[nonhuman]

Originally Posted by Uncle Skeleton 

Why is it bad for your position to be flexible to changes in the will of the people? Isn't the whole point of democracy to give the people what they want out of government? If what they want today is different from what they wanted 4 years ago, why shouldn't they get it? What's so much better about "stay the course no matter what happens?"

Shhh. People don't want democracy, they want to be led!

[goMac]

Originally Posted by subego 

He wants to get rid of the income tax, but AFAICT has never called for the total elimination of taxes.

So he does have a problem with the Constitution in that sense. He is on the record as wanting the 16th Amendment repealed. However your assertion that he wants to bust the Federal government down to pre-Constitution levels, just seems... off.

I've always gotten the sense that it's the 20th century expansions to the Federal government that are the bees in his bonnet, not the 18th century ones.

My problem with Ron Paul is that he doesn't actually seem to understand the constitution. This idea that the constitution advocated strong states rights... it simply isn't true. I'll agree that the federal government needs to be rolled back, but the entire point of the constitution was the promote a strong federal government, because a weak federal government didn't work. My problem with Paul is he doesn't seem to want to retool the federal government, he wants to tear the whole thing down, which goes against the spirit of the constitution.

History has already shown that a weak federal government gets nothing down. Maybe instead of looking at weakening the federal government, we should look at getting congressman in the house and senate who actually give a damn. Let's not dumb down the executive branch to the level of congress.

[Jawbone54]

Originally Posted by Uncle Skeleton 

Why is it bad for your position to be flexible to changes in the will of the people? Isn't the whole point of democracy to give the people what they want out of government? If what they want today is different from what they wanted 4 years ago, why shouldn't they get it? What's so much better about "stay the course no matter what happens?"

Eh, I don't believe being flexible is a bad thing.

However, one of the most unimaginably horrible things I can think of is the current general populace directly making all the decisions. When people are more fascinated with Britney Spears and Paris Hilton than they are with the important news of the day, I'm a bit skeptical as to how well they could lead a country.

That's why all modern politicians are demagogues. They don't say the most reasonable thing; they say the most emotionally appealing thing. Whatever outrage they can tap into becomes their main talking point for the day, and people are either too uninformed or too stupid (I searched deep for a better word, but I couldn't find one) to see it for what it is.

[Shaddim]

That's what you get in a remote control wielding, instant gratification driven society.

[goMac]

Originally Posted by Jawbone54 

However, one of the most unimaginably horrible things I can think of is the current general populace directly making all the decisions. When people are more fascinated with Britney Spears and Paris Hilton than they are with the important news of the day, I'm a bit skeptical as to how well they could lead a country.

Yeah, but this is what makes Democracy a double edged sword. You have to listen to everybody, even the "Leave Britney alone" folk. As sad as it is, you have to listen to those people, otherwise you start to head down the path of the few leading the many.

Although it makes it pretty easy to see why dictatorships worked better in places like Iraq.

[Uncle Skeleton]

Originally Posted by Jawbone54 

Eh, I don't believe being flexible is a bad thing.

However, one of the most unimaginably horrible things I can think of is the current general populace directly making all the decisions.

That's called elitism. It's not necessarily bad, so long as you're in the elite. It's hard to make sure you will be though.

When people are more fascinated with Britney Spears and Paris Hilton than they are with the important news of the day

Do you ever wonder if the reason people don't care about politics is because of how far removed from it they are? Why should they make the effort when their changing opinions can't affect the moves made by their so-called representatives?

[Big Mac]

This thread well illustrates some of the reasoning behind the Founder's distrust of Democracy. People who don't really know what the Constitution is meant for or what kind of government it produces make moronic pronouncements about it and about how the country should use it.

[art_director]

Originally Posted by Big Mac 

This thread well illustrates some of the reasoning behind the Founder's distrust of Democracy. People who don't really know what the Constitution is meant for or what kind of government it produces make moronic pronouncements about it and about how the country should use it.

care to qualify the remark?

i think ron paul does have some good thoughts about curbing the federal government's muddling in the business of the states. some of what he says is entirely reasonable. some of it not. his religious ideology does raise concern from where i sit.

[Big Mac]

The notion that the Constitution is so malleable that you can read things into it (without following the amendment process) that were never there to begin with, just to suit the whims of a current political climate.

The notion that a candidate who professes to return to Constitutional government is actually advocating a return to The Articles of Confederation instead.

The notion that the country will collapse if it is governed according to the Constitution.

The notion that Americans need big government to survive.

Those are all very dangerous, anti-Constitutional notions that are found in this thread.

[art_director]

Originally Posted by Big Mac 

The notion that the Constitution is so malleable that you can read things into it (without following the amendment process) that were never there to begin with, just to suit the whims of a current political climate.

The notion that a candidate who professes to return to Constitutional government is actually advocating a return to The Articles of Confederation instead.

The notion that the country will collapse if it is governed according to the Constitution.

The notion that Americans need big government to survive.

Those are all very dangerous, anti-Constitutional notions that are found in this thread.

yep, you nailed many misconceptions found in this thread. and some in the current administration.

[Big Mac]

You're right, art_director. But what about Ron Paul's religious beliefs bother you? I don't know much about him in that regard.

[art_director]

Originally Posted by Big Mac 

You're right, art_director. But what about Ron Paul's religious beliefs bother you? I don't know much about him in that regard.

my understanding is that he believes in removing the separation of church and state, to a large degree. in my opinion, when you bring the two together you have a recipe for trouble.

[nonhuman]

Originally Posted by art_director 

my understanding is that he believes in removing the separation of church and state, to a large degree. in my opinion, when you bring the two together you have a recipe for trouble.

What gave you that idea? I haven't heard that at all, or anything that even vaguely suggested such a thing.

[art_director]

Originally Posted by nonhuman 

What gave you that idea? I haven't heard that at all, or anything that even vaguely suggested such a thing.

nor had i until the other day. then i saw this: The War on Religion by Rep. Ron Paul

[nonhuman]

Intersting, I hadn't read that before. This will require some pondering...

[art_director]

i thought the exact same when i saw it. what to make...

[nonhuman]

A little googling revealed this:

Originally Posted by Ron Paul

I think we should read the First Amendment, where it says, "Congress shall write no law." And we should write a lot less laws regarding this matter. It shouldn't be a matter of the president or the Congress. It should be local people, local officials--we just don't need more laws determining religious things or prayer in school. We should allow people at the local level. That's what the Constitution tells us. We don't need somebody in Washington telling us what we can do, because we don't have perfect knowledge. And that's the magnificence of our Constitution and our republic. We sort out the difficult problems at local levels and we don't have one case fit all. That's why we shouldn't have it at a central level.

Ron Paul on Principles & Values

So basically he's saying that it's a stat and local issue, rather than a federal one. I'm ok with that; the same is true about a whole hell of a lot of other issues that people seem to want the feds to take care of.

The only real question, of course, is how it would affect his decisions as president. His stated position is that there should be no laws regarding religion one way or the other. Presumably this means that he would veto any law that came across his desk that had anything to do with religion; I'm ok with that.

[art_director]

Originally Posted by nonhuman 

A little googling revealed this:


Ron Paul on Principles & Values

So basically he's saying that it's a stat and local issue, rather than a federal one. I'm ok with that; the same is true about a whole hell of a lot of other issues that people seem to want the feds to take care of.

The only real question, of course, is how it would affect his decisions as president. His stated position is that there should be no laws regarding religion one way or the other. Presumably this means that he would veto any law that came across his desk that had anything to do with religion; I'm ok with that.

sounds like he's consistently inconsistent.

[nonhuman]

Originally Posted by art_director 

sounds like he's consistently inconsistent.

How so?

[goMac]

Originally Posted by Big Mac 

The notion that a candidate who professes to return to Constitutional government is actually advocating a return to The Articles of Confederation instead.

But that's exactly what Ron Paul is advocating. I think Ron Paul himself needs to read the constitution. He may not say he's advocating returning to something like the Articles of Confederation, but at the same time, he's ignoring everything in the constitution. A strong federal power, separation of church and state, ability for the federal government to tax... The document that Ron Paul describes as the Constitution is not the Constitution at all, it is the Articles of Confederation.

Originally Posted by Big Mac 

The notion that the country will collapse if it is governed according to the Constitution.

Very well, let's rule exactly as the founding fathers wanted things. We'll have only 3/5 of each states black population count toward the electoral college. We'll allow slavery again too. Oh right, and women won't be able to vote.

The Constitution as the founding fathers wrote it, was written for a government relevant for the 18th and 19th centuries. The founding fathers knew this, and made it so that the Constitution was malleable. Having just been through a war in order to change their government, they wanted to make it so that future changes did not require bloodshed. And to a degree it's worked, the Civil War has been the only war that resulted from a change to the Constitution.

People who insist that the Constitution must be followed as the forefathers meant it fail to see the true genius of the founding fathers. The founding fathers knew they were creating a government that had rules and processes relevant to the time period, and created a built in way to adapt the government for modern times.

I think Ron Paul has really muddied the issue. The issue isn't what the founding fathers thought about government, because again, a fair number of their ideas are no longer relevant. The real issue is that Bush has not followed the Constitution as it is written now. Ron Paul is trying to make his views relevant, but really, he's tackling an entirely different topic and trying to warp the discussion.

No one is saying we shouldn't follow the Constitution, but I think Ron Paul's followers are confused about what is in the Constitution.

[chris v]

He may be an idiot, but he's my idiot, so long as he fails to get the nomination, then runs as an independent, thereby pulling a Nader, in reverse. Run Paul, Run!

[art_director]

Originally Posted by nonhuman 

How so?

'twas but a joke.

[nonhuman]

Oops.

[dcmacdaddy]

Originally Posted by art_director 

nor had i until the other day. then i saw this: The War on Religion by Rep. Ron Paul

This is the one quote that bothers me about his commentary in that link.

Originally Posted by Ron Paul

The ultimate goal of the anti-religious elites is to transform America into a completely secular nation, a nation that is legally and culturally biased against Christianity.

As one of those supposed anti-religious elites I am very much interested in transforming "America into a completely secular nation, a nation that is legally [but not culturally] biased against" RELIGION. I don't care what religion people practice (or don't practice) as long as they keep their religious beliefs out of the government sphere. Religion should stay in the home and the church/temple/mosque. I want a President who is strongly opposed to any and all religion-related legislation at the Federal level.

[dcmacdaddy]

This belief in a government free from religion extends to mundane things like holidays. I would like a President to abolish any religious Federal holidays. I would like the Federally mandated Christmas holiday to be abolished. People who want time off on Christmas could use leave to do so but as a religious holiday the government shouldn't have anything to do with "recognizing" it as such. That is up to the Christian religions to recognize the significance of the holiday not the government.

Here in NYC they suspend the alternate-side parking regulations almost three dozen times a year. Most of those days the regulations are suspended are due to religious celebrations. I would like to see something like that eliminated. Government should not be in the business of accommodating itself to religions. It should be neutral and/or indifferent to any religious beliefs or practices. It should not be hostile to religion--denying people the right to practice their religion--but it should not do anything to acknowledge or condone the practice of religion.

[art_director]

dcmacdaddy:

i'm with you. if we're truly a nation of the people then we should represent and treat all people equally and fairly regardless of their faith, of lack of.

[Uncle Skeleton]

How would they get enough letter carriers to bring you your mail on christmas day?

[villalobos]

Originally Posted by ShortcutToMoncton 

I can't read about Mike Huckabee without replaying his congratulations to Canada. Ahhh Rick Mercer, you so funny.

greg

AWESOME!

[finboy]

Originally Posted by idjeff 

He sounds great on paper, but after listening to him a bit more...he's an idiot.

Welcome, friend. He's my Congressman, and I've said that as loud as I could for a couple of years now. My 20-year-old nephew on the East Coast "discovered" RP this past summer, and proceeded to tell me all about him for about 20 minutes one afternoon. It's amazing what viral marketing can get you.

I'll grant that he has some good ideas (some of the Libertarian stuff is good) but he's a fruitcake, in general.

[chris v]

They don't call him "Dr. No" for nothing.

[nonhuman]

Because he's a James Bond villain?

[Dakar the Fourth]

No, because he's asian.

[nonhuman]

Ah. No wonder he's against abortion then. White babies are delicious.

[macintologist]

I don't have time to right now to go into this in great detail but there's one key point I want to make:

What could Ron Paul realistically accomplish as President? Liberals have a great incentive to support Paul because the positions they agree with him on such as foreign policy are the areas where Paul can make the most difference as commander in chief, whereas the issues where they disagree such as welfare and taxes, are the areas where President Paul would have little influence as a president who's vetoes are constantly overridden by Congress.

[Uncle Skeleton]

By that logic any idiot could be president: anything he did wrong would simply be overridden by congress. Yet despite that we always still try to elect a candidate who's not an idiot. Hmm...

[chris v]

Originally Posted by macintologist 

What could Ron Paul realistically accomplish as President?

Let's focus instead on what Ron Paul could reasonably accomplish as a third-party candidate, which would be to basically pull a Perot and split the winger vote, handing the white house to the Dems in a rout. Run, Paul, RUN!

He's not going to get elected as president, but let's hope that doesn't occur to him until election day, next November.

[Uncle Skeleton]

Originally Posted by chris v 

split the winger vote, handing the white house to the Dems

What makes you think he wouldn't take votes away from democrats?

And I think it's pretty clear he already knows he's a protest candidate

[RAILhead]

Wow:

Angry White Man

That should raise a few eyebrows...

[subego]

Originally Posted by RAILhead 

Wow:

Angry White Man

Ewww.

[lpkmckenna]

Wow. Paul really is a complete idiot.

When I asked Jesse Benton, Paul's campaign spokesman, about the newsletters, he said that, over the years, Paul had granted "various levels of approval" to what appeared in his publications--ranging from "no approval" to instances where he "actually wrote it himself." After I read Benton some of the more offensive passages, he said, "A lot of [the newsletters] he did not see. Most of the incendiary stuff, no." He added that he was surprised to hear about the insults hurled at Martin Luther King, because "Ron thinks Martin Luther King is a hero."

This guy can't run a newsletter, but he thinks he can be President?

Good find, RAILhead.

[tie]

Paul was the only one of the Republicans to talk about the economy in the Saturday debates. Thompson, sitting next to him, always brushed off his comments with a dumb joke, and the other Republicans all joined in since none of them wanted to talk about it.

So I guess I was impressed. This is an extremely low standard, of course, but the Republican field is pretty weak.

[subego]

Originally Posted by tie 

So I guess I was impressed. This is an extremely low standard, of course, but the Republican field is pretty weak.

Check the link that Rh posted.

[tie]

No, I had seen that before. I think this kind of bigotry is par for the course for Republicans and doesn't surprise me. I am certainly not a Paul supporter.

[olePigeon]

Good thing he threw Rosa Parks in with his apology. They should've added a bit of Malcolm Little, maybe some Harriet Tubman.

[Macrobat]

Well, Ron Paul is most certainly NOT an idiot, he is agenda-driven.

The definitely-not-conservtaive TNR posted an article the other day dealing with Paul's politics, based on newsletters he has released during the time that he has been in Congress.

Angry White Man

Bryan, at Hot Air, has an interesting aside to that article here:
Hot Air » Blog Archive » The Problem with Paul


Ron Paul has very serious problems in his beliefs taht America cannot afford to allow free reign. He knows how to sound attractive to the Libertarian ends of both major parties and independents, but this is simply the wolf (David Duke) in sheep's clothing.

[Chongo]

Originally Posted by Macrobat 

Well, Ron Paul is most certainly NOT an idiot, he is agenda-driven.

The definitely-not-conservtaive TNR posted an article the other day dealing with Paul's politics, based on newsletters he has released during the time that he has been in Congress.

Angry White Man

Bryan, at Hot Air, has an interesting aside to that article here:
Hot Air � Blog Archive � The Problem with Paul


Ron Paul has very serious problems in his beliefs taht America cannot afford to allow free reign. He knows how to sound attractive to the Libertarian ends of both major parties and independents, but this is simply the wolf (David Duke) in sheep's clothing.

Duke needs to be ostracized and anyone who praises him. I'm still trying to figure out why Robert Byrd gets a pass for being a Klan Exalted Cyclops.

[lpkmckenna]

Ron Paul has responded to the New Republic article: Ron Paul Statement on The New Republic Article Regarding Old Newsletters — Ron Paul 2008

Whatever, Ron. Your stated beliefs on "strict constitutionalism" are scary enough without any neoConfederalism.

[subego]

Originally Posted by Ron Paul

For over a decade, I have publicly taken moral responsibility for not paying closer attention to what went out under my name.

Uhh... Link?

[chris v]

Originally Posted by Uncle Skeleton 

What makes you think he wouldn't take votes away from democrats?

I think Democratic (big D) voters are about willing to vote for a brick, or maybe a balloon, if that's what the party nominates. There's enough determination on the Democratic side to win this thing that I don't think you'll see much splintering there. They'll line up behind the candidate their party hands them, whoever it is. (Gotta say I probably will, too. Sad, as I consider myself independent, and a vote for Clinton will be cast with a heavy sigh, but a loss this year is not something I even want to conceive, given the field of Republican candidates)

Besides, it should be glaringly obvious by November that Paul (even if he's in as an independent) is somewhere just to the left of Hitler, and just two or three miles to the right of Pat Buchanan.

[Uncle Skeleton]

Did you forget about independent voters? Or do you just not believe in them?