Non-interventionism is very different than isolationism and I, for one, would appreciate if the author of this article, and the rest of the main stream media would either: 1. learn what words mean or, 2. stop lying.
Ron Paul "THINKS" he knows about these things as when Egypt was in its infamous stages with Mubarak a whole lot of Presidents including Republicans and Democrats supported his regime. So Obama is not the only President to have supported a tyrant in Egypt.
The 2012 Presidential year is going to be a mess as there is going to be so much distortion of the truth! Here is the truth Republicans, you have not done NOTHING in accordance with a Job's bill as of today! When is this going to happen or should we just begin to get out our Apple carts and cups of pencils to begin selling on the street corners?
Dear thinking-voter,
You really didn't address my critique of the term 'serious candidate.' With your logic, it is silly to vote for anyone but the winner. By definition, a loser is not a serious candidate. No point in making a choice as a voter, since only the statistically favored candidate matters.
However, you also mentioned you disagreed with Ron Paul's policies. That's a different story, and it is a perfectly legitimate basis for discussing, accepting, or rejecting a candidate. When a poll was done in 2007 in which candidates' positions were listed, but the names were not, Ron Paul won the poll easily. Therefore, I suggest that his current lack of status as a 'serious' candidate (according to you) is not because voters disapprove of his positions.
Ron Paul's electability is certainly an open question, but that says more about the media and the American voter than about Ron Paul.
Mo: Please don't put words in my mouth as that's both bad manners and poor logic from you. I never once said "it is silly to vote for anyone but the winner". The illogical premise of that statement should just jump out at you and if it isn't, read what you wrote again until it is.
I will say that while your conscience requires your vote to stand on principle, my conscience requires my principles to have a practicality when in an actual application.
Voting for whom you can predict with reasonable confidence won't win is not logical or useful. I have watched politics closely, especially in the US, for many years. So far, I am batting a thousand for many of the losers. Paul is losing, again.
1988: roughly 432,000 votes or .5% 2008: withdrawal but he still garnered nearly 42,000 votes but that makes it .005 now.
So I ask you from a very practical sense, what has changed that makes you think there is any chance beyond spoiler status here? It needs to be concrete stuff too.
As for that poll, Paul is a mixed bag of both great and terrible ideas, so I have to question which ones were included in that poll. Got a link?
I enthusiastically support some of his ideas. I just think he reveals himself to be a something of a clueless loon with the bad ones.
PS - Your saying I didn't address your point flies in the face of actual reality. Paul has that same problem and it just kills support from people like me.
Stephanie Condon asserts that Ron Paul "is not considered a serious candidate." By her? By whom? By what criteria does she make that assessment? Seems like a gratuitous dig to me. Her way of saying "move along, nothing to see here."
Is a "serious candidate" determined only by whether or not they can win? Are we to only vote for 'serious candidates?' Since only one candidate can win an election, is it silly to vote for a sure loser? Perhaps all of our votes should go 100% for the winner, regardless of ideas, or party, or whatever, since it is a waste of time to vote for the sure loser who is therefore not a 'serious candidate.'
Perhaps viability should have another definition: a good candidate is one who is right more than wrong. Ron Paul voted against the mid-east wars, voted against TARP, voted against the Patriot Act, voted FOR ending don't-ask-don't-tell, voted FOR auditing the Federal Reserve. He is the most progressive and most conservative candidate at the same time. His supporters are young, old, conservative, liberal, and libertarian.
Stephanie, I see no point in voting for someone who is statistically likely to win when everything that person stands for is wrong. That kind of voting gives you GWB and BO. For me, I prefer to vote my concience. Everyone should be encouraged to do so.
Is a "serious candidate" determined only by whether or not they can win?
In a word, yes. Here is why: Knee bones are connected to thigh bones.
What makes many boutique candidate (and the good doctor Paul is a classic example too) so unelectable is they don't appeal to enough people. And the reason they don't appeal to enough people is because of what they propose.
It isn't lack of exposure in Paul's case. It isn't that folks don't understand him; many do and reject his ideas (I am example of that). It isn't that his time hasn't come, it is likely to never come.
The most any boutique candidate can do is muster enough backing to be raised to the level of a spoiler and so far, Paul has failed to do what Nader (another boutique candidate) did.
All boutique candidates, including ones who rise to spoiler status, end up fairly forgotten over time. Example: Ross Perot who?
The U.S. has a long history of "propping up puppet dictators" and oppressive regimes. Just the ones off the top of my head: Marcos, Noriega, Hussein, Mubarak, The deposed Shah, The Saudi kingdom, the king of Jordan. And this is the short list.
Ron Paul is one of a few politicians who cares about the USA. We have no business supporting tyrants. It is "uncommon" sense and Ron Paul has it., No wonder the world hates us. We are the most powerful nation on the planet and are quite capable of defending ourselves from home. We do not need to be meddling in everyone else's backyard to do so.
We are well on our way to losing our status as the most powerful nation in th world.
The primary reason the US has funded Mubarak all these years is the Suez Canal.
Egypt controls this canal and a monumental number of ships carrying oil to the oil-hungry US must pass through it.
The government deemed it was worth $1 billion dollars a year to keep Egypt as an ally.
We are currently paying millions and millions to Pakistan to keep them on our side; all this money to a government that chooses what days they are on the side of the US; costing millions of dollars every day they decide to close a border leading into Afghanistan and depriving our troops of much needed armaments and fuel...but would you rather have the alternative?
I agree the US would be a lot better off if it minded it's own business where foreign countries are concerned, but sometimes you do what you HAVE to do.
[The Republican party's most serious potential presidential contenders at the Conservative Political Action Conference today gave little more than passing reference to the most serious news of the day] --------------------------------------- that's because all the most serious republican party candidates are authoritarians ... just like mr. mubarak. the discussion of the 'fall' of an authoritarian is not a good reality for another authoritarian ... and since the delusion they all live in assesses all blame for everything to one of their enemies (the msm, far left liberals, terrorists, socialists, communists, marxists, obama, obama's dog, the fleas on obama's dog) ... actually seeing something bad happening to one of their own ... and not being able to blame it all on one of their enemies is a big problem.
ron paul ... on the other hand ... is cut from another cloth ... not that of the authoritarian ... but rather of the libertarian ... where here his enemy is the u.s. government ... with their involvement in other's affairs ... which is a key issue for the libertarian.
to learn more about the delusional motivations behind the minds of the politically retarded ... http://home.cc.umanitoba.ca/~altemey/
The pro-democracy protests in Egypt and elsewhere in the Middle East, Paul said, show that "we need to do a lot less, a lot sooner -- not only in Egypt but around the world."
Paul got that right.!!!
Obama and others like him have done everything but giving speeches standing on their heads trying to destroy our government as we have known it.
And if the people of the United States don't wake up to that fact soon; he will succeed.
1. He demeans and disrespects our flag.
2. He has apologized to our enemies for our audacity.
3. He has yet to prove he is a US citizen.
4, He has told our enemies that the US might be considered a Muslim nation.
5, He is constantly trying to have the word "GOD" removed from everything from our postage stamps to our currency to the Pledge
of Allegiance.
6. He and others have forbidden the display creches at Christmas time.
forced states to take down or conceal the Ten Commandments from public view, told Navy chaplains they cannot use the word "GOD"
during their services, prayer is no longer allowed at high school and college sporting events. The list goes on and on. What MORE does he have to do to convince you?
7. Written books such as "Dreams of My Father". READ IT.!
8. Used "executive privilege" to pass edicts to bypass Congress
so they would be unable to vote on it.
9. Attended a church where inflammatory sermons against whites and
Christianity were villified for 20 years; gets elected as
President and POOF; suddenly he's a Christian.
10. Broken almost every promise he made during the political campaign
and lied about the rest.
Exactly how much more will it take to prove this man would not recognize the truth, Christianity, the Constitution, the Bill of Rights...if they walked up and kicked him in the ass.
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The 2012 Presidential year is going to be a mess as there is going to be so much distortion of the truth! Here is the truth Republicans, you have not done NOTHING in accordance with a Job's bill as of today! When is this going to happen or should we just begin to get out our Apple carts and cups of pencils to begin selling on the street corners?
You really didn't address my critique of the term 'serious candidate.' With your logic, it is silly to vote for anyone but the winner. By definition, a loser is not a serious candidate. No point in making a choice as a voter, since only the statistically favored candidate matters.
However, you also mentioned you disagreed with Ron Paul's policies. That's a different story, and it is a perfectly legitimate basis for discussing, accepting, or rejecting a candidate. When a poll was done in 2007 in which candidates' positions were listed, but the names were not, Ron Paul won the poll easily. Therefore, I suggest that his current lack of status as a 'serious' candidate (according to you) is not because voters disapprove of his positions.
Ron Paul's electability is certainly an open question, but that says more about the media and the American voter than about Ron Paul.
I will say that while your conscience requires your vote to stand on principle, my conscience requires my principles to have a practicality when in an actual application.
Voting for whom you can predict with reasonable confidence won't win is not logical or useful. I have watched politics closely, especially in the US, for many years. So far, I am batting a thousand for many of the losers. Paul is losing, again.
1988: roughly 432,000 votes or .5%
2008: withdrawal but he still garnered nearly 42,000 votes but that makes it .005 now.
So I ask you from a very practical sense, what has changed that makes you think there is any chance beyond spoiler status here? It needs to be concrete stuff too.
As for that poll, Paul is a mixed bag of both great and terrible ideas, so I have to question which ones were included in that poll. Got a link?
I enthusiastically support some of his ideas. I just think he reveals himself to be a something of a clueless loon with the bad ones.
PS - Your saying I didn't address your point flies in the face of actual reality. Paul has that same problem and it just kills support from people like me.
Is a "serious candidate" determined only by whether or not they can win? Are we to only vote for 'serious candidates?' Since only one candidate can win an election, is it silly to vote for a sure loser? Perhaps all of our votes should go 100% for the winner, regardless of ideas, or party, or whatever, since it is a waste of time to vote for the sure loser who is therefore not a 'serious candidate.'
Perhaps viability should have another definition: a good candidate is one who is right more than wrong. Ron Paul voted against the mid-east wars, voted against TARP, voted against the Patriot Act, voted FOR ending don't-ask-don't-tell, voted FOR auditing the Federal Reserve. He is the most progressive and most conservative candidate at the same time. His supporters are young, old, conservative, liberal, and libertarian.
Stephanie, I see no point in voting for someone who is statistically likely to win when everything that person stands for is wrong. That kind of voting gives you GWB and BO. For me, I prefer to vote my concience. Everyone should be encouraged to do so.
In a word, yes. Here is why: Knee bones are connected to thigh bones.
What makes many boutique candidate (and the good doctor Paul is a classic example too) so unelectable is they don't appeal to enough people. And the reason they don't appeal to enough people is because of what they propose.
It isn't lack of exposure in Paul's case.
It isn't that folks don't understand him; many do and reject his ideas (I am example of that).
It isn't that his time hasn't come, it is likely to never come.
The most any boutique candidate can do is muster enough backing to be raised to the level of a spoiler and so far, Paul has failed to do what Nader (another boutique candidate) did.
All boutique candidates, including ones who rise to spoiler status, end up fairly forgotten over time. Example: Ross Perot who?
The primary reason the US has funded Mubarak all these years is the Suez Canal.
Egypt controls this canal and a monumental number of ships carrying oil
to the oil-hungry US must pass through it.
The government deemed it was worth $1 billion dollars a year to keep Egypt as an ally.
We are currently paying millions and millions to Pakistan to keep them on our side; all this money to a government that chooses what days they are on the side of the US; costing millions of dollars every day they decide to close a border leading into Afghanistan and depriving our troops of much needed armaments and fuel...but would you rather have the alternative?
I agree the US would be a lot better off if it minded it's own business where foreign countries are concerned, but sometimes you do what you HAVE to do.
---------------------------------------
that's because all the most serious republican party candidates are authoritarians ... just like mr. mubarak. the discussion of the 'fall' of an authoritarian is not a good reality for another authoritarian ... and since the delusion they all live in assesses all blame for everything to one of their enemies (the msm, far left liberals, terrorists, socialists, communists, marxists, obama, obama's dog, the fleas on obama's dog) ... actually seeing something bad happening to one of their own ... and not being able to blame it all on one of their enemies is a big problem.
ron paul ... on the other hand ... is cut from another cloth ... not that of the authoritarian ... but rather of the libertarian ... where here his enemy is the u.s. government ... with their involvement in other's affairs ... which is a key issue for the libertarian.
to learn more about the delusional motivations behind the minds of the politically retarded ... http://home.cc.umanitoba.ca/~altemey/
Agreed - 100%!
Obama and others like him have done everything but giving speeches standing on their heads trying to destroy our government as we have known it.
And if the people of the United States don't wake up to that fact soon; he will succeed.
1. He demeans and disrespects our flag.
2. He has apologized to our enemies for our audacity.
3. He has yet to prove he is a US citizen.
4, He has told our enemies that the US might be considered a Muslim
nation.
5, He is constantly trying to have the word "GOD" removed from
everything from our postage stamps to our currency to the Pledge
of Allegiance.
6. He and others have forbidden the display creches at Christmas time.
forced states to take down or conceal the Ten Commandments from
public view, told Navy chaplains they cannot use the word "GOD"
during their services, prayer is no longer allowed at high school
and college sporting events. The list goes on and on. What MORE
does he have to do to convince you?
7. Written books such as "Dreams of My Father". READ IT.!
8. Used "executive privilege" to pass edicts to bypass Congress
so they would be unable to vote on it.
9. Attended a church where inflammatory sermons against whites and
Christianity were villified for 20 years; gets elected as
President and POOF; suddenly he's a Christian.
10. Broken almost every promise he made during the political campaign
and lied about the rest.
Exactly how much more will it take to prove this man would not recognize the truth, Christianity, the Constitution, the Bill of Rights...if they walked up and kicked him in the ass.