hopefully barack won't be so damn gloomy

[rone]

If this doesn't make sense, i suggest reading Neil Gaiman's "The Sandman".  Please note that i found this and did not actually make it.

Comments

[twillis.livejournal.com]

Perhaps it's because I just read the Sandman last month, or perhaps it's the alcohol, but this made me laugh like a goon.

[xlerb.livejournal.com]

That... is somewhat glorious. (I got only about halfway through Sandman, but it was far enough for that scene. My dead-tree budget is not what it once was.)

[syringavulgaris.livejournal.com]

Not up on s_d? It got posted there a while back.

“Candy-colored clown”? Yeah, right.

[xlerb.livejournal.com]

I don't need s_d for this; like I said, my dead trees extend far enough for me to have read it on paper. (Specifically, now that I've gone and checked, I have the first three TBPs, and that scene is in the first.)

Re: “Candy-colored clown”? Yeah, right.

[syringavulgaris.livejournal.com]

No, not Sandman itself! The Hillary/Obama graphic.

Re: “Candy-colored clown”? Yeah, right.

[xlerb.livejournal.com]

Oh. *facepalm*. No, s_d is a bit high-traffic, and lately I'm trying not to have reading LJ eat all of my life.

[deirdremoon.livejournal.com]

I laughed my ass off at this one. I LOVE it.

[motis.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it's funny... but the part that doesn't make sense is why anyone would support either of them.

I listen to what these professional liars say and it's all a lot of pleasant-sounding gobbledygook about hope and change and health care, but then I look at their voting records, their foreign policies, where they get their money, and the total failure of a Democrat-controlled House to do a single goddamn thing to reign in the Neocon horror, and I know we're in for more of the same no matter who wins.

Bush and Cheney deserve impeachment far more than even Nixon did, but the Democrats act like it's just silly to even consider measures that drastic. Why would you hand them a mandate any more eagerly than you would vote for another Neocon pig? McCain, of course, is out of the question for any voter free of Biblical delusions and brain damage... but neither Clinton or Obama are going to be much different. They're all very much corporate whores, and corporate influence on government is the tiny blackened heart and shriveled bitter soul of both the Neocon movement and traditional Fascism.

Real freedom is about having real choices. Understanding that fact intimately is what made Hunter S. Thompson a fucking hero, not his drug and alcohol intake. Right now anyone still mired in the two-Party system is being offered a choice of more Fascism with an elephant sticker on it, or new improved Fascism with a donkey sticker on it. No wonder Dr. Gonzo blew his brains out.

A lot of people trot out the old "I don't want to throw my vote away" when you talk about voting for a third Party, which I just find idiotic. Elections are not horse races, and you don't get a prize for picking the winner. What's more, the Democrats have not earned and are not automatically entitled to your vote just because you have a justifiable and deep-seated hatred for the Neocons (like I do).

It also isn't "throwing away your vote" just because the third-Party candidate you vote for doesn't have much of a chance to win. If enough of us vote for an alternative candidate to pose any kind of threat to the Democrats and/or Republicans, then the established Parties will be forced to adopt some of the planks of the alternative platforms in order to win back the votes.

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

Ooookay. So give me a third-party candidate who isn't little more than a jumped-up kook. Look, i voted for Nader in 2000 because i wanted to see the Greens get 5% and thus matching funds. But then Nader went even crazier and i couldn't conceivably support him anymore. The "third" parties do nothing but trot out delusional extremist whack-jobs to run against the Establishment criminals. Is this what you're calling "real choice" or did i miss something? The non-DemoGOP parties should focus on building up local support and work their way up the ladder, and then not piss away their effort (the Reform Party got the governorship of Minnesota, but they wasted the chance), instead of tilting at presidential windmills.

I'm still not 100% on Obama (it was just about a year ago (http://ronebofh.livejournal.com/492877.html) that i said i wouldn't vote for him), but he'll probably get my vote simply because he smells different than everyone else. He could well turn out to be another damn useless liar, but i'm going to give him a try anyway, because i wouldn't be embarrassed to have him as president, unlike Clinton or McCain.

If i don't vote for Obama, it'll be Jeff Vogel (http://ironycentral.com/scorchedearth.html).

[motis.livejournal.com]

When you say that Obama "smells different" I guess I can understand that, although the man is certainly not getting anywhere near your nose or mine without his handlers shpritzing him with eau de difference.

Saying that you wouldn't be embarrassed to have him as a Preznit is also something I can understand. I'd feel a lot more comfortable talking to Europeans with Obama in the White House than I would with, say, McCain. Enjoying the good will of other nations again would be a nice thing... but personally, I feel that choosing a candidate according to how well he'll play in the sticks is terribly irresponsible at a time when the nation is in serious crisis on so many fronts. Putting a new face on the same old shit just isn't going to cut it much longer, and the whole world is at stake.

You really disappoint me with that crack about "delusional extremist whack-jobs". The establishment criminals and their spinmeister friends at Fox and CNN put a lot of effort into dismissing any prominent candidate who challenges the status quo as a kook (and keeping any who aren't prominent from becoming so). It seems that wanting to actually change anything qualifies as 'delusional', and being a non-Democrat non-Republican automatically makes you an 'extremist'. The very idea of a third Party is scoffed and laughed at in America... and yet the idea of only having two Parties is scoffed and laughed at in much of the rest of the free world.

My traditionally Democrat-voting friends seem to buy into this thinking very easily (I don't have enough traditionally Republican-voting friends to form an opinion on them). What I really wonder is: do you think that expecting some huge change as the result of continuing with corporate hegemony, an absolutely ruinous foreign policy, an illegal war, and a consequence-free environment for the administration who deceived us is something other than delusional?

Presidents are not kings, and anyone who did hypothetically make it to the White House with real change in mind would have a hell of an uphill pull waiting for him, so I can live with a candidate I don't totally agree with. What I can't live with is a candidate who lies constantly, and does everything according to who paid and how much.

I trust Nader to have his heart in the right place, but he's got no experience in politics except as an outsider. I'd still vote for him as a way of sending a message to the Democrats that the natives are getting restless for some real change, but I'd see him as an unknown quantity if he did happen to win by some miracle.

In the primaries, I voted for Ron Paul. I don't agree with everything he wants to do, but I've looked at his 20-year voting record and seen the outward manifestations of his integrity, and I trust him a million percent more than I could possibly trust any of the frontrunners. I trust him to say what he thinks, to keep the corporate teat out of his mouth, and to uphold the Constitution... and a man who can be trusted to say what he thinks can be argued and reasoned with if you disagree with him, while one who lies all the time can't be argued with at all. And hey, call me old-fashioned, but I still think the Constitution should be something more than a quaint old piece of dead dusty history locked up in a museum.

Yes, I've heard the smears about Ron Paul's supposed ties with militia extremists, and about the racist material that appeared in his newsletter while he was out of politics and busy being a doctor delivering babies. I've also seen those smears debunked pretty well, and I've heard the President of the Austin, Texas chapter of the NAACP say that he's known Paul personally for over 20 years and doesn't believe he's a racist. I trust an NAACP President to sniff out racists a lot more than I trust Fox News to do it.

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

You really disappoint me with that crack about "delusional extremist whack-jobs".

So what exactly would you call Pat Buchanan? Sure, he challenges the status quo. So fucking what? Are you going to argue that i should listen to the Intelligent Design wankfucks because they "challenge the status quo" of the scientific community? Have you looked at the platforms of the Peace & Freedom and American Independent parties? Transcendental meditation vs. Jesus for everyone. Sign me up!

What I really wonder is: do you think that expecting some huge change as the result of continuing with corporate hegemony, an absolutely ruinous foreign policy, an illegal war, and a consequence-free environment for the administration who deceived us is something other than delusional?

Sure it's delusional. Who's expecting a huge change? I mean, i'd like to go back to the America we had before Bush. Is that expecting a huge change? I don't think it's asking for much at all.

I did not take you for a Paulite, especially given your current country of residence, given that China seems exactly the opposite of what Paul touts, but now all your angry ranting makes more sense. I'm tickled that you are inclined to listen to what the NAACP president has to say simply because it happens to support your candidate of choice, because i'm skeptical you'd give him the time of day otherwise (i know i wouldn't). Ron Paul is little more than the Howard Dean of `08. He's irrelevant, his integrity is vastly exaggerated, and in the end, libertarianism is just like every other political philosophy: full of promise, but bankrupt in practice. To paraphrase Pratchett, we don't have the wrong sort of politics, we have the wrong sort of people.

Electing Ron Paul won't effect "some huge change". The only thing that will effect huge change in this country is armed revolution, and Americans are way too comfortable and wealthy for that. Plus, revolution ain't what it used to be, due to our ever-increasingly complex societal infrastructure. Paving DC would be a good start, but i'm not going to hold my breath.

[motis.livejournal.com]

"So what exactly would you call Pat Buchanan? Sure, he challenges the status quo. So fucking what? Are you going to argue that i should listen to the Intelligent Design wankfucks because they "challenge the status quo" of the scientific community? Have you looked at the platforms of the Peace & Freedom and American Independent parties? Transcendental meditation vs. Jesus for everyone. Sign me up!"

I didn't say there aren't any delusional whackjobs running independently, I said that you shouldn't automatically dismiss people running independently as delusional whackjobs (you also shouldn't automatically accept people in the mainstream as non-delusional non-whackjobs).

"Sure it's delusional. Who's expecting a huge change? I mean, i'd like to go back to the America we had before Bush. Is that expecting a huge change? I don't think it's asking for much at all."

I'd call that expecting a huge change, yes. BushCo has done major damage to the Bill of Rights, destroyed the good will we enjoyed internationally (even after getting a big boost from 9/11), gathered a staggering amount of power to the executive branch, and taken our economy from good times to utter ruin. Do you really think Obama is going to undo all that? You're not going to get the kind of change it would take to go back to pre-Bush America without electing a President willing to give up a lot of his own office's power, just for starters... so YES, if you think electing a Democrat means going "back to the America we had before Bush", then you ARE expecting a huge change, and if that's not delusional as hell, it's being a lot dumber than I'd like to give you credit for. See Aesop's fable about King Stork and King Log, only in reverse.

"I'm tickled that you are inclined to listen to what the NAACP president has to say simply because it happens to support your candidate of choice, because i'm skeptical you'd give him the time of day otherwise (i know i wouldn't)."

I take the NAACP with a grain of salt when they're pushing their agenda, and I know that pushing their agenda often involves playing the race card and making racism allegations over nothing... but it does not serve that agenda to say that someone ISN'T a racist. In a nutshell, I trust the NAACP to tell me who isn't a racist even though I don't trust them to tell me who is one.

"Ron Paul is little more than the Howard Dean of `08. He's irrelevant, his integrity is vastly exaggerated, and in the end, libertarianism is just like every other political philosophy: full of promise, but bankrupt in practice. To paraphrase Pratchett, we don't have the wrong sort of politics, we have the wrong sort of people."

What you say about Ron Paul here isn't an argument, it's just an opinion. His integrity is vastly exaggerated? How so? There are many verifiable ways of demonstrating his integrity; do you know of any evidence that indicates he lacks integrity? 'Cause correct me if I'm wrong, but even with the entire machinery of the entrenched Neocons and their Democrat lapdog co-whores trying to smear Paul and keep him out of the debates, the only thing they could come up with were these thin allegations of racism that don't stand up under scrutiny. Do you know something they don't?

[motis.livejournal.com]

In any case, I wouldn't call myself a 'Paulite' although I do think he's the best candidate to show his face in this election. Like everyone else, I'm looking for the lesser of the evils, and that all depends on how you define 'evil'. I don't always agree with Ron Paul. He wouldn't be very interested in socialized medicine, for instance (which is irrelevant, since the Democrats aren't going to give it to you either). At least Paul actually says he doesn't like it, instead of pulling some bait-and-switch trick where "universal healthcare" means something else, like maybe you're forced to have an HMO plan and pay for it even if your employer won't, as with mandatory car insurance.

As for Libertarianism in general, Pratchett is certainly correct on that score, but of course it applies to all the -isms. I have a hard time with a lot of Libertarians myself. The more extreme Libs are wretched Randites who don't believe in altruism, and a large proportion of non-Randite mainstream Libertarians are just former Republicans who have a distaste for Christianity and have become Libertarians out of self-interest (they like the idea of being taxed less). Their priorities disturb me... these are people who see being taxed to pay for social programs as a greater evil than continuing the war in Iraq.

Me, I approach Libertarianism from the radical Left. I don't care much for Socialism, but I'd much rather see a more Socialist America than a further slide into Fascism. I WANT THE WAR TO STOP, I want the torture to stop, I want habeas corpus restored, I want checks and balances, I want the Constitution, and I want the federal government to fuck off just a bit and let individual States decide for themselves on issues like medical marijuana. All those are much bigger concerns for me than my tax bracket.

"Electing Ron Paul won't effect "some huge change"."

Let's say for the sake of argument that Ron Paul is even electable, and that you're right, electing Ron Paul wouldn't effect any great change. What makes you think that electing Obama, a candidate who advocates FAR less change than Paul, would make any noticeable difference?

"The only thing that will effect huge change in this country is armed revolution,"

I have been pretty much convinced of this for most of my life...

"and Americans are way too comfortable and wealthy for that."

...but unfortunately that seems to be the case, not to mention too politically disconnected. Revolution isn't going to happen, and with corruption and corporate influence so endemic to the entire system, assassination would bring no change at all. The option left is to try to identify the most honest people possible who aren't advocating change that takes us further away from the Constitution, and try to get them elected, or at least heard in the public discourse.

So I guess the difference between you and I is that you actually -- heh -- have some real hope that the Democratic Party nominee might, by some miracle, not be as total a Neocon Establishment turd as a Republican would be, and you think that'll be enough to put things back the way they were before Bush. I can only scoff sadly at that. I think -- hell, I KNOW -- the changes needed in America are much more radical than anything Obama is willing or able to provide. On the other hand, if the Republicans had backed Ron Paul, I guess I'd be in the same boat with you, just with a candidate who actually has a verifiable history of integrity.

Because my politics are driven by the pain and frustration of stubborn idealism rather than base self-interest, I'm not willing to just turn my back on America and American politics, and that is where your naïveties and mine meet. When you decide to stop voting and stop supporting one candidate over another, you'll be one up on me.

By the way, I live in California these days, with my Chinese wife Communist Spice 2.0.

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

I definitely have no illusions regarding any sort of socialized healthcare that either Obama or Clinton might be able to engender. I tend to roll my eyes when i hear people talking about it like it could happen AND not suck (although it could conceivably be better than the current state of affairs, but it's like Bush in that respect).

"too politically disconnected": more exactly, they haven't been educated correctly. Poor education is at the base of the majority of this country's problems.

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

I didn't say there aren't any delusional whackjobs running independently, I said that you shouldn't automatically dismiss people running independently as delusional whackjobs (you also shouldn't automatically accept people in the mainstream as non-delusional non-whackjobs).

I was doing neither; i was merely stating that since i started paying attention, every non-DemoGOP presidential candidate has been a delusional whackjob, with the possible exception of Perot, who was just a whackjob.

As for Paul's foibles, the fact that he's anti-abortion, and how he's anti-abortion, speaks volumes to me about his libertarianism. He's also had some fun with earmarks (i'm doing this from memory; i had some links back when he was still in the thick of the race, but i didn't keep them around). And i certainly didn't care for how he brushed away the "thin allegations of racism"; instead of engaging the issue, he just washed his hands, Pilate-style.

[motis.livejournal.com]

I don't understand why you think Dr. Paul being anti-abortion is relevant. It's only his personal opinion, and he's proven more than once that he doesn't let it influence his vote. What he wants is an end to the Feds being involved in the matter... he's strongly in favor of the individual States making their own laws without Federal interference. He's also voted twice (counter to his Republican colleagues) against bills that would make it illegal for a minor to cross State lines to get an abortion. This is actually a really good example of Ron Paul's integrity.

Another example is Dr. Paul's Christianity. I probably don't have to tell you that I despise religion more than anyone I know, especially Christianity, and double especially the American variations. Surprisingly, he keeps his religion out of his politics and uses the Constitution as his guide, not the Bible. He may be a believer, but he's not a zealot, and he's also a believer in the separation of Church and State. I don't admire his religious beliefs, but I sure do admire his willingness to leave them at home when he goes to work.

I don't think he took the racism allegations very seriously, which was probably a tactical error but also speaks loudly against the allegations being true. Ultimately, I can't really fault him for not being interested in playing the popular American game of "Look At How Self-Consciously Non-Racist I Am".

One nice thing about the meritocratic Libertarian view is that it promotes the idea that race shouldn't be an issue at all. I find that a very refreshing change from the Liberal habit of patting non-white people on the head and giving them handicaps to help them compete, which to me smacks of the assumption that non-whites aren't as good as whites and need assistance. Racism isn't always a matter of hating people for their skin color; liking people for their skin color is racist too... and we're always going to have a race problem in America until people stop trying to artificially dignify our superficial differences.

The earmarks thing was such a non-starter as a scandal that I forgot all about it. Yes, he earmarked money for research on shrimp fishing in his district, and for marketing shrimp. Unless earmarks themselves are a problem for you, I don't see what was so scandalous about that. Here's an excerpt from an article about it that includes Ron Paul's own remarks:

It turns out, though, that for all his scourging of government excess, Paul never has been much of a crusader against earmarks. As he put it in a floor speech last year, “earmarks . . . are a symptom of the problem, not the cause. The real problem is that the United States government is too big, spends too much, and has too much power.”

Still, why play along by earmarking federal spending? Because a crackdown on earmarks, he says, would only grant the executive branch more control over where the money goes. The total amount of spending wouldn’t change. “There’s nothing wrong with designating where the money goes,” Paul says — so long as the earmark is “up front and everyone knows about it,” rather than having it slipped in at the last minute with no scrutiny.

In an ideal world, Paul says, there wouldn’t be a federal income tax. But since there is, he says, he feels a responsibility to help his constituents recover some of the tax dollars the government has taken from them. “I don’t want them to take it,” he says, “but if they do take it, I’d just as soon help my constituents get it back.”

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

*sigh* Dude, this is so four months ago, and i'm not having this discussion again. Suffice it to say that you're brushing stuff away that you clearly think is trivial and i don't.

[motis.livejournal.com]

If you say so... but differences in our estimations of what is trivial and what is not aside, you've done nothing to back up your claim that Paul's integrity is a myth.

The triviality or lack thereof of media-created scandals is certainly an interesting tack for you to take. I really have to wonder why Ron Paul inspires so many conversations with mainstream Democrats and Republicans that boil down to this:

PAUL SUPPORTER: Obama, McCain, and Clinton are covered from head to toe in open, weeping, infectious sores, and here are some photographs and doctor's affidavits to prove it.

MAINSTREAMER: Yes, yes, whatever. I heard that Ron Paul might have a pimple on his forehead. I could never vote for someone like that!

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

I didn't say it was a myth. I said it was exaggerated.

Oddly, your impression of Paul versus the Mainstream Three is very similar to the impression i've gotten about the Obama campaign compared to Clinton and McCain: magnifying every little blemish because there's nothing big to complain about.

Also, for clarification purposes, i am what is commonly called "liberal" these days, but i am not a Democrat.

[motis.livejournal.com]

I don't find that odd at all, just a little like comparing apples and oranges.

Obama has a very short amount of time in government, so there's much less to pick at. That doesn't make him trustworthy, it just makes him a less-known quantity. Clinton and McCain are also horrendously guilty of everything valid, true, and important they could possibly dig up about Obama, so naturally they have to magnify trivialities and just plain make shit up. It's hard to call a man a corporate whore and gripe about all the lobbyist dollars in his pockets when your own Pimp Daddy, Inc. has got you working the same street.

I'm glad you identify as a Liberal but not a Democrat. I see huge differences between politicians who identify as Liberal/Conservative and voters who do so... to me, allegedly Conservative politicians are nearly all traitorous fucking Neocon pigs, and the voters who support them are either traitorous fucking pigs as well, or so intensely stupid they should be rounded up and used for slave labor or a food source. I also see Liberal politicians as traitorous fucking pigs who willingly collaborate with the Neocons, but I think Liberal voters are basically decent people, and I respect them for it even when I think their opinions are stupid. The Liberal voters who still have any loyalty to the Democrats I see as the more gullible members of the Liberal herd... they're basically decent people who are caught up in a huge scam, the way I see it.

The big difference in my world is that I'll actually talk to a Liberal and try to be a good influence on them, politically speaking. When I encounter anyone who supports Bush and/or McCain, they get nothing but hostility until they have the good sense to fuck right off.

Integrity and the lack there of

[venividi.livejournal.com]

Ron Paul has a certain sort of superficial integrity that doesn't stand up to heavy scrutiny of his voting record.

Earmarks are, in fact, the easiest place to find the flaw in his character. If you examine his voting record, he frequently votes against enabling legislation for earmarks that, if you examine his congressional web site, he brags about having obtained for his district.

In addition, he has a tendency to abstain from voting against things he claims are 'unconstitutional', when votes on those bills will go against his earmark interest. This is harder to see, but can also be found in his voting record.

There is also, of course, the case of "The Ron Paul Report", a document he published for years with no indication of authorship other than his own, which contained very racist remarks -- right up until it stopped suiting his purposes to appear to be a racist.

And there's his interference in the Pentagon's attempts to close obsolete facilities in his district, something else he brags about.

If he had, perhaps even once, managed to pass legislation supporting his claimed libertarian stance, he might, possibly, be forgiven for being just another congress critter when it came to grabbing the goodies for his own district, but he is just as big a part of the problem as any of the others.

Beyond his integrity, there's the issue of his competence. He rarely gets his bills out of subcommittee into committee, let alone onto the floor, and his presidential campaign to date has been the clearest demonstration of how to raise a lot of money without accomplishing anything with it, ever.

And that's all before you get to his, to be charitable, unusual, reading of the constitution and naive economic philosophy.

Re: Integrity and the lack there of

[motis.livejournal.com]

The stuff about earmarks is very highly debatable, and Paul has defended himself to the satisfaction of quite a lot of people on the subject. I happen to be one of them. Even if I wasn't, I'd still point out that at worst it's no more than a pimple on Paul's face compared to the open lesions that cover the other candidates' entire bodies.

I have no idea what you mean about his reading of the Constitution being 'unusual'. I do know that you don't even capitalize 'Constitution', so I kind of doubt that you're any sort of expert on interpreting the document itself.

I have no idea what sort of education in economics you might have. I myself have none to speak of, and can't critique Paul's economic philosophy with any authority. I do know, however, that Paul is generally noted for his grasp of economics, that he was personal friends with Hans Sennholz and Murray Rothbard (who were both very well-respected in the field), and that his interest in economics is what led Paul into politics to begin with. You can wave your hand and be dismissive about his economic philosophy all you like, but that isn't an argument... and if you had a real argument to make, it would probably have to end with one or both of us shrugging and saying "I have no idea."

I've already mentioned the Ron Paul Newsletter and the racist remarks that appeared there. At the time, Paul was not serving in Congress, he had turned his back on politics and was busy delivering babies. I think it's reasonable to assume that he didn't have much interest in monitoring his newsletter at the time... and if the NAACP says he's not a racist, then I'm inclined to believe it. You're not, because you've already made your mind up and don't need to be bothered with anything as inconvenient as a compelling testimony from someone whose job it is to detect racism in high places.

The only thing you've written here that might have any objective validity at all is the bit about Paul's competence. I won't even bother to open that kettle of fish, it's a debate that could go on virtually forever. All I will say is that in a perfect world, I'd choose an honest and competent leader... but if I can't have that, I'd still vastly prefer honest but blundering over dishonest and competent.

Re: Integrity and the lack there of

[paracelsvs.livejournal.com]

I've already mentioned the Ron Paul Newsletter and the racist remarks that appeared there. At the time, Paul was not serving in Congress, he had turned his back on politics and was busy delivering babies. I think it's reasonable to assume that he didn't have much interest in monitoring his newsletter at the time... and if the NAACP says he's not a racist, then I'm inclined to believe it.

I think the real issue many people have with this is not whether or not Ron Paul is a racist himself. The issue is more subtle: He's traditionally had the support of various racist organizations, like Stormfront. Therefore, whether or not he actually shared their opinion or not, it would be beneficial to him to appear to be racist, and thus he might have tacitly approved of the publication of those texts.

That would be pretty unprincipled and telling of self-serving, and when you're dealing with a libertarian, selfishness isn't exactly uncommon, so therefore it is unsettling.

The fact that he just brushed this off without really addressing it, or giving any explanation for how those texts got published in the first place - all we have is second-guessing like "he was too busy to keep up with his own paper" - the whole thing just smells very fishy.

Basically, it may be nothing, but he certainly hasn't done a good job of demonstrating this, and that in itself makes it worse.

Re: Integrity and the lack there of

[(Anonymous)]

The quid-pro-quo game that earmarks are part of is precisely the second largest problem, after lobby money influence, in today's congress. To dismiss it as lightly as a 'pimple' when in Paul's case it's a matter of "Do as I say, not as I do", is the mark of one who has made an emotional rather than rational judgment of the man.

Nor do you help your case by reducing your argument to a spelling lame about my failure to capitalize "Constitution" to your satisfaction.

That you accept Sennholz as very well respected in the field does, indeed, demonstrate that you are correct to assert that you have no economic education to speak of; although not as much so as your implication that Paul being "friends" with an economist somehow qualifies him in economics.

There is ample literature detailing the naivety of the Austrian school and their belief in a commodity based monetary system. Rather than restate the case here, I'll simply recommend that you look at the economics of the Gilded Age, which clearly demonstrate that most of the beliefs of that school about the effectiveness of commodity based monetary systems are clearly at odds with history.

You mistake my point about the Ron Paul report. The issue we were discussing is Paul's claimed integrity. When the the racist material stopped serving his purpose and first became a burden, he excused it with the claim that he had no control over everything that was written in the report, even though the racist remarks were made in columns he supposedly authored, and which were signed by himself. It is hardly an act of integrity to claim you are unaware of words written above your name, nor is it an act of integrity to allow statements you do not believe to be published in your name.

The Ron Paul Report was, simply, a cynical attempt to play to an audience, which is hardly the act of a man of integrity.

Ron Paul is neither particularly honest, as a politician, nor particularly competent, and his actions undermine his claimed beliefs.

[arian1.livejournal.com]

Here comes the crazy!

[motis.livejournal.com]

There goes the stupid!

[arian1.livejournal.com]

Yep, there goes RONOMGPAUL alright.