Reasons Why Dr. Ron Paul Should Not Be President

Because people are greedy and don't care about people they've never met, for the most part (not that this is wrong in any way).

The only reason why most very old people I know, are alive, is because of socialist programs which keep them alive since they certainly aren't able to get a private sector job that pays well enough to afford their medical expenses. But then, they are arguably dead weights.

Yup. Of course. The government "teat". But a lot of dumbass people don't use protection, who also 1. don't believe in abortion and 2. don't have the means to support children.

Why?

Because they're dumbasses.

Their kind would get weeded out by the free market.

That's because less intelligent workers died off; have you ever heard of the "Flynn effect"? In developed countries where low-intelligence-requiring jobs are becoming harder and harder to get, IQ's in nonverbal areas seem to be increasing, perhaps due to increasing demand for techno-jobs.

I don't really buy into the concept of "g" or "IQ", but they can be semi-legitimate, sometimes.

And if someone isn't, they die off because of social darwinism, unless someone cares about some random incompetent individual enough to support them for the rest of their natural life span, which is VERY unlikely in most cases. The only other option would be government welfare, which would very arguably violate individual freedoms!

Consider the above. People don't care about random people. They care about familiar people..especially themselves. For the most part.

The incompetent would (literally) die off, so that the population would become well-nigh 100% made of competent people. So yes, that is a good argument.

 

Then why are there millions of private charities that spend billions of dollars trying to help other people?

If you're talking about old people who are being kept alive on ventilators and the like, then I have no problem saying they should (a) pay for it themselves or (b) go to hospice and die with some dignity.

We spend way too much money and effort keeping people in these semi-vegetative states.

Everyone dies. Get over it and accept the inevitable.

What about the fact that the safety-net will shield them from the consequences of their actions and even reward them for acting stupidly?

Maybe their stupidity is being exacerbated and even encouraged by the nanny-state.

I see it in children all the time. The more permissive and accommodative the parent, the more unruly and irresponsible the child. Why should it be any different for adults?

Assuming facts not in evidence.

This would seem to support my contention that workforces adapt to the evolving market place.

We have to make a distinction here. If we're talking about someone who is just a lazy incompetent that refuses to work like everyone else, then they can die in the gutter for all I care.

If, however, we're talking about someone who is truly in NEED through little to no fault of their own, then I sincerely believe that private charities and state and local governments could easily provide them with temporary and even permanent accommodations, depending on the nature of their circumstances.

The argument does not depend on such an assumption, rather, it depends on the assumption that his economic and social policies will unleash the creative power of individuals and markets such that the wealth and prosperity of our nation achieves an optimal level of growth that is sustainable in the longrun.

 

But the economic facts tend to show that they are wrong on a great many levels.

Because there is something called "mainstream thought" or "commonly accepted wisdom" and anything that is too far outside it is typically wrong. In modern, well educated societies, mainstream thought doesn't get to be mainstream for no reason, typically it's mainstream because it works.

 

Well, I'm sure you'll have no problem demonstrating that claim by citing the economic facts which contradict their claims.

Despite the fact conventional wisdom has been proven wrong thousands upon thousands of times throughout human history.

Yea, look at how well our system is working now.

 

They make no allowance for social welfare whatsoever. I've read Mises' thougths on socialism and to him, anything that isn't absolutely completely free market with no statist regulation and no social programs at all is socialism. That is wrong. Economic compromise must be made on at least a minimal basis for us to call ourselves a humane and compassionate society.

Perhaps, but times are different now and with modern internet, etc we are able to exchange ideas and test hypotheses almost instantaneously. Therefore the conventional wisdom in the modern day has faced extensive testing and analysis by experts.

Better the devil you know. Mises' dreams of ultimate Laissezz faire are just that, dreams that can't work in the real world anymore than outright socialism is.

Americans have accepted the idea of a "big government", the only issue is how big should we let it get. The idea we can just scrap social security and our other social safety nets completely, rather than minimize them, is unacceptable even to most Republicans.

 

Nothing to add

 

also stands and gives standing ovation as well.

 

like the global financial markets collapsing without tens of trillions of dollars and trillions of euros being created to keep the implosion of bad debt from taking place ?

That kind of wrong ?


some folks think about as deeply as FOX, CNN and MSNBC tell them to.

 

Well what are we supposed to do genius? Just let it all fall down around our ears and die?

When the depression comes, and the commies and socialists start to win converts claiming that it's all capitalism's fault, neither you nor Ron Paul will be able to stop them using the crisis to finally destroy the Constitution and everything we hold dear.

Basically the whole idea behind libertarian economics I read is basically throwing your hands up and surrendering to whatever fate comes our way in the hopes that 20 years from now things will be better. They won't be, 20 years from now we'll be full blown socialist nation like Venezuela and libertarian economic policies will have put us there.

 

Totally false. Anarcho-capitalism is social darwinism. Get your facts straight. There is a difference between the free market and anarcho-capitalism.

So what are they going to do when SS and medicare collapse? Or when the US govt defaults by giving them worthless dollars for their entitlements?

Why would they be starving in the streets? That doesn't happen in America. You have been brainwashed by liberal media propaganda.

This statement has absolutely no basis in economic reality. There are plenty of low skilled jobs available in a healthy free market economy.

Paul is not an anarcho-capitalist. Again, you have been brainwashed by liberal media propaganda. This does not reflect Paul's positions at all. The fact is that you don't understand Paul's positions, so you're filling in the blanks with your own version of reality that the TV and government education system taught you.

 

It is amazing that private citizens will say everything Ron Paul says in the privacy of their homes, or even sometimes out in public. But then vote for Romney or Obama cause that is who their TV told them to vote for. Then for the next 4 years, they are whining about who they elected is not following their campaing promises, but following their history of actions. But yet they won't elect Ron even though Ron does what he says and has been doing it for 30 years now.

 

Why not quit talking about libertarian theory and talk about RP's economic plan?

Essentially, he wants to cut $1 Trillion in spending the first year and have a balanced budget by 2015. Economists (not Austrian) say it would be good for the economy in the long run, but worry about such spending cuts being harmful in the short run.

Now, take a look at Europe these days and the exposure the US has to that crisis. Also consider that Bernanke is pessimistic about economic growth, despite the QE's already done. We are basically out of tools in the toolbox of and are at the mercy of events.

I would argue that taking the medicine we know we must take while we have a cold will do us much more good than if we wait until we have pneumonia. Things are NOT going to get better on their own. Wishing otherwise is just pie in the sky.

I, for one, believe that Dr. Paul is pragmatic enough that he could modify his goals somewhat to make any disruption less, but it is clear what we must do. We are living in a financial house of cards and it is only a matter of time before the whole system collapses if we continue on as we are.

There is the real possibility that, if Ron Paul were to enact such spending cuts that consumer and investor confidence would offset some of the negatives of these cuts and the dip would be short lived. Remember the trillions we hear about that are sitting on the sidelines waiting for the opportunity to invest? Those investments would lead to jobs.

Really, the only game in town now is the super-committee and their job is to find $1.5 trillion in cuts over ten years. With us running annual deficits over a trillion a year, this amounts to only slicing off a little more than one year's deficit over ten years. It's not enough to have much effect, we would still be further in debt and those ass clowns can't even get that much done.

So, there it is. The first rule when you're in a hole is to quit digging. Ron Paul would put the shovel down so we can climb out of this hole. There really is no choice. Anyone that says any different is just coddling the country while it goes down the tubes.

 

what economists says that Ron pauls plan is a good one?

 

Can you give some examples of these economic facts?

It is fallacious to say that mainstream is always right because it is mainstream. At one time mainstream thought claimed that the earth was flat. Of course mainstream thought can be wrong! Sometimes it gets to be mainstream simply because people are told something so often that they believe it, right or wrong. The media is a good example.

 

thats the blind american sheepie for you.

 

Notice that I said good in the long run, but harmful in the short run. My argument is that it is necessary medicine and could be mitigated somewhat. I made that clear in my post.

Here's a little something that is typical.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Economists across the political spectrum say the impact of such drastic government spending cuts would be majorly disruptive and harmful to the economy in the short term.

“At the scale he’s talking about, it’s unlikely you could have an immediate reduction in government without hurtling the economy into recession,” says Kevin Hassett, economic policy director for the American Enterprise Institute and chief economic adviser to John McCain’s 2000 presidential campaign. Hassett maintains that Paul’s plan for a limited government “would be really positive” in the long run.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Hassett is a former senior economist at the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System and an associate professor of economics and finance at the Graduate School of Business of Columbia University, as well as a policy consultant to the Treasury Department during the George H. W. Bush and Clinton administrations.

These worries about short term disruption have been addressed somewhat by Ron Paul. They are based on the idea that massive numbers of government employess would be laid off, but Paul has said that he would achieve this through attrition, early retirement and transferring some employees to other departments. He has stated repeatedly that there would be a transitional period for getting rid of agencies and my belief is that the short term worries, which centers around increased unemployment, are overblown.

Like with any economic plan, such as lower tax rates, you have to factor in the positive economic growth resulting in seeing the complete picture. The criticisms of Ron Paul's plan don't factor that in.

My own opinion is that Ron Paul would not be able to achieve the $1 trillion cuts the first year, but could get half of that and still be able to reach his goal of a balanced budget by 2015.

 

we did bring it on ourselves thru being complacent and just not being involved with our politics

 

It's all facts and my proof consist of videos of Ron Paul speaking with his own mouth stating these things.

 

you're right, I was over zealous. you have 1.5 facts in your post.

so?

so? and not really anyone. not criminals.

not fact. your opinion.

your opinion.

your opinion.

lol. your opinion

one and half facts. and a bunch of wild fantasy opinions.

 

Which has nothing to do with your initial claim that the "facts" contradict their economics.

Complete nonsense. If anything, the conventional wisdom of modern macroeconomics is nothing more than a muddled and incoherent mishmash of contradictory results that have little to no basis in science.

Again, you're arguing against a strawman. Most libertarians understand that it is neither realistic nor desirable to simply abolish those entitlement programs outright. It must be done in a way than minimizes the pain but accomplishes the end result of devolving the responsibility back to the states, where it belongs and can be best administrated.

 

Baseless speculation.

No it doesn't, it causes more harm than good. It's not good for sovereign countries to get used to being on the dole, because it erodes their sovereignty. Also, what happens when two countries we are funding go to war with each other? We give them both money so they can kill each other more effectively? I don't think so. That sort of "diplomatic tool" is one of the main reasons Bin Laden attacked us on 9/11.

Inaccurate representation of Paul's positions. He is strongly anti-illegal immigration, not anti-immigration. There is a huge difference and you can't cloud it up, lumping the two together because it suits your agenda.

Your statement about using hospitals is not entirely true. When Paul was a doctor back in the 60s, (Before govt intervention), hospitals never turned away people for treatment regardless of their legal status. That sort of thing just doesn't happen in a free market. Of course, when the government got involved, that whole story changed.

Also, so what if he wants to eliminate welfare for illegal aliens? Why do they deserve it? What part of "illegal" don't you understand?

Baseless claim. Paul's positions are very well described...he is simply continuously ignored by the media so his positions are not allowed to be heard. You can't let the media control your mind like that.

You don't understand how money works. I'd be glad to debate you about it in this thread: http://www.politicalforum.com/political-opinions-beliefs/207555-creation-federal-reserve-system.html

Wrong again. The US never had a true gold standard. He doens't want to return us to anything except backing the dollar with gold/silver. That is not a return to any system we ever had. He wants to move forward to a new system that involves free banking.

This is a statement not based in reality. Again, I'd be glad to debate the merits of gold vs fiat with you in the thread link I posted above.

Really? How's the fiat currency working out for us? Not too much growth going on now.

Ridiculous assumption. Public education is a states issue, and ought to be left to the states. "Poor states"? LOL. What does that even mean? If you think the Federal government should be controlling education, then you need to get your Congressman to propose an amendment to the Constitution. Otherwise, what you're suggesting is totally illegal.

The idea is to transition medicare and medicaid to the state level. There is no need for the federal government to be involved in it.

The illogical coupling of employment with healthcare coverage is again, the product of government mandate.

Please explain how these are not major problems with our healthcare system.

You're making stuff up again. Paul believes it should be left to the states to decide what the standards for home schooling should be. He doesn't believe that there shouldn't be any standards. And no, he wouldn't "demand" partity...it's his personal opinion, but I see no evidence presented anywhere in your blog that he suggested he would force parity.

They're paid a sub-minimum wage hourly rate because they're already a special class of worker. Besides, Paul thinks the income tax should be abolished to begin with. We don't need federal income taxes becuase the Federal Reserve will allow the government to create as much money as it needs to finance itself.

Perhaps you are right, but the courts wouldn't be nearly as clogged as they are now if Paul's ideas were implemented anyway.

What sort of damaging expressions of racism do you think the government should regulate that Paul doesn't?

The link you posted is dead, and you didn't cite any sources for your dubious claim that illegal aliens "pay far more into the system than they take out".

Sure he does. He wants to slash a significant portion of the federal government (first and foremost our military spending) and use incoming revenue to fix Social Security for those still on it, while slowly phasing it out by giving younger workers the option to opt out, with the eventual goal of turning it over to the states.

No, he's not. You're making stuff up again.

Who said anything about it being "easier"? The idea of pre-emptive war is silly, warmongering propaganda.

That's because there are none. We don't need to give money that we don't have to foreign governments to have peace, commerce, and friendship with them.

So what? It's none of our business. We were not attacked. Why should we send men off to die in a war that was totally unnecessary. We can't be the world's police. We can't afford it, and we simply pick and choose which countries we want to defend.

 

You want to keep tabs on the growth of Chinese power? Perhaps we should stop funding the IMF then, who uses US Taxpayer money to fund China endlessly. Perhaps we should stop giving them military intelligence. Military force is an outdated method of keeping powers in check. The real way to do it is through economic means. We can't keep Chinese power in check if we're funding them economically...ironically through a form of indirect foreign aid, which you support. Your stance is hypocritical.

Peace, commerce, friendship, and non-intervention is not isolationism. You have been brainwashed by Fox News propaganda. Military intervention and foreign aid is isolationism because most of the time they cause intense hatred of the US by people all over the world.

Your opinion on foreign policy has been tried for 70 years and it has failed miserably. It is what caused the blowback we know as 9/11. The United States is FAR less safe than we were 70 years ago, and our foreign policy in the Middle East as of right now is definitely not making us any safer.

Easy for you to call him and his supporters nutty when your blog is full of factual errors, hypocrisies, dubious claims, and a general inaccurate representation of Paul's positions.

If you understood the ideology of Individualism vs. Collectivism, you would see that he's acutally not vague at all. Maybe you should try reading some of his books instead of relying on what Fox News tells you about Ron Paul.

Baseless speculation.

 

Let the failing institutions go into bankruptcy so that their assets can be liquidated at market prices and sound business models can assume their market share.

Cut taxes and scale back regulations to help the economy through the transition period.

Not much else to it than that.

Why do you have so little faith in the power of markets to self-correct? Do you even believe in the power of markets at all?

 

The recent Nobel Prize Laurettes concluded exactly what RP has concluded.

 

Anarcho-capitalism would be the free market, wouldn't it? And if a market were really free, why would it have any government? Government is by definition the antithesis of freedom. Thus the "anarcho" in anarcho-capitalism. It's also impossible for a free market to not be capitalistic, since you can voluntarily choose to collectively own things with other individuals whom individually agreed to it in the free market, but the difference between that and socialism/communism is that people have the choice to leave said contract, and then the other people could exclude them from said property.

Free markets are private property, whether this private property is owned by one person or a million people; "private" doesn't necessarily mean that only one individual owns something.

So considering all this, a true free market would of course be anarcho-capitalism.

And yes it's social darwinism, because the most able to be productive thrive the best.

Die off, of course. The reason why people in the U.S. in say, the 60's and 70's, didn't live as long, is because take for example an old couple I know of, who paid, using medicare, a few different operations that were necessary to prevent a heart attack, and another clogged artery in the neck. Among millions of other examples.

Is this a good thing? Who knows.

It doesn't happen because resources are prevented from being allocated to the most productive and instead given to said people. Do you realize how packed welfare places always are?

Until they are replaced by technology, which would continue the trend of social darwinism: either have enough skill to have a non-low-skill job or else die.

Do you dislike social darwinism and anarcho-capitalism? It appears that you do, based on the tone of your replies.

Again, if you take free market principles to their end logical conclusion, you get anarcho-capitalism. Is that such a bad thing?