[RenegadeRick]

And this seems completely reasonable to you, does it?

Yes. Eliminating the IRS by cutting gov't spending by 50%? I'd sure be willing to give it a try.

 

[RenegadeRick]

Here is an independent video from Ron Paul Reveres. From what I have seen so far, it's GREAT!

http://ronpaulreveres.com/DVDPlayAll

Tell your friends and enemies. 10 minutes to understand his positions. 10 minutes well spent in my opinion.

 

[Transcend]

Yes. Eliminating the IRS by cutting gov't spending by 50%? I'd sure be willing to give it a try.

You are deluded man. Cut 50% of the gov't spending leaves you with...the military.

No FCC, no FDA, no highways, no interstates, no emergency relief.

Completely unreasonable unless you live in a shack in the woods and trap your own food while wearing racoon skin hats.

 

[RenegadeRick]

You are deluded man. Cut 50% of the gov't spending leaves you with...the military.

You just said they were 20% of the budget.

 

[Transcend]

You just said they were 20% of the budget.

I also pointed out that that wasn't complete. Not even close to it. It is just the base operating budget for the 4 main branches.

Even at 20%, running 80% (+ 6% deficit) of a government on what amounts to 30% of the budget is not possible. It simply cannot happen. In no way shape or form can it be done. It sort of like getting blood from a stone.

 

[LOOnatic]

Completely unreasonable unless you live in a shack in the woods and trap your own food while wearing racoon skin hats.

Yes but what if they are tin-foil lined raccoon skin hats?

 

[Transcend]

Yes but what if they are tin-foil lined raccoon skin hats?

SHHH. They will catch on.

 

[skatetokil]

SHHH. They will catch on.

Having discussed political matters with you in the past, I feel I must challenge your assertions about who is and is not in touch with reality. If a person finds problems with the status quo and fails to unquestioningly obey the nearest authority figure, you scream "Tinfoil hat, tinfoil hat. Your reform program is unrealistic!" Do you honestly believe that our world is as just, prosperous, and peaceful as it can be? If not, I am curious to hear your suggestions for improvement.

If you have nothing to propose, you contribute nothing to the discussion. Please stay out of the way.

 

[Transcend]

Having discussed political matters with you in the past, I feel I must challenge your assertions about who is and is not in touch with reality. If a person finds problems with the status quo and fails to unquestioningly obey the nearest authority figure, you scream "Tinfoil hat, tinfoil hat. Your reform program is unrealistic!" Do you honestly believe that our world is as just, prosperous, and peaceful as it can be? If not, I am curious to hear your suggestions for improvement.

If you have nothing to propose, you contribute nothing to the discussion. Please stay out of the way.

I propose you try and run the government with less than 50% of the budget while not getting rid of important infrastructure and defense. Put up or shutup.

I theorize that a) you cannot; and that b) you are completely out of touch with the fiscal reality and responsibilities of a sovereign nation state if you even think you can. It isn't about suggestions or improvement, it is about reality. I'd like to imagine i could get by in life without a job and live in a bad ass mansion with a Rolls Royce Phantom. I can claim i can do it all I want. It doesn't make it a reality.

Go for it, the numbers and budgets are all online. Prove to me it can be done. It simply isn't possible to run a modern, 1st world super power on 50% of it's current budget (which is currently running a 6% deficit.

Keep in mind you need a certain level of social programs (emergency relief), you need infrastructure (highways, shipping lanes), you need defense, you need certain governing bodies as mentioned (FCC, FDA), you need intelligence gathering bodies and law enforcement (CIA, FBI, ATF, INS).

Now you go ahead and lay on paper how exactly you are going to do this all on about 1250 billion dollars. Remember, 530+ billion is already gone to the military. Air force, army, navy, marines. You also need the coast guard (not under the military budget). You also need the nuke program, regretably (also not under the military budget). You need the energy department and about a 2 dozen others I can't even think of.

There is a lot of expenditures that can be slimmed down, but you cannot eliminate these from your government. It isn't 1932 anymore.

Claiming you WILL do this is absolute nonsense. But hey, you are free to go ahead and smoke some more dope and believe it is actually possible. It isn't like 2% is going to even get him a nomination, let alone get his crazy ass elected.

PS: The President does not have the authority to get rid of the IRS.

 

[RenegadeRick]

PS: The President does not have the authority to get rid of the IRS.

I'm gonna agree with you here, but I cannot address the other stuff. I honestly don't know where to cut specifically, but I know there is a lot to be cut. I heard on the radio today that the GAO said the Air Force has $18 billion in excess spare parts. Has any other Republican candidate suggested they wanted to cut anything? The Democrats seem to just want to create more entitlements which is a move in the wrong direction.

It isn't like 2% is going to even get him a nomination, let alone get his crazy ass elected.

You need to get off the 2% thing. There hasn't been a recent poll in which Paul has ranked so low. It seems your so-called facts aren't holding up. At best, they are outdated.

 

[Transcend]

You need to get off the 2% thing. There hasn't been a recent poll in which Paul has ranked so low. It seems your so-called facts aren't holding up. At best, they are outdated.

Sorry, the dec 8 ABC poll has him at 3%.

I'll you you the extra 1% if you it makes you feel better? I guess if you look at it as a 50% increase in support, you can smile.

Zogby has him at 4% yesterday. Fox has him at 3% on the 19th.

 

[RenegadeRick]

Zogby has him at 4% yesterday.

You mean this Zogby?

Zogby: Ron Paul Will Surprise You
Ron Paul: He's going to do better than anyone expects. Look to Paul to climb into the double-digits in Iowa. Why? He's different, he stands out. He's against the war and he has the one in four Republicans who oppose the war all to himself. Libertarianism is hot, especially among free-market Republicans and 20-somethings. And he's an appealing sort of father figure. He's his own brand. All he needs to do is beat a couple of big names in Iowa, then New Hampshire is friendlier territory. After all, the state motto is "Live Free or Die."

Fox has him at 3% on the 19th.

Fox. As if that is a reliable source of information.
Who did they poll? Bill O'Riley and his staff? lthumbsdown:

 

[RenegadeRick]

Here is some interesting OPINION on polling and who will be the Republican nominee.

slightly condensed from:
ron-paul-gop-front-runner
In all likelihood, Ron Paul is the strongest Republican candidate and the one most likely to take the GOP nomination.

The only measure by which Ron Paul is doing poorly are the telephone polls. He is slowly growing even by this measure, but generally lags well behind the other candidates.

The explanation, once given, is immediately clear and compelling. The telephone polls do not give us a representative cross section of the voters who will show up to vote in the Republican primaries. First of all, polling companies may not call numbers on the Do Not Call List.

it is not hard to imagine that the polls have a non-representative sample from the very outset. Caller ID also reduces their response rates, and while John Zogby himself has said that he believes this is not yet enough to invalidate telephone polling, even he foresees a day when telephone polls will no longer be useful.

When the polls finally do get a response, they do not necessarily count it in their final analysis. Indeed, only a small minority of responses are typically counted. Apart from the respondent’s candidate preference, the pollsters inquire into other things as well, such as if they voted in the last election, if they have voted Republican before and other similar issues.

What they seek to do is peel away people they believe are unlikely to vote in a Republican primary. This might be valid for most primaries, but Ron Paul is a different sort of candidate. The anecdotal evidence is overwhelming that Ron Paul is drawing huge support from Democrats, independents, Libertarians and libertarians, lapsed and disaffected Republicans and people who have never voted before. None of these groups is registering in the polls. John Zogby himself has said that Ron Paul probably has support above 15%, and possibly above 20%.

Remember, the polls are essentially measuring the support candidates have among those who voted in the last Republican primaries. But four years ago George Bush was an incumbent president. He had not only proved himself a douche bag but was guaranteed the victory. Ron Paul is polling, nationally, at about 8% among [people] who showed up to vote for a douche ba[g] who was going to win anyway!

But the single most important measure of his campaign’s strength is the money he has been able to raise. In the third quarter, when all the other candidates saw a drop in raised funds, he more than doubled his second quarter contributions, exceeding $5 million dollars. This raised a lot of eyebrows and garnered him some deserved attention. When, on November 5th, the date of the first now-famous Money Bomb, he raised $4.3 million dollars on a single day, nearly all of it from online contributions, and set the record for actual funds raised in a single day, it was grudgingly conceded by the Main Stream Media that he was a serious candidate (John Kerry’s supposed record haul of $5.7 million on the day he accepted the Democrat nomination consisted largely of pledges, not actual donations. Furthermore, the Clinton campaign’s claims of a record day of fundraising are not supported by the papers she filed with the Federal Elections Commission). On December 16th, when he raised $6.04 million and set a new record, one that bettered even John Kerry’s dubious mark, he served notice that he was unequivocally the leading Republican candidate for president.

So far, Ron Paul has raised about $18.5 million dollars this quarter and looks to finish at about $19 million, unless another surge of money comes in to end the quarter. This will far outstrip anything the other candidates are raising. The supposedly surging Huckabee campaign, when they tried to initiate a Money Bomb of their own, got all of 186 pledges in the initial days. Contrast this with the 60,000 individual donors for the December 16th Money Bomb. Now, apart from the free Internet attention he has been getting, Ron Paul will be able to outmuscle the other candidates in the more traditional areas of marketing. Ron Paul’s average donation, at least on his Money Bomb days, is just over $100, an amount far below what other candidates typically get. Ron Paul, you must understand, does not sell future favors for campaign contributions, and so does not get big corporate donations. Therefore, $1 million raised by Ron Paul represents many more votes than $1 million raised by Rudy McRomnabee Thompson. When Ron Paul not only has more votes per dollar raised, but also more dollars raised, you know the other candidates are in trouble.

The others are pro-war candidates, and they will split the vote of this smaller segment of America. Meanwhile, Ron Paul is all by himself as a pro-peace candidate and will without serious competition collect votes from the 70% of the American public who are sick of the war. It has long been demonstrated that Ron Paul demolishes the rest of the field among those who have heard him speak. Now he has the money to reach well beyond the Internet.

My prediction is this: Ron Paul will finish in the top three in Iowa, possibly even winning it, and will take New Hampshire and South Carolina, thus forcing the MSM to treat him as a front runner.

 

[Toshi]

Transcend: how much of the US's GDP does it spend on the military? how much do other developed nations spend? why again is it impossible to cut back?

 

[skatetokil]

.
Go for it, the numbers and budgets are all online. Prove to me it can be done. It simply isn't possible to run a modern, 1st world super power on 50% of it's current budget (which is currently running a 6% deficit.

Keep in mind you need a certain level of social programs (emergency relief), you need infrastructure (highways, shipping lanes), you need defense, you need certain governing bodies as mentioned (FCC, FDA), you need intelligence gathering bodies and law enforcement (CIA, FBI, ATF, INS).

I infer that you believe the government must be involved in all these areas, that our super power responsibilities justify and require violence and espionage, and that there is no alternative to the nation state.

That's what you have been told to think, so I guess it's not really your fault, but these are damn inconvenient views to have drilled into the heads of hundreds of millions of people when it becomes necessary for our system of government to evolve.

 

[Transcend]

I infer that you believe the government must be involved in all these areas, that our super power responsibilities justify and require violence and espionage, and that there is no alternative to the nation state.

That's what you have been told to think, so I guess it's not really your fault, but these are damn inconvenient views to have drilled into the heads of hundreds of millions of people when it becomes necessary for our system of government to evolve.

In other words, you can't do it.

 

[MikeD]

oooh, Tim Russert appears to be taking a piece out of RP on Meet the Press...

Gotta admit I agree with RP on some issues, but I remain unconvinced he'd be a good president.

 

[skatetokil]

If I were king of the United States and everyone had to obey my edicts I could easily eliminate 50% of the federal budget without eliminating anything I consider essential. However, this is not my personal kingdom and instead of getting out the red pen and cutting programs I'm here talking to you about this.

Until people understand why overspending is a problem, until they believe that our government is too large and intrusive, real reform can't happen without violence or coercion (which I am opposed to).

It is politically impossible and economically disastrous in the short term to just unmake the government's promises. In that sense, you're right, you can't just cut everything out of the budget. People need a transition period that permits them to adjust to the new institutional environment without getting put out on the street. Many libertarians advocate prior restraint in the creation of entitlements and new programs precisely because they are so hard to get rid of once they have employees and constituents. However, hard and impossible are two different things.

 

[discombob]

Check this out:

http://www.google.com/intl/en/press/zeitgeist2007/newsmakers.html

Does this mean that everyone who uses Google are tin-hat wearing idiots?

 

[RenegadeRick]

Last edited by MikeD : Yesterday at 02:55 PM. Reason: I capitalized President for No Apparent Reason

Freudian slip?

 

[N8 v2.0]

Howz a bout a Paultard update eh??

 

[$tinkle]

 

[N8 v2.0]

Ron Paul has a whopping 14 delegates!

$19.95 million thru last quarter of 2007 and $5.9 million so far the first quarter of 2008. Grand total of $25,850,000.

That's only $1.8M per delegate...

 

[RenegadeRick]

Howz a bout a Paultard update eh??

Well here is a Message from Ron.

Since he says that he will not run independent, and actually says what he believes (unlike Hillary who repeatedly said that she would not run for president), I read it to say that he is focusing on his congressional campaign and letting the presidential campaign slide.

I believe this means that the Republicans are doomed to nominate McCain with his "we could do 100 years in Iraq" carp.

I believe this also means that we will be getting President Obama in less than 1 year.

So, I have a question for Silver. How do you think this will affect the US policy of killing brown people around the world?

 

[fluff]

I believe this means that the Republicans are doomed to nominate McCain with his "we could do 100 years in Iraq" carp.

I believe this also means that we will be getting President Obama in less than 1 year.

So, I have a question for Silver. How do you think this will affect the US policy of killing brown people around the world?

I'm not Silver but I reckon y'all be killin's just as many brown people under McCain as you done has been under Dubya.

 

[$tinkle]

I'm not Silver but I reckon y'all be killin's just as many brown people under McCain as you done has been under Dubya.

mccain prefers the term 'gooks', tyvm

 

[N8 v2.0]

mccain prefers the term 'gooks', tyvm

would they be more yellow than brown anyway?

 

[Silver]

So, I have a question for Silver. How do you think this will affect the US policy of killing brown people around the world?

The only difference is that the guy ordering the killing will be brown.

Every US President since Truman (and many before that, but I'm using the Nuremberg definitions) has been guilty of war crimes. It's a requirement of empire.

 

[MikeD]

Finally!

Obama gets the comeuppance he deserves from the Paultards!!

Extra! Extra!

Paultards passionately committed to geographic non-entities!

 

[N8 v2.0]

We need a paultard update!!!

 

[X3pilot]

We need a paultard update!!!

God, let it go. He's over and done.

 

[DRB]

He's going to save us all. All Hail King Ron!

 

[N8 v2.0]

God, let it go. He's over and done.

Oh no he isn't..!!!!

just ask your local paultard during a WoW break...

 

[Transcend]

This thread should be stickied for eternity.

 

[blue]

Yesterday I drove by a hotel downtown and a mob of Paulites were out front with their signs and banners and all manner of retardation...WTF? He quit, right? GO HOME.

 

[N8 v2.0]

OMFG!!!

RonPaul has biggest showing EVER in Idaho!!11111

 

[Spero]

Comment gold.

1.

LOL He nearly doubled Obama's votes--about nine or ten times what Hilliary got...hahaha
Posted by Buckley May 28, 08 11:25 AM

2.

Ron Paul rocks!!!
Posted by Susan May 28, 08 11:34 AM

3.

I believe in miracles.

Read Ron Paul's New York Times #1 Bestseller "The Revolution: A Manifesto" if you want to see why the grassroots is so enthused...
Posted by ellen May 28, 08 11:41 AM

4.

1 out of 4 republicans in idaho voted Ron Paul.....I know where I'm moving when Ohio goes communist.....
Posted by Andy May 28, 08 11:49 AM

5.

Hillary and Obama had caucuses not primarys. Thats why they didnt get nearly as many vote. If they had a primary their totals would have been in the 6 figures.
Posted by nick May 28, 08 11:51 AM

6.

that's so exciting! go ron go!
Posted by edwin May 28, 08 11:56 AM

7.

Go Ron Paul!!! Save our country!! Ron Paul is not even covered by the mainstream media and still gets his best showing yet!!!! Woot!
Posted by Kyle May 28, 08 12:12 PM

8.

The Revolution: A Manifesto. It's happening.

ohhhh, 2010 and 2012 are going to be RIPE times with the revolutionairies in place ;-).
Posted by pdubya May 28, 08 12:15 PM

9.

Nick said " Hillary and Obama had caucuses not primarys. Thats why they didnt get nearly as many vote. If they had a primary their totals would have been in the 6 figures."

Nick, did you vote in Idaho? Well I did, there were two sides to the ballot one for democrats and one for republicans. It was an open primary so at the booth you could pick to vote for either party. Get your facts straight before you spout off.
Posted by scott May 28, 08 12:57 PM

10.

Ron Paul is our only hope to stop liberal Hillary, liberal Obama, and liberal McCain! We need to drastically educate the people around us on why the growth of government is only going to harm our liberty, prosperity, and peaceful nature of freedom. Our founding fathers would be disgusted at the scope of government. Jefferson is truly turning over in his grave and most people don't even understand why.
Posted by Michael Shanklin May 28, 08 01:03 PM

11.

viva la revolution!
Posted by LibertyNH May 28, 08 01:22 PM

12.

DRUMZ . org reporting in for duty! Recreate '68 at the RNC in Denver. The R3VOLUTION will not be televised... but we've done alright without fair media reporting so far. What Asian-American in their right mind in going to vote for John "I Hate the Gooks" McCain?
Posted by EvilBankers.com May 28, 08 01:30 PM

13.

I voted for you out here in Idaho! You're the only guy that gets it.
Posted by Jeff May 28, 08 01:46 PM

14.

When is the press gonna give Hillary Clinton the Ron Paul black-out treatment? She has no chance of winning yet her mug is in every paper across the nation every day. She is living proof that the media determines who we need to pay attention to. Ron Paul is proof of who the people want to pay attention to.

How many comments did your last article about Hillary get?
Posted by MarkD May 28, 08 01:49 PM

15.

I voted FOR Ron Paul.
Election after election, it seems I was always voting against someone.
I assume McCain's name was listed, I didn't notice it.
Posted by Idaho May 28, 08 01:52 PM

16.

Ron Paul and the people that vote for him and support him, History will judge you as true Americans, believers in the Constitution, Freedom and Liberty,and Peace
Death to the NEO CONS and there New World Order.
Posted by RaferJanders May 28, 08 01:57 PM

17.

Wow, now he's got 35 delegates. Only 1135 needed to lock up the Republican nomination.
Posted by nathan May 28, 08 02:04 PM

18.

God Bless Ron Paul. the only Congressman that understands the role of Government and votes for the Constitutional position every single time!
Posted by mike May 28, 08 02:15 PM

19.

Ron Paul is a genius!

 

[$tinkle]

oh, wait: today is guy fawkes day. gather round kids, let's sing a few lyrics:do you watch The Wall w/ your paulinesians every friday night while live blogging?

bumpity

(since n8's on a tear)

 

[Samirol]

He's a real Republican. The neo-cons have warped what the GOP stands for. He's also the only hope for a GOP win. Liberals and moderates will vote for him. That's more than can be said for any other republican.

This post is pretty funny in retrospect

 

[Defenestrated]

lol....