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Because he dosent toe the current republican party line: Spend more then any other administration in history (backed by a republican congress) and export ideology via military force.Quote:
Originally Posted by JimBob
The fact that he dosent adhere to these new concepts of the republican party scares them.
Them meaning the rank and file of the party not Lemur, Ice or Sasaki.Quote:
Originally Posted by Odin
Cant edit posts yet so thought I would post a clarification of them
That's household income not individual income--the tax is on individuals.Quote:
Originally Posted by JimBob
Ron paul is way ahead of most of the republican candidates and most issues and ahead of many of the democratic candidates on some issues. War on drugs comes to mind. But his economic ideas are terrible (gold standard), he wouldn't intervene overseas even if there were very good reasons for it, and he cites the FDA, FEMA, and the department of energy as wasteful organizations that need to be cut.Quote:
Who but a madman could spout such nonsense?
comedy answer: even a broken watch is right twice a day
I absolutely love Ron Paul.
I support Romney, but if Romney was beaten by Ron Paul, I would be fine with that. They are my two top choices and have drastically different ideologies. Those are two routes that I think the U.S. should take and either way is fine by me.
:yes:Quote:
Originally Posted by Sasaki Kojiro
Also, while he's in principle pro-free trade, his all-or-nothing approach to it has led him to oppose virtually every free trade agreement that's come up for a vote. As president, with an increasingly protectionist Democrat congress he could do significant damage to both our economy and to our relationships with our allies.
Ron Paul, as he was summed up by the Club for Growth is:the Perfect as the Enemy of the Good. I'd say that's a decent assessment.
No, many of his policies are disastrous- plain and simple. I like much of his ideology, but when it comes to how he wants to put it into practice- he fails.Quote:
Originally Posted by Odin
Who cares?Quote:
Originally Posted by Sasaki Kojiro
The point is he is for a more open and free economy with lower taxes.
FOR THE LAST TIME, THE PRESIDENT IS NOT A LEGISLATOR. HE CANNOT REVERT US BACK TO THE GOLD STANDARD.
You are very being vague. What are these "good" reasons?Quote:
he wouldn't intervene overseas even if there were very good reasons for it,
I don't really know much about FEMA or the department of energy, but I'm not really a fan of the FDA. People should be able to take whatever they want, given a warning that it might not be throughly or accurately tested.Quote:
and he cites the FDA, FEMA, and the department of energy as wasteful organizations that need to be cut.
Besides a recent drug I was taking which was deemed "safe" by the FDA, wasn't really to safe to me after all. I had some unwritten side effects.
Sorry Saski, I don't really want a nanny state with high taxes and limited freedom.
Thanks for everybody's take on America's next president, Hillary Clinton.
Romney. I declare him unfit to govern a free country. I just read his speech about religious tolerance. There are some good thoughts and reminders about America's tradition of, and path to, religious tolerance in it. However, in his (just) cause to take away reservations about his faith, he forgets one thing: America was not only build on faith, but also on liberty of thought. What of those who are not religious?
I understand that every candidate must pay at least lip-service to America's overwhelmingly religious electorate. And I understand that Romney in particular needs to stress the universality of his faith. But even so, I can't help but be shocked by this speech.
Not the abolition of slavery, nor the civil rights movement, nor the Catholic president Kennedy, nor a female, Mormon, Afro- or Jewish American for president will be the ultimate sign of America fullfilling it's promise of liberty for all, but an atheist president, declaring America to not be one nation under God, but one nation under liberty and equality for all. One day, one day...
Romney's speech in full. Below are two excerpts. Some of which I liked, some of which I fiercely oppose.Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
What about them? I must've missed the part in his speech about compulsory religion for everyone. :shrug:Quote:
Originally Posted by Louis VI the Fat
Yes, but...who appoints people like the Secretary of the Treasury? He cannot do it himself. But he can put people in positions of power who agree with him. And Xiahou hit the nail on the head, his ideology is great but he would be a horrible president practically.Quote:
Who cares?
The point is he is for a more open and free economy with lower taxes.
FOR THE LAST TIME, THE PRESIDENT IS NOT A LEGISLATOR. HE CANNOT REVERT US BACK TO THE GOLD STANDARD.
?Quote:
I don't really know much about FEMA or the department of energy, but I'm not really a fan of the FDA. People should be able to take whatever they want, given a warning that it might not be throughly or accurately tested.
Besides a recent drug I was taking which was deemed "safe" by the FDA, wasn't really to safe to me after all. I had some unwritten side effects.
Sorry Saski, I don't really want a nanny state with high taxes and limited freedom.
Yes, the FDA puts out bad drugs sometimes, sometimes they're in the pockets of the people making the drugs. But if we get rid of them you wanna think about how many quacky useless harmful drugs are going to be on the market? There's a reason we have an FDA, before we had it people were dying because of tainted products. If the government keeps some greedy schmucks from selling me rat poison as Tylenol then I don't call that a nanny state, and I am more than willing to give up my right to tainted meat.
But that's just me.
Oops. Missed that little bit, the numbers you want are in the article.Quote:
That's household income not individual income--the tax is on individuals.
This is questionable. Congress did enact modifications to an existing act (originally focused on preventing trade with Germany during WW1) that greatly widened the scope of Presidential authority on matters economic.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ice
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
Roosevelt had been in office 5 days. He promptly prohibited the private ownership of gold save for jewelry and effectively (de facto, not de jure) removed us from the gold standard -- an action taken formally by Great Britain 2 years previously. Gold, previously valued at $20.67/ounce, was fixed at $35/ounce (deflating the value of the currency by 41%).
Thus an emergency AS DECLARED BY THE PRESIDENT is sufficient to allow for action by executive order.
President Nixon took this further by announcing that the USA would no longer trade currency for gold at the agreed $35/ounce of the era. Private ownership of gold was re-allowed, but since the treasury was no longer trading in gold per se, the currency rapidly became a "floating" currency (as were most major currencies even before this.
All of these efforts were accomplished without benefit of any legislation from Congress.
Should he become President of the USA, Ron Paul could declare that an economic crisis exists wherein US dollars, lacking inherent value, pose a damaging threat to the USA and then issue an executive order cancelling the previously promulgated executive orders regarding redemption of currency for gold and modifcations to its valuation, returning the USA to the gold standard as established by Congress in 1900 -- $20.67/troy ounce. New currency would have to be issued to reflect the correct amount of gold on reserve in the Federal system and what would happen to the current dollars is anyone's guess.
To "stop" Paul, Congress would have to pass specific laws voiding those efforts and maintaining things using the current system. They would also have to do so by a 2/3 majority vote to insure their ability to over-ride the inevitable veto.
...at least that's the way I read it.
I'm pretty sure that we can count on 2/3rds of the Congress to vote against returning to the gold standard. If Paul gets to crazy then the Congress will just impeach him anyways.
It's not good enough. Ron Paul is a loose cannon, and it is way too dangerous to have someone like him in the oval office.Quote:
Originally Posted by woad&fangs
I think folks are being more than a little unfair to the Paul. I watched an interview with him some months ago, and the journo was throwing all of these extreme positions at him, to which Paul basically responded, "That's where I'd ultimately like to go, but it's going to take a long time, and I wouldn't try to do anything too disruptive at once."
I can see that point. I just don't know, I hear "loose cannon," "loon" and "insane" being thrown around, and the man just doesn't seem to live up to the defamation.
Hillary update: "Maybe the Clintons aren't as smart as we thought they were?"
But lately Hillary careened off the high road, down the exit ramp and into the bowels of political pettiness. The Clinton campaign’s press release accusing Obama of stating his desire to be president in a kindergarten essay is one for the ages. Mark Penn, her pollster, went on television the following day to say it was just a joke but the damage had been done. The Clintons don’t joke.
Marc Ambinder has a fascinating piece in The Atlantic this month that reveals Team Clinton didn’t see Obama’s presidential bid coming. He reports that in 2006 they still only saw John Edwards as a potential rival, and the story shows they were right — Obama changed his mind to run this time, having always planned to look at the idea 10 years hence. This means the Clinton campaign knows Obama didn’t actually come to the Senate planning his presidential run — but that is beside the point. Ambinder found that Obama’s financial success and “rapturous” reception stunned HillaryLand and she was able to find her footing only after the first debate when her strong response to a question about a terrorist attack, and Obama’s weak one, made him look like a rookie.
I'm curious if anyone knows his record as a senator. I bet we would see a lot of sensible votes.Quote:
Originally Posted by rvg
It's tough to make progress towards any reform when he opposes incremental changes because they're not perfect.Quote:
Originally Posted by Lemur
Again from the Club for Growth:Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
Quote:
Summation
When it comes to limited government, there are few champions as steadfast and principled as Representative Ron Paul. In the House of Representatives, he plays a very useful role constantly challenging the status quo and reminding his colleagues, despite their frequent indifference, that our Constitution was meant to limit the power of government. On taxes, regulation, and political free speech his record is outstanding. While his recent pork votes are troubling, the vast majority of his anti-spending votes reflect a longstanding desire to cut government down to size.
But Ron Paul is a purist, too often at the cost of real accomplishments on free trade, school choice, entitlement reform, and tort reform. It is perfectly legitimate, and in fact vital, that think tanks, free-market groups, and individual members of congress develop and propose idealized solutions. But presidents have the responsibility of making progress, and often, Ron Paul opposes progress because, in his mind, the progress is not perfect. In these cases, although for very different reasons, Ron Paul is practically often aligned with the most left-wing Democrats, voting against important, albeit imperfect, pro-growth legislation.
Ron Paul is, undoubtedly, ideologically committed to pro-growth limited government policies. But his insistence on opposing all but the perfect means that under a Ron Paul presidency we might never get a chance to pursue the good too.
The gold standard is loony. :yes:Quote:
Originally Posted by Lemur
OTOH, he's still better than any Democrat candidate. :wink:
I wasn't arguing for or against Ron Paul with my post on Executive orders. I was merely countering a claim that, as President, he would not have the power to act on some of his preferences.
I actually like him a bit -- just not as a candidate for President.
Some of his supporters are loons -- but I could make that claim of a lot of our would-bes.
Of course Romney said nothing against atheists, but I'm pretty amused by his wriggling on the issue.Quote:
Originally Posted by Xiahou
A spokesman for the Mitt Romney campaign is thus far refusing to say whether Romney sees any positive role in America for atheists and other non-believers, after Election Central inquired about the topic yesterday
It's a sign that Romney may be seeking to submerge evangelical distaste for Mormonism by uniting the two groups together in a wider culture war. Romney's speech has come under some criticism, even from conservatives like David Brooks and Ramesh Ponnuru, for positively mentioning many prominent religions but failing to include anything positive about atheists and agnostics.
Indeed, the only mentions of non-believers were very much negative. "It is as if they're intent on establishing a new religion in America – the religion of secularism. They're wrong," Romney said, being met by applause from the audience.
:dizzy2: A new "religion" offends the Evangelicals and their Mormon hero. O NOs!!! Say it ain't so!!! :dizzy2:Quote:
Originally Posted by Lemur
:laugh4: :laugh4: :laugh4:
And here I was thinking that Hypocrisy and Scumminess wears a pantsuit. How wrong I was apparently:laugh4: :laugh4: :laugh4:
This is a prime example of why I dislike Romney.
Xiahou, what about bias in your articles?
Honestly, haven't we had enough of that little joke? The point has been made, can we move on?Quote:
Originally Posted by Marshal Murat
:bow:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Lemur
The American system has nothing to do with Atheists in a similar way that it has nothing to do with fascists. Incompatible concepts.
In order to accommodate either, a re-write of the foundations and wording of the entire system would be necessary.
I am agnostic, but I recognize that "God" and the concepts of the Judeo Christian ethic are the center of the laws of this country. All Religions with similar values based on a superlative are welcome, but anything that contradicts them will need a new system.
A New system may not be what most are looking for. Expect them to push back.
You can look at it in other ways too, it's arguable
I'm not quite sure how you arrive at that conclusion. The words "God," "Almighty" and "Lord" appear only obliquely in the founding documents. In the Constitution the Lord shows up thusly:Quote:
Originally Posted by TuffStuffMcGruff
Done in Convention by the Unanimous Consent of the States present the Seventeenth Day of September in the Year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and Eighty seven.
God, the Almighty and Jesus don't even get a mention.
In the Declaration of Independence God shows up, but only in a weird quasi-Rousseau kinda way:
... the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them ...
The fact of the matter is that our Founding Fathers were fresh from Europe's Wars of Religion, had Cromwell's puritan paradise fresh in their minds, and wanted nothing to do with creating any sort of Judeo-Christian anything.
The Founders were, by and large, Deists and Pantheists. The modern attempt to re-imagine them as a bunch of Christian fundamentalists is worrisome.
Could America have occurred without Christianity? No way. But it's much more pertinent to ask whether America could have happened without the Enlightenment.
-edit-
I guess no such discussion would be complete without dragging Jefferson into it. Here's what he had to say about the role of religion in the public life: "The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods, or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg." Rather different from what we hear today, no?
-edit of the edit-
Then there's the Treaty of Tripoli, signed in 1796, approved by then-President Adams, which has this bit of trivia:
As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion; as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquillity, of Mussulmen; and, as the said States never entered into any war, or act of hostility against any Mahometan nation, it is declared by the parties, that no pretext arising from religious opinions, shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries.
As the accompanying article states:
Official records show that after President John Adams sent the treaty to the Senate for ratification in May 1797, the entire treaty was read aloud on the Senate floor, including the famous words in Article 11, and copies were printed for every Senator. A committee considered the treaty and recommended ratification, and the treaty was ratified by a unanimous vote of all 23 Senators. It was the 339th time a recorded vote was taken in the Senate and only the third time a unanimous result was obtained. The treaty was reprinted in full in three newspapers, two in Philadelphia and one in New York City. There is no record of any public outcry or complaint in subsequent editions of the papers.
Make of that what you will.
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."
"And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor."
That sounds like a creator with a plan to me. Without those statements, all laws are hollow and arbitrary.
You can certainly read it that way, but the text is hardly going out of its way to put God at the center of the action. Do we hold these truths to be God-given? No. Do we hold these truths to be revelatory? No. We hold them to be self-evident.Quote:
Originally Posted by TuffStuffMcGruff
Compare our Constitution with other charters and documents of the time. It was standard practice to declare, as often as possible, how much God approved of this township or this state. Most such documents would have whole paragraphs extolling the Almighty and declaring that the signers were his favorite people. If anything, our Constitution is barren of the Divine by comparison.
It's true, God does get mentioned, but it's a stretch to take that and conclude that America was founded as a Judeo-Christian nation, especially when so many of the Founders contradict that sentiment.
Which is not to say that America cannot be remade into a Christian nation.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Lemur
It's Judeo-Christian ethical origin is a matter of reality, but is not stated within any text. The idea of God, or even a single God IS. In addition, the truths
are "self-evident" as endowed by the creator. If you leave the creator out of the foundation of the nation and the source of the rights that it protects, I believe that you would be misleading yourself. Those rights are not self-evident by any stretch of the imagination without a fancy superlative.
TuffStuff, our disagreement over the Declaration of Independence will have to stand, since there's no way to resolve a dispute over emphasis.
Do you have any response to the Treaty of Tripoli?
It was not stated in the constitution, so I agree that it was not founded on the Christian Religion. It is founded on the idea of a creator, which I believe was worded as a singular one. (That is my statement on the Treaty which, until you brought it up and I read it, I had never heard of in that context)
The ethical origin of the United State is clearly Judeo-Christian, I don't think you will argue with that. It also has its origins in enlightenment thought (which are largely based on Judeo-Christian morality as well). I think of the two as Father and Mother of the United States. To disregard one or the other would be un-realistic.
This is the first little disagreement that I have had without the contents devolving into personal insults (on either side). Thank you Lemur! Next time I disagree on something with you I will remain civil!
I agree to not hijack the thread to beat any more dead horses (the official sport of the backroom)
EDIT
http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/di...y/bar1796e.htm
In the translation from Arabic, count how many times "God" (47) and "American Christians" (10) are mentioned. Same treaty ratified by congress. Article 11 is strangely absent. How much authority do the words in it hold?
Either way, "The treaty of Tripoli remained on the books for eight years, at which time the treaty was renegotiated, and Article 11 was dropped."
Anyone who thinks Kucinich would not be the worst president America has ever had, that he's anything more than a scheming demogouge, that he's any better than a filthy panderer to bigots and rose to power on race baiting needs to read this article on the real history of Kucinich's truly disastrous mayorship, characterized by putting a twenty something with no experience in law enforcement, only blind loyalty to Kucinich in charge of the police.
http://www.clevescene.com/2007-12-05...e-king-of-spin
Crazed Rabbit
Your point being...? The general crime decrease in NY is clearly stronger than nationwide. LA is just one other city that's been more successful than average in reducing crime. Newark rather gives the impression that it didn't even have a police station until 1996, and besides with 275,000 people it's a village compared to NY or LA.Quote:
Originally Posted by Sasaki Kojiro