Quotes from Ron Paul's newsletter.

[General Brock]

That's it? That's the only argument against Ron Paul? He might be as racist as a lot of white Republican guys of his generation were? (And likely still are...)

Or he's into conspiracy theories that as far as a populist cared to look, have come true?

Mostly based on 20 year old newsletters?

Its still about the economy and whether or not he can fix it, when it comes down to it.

I may be out of my depth and out of touch but I's swear some of the Paul detractors are living in a different dimensional political morality context, like Shrub was competent or never happened and Obama really is the real thing.

[Alphawolf55]

And he can't fix the economy, not even close.

Unless getting rid of the EPA, getting rid of Capital Gains and Estate Tax and a whole slew of other programs is suppose to "fix" things.

[General Brock]

Well, can the other guys fix it?

Or is it so unfixable its come so that the old guy with the big monkey-wrench looks good?

Keeping in mind, what took more than one presidency to undermine will likely take more than one to restore.

A critical mass of folks are seeing end of the road, and its either straight off the edge or turn hard.

Worrying about what Paul may or may not have wrote 20 years ago when politicians can't be held to what they said and promised in the last election or even 5 minutes ago unless its to dig the hole deeper really makes no sense.

[Simon_Jester]

That's it? That's the only argument against Ron Paul? He might be as racist as a lot of white Republican guys of his generation were? (And likely still are...) Or he's into conspiracy theories that as far as a populist cared to look, have come true? Mostly based on 20 year old newsletters? Its still about the economy and whether or not he can fix it, when it comes down to it. I may be out of my depth and out of touch but I's swear some of the Paul detractors are living in a different dimensional political morality context, like Shrub was competent or never happened and Obama really is the real thing.

But that's a silly thing to make a big dramatic argument about, because everyone who's criticizing Ron Paul for racism is also criticizing him for other things. Like conspiracy theories, like disastrously stupid policy ideas, like having a long career of being a gadfly with little real responsibility, like having lost the plot politically so badly that his supporters' best argument is that he could not do the things he would like to do if elected.

The racism is just the icing on the cake.

(emphasis added)

So yeah. I already mentioned that.

Well, can the other guys fix it?

Or is it so unfixable its come so that the old guy with the big monkey-wrench looks good?

He wants to smash the wrong bits. We're in a car headed for the cliff and he thinks this is the time to disable the airbag.

Putting Ron Paul in charge is a terrible idea. If I may go hyperbolic, we'd do better to have something inert, a head of lettuce, in charge. Because a head of lettuce wouldn't go looking for essential safety mechanisms so it can break them in a time of disaster.

If Ron Paul wanted to smash Wall Street and start over I'd be more willing to go along. Because if we're going to smash the machine, we should smash the machine that's broken, not the one that isn't. The EPA and the Department of Education aren't broken, not that way. The financial sector is.

Worrying about what Paul may or may not have wrote 20 years ago when politicians can't be held to what they said and promised in the last election or even 5 minutes ago unless its to dig the hole deeper really makes no sense.

If Paul is a man of his word, he will do the terrible things he promises to do right now, or break his presidency trying. Which is a net loss for us- we'd be better off with that head of lettuce.

If Paul is not a man of his word, he's no better than any other damn liar we've had in office for the past forty years, and there's no reason to vote for him at all- and he still comes out looking worse than his competitors. Because where most of the damn liars are associating with financiers, he's associating with Ku Klux Klan apologists. That speaks poorly for his brains; at least all the other damn liars have the sense to whore themselves out to the highest bidder.

[Darth Wong]

Well, can the other guys fix it?

Or is it so unfixable its come so that the old guy with the big monkey-wrench looks good?

Keeping in mind, what took more than one presidency to undermine will likely take more than one to restore.

Precisely; you cannot undo decades of military-industrial rot and plutocracy with a massive overnight change. Such a change would only cause chaos and suffering (especially when that change actually enhances the plutocracy by giving rich people free reign to run things as they please).

A critical mass of folks are seeing end of the road, and its either straight off the edge or turn hard.

Worrying about what Paul may or may not have wrote 20 years ago when politicians can't be held to what they said and promised in the last election or even 5 minutes ago unless its to dig the hole deeper really makes no sense.

It's not irrelevant, because of the way he's responded. He is denying responsibility for something he signed his name to for a decade. How the fuck can anyone elect a president who thinks he can't be held responsible for the things he signs? If he's telling the truth, he's a huge idiot who doesn't understand the first thing about law or the meaning of his signature. If he's lying, then he's a wild-eyed crazy conspiracy theory racist nutjob who's just pretending to be a genial nice old man. Either way, it's a valid concern.

And by the way, you're lying when you say that this is the only criticism people can come up with for Ron Paul. This is just one of the many criticisms which people can come up with for this nutjob and his idiot followers.

[Darth Wong]

You don't need to say completely insane things like how you'd be perfectly fine with voting for a Nazi.

One with whom I agree on matters of policy. That's what matters. It's like the ad hominem fallacy - just because an asshole is saying something doesn't mean he's wrong, doubly so when there's a system of checks and balances on it. (Unless the system itself is racist, as is evidentally the case with the criminal justice system, which is why it needs some work.)

It's not an ad-hominem fallacy to question a person who is promoting himself as a leader, you stupid asshole. We're not talking about a debate where the debaters are irrelevant to the subject. In this case, one of the debaters is the subject. He is saying "I am asking you to entrust me with power for the next four years, based on the promises I'm making, which are in turn based upon my personal credibility".

[Darth Wong]

Learn how to read, you worthless piece of shit. I didn't say it is a fallacy.

Yeah, you just said it's "like" an ad-hominem fallacy, except that it's not. At all. You're a fucking imbecile.

[Alphawolf55]

Well, can the other guys fix it?

Or is it so unfixable its come so that the old guy with the big monkey-wrench looks good?

Keeping in mind, what took more than one presidency to undermine will likely take more than one to restore.

A critical mass of folks are seeing end of the road, and its either straight off the edge or turn hard.

Worrying about what Paul may or may not have wrote 20 years ago when politicians can't be held to what they said and promised in the last election or even 5 minutes ago unless its to dig the hole deeper really makes no sense.

Fix it outright? No Get us in a closer direction? Yes. Also I'm not worrying about what Paul said 20 years ago, I'm worrying about what Paul says now and nothing he talks about will help the economy at all.

He's not proposing ways to drastically decrease the cost of health care, he's not proposing trillions of dollars of infrastructure spending that needs to be done, he's not talking about using ultra low Treasury note rates to help lower debt burden on the lower and middle class, he's not proposing massive retraining programs. he's not proposing massive energy and mass transit funding to get us off oil and he's not proposing larger taxes on capital gains and high incomes to help pay for this stuff.

[bobalot]

I like how people claim that the racist newsletters he happily sold under his name for a decade is the only criticism of Ron Paul (Even more disturbing is how they downplay such assholedom anyway).

Let me sum up what Ron Paul believes (or says):

Ron Paul:

• does not believe the First Amendment applies to states, and that they should be able to discriminate based on sexual preference, gender, race or religion if the local populace agrees
• does not believe in church-state separation
• claims he would not let his religious beliefs influence his public policy. But he has twice introduced "The Sanctity of Life Act" which federalizes abortion as murder and says, "life begins at conception" which is clearly based on his evangelical christian ideology.
• rejects the theory of evolution as being valid.
• also does not accept global climate change.
• wants to get rid of the EPA. There would be no federal oversight of pollution and environmental protection.
• wants to sell off National Parks, Wildlife refuges, National Forests, Nature preserves, etc. The Grand Canyon would be privately owned.
• wants to get rid of the Dept of Education. No more student loans or grants. No improved educational opportunities for non-rich people. No standards for equal-educational-access enforced. No national educational standards set.
• wants to get rid of the Dept of Agriculture. No more national standards for food safety or regulation of pesticides. RP claims the DOA is "unconstitutional."
• does not support the Civil Rights Act
• defines life as starting at conception
• wants to abolish FEMA
• deny federal funding to any org "which presents male or female homosexuality as an acceptable alternative life style or which suggest that it can be an acceptable life style" (Note: He specifically targets homosexuals here, denying federal funding to others is not mentioned)
• hired former head of anti-Gay Group to be Iowa State Director of the campaign
• was the sole vote against divesting US Gov investments in corporations doing business with the genocidal regime of Sudan
• was also the ONLY vote against a ban on Lead in childrens' toys.
• believes that the Left is waging a "war" on religion and Christmas
• believes that the Panama Canal should be the property of the United States
• believes that the International Baccalaureate program is UN indoctrination program.
• introduced a bill that would stop the Federal Government from removing tax-exempt status for segregated schools
• claimed on a religious radio station that he actually saw evil abortion doctors yank a fully developed and functional baby out of a woman and throw it away to die. When pressed for more details by the religious host, he couldn't actually provide any.
• in New World Order conspiracy theories

That list does not include his insane economic policies which including abolishing the central Bank, going back to the gold standard, withdrawing from the WTO, allowing multiple currencies, massive deregulation of the economy, removal of safety nets, etc.

[General Brock]

....

It's not irrelevant, because of the way he's responded. He is denying responsibility for something he signed his name to for a decade. How the fuck can anyone elect a president who thinks he can't be held responsible for the things he signs? If he's telling the truth, he's a huge idiot who doesn't understand the first thing about law or the meaning of his signature. If he's lying, then he's a wild-eyed crazy conspiracy theory racist nutjob who's just pretending to be a genial nice old man. Either way, it's a valid concern.

And by the way, you're lying when you say that this is the only criticism people can come up with for Ron Paul. This is just one of the many criticisms which people can come up with for this nutjob and his idiot followers.

I did not intend to lie outright, and those statements were posed as questions as they seemed more to exploit the emotions of race than address racism. Since that is a rhetorical deception, while milder than the boldfaced lie, it is still a form of lying. I apologize and recognize and will adhere to the higher standard implied as best I can, trying to be more precise in the future.

I've read a summary of Paul's responses to the racist newsletter from here:

http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Elections/ ... 8page%29/2

As well, working through some of the letters and responses.

It appears Ron Paul both accepted and rejected responsibility in classic politicianspeak. He's a Republican politician from an era when racist opinions were more broadly and openly held. I never expected any better and am willing to give him the benefit of the doubt that he's not able or willing to roll back decades of civil rights advances, but rather try and restore them for everybody which by default would include non-whites regardless of how he regards them personally.

After a certain point, the enlightened morality sometimes dismissed as 'political correctness' can't be used as a shroud to cover some very anti-humanitarian activities that look rather racist.

Ron Paul's main point is that he would end the wars. Which one can't help but notice, are being waged against brown people. The snare drum has rattled against the yellow people as well, whether against China's rising power or to exploit North Korea's ongoing implosion in the name of human rights. One wonders how much of America's, and Britain and France's, aggressive activities on the African continent are ultimately directed at keeping black countries down as perpetual sources of cheap raw materials for the developed world.

Can't really call racism, as that is realpolitik as usual, but can't deny its absence either.

That this is signed off on by a black man in the White House really makes no difference to me, since that man also promised to end the wars and lied, then signed questionable documents he did not author, and possibly did not even truly read , far more powerful than any newsletter, into law.

Sure, I'm a nutjob. An informed one. Or misinformed, depending on you point of view. Race is just one more neocon tool of division, a real threat as a feint can be a threat but not as great as the main attack.

[General Brock]

Snip

These would be very, very serious issues indeed if America were at peace with a thriving economy and strong and prospering middle class.

America is not in such a condition.

So far, you're describing a hypothetical situation in which Ron Paul ends decades of civil rights legislation and programs all by himself.

That's simply not possible. At best he might dismantle the make-work program that is the TSA.

You're ignoring the damage caused by the present course, which pretty much no-one but Ron Paul appears to be effectively opposing with an off-chance of success.

That's not rational.

Its like you haven't noticed, things have fallen through the bottom of the barrel. And you're worried about what would happen to the walls of a rotting barrel if Paul got in.

Just so happens Ron Paul is all there is down there trying to not dig everyone in deeper. I'm not convinced the luxury of quibbling over whether he should be tunneling back up from the right or left is really that important under the circumstances.

[bobalot]

So allowing States to discriminate against minorities (such as homosexuals) or insert religion into the state, massive regulation, abolishing safety nets, abolishing FEMA* and things like federal spending on scientific research (all of which have significant Republican support) is "not digging deeper"?

Your argument for supporting Ron Paul can be summarised as:

"Vote for Ron Paul! He's going to single handily save America from destruction! But...... he won't ever have the power to implement his more insane ideas!

* As President, he would have the power to significantly weaken Federal organisations/departments.

[General Brock]

Fix it outright? No Get us in a closer direction? Yes. Also I'm not worrying about what Paul said 20 years ago, I'm worrying about what Paul says now and nothing he talks about will help the economy at all.

He's not proposing ways to drastically decrease the cost of health care, he's not proposing trillions of dollars of infrastructure spending that needs to be done, he's not talking about using ultra low Treasury note rates to help lower debt burden on the lower and middle class, he's not proposing massive retraining programs. he's not proposing massive energy and mass transit funding to get us off oil and he's not proposing larger taxes on capital gains and high incomes to help pay for this stuff.

Ron Paul's main theme is ending the wars. He does not intend to reduce real military capability, just reduce expending and expanding the military-intelligence complex, as far as I can tell. That right there frees up a lot of cash for social programs. However, its possible that wouldn't be enough in the long term. Right now, the more likely outcome is that social programs get sacrificed to keep the war machine going anyway. Worrying what Ron Paul might do to them is perhaps pointless; he probably won't get in and money has got to come from somewhere to pay for those wars.

There is no way to assess the costs of health care or any other important program without the political will to end the corruption that causes money to be misdirected into either the bureaucracy or corporate profits, instead of real people in need and practicioners and programs that objectively work and are useful.

While the desire for the perfect reboot-the-nation angel candidate is understandable, its possible it may take the system a few years to level up to producing one, let alone the many needed, and then only if the political environment changes enough to permit progressively better human beings to become real contenders for the highest office. If that sounds a bit like an idealistic invitation to laugh, the joke is on anyone who's laughing but not already living in a mansion well-shielded with wealth and luxury not to have to work for a living.

Paul is not a fresh start on the journey to change, just possibly the only starting point left to finding the paths that will work, or even if there are any.

[UnderAGreySky]

Snip

These would be very, very serious issues indeed if America were at peace with a thriving economy and strong and prospering middle class.

You mean dismantling the EPA, letting 50-year-old coal-fired power plants spew tonnes of mercury into the air or letting industries dump all their toxic wastes into rivers and affecting the lives of millions of people is NOT a serious issue when the economy is not doing well?

You're ignoring the damage caused by the present course, which pretty much no-one but Ron Paul appears to be effectively opposing with an off-chance of success.

WHAT damage? Paultards seem to have only the 'civil liberties' defence, and that one is a sham since the states will still have rights over what they can do and what not. Paul is a confederate, not a Lolbertarian.

Ron Paul's main theme is ending the wars. He does not intend to reduce real military capability, just reduce expending and expanding the military-intelligence complex, as far as I can tell. That right there frees up a lot of cash for social programs. However, its possible that wouldn't be enough in the long term. Right now, the more likely outcome is that social programs get sacrificed to keep the war machine going anyway. Worrying what Ron Paul might do to them is perhaps pointless; he probably won't get in and money has got to come from somewhere to pay for those wars.

Oh good, lets cut the military and fund the programs which.... he wants eliminated too.

So, to recap, Ron Paul will do ALL THESE WONDERFUL THINGS and he WON'T BE ALLOWED TO DO ALL THESE HORRIBLE THINGS.

Yeah, right. Remember the NDAA passed with 90% of the vote. Even his veto as president not have been enough.

[General Brock]

So allowing States to discriminate against minorities (such as homosexuals) or insert religion into the state, massive regulation, abolishing safety nets, abolishing FEMA* and things like federal spending on scientific research (all of which have significant Republican support) is "not digging deeper"?

Your argument for supporting Ron Paul can be summarised as:

"Vote for Ron Paul! He's going to single handily save America from destruction! But...... he won't ever have the power to implement his more insane ideas!

* As President, he would have the power to significantly weaken Federal organisations/departments.

One of the basic tenets of imperialist theory, is that what happens to the periphery of empire comes back to the core eventually. Eventually can happen awfully fast, and the theory is fairly reliable.

So, if you're going to make ridiculous stuff up for a future history, so will I.

Given that the secular Arab states on the edges of the American Empire have been overthrown and replaced with psuedo democracies those supporting sharia law, I really don't see what your point is.

You've got the pseudo democracy under the present leadership chain, the crescent replaced with a cross. I call it a fake democracy, since if a nation votes in a president on the promise to bring peace, but then breaks it and wages more war, that's not particularly authentic democracy.

There is strong christian elitism which would almost certainly want the conceit of a "christian states of America" that would do pretty much as you describe Paul as wanting to do, removing secular institutions and freedoms and human rights that didn't square with the bible. If the economy collapses hard enough, those institutions and freedoms are burnt toast anyway, leaving only organized churches as the largest cohesive social bodies capable of some kind of governance.

At worst, Paul would allow individual states that voted to live that way to do so. However, you can't have small libertarian government AND an oppressive totalitarian state. The national government needs to be big enough to do the oppressing, not just militarily capable of occupation.

So, this means states that accept secular institutions and modern human rights would also be allowed to do so. Secularism or theocracy could not be a 'national' thing by default.

My argument for supporting Ron Paul is, nobody can singlehandedly save America from destruction, nobody can singlehandedly destroy America, but the gaggle of goons presently in charge can and is destroying America. Judging from their nation building efforts elsewhere, that's hardly a surprise.. Only Ron Paul opposes that with policies to yank the rug out from under them, allowing the journey down the long road to recovery of the republic to at least begin.

Whose set of insane ideas needs shutting down right now; the neocons or Pauls?

[General Brock]

....

If Paul is not a man of his word, he's no better than any other damn liar we've had in office for the past forty years, and there's no reason to vote for him at all- and he still comes out looking worse than his competitors. Because where most of the damn liars are associating with financiers, he's associating with Ku Klux Klan apologists. That speaks poorly for his brains; at least all the other damn liars have the sense to whore themselves out to the highest bidder.

It would be a mistake to think financiers can't be racists, and more effective than the KKK. Any visible minority, and that includes white people in a minority situation, can't help but notice it can be a bit of a minefield as to who's racist and who's not and who's willing to act on it.

Part of the backstory of the Libyan war was thought by some activists to be an overall interest Western nations have in keeping black Africa underdeveloped providers of cheap raw resources, not modernized and industrialized, in addition to preventing China from trading industrialization for resources. The race component may be difficult to separate from the realpolitik, but its there and in the polite circles where overt racism is rare in documented crude expression.

The neocon wars Paul wants to stop are being waged against brown people. Its reasonable to assume he would be consistent in respecting human rights at home as well as abroad. Playing the race card against Paul makes less sense than nitpicking his other stands on government agencies and the like. Those agencies and programs would not survive a prolonged financial crisis that sapped them of the ability to function at all, especially if it were a choice between them and the war machine.

Time to take a break. Its taken ten minutes to write ten words... Suffice it to say, much of the scare-mongering about what Paul would do, is largely being done or likely to be done anyway. That the anti-Paul side can do it more politely and shrewdly doesn't mean very much.

[MKSheppard]

Those agencies and programs would not survive a prolonged financial crisis that sapped them of the ability to function at all, especially if it were a choice between them and the war machine.

WAR MACHINE.

The United States now has 7,494 drones and 10,767 manned aircraft.

Those 7,400~ drones were obtained on $3.3 billion a year in drone spending in the most recent FY.

Drones are to the US of the 2010s what ATOMIC BOMBS were to the US of the 1950s.

A cost effective and cheap way of fighting wars without ruining the national budget.

There's no need to invade Pakistan to kill the leader of the Pakistan Taliban, when a Reaper can drop a Hellfire onto his position.

Likewise, there's no need to send people into Somalia or Yemen, when a drone can kill targets in those countries like Anwar al-Awlaki.

[LaCroix]

Whose set of insane ideas needs shutting down right now; the neocons or Pauls?

Where's the difference? But if hard pressed, I'd say most neocons (except for some extreme nutjobs) would be better than or equal to Paul, he's going much FURTHER with his fantasies than any of those would dare.

Also, while he is SAYING to end wars (a man with a known history to lie to the public), where is the proof he can or would? You always claim that he would be unable to do his worst, why are you adamant insisting that he could do the ONLY MODERATELY GOOD POINT OF HIS AGENDA (Because these wars are already almost over).

This also makes it 1 of 5 or so - which means he is 80% outright dangerous, and 20% moderately helpful. This makes him the sane choice? He is promoting to end wars (which will, if he actually succeeds, reduce annual deaths by a few thousands per year), and wants to deregulate stuff (which the neocons are waiting for years to finally get rid of, so he probably will manage) which will result in millions suffering and dying.

From my point of view, he will probably be stopped to do anything good, while all his insane ideas will be carried out. That makes him the most dangerous candidate for the US and the world, both.

[mr friendly guy]

First let me say I don't know anything about 'H.L. Mencken' and I don't want to get sucked into some big discussion. I just want to say that Bakustra's point here is basically coherent, despite being obscured by a 'literati' writing style and resulting in a wrong conclusion.

As I see it, Bakustra is saying that if people assert that 'racism is bad' too strongly, then that idea is easily corrupted into the idea that 'only bad people are racists'. So asserting that racism is bad can, in fact, help enable racism in the long term. This makes sense to me, and it's apparent when seemingly normal people say sentences of the form 'I'm not [bigoted] but [bigoted statement]'.

The key problem here is that Bakustra seems to think the solution is to somehow teach or train people to not assert that racism is bad in the first place. This has caused others to say that this helps enable racism anyway, because it makes it difficult to discuss or rebuke. This has caused Bakustra to reiterate the point, causing others to repeat themselves, etc.

My view is that the best solution is to break the 'corruption' link. The problem is fundamentally caused by people being foolish, so it's best solved by making them not foolish. People simply need to know that saying 'X is bad' does *not* imply that 'only bad people are X'. This would ideally be accompanied by simple examples. It would then be 'safe' to strongly assert that racism is bad without creating the social effect that Bakustra seems to be worried about.

Nice venn diagram.

Therefore people can be racists (which is bad) without doing all the other bad stuff that leads to saying someone saying - I am not bad (because you don't do all the non racist bad stuff) therefore I am not a racist. Sounds like a use of equivocation to me, and the problem is simply that people are stupid. But then no one ever said racists were smart.

[MKSheppard]

Maybe we should do unto other countries what we would have them do unto us

Linky

In a call to her Pakistani counterpart this month, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton reiterated the Obama administration’s counterterrorism “red line”: The United States reserved the right to attack anyone who it determined posed a direct threat to U.S. national security, anywhere in the world.

Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar responded in kind, telling Clinton that Pakistan’s red line was the violation of its sovereignty. Any unauthorized flight into its airspace, Khar bluntly told Clinton, risked being shot down.

As if we're going to listen to a country that let OBL stay several hundred feet from one of their top military academies for years.

[Alphawolf55]

Fix it outright? No Get us in a closer direction? Yes. Also I'm not worrying about what Paul said 20 years ago, I'm worrying about what Paul says now and nothing he talks about will help the economy at all.

He's not proposing ways to drastically decrease the cost of health care, he's not proposing trillions of dollars of infrastructure spending that needs to be done, he's not talking about using ultra low Treasury note rates to help lower debt burden on the lower and middle class, he's not proposing massive retraining programs. he's not proposing massive energy and mass transit funding to get us off oil and he's not proposing larger taxes on capital gains and high incomes to help pay for this stuff.

Ron Paul's main theme is ending the wars. He does not intend to reduce real military capability, just reduce expending and expanding the military-intelligence complex, as far as I can tell. That right there frees up a lot of cash for social programs. However, its possible that wouldn't be enough in the long term. Right now, the more likely outcome is that social programs get sacrificed to keep the war machine going anyway. Worrying what Ron Paul might do to them is perhaps pointless; he probably won't get in and money has got to come from somewhere to pay for those wars.

There is no way to assess the costs of health care or any other important program without the political will to end the corruption that causes money to be misdirected into either the bureaucracy or corporate profits, instead of real people in need and practicioners and programs that objectively work and are useful.

While the desire for the perfect reboot-the-nation angel candidate is understandable, its possible it may take the system a few years to level up to producing one, let alone the many needed, and then only if the political environment changes enough to permit progressively better human beings to become real contenders for the highest office. If that sounds a bit like an idealistic invitation to laugh, the joke is on anyone who's laughing but not already living in a mansion well-shielded with wealth and luxury not to have to work for a living.

Paul is not a fresh start on the journey to change, just possibly the only starting point left to finding the paths that will work, or even if there are any.

Except my problem with Paul isn't that he won't outright work to improve those things, he'll set us back 50 years on those things. Obama at least inches us closer to the goals we need to achieve, Ron Paul decides they're not important and destroys the way.

[LaCroix]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7v8qtZ3I5AM

Maybe we should do unto other countries what we would have them do unto us

BOOOOOOOOO BOOOOOOO BOOOOOOOOO

So much for he's going to end the wars. Nobody would let him... The whole GOP lives on perpetuating the boogeyman.

[Flagg]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7v8qtZ3I5AM

Maybe we should do unto other countries what we would have them do unto us

BOOOOOOOOO BOOOOOOO BOOOOOOOOO

So much for he's going to end the wars. Nobody would let him... The whole GOP lives on perpetuating the boogeyman.

You're an idiot. He could end them on a whim, he'd be Commander in Chief of the armed forces.

[UnderAGreySky]

Here's a scenario:

- Ron Paul says "End the drug war". 90 senators and 400 Congressmen pass a bill that says "LOL Marijuana Evil. Lock people up."
- Ron Paul vetoes it.
- Congress overrides veto

- Ron Paul says "No more NDAA". 90 senators and 400 Congressmen pass a bill that says "LOL NDAA good. Lock people up."
- Ron Paul vetoes it.
- Congress overrides veto

ad nauseum

So, Ron Paul tries to do a bunch of crazy stuff that I'm assured will never get through Congress. But what if all the stuff he tries to do is overruled by Congress? I think it's fair to say more than two thirds of each chamber does not share his views. So at what point does his presidency become a joke? A: At the very beginning.

In a Paul presidency, I see the worst things happening: All the good he wants to do his either vetoed or carried on at the state level, all the bad stuff he wants to do is enthusiastically backed by Republicans. Perfect shitstorm.

Oh, not to mention all those people that will die when the second Great Depression happens thanks to Ron Paul's firing of all Fed board members. The president can fire them without congress' approval and is not obligated to appoint replacements.

At least with the Democrats you get a more robust EPA, a Consumer Protection Bureau, LGBT people have a better chance of getting treated on par with other humans and a dead bin Laden.

So, well, no thanks.

[General Brock]

Those agencies and programs would not survive a prolonged financial crisis that sapped them of the ability to function at all, especially if it were a choice between them and the war machine.

WAR MACHINE.

The United States now has 7,494 drones and 10,767 manned aircraft.

Those 7,400~ drones were obtained on $3.3 billion a year in drone spending in the most recent FY.

Drones are to the US of the 2010s what ATOMIC BOMBS were to the US of the 1950s.

A cost effective and cheap way of fighting wars without ruining the national budget.

There's no need to invade Pakistan to kill the leader of the Pakistan Taliban, when a Reaper can drop a Hellfire onto his position.

Likewise, there's no need to send people into Somalia or Yemen, when a drone can kill targets in those countries like Anwar al-Awlaki.

Yet, American marines have been sent into Uganda to kill or capture some Ugandan warlord named Joseph Kony.

I'm happy fewer soldier's lives are put at risk, since war will happen, disgusted at the dehumanization of warfare even further than it already has been, since not all wars and the lives lost are necessary losses, saddened by the loss of jobs or devaluation of them replacement by machine usually implies, deeply skeptical that any machine can replace a trained soldier or team of them on station at the actual field of operations, and a few other things. All at once.

Add to that, this is the dawn of the drone warfare era. The jury from the field has yet to return a final verdict. Guided missiles were supposed to be cheap, but escalated in cost the more sophisticated they had to be to overcome countermeasures. Even if the individual units are eventually cheap, the R&D , maintenance and support costs may not be.

Saying war isn't a video game and should not be conducted so, sounds as trite as saying crossbow bolts are a dishonourable cowards weapon.

Making any product or service cheaper and easier to access usually expands demand to the point where the best way to save is still, not to spend at all. Although now that the drone genie has been uncorked, another mandatory lane in the arms race has been opened.

There is also this:

Wall Street Daily - http://www.wallstreetdaily.com -

Critics Raise Alarm Over U.S. Police Drones

Posted By Wall Street Daily Research On January 16, 2012 @ 12:05 pm In Tech & Innovation,videos | No Comments



One hundred and twenty meters above the ground, an unmanned drone uses its heat-seeking camera to help a policeman track down a suspect. A pilot on the ground is using a laptop and joystick to fly the drone by remote control. He directs his colleague in the search.

The live video signal is coming from an aircraft called a Shadow Hawk, which Deputy Chief, Randy McDaniel of the Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office, says will be a powerful tool for all kinds of police work.

McDaniel comments on the uses of the technology, saying:

“As a law enforcement agency, not only do we have to deal with criminal activities, we also have to go hunt for the missing child, the Alzheimer’s patient that has wandered off and, again, we can take this drone and launch it and give us a greater capacity to be able to find those individuals.”

Equipped with powerful cameras, GPS and transmitting technology, the UAV can quietly hover 200 meters over a location, while sending its operators real-time video of the scene.

McDaniel says the more they know about a crime scene ahead of time, the safer his officers will be, further elaborating:

“The purpose of having the bird in the first place is to be able to protect my SWAT team. That is what it’s all about, we’re not about getting our SWAT team members hurt and if I have some technology that I can utilize to provide for greater safety for them – we’re going to use it.”

Dotty Griffith, of the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas, says, “This is boys with their toys gone wild.”

Griffith isn’t a fan of the drone. She says that apart from legitimate police work, it could also be used to spy on innocent citizens. Griffith has “concerns that technology is moving at a faster rate than our laws. And we think this technology gives police a lot of leeway for fishing expeditions, warrant-less surveillance, and that there are just no checks and balances on the system at this point.”

But McDaniel discounts the argument, saying the drone will only be used in mission-specific situations. He says in response to criticisms:

“Yes, we can read a license plate from 400 feet in the air. Does that help us? Absolutely. It helps us identify suspects and the vehicles that they are in because we may not have someone close enough to come in and apprehend the suspect.”

Police departments in both Miami and Houston have been working with the Federal Aviation Administration to get clearance for drone flights. Police forces in the U.K. have been using drone technology for surveillance operations since early last year. McDaniel says American cities will inevitably follow suit.

Article printed from Wall Street Daily: http://www.wallstreetdaily.com

URL to article: http://www.wallstreetdaily.com/2012/01/ ... al-drones/

URLs in this post:

[1] Pigeon-Powered Drones Taking Flight: http://www.wallstreetdaily.com/2011/12/ ... ed-drones/

[2] Police Confront Occupy Oakland With Tear Gas: http://www.wallstreetdaily.com/2011/11/ ... -tear-gas/

[3] Hummingbird Robot the Future of High-Tech Spying: http://www.wallstreetdaily.com/2011/01/ ... ch-spying/

[4] Occupy LA Activists Evicted By Police: http://www.wallstreetdaily.com/2011/11/ ... by-police/

[5] Taking Flight: Bats, Birds and My Favorite Defense Stock: http://www.wallstreetdaily.com/2012/01/ ... nse-stock/

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Now, SWAT occasionally make fatal errors on innocent civilians, and they're right there on the ground. Ordinary cops make errors breaching the privacy of citizens. Any number of people, including criminals, could begin to acquire and make use of trickle-down drone tech.

This really expands the boundaries of things that can go wrong and amplify things that already are.

Its too bad Ron Paul really isn't a contender.