The Glade 4.0

This made me think of what the other candidates are proposing...

Other than 999, I couldn't think of a thing.

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"Dress cops up as soldiers, give them military equipment, train them in military tactics, tell them they’re fighting a ‘war,’ and the consequences are predictable." —Radley Balko

They propose any time you disagree with an idea, you attack it or its proponent vehemently without offering another solution.

Frankly, I do see more of a difference between the candidates than most of you guys. As for as original ideas, 999 is the only one I've heard so far. The others are more old ideas, but they're somewhat different old ideas between them.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

I think Newt offered an updated "Contract with America".

Imagine for a second that a liberal President is elected that is as far left as Ron Paul is far right. Let's say one that will "stand on principle" and veto absolutely everything until Congress passes an economic plan similar to that of European countries. Reduce unemployment by mandating a 35-hour work week and six weeks of paid vacation per year to force companies to hire more employees to get the same amount of work done. Fix the budget via a very large tax increase, mostly on the upper-middle class and rich, combined with an 80% cut to the military. Implement public health care and free secondary education, also mostly paid for by the rich.

Would such a candidate amass political capital? Of course not. But why not? There are just as many Democrats if not more that believe in such a plan than there are Republicans that like Ron Paul's ideas. The problem is, just like Ron Paul, he'd be hated by everyone except that minority for such a compromise-less stance.

Ron Paul's economic plans are honestly pretty good but his refusal to compromise on anything would be terrifying. I'd see Ron Paul vetoing any budget plan that gave him everything he wanted except for, say, maintaining Planned Parenthood funding or maintaining foreign aid to Africa despite the fact that these are an absolutely miniscule part of the federal budget. How is RP going to win over moderate Republicans if he vetoes a plan that actually balances the budget because of little things like these?

Even if RP somehow manages to sell his economic stance, which isn't completely impossible as Obama's "solution" has failed to accomplish much of anything, he has other stances that would sink him for sure and would definitely bring the GOP down along with him. If RP got his way, we'd see absolutely massive starvation and famine on a scale never before seen in the world in Africa. Without US food aid the deaths there would probably run into the tens of millions, and could easily rival China's Great Leap Forward in terms of human catastrophe. His "no foreign entanglements" policy also pretty much requires horrific brutality in response to terrorism, I could easily see him responding to a terrorist attack by nuking 10 million people to death. He'd probably also want to militarize the US-Mexico border and just have all illegal immigrants shot on sight. Do you think that these consequences are things Americans want? The "liberal media" would waste no time in pointing out that he's in favor of these things, and as RP is one of the most honest politicians in America he wouldn't really be able to deny it.

This post leaves me wondering how you can possibly oppose a man whose stances and policy directives you obviously have never bothered to read or understand.

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Ezekiel 23:19-20 

Ron Paul is red. That is all a blue person needs to know in order to oppose him.

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Buckle your pants or they might fall down.

holy...

Liberalism for an individual is not hindered or penalized under conservatism. In fact its able to thrive. Under liberalism conservatism is penalized and hindered due to the fact that liberalism forces people to participate while conservatism does not.

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A man who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself. ~ John Stuart Mill

1) Where do you get these estimates from?

2) If this is true, then quite frankly it's better to have an orderly, managed transition off of U.S. food aid

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Disregarding your asinine casualty estimate that indicates you still have not the foggiest idea of how nuclear targeting is done despite me addressing it in several threads... so what? It's "horrific"? That is one of the silliest words in political discourse today; everything that might have unpleasent consequences is "horrific" or "brutal".

More importantly, the fact is that this solution would (most likely) only have to be used once. It might not put a stop to iindividual idiots, or tiny attacks, but incidents like Pan Am 103 or (/11 would be a thing of the past. Terrorism would no longer be a viable strategy; engaging in it would mean certain destruction.

You see, the reason terrorists engage in terrorism is that they can't win fighting a war; they can't even make the war too costly to be worth fighting. Terrorists represent people who would be only too happy to fight a conventional or nuclear war if they had a hope of victory, but they don't. Those 10 million people you're so concerned about? They may not like the terrorists themselves all that much, but they sure do like the terrorists' goals. That's why the terrorists are able to hide there and recruit more terrorists. They are no different than we who may not approve of the way our government handles foreign policy, but still go sign up for the military and have no love for the extremists who attack us.

And make no mistake, they are the ones that attack us, and not just because they're "oppressed" and "exploited" or whatever. Legitimate grievances are in there, but a lot of it is misplaced aggression against the "west" that assigns responsibility for their woes to any non-muslim country for the actions of any other. There are grievances that simply amount to non-muslims (especially Israelis) having the gall to resist the special privileges Islam grants itself in regards to certain lands and those living there. There are grievances that are simply outrage that Allah has not seen fit to hand them victory over the "nonbelievers".

Yes, we have people who hate the "nonbelievers" too, but contrary to the fantasies of many liberals, this is not the primary motivation of the "right", of the vast majority of religious people in this country, or of GWB or most any republican politician.

The fact, however, is that these people who attack us do so largely out of sheer ignorance and religious hatred, often manipulted by their own leaders. The reality, however, is that these countries, like those in Africa, must learn to stand on their own feet and stop blaming "imperialism" for their every problem; not only is it inaccurate, it is what justifies terrorism in the first place.

Ultimately, your complaint simply amounts to ***** that we have more firepower than they do. Terrorism, contrary to what those who like to ***** about the "War on Terror" like to pretend, is a strategy, not a tactic; one of playing the psychology of our own population against itself, and it is only aided by people like you who are ok with retaliating against terrorists, but only as long as nothing else unpleasant happens in the process.

The way to put a stop to it is to render terrorism nonviable as a strategy; the costs must outweigh the perceived benefits. We should have done this 10 years ago; Kabul should be a series of smoking craters surrounding where its power plants, runways, and seats of government sat.

I doubt, however, that Ron Paul would have the stomach for this solution regardless. That's why he pursues isolationism; he believes the nonsense that if we "leave everyone alone" they will leave us alone. This is silly. Other nations, whether terrorist, communist, or totalitarian, or even democratic do not care that we leave them alone; this is simply a political complaint to gain advantage in international politics. They care about what will gain them advantage, and if we create a power vaccuum they will be only to happy to create advantage out of it - and Paul's finger will not press the nuclear trigger in the face of more terrorism.



That's unbelievably silly. Illegal immigrants come with signs that say who they are? Yes, it's easy to tell who they are when they're crawling through the bushes in the middle of the night, but aside from that? And many of those who guide them are U.S. citizens.

Ron Paul is a medical doctor. He will not condone the shooting of women and children for misdemeanors any more than he will teach Tehran the real consequences of antagonizing a nation capable of reducing theirs to the 16th century on a few hours' notice. Militarizing the border is not the problem; for those that traffic in drugs commit crime along the border the main gun of a tank might give them a bit more pause than National Guardsmen sitting in border patrol trucks. Militarizing the border, however, does not mean shooting all border crossers wholesale. We have a right to do so as a matter of national soverignty; we do not because that is not the nation we wish to live in.

I dislike Ron Paul, but I find it hard to believe he would condone the wholesale slaughter of women and children over misdemeanors, or even felonies. Then again, perhaps shooting a few fat immigrant women for dragging their children through brush and river in the dark with an uncaring coyote for a guide, and inadequate food and water, or worse abandoning the child to avoid la migra themselves would convince them that.. the benefits are not worth the costs.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

And I think that's part of the problem. People don't like what's going on, so they want "change". And nobody likes corruption. So yeah, popularities for incumbents are low, and people want change. But, look at poll numbers on individual policies. They support the same old crap, for the most part. It's the same thing we get with Congress - Congress sucks, vote the bastards out! Except my rep, he's alright.

Paul did pretty well on MTP this weekend, I thought. I love that he doesn't flinch when asked about unpopular viewpoints.