is right or wrong, the whole discussion you want to have. I am just saying that he does not grasp what is actually happening now. Once again, I'm not saying he is right or wrong or that I agree with any political philosophy, I am just saying his explanations of what is happening now is totally inaccurate.

no, i dont think you should read that i dont 'know my shit'
what im saying is.. it is impossible for you to even grasp an argument of freedom because you fundamentally dont believe in it. it isnt even possible for you to wrap your head around it. if someone present a libertarian or liberty oriented argument... you have a shit fit and go into hysterics about how natural rights are fallacy, freedom is stupid, the state rules, governments know best and how civilians should be disarmed. its not possible to have a rational discussion with you on these topics because you think wont even afford me the courtesy of promising not to use governmental violence against me if i disagree with you on these basic issues. whereas i would never think of ever using force against you if we lived on the same government because you believed in a certain policy or position and i would never force you to my side, nor make you pay for it.

that is why its not possible to discuss these issues with you because you come from a 100% statist and strategic position where as i come from a 100% liberty oriented position.

i know at this moment you are not saying you disagree with his political philosophy, but every debate you have been involved in with me shows that you in fact disagree with almost everything RP stands for.


Once again, it is not their theory, it is Chalmers Johnson's theory. The book that started it all was even called Blowback. I've read it, I've written about it, I know it.

yup, you are right. in fact RP told guiliani to read this when he gave him his reading list.


Ah, have you read history? You realise that this actually happened, right? Cuban missile crisis, 1962, JFK?!

sure i know it happened. look how the US government acted, YET in the same standard the US puts missiles near our enemies all the time. while i dont want russian missiles near me, i think we should afford the rest of the world the same right and keep our weapons to ourselves.


Now to look at the placing of strategic weapons like that is misleading. These decisions don't happen in a vacuum, there is a whole dynamic that leads up to that decision. The one about US placing missiles in Turkey was that after WWII Russia and the US became strategic competitors and look at the immediate few years after. The Russians deployed their military and interior security services, set up massive gulags, oppressed millions and held countries through force and walls.

i know full well there are strategic concerns why these things are done.
what im saying is just because we CAN, SHOULD we and is this compatible with liberty which entails a foreign policy of non aggression? you cannot wrap your head around this position, which is why there is no use in trying to talk like strategic concerns and concerns about liberty are part of the same argument.

However if the US did not have an aggressive foreign policy the USSR would EASILY expanded to cover Europe. Then your strategic competitor will own all of Eurasia and the bulk of the world's energy and industrial capacity.

this is why its not possible for us to discuss these issues.
lets lower the scale a tad. lets get into the neighborhood scale. is it possible think that there might be some unintended consequences if i placed weapons in offensive positions around the neighborhood not on my property, told everyone i was running shit and i would destroy everyone if they messed with me?

How safe do you think that policy would have been for the US? You seem to like liberty, freedom and all these things, I would have thought you'd have been happy about the US winning the Cold War......, a war they didn't necessarily start either. PRetty sure the US didn't create the 1916 revolutions in Russia....

the US won the cold war for one reason...
communism cannot calculate. the system was brought down because of its own internal contradictions not because the US did something. regardless of what the US did or does, socialism must always fail.

Once again, foreign policy dude. Let's stick to whipping a live horse, for once.

Secondly, he theory of blowback is a theory of foreign policy, it does not accommodate individual actions. Let's try and remain focused and accurate. Foreign policy, Chalmers Johnson.

i think this is very narrow and short sighted.
if you believe that individual actions cannot be encompassed in this theory of unintended consequences then you must also believe that a handful of arabs flying a plane into the world trade center can not be called blow back even if they considered their strike as a response to various US interventions abroad.

the theory is the exact same. mcveigh supposedly acted alone to blow up the OKC building. he stated it was a direct response to the federal burning of 80 people in a church in waco texas. so the murrah building where the raid was planned was blown up.
so even though it wasnt a covert government action, but it was a public government action, and even though mcveigh retaliated against the government its self and not the civilian population, the overall theory, blow back, holds for this situation.
i dont see how you can say it doesnt.

However the theory of Blowback doesn't mean you shouldn't have a foreign policy!

i dont think this theory tells a government how to conduct its foreign policy, it just says certain things happen in response to certain things. RP just draws a different conclusion than you do.
foreign non-intervention is the only forpol compatible with freedom. a foreign policy of empire results in oppressing people abroad, stealing their sovereignty, ruling them against their will and results in oppressed liberties at home because we have to 'sacrifice' liberty for 'security.'

but your only talking points are purely from a government perspective about strategy and how various actions affect the government and not necessarily the people and their liberty.


Sure, but that's not going to stop your neighbour from messing with you. And warfare is different than small scale/small arms combat. having a defensive position allows your enemy to surveil you, gain intelligence, undermine your defences and take whatever time they need to build up their offensive strengths whilst you just sit there and wait. Being static is what China did and the West came in and took their coast from them. The defensive position is usually the weakest because unless geography assists you, you do not have the initiative.

you are talking strategy, not morality.
you are correct on strategy, but you are not even considering how this foreign policy is not reflective of a republic, but of an empire.

back to my example of a neighborhood. am i morally justified in setting up offensive positions on property that isnt mine? lets atleast call it like it is, the DOD is not the department of defense, but the department of offense. i believe in using force only self defense. i cannot justify aggressive action against others unless i am first under direct threat.

am i more likely to be harassed by my neighbors if i treat them well and trade with them, help them out, talk to them or am i more likely to be harassed if i act aggressively, steal stuff from them, do what i want, invade their property, and do stuff to aggravate them? nothing is a guarantee to stop my neighbor from messing with me, but its more likely if you are nice and behave accordingly and respect property rights, you will be left alone than if you do the opposite. and if they do mess with you, that is when you exercise your right to self preservation and defense.

and i'll restate it again, you suffer from that all to common mind set.
that because things are the way they are now, there is no other way.
as if we had food distribution off of army trucks and i said...'i think the market could do a great job at this!' you would laugh and scold me for not knowing anything about the real world or how people are, how we need govt food trucks for security because people will starve, etc.
when in reality rights are protected under a free market food system and the job gets done.


Hang on, one minute you are saying that the US supports dictators and the next you are saying that the US forces countries to become democratic. You're contradicting yourself and not making sense.

the US supporting 'democracy' is the wilsonian leftist vision adopted by neo cons and modern left. when they say democracy they mean only US backed puppets and they the hypocrites because they arent concerned with democracy as much as getting what they want out of various countries/governments.

[christo-f]

i only pointed this out to show how you are making a mountain out of a mole hill.
in fact, i know 100% being the statist that you are, you'd say the exact thing i said about 'printing' money if you talked about such issues.

Pointing out that a prominent member of congress is talking about forpol issues when he doesn't understand them is blowing an issue up??! I chose two comments among many stupid ones that he has made regarding forpol and you refuse to accept it because he is your darling.

You have absolutely no idea what I'd say. I don't even know what I'd say because I don't understand the issue (but unlike RP, I keep my mouth shut in issues I don't understand). Calling me a statist is about as ridiculous as me calling you a conservative.



no, i dont think you should read that i dont 'know my shit'
what im saying is.. it is impossible for you to even grasp an argument of freedom because you fundamentally dont believe in it. it isnt even possible for you to wrap your head around it. if someone present a libertarian or liberty oriented argument... you have a shit fit and go into hysterics about how natural rights are fallacy, freedom is stupid, the state rules, governments know best and how civilians should be disarmed. its not possible to have a rational discussion with you on these topics because you think wont even afford me the courtesy of promising not to use governmental violence against me if i disagree with you on these basic issues. whereas i would never think of ever using force against you if we lived on the same government because you believed in a certain policy or position and i would never force you to my side, nor make you pay for it.

My god, I am just trying to say that RP doesn't understand much about foreign policy based on the inaccurate things that he says such as the cost of US bases and how US military aid works.

How in god's name you bring that argument back to statism and gun control is totally beyond me. It's a really simple discussion that you seem incapable of having because your classification of me is all you are willing to work off. You simply refuse to address the very basic issues that I am putting forward and have laid out very clearly.

Afford you the courtesy of not using force against you??!! WTF are you talking about??!

Foreign policy, dude, that's all I'm talking about here.



that is why its not possible to discuss these issues with you because you come from a 100% statist and strategic position where as i come from a 100% liberty oriented position.

i know at this moment you are not saying you disagree with his political philosophy, but every debate you have been involved in with me shows that you in fact disagree with almost everything RP stands for.

Unbelievable, I said very plainly I'm not talking about any other policy of his than foreign policy and I use very simple cases to illustrate my point. You cannot argue against my point because neither do you understand foreign policy and the global structure. That is why you want to move the discussion in to an area that you feel confident in.




sure i know it happened. look how the US government acted, YET in the same standard the US puts missiles near our enemies all the time. while i dont want russian missiles near me, i think we should afford the rest of the world the same right and keep our weapons to ourselves.

Hahaha, you think the USSR wanted courtesy??!!

You seem to think that the global system works on a 'do unto others' basis. If the US pulled out of West Germany in 1955 do you honestly think Russia would not have taken it?

You don't seem to understand that Russia invaded half of Europe and took them unwillingly by force. If the US didn't deploy its forces then Russia would have taken the rest.

You're viewing international relations through a libertarian mindset. That may be fine and workable on a national basis but not on a global basis. Just because you view it as a libertarian concept doesn't mean other countries will and they will take advantage of your position.




i know full well there are strategic concerns why these things are done.

Not sure you do, to be honest.


what im saying is just because we CAN, SHOULD we and is this compatible with liberty which entails a foreign policy of non aggression? you cannot wrap your head around this position, which is why there is no use in trying to talk like strategic concerns and concerns about liberty are part of the same argument.

what I'm trying to explain to you, using the deployment of missiles to Turkey is that these were not AGGRESSIVE moves. They were DEFENSIVE because the USSR was expanding its territory through aggressive force. The US didn't make the first move, Russia did. The responded by making a move that really put Russia back on the defensive. Their deployment of missiles to Cuba were a panic move by Krushchev evidenced by the way the Russians approached the US for a negotiated settlement.

The issue of international relations is very complex and does not on the basis of 'if I leave you alone you will leave me alone'. The Australian aborigines didn't deploy offensive weapons to threaten GB but they still got fucked.

The Chinese didn't threaten the British, French, US, Germans, etc. but they still got fucked.

As it stands now and has all throughout history the world is a jungle. Just because you are a vegetarian doesn't mean the tiger won't eat you. The Afghanis didn't threaten Russia in anyway but that sure as hell didn't keep them safe!!



this is why its not possible for us to discuss these issues.
lets lower the scale a tad. lets get into the neighborhood scale. is it possible think that there might be some unintended consequences if i placed weapons in offensive positions around the neighborhood not on my property, told everyone i was running shit and i would destroy everyone if they messed with me?

First, THE RUSSIANS EXPANDED BY FORCE BEFORE THE US DEPLOYED MISSILES AIMED AT RUSSIA. The Russians did not create the USSR out of a reaction to US aggression. I have no fucking idea how you get that idea.

Secondly, you cannot shrink global issues to a neighbourhood level because the differences are just too great. Distance and geography play to big of a part to make the issue as simple as you would like to.



the US won the cold war for one reason...
communism cannot calculate. the system was brought down because of its own internal contradictions not because the US did something. regardless of what the US did or does, socialism must always fail.

Oh, I'm not so sure about that. Russia could have raped all the Soviet/Warsaw pact countries for decades before they collapsed due to the problems with socialism. The US was able to make them spend money in ways that forced the collapse sooner. And on that, it is too simplistic to say that 'Socialism will always collapse', but I know how you prefer to deal in simplistic concepts and analogies and it makes your position easier to defend.



i think this is very narrow and short sighted.

Lol, what?! It's the theory, it's how it is written, that's what it is!! You can't change it to suit your purposes. If you change it then it is a different theory, which is fine, but you have to make it your onw, not twist some one else's.


if you believe that individual actions cannot be encompassed in this theory of unintended consequences then you must also believe that a handful of arabs flying a plane into the world trade center can not be called blow back even if they considered their strike as a response to various US interventions abroad.

Oh Jesus, man. You're not even reading from the same page as me.



the theory is the exact same. mcveigh supposedly acted alone to blow up the OKC building. he stated it was a direct response to the federal burning of 80 people in a church in waco texas. so the murrah building where the raid was planned was blown up.
so even though it wasnt a covert government action, but it was a public government action, and even though mcveigh retaliated against the government its self and not the civilian population, the overall theory, blow back, holds for this situation.
i dont see how you can say it doesnt.

I see what you are saying and I agree. But I am trying to keep this conversation on the one track....., for once. And, the theory of Blowback as created by Chalmers Johnson only refers to foreign policy, not individual actions. If you are going to transfer that theory to another dynamic you first have to test for new variables and retest the theory.

So I am only going to discuss foreign policy and not allow the discussion to go to the same old place that you try and drag it to.

We are talking international strategic and military relations.



i dont think this theory tells a government how to conduct its foreign policy, it just says certain things happen in response to certain things.

Well, kind of, yes.


RP just draws a different conclusion than you do.

No, you are COMPLETELY avoiding the whole premise of the discussion. RP says things about US foreign policy that are completely untrue (using US military aid as just one example) and talks about strategic concepts in a way that does not make any sense (using his example of Chinese bases in NY). HE seems to think that international strategic relations work on a do unto others principle. In other words, he and you seem to be saying that if you don't act aggressively towards other countries this will improve national security because you aren't inviting reciprocal behaviour from other countries or sub-national actors like terrorists.

I am saying that this is 100% inaccurate, untrue, mislead and dangerous as a foreign policy based on the global system as it stands now.

I can list you THOUSANDS of instances where a country did nothing to provoke a response but were still attacked and subjugated by other nations/sub-national actors.

You seem to think that ideology, greed, irrationality, theology, etc. don't exist and if the US were to act benevolently everyone else would too! History is rich with examples of how countries don't give a shit about 'fair play' and if they can take something they will no matter what the fuck you think about it. PRetty sure Brazil didn't do anything to invite Portuguese colonialism, same that the Thais didn't provoke Japanese invasion, same that East Timor didn't do anything to threaten the security of Indonesia. Keeping to yourself and not provoking a response didn't work too well for these countries, why do you think it's going to work for the United States?



foreign non-intervention is the only forpol compatible with freedom. a foreign policy of empire results in oppressing people abroad, stealing their sovereignty, ruling them against their will and results in oppressed liberties at home because we have to 'sacrifice' liberty for 'security.'

Agree to some, disagree with some of the premise. The US is not conducting empire in Japan. Even after the end of WWII the US pored money in to Japan, opened the US market to Japanese exporters and provided protection from the USSR and China that had OPENLY EXPRESSED EXPANSIONIST foreign policies. What the US got in return was the ability to contain Russia within its borders. The same goes for Germany and pretty much all of Europe. When it comes to South America, you may have a point. My knowledge on SA is not so good so I can't credibly say that the US doesn't act imperialistically down there. The Middle East, it can be a mixture of both. Where they support obviously corrupt dictators such as Mubarak, Hussein, etc. that is closer to imperialism than not.

My point is that having a presence in a country is not instantly imperialism (or neo-imperialism to be precise). Sometimes it is to the mutual advantage of the host country (such as Japan, Germany, Austaralia, Singapore, Romania, etc.) including the govt and its citizens (shit, the poles are BEGGING for US presence in their country because they want to make sure Russia doesn't come back!! The same is for Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, no one wants Russia to come back after what they did last century).

Having a presence in friendly countries does create security for the US as it secures open markets, mutually agreed access to resources, voting blocs in the UN, intelligence networks, technology transfer and a whole host of things that support the US national interest. I'm not sure if you call that interventionism or not but this gets back to my point.

RP sees the US bases in Japan as a provocation to China and a waste of tax payers money. Whilst not only is that wrong for starters, what about Russia, the nukes they have in Vladivostok, the Nuke subs they have in Kamchatka, the Mistrals they are building for the Pacific fleet? Should the US just forget about that? Or is the argument that they only have these deployed there because of the US and if the US pulled out of Japan Russia would remove the missiles, subs and stop building the mistrals? Please don't say that is the argument because that argument then says that Russia doesn't care about Japan or China, countries they have been to war with about 6 times in total now. PRetty sure Russia has their eye on the east more so than just because the US has a base there....



but your only talking points are purely from a government perspective about strategy and how various actions affect the government and not necessarily the people and their liberty.

Dude, I'm just saying that based on what RP says he doesn't understand forpol. You just want to make it a discussion about liberty and freedom....., again.

Try and stick to the point that I am making and all that is, is that the way RP frames CURRENT issues is totally inaccurate and misleading. I have used two examples of his and explained why they are misleading.


you are talking strategy, not morality.

YEah, that's because foreign policy is of a strategic nature, not moral. That's not to say that it a natural way of things and maybe it is unfortunate that there is little to no morality in forpol. The problem is that as the system works now you may act morally but how can you trust that some one who has the ability to destroy you will act morally too? The argument is that to act morally is to take a risk and trust other countries and because that is such a huge risk to take a leader would be irresponsible taking such a risk with the whole country like that. That's the realist theory and from observation that seems to be the way the world is working at the moment.




you are correct on strategy, but you are not even considering how this foreign policy is not reflective of a republic, but of an empire.


Because that's not the discussion that I'm having, FFS!! I just want to say that the way RP explains current US forpol indicates that he either doesn't understand it or that he is being deliberately misleading. I used two examples as evidence.



back to my example of a neighborhood. am i morally justified in setting up offensive positions on property that isnt mine?

No, stop using analogies and stick to the real world. If you want to talk about foreign policy use examples of foreign policy not simplistic analogies that are not comparable to such complex issues.


lets atleast call it like it is, the DOD is not the department of defense, but the department of offense. i believe in using force only self defense. i cannot justify aggressive action against others unless i am first under direct threat.

The US was under threat from Russia and China, that's why it had the bases in the Pacific and Europe. So now you should see my point, right?

am i more likely to be harassed by my neighbors if i treat them well and trade with them, help them out, talk to them or am i more likely to be harassed if i act aggressively, steal stuff from them, do what i want, invade their property, and do stuff to aggravate them? nothing is a guarantee to stop my neighbor from messing with me, but its more likely if you are nice and behave accordingly and respect property rights, you will be left alone than if you do the opposite. and if they do mess with you, that is when you exercise your right to self preservation and defense.


That may be fine when you are dealing with neighbourhood issues but it is not at all comparable to international security. Just as the Chinese, the American Indians, the Brazilians, the Mexicans, East Timorese, Philippines, Papua New Guinea, India, Afghanistan, Somalia, South African blacks, Angolans, Cote D'Ivorians, Finland, Algeria, Tunisia........, how many countries do you want me to name that were non-interventionist but still got FUCKED??!

Seriously mate, history is packed full of invasion, colonialism, imperialism against countries that never went outside their borders. I cannot understand how you think it really makes much difference. When it comes to a substate level there is a VERY good point for what you are talking about as they are the kinds of decisions individuals make (like your neighbourhood analogy). But nation states, like them or not, evil or good, make decisions based on very different reasons and agendas than individuals. I have just listed 16 examples from history of the top of my head that back this up. I know I could find another thousand if I were to research (shit, just think of how many empires there have been and each one will provide you of at least ten examples of where non-interventionist countries got fucked).




and i'll restate it again, you suffer from that all to common mind set.
that because things are the way they are now, there is no other way.

HAhaha, if you only knew, my friend. Just because I understand how things work now doesn't mean I believe it cannot change. That is your assumption of me, that is all.

And once again, I'm not arguing that RPs philosophy of forpol is wrong I'm arguing that what he says about it now is totally untrue.


as if we had food distribution off of army trucks and i said...'i think the market could do a great job at this!' you would laugh and scold me for not knowing anything about the real world or how people are, how we need govt food trucks for security because people will starve, etc.
when in reality rights are protected under a free market food system and the job gets done.

You can't help yourself can you? Foreign policy dude, foreign policy, foreign policy, foreign policy. Please, try and stay on topic.


the US supporting 'democracy' is the wilsonian leftist vision adopted by neo cons and modern left. when they say democracy they mean only US backed puppets and they the hypocrites because they arent concerned with democracy as much as getting what they want out of various countries/governments.

You seem to be making the mistake of taking politicians word at face value. When a politician says 'supporting democracy' what they mean is 'support democracy when it suits the national interest or maybe even when it suits my share holdings'. There's really not much else to it than that.





So, in conclusion:

All I am saying is that RP's conceptualisation of how US forpol is working either indicates that he doesn't understand it or that he is being deliberately misleading. I have used two clear and concrete examples to illustrate this point.

The fact that RP is off the mark (by such a wide margin) forces one to ask the question (not make the claim, but ask the question), if RP doesn't understand what is going on now would he be able to adequately do the job if he was president of the US?


Non-interventionism does not increase national security because history shows many many times that non-interventionist states have been attacked regardless of their foreign policy.


You cannot use the security relationship of individuals as an analogy for international security/strategic relations because first off people act very differently than states and have very different concerns. Secondly interpersonal relationships are are much more simple because it is one person dealing with other individuals where as states are legal structures, economic structures, whole electorates, vast distances, geographic features (such as oceans, deserts, mountains, jungles) and many other variables dealing with each other. International relations are very complex and many things have to be taken in to consideration when making a decision. Interpersonal relations comparatively are exceedingly simple and that makes using interpersonal relations as an analogy for international relations unacceptable.


Just because I accept that the world is an anarchic jungle (realist) right now does not indicate whether I agree with it, support it or think it cannot be any other way. It is just simply an analysis of how things work now. If you want to extrapolate what you think is right or possible out of that, go right ahead but you are only guessing at best as I have been meticulous at not showing what I believe is right or wrong in a moral or ethical sense. Think what you will, though.


Lastly, dud, I'm just talking about RPs understanding and conceptualisation of how forpol works right now. I'm not talking about liberty, freedom, getting fed off the back of a fucking truck or timothy fucking McVeigh. I am not going to enter in to these conversations because we've been down that road and I'm not talking about that here and now. Ron Pauls comments on US foreign policy are the issue, nothing else.

[Decyferon]

to look at AODs analogy of the neighbourhood, the way I see it you can set up weapons in your neighbours gardens, because like poland and former soviet bloc countries, those neighbours will be asking you to place weapons there, like poland wants US weapons. Doesn't make a blind bit of difference if you own the land because the owner of the land is inviting you to place those weapons.

But the I don't know enough about this shit to really comment. But I do agree that you cannot have a libertarian foriegn policy like AOD suggested because the world is dog eat dog and as soon as you display that weakness you will be eaten.

[J B Suspecto]

Sure, but that's not going to stop your neighbour from messing with you. And warfare is different than small scale/small arms combat. having a defensive position allows your enemy to surveil you, gain intelligence, undermine your defences and take whatever time they need to build up their offensive strengths whilst you just sit there and wait. Being static is what China did and the West came in and took their coast from them. The defensive position is usually the weakest because unless geography assists you, you do not have the initiative.


This is hardly a reasonable comparison to make. Paul advocates non-interventionism, not isolationism as China did in the era you speak of. As I'm sure you know, the Chinese state considered itself the centre of the civilised universe and grossly underestimated the the power of these western barbarians who were skirmishing on the coastline trying to secure port space and trade networks. By comparison, Paul is pro free-trade, which eliminates much of the source of this conflict to begin with.

In a previous post you have said;

So, an isolationist US would equal:

Increase of Russian, Chinese and Iranian influence.
That would mean access denial to the Persian Gulf and Suez Canal along with the South China Seas and the Malacca Straits. The outcome of that would mean energy prices would rise DRAMATICALLY, access to raw materials would become more complicated and expensive due to declining access to key water ways and export markets as well as cheap labor bases would be closed off to the US (as well as a HUGE amount of US interests throughout the world would be nationalised and the US couldn't do shit because mobilising to take them back would be so damned expensive).


The cost of living in the US would triple within 5 years and your access to products would decline MASSIVELY. The US (And the world) would be forced to totally change their societies, culture and economies. That may result in a nice, green, egalitarian society like we all want it to be. It could also change in to a messy, polluted, authoritarian state where people screw each other over for resources and access (thinking China today here). There is no reason to say that this change would bring about the results that you want for your country. The only thing we can say for sure is that it would bring change, TOUGH change and it would be decades before the country stabilized again, if it didn't break apart or get eaten by Russia, China or Iran first.

You often accuse people of sounding like chicken little, I think you have now demonstrated a propensity to the same behaviour. This line of argument would suggest that no other nations bar the US and perhaps some of their allies benefit from trade. This idea is patently untrue. However, focussing purely on the cost to US citizens, even if transport became more expensive in absence of US gov naval protection, this increased cost would be offset by the dramatic decrease in government spending paid for through taxation.

It is one of the great fallacies of a statist position that looks at the current role of state actions and argues without any particular gov institution there would be chaos and disorder. There is very little that a government can do that can't be replicated by private action in a more efficient way. Wholesale theft and oppression of a citizenry may be one exception, leading an entire nation to war may be another.

[CALIgula]

frankie?...is that you?

[J B Suspecto]

Non-interventionism does not increase national security because history shows many many times that non-interventionist states have been attacked regardless of their foreign policy.


This statement is disingenuous. What R. Paul is talking about is reducing motivation towards negative engagement. Quite obviously there are many reasons why a nation or political organisation may negatively engage with another, the consequences of interventionism and blow-back are just two forms of these which exists within a spectrum of others. Yet, if blow-back is identified as a concept with explanatory power factoring in several major cases of negative engagement since the terms conception, surely it is a reasonable response to attempt to neutralise this motivation to warfare or other manoeuvring.

So if we can move past such simplistic and misleading arguments which present a binary outcome of either non-interventionism preventing war or not, we can see that the real argument is if non-interventionism reduces the frequency or severity of war or other negative engagement. The most obvious way to answer this question would be to look backwards to find historical comparisons. Yet all of the historical examples you have mentioned have been much more an issue of the relative power between nations/political units than interventionism or non-interventionism. Indigenous Australia could have hardly lead a forward deployment policy preventing British conquest, for example. In contrast, as the US is still by far the most powerful nation on this earth, a point which you have made repeatedly in other threads, the kind of power imbalance which led to conquest in the colonial period is hardly likely to be replicated in between the US and other interested countries in the near future should the US pursue an non-interventionist policy.

[christo-f]

Sorry, not being rude, I do intend to respond to this. Yesterday was my first day off in well over a month, I need a rest.

[wearekilluminati]

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^lmao shut the fuck up

[laughslast]

Hey man yall are rude

[ILOTSMYBRAIN]

http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig12/davis-ch1.1.1.html

[ILOTSMYBRAIN]

And Ron Paul is running again.

[Zig]

good man... good...

i want this man to become president, and it's not because i am a huge libertarian or because i 100% agree with everything he says and does... it's because this man is the ONLY politician, and probably will be the ONLY presidential candidate, that is speaking and taking the stances RP is taking. i dont hear anyone else talking about the federal reserve, ending the drug war, bringing our troops home, or even tipping their hat towards 9/11 truth the way RP does. not a single politician has the integrity that he has in my opinion, and i really think that this time around RP has a big chance at making headway. he has been all over the media during these 4 years of the obama administration, and if it's not RP that wins it... than i think Obama will probably get re-elected. either way, i'll tell you right now i'm going to vote for RP in 2012 my vote is pretty much secured. i wish i could do more for his campaign but i will encourage all of my friends and family to vote for him.

[TheoHuxtable..]

Just wondering if the Ron Paul supporters here think the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was a bad idea?

[ILOTSMYBRAIN]

No Racheal Maddow, blacks should stay where they belong. Plessy vs Fergeson, separate but equal.

C'mon man, we already addressed this. Stop trying to spin it as he's a Racist.

[Zig]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ekzLXtNYBWA

[angelofdeath]

this is basically a debate with theo:

http://www.tomwoods.com/blog/interview-with-a-zombie/

[TheoHuxtable..]

this is aod's condescending face when he debates those he disagrees with while calling them stupid:

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_oD6fDBNqOaU/TPain4pq_vI/AAAAAAAAAPc/RYtIYEvOd8A/s1600/2741856823_e04b898ae0.jpg

[TheoHuxtable..]

No Racheal Maddow, blacks should stay where they belong. Plessy vs Fergeson, separate but equal.

C'mon man, we already addressed this. Stop trying to spin it as he's a Racist.

I never said he was racist; I'm aware Ron Paul considers MLK to be one of his heroes.

I think their argument is that it's a "state's rights" issue, not a racial one.

Both Ron & Rand Paul have both implied that the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was unconstitutional. Rand said businesses should be allowed to not admit people of certain races or various other backgrounds, but that he personally would not support those businesses, and that the "free market" would collapse racist business practices. Yet, the "Whites Only" businesses pre-1964 seemed to be doing just fine.

[angelofdeath]

the 64' civil rights act is unconstitutional. the only way to make it NOT unconstitutional is to amend the constitution. if you believe it is constitutional, then please point to the enumerated power in article 1 section 8 that gives congress this power. but constitutional arguments mean little to you, and actually, they mean little me.
so i prefer not to argue this aspect of this issue at all.

rand and ron paul take issue with the clause in the civil rights act that states people have a right to do business with another. in another words, forced integration. this is hardly freedom of association, it is forced association.

now, take off your maddow goggles for one second.

by saying that you believe in the government being able to force people to do business with others, and that this 'increases freedom,' you are also saying that it is perfectly legitimate for the government to force you to open your front door and allow anyone into your property.
the part you completely miss is that segregation, were GOVERNMENT LAWS on the state level.
many greedy white capitalists wanted these stupid ass laws overturned so they could 'exploit' consumers and sell their services and products to EVERYONE.

i just dont get it. the lefties such as theo have this insane theory that businesses are both greedy and exploitative of the consumer and seek profits at any cost, YET at the same time want to NOT serve customers, therefore reducing their profits. something just doesnt jive with this theory.

anyone with half a brain wants government laws enforcing segregation gone. even though the process used is technically unconstitutional, im personally fine with the outcome. the problem and the actual issue at hand is whether a property owner has control of his property or not. can the government force owners of private dwelling to open their doors to allow in homeless people in order to increase the freedom of everyone? can we also force the jewish store owner to do business with white laced boots, braces wearing, bone head neo nazi's? i mean, hell, if perfect association is what we want, did it ever occur to you that any customer/consumer can, whenever the hell they want, discriminate on the basis of race when they choose to do business with a store owner? shouldnt the government intervene on behalf of the white store owners who are denied business by racist black or latino customers?

if you acknowledge on principle that the government has a right to intervene and force associations, you must also realize that the same principle can be used to force you into various associations.

but do you, for one second, think that a 'lunch counter' in 2011 seeking maximum profit, without a government law enforcing segregation, would put up a sign refusing to allow blacks into the establishment and that it would not be boycotted into the ground in about 2 seconds? and if it was even conceivably possible to have a country full of greedy capitalists trying to 'exploit' everyone, that denied services to every single minority in the country, therefore reducing their evil profits, this demonstrates to my greedy capitalist mind that i can make insane amounts of money by serving this group that has been discriminated against. any one looking out for their own self interest, of any race, color or creed, can figure this out.
and why is it that bars can kick out drunks, restaurants can refuse to allow people not dressed properly into the establishment, convenience stores can make people wear shoes and shirts, businesses can kick out non payers, men can discriminate on which race of woman he wants to marry, woman can refuse to marry dumb men, and straight people can discriminate against gay people in choosing a sexual partner, but it is forbidden for a stupid racist to reduce his profitability and shoot himself in the foot by refusing to serve various races? shoot i say look at it like this. lets see if people actually do this and refuse to admit certain races, etc onto their property... that way they can go bankrupt and the community knows his real feelings.
racism is nothing but an ugly form of collectivism.

[ILOTSMYBRAIN]

I never said he was racist; I'm aware Ron Paul considers MLK to be one of his heroes.

I think their argument is that it's a "state's rights" issue, not a racial one.

Both Ron & Rand Paul have both implied that the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was unconstitutional. Rand said businesses should be allowed to not admit people of certain races or various other backgrounds, but that he personally would not support those businesses, and that the "free market" would collapse racist business practices. Yet, the "Whites Only" businesses pre-1964 seemed to be doing just fine.

That's pre-1964.

Not that racism has vanished, I'm just trying to say that the minority population in general has exploded here. Do you think any legit business would be able to survive in 2011 with such a policy? Perhaps in very small local area's, but I honestly doubt it.

It wouldn't be able to stay low key, not in today's society. That shit would be all over the news, with people tweeting about it who don't even live remotely near it's location. Most people regardless to whom the business happens to discriminate against will be up in arm's. Don't really see any kind of long term future for that kind of business decision. Who's going to want be seen even if they feel the same way coming in and out, or doing business of any kind with that kind of establishment?

[Zig]

Funny that you make that point LOTS, as RP had a debate with Chris Matthews on this very same subject only 4 days ago...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ekzLXtNYBWA

again Theo, you seem to always imply the weakest arguments. What exactly are the points that you are trying to make when you bring these things up? You kind of just bring them up, back off a little, and then your forced to defend yourself from people that actually have knowledge about the issue/debate.

Watch the video (IN FULL) and listen to RP's perspective from the man himself, then you will understand better the argument you are presenting here.

[lord_casek]

Theo, haven't you told me a few times that you actually like Ron Paul a lot?
Obviously not enough to vote for him, but I think you've told me before that
you think a lot of what he says is good.

[TheoHuxtable..]

Theo, haven't you told me a few times that you actually like Ron Paul a lot?
Obviously not enough to vote for him, but I think you've told me before that
you think a lot of what he says is good.


Liberals/Progressives tend to agree with Ron Paul's foreign policy, and that's about it. His foreign policy makes the most sense of any politician, with the exception of the fact that he thinks a rapid immediate withdrawal from an ongoing-war like Afghanistan or Iraq would be the best option. It would be irresponsible. The best objective is to avoid war in the first place of course, but once involved, it is our responsibility to make a responsible, phased withdrawal.

Also, I think Ron Paul has the best chance of winning nomination than he ever has before, given the sad state of the current GOP pool.

I don't think he'll become the nominee though - most likely it will be Romney.

[oookeybooty]

bullshit...it's what makes the world go around.
:lol:

does any real politician give a shit about what's happening miles away?

sure it may cross their mind but guess what? they're thinking the same shit you ppl are...

GLAD ITS THEM AND NOT ME.


you pay taxes= you're a slave.

they who control the money control the world...and it ain't who you think.

[oookeybooty]

bullshit...it's what makes the world go around.
:lol:

does any real politician give a shit about what's happening miles away?

sure it may cross their mind but guess what? they're thinking the same shit you ppl are...

GLAD ITS THEM AND NOT ME.


you pay taxes= you're a slave.

they who control the money control the world...and it ain't who you think.



ohh and i forgot fuck ron paul :lol:

[lord_casek]

Wow...Such deep and relevant sentences.

[Zig]

bullshit...it's what makes the world go around.
:lol:

does any real politician give a shit about what's happening miles away?

sure it may cross their mind but guess what? they're thinking the same shit you ppl are...

GLAD ITS THEM AND NOT ME.


you pay taxes= you're a slave.

they who control the money control the world...and it ain't who you think.

its sad because, a majority of people who aren't interested in politics or don't know anything about politics, and are also uneducated on our basic history or even geopolitical history, think, talk, and respond this way whenever involved in political discussions.

now i don't disagree with his slave statement, nor do i disagree with his resentment of politicians, but he clearly isn't comprehending anything about this conversation... probably has no idea who ron paul is, and probably couldn't even name people in the current administration running office.

im not saying i can personally name everyone in the current administration, im just making the point that the general populace is completely out of touch with the political process in America and would rather put up their middle finger than engage in a discussion about ideology. it's a big reason why our government is as corrupt as it has become, because for the most part americans don't know shit about government or give a fuck about it.

i can't really say that all the blame is on the average citizen though, i have to blame the education system, the media, and even the government itself for discouraging it's own citizens from being intelligent and though provoking when it comes to political issues.

[lord_casek]

Black mans view on Ron Paul being called a racist
http://youtu.be/k6sYZxZi4qQ

[lord_casek]

Well said, props good sir.

[oookeybooty]

its sad because, a majority of people who aren't interested in politics or don't know anything about politics, and are also uneducated on our basic history or even geopolitical history, think, talk, and respond this way whenever involved in political discussions.

now i don't disagree with his slave statement, nor do i disagree with his resentment of politicians, but he clearly isn't comprehending anything about this conversation... probably has no idea who ron paul is, and probably couldn't even name people in the current administration running office.

im not saying i can personally name everyone in the current administration, im just making the point that the general populace is completely out of touch with the political process in America and would rather put up their middle finger than engage in a discussion about ideology. it's a big reason why our government is as corrupt as it has become, because for the most part americans don't know shit about government or give a fuck about it.

i can't really say that all the blame is on the average citizen though, i have to blame the education system, the media, and even the government itself for discouraging it's own citizens from being intelligent and though provoking when it comes to political issues.





i do know who ron paul is, i do know about politics, and i wished so much for this country to change.

POLITICIANS ARE NOT MEANT FOR CHANGE...THEY ARE MEANT TO KEEP THINGS THE SAME.

why would i care about a government which does such things to the ppl of this country?

all politicians, would never get my respect they are just as crooked as the next man.


have i given up on politicians? yes...but i would never give up on the ppl of this country.

the ppl make this country not your politician...and politicians are not once who they were so they don't count as my " People" anymore. if ppl had a real problem in this country they would revolt just like they do in the middle east...those ppl take no shit.


could you imagine ppl burning down city hall in your state? could you imagine ppl fire-bombing the white house because of all the fucked up shit this country put it's ppl thru?

they don't...because this is a " Great" country.

i'll tell you what this country is...a piece of shit covered in frosting.:lol:



RIP JFK...




so get that straight homey.

[ipod90]

Ron is the last of a dying breed. This needs to happen or hello fascism. Fingers fucking crossed aye .:cool:

[angelofdeath]

'i hate all politicians'

then:

'RIP JFK'

unless im taking this post wrong, sounds like you like JFK.
seems pretty funny to me if this is the case

[ILOTSMYBRAIN]

He's confused.

Just nod your head, and smile.

[TheoHuxtable..]

Black mans view on Ron Paul being called a racist
http://youtu.be/k6sYZxZi4qQ

Even if Ron Paul is against CRA '64, segregation/Jim Crow existed in both the public & private sectors. And CRA '64 ended both. So while one may argue the libertarian argument for private business, what would they say about government institutionalized Jim Crow laws?

The claim at the time was "separate but equal", but the facilities provided between blacks & whites were anything but equal. Whether it was public transit, restrooms, schools, etc. That famous photo of the drinking fountains symbolized this - how the "Whites Only" fountain was new and modernized for its time, while the "Colored" fountain was old & decrepit - and those fountains were in a public/government building.

So if Ron Paul considers himself a strict Constitutionalist, then he should view institutionalized Jim Crow laws and unequal treatment through lack of funding & facilities by the government as being unconstitutional. CRA '64 mandated Jim Crow as being unconstitutional.

[angelofdeath]

i answered this in my previous post which must of made to much sense to debate.

but in short, RP is only against the provision of the civil rights act that forces private business to associate with people. i dont know how many times rand or ron said this, but they both said it more times than i can count when the whole brouhaha was going down on this issue. he is for the provisions that outlaw segregation on government/public property. so you are trying to make a case against the guy when he agrees with what you are saying about public property.

the constitutional argument against the CRA 64 is largely against the sections that pertain to private businesses (which in fact were regulated by state and local government segregation laws).
but there are also two schools of thought on the 14th amendment besides its dubious ratification. one side makes the case the creators of the amendment had a narrow interpretation. which is pretty much undoubtably true in a historical context. the amendment was passed solely to make sure freed slaves and blacks could own property, serve on a jury, etc. one could also further this argument by saying the courts held this view for many years therefore further reinforcing this argument. under this argument the bill of rights still only applies to the federal government as was originally intended and not to the states.

the second side makes the argument theo is making which in the current constitutional arrangement and levels of tyranny we currently toil under, i tend to accept. although the federal government's role is broader in scope than the framers intended, i dont have any problem really with the bill of rights being applied to the states. which in turn also means the 14th amendment can be used to strike down those segregation laws. but you enter into a 'camels nose under the tent' scenario with this line of thought. where do you draw the line and on what issues can you keep using the 'unequal' treatment argument? this viewpoint is fine if it is extremely limited but i recognize this is one of the clauses in the constitution used by the courts to expand the size and scope of the national governments power.
it is a tricky issue.

[angelofdeath]

i'd also like to point out... the 'libertarian' position on 'segregation' and/or laws pertaining to segregation on 'public' property is:

the government cannot legitimately own property and should not be running transit, schools, etc.

[El Mamerro]

In other words, a position that conveniently avoids reality.

[Zig]

He's confused.

Just nod your head, and smile.

:laugh1:

[angelofdeath]

In other words, a position that conveniently avoids reality.

you know, many thought abolitionists in the 19th century as taking a position that 'conveniently avoids reality.'

[TheoHuxtable..]

i answered this in my previous post which must of made to much sense to debate.

Nah I just skimmed through it - didn't really read it.

in short, RP is only against the provision of the civil rights act that forces private business to associate with people. i dont know how many times rand or ron said this, but they both said it more times than i can count when the whole brouhaha was going down on this issue. he is for the provisions that outlaw segregation on government/public property. so you are trying to make a case against the guy when he agrees with what you are saying about public property.

the constitutional argument against the CRA 64 is largely against the sections that pertain to private businesses (which in fact were regulated by state and local government segregation laws).
but there are also two schools of thought on the 14th amendment besides its dubious ratification. one side makes the case the creators of the amendment had a narrow interpretation. which is pretty much undoubtably true in a historical context. the amendment was passed solely to make sure freed slaves and blacks could own property, serve on a jury, etc. one could also further this argument by saying the courts held this view for many years therefore further reinforcing this argument. under this argument the bill of rights still only applies to the federal government as was originally intended and not to the states.

the second side makes the argument theo is making which in the current constitutional arrangement and levels of tyranny we currently toil under, i tend to accept. although the federal government's role is broader in scope than the framers intended, i dont have any problem really with the bill of rights being applied to the states. which in turn also means the 14th amendment can be used to strike down those segregation laws. but you enter into a 'camels nose under the tent' scenario with this line of thought. where do you draw the line and on what issues can you keep using the 'unequal' treatment argument? this viewpoint is fine if it is extremely limited but i recognize this is one of the clauses in the constitution used by the courts to expand the size and scope of the national governments power.
it is a tricky issue.

If Ron Paul is in favor of sections of CRA '64 that regulated government-sanctioned discrimination - great. However, one can still make the argument that a private business practicing racism & discrimination is and should be against the law, in the breath of a private business committing other forms of unfair practices towards customers that would also be against the law (fraud, assault, threats, misrepresentation, etc.).

[TheoHuxtable..]

i answered this in my previous post which must of made to much sense to debate.

Nah I just skimmed through it - didn't really read it.

in short, RP is only against the provision of the civil rights act that forces private business to associate with people. i dont know how many times rand or ron said this, but they both said it more times than i can count when the whole brouhaha was going down on this issue. he is for the provisions that outlaw segregation on government/public property. so you are trying to make a case against the guy when he agrees with what you are saying about public property.

the constitutional argument against the CRA 64 is largely against the sections that pertain to private businesses (which in fact were regulated by state and local government segregation laws).
but there are also two schools of thought on the 14th amendment besides its dubious ratification. one side makes the case the creators of the amendment had a narrow interpretation. which is pretty much undoubtably true in a historical context. the amendment was passed solely to make sure freed slaves and blacks could own property, serve on a jury, etc. one could also further this argument by saying the courts held this view for many years therefore further reinforcing this argument. under this argument the bill of rights still only applies to the federal government as was originally intended and not to the states.

the second side makes the argument theo is making which in the current constitutional arrangement and levels of tyranny we currently toil under, i tend to accept. although the federal government's role is broader in scope than the framers intended, i dont have any problem really with the bill of rights being applied to the states. which in turn also means the 14th amendment can be used to strike down those segregation laws. but you enter into a 'camels nose under the tent' scenario with this line of thought. where do you draw the line and on what issues can you keep using the 'unequal' treatment argument? this viewpoint is fine if it is extremely limited but i recognize this is one of the clauses in the constitution used by the courts to expand the size and scope of the national governments power.
it is a tricky issue.

If Ron Paul is in favor of sections of CRA '64 that regulated government-sanctioned discrimination - great. However, one can still make the argument that a private business practicing racism & discrimination is and should be against the law, in the breath of a private business committing other forms of unfair practices towards customers that would also be against the law (fraud, assault, threats, misrepresentation, etc.).

[angelofdeath]

Nah I just skimmed through it - didn't really read it.

you should actually read it because it completely smashes your next argument.



If Ron Paul is in favor of sections of CRA '64 that regulated government-sanctioned discrimination - great. However, one can still make the argument that a private business practicing racism & discrimination is and should be against the law, in the breath of a private business committing other forms of unfair practices towards customers that would also be against the law (fraud, assault, threats, misrepresentation, etc.).

is racism stupid? sure.
should we throw someone in jail if they choose not to associate with someone on their own property? no

if you conclude that we need to throw 'racists' in jail who 'discriminate' then we must also throw you in jail if you choose not to leave your front door open in order for homeless people to enter your property therefore 'increasing' the freedom of everyone. we must also throw racist customers in jail who choose not to do business with store owners they dont like. why can we throw business owners in jail but we cant throw racist customers in jail? and why is it only racial discrimination that is bad, but when people who search for sex partners discriminate on the basis of looks, intelligence, race, and sexual orientation its fine? why can private property owners discriminate and throw drunks off their property, people who dont have on shoes or shirts, people who arent dressed to the proper dress code, non payers, people fighting, people who are armed? why can the basketball team discriminate against people in wheel chairs, people who weight to much, people who are to short, the mentally retarded? why should the jewish store owner be forced to associate with neo nazi's, klansmen or members of the violent separatist organizations? why arent we forcing the boy scouts to allow girls in? why arent we forcing guys to attend 'girls nights out?'

discrimination is choice. people do it every day. freedom of association is a bedrock principle of a free society. the government shouldnt force a racist to conform to their idea of what is right and they shouldnt force someone to allow someone on to their property. if they can force a racist to do so, on the same principle, they can force anyone to associate with whoever they think you should. if you hold the position that the government has a right to force associations, but that they cannot force YOU to associate with various people... you sir, are a hypocrite. you cannot get mad when congress is lobbied to force you to associate with various individuals on your own property.

[oookeybooty]

'i hate all politicians'

then:

'RIP JFK'

unless im taking this post wrong, sounds like you like JFK.
seems pretty funny to me if this is the case


you did get it confused...last time i checked JFK wasn't running for any office.

and yea nod your head and keep smiling...:lol: :rolleyes:

[lord_casek]

JFK was the POTUS. Last time I checked, that means he was a politician.

[angelofdeath]

i like the guys' quasi anarchist rhetoric then praising a statist president.

[lord_casek]

I liked the part where he said this:

"i do know who ron paul is, i do know about politics, and i wished so much for this country to change."


That last part speaks so much.

[wearekilluminati]

"POLITICS" literally translates to MANY-BLOODSUCKERS poly-ticks
fuck PON RAUL









fool me once shame on you fool me twice shame on me...............................................b unch of cheerleadin faggots on here..........yes you

[angelofdeath]

^^^ this guy was always funnier than the other dude.

how on earth, can a guy who wants to limit government as much as possible be considered a blood sucker?
personally, if i was totally against politics i wouldnt post in a political forum.
but that is just me

[lord_casek]

I think he's getting high and trolling us.

If I ran a medical marijuana shop I think I'd be very involved in politics for a few reasons.
One being I'd want to make sure I was able to continue helping my patients, especially since Colorado is the most recent state to get gov threats.

I would also want a man in the seat of the president like Ron Paul, who is completely for medical marijuana.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JHS_y94H1Dk

[Zig]

hold on ima doin an impression of killuminati...

FUCK YALL, WAKE UP YO, I LIKE TYPING IN CAPS, YALL ALL DUMB AND SHIT SMELL THE COFFEE FUCK ILLUMINATI SHEEPLE DERP DERP DICK IN MAH ASS

"some random but horribly misquoted smart thing an actual intellectual once said that isn't relevant at all to anything we're talking about"

OH YEA IMA KILL YOU TOO (random threat on your life)

[wearekilluminati]

YO YO YO WAHT NAH MAN WAKE UP.LOL DICK ON YO ASS LOL that was funny. YEAP an exact impression of me.. i forgot how much i missed dickhead croosfire..getting all ya blabberbrained individuals panties in a bunch. i love seeing ya expertise analyzation of bullshit..ha long live ron pail surely hes going get us out of this mess obama, bush, clinton bush, reagan, nixon, johnson ,etc, etc got us in. get a life and suck a nut or a split whichever one you prefer.

[Zig]

i love seeing you guys playing the backfield of conversations acting like know it alls, it makes you cool. oh and killuminati i love how you hold yourself above everyone who contributes to this forum but yet you haven't said a single intelligent thing since you've been registered.

[lord_casek]

Apparently we have short memories around here. I seem to remember you being frequently guilty of this error.

I don't always agree with the guy, or even a lot of people here, but I am more than willing to recognize that people change, ideas change, and habits change.

killuminati comes in here and insults everyone and tells us that we're sheep, etc. He doesn't even try to have normal conversations. Just preaches.

Zig joins in conversations and doesn't preach anymore. He's figured out how things work on 12oz and adapted. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0WhuikFY1Pg)

[ILOTSMYBRAIN]

You forgot...


Harold Holt has 82 posts and really hasn't said shit ever.

[lord_casek]

He's one of those lurkers. All good.

[Zig]

Ron Paul , Rand Paul... all the same to me so I figured this belongs in this thread:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q4imruU6Zas

It's funny how this guy Harry Reid is representative of the "Democratic Party". He sounds a LOT like a Republican would of sounded from 2001-2006. It's amazing to me how this kind of rhetoric goes hand in hand with both parties... I'm not even going to say anything I think this guy said it best:


Hi xxxxxx,
Thank you for the note, and I appreciate the invitation to this reception.
I'm sure your records can tell you how generously I've supported the campaign efforts of xxxxxxxxx and xxxxxxxx before her.
I'm sad to say that I no longer feel comfortable with giving this level of support to any Democratic candidates for the foreseeable future, due to the reprehensible actions of Senator Harry Reid this evening concerning the Patriot Act renewal. This disgusting example of political fear-profiteering (the Patriot Act, not Harry Reid, though he may now run a close second) should never have been put in place to begin with, much less extended. Despite the frothy-mouthed fist-shaking and fear-mongering that has been going on the last 10 years, Americans are not the contemptibly gullible fools some may take us for. We know quite well that a "War on Terror" is as deceitfully ethereal, as willfully undefinable, as purposely unwinnable as the War on Drugs. I expect the Patriot Act will continue along the same vein; to be extended again and again with as many conjured-up "examples of lives saved" as it takes to justify it.
In some twisted sense of comedy, it seems that we have to look to a Republican, Rand Paul, for having the Audacity to Hope we'd actually have an honest debate about the over-reaching contents of this Act without resorting to rumors of freedom-hating shadows lurking under every rock. Instead, what I see is Democrats aggressively pushing to continue this police-state legislation as if the rest of America simply does not have an opinion worth listening to.
I know how this process works; The only opinion that counts in politics is the one with dollar signs attached.
Therefore, if I have to give the entire sum of my previous Democratic candidate contributions to a Republican to help fund some sense back in to this process then, by God, that's what I'm going to do.
Best of luck on the event!
Regards, xxxxxx


^ found this on reddit.com
http://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/hk9pa/due_to_past_generosity_i_was_recently_invited_to/

If you agree with Harry Reid, than please defend your argument as to why we still need the Patriot Act, why we should still be engaged in this war on terror, and why Rand Paul (Ron Paul's son) is wrong. I personally agree with him.

[angelofdeath]

seems like typical politics to me...
the dems were supposedly concerned about civil liberties when bush was in office, now they are starting more wars and renewing the patriot act among many other things they were supposedly against just a few years ago. now we have rand paul trying to shut down, filibuster and / or at least attempting to amend the patriot act. and the left are still supporting these democratic clowns in congress and the white house??

nothing new though. clinton and the left laid the frame work for the first patriot act during his reign and were using echelon / warrantless wire taps, bombed countries without a declaration of war, was reading emails, etc, some of the right was supposedly against this stuff. bush takes office, they take this stuff to the next level and throw it into over drive. dems turn into born again libertarians on these issues. the messiah takes office and there isnt a war or civil liberties violation the dems arent in favor of. typical cycle.

[Decyferon]

it is typical politics. Thereis no real left or right in politics, it is all central views, there is so little variety that no wonder voter apathy is so high.

It is the same over here in the UK, we have a conservative/liberal coalition?? what the fuck is that? it should be 2 polar views yet they are in bed together and the policies to be honest are no different to when Labour were in power (the 'left').

I do respect politicians who go out of their way to not tow the company line, however realistically they won't get into power and as good as there views may be, they will not get into power for lack of support and being too way out there for the big moneymakers to support.

While I do enjoy politics, I am increasingly getting frustrated with it because all it is is just smoke and mirrors, the west needs revolution like the middle east is having because nothing will change the status quo that we currently have.

All it means is that the person in power has a different colour to the previous administration, Labout Red Tory Blue, no better than crips and bloods, same bullshit different colour.

[eattingsnowflakes]

FIAT EMPIRE - Why the Federal Reserve Violates the U.S. Constitution
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5232639329002339531#
This was one of the viral videos that helped launch the RON PAUL REVOLUTION. Since its release in 2006, several more films have been produced. These films are ORIGINAL INTENT, CULTURAL MARXISM and CORPORATE FASCISM. All are available on the Net for free or you can get higher quality DVDs c/o MOVIE PUBS at http://www.MoviePubs.net We are currently in post-production on a new one entitled "SPOILER - How a Third Political Party Could Win" because we have come to the conclusion that the Democrats and Republicans are NEVER going to get us back to Constitutional principles. Screen the short SPOILER trailer at http://www.SpoilerUSA.org/trailer.wmv (MAC users = http://www.SpoilerUSA.org/trailer.mov) and if you agree with our premise, PLEASE help us get this done by donating what you can at http://www.SpoilerUSA.org/donate.htm Thanks, James Jaeger, Director, FIAT EMPIRE

[AmericaPerspectiveProject]

Viva La Revolucion! I think thats how you spell revolution in spanish I'm not sure though.

[ILOTSMYBRAIN]

Dr. Paul's not going to pursue his seat in Congress, and is going to focus on his presidential campaign.

So, I guess he leaves politics if he fails to win. :(

[CILONE/SK]

So, I guess he leaves politics when he does not even win the primary :(

Fixed

[ILOTSMYBRAIN]

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_aP4cgQJGDTQ/S9sgwtTqYkI/AAAAAAAAAhA/X1kH8J_1Xuc/s1600/HatersGonnaHatePelosi.jpg

[CILONE/SK]

I will bet you a dollar$$$ that I am right.

[angelofdeath]

he announced today he is not seeking re-election for his house seat.
this is great news. there is no way to reform washington from within. now he can seek change by other means.

[CILONE/SK]

Armed revolution?

Instead he will focus all his energy on his campaign for the White House. "I felt it was better that I concentrate on one election,"
News article (http://news.yahoo.com/ron-paul-congressional-seat-2012-164803334.html)

[angelofdeath]

RP is non violent.

when the presidential campaign aka ron paul speaking/lecture tour is over, he can then seek change through other means. he hasnt changed much in DC being a politician, but what he has done is educated many people and is responsible for interjecting actual issues into the daily political banter.

[CILONE/SK]

And always look on the bright side of life...
Always look on the right side of life...
(Come on guys, cheer up!)
Always look on the bright side of life...
Always look on the bright side of life...
(Worse things happen at sea, you know.)
Always look on the bright side of life...
(I mean - what have you got to lose?)
(You know, you come from nothing - you're going back to nothing.
What have you lost? Nothing!)
Always look on the right side of life...

Ron Paul Cult.

[Swift Rapist]

if Ron Paul can't fix America it proves what we already know - that voting changes NOTHING. The people with the power to change America are you and me, ordinary folk who work to survive. We have the power in society - without us, nothing gets done and the rich people who hold power don't make a profit.

[ILOTSMYBRAIN]

RP is non violent.

when the presidential campaign aka ron paul speaking/lecture tour is over, he can then seek change through other means. he hasnt changed much in DC being a politician, but what he has done is educated many people and is responsible for interjecting actual issues into the daily political banter.

I didn't look at it this way, so I could see how this would be positive, even if he were to lose.

This man is changing the viewpoint of lots of young people all over the United States, and could still do this effectively without holding office. In fact, he could be more dedicated to this because of his lack of responsibility to his constitutes.

[CILONE/SK]

I didn't look at it this way, so I could see how this would be positive, even if he were to lose.

This man is changing the viewpoint of lots of young people all over the United States, and could still do this effectively without holding office. In fact, he could be more dedicated to this because of his lack of responsibility to his constitutes.

Ron Paul will not even win the Primary. He will end up on some radio show talking to the fringe.

[Swift Rapist]

Ron Paul will not even win the Primary. He will end up on some radio show talking to the fringe.


You swine. You vulgar little maggot. You worthless bag of filth. As we say in Texas. I'll bet you couldn't pour piss out of a boot with instructions on the heel. You are a canker. A sore that won't go away. I would rather kiss a lawyer than be seen with you. You're a putrescent mass, a walking vomit. You are a spineless little worm deserving nothing but the profoundest contempt. You are a jerk, a cad, a weasel. Your life is a monument to stupidity. You are a stench, a revulsion, a big suck on a sour lemon. You are a bleating foal, a curdled staggering mutant dwarf smeared richly with the effluvia and offal accompanying your alleged birth into this world. An insensate, blinking calf, meaningful to nobody, abandoned by the puke-drooling, giggling beasts who sired you and then killed themselfs in recognition of what they had done. I will never get over the embarrassment of belonging to the same species as you. You are a monster, an ogre, a malformity. I barf at the very thought of you. You have all the appeal of a paper cut. Lepers avoid you. You are vile, worthless, less than nothing. You are a weed, a fungus, the dregs of this earth. And did I mention you smell?
Try to edit your responses of unnecessary material before attempting to impress us with your insight. The evidence that you are a nincompoop will still be available to readers, but they will be able to access it more rapidly. You snail-skulled little rabbit. Would that a hawk pick you up, drive its beak into your brain, and upon finding it rancid set you loose to fly briefly before spattering the ocean rocks with the frothy pink shame of your ignoble blood. May you ckoke on the queasy, foolish beliefs. go die in a fire

[CILONE/SK]

^what he said

[Fist 666]

if you're gonna copypasta something atleast do it all the way.

[CILONE/SK]

Me or sponge monkey above me?

[Zig]

Ron Paul will not even win the Primary. He will end up on some radio show talking to the fringe.

i dont think you're wrong but you aren't correct either. you may have been able to get away with calling RP supporters fringe in 2008, but this is 2012 and RP has a much wider audience. it's actually pretty shameful of you to use those sort of dismissive tactics on RP this time around too, as he is clearly in the mainstream limelight and considered a mainstream contender for the presidency in the GOP. the people who would end up listening to what he has to say if he did in fact lose the nomination are certainly not the fringe of this country either. as a matter of fact i think if RP got more hardcore in his rhetoric and stopped holding back so much, he would garner even more attention and create even more of a buzz than he already has. his campaign is definitely doing much better than i expected, and it's already a lot more successful than his 2008 run. if you can't admit any of that is true, than you probably just have something against the guy and your opinions about him are biased.

[CILONE/SK]

if you can't admit any of that is true, than you probably just have something against the guy and your opinions about him are biased.
Why do all RP supporters try to do this? You try to dismiss any counter argument before it is begun. To bad all you have to offer is "RP is more mainstream now" as a valid point. Do you have anything else? If not, then you are wrong and your point has not been made. If RP has any more of a chance then the last two times, why? What has changed?

[ILOTSMYBRAIN]

Ron Paul has been on top or close to most straw polls that I've seen lately.

Not that is much to chew on, but it is proof that his support has increased since the last time around. It's also happening in various area's of the country, Texas, New Orleans, New Hampshire, Iowa.

What has changed?

The outlook of our economy for one, not to mention the escalation of wars all over the globe to name another. There are more, but I think those are the most important and relevant two.

Now can you defend your side of the argument? Instead of doing your impression of George Stephanopoulos.

[CILONE/SK]

What I think of Ron Paul Straw Polls? They do not matter (http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/post/why-ron-paul-keeps-winning-straw-polls/2011/06/20/AGu2qvcH_blog.html)

1988 General Election 431,750 votes

2008 General Election 42,426 votes
2008 Republican primary 1,210,022

=

He can not win a primary or a main election. Not even a close call to winning.

I do wonder if the redistricting that is going to happen in his district has affected his decision not to run again. I wonder if it is because his new district has alot more minorities in it.

Tell me again, how he has a chance in hell of even winning a primary, because I seemed to have missed that.:lol: :lol: :lol:

[Zig]

Why do all RP supporters try to do this? You try to dismiss any counter argument before it is begun. To bad all you have to offer is "RP is more mainstream now" as a valid point. Do you have anything else? If not, then you are wrong and your point has not been made. If RP has any more of a chance then the last two times, why? What has changed?

You're asking me if I have anything else to back up my point, yet all you said was RP was fringe and can't win the election. My point was only to defend the fact that RP is no longer fringe, nor are the people who support and advocate on his behalf. Whether or not he can win an election is up in the air and is anyone's guess, that's why people campaign for election... because no one really knows whether or not they have a valid chance of winning, especially not you. To come off like you have, with absolute certainty, pre-knowledge to the fact that he will never ever ever be able to win a primary is cocky and arrogant because the fact is that you have no way of possibly knowing the future before it happens. Unless you have some sort of telekinetic powers you aren't telling me about, or you work for the Illuminati or something, than you have no possible way of knowing the future and you should stop pretending like you can tell it. :lol:

Do I disagree that RP has a tough road ahead of him to win a primary? No. I think that his chances are definitely a struggle, but anything is possible and if he had a fair shot at this, 2012 would probably be (out of his 3 campaigns for president) the best opportunity he's had to actually win. Like LOTS said, the economy is one factor in this entire debate that really supports RP's stances and ideology and many people are listening to him based off that issue alone.

The real question is, besides calling him a fringe candidate and calling his supporters fringe and predicting the future saying he has no chance, do YOU have anything else to back up YOU'RE points that you seem so certain of? Let's not play these word twisting mind games on 12oz, I'm here for actual debate and conversation.

[CILONE/SK]

You're asking me if I have anything else to back up my point, yet all you said was RP was fringe and can't win the election. My point was only to defend the fact that RP is no longer fringe, nor are the people who support and advocate on his behalf. Whether or not he can win an election is up in the air and is anyone's guess, that's why people campaign for election... because no one really knows whether or not they have a valid chance of winning, especially not you. To come off like you have, with absolute certainty, pre-knowledge to the fact that he will never ever ever be able to win a primary is cocky and arrogant because the fact is that you have no way of possibly knowing the future before it happens. Unless you have some sort of telekinetic powers you aren't telling me about, or you work for the Illuminati or something, than you have no possible way of knowing the future and you should stop pretending like you can tell it. :lol:

Do I disagree that RP has a tough road ahead of him to win a primary? No. I think that his chances are definitely a struggle, but anything is possible and if he had a fair shot at this, 2012 would probably be (out of his 3 campaigns for president) the best opportunity he's had to actually win. Like LOTS said, the economy is one factor in this entire debate that really supports RP's stances and ideology and many people are listening to him based off that issue alone.

The real question is, besides calling him a fringe candidate and calling his supporters fringe and predicting the future saying he has no chance, do YOU have anything else to back up YOU'RE points that you seem so certain of? Let's not play these word twisting mind games on 12oz, I'm here for actual debate and conversation.

Even in you took all the votes from his biggest election and multiplied them by 5, he would still not come close to winning primary. To say he is not fringe is to be in denial or not understand the word fringe. Even the pizza man, Herman Cain has a better chance then him.

I will give it to you, he will get more votes this time. But to think that he will get over 4 million + votes which is what the 2nd and 3rd place took in the last primary does not make sense.

My point is all based on numbers. The numbers are not in his favor by a long shot.

A small fringe minority is listening to him about the economy. Most of the tea party is not listening to him, they are supporting Bachman. So if the Democrats are not listening to him, the Republicans are not listening to him, and the Tea Party is not listening to him, who exactly is listening to him that is not fringe?

[Zig]

Even in you took all the votes from his biggest election and multiplied them by 5, he would still not come close to winning primary. To say he is not fringe is to be in denial or not understand the word fringe. Even the pizza man, Herman Cain has a better chance then him.

I will give it to you, he will get more votes this time. But to think that he will get over 4 million + votes which is what the 2nd and 3rd place took in the last primary does not make sense.

My point is all based on numbers. The numbers are not in his favor by a long shot.

A small fringe minority is listening to him about the economy. Most of the tea party is not listening to him, they are supporting Bachman. So if the Democrats are not listening to him, the Republicans are not listening to him, and the Tea Party is not listening to him, who exactly is listening to him that is not fringe?

If you insist on continuing to call him a fringe candidate in 2012, and the only way you can back up your statement is to point to primary statistics, the best response I can give you is that the primary voting process tallies votes from party members (registered republicans in Ron Paul's case) and takes place towards the end of a campaign season in which the other candidates are also contending to be chosen as the nominee. In 2008, RP was basically shunned and pushed into a corner as a fringe candidate, so he was labeled fringe and treated as fringe which successfully reduced his exposure to the public and silenced his message to the people. His campaign received very little attention compared to the other front-runners, the media successfully ignored him as a potential front-running candidate, and this resulted in less people knowing who he was and understanding what he stood for. Let's not also forget the fact that the media also successfully demonized him and spun information about him in order to scare people away from his ideologies of freedom and liberty. The general public usually doesn't pay attention to political campaigns until the two front runners from each party are nominated, so it's a given that primary numbers are going to be in the millions when compared to something like a straw poll. RP didn't even have a fair opportunity to be considered as a nominee, so of course his numbers aren't going to reflect that of someone who was basically chosen by the media and corporate America to become the front-running candidate. This is why RP makes statements such as, "We don't have democracy in America". Pay attention to the statements this man says, he's very intelligent and you'd learn a thing or two from him about the political process in this country. Maybe you would come to understand why someone like Ron Paul, who you consider fringe, would "never" be able to win a primary and generate the kind of statistics you are throwing around here due to the unfairness and quite frankly corrupt nature of our election system. It's very difficult for candidates like RP to be given a fair opportunity to become a known mainstream candidate, deliver his/her message to the people, and not be demonized by the media. Let's not also forget that the GOP in 2008 did not fundamentally agree with RP's stances and ideologies. They would never have even considered nominating him, because at the time the GOP's rhetoric was almost the complete opposite of RP's. This much was apparent just by watching RP in debates with the other GOP contenders. 2012 is different however, as many of the GOP have succumb to the realities of our economic situation and our foreign policy blow-backs, so they are now speaking and sounding a lot like RP. More people from inside the GOP are listening to RP, and even though the Tea Party isn't entirely with him let's not forget that the Tea Party originated and was birthed from the RP movement altogether. You aren't exactly 100% correct on your Tea Party statement either, because there are Tea Party organizations out there who have already pledged to support and advocate on the man's behalf. Research it if you don't believe me, I don't feel like having to prove something to you just because you can't inform yourself.

But in all honesty, I don't disagree with you that RP will have a tough time becoming the nominee. I am just stating that 2012 has proven to be the best opportunity RP has ever had at becoming the president. The time is ripe for someone like RP, he is much more mainstream today than he has ever been. He isn't fringe and neither are the people supporting him, and many more people are aware of who he is and what he stands for today due to his recent mass exposure in the media that isn't spun and twisted to confuse people.

[CILONE/SK]

If you insist on continuing to call him a fringe candidate in 2012, and the only way you can back up your statement is to point to primary statistics, the best response I can give you is that the primary voting process tallies votes from party members (registered republicans in Ron Paul's case) and takes place towards the end of a campaign season in which the other candidates are also contending to be chosen as the nominee.This is when it matters most, what is your point? this reads as if you are saying that he did not win the primary because there were other people running against him. In 2008, RP was basically shunned and pushed into a corner as a fringe candidate, so he was labeled fringe and treated as fringe which successfully reduced his exposure to the public and silenced his message to the people. His campaign received very little attention compared to the other front-runners, the media successfully ignored him as a potential front-running candidate, and this resulted in less people knowing who he was and understanding what he stood for. what you just described is what a fringe candidate is. If he can not break out from that mold, then maybe he fits into that moldLet's not also forget the fact that the media also successfully demonized him and spun information about him in order to scare people away from his ideologies of freedom and liberty.That is pure bullshit. Just because they do not suck his dick, does not mean they are demonizing him. He gets the chance to talk just like everyone else, if it is not pretty, it is his own fault and just because people are not buying him message, does not mean they are demonizing him The general public usually doesn't pay attention to political campaigns until the two front runners from each party are nominated, so it's a given that primary numbers are going to be in the millions when compared to something like a straw poll.if he can not win the primary, it does not matter. he did not have the number s a independent or a republican RP didn't even have a fair opportunity to be considered as a nominee, so of course his numbers aren't going to reflect that of someone who was basically chosen by the media and corporate America to become the front-running candidate. bullshit, why didn't he have a fair opportunity? he had the same chance as everyone else

below is where you start sounding like a RP political worker.

This is why RP makes statements such as, "We don't have democracy in America". Pay attention to the statements this man says, he's very intelligent and you'd learn a thing or two from him about the political process in this country. Maybe you would come to understand why someone like Ron Paul, who you consider fringe, would "never" be able to win a primary and generate the kind of statistics you are throwing around here due to the unfairness again, what was unfair?he said his message like everyone else, they just did not buy it. Was he censored at a debate? I do not think so. You just do not like that people do not like him, like you do.and quite frankly corrupt nature of our election system. It's very difficult for candidates like RP to be given a fair opportunity to become a known mainstream candidate, deliver his/her message to the people, and not be demonized by the media. again with the demonizing?? come on, you have to know that is bullshit Let's not also forget that the GOP in 2008 did not fundamentally agree with RP's stances and ideologies. They would never have even considered nominating him, because at the time the GOP's rhetoric was almost the complete opposite of RP's. This much was apparent just by watching RP in debates with the other GOP contenders. 2012 is different however, as many of the GOP have succumb to the realities of our economic situation and our foreign policy blow-backs, so they are now speaking and sounding a lot like RP. More people from inside the GOP are listening to RP, and even though the Tea Party isn't entirely with him let's not forget that the Tea Party originated and was birthed from the RP movement altogether. You aren't exactly 100% correct on your Tea Party statement either, because there are Tea Party organizations out there who have already pledged to support and advocate on the man's behalf. Research it if you don't believe me, I don't feel like having to prove something to you just because you can't inform yourself. I have informed myself and the tea party is backing bachman and palin is she runs before RP.

But in all honesty, I don't disagree with you that RP will have a tough time becoming the nominee. He has had a tough time because he is fringeI am just stating that 2012 has proven to be the best opportunity RP has ever had at becoming the president. The time is ripe for someone like RP, he is much more mainstream today than he has ever been.He will get more votes, but nowhere near the amount to win the primary and if he goes independent again, he will definitly not get enough votes to overcome either the Republican and Democrat voters

He isn't fringe he is and you have not shown that he isn't. The numbers do not support your point and the numbers are the only thing that matters in a election. and neither are the people supporting him, and many more people are aware of who he is and what he stands for today due to his recent mass exposure in the media that isn't spun and twisted to confuse people.he has always had the same exposure, people are not buying it.

I will agree that he will get more votes this time, but he still does not have a chance. If he was not a fringe candidate, then more people would be backing him. It is that simple.

[Zig]

CILONE you consistently label anyone on here who supports RP a dick rider, claiming we suck this mans cock and we live and feed off of everything he says, bla bla bla etc. etc. You really didn't put together any sort of sophisticated response to what I said, and instead just opted in going the lazy route of picking apart my post with yellow text and breaking it down into simple statements like "this is bullshit" coupled with insults and a condescending tone. It's not really a mature way to have a conversation or a debate, and your attitude is pretty demeaning. There is no shame in supporting a candidate who reflects closely your own personal ideologies and political stances. RP for me is that candidate, and so I have no shame in defending the politician from unfair statements such as the ones you were throwing around. This does not mean I work for RP, or have any dick sucking appointments with him, or live off every word and quotation the man generates. I have my own mind that is completely independent of what RP spouts, and I don't even agree with 100% of what the man stands for. At the very least I feel RP is a step in the direction I would like to this country head towards, however that doesn't mean I support and believe that everything he does is sacred and perfect. Your condescending tone towards people who support RP as a presidential candidate is, as aod mentioned to you in another thread, reminiscent of someone who has an ideological axe to grind. If you have such a problem with RP, don't vote for him. What I do notice though, is that many people who share the same resentment for RP as you do on the internet all have this similar spiteful attitude towards RP supporters. It's the same with people who discuss such issues as "conspiracy theories". You label us, mock us, disrespect us with insults and dismissive statements such as "what you are saying is bullshit" and claim that you are absolutely certain of results that are impossible for you to be certain of all the while refusing to engage yourself in an intelligent respectful debate with anyone who supports RP as a candidate and shares his same ideological views.

Again, I am not disagreeing with you that RP has a huge struggle ahead of him to win a primary. I disagree with you that he isn't demonized in the media, because unlike you I followed RP's campaign in 2008 very closely and saw the spin with my own eyes. I also see the same demonizing occurring when it comes to his son Rand Paul, and you yourself attempt to spin and confuse people about what RP stands for... knowingly or unknowingly I don't know. I disagree and resent the fact that you claim I'm some RP cock sucker, or that I think I work for RP because at the end of the day I don't give a fuck about RP as a person and that's on some real shit. I met him once, shook his hand, and that's about as much of a personal relationship as I have with the man. I'm 100% certain that everyone here on 12oz who supports RP simply aligns themselves with his own political views because they agree with him, not because they worship him.

I would ask you to share with us who you are supporting for President in 2012, but honestly it's none of my business and it's completely up to you if you'd like to share that information. I really don't care though, either way. I'm just letting you know that your judgement on who I am, what I believe, and how I feel about RP is severely inaccurate. Lumping people together into your own personal categories that you create for them just because they support a political candidate you happen to dislike reminds me of some other frightening tyrannical behaviors I've learned about in history.

[CILONE/SK]

The reason I have treated you and other RP disciples like that, is because they consistently refuse to acknowledge anything factual. If you are them want to come at me with something factual that is based in reality, please do and we can discuss, but until then, I will assume you are a RP cult knob slobber.

I am not against people that support RP, I am against the twisting of facts. Supporters get so caught up in the nonsense, they can not see the forest because of the trees. To say that RP is not a fringe candidate, is twisting facts. He is the "main" fringe candidate. Goole "fringe candidate" and his name is all over the screen. The voting numbers and all political statistics support that.

I am willing to have a honest discussion about Ron Paul, but until someone from the Ron Paul cult is willing to step back and take a objective look at him and his position, it will not be possible. A large portion of his supporters are severely blinded when it comes to acknowledging anything negative about Ron Paul.

Like I said, I have nothing against RP or his followers, I have a problem with blind following and twisting of facts. I have read and reread your posts and not once is there anything to dispute the facts that the voting numbers provide, and when it comes to politics, the numbers are all that matter regardless of what a candidate stands for, because the numbers are the results and anything else does not matter in politics.

Fact, RP has a lower record of votes that do not even come close to winning a primary and he does collect money, but not as much as other candidates. He is a fringe candidate in any way you want to look at it.

If you have something to show that he is not a fringe candidate or that he even has a chance to win the primary, please show me.

Please notice I am not arguing his political stance, I am arguing that he even has a chance of getting elected.

[ILOTSMYBRAIN]

Twisting of facts, yet you contend that RP is a fascist.

Looks like a tornado to me.

[CILONE/SK]

When did I say he is a Fascist?

[ILOTSMYBRAIN]

http://www.12ozprophet.com/forum/showpost.php?p=8244561&postcount=55

[CILONE/SK]

How does that show I called Ron Paul a fascist? Do you have a learning disability?

Even in the other thread you were wrong. I did not call RP a fascist, you obviously are having a hard time understanding what is written.

[Zig]

Why are you asking me for proof of something that you've already made your mind up on? No matter what I post here to show you why he isn't a fringe candidate in 2012 isn't going to change your mind about him. Why are you trying to waste my time?


The reason I have treated you and other RP disciples like that, is because they consistently refuse to acknowledge anything factual. If you are them want to come at me with something factual that is based in reality, please do and we can discuss, but until then, I will assume you are a RP cult knob slobber.


I'm not part of any RP cult. I don't worship him, I don't think he is the god of politicians, and I don't refuse to acknowledge facts. I've already admitted that RP has an enormous struggle to deal with in order to win the nomination. In fact, I was very doubtful about RP's 2012 campaign when I first heard him announce his candidacy for president and am actually very surprised how well his campaign is doing compared to 2008. Stop acting like you know me so well, you don't know shit about me. Just because I support RP and I'm going to vote for him, doesn't mean I'm anything like anyone else that is also advocating on his behalf. You pre-judge people here on 12oz because they hold the same political beliefs as RP, you're condescending, rude, and arrogant, and you refuse to engage yourself in an actual debate demanding proof of something you've already made your mind up about. These are the fucking games played here on 12oz, and it's stupid. This isn't debating, it's a bunch of grown men acting like know-it-all assholes who have poor reading comprehension abilities and lack basic conversational skills. I can understand why casek got pissed off the other day and said he was done with this place. Most of these threads end up in shit storm arguements about absolutely nothing at all. But you know what, I'm happy there is another arrogant asshole like you around here now because tbh I was actually starting to get along with most of the people who post here on a regular basis and we were beginning to really have some interesting threads. I guess you're the new entertainment until you somehow come to your senses that you aren't smarter than anyone else on this forum, and you start at least attempting to respect people. I noticed plenty of other people I've disagreed with at least showing some form of respect for each other, and you're obviously new. I'm not asking you to fucking blow me kisses, but at least agree to disagree and stop coming off like everyone who holds a different point of view from yours is a cock sucking RP ass kissing libertarian retard. You sound like some little 12 year old idiot.

It's like if I say... The World Trade Center fell due to explosives. Some idiot comes on here and demands me to prove to them something they already disbelieve. I could sit here and stress myself out posting pages upon pages of information and scientific data to support that theory, and it won't satisfy them. What's the fucking point. You tell me.

Anyway, Two new RP videos that I thought were both interesting and if you guys want to watch them here's the links:

RP vs. Bernanke : Is Gold Money?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2NJnL10vZ1Y

Ron Paul 2012: A Candidate of Common sense
http://youtu.be/_29mBzRdJ8A

[CILONE/SK]

If you are taking my comments and thinking that I am not willing to debate, then you are wrong. All I am asking for is real facts or substance to back your position up and you fail to do so.

If you do not like what I am saying, especially when I back up my points with valid facts, then that is your problem.

All I am asking you to do is back you point up and you can not. By failing to provide any proof, what so ever, and then commence with this whiney bullshit, it just shows everyone that you can not debate someone who deals in facts.

Do you have anything to show he is not a fringe candidate or that he even has a real chance of winning a national election? If RP is not Fringe, then why not?
Stop with all the rhetoric and provide something and stop being a baby. I do not think you have anything and that is why you are getting so upset.

I will remind you of what I have that shows he will not win an election by a longshot:

Previous election records - show that he did not come close to winning the last two times

Money collected - shows that he is not leading the Republicans although he does have the ability to get money, it is not on the same level as some of the other candidates and definitely not as Obama. He will need to step it up greatly to even compete. Take a look at the 2nd quarter for all candidates to see what I mean.

So, if you have something, then put it out there, if not then stop being childish and accusing me of the things you are doing yourself.

[angelofdeath]

Ron Paul has received $4,518,947.59 from Individual Voters; and $511.45 from PAC's, Corporations, and Lobbyists in the 2nd Quarter.

Barack Obama has received $46,323,209.30 from PAC's, Corporations, and Lobbyists; and $325,551.95 from Individual Voters in the 2nd Quarter.

...and the view point ron paul represents is supposed to the ideas of 'business,' 'corporations,' and 'oppression of the poor.'

[CILONE/SK]

Here are the numbers for the 2nd quarter. AOD, what source is that from with Obama's breakdown?

Barack Obama
Raised: $46,323,209
Spent: $11,095,657
Cash on Hand: $37,110,346
Debts: $412,878

Mitt Romney
Raised: $18,383,256
Spent: $5,668,384
Cash on Hand: $12,715,495
Debts: $0

Ron Paul
Receipts: $4,518,436
Spent: $1,552,770
Cash on Hand: $2,966,177
Debts: $0

Tim Pawlenty
Raised: $4,335,694
Spent: $2,451,251
Cash on Hand: $2,001,090
Debts: $1,915

Michele Bachmann
Receipts: $3,639,723
Spent: $260,656
Cash on Hand: $3,379,066
Debts: $364,119

Herman Cain
Receipts: $2,580,725
Spent: $2,098,830
Cash on Hand: $481,894
Debts: $500,000

Newt Gingrich
Receipts: $2,102,916
Spent: $1,780,693
Cash on Hand: $322,222
Debts: $1,030,627

Rick Santorum
Receipts: $582,347
Spent: $353,232
Cash on Hand: $229,114
Debts: $0

[Zig]

I already told you I'm not going to waste my time trying to prove something to you that I already know you dismiss and disagree with. Off the top of my head all I can say is that RP has served 30+ years in congress, has had 3 presidential campaigns, has several wildly successful books, is in television interviews almost every day, has great name recognition, and has been consistently placing 3rd in straw polls in Iowa as well as placing high in other straw polls around the nation. That's shit off the top of my head, and I'm sure others could do a good job as well. I'm not going to waste more of my time on this though...

[CILONE/SK]

And how does any of that show us that he has a chance? He had the same thing in 2008 and that did not mean anything because he did not even come close to winning the primary.

Straw polls are notoriously know for not equating a real chance of winning in the election, feel free to show me something that shows straw polls equal winning elections. Being a celebrity with books and interviews does not equal anything in a election or trump would have done better. In fact you said the media demonizes him, yet he is always on tv? How does that work, if the media is against him. Now we can use his previous campaigns, but I really do not think you want to, because they back up my point that he is a fringe candidate with no chance of winning.

You say you want to debate, yet you do not even try and go whining about not wasting your time. I do not think you know what you are talking about and that is why you do not want to spend the time.

[Zig]

And how does any of that show us that he has a chance? He had the same thing in 2008 and that did not mean anything because he did not even come close to winning the primary.

Straw polls are notoriously know for not equating a real chance of winning in the election, feel free to show me something that shows straw polls equal winning elections. Being a celebrity with books and interviews does not equal anything in a election or trump would have done better. In fact you said the media demonizes him, yet he is always on tv? How does that work, if the media is against him. Now we can use his previous campaigns, but I really do not think you want to, because they back up my point that he is a fringe candidate with no chance of winning.

You say you want to debate, yet you do not even try and go whining about not wasting your time. I do not think you know what you are talking about and that is why you do not want to spend the time.

Were we arguing here over whether or not RP had a chance at winning the presidency? Reading back through this thread I don't see anywhere me challenging you on that point. I see myself posting and agreeing with you several times that he has a struggle ahead of him to win the nomination. What I was challenging you on, was your point about RP being a fringe candidate and his supporters being the fringe of America. My post before this one was referring to that point. So, why are you all of a sudden turning this into a "debate" about whether or not RP can win the nomination when I never challenged you on that fact. I basically said you don't KNOW for certain that is true, and no matter what statistics you have there is no possible way you can predict the future. I still stand by that statement, because that is a fact which you can't disprove.

Also, you aren't reading my posts and comprehending them correctly... if you are even reading them at all, I don't know. I tend to write a lot so I don't blame you if you lose interest in reading the entirety of my responses, but on your point about the media demonizing... I stated that he was being demonized by the media during his 2008 campaign and that his 2012 campaign has seen a significant difference.

This is the kind of shit I'm talking about that always goes on here at 12oz. back and forth arguing because people aren't reading and comprehending the way they should be.

[Decyferon]

Just so I unerstand (not being from the US) Who is RP running for, is he a republican or democrat nominee? or is he an independant? Because logically thinking if he doesn't have the support of one of the main parties he doesn't really stand a chance.

The primaries are where they run to be the parties elected Presidential nominee is that correct? Because I cannot see either of the 2 main parties wanting him to be their presidential runner.

[CILONE/SK]

Zig, do you have anything to back up your position that he is not a fringe candidate? Other then "I do not think so and you have no proof", because that is pretty much all you keep saying. I keep hoping that you would bring something to the table, but I guess I am just filled with "hope".

My position is based on his history on elections. I will even now add that his history combined with his stance, which is extremely different from other candidates, makes him a fringe candidate. He is the quintessential fringe candidate.

Do you have anything to add?

Decy, our system for the most part, only has two parties. Independents never really have the ability to seriously compete. The primaries are the elections that members of those parties decide who is going to run for them in a main election. In some states, anyone can vote in a primary, not just members of that party. RP is running as a republican. In 2008 he did the same thing and in the 1988 he ran as an independent. Alot of the established republicans do not like him, because he does not go along with their party on alot of issues. He has been the single "no" vote a few times. They recently redistricted his district and that changed his base of voters. I wish he did run for congress one more time, because I want to see how he would do in that new district that has alot more minorities in it.

[Decyferon]

cheers CIL that is exactly how I thought it worked, yea it seems very unlikely for RP to get the republicans nomination in that case, if he doesn't tow the party line he is hardly lkely to get much support from them, especially as his views seem quite different in some aspects to the established republican viewpoint.

[CILONE/SK]

If he had mass appeal, he would have a chance, but his viewpoints are fringe and that is who he draws. His primary draw is from people who are tired of the two parties and the same old ideas.

[CILONE/SK]

Ron Paul has received $4,518,947.59 from Individual Voters; and $511.45 from PAC's, Corporations, and Lobbyists in the 2nd Quarter.

Barack Obama has received $46,323,209.30 from PAC's, Corporations, and Lobbyists; and $325,551.95 from Individual Voters in the 2nd Quarter.

...and the view point ron paul represents is supposed to the ideas of 'business,' 'corporations,' and 'oppression of the poor.'

This article disagrees with what you said. (http://news.yahoo.com/two-thirds-obama-campaign-cash-small-donors-172126144.html)

Do you have the source for your assertion that most of his money comes from "PAC's, Corporations, and Lobbyists"? I would like to see who is telling the truth.

[Zig]

Zig, do you have anything to back up your position that he is not a fringe candidate? Other then "I do not think so and you have no proof", because that is pretty much all you keep saying. I keep hoping that you would bring something to the table, but I guess I am just filled with "hope".

My position is based on his history on elections. I will even now add that his history combined with his stance, which is extremely different from other candidates, makes him a fringe candidate. He is the quintessential fringe candidate.

Do you have anything to add?


I already told you I'm not going to waste my time trying to prove something to you that I already know you dismiss and disagree with. Off the top of my head all I can say is that RP has served 30+ years in congress, has had 3 presidential campaigns, has several wildly successful books, is in television interviews almost every day, has great name recognition, and has been consistently placing 3rd in straw polls in Iowa as well as placing high in other straw polls around the nation. That's shit off the top of my head, and I'm sure others could do a good job as well. I'm not going to waste more of my time on this though...

I made this response and than you turned this thread into a so called debate about whether or not he can win the nomination...

We could start posting the actual definitions of fringe and begin discussing what exactly fringe means, but anyone can look that up themselves and I'm sure people here are smart enough to understand it. I would agree with you if this were 2008 and you were calling RP fringe, but this is 2012 and I disagree with you that he hasn't broken out of that category and moved into the limelight as a mainstream GOP candidate this campaign season. If you want to keep condescending me and acting like I don't know the meaning of what fringe is, that's fine I won't waste my time with you. I feel like you are wrong, I've brought points to the table in this conversation that you aren't paying attention to and are just dismissing as bullshit and stupidity. Sounds like a typical 12oz argument to me..

[CILONE/SK]

What points have you brought to the table? I keep asking and all you say is this is not 2008.

You made a point and you can not back it up, it is that simple and you might want to write it off as a "typical 12oz argument", but I think you probably run into this thing alot if this is how you really behave.

Your just mad that I have not let you control this debate/argument. So, how about you finally concede that you have no idea what you are talking about? If this is not true, then for the love of god, bring something to the table or just shut the hell up.

[Zig]

i'm just going to ignore that. like you ignore a majority of what i've said here in this thread.

[CILONE/SK]

You have nothing and have said nothing. If you did, you would say it. Go back and re-read your posts and tell me what is in any of them, that shows us that he is not fringe. Just one thing.

I have not ignored you, I have asked you to back up your posts. You just can not do that.

[ILOTSMYBRAIN]

How does that show I called Ron Paul a fascist? Do you have a learning disability?

Even in the other thread you were wrong. I did not call RP a fascist, you obviously are having a hard time understanding what is written.

You said you weren't the only person to come up with those conclusions, James Delong did as well. Who is just a male version of Rachael Maddow (i read the guys blog, and he thinks RP is a racist as well, LOL)

Saying that RP supports fascist ideology in the short term, I didn't quote all of the posts related to it, figured you would at least remember some of the accusations you've made. Guess that was me giving out too much credit.

[CILONE/SK]

Ok, smart guy, if you go back and look you will see that I was talking about Ludwig Von Mises, not RP. Those posts were in reference to AOD posting one of his books.

[Zig]

You have nothing and have said nothing. If you did, you would say it. Go back and re-read your posts and tell me what is in any of them, that shows us that he is not fringe. Just one thing.

I have not ignored you, I have asked you to back up your posts. You just can not do that.

I guess the fact that hes served 30+ years in Congress means nothing to you.
I guess the fact that he's campaigned 3 times for president means nothing.
I guess that fact that he's had several successful books, and has significant name recognition amongst american voters means nothing.
I guess the fac that he's interviewed in the mainstream media almost every day to report his views on current events means nothing.
Those are 3 points on why he isn't a fringe candidate. 3 points which you ignored. Can you explain why he is a fringe candidate? because all you've done is accuse him of being one, and pointed to primary voting statistics to prove your point. what exactly makes RP a fringe candidate in 2012 in your opinion? If all you can do is point to his "extremist" ideologies about aboloshing the fed, his foreign policy, and his constitutionalism i would warn you that his ideologies are only exact replicas of those of our founding fathers. if RP is fringe, than so are our founding fathers. you have done nothing but disrespect me, insult me, and tell me to shutup basically. i don't know why i'm still even responding to you.

In 2008 RP could be considered a fringe candidate and I would agree with you because unfortunately he was pigeonholed into accepting that label.
in 2012 calling RP a fringe candidate is just plain unacceptable to me, as a politician his views are accepted by a substantial following of americans and his campaign is proving to be more successful than the chosen corporate front runners. you're stuck in the past and you're probably upset that RP's campaign is doing so well this time around and more people are beginning to listen and agree with his perspectives. that's why you get so worked up and result to insults and childish behaviour when someone disagrees with you on your points. that's why you insult pretty much everyone who supports RP as a candidate. these are not my problems, their yours and i could care less what you think. the bottom line is, i respectfully disagree with you and i've stated why and ive attempted to convey why it is that i do disagree with you respectfully as i can. unfortunately your acting like an idiot.

[ILOTSMYBRAIN]

Ok, smart guy, if you go back and look you will see that I was talking about Ludwig Von Mises, not RP. Those posts were in reference to AOD posting one of his books.

That's what I get for not reading entire threads and jumping in after reading a few posts.

Still though, Mises a fascist? :lol:

http://www.politics.ie/forum/history/91324-ludwig-von-mises-fascist.html

You on that board too?

[CILONE/SK]

I guess the fact that hes served 30+ years in Congress means nothing to you.During those 30+ years he has seperated himself for the rest of the Reublican party, when he was not an Independent. Most of them do not like him, because he does not go along with the party and has been known to vote "no" when the rest of the vote "yes". I guess the fact that he's campaigned 3 times for president means nothing.His record of votes in those elections are only backing up that he is fringe, if he wasn't, he would have appealed to more voters and gotten more votes.
I guess that fact that he's had several successful books, and has significant name recognition amongst american voters means nothing. I guess you did not read my post above, does being a celebrity mean your not fringe? How does books and interviews equate anything along the political spectrum?
Those are 3 points on why he isn't a fringe candidate. 3 points which you ignored.I did not ignore them and addressed them above, you are just mad because they do not make any point that he is not fringe. Can you explain why he is a fringe candidate?because his actions separate him from the rest of the mainstream candidates and parties which are both a majority of the people because all you've done is accuse him of being on"e, and pointed to primary voting statistics to prove your point.those stats prove alot more then you realize and are willing to accept. Higher numbers equal more acceptance to the masses and RP does not have that what exactly makes RP a fringe candidate in 2012 in your opinion?

If all you can do is point to his "extremist" ideologies about aboloshing the fed, his foreign policy, and his constitutionalism i would warn you that his ideologies are only exact replicas of those of our founding fathers. this is what you want to argue about and are mad that I am not doing so. You are the one who keeps bringing it up in this thread, but since you have, these are some of what separates him from other candidates and makes him fringe, and it is a stretch to say that they are the same as our founding fathers.


if RP is fringe, than so are our founding fathers wrong and this shows that you have no idea what you are talking about. you have done nothing but disrespect me, insult me, and tell me to shutup basically. i don't know why i'm still even responding to you.

Do you have anything else? Try not to sound like a RP cult member and steer the conversation to ideological rhetoric.

Bottom line, he is fringe because of his views being different then mainstream (doesn't matter in this discussion if that is right or wrong) and the voting record supports that.

[CILONE/SK]

That's what I get for not reading entire threads and jumping in after reading a few posts.

Still though, Mises a fascist? :lol:

http://www.politics.ie/forum/history/91324-ludwig-von-mises-fascist.html

You on that board too?

That is a debate I would love to get into, but honestly, I have my hands full already. :lol: :lol:

No hard feelings.

[Zig]

yay let's play the colored text game. I choose Orange!


During those 30+ years he has seperated himself for the rest of the Reublican party, when he was not an Independent. Most of them do not like him, because he does not go along with the party and has been known to vote "no" when the rest of the vote "yes".


If you listen to RP, which you obviously don't, you'd understand that his reasoning behind even being involved in the GOP is because America has a monopolistic 2 party political system that leaves third party candidates in a severely unfair situation when it comes to campaigning. The only reason RP has been registered with the GOP is due to the platform it offers to politicians to get their message out to the people. With that fact understood and comprehended, it's very simple to understand why he doesn't vote with his party most of the time. Also, what is wrong with not voting with your party? Politicians who walk lockstep with their party 100% of the time should be looked down upon in a country that values freedom and independence. This is actually a quality of RP that I admire, in that he isn't a corporate shill who can't think for himself when it comes to controversial political issues. Another point RP makes is that the GOP or what is supposed to be representative of "Republicans" today has steered off course and gone astray from the values and ideals the Republican party used to represent. What is your response to this?


His record of votes in those elections are only backing up that he is fringe, if he wasn't, he would have appealed to more voters and gotten more votes.


This is not necessarily true, and please I would ask that you clarify on your point that this by itself is "backing up that he is fringe". So, since he didn't generate a certain amount of votes for the GOP nomination he is automatically a fringe candidate based off of numbers alone? This tells me two things about your argument. The first, is that you actually believe the political electorate system in this country is fair and balanced which is moronic, and the second is that you actually consider corporate front-running candidates who are pushed in the media and forced down our throats have actually accomplished earning the trust and approval of a majority of this country based off of numbers. I don't know what you think so please clarify how the voting statistics make him fringe.


I guess you did not read my post above, does being a celebrity mean your not fringe? How does books and interviews equate anything along the political spectrum?


Since when have books and interviews NOT equated to anything in the political spectrum? I thought that was how politicians kept their careers afloat to begin with. If a politician has a successful book it shows that people around the country are actually listening to what the politician has to say and are interested in that particular politicians ideals. Even Sarah Palin has to be taken somewhat seriously in Washington because of her success with books and other forms of media. What do you think politicians did when this country was first founded? They wrote their ideas down on paper and people around the nation read them and shared their thoughts and opinions, creating political conversation and debate. Books and reading is probably at the foundation of the political spectrum.


I did not ignore them and addressed them above, you are just mad because they do not make any point that he is not fringe.


I'm not mad at all, I'm annoyed because you're annoying. You did ignore them and you turned the argument into something I wasn't even challenging you on. You're confused...


those stats prove alot more then you realize and are willing to accept. Higher numbers equal more acceptance to the masses and RP does not have that


I'm willing to accept that RP will have an enormous struggle to win the nomination, because I know that the GOP is unwilling to accept a leader who holds the views and ideals that RP does. The statistics don't equal more acceptance to me, they just equate to successful campaigns which involve a lot of unfair and corrupt factors that prevent candidates like RP from even being considered. For example, if Britney Spears generates high numbers in the music industry does that make her a talented song writer/singer? No, it just means that corporations invest in her, back her, and push her as a product to the masses who consume her as entertainment for her owners to make money and profit. It has nothing to do with whether or not the entertainer is actually talented, and elections aren't much different in our capitalist society.


this is what you want to argue about and are mad that I am not doing so. You are the one who keeps bringing it up in this thread, but since you have, these are some of what separates him from other candidates and makes him fringe, and it is a stretch to say that they are the same as our founding fathers.


It's not a stretch at all to say RP's views represent closely those of our founding fathers because RP bases 100% of what he votes on from the Constitution. He is a constitutionalist libertarian, I don't think you can get any closer to our founding fathers than that. What separates him from other GOP candidates is the fact that he actually considers following the laws of this country and understands the limitations of government.

Bottom line, he is fringe because of his views being different then mainstream

You see, you think that the MEDIA decides what mainstream is. I think you believe that mainstream is reflected by the what the media says are the popular views of today, and you feel like front-running candidates represent the mainstream of America because they can generate the most amount of votes. Let's not forget that a majority of Americans DON'T vote. Let's not forget how low of a percentage of minority Americans DON'T vote. Why is this? Because they know that that the electorate system in this country is broken and corrupt, so they choose not to participate. Why else? Because they aren't properly educated and informed about candidates and the laws of this country pertaining to their freedom and liberty. The REAL mainstream in this country is marginalized and disenfranchised, which is why front-running corporate candidates who have elitist connections and high bank rolls ALWAYS win elections.

RP is not a fringe candidate in 2012, he's as close to "mainstream" as he's ever been and probably as close as he'll ever get due to the imbalances him and MANY OTHER candidates are forced to endure. This isn't about me defending RP, this is in defense of third party candidates and in opposition to the the corrupt two party electorate system that has people like you calling anyone who isn't a corporate shill front-runner "fringe".

[CILONE/SK]

^not one thing you wrote is saying he is a mainstream candidate. You are bringing ideological positions and view points into this. I think that is where you are confused. His viewpoints are different then mainstream candidates, regardless of whether they are right or wrong. He does not get the votes because he does not translate to the majority of Americans.

Everything you have stated does not have any substance to it when it comes to saying he is not fringe, but it does have a foothold if you are arguing his position against some other candidate.

I do not think you are clearly able to stay on track with a discussion without bringing his rhetoric into it.

Let me try this from a different angle, please cite something that shows he is mainstream. His viewpoints are obviously different then all the other candidates, so please leave his viewpoints out of it, because if you do not, then we will get into ideological opinions, and they are just opinions.

[Zig]

oh yea... nothing i say matters... and I'M not able to stay on track with this discussion. hilarious man, you're a fucking joke. goodbye.

[ILOTSMYBRAIN]

You can say the Tea Party movement in itself is because of RP.

Look how many offices Tea Party candidates hold, and if things continue it will only pick up further.

I guess you would call the Tea Party "fringe" as well, and not mainstream, although they have a significant impact, and are talked about constantly in national news.

I would agree with you if this was 2001 and we we're talking about Ross Perot, but this is not that scenario, how you don't see that is beyond me.

[CILONE/SK]

So, because of the tea party, RP is not fringe?

Too bad that does not hold water because they are voting for Bachman and Palin if she decides to run.

The tea party has left him to pursue more mainstream objectives.

[CILONE/SK]

oh yea... nothing i say matters... and I'M not able to stay on track with this discussion. hilarious man, you're a fucking joke. goodbye.

You are the joke who can not talk about something without bringing ideological views into it. You seem to equate the RP is a mainstream candidate because he has certain views. I can argue the same thing except to say his views are what makes him fringe and the voters seem to agree with that, which is why he has not and will not get even close to winning the primary.

Although I am bringing up his views, I am not saying they are right or wrong in this discussion. You seem not to be able to tell the difference.

You might think I am a joke, but the fact is I know you are one because you do not even realize you are a RP Cult Knob Slobber who can not even argue why he is not a fringe candidate. :lol: :lol:

[Zig]

I responded to your argument you just choose to ignore it because you have nothing intelligent to say.

[CILONE/SK]

You have not said anything except ideological viewpoints from RP.

[fiascoes505]

http://www.oil-paintings-forsale.com/images/angels-oil-paintings/nymph-and-cherubs-m20100330120729.jpg (http://www.oil-paintings-forsale.com/nymph-and-cherubs-p-516.html)
Nymph and Cherubs (http://www.oil-paintings-forsale.com/nymph-and-cherubs-p-516.html)
>,Angels Oil Paintings (http://www.oil-paintings-forsale.com/angels-oil-paintings-c-23.html)
Paintings cover axiological key credibility which align sun and rain from the breezeattempt to be able to get a being's eye with the admirers beeline into and about the account in the advantageous access aswell to agencyize the next wind storm in to a analytic accomplished.
You can acquisition about bottomless means to anatomy angels. Sanytimeal are acceptedly credible,Portraits Oil Paintings (http://www.oil-paintings-forsale.com/family-portraits-oil-paintings-c-11.html), as getting a new madded angled aloft additional attention your comatose or even comatose ancillary to side ankler. An added bright accomplish up would be the opassuming abandon with 2 actioners central of a duke tebuttonques fit.
Several of the advisercurve affiliated with structure:
Attraliveness can be adaptd alternative.
Range accordant allure.
A clear craves a ascendant aspect,Music Oil Paintings (http://www.oil-paintings-forsale.com/music-oil-paintings-c-4.html), the sub-above agency forth with accessory ablueprintts able aural absorbing animal accords.

[Zig]

CILONE I said a LOT more than simply RP's ideological viewpoints. The fact that you are even claiming that discussing RP's ideology is irrelevant to this particular conversation about whether or not he is fringe shows me that you just don't want to debate with me and you'd rather dismiss everything I've said altogether. That's fine, go right ahead I made my points anyway. You have yet to respond to anything I've asked you, or anything I've said period.

To continue this thread in support of RP, here is a new video of why the US troops overwhelmingly support him over every other GOP candidate.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pcpg9e2JXT0
(Old Video BTW)

and another

http://youtu.be/W_0DHwiIVOU

[CILONE/SK]

Wrong again. You think that his viewpoints make him mainstream? That is what you are saying and you are wrong. His view are not mainstream and he is not followed by a majority of Americans. To dispute this, shows how blinded you are.

He is fringe, this is based on his viewpoints not being mainstream and him not having a large following of voters to impact a national election.

Also to imply that troops overwhelmingly support him, shows how wrong you are on almost everything. Ecspecially considering I am a troop and have been for many years. During those years of dealing with troops, it is not a regular experience that I come into contact with a RP supporter. Most troops do not even know anything about him.

Do you have anything else?

[Zig]

To be honest I should stress that I'm unaware of how exactly RP is doing with military support during his current 2012 campaign, but in 2008 it's a fact that he was doing quite well in that area when compared to the other GOP candidates.

I don't really want to continue this conversation with you because you aren't interesting even slightly, and you don't really respond to anything you are just continuously dismissing everything I say as wrong or irrelevant, so it's not even really a conversation it's pretty much like trying to talk to a brick wall. I'll just say that, for the record, I never said his viewpoints make him mainstream at all you aren't reading what I've wrote correctly and you're jumping to your own conclusions about me and about what I've written here. That's all good that you're a troop and everything, I actually have respect for that but you can research the 2008 statistics on who was donating money to RP in 2008 and learn for yourself that he was the GOP candidate receiving the most support. Maybe people would just rather not talk to you about politics in whichever division of the military you happen to be in? Or possibly the people surrounding you are not interested in political discussion? This could be the reason you have never heard or experienced coming into contact with a RP supporter during your time in service, there are many factors which could lead to the results you've personally experienced. I don't know.

[CILONE/SK]

From being in the military for so many years, i can tell you most of people do not realy get into politics all that much. You RP supporters are very much into him and you give him money. The same goes for the RP supporters in the military. I does not surprise me that so many people gave him money, but if you look at how many people were in the military at the time and compare that to how many people actually gave him money, you will see that although it was a majority of the money given to a candidate, from military personnel, it still only represented only a small portion of the military as a whole.

For the most part the military is conservative, but they are not political. Although there is a sizable portion that are minorities and are not supporting a republican. I have been a voting assistance officer for few elections and I can tell you most of the military does not vote. Some do, but I would guess that a majority do not. One of the problems is that there is a small window of opportunity to vote absentee in alot of the states, so if you are not paying attention, you will not get the chance to vote. My problem is that my state said I was not resident anymore and I became stateless. I had to fight to get my voting rights back and ended up in the paper on the front page before they let me vote again. If I went through all that, I could just imagine how many people would not have gone through the ordeal I did, just to vote.

So you might be right that RP received alot of contributions from the military, but my view is that most of the military do not vote and most of them might have political opinions, but they stay non-political as a whole.

Also, I have not ignored your point you have made, I just do not think they applied to our argument about whether or not RP is fringe. I think you were talking viewpoints and I was talking about the aspect of being fringe. Two different things.

[Decyferon]

I think for the discussion to continue someone needs to define fringe. If you take the established democrat and republican viewpoints as mainstream and anything that veers from the party line to be fringe then you can say that RP is fringe, but without the 2 of you defining what you mean when you say fringe then your just gonna continue back n forth.

Or you could define fringe as minority support like white supremacy, communism in America etc etc, you just gotta give a definition.

[Zig]

I think for the discussion to continue someone needs to define fringe.

I think that's a very good point. Thank you.

I've never given RP any money.

Also, your point about the military was a good one and I agree with it somewhat, in that those who've donated to RP in 2008 represent a small minority of the military, as well as the fact that most of the military doesn't vote and is conservative. That's probably true, but also keep in mind that many veteran and inactive military also supported RP in the 2008 campaign as well.

The definition of fringe should really be addressed here in this thread if you are going to insist on sticking to your guns and keeping the label of fringe on RP and his supporters. It really falls on you to define what you believe a fringe political candidate is, but the textbook definition would be:

Fringe
a : something that is marginal, additional, or secondary to some activity, process, or subject <a fringe sport>
b : a group with marginal or extremist views

In current times it's difficult to define just exactly what is and isn't extremist. You could consider RP's views on the federal reserve extremist, yet you could also view it as classic and constitutional. The founding father's were considered extremists in their day and age as well, so in actuality you could even label our founding father's as fringe.