We should create a Ron Paul Forums candidate questionnaire

TaftFan

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We spend so much time wondering and debating whether or not candidates agree with us on the issues.

Why not create an official-looking questionnaire which Bryan or a designated mod could send to candidates?

I'm interested in hearing everybody's input.
 
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Excellent idea, I'd for sure do what I can. Below is part of the candidate questionnaire used for the Liberty Straw Poll (back in 2008) that can be a starting point. The main policy issues are true / false, which I like. Some of the ones listed should be updated, and we can add more too-- so let's come up with some ideas.

Thanks!


----------

Campaign Race Overview

Date of primary
(if applicable):

Incumbent: (if applicable):

Incumbent’s political party affiliation:



List all opponents, their political party affiliation:
Opponent / Political Party Affiliation


Policy Positions

1. Do you support or oppose constitutional limits on the growth of government?

2. Do you support or oppose the 2nd Amendment right to keep and bear arms?

3. Do you support or oppose the Supreme Court Kelo vs. New London eminent domain decision?

4. Do you support or oppose the Security & Prosperity Partnership goal of an external North American security perimeter with expedited shared border crossing?

5. Do you support or oppose a Photo ID requirement to vote?

6. Do you support or oppose the use of Public Private Partnerships for Transportation?

7. Do you support or oppose asserting states 10th Amendment rights?

8. Do you support or oppose U.S. implementation of United Nations Agenda 21?

9. Do you support or oppose a National biometric ID?

10. Do you support or oppose participation in the REAL ID Act of 2005?

11. Do you support or oppose a Global Tax?

12. Do you support or oppose the Cap and Trade Carbon tax scheme?

13. Do you support or oppose NAFTA, CAFTA, and FTAA type Trade agreements?

14. Do you support or oppose the UN Law of the Sea Treaty?

15. Do you support or oppose abolishing the IRS?

16. Do you support or oppose abolishing the Federal Reserve?


Optional addition of detail for above positions:



Position paper web link (can be broad or narrow in focus):
http://


Speaking engagement video web link:
http://



Current Campaign Support


List all relevant polling data on race:


Endorsements received:
 
A candidate questionnaire should not lead the candidate to the answer you want to receive. The questions should be broad, so that the person answering shouldn't be able to tell if they are coming from a far left organization, a statist, a NEOCON, or a liberty advocate. Just food for thought.
 
We spend so much time wondering and debating whether or not candidates agree with us on the issues.

Why not create an official-looking questionnaire which Bryan or a designated mod could send to candidates?

I'm interested in hearing everybody's input.

Good idea.
 
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All that I ask is what the candidates official position is on science and technology in general and how would they lead us given it's impact and relevance to infrastructural and social change and specifically legislation that may be, in part, or in whole, derived and applicable from it.

In other words, I'm not asking them to tell me how they feel about something like...oh...let's say genetically modified food being a great market opportunity. I would like to hear their official position on the science itself and applications derived from it that may or may not be introduced to the human species through political legislation. Seems like an honest, fair and relevant enough question.

That is all. Thank You. Good idea, taftfan...

If I just heard an answer to this one particular question, regardless of if I disagree or agree with the prospective representatives position there would be a lot less pissing and moaning from me around here. I'd be a happy camper. It's a very important question. It's the very stuff that dictyates and defines change during these very delicate times of transition from the Industrial Age to the Information and Technology Age.
 
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All that I ask is what the candidates official position is on science and technology in general and how would they lead us given it's impact and relevance to infrastructural and social change and specifically legislation that may be, in part, or in whole, derived and applicable from it.

In other words, I'm not asking them to tell me how they feel about something like...oh...let's say genetically modified food being a great market opportunity. I would like to hear their official position on the science itself and applications derived from it that may or may not be introduced to the human species through political legislation. Seems like an honest, fair and relevant enough question.

That is all. Thank You. Good idea, taftfan...

If I just heard an answer to this one particular question, regardless of if I disagree or agree with the prospective representatives position there would be a lot less pissing and moaning from me around here. I'd be a happy camper. It's a very important question. It's the very stuff that dictyates and defines change during these very delicate times of transition from the Industrial Age to the Information and Technology Age.

Perhaps a couple of questions that relate to corporations writing legislation and tests on unsuspecting population (limited or not)?
 
A candidate questionnaire should not lead the candidate to the answer you want to receive. The questions should be broad, so that the person answering shouldn't be able to tell if they are coming from a far left organization, a statist, a NEOCON, or a liberty advocate. Just food for thought.

No kidding! Might as well have questions like:

You don't want to take muh guns, do ya? __________________
You don't support killin babies, do ya? __________________
 
All that I ask is what the candidates official position is on science and technology in general and how would they lead us given it's impact and relevance to infrastructural and social change and specifically legislation that may be, in part, or in whole, derived and applicable from it.

In other words, I'm not asking them to tell me how they feel about something like...oh...let's say genetically modified food being a great market opportunity. I would like to hear their official position on the science itself and applications derived from it that may or may not be introduced to the human species through political legislation. Seems like an honest, fair and relevant enough question.

That is all. Thank You. Good idea, taftfan...

If I just heard an answer to this one particular question, regardless of if I disagree or agree with the prospective representatives position there would be a lot less pissing and moaning from me around here. I'd be a happy camper. It's a very important question. It's the very stuff that dictyates and defines change during these very delicate times of transition from the Industrial Age to the Information and Technology Age.

I can't even tell what you're asking from this. There's no question in there.
 
Excellent idea, I'd for sure do what I can. Below is part of the candidate questionnaire used for the Liberty Straw Poll (back in 2008) that can be a starting point. The main policy issues are true / false, which I like. Some of the ones listed should be updated, and we can add more too-- so let's come up with some ideas.

Thanks!


----------

Campaign Race Overview

Date of primary
(if applicable):

Incumbent: (if applicable):

Incumbent’s political party affiliation:



List all opponents, their political party affiliation:
Opponent / Political Party Affiliation


Policy Positions

1. Do you support or oppose constitutional limits on the growth of government?

2. Do you support or oppose the 2nd Amendment right to keep and bear arms?

3. Do you support or oppose the Supreme Court Kelo vs. New London eminent domain decision?

4. Do you support or oppose the Security & Prosperity Partnership goal of an external North American security perimeter with expedited shared border crossing?

5. Do you support or oppose a Photo ID requirement to vote?

6. Do you support or oppose the use of Public Private Partnerships for Transportation?

7. Do you support or oppose asserting states 10th Amendment rights?

8. Do you support or oppose U.S. implementation of United Nations Agenda 21?

9. Do you support or oppose a National biometric ID?

10. Do you support or oppose participation in the REAL ID Act of 2005?

11. Do you support or oppose a Global Tax?

12. Do you support or oppose the Cap and Trade Carbon tax scheme?

13. Do you support or oppose NAFTA, CAFTA, and FTAA type Trade agreements?

14. Do you support or oppose the UN Law of the Sea Treaty?

15. Do you support or oppose abolishing the IRS?

16. Do you support or oppose abolishing the Federal Reserve?


Optional addition of detail for above positions:



Position paper web link (can be broad or narrow in focus):
http://


Speaking engagement video web link:
http://



Current Campaign Support


List all relevant polling data on race:


Endorsements received:

Well first we need to establish if a yes or no answer to each question would be a positive towards their score. On some of those it's debatable amongst us and would further define RPF's goals which would both piss off some and justify others.
 
We spend so much time wondering and debating whether or not candidates agree with us on the issues.

Why not create an official-looking questionnaire which Bryan or a designated mod could send to candidates?

I'm interested in hearing everybody's input.

What would stop people like Rubio from getting a good score?
 
What's the correct answer to #3?

Devil's Advocate
It was a trick question. :) No really, good point- the question could be better worded.

A candidate questionnaire should not lead the candidate to the answer you want to receive. The questions should be broad, so that the person answering shouldn't be able to tell if they are coming from a far left organization, a statist, a NEOCON, or a liberty advocate. Just food for thought.
At a large point, I agree with you, but I also agree with Williams that we shouldn't back down on asking hard questions on where they stand.

No kidding! Might as well have questions like:

You don't want to take muh guns, do ya? __________________
You don't support killin babies, do ya? __________________
I think asking questions on their support of particular bills / acts / initiatives is a good way to avoid this, since all of these items have people for and against it. Otherwise, I agree to not over-lead people.


Well first we need to establish if a yes or no answer to each question would be a positive towards their score. On some of those it's debatable amongst us and would further define RPF's goals which would both piss off some and justify others.
Well, first we should polish up the questions. That list is pretty dated and coming up on six years old. Otherwise, I think it's OK if some of the questions split the site, we don't all have to agree on all issues, but this will set the lay of the land. The questions should also be more clear, such as the "Photo ID" question (which we won't all agree on)- it should at least specific if the requirement is on a federal level, state level, etc.

So the questions need work-- let's come up with more questions.

Thanks!
 
It was a trick question. :) No really, good point- the question could be better worded.

Its actually a fair question, its just not as clear as it first seems what the "correct" answer is. Hence why I posted Stephan Kinsella arguing at length that preserving federalism is more important than having SCOTUS prevent local eminent domain, as well as arguing that takings for private use are no worse than for public use. Some people obviously disagree with him and think that such SCOTUS actions would be justified, which to my understanding is the more common libertarian position. I suspect there are people here on both sides as well. Right now, I'm leaning toward Stephan Kinsella being right, you don't cure local government violence with Federal Government violence. And if SCOTUS had not done what it did, Connecticut would start arguing "well, if we can't have our "states rights" than why does Montana get to defy the Federal government on machine guns" or whatever. Better to just go with the 50 independent republics with open borders thing rather than saying "well, sometimes the Feds have a right to unconstitutionally impose themselves."

On the other hand, at an individual level I probably would appeal to SCOTUS if I felt like it might undo a wrong that was done against me, so I don't really know.

I guess the question here is, does RPF want to actually formalize a stance on this federalism debate? If it does, how would such a stance be determined? Will we simply go with whatever Bryan's opinion is on this topic? Vote? Something else?

It might be better to simply go with "Does government have a right to use eminent domain to take land for private use" or "Does government have a right to use eminent domain for any reason." Neither question being controversial from any kind of libertarian perspective. But Kelo v New London is somewhat controversial for the reasons Kinsella discusses.
 
See my response to the same post. I think that is what was being asked in so many words.

Just their official position on science would suffice. It's basically what I had asked in that first sentence but then went off into my own stake in it. I'm not particularly anti-corporation.
 
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