[Nameless One]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rsL6mKxtOlQ

George Carlin:

    The real owners are the big wealthy business interests that control things and make all the important decisions. Forget the politicians, they”re an irrelevancy. The politicians are put there to give you the idea that you have freedom of choice. You don”t. You have no choice. You have owners. They own you. They own everything. They own all the important land. They own and control the corporations. They”ve long since bought and paid for the Senate, the Congress, the statehouses, the city halls. They”ve got the judges in their back pockets. And they own all the big media companies, so that they control just about all of the news and information you hear. They”ve got you by the balls. They spend billions of dollars every year lobbying ­ lobbying to get what they want. Well, we know what they want; they want more for themselves and less for everybody else.

    But I”ll tell you what they don”t want. They don”t want a population of citizens capable of critical thinking. They don”t want well-informed, well-educated people capable of critical thinking. They”re not interested in that. That doesn”t help them. That”s against their interests. They don”t want people who are smart enough to sit around the kitchen table and figure out how badly they”re getting fucked by a system that threw them overboard 30 fucking years ago.

    You know what they want? Obedient workers ­ people who are just smart enough to run the machines and do the paperwork but just dumb enough to passively accept all these increasingly shittier jobs with the lower pay, the longer hours, reduced benefits, the end of overtime and the vanishing pension that disappears the minute you go to collect it. And, now, they”re coming for your Social Security. They want your fucking retirement money. They want it back, so they can give it to their criminal friends on Wall Street. And you know something? They”ll get it. They”ll get it all, sooner or later, because they own this fucking place. It”s a big club, and you ain”t in it. You and I are not in the big club.

    This country is finished.

[Robyo]

Hey Xeno, your detailed post is appreciated and more respectful than just throwing up a link to some left-leaning blog rant. The Carlin quote is excellent too. I'd heard that bit before and he really nails it. By any measure, Ron Paul isn't perfect, but he does have principles which he has stuck to for many decades. Principles are something most politicians seem to lack nowadays.

Your concerns about RP eliminating legalized abortion or the EPA is valid. But anything he'd enact would still have to go through Congress (which makes his Libertarian ideal very moot). As I understand it, he's a big advocate for states rights. Perhaps he'd let them individually decide if they want to criminalize abortion. On the same token, he would let the states decide if they want to legalize drugs.

I don't think the EPA has teeth anymore. As a government agency, it's subject to the whims of Congressional funding and Presidential order. I understand Bush cut the funding years ago for cleaning up the superfund sites. Perhaps what would help more is making the individuals behind polluting corporations be held legally responsible and accountable for their decisions. The independent advocacy groups could then spend their resources suing the shorts off those polluters, if need be. Ron Paul has said that already-existent laws protecting health and private property would be enough to deal with the problem. I'm not so sure… Definitely corporate law needs major reformation.  I've just never been able to fathom how an artificially-created entity has more rights than a living, breathing being.

[Nameless One]

Sorry, I suppose it seemed self-evident that a Ron Paul presidency would have some serious issues. But hey, fair enough, and like I said: I appreciate that Ron Paul is doing his thing. Since he is unlikely to win the nomination the net effect of his involvement is good as far as I am concerned.

I see what you mean about states rights. He's not inclined to throw the public to the dogs then, perhaps… but here I feel a bit out of my element as I am terribly unfamiliar with state-level politics in the US. I don't know what tendencies legislators have at that level (aside from the recent nonsense in Wisconsin, anyhow, which is not heartening).

As for the issue of corporations, it's a bit foggy to me as well, although I grasp that one of the central benefits is limited liability. There's a reason individuals are not responsible for actions within a corporation: nothing would get done on a national scale if individuals had to answer to every lawsuit thrown at them. Still, it seems like the system errs more in favour of the corporations than the general public, largely because the supposed representatives of the public (elected officials) are much more likely to be under the influence of the corporations, as noted. It's a bad situation all around, but I don't see how dismantling the EPA will help.

Environmental protection is a national concern (actually a global concern) and I don't see how downloading this to individual states would do any good. And really, it shouldn't be up to independent advocacy groups to go after corporations for crimes against the public; that is what government is supposedly for. That being said, I'm not opposed to letting the free market sort it out… the problem is that the market is by no means free; it is riddled with subsidies and hidden costs. I say get rid of the subsidies and factor in those hidden costs (e.g. through a carbon tax and similar measures). Another problem is that we implicitly treat the environment (without which there is no economy) as some kind of limitless resource that we can dump our crap into without moderation. This is not actually the case. We've just been fooling ourselves to think otherwise.

[PookztA]

Robyo, you rock. glad to see that people actually reading into these issues more deeply to fully understand why Dr. Paul believes what he does, and how that is directly supported by the Constitution of the United States of America (and makes a hell of a lot of sense if you think about it). Thanks Robyo, the world is a better place because of your efforts.

Xeno, I respectfully disagree with you regarding Dr. Paul as well as many other things, which should come as no surprise to you. Best wishes to you sir.

-Abe

[Robyo]

@ Abe – thanks, man, I appreciate, but of course I'm not trying to win a debate or a popularity contest or anything. It's cool that you started this thread and for all the stuff you're doing to elevate consciousnesses everywhere. The Constitution really is important and politicians don't realize it. I think Bush once called it “just a piece of paper.”

@ Xeno – you bring up some thoughtful points. I agree the environment is of primary importance to everyone. It's tragic Mother Nature is treated as a commodity, but that's (modern) capitalism: all greed, no ethics. I disagree that we need a carbon tax. Likely the mechanisms for it will be unfairly integrated and mostly benefit the upper class, as taxation always does. A shift in ethics is the only thing that will keep us afloat. But that can't be packaged and sold, so we won't see true change occur until we're near the bitter end. Sucks that throughout history it takes catastrophe for humans to change their ways. There's a Native American proverb I like that says we should treat the land so that seven generations hence will still benefit from it.

[Nameless One]

Yeah, but it's just a platitude.

Er, you realize a carbon tax won't be taking individual consumers, right? The first on the chopping block would be companies like Koch Industries and Exxon Mobil. Yes, lost profits would be handed down to consumers just as the built-in subsidies are. (Gas at the pump is cheaper than its real cost for this reason.) Somehow the big industries have convinced everyone a carbon tax would destroy the economy. It's self-serving propaganda, nothing more.

Abe, I mistakenly thought you might be using this discussion board to, you know, discuss things. Seems like you prefer unidirectional communication. Have you an email newsletter?

[zensphere]

😀

[PookztA]

amazing speech from a young man who gets it (he's done his homework): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tFz1VVXsWRU&sns=fb

gonna make a separate post for this since it is more about Occupy Wallst than about Ron Paul

[Robyo]

I tend to despise taxation in any form. Perhaps if we were allowed to select what cause or department our money was going towards, but it never works that way. Even if it's just taxation on companies, it's going to affect customers too (which I think you already alluded to). Neither do I agree with subsidies or welfare either, corporate or otherwise. Grants are cool, I suppose, but that gets politicized as well. Oh jeez.

[Nameless One]

What do you see as a viable alternative to taxation? Who builds the roads and other civic infrastructure? Actually, I had to Google that question myself… I became too curious 🙂 Wikipedia outlines what I assume is the default libertarian/anarchist counter-proposal:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free-market_roads

Metafilter also has an interesting discussion of the topic:
http://ask.metafilter.com/167820/Who-builds-roads-for-anarchists

Still, I find it hard to imagine how this would work in practise, particularly on the scale of nations, as long as we live in an age of prosperity. I can see it happening in the coming age of austerity if long-distance trade and travel becomes impractical due to energy and resource shortages, but now we're talking about how to organize society after the apocalypse…

[PookztA]

What do you see as a viable alternative to taxation? Who builds the roads and other civic infrastructure? Actually, I had to Google that question myself… I became too curious 🙂 Wikipedia outlines what I assume is the default libertarian/anarchist counter-proposal:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free-market_roads

Xeno,

From what I have come to understand, the root economic issue is our current fractional reserve banking system and keeping the right quantity of money in circulation. The power to regulate the printing / creation of money has been an ongoing battle since the foundation of the USA, when the first independent US colonies separated from Britain by starting to print their own form of money, known as “Colonial Scripts”. The ongoing struggle between the banks and early Congress over the money printing/creation power was a concern of the founding fathers of this nation, and many of them are quoted warning Americans of this very important issue. After the money printing power was later taken back by the banks, few presidents have risen up in an attempt to get the power back for Congress and the people. Andrew Jackson is one that I know of, and Abraham Lincoln's “Green Back” was the second (before he was assassinated). Another that I know of is John F Kennedy, and I bet you remember how that turned out.

In other words, in a debt-free economy there would be little need to tax people since our government or interstate-coalition could print annual or sub-annual “mini-stimulus” plans as determined by the states to fund necessary projects such as roads and such. The printing / creation and spending of money would be done so debt free, decreasing the need for taxation and further money printing / creation to pay for that debt, and also because the spending would be controlled and the budget balanced by our congressional representatives, inflation would be kept to a minimum. Additionally, the notion of state sales tax is another valid source of funds to consider, but individual state governments would independently decide what is best for their own state rather than being influenced by an overly intrusive federal government.

My understanding is limited, but I get the primary points of the issue, and it is evidenced throughout America's history. I decided to try and share what I know with you because of your false assumption that in an 'income tax-free' society, all the roads would likely be built by privately owned corporations. Please just investigate this issue more instead of making false assumptions such as this one, for you can't accurately judge a candidate if you don't truly understand the core details behind their views.

If you have not watched the economic documentaries I posted, please do so. They are very educational, and we all have the potential to benefit from watching those documentaries, just like myself. This is why I decided to share them here, to 'pay it forward' to anyone else that might benefit from it.

Thanks for sharing your opinion,

-Abe

[zensphere]

Relevant: http://news.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/2011/10/ron-paul-would-erase-billions-in.html

[Pauldo]

whoa!  this is starting to look like the old forum  ;D

[PookztA]

Relevant: http://news.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/2011/10/ron-paul-would-erase-billions-in.html

Zensphere,

Similar to the previous issue being discussed, eliminating federal programs such as federal research funding does not prevent individual states from coming together to form a central research-funding agency or from independently funding research within their own individual states.

The point is, the Constitution gives only a few powers to the federal government, but it has grown well beyond its means and caused a lot of problems for our country. Our current federal government is UNCONSTITUTIONAL, and the problems we are seeing today are certainly related to this. One such problem is allowing corruption to breed since federal congressional representatives are often somewhat detached from the people they represent, and this corruption in turn affects all individual states that depend on that overgrown federal government.  Another such problem is the consolidation of power, as we see with President Obama launching non-congressionally-approved cruise missile attacks and troop invasions into countries such as Libya, Yemen, Africa, etc. There are countless other problems of course, and I hope they are as concerning to you as they are to me.

The Constitution directly states that whatever limited powers are not explicitly granted to the federal government by the Constitution, are reserved for the states. The founding fathers did this because they wanted to prevent a central federal government from ever gaining power over the people like the British government did. We have drifted very far from this extremely important constitutional principle, and Dr. Paul would like us to be guided by it once again (and for good reason). This is why our current federal government is UNCONSTITUTIONAL, which should concern every caring American. What this means is that numerous federal institutions would be cut under Dr. Paul, but individual states would still be able to work together or on their own to develop their own institutions for whatever reasons the people deem fit.

If you don't yet understand, I will spell it out even more clearly. Although Dr. Paul's plan would likely cut several federal programs, any quality programs could be kept and maintained by individual or collaborating states if they chose to do so, or new quality programs could be created in their place by individual or collaborating states if those states wanted to use their state dollars for that.

So, in summary, here is my current understanding in two final sentences…

Dr. Paul is about reducing the federal government's unconstitutional power and returning that power to the states, as directed by the Constitution of the United States of America. Dr. Paul is NOT about outlawing/discouraging/preventing the use of state dollars for research or other citizen-approved causes.

I am not 100% certain as to why my understanding of Dr. Paul's support of the Constitution drastically differs from Xeno's and Zensphere's understandings, but perhaps we should all look more into the topic rather than continuing to make false assumptions. It would benefit all of us…

Hope that helps,

-Abe

[Ascension]

So Paul's plan would cut all those program's funding and we would have to hope that someone else would pick up the bill? How likely is this to happen? What incentives would a private company have in keeping these programs afloat (as in, would they be able to profit from them)?

[Author]

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