Excellent bit by Jon Stewart about Ron Paul media bias

[makattak]

Spending is far less important in my view than some other concerns.

Unless those other concerns are over-regulation, I'd have to disagree.

[MicroBalrog]

Unless those other concerns are over-regulation, I'd have to disagree.

Overregulation. Individual liberty. Tomato... tomahto...

[mtnbkr]

Overregulation. Individual liberty. Tomato... tomahto...

On any given day, I feel much less oppressed by a perceived lack of "individual liberty" than I do by the out of control spending by my government.  I'm more afraid of my children's future due to that spending than I am of anything else.

Also, a significant chunk of our out of control spending contributes to our lessening liberties (DHS, ATF, EPA, etc).

Chris

[MicroBalrog]

On any given day, I feel much less oppressed by a perceived lack of "individual liberty" than I do by the out of control spending by my government.  I'm more afraid of my children's future due to that spending than I am of anything else.

Also, a significant chunk of our out of control spending contributes to our lessening liberties (DHS, ATF, EPA, etc).

 

This is a problematic idea.

Germany is about to balance its budget. So is Italy. Yet both of these countries are oppressive welfare states. German gun control has been elaborated on and discussed here extensively. So is Italian gun control. Russia is aiming to balance its budget within 3 years. Russia is sometihng between a fascist state and Tammany Hall, ruling forever.

America could balance its budget immediately by reducing spending to the levels seen in 2006 (where the Federal government reduced to spending 'only' 2.6 trillion dollars a year); this would allow America to gradually outgrow its debt, and blah, blah, blah.





This has nothing whatever to do with the price of tea in China.

You would still be living in a state that can arrest people and ruin their lives forever for attaching shoelaces to their guns. That imprisons marijuana users, growers, salesmen, and distributors. That... you know the drill, and I do not bother repeating it for you. Suffice it to say that all of those institutions existed in 2006 and they can persist at 2006-level spending.

Nor is imprisoning people and feeling them up at airports all that expensive. The TSA – including its actually-useful function – costs the American taxpayer, or his mythical children, 8 billion dollars a year. This is 58,000 people. America's military budget is 692 billion dollars, and I doubt you feel your freedom seriously threatened by the Marines, sailors, soldiers, and airmen. Far more money is spent on welfare of various kinds that is spent on the salaries of agents, regulators, etc.

For a comparison, BATFE budget is slightly over a billion dollars. TANF (Temporary Assistance for Needy Families) is five billion. Except that billion-dollar budget does almost nothing but fund salaries for people whose job is to badger you, your children, and everybody else over the shape of their guns.  In terms of oppressing the most Americans I'm quite sure BATFE wins out.

So is balancing the budget important? Sure. Very much so. But it is not the most important goal.

As for the debt... it's actually fairly easy to outgrow, but failing that America can just default. Default does not necessarily equal – as we have seen in Iceland – terrible starvation and people dying in the streets. Likely there'll be several years of economic malaise and then America will be prosperous again.

[makattak]

So is balancing the budget important? Sure. Very much so. But it is not the most important goal.

Wrong. It IS currently the most important goal. All the other things you are complaining about may still be important.

However, if we become Weimar or Argentina, all your other problems will never be solved. Preventing an Argentinian style or Weimar style collapse needs to be the primary goal. Advancing liberty is a secondary goal until such time as the collapse is not imminent.

[Perd Hapley]

http://www.gallup.com/poll/149114/Obama-Close-Race-Against-Romney-Perry-Bachmann-Paul.aspx?utm_source=alert&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=syndication&utm_content=morelink&utm_term=All%20Gallup%20Headlines%20-%20Politics

Americans are getting a bit more insane, then.

And Gallup is waking up.  The media might pay a bit more attention to the crazy old uncle, soon.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/blogpost/post/earthquake-rattles-washington-east-coast/2011/08/23/gIQAdypEZJ_blog.html
Washington just felt the earth move, but the epicenter was many miles away. Beware, Barry, it may hit home next year.

[MicroBalrog]

Wrong. It IS currently the most important goal. All the other things you are complaining about may still be important.

Innocent people are imprisoned. This seems to be very important.

However, if we become Weimar or Argentina, all your other problems will never be solved. Preventing an Argentinian style or Weimar style collapse needs to be the primary goal. Advancing liberty is a secondary goal until such time as the collapse is not imminent.

Uh?

America is neither Weimar nor Argentina, for several reasons:


1. America is far wealthier than either. A better model might be Iceland - which defaulted, had an economic contraction, and has already returned to growth.

2. A large fraction of America's debt is internal government debt - government agencies holding bonds. These could be dealt with without any default.

[zahc]

Advancing liberty is a secondary goal until such time as the collapse is not imminent.

I'm not saying you are wrong, but I'd like to point out that there have been nations in recent history who were lead in some pretty regrettable directions with very similar justifications.

[makattak]

I'm not saying you are wrong, but I'd like to point out that there have been nations in recent history who were lead in some pretty regrettable directions with very similar justifications.

Indeed. You will note, however, I didn't say advancing liberty should be ignored, simply not given primacy. Nor did I say we should give up liberty in order to fix the problem.

[AZRedhawk44]

Indeed. You will note, however, I didn't say advancing liberty should be ignored, simply not given primacy. Nor did I say we should give up liberty in order to fix the problem.

Agreed.  Also no increase in Jeebuzing until we fix the bigger problem.

Nothing about taking care of the financial issues says that we have to backslide into hedonism and idolatry, collapsing into drunken saturnalias.

I wouldn't mind a drunken saturnalia, though.

[Perd Hapley]

Agreed.  Also no increase in Jeebuzing gun rights until we fix the bigger problem.

Nothing about taking care of the financial issues says that we have to backslide into hedonism and idolatry, collapsing into drunken saturnalias total disarmament.

Oh, gee, look how badly that works.

[AZRedhawk44]

clever word manipulation and use of strike-thru text

Oh, gee, look how badly that works.

Works fine.

Tea party types aren't going to allow a backslide of 2A rights, any more than they'll be granting surgical licenses to ice-cream vendors so they can give government subsidized abortions out the back of their vans to all the underage kids.

And over-sanctimonious 2A types aren't going to be empowered to "federalize" a bunch of CCW standards and put tiresome burdens on the more free States, to comply with lowest common denominator CCW policies of shytholes like CA.

Things will stay "as is" until the current crisis is resolved.

[Perd Hapley]

No, it doesn't work fine. That is, your plan works fine for things you don't care about, because you don't care about them.

If "jeebuzing," (whatever that may be) is a bad thing, then we shouldn't be doing it at all. But if it is a necessary function of government, neglecting it is, well, neglectful.

But, hey, at least you're consistent in wanting the GOP candidate to alienate himself from 2A supporters just as much as other parts of the base.

[makattak]

Agreed.  Also no increase in Jeebuzing until we fix the bigger problem.

Nothing about taking care of the financial issues says that we have to backslide into hedonism and idolatry, collapsing into drunken saturnalias.

I wouldn't mind a drunken saturnalia, though.

And you're putting words in my mouth. I didn't say don't work to increase liberty. I said it is a secondary goal.

Notice the difference: it's not a matter of saying "STOP ALL THAT "LIBERTY" CRAP, IT ONLY HURTS US WITH THE AUTHORITARIANS WHO ALSO ARE FISCALLY CONSERVATIVE, SO, CAN IT, LIBERTARIANS!!!!!"

I said that addressing the imminent collapse is the first aim. I would never say it is the most important aim, only the most urgent. Triage says you address the most immediately threatening wounds first. The cancer you have may kill you more certainly than the bleeding gash in your leg, but you address the gash before the cancer.

[longeyes]

This is a problematic idea.

Germany is about to balance its budget. So is Italy. Yet both of these countries are oppressive welfare states. German gun control has been elaborated on and discussed here extensively. So is Italian gun control. Russia is aiming to balance its budget within 3 years. Russia is sometihng between a fascist state and Tammany Hall, ruling forever.

America could balance its budget immediately by reducing spending to the levels seen in 2006 (where the Federal government reduced to spending 'only' 2.6 trillion dollars a year); this would allow America to gradually outgrow its debt, and blah, blah, blah.





This has nothing whatever to do with the price of tea in China.

You would still be living in a state that can arrest people and ruin their lives forever for attaching shoelaces to their guns. That imprisons marijuana users, growers, salesmen, and distributors. That... you know the drill, and I do not bother repeating it for you. Suffice it to say that all of those institutions existed in 2006 and they can persist at 2006-level spending.

Nor is imprisoning people and feeling them up at airports all that expensive. The TSA – including its actually-useful function – costs the American taxpayer, or his mythical children, 8 billion dollars a year. This is 58,000 people. America's military budget is 692 billion dollars, and I doubt you feel your freedom seriously threatened by the Marines, sailors, soldiers, and airmen. Far more money is spent on welfare of various kinds that is spent on the salaries of agents, regulators, etc.

For a comparison, BATFE budget is slightly over a billion dollars. TANF (Temporary Assistance for Needy Families) is five billion. Except that billion-dollar budget does almost nothing but fund salaries for people whose job is to badger you, your children, and everybody else over the shape of their guns.  In terms of oppressing the most Americans I'm quite sure BATFE wins out.

So is balancing the budget important? Sure. Very much so. But it is not the most important goal.

As for the debt... it's actually fairly easy to outgrow, but failing that America can just default. Default does not necessarily equal – as we have seen in Iceland – terrible starvation and people dying in the streets. Likely there'll be several years of economic malaise and then America will be prosperous again.

+1

The problem with the Tea Party is that all of this at root is not about smaller government or cutting spending, although those are vitally important (though less important than pursuing energetic growth policies), it is about EMANCIPATION. 

[MicroBalrog]

Indeed. You will note, however, I didn't say advancing liberty should be ignored, simply not given primacy. Nor did I say we should give up liberty in order to fix the problem.

Need I pull out the 'political capital' card?

[longeyes]

Back to Ron Paul...

Today I listened to not one but three supposedly conservative talk jocks lambaste Ron Paul: Michael Medved, Hugh Hewitt, and even Mark Levin.  Medved dismisses Paul as a fool and a loser, Hewitt treats him as a joke and won't take calls from Paul supporters, and now Levin is ready to tar Paul as an anarchist, neo-Confederate, and appeasement apologist.

Who knew that trying to roll away from stone from The Federal Reserve could make you so many enemies, even in your own party?

[makattak]

Back to Ron Paul...

Today I listened to not one but three supposedly conservative talk jocks lambaste Ron Paul: Michael Medved, Hugh Hewitt, and even Mark Levin.  Medved dismisses Paul as a fool and a loser, Hewitt treats him as a joke and won't take calls from Paul supporters, and now Levin is ready to tar Paul as an anarchist, neo-Confederate, and appeasement apologist.

Who knew that trying to roll away from stone from The Federal Reserve could make you so many enemies, even in your own party?

It's not his stance on the Fed. It's his pollyanna isolationism. (At least for Levin, I don't really listen to the other two.)

[roo_ster]

Back to Ron Paul...

Today I listened to not one but three supposedly conservative talk jocks lambaste Ron Paul: Michael Medved, Hugh Hewitt, and even Mark Levin.  Medved dismisses Paul as a fool and a loser, Hewitt treats him as a joke and won't take calls from Paul supporters, and now Levin is ready to tar Paul as an anarchist, neo-Confederate, and appeasement apologist.

Who knew that trying to roll away from stone from The Federal Reserve could make you so many enemies, even in your own party?

Those three are likely the most pro-GOP establishment talkers on the radio.  Toss in Hannity and your would indubitably have the top four GOP hacks on the airwaves.  They make Limbaugh look like a paragon of political objectivity.

So, of course they despise Paul and any who might pull votes or support from the right flank.

[CNYCacher]

It's not his stance on the Fed. It's his pollyanna isolationism. (At least for Levin, I don't really listen to the other two.)

You should learn about Paul from Paul himself, not from whomever it is that has shaped your view of him.  That is, unless you merely don't know what "isolationism" means, in which case http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isolationism is a good start.

[longeyes]

It's not his stance on the Fed. It's his pollyanna isolationism. (At least for Levin, I don't really listen to the other two.)

To the muscle-flexing Neo-Con contingent any lost opportunity to project military power appears to be "isolationism."  We're in three theaters of war (at least) right now, with ten years of fighting under our belt, and the Caliphate would seem to be advancing, not retreating.  I think what Paul and others are questioning is the strategy and, equally to the point, who really benefits from it all.

[MicroBalrog]

To the muscle-flexing Neo-Con contingent any lost opportunity to project military power appears to be "isolationism."  We're in three theaters of war (at least) right now, with ten years of fighting under our belt, and the Caliphate would seem to be advancing, not retreating.  I think what Paul and others are questioning is the strategy and, equally to the point, who really benefits from it all.

OEF also has combat ongoing in the Phillipines and the Horn of Africa.

[makattak]

You should learn about Paul from Paul himself, not from whomever it is that has shaped your view of him.  That is, unless you merely don't know what "isolationism" means, in which case http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isolationism is a good start.

Ok. I see he likes to call his policy "non-interventionism." Whatever he wants to call it, it's still pollyannaish isolationism. (or, if it would make you happy, I'll start calling it "pollyanna non-intervensionism.")

[CNYCacher]

Ok. I see he likes to call his policy "non-interventionism." Whatever he wants to call it, it's still pollyannaish isolationism. (or, if it would make you happy, I'll start calling it "pollyanna non-intervensionism.")

That would make me happy, thank you.

[longeyes]

Ron Paul is guilty of believing that nation-building should start with the American nation and the American people.  You'd think after decades of smart (as Obama would say) interventionism we'd have more to show for it in the national self-interest and the popular self-interest than declining global influence and respect and pending national insolvency.  Anyone who believes that what we've done is really about "protecting America" is indeed a sorry Pollyanna.