Posted on 12/24/2007 10:11:44 AM PST by wardaddy
Paul Won't Rule Out Run as Independent Ron Paul, the Texas congressman stirring up the Republican presidential contest with his libertarian-leaning views and online fundraising prowess, left the door open Sunday to running as an independent, should he not win the Republican nomination.
Paul, who has railed against excessive federal spending, also defended his own earmarks to benefit his congressional district into spending bills, likening them to a "tax credit" for his constituents. He added that his position was consistent because he ultimately voted against the spending measures.
And he decried the Civil War, calling it a needless effort for which hundreds of thousands of Americans paid with their lives. He rejected that the war spelled the end to slavery in the United States, saying that the U.S. government could have simply bought the slaves from the Confederate States of America and freed them.
During a one-on-one interview on NBC's "Meet the Press," host Tim Russert challenged Paul particularly hard on the earmarks, saying that the congressman inserted them because he knew the bills would pass even with Paul voting no.
"When you stop taking earmarks or putting earmarks in ... the spending bills, I think you'll be consistent," Russert said, one of his most direct criticisms of a candidate in recent memory.
Paul said that while the chance of his running as an independent was slim, "I deserve one wiggle now and then." He ran for president as the Libertarian Party candidate in 1988.
Paul also reviewed his no-government approach on a range of issues, including what he called the ill-advised involvement of the U.S. military in the Civil War.
Russert said, if it weren't for the Civil War, there'd still be slavery.
"Oh, come on," Paul replied. "Slavery was phased out in every other country in the world."
(Excerpt) Read more at blog.washingtonpost.com ...
In fact Ron Paul is soooooo important and such a threat the NEOCONS( a.k.a JEWS) have put a hit out on him. These are your Ron Paul supporters. He better run before they get him!
http://www.infowars.com/articles/us/ron_paul_neocons_behind_potential_hit_on_rp.htm
Nonsense. This is being taken out of context anyway. He said 3 times he had no intention of running. He then said on like the 4th time that he had 99.9% no intention of running. Quit making up crap. He’s had individual donations from 100s of 1000s of people. Seriously, it makes this whole board look stupid.
Yup, but the "abolitionists" would surely push for an amendment or other regulation on a federal level to ban something they view as abhorrent (much like slavery) and modern day "states rights" contenders would insist that abortion should be kept legal in their states.
LOL. Wow. This guy is something else.
Indeed. In addition, the comments seem to indicate that he believes they could be "purchased" - ergo, human beings being the property of others was a legitimate business. Terrible.
I don’t believe Ron Paul will make it to the big show as a Republican or as an independent.
Now if we can just drag the illegals into this...;’}
Paul Won’t Rule Out Run as Independent?
Oh REALLLLLLY? Where’s the guy that kept saying HE WON’T DO it? Every time I’ve said he WOULD????????
Yet stopping slave importation is exactly what it did do. You seem to be confused about who had what motives. It was the southerners who pushed for and got the ban on slave importation. This was to protect the value of the slaves they already had. Anyone trying to sell recent Africans on a southern slave market would have been caught immediately.
So you don't believe in the Constitution and freedom of speech. Well damn! Shout him down like a good liberal.
I don't support the paul kook, but you are off the wall.
That's the worst sort of political weaselling. He got his earmarks in the budget, along with everyone else's, and then voted against it, secure in the knowledge that it would pass anyway. It's holier-than-thou posturing. It's the same Bovine Scat that most politicians sling on pork-barrel spending -- they rail against it in Washington, then go back to the district and run on their record of "bringing home the bacon."
And he decried the Civil War, calling it a needless effort for which hundreds of thousands of Americans paid with their lives. He rejected that the war spelled the end to slavery in the United States, saying that the U.S. government could have simply bought the slaves from the Confederate States of America and freed them.
The treasury wasn't big enough, and the South wasn't amenable. The crises that precipitated the Civil War weren't even about ending slavery -- they were about whether or not the practice should be extended into new states and territories. Talking abut abolishing slavery in the states where it had been practiced since long before 1776 was a non-starter.
There were possibilities for a "soft landing," to abolish slavery without a huge upheaval. For example: pass a law that slaves can no longer be bought, sold or inherited. That a child born to two slaves is not a slave. Then, as the slaves and masters die off, over time, so will the peculiar institution. But both sides dug in their heels, and there was no compromise to be had.
Coming back to the point, it looks to me like Ron Paul has a shallow and clueless reading of history. Maybe Congress should have an entrance exam.
"When you stop taking earmarks or putting earmarks in ... the spending bills, I think you'll be consistent," Russert said, one of his most direct criticisms of a candidate in recent memory.
Like him or dislike him, Russert ain't dumb.
Paul said that while the chance of his running as an independent was slim, "I deserve one wiggle now and then."
What the H-E-double-hockey-sticks does that mean? Ron, dear, if you want a wiggle, go knock yourself out. Just keep it away from me.
He ran for president as the Libertarian Party candidate in 1988.
And garnered a towering 0.47% of the popular vote. There's your sign.
Russert said, if it weren't for the Civil War, there'd still be slavery.
Deduct points from Russert. Even without a Union victory in 1865, it's incredibly unlikely that chattel slavery would have lasted into the 20th century, let alone the 21st. Even before the civil war, it was clear that the Northern model of sweatshops and wage slavery was far more efficient.
If you own slaves, you are responsible for their care. You have to pay for the upkeep, however minimal and squalid, of folks to old to work and kids too young to work. If, on the other hand, you're a mill or mine owner, you can just pay able-bodied workers what the market will bear. Their children and parents are not your concern.
"Oh, come on," Paul replied. "Slavery was phased out in every other country in the world."
The large-scale trans-Atlantic slave trade was effectively shut down by the Royal Navy. Brazil retained slavery on a massive scale a couple of decades after it was abolished in the US, and there was still a slave trade in the Caribbean. For that matter, slavery in various forms in small pockets persists to this day.
The more Rep. Paul opens his mouth, the more I'm convinced he don't know his head from a hole in the ground.
Well slavery was first and foremost an economic institution. It would have ended in the South just as it ended in the North and in other countries and for the same reason.
Abortion is not an economic institution so I don't see any parallel.
O.K., Dr. Paul, under your ludicrous scenario, so what if the southern planters refused to sell their slaves to the federal government so that Father Abraham could free them. The Union would seize them through eminent domain?
What a kook Paul is...!
What about Lyndon LaRouche..lol?
Big money was made from the cheap labor of enslaving and controlling an individual to one's own desires. You don't see big money being made from the promotion of abortions and the "miracles" of embryonic stem cell cures? I do and I see that in both cases one controls the lives of another for the sake of personal profit and in each case it is an "economic institution". Is not this the rationale? "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."
Eminent domain. Prior to the Civil War, the government could have attempted to end slavery -- but not without duly compensating former slave owners for their lost property which was financially impossible. After the Dred Scott decision, it was pretty clear that slaves were to be treated the same as any other class of property, not to be taken without due compensation.
It was only after the war that the slaves were freed, without compensation to their masters who'd spent good money, and it took a constitutional amendment to do it.
I do not condone the buying and selling of human beings, just to be clear. I'm talking about 19th-century legal theory, which was wrong-headed in many ways, but that was the atmosphere those folks breathed then.
it’s not funny actually...Britain did just that.
but as we discussed upthread....slavery’s expansion was more the issue....and other things but not as much slavery itself
My old CW history professor once said that he asked a retired federal judge whether or not secession was technically legal under the Constitution. The judge said yeah, that it was, and that’s why the federal government has never let the issue advance through the federal court system. In fact, it’s the very reason that the U.S. did not try the Confederate high command (Jeff Davis, Robert, E. Lee, Alexander Stephens, and others for treason, since they were prepared to argue that secession was in fact Constitutionally legal and that they had committed no crime in seceding from the Union.
I didn’t see where it was his point
Slaves weren’t cheap...a prime young male field hand went for around $1,500 or more at auction in 1860. That’s about $15,000 in todays terms, and why the southern planters were loathe to let them go, since their entire wealth was invested in them.
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