I think this is a great idea.

good job Ron Paul. I have always loved the guy..

but seriously, get a FITTED suit

300 views and 2400 likes on youtube. That's talent

Ron is swimming in that suit.

Ron Paul 2012.

He's our next President in my opinion. A movement whose time has come cannot be stopped.

And how about Perry at the end giving props to Paul about showing him the light on the Fed. Gotta give Perry credit but this was a guy who was at one point leading in the polls and probably didn't even know what the Fed does. American politics you scary.

We do need to refactor the forums. Here is my suggestion:

-Politics
-Discussions about the economy (don't come in here if you want to remain happy + optimistic)
-Can I get a job? (No, NOBODY can get a job)
-Childish jokes/NSFW
-Career advice

Less forums, not more please :-)

These can all go in the off-topic forum = monkeying around.

Add a sub-entry in politics where the neoconservatives on the board can play without disrupting legitimate discourse.

Ron Paul is still putting the interests of the country above his own political interests...if all politicians were like him, we would be in much better shape. I want to applaud every time he speaks. He is consistent, intelligent, and reasonable.

You could say he is dogmatic, and it is true to an extent. But, he's dogmatic in a good way...he is pushing for the outright elimination of entire federal departments, not just promising to cut spending (i.e. increasing it at a slower rate). A few of his ideas do strike me as extreme: the Fed (if independent) is generally competent, and a gold standard seems unrealistic. But, in all honesty, he is likely much better informed on the pros and cons of those positions than myself. I can't say that about many politicians.

But his views antagonize almost every active voting block. Cutting SS/Medicare angers the elderly, liberal social views turns off the bible belt, entitlement reform riles Dems, free trade costs him union support, and he doesn't have any unique appeal to minority groups.

Basically the people on this board (young, educated, socially tolerant, economically productive) are his political base...unfortunately, that demographic is pretty small in America at the moment.

Rather than "End[ing] the Fed" directly, he is aiming for more of a "silent kill" so to speak. He wants to legalize competing currencies and break the Federal Reserve cartel's monopolistic control of money. The idea is that given the option, people will chose to transact in a stable or appreciating currency rather than one that is consistently losing its value. This will cause the Fed to self-destruct on its own and provide a transition period.

Also ask yourself, if we live in a free society and champion free markets, what is more essential to this foundation than a monetary unit that is accepted based on choice rather than coercion?

He wants to allow for choice and competition. This is similar to how gold organically derived it's utility as money. He is not stuck on gold as the only option, but wants to open up the ingenuity and creativity of entrepreneurs and the market to sort it out.

You have to look at how he is framing his positions on SS/Medicare. He is offering the only realistic solution that attempts to save these programs. His first year $1 trillion cuts do not target SS/Medicare. He obviously views these programs as a gross government overreach and unconstitutional, but realizes that a culture of dependency has been fostered for decades and some of the contracts should be honored. He says [to the seniors] if we don't do anything, you're going to get your check but it won't buy nearly what it used to.

He is already winning big with independents and disenfranchised democrats. There is a movement called "Blue Republicans" where Democrats are registering Republican just for one year to vote for Paul. His support from these camps lie in his honesty, consistency, refusal to cave to special interests, fierce defense of civil liberties, his opposition to the drug war, and key "No" votes on all the major foreign policy blunders of the last few decades.

The whole meme that Ron Paul couldn't win against Obama (or Romney is the only one who can take on Obama) is absolutely incorrect and is strategically being parroted to curb his momentum. He is the only candidate that has the ability to unite all factions--fiscal conservatives, the Tea Party, OWS, the anti-war crowd, disenfranchised Democrats, right-wing "extremists," independents, Libertarians, college kids, self-styled "sophisticated" urban dwellers, Christians, populists, and people who previously paid no attention to politics because they saw what a farce the whole thing is.

The establishment left fear him because he has more credibility than Obama on civil liberties, the wars, the bailouts, transparency, and campaign finance/special interest association. The last thing they want is for Obama to have to face Paul.

The establishment right malign him because he is the most conservative member of Congress in history and exposes the neoconservative agenda of perpetual war, deceit, and big government.

Ron Paul's biggest obstacle to the Presidency is NOT the general election. He will absolutely destroy Obama. His biggest hurdle is getting past the big-government gatekeepers of his own party during the primary.

It really seems as if Ron Paul is gaining ground in the media and with the GOP party. I watched the whole clip, and I got the vibe from the other candidates that they know Ron Paul has a very strong platform and it is going to be extremely difficult to best it. You can deny it all you want, but the Ron Paul wave is coming, and it will be a tsunami. Six years ago, if you would have been told by someone that a man named Barack Hussein Obama would be president, you would have thought that person was out of their mind. The same naysayers that said Ron Paul can never be president and he is unelectable could be in for similar shock....

I just watched the whole vid. Where can I give RP a SB?

amen cash4gold. Couldn't have said it better myself.

I am voting for Ron Paul- maybe Perry- in the primaries. Romney is Bush 2.0. The only thing worse than Obama is a liberal Republican who will increase spending and go to war with Iran, so if it's Romney vs. Obama, I am voting for Obama and I think Romney will lose in a landslide. The guy strikes me as Bush meets Nixon, while Ron Paul strikes me as Barry Goldwater.

I rate Ron Paul a B+, Newt a C+, Perry a B-, and Obama a D+. Romney gets an F. He is Barack Obama + wasteful military spending. Obama is a barely adequate president. Perry, Gingrich, and Paul would all be an improvement. Romney, not so.

LOL (as in, I'm acutally laughing at this statement) Roger Ailes does what's good for his business, not socialism: the real problem is Rupert Murdoch...HE'S the one who owns it and HE'S the one who wants his stunted version of reality enforced. Hell, they've even infected the WSJ and I can't trust it the same way anymore. The GOP created a golum with Fox news by cultivating the network, and now it's eating them alive: if you want to blame someone for making the Tea party strong, blame Fox News. If the GOP wants to get taken seriously again, they need to take a very counterintuitive step and cut off Fox news:
* stop using it as a recruiting pipeline
* stop going on there for softball questions
* stop taking advantage of the propaganda machine
* and for the love of god stop making excuses for their sorry asses, they're not going to make you into a billionaire, OKAY??? The whole network is an international criminal conspiracy masquerading as a business.

In other words: the GOP can grow the hell up and stop having Fox spoon feed the politicians and constituents with whatever code language they're using to justify the type of crap the last president did while trying to get the next dummy elected. I'm a litle (ok, A LOT) frustrated that it's taken the GOP so long to get to the point where this discussion is on the table, but they, better late then never. While we're at it, can the AEI and Heritage foundations...they're a cancer to America and serve as the intellectual nexus for all the bad ideas coming from the right for the last generation or so.

Seriously.... read this:

http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/12/11/debate-reverberates-going-...

Who is missing in this article about the debate from Saturday? Hint: Do a Ctrl+F "Paul".

Before even coming to this thread, I was reading the same article and thought I missed something when I couldn't find any reference to RP after a brief glance at the article....I then proceeded with a Ctrl+F and was shocked....

The above intellectuals promote statism with a sharp conservative twist: they justify liberalism with conservative language. It's not so much that they're Trotyskyists, socialists, or communists...they are merely apologists for the system as it is.

How else do you think that American foreign and fiscal policy would remain so consistent over generations? We've seen a massive concentration, across all administrations, slowly building since WWII. People are afraid of the NWO or whatever they need to call it, but the fact is that it's been here for a long, long time. Actual government revenue stays in a very narrow, slowly increasing average band %wise of GDP, all things considered. Who pays for what changes over time, but the actual core system takes in the same slowly increasing amount of money over time. Same thing with foreign policy: while each administration adds their own flavor, the overall level of engagement is more or less constant.

This reflects the realities of running a civilization, and like ragnar says a few posts above: the baby boomer generation sold our generation out. Ultimately, we'll see a "jackal" type of politician (Cris Christie would be PERFECT) who will come into government and actually reduce the size: but if you think for a minute that any conservative administration in the past two generations has done anything other than pay lip service while continuing the policies so many people hate, then look at these:
http://www.usgovernmentrevenue.com/revenue_chart_1950_2015USp_F0t
http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2010/06/~/media/Images/Reports/...

All of the rhetoric obfuscates this. Personally, I'm in favor of the system as it is minus the budget needing to be balanced and OVERALL gov't spending reduced (military, entitlements, grants, etc... are all just too high)

Chris Christie is an excellent manager- he would make a great CEO, but he is a bully. Giving him charge of our country's armed forces, CIA, FBI, and NSA is probably not a smart move. He would probably be using them to spy on the leadership at the NEA.

We need a strong-spined politician who means what he says, says what he means, and doesn't make idle threats. That's why I like Ron Paul so much. He can wind the American Empire back to the American Republic, stand up to China on trade policy, and balance the budget.

I honestly believe that when it comes to foreign policy, Ron Paul comes off as a lot more moderate than Gingrich or Romney. The two of them want to start the war of Armageddon with Iran; Ron Paul doesn't. Iran is Europe's and Israel's problem, not ours'.

Sure, UFO, but do you really want to be doing Israel's dirty work? This is the same regime that bombed power plants, ambulances, and airports in Beirut as vengeance against a weak Lebanese regime when the fighters were 100 miles to the south.

In 1983, Israel bombed Saddam's Osirak reactor in Iraq. Let them do the same thing in Iran. Leave us out of it.

It's not our problem and Iran is hardly Germany. It is a mess that we should leave to Israel and Europe. If they don't want to deal with it, we wait for a mushroom cloud somewhere in the world (Tel Aviv will probably be first, then Madrid, then, finally, New York- I am not sure the rest of the country would consider us a big loss, though), then we have Cassus Belli to turn Iran into a sea of glass.

Not before then.

If Iran wants to play the Armageddon game, let them. We gave Europe a missile shield, we have the technology to detect neutrino emissions from Uranium and find shielded shipments coming into the country, we will be ok. To suggest Iran poses the same threat as Germany is more like claiming that Guatemalan Socialists pose a threat to US sovereignty.

We need a strong-spined independent leader. Not a bully. Bullies just don't work well in the US. CC: Nixon, Bush. Ron Paul is our best shot. Rick Perry would be adequate, same with maybe Gingrich (if the Democrats have a slight majority somewhere to keep him in line).

Chris Christie, if elected POTUS, would find himself in a Nixon-like situation that would bring the Republican Party to the brink of collapse. As a Republican, I sometimes wonder what would have happened if Barry Goldwater won in 1964. Maybe we wouldn't have gotten as involved in Vietnam. Maybe we wouldn't have started medicare. Maybe we wouldn't have printed our way off the gold standard and triggered the '73 oil crisis. Goldwater probably could have extended the postwar boom by another four or five years and left the US in much better shape today.

Instead, we got Nixon.

When is the last time Iran has invaded or occupied a country? How about the United States?

How many military bases does Iran have around the world? How about the United States?

Which is the only country foolish enough to use nuclear weapons on another nation? Oh, the United States on Japan huh?

Seriously somebody such tell us that we SHOULD NOT have nuclear weapons. America is the world aggressor. We are invading Iran's neighbors (Iraq, Afghanistan). We are the one's flying drones over their air-space. We are the ones getting Navy vessels too close to their shores. Oh the mercy for Iran to be defending itself against American aggression. How would you feel if another country was invading Canada, had military bases all over Latin America and Cuba. You'd do whatever you could to protect yourself right?

They're not a threat to us because we have Israel and Europe standing in between us and them, and those countries have trade surpluses with us and don't seem all that worried about it.

Because illegal aliens don't emit neutrinos.

Not highly enriched uranium. Or at least it would be incredibly difficult- you'd have to sneak it in in batches of less than a kilogram dozens of times- and then you'd have to have someone with experience working in a nuclear weapons program- likely with a Bachelor's degree in nuclear engineering- assembling the trigger and critical mass. This is not your typical roadside bomb that anybody with a chemistry degree can put together, and there are probably fewer people who know how to build a nuclear warhead than there are who know how to price an exotic CDO. As you and I know, that list of people easily fits on an 8.5x11 sheet of paper in 14 pt. font.

Meanwhile, well before the 15-20kgs of 95% enriched uranium is all assembled, the guys at the NSA running the satellite are going to be calling up the NRC and asking, "Uh, guys, is there an unlicensed nuclear reactor running in Little Pakistan?", and we'll probably be having the Army Rangers or the delta Force along with some guys from Naval Reactors descending on the place after two hours of frantic phone calls between the NSA, DOE, Homeland Security, and Pentagon.

So you can either assemble the bomb in Iran and try to sneak it into the US- and we'll be able to detect and stop it. Or you can enrich the uranium in Iran and put it together piece by piece. But since all of the world's ~100-200 nuclear weapons engineers, including the 1-2 in Iran, are accounted for, I'm not losing any sleep.

Regardless, Manhattan has perhaps twice the population density as Hiroshima. If they choose to attack New York, there is less than a 10% chance that I am seriously injured off the numbers, and besides, I have made my peace with the afterlife long ago. It would be a big problem, but the US would recover and our families (and the vast majority of people who post here) would be ok. And then Iran would disappear from the map.

Frankly, I am more worried about getting hit by a cab tomorrow than I am worried about Iran attacking New York.

The nightmare is getting stuck in a never-ending war that bankrupts us and eventually giving up our hegemony in North America to China. The nightmare is our kids getting sold into slavery to pay off the debt that China owns. I can live with the risk of dying- everyone has to deal with that. I can't live with the next generation winding up in a WORSE situation than we were under colonial rule simply because we wanted to have the national security state we couldn't afford to maintain.

THAT is unacceptable. And that is where we are eventually heading if the country does not change course.

Let Israel take care of it. This is THEIR problem. 70-80% chance the first bomb goes off in Tel Aviv or Riyadh anyways. We may very well finish the war of Armageddon, but it isn't the US's business to start it.

Whether or not it is acceptable to live with a small risk of NYC getting hit with conventional sub-200 kt weapon, it is financially impossible for us to invade Iran. We spent all of our money and diplomatic clout on Iraq and Afghanistan. We need to deal with budget realities, and the fact is that you can't spend money you don't have.

+1

america first, for god's sake. why don't the neocons get that?