Well, as long as we're on the subject:

Ron Paul's World (Opinion)

The guy places private property rights above civil rights. Nice.

Look at this one too, such a blatant smear campaign!

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1211/70674.html

And these are the people who want to “spread democracy” around the world.

“People are going to look at who comes in second and who comes in third,” Governor Terry Branstad told Politico. “If [Mitt] Romney comes in a strong second, it definitely helps him going into New Hampshire and the other states.”

Has Ron Paul broken any rules? Has he cheated? No one even pretends he has. Yet his victory, which the Establishment now seems to expect, is still suspect.

How dare he not want to stampede the country into another war promoted by the same propagandists who gave us the Iraq fiasco!

How dare he think prison rape might not be the most humane solution for someone struggling with drugs! (And of course, if these people cared about the Constitution as much as they pretend to, they would agree with Ron Paul that drugs aren’t a federal issue in the first place.)

How dare he dissent from the (Republican and Democratic) Establishment, which has wrecked the economy, saddled us with unpayable debt, and given us a fiasco of a foreign policy that has made Americans more hated and isolated than ever before!

So here’s the message: the candidate the elites least want you to vote for is Ron Paul. The newspapers, the cable news people, the politicos. They are dying for you to support Romney, Gingrich, Perry, Bachmann — anyone but Paul. That is another great reason to support him.

He places private property rights above the civil rights ACT. You can't seriously think the reason whites get along with blacks now is because some dude in the 60s wrote some dumb law. Is that what liberals are like?

Instead of regurgitating the soundbites that your nanny-staters feed you through their controlled NYT outlets, why don't you read the reason why Ron Paul would have opposed the Civil Rights ACT.

http://www.ronpaul.com/on-the-issues/civil-rights-act/

Then theres a book by Thomas Sowell which I suggest you read: It shows amongst other things that race relations were improving before the legislation, and that the legislation actually slowed down the trend. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/068806269...ASIN=0688062695

I suggest you do a little research before you spout misinformation. Just sayin

Ps: paddyirl and the RP supporters knew the smear was coming:

Regardless of whether what you say has merit or not, the hotheadedness of your posts works against you. It's why in your Ayn Rand/self-interest/private property rights/anti-Fed/free-market economy thread I said that you are immature (and naive).

Ron Paul is wrong that the Civil Rights Act of 1964 did not improve race relations or enhance freedom. His statement that "Relations between the races have improved despite, not because of, the 1964 Civil Rights Act" is highly questionable.
He is also wrong that the federal government has no legitimate authority to infringe on the rights of private property owners to use their property as they please.

All you've done on both threads is call me naive, immature, rubbish, hotheaded and wrong on everything. No reasons or facts to back it up but thats how liberals work. I guess it hurts when the deeply indoctrinated left-wing worldview is challenged with facts.

The federal gov't only has the powers that the people gave it in the constitution. Nowhere in the constitution does it say the federal gov't has the right to tell private business owners how many blacks they have to hire.

Rosa Parks did more to improve the relations by her acts of civil disobediance than the washington do-gooders who claim credit for everything.

I'm sure the African-Americans who live in my neck of the woods appreciate you speaking for them.

Do we always have to wait for a Rosa Parks to show up before people can have their rights?

Is it true that Ron Paul favors that the government should have bought and released the slaves (thereby giving legitimacy to "owning" another human being)? Nice.

Unfortunately yes, you need people to stand up because government will just keep on trampling on your rights bit by bit. Government is great at slowly taking away your rights via Patriot act, new NDAA, DHS etc.. People just blindly it until it reaches a tipping point and someone like Rosa Parks or Ron Paul comes up to fight to get their rights back.

You're eventually going to get me banned Parsifal . You think 600k dead in a dumb war is much better than freeing the slaves a peaceful way?! Ron Paul is saying it would have been better solution to buy them back like British empire did than a war where 600k died. He is not supporting legitimising owning humans, that is incompatitble with constitutionalist view.

Paul's "solution" seems a bit short-sighted and naive unless there is further explanation. If the federal government had purchased these human beings and then set them free what would have prevented the plantation owners from using that money to purchase new slaves to work on the plantations (which they viewed as economical labor). If the federal government then passed a law prohibiting the "ownership" of slaves henceforth would that then have created the very situation that led to the Civil War in the first place? Explanation please. In any case, the government purchasing human lives and then setting them free before outlawing the ownership of human lives seems a bit perverse.

The whole libertarian emphasis on "ownership" is rather small and leads more to bondage than freedom. I find it to be misguided. Society is small-minded and selfish enough as it is. We don't have to make it more so.

Paul's intellect and "solutions" do not impress me. It sounds like as president he would leade the nation into an even bigger hole than it's already in.

I suppose a fair analogy would be this:

Since advanced societies view slave ownership as repulsive it is something that should never have been done in the first place.

So how about illegal drugs (heroin, cocaine, etc.)? At present, when the government intercepts an illegal drug shipment crossing its borders or encounters a cache within its borders it confiscates those drugs. Is Paul's position that the government should be purchasing those drugs from the drug barons (instead of confiscating their property) before arresting them? Explanation please.

If suggesting a solution to avoid having a war where 600k people die is naive then i'm naive too. Yes, war could still have happened, but it would have been less likely to lead to war because atleast the slaveowners got compensated for their property. People are naturally selfish, no big government dictate can change that.
No free person would sell themselves voluntarily to a slave owner to become a slave. Remember libertarian system would still have government to protect you from force from others.

To me ron paul has real sensible solutions: balancing the budget, raising interest rates, closing down hundreds of military bases abroad, ending the wars, not starting a war with iran/syria, not giving government patriot act/ndaa power to arrest without charge/trial by jury, ending drug war, ending federal dept of energy/education, getting government out of marriage.

The extreme position is the status quo: having a 15trn debt with 1.4trn deficit and 50+trn unfunded liabilities, unfunded social security, wars everywhere, TSA checkpoints everywhere, 1trn in student debt thanks to federal guarantees, housing bubbles, 0% interest rates creating wall street gambling and inflation, 50% taxation, patriot act, 1trn spent on drug war, more prisoners than china etc.

All the Rachel Maddows of the world say "oh no he's going to ruin america by cutting spending blablabla", but RP would only need to cut government spending to 2006 levels to balance the budget within 3years! Its not like in 2006 government was way to small....

We'll be in a bigger hole with more debts, more wars, more unemployed, more inflation if Gingrich, Romney, Santorum or Obama get elected. Gingrich would be the worst, and Rick "oh my god gays" Santorum would be the worst for civil liberties. (Jay Leno RP interview http://youtu.be/I6x5oz4HP5s?t=17m48s )



Ron Paul views slavery as repulsive too, he was only talking about how he would have solved the problem (which couldn't have appeared if government had applied the constitutional protections to the slaves).

On drugs, Ron Paul would end the federal drug war basically decriminalising drugs at the federal level. Not because RP likes drugs, but because its a waste of money and its a failed policy which plays into the hands of the drug cartels. Prohibition didn't work, legal prescription drugs and alcohol are just as dangerous and more people die of the drug war than of the actual drugs. He says its a state issue so states would have the power to regulate drugs if necessary. He wants drug abuse to be treated like alcohol abuse, as a disease which requires medical help instead of a crime which needs prison. He has also said he would pardon all non-violent drug users who are in prison without no prior record of violent crimes.
The Constitution gives the federal government no right to decide what you can't put into your own body.
US government's alcohol prohibition empowered the Al Capones and didn't end alcohol use, their power only disappeared when prohibition ended.

Funny video Chris Rock and Ron Paul on drugs.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cm2sLSWXOOM

Yes, you are naive.
You still haven't answered. What would have prevented the southern plantation owners from using the money that they received from the federal government for their slaves from using it to buy slaves again? A libertarian Ron Paul president in 1861 would presumably have allowed free-market slave traders to continue to import and sell slaves.
Referring to human lives as "property" is repulsive.


False. People are naturally unselfish. It's selfish society that makes them that way. You're quoting Ayn Rand bullshit again. Selfish people are small.


I'm glad to know that he would end some of the repulsive policies started by George Bush/Dick Cheney. (You forgot to mention government spying on American citizens without a court ordered search warrant.)


That's all good and fine, but I don't trust Ron Paul's understanding of economics.


Somebody has overlooked the fact that in 2006 we weren't in a recession (and yes we still are and maybe even a depression). To understand what cutting government spending during a recession does just look at Greece and Ireland today and the US in 1937. Doesn't sound like smart thinking to me.


It was applying constitutional protections to the slaves that led to the Civil War. Somebody is naive.


To allow unfettered free flow of heroin and cocaine in our society would be reckless. Ron Paul is dangerous.

It would have been stopped by the fact that you're not allowed to use force against another human being. You can't force them to sell themselves to a slave owner, force them to work for you, force them to stay on your land etc.
Referring to humans as property is not repulsive, owning a fellow human being forcefully is repulsive. Thats why its illegal.


You don't understand the term "selfish" then. Because it doesn't mean that you don't care for anyone else in the world apart from yourself. As in the other thread, it is in my selfish self-interest to care for friends/family/co-workers/neighbours the wider economy etc. Without all of them, me on my own can't survive and am useless and poor. Read Richard Dawkins "The selfish gene".


Ron Paul predicted and wrote about all todays crises in the 70s and 80s. He saw the tech bubble coming, the housing bubble coming, the sovereign debt problem coming, and forsees a dollar crisis with high inflation. He knew the causes too, inflationary paper money and the removal of the gold standard. Read the "Minority Report case for gold" from the 80s. None of the other warmongering knuckleheads in the GOP or in the democratic party predicted it with this much accuracy and consistantly wrote about it for 30+ years.


This is talking about absolute levels, not spending in 2006 as a %age of GDP. Where do you think the money that government spends comes from?! It doesn't just disappear from the economy...it could be invested somewhere productive...



No, you are not thinking it through. As much as we find it disgusting, the reality was that slaves were "property" of slave owners. You can't simultaneously enforce the constitution which on one hand protects private property and on the other hand protects the slaves from force. You'd be denying the slave owners constitutional right to protection of private property unless you do what RP suggested and buy the slaves freedom.



Ron Paul is dangerous?! How about all the armed DEA officers we have all over the place killing innocent people everywhere and arming Mexican drug cartels...
Some would argue there still is unfettered free flow of drugs despite the 1 000 000 000 000 spent and thousands of innocent people murdered as collateral damage since 1971 on the drug war... There will always be drugs, and you don't have a right to tell people what they can or can't consume.

A little known fact is that Portugal completely decriminalised hard drugs and didn't descend into Rick "evangelical" Santorums worst apocalyptic drug nightmare, it actually saw a decline in drug use. ( Report from the BBC http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R7FshBjkS6U )

Let me pre-empt the next thing the media has told you to think and regurgitate: "Ron Paul is anti-Israel and will let Israel get wiped off the map." Well the media is DISHONEST and distorting the truth as usual. Ron Paul wants the same thing Benjamin Netanyahu and the people of Israel want. On Israel Gingrich, SANTORUM, Bachmann, Bush, Obama, AIPAC are full of shit. (And half my family is Jewish, so you definitely can't call me an anti-semite)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yVORRHn7rg8

Moving on to the faultless benevolant representative of the working class that is Barack Obama. The definition of a champagne socialist...

http://www.whitehousedossier.com/2011/12/3...eeks-3-backers/

Worth mentioning that what that particular story fails to note is that by far the biggest expense of that '$4 million vacation' is Air Force One (which Michelle Obama didn't travel in when she went to Hawaii). In fact if you remove Air Force One from the equation then that '$4 million vacation' becomes an '$800k vacation'

Well, quite. After all, Airforce One doesn't cost the taxpayer anything does it.

Suggesting that an article commenting on the obscene cost to the taxpayers of the Obama's christmas holiday should ignore the largest part of that cost really is getting a bit desperate. In this respect, the Obamas are positively Blair-like

Firstly as I noted Michelle Obama didn't fly on Air Force One so it seems fairly reasonable to suggest that including the cost of the Air Force One flight in the price tag of her vacation is something of a stretch.

Secondly I think it is important to look at the cost breakdowns of these figures when they're thrown around because it provides fairly important context. For example here the issues isn't that the Obama's are spending millions of dollars on their vacations (as the story suggests) but that it costs a ridiculous amount of money to fly anywhere in Air Force One which then poses the question - does the President really need to fly everywhere or anywhere in Air Force One or is it just a ridiculous expense?

The question is why do we have a dictatorial president who is so powerful and involved in our lives that he creates so many domestic enemies that he needs to travel around in million dollar military convoys.

Blabla stupid establishment tools at the corporate media...

Iowa in 2008 was the greatest thing and so important, but in 2012 because anti-establishment Ron Paul might win it doesn't matter and should be ignored...zzzz

Now they say there are threats from "Anonymous" hackers to disrupt the vote...so they move the vote-count to a secret location to be "counted" by insiders...

Our corrupt system is going to make sure Ron Paul won't win, if he miraculously does he will get JFK'ed...

http://lewrockwell.com/orig7/trotter9.1.1.html

It just gets better, while Ron Paul is being unfairly slandered and distorted by the media, Obama is on "Judicial Watch list of Most Corrupt US politicians" for the 5th year in a row... but no way will the establishment media attack their corporatist puppet.. zzzzzzz

god bless the USSA (and Chicagoland)

https://www.judicialwatch.org/corrupt-polit...cians-for-2011/

The President could be flying a bi-plane and that would be called Air Force One because the President is aboard.

Firstly, as her husband was flying on it, it would have been cheaper if she had travelled with him. The plane had to make the journey,, so it should be included in the cost of the family vacation. Clintonian hair splitting only draws attention to the obscene cost of the Obama family holiday.

Secondly, the issue is very much that the Obama family holiday has cost the US taxpayer millions of dollars. By all means break down the figures into their constituent parts, but don't try and pretend that travel expenses are not part of the cost of the holiday. Whether or not they need to fly everywhere on Air Force One is a different issue, but in the context of this discussion it is moot. I have often thought that the much lower key approach adopted by the British protection officers is more sensible, but we have to consider the world as it is, not as it might more sensibly be. For trips of that distance it is how he will travel, and when the US government has such massive debts it is not unreasonable to comment on it and question if it is appropriate, likewise the frequent fundraising/campaign trips he makes. As a comparison, had they gone to Camp David, not only would the non travel costs been much lower, but they would have travelled on Marine One which is much cheaper.



You might try learning how caucuses work before donning the tinfoil hat.

Do you remember Dubya's vacation in Crawford, Texas? When he was clearing brush?

An even rarer event was when Dubya was in DC so you should be counting the trips to DC rather than the trips to Crawford.

Come to think of it, Dubya probably didn't use Air Force One much afterall.

Whilst discussing Air Force One and evil mainstream conspiracy theories is fun (I'll come back to both later I suspect) I thought someone should post the results of the Iowa caucus. Romney wins picking up just 8 more of votes than second place Rick Santorum. Ron Paul was third whilst former front runner Rick Perry was fifth and his now considering the future of his campaign. Newt 'I'm going to win the nomination' Gingrich was a fairly distant fourth.

Full results:

Mitt Romney - 30,015 (25%)
Rick Santorum - 30,007 (25%)
Ron Paul - 26,219 (21%)
Newt Gingrich - 16,251 (13%)
Rick Perry - 12,604 (10%)
Michelle Bachmann - 6,073 (5%)

That's a fantastic result for Romney given that (relatively speaking) he's barely campaigned in Iowa and has spent much of his time and money in New Hampshire instead. Reports are also now suggesting that big names within the Republican Party are now ready to accept the inevitable and will endorse Romney as the nominee over the next week or two. Santorum's performance in Iowa is impressive but he's polling poorly in New Hampshire (and just about everywhere else) but it'll be interesting to see whether Santorum or Paul can take this 'Iowa momentum' and turn it into anything. My guess is that Ron Paul probably can but Santorum's Iowa strategy was much very exclusive to Iowa and probably won't translate so well nationally although it looks as if he'll be the face of the conservative base which could leave us with some horrific Romney/Santorum ticket for the Republican Party.

Rick Santorum is so vulnerable. He's biggoted, a control freak, warmongerer, ignorant of history and a creationist douchebag. Even his (totally cute!) nephew says "don't vote for my uncle rick".
http://dailycaller.com/2012/01/03/the-trou.../#ixzz1iQzjUpU4

Santorum is so dumb in 2008 while defending torture by waterboarding he said that McCain had no credibility when speaking about torture... McCain spent x years imprisoned in Vietnam being tortured, santorum meanwhile never served in the military

He now also lies about being a fiscal conservative, yet he was right there in the Senate supporting all of Dubya's big warfare/welfare spending.

lew rockwell points out the hypocrasy of this "pro-lifer" who desperately wants to bomb Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Iran...:



and ofcourse he supports freedom to live like you want, unless you're gay. what a fucking dumbass

If we are to exclude bigots, that presumeably includes Ron the Racist as well.

Bachmann has conceded and said that she is looking forward "to the next chapter in God's plan."
I guess "God's plan" does not include her in the White House. That's a relief.

John McCain has endorsed Romney.

Santorum is so far to the right and so out of touch with the mainstream in America that he hasn't a prayer if winning the White House if he gets the Republican nomination. Aside from being anti-abortion and anti-gay his main campaign theme seems to be that he would protect Americans’ right to carry guns anywhere at anytime. And let's not forget that he was Bush's main henchman for killing social security during his push to do so in his second term.

Perry has decided to "push forward".

With the field undecided I guess the Republican candidates will continue to sling mud and lies at each other (as well as at Obama).

He said he didnt write those statements and that he's not a racist. Unfortunetly he can't factually disprove it but I believe him because there are no racist statements in his 20 years of congressional speeches, multiple books, 30 years of TV interviews.

We can exclude Gingrich as a bigot though, amongst other things he said that "Spanish was the language of the Ghetto".

It's troubling at the very least then that he had no oversight of newsletters written under his auspicies.
And any good politician leaves the dirty work to his underlings (so he can't be caught in a quote). They're not that stupid.

Ron Paul scares me. Some of his ideas are just so "out there".

He also doesn't have a prayer.
His constituency is far too small.

I think we all agree though that the other candidates are truly terrible and might beat themselves, and Romney is not really conservative. RP's constituency is small partly because the corporate media distorts his views to scare people away. Obama's constituency was small at this stage in 2008...

Ron Paul could be the last guy standing, apart from the newsletters theres not much legitimate dirt people can sling at him.

(Apparently according to CNN Iowa was technically a 3-way tie, Romney, Rick and Ron all got 7 delegates.) http://www.cnn.com/2012/01/03/politics/iow...ucus/index.html

Nobody knows what he is. He changes with the wind.


Some people do doubt his sanity though.

Yes but a wise guy once told me 70% of people are morons, ofcourse some will doubt his sanity..

Yes, the morons all come out on election day it seems.

Firstly that Ron Paul isn't in league with the same special interest groups as Mitt Romney or Newt Gingrich doesn't mean that he's not in league with special interests full stop. He is. He has various PAC's making ads for him just like everyone else and he has various companies contributing to his campaigns just like everyone else. Ron Paul hasn't bank rolled his Presidential or Congressional campaigns himself.

Secondly I find it somewhat amusing that you believe the media has a preferred Republican candidate this time around and more amusing still that you think Mitt Romney is it. This is the same media that has been leading the 'anyone but Romney' charge. If the media really had a preferred dog in this fight we wouldn't have seen them crowning a new front runner every other week. By and large they seem either indifferent or terrified of just about everyone running in the Republican field.

Thirdly I tire of this constant 'media conspiracy' nonsense that gets thrown around (particularly by the right) whenever someone isn't getting favourable coverage. Do you want to know what the big media conspiracy is? Its 'how do we get higher ratings?' or 'how do we increase our sales/hits?' - they don't care about Ron Paul because there's very little viewer interest in him particularly when compared to the likes of Sarah Palin or a Rick Perry implosion. The media didn't follow Sarah Palin and her ridiculous bus around for months on end because they really want her to be President they did it because it provided them with good television/copy.


Out of interest have you read the Civil Rights Act?


Speaking of doing research before spouting misinformation you may want to read the book you're recommending. Strictly speaking Sowell's position is not anti-Civil Rights Act nor does he really suggest that the Civil Rights Act itself damaged race relations within America. Broadly speaking his argument is that the Civil Rights Act and civil rights in general have been hijacked and misrepresented in the years since it was passed and that this misrepresentation is what has damaged race relations within America. He argues for example that the introduction of quotas in the early-70's did damage and that these quotas and affirmative actions where actually never intended to be part of the Civil Rights Act.


I find myself interested in the facts you have presented in discussions – my experience from our discussions is that you make very broad statements and when pressed to explain these statements tend not to. I believe I'm still waiting for various explanations and answers in the communism thread for example.


Which isn't the intention of the Civil Rights Act (hence me wondering if you've read it).


Did you just equate Ron Paul to Rosa Parks?


It is always worth remembering that in this period much of Europe had been torn apart for centuries by various civil wars and more large scale fighting between nations so there wasn't nearly the taste for violence that existed within the US in the same period. There also wasn't the same degree of tension and split within individual European countries that existed within the US. However you're also overlooking the rather violent way in which the British Empire put an end to slavery that there wasn't a civil war doesn't mean there wasn't violence and death. There was.

In addition to this (and much more importantly) Ron Paul fails to take into account the radically different attitudes toward and roles of slavery within Britain. The British economy wasn't dependent on slave labour as the economy of the southern states were – within Britain they were largely household workers and personal servants. Slavery was somewhat more important in some areas of the Empire but that's not as important as you might think to British thinking and before the official abolition of slavery and the slave trade Britain had long held the belief and legal stance that slavery was illegal and that slaves didn't exist within England (as soon as a slave touch ground in England they were legally free).Also it is all well and good to suggest that the federal government should have brought the slaves and set them free but that raises a few issues

1 – Where is the federal government getting the funds to buy the freedom of more than 4 million slaves?
2 – Who says the slaves were for sale?

You have to remember just how reliant the southern economy was on slave labour during this period. The civil war didn't happen purely because slavery was abolished and southern slaves set free with no compensation given to their owners. The actual abolition of slavery was quite important as well.


*points to last years budget and debt ceiling negotiations*

The notion that Ron Paul as President would actually be able to achieve any of the things he says he'll do is massively flawed. We're living in an age where the US Government can't even agree on spending cuts they promised they'd make. The idea that any President, regardless of who they are, can make noticeable spending cuts in this climate is somewhat laughable.


Unless you're the federal government in which case you can use force.

But the real question is what happens when the southern states sell their slaves to the federal government then leave the union so they can continue slavery? Again I stress that it is important to remember that the civil war wasn't fought just because slaves were set free with no compensation given to their owners. The southern states didn't just want to keep their slaves they wanted to keep slavery.


Actually it would have been cheaper if President Obama hadn't gone on the vacation.


*sigh*

I'm not suggesting that travel expenses aren't part of the cost of the holiday. I'm stating the fact that more than $3.2 million of this '$4 million vacation' is accounted for by the cost of running Air Force One so perhaps rather than suggesting the Obama's are having extravagant multi-million dollar vacations (which is exactly what that story was suggesting) people should be asking whether or not Air Force One is cost effective or indeed needed. And I believe I'm right in saying that it is the US air force and the secret service rather than Obama that decides he should travel on Air Force One.


Because he was likely to say he did write it and that he completely believed it...?

Yes. Out of interest would you and your liberal friends still accept a society with senseless ill-treatment of a group based on skin colour if that law didn't exist?


So you make my point. I agree that some laws have good intentions, but they always have unintended consequences.


well it is. "42 U.S.C. § 2000e et seq., prohibits discrimination by covered employers on the basis of race, color, religion, sex or national origin"



Ever heard of the caribbean? There were british colonies there that were pretty damn dependent on slaves, but those slave owners didn't start a rebellion..


The President has direct control over the military, he could easily close down the hundreds of bases abroad and the wars. That must be atleast half a trillion pa.


No because if he was really a racist he probably would have made more racist statements/laws/interviews/speeches. It wouldn't just be one obscure newsletter 20 years ago...

Irrelevant.

My sense of outrage can't deliver equal voting registration rights, end segregation of public places, make it illegal for someone to be fired (or not hired at all) based purely on their race, religion or sex nor can it make it easier for civil rights cases to be transferred from a state to federal level increasing the chances of a fairer trail. People like you cling to this notion that 'they would have got these rights anyway' but fail to deal with a few key issues, primarily why should people have been made to wait for these rights? In addition to this we must also consider that without the Civil Rights Act it is entirely possible that we wouldn't have seen the progress we have with civil rights and race relations within America.


That wasn't the point you were making. What you actually did was tell someone to do some research whilst recommending a book and then completely misrepresenting the position stated within said book. You didn't argue that the Civil Rights Act and the civil rights movement has been hijacked and distorted (as Sowell does in his book) but rather that the act itself was the cause of the problem.


Which doesn't introduce a quota on how many black people, women, Christians or Muslims an employer has to hire. The Civil Rights Act simply makes it illegal for an employer to fire someone, not hire them or generally discriminate them based purely on the grounds of their race, religion, nationality or gender. It wasn't until the early-70's (nearly a decade after the Civil Rights Act was passed) that the idea of quotas raised its head and just for the record quotas of this sort are in fact still illegal in the US.


Ever heard of reading someone's entire post?

In addition to this (and much more importantly) Ron Paul fails to take into account the radically different attitudes toward and roles of slavery within Britain. The British economy wasn't dependent on slave labour as the economy of the southern states were – within Britain they were largely household workers and personal servants. Slavery was somewhat more important in some areas of the Empire but that's not as important as you might think to British thinking and before the official abolition of slavery and the slave trade Britain had long held the belief and legal stance that slavery was illegal and that slaves didn't exist within England (as soon as a slave touch ground in England they were legally free).Also it is all well and good to suggest that the federal government should have brought the slaves and set them free but that raises a few issues

In that post you'll notice that I point out the some areas of the British Empire were more dependent on slave labour but also that by and large that was unimportant to British thinking in regards to slavery. You'll also notice that I make note of the very different view Britain's had of slavery compared to Americans. You may also want to take some time and read up on some Caribbean history during this period – slave owners in Jamaica for example may not have rebelled by the slaves did. Many times in fact and it was these violent slave rebellions that helped contribute to the complete abolition of slavery within the colonies which took several years to achieve.


Actually I'm not sure he could easily shut down bases (either domestic or abroad). Off the top of my head I'm not sure what the procedure is for base closures any more but I have a vague feeling there's some form of Congressional approval or override involved. Certainly the BRAC recommended closures have some degree of Congressional oversight involved and can in theory be stopped by Congress – I think they tried to stop the last batch but didn't have the votes to do it.


Completely missing the point.

You are comparing a whole country with a region of another. While it is true that Britain as a whole didn't depend on slave labour, the prosperity of cities like Liverpool, was heavily tied in to the slave trade.



That would have been cheaper still, but it does not make my statement incorrect.



I see you don't like people pointing out the flaws in your argument.



You aren't suggesting that they aren't part of the cost, merely that people should pretend that they aren't when commenting on the cost.

People aren't "suggesting" that the Obama's had a multi-million dollar holiday, they are stating the fact that they had a multi-million dollar holiday. The Obamas went on holiday, and the cost to the taxpayers was multiple millions of dollars.

You want to divert the discussion into the suitability of air force one, but that is a red herring, as is the point about it not being Obama who made the decision. He knew that that was the method of transport which would be used, and as such is responsible for the implications of that. The point of the story is that the Obamas decided to enjoy a holiday beyond the means of many if not most US citizens, despite the fact that their taking such a holiday would entail an obscene cost to be funded by those citizens. They are perfectly entitled to do so, but if they make that choice, it is quite legitimate for others to comment on how crass and out of touch it is.

Most African-Americans that I know would consider The Voting Rights Act of 1965 the most important legislation of the past 100 years. With one fell swoop it made illegal poll taxes, literacy tests, etc... It empowered a whole segment of society.

I've always said that Bush spent far too much (though in fairness nowhere near as much) taxpayers money. It is a bit of an odd defence though, Bush was bad on spending, but compared with Obama he was Scrooge like in his spending (before Scrooge went soft of course.)

Do you have numbers to back that up?

Plenty in newsletters published in his name and which he was happy to endorse until it became inconvenient though



Probably true, unless one gets unreasonably pedantic about the term ghetto, in which case it would have been yiddish.



Federal budget 2008 $2.9 trillion
Federal Budget 2011 $3.8 trillion

A mere $900,000,000,000 or $28538.81 per second more.

Alternatively, Bush averaged $2.4 trillion, Obama $3.55 trillion. I know that there's been a bit of inflation, but not enough to account for 50%.

Of course not. But the southern white right-wing conservatives for whom the law was/is intended would.

It's interesting to note that from the end of the Civil War until the Civil Rights Act in 1964 the South (dominated by white voters) was staunchly Democratic because Lincoln was Republican. It was Democrat LBJ and the Democrats who pushed through the Civil Rights Act and ever since the South has been staunchly Republican.

Southern white right-wing "conservatives" still like to burn black churches.

An increase of 31% over three years, or about 10% per year.

Federal budget 2000 $1.8 trillion
Federal budget 2008 $2.9 trillion
An increase of 61% over eight years, or about 7.6% per year.

If you're going to make a comparison then you should subtract from budget numbers during the Obama years the costs of:
Bush's unfunded war of choice in Iraq which Obama was saddled with,
Bush's mismanaged unfunded war in Afghanistan which Obama was saddled with,
The cost of corporate welfare in Bush's Medicare-D drug plan which Obama was saddled with,
The trillions of dollars lost by the Bush tax cuts which were paid for by borrowing and increasing the national debt,
... and many more ...

The Bush/Cheney administration turned the US economy into a debacle and dropped the largest recession since the Great Depression into Obama's lap. There are huge expenses associated with the recession, not the least of which is lost tax revenue due to the high level of unemployment and resulting increased unemployments costs and other social safety net costs (Medicare, food stamps, welfare, etc.).

We're still paying for the Bush/Cheney presidency.

To compare those two years' budget numbers (2008 and 2011) in raw form is hugely naive and deceptive.

The expense of moving around politicians/heads of state is a specious story that comes around every now and again. Michael Moore brought it up in respect of Bush and his holidays, it comes up every now and again about the Royal Family, and David Cameron made a point of travelling BA business class on his first trip in order to show how wonderful he is. It's a fact of life that getting the US president anywhere will be expensive.

And after that?

I think a mixture of chartered aircraft and scheduled flights. I think previous PMs used scheduled flights as well (there was a story about Gordon Brown's flight being stuck at Heathrow when something happened recently), although Cameron's probably done it more than others. I don't really think they should take scheduled flights. Airlines tend to get delayed which could be a bit embarrassing. Also, I'd expect them to do some work and get briefed for their meetings during the flight - can they really do that? Finally, I wouldn't subject anyone to the "service" offered by some of BA's cabin crew, even a Tory.

Mister R saying Ron Paul is also bought by special interests, yes but not the ones you're thinking of. Ron Paul gets the most donations from military servicemen, and the most small donations from the widest base. The moderate Romney, who is generally the "least worst" for democrats and the "most electable", is actually a total pawn of the establishment.

http://www.opensecrets.org/pres12/contrib.php?id=N00008333
comparison of largest donors:


I wonder who Mitt "wallstreet's bitch" Romney will work for, the people or the Goldman Mafia... hmmm

and Ron Paul:


Basically the guys who know about defence, support Ron Pauls non-interventionist foreign policy...HMMMM "Dangerous, unelectable, insane foreign policy...?!"

48% of RP's $12m donations were from "small individuals", only 10% of Romneys $32m were from small donations. -> RP has 2x the amount raised from "small individuals".

The crony billionaires know the game is up if Paul gets elected...(and they know to bribe Mitt Romney for more government freebies and bailouts...)


http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/bil...XO_graphic.html