well said! deserves a * promote (if i had any power points)

*promote
edit: also check this

Promoting this video and sending it back into the queue for one more try; last queued Thursday, June 12th, 2008 5:26am PDT - promote requested by kulpims.

I became so vehemently against Hilary and McCain that my enthusiasm for Obama grew artificially. Not all of his promise of change is symbolic though and even the symbolism is especially valuable at this point.

Those last two sentences basically nails it. Politicians are in it for themselves, and not the issues. Pandering to the masses to get support is all they do. They are all a bunch of populists, and thats one of the reasons I respect Ron Paul, even tho I dont always agree with him.

While Ron Paul has a leg to stand on by calling out Obama on change, since RP represents more change than Obama, calling Obama "status quo" and "no substance" just makes it sound like Ron Paul got a letter from the RNC saying "repeat our talking points about Obama or else".

Obama has talked specifics about what change means. Just because you haven't listened, haven't liked it, or wanted more change, doesn't make Obama status quo.

Oh, and *politics

Adding video to channels (Politics) - requested by NetRunner.

And meanwhile, nothing Changes.

Some of the questions are valid but others such as his position on medical marijuana are just a matter of looking for the answer. It's not that it isn't there. Yeah I do like Paul better on that but he doesn't have much chance of getting elected so our best choice who does have a chance would be Obama.

http://www.reason.com/blog/show/124727.html

Anyone expecting earth shifting change with Obama has their hopes misplaced, what he offers is more incremental change or at worst maybe we won't go too far in the wrong direction under him which we would do under McCain. Personally I'd rather change the world in a day too but it isn't going to happen anytime soon and if it ever did I'd bet it would have to be bloody. A step in the right direction is better than several more steps in the wrong one, if we manage to get as little as a more adult conversation from him rather than the talking points we're used to that in itself would be a good step.

A few things such as kissing up to AIPAC worry me, a few others such as the way he handled the Wright issue and his refusing to pay 'walking around money' to political operatives in Pennsylvania encourage me. We'll see I guess.

I'm not so worried about Obama bringing change on specific issues... Actually, that's not entirely true; we need a radically different energy policy and we need a lot of legal reform, not to mention our foreign policy quagmire. That being said, I think Obama's biggest strength and where we will see the most benefit from him is his commitment to reforming the executive branch. Stripping the Bush Administration's imperialist attitude and bringing transparency to the office will be his greatest accomplishment.

I also agree that Ron Paul is off base here. Obama has answered a number of these questions already -- It's obvious that Paul would rather confront Obama's supporters than Obama himself because Obama would tear his arguments to ribbons.

you need so much fucking change, you are never going to get it.
you need such a radical 180 degree about turn, you're never going to do it.

currently turning the oil tanker around, gonna crash into the rocks in about 45 minutes, regardless of who is at the wheel or which direction they turn it.

which politician is going to be the first to say "our economy is fucked, and i am the guy to start the incredibly painful reform so we can fix it properly instead of postponing the truth for another 5 years!!!".
Did they do that in the soviet union? naahhh. just waited for the crash.

seems like we elect politicians to lie to us. we don't want the truth.

^Um, you don't even live here.

"If you want change what you need is somebody thats gonna (1)make sure we're never going to have a draft, (2)that we're gonna bring our troops home, (3)we're gonna balance our budget and (4)we're gonna have sound money."

Obama's stance on (2) has been clear before his first day of campaigning, and separated him from many candidates.
Obama's stance, speeches and voting record on (3)&(4) are defined and reasonable (http://www.barackobama.com/issues/fiscal/)
Point (1) is a non-issue in a year full of pressing issues.

One last note; great speeches aren't detailed policy speeches. Its no fault of Obama's that he makes great, general-policy speeches.

I hate people who say "He doesn't stand a chance so we have to vote for this guy instead."

Let me go on a little tirade for a second, indulge me plz;

There's a billion people in the world saying "boy, if i thought it made a difference i'd start doing something pro-active!". All of them think that, so none of them do it, and so nothing pro-active is done.

I know you may not want Hilary to get in, so you think you have to vote for the most popular other person, but you shouldn't - god you shouldn't. That's a farce of democracy.

So Ron Paul will get maybe half the people who want to vote for him to actually vote for him. So in 4 years time, people will go "Well, he didn't do so well last time, so let's choose a different candidate to stand for us." Or he will run again and people will again go "You saw how he did last year, we can't waste our vote." But this time twice as many people DON'T vote for him and he MIGHT HAVE WON.

I know why you do it and sometimes i question my principle myself. But if you eternally convince yourself that you've got to choose the lesser of two evils instead of the one you really want, then it will continually reciprocate, and you will forever be stuck in a problem of your own making.

edit:
\/ fair enough, what do i know about us elections

That's a great primary argument, Danny, but it doesn't work so well at this point. If he had still been in the race when the primaries rolled through here I'd have probably voted for Kucinich myself on exactly the principle you're talking about but at this point it wouldn't be anymore productive than voting for Elvis would be. Bush was the cost of those ideals put to practice in the wrong place in 2000, Nader and his fans made sure of that one, regardless of the rest of the nation he certainly took more than enough votes to swing it in Florida. Replacing Nader with Paul won't improve the choice, it's a different name but good odds of the same results and we can't afford a McCain.

It's a good thought for next election though. I DO hate it when we're still in the primaries or they haven't even started yet and we're talking about who is more 'electable' rather than who we actually agree with or who would be better for the country. At this point though it's just a gesture, and probably a bad one. The primaries are the time for this fight, at least until we have a viable third party option, and as far as I've seen Paul is still with the repubs. If he, Kucinich, and a few others wanted to go their own way I'd probably support that. In the meantime we work with the options we do have.

what would ron paul change, and more importantly HOW would he do it?

the answers to these questions is likely to be about as substantive as obama's ideas.

i hope he runs. we could use another ross perot, i was satisfied with what happened last time.

>> ^NetRunner:
While Ron Paul has a leg to stand on by calling out Obama on change, since RP represents more change than Obama, calling Obama "status quo" and "no substance" just makes it sound like Ron Paul got a letter from the RNC saying "repeat our talking points about Obama or else".
Obama has talked specifics about what change means. Just because you haven't listened, haven't liked it, or wanted more change, doesn't make Obama status quo.


Well, not quite. He's right that Obama speaks very little about economic policy and seems pretty deadset on the welfare state, which our own comptroller general thinks is coming to a slow and cancerous end. Obama's supporters seem more hopeful than anything, and that, I think, has always been our problem. We try to guess who is going to be a good president based on how charismatic they are on the campaign trail instead of looking at voting records, if there are lobbyists surrounding them, and challenging ourselves to do hard research on libertarian positions like Paul's that often get mocked by people who don't. But I did my research and I agree with Paul on just about everything, and I am convinced from his voting record that he is one of the most trustworthy politicians in existence today. We need a drastic reduction in government spending and a government that obeys its own supreme law. Either competing currencies need to be legalized or the Federal Reserve needs abolished, because the issue of inflation enablement needs addressed. If the enablement is there, it will get abused. And it did. It's that simple. And if you don't want a gold standard restrainment, fine, amend the constitution. But don't ignore it.

I actually thought that Kucinich was a stronger candidate than Obama, but he didn't have that motivational slickness in his speaking that Obama had. Kucinich really laid the wood when they asked him why he was the only Democratic contender to vote against the Patriot Act: "Because I read it," he said. So here you have a guy who voted against the war and the patriot act, and he gains no traction against Clinton who voted for both but claimed she was fooled. It's just really telling of how dumbed down we've become as a nation if something like that doesn't matter to people. This is why I don't think much hope is left. For those of us who know the future repercussions and how to best judge integrity, we are in the minority and the herd won't wake up until pain is knocking on their door. Sad, but true.

By the way, anyone reading this thread would do well to watch the entire speech on youtube. He goes into great detail on the run-up to the war and all he did to stop it. Quite elucidating.

ron paul for vice, hahahaha

Like Paul would never get VP lol. Want to call someone a Maverick it should be him, which is hilarious because he is one of the only ones that is conservative but since everyone else has changed for the worse and sucks so bad he looks like a rebel lol.

To be fair to Ron Paul he's definitely more pro-change than Obama. Unfortunately most of RP's change is the batshit crazy kind.

@BansheeX, I agree with your assessment about Kucinich. I think in a lot of ways he had a better platform, and more solid convictions. He wasn't the better candidate though, because he didn't have the soaring speaking style, or the moderate policies of Obama or Clinton. Being a "better candidate" is all about electability, not governance.

I disagree with the entire term "welfare state" when used about the United States government. Look at any other English speaking nation in the world, and tell me we have some sort of "welfare" state. It's just not born out by the facts or realistic comparison with any other industrialized nation. Even India has a stronger health care plan than the U.S. (in that they have one).

All that said, what I said in my original post is still true. Just because you haven't listened, haven't liked it, or wanted more change, doesn't mean Obama hasn't talked about specifics, and is somehow secretly status quo.

>> ^MarineGunrock:
^Um, you don't even live here.


What does that have to do with having and stating an opinion? I can't believe his viewpoint scares you that much.

We have to remember that Ron Paul is and has always been a Republican, so he will have few good things to say about Obama. I wouldn't trust everything he says when he's talking about the Democrats.

>> ^Fjnbk:
We have to remember that Ron Paul is and has always been a Republican, so he will have few good things to say about Obama. I wouldn't trust everything he says when he's talking about the Democrats.


Actually, he ran as the Libertarian Party candidate in the 80s. You're making a huge mistake in associating him with the neo-conservative leadership currently in control of the Republican party.

>> NetRunner:
I disagree with the entire term "welfare state" when used about the United States government. Look at any other English speaking nation in the world


All of which have serious problems of their own that are continuing to get worse as immigrants come not just for opportunity, but to be subsidized by others, placing enormous stress on the middle class everyone wants to see expand rather than contract. And these are countries who DON'T have a military empire to maintain, no less, which Obama has no plans of ending. Health is too complex of an issue to leave to anyone but the earners themselves. The minute you socialize health care, you're going to get incredibly high wait times and fraud, not to mention the inefficiency of government. Because if your fellow taxpayers are paying, why not go to the ER for a cough? Why not keep smoking and eating poorly? No financial incentive not to. Quite a bit different from roads and firehouses isn't it? No, I think the problem is too many government handouts and bills to remove competition in the market. Think about it, why is there no price list for basic workups in your doctor's office? Health care costs are going up for the same reason as everything else in this country: inflation and special privilege subsidies eroding competition. Everything comes back to monetary policy.

Anyway, I always hold that Democrats are just Libertarians who don't know it yet. You just need to do more research on this stuff. Social Security was a stupid ponzi scheme from the very beginning, doomed to ultimate collapse despite appearing to work for the earliest recipients.

http://www.letxa.com/articles/15

http://www.socialsecurity.org/reformandyou/faqs.html

http://youtube.com/watch?v=OS2fI2p9iVs

Dismissing all of Obama's policy positions as "offering no change" as Ron Paul just did requires a willful ignorance. It's like Nader saying he didn't care that he cost Gore the 2000 election because Gore and Bush are essentially the same. Really?

^ My main point was that in comparison to other countries, we're no welfare state. If you want to launch into an argument about how all government programs are wrong, that's fine, but America is as close to your libertarian ideal as I know of outside the middle east.

I generally think Libertarians (and Republicans) are Democrats who just haven't lost their job, or lost their medical insurance yet.

I'm not a Democrat for lack of having read studies from people saying "government programs don't work", that's for sure.

Social Security is a good topic to take up with me -- I largely agree that it's gotta go, or at least get overhauled. I think it's an example of a government plan that's done a lot of good over the years, but whose workings were based on assumptions about lifespan/population growth/standard of living that aren't true anymore, and needs to be updated. Or maybe not.

I don't think it's some sort of proof that all government aid plans are doomed to failure.

As for health care, the main thrust of the Obama (and Clinton) position on health care is to encourage the insurance companies to focus more on prevention, covering dietitians, maybe even gym membership, regular checkups, etc. People can waste their time all they like at the ER, they have triage controlling the flow of patients already, and I think it's better if people take the judgment of "better safe than sorry" with a trip to the hospital anyways. If it's trivial, they'll have a long wait, and a doc who'll be eager to show 'em the door.

It is a lot more complex than fire houses and roads, but you're making an assumption that the government can't deal with complexity. We trust them to regulate trade with other countries, our financial system, and the military already. All of those are arguably more complex than a government plan on health care would need to be.

Despite your statement to the contrary, not all national health plans are in a state of failure -- in fact, while most of them are running over budget, none of them would consume the same percentage of GDP to fully fund than our non-system system does (most nations' health care plans are holding steady around 6-10%, while ours is 16% and rising quickly). Their general statistics on health are generally better than ours too, with more choice, and shorter waits than I have with my employer-based HMO plan.

In any case, we're getting wildly OT. RP may not be a neocon, but he is still a Republican, and I'd say someone put some leverage on him to fall in line and talk bad about Obama. In the past, while he's not been overflowing with praise for Obama, he has said he prefers his foreign policy to that of McCain's. The comments in this vid differ from all of the other statements I've seen him make about Obama, in that this time he's using the Republican talking points (albeit some of the tamer ones).

Kinda sad, really. Makes you wonder who else might influence him.

*cou(CFR)gh*

BansheeX: Anyway, I always hold that Democrats are just Libertarians who don't know it yet.

Weird how perspective changes things. Mid 40s now and I considered myself a conservative/libertarian at least through my 30s, these days I see two libertarian parties rather than one and no real conservatives left. Not the people I considered conservative at least. Repubs joined with dems to go after Nixon, if it wasn't for that he wouldn't have left. They don't do that now though. Eisenhower, not hippies, gave us the term "military/industrial complex. That type of conservative no longer exists. I don't follow any party or leader and haven't for ages.

Libertarian first of all has at least two faces, probably three or more. There's the business libertarian who isn't in the end much different from or better than the neocon. They helped to provide both the dems and the repubs with the moral "high ground" required to deregulate the hell out of everything and allow consolidation of power and influence in the hands of a very few. To restrict them in any way wasn't 'free markets' and that's what we were all about we thought. They have done SO much damage.

Second kind would be the social libertarian, those I like still if they have some common sense about extremes. To me there's little difference between a social libertarian with some common sense about extremes and a lot of progressives. Both against the drug war, against allowing the State into our bedrooms and private lives, and on the same side of lots of other issues. They often just don't know it yet, haven't looked honestly at each other rather than being told what the other stands for.

Then there's the "I just want to be left alone" type. They have no idea what any of it stands for and they are too often quick to impose their will on others but they don't want anyone telling them what to do and they can't see the problem with their position.

Dems and repub are both empty shells, fill them with whatever you want to fill them with. Repub at one time was the party of Lincoln, then it became the party of the rich. Dems at one time in the south at least was the party of racism and the status quo and that lasted at least through the start of the civil rights era, they did good for a few years then got their ass kicked in 68-72 and just gave up to let the DLC take over. Since then it's been in one measure or another a show. The dems and repubs put on a show fight or pretend to fight about social issues that never really change no matter who is in charge, in the meantime the business block does great no matter who is in charge. When it's the repubs in charge it's obvious, when it's the dems between the minority repubs and the dlc dems nothing really changes, and it hasn't for decades. The differences are both superficial and in places that really don't matter to the money flow. It's just bait to keep us dumb voters happy as if we did have choices.

It's all branding and marketing these days and no party actually means anything that will last. Ideals mean something if you stick to them but those ideals aren't tied to repub, dem, or libertarian, they just live in our minds. They are tied to rational thought and deep skepticism about all parties or other special interests. What do they have to gain, who is telling me things, and why? Past that screw the parties, once they get you to following the "brand" they can get you to follow them about anywhere and we'd see it for ourselves if we'd just look.

Our Demopublican Plutocratic Kleptocracy in action.

Things won't change until the likes of Ron Paul can take the helm and drive this sinking ship.. not out to sea, but back for repairs at the docks.

Keep at it my man. A LOT people more support you than the mass media likes to imply.

@drattus

The DLC is now all but defeated within the Democratic party. Howard Dean becoming DNC chair was a huge step -- Obama becoming the nominee is essentially a deathknell for the DLC. The time of passive Demopublicans is coming to an end.

I've never known a form of conservatism that was liberal socially, and was as adamant about limiting private/corporate power as it was government. That kind of conservatism, I could be a serious supporter of.

To me, that's what the Democratic party is now. It's not for limiting the size of government, in terms of services and budget, but it is for limiting its power to interfere with people's lives, and civil liberties. If anything, it wants to expand those liberties (with a right to privacy, say), as well as actually restrain corporate practices that limit people's freedom.

"so our best choice who does have a chance would be Obama."....yikes

*promote the truth

Promoting this video back to the front page; last published Friday, June 13th, 2008 7:51am PDT - promote requested by blankfist.

I've heard Ron Paul say the word "change" a zillion times.

*promote

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