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What are Americans thinking of Ron Paul? Where is Grizzly on this? Where are you Grizzly?

What http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iVPqZr-z ... re=related

They both condemn "corporatism" .... don't we all?

Ron Paul understands it differently .....
Bring the troops home! How? It's not that complicated. Just march the troops home as we marched them in!

Looney-tunes .... attempted to be toned down to a more acceptable level.

???? Toned down to a more acceptable level than who or what?



I'm not sure what you mean Wayne. What would happen if the US wasn't there and had never been there? And what if the US had not ever set up its presence in 130 countries worldwide ... and what if the US had not decided to be the 'police' of the world in the first place, especially considering the expense and the sacrifice of such expense (ie: what else could the money have been used for and what if we had not used the mostly disenfranchised youth as fodder for the elite?)

???? Toned down to a more acceptable level than who or what?

I'm not sure what you mean Wayne. What would happen if the US wasn't there and had never been there?

And what if the US had not ever set up its presence in 130 countries worldwide ... and what if the US had not decided to be the 'police' of the world in the first place, especially considering the expense and the sacrifice of such expense (ie: what else could the money have been used for and what if we had not used the mostly disenfranchised youth as fodder for the elite?)

I have not heard the word "utopia" issued from the mouths of any candidates.

Nobody has offered a panacea thus far. And while Libertarians have garnered a smaller percentage of the vote historically, it would seem that Ron Paul is cracking that record. He is surpassing the traditional 10% .... and maybe for good reasons.

I applaud what he has to say about the war on drugs, for example. This has been a moral quibble much as the prohibition on alcohol was. The 1930's prohibition on alcohol gave power to the mafia and created more problems than it solved

.... same with this prohibition on drugs which sees innocents put behind bars when they have never even committed a violent crime.

Such a collosal waste of money and of young lives and such an excuse for the incarceration of the disnfranchised poor .... not to mention the warfare in Mexico! Talk about "felonious"! Adiction is clearly a social problem and not a felony. To treat it as a felony is to sweep it under the rug and create even more social problems. There is a movement afoot in the US to end the war on drugs and Ron Paul is at the forefront. This is BIG and no other right wing candidate (or left wing) has spoken to it with such clarity as Ron Paul has.

So anyways, just as my humour could be tweeked .... I invite your candidate tweeeks. Is there someone else who speaks as much sense? What candidate do you prefer and why?

I might add that while we consider these things, could we also remember that we are coming out of the shortest day of the year .... which would have been December 21-22. Our days are getting progressively longer now, but only by a minute or so each day. We are a planet revolving around the sun and we also have a beautiful moon revolving around our gorgeous planet ... as Earth revolves. Does this add perspective?

We have leaders now as ancient Egyptians had Pharoahs .... and the Egyptian people also revolted against those Pharoahs eventually. The question might be .... "Why do we have leaders at all'?

Just asking.

Than his previous campaigns and the general position of the Libertarian party.



Never having been there has no basis in the discussion of pulling troops out. The fact was we went in a disrupted the existing government, which created a moral reason to fix what we had broken before we left. We also did not finish what we were there to do in Afghanistan until just recently. Iraq was more of a personal goal on many levels.

But we wouldn't have to mitigate damage done if we hadn't done the damage in the first place. And as for personal goals, I don't believe the American people have any more tolerance for governments who run roughshod over other nations under the banner of "might is right". The Iraq war was a travesty.

Of the 13,000 American troops sent in, a whopping 30% have mental health issues and 4,500 of them are DEAD. Over 100,000 Iraqui's died in that war while 2,225,000 have been dispalced inside Iraq. 28% of Iraqui children suffer from chronic malnutrition. they have n unemployment rate of between 26-60% and 70% of Iraqi civilians have no access to adequate water supply. Who has time for crazy governments with personal goals?

And all of this carnage cost taxpayers in the trillions of dollars.




What if we just had ignored the wars elsewhere until they came to the point of the US being attacked? The Cold War could have had a much different ending and still may.

Where elsewhere? America invaded Iraq. And the 9/11 attack on the US? ..... the hornet's nest had been stirred. You just cannot have a superpower meddling in the affairs of other countries and not expect blowback. If the US wants security, it had better change its foreign policy and quit policing the world.



I doubt if you will, but that is the description of how the Libertarians view what the country would have to be to make their free market ideas work.



Because with the GOP pandering to the fringe it is easier for the elder Paul to run as a Republican than a Libertarian by not being quite as far to the left.

But I'm not sure he is pandering to the fringe. The fringe has occuppied Wall Street and are fed up.



Not exactly if you actually look at the history and the reasons for the prohibition.

http://www.pbs.org/kenburns/prohibition ... ode-guide/

But by 1830, the average American over fifteen years old consumes nearly seven gallons of pure alcohol a year, three times as much as we drink today. Alcohol abuse, mostly perpetrated by men, wreaks havoc on the lives of many families, and women, with few legal rights or protection, are utterly dependent on their husbands for sustenance and support.

And now alcohol is legal and still carries with it social problems. But other drugs have been prohibited and the social problem has been treated as "felonious" (I've come to love that word). The prohibition has created all kinds of crime; theivery, murder, gang violence, mafia violence, as well as the unjust punishment of people who basically have mental health issues. No wonder the states feel the need to build more prisons and has more of its population imprisoned than any other nation. Big business? The war on drugs needs to be history.

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



By definition one is not innocent if one commits a crime. Violence as a criteria would be something Bernie Madoff wold love to be able to use to claim his innocence too.

The point is that it should not be a crime. It should be veiwed as the social problem it actually is ... Otherwise, we are going to have to build even more prisons to incarcerate all those pot-smokers! Exile Nation. Go Charles!



If the war on drugs, or how to deal with addictive substances were the only job of government is would be a critical aspect.

It is a critical aspect as well as civil liberties, foreign policy, property rights, and the 1.4 trillion spent on militarism. It's all critical.

Of course small things like shutting down the Dept. of Education and elimination of the EPA would be small potatoes compared to legalizing drugs.

"Why do we have leaders at all'?

Just asking.

I'm not sure what you mean Wayne. What would happen if the US wasn't there and had never been there?

But we wouldn't have to mitigate damage done if we hadn't done the damage in the first place.

And as for personal goals, I don't believe the American people have any more tolerance for governments who run roughshod over other nations under the banner of "might is right". The Iraq war was a travesty.

Of the 13,000 American troops sent in, a whopping 30% have mental health issues and 4,500 of them are DEAD. Over 100,000 Iraqui's died in that war while 2,225,000 have been dispalced inside Iraq. 28% of Iraqui children suffer from chronic malnutrition. they have n unemployment rate of between 26-60% and 70% of Iraqi civilians have no access to adequate water supply. Who has time for crazy governments with personal goals?

Where elsewhere?

America invaded Iraq. And the 9/11 attack on the US? ..... the hornet's nest had been stirred. You just cannot have a superpower meddling in the affairs of other countries and not expect blowback. If the US wants security, it had better change its foreign policy and quit policing the world.

Because with the GOP pandering to the fringe it is easier for the elder Paul to run as a Republican than a Libertarian by not being quite as far to the left.

But I'm not sure he is pandering to the fringe. The fringe has occuppied Wall Street and are fed up.

And now alcohol is legal and still carries with it social problems.

But other drugs have been prohibited and the social problem has been treated as "felonious" (I've come to love that word). The prohibition has created all kinds of crime; theivery, murder, gang violence, mafia violence, as well as the unjust punishment of people who basically have mental health issues.

No wonder the states feel the need to build more prisons and has more of its population imprisoned than any other nation. Big business? The war on drugs needs to be history.

By definition one is not innocent if one commits a crime. Violence as a criteria would be something Bernie Madoff wold love to be able to use to claim his innocence too.

The point is that it should not be a crime.

It should be veiwed as the social problem it actually is ...

Otherwise, we are going to have to build even more prisons to incarcerate all those pot-smokers! Exile Nation. Go Charles!

If the war on drugs, or how to deal with addictive substances were the only job of government is would be a critical aspect.

It is a critical aspect as well as civil liberties, foreign policy, property rights, and the 1.4 trillion spent on militarism. It's all critical.

Because the common individual is too ignorant to be able to make rational choices. To become educated enough on the various issues requires more time and effort than most will be able to apply. A pure democracy will collapse in upon itself due to the volume of decisions which have to be made.

Maybe if people weren't so busy making ends meet - having a little left over after doling out 25% of their income to feed the war and prison machines, they might be a little better educated.

I think you take a dim view.

Even if you are correct about people's ability to educate themselves, which you probably are under present circumstances, I think most people do not want BIG government and this is why I think Ron Paul is breaking the traditional mold of "pandering to the fringe".

The "fringe" is becoming more and more mainstream. They are the 99% so to speak.

They could have pulled out the troops leaving a huge vacuum for another problem group to fill and a mess which would eventually have to be dealt with at some point in the future. Once you break something there is a moral obligation to mitigate the damage, which is the reason for the delay.

I'm not sure what you mean Wayne. What would happen if the US wasn't there and had never been there?

Never having been there has no basis in the discussion of pulling troops out. The fact was we went in a disrupted the existing government, which created a moral reason to fix what we had broken before we left. We also did not finish what we were there to do in Afghanistan until just recently. Iraq was more of a personal goal on many levels

But we wouldn't have to mitigate damage done if we hadn't done the damage in the first place.

But that has no relation to the troops being pulled out now, as I stated.

And as for personal goals, I don't believe the American people have any more tolerance for governments who run roughshod over other nations under the banner of "might is right". The Iraq war was a travesty.

Of the 13,000 American troops sent in, a whopping 30% have mental health issues and 4,500 of them are DEAD. Over 100,000 Iraqui's died in that war while 2,225,000 have been dispalced inside Iraq. 28% of Iraqui children suffer from chronic malnutrition. they have n unemployment rate of between 26-60% and 70% of Iraqi civilians have no access to adequate water supply. Who has time for crazy governments with personal goals?

So if they have no time for "crazy governments" why vote them back into office and prolong the problem?

It was the Bush administration that sent the troops into Iraq.

Again, it was the Bush administration who sent the troops into Iraq and who made silly war-rhetoric pronouncements like, "The Axis Of Evil" and "If you're not with us, you're against us."

I can't go further until you explain .... (?)

Ron Paul is an isolationist who thinks Iran's nukes aren'tany of America's business, and slams his GOP rival's anti-Tehran "war propaganda." He's calling for $800-billion in defence cuts over the next four years, including the total elimination of all war funding. He wants to withdraw, not only from the UN (a popular stance with the GOP base), but from NATO as well. Under a Ron Paul presidency, all of America's foreign aid programs would be terminated. Israel would have to fend for itself, as would the oil-producing nations of the Gulf. Many American bases around the world would close, and the small nations that the United States now counts as its allies would look to second-and third-tier powers, such as Russia, China, Turkey, Iran and India for protection.

conspiracy theories anyone?