I Wear Pants;1017646 wrote:

believer;1017498 wrote:Paul may believe and run on these ideals, but the moment he would occupy the WH, he'd behave just like everyone else.

While I generally agree with Ron Paul, the undying loyalty of the Purist Paulists amazes me.

What makes you believe that he wouldn't do what he's said?

I am wondering that as well. Ron Paul has preached the same things for over 3 decades, why would think if he were elected that he would all of a sudden change his beliefs?

believer;1017803 wrote:Which is exactly my point. Paul is like any other politician. He campaigns to pander to his base, but Paul - just like any other politician - will actually govern according to the realities of the day.

The Paulists thump their chests and get all giddy about his unswerving principles, but I still shake my head knowing quite well that Paul will behave like any other POTUS should he - by political miracle - make it all the way to the White House. Granted his decisions will be influenced by his principles, but realpolitik will skew his principles enough to make him not unlike any other POTUS.

Look at BHO. He got elected by pandering to the leftist anti-war crowd. He promised to close GITMO, pull us out of Iraq in 18 months, etc., etc. GITMO is still fully functional, it took 40 months to close Iraq operations (sort of), and he actually got us into another fire fight in Libya.

Do not get me wrong. If Paul becomes POTUS I would sleep much, much better at night. I'm just asking the Purist Paulists to stop deluding themselves.

Really? You know this? LOL. Also, trying to compare Obama's promises with Dr. Paul's promises is stupid. Dr. Paul has never wavered in his beliefs over a 30+ year career in political office. The same can't be said about Obama.

BGFalcons82;1019325 wrote:If he becomes President on 1-20-2013, the Defense budget could very well be around $950,000,000,000. Cutting it to $501,000,000,000 is decimating it by 47%. Like believer asked, how are we just as safe from all enemies, both foreign and domestic, with such a devastating cut to one of the few things the government is compelled to provide via the Constitution?

He's also wanting to control/secure our Southern border. So do I, but with a 47% cut, where will he find the money?

Probably by closing many of the costly overseas bases and bringing troops home and keeping them on American soil. I know I'd feel a lot safer if our military was on our own land protecting our borders instead of being spread acrossed the world in over 100+countries.

Dr Paul was on leno, a comedy show for one and second, to be honest with you, nothing he said was false.

Bachman and Santorum- Both appear to be homophobic and extremely prejuidice . I will stop short of calling them racist. He said Romney and Huntsman were good guys. Im sick of the sticking to party lines crap.

Probably shouldn't have been said, but I'll let it slide because Ron Paul is exactly the guy we need right now. I don't know if he will accomplish half the things he says he will, but he's way better than any other choice, Repub or Democrat.

12/18 PPP Poll - Iowa Caucus

Ron Paul 23%
Mitt Romney 20%
Newt Gingrich 14%
Michele Bachmann 10%
Rick Perry 10%
Rick Santorum 10%
Jon Huntsman 4%
Gary Johnson 2%

http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/main/2011/12/paul-leads-in-iowa.html

Cleveland Buck;1019660 wrote:12/18 PPP Poll - Iowa Caucus

Ron Paul 23%
Mitt Romney 20%
Newt Gingrich 14%
Michele Bachmann 10%
Rick Perry 10%
Rick Santorum 10%
Jon Huntsman 4%
Gary Johnson 2%

http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/main/2011/12/paul-leads-in-iowa.html

Yes! Come on Iowa!

I mean couple the poll results with the knowledge that Paul has a fervent number of supporters in a well orgnanized campaign, and Paul could pull this one out!

The most promising thing is that this poll was done the last 3 days and Fox has kicked up the smear machine into high gear for almost a week now. It will be tough, but hopefully the people really can see through the media nonsense.

Cleveland Buck;1019676 wrote:The most promising thing is that this poll was done the last 3 days and Fox has kicked up the smear machine into high gear for almost a week now. It will be tough, but hopefully the people really can see through the media nonsense.

I think a snowball effect is starting to take place too. The biggest knock on Paul is his electability, and these poll numbers are starting to show that he is electable and has a good chance of winning.

As stupid as that is, its a valid point.

BGFalcons82;1016380 wrote: Going back a few posts, Cleveland Buck correctly points out that spending money to defend the US of A is entirely worthy Constitutionally. However, social experimenting, social engineering, income redistribution and invented healthcare mandates, which aren't enumerated anywhere, are off limits. The defenders of these call them part of America's 3rd rail of politics....touch them and you get burned.

Not according to your very own standard of Constitutional Interpretation. Congress is only specifically granted to power to raise an army and a navy. Your only hope of justifying the current DoD with your style of interpretation is the taxing and spending clause and if you do that then our social programs are just as justifiable.

sleeper;1019681 wrote:I think a snowball effect is starting to take place too. The biggest knock on Paul is his electability, and these poll numbers are starting to show that he is electable and has a good chance of winning.

As stupid as that is, its a valid point.

It is stupid, you're right about that. The last NBC/Marist poll for a general election matchup in Iowa had:

Paul 42%
Obama 42%

Obama 46%
Romney 39%

Obama 47%
Gingrich 37%

believer;1014975 wrote:True. The Paulists think Dr. Ron is without blemish, but he's a politician just like the rest. Need I say more?

The Ron Paul worship is, IMO, even worse than the Obama fever of a couple years ago. The reality is a lot of people that were so all in for Obama were uppity liberal yuppies and not true messiah worshippers. It seems to me that Ron Paul people are true believers. Rick Perry made the joke but you encounter the Ron Paul people and I swear many of them really believe hanging Ben Bernanke for treason would be righteous.

I do think that Conservatives appealing to Ron Paul's foreign policy views as a reason not to vote for him is amazing considering how all we've heard for years now is that this election will be about domestic policy and he is the only candidate conservatives could actually be sure would attempt to decrease the size of government in a way they could truly get behind, but at the same time I agree with you in that the hero worship is pretty incredible. To be fair though, he's been at it for decades being consistent whereas BHO had little evidence to support the kind of followers he had.

Another successful moneybomb from all small donations. He's going to need it to fight the media. He doesn't get banker money like Mitt and Newt and Barack. I almost felt bad for Santorum who had a $250,000 moneybomb last week and last I saw he got about half way there.

Cleveland Buck;1019693 wrote:

Another successful moneybomb from all small donations. He's going to need it to fight the media. He doesn't get banker money like Mitt and Newt and Barack. I almost felt bad for Santorum who had a $250,000 moneybomb last week and last I saw he got about half way there.

I just checked it and its at $206,000 out of $250,000. It was suppose to be a 1 day money bomb on the 14th, and they extended it to the 16th. It's now the 19th and its still not complete LOL.

sleeper;1019681 wrote:The biggest knock on Paul is his electability,

Ron Paul's biggest knock is that he has been consistently wrong about the way the world works for several decades.

^^^ Are you serious? That's maybe the most insane thing I've ever heard!

BoatShoes;1019709 wrote:Ron Paul's biggest knock is that he has been consistently wrong about the way the world works for several decades.

Well when you consider how you believe the world works I'd rather be wrong in your eyes than right.

I just saw this little gem from Gingrich.

says as president he would ignore Supreme Court decisions that conflicted with his powers as commander in chief, and he would press for impeaching judges or even abolishing certain courts if he disagreed with their rulings.

"I'm fed up with elitist judges" who seek to impose their "radically un-American" views, Gingrich said Saturday in a conference call with reporters.

http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-pn-gingrich-judges-20111217,0,1295899.story

Abe Vigoda;1019822 wrote:I just saw this little gem from Gingrich.




http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-pn-gingrich-judges-20111217,0,1295899.story

SMH

BoatShoes;1019709 wrote:Ron Paul's biggest knock is that he has been consistently wrong about the way the world works for several decades.

Luckily the Keynesians have been right along, hence our current prosperity.

baseballstud24;1019815 wrote:^^^ Are you serious? That's maybe the most insane thing I've ever heard!

Well then that is sad because Ron Paul believes in crackpot macro that was itself proven wrong by a libertarian and he runs around acting like he's the smart guy in the room. The Austrians have been wrong about everything. Interest rates have remained low despite massive government borrowing...which is just what the IS/LM model predicts and Austrians can't explain; the Monetary base has tripled and yet inflation has been minimal even if you include food and commodities...which is just what the IS/LM model predicts and Austrians can't explain. Peter Schiff, Ron Paul, Allan Meltzer declared that we would have Zimbabwe style hyperinflation this year! They of course have been drastically wrong. Fiscal Austerity has made things drastically worse every where it has been tried and may cause the demise of the Euro as they ECB has done exactly what Ron Paul would have them do and refuse to be the lender of last resort. This is all of course because, as I said, Ron Paul doesn't understand the way the world works.

Cleveland Buck;1019893 wrote:Luckily the Keynesians have been right along, hence our current prosperity.

I love it, but you know you just cue'd a 20 page dissertation full of graphs from BoatShoes explaining why he is right and you are wrong.

BoatShoes;1019899 wrote:Well then that is sad because Ron Paul believes in crackpot macro that was itself proven wrong by a libertarian and he runs around acting like he's the smart guy in the room. The Austrians have been wrong about everything. Interest rates have remained low despite massive government borrowing...which is just what the IS/LM model predicts and Austrians can't explain; the Monetary base has tripled and yet inflation has been minimal even if you include food and commodities...which is just what the IS/LM model predicts and Austrians can't explain. Peter Schiff, Ron Paul, Allan Meltzer declared that we would have Zimbabwe style hyperinflation this year! They of course have been drastically wrong. Fiscal Austerity has made things drastically worse every where it has been tried and may cause the demise of the Euro as they ECB has done exactly what Ron Paul would have them do and refuse to be the lender of last resort. This is all of course because, as I said, Ron Paul doesn't understand the way the world works.

What do you mean can't explain? It is easy to explain. The Fed is printing money to buy t-bills at these rates to keep them down. It isn't hard to figure out why rates are so low.

Can't explain why general price inflation isn't as high as one would expect? (Although food and energy has inflated enough to cause unrest around the world, including here.) Those trillions are still on bank balance sheets. As some of it has trickled into the economy it has driven up prices. They are just sitting on those reserves right now, because without them they are insolvent. If they started lending that money prices would explode.

And of course fiscal austerity hurts your economy if it is driven by government spending. That it why you can't sustain an economy that way, because at some point you have to pay the bills.

Ron Paul and the Austrians have been right every step of the way. It is just hard to prove it because their solutions have never been tried, namely a true free market with market interest rates and minimal to no government involvement. Of course, if that were the solution we wouldn't need such a powerful government, so they will never try it.

jmog;1019816 wrote:Well when you consider how you believe the world works I'd rather be wrong in your eyes than right.

jmog;1019816 wrote:Well when you consider how you believe the world works I'd rather be wrong in your eyes than right.

Well I believe the world works the same way Milton Friedman did. And just so you know, as you like to point out when people use an ad hominem attack, your post qualifies as well. Please tell me where I am wrong? I have stated that the stimulus worked but it was not large enough to bring us to full employment. The evidence supports this which you should agree with as you're an Engineer who is suppose to believe in empiricism. I said that interest rates would not rise even after the downgrade to our debt and interest rates went down. I said that there's not going to be rampant inflation and the commodity inflation that is now over was demand driven and I was right. I'm sure Cleve Buck will chime in and tell us about the massive conspiracy to hide true inflation but this can be proven wrong as well. Here is MIT's billion price index since we can't trust the minions in the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Oh Noez, the BPI only shows inflation being .1% higher than the CPI.


and just for good measure let's look at the dwindling commodity inflation



The right way to take this is that if the Ron Paul people cannot account for this and standard text book economics can, their model of the way the world works is wrong and yet you want to be "wrong in my eyes" you want to be wrong period. If you'd rather be wrong in my eyes then you don't desire to understand the way things work in the real actual world and the way the geniuses who figured this all out understand the world. It'd be like a Combustion Engineer Refusing to believe in the ideal gas law despite it being verified by events.

Cleveland Buck;1019893 wrote:Luckily the Keynesians have been right along, hence our current prosperity.

HA! he was right! Because Uncle Allen failed later on erroneously appealing to his Randian inclinations believing that the markets would correct themselves in no way means he was wrong to use aggressive monetary policy to end the previous recession.

jmog;1019901 wrote:I love it, but you know you just cue'd a 20 page dissertation full of graphs from BoatShoes explaining why he is right and you are wrong.

Ha, yeah the guy who uses evidence from the real world is of course the silly one :rolleyes: