On January 03 2012 01:52 QuXn wrote: i hope more people will watch this and pass it on...his foreign policy is perfectly in line with the constitution!
His foreign policy perfectly matches a document written in the late 1700s? Well, there's no way that could be anything other than perfectly suited for the modern world...
Being the policemen of the world sounds better suited for the modern world then. Right?
Well, he wants to stop doing that while simultaneously withdrawing from all organisations designed at taking collective responsibility, so what exactly is your/his plan? Just hope that everything is fine? It's not like it's only a problem when the barbarians arrive on your shores anymore, peace is pretty good for business. And for all that the current wars are terrible for the people caught up in them, they're pretty small compared the kind of wars we used to have before the United Nations and suchlike existed.
The underlying problem is that the United States is spending far too much time and money in places we shouldn't be, while our people at home suffer. It's easy for foreigners to say what is good about our current foreign policy, but the reality is this: if you haven't lived in the US for an extended period of time, you don't know the extent of the issues we have here. We are in a downward spiral, and if we don't effectively manage our economy (withdrawing from wars, etc. would help that) the United States is fucked. And when the United States is fucked, the rest of the world is, too.
Also, there is absolutely no need to have bases worldwide any more. Ground fighting is a thing of the past, so having personnel on location at all times is extremely unnecessary, especially when we can plan, launch, bomb Libya with accuracy and efficiency, and be back home in less than 24 hours. Any crisis anywhere in the world that absolutely needed our attention could be attended to quickly even if we didn't have a single base outside of the United States. We have the strongest military in the world, and it has nothing to do with how many troops we have or how many tanks we have. We rule the skies. Nothing poses a great threat to the United States.
Don't you dare even TRY to pin this policy as a way to save in the budget. Even if we adopted Paul's idea of "non-interventionist," we'd still spend more than most of the world combined. In fact, the plan would eliminate more than 60% of the total bases run, but only cut military spending by 15%. This basically means we would destabilize many regions in the world, only to bolster our defenses (by a tremendous margin), for what could be described as the inevitable global conflict that would emerge out of this. You talk as if this is some beautiful plan that would both save money and save lives, but in the end it ends up costing us both.
In the end, blowback doesn't specifically occur because we're even in other countries. You don't see German, Australian, or Japanese terrorists attacking the U.S. in droves. We get blowback because, in times of need, the only U.S. presence that exists is military in nature. In the past, while bombs blew up city buildings and U.S. forces attacked threats to overall peace, the people of these countries would be stuck in the middle. At the end of the fighting, we would just leave the tattered battle zone, leaving the people in a smoking husk of a city/town. Sure, they were no longer under the threat of an organized terror, but they had little left to lose now. If we simply had stuck around for a bit longer and repaired the damage that was done (like we are doing now), we would not see the massive retaliation that we encountered over the next 2-3 decades.
Ok, so you disagree with this way of going about things. For an honest discussion, what are your thoughts then about HOW the U.S. should go about resolving its deficit?
I'm confused, how is Ron Paul going to resolve the USA's deficit?
All I have heard is he is going to get rid of the income and capital gains taxes.
I assume since you're asking for his plan to solve the debt crisis that Ron Paul has already solved how to get rid of our trillions of dollars of debt?
(Hint: Leaving the UN and closing military bases won't balance the budget, much less wipe out our debt, especially if you're wiping out income and capital gains taxes)
He completely cuts specific departments. Many face about 50% budget cuts, while others get cut altogether. Dept. of Education gets completely cut, as do many other socially oriented departments. Here is a page with his budget:
On January 03 2012 01:52 QuXn wrote: i hope more people will watch this and pass it on...his foreign policy is perfectly in line with the constitution!
His foreign policy perfectly matches a document written in the late 1700s? Well, there's no way that could be anything other than perfectly suited for the modern world...
Being the policemen of the world sounds better suited for the modern world then. Right?
Well, he wants to stop doing that while simultaneously withdrawing from all organisations designed at taking collective responsibility, so what exactly is your/his plan? Just hope that everything is fine? It's not like it's only a problem when the barbarians arrive on your shores anymore, peace is pretty good for business. And for all that the current wars are terrible for the people caught up in them, they're pretty small compared the kind of wars we used to have before the United Nations and suchlike existed.
The underlying problem is that the United States is spending far too much time and money in places we shouldn't be, while our people at home suffer. It's easy for foreigners to say what is good about our current foreign policy, but the reality is this: if you haven't lived in the US for an extended period of time, you don't know the extent of the issues we have here. We are in a downward spiral, and if we don't effectively manage our economy (withdrawing from wars, etc. would help that) the United States is fucked. And when the United States is fucked, the rest of the world is, too.
Also, there is absolutely no need to have bases worldwide any more. Ground fighting is a thing of the past, so having personnel on location at all times is extremely unnecessary, especially when we can plan, launch, bomb Libya with accuracy and efficiency, and be back home in less than 24 hours. Any crisis anywhere in the world that absolutely needed our attention could be attended to quickly even if we didn't have a single base outside of the United States. We have the strongest military in the world, and it has nothing to do with how many troops we have or how many tanks we have. We rule the skies. Nothing poses a great threat to the United States.
Don't you dare even TRY to pin this policy as a way to save in the budget. Even if we adopted Paul's idea of "non-interventionist," we'd still spend more than most of the world combined. In fact, the plan would eliminate more than 60% of the total bases run, but only cut military spending by 15%. This basically means we would destabilize many regions in the world, only to bolster our defenses (by a tremendous margin), for what could be described as the inevitable global conflict that would emerge out of this. You talk as if this is some beautiful plan that would both save money and save lives, but in the end it ends up costing us both.
In the end, blowback doesn't specifically occur because we're even in other countries. You don't see German, Australian, or Japanese terrorists attacking the U.S. in droves. We get blowback because, in times of need, the only U.S. presence that exists is military in nature. In the past, while bombs blew up city buildings and U.S. forces attacked threats to overall peace, the people of these countries would be stuck in the middle. At the end of the fighting, we would just leave the tattered battle zone, leaving the people in a smoking husk of a city/town. Sure, they were no longer under the threat of an organized terror, but they had little left to lose now. If we simply had stuck around for a bit longer and repaired the damage that was done (like we are doing now), we would not see the massive retaliation that we encountered over the next 2-3 decades.
Ok, so you disagree with this way of going about things. For an honest discussion, what are your thoughts then about HOW the U.S. should go about resolving its deficit?
There should have been a tax increase that coincided with the increased involvement in the Middle East (Iraq and Afghanistan), and a conscription to shore up the numbers instead of a huge expansion of contracted help.
Since that option has expired (for the most part), a mix of tax increases and military cuts should be the focus. We're still developing weapons and techniques for conventional wars that are either too far away or extinct altogether. We focus too much on how we can pay somebody else to take over traditional military roles. The consequence is a budget that required an increase in income, that we neglected. For social reform, we already went through massive social/welfare reform in the 90s, which helped create a budget surplus for the early 2000s. What we have now is a relatively lean social safety net that still has some fat to trim, but not nearly as much as the exploding military budget. The balance shifted over the past 2 decades and should be corrected.
In short, I do not support an expansion of military at the cost of social.
Ok got that, but now the system has had so much money sucked out of it, you really need to get in the finnicky parts of it. Is there any plan in place that raises taxes enough and cuts military spending to the point where it will get the budget consistently into surplus and finance the entitlement systems which have now had their trust fund money taken away? This is a serious question
On January 03 2012 01:52 QuXn wrote: i hope more people will watch this and pass it on...his foreign policy is perfectly in line with the constitution!
His foreign policy perfectly matches a document written in the late 1700s? Well, there's no way that could be anything other than perfectly suited for the modern world...
Being the policemen of the world sounds better suited for the modern world then. Right?
Well, he wants to stop doing that while simultaneously withdrawing from all organisations designed at taking collective responsibility, so what exactly is your/his plan? Just hope that everything is fine? It's not like it's only a problem when the barbarians arrive on your shores anymore, peace is pretty good for business. And for all that the current wars are terrible for the people caught up in them, they're pretty small compared the kind of wars we used to have before the United Nations and suchlike existed.
The underlying problem is that the United States is spending far too much time and money in places we shouldn't be, while our people at home suffer. It's easy for foreigners to say what is good about our current foreign policy, but the reality is this: if you haven't lived in the US for an extended period of time, you don't know the extent of the issues we have here. We are in a downward spiral, and if we don't effectively manage our economy (withdrawing from wars, etc. would help that) the United States is fucked. And when the United States is fucked, the rest of the world is, too.
Also, there is absolutely no need to have bases worldwide any more. Ground fighting is a thing of the past, so having personnel on location at all times is extremely unnecessary, especially when we can plan, launch, bomb Libya with accuracy and efficiency, and be back home in less than 24 hours. Any crisis anywhere in the world that absolutely needed our attention could be attended to quickly even if we didn't have a single base outside of the United States. We have the strongest military in the world, and it has nothing to do with how many troops we have or how many tanks we have. We rule the skies. Nothing poses a great threat to the United States.
Don't you dare even TRY to pin this policy as a way to save in the budget. Even if we adopted Paul's idea of "non-interventionist," we'd still spend more than most of the world combined. In fact, the plan would eliminate more than 60% of the total bases run, but only cut military spending by 15%. This basically means we would destabilize many regions in the world, only to bolster our defenses (by a tremendous margin), for what could be described as the inevitable global conflict that would emerge out of this. You talk as if this is some beautiful plan that would both save money and save lives, but in the end it ends up costing us both.
In the end, blowback doesn't specifically occur because we're even in other countries. You don't see German, Australian, or Japanese terrorists attacking the U.S. in droves. We get blowback because, in times of need, the only U.S. presence that exists is military in nature. In the past, while bombs blew up city buildings and U.S. forces attacked threats to overall peace, the people of these countries would be stuck in the middle. At the end of the fighting, we would just leave the tattered battle zone, leaving the people in a smoking husk of a city/town. Sure, they were no longer under the threat of an organized terror, but they had little left to lose now. If we simply had stuck around for a bit longer and repaired the damage that was done (like we are doing now), we would not see the massive retaliation that we encountered over the next 2-3 decades.
Ok, so you disagree with this way of going about things. For an honest discussion, what are your thoughts then about HOW the U.S. should go about resolving its deficit?
I'm confused, how is Ron Paul going to resolve the USA's deficit?
All I have heard is he is going to get rid of the income and capital gains taxes.
I assume since you're asking for his plan to solve the debt crisis that Ron Paul has already solved how to get rid of our trillions of dollars of debt?
(Hint: Leaving the UN and closing military bases won't balance the budget, much less wipe out our debt, especially if you're wiping out income and capital gains taxes)
He completely cuts specific departments. Many face about 50% budget cuts, while others get cut altogether. Dept. of Education gets completely cut, as do many other socially oriented departments. Here is a page with his budget:
It may take a long time to load (if it does at all).
How hard would it be for Ron Paul to actually make that happen? If it ends up being Ron Paul vs Obama, I plan to vote for Paul, but only because I assume he could never actually abolish the department of education. Seems a bit too extreme to actually happen.
On January 03 2012 01:52 QuXn wrote: i hope more people will watch this and pass it on...his foreign policy is perfectly in line with the constitution!
His foreign policy perfectly matches a document written in the late 1700s? Well, there's no way that could be anything other than perfectly suited for the modern world...
Being the policemen of the world sounds better suited for the modern world then. Right?
Well, he wants to stop doing that while simultaneously withdrawing from all organisations designed at taking collective responsibility, so what exactly is your/his plan? Just hope that everything is fine? It's not like it's only a problem when the barbarians arrive on your shores anymore, peace is pretty good for business. And for all that the current wars are terrible for the people caught up in them, they're pretty small compared the kind of wars we used to have before the United Nations and suchlike existed.
The underlying problem is that the United States is spending far too much time and money in places we shouldn't be, while our people at home suffer. It's easy for foreigners to say what is good about our current foreign policy, but the reality is this: if you haven't lived in the US for an extended period of time, you don't know the extent of the issues we have here. We are in a downward spiral, and if we don't effectively manage our economy (withdrawing from wars, etc. would help that) the United States is fucked. And when the United States is fucked, the rest of the world is, too.
Also, there is absolutely no need to have bases worldwide any more. Ground fighting is a thing of the past, so having personnel on location at all times is extremely unnecessary, especially when we can plan, launch, bomb Libya with accuracy and efficiency, and be back home in less than 24 hours. Any crisis anywhere in the world that absolutely needed our attention could be attended to quickly even if we didn't have a single base outside of the United States. We have the strongest military in the world, and it has nothing to do with how many troops we have or how many tanks we have. We rule the skies. Nothing poses a great threat to the United States.
Don't you dare even TRY to pin this policy as a way to save in the budget. Even if we adopted Paul's idea of "non-interventionist," we'd still spend more than most of the world combined. In fact, the plan would eliminate more than 60% of the total bases run, but only cut military spending by 15%. This basically means we would destabilize many regions in the world, only to bolster our defenses (by a tremendous margin), for what could be described as the inevitable global conflict that would emerge out of this. You talk as if this is some beautiful plan that would both save money and save lives, but in the end it ends up costing us both.
In the end, blowback doesn't specifically occur because we're even in other countries. You don't see German, Australian, or Japanese terrorists attacking the U.S. in droves. We get blowback because, in times of need, the only U.S. presence that exists is military in nature. In the past, while bombs blew up city buildings and U.S. forces attacked threats to overall peace, the people of these countries would be stuck in the middle. At the end of the fighting, we would just leave the tattered battle zone, leaving the people in a smoking husk of a city/town. Sure, they were no longer under the threat of an organized terror, but they had little left to lose now. If we simply had stuck around for a bit longer and repaired the damage that was done (like we are doing now), we would not see the massive retaliation that we encountered over the next 2-3 decades.
Ok, so you disagree with this way of going about things. For an honest discussion, what are your thoughts then about HOW the U.S. should go about resolving its deficit?
I'm confused, how is Ron Paul going to resolve the USA's deficit?
All I have heard is he is going to get rid of the income and capital gains taxes.
I assume since you're asking for his plan to solve the debt crisis that Ron Paul has already solved how to get rid of our trillions of dollars of debt?
(Hint: Leaving the UN and closing military bases won't balance the budget, much less wipe out our debt, especially if you're wiping out income and capital gains taxes)
He completely cuts specific departments. Many face about 50% budget cuts, while others get cut altogether. Dept. of Education gets completely cut, as do many other socially oriented departments. Here is a page with his budget:
It may take a long time to load (if it does at all).
How hard would it be for Ron Paul to actually make that happen? If it ends up being Ron Paul vs Obama, I plan to vote for Paul, but only because I assume he could never actually abolish the department of education. Seems a bit too extreme to actually happen.
It would be quite difficult for him to have it happen on his own, and right now there would be little support from other politicians to have this happen. However, his campaign is very centred around educating people on a message and what is going on with governmental policy, and it has now caught a lot of grassroots support - once a lot of people know about these ideas then it will get into congress and the senate - the representatives, and that's when you will see him being able to do these kinds of things he talks about.
On January 03 2012 05:13 Purple Haze wrote: [quote]
His foreign policy perfectly matches a document written in the late 1700s? Well, there's no way that could be anything other than perfectly suited for the modern world...
Being the policemen of the world sounds better suited for the modern world then. Right?
Well, he wants to stop doing that while simultaneously withdrawing from all organisations designed at taking collective responsibility, so what exactly is your/his plan? Just hope that everything is fine? It's not like it's only a problem when the barbarians arrive on your shores anymore, peace is pretty good for business. And for all that the current wars are terrible for the people caught up in them, they're pretty small compared the kind of wars we used to have before the United Nations and suchlike existed.
The underlying problem is that the United States is spending far too much time and money in places we shouldn't be, while our people at home suffer. It's easy for foreigners to say what is good about our current foreign policy, but the reality is this: if you haven't lived in the US for an extended period of time, you don't know the extent of the issues we have here. We are in a downward spiral, and if we don't effectively manage our economy (withdrawing from wars, etc. would help that) the United States is fucked. And when the United States is fucked, the rest of the world is, too.
Also, there is absolutely no need to have bases worldwide any more. Ground fighting is a thing of the past, so having personnel on location at all times is extremely unnecessary, especially when we can plan, launch, bomb Libya with accuracy and efficiency, and be back home in less than 24 hours. Any crisis anywhere in the world that absolutely needed our attention could be attended to quickly even if we didn't have a single base outside of the United States. We have the strongest military in the world, and it has nothing to do with how many troops we have or how many tanks we have. We rule the skies. Nothing poses a great threat to the United States.
Don't you dare even TRY to pin this policy as a way to save in the budget. Even if we adopted Paul's idea of "non-interventionist," we'd still spend more than most of the world combined. In fact, the plan would eliminate more than 60% of the total bases run, but only cut military spending by 15%. This basically means we would destabilize many regions in the world, only to bolster our defenses (by a tremendous margin), for what could be described as the inevitable global conflict that would emerge out of this. You talk as if this is some beautiful plan that would both save money and save lives, but in the end it ends up costing us both.
In the end, blowback doesn't specifically occur because we're even in other countries. You don't see German, Australian, or Japanese terrorists attacking the U.S. in droves. We get blowback because, in times of need, the only U.S. presence that exists is military in nature. In the past, while bombs blew up city buildings and U.S. forces attacked threats to overall peace, the people of these countries would be stuck in the middle. At the end of the fighting, we would just leave the tattered battle zone, leaving the people in a smoking husk of a city/town. Sure, they were no longer under the threat of an organized terror, but they had little left to lose now. If we simply had stuck around for a bit longer and repaired the damage that was done (like we are doing now), we would not see the massive retaliation that we encountered over the next 2-3 decades.
Ok, so you disagree with this way of going about things. For an honest discussion, what are your thoughts then about HOW the U.S. should go about resolving its deficit?
I'm confused, how is Ron Paul going to resolve the USA's deficit?
All I have heard is he is going to get rid of the income and capital gains taxes.
I assume since you're asking for his plan to solve the debt crisis that Ron Paul has already solved how to get rid of our trillions of dollars of debt?
(Hint: Leaving the UN and closing military bases won't balance the budget, much less wipe out our debt, especially if you're wiping out income and capital gains taxes)
He completely cuts specific departments. Many face about 50% budget cuts, while others get cut altogether. Dept. of Education gets completely cut, as do many other socially oriented departments. Here is a page with his budget:
It may take a long time to load (if it does at all).
How hard would it be for Ron Paul to actually make that happen? If it ends up being Ron Paul vs Obama, I plan to vote for Paul, but only because I assume he could never actually abolish the department of education. Seems a bit too extreme to actually happen.
It would be quite difficult for him to have it happen on his own, and right now there would be little support from other politicians to have this happen. However, his campaign is very centred around educating people on a message and what is going on with governmental policy, and it has now caught a lot of grassroots support - once a lot of people know about these ideas then it will get into congress and the senate - the representatives, and that's when you will see him being able to do these kinds of things he talks about.
Actually, it would be extremely easy for him to accomplish. The executive branch has the power to create (and eliminate) departments, while Congress has the power to fund (and defund) them.
Being the policemen of the world sounds better suited for the modern world then. Right?
Well, he wants to stop doing that while simultaneously withdrawing from all organisations designed at taking collective responsibility, so what exactly is your/his plan? Just hope that everything is fine? It's not like it's only a problem when the barbarians arrive on your shores anymore, peace is pretty good for business. And for all that the current wars are terrible for the people caught up in them, they're pretty small compared the kind of wars we used to have before the United Nations and suchlike existed.
The underlying problem is that the United States is spending far too much time and money in places we shouldn't be, while our people at home suffer. It's easy for foreigners to say what is good about our current foreign policy, but the reality is this: if you haven't lived in the US for an extended period of time, you don't know the extent of the issues we have here. We are in a downward spiral, and if we don't effectively manage our economy (withdrawing from wars, etc. would help that) the United States is fucked. And when the United States is fucked, the rest of the world is, too.
Also, there is absolutely no need to have bases worldwide any more. Ground fighting is a thing of the past, so having personnel on location at all times is extremely unnecessary, especially when we can plan, launch, bomb Libya with accuracy and efficiency, and be back home in less than 24 hours. Any crisis anywhere in the world that absolutely needed our attention could be attended to quickly even if we didn't have a single base outside of the United States. We have the strongest military in the world, and it has nothing to do with how many troops we have or how many tanks we have. We rule the skies. Nothing poses a great threat to the United States.
Don't you dare even TRY to pin this policy as a way to save in the budget. Even if we adopted Paul's idea of "non-interventionist," we'd still spend more than most of the world combined. In fact, the plan would eliminate more than 60% of the total bases run, but only cut military spending by 15%. This basically means we would destabilize many regions in the world, only to bolster our defenses (by a tremendous margin), for what could be described as the inevitable global conflict that would emerge out of this. You talk as if this is some beautiful plan that would both save money and save lives, but in the end it ends up costing us both.
In the end, blowback doesn't specifically occur because we're even in other countries. You don't see German, Australian, or Japanese terrorists attacking the U.S. in droves. We get blowback because, in times of need, the only U.S. presence that exists is military in nature. In the past, while bombs blew up city buildings and U.S. forces attacked threats to overall peace, the people of these countries would be stuck in the middle. At the end of the fighting, we would just leave the tattered battle zone, leaving the people in a smoking husk of a city/town. Sure, they were no longer under the threat of an organized terror, but they had little left to lose now. If we simply had stuck around for a bit longer and repaired the damage that was done (like we are doing now), we would not see the massive retaliation that we encountered over the next 2-3 decades.
Ok, so you disagree with this way of going about things. For an honest discussion, what are your thoughts then about HOW the U.S. should go about resolving its deficit?
I'm confused, how is Ron Paul going to resolve the USA's deficit?
All I have heard is he is going to get rid of the income and capital gains taxes.
I assume since you're asking for his plan to solve the debt crisis that Ron Paul has already solved how to get rid of our trillions of dollars of debt?
(Hint: Leaving the UN and closing military bases won't balance the budget, much less wipe out our debt, especially if you're wiping out income and capital gains taxes)
He completely cuts specific departments. Many face about 50% budget cuts, while others get cut altogether. Dept. of Education gets completely cut, as do many other socially oriented departments. Here is a page with his budget:
It may take a long time to load (if it does at all).
How hard would it be for Ron Paul to actually make that happen? If it ends up being Ron Paul vs Obama, I plan to vote for Paul, but only because I assume he could never actually abolish the department of education. Seems a bit too extreme to actually happen.
It would be quite difficult for him to have it happen on his own, and right now there would be little support from other politicians to have this happen. However, his campaign is very centred around educating people on a message and what is going on with governmental policy, and it has now caught a lot of grassroots support - once a lot of people know about these ideas then it will get into congress and the senate - the representatives, and that's when you will see him being able to do these kinds of things he talks about.
Actually, it would be extremely easy for him to accomplish. The executive branch has the power to create (and eliminate) departments, while Congress has the power to fund (and defund) them.
On January 03 2012 01:52 QuXn wrote: i hope more people will watch this and pass it on...his foreign policy is perfectly in line with the constitution!
His foreign policy perfectly matches a document written in the late 1700s? Well, there's no way that could be anything other than perfectly suited for the modern world...
Being the policemen of the world sounds better suited for the modern world then. Right?
Well, he wants to stop doing that while simultaneously withdrawing from all organisations designed at taking collective responsibility, so what exactly is your/his plan? Just hope that everything is fine? It's not like it's only a problem when the barbarians arrive on your shores anymore, peace is pretty good for business. And for all that the current wars are terrible for the people caught up in them, they're pretty small compared the kind of wars we used to have before the United Nations and suchlike existed.
The underlying problem is that the United States is spending far too much time and money in places we shouldn't be, while our people at home suffer. It's easy for foreigners to say what is good about our current foreign policy, but the reality is this: if you haven't lived in the US for an extended period of time, you don't know the extent of the issues we have here. We are in a downward spiral, and if we don't effectively manage our economy (withdrawing from wars, etc. would help that) the United States is fucked. And when the United States is fucked, the rest of the world is, too.
Also, there is absolutely no need to have bases worldwide any more. Ground fighting is a thing of the past, so having personnel on location at all times is extremely unnecessary, especially when we can plan, launch, bomb Libya with accuracy and efficiency, and be back home in less than 24 hours. Any crisis anywhere in the world that absolutely needed our attention could be attended to quickly even if we didn't have a single base outside of the United States. We have the strongest military in the world, and it has nothing to do with how many troops we have or how many tanks we have. We rule the skies. Nothing poses a great threat to the United States.
Don't you dare even TRY to pin this policy as a way to save in the budget. Even if we adopted Paul's idea of "non-interventionist," we'd still spend more than most of the world combined. In fact, the plan would eliminate more than 60% of the total bases run, but only cut military spending by 15%. This basically means we would destabilize many regions in the world, only to bolster our defenses (by a tremendous margin), for what could be described as the inevitable global conflict that would emerge out of this. You talk as if this is some beautiful plan that would both save money and save lives, but in the end it ends up costing us both.
In the end, blowback doesn't specifically occur because we're even in other countries. You don't see German, Australian, or Japanese terrorists attacking the U.S. in droves. We get blowback because, in times of need, the only U.S. presence that exists is military in nature. In the past, while bombs blew up city buildings and U.S. forces attacked threats to overall peace, the people of these countries would be stuck in the middle. At the end of the fighting, we would just leave the tattered battle zone, leaving the people in a smoking husk of a city/town. Sure, they were no longer under the threat of an organized terror, but they had little left to lose now. If we simply had stuck around for a bit longer and repaired the damage that was done (like we are doing now), we would not see the massive retaliation that we encountered over the next 2-3 decades.
Ok, so you disagree with this way of going about things. For an honest discussion, what are your thoughts then about HOW the U.S. should go about resolving its deficit?
I'm confused, how is Ron Paul going to resolve the USA's deficit?
All I have heard is he is going to get rid of the income and capital gains taxes.
I assume since you're asking for his plan to solve the debt crisis that Ron Paul has already solved how to get rid of our trillions of dollars of debt?
(Hint: Leaving the UN and closing military bases won't balance the budget, much less wipe out our debt, especially if you're wiping out income and capital gains taxes)
He completely cuts specific departments. Many face about 50% budget cuts, while others get cut altogether. Dept. of Education gets completely cut, as do many other socially oriented departments. Here is a page with his budget:
On January 03 2012 01:52 QuXn wrote: i hope more people will watch this and pass it on...his foreign policy is perfectly in line with the constitution!
His foreign policy perfectly matches a document written in the late 1700s? Well, there's no way that could be anything other than perfectly suited for the modern world...
Being the policemen of the world sounds better suited for the modern world then. Right?
Well, he wants to stop doing that while simultaneously withdrawing from all organisations designed at taking collective responsibility, so what exactly is your/his plan? Just hope that everything is fine? It's not like it's only a problem when the barbarians arrive on your shores anymore, peace is pretty good for business. And for all that the current wars are terrible for the people caught up in them, they're pretty small compared the kind of wars we used to have before the United Nations and suchlike existed.
The underlying problem is that the United States is spending far too much time and money in places we shouldn't be, while our people at home suffer. It's easy for foreigners to say what is good about our current foreign policy, but the reality is this: if you haven't lived in the US for an extended period of time, you don't know the extent of the issues we have here. We are in a downward spiral, and if we don't effectively manage our economy (withdrawing from wars, etc. would help that) the United States is fucked. And when the United States is fucked, the rest of the world is, too.
Also, there is absolutely no need to have bases worldwide any more. Ground fighting is a thing of the past, so having personnel on location at all times is extremely unnecessary, especially when we can plan, launch, bomb Libya with accuracy and efficiency, and be back home in less than 24 hours. Any crisis anywhere in the world that absolutely needed our attention could be attended to quickly even if we didn't have a single base outside of the United States. We have the strongest military in the world, and it has nothing to do with how many troops we have or how many tanks we have. We rule the skies. Nothing poses a great threat to the United States.
Don't you dare even TRY to pin this policy as a way to save in the budget. Even if we adopted Paul's idea of "non-interventionist," we'd still spend more than most of the world combined. In fact, the plan would eliminate more than 60% of the total bases run, but only cut military spending by 15%. This basically means we would destabilize many regions in the world, only to bolster our defenses (by a tremendous margin), for what could be described as the inevitable global conflict that would emerge out of this. You talk as if this is some beautiful plan that would both save money and save lives, but in the end it ends up costing us both.
In the end, blowback doesn't specifically occur because we're even in other countries. You don't see German, Australian, or Japanese terrorists attacking the U.S. in droves. We get blowback because, in times of need, the only U.S. presence that exists is military in nature. In the past, while bombs blew up city buildings and U.S. forces attacked threats to overall peace, the people of these countries would be stuck in the middle. At the end of the fighting, we would just leave the tattered battle zone, leaving the people in a smoking husk of a city/town. Sure, they were no longer under the threat of an organized terror, but they had little left to lose now. If we simply had stuck around for a bit longer and repaired the damage that was done (like we are doing now), we would not see the massive retaliation that we encountered over the next 2-3 decades.
Ok, so you disagree with this way of going about things. For an honest discussion, what are your thoughts then about HOW the U.S. should go about resolving its deficit?
There should have been a tax increase that coincided with the increased involvement in the Middle East (Iraq and Afghanistan), and a conscription to shore up the numbers instead of a huge expansion of contracted help.
Since that option has expired (for the most part), a mix of tax increases and military cuts should be the focus. We're still developing weapons and techniques for conventional wars that are either too far away or extinct altogether. We focus too much on how we can pay somebody else to take over traditional military roles. The consequence is a budget that required an increase in income, that we neglected. For social reform, we already went through massive social/welfare reform in the 90s, which helped create a budget surplus for the early 2000s. What we have now is a relatively lean social safety net that still has some fat to trim, but not nearly as much as the exploding military budget. The balance shifted over the past 2 decades and should be corrected.
In short, I do not support an expansion of military at the cost of social.
I have a hard time believing that US social safety net spending is "lean" when it encompasses roughly 58% of our federal budget (that's before considering state programs) and roughly 39% if you remove social security from the equation.
Also, let's not forget that this chunk of the federal budget also happens to be the most rapidly growing segment of the federal budget.
More to the point, doesn't anyone else find it wrong that we "need" our government to spend so many resources on these programs? What the hell has happened to this country?
It is interesting to see how primary politics can change so fast, as parties shuffle between front runners, collecting them like Pokemon and then tossing them aside when something new comes along.
The key period will be between Iowa and New Hampshire. Once those two contests are over, we'll have a clearer view if Romney will take it, or if someone else can capitalize on Republican voter discomfort with him.
On January 03 2012 01:52 QuXn wrote: i hope more people will watch this and pass it on...his foreign policy is perfectly in line with the constitution!
His foreign policy perfectly matches a document written in the late 1700s? Well, there's no way that could be anything other than perfectly suited for the modern world...
Being the policemen of the world sounds better suited for the modern world then. Right?
Well, he wants to stop doing that while simultaneously withdrawing from all organisations designed at taking collective responsibility, so what exactly is your/his plan? Just hope that everything is fine? It's not like it's only a problem when the barbarians arrive on your shores anymore, peace is pretty good for business. And for all that the current wars are terrible for the people caught up in them, they're pretty small compared the kind of wars we used to have before the United Nations and suchlike existed.
The underlying problem is that the United States is spending far too much time and money in places we shouldn't be, while our people at home suffer. It's easy for foreigners to say what is good about our current foreign policy, but the reality is this: if you haven't lived in the US for an extended period of time, you don't know the extent of the issues we have here. We are in a downward spiral, and if we don't effectively manage our economy (withdrawing from wars, etc. would help that) the United States is fucked. And when the United States is fucked, the rest of the world is, too.
Also, there is absolutely no need to have bases worldwide any more. Ground fighting is a thing of the past, so having personnel on location at all times is extremely unnecessary, especially when we can plan, launch, bomb Libya with accuracy and efficiency, and be back home in less than 24 hours. Any crisis anywhere in the world that absolutely needed our attention could be attended to quickly even if we didn't have a single base outside of the United States. We have the strongest military in the world, and it has nothing to do with how many troops we have or how many tanks we have. We rule the skies. Nothing poses a great threat to the United States.
Don't you dare even TRY to pin this policy as a way to save in the budget. Even if we adopted Paul's idea of "non-interventionist," we'd still spend more than most of the world combined. In fact, the plan would eliminate more than 60% of the total bases run, but only cut military spending by 15%. This basically means we would destabilize many regions in the world, only to bolster our defenses (by a tremendous margin), for what could be described as the inevitable global conflict that would emerge out of this. You talk as if this is some beautiful plan that would both save money and save lives, but in the end it ends up costing us both.
In the end, blowback doesn't specifically occur because we're even in other countries. You don't see German, Australian, or Japanese terrorists attacking the U.S. in droves. We get blowback because, in times of need, the only U.S. presence that exists is military in nature. In the past, while bombs blew up city buildings and U.S. forces attacked threats to overall peace, the people of these countries would be stuck in the middle. At the end of the fighting, we would just leave the tattered battle zone, leaving the people in a smoking husk of a city/town. Sure, they were no longer under the threat of an organized terror, but they had little left to lose now. If we simply had stuck around for a bit longer and repaired the damage that was done (like we are doing now), we would not see the massive retaliation that we encountered over the next 2-3 decades.
Ok, so you disagree with this way of going about things. For an honest discussion, what are your thoughts then about HOW the U.S. should go about resolving its deficit?
There should have been a tax increase that coincided with the increased involvement in the Middle East (Iraq and Afghanistan), and a conscription to shore up the numbers instead of a huge expansion of contracted help.
Since that option has expired (for the most part), a mix of tax increases and military cuts should be the focus. We're still developing weapons and techniques for conventional wars that are either too far away or extinct altogether. We focus too much on how we can pay somebody else to take over traditional military roles. The consequence is a budget that required an increase in income, that we neglected. For social reform, we already went through massive social/welfare reform in the 90s, which helped create a budget surplus for the early 2000s. What we have now is a relatively lean social safety net that still has some fat to trim, but not nearly as much as the exploding military budget. The balance shifted over the past 2 decades and should be corrected.
In short, I do not support an expansion of military at the cost of social.
I have a hard time believing that US social safety net spending is "lean" when it encompasses roughly 58% of our federal budget (that's before considering state programs) and roughly 39% if you remove social security from the equation.
Also, let's not forget that this chunk of the federal budget also happens to be the most rapidly growing segment of the federal budget.
More to the point, doesn't anyone else find it wrong that we "need" our government to spend so many resources on these programs? What the hell has happened to this country?
I'm curious about what your views on Ron Paul now are, xDaunt. I used to be a pretty staunch Democrat leaning person, but after listening to Ron Paul I know support his ideas of small government a lot more. A few months ago at the start of the debate season I think you were a little less enthusiastic about him, but I've been looking out for you and haven't you seen make too much commentary about this, so what do you think about him?
On January 03 2012 01:52 QuXn wrote: i hope more people will watch this and pass it on...his foreign policy is perfectly in line with the constitution!
His foreign policy perfectly matches a document written in the late 1700s? Well, there's no way that could be anything other than perfectly suited for the modern world...
Being the policemen of the world sounds better suited for the modern world then. Right?
Well, he wants to stop doing that while simultaneously withdrawing from all organisations designed at taking collective responsibility, so what exactly is your/his plan? Just hope that everything is fine? It's not like it's only a problem when the barbarians arrive on your shores anymore, peace is pretty good for business. And for all that the current wars are terrible for the people caught up in them, they're pretty small compared the kind of wars we used to have before the United Nations and suchlike existed.
The underlying problem is that the United States is spending far too much time and money in places we shouldn't be, while our people at home suffer. It's easy for foreigners to say what is good about our current foreign policy, but the reality is this: if you haven't lived in the US for an extended period of time, you don't know the extent of the issues we have here. We are in a downward spiral, and if we don't effectively manage our economy (withdrawing from wars, etc. would help that) the United States is fucked. And when the United States is fucked, the rest of the world is, too.
Also, there is absolutely no need to have bases worldwide any more. Ground fighting is a thing of the past, so having personnel on location at all times is extremely unnecessary, especially when we can plan, launch, bomb Libya with accuracy and efficiency, and be back home in less than 24 hours. Any crisis anywhere in the world that absolutely needed our attention could be attended to quickly even if we didn't have a single base outside of the United States. We have the strongest military in the world, and it has nothing to do with how many troops we have or how many tanks we have. We rule the skies. Nothing poses a great threat to the United States.
Don't you dare even TRY to pin this policy as a way to save in the budget. Even if we adopted Paul's idea of "non-interventionist," we'd still spend more than most of the world combined. In fact, the plan would eliminate more than 60% of the total bases run, but only cut military spending by 15%. This basically means we would destabilize many regions in the world, only to bolster our defenses (by a tremendous margin), for what could be described as the inevitable global conflict that would emerge out of this. You talk as if this is some beautiful plan that would both save money and save lives, but in the end it ends up costing us both.
In the end, blowback doesn't specifically occur because we're even in other countries. You don't see German, Australian, or Japanese terrorists attacking the U.S. in droves. We get blowback because, in times of need, the only U.S. presence that exists is military in nature. In the past, while bombs blew up city buildings and U.S. forces attacked threats to overall peace, the people of these countries would be stuck in the middle. At the end of the fighting, we would just leave the tattered battle zone, leaving the people in a smoking husk of a city/town. Sure, they were no longer under the threat of an organized terror, but they had little left to lose now. If we simply had stuck around for a bit longer and repaired the damage that was done (like we are doing now), we would not see the massive retaliation that we encountered over the next 2-3 decades.
Ok, so you disagree with this way of going about things. For an honest discussion, what are your thoughts then about HOW the U.S. should go about resolving its deficit?
There should have been a tax increase that coincided with the increased involvement in the Middle East (Iraq and Afghanistan), and a conscription to shore up the numbers instead of a huge expansion of contracted help.
Since that option has expired (for the most part), a mix of tax increases and military cuts should be the focus. We're still developing weapons and techniques for conventional wars that are either too far away or extinct altogether. We focus too much on how we can pay somebody else to take over traditional military roles. The consequence is a budget that required an increase in income, that we neglected. For social reform, we already went through massive social/welfare reform in the 90s, which helped create a budget surplus for the early 2000s. What we have now is a relatively lean social safety net that still has some fat to trim, but not nearly as much as the exploding military budget. The balance shifted over the past 2 decades and should be corrected.
In short, I do not support an expansion of military at the cost of social.
I have a hard time believing that US social safety net spending is "lean" when it encompasses roughly 58% of our federal budget (that's before considering state programs) and roughly 39% if you remove social security from the equation.
Also, let's not forget that this chunk of the federal budget also happens to be the most rapidly growing segment of the federal budget.
More to the point, doesn't anyone else find it wrong that we "need" our government to spend so many resources on these programs? What the hell has happened to this country?
More people are in need of assistance due to changing demographics and a changing income distribution?
The fact that more people are relying on welfare programs means that more people actually need welfare programs then they used to, which I would argue is due to the effect of free markets within the US already, but we can differ on opinions there.
I never understood this national US obsession with 'socialism is evil' in the first place anyhow. The countries that generally rate the highest on indexes of 'best countries to live' are always topped by the scandinavian countries. How terrible you can walk into a hospital and get help without flashing your insurance card. Political debate in the US becomes a shouting match over principles, where things like the constitution get abused to a point where anything in there can mean pretty much anything.
Paul is an extremist, he's one of the people that would have been defending article 1, section 2, paragraph 3 just because it was part of the consitution. With a mind that inflexible you're not fit for high office where pragmatism is a must. People that put too much faith into a single set of principles make for terrible presidents (Wilson, Carter, George W. Bush to name a few).
On January 03 2012 05:13 Purple Haze wrote: [quote]
His foreign policy perfectly matches a document written in the late 1700s? Well, there's no way that could be anything other than perfectly suited for the modern world...
Being the policemen of the world sounds better suited for the modern world then. Right?
Well, he wants to stop doing that while simultaneously withdrawing from all organisations designed at taking collective responsibility, so what exactly is your/his plan? Just hope that everything is fine? It's not like it's only a problem when the barbarians arrive on your shores anymore, peace is pretty good for business. And for all that the current wars are terrible for the people caught up in them, they're pretty small compared the kind of wars we used to have before the United Nations and suchlike existed.
The underlying problem is that the United States is spending far too much time and money in places we shouldn't be, while our people at home suffer. It's easy for foreigners to say what is good about our current foreign policy, but the reality is this: if you haven't lived in the US for an extended period of time, you don't know the extent of the issues we have here. We are in a downward spiral, and if we don't effectively manage our economy (withdrawing from wars, etc. would help that) the United States is fucked. And when the United States is fucked, the rest of the world is, too.
Also, there is absolutely no need to have bases worldwide any more. Ground fighting is a thing of the past, so having personnel on location at all times is extremely unnecessary, especially when we can plan, launch, bomb Libya with accuracy and efficiency, and be back home in less than 24 hours. Any crisis anywhere in the world that absolutely needed our attention could be attended to quickly even if we didn't have a single base outside of the United States. We have the strongest military in the world, and it has nothing to do with how many troops we have or how many tanks we have. We rule the skies. Nothing poses a great threat to the United States.
Don't you dare even TRY to pin this policy as a way to save in the budget. Even if we adopted Paul's idea of "non-interventionist," we'd still spend more than most of the world combined. In fact, the plan would eliminate more than 60% of the total bases run, but only cut military spending by 15%. This basically means we would destabilize many regions in the world, only to bolster our defenses (by a tremendous margin), for what could be described as the inevitable global conflict that would emerge out of this. You talk as if this is some beautiful plan that would both save money and save lives, but in the end it ends up costing us both.
In the end, blowback doesn't specifically occur because we're even in other countries. You don't see German, Australian, or Japanese terrorists attacking the U.S. in droves. We get blowback because, in times of need, the only U.S. presence that exists is military in nature. In the past, while bombs blew up city buildings and U.S. forces attacked threats to overall peace, the people of these countries would be stuck in the middle. At the end of the fighting, we would just leave the tattered battle zone, leaving the people in a smoking husk of a city/town. Sure, they were no longer under the threat of an organized terror, but they had little left to lose now. If we simply had stuck around for a bit longer and repaired the damage that was done (like we are doing now), we would not see the massive retaliation that we encountered over the next 2-3 decades.
Ok, so you disagree with this way of going about things. For an honest discussion, what are your thoughts then about HOW the U.S. should go about resolving its deficit?
I'm confused, how is Ron Paul going to resolve the USA's deficit?
All I have heard is he is going to get rid of the income and capital gains taxes.
I assume since you're asking for his plan to solve the debt crisis that Ron Paul has already solved how to get rid of our trillions of dollars of debt?
(Hint: Leaving the UN and closing military bases won't balance the budget, much less wipe out our debt, especially if you're wiping out income and capital gains taxes)
He completely cuts specific departments. Many face about 50% budget cuts, while others get cut altogether. Dept. of Education gets completely cut, as do many other socially oriented departments. Here is a page with his budget:
Because I consider voting for independents a gigantic waste. I know 100% certain none will ever get elected. And if there are 2 people that have a chance of winning, that means that I would prefer one over the other, given the choice. By not voting for the one I would prefer of the two, I increase the odds of getting the worst case scenario.
And after hearing about how the president actually *can* get rid of the department of education, never mind lol.
On January 03 2012 01:52 QuXn wrote: i hope more people will watch this and pass it on...his foreign policy is perfectly in line with the constitution!
His foreign policy perfectly matches a document written in the late 1700s? Well, there's no way that could be anything other than perfectly suited for the modern world...
Being the policemen of the world sounds better suited for the modern world then. Right?
Well, he wants to stop doing that while simultaneously withdrawing from all organisations designed at taking collective responsibility, so what exactly is your/his plan? Just hope that everything is fine? It's not like it's only a problem when the barbarians arrive on your shores anymore, peace is pretty good for business. And for all that the current wars are terrible for the people caught up in them, they're pretty small compared the kind of wars we used to have before the United Nations and suchlike existed.
The underlying problem is that the United States is spending far too much time and money in places we shouldn't be, while our people at home suffer. It's easy for foreigners to say what is good about our current foreign policy, but the reality is this: if you haven't lived in the US for an extended period of time, you don't know the extent of the issues we have here. We are in a downward spiral, and if we don't effectively manage our economy (withdrawing from wars, etc. would help that) the United States is fucked. And when the United States is fucked, the rest of the world is, too.
Also, there is absolutely no need to have bases worldwide any more. Ground fighting is a thing of the past, so having personnel on location at all times is extremely unnecessary, especially when we can plan, launch, bomb Libya with accuracy and efficiency, and be back home in less than 24 hours. Any crisis anywhere in the world that absolutely needed our attention could be attended to quickly even if we didn't have a single base outside of the United States. We have the strongest military in the world, and it has nothing to do with how many troops we have or how many tanks we have. We rule the skies. Nothing poses a great threat to the United States.
Don't you dare even TRY to pin this policy as a way to save in the budget. Even if we adopted Paul's idea of "non-interventionist," we'd still spend more than most of the world combined. In fact, the plan would eliminate more than 60% of the total bases run, but only cut military spending by 15%. This basically means we would destabilize many regions in the world, only to bolster our defenses (by a tremendous margin), for what could be described as the inevitable global conflict that would emerge out of this. You talk as if this is some beautiful plan that would both save money and save lives, but in the end it ends up costing us both.
In the end, blowback doesn't specifically occur because we're even in other countries. You don't see German, Australian, or Japanese terrorists attacking the U.S. in droves. We get blowback because, in times of need, the only U.S. presence that exists is military in nature. In the past, while bombs blew up city buildings and U.S. forces attacked threats to overall peace, the people of these countries would be stuck in the middle. At the end of the fighting, we would just leave the tattered battle zone, leaving the people in a smoking husk of a city/town. Sure, they were no longer under the threat of an organized terror, but they had little left to lose now. If we simply had stuck around for a bit longer and repaired the damage that was done (like we are doing now), we would not see the massive retaliation that we encountered over the next 2-3 decades.
Ok, so you disagree with this way of going about things. For an honest discussion, what are your thoughts then about HOW the U.S. should go about resolving its deficit?
There should have been a tax increase that coincided with the increased involvement in the Middle East (Iraq and Afghanistan), and a conscription to shore up the numbers instead of a huge expansion of contracted help.
Since that option has expired (for the most part), a mix of tax increases and military cuts should be the focus. We're still developing weapons and techniques for conventional wars that are either too far away or extinct altogether. We focus too much on how we can pay somebody else to take over traditional military roles. The consequence is a budget that required an increase in income, that we neglected. For social reform, we already went through massive social/welfare reform in the 90s, which helped create a budget surplus for the early 2000s. What we have now is a relatively lean social safety net that still has some fat to trim, but not nearly as much as the exploding military budget. The balance shifted over the past 2 decades and should be corrected.
In short, I do not support an expansion of military at the cost of social.
I have a hard time believing that US social safety net spending is "lean" when it encompasses roughly 58% of our federal budget (that's before considering state programs) and roughly 39% if you remove social security from the equation.
Also, let's not forget that this chunk of the federal budget also happens to be the most rapidly growing segment of the federal budget.
More to the point, doesn't anyone else find it wrong that we "need" our government to spend so many resources on these programs? What the hell has happened to this country?
I'm curious about what your views on Ron Paul now are, xDaunt. I used to be a pretty staunch Democrat leaning person, but after listening to Ron Paul I know support his ideas of small government a lot more. A few months ago at the start of the debate season I think you were a little less enthusiastic about him, but I've been looking out for you and haven't you seen make too much commentary about this, so what do you think about him?
I haven't been around much because I've been stupidly busy with work and because the primary process got incredibly depressing by mid-November. This may seem like a bit of a contradiction, but I was simultaneously disgusted by both the focus on the inadequacies of candidates and the lack of a "perfect" candidate. Go figure.
As for Ron Paul, I really like a lot of his domestic policies. In fact, he's the only candidate that I trust to actually fix the federal budget because he's the only candidate (or really the only politician) who has proposed meaningful spending cuts. However, like most republicans, Ron Paul loses me whenever he starts talking about foreign policy. There are lot of reasons why it is good to have a powerful military and even more reasons to have the type of global military presence that the US has -- including some incredibly strategic reasons that most people don't even bother to think about. Don't get me wrong, I'm not for warmongering and I definitely have been known to express some strong isolationist statements whenever I get mad with "foreign ingrates." Yet, there's no denying the benefits that America reaps from its global military presence.
On January 03 2012 01:52 QuXn wrote: i hope more people will watch this and pass it on...his foreign policy is perfectly in line with the constitution!
His foreign policy perfectly matches a document written in the late 1700s? Well, there's no way that could be anything other than perfectly suited for the modern world...
Being the policemen of the world sounds better suited for the modern world then. Right?
Well, he wants to stop doing that while simultaneously withdrawing from all organisations designed at taking collective responsibility, so what exactly is your/his plan? Just hope that everything is fine? It's not like it's only a problem when the barbarians arrive on your shores anymore, peace is pretty good for business. And for all that the current wars are terrible for the people caught up in them, they're pretty small compared the kind of wars we used to have before the United Nations and suchlike existed.
The underlying problem is that the United States is spending far too much time and money in places we shouldn't be, while our people at home suffer. It's easy for foreigners to say what is good about our current foreign policy, but the reality is this: if you haven't lived in the US for an extended period of time, you don't know the extent of the issues we have here. We are in a downward spiral, and if we don't effectively manage our economy (withdrawing from wars, etc. would help that) the United States is fucked. And when the United States is fucked, the rest of the world is, too.
Also, there is absolutely no need to have bases worldwide any more. Ground fighting is a thing of the past, so having personnel on location at all times is extremely unnecessary, especially when we can plan, launch, bomb Libya with accuracy and efficiency, and be back home in less than 24 hours. Any crisis anywhere in the world that absolutely needed our attention could be attended to quickly even if we didn't have a single base outside of the United States. We have the strongest military in the world, and it has nothing to do with how many troops we have or how many tanks we have. We rule the skies. Nothing poses a great threat to the United States.
Don't you dare even TRY to pin this policy as a way to save in the budget. Even if we adopted Paul's idea of "non-interventionist," we'd still spend more than most of the world combined. In fact, the plan would eliminate more than 60% of the total bases run, but only cut military spending by 15%. This basically means we would destabilize many regions in the world, only to bolster our defenses (by a tremendous margin), for what could be described as the inevitable global conflict that would emerge out of this. You talk as if this is some beautiful plan that would both save money and save lives, but in the end it ends up costing us both.
In the end, blowback doesn't specifically occur because we're even in other countries. You don't see German, Australian, or Japanese terrorists attacking the U.S. in droves. We get blowback because, in times of need, the only U.S. presence that exists is military in nature. In the past, while bombs blew up city buildings and U.S. forces attacked threats to overall peace, the people of these countries would be stuck in the middle. At the end of the fighting, we would just leave the tattered battle zone, leaving the people in a smoking husk of a city/town. Sure, they were no longer under the threat of an organized terror, but they had little left to lose now. If we simply had stuck around for a bit longer and repaired the damage that was done (like we are doing now), we would not see the massive retaliation that we encountered over the next 2-3 decades.
Ok, so you disagree with this way of going about things. For an honest discussion, what are your thoughts then about HOW the U.S. should go about resolving its deficit?
There should have been a tax increase that coincided with the increased involvement in the Middle East (Iraq and Afghanistan), and a conscription to shore up the numbers instead of a huge expansion of contracted help.
Since that option has expired (for the most part), a mix of tax increases and military cuts should be the focus. We're still developing weapons and techniques for conventional wars that are either too far away or extinct altogether. We focus too much on how we can pay somebody else to take over traditional military roles. The consequence is a budget that required an increase in income, that we neglected. For social reform, we already went through massive social/welfare reform in the 90s, which helped create a budget surplus for the early 2000s. What we have now is a relatively lean social safety net that still has some fat to trim, but not nearly as much as the exploding military budget. The balance shifted over the past 2 decades and should be corrected.
In short, I do not support an expansion of military at the cost of social.
I have a hard time believing that US social safety net spending is "lean" when it encompasses roughly 58% of our federal budget (that's before considering state programs) and roughly 39% if you remove social security from the equation.
Also, let's not forget that this chunk of the federal budget also happens to be the most rapidly growing segment of the federal budget.
More to the point, doesn't anyone else find it wrong that we "need" our government to spend so many resources on these programs? What the hell has happened to this country?
More people are in need of assistance due to changing demographics and a changing income distribution?
The fact that more people are relying on welfare programs means that more people actually need welfare programs then they used to, which I would argue is due to the effect of free markets within the US already, but we can differ on opinions there.
I never understood this national US obsession with 'socialism is evil' in the first place anyhow. The countries that generally rate the highest on indexes of 'best countries to live' are always topped by the scandinavian countries. How terrible you can walk into a hospital and get help without flashing your insurance card. Political debate in the US becomes a shouting match over principles, where things like the constitution get abused to a point where anything in there can mean pretty much anything.
Paul is an extremist, he's one of the people that would have been defending article 1, section 2, paragraph 3 just because it was part of the consitution. With a mind that inflexible you're not fit for high office where pragmatism is a must. People that put too much faith into a single set of principles make for terrible presidents (Wilson, Carter, George W. Bush to name a few).
Even so , in the last decades the US moved it's policy away from the principles from the Constitution and , you could call it coincidence , or you could rather give better arguments , because sure there are alot of them , but since the US moved away from the fundamental principles everything got worse ... The education system , the healthcare system , the foreign policy .. You could easily analyze recent history to confirm this . I'm obviously to dumb to understand all the economics and healthcare and all , but I do understand education , and it's been a disaster , I think it's the main reason for the degradation of society , the majority of it . Sure the IQ of the most intelligent people raised but I believe that's a result of the evolution of science . Federal government got it's hand in all these sectors and it's become worse and worse ..
If you don't support Ron Paul , it inevitably means you support another candidate , and as fair as I see it , no1 could compete with Ron Paul in honesty and coherence . He is extreme , but we live in an extreme time , we obviously need extreme measures , what he proposes is completely against the status quo , it is as extreme as it gets . You could watch it as negative , but if you use your intuition and your rationality you will easily understand that the road that the US has taken leads to inevitable collapse . The debt is rising , more and more $ are spent on police/military actions afaik . If you could tell me America leads in the right direction with what Obama has done or what George Bush has done .. well you have to explain yourself with really strong arguments .
Ultimately I'm not even an American citizen ( altho what happens in America directly affects me because of serious relations of our president with America , basically as I understand it we are given orders from them and we even provide for free with services , but I won't get in that because I have done zero research , I heard from smart people that I trust , and it also seems this way) so my opinion doesn't matter . But what I can say for sure guaranteed , that I believe 100% in my ability to perceive bullshit , and as far as I see Ron Paul is the most bullshit-free of all of them ..I see Romney as fake as they can get and Gingrich as evil as they can get , I may be failing on this one but I heard ( while playing some sc2 on a podcast - Joe Rogan podcast - so I'm not quite sure ) that he proposed a bill which would make marijuana delears vulnerable to the death penalty ( after a huge amount of dealing sure , but still , dealing plants => death seems a bit EXTREME to me ) .
Please correct me on everything I've been wrong so I will understand the situation better .. As I see it right now , Ron Paul is the choice
Being the policemen of the world sounds better suited for the modern world then. Right?
Well, he wants to stop doing that while simultaneously withdrawing from all organisations designed at taking collective responsibility, so what exactly is your/his plan? Just hope that everything is fine? It's not like it's only a problem when the barbarians arrive on your shores anymore, peace is pretty good for business. And for all that the current wars are terrible for the people caught up in them, they're pretty small compared the kind of wars we used to have before the United Nations and suchlike existed.
The underlying problem is that the United States is spending far too much time and money in places we shouldn't be, while our people at home suffer. It's easy for foreigners to say what is good about our current foreign policy, but the reality is this: if you haven't lived in the US for an extended period of time, you don't know the extent of the issues we have here. We are in a downward spiral, and if we don't effectively manage our economy (withdrawing from wars, etc. would help that) the United States is fucked. And when the United States is fucked, the rest of the world is, too.
Also, there is absolutely no need to have bases worldwide any more. Ground fighting is a thing of the past, so having personnel on location at all times is extremely unnecessary, especially when we can plan, launch, bomb Libya with accuracy and efficiency, and be back home in less than 24 hours. Any crisis anywhere in the world that absolutely needed our attention could be attended to quickly even if we didn't have a single base outside of the United States. We have the strongest military in the world, and it has nothing to do with how many troops we have or how many tanks we have. We rule the skies. Nothing poses a great threat to the United States.
Don't you dare even TRY to pin this policy as a way to save in the budget. Even if we adopted Paul's idea of "non-interventionist," we'd still spend more than most of the world combined. In fact, the plan would eliminate more than 60% of the total bases run, but only cut military spending by 15%. This basically means we would destabilize many regions in the world, only to bolster our defenses (by a tremendous margin), for what could be described as the inevitable global conflict that would emerge out of this. You talk as if this is some beautiful plan that would both save money and save lives, but in the end it ends up costing us both.
In the end, blowback doesn't specifically occur because we're even in other countries. You don't see German, Australian, or Japanese terrorists attacking the U.S. in droves. We get blowback because, in times of need, the only U.S. presence that exists is military in nature. In the past, while bombs blew up city buildings and U.S. forces attacked threats to overall peace, the people of these countries would be stuck in the middle. At the end of the fighting, we would just leave the tattered battle zone, leaving the people in a smoking husk of a city/town. Sure, they were no longer under the threat of an organized terror, but they had little left to lose now. If we simply had stuck around for a bit longer and repaired the damage that was done (like we are doing now), we would not see the massive retaliation that we encountered over the next 2-3 decades.
Ok, so you disagree with this way of going about things. For an honest discussion, what are your thoughts then about HOW the U.S. should go about resolving its deficit?
I'm confused, how is Ron Paul going to resolve the USA's deficit?
All I have heard is he is going to get rid of the income and capital gains taxes.
I assume since you're asking for his plan to solve the debt crisis that Ron Paul has already solved how to get rid of our trillions of dollars of debt?
(Hint: Leaving the UN and closing military bases won't balance the budget, much less wipe out our debt, especially if you're wiping out income and capital gains taxes)
He completely cuts specific departments. Many face about 50% budget cuts, while others get cut altogether. Dept. of Education gets completely cut, as do many other socially oriented departments. Here is a page with his budget:
Because I consider voting for independents a gigantic waste. I know 100% certain none will ever get elected.
Heh, that's funny since I consider voting for one of the mainstream Wall Street puppet candidates to be truly a waste (heads you win, tails I lose). :D You're right, 3rd party candidates have no chance of winning (mostly because of this exact attitude), but I was never a bandwagon-type. There must be some psychological effect of voting for a "contender" or a "winner" that I never understood. Probably very similar to why the New York Yankees are so popular I guess. Anyway, was just throwing that out there. Politics are pretty much a spectator sport for me. I don't seem to be on the same page... book... library even as US politics lol.
On January 03 2012 01:52 QuXn wrote: i hope more people will watch this and pass it on...his foreign policy is perfectly in line with the constitution!
His foreign policy perfectly matches a document written in the late 1700s? Well, there's no way that could be anything other than perfectly suited for the modern world...
Being the policemen of the world sounds better suited for the modern world then. Right?
Well, he wants to stop doing that while simultaneously withdrawing from all organisations designed at taking collective responsibility, so what exactly is your/his plan? Just hope that everything is fine? It's not like it's only a problem when the barbarians arrive on your shores anymore, peace is pretty good for business. And for all that the current wars are terrible for the people caught up in them, they're pretty small compared the kind of wars we used to have before the United Nations and suchlike existed.
The underlying problem is that the United States is spending far too much time and money in places we shouldn't be, while our people at home suffer. It's easy for foreigners to say what is good about our current foreign policy, but the reality is this: if you haven't lived in the US for an extended period of time, you don't know the extent of the issues we have here. We are in a downward spiral, and if we don't effectively manage our economy (withdrawing from wars, etc. would help that) the United States is fucked. And when the United States is fucked, the rest of the world is, too.
Also, there is absolutely no need to have bases worldwide any more. Ground fighting is a thing of the past, so having personnel on location at all times is extremely unnecessary, especially when we can plan, launch, bomb Libya with accuracy and efficiency, and be back home in less than 24 hours. Any crisis anywhere in the world that absolutely needed our attention could be attended to quickly even if we didn't have a single base outside of the United States. We have the strongest military in the world, and it has nothing to do with how many troops we have or how many tanks we have. We rule the skies. Nothing poses a great threat to the United States.
Don't you dare even TRY to pin this policy as a way to save in the budget. Even if we adopted Paul's idea of "non-interventionist," we'd still spend more than most of the world combined. In fact, the plan would eliminate more than 60% of the total bases run, but only cut military spending by 15%. This basically means we would destabilize many regions in the world, only to bolster our defenses (by a tremendous margin), for what could be described as the inevitable global conflict that would emerge out of this. You talk as if this is some beautiful plan that would both save money and save lives, but in the end it ends up costing us both.
In the end, blowback doesn't specifically occur because we're even in other countries. You don't see German, Australian, or Japanese terrorists attacking the U.S. in droves. We get blowback because, in times of need, the only U.S. presence that exists is military in nature. In the past, while bombs blew up city buildings and U.S. forces attacked threats to overall peace, the people of these countries would be stuck in the middle. At the end of the fighting, we would just leave the tattered battle zone, leaving the people in a smoking husk of a city/town. Sure, they were no longer under the threat of an organized terror, but they had little left to lose now. If we simply had stuck around for a bit longer and repaired the damage that was done (like we are doing now), we would not see the massive retaliation that we encountered over the next 2-3 decades.
Ok, so you disagree with this way of going about things. For an honest discussion, what are your thoughts then about HOW the U.S. should go about resolving its deficit?
There should have been a tax increase that coincided with the increased involvement in the Middle East (Iraq and Afghanistan), and a conscription to shore up the numbers instead of a huge expansion of contracted help.
Since that option has expired (for the most part), a mix of tax increases and military cuts should be the focus. We're still developing weapons and techniques for conventional wars that are either too far away or extinct altogether. We focus too much on how we can pay somebody else to take over traditional military roles. The consequence is a budget that required an increase in income, that we neglected. For social reform, we already went through massive social/welfare reform in the 90s, which helped create a budget surplus for the early 2000s. What we have now is a relatively lean social safety net that still has some fat to trim, but not nearly as much as the exploding military budget. The balance shifted over the past 2 decades and should be corrected.
In short, I do not support an expansion of military at the cost of social.
I have a hard time believing that US social safety net spending is "lean" when it encompasses roughly 58% of our federal budget (that's before considering state programs) and roughly 39% if you remove social security from the equation.
Also, let's not forget that this chunk of the federal budget also happens to be the most rapidly growing segment of the federal budget.
More to the point, doesn't anyone else find it wrong that we "need" our government to spend so many resources on these programs? What the hell has happened to this country?
More people are in need of assistance due to changing demographics and a changing income distribution?
The fact that more people are relying on welfare programs means that more people actually need welfare programs then they used to, which I would argue is due to the effect of free markets within the US already, but we can differ on opinions there.
Interestingly, I think that the primary driver of the growth of the "welfare class" is an erosion of American culture and the strength of the family unit. There are too many irresponsible people are out there who have zero work ethic and/or a sense of entitlement.
EDIT: For those of you who are in college or have graduated from college, consider this: how many people do you know who just fucked around all day, every day rather than actually doing school work?
On January 03 2012 01:52 QuXn wrote: i hope more people will watch this and pass it on...his foreign policy is perfectly in line with the constitution!
His foreign policy perfectly matches a document written in the late 1700s? Well, there's no way that could be anything other than perfectly suited for the modern world...
Being the policemen of the world sounds better suited for the modern world then. Right?
Well, he wants to stop doing that while simultaneously withdrawing from all organisations designed at taking collective responsibility, so what exactly is your/his plan? Just hope that everything is fine? It's not like it's only a problem when the barbarians arrive on your shores anymore, peace is pretty good for business. And for all that the current wars are terrible for the people caught up in them, they're pretty small compared the kind of wars we used to have before the United Nations and suchlike existed.
The underlying problem is that the United States is spending far too much time and money in places we shouldn't be, while our people at home suffer. It's easy for foreigners to say what is good about our current foreign policy, but the reality is this: if you haven't lived in the US for an extended period of time, you don't know the extent of the issues we have here. We are in a downward spiral, and if we don't effectively manage our economy (withdrawing from wars, etc. would help that) the United States is fucked. And when the United States is fucked, the rest of the world is, too.
Also, there is absolutely no need to have bases worldwide any more. Ground fighting is a thing of the past, so having personnel on location at all times is extremely unnecessary, especially when we can plan, launch, bomb Libya with accuracy and efficiency, and be back home in less than 24 hours. Any crisis anywhere in the world that absolutely needed our attention could be attended to quickly even if we didn't have a single base outside of the United States. We have the strongest military in the world, and it has nothing to do with how many troops we have or how many tanks we have. We rule the skies. Nothing poses a great threat to the United States.
Don't you dare even TRY to pin this policy as a way to save in the budget. Even if we adopted Paul's idea of "non-interventionist," we'd still spend more than most of the world combined. In fact, the plan would eliminate more than 60% of the total bases run, but only cut military spending by 15%. This basically means we would destabilize many regions in the world, only to bolster our defenses (by a tremendous margin), for what could be described as the inevitable global conflict that would emerge out of this. You talk as if this is some beautiful plan that would both save money and save lives, but in the end it ends up costing us both.
In the end, blowback doesn't specifically occur because we're even in other countries. You don't see German, Australian, or Japanese terrorists attacking the U.S. in droves. We get blowback because, in times of need, the only U.S. presence that exists is military in nature. In the past, while bombs blew up city buildings and U.S. forces attacked threats to overall peace, the people of these countries would be stuck in the middle. At the end of the fighting, we would just leave the tattered battle zone, leaving the people in a smoking husk of a city/town. Sure, they were no longer under the threat of an organized terror, but they had little left to lose now. If we simply had stuck around for a bit longer and repaired the damage that was done (like we are doing now), we would not see the massive retaliation that we encountered over the next 2-3 decades.
Ok, so you disagree with this way of going about things. For an honest discussion, what are your thoughts then about HOW the U.S. should go about resolving its deficit?
I'm confused, how is Ron Paul going to resolve the USA's deficit?
All I have heard is he is going to get rid of the income and capital gains taxes.
I assume since you're asking for his plan to solve the debt crisis that Ron Paul has already solved how to get rid of our trillions of dollars of debt?
(Hint: Leaving the UN and closing military bases won't balance the budget, much less wipe out our debt, especially if you're wiping out income and capital gains taxes)
He completely cuts specific departments. Many face about 50% budget cuts, while others get cut altogether. Dept. of Education gets completely cut, as do many other socially oriented departments. Here is a page with his budget:
It may take a long time to load (if it does at all).
An interesting rebuttal, though brief, of Ron Paul's plan.
Ron Paul -- the Devil in his Details
By EDWARD MORRISSEY, The Fiscal Times
October 20, 2011
Herman Cain has succeeded in making “9-9-9” into one of this political season’s catchphrases, even as it comes under increasing criticism for its unintended consequences. Ron Paul hopes to get even more traction through subtraction. Last week, Paul released his economic proposal, titled, “Plan to Restore America.”
He might just as well have titled it the “Zero-Zip-Naught-Nada-Nothing Plan.”
Election 2012 Complete Coverage Billed as the only plan that actually balances the budget, the actual highlight of the plan is what it doesn’t do, or more specifically, what Paul refuses to fund. Paul’s plan would defund five Cabinet departments and promises to return federal spending to 2006 levels, the last full year in which a Republican Congress fully controlled the budget process.
He’s not kidding, either. Paul’s budget draws a red line through five departments: Energy, HUD, Commerce, Interior, and Education. According to Paul’s projections, eliminating these five departments will save the U.S. just over $700 billion in the four years of his proposed presidency. Along with other deep cuts in government spending, Paul’s plan would reverse six years of spending growth and would result in a fiscal 2016 budget of just over $3 trillion and a surplus of $19 billion.
All of this sounds good to fiscal and small-government conservatives. Republicans have long discussed eliminating the Department of Education as an expensive flop, which would allow states and local communities to take more control over their schools with the withdrawal of federal mandates. Fulfilling that goal would certainly be a hit on the Right, and Paul must be thinking that eliminating even more Cabinet-level agencies will ratchet up the popularity of his plan.
However, Paul’s plan doesn’t come with any deep explanation of how to accomplish all that he proposes – or how to address the consequences. No one would really miss the Department of Energy except subsidy-dependent companies or researchers who live off of federal funding to pursue innovation better left to the private sector.
Eliminating the Department of Education would be fairly simple, since state and local structures already exist to take up the slack. That might be true with HUD as well, although perhaps not in every state and county. States could coordinate the handoff with Congress if this plan came to pass. It gets trickier with the last two agencies, however. The Department of Interior manages vast amounts of public land, and whether one believes that the federal government should own as much acreage as it does, the need for proper stewardship at least in the short term can’t be ignored. Even if we put every federal acre up for sale (Paul’s plan includes $40 billion in revenue from land sales over four years), we’d need to fund the management of the land until the sale could be made. Paul’s proposal would leave no funds at all for these tasks, nor does he transfer the responsibility for land management to any other agency.
The promise to eliminate the Department of Commerce is even more mystifying. For one thing, the Constitution explicitly gives the federal government jurisdiction over interstate commerce, as well as requiring a decennial census to reapportion representation in the House – a task assigned to Commerce. The department also produces data from and analysis of the national economy; analyzes weather and potential storm systems; and manages patents and trademarks – another explicit federal function in the Constitution. Not only does Paul not explain what happens to these subsidiary responsibilities, he doesn’t explain why he thinks the Department of Commerce is illegitimate in the first place.
Nor are these the only curiosities in the Paul plan. In the tables supplied with the plan – covered by only a page of introductory text – Paul redlines all international assistance programs, as he has often promised to do. He also redlines the Federal Aviation Administration with a note in his budget that says only, “FAA Privatized.” That would save nearly $10 billion a year but would instantly create massive chaos in air travel. How exactly would Paul propose privatizing the air-traffic control system and managing the thousands of commercial flights in the air at any one time? What kind of transition would it take for airlines to create their own systems, and how much would it end up costing travelers as the carriers duplicate efforts and create communication barriers in traffic handling? Paul’s plan not only doesn’t explain that process or his end goals, but the thin amount of explanatory text never addresses the FAA conversion at all, nor does it explain Paul’s plan to defund TSA and require carriers to provide their own security.
The Paul plan has a number of such examples, some petty, some more substantial. He eliminates the supplemental nutrition programs for women and children at the Department of Agriculture, along with “Food for Peace” grants without detailing the savings realized by doing so. Paul also proposes to reduce spending at the Food and Drug Administration by 40% from fiscal 2006 levels without explaining which functions he plans to cut. Also at HHS, the woeful Indian Health Service gets a 20% cut from fiscal 2006, as does the Centers for Disease Control. LIHEAP, the energy-assistance program for low-income earners, gets tossed out altogether.
There may be good reasons for these reductions and eliminations, but Paul never bothers to provide any specifics in his plan, and it won’t be too difficult for Democrats to paint this entire budget as an attack on the poor.
Paul’s plan encompasses the general concepts of downsizing government, but the details show it to be short on common sense and political reality – or any kind of reality at all. Michele Bachmann warned about the “devil in the details” of 9-9-9, but Cain at least provides an argument in his proposal for how his tax reform could work. Paul’s plan looks more like a slapdash effort to claim $1 trillion in savings –credibility be damned.
On January 03 2012 05:44 Purple Haze wrote: [quote]
Well, he wants to stop doing that while simultaneously withdrawing from all organisations designed at taking collective responsibility, so what exactly is your/his plan? Just hope that everything is fine? It's not like it's only a problem when the barbarians arrive on your shores anymore, peace is pretty good for business. And for all that the current wars are terrible for the people caught up in them, they're pretty small compared the kind of wars we used to have before the United Nations and suchlike existed.
The underlying problem is that the United States is spending far too much time and money in places we shouldn't be, while our people at home suffer. It's easy for foreigners to say what is good about our current foreign policy, but the reality is this: if you haven't lived in the US for an extended period of time, you don't know the extent of the issues we have here. We are in a downward spiral, and if we don't effectively manage our economy (withdrawing from wars, etc. would help that) the United States is fucked. And when the United States is fucked, the rest of the world is, too.
Also, there is absolutely no need to have bases worldwide any more. Ground fighting is a thing of the past, so having personnel on location at all times is extremely unnecessary, especially when we can plan, launch, bomb Libya with accuracy and efficiency, and be back home in less than 24 hours. Any crisis anywhere in the world that absolutely needed our attention could be attended to quickly even if we didn't have a single base outside of the United States. We have the strongest military in the world, and it has nothing to do with how many troops we have or how many tanks we have. We rule the skies. Nothing poses a great threat to the United States.
Don't you dare even TRY to pin this policy as a way to save in the budget. Even if we adopted Paul's idea of "non-interventionist," we'd still spend more than most of the world combined. In fact, the plan would eliminate more than 60% of the total bases run, but only cut military spending by 15%. This basically means we would destabilize many regions in the world, only to bolster our defenses (by a tremendous margin), for what could be described as the inevitable global conflict that would emerge out of this. You talk as if this is some beautiful plan that would both save money and save lives, but in the end it ends up costing us both.
In the end, blowback doesn't specifically occur because we're even in other countries. You don't see German, Australian, or Japanese terrorists attacking the U.S. in droves. We get blowback because, in times of need, the only U.S. presence that exists is military in nature. In the past, while bombs blew up city buildings and U.S. forces attacked threats to overall peace, the people of these countries would be stuck in the middle. At the end of the fighting, we would just leave the tattered battle zone, leaving the people in a smoking husk of a city/town. Sure, they were no longer under the threat of an organized terror, but they had little left to lose now. If we simply had stuck around for a bit longer and repaired the damage that was done (like we are doing now), we would not see the massive retaliation that we encountered over the next 2-3 decades.
Ok, so you disagree with this way of going about things. For an honest discussion, what are your thoughts then about HOW the U.S. should go about resolving its deficit?
I'm confused, how is Ron Paul going to resolve the USA's deficit?
All I have heard is he is going to get rid of the income and capital gains taxes.
I assume since you're asking for his plan to solve the debt crisis that Ron Paul has already solved how to get rid of our trillions of dollars of debt?
(Hint: Leaving the UN and closing military bases won't balance the budget, much less wipe out our debt, especially if you're wiping out income and capital gains taxes)
He completely cuts specific departments. Many face about 50% budget cuts, while others get cut altogether. Dept. of Education gets completely cut, as do many other socially oriented departments. Here is a page with his budget:
Because I consider voting for independents a gigantic waste. I know 100% certain none will ever get elected.
Heh, that's funny since I consider voting for one of the mainstream Wall Street puppet candidates to be truly a waste (heads you win, tails I lose). :D You're right, 3rd party candidates have no chance of winning (mostly because of this exact attitude), but I was never a bandwagon-type. There must be some psychological effect of voting for a "contender" or a "winner" that I never understood. Probably very similar to why the New York Yankees are so popular I guess. Anyway, was just throwing that out there. Politics are pretty much a spectator sport for me. I don't seem to be on the same page... book... library even as US politics lol.
In a way I agree with you , Joe Rogan said it best ( he also quoted some1 , I totally forgot his name ) Voting in politics is like cheering for your favorite team , you only do it for the show but in the end it doesn't really matter . However that is the nihilistic point of view with which I disagree .... If I had a candidate as Ron Paul in Romania for 2012 I would totally vote for him ... unfortunately I won't vote . Oh and by the way , the view on spectator as voters is simply explained , you can watch "Hacking democracy" to see they actually changed votes , they CAN do it , and they WILL do it ... So if Ron Paul wins , it will mean he will have the support of 70%+ of the people , since he is against the status quo , his term would anger many many people at the top .
EPT
. Oh and by the way , the view on spectator as voters is simply explained , you can watch "Hacking democracy" to see they actually changed votes , they CAN do it , and they WILL do it ... So if Ron Paul wins , it will mean he will have the support of 70%+ of the people , since he is against the status quo , his term would anger many many people at the top .
