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What do you like/dislike about his political views?
How would he be as a president 1-10?

I enjoy his way of speaking

Originally posted by Firefly218
I enjoy his way of speaking

he seems like a really authentic person.

I like him, but no, i would rather he not be president.

He is an economic idiot when it comes to "gold backed currency." A diversified backed currency, however, may be a good idea.

Well, I went down the list with Ron Paul, before...on KMC. But I agreed with, I believe, 77% of his policies.

Originally posted by dadudemon
He is an economic idiot when it comes to "gold backed currency." A diversified backed currency, however, may be a good idea.

Well, I went down the list with Ron Paul, before...on KMC. But I agreed with, I believe, 77% of his policies. We had the gold standard for a long time, I'm not sure on which point you are attacking Ron Paul as an "economic idiot"...

Originally posted by Firefly218
We had the gold standard for a long time, I'm not sure on which point you are attacking Ron Paul as an "economic idiot"...

Gold Back Standard Problems:
http://bigthink.com/delancey-place/the-problem-with-the-gold-standard

Originally posted by dadudemon
Gold Back Standard Problems:
http://bigthink.com/delancey-place/the-problem-with-the-gold-standard The USA has no shortage of gold. The New York gold reserve is the largest on planet Earth. So I don't see too much of a risk in reverting back to the gold standard tbh, but who knows.

Perhaps we wouldn't be operating from a place of such extreme indebtedness or have made such reckless economic decisions had we been under the gold standard. In fact, we probably would've never experienced the housing bubble or any of that bullsh!t caused by banks.

I'm not gonna say ron paul is an idiot on this point, it doesn't seem that bad an idea. I also wouldn't be completely supportive of a gold backed dollar either.

too pacifist

Originally posted by Afro Cheese
too pacifist

how? he just doesn't think we should be snooping in every one's business.

He objects to anything that isn't a response to us being attacked IIRC. He's too soft tbh.

Plus, "snooping in everyone else's business" = playing the same global chess game everyone else is playing.

it's one of the biggest things I like about him. keep to ourselves

Move to Canada.

Originally posted by Afro Cheese
Move to Canada.

nah. just got my experience from being in a pointless war. but i'm sure you know more than me

Which war were you in?

Afghanistan and popped in and out of Iraq a few times here and there

Afghanistan wasn't a pointless war. Iraq was botched. Thanks for your service though.

ok. funny how the news was reporting troops guarding poppy fields not too long and now we have this horrible drug epidemic. eh.
lusitania was a lie.
pearl harbor was shady
gulf of tongkin was confirmed lie.

i like what ron paul has to say.

but thanks for your thanks man.

you a 9/11 conspiracy type then?

Originally posted by Afro Cheese
you a 9/11 conspiracy type then?

no. I wouldn't make an assumption about the twin towers. I don't have enough info or interest at this point.

I've only spoken verifiable truths. go ahead and research the other stuff yourself. the information is readily available.

Originally posted by Firefly218
The USA has no shortage of gold. The New York gold reserve is the largest on planet Earth. So I don't see too much of a risk in reverting back to the gold standard tbh, but who knows.


There's no where near enough gold to use it as a standard. This is why I suggest a diversified back standard. Make it much more than just gold. This also mitigates some of the risk of something spiking and dropping in value.


Edit - I cannot find a single damn article or opinion piece by an economist that talks about a diversified backed standard. There's no way in hell that I am the only person to think of this. But I give up trying to find something that describes what it is a safer and stronger standardization than just gold.

He seems like a good man with integrity and sincerity in regards to what he believes, though I don't really agree with many of his ideas.

It's amuzing that he's a vagina doctor. good shiit

An intelligent and polite politician with a wealth of knowledge and good policies.

IT'S HAPPENING!

what's happening?

Originally posted by Raisen
what's happening?

Don't worry, it's not happening. And it has not been happening since 2008.

...

Originally posted by Raisen
no. I wouldn't make an assumption about the twin towers. I don't have enough info or interest at this point.

I've only spoken verifiable truths. go ahead and research the other stuff yourself. the information is readily available. Well the reason I ask is people often bring up these other examples of false flag attacks as a sort of precedent for viewing 9/11 that way. Plus, it would make sense why you think the war in Afghanistan was pointless if it was all based on an inside job. But if you believe the official narrative then it was actually in response to being attacked.

I believe we have verifiable proof of lies to get into wars therefore I would put nothing as impossible. I just don't know.
I just think it's awfully coincidental that we were guarding mass poppy fields in Afghanistan and now this country faces a horrible opium epidemic. strange don't you think?

tl;dr rant, my beef with ron paul and libertarians in general expanded

I want to expand a bit on my disagreements with Paul since I admittedly came into this conversation the wrong way: I actually used to identify strongly with his messages on foreign policy. Over the years, my views have changed.

I feel he does too good a job at selling the narrative of blowback and how getting involved in other countries business can backfire on us in pretty severe ways. But he doesn't seem nearly as in tune with the possible benefits we derive from our imperial position. He presents a pretty ideal libertarian picture of just trading with the rest of the world and otherwise not being engaged militarily except in the case of self-defense.

I just don't think that vision is in touch with how we got to where we are in the first place. This is one of my biggest gripes with libertarians in general; I find they are quick to seize on any and all good fortune that we acquire as from "the market." Besides basic local and state administrative government, they rarely have a good word to say about anything the govt does or is involved with. So they will attribute our immense prosperity to the market which just so happened to produce this result despite the incumbrances of the govt.

Like I've heard libertarians say shit like "you like all this technology right? well it came from the market." But not always. The federal govt made some pretty significant contributions to technological modernity in the 20th century. Computers basically came out of ww2. As did a lot of the wireless technology. As did nuclear technology. And then you have all the shit NASA did, in large part just to beat the Russians to space.

Neil Degrasse Tyson makes this point, how some of that frontier research that was originally designed to help better explore the universe through more advanced types of telescopes eventually inadvertently lead to the technology behind the MRI machine. And then you have the building blocks for the internet that was largely developed by the DOD along with universities.

So it seems like first of all, it's not as simple as "the market can solve problems better than govt." That really depends on the problem, and on how the govt goes about trying to solve it.

But then there's the bigger picture of where this new century of American wealth and prosperity really emerged from... and the most obvious narrative is that it emerged as a result of WW2. All the top global geopolitical powers besides America and the Soviet Union were destroyed or very nearly destroyed during the course of that war.

In addition to this, the Soviets were left in a much worse position than we were and took much more damage from that war. And then eventually they collapsed. So we went from 1 major but much weaker enemy to no outright enemies that aren't ragtag militant groups or belligerent but mostly irrelevant dictators.

So we inherited Britain's naval supremacy, and with it, many of the opportunities for wealth and access to trade that had come along with the Birtish empire, without so much of the actual colonialism.

So I honestly think when Ron Paul talks about we need to scale back the military severely etc he's talking about throwing out the baby with the bath water. And he and speakers like him have successfully convinced a legion of non-interventionists that it's almost always too costly to go to war unless you really need to.

Which might be a laudable and noble goal in its intention... but it's not necessarily the best geopolitical strategy in terms of doing what is going to actually benefit the United States and their allies materially and otherwise.