I Am Weasel
Member
- Joined
- Jul 28, 2007
- Messages
- 412
Noticed a thread over at nasaspaceflight.com regarding presidential candidates. Ron Paul was brought up as being laughable, and was given this response....
Can you explain how Ron Paul is laughable? The man is genuine and the most suited for the job as president. He has the interest of the US sovereignty as the focal point of his campaign and that's laughable? I can't for the life of me understand what is wrong with people today that if a politician is willing to go by the laws of our constitution that he's a laughing stock. {snip}
~reply~
I am afraid you do not understand Ron Paul at all.
He is a Libertarian who runs as a Republican (it's easier to get elected that way in the lone star state). His policies range from the scatter-brained (supports "free trade" while also supporting excise taxes on things manufactured in the US), to the unworkable (proposes cutting programs that everybody knows the public will not tolerate cutting... Look: the Republicans started-out their mini revolution in 1994 planning to kill the federal dept of education and PBS, but ended-up boosting spending on the federal dept of education and could not escape the wrath of soccer moms everywhere when they threatened to "kill Big Bird" ). As a libertarian, you should not expect him to want to see the federal government spend any money on space for any purpose other than defense. Most Libertarians believe that things like resource or weather satellites and manned spacecraft are better operated as a commercial for-profit service than as a government service; there's certainly nothing about spaceflight in the Constitution. The one pro-space Ron Paul point I will draw your attention to is that he supported Reagan's SDI program (which is consistent with a person who is essentially an isolationist but who is concerned about national security in the era of MAD). The reason he can get such wide support from so many is that (unlike many politicians) he attempts to be consistent with what he claims to believe and yet he has such a scattered set of positions that almost anybody can find something they like. The trick, of course, is for each supporter to either not look close enough to see all that he does not want, or to assume that Paul would stick to the positions the particular voter likes while failing to stick to all that other stuff...
In any event, you need to realize that Ron Paul will not get the nomination of any party (though he might actually jerk the GOP back a bit towards it's smaller government traditions).
This is a spaceflight forum, not a science fiction forum.
if anybody cares to check out this thread, it's here...
http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/forums/thread-view.asp?tid=9993&start=256&posts=267
Can you explain how Ron Paul is laughable? The man is genuine and the most suited for the job as president. He has the interest of the US sovereignty as the focal point of his campaign and that's laughable? I can't for the life of me understand what is wrong with people today that if a politician is willing to go by the laws of our constitution that he's a laughing stock. {snip}
~reply~
I am afraid you do not understand Ron Paul at all.
He is a Libertarian who runs as a Republican (it's easier to get elected that way in the lone star state). His policies range from the scatter-brained (supports "free trade" while also supporting excise taxes on things manufactured in the US), to the unworkable (proposes cutting programs that everybody knows the public will not tolerate cutting... Look: the Republicans started-out their mini revolution in 1994 planning to kill the federal dept of education and PBS, but ended-up boosting spending on the federal dept of education and could not escape the wrath of soccer moms everywhere when they threatened to "kill Big Bird" ). As a libertarian, you should not expect him to want to see the federal government spend any money on space for any purpose other than defense. Most Libertarians believe that things like resource or weather satellites and manned spacecraft are better operated as a commercial for-profit service than as a government service; there's certainly nothing about spaceflight in the Constitution. The one pro-space Ron Paul point I will draw your attention to is that he supported Reagan's SDI program (which is consistent with a person who is essentially an isolationist but who is concerned about national security in the era of MAD). The reason he can get such wide support from so many is that (unlike many politicians) he attempts to be consistent with what he claims to believe and yet he has such a scattered set of positions that almost anybody can find something they like. The trick, of course, is for each supporter to either not look close enough to see all that he does not want, or to assume that Paul would stick to the positions the particular voter likes while failing to stick to all that other stuff...
In any event, you need to realize that Ron Paul will not get the nomination of any party (though he might actually jerk the GOP back a bit towards it's smaller government traditions).
This is a spaceflight forum, not a science fiction forum.
if anybody cares to check out this thread, it's here...
http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/forums/thread-view.asp?tid=9993&start=256&posts=267
