Ron Paul is an isolationist.

[ForLiberty-RonPaul]

YouTube - CNN: Ron Paul on Isolationism

 

[Elwar]

This is a good point , but at the same time , if most of our private gas companies are buying thier oil from the same country, and that country gets attacked and thier becomes a oil shortage, it is still going to crash our entire economy .

At which point , the government will step in and probably go to war.

The link between your first paragraph and the second is what is wrong with this country.

 

[ForLiberty-RonPaul]

have we forgotten this.......

YouTube - Ron Paul teaches Mccain on Nonintervention

 

[Austin]

i have a problem with the word itself...no matter how it may be defined...

we should coin the term "Neutralist"

My YAL chapter supports "a sensible foreign policy of armed neutrality"

 

[dannno]

So, wouldn't the smartest move be to become as totally self-sufficient as possible?? Drill for our own oil , manufacture our own goods , etc ?? Then we could truly be non-interventionist...

Well first we need a level playing field by trading in commodities like gold instead of fiat currency... The global banks are doing a terrible disservice by artificially inflating and deflating specific currencies.

When you make something locally it costs $X. When you make something and sell it to a foreign country suddenly it costs $X + Shipping... so MOST things should be cheaper to produce locally, and the market forces would naturally keep the production of certain types of goods in the domestic market.

Then what trade is good for is if you produce an excess of something that you are really good at producing... Like if the U.S. makes 25 billion computer chips every year, but only needs 5 billion.. Then let's say China gets really good at making computer monitors. They make 10 billion computer monitors each year, but they only need 2 billion.

That doesn't mean the U.S. should stop making computer monitors, and we wouldn't without the artificially manipulated currencies and trade deficits, but that kind of situation I described shows a great opportunity to trade. Overall we will end up with a lot more computer chips and monitors than if we had decided to manufacture them ourselves, because the U.S. is a lot better at making computer chips and China is a lot better at making monitors (in my hypothetical example..)

The reason our country has become dependent on oil is because of our interventionist foreign policy. If we had minded our own business and drilled our own oil along with simply buying oil on the global market, we would have paid a lot more for it and other energy options would have emerged much earlier.

 

[Bucjason]

The link between your first paragraph and the second is what is wrong with this country.

Which is why free trade isn't going to make us non-interventionist, but being as self-sufficient as possible will.

We need to remove all the economic restrictions that make this impossible , especially when it comes to energy.

 

[Bucjason]

Well first we need a level playing field by trading in commodities like gold instead of fiat currency... The global banks are doing a terrible disservice by artificially inflating and deflating specific currencies.

When you make something locally it costs $X. When you make something and sell it to a foreign country suddenly it costs $X + Shipping... so MOST things should be cheaper to produce locally, and the market forces would naturally keep the production of certain types of goods in the domestic market.

Then what trade is good for is if you produce an excess of something that you are really good at producing... Like if the U.S. makes 25 billion computer chips every year, but only needs 5 billion.. Then let's say China gets really good at making computer monitors. They make 10 billion computer monitors each year, but they only need 2 billion.

That doesn't mean the U.S. should stop making computer monitors, and we wouldn't without the artificially manipulated currencies and trade deficits, but that kind of situation I described shows a great opportunity to trade. Overall we will end up with a lot more computer chips and monitors than if we had decided to manufacture them ourselves, because the U.S. is a lot better at making computer chips and China is a lot better at making monitors (in my hypothetical example..)

The reason our country has become dependent on oil is because of our interventionist foreign policy. If we had minded our own business and drilled our own oil along with simply buying oil on the global market, we would have paid a lot more for it and other energy options would have emerged much earlier.

makes sense to me

 

[ForLiberty-RonPaul]

Which is why free trade isn't going to make us non-interventionist, but being as self-sufficient as possible will.

We need to remove all the economic restrictions that make this impossible , especially when it comes to energy.

Ron Paul disagrees with you. Watch the above videos.

 

[Elwar]

Which is why free trade isn't going to make us non-interventionist, but being as self-sufficient as possible will.

We need to remove all the economic restrictions that make this impossible , especially when it comes to energy.

No, that's because people rely too much on the government to save them instead of taking care of themselves. If the oil stops flowing then it's not up to the government to save us, but up to us to find an alternative way of doing what we need to do. Or planning ahead of time, including the risk factor when making decisions to build a whole system based around a foreign resource.

 

[virgil47]

No, that's because people rely too much on the government to save them instead of taking care of themselves. If the oil stops flowing then it's not up to the government to save us, but up to us to find an alternative way of doing what we need to do. Or planning ahead of time, including the risk factor when making decisions to build a whole system based around a foreign resource.

How would this scenario work when applied to rare metals that are needed to manufacture certain items of value in our society? Our country does not possess any rare metal deposits.

 

[virgil47]

I think what some people are missing is that a Ron Paul style Federal Government would allow private enterprise to contract and make economic commitments with those of other nations without the GOVERNMENT making contracts and economic commitments to other nations...

A true isolationist country would take steps towards PREVENTING private enterprise from interacting and making contracts and economic commitments with foreign countries.

Private enterprise cannot make economic commitments without government approval because if they did the entire economy of our country could be adversely affected if they were not able to live up to their commitments. Say a large farming conglomerate made a trade commitment with China and for some reason was not able to fulfill that agreement. What recourse would China have? Well they would use our court system to strip the conglomerate of it's resources. China would end up owning a large chunk of American soil and that could adversely impact our society in general.