- - Debt and Taxes
- - Eliminate spending in the red, reduce taxes and make government smaller and more efficient
- - War
- - Require congress to declare war under all circumstances, a requirement of the constitution.
- - Immigration
- - Illegal immigration is bad, no amnesty is right, and securing the borders is a must
- - Liberty
- - We have individual rights in this country, not collective rights. You and you alone can make the decision of what to put in your body, whether to wear a seatbelt, whether you want to smoke, etc. Eminent Domain is unconstitutional because it infringes on property rights.
- - Sovereignty
- - No international organization should usurp our sovereignty, and using our troops for UN missions is unconstitutional unless congress declares war.
Mostly, he talked about how we've shifted away from the constitution. Gun laws, No Child Left Behind, the Federal Reserve, the Iraq War authorization (but not declaration), Welfare, and many other laws passed through congress, are completely unconstitutional. And he's right. Congress today views, as he puts it, the constitution as nothing but a pesky document that gets in the way of getting laws passed. He's constantly asked by other congressmen to compromise on "this one little thing" in the name of increased power for the government.
And it's got to stop.
The problem is, Ron Paul has very little chance of success in the primaries. He's overshadowed by the big names in the media who've just raised as much as $25 million in campaign contributions.
It's funny how Barack Obama gets an entire package of articles — before and after he comes to Iowa State — but I saw no mention of him in the Daily and — I could be wrong — no reporter at the event tonight. A quick google search, after Paul has been in Iowa for two days, reveals hardly anything in Iowa Newspapers.
Regardless of his unviability as a major player, I think I'm going to toss my vote his way. With any luck, other sensible citizens with regard for the constitution will do the same.
Update: There was a reporter there, apparently. My point still stands, Obama gets an unfair amount of attention.
1 comment:
Thanks!
But I felt the need to comment on Ron Paul, since I am pretty baffled at his sudden popularity in the Internet media.
The guy is completely insane. His libertarianism subscribes to wishful philosophies while completely ignoring the practical ramifications. (One example: seat belt laws. To use my state as an example: NJ has them - 90% of adults wear them. NH does not (the only state that does not) - only 50% do. Now, you can make all the philosophical Mill liberty arguments you want - but how can you argue against the pedagogical role of the law and its clear practical benefits in this instance? Is the liberty lost truly such a blow to your freedom? Is it honestly going to start some slippery slope down into an Orwellian nightmare just because you have to buckle up?)
Now, in certain respects, his extreme libertarianism happens to align with good government practice, such as "making government more efficient". (I doubt you could find anyone that wants to make government more inefficient.) But in other respects he is completely naive. He wants to bring back the gold standard. He wants to completely end the War on Drugs in every respect (this isn't a legalize marijuana campaign; this is a put-crack-in-convenience-stores campaign) because it's "unconstitutional". He's voted against virtually every single spending bill by the U.S. Government in the name of "smaller government".
The reason he is underrepresented in the media is because I am hopeful enough that the American people - by and large - do not subscribe to the radical agenda he espouses. Kucinich receives no attention in the media; neither should Paul. He's received an enormous amount of support from the Internet - especially the digg community, or at least the most influential members - but I pray it doesn't carry over into the real world.
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