LOL Longest 2-post exchange evar
Quote:
Originally Posted by BoriquaSNK
lithy and SPOO/\/, and I'm being totally serious here, this is what I don't understand about Ron Paul, libertarianism, and the people who support him/it...what about his platform do you agree with?
Are you anti-abortion, anti-gay, anti-government, anti-war, pro-drug, and anti-immigrant? Those are essentially his positions, I'm curious as to what you have to say about them and how being anti-gay rights and anti-immigration meshes with the libertarian lifestyle.
Also, the way our economy is setup, I don't think it is conducive to the gold standard. We are no longer a service economy, we're now a financial economy that depends entirely on speculative numbers that are priced on subjective observation of market trends.
The entire system is dependent on proper regulation, just look at the sub-prime mortgage crash as a perfect example of unregulated capitalism at its best. All we had to do was say that a variable interest rate could not jump more than say 12 percentage points in a single year and we'd have thousands of families who wouldn't be forced to foreclose.
Also, we have over six trillion dollars in debt. How does eliminating the IRS alleviate our need to pay this back, and assuming we found some other way of collecting revenue, who would be in charge of distributing the funds? Would we open up a checking account at Wachovia?
Finally, by eliminating the Department of Education, the Department of Agriculture, DOT, DHS, GAO, and the Fed what would happen to the following:
- Would we sell formerly public schools at auction, to local trusts, or to corporations? If not, how would we fund them?
- Who would inspect our food and how? Would we simply allow individual suppliers and retailers to do it themselves?
- Would all roads become privately maintained, and if so, would every intersection be met with a series of tolls or would the states be required to retain sole responsibility for road maintenance?
- During a recession, would the market go on unabated or would the federal government be allowed to offer stimulus? If so, who would distribute the stimulus and how?
- On that same topic, would we allow the market to establish its own interest rate, and if so, would the government do anything to prevent the rate from rising above, say, the average 1980's interest rate of 18% during the S&L days?
What do you guys think? I'm not being facetious, I'm genuinely curious as to what his supporters have to say about this stuff. It's the bread and butter of the libertarian platform.
Well Boriqua, believe it or not, Canada is in complete lockstep with every move that America makes right now. So you'll have to forgive my "lol-worthy" interest in this little race you guys are running down there.
But the truth is, I'm a very easy man to please. I'm not a die-hard libertarian nor am I dead set-on the idea of RP becoming president.
But who else is saying NO to a North American Union?
Or canning the Dept. of Homeland Security?
What other candidate would answer with a resounding "FUCK NO" to the question of biometric national id cards and RFID chipping in the not too distant future?
I can't think of any, but feel free to enlighten me, Boriqua...and I'll be happy to extol them too as bastions of freedom and decency.
And lets not forget the fine work FEMA did during Katrina...from what I understand they helped with cordoning off New Orleans so the police could OPEN FIRE on any citizens trying to escape through the choke points.
And what good was the CIA during the colossal fuckup that is 9/11? People should have been fired, but instead they got a little more money poured on them at the expense of the taxpayer.
The NSA does a good enough job of tracking almost every electronic communication in America anyway. And you'd still have the FBI to handle any top-level security risks....So who fucking needs those other two?
Then there's the 500,000 dead children in Iraq...even a heartless Saddam decides that enough is enough and offers his oil at 23 dollars a barrel in exchange for lifted sanctions....I think we all know Americas response to THAT little proposition.
Today America has the chance to turn things around in the mideast, and once again they are shirking diplomacy; they are concerning themselves with the irrelevant affairs of Venezuela's president while drawing up the plans for a PREEMPTIVE nuclear strike in Tehran....a move that will no doubt get Russia's attention...
God only knows what comes next...but I'm assuming it's going to be more war to dwindle down Americas troops, heavier taxes to punish the middle class, and more defense contracts to suck the life's blood out of your country.
..........
Do you see a pattern, Boriqua?? They are all horrible, expensive, misguided allocations of Americas resources...who's to say that STOPPING these decisions wouldn't save you a little bit of money for some social programs and possibly servicing the national debt?
The opposite of this would lead to a collapsed infrastructure, an alienated middle class, home foreclosures etc....basically the perfect conditions for private interests to take over anyway.
It's too bad that RP is the only guy who has a problem with all this.
Too bad he doesn't like gays, and is afraid of black people.
And it's too bad he comes with the removal of many crucial public services as part of the overall package...
I don't agree with everything he says, Boriqua....but I'm a little more afraid of the alternatives.
