The Ravings of Demented Rabbits

Ron Paul would be the ideal candidate if he weren't such a dangerous wackjob isolationist. Maybe if someone were to pick him for VP and tell him he doesn't get to play in Iraq it would be good, but that's not likely to happen, so we'll just have to find someone sane to elect instead.

Actually, it's worse than the isolationism. Which, as we've both noted, is reason enough to disqualify him.

What's really scary though, and what shines through really well in that video, is his economic thoughts, which run very extremely to the "unregulated capitalism is great!" end of the spectrum.

Which is dangerous on a lot of levels, and you can see in the video how all those smart Google types point it out, but I can put it really simply.

Unregulated capitalism is a failure because it has proven to be one, and in such a way as to be extremely detrimental to not only the health of the nation but that of the nation's people as well.

Put even more simply, the Gilded Age (which you non-historian types can take to be roughly 1870-1900) was a time of such repungant excess as to now defy imagination (which I suppose is why people keep trying to bring it back).

Want proof? Look at the history of labor in this country, of Pinkertons, and scabs, of the company store bringing a new kind of slavery.

Look at the scandals of the time, the Enrons of their day. The trusts. The utter corruption of business described by the journalists of the early 1900s.

We cannot return to that. We must not return to that.

Now, there are arguments that we've gone too far in the other direction, and are in some kind of dangerous socialist state, which I am not unsympathetic to. And there's a lot of room for argument, which is as it should be.

But I tell you this - every attempt to let the corporations run things without interference from the government fills me dread. Yes, we all love to complain of the inefficiencies of government, but I wonder if it is better to entrust ourselves and our futures to a government we can hold accountable every couple of years, or to those rapacious captains of industry, accountable to almost no one, who will do anything in persuit of the dollar.

I, for one, have made my choice. The lessons of history, not to mention my own experiences as the modern version of those exploited workers of old, lead me to the accountable devil. And it's some comfort that a return to what Ron Paul would have us return to is pretty unlikely. I sleep better for it.

I'm having a hard time figuring out how you went from Ron Paul's own words about tax reform, border security, immigration reform, trade reform, personal privacy and liberty, property rights, health care, the 2nd Amendment, home schooling, social security, and foreign policy to "Ron Paul supports bringing back the robber barons and labor slavery".

I don't get that from what he's said at all. Maybe I need to watch that video, but damn, I really don't want to sit through 65 minutes of Ron Paul jabbering on about how he wants to surrender the war on terror and abdicate our foreign responsibilities just to see if he said he supports bringing back the Gilded Age.

Nothing in his own statements on his campaign website says anything about that.

I'm convinced that theres a Ron Paul cult out there thats been secretly waiting for day they can stop drinking the crack laced kool aid and rise up. I've seen more Vote for Ron Paul posters than any other candidate.

Honestly though he's a truly special kind of crazy. I would watch his video but I'm afraid it'd cause some sort of brain damage.

Side note Free market capitalism is as scary as Soviet Communism. In fact I wouldn't consider it capitalism at all. Capitalism is based on competition and you can't have competition without regulation. Anyone that thinks you can I challenge to the sport competition of choice (football soccer, track...) I'll bring my rifle, no rules can be fun ;) .

I still havn't figured out what combination of drugs you've gotta do to be a Kucinich supporter.

Anyway back to my Xenu supporter group. Xenu is my Homeboy!!

I remember, was it last summer? anyway, last year Ron Paul was just starting to get on the radar screen, I saw him in an interview and thought he was SO COOl. "Lookit! He's all radical and full of common sense!" I said to myself.

But then I did some more research on him, and Wow. Evey cool statement that comes out of his mouth is offset by 10 statements full of foaming, batshite/racist/reality-free crazyness. That's a poor ratio, even compared to other politicians.

(Also opened my eyes to the whole Libertarian party in general, which I used to kind of like. Again: wow)

In reply to Samson:

There's something of a slight difference between what Ron Paul's campaign platform is, and what he appears to actually believe based on that video.

Of the two, the platform appears to be _slightly_ more sane (which IMHO isn't saying a lot, but). In the video, while of course he doesn't say he's all for the robber barons, he does say he's for what amounts to unregulated capitalism, which if you think about it for more than a couple seconds, leads to just that.

So either he knows that, which makes him a bad dude, he doesn't know that, which makes him woefully ignorant, or he chooses to not believe it, which makes him crazy.

Also I was having the post do a bit of double duty by thwacking people in general who are for unregulated capitalism, of whom I have known more than a couple.

Part of me wants to get Kucinich into office, because maybe then he'll pass out the drugs his supporters get to the rest of us. I'm guessing they're pretty good drugs.

Like I said, I'm not going to devote 65 minutes of my life to watching his Youtube video. I enjoy politics, but not THAT much. However, given you're bias toward left wing ideas I'm not entirely convinced that whatever he has to say would be such a bad thing.

For one, I don't think even he's of a mind to let things go into an unregulated capitalist system. I know he *IS* in favor of *LESS* regulation on the market, as am I, but I don't think either of us is going to be caught asking for no controls at all.

To Suz - I haven't run across anything Ron Paul has said that I'd consider racist. If you have, I'd be interested in reading about it.

I'll also say again, I'm not supporting Ron Paul based entirely on his isolationist foreign policy views. But based on what I've read from his campaign website, listened to on his radio ads, and seen in the 2 debates I caught pieces of, his domestic policy ideas are pretty much right where they should be.

It hardly matters though. It appears as though I'm gonna have to swallow my disgust and vote for McCain in November anyway.

The exact quote from the video is along the lines of:

"In my perfect world, you'd run everything as a contract between two people. No reason government should get involved in that at all."

There's a whole conversational vein along those lines that's...something.

As I've been trying to say, I'm pretty sure this video is fairly special amongst all his other campaign stuff. But he sure looks like he means what he says in that video, so, yknow.

Which doesn't much change the fact that you Republican types will all be voting for McCain and us Democrat types will all be voting for Clinton or Obama anyway.

Given talk on your blog, you'll probably laugh at this, but at least in this election (at this point in it, anyway) we've got a crop of politicians I can more or less respect, although if Romney gets the nod, I can still giggle and laugh a lot, in between bouts of despair at how the Republican party is once again defying my hopes for it.

Samson, here's a blog entry that sums up Paul's publicly racist comments pretty well - if you can force yourself to read the Daily Kos. ;)

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/5/15/124912/740

(I googled 'ron paul racist' to find this, btw)

You'll forgive me if I don't take what Kos has to say on the subject as authoritative, considering comments like: "Hell, they’re all racists."

It's also apparently not possible to verify the validity of what this guy posted 3rd hand since even he admits the originals are impossible to find. So he's taken some obvious liberties with quoting things out of context.

Most Kos readers and so far nearly all of their bloggers ( that I've ever been able to stomach reading ) have shown themselves to be vicious, evil, and more racist than anyone else out there.

Oh, and Dwip: "Which doesn't much change the fact that you Republican types will all be voting for McCain and us Democrat types will all be voting for Clinton or Obama anyway."

If McCain wins the nomination, yes. I'd vote for him. I strongly disagree with much of his domestic policy agenda but he votes my direction on 3 key issues:

Strongly in favor of continuing the Iraq war.
Strongly pro-life.
Strongly supports appointing judges who will follow the Constitution, not become activists from the bench.

I'll hold my nose and vote for him over what we'd all get from Clinton or Obama any day.

lol do you find this as funny as I do Ann Coulter says that she'll campaign for Hilary Clinton if McCain gets the nomination Thats going to be a laugh riot.......That would put two women I find infinitely terrifying on that side........on the other hand I agree completely with her opinion on this. I said something very similar when Guilliani was leading.....she said something along the lines of McCain would be a disaster, Hilary would be just as big of a disaster but at least the Republicans would fight her. Honestly I won't be voting in this upcoming election. It's a no win situation.

Yeah, I read Ann's article on that one myself. Honestly I think all she and others like her are doing is trying to rally the voters to do SOMETHING.

I guarantee you though, when push comes to shove, no conservative in their right mind will vote for Clinton or Obama. And neither will Ann Coulter.

I suggest the nuclear option, with a bit of anarchy for a bit. At least we'd be rid of politicians for a bit.

I think you guys are missing the point. That Randall Monroe video was awesome.