"Resolved: Ron Paul, as US President, would be disastrous for America."

[packbat]

Being a liberal Republican, it is meet* for me to state my stance on Ron Paul.

I believe that Ron Paul would be a terrible President for the reasons cited here. Most prominently among these are:

• The gold standard would lead to economic turmoil (not to mention devastate industries which use gold),
  
• The abolition of the income tax would cripple the federal government,
  
• A law to prevent the Supreme Court from ruling on an issue is un-American, even when it is not explicitly intended to bolster prejudice,
  
• Racism - be it against black men in DC or immigrants throughout America - is wrong, (edit: I cannot defend this claim; I withdraw it.) and
  
• Undermining modern medicine would destroy millions of lives in the most brutal fashion.

Citations for Ron Paul's support of each of these are in the link.

* "Meet" meaning suitable, proper, appropriate. It's standard.

Comments

Re: lol

[peri-renna.livejournal.com]

Hah - that was fast. You may wish to sign your comments if you're hanging around.

* Gold standard: To some extent, it's common sense - if the government is required to have a large stockpile of gold on hand, then the supply of gold for industrial purposes (e.g. corrosion-resistant electrical contacts) will be greatly decreased, increasing prices. Not to mention that the government has to come up with the gold somehow. A quick Googling turned up this analysis (http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/GoldStandard.html) from an actual economist - which is less about impracticality with simple improbability.

* Income taxes: Of the $2.4 trillion the U.S. government received in 2006, $1 trillion came from personal income taxes (http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/fy2008/summarytables.html). That's an absurd amount of money to cut from the budget - so large that I am unable to believe it could be practicably done.

* Racism: In deference to the weakness of my case, I'll drop the argument.

* Undermining modern medicine: Supporting alternative medicine and eliminating mandatory vaccinations (http://www.ronpaul2008.com/issues/health-freedom/) both do this. Unapproved treatments (http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=h110-2717&tab=summary) are often bogus. And while our health care system is broken, the fix is not by encouraging the use of unproven medical treatments, but by - I hate to say it - universal health care.

Basically all of your "reasons" for being against Ron Paul are a result of a lifetime of brainwashing by a corrupt government that doesn't give a crap about you.

Citations, please?

Re: lol

[(Anonymous)]

* Gold standard: To some extent, it's common sense - if the government is required to have a large stockpile of gold on hand, then the supply of gold for industrial purposes (e.g. corrosion-resistant electrical contacts) will be greatly decreased, increasing prices. Not to mention that the government has to come up with the gold somehow. A quick Googling turned up this analysis from an actual economist - which is less about impracticality with simple improbability.

Look, I'm not going to sit here and argue that the gold standard is the end all be all solution to economic problems but lets face it, the current system is a disaster that has put the US in trillions of dollars of debt to foreign countries on money loaned through a secretive organization who has no accountability to the american people... that's a disaster.

* Income taxes: Of the $2.4 trillion the U.S. government received in 2006, $1 trillion came from personal income taxes. That's an absurd amount of money to cut from the budget - so large that I am unable to believe it could be practicably done.

Well, it could be done in Ron Paul's plan, whether you agree with it or not, bringing the troops home from everywhere across the world and cutting many of the worthless federal agencies would save that kind of money with ease

* Racism: In deference to the weakness of my case, I'll drop the argument.

* Undermining modern medicine: Supporting alternative medicine and eliminating mandatory vaccinations both do this. Unapproved treatments are often bogus. And while our health care system is broken, the fix is not by encouraging the use of unproven medical treatments, but by - I hate to say it - universal health care.

All I'll say to this is once you realize the FDA isn't there to serve the greater good for the American people you will realize why Paul's plan makes sense. The current system doesn't protect anybody from ineffective treatments or harmful treatments, it's a race to who can bribe the FDA fast enough to get an approval so they can rape the American public with crushing drug prices. If you love socialized health care so much you should do some research into how medicine is handled in socialized countries - they do just fine without bureaucracy managing their medicine to the extent that the FDA does.

Re: lol

[peri-renna.livejournal.com]

Hmm, perhaps I was overly subtle - I am inclined to distrust those unwilling to at least adopt a nom de plume. Please sign your comments.

Look, I'm not going to sit here and argue that the gold standard is the end all be all solution to economic problems but lets face it, the current system is a disaster that has put the US in trillions of dollars of debt to foreign countries on money loaned through a secretive organization who has no accountability to the american people... that's a disaster.

One, you're ranting like a conspiracy theorist (http://xkcd.com/258/). Two, our trade deficit originates in many factors, none of which I am qualified to identify (although I suspect one contributor is that we lack the protections for domestic industry necessary to support the protections for domestic labor).

Well, it could be done in Ron Paul's plan, whether you agree with it or not, bringing the troops home from everywhere across the world and cutting many of the worthless federal agencies would save that kind of money with ease

I prefer not to descend to crudity of language, so instead I will merely indicate that your claim is absurd. In 2006, the total mandatory outlay of the government was 1.4 trillion (http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/fy2008/summarytables.html) - in other words, everything that would have remained after abolishing income taxes. Note that, for example, the entire judicial branch is excluded from this accounting.

All I'll say to this is once you realize the FDA isn't there to serve the greater good for the American people you will realize why Paul's plan makes sense.

Citations, please - both for the above and your 'brainwashing' crack.