Brief Overview of Congressman Ron Paul’s Record:
* He has never voted to raise taxes.
* He has never voted for an unbalanced budget.
* He has never voted for a federal restriction on gun ownership.
* He has never voted to raise congressional pay.
* He has never taken a government-paid junket.
* He has never voted to increase the power of the executive branch.
* He voted against the Patriot Act.
*He voted against the NDAA Bill and put forth legislation to repeal NDAA!!!
* He will bring our troops home from 130 countries.
* He does not participate in the lucrative congressional pension program.
* He returns the unused portion of his annual congressional office budget to the U.S. treasury each and every year.
* He announced that as president he would take a salary of $39,336. This is a salary that is “approximately equal to the median personal income of the American worker.”

Discuss

Seems like a reasonable, sane, educated man. That's probably why he'll never be elected.

Or if he does he'll go crazy and turn into what every other politician in the world is. Cheap.

Well put. He would be a great leader, I think, to a person with political views different from my own. As far as politicians go, he is one of the best. As far as his party, he is the ideal candidate. For Libertarians, he is as close as they will ever get to controlling the executive branch. As far as my vote, I say no. He is essentially promoting isolationism, and that has not served us very well in practice. I could write a long list of reasons why I won't be voting for him, but I'll spare all of you and just leave it at that.

Off topic: H1vemind, could you remove the URL from your title. It stretches the page.

Sucks that Huntsman bowed out. He seemed like he knew what he was doing.

Ron Paul, what a complicated man.

He's so right on a lot of things. It's really refreshing to see him oppose the other Republican lunatics on the right grounds. Sometimes, after he talks, I wish I was there just so I could say: "QFT, Dr. Paul!"

But he's wrong on a lot of things as well, to the point where it actually undermines the good stuff he says. Still, his heart is in the right place and I can't say that about any other candidate. I registered as a Republican a few days ago; I was going to vote for Rick Perry, but I didn't like his ad.

I'm more confused than amused, considering you live in Canada, Michael.

I fucking love J.K Simmons. <3

Nice to know the fine folks of Accursed Farms have a generally positive view toward Ron Paul. I've been adamantly supporting him for a while now.



Sad, but perhaps true.

First off... Any president who has both voted against supporting commercial spaceflight AND promised to shut down NASA - and actually makes any progress towards actually achieving this goal, needs only one thing from me.

Something small, very hard, and travelling at roughly 2800 feet per second.

Sorry guys, I can't compromise on this.

Also, Isolationism started to die with the U-boat, and the intercontinental ballistic missile killed it forever. Only the heir to the throne to the kingdom of fools would embrace it in the 21st century.

Furthermore, Ron Paul can't change SQUAT. Even if I wanted him to. Pres. doesn't make the laws. Congress does that. And you are NEVER going to see a Congress full of Ron Pauls to repeal the crap you don't like. This is a goddamn Republic.

A Dictator, yeah, he could do that. But that was kind of the thing you're supposed to be trying to AVOID, here.

Lastly, the remaining thing that turns me off about Ron Paul: his fandom. Seriously. Too many posts about Ron Paul. Can't escape them. It's like visiting a land populated entirely by 14-year-old "Twilight" fans... except that no one on "Team Ron" has yet said to me that he's "Sooooooooooooooooo cuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuute!!!!!!!!!!!"

YET.

Me, I'm kinda glad that most of Paul's most ardent supporters are several years too young to vote.

Well to buck the trend on that, while I think Ron Paul seems to be a very honest and sincere politician, I can't really agree with some of his policies. I think he would likely reduce a lot of corruption in government, but I also think he would erode what meager a safety net we already have. Usually areas where the conservative side are kind of weak on are energy policies, education, environmental protection, and having a social safety net for people (including stuff like health care). Best I can tell, Ron Paul's answer to most of these issues is just to let the states handle it. That feels kind of like a cop-out and bad news for states that have legitimate needs, but a lot less resources to work with. Don't interpret this to mean that I think our federal government is great and wonderful and has no problems, but there are some problems that are much bigger than any one state can handle and need to be addressed at the federal level. I also think our whole system is maybe slowly collapsing like the Roman Empire, but that's a separate issue.

About the "let the states handle it" copout, it probably is one of Ron Paul's views I disagree with, in hindsight. I do generally think he'd make a good president, though.

I don't pay much attention to American politics; there's already a clown in office in Australia. But this "Let the States handle it" copout seems to me that he's trusting them to do the right thing. IE, ask for additional funding and whatever else they need. I might be entirely wrong about that, but that's just how I'm reading that.
Ross, if you'd like to elaborate on your Roman Empire analogy/comparison, I'd be highly interested in what you have to say about that. Quite frankly, if a man like this is willing to run for president and he's still not bitter and weak, then you guys ought to put him in office.
On that I believe the age to run for president is 35? I understand that a modicum of experience is needed, but maybe the amount of years it has been since you were expelled from a womans oversized belly isn't really a factor in whether or not a president will be great or not.

I think 35 is an acceptable age, if it's actually the minimum, but you wouldn't put a teenager in office would you? And even in your 20's you're just getting out there, especially those who spent the first 4 years in college. You're running a nation here, it's not just 'another job'.

You don't realize what an idiot you were in high school until you get to college.
Likewise, you don't realize what an idiot you were in college until you get out in the real world, with a job and taxes and bills to pay.
And it takes until sometime in your 30's to realize (if you're lucky) that not only were you an idiot, but you still are, and so is everybody else.

If you never realize that you're an idiot, though, a wide number of career options are available in the fields of politics, leadership, management, administration, and the clergy.

I'm in high school and I am totally aware of what an idiot I am ^^

Then you have a leg up on most of your peers.

Idiotically QFT
Again.