@ghark

Ok, so you are saying that Ron Paul is secretly working for the mainline Republican party? Interesting, I don't think he is doing a good job. Let us examine this. One, he has run as a third party candidate. This not only undermines the republican party entirely, logic dictates that his voter pool will come, by in large, from the republican pool... further undermining it.

And then you point out his voting record...the very evidence of him standing out against his party via decades of standing for his ideals. You twist that evidence to support a conclusion of indifference through effect. That, because what you are doing hasn't gotten the results you wanted, you have failed. In a certain since, this is true, but if it is the only fight you can fight, it is worth fighting for. That is an opinion of course, and one Dr. Paul obviously shares, as he has frequently said that he only ran for president because his pool of constituents said he should, he had no great desires to. Blaming Ron Paul for the 200 years of political development on capital hill is lunacy.

To me, it really seems like you have your heart set on hating Paul based in nothing, an irrational position based on emotion. If a man striving after his ideals for 20 years, never compromising, or throwing in the towel, and managing to come to moderate popularity against very entrenched powers working against you daily doesn't move you to sympathy, I don't know what will. Dennis Kucinich is such a man on the other side of the political equation from me, but I respect his purity. I don't understand how you can not. It seems sort of bigoted.

The reoccurring theme of your anger seems to be denoted at some of his comments on the oil spill. Here is a great interview of his giving his semi-support for Obama, like a true republican. He also talks about the moral hazard [government] created by totally dismissing the property rights of fisherman in the area, and the flaw of [government] limiting the liability of corporations responsible for the oil spill. From what I heard, he isn't defending BP anymore than he logically should for something that is, indeed, and accident. Do you think BP did the oil spill on purpose? Was this a plan by the Obama administration to have a great disaster to recover from.

His ideals have made HIM popular, not the republican mainstream. This is evident by republicans booing his victory in the CPAC during 2010 and 2011. While he might drive some to the republican party, they are people the main republican party doesn't like, he is causing a revolution within the party, changing the system from within. You asked how is this going to be fixed, this is how.

"If a country can't save itself through the volunteer service of its own free people, then I say : Let the damned thing go down the drain!" - Robert Heinlein

>> ^GeeSussFreeK:

I was going to give a long winded reply about how you are completely full of crap, but I decided against it. It is fairly obvious you have formed your opinion based in very little evidence. I don't think you will find many people that support your position that "Ron Paul does it for the votes". He has never been a mainstream candidate, never pandered, and usually the outcast even in his own party. So much so, that he has run as a 3rd party before, and railed against the 2 party system.
In otherwords, not to be rude, I think your full of shit. That your ideas on Dr. Paul are based on very fragmented bits. I understand your skepticism after Obama; but even people who hate Dr. Paul's politics here on the sift, like DT and Net, always say how they admire his integrity, and straight forward honesty. There are many snakes on capital hill, most people would agree that this is not one of them.
>> ^ghark:
>> ^GeeSussFreeK:
>> ^ghark:
>> ^blankfist:
Again. Why is this man not president?

Watch a few of his interviews, he's as corrupt as the rest of them. He denied that the impact of the BP oil spill was significant and even played down direct evidence (tarballs) in one I saw. This is normal party politics, a few of them make speeches to get people on their side, but the voting never follows them - e.g the use of Weiner/Grayson by the Dems during the Healthcare "debate" to get people to think the Dems wanted a real healthcare bill - but all the while they get the numbers to vote with the lobbyists because that's where the money comes from for all of them.

So your accusing the man of normal party politics when we have this video showing him in direct opposition to his party politics....what was your point again?

You missed the point good sir, being in direct opposition when making a speech is completely irrelevant in pretty much all cases, because the votes are all that matters. I gave an example, perhaps read all of my post next time. The reason he is making the speech is pretty clear, it gets people to think that the two party system works because they have at least one person in the party they can side with. It's basically just a part of marketing the party to the public.
In case you hadn't noticed, there have been anti-war speeches like this for many many years, and what exactly has been done?
And of course, the best example of all - Obama - lots of great speeches to get people on his side, no action. It works because people have short memories.



I never said he does it for the votes, it's not really even about him, it's more about the party and how they can get people like you to believe in them because they have one or two seemingly upright candidates. As an example, go look up his Wiki, he's responsible for quite a significant amount of 'no' votes on what he deems are improper bills, that sounds great on paper, yet what difference is it going to make when ~95% of the party votes yes and bulldozers them through anyway. Look at your own example, you say he rails against the two party system - yet he's IN the two party system - you see what I mean? It's politics, if you can't see that then I'm sorry.

I think his stance on many issues is technically great, legalization of marijuana, stopping the war etc, but listen to, or read, his interviews - you find quotes like this:
"I mean, it’s a horrible accident, but it’s an accident. Do you think BP likes this kind of stuff? It’s not like they committed a criminal act".

Yea great, let BP destroy the environment through reckless malpractice, if you've spent any time researching the spill you would know it went far deeper than being a simple accident, he says he is for unlimited liability, then in the same breath defends the oil company for that disaster.

He is also against universal healthcare - he is also against the current system - but once again, with the two party system, how is it going to be fixed? Short answer - it isn't.

So my point is that some of his principles are great, some are awful, he takes fewer corporate donations than most of his colleagues - once again, great - but what difference is it going to make in the bigger picture while the current system is in place? The answer goes back to my original point - it gets people like you on board, and that is it; he can't, by himself, create significant improvements, even assuming that he wants to.

I was going to give a long winded reply about how you are completely full of crap, but I decided against it. It is fairly obvious you have formed your opinion based in very little evidence. I don't think you will find many people that support your position that "Ron Paul does it for the votes". He has never been a mainstream candidate, never pandered, and usually the outcast even in his own party. So much so, that he has run as a 3rd party before, and railed against the 2 party system.

In otherwords, not to be rude, I think your full of shit. That your ideas on Dr. Paul are based on very fragmented bits. I understand your skepticism after Obama; but even people who hate Dr. Paul's politics here on the sift, like DT and Net, always say how they admire his integrity, and straight forward honesty. There are many snakes on capital hill, most people would agree that this is not one of them.

>> ^ghark:

>> ^GeeSussFreeK:
>> ^ghark:
>> ^blankfist:
Again. Why is this man not president?

Watch a few of his interviews, he's as corrupt as the rest of them. He denied that the impact of the BP oil spill was significant and even played down direct evidence (tarballs) in one I saw. This is normal party politics, a few of them make speeches to get people on their side, but the voting never follows them - e.g the use of Weiner/Grayson by the Dems during the Healthcare "debate" to get people to think the Dems wanted a real healthcare bill - but all the while they get the numbers to vote with the lobbyists because that's where the money comes from for all of them.

So your accusing the man of normal party politics when we have this video showing him in direct opposition to his party politics....what was your point again?

You missed the point good sir, being in direct opposition when making a speech is completely irrelevant in pretty much all cases, because the votes are all that matters. I gave an example, perhaps read all of my post next time. The reason he is making the speech is pretty clear, it gets people to think that the two party system works because they have at least one person in the party they can side with. It's basically just a part of marketing the party to the public.
In case you hadn't noticed, there have been anti-war speeches like this for many many years, and what exactly has been done?
And of course, the best example of all - Obama - lots of great speeches to get people on his side, no action. It works because people have short memories.

>> ^GeeSussFreeK:

>> ^ghark:
>> ^blankfist:
Again. Why is this man not president?

Watch a few of his interviews, he's as corrupt as the rest of them. He denied that the impact of the BP oil spill was significant and even played down direct evidence (tarballs) in one I saw. This is normal party politics, a few of them make speeches to get people on their side, but the voting never follows them - e.g the use of Weiner/Grayson by the Dems during the Healthcare "debate" to get people to think the Dems wanted a real healthcare bill - but all the while they get the numbers to vote with the lobbyists because that's where the money comes from for all of them.

So your accusing the man of normal party politics when we have this video showing him in direct opposition to his party politics....what was your point again?


You missed the point good sir, being in direct opposition when making a speech is completely irrelevant in pretty much all cases, because the votes are all that matters. I gave an example, perhaps read all of my post next time. The reason he is making the speech is pretty clear, it gets people to think that the two party system works because they have at least one person in the party they can side with. It's basically just a part of marketing the party to the public.

In case you hadn't noticed, there have been anti-war speeches like this for many many years, and what exactly has been done?

And of course, the best example of all - Obama - lots of great speeches to get people on his side, no action. It works because people have short memories.

>> ^ghark:

>> ^blankfist:
Again. Why is this man not president?

Watch a few of his interviews, he's as corrupt as the rest of them. He denied that the impact of the BP oil spill was significant and even played down direct evidence (tarballs) in one I saw. This is normal party politics, a few of them make speeches to get people on their side, but the voting never follows them - e.g the use of Weiner/Grayson by the Dems during the Healthcare "debate" to get people to think the Dems wanted a real healthcare bill - but all the while they get the numbers to vote with the lobbyists because that's where the money comes from for all of them.


So your accusing the man of normal party politics when we have this video showing him in direct opposition to his party politics....what was your point again?

>> ^blankfist:

Again. Why is this man not president?


Watch a few of his interviews, he's as corrupt as the rest of them. He denied that the impact of the BP oil spill was significant and even played down direct evidence (tarballs) in one I saw. This is normal party politics, a few of them make speeches to get people on their side, but the voting never follows them - e.g the use of Weiner/Grayson by the Dems during the Healthcare "debate" to get people to think the Dems wanted a real healthcare bill - but all the while they get the numbers to vote with the lobbyists because that's where the money comes from for all of them.

Na, Pluto had it coming.

I've seen him do it before. In this particular video, he turns that woman's question about the BP oil spill into a case for studying the stars. That's not at all what she asked. In fact, she was agreeing with him that the study of astronomy has real practical world applications. She wanted to know how this applied to cleaning up the oil spill.. and instead of addressing her earnestness, he used it to make a point I've heard him make several times before.

>> ^Yogi:

>> ^Trancecoach:
as good as this is, he's got a bad habit of bending what other people are saying in order to speak to the talking points he already has in mind.

Don't see where that happened...you're probably just mad about Pluto

>> ^legacy0100:
I say These catastrophic incidents happened because of greed and narrow self interest, but not because taking risk is bad.


I think that she is right to a point, but that she missed the structural distinction between accountable and unaccountable risk.

Large companies, like BP don't take reasonable risks, they have rooms full of lawyers vetting every detail of their day to day business, because if they don't cover their ass, then they will have to pay for it in court.

The issue with the oil spill is that it's an unsolvable problem, and so will not be solved, and will, as history has shown, not end up being , by and large, BP's responsibility.

It's not that we reward people for taking risks in general, but that we, in essence, hold harmless those who take risks so stupid that they can not be mitigated.

>> ^quantumushroom:

Colbert's extremely wealthy. Has he given away all his wealth yet?


How about these?
http://www.looktothestars.org/news/2489-stephen-colbert-donates-his-birthday-to-charity
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,325308,00.html
http://www.looktothestars.org/news/4560-stephen-colbert-raises-charity-cash-for-gulf-oil-spill
http://www.looktothestars.org/news/1597-stephen-colberts-christmas-special-for-charity
http://www.popeater.com/2010/10/06/jon-stewart-stephen-colbert/

And that was just the first page on google.

How much of your time and money have you given to others? Since you seem to want to get in to a pissing match.

>> ^Drachen_Jager:
Ron Paul says what he believes, I'll give him great props for that. Some of the time he gets it right and he's the lone voice of sanity in the wilderness. But a LOT of the things he says are just kooky, that's why he doesn't get elected. He believes that things like the BP oil spill would be LESS likely to happen with LESS regulation. He thinks that the free market will do a better job of regulating than the government can do. He's a loveable nut, fun to watch and like I said, sometimes, like now he gets it right.
But for President? Are you crazy?
>> ^coolhund:
I also think he speak 100% the truth and how it really is. That he doesnt read his speech from papers indicates also that he means it.
So, Americans, why doesnt he get voted for?



Let's be honest now... I will tell you why he never gets elected, even though most of us know and just deny it. We love our drama--Paul is boring in his decency. We love our ambigious policy. How dare he state his beliefs against the death penalty, or that states should regulate gay marriage and abortion instead of the federal government (That is to the republicans...) And how dare he state his beliefs on currency and true deficit reduction and such... (To democrats.)

Paul is not a poster child and will never be elected president by a people who love the staple... We are fat because we want to be, lazy, double-standard, ignorant---and we transfer that to the polls.

Now, I do not agree with Paul 100% either, I think he is perhaps 70% right at most, but him versus Sara-idoit Palin or Barrack just-like-every-other-pol-Obama?

Find me a person 10 times better, and that is Paul. Find me someone better than Paul---and I will vote for him. Now his son... I could cry...

Ron Paul says what he believes, I'll give him great props for that. Some of the time he gets it right and he's the lone voice of sanity in the wilderness. But a LOT of the things he says are just kooky, that's why he doesn't get elected. He believes that things like the BP oil spill would be LESS likely to happen with LESS regulation. He thinks that the free market will do a better job of regulating than the government can do. He's a loveable nut, fun to watch and like I said, sometimes, like now he gets it right.

But for President? Are you crazy?

>> ^coolhund:

I also think he speak 100% the truth and how it really is. That he doesnt read his speech from papers indicates also that he means it.
So, Americans, why doesnt he get voted for?

@Tymbrwulf, well put, and I have the same thought about how we go about functioning as a society without any real way of sorting truth from misinformation.

I think the response that I (and I believe Keith) would give to that is that this is how it's always been. It's a bit more obvious now that more people have vastly improved means to do their own "fact checking" against what other people have written, but an interested person can find source information to back any position by doing faulty research, or relying on dubious sources.

The value journalists can provide, have always tried to provide, is a way to boil down all the data, try to filter out the noise, put it into context, and then glean the salient relevancy to their readers/listeners/viewers, and present it to them.

The problem is that journalists can also twist all their stories to meet an agenda. They can ignore all the data points that don't support their view, they can conceal or misrepresent the context, and they can blow the importance of a trivial story completely out of proportion.

That problem doesn't go away if the journalists have an agenda of appearing objective by pretending that both sides of a political debate are always making valid arguments. In fact, it's can be worse, because they think that they're being objective, when all they're really doing is making sure their reporting carefully avoids upsetting either partisan camp.

The result is that we have supposed "hard" journalists going out of their way to make every story ultimately say that no sequence of events ever vindicates or repudiates the political philosophy held by any activists, and anything bad that happens in politics or government is always equally to blame on both parties.

For example, they can't say that the BP oil spill casts a tremendous amount of doubt on the idea that corporations will regulate themselves if we eliminate safety inspections. They also can't say that it's largely Republicans who've worked tirelessly for decades to reduce the amount of safety regulations, and worked to systematically hamstring enforcement of what remained.

What's always safe is to criticize the current government for not having fixed the problem instantly and without fuss, and to criticize the megacorporation for trying to minimize their legal liability, the costs of the cleanup, and for using professional PR to try to limit the damage to their reputation.

But if it's just context-free ranting against the people with power in our society, it can't really ever lead to a constructive conversation about how to change our society so things like this don't happen again.

I don't know that this is even news. The Obamateur is as useless as ever, but this latest incarnation of the federal mafia is as incompetent and bungling as ever, more concerned with protecting its union voting base's interests.


November 2nd.

Hey, anyone remember when there was an earthquake in Haiti?

What about way back when Louisiana was getting drenched in oil from an oil spill? Seems like forever ago.

How about that Hurricane whatsitsname that hit them? Wasn't that like 25 years ago or something?

But 9/11 must've happened just last year, right?

It's amazing how quickly everyone forgets something once it's not in the *news anymore.

[redacted]