Ron Paul Should be in an Asylum, Not Running for President
Its art imitating life. For years SNL has been running political campaign statements by ‘Tim Calhoun’, a fringe political candidate. Tim Calhoun’s views, however, are nothing compared to the GOP’s current Presidential candidate, the ‘crazy uncle’ of US politics, Ron Paul. Ron Paul’s anti-war, anti-everything rhetoric has bamboozled enough people that he’s actually begun to poll slightly higher than the margin of error, as high as 6%. He’s at a unique spot on the political spectrum, right where the whacky right and moonbat left bump into each other. He appeals to a cadre of ‘9/11 truthers’, radical leftists, anarchists, Klan members and assorted kooks and weirdos, but apparently he’s managed to convince a few people who might otherwise be declared ’sane’ into supporting him as well. In fact, I recently made a comment about Ron Paul being a whacko in the company of friends, and was shocked to be confronted with one of Ron Paul’s supporters. So, in an effort to convert those being misled, here’s what Ron Paul stands for, and why they are all terrible ideas (for the record, almost all of this was taken from Ron Paul’s website):
1) All bi-lateral or multi-lateral agreements are bad. Free trade is bad. Univeral standards are bad. Especially NAFTA, which is about merging the US Canada and Mexico into one country.
Ron Paul has a special place in his heart for other countries. He frankly wants nothing to do with them. He doesn’t want any multi-lateral agreements in regards to trade. He seems to be immune to understanding that as a net producer its in the US’ interests to have trade barriers removed. However, in his mind, it opens up the US market to undermining US businesses. Yes, Ron Paul, cheap Canadian gasoline hurts the US producers, so too does cheap pulp and paper, forestry products, all of which the US turns into other consumer goods, or fuels the US economy. Higher prices via tarrifs would hurt the US more than it would help. He also lives in a dream world where NAFTA is really about unifying all three countries into one. This is a complete fantasy with no basis in reality. Its a non-starter in all three countries, but he’s still convinced there’s an evil cabal trying to bring it to fruition.
2) The UN wants to directly tax the US.
Apparently Ron Paul thinks the UN wants to tax americans directly, as some form of global welfare scheme. Its simply untrue and has no basis in fact.
3) Build a wall to keep out immigrants, send all the illegals back, end the citizenship right of children born in the US (to eliminate so-called anchor babies), and track everyone on visas so that we can kick them out if they overstay.
The ‘build a wall’ plank and the ’send them back’ planks are becoming more mainstream options by the day, but they are extreme positions at this point. More odd is his desire to eliminate anchor babies, essentially creating the possibility of children being citizens of no country at all. As for the visa tracking idea, this would require a massive bureacracy to achieve, something which conflicts with Ron Paul’s stated goal of reducing the size of government. Its a completely impractical idea, which is why no one else has ever tried to implement it.
4) Disband the department of Education.
I don’t think much further comment is required, other than that his comments on education betray a view of public schools as a place for miscreants, while home schooled kids are paragons of virtue, a view which I think is oversimplistic.
5) Get rid of government environmental standards and replace them with the right to sue if you suffer results from Pollution.
Somewhere out there on the hustings in Iowa, John Edwards just had dollar signs flash before his eyes. This idea would create a system in which lawyers solicit people suffering from cancer, and then try and find an ‘environmental’ cause (bonafide or not, doesn’t matter), and then sue pretty much every business for causing cancer. The ABA would fall over itself to see this idea become law, and it would nearly guarantee that the US would have to abandon any form of manufacturing for fear of litigation. American society is already overly litigious, this would just make it way worse. Instead of a government panel of scientists deciding what is considered ’safe’, that would be determined by 12 people unable to escape jury duty.
6) He’s against universal medical coverage AND private HMO’s or insurance. Instead he wants to make medical expenses tax deductible and create health care savings accounts.
So, if you’re poor, you die. That’s pretty much how his medical plan would work. If you don’t make enough money to pay tax, then there is nothing to deduct from, and if you have low income, you are unlikely to be able to put anything away in a savings account.
7) Wants to weaken the FDA, especially when it comes to regulating ‘natural’ or ‘alternative’ medical products. He’s also against universal vaccination.
The universal vaccination issue is a staple of the lunatic right, so we shouldn’t be surprised about this, but remember what I said about him being where the moonbat left meets the whacky right? He’s against any sort of regulation of ‘natural’ or ‘alternative’ medical products. This would allow any shuckster to sell ‘Simpson and Son – Revitalizing Tonic’ as a cure for impotence, or cancer. Heck, they might even be able to convince people not to keep going for chemo or radiation therapy. Crystals and bear testicals should be unregulated, that’s Ron Paul’s position.
Opposes any standards for home schooling.
In a related note, I just recieved a PhD from PomoUniversity. Since we’re not allowed to have standards, its therefore a legitimate degree, and I now demand you all address me as ‘Dr. PomoChristian’. This is, by far, one of the dumbest ideas in his pantheon. The result of this decree would be to create a situation in which no one recognizes a person who has been homeschooled as being acceptable into a university. They would not have a recognized state high school diploma, and would thus be barred from higher education. The standards are there to protect homeschoolers as much as to restrict what they are being taught.
9) Opposes Abortion.
Not that I have a problem with this position, but I think that if his supporters on the moonbat left realized he was anti-abortion, they might try and burn him at the stake. So, I thought I’d just point that out.
10) Opposes all sorts of common sense law and order laws, like tracking all deposits of more than 10 000, secure drivers licenses, FISA warrants, sneak and peek warrants, other important national security measures.
Before you consider this position, remember, most of these provisions far pre-date Bush. The tracking of deposits of more than 10 000$ has been in effect for a long time, and is mainly used to prevent counterfeiting and money-laundering, and also to interdict drug trafficking. Secure driver’s licenses are a means to ensure that identity theft is less possible, and to interdict terrorists attempting to move under assumed identities or forged documents. The FISA system was set up to allow for search warrants in which the people under investigation are foreign entites (for example, China or Al Qaeda), and when a conventional search warrant would result in the public release of intelligence sources or methods. The system is designed to be a compromise between protecting americans from harm, and protecting the rights of accused people, since it still requires judicial oversight. Scrapping this would hobble the ability of US intelligence agents to prevent future terrorist attacks or break up terrorist organizations or interfere with espionage by foreign nations or groups. Ron Paul would basically make every police officer’s job much tougher, and expose millions of americans to potential terrorist attacks.
11) Wants to truly eliminate gun controls, eliminate the Federal Firearms License.
Bruce Cockburn’s ‘If I had a Rocket Launcher’ should be playing in the background during Ron Paul’s campaign stops. The man wants the repeal of all gun laws, and to eliminate federal firearms licenses. This would essentially make all firearms legal, even automatics or whatever a person desires. There would be no controls over emotionally disturbed people getting guns, no background checks or waiting periods. Even I, a supporter of the rights of gun owners think this is a terrible idea.
12) Wants to leave the UN
He wants the US out of the UN. That’s pretty straightforward.
13) Wants to recall all US forces from anywhere overseas.
So, good luck Korea, you’re on your own now.
And last, but not least, he’s a racist. This is the one thing I didn’t take from his campaign website:
Regardless of what the media tell us, most white Americans are not going to believe that they are at fault for what blacks have done to cities across America. The professional blacks may have cowed the elites, but good sense survives at the grass roots. Many more are going to have difficultly avoiding the belief that our country is being destroyed by a group of actual and potential terrorists — and they can be identified by the color of their skin. This conclusion may not be entirely fair, but it is, for many, entirely unavoidable.
Indeed, it is shocking to consider the uniformity of opinion among blacks in this country. Opinion polls consistently show that only about 5% of blacks have sensible political opinions, i.e. support the free market, individual liberty, and the end of welfare and affirmative action…. Given the inefficiencies of what D.C. laughingly calls the “criminal justice system,” I think we can safely assume that 95% of the black males in that city are semi-criminal or entirely criminal.
If similar in-depth studies were conducted in other major cities, who doubts that similar results would be produced? We are constantly told that it is evil to be afraid of black men, but it is hardly irrational. Black men commit murders, rapes, robberies, muggings, and burglaries all out of proportion to their numbers.
Perhaps the L.A. experience should not be surprising. The riots, burning, looting, and murders are only a continuation of 30 years of racial politics.The looting in L.A. was the welfare state without the voting booth. The elite have sent one message to black America for 30 years: you are entitled to something for nothing. That’s what blacks got on the streets of L.A. for three days in April. Only they didn’t ask their Congressmen to arrange the transfer.
That’s from his Ron Paul Survival Report in 1992 – You can read the transcript from the Nizkor Project, a jewish anti-hate site. That gives an darker (pun intended) spin on his vote against aid to New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina (the only person who voted against the aid package). I mean, how crazy do you have to be to tell a million people just flooded from their homes by a hurricane and related flooding, to ‘tough it up’
He’s also had to defend himself lately of accusations of hanging around with white supremecists and other ne’erdowells.
He attacts ‘9/11 truthers’ like bees to honey, thanks to his comments suggesting the government was planning a terrorist attack on the US, in order to bring about martial law and a new fascism.
What people need to understand about Ron Paul, is that his view of the world is basically this: There is a cabal of people trying to run the world. These people want to run the US for their benefit, and they want to do it on the backs of normal people. He has never identified outright the whom the cabal is made up of. At various times he infers that it is the US government, the Bilderbergs, the World Bank, the UN, Israel/Jews/Zionists, and the like. This is why his coalition of the extreme left (who believe that the cabal is ‘BushCo’ or ‘Halliburton’) can co-exist with the stormfronters and skinheads (the cabal is the Jews). His campaign is one in which people are urged to be scared of the coming darkness this cabal will bring.
That’s just not a view of the world which is accurate or healthy. Which is why 6% is his apex in scientific polls (in web polls the Ron Paul Army makes him a winner by thousands of votes, mainly by spamming or the use of webbots). Only 6% of the population is sufficiently deranged to believe in his cabalist conspiracy theories. A statistically insignificant number are like my acquantaince, merely misled.
If you saw him on Meet the Press on Sunday, he jumped the shark in the eyes of anyone who has half a brain. I’m embaressed to call myself a liberterian when I see this guy’s bullshit.
—McGuireThe North American Union is not as you describe it, “a complete fantasy”. It is, as Ron Paul described it, “a conspiracy of ideas”. We’ve got Council on Foreign documents discussing common currencies, greater collusion with SPP etc… The Europrean Union did not happen overnight. The trade barriers must come down one by one. Here are a couple sites with links to hard “facts”:
http://www.jonesreport.com/articles/061207_nafta_real.html
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=59105
As a Christian, your second to last paragraph deeply disturbs me. You seem to ridicule those people who are worried about the effects of big government and big business. The story of the Bible is a history of un-conscientious people uspuring and exploiting power. It’s partly what got Israel kicked off their home turf for a time. Actually, you can see this trend in all human history. It is the natural selection process of a fallen humankind. You would have to be naive to not see any un-holy collusion between government and big business today.
I guess manufacturers move to China to help the Chinese, not to expolit cheap labour. I guess most Americans want Bush pushing for Mexican Trucks on their roads. Don’t even get me started on the inflation tax sanctioned by the federal reserve. Bilderberg meetings are just to play chess I suppose (even Bilderberg has now been reported by mainstream press after decades of silence)
On the global taxation front, I do not think it unreasonable to see a disturbing trend. Are environmentalists not calling for a global carbon tax? Wan’t Kyoto somewhat of a global tax? Again, you say there is no basis in fact.
While I don’t like some of Ron Paul’s more Libertarian positions, I am grateful for his shaking up of the establishment Republocrats.
—Stephen“(even Bilderberg has now been reported by mainstream press after decades of silence)”
I’m sorry I wrote this, I’m not actually sure whether it was reported or not during past decades. I believe it has been covered recently though.
—StephenPomoChristian, why did you remove my first comment and leave the second?
Was there something I put in there which you found particularly offensive? Please let me know.
—Stephensorry, it appears again.
—StephenThere were two comments held in moderation waiting for approval. In general comments with links are held in moderation until I approve them to combat spammers.
—adminregarding your complaint, the problem with Ron Paul’s conspiracy theorizing is that he infers all sorts of different conspiracies to different audiences. To the racists, he’s an anti-semite. To the 9/11 ‘truthers’, he believes in a fascist government takeover conspiracy. To the radical left, he’s an anti-republican. To the libertarians, he’s anti-government. To the anti-globalizationists he’s a believer in the North American Union and anti-Bilderberg. To the cranks, he is against the currency devaluators (he wants to bring back the gold standard).
The politics of division are powerful, but they are not good.
—adminI don’t think one should allow what certain people infer Ron Paul is saying to color an overall opinion of him too much. Rn Paul may not profess certain 9/11 theories, for example, but he needs to ally himself with other persons who are generally opposed to the status quo in oder to further the platform he does have. I am personally very pro-Israel in terms of their right to the land over the Palestinians but I feel I can still find Paul’s policy of non-intervention acceptable enough.
I know this may not be what you meant by “politics of division” but I would like to spin the idea that divisiveness is sometimes a good thing. It was good to be divisive about slavery, for example. In times of overwhelming injustice, divisive leaders can be better than ignorance and lethargy.
I confes some of the things I said earlier may not be technially accurate. For example, Kyoto etc… is not direct evidence that the UN wants to tax Americans. I am also not sure that environmentalsits want global carbon taxes – but even if this were the case, I don’t know that it would have to go through the UN. However, when Ron Paul claims to have “successfully fought” an UN taxation effort in Congress, it I think it might deserve checking into what he is basing this on.
Also, Ron Paul’s website does say, as I have discovered, “…a single nation out of Canada, the U.S. and Mexico…” I’m not sure what Paul’s definition of “nation” is here. I mean, even the European Union is not a single country per se. However, I am inclined to believe there is some push for a type of “union”, so count me on Ron Paul’s camp here as well.
I apologize for perhaps exaggerating my reaction to your second to last paragraph. In addition. I don’t know if Bush personally wants Mexican trucks travelling American roads but there are those who would argue that the Adminstration is indeed pushing for a form of this.
—StephenI don’t want to innaccurately malign individuals or companies but I just don’t feel that everyone succeeds in being overwhelmingly benevolent with regards to the effect of their policies or practices. If some people see trends or patterns of injustice, I can’t say that I diagree with them.
If Ron Paul is allying himself with 9/11 truthers, white supremecists and other conspiracy junkies, then I am not with him at all. You can judge a person’s character by the company they keep.
This divisiveness, is not in regard to something as substantial as slavery, its a boogeyman hiding in the closet. He’s portraying himself as the everyman hero against every nutjobs particular bogeyman in order to get their vote. That’s not about being ‘divisive’ on an issue of principle like slavery, its about pandering to a base of complete retards.
Carbon taxes would be collected by national governments, and not by the UN. There is no direct taxation of americans (or anyone else), by the UN. His fantasy is based on an amendment he made to a completely unrelated law which would prohibit a certain kind of tax that really was proposed to benefit the UN. However, there was no actual bill in place to make that proposal law, nor was there any serious attempt to make it so. Some economist delivered a paper suggesting it at the world economic forum in Davos a couple of years ago, and a few months later, Ron Paul proposed an amendment to the Foreign Operations Appropriations Act prohibiting funds from it from being used to benefit the furtherance of this proposal which no one ever took seriously.
This is what I mean: He creates a boogeyman that doesn’t exist, demonizes everyone but himself as being ‘for’ the boogeyman, then sets himself up as the hero slaying the boogeyman. Its shameful that so many people are so deluded.
There is no push for a ‘union’ of any type. Not for common currency, or anything remotely like common union. All there is a push for is removing barriers to trade and creating the infastructure to see that trade prosper, something which helps all of us in all three countries.
I don’t understand what your problem is with mexican truck drivers. There is a shortage of long haul truck drivers. Stuff needs to get hauled. If Canadian truckers can drive in the US, and US drivers in Canada (both of which I assure you already occurs), then why is it bad for mexican truckers to take part? There is a critical shortage of drivers, and companies are recruiting like mad to cover the shortfall.
Ron Paul is the crazy uncle of US politics, and he should be put in an asylum, and not on meet the press.
—admin