Like how your constitution explicitly says it should be? You also ignore that there are any number of things that prevent state governments from going too far, most of which don't do a damn thing when your federal government oversteps its boundaries.
Er, Ron Paul wants to dismantle the things that "prevent state governments from going too far". Actively. I've named one.
The constitution and the right to vote? The first restrains the state governments in a way that the federal government is good at ignoring (if the likes of SOPA, ACTA and the PATRIOT act among others are anything to go by), and the second limits it further to being responsible to those it controls. Frankly, if the result of state governments having more power than the federal government was state governments engaging in clownery, then I find it unlikely that the average American will somehow make the federal government much better.
Also: Ron Paul wants to override anything the constitution says about state law (regarding certain subjects). Let me put it this way: The only way the constitutionality of legislation can be maintained is through the courts stepping in and saying when something isn't constitutional. Ron Paul wants to remove that protection.
Source, please.
And I'm sorry, but no, the constitution does not explicitly state that states should specifically be left to their own devices regarding issues of civil rights and, say, establishment of religion. Hell, there are certain amendments that, according to the generally-held interpretations, state otherwise, such as the 14th.
Again, the constitution overrides state laws. That's a widely agreed upon fact; were that not the case, the US would be a confederation or alliance, not a union.
He supported DOMA for those reasons.
Why would he support DOMA? DOMA was defining marriage at the federal level, which sounds like exactly the sort of thing he'd be against.
Wrong, wrong, wrong. You misread it. From Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defense_of_marriage_actUnder the law, no U.S. state (or other political subdivision) may be required to recognize as a marriage a same-sex relationship considered a marriage in another state
So in other words, no US state is forced to recognize gay marriage, but it notably does NOT say that no US state CAN recognize gay marriage. Seeing as how it was signed into law by Bill Clinton AND several American states do, in fact, have gay marriage laws already, its rather silly to claim this somehow does such a thing regarding marriage.
I'm saying that, in addition to being 70, his dislike of homosexuals in utterly irrelevant because (A) unless he inexplicably betrayed his own principles he'd never act on it at all
He already has acted on it. I've specifically mentioned the legislation that acts on it.
Two things:
A. When referring to past statements regarding specific things (EG. DOMA), at least mention them so I know what you're talking about. I really hate to get into long, drawn out arguments about the wrong issue.
B. As shown above, DOMA doesn't force the states to do anything and thus your statement is untrue.
it kills me to watch you vote for absolute crooks like Barack Obama and Mitt Romney over silly details and conspiracy theories.
Do you know what I dislike most about Ron Paul? It's not conspiracy theories. It's not even those newsletters. It's his actual policies and attitudes and the legislation he's written and tried to pass. Don't try to make us sound like tinfoil-hat crackpots when we're giving very explicit and clear reasons for disliking him.
Really? Then why don't you attack him on his issues or his actual problems, rather than digging up extremely suspect "evidence" and primarily sticking to attacking him personally?
I dislike Obama very strongly too, but mostly because he's a fascist that I actually believed might be a bit better than Bush (at least for the couple of months before he actually did anything) and wasn't owned by corrupt banks. It was stupid of me to not even check his donations, but after the recession I figured things couldn't get too much worse.
However, I have yet to start claiming that Obama was born in Kenya or any such nonsense, and it would be disingenuous of me to attack him specifically on such a silly issue when there are far more glaring faults to go after.
Yeah dude, even if he hadn't had his picture taken with the founder of Stormfront, knowing full well who he was, his actual policies are little more than trying to shift America towards a minarchist Hellhole.
He's a presidential candidate, I'd imagine he takes pictures with a lot of people, not to mention autograph signing and giving interviews (He isn't especially picky about who interviews him either; he was "interviewed" by Bruno, and by some college kid in his dorm). I doubt he keeps a photo album of "public enemies" to memorize for people not to take pictures with.
Minarchist hellhole, now that's a new one. What, like Hong Kong? I can't think of many minarchies these days, or examples of minarchist hellholes. "The Minarchists are taking over the government and doing nothing with it! Oh the humanity!"
You could vote for the Green Party who hates the war ondrugs, the other war, pollution, and is fairly solidly pro-rights. Without the recurring ties with racists or "if someone is molested by their employer, they have the right to find a different job if they don't want to put up with it- otherwise they're partially to blame!" abhorrence.
Well, first and foremost, American third parties have literally no relevance. Besides that, the Greens are very much collectivist and, in my (limited, at least, to non-Americans) are rather unpleasant people with the idea that if only the evil corporations were stopped the world would be nicer.
I think this deserves repeating. Even if he isn't racist, he writes and supports legislation that will massively harm black people. Even if he isn't homophobic, he writes and supports legislation that will massively harm homosexual people. And that's before getting into his horrible economic ideas, and that his possible one USP to end the war on drugs would definitely not work since almost noone inside or outside of his party supports it.
Yes, he massively hurts black people by opposing the war on drugs (which is responsible for an overwhelming number of black imprisonments) and opposing the foreign adventures (which is responsible for an overwhelming number of black deaths, not counting those of foreigners who Americans don't seem to give a damn about). He massively hurts homosexuals, yet his largest donator (of almost a million dollars, actually) is actually gay himself. Go figure.
So there's your better showing for Paul, GreatJustice. Still doesn't change the fact that Romney is going to wax the floor with everyone else in this state, which is unsurprising. The state has some Big Money and a hefty number of Mormons. Might bode slightly better for Paul's chances to continue if he at least takes 3rd place.
I'll get to it later, but its worth mentioning that the polls of the caucus states were remarkably unreliable. Go check the RCP average, but I'll put it up tomorrow if you want. Nevada was a prime example:
-It showed Paul with 7% in 3rd/4th, he came 2nd with 14%
-It showed Romney barely ahead by 5%, he won by something like 20-30%
-It showed Huckabee and McCain as serious competitors when they actually lost to Paul
etc etc. Maybe the pollsters have found a better way to poll Nevada, but I find it unlikely. I guess we'll find out, eh?
The Bureau of LaborStatistics released it's monthly report and said that the economy added 243,000 jobs last month. Also the seasonally adjusted unemployment rate fell to %.2 to %8.3 (seasonally adjusted means that they account for the Christmas boom and post Christmas bust). Another 1.2 million workers left the workforce so they no longer count as unemployed (due to the end of the Christmas boom and the weak economy presumably).
This is being hailed in the economy nerd circles of the internet as being "real" good news instead of just "meh" good news like we've had in the past. The economy needs to add about 100k jobs a month just to keep pace with population growth. But the economy outpaced that by a fairly substantial clip and did so without being attributed to the usual cyclical noise of inventory bounces or seasonal adjustment. Also interesting is that the BLS revised it's two previous monthly estimates upward (they issue revisions on the previous two months every report) in keeping with it's yearlong trend of revising upward it's pessimistic initial estimates. Unless something comes along to knock us off trend, this year is going to be where it starts feeling like a real recovery.
This is election related because if things keep going at this pace then things look good for the left. Obama's reelection odds will pick up and the democrats even have a shot at retaking the house. If the trend keeps improving like this then Obama would probably be a shoe in. In that case we might even see the Democrats hang onto the Senate despite having so many seats to defend. Elections aren't just determined by the economy but the economy is probably the GOP's only shot this election. What else do they have? Foreign policy against the administration that nabbed Osama and ended the wars? Beat a dead horse over culture war?
Oh my. This deserves a long talk, but I think its worth mentioning that a "robust recovery" and "strong economy" have been pumped ever since 2001 with Krugman advocating the creation of a housing bubble to boost spending. The economy's fundamentals are terrible: a very large amount of money has been printed (digitally, mind), but it sitting in banks because they aren't willing to lend yet; Europe, Japan, and China are all rapidly running into problems; foreign oil is threatened by a war in the Gulf, etc etc
Again, if you want I can go into this more but I'm a bit rushed presently.
---- STUFF HERE ----
I'd get to it, but again, I'm rushed. Sorry! Get to it in a later post tomorrow if I can
Regardless, in terms of realistic outcomes, we should probably talk about who actually has a probable chance of snagging the Republican nomination. The current field is so staticy with both Newt and Romney thrashing each other (and themselves) that it's hard to tell who exactly is pulling ahead in a general sense.
Its going to be Romney, guaranteed. It was basically always likely to be him. He has the money and is "next in line". He'll be nominated, and if there is a God the economy won't crash until Obama is nominated a second time because Romney presiding over the inevitable crash would be infinitely worse than Obama doing the same.
