Does Ron Paul Speak For Americans?
What part of this statement do you disagree with Ron Paul?
Forbes-”Congress should dramatically reduce its overseas commitments, as well as spending in areas like corporate welfare, and devote one-half of the savings to debt reduction and the other half to transitioning to a market system of retirement security and health care. This action will allow the government to meet its obligation to those relying on Social Security and Medicare while allowing younger people to escape the mountains of debt we are leaving–$60 trillion of liabilities.
“As president, one of my priorities will be restoring the 10th amendment and federalism. Decisions about issues like civil unions or right-to-die legislation should be made by the states, not the federal government. I will stop federal judges from imposing new definitions on the States. I will also return control over education to parents and local communities. Decisions about whether or not to fund vouchers, have merit pay for teachers or extend the school year should be made by parents and local school boards, not by D.C.-based bureaucrats.
“I will also pursue true free trade with low tariffs and less burdensome regulation. However, I reject the “managed trade” approach of the World Trade Organization, North American Free Trade Agreement and Central American Free Trade Agreement.”
See Also:
Ron Paul web traffic explodes off the charts following campaign raising over $5 million in latest quarter
http://ronpaulnewsblg.blogspot.com/2007/10/ron-paul-website-traffic-explodes.html
Ron Paul Community Website (Ron Paul Video, News, Friends, Blogs, Wiki, RSS Feeds, etc.)
http://ronpaulcommunitywebsite.ning.com/
By RON PAUL – Rep. Ron Paul: I advocate the same foreign policy the Founding Fathers would
http://ronpaulnewsblg.blogspot.com/2007/10/by-ron-paul-rep-ron-paul-i-advocate.html
Since it is based on isolationist ideals, pretty much all of it is disagreeable.
America cannot shrug, we must stay engaged or get completely passed by in global trade. Ron Paul would be the worst thing to ever happen to this country…thankfully, 98% of poll respondents find him just as scary.
bb,
It’s clear you have no clue as to what Dr. Paul stands for and are merely one of the foot soldiers trying to obstruct Dr. Paul’s campaign to curry the favour of the elites. Here’s a quick quote from Dr. Paul re subjects near and dear to Americans, but which you disdain:
“Any response to this paper’s Friday editorial on my foreign policy position must rest on two fundamental assertions: first, that the Founding Fathers were not isolationists; and second, that their political philosophy — the wisdom of the Constitution, the Declaration, and our Revolution itself — is not just a primitive cultural relic.”
Hugh,
I know exactly what Ron Paul wants thus the reason I find his candidacy to be such a joke.
This is Pat Buchanan redux and will end in the same manner, loss in the GOP; supporters clamoring for a third party run.
John asked about disagreement with the thread starting statement…I absolutely disagree because at the heart of all the rhetoric from Paul is an isolationist, pacifist ideal that if implemented would destroy America.
A better question would be (Chris Wallace asked at a recent debate) — ‘Mr. Paul, are you running for president in the wrong party?’
BB
What’s wrong with a loss in the GOP.
They have lost their way, they are like and as bad as the democrats and worse on some things. They are corrupt, deceitful (in that they don’t tell the real reasons they do things), and are pushing for things in NAFTA that is more like a treaty than a trade agreement.
No wonder their ranks have dropped to about 25% and maybe less now. No wonder some more of the GOP elected are retiring.
The Democrats will sweep in 2008, the nation will see they can’t save us from the coming crisis, and we can rebuild. They can reform or the GOP can reform or a third party will replace both of them around 2012 when the voters see the need for reform. But, if the GOP waits until then to reform, the voters won’t believe they have.
quote:
The Era of Unilateral Machismo
In 2001, George W. Bush became president of the United States, surrounded by a gaggle of neoconservative politicians and advisors. The analysis of these individuals was that the United States was indeed declining. However, in their view, this was not due to structural pressures from within the world-system, but rather to defective leadership manifested by all the previous presidential administrations from Nixon to Clinton (including that of Reagan). Their hypothesis was that a unilateral invasion of Iraq would definitively demonstrate the military power of the United States, the futility of political independence for Western Europe and Japan, the danger for any rogue state to think of acquiring nuclear weapons, and the urgency for moderate Arab regimes to accept Israeli terms for a permanent settlement of the Israeli-Palestine dispute. In short, they believed that machismo would work.
The Al Qaeda terror attacks of September 11, 2001 provided the necessary trigger for implementation of this program.
snip——————
The adventurism of the Bush administration has transformed a slow US decline into a precipitate decline. The United States’ economic, political, and ideological position had already become tenuous by 2001.
http://hir.harvard.edu/articles/1612/4/
==========================
Now we have almost $10 trillion in debt, foreign nations that no longer need us to keep their economies going, the dollar in decline, interest on debt rising, $50 trillion in unfunded liability for social security and Medicare (up from $20 tillion just 6 years ago) and yet, the GOP is still trying to act like Democrats on many issues.
No wonder democracies only last about 200 years. Both parties are following the same path just in different agendas.
Maybe David Walker could lead a new party.
quote:David Walker is a prudent man and a highly respected public official. As comptroller general of the United States he runs he Government Accountability Office, the GAO, which audits the government’s books and serves as the investigative arm of the U.S. Congress. He has more than 3,000 employees, a budget of a half a billion dollars, and a message he considers urgent.
“I’m going to show you some numbers…they’re all big and they’re all bad,” he says.
So bad, that Walker has given up on elected officials and taken his message directly to taxpayers and opinion makers, hoping to shape the debate in the next presidential election.
“You know the American people, I tell you, they are absolutely starved for two things: the truth, and leadership,” Walker says.
He calls it a fiscal wake up tour, and he is telling civic groups, university forums and newspaper editorial boards that the U.S. has spent, promised, and borrowed itself into such a deep hole it will be unable to climb out if it doesn’t act now. As Walker sees it, the survival of the republic is at stake.
snip——————
“The fact is, is that we don’t face an immediate crisis. And, so people say, ‘What’s the problem?’ The answer is, we suffer from a fiscal cancer. It is growing within us. And if we do not treat it, it could have catastrophic consequences for our country,” Walker replies.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/03/01/60minutes/main2528226.shtml
====================
This is just one of several articles on the Government Accountability Office web site.
http://www.gao.gov/
Quote:
Walker says you could eliminate all waste and fraud and the entire Pentagon budget and the long-range financial problem still wouldn’t go away, in what’s shaping up as an actuarial nightmare.
==========================
He is supported in his beliefs by many
quote;
You’re probably expecting to hear from someone who disagrees with the comptroller general’s numbers, projections, and analysis. But hardly anyone does. He is accompanied on the wake-up tour by economists from the conservative Heritage Foundation, the left-leaning Brookings Institution, and the non-partisan Concord Coalition. The only dissenters seem to be a small minority of economists who believe either that the U.S. can grow its way out of the problem, or that Walker is over-stating it.
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And, taxes are a big issue in this.
quote:
“Why doesn’t somebody do something about it?” Kroft asks.
“Because it’s always easier not to. ‘Cause it’s always easier to defer, to kick the can down the road to avoid making choices. You know, you get in trouble in politics when you make choices,” Sen. Conrad says.
Asked if he thinks taxes should be raised, the senator says, “I believe first of all, we need more revenue. We need to be tough on spending. And we need to reform the entitlement programs … we need to do all of it.”
But he admits he doesn’t think there’s a consensus for raising taxes.
==================
Also, putting more taxes in the wrong areas will only make things worse. All Americans at all income levels need to help carry this load and if done right, even those in lower income levels, paying tax, could actually see buying power increase more than the loss of wages to taxes. (but not with either party in power now).
bb -
Stay with it. Paul is the “Ross Perot” of today. He may lose the GOP nomination, but will likely run as a third party candidate.
I think the goal of Paul’s campaign is to torpedo the GOP. They may be somewhat successful, but it’s the Country that will suffer. Just as it did when slick Willy was elected due to the aforementioned Perot.
Some coincidence that yet another Clinton may benefit from this. In my view, Paul is a demogogue with little to offer other than isolationism and the “blame America first” ideology.
Best Regards,
News Hound
News Hound
At the end you supportliberal spending big government ideas!
The GOP was torpedoed when it was infiltrated and overrun by big government liberals.
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John – Who is it that supports taxpayer subsidized healthcare, you or I? Give me a break! One of us is for bigger government, but it certainly isn’t me.
Chris – I don’t disagree. I just think it would be a shame to throw the baby out with the bath water. The GOP needs to be fixed from within, but not at the expense of handing over power to socialists. Paul can’t win, and every poll supports that. Therefore, making the GOP the party of Reagan again should be our objective. A return to traditional American values, low taxes, limited government, and DEEP cuts in spending.
We’ll probably need to do it with one of the candidates we have. Difficult to do? You bet it is. Can we do it? Absolutely!
News Hound
News Hound,
You and your ilk have had since 1988 when you elected the big-government loving Bush, Sr. to the White House. Why should this country give the GOP any more time to fix itself? I’m tired of hearing the excuses, “Oh we need to fix our party from within”. Guess what, you’re damn right you do, but you need to fix it while NOT in power. We’ve seen for nearly 20 what the GOP does while trying to “fix itself” while in power.
The GOP has f*cked this nation in the @ss while trying to “fix itself from within”. Quit trying to fix yourself and just fix yourself. Until then, you can just eat sh!t and die.
Chris,
Actually you could say when the neocons came into power it was the beginning of the end of the GOP.
That’s exactly what Paul’s advocating, and that’s exactly what’s resonating with the voters. Do you see excited crowds of 1500 people at Fred Thompson’s rallies, even in his own homestate, like Paul just had on Fred’s exclusive turf in Nashville? Do you see ANY other GOP candidate with such an inspired and enthusiastic base as Ron Paul, who has engaged thousands of previously apathetic non-participants in this pseudo-democratic process of ours? No you don’t, but you sit there and let media polls dictate to you who is going to win an election, using numbers pulled from a smattering of 400 people who are so highly motivated in their support that they can’t even muster the energy to show up at their candidates’ functions to support him. And when they do, what makes you think that these phantom people will bother going out in the blustering winter weather to trek to the polls to vote when they can’t even feel moved enough to APPLAUD their guy when he speaks?
The GOP’s got 9 big government totalitarian empire cheerleaders and 1 freedom candidate, and the powers that be within the GOP are turning every screw and lever to lock that candidate out of contention by slamming the door on very enthusiastic voters both at the straw polls and in the primaries. What do you think is going to happen when these most inspired voters head to the polls in January and February and discover they’ve been barred from voting because the party locked them out way back in October without telling anybody? What exactly do you think is going to happen? And why would you implicitly condone that kind of trickery and deceit by ignoring it, and then expecting the party, much less, our republic to survive?
George Will was exactly right this weekend: “There’s a group that’s yet to be heard from and that’s the voters.”
http://youtube.com/watch?v=RHZmu1D395E
Chris
You are hurting poor News Hound!
Hugh
Of course bb (and maybe newshound) are neocons who don’t think for themselves. They both subscribe to the “unitary executive” theory rather than “balance of powers”. So they take the 5% of what they don’t like about Ron Paul and they assume that “King Paul” would be able to SINGLEHANDEDLY make those changes. People in the real world are finding compromise and realize that the President of the United States isn’t the “be all and end all”. Especially REAL conservatives.
[...] JohnKonop wrote a fantastic post today on “Does Ron Paul Speak For Americans?”Here’s ONLY a quick extractForbes-”Congress should dramatically reduce its overseas commitments, as well as spending in areas like corporate welfare, and devote one-half of the savings to debt reduction and the other half to transitioning to a market system of … [...]
John –
He’s not hurting me. Keep talking Chris. Can Paul muster more than 3% in ANY poll? I don’t think so. Paul blamed the U.S for 9/11 and he’ll pay for that on election day. He’s an isolationist who simply can’t win.
One other thing John….you, Aubrey, and Caroline made a point of telling me about “issues” in another thread. Just wondering why you have no comment for the VERY aptly named dingleberry?
I suppose you support that, right John? Like I said in that thread…..leftists can dish it out, but they just can’t take it. Why no reply on that John? I guess it’s only “okay” for one side right?
Dingleberry – Your name suggests your intellect, and your language is reminiscent of a life-long left-wing democrat. Clearly you never learned to speak properly and your vocabulary is limited at best. No worries though! Keep throwing those stones! I can take all an imbecile like yourself can muster!
News Hound
(I’m not entirely certain what a “neo-con” is, but I prefer it to being a left-wing toady. I’m guessing Reagan was a “neo-con” as well.)
Justin Raimondo has an excellent commentary on Dr. Paul. All should read this!
“The Ron Paul Breakthrough”
http://tinyurl.com/396yzs
Absolutely. Try an average of about 31% in actual feet-on-the-ground straw polls, which he has won more than any of your imposter GOP candidates.
Your “responsibility” party has nine candidates who refuse to take responsibility for the consequences of our foreign policy, which by the way in its current incarnation was ushered into existence by those leftist GOP party infiltrators, who between them will get about 8% each from those party faithful who still haven’t come to terms with how the party has been taken over, and you’ve got 1 candidate who not only recognizes the consequences of it, but puts forth solid American, conservative solutions to fix it. And that single candidate waltzes to the bank with the support of the rest of the party who’s taking it back from the leftists who are doing everything in their power to destroy the party.
Chris,
I think you’re confusing “leftists” with “neocons”. The neocons run the GOP. I don’t think that “leftists” would be supporting expansive fundamentalism like the neocons do.
What do you call Podhertz if not a genuine DNA-verifiable leftist?
Chris,
Podhertz is a neocon. Just like Kristol the founding father of neoconservatism. They’re the political heirs of McCarthy-former communists who became neocons who saw communists everywhere.
Cornerstones of neoconservatism:
1. Tax cuts as a solution to all economic problems.
2. Social conservatism.
3. Empire building.
Here you go:
http://www.nndb.com/people/402/000048258/
Norman is John’s father. He wrote the book “the cautionary tale of a cheerful conservative.” John is a former Reagan and Bush I speechwriter. Do you think that qualifies as a leftist?
John – still waiting for your reply. I’m guessing you approve?
Chris – “neo-con,” or whatever, Paul will go down in flames like the rest of the blame America first crowd.
News Hound
News Hound
DB said,
“you elected the big-government loving Bush”
How is he wrong?
The ultimate refuge of neo-progressives when challenged with facts…revert to labels, name calling…never fails on this site when johnoline is faced with real data as opposed to some BS cogitated by left wing blowhards.
A majority elected Bush41 which given the choice of him or Dukakis, America chose correctly. He gave in to the dem controlled congress when agreeing to tax hikes and more domestic spending…he f’d up and the GOP rewarded him with early retirement in 1992…America was punished with 8 years of Clinton42 and still pays to this day for his administration’s ignorance of the advancing threat now recognized as Islamic terrorism.
The question now is do we in the GOP feel so offended by Bush43 (and more importantly, Congress’) piss poor track record on spending policy that the majority will either not vote or go with some putz third party throw away candidate.
Ron Paul does not speak for even a small portion of America…he is on an island all too himself with the radical rhetoric of pacifism, protectionism and isolationism. The GOP will put forth a candidate with the primary decided edict of keeping taxes low, spending under control, war on terror moving forward and securing of the border as a top priority.
Dems on the other hand will put forth Hillary based on an ultra-liberal platform built upon higher taxes (for the ‘wealthy’), increased spending (paid for by the ‘wealthy’), surrender and open borders. The choice is and will continue to be clear.
John – You’re really a piece of work. Keep ignoring what was said, but don’t throw stones at me when I do the same. That’s fine. Your just a sad, ignorant little piece of trash.
bb – You hit the nail right on the head. The Paul gang still seem to think he has a chance. I say good luck to them. Even if he ran as a third party candidate, he’d get about 2% of the vote.
A return to Reaganomics and traditional American values is what’s needed. Not this clap-trap espoused by the bomb throwers.
Best Regards,
News Hound
News Hound,
Always great to read your posts.
Obstinate, shortsighted Paulheads are doing a disservice to themselves. If they really want to have an impact on the coming election, they would spend less time berating other GOPers. Instead, they could become a serious voting bloc that would attract whoever wins the nomination. Too bad for them that they are acting just like the religious right with the mantra of “do it my way or the highway” (Dobson was on Hannity last night proudly proclaiming his allegiance to anybody other than the eventual GOP nominee…why do people follow this guy??).
Are either of you two clowns part of the cabal who infiltrated the GOP and flipped the stars on the party logo? If not, who gets credit for that?
Regardless, Ron Paul will turn them rightside up again.
Chris
Ron Paul is gonna turn the stars right side up again. OR HE’LL TURN THE ELEPHANT UPSIDE DOWN WITH SOME REAL CONSERVATISM!!!!!
News Hound
God Bless you and you do have the GOD given right in America to be pro-LIBERAL spending!
[...] JohnKonop wrote a fantastic post today on “Does Ron Paul Speak For Americans?”Here’s ONLY a quick extractForbes-”Congress should dramatically reduce its overseas commitments, as well as spending in areas like corporate welfare, and devote one-half of the savings to debt reduction and the other half to transitioning to a market system of … [...]
Hey New Hound,
How about this…shut the F*ck up!
I see you didn’t bother responding to any of the points I made about the neocons and their spending wrecklessness and about how they chose to engage in unwanted anal sex with the country since 1988 when GHWB took power.
Nope, instead you went right after my “language”. Good point, asswipe. Eat my shit, you cocksucking son of a bitch. I could care less what your stupid ass “thinks” (it’s a stretch to suggest you actually “think”) about anything. So go home and keep satisfying the goats in your backyard you dumb redneck!