[QUOTE="-Sun_Tzu-"]I think he is mischaracterized as a libertarian. He is a paleoconservative. He supports a limited federal government, but he does not support the principle of limited government in general. He has an almost absolutist view on states rights. That is not a libertarian position. He thinks state governments have the authority to do almost whatever they want, with very little legal restrictions. He also has some prerty dangerous views when it comes to economics and foreign policy. jer_1
How is removing the IRS and replacing it with functioning monetary system dangerous? How is cutting 1.5 trillion in debt interest owed to the criminal gang, the FED, a bad thing?
I just don't see much that he does as being a bad thing, ABSOLUTELY not worse than the alternatives.
We need to stop being the world police, we need to remove ourselves from other countries business. Had we left those countries long ago or never showed up to begin with we'd be in a much better position in the world right now I believe. Ron is right on damn near every economic account that he speaks of, the rest of the government is too stubborn (or greedy) to admit it.
There is truth to the claim that many of the problems in the world today have some origin in US intervention (specifically, the US foreign policy of supporting authoritarian regimes anywhere and everywhere for the sake of "stability"). But Ron Paul can't go back in time and reverse US foreign policy for the past 50-60 years. The problems around the world that exist today, do actually exist. They aren't going to go away if we leave. It does not logically follow that since we caused all of these problems we therefor shouldn't do anything about it now. That's closing the barn door well after the horse left. If anything that bolsters the case for intervention. We are responsible for many of the despotic regimes around the globe - how can we then not have a responsibility to the people of these countries to give back what we have stolen from them (i.e. the ability to govern themselves)?
And what is Ron Paul's response when a foreign government commits genocide? How would the Paul administration respond to the Nazi's in the 30's and 40's or the Serbs in the 90's? Non-intervention has real consequences. It's not as if when we don't intervene nothing happens. When we don't intervene when crimes against humanity are taking place, implicitly and objectively we are taking the side of the oppressor against the oppressed. Intervention doesn't have to be about "policing the world" - what is wrong with standing up and showing solidarity with fellow human beings who's lives are at danger when no one else will? Paul gives a lot of lip service to "freedom" and "liberty" - what is so wrong with actually protecting those things not just domestically but abroad? We aren't just citizens of the United States. That is an arbitrary distinction determined by a genetic slot machine. Ultimately we are all citizens of the same world. We shouldn't act like we aren't.
As for Ron Paul's economic views - I agree with him that our tax code is way too complicated, the IRS is far too bureaucrati, and his solution to the manufactured debt ceiling crisis was very nuanced. I would have prefered it had the Federal Reserve destroyed the couple of trillions of dollars it holds in US treasury bonds over the deal that was signed into law. But I think the way Ron Paul approaches economics is a very dangerous one. The idea that a government should sit back and do nothing while economic catastrophe erupts throughout the country is something I can not and never will agree with.
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