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Rand Paul Pledges to Immediately End NSA Mass Surveillance If Elected President

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Re: Rand Paul Pledges to Immediately End NSA Mass Surveillance If Elected President

#81

Post by fleitz »

shitlord wrote: post #41
fleitz wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He's also against the President being allowed to execute US citizens with out charge or trial.

And against gay marriage, too! His defenders will claim that although he does not like it, he will still allow it. But that's not true either, because he will leave it to the states to decide (and about half of them will decide to ban it). Private prisons? Have at it. Urban poverty? Let the charities deal with it. Access to abortion? Similar response to gay marriage. The only reason he's popular on the internet is be…

My impression of Rand Paul is that he has personal views which conflict with many Americans and that he believes that it's not his right to impose those views, this differs significantly from Hillary who is a long time advocate of actively denying marriage to gays and lesbians through acts like DOMA.

As far as private prisons I think his views on sentencing are much more relevant. I think people being sentenced to less time and those who have non-violent offence being released are more important than whether the prison is owned and operated by the gov't.

As far as popularity he's the only Republican that outpolls Clinton in many swing states. (Not sure if you were insinuating that he's only popular on the internet)

He's a huge advocate of fixing urban poverty by not removing working parents from their home to serve lengthy sentences for non-violence offences.

Re: Rand Paul Pledges to Immediately End NSA Mass Surveillance If Elected President

#82

Post by viggity »

morgante wrote: post #56
lettergram wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Alright, two things.. (1) It seems you are just dismissing him and his father have similar ideas, which aren't necessarily any crazier than every other politician ever (i.e. social security is so awesome). Rand and Ron Paul both supported STATES rights, which lets be honest, makes it possible to move between states and have different taxes, laws, and unique experiences. This leads me to my second point... (2) "His re…

> Constitutionally, the president doesn't control a state religion, abortion, marriage, etc. The Establishment Clause is pretty clear that states should not and cannot enact state religions, and its up to the federal government to enforce that. The fact that Rand Paul is clearly biased by his religion makes him distinctly un-libertarian.

Actually, the Establishment clause does not make it clear, and in fact, only prevented the US Congress (not the states) from establishing an official religion. It wasn't until the supreme court Incorporated the establishment clause in 1947 that states were prevented from establishing an official state religion. In fact, at least six states had official religions at the time of the founding.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Establishment_Clause#Incorporat...

The second paragraph in the Incorporation clause discusses my points above.

Re: Rand Paul Pledges to Immediately End NSA Mass Surveillance If Elected President

#83

Post by intopieces »

lettergram wrote: post #50
lubos wrote: post #30

This is not surprising. Rand Paul, similar to his father Ron Paul, has very libertarian political views which means they prefer no government involvement, not just in the Internet but anywhere. This is not as good as it sounds. For example, he doesn't support FED in controlling money supply. But FED was instrumental in making USD the most stable currency in the last 100 years. He doesn't like energy regulations and b…

Alright, two things.. (1) It seems you are just dismissing him and his father have similar ideas, which aren't necessarily any crazier than every other politician ever (i.e. social security is so awesome). Rand and Ron Paul both supported STATES rights, which lets be honest, makes it possible to move between states and have different taxes, laws, and unique experiences. This leads me to my second point... (2) "His re…

"I understand that you disagree with everything my candidate has ever voted on or stated he believes, but he is still a good candidate for your vote because as President he won't do anything."

Please don't use the term "American Dream" from now on. I'm not trying to be mean/sarcastic, but that term is too... it's dead. It's dead of any real meaning, and it makes candidates and their supporters sound like parodies of themselves.

Re: Rand Paul Pledges to Immediately End NSA Mass Surveillance If Elected President

#84

Post by [deleted] »

[deleted] wrote: post #76
higherpurpose wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On this issue I think Rand Paul has been quite consistent. He was among only a handful of Senators against the FISA Amendments Act renewal from 2012, when he proposed a "4th amendment act" that would require a warrant for all data requests: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CIyLlXBcbjo https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2012/12/why-we-should-all-care... He's been against the Patriot Act as well: http://www.theatlantic.com/p…

[deleted]

[deleted]

Re: Rand Paul Pledges to Immediately End NSA Mass Surveillance If Elected President

#86

Post by atom-morgan »

pdonis wrote: post #67
lubos wrote: post #30

This is not surprising. Rand Paul, similar to his father Ron Paul, has very libertarian political views which means they prefer no government involvement, not just in the Internet but anywhere. This is not as good as it sounds. For example, he doesn't support FED in controlling money supply. But FED was instrumental in making USD the most stable currency in the last 100 years. He doesn't like energy regulations and b…

> FED was instrumental in making USD the most stable currency in the last 100 years. If you mean "most stable" in the sense that all the others fared even worse, I guess I can't argue with that. But I'm not sure the word "stable" is the best one to describe the USD since the Fed was created. A "stable" currency would not, I think, have inflated by a factor of about 30 (especially since, before the Fed was created, th…

Purchasing power of USD: http://goldsilverworldscom.c.presscdn.com/wp-content/uploads...

Re: Rand Paul Pledges to Immediately End NSA Mass Surveillance If Elected President

#87

Post by chucksmart »

morgante wrote: post #56
lettergram wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Alright, two things.. (1) It seems you are just dismissing him and his father have similar ideas, which aren't necessarily any crazier than every other politician ever (i.e. social security is so awesome). Rand and Ron Paul both supported STATES rights, which lets be honest, makes it possible to move between states and have different taxes, laws, and unique experiences. This leads me to my second point... (2) "His re…

> Constitutionally, the president doesn't control a state religion, abortion, marriage, etc. The Establishment Clause is pretty clear that states should not and cannot enact state religions, and its up to the federal government to enforce that. The fact that Rand Paul is clearly biased by his religion makes him distinctly un-libertarian.

The Establishment Clause prohibits the Federal Congress from establishing a national religion; the 14th Amendment on the other hand has been interpreted to establish a universal standard of morality for the nation as decreed by the Supreme Court. One might say the 14th Amendment and the Establishment clause directly conflict. And the 14th Amendment has won.

Re: Rand Paul Pledges to Immediately End NSA Mass Surveillance If Elected President

#88

Post by joshuapants »

morgante wrote: post #71
joshuapants wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems like you're grasping at straws. Good luck finding a single human anywhere that isn't biased in some way. I'm also not aware of any Libertarian Cabal documents stating that nobody with vaguely libertarian views can have a religion, or that in having a religion one is so tainted as to be unable to compartmentalize one's personal and professional lives.

I never said libertarians can't be religious. Rather, it's a fundamental tenant of libertarianism that you should not use the organ of government to enforce your religious views on others. On numerous occasions, Paul has referenced religious motivations for creating social policies. For example, he is opposed to same-sex marriage because it "offends him." Paul is not a libertarian. He's just a standard anti-Federalis…

Do please show me where he's proposed banning same-sex marriage and not simply stated his personal distaste for it.

Re: Rand Paul Pledges to Immediately End NSA Mass Surveillance If Elected President

#89

Post by dataker »

morgante wrote: post #54
lubos wrote: post #30

This is not surprising. Rand Paul, similar to his father Ron Paul, has very libertarian political views which means they prefer no government involvement, not just in the Internet but anywhere. This is not as good as it sounds. For example, he doesn't support FED in controlling money supply. But FED was instrumental in making USD the most stable currency in the last 100 years. He doesn't like energy regulations and b…

I don't think it's fair to call someone who advocates against abortion and same-sex marriages a libertarian.

I think one should probably be pragmatic. I mean, if you're a republican, you practically need to have someone with these ideals. Otherwise, it'd be impossible to have enough votes.

Re: Rand Paul Pledges to Immediately End NSA Mass Surveillance If Elected President

#90

Post by crazy1van »

lubos wrote: post #30

This is not surprising. Rand Paul, similar to his father Ron Paul, has very libertarian political views which means they prefer no government involvement, not just in the Internet but anywhere. This is not as good as it sounds. For example, he doesn't support FED in controlling money supply. But FED was instrumental in making USD the most stable currency in the last 100 years. He doesn't like energy regulations and b…

> Just because he supports one or two policies we like, doesn't make him good candidate overall.

Yes, but most likely no candidate will line up with a person's beliefs 100%, so it becomes about choosing the candidate who agrees with you on your highest priority issues. Judging from the number of posts on that make the front page of HN about the surveillance state, I would guess that this issue is one that many people here would vote based on.

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