Don't Believe the Ron Paul Hype

With all do respect saladin, I never said I support him, what I said is that we might benefit from hearing him out and seriously thinking about why he has suggested eliminating programs that, quite honestly, the federal government often does a damn shitty job of running. Not all....but hell, there are too damn many of them, and we all know that. How are we going to come up with something different if we won't even listen to the people who have a different point of view? Don't get me wrong, hell will freeze over before I vote for any Republican, but I want to know why they believe what they believe, and if we don't ask them questions and listen to them, we can't critique, argue with, or work with them to come up with solutions that will work. I am tired of the good cop/bad cop approach to reasoning. I am sick of having Big Brother breathing down my neck every time I open my mouth. I think we do have a federal government that is out of control, but I don't want to throw people out of their homes and on the street either. I think there are a lot of heartless Republicans out there, so what can we do better and how can we do it better, because it is no secret to anyone who votes, that what we have is not representing the interests of middle class America.

Very well stated. +^d

It took us 60 years to get to this point, and things won't change overnight. We just need someone to get the process started, then we can refine the final end goal.

It doesn't have to be all or nothing. We just need something meaningful to change our direction. The president doesn't make the laws; he is just responsible for making sure the really outrageous and silly ones don't see the light of day. Our current president is apparently incapable of doing this simple task.

"the recognition that the populace in any truly enlightened society must also be responsible for each others welfare"

absolutely....thank you for articulating, so well, what gives most of us pause, when we listen to Ron Paul.

see, we agree again...

good question....and probably one that a responsible and informed media could be counted on to ask him...

Isn't anyone that dare question the Messiah Obama a racist?

So who do you suppose epitomizes the 99%? Not any other canidate for sure, Obama included.

Ah Yeah because our country is doing just great, Yikes!

I agree with you wolfess. Paul is to old. I remember Reagan"s second term and i could tell a difference in his thinking, talking.

A gunshot wound will do that to smart people too.

Any studies you are aware of that link Alzheimer's with gunshot wounds?

I'm no doctor, but I'd say that Reagan was exhibiting signs of dementia long before he was ever elected.

Maybe he smoked "one marijuana cigarette" and that did all the damage.

If he stands for the 1% why is it that he has the least amount of support from corporations, banks, and the media, and more support from active duty military than any other candidate including Obama?

Jebus H Christ, you are so right -- for every ONE intelligent comment there are 2 gazillion comments from the peanut gallery. Fire ants and cockroaches 4 sure! And did you notice how they didn't even come close to understanding what I actually said? Two standard deviations below the mean. But hey, sure is nice to be noticed; after all, I'm just in it for the attention :-)!
Pwr 2 the 99%! Dismember the 1% and their vermadon WHORES!

People live longer these days and Paul is in great shape physically. Additionally we wont have to feel as bad should he win the general and special interest has him assassinated.

I don't think they'll do Paul in; I think it's much more likely they'll save that fate for the blind-eye-of-newt.

What does a shotgun wound have to do with Reagan and his Alzhemer and the point I was agreeing to is at Paul's age he might not be sharp enough to run this country as time moves on, if he was president. He could never beat President Obama.

Jodie Foster's stalker boy used a .22, not a shotgun.

Reagan was not shot in the head, Bad time, but nothing to do with his Alzhemer.You said shotgun.

Where did I say shotgun or even that he was shot in the head? You're really reading something into this. All I wrote is that a gunshot wound would do that to a smart person--implying that even someone intelligent (as opposed to Reagan) would also show signs of aging as a result of such an assassination attempt. The Alzheimer's disease hypothesis came later.

Great post, anyone who reads it will definitely vote Ron Paul. Keep it up.

... anyone who doesn't understand the catastrophic effects of eliminating these programs.

Sounds good to me!

Do you know what the National Debt is at right now?

I understand, we might be able to get something done without the Federal government up our ass.

Yep, you can finally get that cancer you always wanted.

You see that as the role of Federal government? Well, if it is, they are sorely lacking, as they are with almost everything else they have decided to take control of.

It's settled then... let's stop protecting air, water, and food quality. Surely things will get better then.

Let's stop regulating them to the point that no one can make a move without breaking a law, how about we settle on that? Do you seriously think any sane person wants dirty air and water. You don't have to force people to recycle or go green, they will do it if they are educated. My mother does it with no government prodding at all. And with no unintended consquences that only bring on more regulation and red tape which no one profits from but the government burearcrats whose only goal is trying to justify their government jobs paid for with our tax dollars.

"Do you seriously think any sane person wants dirty air and water."

Answer: A resounding yes. Open your eyes. Are you serious? Corporations are lobbying like crazy to continue polluting, and your Saint Paul thinks that the Mom and Pop farmer will be able to afford to take these monolith corporations to court and win. Come on, seriously I have to explain this?

Have you heard of the free market? Probably not, since you are on Current. Get government out of it, then polluters are not protected by burearcrats, and consumers are not restricted by bureaurcrats. They aren't protected to do what they want, and we are free to choose who does what we like,

"...then polluters are not protected by burearcrats"

So let me get this straight...

Your solution is to DEREGULATE the polluters so they won't be protected by bureaucrats???

My god... I am amazed by you. Simply amazing.

The only goal of a bureaucrat make sure his job is relevant so they don't lose their job, they don't produce, they don't create, they don't manufacture, they contribute nothing. So the only way they can justify their taxpayer paid job is too stick their nose into everyone's business who is contributing to society. That's there one and only purpose, to make everyday life harder for everyone else, otherwise they wouldn't have their jobs we pay for withour tax dollars.

Blanket statements. Majority of small businesses say govt regulation isn't a problem and they welcome it.

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2011/09/01/122865/regulations-taxes-arent-killing.htm...

G'night John. We'll live to fight another day.

What about the catastrophic effect of perpetual unsustainable debt?

And the fact that there is not enough money in the WORLD to pay for our Social Security and Medicaid obligations?

You say he would end the War On Drugs and the Federal Reserve, like that would be a bad thing.

If you think that Ron Paul as president would mean no environmental protection than you just simply do not understand what he stands for. Do a little research on property rights, and educate yourself on a much more efficient version of environmental protection than the EPA.

Efficient regulation is not done by the EPA. They have done a terrible job. Efficient environmental regulation is done by strict property rights. In other words YOUR right to protect YOUR property INCLUDING your air and water. You would be incredibly dim witted to think that a corporation wouldn't rather deal with the EPA than a million seriously pissed off people...

Not true. Where do you get this information?

I actually agree with Paul about the Fed (mostly) and legalizing marijuana. The article is simply saying that these positions make him unelectable as a Republican.

Great point.

Okay, let's take an example to evaluate the necessity of the EPA. Let's look at the EPA's efforts against ozone depletion.

Are you telling me that Mom & Pop farmer are going to have the resources necessary to take on all of the industries that use and sell the chemicals which have been proven to deplete the ozone layer? Mom & Pop will have a team of scientists, access to satellite imagery, massive legal teams, and many millions of dollars to go after all of the corporations that produce these chemicals? And on the extremely small chance that they get a verdict in their favor, and after the multiple appeals that the corporations take to slow down the process, the corporation may or may not pay the court's fine, and then based on whether it is cost effective for them to continue production of said chemicals, the end result may be that they just keep on depleting the ozone as if nothing ever happened.

My goodness. This is your candidate's best solution? It seems like you guys latch on to an oversimplified concept ("Bad EPA") and don't consider all of the repercussions. By the way, what is currently stopping "YOUR right to protect YOUR property INCLUDING your air and water"? Is the EPA somehow making it impossible for you to bring a suit against a corporation that is polluting? The answer is no.

I sure don't see it.

I don't know....the income tax, farm subsidies, the War on Drugs, NATO, the Federal Reserve, EPA, IRS, FBI, CIA, FEMA, Interstate Commerce Commission, departments of education, energy, commerce, housing and urban development, health and human services, and homeland security....I'm not sure it would break my heart to see many of these go. I think the National Parks should stay, but the government doesn't HAVE TO run them. I want an agency dedicated to controlling the damage corporations are doing to the environment, but let's face it, Congress knows how to tie the hands of the EPA, so maybe the EPA needs to be re-imagined in a way that Congress cannot disembowel. Paper currency is eliminating itself. I support public schools, they have long been a great equalizer in this nation, but we need to change the way we fund them. The current funding system is responsible for creating the inequities that are fostering the inferior education the children of the poor are getting (a house divided against itself cannot stand). I am against ending Social Security, simply because it IS a contract the US government entered into with the American people, and as such, the government does not have the right to end that contract, it would have to be a mutually agreed upon decision between the government and the people. If the government wants to phase out Social Security, and the American people are agreeable to that, then the government has to phase out withdrawing Social Security from paychecks, but as it stands now, it is a mandate, people don't have the right to opt out, and neither should the government. Perhaps a national referendum needs to happen.

I hate to say it, but the size and intrusive nature of our federal government, as it stands today, seems to me to be the complete whack job. The federal government forcibly taxes us, and then uses over 60% of our tax dollars to fund the Department of Defense and wage wars, across the globe, in our name....and if even half of what we are seeing and hearing is true, the federal government is also engaged in waging war on the people who finance them, ie., the tax payer (a house divided against itself cannot stand).

The insidious underbelly of the entire defense budget is the fact that defense contracts are making the friends of our Congressional representatives filthy rich, and as long as we continue to let it happen, we are complicit.

we are getting those cancers anyway....I don't think Big Brother is doing all that great of a job protecting our health and safety....if that were true, we would all have the same health insurance Congress has created for themselves. I think Big Brother is doing a damn good job of covering his own ass, and running a hype and damage control disinformation campaign to keep the tax payer distracted.

I don't think we stop, I think we demand a system that cannot be bought and sold through the less than discrete activities of lobbying.

"Corporations are lobbying like crazy to continue polluting"

Exactly, and our elected representatives are being bought and sold like hogs in the meat market....so clearly, the solution is not on the table....yet.

It's not the EPA's role to make sure everyone has health insurance. Yes people are getting cancer, but do you really think we would improve our health if we let corporations dump coal ash in our streams, or if we allow a nuclear waste dump to sit on top of an aquifer, or if we keep pumping fluorocarbons into the atmosphere and further deplete the ozone. I mean come on, they aren't perfect but for f*ck sake they are trying (and succeeding in many cases) to protect us in many ways.

So let's continue the fight for campaign finance and lobbying reform. Deregulation is the opposite of what we need.

but the point in between what both you and John are saying is that the government agencies we have set up to regulate polluters are NOT doing their job, and largely, that is because Congress is allowing itself to be bought and sold, the Supreme Court is ruling in favor of the polluters, and NOTHING in our federal government can be counted on to do what it was created to do because it has turned into nothing more than a giant racketeering business. EPA consistently has their hands tied and their funds cut. Corporations are declared people....seriously, we need to wake up people and understand that what we are being told we have is NOT what we have.

how about an EPA that Congress can't sell down the river, because a bought and sold EPA is what we have now. Talk to someone who works for the EPA...

Nobody wants poison air and water, and the banking regulations in place did not stop them from doing what they did, and I seriously doubt that we can count on our representatives to reign in a system that they are profiting from. We need to understand that what we have now was sold to the highest bidder a while ago, and continues to be sold to the highest bidder.

"EPA consistently has their hands tied and their funds cut."

So, do you want to elect the guy who plans to ELIMINATE it entirely? I don't understand Libertarian "logic".

Reform is necessary to fix the failures in Washington, no doubt and no argument from me. But you will get an argument from me if you claim that the EPA is useless and does nothing to regulate the polluters. That is just plain false.

they ARE dying....what the hell do you think cancer really is? How about regulations that not only regulate, but regulations that are actually going to be enforced? Our federal government is NOT doing what we like to believe it is doing to protect us, and as long as we continue to pretend it is, we are not going to actually get off our ever expanding asses and make the changes we need.

is it possible that government regulation isn't a problem because it isn't enforced?

Do you have an example?

Zero government is also the tea party wet dream.

Money hasn't meant anything since Nixon took U.S. off the gold standard. We've had a faith-based economy ever since.

"Congress knows how to tie the hands of the EPA, so maybe the EPA needs to be re-imagined in a way that Congress cannot disembowel."

Wouldn't it be a lot easier to re-imagine congress and throw out the tea party?
The reason we're in such deep shit today is because we let W serve two terms and we let the tea party take over congress in Obama's second year.
Republicans, including Ron Paul, are making damn sure our economy and our country fail because they hate 'that uppity Obama' and are dragging the rest of the would down with us.
This has nothing to do with government services like education, transportation, public safety and welfare. It is treason by the rethuglicans!

I'm not sure about your reading comprehension skills at this point....I neither said nor indicated that I was in favor of any of those things. When you lock your way of thinking into a four-squared box, it is difficult to imagine alternative approaches to problems. We need a new approach, nothing as it currently exists on the hill, is working as it should, except for lobbying and special interests. I am not in favor of abolishing the checks we have....I am in favor of doing whatever it takes to make them work....and they are NOT working. If you are satisfied with the way things are, then fine, but I am not.

I never mentioned deregulating anything....my point is what purpose is there in regulating anything if you tie the hands of the enforcers?

again, I am seriously doubting your reading comprehension skills. I never said anything about the EPA being useless or that it does nothing...it does what Congress allows it to do, not what the American people want it to do. Just because someone disagrees with your point of view does not mean you can regurgitate their words in whatever form you want them to appear in, just to validate your point of view.

My point is not that we simply deregulate, but rather, that we regulate in such a way that the interests of the American people are not bought and sold like market shares....case in point, cap and trade. Does it really reduce emissions? No...it just allows them to skew the figures and make it look as if emissions are being reduced.

and seriously, I am so NOT a Libertarian, and labeling people when they disagree with your point of view is essentially putting them in a box. capisce?

of regulations not being enforced? Seriously....talk to anyone who works for the EPA...they will probably insist that they are allowed to speak off record, but the examples of what the EPA is unable to do hit the pages of Current every single day.

What part of my reading skills are you insulting?

"but the point in between what both you and John are saying is that the government agencies we have set up to regulate polluters are NOT doing their job"

Libertarians/Tea Party/GOP are all about deregulation. I wasn't saying you were.

"Wouldn't it be a lot easier to re-imagine congress and throw out the tea party? "

LMAO....I will gladly vote for that. Seriously though, I think we have been in trouble a lot longer than just since W....and I am not pro Ron Paul, I am just trying to suggest that we are going to have to think outside of the box if things are ever going to get better, because the way things are done in DC is firmly entrenched, and it isn't working.

There are many people commenting on this thread. The "you" was a general you, and yes, many of them suggest that the EPA is useless - because apparently we can all afford to take giant multinational corporations to court to settle our environmental disputes.

Okay, would you like to clarify your position for me so we can quit this back and forth... I don't even know which comment you are replying to anymore.

Do you agree with Ron Paul that the EPA should be eliminated?

Now let me give you an example. My Congressman just introduced a bill to deregulate dust control on farmland. The problem with said bill is that Mom and Pop aren't the ones creating vast amounts of dust through soil depletion. Mom and Pop plant a variety of crops, use limited amounts of fertilizer and do crop rotation. Big corporate farms do not. They plant acres and acres of the same cash crop, blast it with chemical fertilizers, and do not rotate. The result? Massive amounts of dust are created as the soil is depleted, but my Republican Congressman talks up his bill by pretending that poor old Mom and Pop are suffering under this excessive dust control regulation, when in fact, it is an inconvenience for corporate farming. The EPA is going to be enlisted to enforce this deregulation of dust controls, and Mom and Pop are not the beneficiaries of this regulation, but big agra corporations are. (note to WuP...the EPA will be faced with finding a way to deal with the aftermath of deregulating in favor of big agra, they always are. Congress ties the hands of the EPA when they pass legislation like this, but the dust problem does not go away, and then Republican Congressmen like Ron Paul argue that the EPA is ineffective...full circle).

People with opposing opinions to yours are not just little simpletons who are uninformed and latching on to the catch phrase of the big bad EPA. If anyone is uninformed in this discussion, I might suggest that it is yourself. Ron Paul is not my candidate, but if you were better informed and stopped to think about what is REALLY going on out there, you might have a serious clue.

So get mad at your congressman. Why bring the EPA into it? They were the ones to enforce regulation on Big Farms in the first place. They are not the bad guy.

did I call them the bad guy? This is the part of your reading comprehension skills I am questioning.

so do you want to pull the EPA's charter and compare what they are being ALLOWED to do with what they were created to do?

Yes, they are about deregulation, but if we never listen to what they are saying, we cannot either knowledgeably critique what they are saying, or find anything in what they are saying that may be of use.....solutions are borne of disagreements, but not until the opposing parties are willing to listen, really listen, to what the other side is trying to say, and then come up with viable solutions. My point is that what the Obama administration is doing does not appear to be working either, so why are we settling? Possibly because we cannot have creative discussions about how to solve our problems...not even on Current.

and my point is that if you talk to the people who work for the EPA, they are frustrated too, because all the regulation in the world doesn't mean jack if Congress will not empower them to enforce.

No, not really, but I am struggling to see where Ron Paul is coming from, because as it stands right now, the EPA is the country store facade for the bootleggers in back. I am agreeing with your comment about how it might be easier to get rid of certain elements in our political system, but people don't seem to understand that they don't have to settle for the either or we are being offered.

"The EPA is going to be enlisted to enforce this deregulation of dust controls, and Mom and Pop are not the beneficiaries of this regulation, but big agra corporations are."

Umm, the EPA does not enforce deregulation. They enforce regulation. And quit already with the "reading comprehension" b.s. You wrote that comment trying to make the EPA appear anti-small farmer and pro-Big Agra, and you know it. Come on.

---

I'm just going to put a big question mark next to you. Despite your MANY comments (which I can no longer follow because you reply 3+ times for my every comment), I still don't have a clear understanding of who you are defending (EPA?, Deregulation?, Regulation?, Ron Paul?, Libertarians?), or who you are attacking (other than me and Big Agra). Since I've never had any difficulties with reading comprehension in my entire life, I guess I just have a problem understanding you on this topic. I get the impression that through a lot of it you were just trying to be argumentative even though we might agree, but I might be wrong.

I had a different impression of you prior to this post.

Nobody wants to give the Clinton/Gore presidency the credit it deserves (actually blaming the 2008 crash on Clinton for providing housing for the poor!) but I remember those days fondly. I felt secure in knowing that two extremely intelligent people were in charge and they delivered big time.
The major damage W did to EVERYTHING he touched is unfathomable!

"Umm, the EPA does not enforce deregulation. They enforce regulation. And quit already with the "reading comprehension" b.s. You wrote that comment trying to make the EPA appear anti-small farmer and pro-Big Agra, and you know it. Come on."

really? you really think that is why I said that? I understand what the EPA does, and what they don't do, or aren't allowed to do, and I KNOW for a fact that the rank and file of the EPA are not anti small farmer and pro Big Agra, but again, you demonstrate exactly what I am saying. You are so invested in this either/or method of reasoning, that you cannot seem to climb out of the box you have constructed for yourself, and are eager to put everyone else in the box you have constructed for them as well.

We agree on a lot, but you don't seem to understand that what I am trying to argue here is not an either/or opinion on what needs to be done. The either/or method for problem solving has not provided us with solutions, so it's time, in my opinion, to think a bit more outside of the box....that's it. I am not castigating the EPA or misunderstanding what they do and don't do, I am critiquing business as usual on the hill....and I am trying to say that we need to listen to both sides and try to understand what each side is saying, and attempt to find real solutions. The EPA is one of the best things our government has ever done. HOWEVER, Congress, repeatedly, and in multiplicitous ways, undermines the ability of the EPA to do what they have been charged with doing. Congress under funds the EPA, making it nigh well impossible for them to do what they need to do, and Congress promotes deceptive legislation that undermines what the EPA has been charged with doing....the end result being that the EPA is not doing the job it was created to do...it is doing things, yes, and that is because the rank and file are dedicated to the cause of environmental protection, not because our representatives are giving them the resources or support they need to do their job.

it is mentally exhausting to repeat the same thing over and over again, only to have someone continue to misread and misinterpret what is being said.....and then try to make it into something personal.

agreed, but before W there was Reagan, the GOP's other hero, and he was also a disaster for both middle and lower class America.

I really don't want to insult you, but you are making it soooooo tempting. I have already spoken with my Congressman about this issue, and I am not the one bringing the EPA into it, nor am I trying to make the EPA the bad guy. I am trying to point out how the EPA is prevented from doing its job....

actually, no I don't reply 3+ times to your every comment, and if you click on your name in my reply, it will take you to the comment of yours I am replying to.

You realize that you have replied to me 3 times since I last commented, right?

Listen, if your argument is that the EPA is an essential part of govt, underfunded, and forced into deregulation by a corrupt Congress, then I really don't know why the f*ck you chose to pick a fight with me while I was knee deep in defending them from libertarians that want to eliminate it.

because....the minute I said that perhaps we should try to think about why people want to eliminate these agencies, you labeled me as something I am not....and I left the site, and then came back and replied to the additional comments you left. Why? Because I think the discussion is worth having, and I'm not picking a fight. I like what you post, and I mostly agree with you, but we ought to be able to talk about the issues we are not aligned on, or what is the point of a discussion board?

Speaking of reading comprehension...

"Libertarians/Tea Party/GOP are all about deregulation. I wasn't saying you were."

"There are many people commenting on this thread. The "you" was a general you, and yes, many of them suggest that the EPA is useless - because apparently we can all afford to take giant multinational corporations to court to settle our environmental disputes."

Are you ready to call a truce yet? Because I think this back and forth is getting ridiculous if we actually agree with each other.

we do...peace to you wakeuppeople...I love your posts, and your comments, I really do!

Damn that feels better. I was worried. Peace.