To whom are you refering now, Bush or Obama? Bush was no friend but Obama has added 5 trillion $$ to our debt in far less time than Shrubbie added his $.
Actually I was referring to Paul's opponents in the primary run, but sure, we can include both Dear Leaders in that assessment, as well - they both deserve it.
You can vote for whatever Jackwagon you want to. You can "waste" your vote and vote Ron Paul. You will feel good about having done the right thing but come Wednesday morning he won't be the president elect.
Go find one poll that allows any reasonable person to conclude R. Paul has a snowball's chance in h3ll. And do it without whining about how "if people would just vote for who is the right person/stop voting fo the 'leesor of evils' blah blah blah." I didn't construct the reality we live in and the fact Paul polls in single digits is not by my design, nor do I have the power to change it.
How sad that you'd (apparently) rather your vote went to "the winner", rather than the better candidate, the one more concerned with liberty and federal compliance with the Constitution.
A vote for the better candidate is *NEVER* wasted, even if that candidate doesn't come close to winning. And people like me are the only way the (R) wing of the Modern American Political Machine is ***EVER*** going to change for the better. When you and people like you continue to vote for more-of-the-same, that's what you'll get.
And you lose any moral right to complain about getting it.
If R. Paul's foreign policy weren't so dangerously unrealistic I would support him, and I suspect a great many people would also. I actually do like many of his economic ideas.
What, staying out of other nations' actual internal-sovereignty issues? How DARE the man believe in that!!!
Who else has supported such nonsense, in our nation's history? Oh, here're a few:
"Harmony, liberal intercourse with all nations, are recommended by policy, humanity, and interest. But even our commercial policy should hold an equal and impartial hand; neither seeking nor granting exclusive favors or preferences; consulting the natural course of things; diffusing and diversifying by gentle means the streams of commerce, but forcing nothing; "-- George Washington (Farewell Address, 1796)
"Peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with none." (Thomas Jefferson)
"....but she {the United States} goes not abroad in search of monsters to destroy."
- John Quincy Adams
I don't know, seems like pretty good advice to me. TR seems to have good advice in this respect as well - "Speak softly, and carry a big stick." If attacked, we knock 'em flat. If not, we stay out.
Why is this so hard a notion to fathom, for so many?
Do you REALLY believe if Ron Paul we're president, he could change things??
Remember one thing. "The president proposes, the kongress disposes." An old bromide there, meaning that, atleast in this case, President Ron Paul is going to have ....wait for it ..... wait for it.....
......
0% support in kongress.
I'd be quite happy if he spent his time writing pardons for those "convicted" of violating laws written to subsidize the War On Some Drugs, to give one example, and vetoing various unConstitutional laws passed by "Kongress"
. Let them pass said laws over his publically-stated and explained veto.
And then go home and explain their actions to their constituents.
Now he can flap his gums all he wants. Do you really think pols like Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, and Charlie Schumer are going to give a rat's petoot of support for his programs?
And if you think the repukes will you're smoking something that should be by prescription only. Ron Paul is only a R by default.
So, sorry, even should Paul become president, he ain't gonna accomplish one thing.
And don't tell me a nation of entitlement-sated sheeple are going to rise up and support Paul and force kongress to act, either. I don't do political comedy on weekends.
As I said, you can vote for whomever you like. Me, I shall, as always, vote the lesser of evils. Don't like that? Tough. Will I sleep at night after I do it?
Better than I will if I don't .......
But, unless real conservatives take over kongress in a fell swoop, we're toast.
It's over.
Finished.
The president alone can't do friggin' diddly.
Are we all feeling all warm and fuzzy now?
Enjoy it while you can --- ain't gonna last!!
Nope, haven't been "warm and fuzzy" for a while, in large part because of people who think that dialing the cruise control down from 120 to 110, or even all the way to 90, while maintaining a dead-on course for that looming cliff face is enough. So, yeah, I'll "WASTE" my vote on candidates who pledge - and who've shown determination to ACT - to hit the brakes and turn the car around before we hit.
You touch upon the germ of a plan that might work. Get enough like-minded people who will support Paul (or a Paul-like offspring/follower/junior type) who will support a libertarian president. A good plan for the future.
In '92 Ross Perot drew away enough republican voters to give us eight years of Slick Willie. And, yes, the Perot voters also "put" Clinton in office just as though they had actually voted for him.
If something similar happens this go-'round, and thus we wind up with four more years of Obama because those who might have opposed him were drawn off to cast a useless vote for a non-possibility like Paul, they too will have put Obama in office, just as if they'd voted for him.
BULL.
*CLINTON'S* voters put Clinton in office. Perot's voters preferred what Perot had to offer to what Bush The Elder was peddling. That's a failure on the part of the REPUBLICANS, and no one else.
Own it.
If NewtRickRom can't persuade Paul's supporters to support him, ***HE DESERVES TO FREAKING LOSE TO OBAMA***. And it'll be the REPUBLICANS' fault, not Paul's.
You want my vote? YOU FREAKING EARN IT. And you don't do that by being not QUITE as big a statist bastard as the guy on the other side of the Modern American Political Machine, the one with a (D) behind his name. You do it by being the OPPOSITE of a statist bastard. A tiny bit less isn't enough, not any more. A *LOT* less might not cut it.
How do your principles feel about putting Obama back in the White House?
Just saying....
There are consequences.
That "mainstream candidates" should alter their points of view to attract Paul voters is silly -- there aren't enough Paul voters to make a large enough difference. It's a numbers game.
And, if they did, what would that say about their principles?
If that's what enough idiots in the country vote FOR, then we as a country deserve what we get - even if we as individuals don't. That's how our system works.
You want my vote? You give me what *I* want. You include me and my interests as a part of the platform. Don't deride me as a pie-in-the-sky idealist, as pointless and irrelevant, and then demand that I vote for you. Get >expletive deleted< bent.
ETA: It occurred to me, shortly after posting, that there's a fairly famous sci-fi quote which applies here. "The power to destroy a thing is the absolute control over it." - Paul-Muad'dib to the Guild navigators, at his confrontation with the Emperor Shaddam IV. (Frank Herbert's Dune)
Either Paul's supporters are irrelevant, in which case Your Guy doesn't need their votes and can say what he likes without fear of losing the nomination, or Paul's supporters control enough votes to place Your Guy's chance at the nomination in doubt - in which case Your Guy had better buy, find or otherwise get a freakin' clue and start courting them, rather than badmouthing them and dismissing them as irrelevant. Paul's supporters don't care so much whether the White House is occupied by a person with an (R) or a (D) after his name, if it's not the right (R) - that's something YOU care about.
Start acting like it, maybe? Or do you think Your Guy can do without Paul's 15-25% of "the (R) vote" in the election, based on the votes so far? Food for thought.
You know, fine.....
Vote for Ron Paul, vote for Ziggy, Mr. Rogers, Friar Tuck, Pee Wee Herman, Kermit The Frog, whatever.
What it will take for a republican victory will be a candidate who runs an aggressive campaign and articulates conservatism clearly, plainly and positively. A candidate who is not afraid to go after Obama and his failing policies.
"In a perfect world" any candidate ought to be able to defeat Obama .... OTOH if we had a perfect world Obama would not be the president.
What does it say when one's principles put a failed leader back in office?
This is called "making the perfect the enemy of the good." Now if that's the type of politics you wish to indulge in, fine.
Because you want perfect immediate change you can't vote for slightly slower imperfect change, thus resulting in utter annihilation. It's sort of like booking passage on the "Titanic" (knowing what will happen) because you just can't stand the smelly beds in the tramp steamer which has a captain smart enough to avoid the icebergs.
That's kind of the point we're making here, Tommy - the mainstream (R) candidates (at least if they get their desired (R) Congress) are freaking statist bastards who'll do as much or more damage than Obama would with the same Congress - because they WON'T BE CALLED ON IT. The candidate you call for in that middle part there? You're agitating *AGAINST* him here, and supporting the guys who are ANYTHING BUT that.
We don't ask for perfection. But we do demand that our elected leaders hit the brakes and turn away from the cliff, for a change. We HAVE to get pointed in the right direction - merely letting off the gas a little isn't nearly enough anymore.
ETA: ""The perfect is the enemy of the good", you say? I say that if nobody ever insisted on the perfect, there'd never be any good." - author L. Neil Smith, at
http://www.lneilsmith.org/tactical.html. Lots of other good stuff there, too. Worth reading, if you're not familiar with his work.