As I said in my previous post (that was how long ago?), I usually avoid political topics because I have to practice being neutral all the time. But I've been supressing this rant for months and maybe if I get it out of my system I'll start getting over it a bit and then I can go back to pretending to be neutral and really being open-minded. And if I take the time to research, all of this SOMEONE may as well get some benefit from it. 

So, Ron Paul is scary?

I keep hearing this statement or rather seeing it, usually in reference to allegations of racism and his foreign policy, and it confuses me. I mean, you may not like him and his political positions, but scary?

Let’s talk initial impressions shall we?

Barack Obama – lawyer

Rick Santorum – lawyer

Newt Gingrich – corporate businessman

Mitt Romney – investment businessman

Ron Paul – OB-GYN 

Who would you trust? 

Okay, so I’m being completely superficial and unfair. Obama was actually a Civil Rights attorney, which already has a better connotation to it. And Gingrich was a history professor for at least a few years before he entered the business world. So let’s look a little closer. 

Before we begin, please note, I got all my information on these candidates from wikipedia for a few different reasons. First, its hard to find information from all of these candidates that is not either delivered by supporters or by those in opposition, which would be terribly biased one way or the other. Second, I can get very similar information from all the candidates from the same site. Third, I have noticed that wikipedia has the information that the candidates have stated themselves followed immediately by how they voted on those issues showing us how closely they practice what they preach. Fourth, wikipedia tries really hard to be non-biased and whenever a crazy person edits it – its usually fixed within an hour or two, especially when its something that getting as much attention as these gentlemen are. And for those who don’t like wikipedia because it is user generated, know that in a study it is far more comprehensive and has less errors per entry than Encyclopedia Britannica, the most trusted encyclopedia (you should also know though, that encyclopedias in general or known for being more error prone than other academic works). All the links I used for each candidate can be found at the end of this piece.

I’m not going to go through all of the political positions of these candidates. Just the ones that I personally think are terrifying! And are justified in the label of “scary”. 

            Mitt Romney

Let’s start with Mitt Romney, who is supposed to be the most “sane” and “inevitable” choice. So I disagree with Romney on lots of things (probably most things), but he’s too much in the middle to be scary until you look at his Foreign Policy.

He would like to double the size of Guantanamo and went on to say in regards to detainees, “I want them in Guantanamo where they don’t get access to lawyers that they get when they are on our soil”. And he praised the military for not allowing detainees to have judicial review of their cases.

He supported both the war in Afghanistan and in Iraq as well as the escalation of both wars. He thinks we should increase military action against Pakistan.

Opposes tortures, but is in favor of “enhanced interrogation techniques” which he refuses to define.

Wants to drastically increase the size of the military to help encourage democracy. (Doesn’t democracy at the point of a sword seem kind of… I dunno… oxymoronic?!)

So I would classify Romney as a warmonger.

He also has stated in the South Carolina debates that he would have voted for NDAA of 2012, which means he can apply those same “high” standards of justice to American citizens by suspending your habeus corpus rights of due process. 

            Newt Gingrich

Then we have Newt Gingrich (my personal vote for Most Scary).

- willing to get rid of free speech on the internet so it can no longer be a terrorist meeting place.

- wants to create an anti terrorist agency that can eavesdrop on everyone. His response to civil libertarian critics is “don’t plot with terrorists”.

- wants to eradicate the 9^th court circuit of appeals because “the founding fathers intended for the judical branch to be the weakest”. (Personally, when congress has an approval rating of 12% I think a strong Judicial Branch that can review their unconstitutional laws is a good thing).

- Supports NDAA of 2012 that suspend your rights to due process. Says the courts should have no authority to rule on it. 

- Supports the wars in Iraq and Afganistan.

-Fears Nuclear capabilities in Egypt and Iran. Thinks assassinating nuclear scientists is the way to go.  

I would classify Gingrich as an enemy of Civil Liberties and pro-war. He's Machiavellian in that he thinks the ends justify the means. He definitely thinks that security is more important that freedom. And anyone who would sacrifice his freedom for security is asking to get scammed because without freedom you are not secure! (That's a mangled/edited Benjamin Frandlin quote).

            Rick Santorum (do I have to?)

And I suppose I am supposed to include Santorum, a man that I quite honestly knew next to nothing about until January 3^rd because I didn’t think he was going to go anywhere in terms of presidential elections. His wikipedia page is not nearly as developed as the other candidates probably because like me, nobody else outside of Iowa thought he was important either, but here are a few things he has actually said: 

- Feminism has made it "socially affirming to work outside the home".

- He described the Supreme Court being made up of “nine unelected, unaccountable judges,” after they struck down a county law that made the purchase of contraception illegal.

 - Wanted to modify No Child Left Behind to include “such alternative theories as Intelligent Design.”

- Describes homosexuality as “anti-thetical to a healthy, stable, traditional family.”

- His response to a Roman Catholic Church Scandal in Massachusetts was "it is no surprise that Boston, a seat of academic, political and cultural liberalism in America, lies at the center of the storm." 

Another Santorum gem, "Many in the Christian faith have said, ‘Well, that's OK, I mean y'know, contraception is OK.’ It's not OK. It’s a license to do things in the sexual realm that is counter to how things are supposed to be. They're supposed to be within marriage." 

Now I realize that Mr. Santorum’s bias are almost purely religious in nature and that is somehow more acceptable in this country than any racist bias, but I would present the previous statements as evidence of him having a sexist and bigoted attitude and mentality. He also has no problem with legislating his religious values onto the rest of us. 

He also voted for NDAA of 2012, for which I do not forgive him.

            President Barack Obama

And last, but not least President Barack Obama.

So about eight weeks ago, Obama signed the NDAA of 2012 into law, with a note that promised that his administration would never ever in a million years take advantage of the fact that the NDAA allows them to arrest and detain American citizens without due process. Okay, so that’s not a direct quote, but his essay was long – it’s also not a legal binding agreement, and there’s lots of presidents to come after Obama, whether or not he gets re-elected that will have this power).

http://www.infowars.com/president-obamas-ndaa-signing-statement-i-have-the-power-to-detain-americans-but-i-wont/   

But see, I don’t know if I believe him about not using such practices on American citizens because in his term he has authorized at least three assassinations that are public knowledge. One of them you know about – Osama bin Laden. But the other two were American citizens!! In April 2010 Obama authorized the “targeted kill” of Anwar al-Awlaki, born in New Mexico. Admittedly, no disputes that the guy was a terrorist and member of Al Queda. In September 2011 we found him in Yemen and killed him with a drone. No arrest, no trial. Not even an attempted extradition even though we were on good enough terms with Yemen to locate and a drone attack this man. We just assassinated him. And two weeks later (this was news to me!) we apparently also killed his 16 year old son, born in Denver.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anwar_al-Awlaki 

This was challenged by the ACLU and Anwar’s father who currently resides in the US, but somehow he lost.

So apparently, your right to a fair trial (not to mention cruel and unusual punishments!) only upheld if you’re in the U.S. presently. If you leave, the president can order to have you assassinated. Except as of December 31, 2011 they can deny you the right to a fair trial on American soil too. Oh, but don’t worry, Obama said he wouldn’t do that. Obama’s educated and eloquent! He’s not scary at all.

            Ron Paul

I actually understand why the Republicans don’t like Ron Paul. He’s not a republican. He holds a lot of the same religious morals as they do, but he’s got this weird thing where he doesn’t think the government has any business legislating those morals onto the populace.

I understand why the Democrats don’t like him. He’s not a democrat. First, He’s pro-life! So are all the other GOP candidates! Except Ron Paul thinks the states should get to decide individually whereas the others GOP candidates think the federal government should just unilaterally make abortion illegal across the board. So he’s technically softer on this issue than the other GOP candidates.

And something you should know about the pro-life groups. There are basically two camps of pro-lifers: (1) Christians and (2) Medical Professionals. Paul falls under both. Christians I don’t agree with because they are pushing their moral beliefs onto me. But medical professionals are the ones that have to perform the procedure. This is part of their daily life and as medical technology has increased they’ve become increasingly pro-life. (I was actually convinced of this by my best friend from high school. She was pro-choice all her life and then she went to med-school… That’s when Ron Paul became pro-life too. Weird!). So I understand and forgive them and Ron Paul for this stance even though I don’t personally agree with it. It certainly doesn’t make me afraid of him.

Ron Paul Hates the Environment.

Ron Paul wants to abolish EPA. He thinks it is (a) corrupt and (b) bureaucratically inefficient. Like how he feels on most other topics – he thinks environmental policy should be decided by the states. From an economic standpoint this would make them more efficient as the environmental concerns in New Jersey are not necessarily the same as the environmental concerns in Florida. Each state could focus their resources specifically on the environmental issues and dangers that are prevalent in their region.

He also thinks that you have the right to pollute your property as much as you want. It is yours afterall. But if you are not allowed AT ALL to pollute on MY property. So if your pollution and poison ends up in my air or my ground or my water you’re in trouble! And since, you can’t really contain pollution – pollution becomes effectively outlawed.

Ron Paul hates education

Ron Paul also wants to get rid of the department of education. Guess what? He thinks that education policy should be decided by the state! I know, you’re shocked.

Did you know that Finland has one of the best education systems in the world? Do they have standards? Nope! They let TEACHERS decide what they think is important to teach. After requiring them to get a three year graduate degree (which is the same amount of time we spend training lawyers). How crazy is that?! They train people to be experts and then they trust them enough to do their jobs. And it works! 

Ron Paul Terrifying Foreign Policy

We have enough weapons to destroy the world thirty times over. Anyone would be insanely suicidal to actually attack us. Which isn’t going to happen unless we REALLY piss someone else off. So is having a policy of not invading other countries even if they are developing nuclear technology (if they are developing nuclear technology) really a dangerous one? Having a policy of non-interference a scary one? God forbid, we let other countries be self-deterministic. 

Romney (everyone apparently), Gingrich (pretty close to everyone), and Santorum (Iran) want to go to war! Obama has no problem assassinating people if he thinks they're terrorists. (Have you noticed that media and politicians have been labeling protesters as domestic terrorists? I have!) 

Ron Paul is Racist.

First off, I would like to point out that I could find judgmental and bigoted comments from all the GOP candidates that they’ve stated within the last few months and years from reading their wikipedia page.

And I heard a black man (I apologize for not remembering his name) on Democracy Now on Amy Goodman’s War and Peace Report a little while back (I believe it was on Martin Luther King Jr’s birthday – or in that week) complaining about Obama being racially biased as well. Apparently, the president said something about black men needing to work harder to increase their economic status in South Carolina after Gingrich pointed out how many blacks there were receiving food stamp and welfare services and that we were bearing the burden. So apparently, Gingrich is not the only one who thinks that if your black and poor that means you’re lazy, rather than an indication of a flaw in our social system. I may be stretching a little. But I do believe that many tend to cut Obama a lot of slack because he is educated and articulate – he sounds good. (Btw, the man on the radio pointed out that there are actually more white people on welfare and food stamps than black in South Carolina. There are more blacks on unemployment – I don’t have citations for these statistics. Sorry).

To find the “smoking gun” of Ron Paul’s racist attitudes we have to go back to go all the way back to 1992 and 1990 because we can’t find anything that we’ve actually quoted him saying recently that is bigoted or racist – unless criticizing the corruption in the government can be considered a prejudice against politicians. I’m embarrassed to say this video report comes from FOX news, which I tend to avoid citing as a source because they are anything but fair and balanced (In general, FOX does not support Ron Paul). But it brings up some points that many who dismiss him based on these Newsletters might not be aware of. Watch it!

http://www.fox19.com/story/16449477/reality-check-the-story-behind-the-ron-paul-newsletters

Ron Paul on Civil Liberties

Ron Paul voted against the Patriot Act, voted against both wars, and against NDAA (rumors that he wasn’t present for that vote were completely inaccurate – I know because I was so disappointed with him when I heard that he was absent that I went and sifted through the actual government site to find the voting record). You say his foreign policy is scary? I think Romney’s and Obama’s is scarier. You call him racist? I say he is the ONLY candidate that actually supports you keeping your Civil Rights (and that includes Obama a former Civil Right’s Lawyer).

Or is it that you’re scared of Ron Paul because if he survives the Republican primaries (admittedly a big challenge because Republicans don’t like him) he might actually beat Obama because you know that none of the other GOP candidates have the ability to swing the independent vote the way Ron Paul does. And if most republicans HAD to choose between Ron Paul and Obama they’d choose Paul. And when the country is 34% Republican, 33% Democrat, and the 32% Independent – you know those Independent votes are important!

Whatever Paul is – and I do see and understand why people would not agree with him on many things – I can’t say that he’s scary. I just don’t see it.

Government Corruption is one of the biggest concerns of the voting population. You want Civil Libertarians like Ron Paul and Liberal Progressives like Dennis Kucinich in office because they are honest! They say what they think and believe. They vote what they believe. And they believe in Civil Liberties. In my opinion, NOTHING is more important than that. They may not be perfect and I don’t agree with either man or group all the time, but I would trust any one of them over mainstream Republican and Democrat candidates who have shown consistently that they do not value liberty or freedom.

And if you wonder why many young people support Ron Paul fanatically think about this tidbit. Most educated young people know that our current system is over-extended. That the mandatory spending (entitlements) made up 38% of the budget in 1968, 68% in 2007, and is projected to reach 100% in 2017!!!!! That’s five years away. And then, republicans and democrats won’t have to argue about the budget anymore. Everything will already be decided!

So young people know that they are going to spend their lives paying into a system that they are very unlikely to see any benefits from. MAYBE if someone like Ron Paul is elected they won’t get any benefits, but at least they won’t be paying into the broken system all of their lives on top of receiving no benefits.

This link is to a video that starts by talking about the economy and then gets into some REALLY cool science. I highly recommend it whether or not you agree with me on anything! The walking robot dog is worth it all by itself! And is where I got the entitlement projection numbers, which is why I include it:

http://www.ted.com/talks/juan_enriquez_shares_mindboggling_new_science.html

I’m seem to be straying from my thesis a bit in these last few paragraphs. I apologize for that. That’ll happen when you’ve been suppressing a rant for too many months. Just one last thing, you should all know that I’ve been a libertarian all my life and therefore republicans and democrats both piss me off on a regular basis and I of course definitely have a strong pro-Paul bias.

All rebuttals are most welcome! And you should also feel free to call me a Paul bot if you think that title is apt, but know that it’ll make me sad.

Wikipedia pages:

Ron Paul: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_positions_of_Ron_Paul

Mitt Romney: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_positions_of_Mitt_Romney

Newt Gingrich: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_positions_of_Newt_Gingrich

Rick Santorum: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rick_Santorum

Barack Obama: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barack_Obama

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_positions_of_Barack_Obama