how do ron paul people come off to you? (NAFTA, Iran, Republicans)
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- Cult of personality. Get this sense sometimes, stuff like getting all excited about a new Ron Paul music video they found on youtube just strikes me as weird. Seeing them accuse posters on message boards of being shills paid to undermine Ron Paul is weird. Seeing people who believe he is our only chance and other "savior" type rants is weird to me.
Well I've never accused anyone of being paid opposition. But I would like to clarify, the only "cult" you could accuse me of being part of in regards to Ron Paul is the "cult of liberty." If Ron Paul was just another typical status quo statist I wouldn't like him, he's not well spoken or particularly well dressed and no one would accuse him of being overly charismatic. I am only so enthused about Dr. Paul because of his principles and his beliefs. He's the only candidate that consistently and sincerely stands for principles I support: sound money, peace, and free markets. He's the only candidate who foresaw our current mess and has the solutions to get out of it.
What may confuse you is that you think I attribute this to some divine qualities of Ron's, but I don't. He's just a man, but he has the right philosophy and the right ideas. If Herman Cain had Ron Paul's track record I'd be equally as enthused with him. There's nothing about Paul's personality that draws me to him.
Quote:
- With or us against us. His supporters often hold a black & white belief where others who don't support their candidate obviously don't believe in liberty and need to wake up, or as labeled as part of the dumb brainwashed masses. They are often incapable of imagining that people supporting other candidates can be intelligent well informed citizens that happen to have different opinions on which policies are most effective for the good of the country.
Well to be honest, the closer we get to a total global meltdown the more and more accurate the "with us or against us" mentality becomes. I don't think that all the supporters of other candidates are stupid, but I do believe they don't fully understand the situation we're in. If you look at the track records of Newt Gingrich or Mitt Romney I really question how you could fully support them unless you like the overall direction of the country more or less. It becomes even more striking in regards to foreign policy, I mean if you love an aggressive interventionist foreign policy how can you not love Obama? The man's like Bush on steroids, and if you listen to the GOP debates they all sound like Obama/Bush except Ron Paul. Ron Paul is the only clearly different candidate running.
I think of most of them as pot smokers whose only real wish is to have pot and all other drugs legal so they can pick some up more easily like at the corner store or gas station.
For most libertarians it seems all about easy drugs, not about ending all welfare, Medicaid, etc.
While I agree with some of Dr. Paul's policies, I doubt very much that he will be nominated, much less elected.
The Libertarian Party has been around a long time now, and has never made any substantial inroads into mainstream politics. Dr. Paul, rightly or wrongly, is seen by the Republicans as being a Libertarian in an elephant suit, and there is too much invested in the Republican Party, by far too many people, that the chances of accepting a Libertarian over an established Republican are slim to none.
Why? because Dr. Paul would upset too many apple carts. There is far too much money, influence, important policy issues, and other big elements at stake. If he was running as a Democrat, he would still lose for the same reason.
In practical terms, we have all seen the entrenched deadlock between the two major parties. Dr. Paul's policies are at odds with both the Repubs and the Dems in different areas. If, by a miracle, he was elected President, as a philosophical outlier to both parties, I don't think the deadlock would be broken at all. Rather, I think Dr. Paul would be completely paralyzed in the office, with nothing he pushed being accepted. If the major parties cannot find agreement on anything, even the trivial stuff, I just can't seeing them come together to support any Libertarian policies at all. I believe most Americans want the deadlock to end, but Dr. Paul isn't going to be seen as the person who is capable of getting it done.
I think the Paul supporters are very informed, at least on their guy's positions. The biggest problem I see is they have totally failed to reach out to the disaffected liberals, who are just as unhappy with Obama as the conservatives. Many of Dr. Paul's positions would appeal to these libs just as much as to the conservatives, but his supporters are fervently anti-liberal in their comments everywhere on the net, and this is cutting off at least half of Paul's potential support in a general election.
There are no other Republican candidates (except for Huntsman) who attract these libs, and it is doubtful that very many of them are going to cross over in the coming caucuses and primaries to vote for Paul. To do so would require going through a solid wall of hostile conservative Paul supporters first.
The Paul outreach to liberals simply does not exist, even in the least bit. And, despite the cheerleading, Dr. Paul has failed to inspire the mainstream Republican faithful.
With all this stacked up against him, coming from both his party and his supporters, I just don't see Ron Paul making any serious inroads into either major constituency in the critical months ahead. Without an early major win, he's finished.
So far, his supporters have failed to reach enough potential voters from either side, but anything is possible; if his folks can find a way to reach all the disappointed voters from both sides right now, while nothing is fixed and settled, he still may have a chance at the nomination.
There are good Paul supporters and bad, that should not surprise anyonne since his fans are a cross-section of Americans. I have found some can discuss the merits and drawbacks of Pauls ideas with no problem, even if you disagree. Some others, well, as I said not all are cut from the same cloth, I simply ignore them. I am actually surprised by this thread subject, and that it is still here
I think of most of them as pot smokers whose only real wish is to have pot and all other drugs legal so they can pick some up more easily like at the corner store or gas station.
For most libertarians it seems all about easy drugs, not about ending all welfare, Medicaid, etc.
Exactly how I feel about them...
They seem kinda cult like.
Last edited by Jermaine88; 11-20-2011 at 09:13 PM..
How does Ron Paul come off to me? I see him as a smart, educated individual that should have a top position in a future administration regarding monetary/fiscal policy. He has no business being President with a set of foreign policy beliefs such as his. Really, deep down, I wish he would go away. I talked with a rabid Paul supporter yesterday who talked of Paul just as a brainwashed cult member would speak of his leader...kinda creepy. "If Dr. Paul isn't elected President, we will die and the economy will cease to exist" and "Ron Paul best knows how to solve the problems this country faces..." Ultimately, I'm very concerned that he'll decide to run as an independent and split the GOP vote.
Is drug legalization my chief concern? No, not when our foreign policy is such a mess and we're locked in a grueling recession that could wind up as a depression. But the war on drugs is an abject failure, it's an expensive boondoggle that hasn't stopped one person from becoming a drug user.
How does Ron Paul come off to me? I see him as a smart, educated individual that should have a top position in a future administration regarding monetary/fiscal policy. He has no business being President with a set of foreign policy beliefs such as his.
You mean the historical and Constitutional foreign policy of the United States? You mean the foreign policy that Founders held and urged us to keep? Non-interventionism served us well for the better part of 2 centuries. As an aside, the policy of interventionism in foreign affairs is a markedly liberal/progressive one. It's not the historic foreign policy of the GOP. "Mr. Republican," Robert Taft was a noted advocate of the same exact foreign policy.
Secondly, the foreign policy you support is bankrupting this nation. We're 15 trillion dollars in debt, we run a 1.5 trillion dollar deficit each year, like it or not we can't afford to continue to be a global empire. What good is 900 bases on 130 countries if we collapse at home? We can't afford a trillion dollar empire anymore regardless of if you're a hawk or a non-interventionist you should agree on that.
Lastly, our foreign policy makes us markedly LESS safe. Even the 9/11 commission report acknowledges the idea of blowback:
Page 49, Chapter 2: THE FOUNDATION OF THE NEW TERRORISM
2.2 BIN LADIN'S APPEAL IN THE ISLAMIC WORLD
"He [Bin Ladin] also stresses grievances against the United States widely shared in the Muslim world. He inveighed against the presence of U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia, the home of Islam's holiest sites. He [Bin Ladin] spoke of the suffering of the Iraqi people as a result of sanctions imposed after the Gulf War, and he protested U.S. support of Israel."
Page 147, Chapter 5: AL QAEDA AIMS AT THE AMERICAN HOMELAND
5.1 TERRORIST ENTREPRENEURS
(Khalid Sheikh Mohammed)
"By his own account, KSM's animus toward the United States stemmed not from his experiences there as a student, but rather from his violent disagreement with U.S. foreign policy favoring Israel."
Page 361, Chapter 12: WHAT TO DO? A GLOBAL STRATEGY
12.1 REFLECTING ON A GENERATIONAL CHALLENGE
(Defining the Threat)
"As we mentioned in chapter 2, Usama Bin Ladin and other Islamist terrorist leaders draw on a long tradition of extreme intolerance within one stream of Islam (a minority tradition), from at least Ibn Taimiyyah, through the founders of Wahhabism, through the Muslim Brotherhood, to Sayyid Qutb. That stream is motivated by religion and does not distinguish politics from religion, thus distorting both. It is further fed by grievances stressed by Bin Ladin and widely felt throughout the Muslim world-against the U.S. military presence in the Middle East, policies perceived as anti-Arab and anti-Muslim, and support of Israel. Bin Ladin and Islamist terrorists mean exactly what they say: to them America is the font of all evil, the "head of the snake," and it must be converted or destroyed."
Page 376, Chapter 12: WHAT TO DO? A GLOBAL STRATEGY
12.3 PREVENT THE CONTINUED GROWTH OF ISLAMIST TERRORISM
"American foreign policy is part of the message. America's policy choices have consequences. Right or wrong, it is simply a fact that American policy regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and American actions in Iraq are dominant staples of popular commentary across the Arab and Muslim world."
We have to quit with this fantasy that we can go around the world bombing whoever we want and putting troops wherever we please and think that it's not going to incite animosity towards us. I often here people say Ron Paul's foreign policy is "naive" or "unrealistic." I ask then, which is more unrealistic, believing that maybe just maybe our foreign policy of aggression and intervention causes increased hatred of us around the world, the idea that we can do whatever we want in the world and suffer no consequences? They don't hate us because we're "free" or "prosperous" they hate us because we're over there on their perceived holy ground killing their people. How we would we feel if China or Russia did this to us?
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