10 Reasons Not To Vote For Ron Paul

[Galraedia]

I'm so sick of this clown and his supporters who are only planning on voting for him for his false promises of weed. Seriously people, we have more important things to worry about.

10 Reasons Not To Vote For Ron Paul

[bluestateguy]

1. Ron Paul cannot unilaterally legalize weed

We have a pinhead Congress that would never allow it, and the so-called "law enforcement" community is dead set against it.

I could see a President Paul ordering the DEA to stop drug busting raids and the agents simply ignoring his directives.

[AnnieBW]

2. 10. He's a Nut Job

9. He's a nut job

8. He's a nut job...

etc.

[Cleita]

3. How about one reason? That he's dumb as a post. n/t

[napoleon_in_rags]

4. Why don't you advocate instead for the Republican primary candidate DUers should vote for?

Seriously, who here is registered to vote in the Republican primaries? Not me. So why the campaigning here?

[rpannier]

7. Probably because he seems to get a lot of love from some people here

I find it baffling

[napoleon_in_rags]

8. Let me explain what that's about.

Okay, the right/left dichotomy is advanced endlessly by the media, you'd think there was only one dimension to politics. People outside of their one dimension framing are called "fringe". However, grownup analysis shows political beliefs are multidimensional, based on individual views on different topics. One such model is a diamond, with conservatives on the right, liberals on the left, libertarians on the bottom, and the top defined variously as "populist" or "authoritarian" (depending on who made the map)

So liberals are people left of center line, but there is much spread among them on the diamond. At the north of the diamond, you might have a left wing cop with conservative social values, he goes to church, waves a flag, never meet a war he didn't like, is 110% behind DHS doing whatever they need to do in order to get Al Qaeda, and is a member of a union, which is what has him voting left of his Republican friend who is exactly the same except for the union part. So they have BBQs together.

At the south of the diamond, you have a guy who is a totally different kind of leftist. He dresses how he wants, has smoked pot, advocates gay rights, doesn't go to church, is against the wars, is 110% against the civil liberties violation going on to get AQ, but believes government some play some role in regulating what large businesses do. He is almost exactly the same as a republican guy just like him from the libertarian spectrum, except for his belief in government regulation of business. So they jam on blues together at the bar one of them owns.

So you see? Ron Paul is an outspoken libertarian candidate, which means he is from the right wing of the south side of the map. You may hear people here identify with him on a cause (such as his issues with the recent assassination) because they are from the left wing of the south side, which is to say they agree on issues of civil liberties with Ron Paul. You may here sites like antiwar.com quoted here, which are run by people from the right, but also on the south side. You will also hear north side arguments, like anti-porn people arguing causes associated with family values republicans in the name of feminism, that kind of thing.

So the point is, politics is multi-dimensional. There is no drift when you hear south side Dems agreeing with south side republicans on something, they have always agreed with them on a different axis than the right-left one. For us south-siders, Peace and civil liberties are TOP priorities, and we won't bash somebody from the right who's speaking out for them. If you've heard me advocating for Ron Paul, its because 1) A hell of a lot of Republicans read DU 2) South side DUers would love to see the Republican party move away from the perpetual war/perpetual surveillance state we saw with the last Republican president, just as we'd love to see the Dems move in the same direction. So that's what its all about.

[tama]

9. Great post, nt

[rpannier]

13. Very nice post

:toast: :hi: :yourock:

[onpatrol98]

15. Excellent Post!

Our political masters would hate your synopsis. Because they don't want us to think or have layers. Just pull the lever like Pavlov's dog, and then go away. My side good, your side evil...now, I can let the grown ups do the real thinking for me.

[iverglas]

21. with apologies for dredging this up

I ran across this thread on a search for something else and I just have to reply to the above.

The "diamond" whereof you speak is derived from a "libertarian" invention in the first place (see the credit for that diamond configuration at ontheissues, for instance). Allow me to recommend the Political Compass as an alternative.


2008 US presidential primaries



http://www.politicalcompass.org


Ron Paul is NOT a "libertarian" in the social sense. He isn't just like me only economically right-wing. He is socially right-wing / authoritarian. More mildly than some of his colleagues, but you really just don't advocate outlawing abortion (even by the cute technique of saying the federal government has no jurisdiction) and get a free pass to the "social libertarian" side of the graph.

He's a vicious loon, but it's still important to point out that his billing even in that essential aspect is false.

And isolationism really is not the same as anti-imperialism.

[Name removed]

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[elocs]

10. Wisconsin has open primaries. You don't have to register and can vote in any primary.

Republicans have no problem making trouble by voting in Democratic primaries like the one we are having here in La Crosse to pick a Democratic candidate to fill the seat of Jennifer Shilling who beat Dan Kapanke in the recall election here. There are 3 Democrats running in the primary along with a Republican who ran against and lost to Shilling a year ago. If the voting gets too split there is a possibility that our Democratic candidate could be a Republican.

I don't believe in playing by 2 sets of rules, especially when by doing so puts Democrats at a disadvantage. So next year in the Republican presidential primary here in Wisconsin I will be voting for their candidate which I think is "best", but best for Democrats.

[Skip Intro]

5. His false promises of weed? Is he giving weed to people who vote for him?

[rpannier]

6. I don't need to read the article

He's anti-choice
He'd eliminate all federal aid programs

The rest is just icing on the cake.

Thanks for posting though K&R

[_ed_]

11. It makes me insane when people call him a Libertarian

Libertarian is a word with a precise meaning. It is also the name of an established American political party. Ron Paul is a Republican. Even using the broad definition of the term, he is not small 'l' libertarian, either. No one against a woman's right to choose is a libertarian. Like I said, that word has a precise definition.

Ron Paul is a registered Republican. End of story.

[Galraedia]

12. Libertarianism

Libertarianism is a business-worshiping cultish religion, which churns out annoying flamers who resemble nothing so much as street-preachers on the Information Sidewalk. One of the little tricks Libertarians use in debate is to confuse the ordinary sense of words with the meanings as "terms of art" in Libertarian axioms.

[SmashTheRight]

20. There is left-libertarianism and right-libertarianism

They are two different things altogether. Left-libertarianism is generally anti-authoritarian and can have different aspects of socialism. Chomsky, who I tend to agree with, is a libertarian socialist.

Ron Paul "claims" that he is a right-libertarian. Which means he is an aggressive capitalist who believes in regressive/reactionary social views. The reality is much, much uglier. He's in fact a far-right paleo-conservative. If there are older members who can remember Reagan, I would venture to say that Ron Paul, if elected would be a hundred times worse than Reagan.

[DissedByBush]

14. Pretty well descriptive

Except the gun item, which clearly showed the author's ignorance.

And the author forgot #0: "He's fucking nuts."

[Name removed]

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[truevote]

18. Integrity but insanity

I admire his integrity but on the same hand I recognize it as insanity. I'm baffled by his attempts to pander to the youth, considering that he is against their primary interests such as student aid.

[Name removed]

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