People don't like Ron Paul because there is a concerted effort to artificially manipulate public opinion against him. They purposely try to stigmatize association with him, e.g. call his followers disciples, spread memes like he's a 'quirky old man' or associate him with hate groups. Since people are trivial to manipulate, it has the predictable effect of making people feel the need to "distance themselves" from his views, i.e. say things like "I like his policies BUT ...", lest they get some of that stigmatization dirt on them.

The simply reality is that Ron Paul is not only the best candidate of the bunch by far, but the only one definitely not in the bankers pockets and likely to stop the now incredibly blatant theft of public funds in Washington, and stop the United States from driving over a fiscal and monetary cliff.

The establishment kleptocrat politicians and their connected bankers are keen to go back to "business as usual" even as the markets are crashing and America sinks from recession to depression. They throw dirt at Ron Paul, and marginalize him, because they're afraid of him, they know he wants to upset the good little thing they have going there. If the US goes back to business as usual for one more presidential term it's game over for our future.

Unfortunately the strategy works, because people are so easy to manipulate.

If it is a vote between Perry, Romney and Paul -- I'm going for Paul. Throw Bachman in and I'd be in a tossup.

Ron Paul has been right on many things.

He is probably right on Israel. The question is what agenda are those on the Palestinian side pushing? So I take his positions on international relations with a grain of salt.

The economic and constitutional issues -- he's spot on.

"Ron Paul doesn't hate Jews. He just wants to let the Israelis and the Arabs solve their own problems."

Sure. And Charles Lindbergh and the America First Committee didn't hate Jews either. They just wanted the German Jews and the National Socialists to solve their own problems. And they got their way, to the world's eternal shame. Scratch an America Firster, and you'll find a Nazi sympathizing Jew-hater. Ron Paul is nothing less than a modern America Firster.

Without concerted international opposition, Iran is certain to get the bomb. It is a nation ruled by an apocalyptic religion that desires to bring about an Armageddon to herald the return of its messiah, the 12th Imam. These are not people who can be appealed to on the usual terms. As many suicide cults have proved over the years, true believers are not driven by the same priorities as the rest of us. While Iran does not have an air force capable of reaching the U.S. they do have missiles capable of hitting everything from Tel Aviv to European capitals, and the oil fields of Saudi in between.

I think Ron Paul is absolutely right about the economy. But Lindbergh was a great aviator too. Whatever their technical accomplishments, they are - were - odious human beings advocating plans that will lead to global chaos and the deaths of millions. And not just Jews, either.

Nicely said Jason. I'm perplexed at Paul's stand on foreign assistance. I'm proud of my tax dollars going to feed the starving and desperate in so many places in the world, like the refugees in Kenya from Somalia. The sight of the bags of food labelled "gift from USA" makes me feel good about my country.

I'm perplexed at Paul's stand on foreign assistance.

I have no problem with that. Considering that we provided $1.4 billion to 16 foreign countries that held at least $10 billion in Treasury securities. Cutting back on some foriegn aid wouldn't really hurt.

Right now, Fox and the rest of the right-wing news media are working to keep Ron Paul out of the news. RP upsets their plans for the GOP primaries, upsets their plans and goes off message.

> Without concerted international opposition,
> Iran is certain to get the bomb.

Fella, even WITH concerted international opposition, Iran is certain to get the bomb.

> It is a nation ruled by an apocalyptic religion

They're all apocalyptic.

> that desires to bring about an Armageddon to
> herald the return of its messiah, the 12th Imam.

That "rule" is tenuous. Listen, Iran has a lot of problems, but "concerted international opposition" against a huge, somewhat modern state in an oil-rich area with a power vacuum is not a good idea. There are 45 million of those people, and they're not going to go away... It's not a "suicide cult". They have claims to legitimacy that (several) other nations in the neighborhood (ahem) do not have.

Folks, there's a big difference between advocating a cutback of foreign aid in general, and accusing Israel of running a concentration camp in Gaza. Paul has in the past had associations with Lyndon Larouche; he's since repudiated that, but it does't look to me like he's entirely free of Larouche philosophy.

And here's my problem with Paul's foreign policy. It's not non-interventionist; it's not even isolationist. It's pacifist, and suicidially so. Look at it this way: if you wanted to pursue an isolationist foreign policy, given everything that's going on in the world today, what would you have the military do? Position itself to defend the homeland. Because once you pull out of Afghanistan, it will be about five minutes before the Taliban is back in charge and alQ has its terrorist training camps up and running again. And Iran and NoKo are back to collaborating on long-range missiles, to carry Iranian nuclear bombs.

So you have to position the military to keep all of that stuff out of the U.S. What does that mean? It means you have to support (and put money into): controlling the border, terrorist interdiction within the country, air and sea interception, and missile defense. I haven't heard Paul express an opinion on border control, but he's opposed to the other three.

+1 for Cousin Dave, To be spot on about the economy which is something Congress and the Regulatory Agencies actually control, and hopelessly nieve on the subject of foreign policy, and national defense which are things the President does control, in my mind is a lethal combination is a potential chief executive. Ron Paul is like Obama. A dangerous idealog who has the potential to make Obama, in retrospect, look competent.

Taken overall, Ron Paul's ideas are that of a complete moron. You cannot cut foreign aid to Israel, plain and simple. I have no problem pulling troops out of some foreign bases (IE Korea), but a few in Germany are pretty vital for treating wounded US servicemen and as stopover points. His blanket statements just show he is as hollow as the idiot currently in the white house.

I'm not sure that Ron Paul is getting shafted. This quote is correct:

Libertarian Ron Paul, who has no chance to win the nomination...

Unlike the other candidates mentioned, Ron Paul has no plausible path to the nomination (Bachmann's path is difficult, but not impossible, in a two-person race against Romney. Perry complicates things for her, however.). To win the Republican nomination, a candidate must be able to gain enough support from social/religious conservatives, business, foreign policy hawks, and small government libertarian types.

Ron Paul's support really only comes from the libertarian part of the Republican coalition, and his heterodox views on money, foreign policy, drugs and other issues make it unlikely he can expand his support outside of his base. That said, I think Paul can succeed to a large extent without winning the nomination; his presence in campaign is likely to push the eventual nominee and platform to adopt a more libertarian stance than they otherwise would.

> Ron Paul has no plausible path to
> the nomination

I will never understand the frogsquatting, moonbarking lunacy of declarations like this.

Finding them offered in August of two-thousand-motherfucking-'lleben compounds the incomprehension.

There are people out there, A LOT OF THEM, who seem to have concluded that politics is all about describing probable outcomes in the most clipped, bloodless, and distant terms.

It's hokey. It's like they've read so many dessicated pieces from alcoholic, insensate, deadline-tortured newspaper columnists that they think that's how it's done.

As if there were no morality to be considered in any of it. No vagaries of character or glandular response on the part of voters.

And mostly, it's just so WRONG.

Exactly where was Bill Clinton in August of 1991? Ah yes... He was still suffering from his career-ending humiliation three years earlier.

(And that was before we'd learned all those things about his penis.)

Has everyone seen this?

"You cannot cut foreign aid to Israel, plain and simple."
Based on what? There is a terrorist regime in the middle east with nukes. It's Israel. That doesn't make me a Jew-hater, that makes me a realist.
Please enlighten me with more rhetoric, and don't worry about facts or anything like that. I must be a moron because I think we need to be spending those billions on our problems here.

I love Ron Paul so much I'd have his baby if I were anatomically equipped to do so. But he'll never be elected President, because ideological consistency just doesn't fly with the American electorate. The losers of the two biggest landslides in my lifetime, Barry Goldwater and George McGovern, were also the most ideologically consistent candidates from either major party during that time. Polar opposite ideologies, but each was doomed by his consistency.

The Ames straw poll is WORTHLESS as a bellwether of general opinion. It's highly slanted towards people who are already very politically involved.

In the general population, Paul's support shrivels.

As several people have already pointed out - there is no longer any such thing as economic or military isolationism in the modern world. America needs allies - and investors - and bases - all over the world. Anyone who thinks otherwise is a moron.

> America needs allies - and investors - and
> bases - all over the world.

You mean, like, client states? Proxies? Or what?

Wanna be clear about this... Need to see exactly what you're getting at... Would hate to be an otherwise-thinking "moron".

It seems entirely too obvious that the majority of all voters reside somewhere near the center of the spectrum. Why to politicians seek to pacify or cater to the lesser number of outliers?

1. Money.

2. Principle (less often)

drcos:

Based on what? There is a terrorist regime in the middle east with nukes. It's Israel. That doesn't make me a Jew-hater, that makes me a realist.

The "regime with nukes" - despite regime being a fairly loaded word - is the realist part. The "terrorist" part is where you show your opinions.

The question is why you apparently don't differentiate between survival-oriented warfare and terrorism (that whole "nuance" thing that those of us who've broken things for a living are supposedly too stupid to understand according to many of my former friends). Given that the only differentiation you stated was "with nukes," I can't tell if you think Israel is unique in being a terrorist state as well, but that hasn't been logically excluded either.

Either way, referring to israel as a terrorist state says a lot. The options from there are too manifold for me to make many conclusions.

Exactly where was Bill Clinton in August of 1991? Ah yes... He was still suffering from his career-ending humiliation three years earlier.

Bill Clinton was also not a household name with deeply unorthodox views. The comparison between him and Paul is inapt.

No vagaries of character or glandular response on the part of voters.

That Paul is even in the conversation at all is due to the potent glandular response he engenders. In a very limited part of the Republican coalition. However, it's not enough to get him over the top. There are some glandular response type candidates who could win (Bachmann, Palin, Perry), but Paul's more limited than they are, IMO.

Jason,

If all US foreign aid is cut off, the Arabs lose three times as much as Israel does. Israel can afford it, the Arabs not so much.

Without the US taxpayers paying them to pretend to make nice with Israel, they'll have to re-think their hostility towards the strongest economy in their region. After all, peace has been very lucrative for Egypt and Jordan.

-jcr

I'm proud of my tax dollars going to feed the starving

The problem is that your tax dollars go to prop up the power of the local thugs who are causing the famine in the first place. More often than not, that food gets diverted to the thugs' military, who then sell it on the local market, or ship it elsewhere if they can get a better price.

-jcr

Paul has in the past had associations with Lyndon Larouche

Well, that's a rather novel smear. Got anything to back it up?

-jcr

Ron Paul has definitely been given the shaft. While it's true that many of his views are too extreme to appeal to moderate voters and he is "unelectable", he is inarguably consistent and could be doing more to shape the debate if the media would give him that chance. It's impossible to make an argument that he isn't intellectually honest.

What is shocking to me is that Michelle Bachman is not getting the same treatment. For fuck's sake, that woman is the most unelectable moron that has ever stood on a soapbox. Ron Paul is a way more credible candidate than she. She makes Sarah Palin look like an elder statesman.

I understand that a candidate needs to play to their base during the primaries, but holy god, don't they know that the rest of us can see them while they do it?

In short, it is puzzling that Ron Paul is getting no attention at all and even more puzzling that Michelle Bachman is being treated like a serious candidate. Really fucking puzzling.

> The comparison between him and Paul is inapt.

Dear God, Man... Were you raised in a Skinner box?

"He sounds somewhat nuts when he talks."

I really don't think he does, and never have .. maybe I am also somewhat nuts and so just can't tell. If you listen to what he says, he mostly speaks a lot of sense, and that's what I hear.

I think you are listening based on what you think a typical 'smooth-talking' establishment politician is supposed to sound like. I specifically don't want another smooth-talking phony who answers to the bankers while stealing from the people.

I don't agree with everything Ron Paul says, e.g. I agree that if Iran wants to acquire nuclear bombs and wipe Israel off the map, that the US has a moral prerogative to try to stop that.

"I'm proud of my tax dollars going to feed the starving"

Don't you mean, far more accurately, that you are proud that the tax dollars you took by force from your next door neighbor are ostensibly used to help feed the starving.

Actually, I wouldn't even mind so much if tax dollars were really mainly just used to "feed the starving", but that is such a misrepresentation of the reality of the current problems. Hardly any of that money goes to 'feed the starving'. Huge amounts go into the pockets of bankers and politically connected corrupt corporates. Look up the results of the recent partial Fed audit for example (http://sanders.senate.gov/newsroom/news/?id=9e2a4ea8-6e73-4be2-a753-62060dcbb3c3) ... $16 trillion secretly funneled off to banks etc., including assistance to foreign banks. And guess who was pushing for this Fed audit .. Ron Paul.

DG:
'survival-oriented warfare' ?
Is that how we code bulldozing schools now?
Which nuance am I missing, an eye for an eye, or two wrongs don't make a right?
What's the difference between Israel annexing territories that they think are theirs and Hussein invading Kuwait? Seriously. Or just dismiss my questions because I hold an opinion you can't be bothered with.
I want someone to explain exactly why we should continue giving billions of dollars a year to the little kid across the street who thrives in the adversarial relationship they have with their neighbors.

What's the difference between Israel annexing territories that they think are theirs and Hussein invading Kuwait?

Namely Isreal didnt invade anything. That palistinains chose to volentarilly leave the area so as to facilitate the genocide of the jews is on them. That they bet on the wrong horse is on them. Isreal had no duty to return any land taken in that war to hold more readily defensable positions.

Nor were they required to return land ABANDONED by those who did so in an attempt to give aid and support to invading forces.

Any other questions?

I want someone to explain exactly why we should continue giving billions of dollars a year to the little kid across the street who thrives in the adversarial relationship they have with their neighbors.

You want an explanation of exactly why? Ok, Sparky.

We are paying Israel to tolerate being shelled every fucking day by people who sided with Hitler in WWII because he promised to eliminate the Jews.

We are paying Israel to not retaliate the way any other sane country would to such provocations - namely by paving the nations responsible.

We are paying Israel to allow the Arabs to live.

And if the Arabs don't start to appreciate that fact, then we really will stop paying Israel, and the gloves come off.

I know you and Ron Paul are hoping that we cut off the money and the Arabs really do push the Jews into the sea so we're done with them forever, but that's just not going to happen.

If Neville Chamberlain had shot Hitler in the face in 1938, none of this would be happening today. Israel would have had to buy the land from the so-called Palestinians rather than having it given to them as the spoils of war.

The Arabs backed the wrong horse in WWII. When you lose a war, you do not get to dictate terms. The Arabs seem to think that we care about their opinion of how things should have been done.

That said, Ron Paul is an isolationist - he not only wants to pull all our troops in from around the world, he wants an end to free trade. And that's not a very libertarian principle, is it?

Crid:

> America needs allies - and investors - and
> bases - all over the world.

You mean, like, client states? Proxies? Or what?
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

In a world in which multinationals and investors move money and jobs around the world with the push of a button, there is no such thing as economic isolationism.

In a world in which American companies (or American employees of multinational corporations) depend on people somewhere else being able to purchase your product, there is no such thing as economic OR POLITICAL isolationism. America depends on free, open markets - and is the world's sheriff largely for its own benefit.

Anyone who doesn't understand that (modern) interdependence is a moron.

(I put "modern" in parentheses because America's dependence on international markets goes back to King Cotton - and further back to the beaver, buckskin, and naval stores that came out of the original colonies...)

War has also become a push-of-the-button enterprise. The distinction between soldiers and civilians is now almost completely obliterated - as anyone who's boarded a plane lately knows.

But America needs those planes and the free open markets they assume/create.

Again - anyone who thinks America can hang up it's sheriff's badge and "defend our own borders" is a moron.

"Fella, even WITH concerted international opposition, Iran is certain to get the bomb."

Oh. You mean, like Iraq did?

Where did the good drcos disappear too?

lujlp: I quit commenting before the AIPAC goons come to my house, since I must be some Jew hater.
My referring to Israel as a terrorist state obviously makes me a moron. My questions get answered with more rhetoric (thanks Brian), but I still don't see how this is our mess to keep paying for. Please feel free to rant how this somehow keeps us safer.

Bottom line, it's a frigging mess, and I would like to not be involved at all, but AIPAC and 'our' government have decided otherwise.
There's a lot of pure hatred over there and over here. But people like me are the problem.

So was my response retoric as well?

> But America needs those planes and the
> free open markets

Oh. Because I though you might be more concerned about this one particular country besides the United States.

> You mean, like Iraq did?

Yeah.

(Gotta admit, I didn't follow your link when my Java-filter smoked it out. Year after year you've proven yourself so despicably self-interested that it didn't seem worth the trouble.)

Hi, Christopher!

"So was my response retoric as well?"
No, you actually countered with facts, which I like and appreciate the example :)

As I quite explicitly said, drcos, I don't know what you are, because you never made clear your rationale for calling Israel 'terrorist', or made clear if you thought they were uniquely so.

Calling Israel a terrorist state shows at the very least a profound ignorance of the laws of warfare, such as they are short of "survival is paramount."

Are there cases where Israel overstepped the bounds? Arguably yes, though I think we would strenuously disagree how often. By any historic standard, given random unguided rocket bombings, provably fired from schoolyards and hospital facilities, landing in their civilian population - sometimes on a daily basis - fired by people who at least claim to wish to drive every last jew into the sea (a threat they have to honor given the arab behavior so far through several regional wars and ongoing suicide bombings and shellings), they have been remarkably... restrained. Note how many Israeli soldiers were injured boarding a supposedly unarmed "supply" convoy that was supposedly only carrying food because they didn't at like stormtroopers and unload with lots of firepower from the beginning.

Will you get me to argue that israel is spotless? Hardly. But throwing the word terrorism to mean "kill people, and sometimes hurt civilians and destroy things when they shoot that are not obviously military despite the arabs provably using the green crescent and off-limits facilities as a means of enabling warfare logistics but that-wold-spoil-the-narrative" devalues the term.

FWIW, though most western armies are not generally ruthless enough to do this as a matter of course, it is completely legal (and even the best long term moral option from a games-theory perspective) to enact reprisals against people who have provably and repeatedly violated the laws of warfare as the arab contingents around israel and palestinians have. Bulldoze a few schools? How about entirely legal to flatten schools, hospitals, and mosques out of hand once your enemy has misused them as fire bases?

But that would be a lot uglier than even the arabs have managed so far.

Pray they don't get the israelis PO'd to that point.

The media is shutting Paul out because they don't see him as a viable candidate. Of course, it's not really their place to determine who is a viable candidate, now is it? That's for the American people to decide.

One the one hand, that's true.

On the other hand, if we took that to the extreme as stated, we'd see "the media" giving equal time to people who the American People know damn well aren't remotely viable (like, oh, Lyndon LaRouche), and thus wasting the time of the American People by not spending it in exposing us to more about the candidates we have some chance of actually dealing with at a serious level.

"(Gotta admit, I didn't follow your link when my Java-filter smoked it out. Year after year you've proven yourself so despicably self-interested that it didn't seem worth the trouble.)"

No, it's because confirmation bias is a necessary part of your life.

I sure wish you'd learn something. Honesty, first, because when you post like that it's very simply lying, which you will call something else to deflect that truth.

"Year after year..." Oh, that's precious! If you'd told me what the clinic told you right away, I'd have simplified things, so you could understand the intrusion on your unresearched babble.

Sounds like the perfect combo since both sides are wrong. Politicians say things to get elected only to benefit themselves and their friends. This guy is the only one I see trying to do something about it.

I missed something earlier.

"(Gotta admit, I didn't follow your link when my Java-filter smoked it out. Year after year you've proven yourself so despicably self-interested that it didn't seem worth the trouble.)"

I'll be brief.

1) The site I linked to has Java elements, but they are not required to view the facts: that Israel actually bombed Iraqi nuclear production facilities to prevent their completion. Of course, the suggestion is that they'll do this again.

2) I have linked to the very same page before. Someone has no memory.

3) My opinion of myself has nothing to do with Israel's action.

If you want to be lazy and petty, don't lie about it.

I really like it when I read an article that proves there are writers out there that can get their point across without confusing the topic. This is excellent work.