930 Forums
=> GENERAL DISCUSSION => Topic started by: Charlie Nakatestes, Japanese Golfer on January 04, 2008, 09:48:00 am
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If the presidential race were between these two dwarves, who would you vote for?
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Ron Paul
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Ron Paul as well.
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Kucinich. I'm tired of politicians feeding bullshit like "The Bible is my favorite book." Hell, even Jesus would find the Bible boring.
I want dudes telling me that the whole point of smoking a joint is to inhale and that UFO's are real. Those are the true heroes.
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kucinich
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Kuchinich. Only because Ron Paul is pro-life.
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Kuchinich. If Paul had his way he would ruin the country.
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Kucinich, who is great in everything except his impractical "I would never use a nuke" declaration
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Ron Paul
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I'm not sure who I would choose. Mrs. Kucinich is a fine looking woman, for a Brit. That said, I bet Ron has seen more pussy.
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Originally posted by Charlie Nakatestes,Japanese Golfer:
I bet Ron has seen more pussy.
As long as you're betting with someone who doesn't know about Paul's other occupation.
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Originally posted by Charlie Nakatestes,Japanese Golfer:
I'm not sure who I would choose. Mrs. Kucinich is a fine looking woman, for a Brit. That said, I bet Ron has seen more pussy.
*edit* Unintentionally posted twice, and a weird "flood protection" message came up.
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ron paul is from pittsburgh, originally. so i could be swayed
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kucinich, fuck ron paul
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Originally posted by beetsnotbeats:
Kuchinich. If Paul had his way he would ruin the country.
if anybody had their way, they would ruin the country.
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England.
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ron paul but both suck
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Originally posted by Charlie Nakatestes,Japanese Golfer:
I'm not sure who I would choose.
doesnt ron paul want to fire you
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RALPH NADER!!!!
Or we could just wipe our arse with our ballot form.....
;)
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Well I guess it's an easy choice then.
Originally posted by god's shoeshine:
Originally posted by Charlie Nakatestes,Japanese Golfer:
I'm not sure who I would choose.
doesnt ron paul want to fire you [/b]
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ron paul
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Originally posted by Venerable Bede:
ron paul
Libertarian Guilt.
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Kucinich of course, we vegans got to stick together.
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Originally posted by Brain Walrus:
RALPH NADER!!!!
Or we could just wipe our arse with our ballot form.....
;)
i was going to say him, but i thought most "people in the know" hate him now. they need a new slave puppet.
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Kucinich
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Can we write in Bill Clinton? The right wing nut jobs on am radio are still whining and complaining about him and he's been out 7 years!!! so I figured he must've done something really, really right (no pun intended)
I'm seriously thinking about Hillary because that would put Bill back in the Whitehouse and she would just be his mouthpiece.......
Either that or nobody because they're all fake wankers as far as I'm concerned. You've got Mitt Romney, who not only looks like a Thunderbirds puppet, he even has a Thunderbirds puppet name. "Scott, Virgil, Alan, Brains and Mitt"
<img src="http://pwbeat.publishersweekly.com/blog/wp-content/2007/06/thunderbirds16ns7.jpg" alt=" - " />
Then you've got the baptist fruit loop, Huckaby and having been married into a baptist fruitloop family and lived to tell the tale, he's out....
Obama is about as qualified as my 5 year old, and one step to the right from being a socialist. He could be a good candidate in a few years for those that far to the left, but not at the moment.
Hillary is well.....Hillary. Enough said!
John Edwards is about as appealing as a used car salesman.
Spoiled for choice aren't we??
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Originally posted by Brain Walrus:
Spoiled for choice aren't we??
Par for the course.
I don't know who will get my vote now that Harry Browne is dead :(
May he rest in peace. He tried.
Best thing i saw out of this years crop was Gravel from Alaska, and he bailed early coz nobody wanted to hear an old codger spouting the truth without thought or care of repercussions.He was the first of those going the way of Biden and Dodd. Paul and Kucinich, now there's an independent ticket for ya ;)
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Edwards has emerged as the most progressive frontrunner by far. Obama talks the progressive talk but stumbles in the walk. Clinton isn't even running for president. She's running for CEO of USA, Inc.
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Ron Paul
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What became of the allegations of criminal botnets stumping for Ron Paul? Did it turn out to just be legions of 24/7 online types who were mistaken for bots?
http://www.wired.com/politics/security/news/2007/10/paul_bot (http://www.wired.com/politics/security/news/2007/10/paul_bot)
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Edwards has emerged as the most progressive frontrunner by far. Obama talks the progressive talk but stumbles in the walk. Clinton isn't even running for president. She's running for CEO of USA, Inc.
[/b]
my thoughts exactly. while it would be nice to not have a middle-aged or old white male in the oval office, i don't think hilary or obama are right for this year's election. an edwards/obama ticket could be good, though.
besdies hilary being a corporate mouthpiece and consistent war supporter for years, i think we need to get away from this clinton-bush era as fast as fucking possible.
oh yeah, and i'll take the socialist over the libertarian.
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Originally posted by They call me Doctor Doom.:
What became of the allegations of criminal botnets stumping for Ron Paul? Did it turn out to just be legions of 24/7 online types who were mistaken for bots?
http://www.wired.com/politics/security/news/2007/10/paul_bot (http://www.wired.com/politics/security/news/2007/10/paul_bot)
It makes complete sense for the spam industry to back Paul. Spammers are increasingly being regulated and Paul wants to eliminate such regulations (not specifically, AFAIK, but in keeping with Libertarian Party priciples).
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Ron Paul, in fact I support him first and foremost, not just against Kucinich. I've been libertarian leaning from the age of 17. As for that bot/spammer bit, it's really not. It's just fanatical people. He wins all those online polls because the average Ron Paul supporter is on at least one ron paul fan site at least once or twice every day. So all of them click on links that one of them finds wherever the poll may be on whatever site and hence he wins.
What blows me away is that the idea of not meddling around in everyone else's country and actually using all that money saved to do things like enable social security to die a dignified death without actually putting seniors out in the cold isn't catching on more. Anyone else think it might be a good idea to actually turn around the reputation of the US around the world, start making friends again? Actually do something about the declining dollar and the out of control Federal Reserve? These aren't crazy ideas. It's just the basic philosophy of take care of your own, and let other people take care of themselves. It is not our place to police the world.
Sorry for rant, but hey, it's primary season and I'm particularly fired up.
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Errr. policing the world???? If Bush was the leader of any other country than the U.S of A he'd be up for war crimes against humanity.
I think a more accurate description would be
bullying the world
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Ron Paul has so much support at the moment because he's the only chance for a literate Republican in America to participate in a political conversation in '08 because of his stance on Iraq. No other Republican allows for a realistic view on Iraq because they're afraid of alienating the base. It's a little theory I'm working on called "Republican Guilt."
But the truth is, if you dig under the sufrace dust on Ron Paul, you will see his stance on foreign policy among other things, is so insane, no rational human could support the man, lest we go back to the early 1900's. Anyone remember what happened in the next 50 years because of that stance?
Does anyone in America really think citizens of the US could or should live off of only our own resources? Want to talk about an energy crunch - think long and hard about that stance for about 20 seconds.
Don't make the mistake of not liking the status quo by running to the complete opposite side. One extreme does not fix another.
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Originally posted by vansmack:
No other Republican allows for a realistic view on Iraq because they're afraid of alienating the base
It's funny that the Arabic term for "the base" is "Al Qaeda."
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Originally posted by vansmack:
Does anyone in America really think citizens of the US could or should live off of only our own resources? Want to talk about an energy crunch - think long and hard about that stance for about 20 seconds.
Remember, Ron Paul is not about isolationism. Trade with all, treaties with none. Who says we have to rely on our own resources?
And yeah, it is more like bullying than policing.
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Ron Paul because he reads and is current with what is going on....sucks that Joy told him he has no chance in hell of winning!!!!!!!!!
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I imagine the world would become much like Idiocracy under Libertarians...
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First off, just because he doesn't use the term isolationism does not mean that he's not an isolationist. The tern non-interventionist is just a modern term for the same doctrine. Unfortunately, Paul relies on 18th century doctrine to defend his isolationsit stance - except the world was vastly different for the US back then when the founding fathers were urging America to focus on building it's democracy rather than getting involved in Europes affairs (And by that, they really meant France). Now that it's the world's model democracy, the rest of the world looks to us and to ignore that responsibility is, without a doubt, isolationism, no matter what term Paul uses.
The world is vastly different today than it was even 8 years ago. The US was not seen as a bully pre-Iraq, at least not to the extent it is viewed today. With great power comes great responsibility, and while the US is viewed as failing on its responsibility and has tarnished its reputation, that pales in comparison to what our reputation would be if we failed to keep our promises to fledgling democracies around the world - democracies we helped build. Democracies would fall around the world, entire races and tribes would be eliminated by genocide, and unstable nations with nuclear weapons (like Pakistan) would be havens for Islamic Jihadists. If it weren't for US troops protecting those nuclear weapons in 2001, there's little doubt that al-qeada would already have them. The world is vastly different today then it was in 1776, and letting your guard down for one instant can kill millions in a second. And I'm not even gooing to get into China and Russia.
His attack on the Bretton Woods instutions is unfounded as well. Yes, reform is needed, but the Bretton Woods institutions have had a much more positive effect on the US economy than it has a negative, especially after WWII in allowing the US to invest in foreign markets and export surplus goods.
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A French newspaper said Sunday that recently divorced French President Nicolas Sarkozy may marry former supermodel-turned-singer Carla Bruni, his new girlfriend, next month.
Under the headline "Marriage Imminent," the weekly Le Journal du Dimanche reported that several sources, none of whom it identified, said the two would marry Feb. 8 or 9.
The presidential palace, contacted by The Associated Press, declined to comment on the report.
The report said Sarkozy gave a heart-shaped, pink-diamond ring to Bruni as a sign of their engagement in December, less than a month after they met.
The pair has been photographed repeatedly in public in recent weeks: At Disneyland Paris in early December, on holiday in Egypt last week, and Saturday while touring the ancient Jordanian ruins of Petra
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Originally posted by Charlie Nakatestes,Japanese Golfer:
I'm not sure who I would choose. Mrs. Kucinich is a fine looking woman, for a Brit. That said, I bet Ron has seen more pussy.
I'd take the quality over quantity.
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Anyone catch Paul on Leno last night?
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Sarkozy is such a pimp.
And I'd vote Ron Paul in this case.
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Originally posted by Arthwys:
Anyone catch Paul on Leno last night?
Obviously doesn't care about the union vote!!
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Kucinich. I'm kinda sad that he said if he doesn't get enough votes people should vote for Obama. I don't like him either. :confused:
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Originally posted by Arthwys:
Anyone catch Paul on Leno last night?
Part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r-fwEAf6M1U (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r-fwEAf6M1U)
Part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CVORsfHBGaI (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CVORsfHBGaI)
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The New Republic is certainly a source with an agenda...but this is pretty scary stuff:
http://www.tnr.com/politics/story.html?id=e2f15397-a3c7-4720-ac15-4532a7da84ca (http://www.tnr.com/politics/story.html?id=e2f15397-a3c7-4720-ac15-4532a7da84ca)
The New Republic
Angry White Man by James Kirchick
The bigoted past of Ron Paul.
Post Date Tuesday, January 08, 2008
If you are a critic of the Bush administration, chances are that, at some point over the past six months, Ron Paul has said something that appealed to you. Paul describes himself as a libertarian, but, since his presidential campaign took off earlier this year, the Republican congressman has attracted donations and plaudits from across the ideological spectrum. Antiwar conservatives, disaffected centrists, even young liberal activists have all flocked to Paul, hailing him as a throwback to an earlier age, when politicians were less mealy-mouthed and American government was more modest in its ambitions, both at home and abroad. In The New York Times Magazine, conservative writer Christopher Caldwell gushed that Paul is a "formidable stander on constitutional principle," while The Nation praised "his full-throated rejection of the imperial project in Iraq." Former TNR editor Andrew Sullivan endorsed Paul for the GOP nomination, and ABC's Jack Tapper described the candidate as "the one true straight-talker in this race." Even The Wall Street Journal, the newspaper of the elite bankers whom Paul detests, recently advised other Republican presidential contenders not to "dismiss the passion he's tapped."
Most voters had never heard of Paul before he launched his quixotic bid for the Republican nomination. But the Texan has been active in politics for decades. And long before he was the darling of antiwar activists on the left and right, Paul was in the newsletter business. In the age before blogs, newsletters occupied a prominent place in right-wing political discourse. With the pages of mainstream political magazines typically off-limits to their views (National Review editor William F. Buckley having famously denounced the John Birch Society), hardline conservatives resorted to putting out their own, less glossy publications. These were often paranoid and rambling--dominated by talk of international banking conspiracies, the Trilateral Commission's plans for world government, and warnings about coming Armageddon--but some of them had wide and devoted audiences. And a few of the most prominent bore the name of Ron Paul.
Paul's newsletters have carried different titles over the years--Ron Paul's Freedom Report, Ron Paul Political Report, The Ron Paul Survival Report--but they generally seem to have been published on a monthly basis since at least 1978. (Paul, an OB-GYN and former U.S. Army surgeon, was first elected to Congress in 1976.) During some periods, the newsletters were published by the Foundation for Rational Economics and Education, a non-profit Paul founded in 1976; at other times, they were published by Ron Paul & Associates, a now-defunct entity in which Paul owned a minority stake, according to his campaign spokesman. The Freedom Report claimed to have over 100,000 readers in 1984. At one point, Ron Paul & Associates also put out a monthly publication called The Ron Paul Investment Letter.
The Freedom Report's online archives only go back to 1999, but I was curious to see older editions of Paul's newsletters, in part because of a controversy dating to 1996, when Charles "Lefty" Morris, a Democrat running against Paul for a House seat, released excerpts stating that "opinion polls consistently show only about 5% of blacks have sensible political opinions," that "if you have ever been robbed by a black teen-aged male, you know how unbelievably fleet-footed they can be," and that black congresswoman Barbara Jordan is "the archetypical half-educated victimologist" whose "race and sex protect her from criticism." At the time, Paul's campaign said that Morris had quoted the newsletter out of context. Later, in 2001, Paul would claim that someone else had written the controversial passages. (Few of the newsletters contain actual bylines.) Caldwell, writing in the Times Magazine last year, said he found Paul's explanation believable, "since the style diverges widely from his own."
Finding the pre-1999 newsletters was no easy task, but I was able to track many of them down at the libraries of the University of Kansas and the Wisconsin Historical Society. Of course, with few bylines, it is difficult to know whether any particular article was written by Paul himself. Some of the earlier newsletters are signed by him, though the vast majority of the editions I saw contain no bylines at all. Complicating matters, many of the unbylined newsletters were written in the first-person, implying that Paul was the author.
But, whoever actually wrote them, the newsletters I saw all had one thing in common: They were published under a banner containing Paul's name, and the articles (except for one special edition of a newsletter that contained the byline of another writer) seem designed to create the impression that they were written by him--and reflected his views. What they reveal are decades worth of obsession with conspiracies, sympathy for the right-wing militia movement, and deeply held bigotry against blacks, Jews, and gays. In short, they suggest that Ron Paul is not the plain-speaking antiwar activist his supporters believe they are backing--but rather a member in good standing of some of the oldest and ugliest traditions in American politics.
To understand Paul's philosophy, the best place to start is probably the Ludwig von Mises Institute, a libertarian think tank based in Auburn, Alabama. The institute is named for a libertarian Austrian economist, but it was founded by a man named Lew Rockwell, who also served as Paul's congressional chief of staff from 1978 to 1982. Paul has had a long and prominent association with the institute, teaching at its seminars and serving as a "distinguished counselor." The institute has also published his books.
The politics of the organization are complicated--its philosophy derives largely from the work of the late Murray Rothbard, a Bronx-born son of Jewish immigrants from Poland and a self-described "anarcho-capitalist" who viewed the state as nothing more than "a criminal gang"--but one aspect of the institute's worldview stands out as particularly disturbing: its attachment to the Confederacy. Thomas E. Woods Jr., a member of the institute's senior faculty, is a founder of the League of the South, a secessionist group, and the author of The Politically Incorrect Guide to American History, a pro-Confederate, revisionist tract published in 2004. Paul enthusiastically blurbed Woods's book, saying that it "heroically rescues real history from the politically correct memory hole." Thomas DiLorenzo, another senior faculty member and author of The Real Lincoln: A New Look at Abraham Lincoln, His Agenda, and an Unnecessary War, refers to the Civil War as the "War for Southern Independence" and attacks "Lincoln cultists"; Paul endorsed the book on MSNBC last month in a debate over whether the Civil War was necessary (Paul thinks it was not). In April 1995, the institute hosted a conference on secession at which Paul spoke; previewing the event, Rockwell wrote to supporters, "we'll explore what causes [secession] and how to promote it." Paul's newsletters have themselves repeatedly expressed sympathy for the general concept of secession. In 1992, for instance, the Survival Report argued that "the right of secession should be ingrained in a free society" and that "there is nothing wrong with loosely banding together small units of government. With the disintegration of the Soviet Union, we too should consider it."
The people surrounding the von Mises Institute--including Paul--may describe themselves as libertarians, but they are nothing like the urbane libertarians who staff the Cato Institute or the libertines at Reason magazine. Instead, they represent a strain of right-wing libertarianism that views the Civil War as a catastrophic turning point in American history--the moment when a tyrannical federal government established its supremacy over the states. As one prominent Washington libertarian told me, "There are too many libertarians in this country ... who, because they are attracted to the great books of Mises, ... find their way to the Mises Institute and then are told that a defense of the Confederacy is part of libertarian thought."
Paul's alliance with neo-Confederates helps explain the views his newsletters have long espoused on race. Take, for instance, a special issue of the Ron Paul Political Report, published in June 1992, dedicated to explaining the Los Angeles riots of that year. "Order was only restored in L.A. when it came time for the blacks to pick up their welfare checks three days after rioting began," read one typical passage. According to the newsletter, the looting was a natural byproduct of government indulging the black community with "'civil rights,' quotas, mandated hiring preferences, set-asides for government contracts, gerrymandered voting districts, black bureaucracies, black mayors, black curricula in schools, black tv shows, black tv anchors, hate crime laws, and public humiliation for anyone who dares question the black agenda." It also denounced "the media" for believing that "America's number one need is an unlimited white checking account for underclass blacks." To be fair, the newsletter did praise Asian merchants in Los Angeles, but only because they had the gumption to resist political correctness and fight back. Koreans were "the only people to act like real Americans," it explained, "mainly because they have not yet been assimilated into our rotten liberal culture, which admonishes whites faced by raging blacks to lie back and think of England."
This "Special Issue on Racial Terrorism" was hardly the first time one of Paul's publications had raised these topics. As early as December 1989, a section of his Investment Letter, titled "What To Expect for the 1990s," predicted that "Racial Violence Will Fill Our Cities" because "mostly black welfare recipients will feel justified in stealing from mostly white 'haves.'" Two months later, a newsletter warned of "The Coming Race War," and, in November 1990, an item advised readers, "If you live in a major city, and can leave, do so. If not, but you can have a rural retreat, for investment and refuge, buy it." In June 1991, an entry on racial disturbances in Washington, DC's Adams Morgan neighborhood was titled, "Animals Take Over the D.C. Zoo." "This is only the first skirmish in the race war of the 1990s," the newsletter predicted. In an October 1992 item about urban crime, the newsletter's author--presumably Paul--wrote, "I've urged everyone in my family to know how to use a gun in self defense. For the animals are coming." That same year, a newsletter described the aftermath of a basketball game in which "blacks poured into the streets of Chicago in celebration. How to celebrate? How else? They broke the windows of stores to loot." The newsletter inveighed against liberals who "want to keep white America from taking action against black crime and welfare," adding, "Jury verdicts, basketball games, and even music are enough to set off black rage, it seems."
Such views on race also inflected the newsletters' commentary on foreign affairs. South Africa's transition to multiracial democracy was portrayed as a "destruction of civilization" that was "the most tragic [to] ever occur on that continent, at least below the Sahara"; and, in March 1994, a month before Nelson Mandela was elected president, one item warned of an impending "South African Holocaust."
Martin Luther King Jr. earned special ire from Paul's newsletters, which attacked the civil rights leader frequently, often to justify opposition to the federal holiday named after him. ("What an infamy Ronald Reagan approved it!" one newsletter complained in 1990. "We can thank him for our annual Hate Whitey Day.") In the early 1990s, a newsletter attacked the "X-Rated Martin Luther King" as a "world-class philanderer who beat up his paramours," "seduced underage girls and boys," and "made a pass at" fellow civil rights leader Ralph Abernathy. One newsletter ridiculed black activists who wanted to rename New York City after King, suggesting that "Welfaria," "Zooville," "Rapetown," "Dirtburg," and "Lazyopolis" were better alternatives. The same year, King was described as "a comsymp, if not an actual party member, and the man who replaced the evil of forced segregation with the evil of forced integration."
While bashing King, the newsletters had kind words for the former Imperial Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, David Duke. In a passage titled "The Duke's Victory," a newsletter celebrated Duke's 44 percent showing in the 1990 Louisiana Republican Senate primary. "Duke lost the election," it said, "but he scared the blazes out of the Establishment." In 1991, a newsletter asked, "Is David Duke's new prominence, despite his losing the gubernatorial election, good for anti-big government forces?" The conclusion was that "our priority should be to take the anti-government, anti-tax, anti-crime, anti-welfare loafers, anti-race privilege, anti-foreign meddling message of Duke, and enclose it in a more consistent package of freedom." Duke is now returning the favor, telling me that, while he will not formally endorse any candidate, he has made information about Ron Paul available on his website.
Like blacks, gays earn plenty of animus in Paul's newsletters. They frequently quoted Paul's "old colleague," Congressman William Dannemeyer--who advocated quarantining people with AIDS--praising him for "speak[ing] out fearlessly despite the organized power of the gay lobby." In 1990, one newsletter mentioned a reporter from a gay magazine "who certainly had an axe to grind, and that's not easy with a limp wrist." In an item titled, "The Pink House?" the author of a newsletter--again, presumably Paul--complained about President George H.W. Bush's decision to sign a hate crimes bill and invite "the heads of homosexual lobbying groups to the White House for the ceremony," adding, "I miss the closet." "Homosexuals," it said, "not to speak of the rest of society, were far better off when social pressure forced them to hide their activities." When Marvin Liebman, a founder of the conservative Young Americans for Freedom and a longtime political activist, announced that he was gay in the pages of National Review, a Paul newsletter implored, "Bring Back the Closet!" Surprisingly, one item expressed ambivalence about the contentious issue of gays in the military, but ultimately concluded, "Homosexuals, if admitted, should be put in a special category and not allowed in close physical contact with heterosexuals."
The newsletters were particularly obsessed with AIDS, "a politically protected disease thanks to payola and the influence of the homosexual lobby," and used it as a rhetorical club to beat gay people in general. In 1990, one newsletter approvingly quoted "a well-known Libertarian editor" as saying, "The ACT-UP slogan, on stickers plastered all over Manhattan, is 'Silence = Death.' But shouldn't it be 'Sodomy = Death'?" Readers were warned to avoid blood transfusions because gays were trying to "poison the blood supply." "Am I the only one sick of hearing about the 'rights' of AIDS carriers?" a newsletter asked in 1990. That same year, citing a Christian-right fringe publication, an item suggested that "the AIDS patient" should not be allowed to eat in restaurants and that "AIDS can be transmitted by saliva," which is false. Paul's newsletters advertised a book, Surviving the AIDS Plague--also based upon the casual-transmission thesis--and defended "parents who worry about sending their healthy kids to school with AIDS victims." Commenting on a rise in AIDS infections, one newsletter said that "gays in San Francisco do not obey the dictates of good sense," adding: "[T]hese men don't really see a reason to live past their fifties. They are not married, they have no children, and their lives are centered on new sexual partners." Also, "they enjoy the attention and pity that comes with being sick."
The rhetoric when it came to Jews was little better. The newsletters display an obsession with Israel; no other country is mentioned more often in the editions I saw, or with more vitriol. A 1987 issue of Paul's Investment Letter called Israel "an aggressive, national socialist state," and a 1990 newsletter discussed the "tens of thousands of well-placed friends of Israel in all countries who are willing to wok [sic] for the Mossad in their area of expertise." Of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, a newsletter said, "Whether it was a setup by the Israeli Mossad, as a Jewish friend of mine suspects, or was truly a retaliation by the Islamic fundamentalists, matters little."
Paul's newsletters didn't just contain bigotry. They also contained paranoia--specifically, the brand of anti-government paranoia that festered among right-wing militia groups during the 1980s and '90s. Indeed, the newsletters seemed to hint that armed revolution against the federal government would be justified. In January 1995, three months before right-wing militants bombed the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, a newsletter listed "Ten Militia Commandments," describing "the 1,500 local militias now training to defend liberty" as "one of the most encouraging developments in America." It warned militia members that they were "possibly under BATF [Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms] or other totalitarian federal surveillance" and printed bits of advice from the Sons of Liberty, an anti-government militia based in Alabama--among them, "You can't kill a Hydra by cutting off its head," "Keep the group size down," "Keep quiet and you're harder to find," "Leave no clues," "Avoid the phone as much as possible," and "Don't fire unless fired upon, but if they mean to have a war, let it begin here."
The newsletters are chock-full of shopworn conspiracies, reflecting Paul's obsession with the "industrial-banking-political elite" and promoting his distrust of a federally regulated monetary system utilizing paper bills. They contain frequent and bristling references to the Bilderberg Group, the Trilateral Commission, and the Council on Foreign Relations--organizations that conspiracy theorists have long accused of seeking world domination. In 1978, a newsletter blamed David Rockefeller, the Trilateral Commission, and "fascist-oriented, international banking and business interests" for the Panama Canal Treaty, which it called "one of the saddest events in the history of the United States." A 1988 newsletter cited a doctor who believed that AIDS was created in a World Health Organization laboratory in Fort Detrick, Maryland. In addition, Ron Paul & Associates sold a video about Waco produced by "patriotic Indiana lawyer Linda Thompson"--as one of the newsletters called her--who maintained that Waco was a conspiracy to kill ATF agents who had previously worked for President Clinton as bodyguards. As with many of the more outlandish theories the newsletters cited over the years, the video received a qualified endorsement: "I can't vouch for every single judgment by the narrator, but the film does show the depths of government perfidy, and the national police's tricks and crimes," the newsletter said, adding, "Send your check for $24.95 to our Houston office, or charge the tape to your credit card at 1-800-RON-PAUL."
When I asked Jesse Benton, Paul's campaign spokesman, about the newsletters, he said that, over the years, Paul had granted "various levels of approval" to what appeared in his publications--ranging from "no approval" to instances where he "actually wrote it himself." After I read Benton some of the more offensive passages, he said, "A lot of [the newsletters] he did not see. Most of the incendiary stuff, no." He added that he was surprised to hear about the insults hurled at Martin Luther King, because "Ron thinks Martin Luther King is a hero."
In other words, Paul's campaign wants to depict its candidate as a naïve, absentee overseer, with minimal knowledge of what his underlings were doing on his behalf. This portrayal might be more believable if extremist views had cropped up in the newsletters only sporadically--or if the newsletters had just been published for a short time. But it is difficult to imagine how Paul could allow material consistently saturated in racism, homophobia, anti-Semitism, and conspiracy-mongering to be printed under his name for so long if he did not share these views. In that respect, whether or not Paul personally wrote the most offensive passages is almost beside the point. If he disagreed with what was being written under his name, you would think that at some point--over the course of decades--he would have done something about it.
What's more, Paul's connections to extremism go beyond the newsletters. He has given extensive interviews to the magazine of the John Birch Society, and has frequently been a guest of Alex Jones, a radio host and perhaps the most famous conspiracy theorist in America. Jones--whose recent documentary, Endgame: Blueprint for Global Enslavement, details the plans of George Pataki, David Rockefeller, and Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands, among others, to exterminate most of humanity and develop themselves into "superhuman" computer hybrids able to "travel throughout the cosmos"--estimates that Paul has appeared on his radio program about 40 times over the past twelve years.
Then there is Gary North, who has worked on Paul's congressional staff. North is a central figure in Christian Reconstructionism, which advocates the implementation of Biblical law in modern society. Christian Reconstructionists share common ground with libertarians, since both groups dislike the central government. North has advocated the execution of women who have abortions and people who curse their parents. In a 1986 book, North argued for stoning as a form of capital punishment--because "the implements of execution are available to everyone at virtually no cost." North is perhaps best known for Gary North's Remnant Review, a "Christian and pro free-market" newsletter. In a 1983 letter Paul wrote on behalf of an organization called the Committee to Stop the Bail-Out of Multinational Banks (known by the acronym CSBOMB), he bragged, "Perhaps you already read in Gary North's Remnant Review about my exposes of government abuse."
Ron Paul is not going to be president. But, as his campaign has gathered steam, he has found himself increasingly permitted inside the boundaries of respectable debate. He sat for an extensive interview with Tim Russert recently. He has raised almost $20 million in just three months, much of it online. And he received nearly three times as many votes as erstwhile front-runner Rudy Giuliani in last week's Iowa caucus. All the while he has generally been portrayed by the media as principled and serious, while garnering praise for being a "straight-talker."
From his newsletters, however, a different picture of Paul emerges--that of someone who is either himself deeply embittered or, for a long time, allowed others to write bitterly on his behalf. His adversaries are often described in harsh terms: Barbara Jordan is called "Barbara Morondon," Eleanor Holmes Norton is a "black pinko," Donna Shalala is a "short lesbian," Ron Brown is a "racial victimologist," and Roberta Achtenberg, the first openly gay public official confirmed by the United States Senate, is a "far-left, normal-hating lesbian activist." Maybe such outbursts mean Ron Paul really is a straight-talker. Or maybe they just mean he is a man filled with hate.
James Kirchick is an assistant editor at The New Republic.
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I'm more scared of Clear Channel than I am of Ron Paul.
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Direct quotes from the newsletters.
Source, with links to images of the newsletters: http://pajamasmedia.com/2008/01/ron_paul.php (http://pajamasmedia.com/2008/01/ron_paul.php)
Racist Pull Quotes:
??- ur country is being destroyed by a group of actual and potential terrorists??and they can be identified by the color of their skin.?
??I think we can safely assume that 95% of the black males in that city [Washington, D.C.] are semi-criminal or entirely criminal.?
??We are constantly told that it is evil to be afraid of black men, but it is hardly irrational.?
??The riots, burning, looting, and murders are only a continuation of 30 years of racial politics.?
??The criminals who terrorize our cities??in riots and on every non-riot day??are not exclusively young black males, but they largely are. As children, they are trained to hate whites, to believe that white oppression is responsible for all black ills, to ??fight the power,? and to steal and loot as much money from the white enemy as possible. Anything is justified against ??The Man.?? And ??The Woman.?????
??My friend waved to the tiny [African-American] child, who scowled, stuck out her tongue, and said (somewhat tautologically): ??I hate you, white honkey.? And the parents were indulgent. Is any white child taught to hate in this way?? [As a matter of fact, Paul has appeared on a radio program called ??The Political Cesspool,? which has featured the neo-Nazi twin pop stars Prussian Blue. ??ed.]
??But this is normal, and in fact benign, compared to much of the anti-white ideology in the thoroughly racist black community. The black leadership indoctrinates its followers with phony history and phony theory to bolster its claims of victimology.?
??Korean-Americans, hated by blacks, never riot, and in fact are some of the most productive people in America (the reason for black hatred).?
??The cause of the riots is plain: barbarism. If the barbarians cannot loot sufficiently through legal channels (i.e., the riots being the welfare-state minus the middleman), they resort to illegal ones, to terrorism.?
??We must not kowtow to the street hoodlums and their sanctimonious leaders.?
??Regardless of what the media tell us, most white Americans are not going to believe that they are at fault for what blacks have done to cities across America. The professional blacks may have cowed the elites, but good sense survives at the grass roots.?
??Indeed, it is shocking to consider the uniformity of opinion among blacks in this country.?
??Blacks have ??civil rights,?? preferences, set-asides for government contracts, gerrymandered voting districts, black bureaucracies, black mayors, black curricula in schools, black beauty contests, black TV shows, black TV anchors, black scholarships and colleges, hate crime laws, and public humiliation for anyone who dares question the black agenda.?
Source: The Ron Paul Report, ??Los Angeles Racial Terrorism?
??Black males age 13 that have been raised on the streets and who have joined criminal gangs are as big, strong, tough, scary, and culpable as any adult and should be treated as such.?
Source: The Ron Paul Political/Survival report, 1990-1994, excerpted by the Austin Chronicle
Conspiracist Pull Quotes:
??We now know that we are under assault from thugs and revolutionaries who hate Euro-American civilization and everything it stands for: private property, material success for those who earn it, and Christian morality.?
??In San Francisco and perhaps other cities, says expert Burt Blumert, the rioting was led by red-flag carrying members of the Revolutionary Communist Party and the Workers World Party, both Trotskyite-Maoist.?
??Many people tried to buy guns to protect themselves. But, whoops, California has a 14-day waiting period. And then, just to make sure honest Californians could not get ammunition for the firearms they already owned (poor ragefilled youth might be shot), Mayor Tom Bradley ordered all gun and ammo shops closed, a great help to criminals who had stocked up earlier, or who could simply break in and loot.?
??Several days after the violence ended, we learned that there would have been blacks on the King jury??if the NAACP hadn??t engaged in jury tampering by telling potential black jurors that it was their racial duty to convict the cops. The blacks admitted this to defense lawyers, and were rightly excluded from jury. This is a serious crime, but the NAACP will not be prosecuted.?
??Two years ago, in a series of predictions for the 1990s, I said that race riots would erupt in our large cities. I??m now predicting this will be the major problem of the 1990s.? [Helter Skelter, anybody???ed.]
Source: The Ron Paul Report, ??Los Angeles Racial Terrorism?
??Last month I reported on massive, illegal spying by the Anti-Defamation League of B??nai Brith against its perceived opponents, as revealed in California. The ADL keeps track of people and groups from left to right, and purchases illegally obtained information on Americans from its agents in police departments in order to prepare and maintain hundreds of thousands of dossiers.?
??The [Los Angeles] Times also brought to light the ADL??s work against ??cults,?? especially interesting given the BATF [Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms]-ADL connection.?
??It was such a seminar [i.e. a cult awareness training seminar], arranged by the ADL, that targeted the Branch Davidians in the first place.?
Source: The Ron Paul Survival Report, June 15, 1993
??The intensity with which Israel lobbies in the U.S. Congress is surpassed only by its media campaigns to drown all criticism of Israel. Prominent U.S. Editors and media owners don??t even pretend to objectivity on the issue. They all follow the advice of Norman Podhoretz, editor of the influential neo-conservative magazine Commentary?.? [Our emphasis ??ed.]
??This bias [Martin Peretz??s] informs every opinion expressed in The New Republic. For example, it opposed Contra aid until the Sandinista government showed sympathy for the PLO.?
Source: The Ron Paul Political Report, date uncertain
??If this walking bomb had gone off, it would have demolished the House Chamber and most of the congressmen in it. Yet this attempted terrorist attack was buried by the media. Why? Because the perpetrator was an undoubtedly mad Israeli, furious over alleged slights to his country? [T]he Israeli lobby deep-sixed the story, and no one outside of Congress ever head about it.?
Source: The Ron Paul Political Report, date uncertain
??The Earth Summit is the creepiest meeting of politicos since the first gathering of Bolsheviks. Officially known as the UN Conference for Environment and Development, it will be held in Brazil in June; bad guys from all over the globe will attend.?
??[Hillary Clinton] is one of the most dangerous women in public life. Not only is she a fanatical abortion advocate, she wants parents to register with the government as a condition for having children to be able to sue and `divorce?? themselves from their parents. Maybe her daughter ought to sue her parents for attempting to raise her as a leftist. That sure qualifies as abuse to me.?
??Disgruntled taxpayer Dean Hicks fired bombs through mortars at night at buildings of the Internal Revenue Service in California. Hicks did damage federal property, but no individuals were injured? Hicks was sentenced to 20 years in prison, given a $45,000 fine, and ordered to pay $335,000 in restitution to the IRS. If he had been a serial murderer, he would not have gotten this sort of sentence.?
??There is good news after the L.A. riots. Statewide, gun sales are up 45% over the same period last year. People have been purchasing a record number. If the cops are not going to take care of the problem, the people will.?
Source: The Ron Paul Political/Survival report, 1990-1994, excerpted by the Austin Chronicle
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ron paul, all the way. anybody fox news hates this much must be good for america.
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Originally posted by SHisIT:
ron paul, all the way. anybody fox news hates this much must be good for america.
The reason Fox News and the Republican party are disowning him is because they see he has the potential to be the 2008 version of Ralph Nader. If he runs as an independent, he'll take many more votes away from the Republicans than the Democrats.
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Originally posted by -kat-:
Kucinich. I'm kinda sad that he said if he doesn't get enough votes people should vote for Obama. I don't like him either. :confused:
If Obama becomes the democratic candidate then it's four more years of the far right. Edwards reminds me too much of a televangelist, and I don't think I'm the only one sick of him referring to them as "neo-cons", so by default Clinton is the only one who could actually beat a republican, and I'm not that keen on her. I'm not a registered democrat but I would most certainly be an anti-republican if you could register as such.
I probably won't even vote at all this year the pickings are so slim....it's like deciding wether you'd like your pubes plucked out or burned off.
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Originally posted by Brain Walrus:
I probably won't even vote at all this year the pickings are so slim....
Hey Mank, do you prefer voting for the party representatives and let them choose the leader, or do you like casting your vote for the leaders themselves?
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Mankie thinks we should have a queen.
Originally posted by vansmack:
Originally posted by Brain Walrus:
I probably won't even vote at all this year the pickings are so slim....
Hey Mank, do you prefer voting for the party representatives and let them choose the leader, or do you like casting your vote for the leaders themselves? [/b]
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'til i found out about his candidacy i was fairly disinterested in this election cycle. i can't argue w/ the whole constitution based approach; even when i disagree on individual issues.
it is a crazy idea though; i'll give you that. a politican with, you know; principles & ideals... shit like that. if we aren't collectively ready now, i hope we will be soon.
Originally posted by eros:
Originally posted by SHisIT:
ron paul, all the way. anybody fox news hates this much must be good for america.
The reason Fox News and the Republican party are disowning him is because they see he has the potential to be the 2008 version of Ralph Nader. If he runs as an independent, he'll take many more votes away from the Republicans than the Democrats. [/b]
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Originally posted by ggw?:
Mankie thinks we should have a queen.
Originally posted by vansmack:
Originally posted by Brain Walrus:
I probably won't even vote at all this year the pickings are so slim....
Hey Mank, do you prefer voting for the party representatives and let them choose the leader, or do you like casting your vote for the leaders themselves? [/b]
[/b]
Trust me when I say...America has way too many queens already.
Voting in the US is a joke anyway with this electoral college bullshit. Why can't they have a democratic vote and just count all the votes in the country then whoever gets the most votes wins??? And legal challenges to your dads buddies up in the supreme court should not be allowed.
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Originally posted by SHisIT:
'til i found out about his candidacy i was fairly disinterested in this election cycle. i can't argue w/ the whole constitution based approach; even when i disagree on individual issues.
it is a crazy idea though; i'll give you that. a politican with, you know; principles & ideals... shit like that. if we aren't collectively ready now, i hope we will be soon.
Except when those principles and ideals entail dismantling the federal government and letting all the red states turn themselves into separate little theocracies.
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Originally posted by eros:
Originally posted by SHisIT:
'til i found out about his candidacy i was fairly disinterested in this election cycle. i can't argue w/ the whole constitution based approach; even when i disagree on individual issues.
it is a crazy idea though; i'll give you that. a politican with, you know; principles & ideals... shit like that. if we aren't collectively ready now, i hope we will be soon.
Except when those principles and ideals entail dismantling the federal government and letting all the red states turn themselves into separate little theocracies. [/b]
what exactly is wrong with a little dismantling of the federal government? while the red states are turning themselves into theocracies, those blue states would be turning themselves into little socialist enclaves, since we're using generalities.
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Originally posted by Brain Walrus:
Voting in the US is a joke anyway with this electoral college bullshit. Why can't they have a democratic vote and just count all the votes in the country then whoever gets the most votes wins???
"What an absurd way to choose a president, sneer many non-Americans, perhaps forgetting their own arrangements (the coronation of Gordon Brown as Labour leader and prime minister, without a single vote, springs to mind)." (http://www.economist.com/opinion/displaystory.cfm?story_id=10328996)
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Neither of which would be desirable; hence better stick with the federal gov't.
Originally posted by Venerable Bede:
Originally posted by eros:
Originally posted by SHisIT:
'til i found out about his candidacy i was fairly disinterested in this election cycle. i can't argue w/ the whole constitution based approach; even when i disagree on individual issues.
it is a crazy idea though; i'll give you that. a politican with, you know; principles & ideals... shit like that. if we aren't collectively ready now, i hope we will be soon.
Except when those principles and ideals entail dismantling the federal government and letting all the red states turn themselves into separate little theocracies. [/b]
what exactly is wrong with a little dismantling of the federal government? while the red states are turning themselves into theocracies, those blue states would be turning themselves into little socialist enclaves, since we're using generalities. [/b]
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Originally posted by vansmack:
Originally posted by Brain Walrus:
Voting in the US is a joke anyway with this electoral college bullshit. Why can't they have a democratic vote and just count all the votes in the country then whoever gets the most votes wins???
"What an absurd way to choose a president, sneer many non-Americans, perhaps forgetting their own arrangements (the coronation of Gordon Brown as Labour leader and prime minister, without a single vote, springs to mind)." (http://www.economist.com/opinion/displaystory.cfm?story_id=10328996) [/b]
Smackie, I don't even need to read the article. I never said anything like "my way is better than your way"...my issue is that the US claims to be the worlds greatest democracy when it's not even a democracy
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Originally posted by Brain Walrus:
the US claims to be the worlds greatest democracy when it's not even a democracy
Show me a better one...
I'm not saying it's perfect, but it's the best we've got.
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Show me a better one...
Ireland is an example of a better one... no electoral college to overule the popular vote, and they do instant run-off voting (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternative_Vote) so that voters can support alternative candidates without 'throwing their vote away'
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Originally posted by Charlie Nakatestes,Japanese Golfer:
A French newspaper said Sunday that recently divorced French President Nicolas Sarkozy may marry former supermodel-turned-singer Carla Bruni, his new girlfriend, next month.
Way to go, Frenchie:
<img src="http://zeno.locaweb.com.br/media/12/20060707-carla-bruni-1.jpg" alt=" - " />
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Originally posted by E Redux:
Show me a better one...
Ireland is an example of a better one... no electoral college to overule the popular vote, and they do instant run-off voting (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternative_Vote) so that voters can support alternative candidates without 'throwing their vote away' [/b]
Unless something revolutionary happened overnight that I'm not aware of, Ireland is a parlimentary democracy, so at least one head of state is not directly elected by the people.
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How about some more Carla Bruni pics!
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<img src="http://micheljansen.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/01/carla-bruni.png" alt=" - " />
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So basically, there's a chance that France could have <img src="http://micheljansen.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/01/carla-bruni.png" alt=" - " /> as their first lady, and we could have <img src="http://www.aetn.org/election2002/assets/images/jhuckabee1.jpg" alt=" - " />
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<img src="http://web.centre.edu/kat/Theta%20symbols/Cindy%20McCain.jpg" alt=" - " />
At least we know she likes to party.
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Sarkozy's always done pretty well for himself, but Bruni is of another league...
Have you seen his daughters from his second marriage (they weren't his kids, but geez)? Fugettaboutit...
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Bruni's recorded work is actually surprisingly good as well.
Having also dated Eric Clapton and Mick Jagger, she does have a thing for shriveled up old guys.
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Originally posted by Charlie Nakatestes,Japanese Golfer:
Bruni's recorded work is actually surprisingly good as well.
Charlie, I like you and all, but did you ever think you may need to take a step back and realize "I can make critical judgements about the worth of records made by international super models?" Is this knowledge you want to pass off to your offspring? Jeez, that's like knowing which Spice Girl released the best solo album. It's taking up space in your brain.
Care to off an opinion of these two?:
<img src="http://g-ecx.images-amazon.com/images/G/01/ciu/89/a2/a509b340dca05e1580a47010._AA240_.L.jpg" alt=" - " />
<img src="http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/512jixpmIZL._AA280_.jpg" alt=" - " />
Brian
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I have the Milla album. I even went to see her live when she played in DC back when that album came out. I think the club was called the 15 Minute Club. The album was good at the time, but like alot of music, didn't really age well.
I don't have the Naomi Campbell album, so I'm afraid I will not be able to comment on that one.
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The 15 minute club was a great place....I used to go all the time, although it wasn't in business for very long.
Down near 15th and K right?
BTW, does anybody have anything to say about NH last night???
;) ;)
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Originally posted by Brain Walrus:
BTW, does anybody have anything to say about NH last night???
Other than what's being said in my thread (and to get this thread back in track) - if Ron Paul can't garner more than 7.7% in the "Live Free or Die" State, we no longer need to concern oursleves with this man.
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Originally posted by vansmack:
Originally posted by E Redux:
Show me a better one...
Ireland is an example of a better one... no electoral college to overule the popular vote, and they do instant run-off voting (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternative_Vote) so that voters can support alternative candidates without 'throwing their vote away' [/b]
Unless something revolutionary happened overnight that I'm not aware of, Ireland is a parlimentary democracy, so at least one head of state is not directly elected by the people. [/b]
Ireland isn't really a good example because there's one party inparticular that if they don't like your political beliefs.....they kill you, which isn't very democratic either.
Main Entry: de·moc·ra·cy
Pronunciation: \di-ˈmä-krə-sē\
Function: noun
Inflected Form(s): plural de·moc·ra·cies
Etymology: Middle French democratie, from Late Latin democratia, from Greek dēmokratia, from dēmos + -kratia -cracy
Date: 1576
1 a: government by the people; especially : rule of the majority b: a government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised by them directly or indirectly through a system of representation usually involving periodically held free elections
2: a political unit that has a democratic government
3capitalized : the principles and policies of the Democratic party in the United States <from emancipation Republicanism to New Deal Democracy?? C. M. Roberts>
4: the common people especially when constituting the source of political authority
5: the absence of hereditary or arbitrary class distinctions or privileges
It may be the best system, but it's still not a democracy is it? As long as the popular vote does not decide, then it will never be a democracy...
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Originally posted by Brain Walrus:
Main Entry: de·moc·ra·cy
Pronunciation: \di-ˈmä-krə-sē\
Function: noun
Inflected Form(s): plural de·moc·ra·cies
Etymology: Middle French democratie, from Late Latin democratia, from Greek dēmokratia, from dēmos + -kratia -cracy
Date: 1576
1 a: government by the people; especially : rule of the majority b: a government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised by them directly or indirectly through a system of representation usually involving periodically held free elections
2: a political unit that has a democratic government
3capitalized : the principles and policies of the Democratic party in the United States <from emancipation Republicanism to New Deal Democracy?? C. M. Roberts>
4: the common people especially when constituting the source of political authority
5: the absence of hereditary or arbitrary class distinctions or privileges
It may be the best system, but it's still not a democracy is it? As long as the popular vote does not decide, then it will never be a democracy...
i might note that except for the election of president, we do live in a representative democracy, as evidenced by the U.S. Congress and state legislatures. Perhaps this definition will help you understand the basics of our form of government-
American Heritage New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition - Federalism
A system of government in which power is divided between a national (federal) government and various regional governments. As defined by the United States Constitution, federalism is a fundamental aspect of American government, whereby the states are not merely regional representatives of the federal government, but are granted independent powers and responsibilities. With their own legislative branch, executive branch, and judicial branch, states are empowered to pass, enforce, and interpret laws, provided they do not violate the Constitution. This arrangement not only allows state governments to respond directly to the interests of their local populations, but also serves to check the power of the federal government. Whereas the federal government determines foreign policy, with exclusive power to make treaties, declare war, and control imports and exports, the states have exclusive power to ratify the Constitution. Most governmental responsibilities, however, are shared by state and federal governments: both levels are involved in such public policy issues as taxation, business regulation, environmental protection, and civil rights.
under said federalist system of government, power vested with the states include holding and operating elections, not the federal government. the electoral college is there to allow for each state to have a say in the election of the president, and not the population centers, which could otherwise dominate the vote.
we could go back and forth over whether the electoral college is a quaint relic of the 18th century and their concerns about a popular vote for president, but it's there, and it means every state has a vote, and that state represents the people that live there.
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2000 Presidential election results, popular vote.
Bush - 50,456,002 47.87%
Gore - 50,999,897 48.38%
Nader - 2,882,955 2.74%
Remind me again what a democracy is?
It may be a 'representative' government, but not a democratic one, that's all I'm saying. And I don't agree with your 'states have a say' comment, if they do, then every state should have the same number of electoral votes. Why should CA have 54 electoral votes and DC 2? Is DC any less important than CA when it comes to electing a president? And lets say the democratic candidate got 28% of the CA popular vote, shouldn't he/she then be awarded 28% of that states electoral college vote too?
1 voter - 1 vote, it doesn't get any more equal than that now does it? I don't give a toss what states are red or blue, it's what Americans want as a whole that matters....isn't it?
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Originally posted by Brain Walrus:
It may be a 'representative' government, but not a democratic one, that's all I'm saying. And I don't agree with your 'states have a say' comment, if they do, then every state should have the same number of electoral votes. Why should CA have 54 electoral votes and DC 2? Is DC any less important than CA when it comes to electing a president? And lets say the democratic candidate got 28% of the CA popular vote, shouldn't he/she then be awarded 28% of that states electoral college vote too?
california gets more because there's more people in it than d.c. (electoral college numbers are based on congressional seats plus 2 for the senate). the house is based on population, but each state gets two senators (except for d.c. and the territories, since they aren't states).
as for apportioning electoral college votes, that is up to the state. . .most states have a winner take all format, two states (nebraska and maine) apportion them out by congressional district (whoever wins the vote in that congressional district, gets that electoral vote), with the 2 extra votes going to the overall winner of the state. if you want your state to apportion delegates by vote percentages, then get it on the ballot. my guess is that the parties don't want proportional voting, as evidenced by the vocal opposition of california democrats to the attempt by some parties associated with republicans in california to move to congressional apportioning of electoral delegates (and the republican's - i think - going against a similiar measure that was defeated in colorado in 2004).
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Originally posted by Brain Walrus:
And I don't agree with your 'states have a say' comment, if they do, then every state should have the same number of electoral votes. Why should CA have 54 electoral votes and DC 2?
this completely invalidates any opinion you could ever express on this matter ... do some basic reading about the history of the country in which you live, federalism, the apportionment of representatives in the House and the Senate, and the electoral college, then get back to us
you could start here (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Compromise)
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Originally posted by Hoya Paranoia:
Originally posted by Brain Walrus:
And I don't agree with your 'states have a say' comment, if they do, then every state should have the same number of electoral votes. Why should CA have 54 electoral votes and DC 2?
this completely invalidates any opinion you could ever express on this matter ... do some basic reading about the history of the country in which you live, federalism, the apportionment of representatives in the House and the Senate, and the electoral college, then get back to us
you could start here (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Compromise) [/b]
How can you invalidate an opinion??? It's a fucking "opinion" You can disagree or argue against, but you can't invalidate it.
I think you're missing my point. I don't have a problem with the US system of government (Well, apart from the electoral college bit) I'm just saying it's not a true democracy so saying it's the greatest democracy in the world isn't exactly correct.....not unlike seperation of church and state even though the dollar bill says "IN GOD WE TRUST"...that shouldn't be legal tender for the atheist citizens of the USA if there really was seperation of church and state.
BTW - I HAD to take an American government class to become an American, which I don't think you did, so you don't need to link me up to referance material, but thank you anyway...
Back to the electoral college...this 28% of CA voters basically had their ballots "invalidated" and thrown into the trash..........no? I wonder how the judicial system would work if 72% of the jury chose guilty and 28% not guilty so the charged is found guilty and sentenced as such? And yes, I do believe it's a good comparison.
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Originally posted by Hoya Paranoia:
Originally posted by Brain Walrus:
And I don't agree with your 'states have a say' comment, if they do, then every state should have the same number of electoral votes. Why should CA have 54 electoral votes and DC 2?
this completely invalidates any opinion you could ever express on this matter ... do some basic reading about the history of the country in which you live, federalism, the apportionment of representatives in the House and the Senate, and the electoral college, then get back to us
you could start here (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Compromise) [/b]
"Hoya Paranoia." Do you personally think the Electoral College is a fair way to elect a president?
Brian
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Originally posted by Brain Walrus:
How can you invalidate an opinion??? It's a fucking "opinion" You can disagree or argue against, but you can't invalidate it.
in·val·i·date
1. to render invalid; discredit.
sorry to burst your bubble, but opinions can be both validated and invalidated
your opinion about our representative democracy was discredited or invalidated by your complete lack of knowledge about how our system of government works ("Why should CA have 54 electoral votes and DC 2? Is DC any less important than CA when it comes to electing a president?")
any teenager who's taken a civics class could handle that one
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So does that mean if I don't know how to play a note of music, my opinions on various albums are invalid?
Originally posted by Hoya Paranoia:
your opinion about our representative democracy was discredited or invalidated by your complete lack of knowledge about how our system of government works
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Originally posted by Brian Wallace:
"Hoya Paranoia." Do you personally think the Electoral College is a fair way to elect a president?
eh, part of me thinks that it's a relic of a bygone era that has outlived its usefulness, and that with modern technology we can remove many of these relics of representative democracy and put more direct power in the hands of the people
but then my misanthropic side says we should do just about anything to keep power out of the hands of the slack-jawed masses and let technocrats handle the business of the country ... but that's clearly just a knee-jerk reaction to the teeming hordes of obese jean-shorted tourists i see around all the time
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Originally posted by Charlie Nakatestes,Japanese Golfer:
So does that mean if I don't know how to play a note of music, my opinions on various albums are invalid?
nice logical leap, but clearly not ... i didn't say that mankie had to be an elected official in order to "validate" his opinion
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Originally posted by Hoya Paranoia:
Originally posted by Brain Walrus:
How can you invalidate an opinion??? It's a fucking "opinion" You can disagree or argue against, but you can't invalidate it.
in·val·i·date
1. to render invalid; discredit.
sorry to burst your bubble, but opinions can be both validated and invalidated
your opinion about our representative democracy was discredited or invalidated by your complete lack of knowledge about how our system of government works ("Why should CA have 54 electoral votes and DC 2? Is DC any less important than CA when it comes to electing a president?")
any teenager who's taken a civics class could handle that one [/b]
Okay then, point taken, but in 2000 in CA Bush had 4,567,429 votes and 42%, Gore 5,861,203 and 53% and Nader 418,707 and 4%...using your logic that DC is less important than CA because it's smaller and less populated, then use that same logic for the electoral college system, 4,986,136, or 46% of the voters in CA in 2000 are less important because their vote meant absolutely diddly-squat.
And why should DC be less important than CA just because it's smaller and less populated?
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Originally posted by Brain Walrus:
using your logic that DC is less important than CA because it's smaller and less populated
that is not "my logic"
Originally posted by Brain Walrus:
And why should DC be less important than CA just because it's smaller and less populated?
DC is in a unique situation, so essentially you're comparing apples to oranges ... substitute for DC a small state like Delaware and you have one of the essential issues confronting our founders while drafting the Constitution ...
their solution was to create a bicameral legislative system whereby one branch, the Senate, had a fixed and equal number of representatives from each state (ensuring that residents of small states would have a voice) and the other branch, the House, had its number of representatives from each state determined proportionately by the population of each state (a more pure representative democracy)
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Because the people from CA (aside from the CA dweebs who post on this board :p ) are hotter than the people of DC.
Originally posted by Brain Walrus:
And why should DC be less important than CA just because it's smaller and less populated? [/QB]
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Originally posted by Hoya Paranoia:
but then my misanthropic side says we should do just about anything to keep power out of the hands of the slack-jawed masses and let technocrats handle the business of the country ... but that's clearly just a knee-jerk reaction to the teeming hordes of obese jean-shorted tourists i see around all the time
this makes me a whig, right?
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Originally posted by Hoya Paranoia:
Originally posted by Brain Walrus:
using your logic that DC is less important than CA because it's smaller and less populated
that is not "my logic"
Originally posted by Brain Walrus:
And why should DC be less important than CA just because it's smaller and less populated?
DC is in a unique situation, so essentially you're comparing apples to oranges ... substitute for DC a small state like Delaware and you have one of the essential issues confronting our founders while drafting the Constitution ...
their solution was to create a bicameral legislative system whereby one branch, the Senate, had a fixed and equal number of representatives from each state (ensuring that residents of small states would have a voice) and the other branch, the House, had its number of representatives from each state determined proportionately by the population of each state (a more pure representative democracy) [/b]
Again, I don't need a lecture on American Government, but thank you.
We are discussing the presidential election, not the house or senate....and why don't counties within states have mini-electoral colleges to select reps and senators if it's such a democratic system?
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Originally posted by Brain Walrus:
We are discussing the presidential election, not the house or senate....
it's all linked together with the concept of federalism and the power of individual states in our national government
Originally posted by Brain Walrus:
and why don't counties within states have mini-electoral colleges to select reps and senators if it's such a democratic system?
i won't lecture you with the history of the electoral college, but venerable referred to why the system remains the same today ... it's simply easier in a presidential vote for democrats and republicans to separate states into 3 categories: red, blue, and swing ... they don't have to campaign or spend money in states they have sewn up
cynical? sure, but that's why it stays the way it does
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Originally posted by Hoya Paranoia:
... it's simply easier in a presidential vote for democrats and republicans to separate states into 3 categories: red, blue, and swing ... they don't have to campaign or spend money in states they have sewn up
cynical? sure, but that's why it stays the way it does [/b]
So some states are less important than others....hmmmmmm not very democratic if you ask me. A simple popular vote would make more sense to me...but who am I if not a dumb immigrant.
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I agree Brain Walrus. I think all the time he's been getting at the fact that the Electoral College is unfair and a popular vote is the fairest way to elect a president. All the rest was semantics.
I think the interesting thing about Kucinich and Paul is that supposedly being at the far left and far right of the politcal spectrums, they are very similar in the their viewpoints.
Brian
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Originally posted by Brain Walrus:
Originally posted by Hoya Paranoia:
... it's simply easier in a presidential vote for democrats and republicans to separate states into 3 categories: red, blue, and swing ... they don't have to campaign or spend money in states they have sewn up
cynical? sure, but that's why it stays the way it does [/b]
So some states are less important than others....hmmmmmm not very democratic if you ask me. A simple popular vote would make more sense to me...but who am I if not a dumb immigrant. [/b]
but then, wouldn't a candidate simply have to cater to more populous states? how is that fair to smaller and less populous states? again resulting in some states being more important than others. . .
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Originally posted by Venerable Bede:
but then, wouldn't a candidate simply have to cater to more populous states? how is that fair to smaller and less populous states? again resulting in some states being more important than others. . .
a very good point, but in a pure national popular vote count, the entire presidential campaign would be focused not just on the populous states, but on big urban media markets where candidates could reach the sheer largest number of voters ... rural/small city people would be shut out of the process and it would effectively kill any last semblance of retail presidential politics that we have in this country
not that i'm arguing for the electoral college, just showing the necessary implications of changing the system
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Originally posted by Hoya Paranoia:
not that i'm arguing for the electoral college, just showing the necessary implications of changing the system
I think we should abolish the electoral college. Hey, if a candidate only campaigns in California, Texas, Florida and the northeast and wins, then fine. If he/she gets more votes than the other guy/woman, then he/she should win. That's the way majority works. I don't think a candidate would ever be stupid enough to do that considering the backlash, but if more people vote for him/her, than that's the way it is.
Brian
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Originally posted by Brian Wallace:
Hey, if a candidate only campaigns in California, Texas, Florida and the northeast and wins, then fine. If he/she gets more votes than the other guy/woman, then he/she should win. That's the way majority works. I don't think a candidate would ever be stupid enough to do that considering the backlash, but if more people vote for him/her, than that's the way it is.
That is almost exactly what Guiliani is doing in his attempt to secure the Republican nomination. If he wins, I doubt he faces much backlash, save for the far right in evangelical states, most of which he's completely ignoring.
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Originally posted by Hoya Paranoia:
Originally posted by Venerable Bede:
but then, wouldn't a candidate simply have to cater to more populous states? how is that fair to smaller and less populous states? again resulting in some states being more important than others. . .
a very good point, but in a pure national popular vote count, the entire presidential campaign would be focused not just on the populous states, but on big urban media markets where candidates could reach the sheer largest number of voters ... rural/small city people would be shut out of the process and it would effectively kill any last semblance of retail presidential politics that we have in this country
not that i'm arguing for the electoral college, just showing the necessary implications of changing the system [/b]
I think if every citizens vote was as important as the next guy/gal...there would be a whole different method of campaigning, which still wouldn't be perfect, but still more equitable than it currently is.
BTW - I was a total cynic on polls, believing that they never happened because I have never met anyone who was polled (sp?) and was under the impression the left/right swinging media made them up for their own agendas HOWEVER!!! I got polled yesterday. It was a very weird poll though because it was asking if the election was today would I vote for Clinton or Thompson??? Like Thompson is going to be the rep candidate :roll: .....so, even though they do actually poll people, the still do it in a way that benefits their own agenda....
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Originally posted by Brain Walrus:
I was a total cynic on polls, believing that they never happened because I have never met anyone who was polled (sp?) and was under the impression the left/right swinging media made them up for their own agendas
you seem like a real reasonable fella ... do you think the moon landing was staged?
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Originally posted by Brain Walrus:
BTW - I was a total cynic on polls, believing that they never happened because I have never met anyone who was polled (sp?) and was under the impression the left/right swinging media made them up for their own agendas HOWEVER!!! I got polled yesterday. It was a very weird poll though because it was asking if the election was today would I vote for Clinton or Thompson??? Like Thompson is going to be the rep candidate :roll: .....so, even though they do actually poll people, the still do it in a way that benefits their own agenda....
Was it a phone poll? Maybe it was a push poll. Was the question phrased like "Mitt Romney worships the devil and has nine wives. Are you more likely to vote for him, less likely to vote for him or the same?"
Actually, I was never polled before, because hey, I'm hetero, but seriously, last election I was polled by some cute young thing from the LA Times. I tried to pick her up but my best Quagmire lines weren't working.
Brian
P.S. Speaking of things you don't believe in... Does anyone here know a Nielsen family. Viewership for every television program is computed by a survey and I've never known ANY Nielsen family whose tv habits are tallied. I think the "ratings" you get for TV programs are highly biased.
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I don't know any Nielsen families, but about 10 years ago, I was contacted about previewing a brand new sitcom that hadn't yet been aired. The tape arrived, and the instructions indicated that the tape would erase itself as it played. Thinking I was smart, I set up 2 TV's to tape it, you know, just to buck the system.
The shitty sitcom was called Dads, and it started C. Thomas Howell as, surprise, a dad. It also had Rue McClanahan as a German day-care instructor, and that woman that played the bitch on Herman's Head. When I got done viewing, I had to take a little opinion poll; it turned out all they cared about were the commercials shown. I felt duped.
Oddly enough, Dads became a running joke with my friends, and when I was contacted out of the blue again to view a sitcom, I hoped for something equally lame. Turned out to be the same episode of Dads :(
Originally posted by Brian Wallace:
P.S. Speaking of things you don't believe in... Does anyone here know a Nielsen family. Viewership for every television program is computed by a survey and I've never known ANY Nielsen family whose tv habits are tallied. I think the "ratings" you get for TV programs are highly biased.
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<img src="http://www.gibson.com/whatsnew/pressrelease/2002/IMG/vault.jpg" alt=" - " />
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Originally posted by Hoya Paranoia:
Originally posted by Brain Walrus:
I was a total cynic on polls, believing that they never happened because I have never met anyone who was polled (sp?) and was under the impression the left/right swinging media made them up for their own agendas
you seem like a real reasonable fella ... do you think the moon landing was staged? [/b]
Dunno....wasn't there. Although it's weird the flags were flapping in the wind when there's no fucking wind on the moon!!! And the shadows from the stage lights are a bit weird too...
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My girlfriend and I were a Nielsen family a few years ago. Kind of a pain in the ass with all the boxes hooked up to everything. You do get paid (albeit not much). Rarely did the things we watched rank highly.
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Originally posted by Brian Wallace:
P.S. Speaking of things you don't believe in... Does anyone here know a Nielsen family. Viewership for every television program is computed by a survey and I've never known ANY Nielsen family whose tv habits are tallied. I think the "ratings" you get for TV programs are highly biased.
several years ago i was regularly contacted to give my opinions on music, primarily alternative. the would call, play snippets of a song, ask if i was familiar with it and if i liked it. right before i moved out to california, they called again, but before they played any music, they asked how old i was, i told them i was 30, and said, oh, you are no longer qualified to participate in the survey. i believe the calls were from a record company, and the survey takers were always funny when i said i hated a song or a band, and they'd say, yeah, i hate it too.
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This is a simple, non committal, eleven question quiz for you to take regarding the presidential candidates - all of them
The subject of the quiz is the Presidential Candidates. This quiz Takes about 1-2 minutes.
From your answers the candidates will be scored and placed in an order that best reflects your thoughts on the issues.
Click on the website below:
http://www.wqad.com/Global/link.asp?L=259460 (http://www.wqad.com/Global/link.asp?L=259460)
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Originally posted by vansmack:
This is a simple, non committal, eleven question quiz for you to take regarding the presidential candidates - all of them
The subject of the quiz is the Presidential Candidates. This quiz Takes about 1-2 minutes.
From your answers the candidates will be scored and placed in an order that best reflects your thoughts on the issues.
Click on the website below:
http://www.wqad.com/Global/link.asp?L=259460 (http://www.wqad.com/Global/link.asp?L=259460)
Rudy! Rudy! Rudy!
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Originally posted by vansmack:
This is a simple, non committal, eleven question quiz for you to take regarding the presidential candidates - all of them
The subject of the quiz is the Presidential Candidates. This quiz Takes about 1-2 minutes.
From your answers the candidates will be scored and placed in an order that best reflects your thoughts on the issues.
Click on the website below:
http://www.wqad.com/Global/link.asp?L=259460 (http://www.wqad.com/Global/link.asp?L=259460)
mccain first, giuliani second. . .no real surprise for me.
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Originally posted by vansmack:
This is a simple, non committal, eleven question quiz for you to take regarding the presidential candidates - all of them
The subject of the quiz is the Presidential Candidates. This quiz Takes about 1-2 minutes.
From your answers the candidates will be scored and placed in an order that best reflects your thoughts on the issues.
Click on the website below:
http://www.wqad.com/Global/link.asp?L=259460 (http://www.wqad.com/Global/link.asp?L=259460)
Dodd, Kucinich, Obama, Biden.
I sure know how to pick winners. I'll be offering my AFC and NFC championship winners later this week.
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Originally posted by vansmack:
This is a simple, non committal, eleven question quiz for you to take regarding the presidential candidates - all of them
The subject of the quiz is the Presidential Candidates. This quiz Takes about 1-2 minutes.
From your answers the candidates will be scored and placed in an order that best reflects your thoughts on the issues.
Click on the website below:
http://www.wqad.com/Global/link.asp?L=259460 (http://www.wqad.com/Global/link.asp?L=259460)
Chris Dodd, Dennis Kucinich, Joe Biden, Clinton, Obama.
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I somehow ended up with Duncan Hunter first.
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Obama, Biden, Clinton, Gulliani.
Hillary it is then!
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Kucinich (score 61); Dodd and Gravel (51); Richardson (47); Clinton, Obama, Biden and Edwards (41); Paulbot (30); 9iu11ani (21); Romney (9); McCain (5); Grampa Fred, Hunter and Hawk-a-bee (3).
Since I will be voting against the Republican I guess I should root for Bahilajohn Obatonwards.
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Hillary and Obama, 1-2. I'm so mainstream.
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I disagree with all of them on immigration.
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Originally posted by beetsnotbeats:
Kucinich (score 61);
61 ?!?
My highest score was a 27.
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Because there wasn't a "kill 'em all and let God sort 'em out" option?
Originally posted by Brain Walrus:
I disagree with all of them on immigration.
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Originally posted by nkotb:
Because there wasn't a "kill 'em all and let God sort 'em out" option?
Originally posted by Brain Walrus:
I disagree with all of them on immigration.
[/b]
No, because I didn't think it should give you the right to stay in this country if you're 9 months pregnant, sneak into the country and drop your sprog on American soil.
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quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by vansmack:
This is a simple, non committal, eleven question quiz for you to take regarding the presidential candidates - all of them
The subject of the quiz is the Presidential Candidates. This quiz Takes about 1-2 minutes.
From your answers the candidates will be scored and placed in an order that best reflects your thoughts on the issues.
Click on the website below:
http://www.wqad.com/Global/link.asp?L=259460 (http://www.wqad.com/Global/link.asp?L=259460)
================================================
Kucinich-53,Hillary-50,Dodd-48.Gravel-47
Needless to say, nobody will be representing my views...again! Not surprising.
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sean paul for president! (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jEcf8FKd5fI)
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Originally posted by SPARX:
quote:
The highest rating I got was 44 so I'm completely eff'd really.
That quiz has made me look at Obama more seriously though. I hadn't really even given him a chance because I just think he's too inexperienced. It's like promoting the mail room clerk to the CEO of a corporation. I still believe he needs more years in the senate before becoming a viable candidate, but maybe he's my guy for the future.....Hillary/Obama for 8 years then Obama/???? for another 8 after that??? ;)
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Dennis Kucinich - 62; CLinton - 54; Gravel - 53; Obama - 49; Edwards - 44
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Kucinich abandons White House bid
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22827738/from/ET/ (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22827738/from/ET/)
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Mother. Fucker. sigh.
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Originally posted by -kat-:
Mother. Fucker. sigh.
I hear ya. We're all gonna miss Elizabeth and her titian red.
<img src="http://www.pubdef.net/uploaded_images/IMG_3059-725296.JPG" alt=" - " />
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Originally posted by vansmack:
This is a simple, non committal, eleven question quiz for you to take regarding the presidential candidates - all of them
The subject of the quiz is the Presidential Candidates. This quiz Takes about 1-2 minutes.
From your answers the candidates will be scored and placed in an order that best reflects your thoughts on the issues.
Click on the website below:
http://www.wqad.com/Global/link.asp?L=259460 (http://www.wqad.com/Global/link.asp?L=259460)
Rudy! Rudy! Rudy!
Remember when ggw was an enthusiastic Rudy supporter?
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Originally posted by vansmack:
This is a simple, non committal, eleven question quiz for you to take regarding the presidential candidates - all of them
The subject of the quiz is the Presidential Candidates. This quiz Takes about 1-2 minutes.
From your answers the candidates will be scored and placed in an order that best reflects your thoughts on the issues.
Click on the website below:
http://www.wqad.com/Global/link.asp?L=259460 (http://www.wqad.com/Global/link.asp?L=259460)
Rudy! Rudy! Rudy!
Remember when ggw was an enthusiastic Rudy supporter?
GGW's politics were always uniformly terrible. (May he rest in peace.)
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Wait, is he board-dead or dead-dead?
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Wait, is he board-dead or dead-dead?
I regret to inform you that after a week-long battle in rehab, GGW is no longer with us.
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Geez, that's fucked up...I had no clue. I think it was mentioned here, but he was (very loosely) related to my wife's family...husband of a sister of a cousin in law. Ran into him randomly at a wedding one time, which is how I found out.
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Geez, that's fucked up...I had no clue. I think it was mentioned here, but he was (very loosely) related to my wife's family...husband of a sister of a cousin in law. Ran into him randomly at a wedding one time, which is how I found out.
Sorry for your loss.
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I mean, I haven't talked to him in over a dozen years (here or IRL)...just weird to find out. How long ago?
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I mean, I haven't talked to him in over a dozen years (here or IRL)...just weird to find out. How long ago?
Take Julian's words with a grain of salt. He says that about any boardie who disappears.
Ratbastard was physically unhealthy and perhaps mentally ill. Not surprising if he died.
GGW was a guy who ran marathons and hiked to the bottom of the Grand Canyon and back up in a day. Surprising if he's dead.
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Take Julian's words with a grain of salt. He says that about any boardie who disappears.
Let's be clear...the grain should be this size
(https://external-preview.redd.it/vFXgT3PiFGFU8oAGAlXObeeq9InfqQ7rQjHuzWe0rHI.jpg?width=1024&auto=webp&s=310596d5d796400e3a2b4d44f14feb9b22cfb3fd)
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I will believe anything Julian tells me
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I will believe anything Julian tells me
You stole that from the GOP
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I saw Dennis Kucinich and his lovely wife rolling their suitcases through Union Station yesterday. She was in the lead and he was struggling to keep up.