Ron Paul's New Primary Goal Is "Internet Freedom" 948
Charliemopps writes "Ron and Rand Paul are shifting the central focus of their family's libertarian crusade to a new cause: Internet Freedom. From the article: 'Kentucky senator Rand and his father Ron Paul, who has not yet formally conceded the Republican presidential nomination, will throw their weight behind a new online manifesto set to be released today by the Paul-founded Campaign for Liberty. The new push, Paul aides say, will in some ways displace what has been their movement's long-running top priority, shutting down the Federal Reserve Bank. The move is an attempt to stake a libertarian claim to a central public issue of the next decade, and to move from the esoteric terrain of high finance to the everyday world of cable modems and Facebook.' This seems like welcome news to me. Let's see if they can get more traction here than they did with the Fed."
So what? (Score:2, Insightful)
Seems like Ron Paul's congressional record is about the same as a paperweight. [theatlanticwire.com] The guy might have an interesting idea now and then (and a lot of nutjob ideas in between) but those ideas don't translate to anything real.
Given his failure as a representative, why should we pay attention to anything else he says?
Yeah (Score:1, Insightful)
Whose Freedom To Do What? (Score:5, Insightful)
Ron and Rand Paul are shifting the central focus of their family's libertarian crusade to a new cause: Internet Freedom.
Depends what you mean by freedom. According to this Ars Technica Article [arstechnica.com], he means the freedom of corporations to decide who gets to speak and what they get to say on the Internet.
This seems like welcome news to me.
I'd say that depends pretty heavily on whether you want citizens to be free to speak, or network providers to be free to generate revenue by restricting speech.
Re:So what? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:First thing... (Score:5, Insightful)
The Internet allows the only real free flow of information nowadays. That's why keeping it open is so important. Without the Internet, the only information we'd get would come from CNN, Fox, BBC, ABC, CBS, etc.
The Internet is only free press. Hence the desire to keep it unfettered.
Re:So what? (Score:5, Insightful)
Because in an era of unchecked, unlimited federal power, an equally extreme counterpoint is not only refreshing, but necessary. Sure, it's better to take the middle ground. You only end up at the middle when both sides are equidistant from it. If you start in the middle, you'll only end up skewed to one side, just less so than if everyone was at an extreme. Which is what we've been seeing these days.
There are, of course, many different axes, and just because one is at one extreme on one axis does not imply that person is the same degree of extreme on any of the others.
I'm not a libertarian, but I do recognize that they have a place in this government.
Re:So what? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Whose Freedom To Do What? (Score:5, Insightful)
Your idea of "freedom" is expropriating others' private property for your own freedoms, just because those others are large business entities, right?
Nope, I'm actually a pretty hard-core free market guy.
My idea of freedom for network providers is this:
1. You want immunity from liability for what you carry? Fine, you have to be agnostic to what you carry. If you want discretion, you are liable.
2. You want exclusive rights to spectrum and access to rights of way? Cool, but you have to act in the public interest -- which includes supporting the most important freedom we have; free speech.
You don't have to do those things, but you can't use our spectrum, our rights-of-way, and be granted immunity if you do not give some quid-pro-quo to society for the privilege. It's like the free market, you have to pay for what you get -- but since the goods and services you are getting are public resources and civil liability privileges, your payment is to society and the transaction is managed by our government.
It makes a better recruiting tool that way (Score:2, Insightful)
Just remember, the main difference between a religion and a cult is in the number of adherents. Right now Ron Paul has a cult. A few thousand more worshippers and he has a church (with tax exempt status, of course!).
Verizon, AT&T -- all backing Rand Paul (Score:5, Insightful)
"Internet Freedom" sounds like a phrase designed to make being anti-Net Neutrality sounds good.
And no wonder: Verizon and AT&T are heavy contributors to Rand Paul's campaign. [fastcompany.com]
Make no mistake: there's nothing "free" about the state-granted monopolies the wireless and cable industry have. Since they're monopolies, they ought to be regulated.
And if regulation is removed, you know that the telecom industry will be hitting up Google and Netflix for cash right away.
"Internet Freedom" means freedom for Verizon, Comcast, and AT&T to charge siteowners like Google and Amazon just because they feel like it.
"Internet Freedom" means every single thing you do on the Internet is going to cost more because Verizon and Comcast need to keep posting massive increases in profits.
"Internet Freedom" means freedom for the carriers to hold you hostage. ...and if you think that the 'free-market' will solve this, remember: bandwidth is scarce and already monopolized by the big carriers. You won't see landline competition either: the big carriers also have all the local governments locked up so there won't be any competition there. And you know that the Pauls won't be taking on the local governments so that there can be competition in the landline market.
Internet Freedom? (Score:5, Insightful)
"Internet collectivists are clever," the manifesto says, accusing their foes of series of Orwellian linguistic twists. "They are masters at hijacking the language of freedom and liberty to disingenuously pushfor more centralized control. 'Openness' means government control of privately owned infrastructure.'Net neutrality' means government acting as arbiter and enforcer of what it deems tobe 'neutral'."
The irony is that If he gets his way on this issue HE will be among the most likely to be stifled.
As Bugs Bunny used to say, "What a maroon!"
Re:Friends (Score:5, Insightful)
Ron Paul is now our friend... for now.
I'm not so sure. I would rather have net neutrality myself, and this is exactly the opposite of that (it even says that on the website). It's another of his "let the free market fix all the problems" approaches. Of course some paullowers - especially some of the ones here on slashdot - will insist that he is the lord, savior, and the only source of true knowledge.
Re:are you new here? (Score:4, Insightful)
We pay attention to ron paul on slashdot because he is the source of >90% of the political groupthink here.
You can't be serious. This place is a hotbed of anti-free market sentiment, especially when it comes to protectionism. It's also nigh on impossible to have any kind of meaningful discussion about something like science funding or healthcare without wading through a morass of snarky comments about the toxic fruit of capitalism. And besides that, the comment you're replying to, which is critical of Paul, is currently at +4. So, yeah.
Re:Verizon, AT&T -- all backing Rand Paul (Score:5, Insightful)
Rand Paul != Ron Paul.
More importantly, Rand Paul !== Ron Paul.
Re:are you new here? (Score:3, Insightful)
We pay attention to ron paul on slashdot because he is the source of >90% of the political groupthink here.
What? Are YOU new here?
Hint: The political groupthink here is WAAAAAAY to the left of Dr. Paul.
Re:Yeah (Score:2, Insightful)
Ah yes, the ol' "leave it to the states" argument.
Which, if you took and passed any American history class, should be raising some red flags. This is the same tactic that the pro-slavery people used, the anti-civil rights people, etc. etc.
"State's rights" in practice is almost always a way to hide one's immoral motives. Certainly it's the same when it come to gay rights; the definition of marriage comes into play in federal law, so it simply can't be a matter of leaving it to the states. To even suggest such a thing is disingenuous at best, a bold-faced lie at worst.
Re:First thing... (Score:5, Insightful)
Uh... dude, have you actually READ the proposed "net neutrality" rules?
Hint: They have nothing to do with what you and I mean by "net neutrality." They're just a Government power-grab, and nothing else. THAT is what Dr. Paul opposes.
Re:Yeah (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:So what? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:So what? (Score:2, Insightful)
Obama's executive record features some of the most and largest legislation ever passed by any president. It includes preventing the economic collapse still grinding most other places in the world. It includes preserving America's industrial base in carmaking. It includes returning the stock market to its value before his predecessors wrecked the economy.
Whether you like what he did or not, that's not a "paperweight".
You Republicans will say anything about "the other team". Which is exactly what got us all into this mess.
Re:So what? (Score:1, Insightful)
Yup, both Pauls are crackpots with some downright evil ideas. Libertarian(ish) when it suits them, old fashioned religious nutjob at other times.
Not that libertarianism is a good idea anyway, but these guys aren't even that.
Re:So what? (Score:3, Insightful)
You "suspect", so you're too lazy to look yourself, but you want them to provide the analysis, though you support Paul anyway?
Republican zombies are the lamest.
Ron Paul is not a freedom fighter (Score:4, Insightful)
Its obvious from reading the comments on this story that a lot of you all think this means Ron Paul is in favor of a free and open internet, and has come out in favor of net neutrality. You all obviously don't know Ron Paul. For him, and his son, "internet freedom" means businesses on the internet are free to do as they please, capitalism rules, and net neutrality will die a quick death.
Re:Your criticism: valid but not unique (Score:2, Insightful)
Bush and Romney's fundraising have your contact info because Ron Paul sold it to them for cash (and maybe some political favors).
What else would you expect? It's a free market, just like you demand.
BTW, Romney and Bush don't get free postage, because though they're obviously lifelong politicians, they're not actually part of the government.
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Re:So what? (Score:5, Insightful)
The US elected W as their president. So I would say that Texas is good at churning out politicians that have a chance at the federal level.
Re:Whose Freedom To Do What? (Score:5, Insightful)
My idea of freedom includes the people joining together to protect ourselves from warlords and corporate officers (or both simultaneously).
Your idea of freedom is Mad Max.
Re:Yeah (Score:5, Insightful)
"State's rights" in practice is almost always a way to hide one's immoral motives.
So every founder of this country that favored a weak central federal government was just trying to hide some "immoral motive", and wasn't thinking about how we'd just come out of a war with a central federal government system that had repressed pretty much whatever it wanted even though it was on the other side of an ocean from us?
Or is the concept that the best government is the one closest and most responsive to the citizens that have granted it the right to exist somehow an "immoral motive"?
Re:So what? (Score:3, Insightful)
Equal pay for women
Which he demonstrates by having significant gender-based inequities within his own White House staff.
enabling bio/stem-cell research
Which wasn't dis-abled before. Private parties could (and did) have at it with billions of dollars behind them. Taxpayer-based research continued with existing materials. Nobody was prevented from doing research, and indeed plenty was going on before, and after Obama's election.
cash for clunkers
Which, with the administrative overhead, cost taxpayers tens of thousands of dollars per car sold. An incredibly inefficient redistribution of other people's money.
a lot of military reform
A "lot," huh? By that standard, his predecessor did exactly the same thing.
openly gay is a-ok
Which was inevitable and already well on its way to happening.
addressing the body armor neglect controversy
Only when pressured by the press. He didn't care about it before he was elected, or after.
the walter reed controversy
You don't even know how to refer to it. Walter Reed was already slated to close, before he was elected.
ending iraq
The combat troop draw-down happened on the schedule set before he was elected. But of course he didn't end it, because it's not ended. There are tens of thousands of US troops there, right now, armed to the teeth. Of course you know that, and you're just trolling away, right?
Also there's the whole Somali pirates and Bin Laden thing..
Yes, he has shown that, just like other presidents, he is able to take advice from military professsionals, and approve their plans, which they then go about acting on. Bin Laden was hit based on intel that originated before he was elected, and handled by career people who were working that case before he was elected. Of course, you know all of that, too.
He did, though, just get a massive new tax program in place, aimed squarely at middle class and lower middle class people. You know, just like he promised he would never do. But we all knew he'd do it, so he fulfilled that expectation perfectly.
He doesn't know what internet freedom is (Score:5, Insightful)
Real internet freedom needs freedom not only from government interference, but also from corporate interference. And the latter requires strong competition based alternative forms of internet access. Since it is not economical to build up that much duplicate physical connectivity to customers, internet access services will need to be split between a shared physical infrastructure and independent core connectivity and associated access services (DHCP, RADIUS, DNS, and whatever else the chosen technology may need). This common shared infrastructure needs to be regulated by government and operated as a regulated monopoly with a mandate to provide service to all on a level and open playing field.
IMHO, Ron Paul would never agree to any part of the infrastructure to be regulated in any way. Competing companies would not overbuild on each other more than 2 or 3 because of the capital inefficiency. As a result, there would not be sufficient competition for a viable free and open internet.
Ron Paul would certainly reject a single vertical internet provider monopoly which would effectively entrench government interference. At least that much is good about his positions.
Only a hybrid solution can ever really work. See how electricity is delivered in Texas. One company (Oncor Energy Delivery) operates the infrastructure and delivers the electricity to the customers of many competing energy providers which customers choose from. Ron Paul is from Texas, so he should know about this.
Re:Friends (Score:5, Insightful)
There is no Free Market, The Free Market is handled in back rooms and the winners are the ones that fix the game. If we lived in a free market, things would look like Mad Max and Aretha Franklin would rule us all!
Re:Ron Paul != libertarian (Score:5, Insightful)
This is the "No True Scotsman" fallacy. Paul (either of them) is a libertarian. Libertarians are really corporate anarchists, some motivated by petty local exploitations of groups vulnerable to local elites. There are no "real libertarians" as you'd probably define them, because libertarianism is a fallacy that ignores the corporate/warlord thrusts into the vacuum libertarianism creates. Every time, around the world, without exception.
Your "real libertarian" might exist in Sim City, but not in the real world. It's a fantasy. A dangerous one when it's pumped at us to deprive us of the power to create government to protect our rights. It's downright un-American.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:So what? (Score:5, Insightful)
My main beef with Obama is that he claims to be everything he is not.
The biggest whopper is that he claimed to want transparent government. That apparently didn't matter when he unilaterally ratified ACTA without taking it through the senate (as is normal for any treaty) and without anybody but himself even being able to read it (granted there were leaks, we shouldn't depend upon leaks from a supposedly transparent government) He just signed our digital freedoms away without asking anybody.
Whats pathetic is how he happily parades around hollywood with the celebrities, and the fans of celebrities eat it up. Meanwhile they don't even realize that the celebrities themselves lobbied hard for him to take these freedoms away from us.
http://www.ustr.gov/webfm_send/1862 [ustr.gov]
Among a bunch of other supporters:
http://www.ustr.gov/acta/ [ustr.gov]
Re:Yeah (Score:5, Insightful)
You'll notice they did away with that an adopted the constitution.
I don't know how you call it "doing away with" the concept of a weak federal government when they enacted a constitution based on that concept, and which explicitely said at the end "anything not taken by the feds in this constitution is left to the states and the people."
And, since "marriage" doesn't appear in the US Constitution, it's one of those things that are, by default, left to the states to deal with. Maybe it's some ICC-based issue? Selling wives across a state line would be hindered if different states had different laws about marriage?
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:are you new here? (Score:4, Insightful)
Since when is it "groupthink" to refer to a man using the most prestigious of the titles he's earned?
Which is more prestigious? A title that hundreds of people have, maybe even thousands, in a several county area, or a title that only one person in that area has (and only 435 in the entire country)? A title that comes about because a panel of five to seven people say you've accomplished the prerequisites (for Ph.D doctors, the committee), or one that takes the votes of tens of thousands of people to achieve?
A title that is completely irrelevant to the discussion at hand and the job being performed by that individual, or the title that goes with the job?
Re:So what? (Score:3, Insightful)
And the feds used their unlimited power of money creation to bail out the same financial institutions that are now holding the government hostage. Time for the ppl to demand that the created money goes to us directly instead of rewarding middlemen.
http://www.sanders.senate.gov/newsroom/news/?id=9e2a4ea8-6e73-4be2-a753-62060dcbb3c3 [senate.gov]
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:So what? (Score:5, Insightful)
Seems to me, Obama is still running the "I'm not GWB" campaign. He sure isn't running proud of his accomplishments for the last 3.5 years. Problem is, he isn't the great HOPE and CHANGE people were expecting. Just more of the same, only worse. Problem is, Romney isn't much better. But then again, I'm a (L) so ... the same old song and dance doesn't affect me much. More selling us to the highest bidder, and security for liberty exchange we always get using the same scare tactics.
Separate childrearing, finances, ceremonies (Score:5, Insightful)
One needs to separate "marriage" as a private/religious institution from government reward of the same. The only legitimate interest, IMO, for government giving special privileges to those who marry (tax benefits, primarily) are related to preventing offspring from becoming wards of the state, something which doesn't apply to homosexual couples.
If you're going to take that line of thought, then "marriage" in that sense should be automatic between any couple who have children together, and excluded from anyone who doesn't yet have children. If marriage is to be about childrearing, then there should be (legally) no such thing as a childless marriage or a child out of wedlock. If you have a kid, you're "married"; if not, you're not. No contesting it.
Of course, there are other things involved in marriage besides the rights and responsibilities of children. Mutual rights in each others' property and lives (e.g. medical decisions in case of incapacitation). I can see a reason why people who aren't romantically or sexually involved at all might want to do something like that. Say you have two very straight guys who have no intention of ever settling down with one woman but plan to play the field their entire lives; but they are very close friends, have been housemates for years, etc, and want to buy a house together, file joint taxes on their mutual incomes and expenses, and have the other guy watch out for them if anything horrible should ever happen to them. Neither has any sexual or romantic interest in the other, and they each plan on having a different girl over every night, in their separate rooms, for the rest of their lives.
Why shouldn't they be able to make such financial and legal arrangements so resembling what we now call marriage? We don't have to call that marriage, call it a kind of incorporation, partnership, or union... a civil one, you might say. And let men and women in love with each other planning to raise a family get that exact same thing, and call it the exact same thing. And if those two guys want to make that arrangement, and are also having sex with each other, what difference does that make? What if more than two people want to live together and pool their lives and finances together -- whether or not any of them are having sex with each other -- what's wrong with letting them? And the slippery slope stops there, because children, dead people, goats, and furniture can't enter into contracts at all, and so there's no worry about anybody "marrying" any of those things if we replace marriage with a generic civil contract.
And then there's the social ceremony. This is legally meaningless, and should be the thing that gets the term "marriage". Let your favorite church, temple, mosque, coven, social club, or renaissance faire guild decide who they want to give what ceremony and recognize what title to, and let the law not give a shit about any of that. "Marriage" should be legally meaningless. Civil unions for everyone!
Ban all marriage; civil unions for everyone! (Score:5, Insightful)
Those who want gay marriage don't seem to want to settle for a legal status that doesn't include the term "marriage". Civil unions aren't good enough. Fixing bad civil union laws isn't good enough, even though they're trying to fix what they consider to be bad marriage laws, so they're trying to get laws changed either way.
If civil unions are good enough for gay couples, shouldn't they be good enough for straight couples too?
Get the government out of marriage entirely. Call it a civil union and forget about the sex of the people involved. Leave "marriage" to the churches, and give that no legal weight whatsoever.
Re:So what? (Score:3, Insightful)
Equal pay for women
Well, good morning Mr. Van Winkle!
You'll be happy to know that, while you took that long nap, laws and regulations were passed back in the '60s and '70s, and now examples of discrimination are few and far between, not least of which is because women can sue for very large amounts of money.
enabling bio/stem-cell research
That was never illegal. There has been plenty of research going on.
Ohhh, you mean the government didn't use our hard-earned money to pay for research done on human embryo stem cells, not that it was illegal or not occurring. Sorry.
cash for clunkers
Seriously? By almost any metric that program was a miserable and costly failure. And all that to try to increase the minimum cost of a car, which only makes it harder on the struggling working-poor families to survive.
a lot of military reform (openly gay is a-ok
Using the military as lab rats for social-engineering experiments is bad defense policy.
addressing the body armor neglect controversy, the walter reed controversy
So, "addressing" to you means "covered his ass, avoided responsibility and took credit where he could"?
and ending iraq
Oh yeah, that was quite the move. The US generals, strategic military planners and commanders, and many in Congress on both sides of the aisle thought it foolish to pull out completely so soon and remove the American military presence with Iraq's government so weak, Iran stirring up trouble, and the intelligence datapoints about the coming "Arab Spring" were mounting.
So, he just has a talk with Hillary at the State Dept, and all of a sudden US relations with the Iraqi government officials plummets until they refuse to re-authorize the US to stay in Iraq. Effectively bypassing Congress and the objections coming from the military, and putting his political/ideological goals and agendas ahead of the best interests of the US.
Also there's the whole Somali pirates and Bin Laden thing..
Yeah, that was so great the way he didn't get in the way of the military and intelligence communities doing their jobs, at least in those two instances. Huzzah.
Strat
Re:So what? (Score:2, Insightful)
Lets not forget all the soldiers dying in Afghanistan ..... More soldiers in 3.5 years than GWB's in 8 full years.
Or Gitmo
Or Solyndra
Or "not a tax, but is a tax, but isn't a tax" Obamacare. Um, if the government can't figure out if it is a tax or not, perhaps it isn't such a well written law huh?
Re:Friends (Score:4, Insightful)
There is no "fair market" because there is no "free market". Government doesn't help make things more free or more fair, it only helps the OTHER guys win.
Free means open to all. Fair means same rules apply to everyone. Free and Fair Markets would fix this economy in a heartbeat. Too many people have gamed the system to have either ever again. Instead we have Solyndra (both R and D supported) and Bailouts (both R and D supported) of banks and car companies (Except Ford).
Re:Yeah (Score:3, Insightful)
"State's rights" in practice is almost always a way to hide one's immoral motives.
So every founder of this country that favored a weak central federal government was just trying to hide some "immoral motive", and wasn't thinking about how we'd just come out of a war with a central federal government system that had repressed pretty much whatever it wanted even though it was on the other side of an ocean from us?
I can't speak for the grandparent, but I read his comment as applying to the period of time after the vast majority of americans came to see governing most things as a legitimate role of the federal government. Every case I can think of after the 1850s where someone says "leave X to the states", they really mean "we would like the federal government to act on X, but the majority opposes our position, so we want state by state rules". Not exactly a principled position. A few example issues:
* Slavery
* School segregation
* Abortion
* Gun Control
* Drugs
* Gay marriage
* Health care
Suppose segregationists had the votes to pass federal jim crow laws. Do you think they would not do so because they cared about "state's rights"?
I know plenty of people who think drug laws and gay marriage should be a state issue. They don't feel that way about segregation or abortion. I don't know anyone under 30 who opposes gay marriage, so I suspect that in my lifetime a federal law to legalize it will pass. And the people who want it to be a state issue today will cheer. They don't care about states's rights. They care about winning.
I can think of a dozen politicians who claimed to care about state's rights on some issue. For each one, there is another issue on the list where they would happily use federal law to make states do what they want. Why? Because they can pass that federal law. The Pauls fail this test along with everyone else.
Re:who's internet freedom? (Score:5, Insightful)
i absolutely understand and agree with your point!
and this is the corporate corruption of our government. and this must be stopped
what is the alternative? reduce and weaken the government?
thereby rewarding the source of the problem?
i never understood this "the patient is sick, so kill him and give the virus an award" thinking about the corporate corruption of our government
you see as the source of the problem as the government
the source of the problem is the corporations
we need to fight back and reclaim OUR government
not weaken it, and reward the crimes committed when our government is compromised
Re:So what? (Score:3, Insightful)
soo.. we should listen to californian politicians instead? or new york? or....
Re:Yeah (Score:3, Insightful)
Why do people always think "more laws and more regulations will make everything better", when it never does?
Because NOT having laws protecting civil rights worked so well in the past.
Re:So what? (Score:4, Insightful)
Yup, Congress sitting on its hands sure helped avoid the Civil War and WWII... oh wait.
Re:Friends (Score:4, Insightful)
"A free market fixes everything" is nonsense. Imagine no rules/laws/regulations. Perfectly free market. To win, I'll murder my competition, and get away with it (until they murder me). There are no laws. It's free and fair, brutal and ugly.
OK, so we make murder illegal. And kidnapping, extortion, blackmail, etc. It's no longer a free market. But I don't think anyone minds.
But already, government can be corrupted. A sheriff that aggressively investigates crimes against my competitors while ignoring my crimes gives me an advantage. And this is just serious crimes.
The point is not to get government out of the way, it's to make government enforce fairness (you are right about that). And "less government" is not really the way to do this. I don't want a perfectly free market. If you take econ101, you'll see many ways businesses could screw over consumers with asymmetric info, monopolies, fraud, etc. And I want regulations to eliminate toxins in food, unreasonably dangerous products, etc. And I don't want to drink polluted water.
Solyndra is no big deal--they expected a percentage of businesses the government backed to not succeed, and Solyndra was in that percentage. If there's corruption involved, then I'd be mad, but I haven't heard of any yet. I'm glad the US government invested in the Internet.
Re:are you new here? (Score:2, Insightful)
It's generally more prestigious to earn something than to win something.
You are so, so wrong (Score:4, Insightful)
You're wrong in a very fundamental way. Obama most certainly is proud of his accomplishments, as are most Democrats who voted for him. Among other things, he's dramatically changed the health care landscape for the better, he's helped to radically shift society's perception of homosexuality, and militarily he's kicked ass, accomplishing the destruction of the most hated person on earth since Adolph Hitler. Am I in love with everything the guy's done? No, but on the whole, I am extremely proud to proclaim that I supported him in 2008, and I am happily doing so again this year.
You seem to be buying Republican attempts to make him out as ineffectual. I know it's pretty difficult with right wing politicians, Fox News and a whole bunch of talking heads on the radio constantly spewing out lies and misrepresentations about his record and corporations who want the unfettered ability to run roughshod over our freedoms spending hundreds of millions, possibly even billions of dollars on 24x7x365 slick well-planned marketing campaigns designed to get the poor and middle class to vote against their own self-interest. It's clearly a case of the old adage of telling a lie enough until even the person telling it believes it's true.
But make no mistake, I am not supporting him because of any kind of "I'm not GWB" campaign. The fact is that he inherited a hell of a mess caused by eight years of bad policy, and he's done an amazing job turning things around. Most Democrats knew this well enough in 2009 that they really haven't needed to constantly remind everyone except when Republicans keep trotting out things like the massive job losses that the U.S. sustained in Obama's first year when we were still operating under Bush's economy. If Republicans would stop pitching these losses as Obama's fault before he even had a chance to enact any policies, we would stop reminding everyone why those numbers were so bad.
But yeah, it's most certainly not more of the same. Ask anyone who is getting mortgage relief now. Ask any gay member of the military. Ask anyone who had their insurance policy canceled during the Bush years because they had an incurable condition. Ask the brave members of SEAL Team Six. Ask any young immigrant who is here through no decision of their own but, until a couple of weeks ago, faced the threat of deportation to a country they've never known. Anyone who thinks that the past four years have been more of the same is either lying, stupid, or grossly not paying attention.
We still have HOPE and we've seen CHANGE. Backtracking on that now would be one of the dumbest things the American electorate could ever do.
Re:are you new here? (Score:4, Insightful)
I suspect that Americans have more respect for physicians than they have for Congress.
Re:are you new here? (Score:1, Insightful)
Hint: The political groupthink here is WAAAAAAY to the left of Dr. Paul.
Hell, Ayn Rand is way to the left of Ron "Dr. No" Paul.
When he says "freedom", he really means it - as in freedom to oppress, freedom to fuck the individual, freedom to discriminate based on color and creed, freedom to do anything as long as it's not the government doing it. The government only exists to protect business interests, impose protectionist tariffs, and enforce christian morality.
Likewise with the "Internet Freedom" - in his view, the freedom isn't on the part of the user, but the freedom of carriers and monopoly/oligopoly ISPs to do what they want, including abusing their position to restrict the individual's freedoms and stifle competition.
Ron Paul's ideology is quite frankly scary. Thankfully, he's in no position to become president before he dies. Even his cadre of brown shirts can't get a majority to take him seriously.
Re:You are so, so wrong (Score:2, Insightful)
You're right, it was way different. We have drones targeting Americans, spying on Americans grew even larger, murdering innocents on foreign soil without congressional consent is more commonplace and supported by gunho chairborne warriors like you, criticizing the president gets you called a racist without any consideration for points, and that's if the person even bothers to step beyond saying "but bush blah blah blah", he lied about pulling out of Iraq, he increased war in other countries, he reauthorized the patriot act, repeatedly.
sorry but you are a moron
Re:You are so, so wrong (Score:5, Insightful)
I.e., Obama has added more entitlements without addressing the question of cost control in any meaningful way. In different words, the young are getting shafted even more than they already are by the current system.
The change in attitudes is due to large numbers of people engaging in grass-roots advocacy for years and years. Obama ("my views are evolving") opportunistically took advantage of this change when it seemed politically prudent.
In different words, taxpayers are subsidizing people who bought homes that were too big and expensive for them.
Targeted killings, unlawful detentions, kill lists: Obama was supposed to end all this and he has failed to do so.
You are right, things are not the same: under Obama, crony capitalism, race baiting, pork, and politically motivated killings have reached new lows. With his policies, Obama is targeting a carefully selected portfolio of voters in order to get reelected, regardless of the long term consequences.
Re:So what? (Score:5, Insightful)
An axis with liberal and conservative ends is not 2D but 1D.
Besides, in politics, the means one is eager to use in order to further one's values or ends, is just as important as where those values fall on this liberal/conservative axis. That requires another dimension of measurement.
Re:So what? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:You are so, so wrong (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:First thing... (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm pretty sure that Ron Paul would be opposed to net neutrality full stop, since it involves the government meddling in how private corporations run their business. Sure, without net neutrality we're effectively giving a few major corporations the power to control and censor an important channel of communication, but in Paulworld that's not real censorship because it's not the Government doing it.
Re:So what? (Score:5, Insightful)
I love how everyone fawns over Ron Paul for one issue and ignores all the other batcrap crazy stuff that he does.
Re:So what? (Score:4, Insightful)
The Supreme Court elected W as our president.
In 2004?
Re:You are so, so wrong (Score:3, Insightful)
Now there you go, a guy lays out what was a fine set of points he observed and you go and pick it apart with little to no substance to back it up. Fine, you see it different, but then would you please put out there the accomplishments of the republican congress, positive laws that has helped this country? Please lay out the specific things you seem to feel Mit Romney will do that is different then GWB as a republican and where he differs from Obama.
I am all for debate, but your response was about as weak as "yeah, well your mother farts" and about as nonsensical. Put some facts out or please just go home.
Re:are you new here? (Score:5, Insightful)
The Hippocratic oath is an oath/EM., not a guideline to be bent for superstitious beliefs.
Yes, but in that case you are asking a doctor to do harm to what some feel is life. "Do no harm" is then applied with precedent (Do no harm to the mother first, then no harm to the baby). That is the both moral and ethical issue surrounding abortion so your point is weak.
Doctors certainly face this type of issue many times in their careers, not just with a pregnant mother, but with choices on who to save first. It is not a black and white oath when looked upon in that context.
If Dr. Paul turned away a mother for a routine abortion it could be viewed as his "superstitious beliefs" trumping his oath, or it could be viewed as his belief that he is doing harm to an unwitting life versus a mother who is otherwise in good health. Hmmmm, then he is following his oath. The SC legalized abortion, it did not compel doctors to perform them.
Re:You are so, so wrong (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:So what? (Score:5, Insightful)
I can't tell if I get more disappointed by seeing tired parrot arguments like these or seeing tired parrot arguments like these get modded insightful. Ron Paul could provide free medical care to a black family, declare his hero to be Martin Luther King, and expose the racism in the drug war and uninformed people would still call him racist because of some implications in newsletters he didn't write.
He actually did those three things.
Re:You are so, so wrong (Score:3, Insightful)
I.e., Obama has added more entitlements without addressing the question of cost control in any meaningful way. In different words, the young are getting shafted even more than they already are by the current system.
The Congressional Budget Office begs to disagree with you [talkingpointsmemo.com], with an approximately 7% reduction in healthcare costs compounded over time.
But don't let that influence your thinking -- mathematics is known for its liberal bias.
Re:So what? (Score:3, Insightful)
No, only the Ron Paul fans fawn over what he says. The rest of us see what the evidence provides and I've seen nothing of substance to prove otherwise. A republican in libertarian shoes. He's all about personal liberty and whatnot, unless it goes against his personal social views, which puts him right in line with the rest of their ilk.
Simply saying everything should be a state right does nothing but turn one system into 50 feudal systems of government, with the citizens being the unfortunate homeowners in each, subject to a new 'ruler' every few years.
Not exactly ideal.
Re:You are so, so wrong (Score:3, Insightful)
You are caught up in this "tit-for-tat" mentality, not me. I'm not a Republican, I didn't mention Romney, and I voted for Obama last time.
I disagree with your premise. As far as I'm concerned, Congress should focus on reducing the size of government, reduce government intrusion into people's personal lives, reduce regulations, and reduce spending. Neither Republicans nor Democrats have delivered on that.
Re:You are so, so wrong (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't think you understand the problem: on all but one of those issues the Republicans say Obama didn't go far enough (apparently only Republicans are allowed to deny FOIA requests).
Obama has his faults, but McCain has since shown repeatedly that he would be worse on all of those issues than Obama and I sincerely doubt Romney would do any better. Frankly, Romney appears to be another figure head who will take the blame for the policies implemented in his name by the same team that brought you the 2008 economic collapse. It seems to me that Romney wants to be president for the prestige, and that's a dangerous quality in a presidential candidate. It's the root cause of why Bush was such an awful president.
Re:So what? (Score:2, Insightful)
He's all about personal liberty and whatnot, unless it goes against his personal social views, which puts him right in line with the rest of their ilk.
Yep. Chant state's rights all you want, if you're going to take it all back when a state like California exercises their rights in a way you don't like, then you're nothing but a stinking hypocrite.
Re:You are so, so wrong (Score:5, Insightful)
I think you're dead-on about Romney. He's super rich. He has no idea what problems average Americans struggle with. He's tried his hand at the financial market, he's been a governor, so what now? A bored rich guy's gotta find a hobby. Why not be President? Ever notice how uncomfortable he looks when he has to hang around "normal" people? He has no clue how to relate to them. He doesn't understand why he has to do all this silly song-and-dance just to get a job he wants.
I've never gotten the impression he wants to be President because he truly cares about this country and its people. For all McCain's faults, I never doubted his motives--he clearly cares about this country, even if his actual policy ideas are no good. Romney just comes off as bored and aloof. Being President is just something for him to do, not something he's truly energized about or something he brings real policy ideas to.
He seems intent on spending his whole campaign attacking Obama rather than putting forth his own ideas. He has no vision.
Re:So what? (Score:4, Insightful)
Another FDA shill that can't distinguish between alternative medicine and quackery.
Because there is no distinction. Alternative medicine is quackery. If there was evidence and research to show that it was effective, it would be called MEDICINE.
I suspect someone licensed and practicing as a doctor for 30 years knows a bit more about it than you do.
If he's advocating alternative medicine? No, he doesn't.
Do you know the story of red yeast rice and the big pharma / FDA collusion to ban the cheap and natural stuff to create the most profitable drugs in history?
No, but I do know that none of this "alternative medicine" bullshit you're trying to peddle has absolutely no research backing it up. If it did, then you'd not only be able to show it, but it would be able to get approval. But instead, you draw the tinfoil hat too tight, and claim it's a conspiracy.
There's trillions of dollars at stake, and people that don't care if you live or die.
Yes. These people are called "alternative medicine practitioners.