wait, the only thing we should prohibit is violence? - what about self-defence, manslaughter & war-crimes? those are types of violence but receive lesser or no prison sentencing at all if it can be proved as suitable in a court of law. Paul just makes sweeping generalisations & this is why i dislike libertarianism it doesn't work in the real-world, not all drug offenders are none violent - and hard drug usage also seeps into other crimes so trying to just fit all drug related crime into one neat little box seems a bit fanciful.

Don't just uncritically believe everything Paul feeds you, remember he's a Dr. who does not believe in evolution & thinks that the government should not provide vaccines to people because it's their liberty not to have them. Seriously...

I'm confused by your statement do you think War Crimes and Manslaughter aren't forms of violence that should be prohibited? Why do you lump those things in with self-defense which even nations act on. If some country attacks us should we turn the other cheek. Are you saying War Crimes are acceptable losses.

What Ron Paul is saying is that violent crimes should be prohibited, as in the crimes we already have laws against, like murder, rape, genocide, those things. Instead of giving life sentences to a crack head whose only real offense in trying to escape reality. I'm not saying hard drugs don't sometimes incite violence what I'm saying and what he is saying is that the war of drugs has caused more harm than good it has taken more lives than any other war past or present period.

And for what?! They are still no closer to stopping the flow of drugs in the world than they ever were in fact the flow has increased with billions of dollars lost to underground mafias across the globe. If you legalize it and then tax it the government could make up the national deficit in a single year. The mafias would instantly be put out of business because who would buy something from a street corner dealer when you can just go to a pharmacy or Walmart and buy it legally and for less money too. If you don't believe the war on drugs has failed then turn on your TV and watch the series about Moonshiners in America. If they can't enforce the very original laws of prohibition still to this day we need to stop and really think about an alternative solution to the problem.

>> ^truth-is-the-nemesis:

wait, the only thing we should prohibit is violence? - what about self-defence, manslaughter & war-crimes? those are types of violence but receive lesser or no prison sentencing at all if it can be proved as suitable in a court of law. Paul just makes sweeping generalisations & this is why i dislike libertarianism it doesn't work in the real-world, not all drug offenders are none violent - and hard drug usage also seeps into other crimes so trying to just fit all drug related crime into one neat little box seems a bit fanciful.
Don't just uncritically believe everything Paul feeds you, remember he's a Dr. who does not believe in evolution & thinks that the government should not provide vaccines to people because it's their liberty not to have them. Seriously...

^ Auger8

In 2009, Portugal's Decriminalized drugs which Showed a Positive Result 5 years after for deaths from overdoses and the rate of HIV cases. The theory however was to start focusing on treatment and prevention instead of jailing users which would decrease the number of deaths and infections. (& i have not heard Paul make this his standpoint). "Now instead of being put into prison, addicts are going to treatment centers and they're learning how to control their drug usage or getting off drugs entirely," report author Glenn Greenwald said.

Under the Portuguese plan, penalties for people caught dealing and trafficking drugs are unchanged; dealers are still jailed and subjected to fines depending on the crime. But people caught using or possessing small amounts—defined as the amount needed for 10 days of personal use—are brought before what's known as a "Dissuasion Commission," an administrative body created by the 2001 law.

Drug legalization removes all criminal penalties for producing, selling and using drugs; no country has tried it. In contrast, decriminalization, as practiced in Portugal, eliminates jail time for drug users but maintains criminal penalties for dealers. Spain and Italy have also decriminalized personal use of drugs and Mexico's president has proposed doing the same. there is a difference between the two & legalisation of all drugs was not what was done here.

Ron Paul is against EVERYTHING, and he is savvy enough to market politically profitable "anti" positions to the correct single issue constituents without letting them know that he is also against tons of things that those constituents support.

-He is against SOPA, but he is also against Net Neutrality.(1)
-He is against our current war, but he is also against all military intervention including fighting Hitler (2), the confederate south (3) and presumably any legitimate future Hitlarian tyrant that may pop up.
-He is against drug laws, but he is also against environmental protections. (4)
-He is against Federal laws against gay marriage, but he supports them at the state level and opposes the Supreme Court ruling on state issues even if they are deemed unconstitutional. (5)
-He is against civil rights protections for minorities, women and gays. He'd like to repeal those civil rights protections and allow states to legalize discrimination at their leisure. (5)
-He is against public education. (6)
-He is against the separation of church and state. (7)
-He wants to deregulate the banks. (8)
-He wants to give corporations a huge tax cuts at a time of record productivity, record unemployment and record corporate profits. (9)
-He would make massive cuts to science (10) and is a global warming denier. (11)

He is a terrible candidate. You aren't a rebel if you support him. You are just bucking one undesirable status quo for an even worse anarcho-capitalist flavored status quo. He is consistent, but foolishly so. Look a little deeper before giving your blind support to this guy.

I'm so sick of the internet's uninformed Ron Paul circle jerk.

He is not the political savior you are looking for.

Cites:
(1) http://www.issues2000.org/tx/Ron_Paul.htm
(2) http://www.mediaite.com/online/former-aide-ron-paul-claimed-saving-the-jews-was-absolutely-none-of-our-business/
(3)http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jbOE4Ip7In0
(4)http://lewrockwell.com/block/block189.html
(5)http://steviemcfly.tumblr.com/post/15660334642/ron-pauls-strange-relationship-with-privacy
(6)http://www.ronpaul.com/on-the-issues/education/
(7)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_positions_of_Ron_Paul#Religion
(8)http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/post/gop-deregulate-wall-street/2011/08/25/gIQAeJmNuL_blog.html
(9)http://www.ronpaul2012.com/the-issues/ron-paul-plan-to-restore-america/
(10)http://news.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/2011/10/ron-paul-would-erase-billions-in.html
(11)http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hCc5Gk1nops

@dystopianfuturetoday it goes on from there:

-He wants to abolish licensing for doctors
-He wants to abolish regulation of drug testing
-He wants to abolish regulation of food safety
-He wants to abolish auto safety
-He wants to abolish the CDC, and the NIH
-He wants to abolish disaster relief and FEMA

That's still not even getting to the fact that he's an utter crank when it comes to his beliefs on monetary and fiscal policy.

And that's just the stuff he's standing by, there's a lot of stuff he's said and later denied that should give people pause.

>> ^dystopianfuturetoday:
-He is against drug laws...

He's against federal drug laws... he wants the states to decide.

I'm not sure I've heard him say if he opposes drug prohibition at the state level, but he certainly doesn't want the federal government telling the states they can't prohibit them.

Paulism should be a religion. It already has many of the requisite, delusional masses.

Every election boils down to the lesser of two evils and here's the important question here.

Do you want another Obama in the White House who will fold up under the slightest pressure from the Senate or the House, or do you want a man who will actually be a President and make the hard decisions and stand by them for good or bad?

No one candidate is perfect period but in my opinion he's better by far than a complete Religious crackpot like Santorum or a Romney who's only goal is to reverse everything his predecessor has accomplished. Or worse still a Gingrich who thinks the corporations should run this country for us.

I don't want someone who makes hard bad decisions and then stubbornly stands by them. I had enough of that with Bush.

Also, if you think Obama has not made hard decisions, you have not been paying attention. I don't agree with alot of what he has done, and sometimes I want him to fight more, but the man has an effective, if not subtle, style.>> ^Auger8:

Every election boils down to the lesser of two evils and here's the important question here.
Do you want another Obama in the White House who will fold up under the slightest pressure from the Senate or the House, or do you want a man who will actually be a President and make the hard decisions and stand by them for good or bad?
No one candidate is perfect period but in my opinion he's better by far than a complete Religious crackpot like Santorum or a Romney who's only goal is to reverse everything his predecessor has accomplished. Or worse still a Gingrich who thinks the corporations should run this country for us.

Obama is the lesser evil without question. Imposing Austrian economics on an economy as weak as ours (or any economy ftm) is an unambiguously evil thing to do to the 99%.

> He wants to abolish auto safety

FUNNY!!!

I am sure when automaker 1 says "We got rid of seatbelts and our car is $20 cheaper!" and automaker 2 says "We've improved our seatbelts even more, and we still do expensive crash testing." that the buyers will set the policy for automotive safety.

Here's my problem with Obama and don't get me wrong I voted for the guy. But everytime he say "I'm gonna change this "Insert Policy Here"" he makes a great case for it and then someone on his staff or the Speaker or Joint Chiefs tell him "No you can't do that because it will piss off "Insert party here"". He folds without any fight whatsoever.

Example:
He pulled what I thought was a daring and awesome move by planning a Presidential speech the night of the first GOP debate. Effective pulling away potential competition for upcoming votes against him. Then the Speaker of the House got pissed and whined about it to him to change the date. And he did. No argument, nothing he just folded up like an worn out lawnchair for absolutely no reason whatsoever. I mean give me a break how can you pretend to make bold moves like and not follow through with it. Your the freakin President it's your decision not the Speaker's who isn't even in your Party. WTF man grow a pair already. I'm tired of president who won't their guns and not let partisan politics dictate what they can and can't do for the better of the nation.

Partisan politics in the U.S. are slowly killing this nation we need someone who won't be influenced by that and will make decisions based on what's right for the country not what's right for the party who voted them in.

>> ^longde:

I don't want someone who makes hard bad decisions and then stubbornly stands by them. I had enough of that with Bush.
Also, if you think Obama has not made hard decisions, you have not been paying attention. I don't agree with alot of what he has done, and sometimes I want him to fight more, but the man has an effective, if not subtle, style.>> ^Auger8:
Every election boils down to the lesser of two evils and here's the important question here.
Do you want another Obama in the White House who will fold up under the slightest pressure from the Senate or the House, or do you want a man who will actually be a President and make the hard decisions and stand by them for good or bad?
No one candidate is perfect period but in my opinion he's better by far than a complete Religious crackpot like Santorum or a Romney who's only goal is to reverse everything his predecessor has accomplished. Or worse still a Gingrich who thinks the corporations should run this country for us.

I see what you are saying, but do you have a more consequential example? I mean, who cares about a speech that noone was going to watch anyway? On Obama's list of priorities that day, that one should rightly have been under #500. I doubt he made that decision at all; it would probably have fallen to his chief of staff.>> ^Auger8:

Here's my problem with Obama and don't get me wrong I voted for the guy. But everytime he say "I'm gonna change this "Insert Policy Here"" he makes a great case for it and then someone on his staff or the Speaker or Joint Chiefs tell him "No you can't do that because it will piss off "Insert party here"". He folds without any fight whatsoever.
Example:
He pulled what I thought was a daring and awesome move by planning a Presidential speech the night of the first GOP debate. Effective pulling away potential competition for upcoming votes against him. Then the Speaker of the House got pissed and whined about it to him to change the date. And he did. No argument, nothing he just folded up like an worn out lawnchair for absolutely no reason whatsoever. I mean give me a break how can you pretend to make bold moves like and not follow through with it. Your the freakin President it's your decision not the Speaker's who isn't even in your Party. WTF man grow a pair already. I'm tired of president who won't their guns and not let partisan politics dictate what they can and can't do for the better of the nation.
Partisan politics in the U.S. are slowly killing this nation we need someone who won't be influenced by that and will make decisions based on what's right for the country not what's right for the party who voted them in.
>> ^longde:
I don't want someone who makes hard bad decisions and then stubbornly stands by them. I had enough of that with Bush.
Also, if you think Obama has not made hard decisions, you have not been paying attention. I don't agree with alot of what he has done, and sometimes I want him to fight more, but the man has an effective, if not subtle, style.>> ^Auger8:
Every election boils down to the lesser of two evils and here's the important question here.
Do you want another Obama in the White House who will fold up under the slightest pressure from the Senate or the House, or do you want a man who will actually be a President and make the hard decisions and stand by them for good or bad?
No one candidate is perfect period but in my opinion he's better by far than a complete Religious crackpot like Santorum or a Romney who's only goal is to reverse everything his predecessor has accomplished. Or worse still a Gingrich who thinks the corporations should run this country for us.

@Auger8

If you think for a second that a President as despised by his own party as the opposing party is just going to walk into the White House on Inauguration Day and "make decisions", you have no idea how the system works. He will have NO EFFECT on the status quo, and the country will go through yet another four years of political gridlock while both parties look ahead to 2016.

I absolutely share your frustrations with Obama, and he isn't getting my vote this time. I'll write in Kucinich or Warren, or somebody. What I won't do is jump onto the short bus with the rest of the Ron Paul nutcakes. Yeah, voting write-in will have the same effect as voting for Ron Paul... it throws a potential Obama vote away. I've recently said I would grudgingly vote for Obama, but I've changed my mind. "Best of a bad lot" just isn't good enough.

Oh that's an easy one how bout his lame signing statement on the NDAA.

>> ^longde:

I see what you are saying, but do you have a more consequential example? I mean, who cares about a speech that noone was going to watch anyway? On Obama's list of priorities that day, that one should rightly have been under #500. I doubt he made that decision at all; it would probably have fallen to his chief of staff.>> ^Auger8:
Here's my problem with Obama and don't get me wrong I voted for the guy. But everytime he say "I'm gonna change this "Insert Policy Here"" he makes a great case for it and then someone on his staff or the Speaker or Joint Chiefs tell him "No you can't do that because it will piss off "Insert party here"". He folds without any fight whatsoever.
Example:
He pulled what I thought was a daring and awesome move by planning a Presidential speech the night of the first GOP debate. Effective pulling away potential competition for upcoming votes against him. Then the Speaker of the House got pissed and whined about it to him to change the date. And he did. No argument, nothing he just folded up like an worn out lawnchair for absolutely no reason whatsoever. I mean give me a break how can you pretend to make bold moves like and not follow through with it. Your the freakin President it's your decision not the Speaker's who isn't even in your Party. WTF man grow a pair already. I'm tired of president who won't their guns and not let partisan politics dictate what they can and can't do for the better of the nation.
Partisan politics in the U.S. are slowly killing this nation we need someone who won't be influenced by that and will make decisions based on what's right for the country not what's right for the party who voted them in.
>> ^longde:
I don't want someone who makes hard bad decisions and then stubbornly stands by them. I had enough of that with Bush.
Also, if you think Obama has not made hard decisions, you have not been paying attention. I don't agree with alot of what he has done, and sometimes I want him to fight more, but the man has an effective, if not subtle, style.>> ^Auger8:
Every election boils down to the lesser of two evils and here's the important question here.
Do you want another Obama in the White House who will fold up under the slightest pressure from the Senate or the House, or do you want a man who will actually be a President and make the hard decisions and stand by them for good or bad?
No one candidate is perfect period but in my opinion he's better by far than a complete Religious crackpot like Santorum or a Romney who's only goal is to reverse everything his predecessor has accomplished. Or worse still a Gingrich who thinks the corporations should run this country for us.

There's a reason Ron Paul is hated by both parties a simple one too. He doesn't play by their rules. This is exactly the kind of person we need in office someone who refuses to let partisan politics influence major decisions that effect the Nation as a whole. By keeping the people at the forefront of his mind and not his "Party".

I'm sick of all this Left/Right bullsh*t it's time to do what's right for this Nation regardless of petty political agendas.

[edit] And I know exactly how the system works thank you very much. It work through the bowels of corruption and greed.

I think it's high time we flushed the system as it is and started anew.

>> ^Fletch:

@Auger8
If you think for a second that a President as despised by his own party as the opposing party is just going to walk into the White House on Inauguration Day and "make decisions", you have no idea how the system works. He will have NO EFFECT on the status quo, and the country will go through yet another four years of political gridlock while both parties look ahead to 2016.
I absolutely share your frustrations with Obama, and he isn't getting my vote this time. I'll write in Kucinich or Warren, or somebody. What I won't do is jump onto the short bus with the rest of the Ron Paul nutcakes. Yeah, voting write-in will have the same effect as voting for Ron Paul... it throws a potential Obama vote away. I've recently said I would grudgingly vote for Obama, but I've changed my mind. "Best of a bad lot" just isn't good enough.

I remember saying the same thing about Gore 11 years ago; I sure wish I had my Nader vote back. Bush hurt this country alot more than Gore would have, status quo or no.

Just because I don't think the warden is strict enough doesn't mean I am going to hand over the keys to the inmates.>> ^Fletch:

@Auger8
I've recently said I would grudgingly vote for Obama, but I've changed my mind. "Best of a bad lot" just isn't good enough.

>> ^longde:

I remember saying the same thing about Gore 11 years ago; I sure wish I had my Nader vote back. Bush hurt this country alot more than Gore would have, status quo or no.
Just because I don't think the warden is strict enough doesn't mean I am going to hand over the keys to the inmates.>> ^Fletch:
@Auger8
I've recently said I would grudgingly vote for Obama, but I've changed my mind. "Best of a bad lot" just isn't good enough.


I hear ya. I don't disagree, but I just can't vote for "not Romney".

>> ^Auger8:
He doesn't play by their rules. This is exactly the kind of person we need in office someone who refuses to let partisan politics influence major decisions that effect the Nation as a whole.
My whole point is that he can do very little without House and Senate support, and they won't support him. I think he's a stand-up guy, but I also disagree with just about everything he stands for. I wouldn't cooperate with him either.

>> ^Fletch:

>> ^longde:
I remember saying the same thing about Gore 11 years ago; I sure wish I had my Nader vote back. Bush hurt this country alot more than Gore would have, status quo or no.
Just because I don't think the warden is strict enough doesn't mean I am going to hand over the keys to the inmates.>> ^Fletch:
@Auger8
I've recently said I would grudgingly vote for Obama, but I've changed my mind. "Best of a bad lot" just isn't good enough.


I hear ya. I don't disagree, but I just can't vote for "not Romney".


Why not? Life is full of "best of a bad lot" decisions, especially ones where inaction could result in the worst possible outcome. I think even the most strident Obama supporter would agree he has been a disappointment, if only because he raised our expectations so high and if the stakes weren't so high and the alternatives weren't so much worse, I would agree with you.

Should have made this a SiftTalk post I guess.