Ron Paul 2012

Paul is an idealist, and you have to give him credit for being one of the least bullshit politicians out there. Yes his stances on issues are complicated, but if you have a glimmer of intelligence it doesnt take much to understand his points. Issues like same sex marriages and taxes cant be boiled down to two second news clips or be made out as black and white as the media and other politicians make them out to be. This is from the wikipedia page about his political stance on dont ask dont tell, for me it really epitomizes his position:

"I think the current policy is a decent policy. And the problem that we have with dealing with this subject is we see people as groups, as they belong to certain groups and that they derive their rights as belonging to groups. We don't get our rights because we're gays or women or minorities. We get our rights from our Creator as individuals. So every individual should be treated the same way. So if there is homosexual behavior in the military that is disruptive, it should be dealt with. But if there's heterosexual behavior that is disruptive, it should be dealt with. So it isn't the issue of homosexuality. It's the concept and the understanding of individual rights. If we understood that, we would not be dealing with this very important problem."[196]

Again, idealist and a radical departure from the norm in Washington, but honestly... are you happy with the norm, even with a 'good' president? Why should idealists be labeled idealists anyways, and discounted as too crazy to elect no matter how good their ideas are? The only thing thats radical about his ideas is that nobody's had the guts to actually propose meaningful and shit-clear legislation recently.
 
I agree with you and that is a good summary of his position. His voting record speaks for itself. The main stream media labels him as a "cook" but only because he is unpopular with the status quo. Anyone following politics the last decade knows that the status quo doesn't really know what's going on or what they are doing in general.
 
as an avid supporter of what Paul stands for.

he will never be president. let alone get the GOP nomination.

you only have to watch the whole debate to understand paul doesnt stand for the right, or the left. he stands for reason.

his best moment was when he was asked about legalizing drugs and he showed how his stance on that one issue is actually indicative of his entire world view.

 
im not about to get into the whole tax things but ron paul is certainly not against same sex marriage

what he's saying is that marriage shouldn't be in the hands of the government, its not the governments job to say who and who's not "married"

marriage is subjective, it doesn't matter if the government says that a couple is married...if you believe that their marriage is not valid for whatever reason then some paperwork isn't going to convince you otherwise.

samesex (or whatever other kind) marriage should be legal, trying to force people to agree with it should not be.
 
ok, department of education i don't care about as much, but i would like to see some sort of nation standard of public education. My worry is that by allowing states to completely dicate their education system that some states will fall behind others. I'm curious, what do you think would happen if we cut the department of education?
i feel that the department of agriculture provides a valuable service to this country, its conservation and restoration efforts, its food safety pragrams and the agricultural research it performs are invaluable. take for example the National Center for Genetic Resources Preservation, it stores an large collection of genetic information on both animals and plants, it stores a huge diversity of seeds for both national and global food security. a program like this is vital to our agricultural security, it would be just foolish to cut it. And what about the forest service do you want to cut that as well? I think its too easy to just say lets cut off a department of government, and hand over responsibility to the states without really understanding the positive functions those departments provide.
i will say that i do agree with Ron Paul on some key issues, including his policy on drugs, his views on separation of church and state, and his policy on our wars in the middle east. there are just too many issues that are very important to me i don't agree with him on, such as his policys on abortion, the environment, and gay marriage.
 
i realize that, but arguably the most influential document written after the constitution was the federalist papers, we need a strong central government. thats also why we have a 14th amendment, which makes constitutional amendments applicable to the states.

without the federal government dragging the states, kicking and screaming, toward social progression we would still have segregation, and many of roosevelt's new deal legislation would have been rejected by individual states.

what i'm getting at here is that i agree with paul on a lot of principles, however if we are going to end or seriously reform the drug war and legalize gay marriage, thats going to take a federal initiative. some states would of course change more quickly than others, but do we really want to allow the southern religious states to keep gay marriage illegal for another hundred years? no, so we have to get the federal government to do it.
 
I'm not too politics savoy, but i really agree with pretty mush all of his responses. America needs to stop trying to be the World police and let other countries deal with their shit. It really suck how much other countries depend on us, and i agree how we need to stop doing that and make them figure all their own shit out rather than having problems not related to our countries bringing us down.
 
I think its important to balance state and federal though, and one could make a pretty convincing case for there being an imbalance on the side of too much federal right now. Consider how hard it is for our government to pass meaningful legislation, like healthcare reform. Consider how over budget the system is every year and how much debt we've accumulated. If you really think our federal government isn't too hulkingly and hopelessly bureaucratic at present... Really?
 
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If you are a federalist, then it might be the most important document written after the Constitution. There are a lot of people who disagree with Hamilton and Madison mostly over the "necessary and proper" clause and that the executive branch wielded too much power. I do agree with some points in the Federalist Papers.
"Social Progress" can mean any number of things to fit any philosophy or ideology. Who is to say that the federal government is the engine of this social progress? Ideas stated for the purpose of progress can be negative. Concerning segregation, Lincoln didn't free the slaves because he was sympathetic towards them. That was never one of his major goals. He freed the southern slaves to further the collapse and chaos of the South towards the end of the war as a part of the failed Reconstruction.
You also say that it would have been a bad thing for New Deal legislation to be repealed by the states. What evidence is there that it was effective? There was unprecedented unemployment over 14.5% for 10 years and got as high as 25%: http://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h1528.html. For all of the spent money towards these programs, the depression never really ended until after WWII ended when the government cut two-thirds of its spending in 1945.
Also, why should the federal government have to set the national moral standard? Every state is different and has a unique culture that has different ethics and morals. I agree with ending the drug war which is predominantly a national issue. I also agree with legalizing gay marriage but this should be strictly a state issue.
 
Hey, I feel like your heart is in the right place so I'd like to point a few things out. Mostly that the societal ills you brought up are/were enforced by government, both state and federal. It takes laws and police (both government) to enforce segregation, the war on drugs, and the illegality of same sex marriage. The most simple, direct, and lasting solution is to simply have no government. Creating a larger government to fix smaller government is a bit silly. Though you didn't mention it, I might as well point out that war is impossible without government.
 
people are fucking retarded and the bipartisanship of our country is full proof of that. oh and look trump had no intentions of running for president and was just using it for publicity for the release of his new book... shocking. sucks the media and people had to be dumb ass suckers for his bullshit PR stunt.
 
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