Slight diversion into politics…why is Ron Paul getting blog hype?

I’m a Paul supporter, and I was amazed at how many democrats and liberals are climbing on board. The comments I hear the most are that the Democratic party has been hijacked by socialists, they actually think of themselves as more “traditional liberals” (no idea what that means, I just hear it) and that the Democrats are not committed to stopping the war.

Personally, if the Dems ran a Kucinich or a Gravel, I’d certainly vote for them before I voted for a neocon. As it stands now, I’m voting for Ron Paul even if it is a write in vote.

Both parties are corrupted beyond belief.

I’m a Paul supporter, and I was amazed at how many democrats and liberals are climbing on board. The comments I hear the most are that the Democratic party has been hijacked by socialists, they actually think of themselves as more “traditional liberals” (no idea what that means, I just hear it) and that the Democrats are not committed to stopping the war.

Personally, if the Dems ran a Kucinich or a Gravel, I’d certainly vote for them before I voted for a neocon. As it stands now, I’m voting for Ron Paul even if it is a write in vote.

Both parties are corrupted beyond belief.

Ron Paul’s getting hype because he’s the only “Republican” against Mr. Bush’s War. (I put “Republican” in quotes because Paul’s really a Libertarian; Libertarian’s foreign policy is to stay out of foreign entanglements; basically be isolationist except for trade).

I’m against the war too. But his positions on other issues are whacky. Stuff like privatizing our National Parks by auctioning them off to the highest bidder (including lumber companies like Weyerhauser that would love to clear-cut the parks). And unwilling to enforce civil rights, saying that the market can handle such trivialities.

Apart from any support of candidates, I am dismayed by the thought of anyone taking a USAToday/Gallup, etc, opinion poll with a grain of salt.

First, the polls are based on polling of 200-400 people with a margin of error +- 5%. In addition to this massive statistical swing, you need to look at how polls are conducted.

For example, in order to answer a question regarding a Republican candidate, you must first pass the registered republican questions, then the “Are you planning on voting in the primaries” question. Don’t answer correctly on those, and you don’t pass on to the following rounds where the final #s come from.

How many of us trust Neilsen ratings, and so on. Sadly, as flawed as Neilsen ratings are, statistically, the premise is the same and Neilsen at least captures a larger sample size for extrapolation.

To use any showing in an opinion poll as a true measure of support is flawed, at best. This also presumes a false notion: that most Americans know anything about their congressmen, senators, or other political figures.

It should stand to reason that Paul, Kucinich, Biden, Gravel, etc, receive the same name recognition as other members of congress (Clinton, Edwards, Obama, McCain) or candidates based solely on the fact they serve in congress. Unfortunately, they don’t receive any name recognition because Americans are inherently fixated on regurgitation of that which is delivered via television.

Seriously, though: USAToday opinion polls? Who actually reads USA Today? I cringe when I’m travelling and it’s the paper that’s slid under my door.

I’ve never posted here, but I must say that the Podesta fellow is just
about one of the most dishonest folks I’ve ever read in his postings
concerning Ron Paul.

Ron Paul is a CONSTITUTIONALIST! He has libertarian tendencies
and he DOES NOT HAVE RACIST TENDENCIES. Small L and big L
libertarians want open borders, Ron Paul does not. Most libertarians
are pro-choice, Ron Paul is pro-life. Most libertarians want there to
be zero taxes, as collecting taxes is implicitly an act of aggression to
them. Ron Paul believes that the 1/3 of total US federal government
revenue generated by the personal income tax should be done away
with, and that with fees, tariffs and taxes on corporations, our government
can survive and fund itself as it did through its first 130 years of existence.

You can tell when a candidate is starting to break through because
the snipers come out to try to spoil the success. As Mahatma Gandhi said -

“First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.”

Ron Paul is somewhere between stage 2 and stage 3 now.

I’ve never posted here, but I must say that the Podesta fellow is just
about one of the most dishonest folks I’ve ever read in his postings
concerning Ron Paul.

Ron Paul is a CONSTITUTIONALIST! He has libertarian tendencies
and he DOES NOT HAVE RACIST TENDENCIES. Small L and big L
libertarians want open borders, Ron Paul does not. Most libertarians
are pro-choice, Ron Paul is pro-life. Most libertarians want there to
be zero taxes, as collecting taxes is implicitly an act of aggression to
them. Ron Paul believes that the 1/3 of total US federal government
revenue generated by the personal income tax should be done away
with, and that with fees, tariffs and taxes on corporations, our government
can survive and fund itself as it did through its first 130 years of existence.

You can tell when a candidate is starting to break through because
the snipers come out to try to spoil the success. As Mahatma Gandhi said -

“First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.”

Ron Paul is somewhere between stage 2 and stage 3 now.

I’m almost as embarrassed for Cory as I am Titus Barak. Scientifically conducted polls are exactly what we need. Their predictive value is so high that they usually predict the outcome of political races even before the West Coast votes. Margin of error is mainly a function of variables such as the tendency of minority groups to be underrepresented in polling. Increasing the size of the population polled reduces margin of error, but usually not enough to make it financially feasible to do so. So, a larger sample would might give Ron Paul an .010 percent increase, which doesn’t matter.

Don Wills, someone who wants to repeal the Civil Rights Act is indeed a racist. Dressing up the reality of what that means as ‘state’s rights, ‘constitutionalism,’ or the most comical, ‘liberty,’ does not alter the reality that Ron Paul wants to return the country to a time when racial segregation was legal and state legislatures could deprive some demographic groups of the right to vote. There is absolutely nothing in the U.S. Constitution that requires any such thing. Another suggestion of Paul’s — treating black children as adults for purposes of criminal prosecution when they turn 13 — is not only inhumane, but violates the Fourteenth Amendment

It is strange to see someone reference Ron Paul and Mahatma Gandhi in the same sentence. Gandhi was fighting for recognition of civil rights. Paul wants to repeal recognition of civil rights. Those are opposing goals.

Obviously, the interest created on the Internet by Paul zealots is a largely self-contained phenomenon. If he had more than an iota of real world support it would be reflected in the polls.

I am curious to see how this plays out. The most offensive racist statements from Paul made it on to the Internet accidentally. One of the many Ku Klux Klan leaders who supports Paul and gets his political newsletter posted it to a news group. However, Paul’s newsletter has been around for years, albeit shrouded in secrecy. I think the contents of other issues will eventually be leaked. When that happens, he will be joining George Allen, Bob Barr, Trent Lott, Strom Thurmond, etc., in the racist pol hall of shame.

Its is intelectually irresponsible to call Paul a racist. That newsletter has been discredited as written by a ghost writer. It can be explained away because no where else in any of pauls 700 speeches to congress does he use even the same language. Its not him. Fringe groups may like his message because it is universal. He gets support from EVERYWHERE, even the guys youd rather not invite to the party. Thats the thing about a freedom message.

Its is intelectually irresponsible to call Paul a racist. That newsletter has been discredited as written by a ghost writer. It can be explained away because no where else in any of pauls 700 speeches to congress does he use even the same language. Its not him. Fringe groups may like his message because it is universal. He gets support from EVERYWHERE, even the guys youd rather not invite to the party. Thats the thing about a freedom message.

To Podesta:

“Racism is simply an ugly form of collectivism, the mindset that views humans strictly as members of groups rather than individuals . . . By encouraging Americans to adopt a group mentality, the advocates of so-called “diversity” actually perpetuate racism. Their obsession with racial group identity is inherently racist . . . we should understand that racism will endure until we stop thinking in terms of groups and begin thinking in terms of individual liberty.” –Ron Paul

Disagree with his thoughts on racisim for being naive, too optimistically dependent on the potential of human beings to look beyond racial differences, etc… but don’t call him a racist for thinking that we have the potential to look beyond superficial differences to respect each other as individuals.

If he’s racist and means to appeal to other racists, why on earth would he float the name of Walter E. Williams as a possible running mate?

@175 Ah, don’t we all love revisionist history…

“someone who wants to repeal the Civil Rights Act is indeed a racist”

Then what do we call a party that didn’t want to vote for it in the first place? In fact there were 21 NO votes… from Democrats! If is wasn’t for the Rep’s that Act would not have been passed.

“Ron Paul wants to return the country to a time when racial segregation was legal and state legislatures could deprive some demographic groups of the right to vote.”

You mean like the Democrats did before the Civil War?
I notice history books don’t make much mention of John C. Calhoun, who basically made the Democrats the party of slavery before and during the Civil War.

And after the civil war is was Democrats that were behind the forming of the Ku Klux Klan because of their opposition to Reconstruction.

Jim Crow laws? Adopted by Democrats in the South.

This just in! Strom Thurmond ran as a Dixie-Crat when he ran his segragationist campaign.

@175 Ah, don’t we all love revisionist history…

“someone who wants to repeal the Civil Rights Act is indeed a racist”

Then what do we call a party that didn’t want to vote for it in the first place? In fact there were 21 NO votes… from Democrats! If is wasn’t for the Rep’s that Act would not have been passed.

“Ron Paul wants to return the country to a time when racial segregation was legal and state legislatures could deprive some demographic groups of the right to vote.”

You mean like the Democrats did before the Civil War?
I notice history books don’t make much mention of John C. Calhoun, who basically made the Democrats the party of slavery before and during the Civil War.

And after the civil war is was Democrats that were behind the forming of the Ku Klux Klan because of their opposition to Reconstruction.

Jim Crow laws? Adopted by Democrats in the South.

This just in! Strom Thurmond ran as a Dixie-Crat when he ran his segragationist campaign.

Just a small point of clarification: Ron Paul has about as much to do with Ayn Rand as does Hillary Clinton. And the “greed is good” quote is from a movie, not from anything Rand said or wrote. Finally, she’s rolling in her grave at being called “extreme right,” and she would never have supported the war in Iraq. Just like she didn’t support the war in Vietnam, and for many of the same reasons.

@153 LayZ WWII was a legal war Declared by Congress. The war in Iraq is an illegal war entered into for false reasons against a country that was not a threat. But it sure was fun. Dick Cheney has managed to take about 1 trillion of our tax dollars and hand off the money to his corporate sponsors including the Military Industrial Complex, Oil companies (who just recently divided up the regions), Halliburton, etc.

In WWII we were fighting the fascists. In Iraq we ARE the fascists.

@153 LayZ WWII was a legal war Declared by Congress. The war in Iraq is an illegal war entered into for false reasons against a country that was not a threat. But it sure was fun. Dick Cheney has managed to take about 1 trillion of our tax dollars and hand off the money to his corporate sponsors including the Military Industrial Complex, Oil companies (who just recently divided up the regions), Halliburton, etc.

In WWII we were fighting the fascists. In Iraq we ARE the fascists.

I created an RSS feed that is generated from his writings on his House of Reps website. He publishes a weekly article there. You should subscribe for a bit and read what he has to say and see what you think about it. Like he says, Freedom is a Powerful Message:

http://feeds.feedburner.com/UnofficialRonPaulRssFeed

Sounds like you are one of these:

http://disinter.wordpress.com/2007/07/17/where-rudy-mcromneys-money-goes/

Sorry for the delay in responding to people who last addressed me. I’ve been having kernel panic problem on my MacBook Pro. Lost the excellent responses I had written Tuesday. Anyway:

*Eric Kuhlman, the material you cited is an excerpt from the full speech Ron Paul gave opposing the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which made it legal for non-whites to use public accommodations and guaranteed their right to vote. Babbling about collectivism this or states’ rights that is subterfuge. If Paul had his way the protections that prevent segregation and protect universal suffrage would end. That is what matters.

•LazY, you must have slept through history classes. If not you would know that the major parties changed agendas on civil rights after Reconstruction. The Republican Party was the party of emancipation. But, after the South stymied Reconstruction, neither party protected the rights of the freedmen. More than 5,000 people, overwhelmingly African-American, were lynched in the South and Midwest from the end of Reconstruction into the 1960s. As the Democrats became more sensitive to the damage segregation and lynching were doing to the country in the 1950s, the Southern Democrats — Dixiecrats — began to leave the Party for the GOP. That trend escalated among white Southerners, both electorate and pols, as civil rights laws began to be actually enforced in the 1960s and 1970s. The Republicans courted them by opposing integration, often called the Southern Strategy. It was successful in moving Southern states into the Republican column in national elections, i.e., the Solid South. That is happening to an extent with governors. So, to summarize, the same Southern politicians you are deriding as Democrats became leaders in the modern Republican Party. The responsibility for regressive behavior on civil rights issues in contemporary America is correctly credited to the GOP. The Democrats are far from perfect in this regard, but they can’t hold a flaming torch to the Republicans.

•As for social media and Ron Paul, this saga casts the blogosphere in a bad light. Because it is dominated by Right Wingers, who are usually quite shallow, Paul has not gotten the critical examination he should. When the truth about Paul and his skeletons emerges, I think it will be because of investigative reporting by real journalists. We will see.

Sorry for the delay in responding to people who last addressed me. I’ve been having kernel panic problem on my MacBook Pro. Lost the excellent responses I had written Tuesday. Anyway:

*Eric Kuhlman, the material you cited is an excerpt from the full speech Ron Paul gave opposing the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which made it legal for non-whites to use public accommodations and guaranteed their right to vote. Babbling about collectivism this or states’ rights that is subterfuge. If Paul had his way the protections that prevent segregation and protect universal suffrage would end. That is what matters.

•LazY, you must have slept through history classes. If not you would know that the major parties changed agendas on civil rights after Reconstruction. The Republican Party was the party of emancipation. But, after the South stymied Reconstruction, neither party protected the rights of the freedmen. More than 5,000 people, overwhelmingly African-American, were lynched in the South and Midwest from the end of Reconstruction into the 1960s. As the Democrats became more sensitive to the damage segregation and lynching were doing to the country in the 1950s, the Southern Democrats — Dixiecrats — began to leave the Party for the GOP. That trend escalated among white Southerners, both electorate and pols, as civil rights laws began to be actually enforced in the 1960s and 1970s. The Republicans courted them by opposing integration, often called the Southern Strategy. It was successful in moving Southern states into the Republican column in national elections, i.e., the Solid South. That is happening to an extent with governors. So, to summarize, the same Southern politicians you are deriding as Democrats became leaders in the modern Republican Party. The responsibility for regressive behavior on civil rights issues in contemporary America is correctly credited to the GOP. The Democrats are far from perfect in this regard, but they can’t hold a flaming torch to the Republicans.

•As for social media and Ron Paul, this saga casts the blogosphere in a bad light. Because it is dominated by Right Wingers, who are usually quite shallow, Paul has not gotten the critical examination he should. When the truth about Paul and his skeletons emerges, I think it will be because of investigative reporting by real journalists. We will see.

If Ron Paul’s real agenda is racism and states’ rights is just a smokescreen, why does he oppose the imperial war in Iraq and the suspension of constitutional liberties at home?

Podesta,

I don’t think you understand Dr.Paul. My challenge to you is for you to stop generalizing about an issue that you really need to read up on.

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 has the best intentions. However when you read the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution you will see that the Civil Rights act was really unnecessary because all segregation is illegal under the Constitution. We just needed to enforce the law. But Johnson thought it would be better to make the Civil Rights Act an executive order. It’s exactly like immigration is today. We have laws on the books that provide guidance as to what the government is obligated to do. But they don’t enforce the law.

Please consider your argument from Constitutional(lawful) perspective. And you will see that you are mistaken.

Dr. Paul spoke against because it did not pass the four-way test to all legislation:

1. Is it constitutional and a proper function of the Federal government?
2. Is it morally correct?
3. Is it something that we really need?
4. Is it something that we can afford?

In order to be viable and legal. Legislation must meet all four criteria.

Podesta,

I don’t think you understand Dr.Paul. My challenge to you is for you to stop generalizing about an issue that you really need to read up on.

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 has the best intentions. However when you read the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution you will see that the Civil Rights act was really unnecessary because all segregation is illegal under the Constitution. We just needed to enforce the law. But Johnson thought it would be better to make the Civil Rights Act an executive order. It’s exactly like immigration is today. We have laws on the books that provide guidance as to what the government is obligated to do. But they don’t enforce the law.

Please consider your argument from Constitutional(lawful) perspective. And you will see that you are mistaken.

Dr. Paul spoke against because it did not pass the four-way test to all legislation:

1. Is it constitutional and a proper function of the Federal government?
2. Is it morally correct?
3. Is it something that we really need?
4. Is it something that we can afford?

In order to be viable and legal. Legislation must meet all four criteria.

Why does everyone think we need gov’t control in our Economy? I believe a major reason for unethical business practices stems from the Federal Gov’t and the money that can be made with contracts etc. Not to mention that if the Commercial enterprizes actually saw that citizens were taking charge of ethics violations then they would be rethinking their position. this is the information age, and self responsibility is easier than ever before, why are you all so scared? This is obviously a left leaning blog site though, especially where you state that Ron Paul doesn’t value equality. guess what? if we all have the same set of rights, there is no difference b/t us. if your race/group/etc. is being attacked what do you do? we can protect ourselves. unlike what the blacks were able to do during the CRM in the south b/c police were the ones who were doing the violence, hows that for Gov’t help to enforce our liberties? thats what happens Gov’t gets big, it’s gonna play to the majority which is what our country is NOT about. i swear you liberals think that more Gov and laws increases our freedoms, you’re way off the mark

Podesta you don’t know the man you’re trying to smear so just give up on your welfare state, just like Hercules said read some material that is objective, and not the MSM type of objective, Find it yourself objective