I rarely will do this, but i am about to post another persons ideas about Ron Paul, that i agree with.
(The reason i rarely do this is because I'd rather give links to the articles so the person who wrote it will get some sort of payment for their time and effort, but in this case i don't have the exact link and it's crucial you read this before you read my commentary!
The writer of this article is the owner of www.bushflash.com)
It's everything I've wanted to say about him, in a perfect manner.
At the end is my commentary. Enjoy! :)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~In recent weeks, I've been asked many times what my opinions regarding Ron Paul are.
My first answer is: "He'd make a better president than Bush." However, that's damning the guy with the faintest of praises. I've got soiled socks in the back of my closet that would make a better president than Bush. With the exception of Giuliani, Tancredo, and Thompson, any of the republicans running would wind up doing a better job than Bush.
I've followed the career of Paul for many years- however, our introduction wasn't all that impressive.
Before the war, he distinguished himself by being the legislative answer to John Bolton- continuously introducing anti-United Nations bills to congress that were routinely voted down. He also spent a lot of time sniffing the backside of Gun Owners of America, whose founder, Larry Pratt, had a history of trolling for support among white supremacist groups.
That having been said, he has been consistently against the war in Iraq, and was pretty much the only republican who refused to drink the Bush Bowl's kool-aid. I was surprised to hear him on Pacifica's "Democracy Now" back in 2003, where he presented a cogent and common-sense rebuttal to the march to war, delivered from the conservative point of view in a charming texas twang. Since the beginning of the war, his anti-war cred has been impeccable, and he's worked closely with the unlikeliest of bedfellows, including Dennis Kucinich.
While his polling amongst republicans has been consistently low, he's surprised a lot of folks (myself included) with his ability to raise a respectable amount of cash in a short period of time, via the web. However, this, in and of itself, isn't really indicative of much- Howard Dean pulled the same trick back in '04, and we all know how far that went.
This isn't 2004, however, and Ron Paul seems to have struck a genuine chord amongst a significant number of folks. This is mostly due to the fact that the republican party has a sizeable anti-war contingent that has been pretty much disowned by the party at large. Add to this the internet Buzz that has won him support amongst a large number of independents and first-time voters who (quite understandably) are turned off by the vacillation of many of the democratic candidates, vis a vis Iraq.
However, despite Paul's continuing insistence that he's running as a republican, he remains a libertarian at the core- and libertarianism is a philosophy of government that embodies social darwinism run amok. Libertarians want to demolish what little remains of our social safety net, and much more:
1: Department of education? Do away with it! Turn education over to corporations, churches, and charitable organizations.
Great! So, we'll have private Haliburton schools for the rich, religious madrassas for others, and overcrowded basket-case schools in poor areas that depend on charity for their operating costs. Pardon me if I fail to see a silver lining, here.
2: Food stamps, WIC, and Social security? Away with them!
Yeah! Let's leave those single mothers, working poor, and struggling families to themselves- if they starve to death, it's their fault for not being smart enough to get rich! And don't get us started on medicaid- poor kids and elderly don't deserve a flu shot- medicine is for those who are strong enough to be rich.
3: Get rid of the UN, and refuse any international treaties!
Great! This approach to international relations makes Bush's seven-year middle finger to the world look downright warm and cheerful. Screw the world- it's not like we live here, or anything...
4: Government oversight of commerce? That's COMMUNISM! AWAY with the FDA- what did they ever do for us?
Again- GREAT thinking, there, Libertarians. Hope ya don't mind your kids sucking up alla the lead and date rape drugs pouring out of their toy chest, before digging into their e-coli laced salads.
And there's so much more- ya see, the paradox of "small government" conservatism/libertarianism is that those candidates who adhere to it are quick to say that government is inherently bad, and once they are elected, they do everything in their power to destroy the government's ability to function, and thus, their admonition of the ineffectual nature of government becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Further, Libertarianism has always been, and remains a destructive philosophy- they want to destroy 75% of what our government does, but when pressed about what is to replace these badly-needed services, they mumble generalities about how the "free market will provide."
We saw this sorta thinking in action, back in the days of Reagan. He decided to dramatically cut the government expenditures for mental health programs, and as a result, hundreds of mental hospitals nationwide found themselves without the money they needed to help their patients. These hospitals were forced into a deadly calculus: treat the patients who were "salvageable", and discharge the rest out into the streets.
As a result of this, the ranks of our nation's homeless population were swelled by tens of thousands of mentally ill people who were all but incapable of surviving on their own. It was a monumental tragedy that begs comparison to the indifference of regimes such as those led by Kim Jong Il and Nicolae Ceauşescu.
Now, I feel the need to change subjects, as this diatribe was supposed to be about Ron Paul, rather than an anti-libertarian polemic, so here we go...
All things considered, Ron Paul is the most palatable of the republican candidates, but that ain't saying much. While I dislike the "candidate whom I'd like most to have a nonalcoholic drink with" comparison, he comes out on top, on that yardstick.
Regardless of such superficialities, I am not a libertarian- I'm a liberal/progressive, and have too many fundamental differences with him to ever lend him my support.
He does away with the very fabric of our morality and conscience.
And what does he have to offer?
A good foreign policy....
Barack obama has a good foreign policy
So does John Edwards(My personal vote)
Neither want to invade Iran.
The difference in Foreign policy between Those 2 democrats and Ron paul is they like the U.N, And Ron Paul can't stand to be a part of it.
What are you loosing for choosing Ron Paul?
1) Universal Health care
2) S.E.C (Securities and Exchange commission) (These are the Oversight for the stock market, stopping fraud)
3) FDA (Federal oversight for medication)
4) Loss of all Federal Oversight and a substantial loss to Federal Regulations.
5) Education for all
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
If you can support him after all this, than take this test i told you about last time:
http://eenvandaag.nl/index.php
Your votes themselves, will prove to you, you don't agree with him.
Sure he's not listed there, but you can easily research his positions on those topics.
What it will show you, is how much you have in common with the Democratic party, especially Obama/Edwards.
~~Phoenix
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