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A brief excerpt from the January 7, 2012 New Hampshire Debate
Sounds like that is just what he claimed.
Do we want someone in office who can’t even tell what party he claims he is a member of?
Excerpt taken from highlights video at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SvZ5D_fU39w
Lew, this post makes you seem really desperate for a Ron Paul attack angle.
Are you serious, or is this kind of tongue-in-cheek? Your rather cruel use of the ‘Dementia’ blog post keyword tag makes me think you’re serious, but the very mild verbal slip-up revealed in the video makes me think you must be joking around…
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Michael, no desperation at all. Just following the pattern I learned from Paulbots in 2008 who took ever effort at slips of the tongue of others.
If Romney, Perry or any other had said such a blunder, you know Paul’s supporters would have jumped on it.
As for dementia, I do have to wonder about that, given some of his more ridiculous stands he takes and his pitiful excuses on the newsletters.
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Is it ridiculous to (a) insist on a sound currency (b) insist that we can no longer afford to spend more than the rest of the world combined on the military/industrial complex (c) insist that we actually follow – rather than just give lip service to – the limitations on federal power written into the Consitution, including, but not limited to, States Rights (d) insist that citizens be free from arbitrary and capricious actions by government, including unconstitutional crony capitalism and wealth transfers ? Is it ridiculous to have the ONLY consistent record of conservatism on issues of personal liberty among the entire group of current GOP candidates? If so, Ron is my kind of ridiculous.
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It is ridiculous to pull back to isolationism (no matter what Ron Paul calls it, it is the same) and wait on terrorists to attack us before acting after over two decades of attacks against our interests, twice on out own soil.
It is ridiculous to tie the hands of our law enforcement and military people to be able to deal with those who wish to do us harm.
It is ridiculous to rail against earmarks, then attach more to a bill than any other Republican, all the while justifying it because you vote against it. The money is still accepted and taken back to his district. If he were truly the constitutionalist he claims, he would neither attach earmarks nor accept them.
His cry of ending the fed could also have dire economic consequences on our economy. Yes, the fed needs drastic and substantial changes, but he is wrong that no one knows who is on the fed and he is wrong that they are not audited. End the fed and place our money back in the hands of legislators and you now have the opportunity for politicians to manipulate the markets and our money to benefit their buddies and pay off favors. The fed is not perfect, but prior to it being formed, history shows we hard far worse recessions that lasted longer. The founders expected responsible people to lead the nation and that has been shown erroneous over and over.
It is ridiculous to push for letters of marque and reprisal when they have been banned by every other nation and the last few times any were issued, no one took them up. We are also signatories to the Geneva Conventions which ban the use of mercenaries in war. Those letters would be tantamount to using mercenaries.
There is more, but Ron Paul has shown himself to not be the one I’d rather have sitting in the Oval Office.
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It is ridiculous to ask the attacker of our freedoms and our safety if he has remembered to bring his gun or did he need ammo for that… but Ron Paul would do that.
He is scary.
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Ron Paul has been a K00K for a long time, but I think some people support him because they’re disgusted with the wimpy-assed pukes the GOP tries to foist upon America. If we had better candidates then Ron Paul wouldn’t even be on the radar.
Of course when we do get a decent candidate, the Lefties and the Leftist Media find a ways to torpedo them.
“Our biggest enemy is the Media”.
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I agree with about half of what Ron Paul believes but that’s because those things are liberal positions. Unfortunately, the other half of what he says is simply scary. In comparison, the other Republican candidates (Gingrich excluded) have not exhibited any original thinking. They simply repeat platitudes.
Obama’s going to win this thing going away, but if by chance a Republican is elected, I’d prefer someone intelligent.
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Re: The Fed: last year, after the Fed was forced to disclose its transactions via the FOIA, I traced an entire transaction, because it included the mortgage on my house. Long story short: My first mortgage was held by Thornburg. In 2007, Thornburg was forced into bankruptcy by the “mark-to-market” disaster. Its assets, including my mortgage, were purchase for about 1% of face value by a hastily thrown together group of wealthy individuals with close friends in D.C. They then immediately took these very same mortgages to the Fed, collected about 50% of face value, thereby realizing an instant profit of several hundred million $, and pocketed the difference. In effect, they used taxpayer money to buy my $300K mortgage for about $3500 and pocket $150K. This is the worst type of corrupt crony capitalism and it’s hard to see how a return to the gold or silver standard would be any worse than this kind of wholesale looting.
As to the issue of “isolationism” I would urge a viewing of this video:
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Tom, I state the fed needs some changes and more openness. It is far from perfect.
One of the better Pro/Con articles I have found is at: http://commentarama.blogspot.com/2009/12/audit-fed-pros-and-cons.html
As far as the video, may I direct you to more of the speeches the short snippets were lifted from?
JFK at the University of Washington, November 16, 1961
“We increase our arms at a heavy cost, primarily to make certain that we will not have to use them. We must face up to the chance of war, if we are to maintain the peace. We must work with certain countries lacking in freedom in order to strengthen the cause of freedom. We find some who call themselves neutral who are our friends and sympathetic to us, and others who call themselves neutral who are unremittingly hostile to us. And as the most powerful defender of freedom on earth, we find ourselves unable to escape the responsibilities of freedom, and yet unable to exercise it without restraints imposed by the very freedoms we seek to protect.”
“And while we believe not only in the force of arms but in the force of right and reason, we have learned that reason does not always appeal to unreasonable men, that it is not always true that “a soft answer turneth away wrath,” and that right does not always make might.”
“But there are others who cannot bear the burden of a long twilight struggle. They lack confidence in our long-run capacity to survive and succeed. Hating communism, yet they see communism in the long run, perhaps, as the wave of the future. And they want some quick and easy and final and cheap solution–now.”
“There are two groups of these frustrated citizens, far apart in their views yet very much alike in their approach. On the one hand are those who urge upon us what J regard to be the pathway of surrender–appeasing our enemies, compromising our commitments, purchasing peace at any price, disavowing our arms, our friends, our obligations. If their view had prevailed, the world of free choice would be smaller today.”
“No one should be under the illusion that negotiations for the sake of negotiations always advance the cause of peace. If for lack of preparation they break up in bitterness, the prospects of peace have been endangered. If they are made a forum for propaganda or a cover for aggression, the processes of peace have been abused.”
“In short, we are neither “warmongers” nor “appeasers,” neither “hard” nor “soft.” We are Americans, determined to defend the frontiers of freedom, by an honorable peace if peace is possible, but by arms if arms are used against us.”
“And if we are to move forward in that spirit, we shall need all the calm and thoughtful citizens that this great University can produce, all the light they can shed, all the wisdom they can bring to bear. It is customary, both here and around the world, to regard life in the United States as easy. Our advantages are many. But more than any other people on earth, we bear burdens and accept risks unprecedented in their size and their duration, not for ourselves alone but for all who wish to be free. No other generation of free men in any country has ever faced so many and such difficult challenges-not even those who lived in the days when this University was founded in 1861.”
Full speech at http://www.jfklibrary.org/Asset-Viewer/Aw3MwwJMf0631R6JLmAprQ.aspx
Also, JFK speech, given June 10, 1963.
“The United States, as the world knows, will never start a war. We do not want a war. We do not now expect a war. This generation of Americans has already had enough–more than enough–of war and hate and oppression. We shall be prepared if others wish it. We shall be alert to try to stop it. But we shall also do our part to build a world of peace where the weak are safe and the strong are just. We are not helpless before that task or hopeless of its success. Confident and unafraid, we labor on–not toward a strategy of annihilation but toward a strategy of peace.”
http://www.jfklibrary.org/Asset-Viewer/BWC7I4C9QUmLG9J6I8oy8w.aspx
Ron Paul says we should listen to those who attacked us. Will he?
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Lew I appreciate the citations, they make very interesting reading. Nevertheless there is a world – and several hundred billion dollars per year – of difference between what we spend on defense now, and the historical constant-dollar average between 1955 and 2005, let alone what any “appeasement” budget might look like.
It’s hard to understand why we couldn’t at least return to the historical average of around $400B / yr, or how we are supposed to afford the present levels. Rick Stentorian certainly hasn’t explained that. Hell, I can’t afford near what I could back in the early 2000’s – can you?
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It’s also hard to undertand why countries like Germany, Korea, or Japan can’t pick up the costs for their own defense. Where is it written that we should continue to pick up that load?
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Tom, having our Troops dispersed is in our national defense.
In both World War, we were Johnnie Come Lately and had to spend considerable time gearing up to meet the need.
Waiting until they flood over our borders is not sound security.
We are not over there solely to protect them.
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Lew I agree with you – to a point. But we are now way, way over the top. We need to get real and start to live within our means, unless we want to end up like previous superpowers that spread themselves too thin. For example, consider what happened to the Roman Empire, the Ottoman Empire, and more recently, Britain and the Soviet Union.
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