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Posted on 11/01/2007 6:38:53 AM PDT by traviskicks
It sometimes seems as if someone is playing a cruel practical joke on Ron Paul. He goes to a college and delivers the same speech he's given for the past 30 years of his political career, the one espousing the Austrian school of economics. Only now the audience is packed with hundreds of kids in RON PAUL REVOLUTION T shirts who go nuts — giving standing ovations when he drones on about getting rid of the Federal Reserve and returning to the gold standard. After a speech at Iowa State last month, when nearly half the crowd had to stand because there were only 400 seats, a hipster-looking student worked his way through the half-hour-long line to shake Paul's hand. This was surely it — the moment when the straight faces would break and Paul would be wedgied up the flagpole. "When you see Bernanke," the kid said, "will you tell him to stop cutting rates when gold hits 1,000?"
Politics might be rock 'n' roll for nerds, but the nerds aren't supposed to be quite this nerdy. The leader of the disaffected in next year's presidential election — the Howard Dean, the Ross Perot, the Pat Buchanan — is a kindly great-grandfather and obstetrician whose passion is monetary policy. Paul, a 72-year-old hard-core libertarian Republican Congressman who is against foreign intervention, subsidies and the federal income tax, is not only drawing impressive crowds (more than 2,000 at a postdebate rally at the University of Michigan last month) but also raising tons of cash. In the third quarter of 2007, Paul took in $5.3 million (just slightly less than GOP rival John McCain), mostly in small, individual donations. On Oct. 22, he aired his first TV ads, $1.1 million worth in New Hampshire.
(Excerpt) Read more at time.com ...
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(In before the same lame joke posted for the thirty-thousandth time)
isn’t iowa state a public uni?
“the same speech he’s given for the past 30 years of his political career, the one espousing the Austrian school of economics.”
Ron Paul doesn’t understand economics. I have a libertarian economic bent, too, but abolishing the Fed would ultimately be a precursor to a recession that would rival the Great Depression. True, the Fed is not perfect, and makes mistakes. But the money supply won’t just magically grow at a steady pace merely because you abolish the Fed.
Ron Paul is another clintonian ross perot plant.
Y’all can’t see that?
I’d be all for supporting him if his foreign policy did a 180.
Oh, go back to defending your boy Rudy. You sound a little more sane.
>> have ya’ll seen this chart:
That chart is a lie. It’s been debunked many times right here on FR.
You shouldn’t be spamming this forum with this nonsensical crap cut out of an ElRon Official Cult Site, either.
Rudy’s not my boy, unless he’s up against Hillary, Hussien or Breck girl.
No jokes just a serious question.
Have you given any thought to what would really happen if Ron Paul were elected president?
I believe he would immediately be isolated and rendered ineffective by both parties. There would be no retreat from Iraq or recall of soldiers from around the globe. The democrats simply aren’t going to make a republican into a hero of the left and the republicans will fight him every step of the way. The only option left to him would be an endless string of executive orders that would go against his own constitutional beliefs.
Personally I like RP and agree with him on a lot of issues but I’m a realist who has seen enough politics to know how things work. Just gaining power doesn’t magically make all the pieces fall into place creating utopia.
When President Jackson essentially put the Second Bank of the United States out of business, the United States operated without a central bank for about 80 years. While it was a period of strong growth, it also was one with an unstable money supply and frequent panics, or depressions. Since the establishment of the Fed in 1913, these sharp corrections have ended. Arguably, the Fed mishandled the monetary supply and credit during the Great Depression, but it was the rapid expansion of Federal power and regulation under the New Deal that prolonged that depression into 1939-40. While inflation has been an ongoing problem since the 1950s, the almost unending string of budget deficits the Federal government has incurred in that period has been a major element in price rises. While some have complained of the Fed's independence, the reality is that is not sufficiently so, as the central bank has been effectively blackmailed by Congress and the White House on many occasions.
Thanks for the thought-out post. I have some major issues with Paul myself. It's just frustrating that it keeps getting harder and harder to intelligently discuss them on FR. That said, I ppretty much agree completely with your points.
But Paul's popularity can't necessarily be explained by a previously undetected craving for gold-standard debates on college campuses. His message, even if packaged in obscure economic lectures, is that there is something very corrupt, very Halliburton-Blackwatery going on with our military-industrial complex, and that can attract some pretty weird followers. At the Iowa State event, a student stood outside in a tricornered hat and Revolutionary War–era suit, ringing a bell. Representative Tom Tancredo, another long-shot GOP candidate, tells me that after a debate in New Hampshire, one of his staffers walked up to a guy in a shark costume and asked him if he was a Ron Paul supporter. "No. They're all nuts," replied the shark. "I'm just a guy in a shark suit." There is a subset of Paul supporters who believe 9/11 was an inside job by the U.S. government. And there are anarchists as well: they've picked Nov. 5, Guy Fawkes Day, for a fund-raising drive.
"His supporters are the equivalent of crabgrass," says GOP consultant Frank Luntz. "It's not the grass you want, and it spreads faster than the real stuff. They just like him because he's the most anti-Establishment of all the candidates, the most likely to look at the camera during the debates and say, 'Hey, Washington, f____ you.'"...
The Bible said the NWO is coming long before your gods Alex Jones and Ron Paul. They are not the ones that will save us. Don’t follow men.
lol, it’s only a lie if the FCC is lying, look it up, it’s been all over the news, including here at FR:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-rlc/1912869/posts
Errr, I'm a Thompson supporter, kid.
The second challenge to is that the numbers are so low (less than 90 donors) that it is statistically insignificant and cannot represent any sort of sentiment of military support (if 100% are actually military members, this is about .0004% donating to Paul)
Ha. LOL at you, CultBoy. That thread you cited does a pretty thorough job of debunking the ElRon "military contribution myth" -- why did you choose that one? ROFL!
The informed voter might also want to have a look at The Fantasy of Ron Paul's Military Support:
"...this isn't about campaign donations from "active service military members," whatever they might be, but "donors affiliated with the military,"...
...those tasked with fighting this war do get it, which is why they aren't donating to Paul. The only real report we have on political contributions from active duty military in this election cycle has Paul taking in just over $19,000..."
REMOVE RON PAUL FROM CONGRESS! SUPPORT HIS PRIMARY CHALLENGER! Chris Peden
We'll leave aside the irrelevance of drawing any conclusion about $100,000 ($40,000 in contributions represents only 0.8% of his last quarters contributions) or so in contributions, other than some members of the millitary, a small number, support Paul.
But the chart is interesting.
As Nervous Tick notes this issue has been pretty thoroughly debunked. It's been noted that the numbers are based on notations of employment, and include retired military, contractors, civilian employees and possibly even liars.
The Paul campaign chart clearly states troops and Donations from Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines and Coast Guard.
Has the campaign filtered out contributions from non active duty military and verified active duty status of that $40,000?
If not, Nervous Tick is correct, it's a lie. A deliberate lie at that.
Does Andrew Sullivan read stories before he comments on them? In this case, I suspect he didn't, otherwise he's engaging in pure military-related fantasy. In response to this article from the Houston Chronicle reporting that Ron Paul and Barack Obama lead all candidates in fund raising among "donors identified as affiliated with the military," Sullivan headlines a post "Whom the Troops Support," with this stunningly self-indulgent conclusion (actually this is the whole post):
Just one indicator, of course: campaign donations from active service military members. And guess who's first? Ron Paul. Second? Barack Obama. Those tasked to actually fighting this war get it, don't they?
Except this isn't about campaign donations from "active service military members," whatever they might be, but "donors affiliated with the military," which Sullivan might have noticed had he slogged through the whole first sentence of the story. In fact, the first "active service military member" and Ron Paul supporter interviewed for the piece is 72-year-old Lindell Anderson, a retired Army chaplain from Fort Worth. Further, the Chron notes that the average size of Paul's donations from this subset was $500. How many active duty soldiers are giving $500 to fringe candidates a year out from the election? Not many, I suspect. In fact, among all the candidates, the total number of contributors surveyed here numbered less than 1,000--out of an Armed Forces of 2.2 million. And, remember, most of these contributors aren't even active duty.
So yes, Andrew, those tasked with fighting this war do get it, which is why they aren't donating to Paul. The only real report we have on political contributions from active duty military in this election cycle has Paul taking in just over $19,000, and that's only counting donations larger than $200. So, maximum, we're talking about 90 active duty soldiers who we know have actually contributed to Ron Paul's campaign. The rest is pure speculation, and the Chron's tally of $63,440, with its average of $500 per donation, is unlikely to be populated by many of the guys who are "actually fighting this war." But you gotta bang out 30 posts a day, right?
The RuPaulettes need to distort, spam, and lie to give RuPaul an inkling of legitimacy.
It’s sad to see the lows his “supporters” must go to for this schizophrenic.
The article the weekly standard cites has paul raising the most money from ‘active duty’ troops than any other republican candidate... so I’m not sure what the point is.
Additonally, I’m not sure how they quantify and flesh out what is considered ‘active duty’. I think the Paul chart where it includes ‘military’ is a more reasonable analysis.
Sure, one could argue ‘active duty’ is more accurate, and that these charts are not exact measurments, and it is self reported, but you can’t say it’s a lie or it’s been debunked, because that chart I posted accurately represents the number of people who self reported US military as occupation who contributed greater than $200 to Paul’s and the other presidential campaigns.
The point is that the Weekly Standard article reports $19,000, your chart reports over $40,000. That's an error of over 100%. IMO that's not accurately represents >i>
What the Paul campaign considers "active duty" is irrelevant, and not something to be fleshed out. It's a legal term, I believe still full time military activity for a period of 30 days excluding training, which impacts many facets of the servicemembers life, from compensation to private sector employment and insurance for activated reservists, to benefits on retirement.
It is not an ‘error of 100%’ because they are measuring different things.
And the Paul campaign hasn’t said anything about active duty, the other article did, I was just wondering how you arrive at that from self reported professions, unless they crosslinked the names with military records, which I’m not sure one can do...
I like some things about Ron Paul. And there’s no denying that there’s an anti-establishment sentiment in the nation that he has managed to tap into.
How so? He's not running as a 3rd party candidate.
Blah blah blah
You’re right just like the VFW endorsement.
Is that the official Ron Paul attitude toward active duty military. I don't think so, you should note it's your opinion only else your candidate be smeared.
Dr. Paul supports the military.
Why should a Central Bank, with no oversight, control our currency and interest rates?
Yes, there will be some difficulty in getting rid of it, but the damage that it is doing would be worth it in the long run.
It is funny, that Ron Paul supporters are accused of thinking that utopia will happen when he is elected, yet, we hear about doom and gloom if he were elected from those opposed to him.
Paul would follow the Constitution and expect Congress to do its job and he would not undertake to do more then what the President was suppose to do.
I think the United States could survive that.
Yes, and plunged us into our nations greatest depression!
Why, because they tried to manipulate the money supply and keep prices stable, when they should have been falling due to rising productivity.
That caused malinfestment of capital goods.
but it was the rapid expansion of Federal power and regulation under the New Deal that prolonged that depression into 1939-40.
True.
While inflation has been an ongoing problem since the 1950s, the almost unending string of budget deficits the Federal government has incurred in that period has been a major element in price rises.
Not true, the Fed has been responsible for inflation by increasing credit and the money supply beyond what the market dictated.
While some have complained of the Fed's independence, the reality is that is not sufficiently so, as the central bank has been effectively blackmailed by Congress and the White House on many occasions.
No doubt, but the real problem is that no organization can substitute for the market, that is why we reject socialism, it cannot get it right.
Money is the life-blood of the capitalist system, and it is too important to be left to the bankers and politicians to control.
As for earlier economic boom-busts cycles, if one investigates it, you can find that it was because there was still much government intervention in the monetary system going on that caused a dislocation of prices and capital resources.
I don't trust the government controlling the price of milk directly, why should I trust them controlling it indirectly?
And that is a bad thing?
Imagine getting college students excited about politics and this is suppose to be a negative part of his campaign?
Are we allowed to vote for men?
And that means...?
Really?
He did raise 5 million did he not?
Ron Paul's legitimacy does not come from phony polls, or false reports, it comes from his defense of the Constitution.
If you are a Thompson supporter, why don't you post Thompson's views instead of bringing up irrelevant items about Ron Paul?
We then rationally discuss where we agree and disagree.
“But the money supply won’t just magically grow at a steady pace merely because you abolish the Fed.”
I received an emailed article from the VonMises Institute this week. Essentially, the article argued that any increase in the money supply was inflationary. In fact, the rate of inflation would be equal to the rate of increase in the money supply. IOW, the Austrian School believes that the money supply should be constant.
The problem with this is that if the money supply is constant and the population increases, then the per capita supply of money must decrease, ie, the deflationary rate would be equal to the rate of population increase.
Now, I’ve had Austrians argue that this would be offset by falling prices. Well, maybe, but that means that the value of your house would decrease at the same rate the population increases. And, the amount of money you would have to pay your mortgage will decline in proportion to the increase in population.
“with no oversight”
There is oversight. It was intended to have a measure of independence, so that monetary policy would not bend to political winds. But that is not how it has worked out. It bends quite easily to political winds. And of course, Congress can change it at any time, if we’re not happy with its performance. In order to believe that we’d be better off without the Fed, you have to start from the assumption that the money supply would magically grow at the right rate without the Fed. There is no explanation in economic theory for why that should happen. And history shows that it doesn’t.
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