Lost/Confused Rand Paul Supporter Considering Supporting Bernie Sanders...

[jmdrake]

I live in a plane of existence where I can take a stack of pieces of paper that are essentially IOU's (THAT AREN'T EVENT WORTH GOLD) with pictures of dead Americans on it and pretty much go anywhere in the fucking world and buy anything the fuck i want if i had enough of it.

Yeah. But that's thanks in part to China buying our debt so we'll buy their crap. Seriously it's a house of cards. And Rubio with his 1.5 trillion increase in defense spending coupled with an increase in the so called "earned income child credit" will blow it all as fast as Bernie Sanders with his free college and single payer health care.

 

[nikcers]

Yeah. But that's thanks in part to China buying our debt so we'll buy their crap. Seriously it's a house of cards. And Rubio with his 1.5 trillion increase in defense spending coupled with an increase in the so called "earned income child credit" will blow it all as fast as Bernie Sanders with his free college and single payer health care.

20 trillion more debt and higher taxes under Sander's market manipulation is going to hurt the economy then the same military industrial complex we have been maintaining for 20+ years.

 

[willwash]

Does anyone else remember all the Kucinich trolls back in 2007? There is some weird bizarre fascination bordering on affinity between the extreme left and the liberty movement. I've never understood it.

 

[ProBlue33]

If you are voting in the primaries vote for either Trump or Sanders whatever tickles your idealogical fancy, but pick a side and forget the rest.
Pick your poison that will be fun to watch at least.

 

[rg17]

Does anyone else remember all the Kucinich trolls back in 2007? There is some weird bizarre fascination bordering on affinity between the extreme left and the liberty movement. I've never understood it.

I don't understand either.

 

[r3volution 3.0]

20 trillion more debt and higher taxes under Sander's market manipulation is going to hurt the economy then the same military industrial complex we have been maintaining for 20+ years.

The military budget, while far far larger than necessary, has been more or less flat since the end of WWII.

Welfare spending, meanwhile, has grown well over 20x.

The long run economic threat is welfare spending.

 

[CPUd]

That post WWII dip.

 

[CaptUSA]

So, I had a little get-together today at my house. There were a few Sanders' supporters here.

I can tell you this, they are energized. It reminded me of the early days of Ron Paul. They were talking about how they could go around and help him get elected.

Now, obviously, they don't understand economics, but the passion is still there. It was actually quite refreshing to see people care. In a strange sort of way.

 

[CPUd]

See if you can talk them into doing a Bernie Blimp

 

[nikcers]

The military budget, while far far larger than necessary, has been more or less flat since the end of WWII.

Welfare spending, meanwhile, has grown well over 20x.


The long run economic threat is welfare spending.

Somebody once told me that the single biggest threat to our national security is our debt.

 

[r3volution 3.0]

Somebody once told me that the single biggest threat to our national security is our debt.

Sounds like a smart fella, he should run for President next time.

 

[phillies]

Bernie seeks Rand as VP for equanimity.

That's so funny, I was thinking the same thing. How ironic would it be, a democratic/republican ticket. Maybe it would finally send the message home that both parties are the same thing. Its a shame though that it would have to be a Sanders/Paul ticket instead of Paul/Sanders

 

[Bastiat's The Law]

My bad...okay the cons of Bernie Sanders...

-His ideas on free college for all - this idea would further sky rocket our debt

-His idea to ban semi-auto guns

-Expanding Social Security

I don't know enough about health care to comment on it but I know Obamacare is a mess so I don't how providing free health care will effect the economy.

And the elephant in the room...FORCE. Bernie can't accomplish anything without resorting to force to loot your neighbors.

 

[Makes Interesting Points]

With Socialism, you have to take into account the long term effect on freedom, not just the short term. Yes, Sanders may increase freedom (in a couple ways) during his term, but he would pave the way for a future Socialist to push things too far. The American people won't be able to realize when things have gone too far left before we go past the tipping point of no return. If the U.S. fell to Socialism, there'd be no Left Vs. Right interest left in the world, and interest in politics would go down over night. A dumbed down population that has no political interest is very vulnerable to corruption, especially if the tax code, laws etc. are extremely complicated as a result of Socialism. Our only possible savior is a Capitalist that treats freedom as a moral issue, like Rand Paul.

 

[nikcers]

Yeah. But that's thanks in part to China buying our debt so we'll buy their crap. Seriously it's a house of cards. And Rubio with his 1.5 trillion increase in defense spending coupled with an increase in the so called "earned income child credit" will blow it all as fast as Bernie Sanders with his free college and single payer health care.

That's the media narrative - When China's economy tanked they bailed themselves out with our economy, our economy is stuck on this oil bubble and its looking to crash soon, but in the mean time it has kept our checks cashing, basically all of the job growth has come from Obamacare(which is going to build its own bubble because it was designed to fail) and oil. The middle east is all about propping up our economy.

We put heavy sanctions on Iran/Russia, we flood the market with ethanol and oil from hydraulic fracking that's all subsidized by government market manipulation we didn't even let Canada do their pipeline.. Now we have the highest stockpile of oil right now. We use our control over the oil market as an economic weapon against Russia/Iran and to get cheap labor and interest.

 

[economics102]

IMHO there are some rational reasons for a libertarian voter to support Bernie:

1. If elected, it would mark the first time a truly grassroots, crowd-funded candidate (in the same vein that Ron Paul was crowd-funded) is elected President. This would be a positive step for our democracy. And yes as a libertarian I recognize democracy is evil but the fake, corrupt democracy we have is even worse. We may need to reform democracy in this country before we can use democracy to reform and reduce the size of government.

2. Bernie would be the first candidate in a long time (or forever?) to be fueled in large part by a young constituency, which is famous for being politically uninvolved. This too would be good long term as the youth are more open-minded to liberty than the older generations.

3. Bernie seems very interested in un-corrupting our democratic process. I'm very skeptical he can actually move the needle on this, but if he's able to do this, it might help us down the road in getting an un-corrupt liberty candidate on the main debate stages.

4. Without going through the laundry list, Bernie does have a lot of positions that are steps in the right direction for liberty

5. He does target the banks, albeit not in the same way we do. More attention focused on banks-as-villains could help us in educating more Americans about the Fed.

Obviously, the biggest downside to Bernie is he wants to grow government and cut even further into economic liberty. That makes it a big gamble to support him. On the other hand, if it's Bernie vs. Hillary, at least Bernie's presidency would come with the above upsides in addition to the downsides.

I think Bernie's grassroots, authentic rise could trigger an equal and opposite reaction on the liberty side -- a bigger version of the Ron Paul phenomenon.

That's my two cents. Not sure if I'll actually vote for Bernie but I am considering it.

 

[nikcers]

there is one rational reason

FTFY

He isn't a neocon and doesn't support neocon wars, he isn't owned by the banks, and he isn't a psychopath. The republicans have a majority in congress and he wouldn't be able to enact any of the most painful death sentences he could with a democrat majority. He is so old he will only last 4 years and then we can put our guy in. He wouldn't be able to do much more then the socialist progressive we have in office, except control our troops.

 

[economics102]

FTFY

He isn't a neocon and doesn't support neocon wars, he isn't owned by the banks, and he isn't a psychopath. The republicans have a majority in congress and he wouldn't be able to enact any of the most painful death sentences he could with a democrat majority. He is so old he will only last 4 years and then we can put our guy in. He wouldn't be able to do much more then the socialist progressive we have in office, except control our troops.

I also think Bernie and Ron Paul (through their success) and Rand Paul (through his failure) have demonstrated that the only likely route to victory for a real grassroots candidate is to be authentic and candid like Ron Paul, not to triangulate like Rand attempted to do (for the record, I've been very supportive of Rand's strategy and defended it in the past, but in hindsight I think it was destined to fail). So we need someone authentic for 2020. Other than Justin Amash or Thomas Massie, I'm not sure who could fit the bill for that. Unless Rand can reinvent himself as being more in his father's mold. Maybe he just has to have a moment of candor where he says "I tried being a politician, thinking the ends would justify the means, and I learned the hard way that my father was right, it's a fool's errand. I'm through being 'political'"

 

[nikcers]

I also think Bernie and Ron Paul (through their success) and Rand Paul (through his failure) have demonstrated that the only likely route to victory for a real grassroots candidate is to be authentic and candid like Ron Paul, not to triangulate like Rand attempted to do (for the record, I've been very supportive of Rand's strategy and defended it in the past, but in hindsight I think it was destined to fail). So we need someone authentic for 2020. Other than Justin Amash or Thomas Massie, I'm not sure who could fit the bill for that. Unless Rand can reinvent himself as being more in his father's mold. Maybe he just has to have a moment of candor where he says "I tried being a politician, thinking the ends would justify the means, and I learned the hard way that my father was right, it's a fool's errand. I'm through being 'political'"

Pay attention to his re-election, its going to be more interesting and substantive then the national debate. They are going to have a tougher election in KY then in the white house, the democrats are going to win the whitehouse by a landslide because they didn't pick Rand. Rand is going to stomp the progressive groupthink mindset and it will get national attention from all the republicans.

 

[r3volution 3.0]

IMHO there are some rational reasons for a libertarian voter to support Bernie:

1. If elected, it would mark the first time a truly grassroots, crowd-funded candidate (in the same vein that Ron Paul was crowd-funded) is elected President. This would be a positive step for our democracy. And yes as a libertarian I recognize democracy is evil but the fake, corrupt democracy we have is even worse. We may need to reform democracy in this country before we can use democracy to reform and reduce the size of government.[/quote

2. Bernie would be the first candidate in a long time (or forever?) to be fueled in large part by a young constituency, which is famous for being politically uninvolved. This too would be good long term as the youth are more open-minded to liberty than the older generations.

Not sure how either of those things would help us...

If Bernie manages to win on small donations, how would that help us win on small donations?

If Bernie gets the youth to turn out for him, how would that help us get the youth to turn out for us?

3. Bernie seems very interested in un-corrupting our democratic process. I'm very skeptical he can actually move the needle on this, but if he's able to do this, it might help us down the road in getting an un-corrupt liberty candidate on the main debate stages.

Bernie would have no ability to influence how the GOP/media organizes the GOP debates.

He could influence the Democratic debate process, but I doubt he really would, and we're not running candidates in the Democratic Party anyway (and for good reason).

4. Without going through the laundry list, Bernie does have a lot of positions that are steps in the right direction for liberty

He's mildly anti-war and pro civil liberties. He's the very worst candidate on either side on economic issues.

...not nearly enough overlap to make me even consider voting for him.

5. He does target the banks, albeit not in the same way we do. More attention focused on banks-as-villains could help us in educating more Americans about the Fed.

I don't see any overlap at all on this front.

Being anti-bank, in the sense of wanting to nationalize them, has nothing to do with being pro-market.

Being anti-Fed, because you think it hasn't printed enough money, has nothing to do with opposing central banking.

He's not educating people, he's leading them to a 'cure' for the banking problem that worse than the disease.