One Ron Paul Thread to Rule Them All, one thread to find him

[Revolutopia]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Current_members_of_the_United_States_House_of_Representatives

That is Wikipedia's current list of members of the House, and there is not one independent or third partier found in the whole list of the 435 members. There might be an individual who additionally classifies themselves as Libertarian, but they either ran as a Republican or Democrat.

There are only two independent currently serving in the US Congress, that of Senator Bernie Sanders and Senator Droopy...I mean Joe Lieberman.

No, there is one in the lower houses. Like state level congresses. I can't find their name though.

No one is really talking about the State Legislatures through, and even if they only have one they are still further fringe then Socialists. In how the Vermont Progressive Party(a Social Democratic party) has at least seven members in Vermont's state legislature alone.

edit: "The most recent Libertarian candidate elected to a state legislatures was Steve Vaillancourt to the New Hampshire House of Representatives in 2000." from Wikipedia.

[Wikkiwallana]

Do you understand the definition of fringe? If you think you do, please explain it to us.

A bit of a personal comment there, maybe a hint of flame?
Fringe means extreme and away from the mainstream.

That's correct, and it is also correct to say Paul meets that definition.

[Wikkiwallana]

I like the ad. I think it is a perfect symbol of what we are doing to the middle east. I like it. I hope he runs under a third party in 4 years so i can vote for him.

He's going to be 77 before this year's election. He'll be lucky to be alive in 4 years.

Edit: typo

[Dempublicents1]

Some of Ron Paul's positions can be categorized as "liberal," such as supporting civil liberties of right to privacy and right to free speech.

According to Ron Paul, there is no right to privacy.
http://www.lewrockwell.com/paul/paul120.html

And he would make absolutely certain that no such right was protected:
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c112:H.R.958:

Until then, Dr. Paul's positions against overspending, over-use of military power in foreign places, invasions of our privacy, and micromanagement in our daily lives, will have my full support.

You don't think arresting someone for consensual sex is "micromanagement in our daily lives"? What about all the other things Paul's "We the People Act" would allow the states to do? Would it be micromanagement if the government forced you to undergo medical treatment? How about banning birth control? Imposed religion upon you?

With Abortion, he holds personal views, but has not shown that he lets such personal views interfere with his policies.

Oh really?

http://www.lewrockwell.com/paul/paul98.html
http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2003/roll242.xml

Support for state rights issues is not the same as his outlook.

The idea that states have rights is ridiculous and completely at odds with the Constitution, which only grants rights to the people.

Indeed,Ron Paul has stated in his platform that states should be the decision makers above the federal government, and that state decisions should be respected. But to say he wishes for states to be the deniers of liberty instead of the federal government is a falsehood, and is tying together a point from empty information.

The issues in question are not about state vs. federal authority. They are issues which are currently left to the people and which Paul would take from the people and put in the hands of the state. In other words, he would give the states authority to deny liberty that neither the federal nor state governments currently have.

[Dempublicents1]

Only if they don't bother to look into his actual record to find that he actually supports state authority, rather than civil liberty (which happens a lot, so yeah, he might pull some).

He basically says "I don't think government should be involved, but if it must it should be at the state level". Clearly he believes that decentralization is better than nothing. I'd have to concur.

This does not make him pro-government intervention.

That is not what he says. What he says is, "I don't like the fact that individual rights have been protected from government intrusion. Instead, the state government should be able to decide them."

Right now, I am the only person who gets to make medical decisions for me. If I am incapacitated, that ability will go to the person I have chosen - my husband. If Paul's pet legislation were passed, my state could force me to undergo medical treatment against my wishes or those of my husband if I was unable to express my own.

Right now, I can decide, in consultation with my doctor, what contraceptives I use. The government does not have the authority to keep me from doing so. Under Paul's pet legislation, my state could ban contraception altogether, keep me from getting it if I wasn't married, or make any other law they wanted to restricting my access to it.

Right now, I can decide who I will have sex with in the privacy of my own home and what sex acts we will engage in. No government authority is permitted to intervene unless someone is being harmed. Under Paul's pet legislation, my state could arrest me for having consensual sex with another adult.

Right now, I can decide my own religious practices. No government authority can intervene to stop me or require me to engage in any religious activities against my will. Under Paul's pet legislation, my state would have the "right" to force religion upon me or stop me from the free practice of my own.

Care to explain how any of the above would be an increase in liberty?

Key words there I notice in less than a second: federal jurisdiction. Like I said, he prefers state control over federal control. Decentralization is good, imo.

If you truly believed that, you would be opposed to Paul's constant efforts to try to centralize decisions currently left to the individuals in state hands. The "We the People Act" is meant to do away with court decisions that have upheld individual liberty over government authority, instead placing authority currently decentralized all the way to the level of the individual in state hands.

That is centralization, not decentralization.

[Dempublicents1]

You are wrong, marriage confers many legal benefits and duties at the federal level. By blocking recognition of gay marriages, you are actively denying those benefits and duties to some people but not others. That is involvement.

Dr. Paul supports those federal benefits? Or has he been desperately trying for 30 years to reduce government control of our lives?

Paul has done nothing, as far as I can tell, to remove any marriage benefits for straight couples. In fact, he personally takes advantage of them. He only claims to be against government involvement in marriage when he is asked about marriage equality.

DOMA enshrined a specific federal definition of marriage and, in some cases, prevents the states from being able to provide equal protection to same-sex married couples because of the lack of federal recognition. That's pretty much the opposite of trying to reduce government control - even at the federal level.

[Busy Busy Bees]

Moreover, he has publicly admitted to believing marriage is between a man and women.

Paul supports polygamy?

Good one. But seriously, he supports the freedom to practice polygamy. As far as I know he does not practice it himself.

[Wikkiwallana]

Paul supports polygamy?

Good one. But seriously, he supports the freedom to practice polygamy. As far as I know he does not practice it himself.

Ha, no, he supports marriage being one man, one woman, and no kinky sex or they get thrown in jail.

[Death Metal]

Good one. But seriously, he supports the freedom to practice polygamy.

Source?

[Dempublicents1]

Good one. But seriously, he supports the freedom to practice polygamy. As far as I know he does not practice it himself.

Does he? What evidence do you have of that? He supports DOMA, which does not allow for it.

[Dempublicents1]

Ha, no, he supports marriage being one man, one woman, and no kinky sex or they get thrown in jail.

Now, now, don't misrepresent Paul. He doesn't think they should necessarily get thrown in jail for kinky sex, just that the states have the right to do that if they see fit.

That's a big difference, see? Because Paul doesn't say the states should do it, he's totally decentralizing power by taking the decision on how to have sex away from the couple and giving it to their state government instead. *nodnod*

[Grave_n_idle]

But removing the centralised limitation of local power is functionally identical to endorsing what each state might do.

If your state legalises slavery, it doesn't make any functional difference whether it could do so because there was no higher power to limit it, or because there was a possible higher power that simply failed to act. You're still a slave.

If your state legalizes all victimless crimes, and then according to your logic, the federal government would have the ability to say that the state can't legalize it.
Think of med mar. laws in california being violated by federalized authority, something you support.
Or at least you act like you support by supporting Obama and federalized authority

I have no idea what you're talking about.

I do, indeed, support medical marijuana... and I don't see what that has to do with it.

What I'm (clearly) talking about, is federal adherence to the constitution acting as a check on state ability to LIMIT liberty - so I'm really not sure why you appear to be arguing exactly the opposite. It's kinda like a strawman fallacy, if a strawman was defined as attacking the exact OPPOSITE of the argument being made.

[Grave_n_idle]

No, it's fair. He's a fringe candidate even compared to the other fringe candidates, and the lack of media attention only helps his cause because the more he opens his mouth the more people realize that he's completely full of shit.

Should we give media attention to the Communist Party candidate? Because even he would be less extremist than Paul...

He's a fringe candidate?

Yes.

[Alien Space Bats]

Did anyone notice all of the shout-outs to Rand Paul in Ron Paul's speech last night (i.e., after Michigan and Arizona)? Go watch that speech again if you still doubt my assertion that Ron Paul is running to take over the GOP and give to his son as a legacy.

[Tahar Joblis]

Ron Paul, social conservative that he is, blundered into a minefield recently by commenting that "if it was a real rape," he'd be OK with a woman having an abortion. This is not an especially unusual position - there are a number of pro-life types running around, especially within the "old white man" demographic, and most pro-lifers favor some exceptions.

There's an interesting bit of policy consequence to examine in that implication. Currently, we have a certain set of mostly clear motives for false reporting of rape - garnering attention and sympathy, providing an alibi, and finally, revenge[1] account for most of the reasons that women make false claims that they were raped.

False claims are, of course, problematic for two reasons. First, if a man is identified as a rapist, he is presumed guilty by a substantial percentage of the population, which presumption, as we have noted previously on NSG, is often continued past being cleared, thanks to the common claim that most rapists get away with it [which is, thanks to the underreporting of actual rapes, true]. Second, the more false accusations that are in the system, the greater the hurdle of credibility is for true accusations.

Now, imagine that abortion is illegal except in the case of rape. That is to say, in order to obtain an abortion, you need to lay out the case that you were raped. Avoiding having to go through pregnancy is something that, I suspect, is a rather serious motivation, given that women have in the past been willing to risk serious health risks and prison sentences in order to get abortions when they were illegal.

So what I have learned from Ron Paul's gaffe is that if we make the grave mistake of illegalizing abortion with exceptions for rape, we're going to see a shitstorm of false allegations unlike anything we have yet seen today. Currently, the number of abortions exceeds the number of reported rapes by an order of magnitude. If, in other words, a mere one tenth of women getting abortions today would be willing to risk the fallout of filing a false report of rape in order to get a legal abortion, reports of rape would double overnight, and the fraction of those that are true would drop in half. Which means that many young men would be facing rape charges that ruin their lives and many young women would face much more serious credibility hurdles in reporting rapes.

I hadn't really thought of that particular policy consequence before. Here, I thought that making abortion illegal except for rape and the health of the mother would simply drive abortions underground and force some women to go through pregnancy, but no, it will also probably flood the legal system with spurious claims of rape.

[Yootwopia]

I hadn't really thought of that particular policy consequence before. Here, I thought that making abortion illegal except for rape and the health of the mother would simply drive abortions underground and force some women to go through pregnancy, but no, it will also probably flood the legal system with spurious claims of rape.

Definitely the worst result of this kind of legislation.

[Tahar Joblis]

I hadn't really thought of that particular policy consequence before. Here, I thought that making abortion illegal except for rape and the health of the mother would simply drive abortions underground and force some women to go through pregnancy, but no, it will also probably flood the legal system with spurious claims of rape.

Definitely the worst result of this kind of legislation.

Oh, not really. The worst result is that Cthulhu wakes up and eats all of us. It's only by aborting enough fetuses to keep Him dreaming peacefully that He hasn't done it already.

[Dempublicents1]

Technically, what Paul said was that she should go immediately and get a shot of estrogen (which I believe would have much the same effect as Plan B). So he isn't allowing an abortion, just an extra dose of contraceptive.

That said, you are absolutely right that outlawing abortion with an exception for rape would likely lead to women desperate to abort lying about being raped. I've actually seen people argue that abortion should be legal for that reason.

[Azulor]

Ron Paul is a good man. He wants our nation to be secure and debt-free.

[Wikkiwallana]

Ron Paul is a good man. He wants our nation to be secure and debt-free.

Defaulting isn't being debt-free, it's just telling your creditors "screw you, you aren't gonna collect".

[Azulor]

He isn't defaulting.

[Wikkiwallana]

He isn't defaulting.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MHk-vvsDWnM
http://money.cnn.com/2011/06/28/news/economy/ron_paul_bankruptcy/index.htm

[Arkinesia]

Has anyone else heard this laughably insane conspiracy theory that Santorum and now (wat) ThinkProgress is talking about?

The theory goes that Paul is intentionally not attacking Romney because he is secretly inceptioning his supporters into voting for Romney or something.

[Azulor]

That is a really dumb theory. Ron Paul is good. He wouldn't do a thing like that.

[Grave_n_idle]

That is a really dumb theory. Ron Paul is good. He wouldn't do a thing like that.

I suspect Ron Paul would most certainly try to promote a different GOP candidate if he can't clinch the nomination himself.

If you think he 'wouldn't do a thing like that', you must not have a very high opinion of him as a politician.