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Ron Paul speaks against SOPA

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Re: Ron Paul speaks against SOPA

#221

Post by rosariom »

knz wrote: post #166
rosariom wrote: post #39

Ron Paul message resonates with people because he is talking about something none of the other candidates are talking about: returning freedoms and sanity to America. It would be hard to rollback all the damage done by the likes of Obama and his predecessors but I think it can be achieved gradually and with some culture changes in America. This is a great country and I hope to see its freedoms preserved and reinstate…

My understanding is that Ron Paul's idea of freedom is to limit the role of the Federal Government by moving the legislative burden to each State. I can relate to the frustration that most Americans seem to have towards “Washington”, but would this really be in the best interest of the country? It's 2011, not 1787. The US is a vastly different country than it was when the idea of States Rights was created. Would the…

I do not think people or Ron Paul are talking about dismantling the federal government just limiting its powers. As the old saying goes, "Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely". It is extremely dangerous to give power over to a few in central government and not distribute the power evenly to all of its participants as history has shown us. I fear governments that want more power in the name of providing for my welfare and giving me security. I will do most of that on my own no thank you.

Innovation coming from a strong central government? What happened to the Soviet Union's innovation? They had a strong central government and collapsed... almost zero innovation came from them. What about China? Largely a beneficiary of treaties like NAFTA and GATT which gives them a great opportunity to ship in products made with substandard wages or as some would argue, slave labor wages. They also appear to be manipulating their currency and have a copy-and-paste business model. I see little innovation here as well.

I do agree that states and the fed can collaborate on issues of national interest that apply to all parties but I am totally against shredding the constitution or increasing the size of the fed because we are not in 1787. This country got to where it got because of freedom and allowing the people, like hackers, to tinker, fail, experiment, succeed, and do whatever they wanted as long as they did not infringe on the rights of others. SOPA and the NDAA are acts of central government that are appalling. Centralize government did not get us here, free people did.

Re: Ron Paul speaks against SOPA

#222

Post by stcredzero »

davidw wrote: post #60
microarchitect wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand why davidw has been downvoted. Ron Paul maybe a principled politician, but his views/past actions on the issues of racism, homosexuality and science and technology policy don't stand up to scrutiny. While some of his policies may be laudable, he also has plenty of stuff that can be categorized as insane. I don't want to start a political flamewar on HN, so all I'm trying to say is that there are va…

I didn't make any comments about Ron Paul; I just pointed out the use of "sane" to mean "things I agree with", which is indicative of a debate that's not headed anywhere good.

I don't understand how you can attribute "sane = I agree with" to that poster. What evidence do you have for that?

I think it would also be reasonable to attribute "insane = courting disaster by inviting unintended consequences".

I would posit that "insane" and "broken" are problematic in civil discourse, as these words tend to evoke strong emotions. However, if one ascribes to, "insane = courting disaster by inviting unintended consequences," and also to, "broken = fails to filter insanity," then SOPA/Protect-IP are clear indicators that something in the system is broken.

In a way, this is much worse than the "Indiana Pi Bill" since that bill wouldn't have had any impact on practitioners who understood math. On the other hand, SOPA/Protect-IP has a huge impact on practitioners of computation and programming on the Internet.

In Indiana they were lucky to have a mathematician in the legislature, and a legislature humble enough to listen to him. The US House of Representatives and the Senate apparently don't meet this standard.

Re: Ron Paul speaks against SOPA

#223

Post by kingkilr »

nirvana wrote: post #206
kingkilr wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Excuse me, what? He supported both the Defense of Marriage Act as well co-sponsoring the Marriage Protection Act, "which would have barred federal judges from hearing cases pertaining to the constitutionality of the Defense of Marriage Act." That sentence alone is so offensive to my sensibilities as a citizen as to permanently disqualify him from my vote.

His name does not appear on the vote for the Defense of Marriage Act. Please give us an example for your claim he supported it. Apparently he didn't even show up to vote for it, so much was his "support": http://clerk.house.gov/evs/1996/roll316.xml

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

Re: Ron Paul speaks against SOPA

#224

Post by scythe »

fl3tch wrote: post #199
scythe wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>he's a states rights guy because he wants the power to do things like ban abortion in Texas. No, he's a states rights guy because he's a states rights guy, and he holds to that position even when states pass laws he disagrees with. Look, the two most decentralized first-world countries that I can think of are Canada and Switzerland. These are not draconian racist hellholes; they're considered some of the freest coun…

> Look, the two most decentralized first-world countries that I can think of are Canada and Switzerland. These are not draconian racist hellholes But the South was . You're ignoring the evidence of history. Canada and Switzerland are simply much less diverse, and it's pretty naive to think that racists in Mississippi and Alabama, who never went away, wouldn't seize on the chance to reinstitute something resembling Ji…

>But the South was.

Yeah, was. Past-tense. The federal government has a wonderful history too in this regard.

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

>Canada and Switzerland are simply much less diverse

Switzerland has four official languages. It's also right next to Germany, which has a history of racism that would scare a Mississippian. Canada, too, has plenty of diversity; 16.2% of people belong to a visible minority:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Canada#Visible_...

>The first rule of tautology club is the first rule of tautology club.

It's not a tautology. I was saying that his anti-federalism is de novo, i.e., without ulterior motives, which has been supported by every single thing he has ever said.

>He's a states rights guy because he's a Christian fundamentalist who wants the power to enforce his provincial values on others, and the federal government gets in the way of that.

There is absolutely no evidence whatsoever to support this belief and I've provided substantial evidence against it in the above post.

Re: Ron Paul speaks against SOPA

#225

Post by nirvana »

jiggy2011 wrote: post #100
DiabloD3 wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the Representatives of the State of Louisiana at the time of Katrina lived in an area that was not directly hit by the hurricane. She had insurance that covered, flood, wind, and rain damage. The insurance company did not pay her a dime, even after she, and the rest of LA sued them. There is no free market when insurance companies can buy judges to get their way out of doing what they were paid to do.

Perhaps Ron Paul would do away with whatever mechanism allows the insurance companies to buy judges? (assuming what they are doing is legal).

Insurance companies don't buy judges. This is really just nonsense.

The thing is, judges work for the government, this means, no matter how illegal a law is, they will always take the government side of it.

For example, the constitution doesn't give the government the power to regulate insurance at the federal level, but judges will rule based on the assumption it does because they are government employees and wouldn't be able to keep their jobs otherwise.

Re: Ron Paul speaks against SOPA

#226

Post by stcredzero »

shill wrote: post #121
Duff wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He says things that politicians don't typically say. The average American politician chants "create jobs" when he orders breakfast. Paul says things that sound insightful and refreshing on the surface, when heard in terms of a soundbite. Most of his fans don't dig much deeper. He would be a horrific president, but he's having a positive impact. By speaking his mind and talking about things that don't make it out of t…

I agree with most of what you say, but I think your idea of the word 'horrific' is something like running out of milk halfway through filling your bowl of Cheerios. The media collaborating with the military-industrial-complex to drum up a war on phony pretenses that resulted in the slaughter of more than 100,000 Iraqis is horrific. Strip searching citizens before they can get from point A to point B is horrific. The…

A president that would do anything in his power to prevent these things from happening would be Heroic, not Horrific.

If we've reached a time for heroes to be politicians and politicians to be heroes, then we're living in interesting times indeed.

What it means, is that the US and possibly the world economic/geopolitical body as a whole is in a systemic crisis. Heroes can either change the course of the world, or they can be a temporary stopgap. Worse, they can be a throwback to old patterns of thought that no longer work.

Don't know what I'm talking about? Have a listen: http://thehistoryofrome.typepad.com/

Re: Ron Paul speaks against SOPA

#227

Post by eftpotrm »

jaysonelliot wrote: post #66

I could come up with a list of things that I don't like about Ron Paul personally, and a few things that worry me politically. But none of that really matters. He's the only candidate that I feel I could actually trust to stick by his campaign rhetoric, and the only one I would trust to actually defend the constitution. Ironic, given that we have a constitutional scholar in the White House and a historian running for…

Personally, I believe that Ron Paul will do what he says and that's a problem. I've read the articles, I've looked into things as much as I can and I very firmly disagree with him on his general monetary policies. The Federal Reserve being wound up and the USA returned to a Gold standard would not be A Good Thing for the USA or the world (me not being American); there's a reason why countries don't do that any more and it's not so politicians can lie, cheat and steal. We tried it his way before and it caused more problems than it solved.

Newt Gingritch, Mitt Romney, Rick Perry, Michelle Bachmann et al may well be unprincipled and deliberately lying about all sorts of things. But I don't think any are proposing anything quite as reckless as Ron Paul's economic policies. Frankly though, that this lot are the best the Republicans can produce is an abysmal failure.

Re: Ron Paul speaks against SOPA

#228

Post by scarmig »

tempire wrote: post #139
scarmig wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you believe that marriages should be altogether abolished, but before they are abolished you refuse to support efforts to make the discriminatory status quo more equitable... then, yes, you're against gay rights.

I think you're missing Paul's philosophy on the matter. His perspective on Federal government is that it's outside their jurisdiction to dictate morality. The constitution already states that all people are made equal; more laws are not necessary to enforce the issue. It's not marriages that he wants to abolish, but government-issued licences for it. The government should have no say whatsoever in defining what a mar…

You're still totally ignoring the point.

Marriage can be made equitable. It can be done either via abolishing marriage licensing altogether, or via making marriage licenses equitable.

Ron Paul believes it's better to keep marriage licensing discriminatory versus equalizing them.

If this were a world where government entitlements were available only to white people, and Ron Paul took the position "I'm opposed to doing anything to make government benefits race blind, so I'm going to work against people trying to make government entitlements race blind, because I believe all government entitlements are evil," that would be an effectively racist policy position, whatever his personal beliefs on race are.

And Ron Paul goes further: he has gone so far as to sponsor and vote for legislation that prevents the federal government from recognizing state-legislated marriage equality. So in this case, he thinks states rights go too far in allowing them to define marriage, so federal legislation is necessary.

And we're talking about a guy who not only is personally opposed to gay marriage. Do you really believe that plays no role whatsoever in his opposition to marriage equality?

Re: Ron Paul speaks against SOPA

#229

Post by scythe »

adbge wrote: post #210
fl3tch wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Look, the two most decentralized first-world countries that I can think of are Canada and Switzerland. These are not draconian racist hellholes But the South was . You're ignoring the evidence of history. Canada and Switzerland are simply much less diverse, and it's pretty naive to think that racists in Mississippi and Alabama, who never went away, wouldn't seize on the chance to reinstitute something resembling Ji…

> it's pretty naive to think that racists in Mississippi > and Alabama, who never went away, wouldn't seize on the > chance to reinstitute something resembling Jim Crow laws. He's the naive one? Frankly, what you're suggesting is absurd and borderline offensive. As if the enlightened North and federal legislation are all that prevents the re-institution of Jim Crow laws! Give me a break.

Let's take a look at what modern-day Mississippi residents actually have to say:

http://mississippibelieveit.com/home/

>The “good ole boy” network alive and well in Mississippi? Not hardly. Our new “network” consists of more black elected officials than any other state in the country – a number that grew from a mere 81 in 1970 to 897 in 2000.

Mississippi is as racist today as Russia is Communist. Give me a break.

Re: Ron Paul speaks against SOPA

#230

Post by davidw »

stcredzero wrote: post #222
davidw wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't make any comments about Ron Paul; I just pointed out the use of "sane" to mean "things I agree with", which is indicative of a debate that's not headed anywhere good.

I don't understand how you can attribute "sane = I agree with" to that poster. What evidence do you have for that? I think it would also be reasonable to attribute "insane = courting disaster by inviting unintended consequences". I would posit that "insane" and "broken" are problematic in civil discourse, as these words tend to evoke strong emotions. However, if one ascribes to, "insane = courting disaster by invitin…

> I don't understand how you can attribute "sane = I agree with" to that poster. What evidence do you have for that?

His original sentence:

> he is talking about something none of the other candidates are talking about: returning freedoms and sanity to America

It's a cheap rhetorical trick. "Sanity" is defined as what his favored candidate wants to do, no?

> I would posit that "insane" and "broken" are problematic in civil discourse, as these words tend to evoke strong emotions.

Exactly.

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