Ron Paul's glaring downfall

[ConstantineX]

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Ron Paul's only downfall is idiot sheeple who can't understand what he's saying. I don't know if it's because they're really stupid or because they're so used to politicians with no principles saying whatever people want to hear in the most dumbed down way possible.

For example:

RP: I want to abolish the IRS

sheeple: ZOMG the govt can't function without the IRS!

RP: I want to abolish the Dept of Education

sheeple: ZOMG RP wants to abolish public schools! How are the poor kids supposed to go to school?????

RP: Religious institutions should be more important than government

sheeple: ZOMG Christian supremecist!


Ron Paul's campaign slogan is "Hope for America." I don't see how anyone could have hope for America when so many of us can't comprehend simple statements.

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Most Democrats and Republicans at least peripherally connected to actual politics, as well as most intelligent people in general, have one thing in common with their counterparts across the globe - they don't think of the other side as sheep, stupid, actively evil, and so on, and sometimes even *gasp* agree with them on some of their platform. For example, I think the Republicans are by far the worse of the two parties to lead the US in the near future, but I agree with them on affirmative action, would be willing to listen re: gun control and school vouchers and think the estate tax is a bad thing, among others. Similarly, aside from true shills like Coulter, you won't find many secular GOP members who don't understand the Democrats at all; that's for the religious right, which, as a whole, has a moral superiority complex because they get everything out of their (to them, infallible) interpretation of a single book.

Speaking of the FOF, every (religious, political, you name it) zealot whose cause turned out terrible throughout history has shared one thing in common, too; they refer to their opponents as sheep, oppressors, blind, misguided, etc. You won't find this in mainstream political discourse, but it's funny how if you change around the facts in the post I quoted, it could just as well have come from LaRouche, Stormfront, the Russian Communist message boards, or even Fred Phelps. It's all about "people are too dumb to get my savior's message that would fix their lives if they'd just listened. Instead, they misinterpret it to say some other terrible thing will happen, which isn't true at all because ".

This is despite the fact that 99.99% of the world, which surely has some intelligent people in it, seemingly disagrees after all.

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Adanthar, I agree with most of this...except the fact that you want to paint all of "ideology" in the same corner. I would agree with you fully if you added the caveat that ideologues that expect people to "change their character" are doomed to failure. The persistent problems that nearly ideologues seek to fix are all problems of human nature - people are always going to be "sheeple", selfish, short-sighted, etc. But most leading intellectuals have already realized this - it sure makes convenient slogans for their followers, though.

I do think it's people for an honest ideologue to design "a system" that implements his ideas outside of the people's will. Economists and political scientists would be more likely to say "institutions matter". I want to say, for example, to alot of ordinary liberal thinkers that I appreciate their attentions, but the fact governments have repeatedly failed at these same ancient goals suggests that the design problems are alot harder than they think. I think that's the TRUE trap that most intelligent commentary falls into, not the former, more base approach.

[pvn]

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I think the key, the real reason Ron Paul emphasizes this is because he believes many of the financial burdens placed on the federal government (disaster relief, [federal?] welfare, etc) were intended to be handled by those "vital institutions", the churches - or other charities. I could be wrong though, but I know I've heard him advocate churches helping.

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you and I, sir, are in complete agreement.

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please never stop posting here.

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what'd I do?

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post goot imo ldo

[andyfox]

"don't you think it is wrong, that . . ."

Yes.

[Kaj]

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RP: Religious institutions should be more important than government

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Nutty statement


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RP: I want to abolish the Dept of Education

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Amazing from someone who benefited from it!


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RP: I want to abolish the IRS

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Yeah, all infrastructure is or should be free.


That RP guy sounds like an absolute nut to me! [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

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Midge,

Take a moment to think about what you wrote. Why is it "amazing" to want to abolish a national agency just because it may have impacted you? Of course it may have impacted you, that's because it's a national institution which doesn't ask if you'd like to volunteer to donate or participate as part of its cause, but forcibly collects from you and then mandates educational policy (to some degree) on your local schools whether you asked for it or not. So does that mean it can never be abolished? An institution's mere existence means it is immune from debate about its continuing relevance? You really don't see the circular logic here? And of course, that's all assuming the US Dept of Ed "benefits" your local school, which is at least debatable.

Also, you do realize that the US government was able to collect revenue to operate before the IRS was created in its present form in 1953 and previous forms dating to the US Civil War? The statement "I want to abolish the IRS" does not imply "all infrastructure should be free". Especially considering it is arguably better left to state and local governments to provide state and local "infrastructure".

Your post does little to help your anti-RP cause. It inadvertently adds a great deal of ammunition to the anti-Midge cause, however.

I say this as someone who is occasionally sympathetic your posts,
Kaj

[Kaj]

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I think his summary is probably correct (although it doesn't hold for Jefferson). That said, what the Founding Fathers felt about a robustly Christian America should have no effect on what our society should think about religion's place in America today. And I would worry about a man who thinks it should.

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This is an outstanding post that was ignored here.

I am a Paul supporter yet do not understand the need to appeal to the founding fathers' religious beliefs for any matter regarding today's politics (or any other subject). It is about as relevant to me as discussing Pythagoras' bizarre religious beliefs when finding the length of the hypotenuse of a triangle.

I won't expound further as Andyfox summed it up perfectly.

[Copernicus]

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Alex...Midge doesn't know. Don't pressure him!

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I'm guessing he's making assumptions about our school system that are false due to him being not from here, but I dunno for sure.

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FYI MidGe:

Without the Department of Education, there would still be public schools. It would be very similar to what we have today, just without bureaucrats dictating what needs to be studied and how. The Department of Education doesn't actually educate, and without them, we wouldn't have less schools, just less departments.

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for someone criticizing Midge about knowledge, you might learn a little more about the Dept. of Ed. You know what they don't do, but you're wrong about what they do.

[pvn]

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RP: Religious institutions should be more important than government

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Nutty statement


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RP: I want to abolish the Dept of Education

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Amazing from someone who benefited from it!


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RP: I want to abolish the IRS

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Yeah, all infrastructure is or should be free.


That RP guy sounds like an absolute nut to me! [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

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Midge,

Take a moment to think about what you wrote. Why is it "amazing" to want to abolish a national agency just because it may have impacted you? Of course it may have impacted you, that's because it's a national institution which doesn't ask if you'd like to volunteer to donate or participate as part of its cause, but forcibly collects from you and then mandates educational policy (to some degree) on your local schools whether you asked for it or not. So does that mean it can never be abolished? An institution's mere existence means it is immune from debate about its continuing relevance? You really don't see the circular logic here? And of course, that's all assuming the US Dept of Ed "benefits" your local school, which is at least debatable.

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These are great. If there's any benefit, then the act must be good. No thought to opportunity costs. No thought to other alternatives.

I used to work for a very large multinational corporation. I would go to training classes that were just downright horrible. You could spend a week and learn two or three things that you could have learned in an hour of self study. But whenever I talked to other people about this, they uniformly felt that the classes were great, simply because they learned something. The fact that they flew across the country and spent a week to learn something that they could have learned in a hour at home didn't seem to bother them. They got a benefit out of the trip, so it was "worth it". As a shareholder, I was pretty disgusted.