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 ...
It was about both and they were directly tied together. The North imposed what we would call today as sanctions against the Southern States because they wouldn't abolish slavery. The Southern states said it was their state right to decide that issue and succeeded, thus, the North went to war to preserve the Union. The reasons were complicated, and yes, did involve economics and State's rights, but slavery was the catalyst.
His thoughts come from history. It is an inescapable fact that every other "civilized" country on earth ended slavery without a civil war. They did it by various means, including compensated emancipation, but they did it peacefully.
The question is where do your thoughts come from? Isn't it just possible that this certainty you have that slavery could not have ended any other way except by a war just might be government propaganda taught in government schools by a government that wants you to believe in the need for an absolute government.
It was the distraction so the North could destroy the South which had become richer and more powerful.
The South was becoming more powerful and richer. The North didn’t want that.
Of course you quote Jefferson, who wasn’t even involved in the drafting or ratification of the Constitution. Jefferson, who basically advocated occasional anarchy and mayhem. Of course you do.
Well the tariff was certainly objectionable to the South had was the primary reason South Carolina seceded; but I have never heard the tariff described as "sanctions". The purpose of the tariff was to protect northern industries, not to sanction the South - though the effect of the tariff certainly did hurt the South. The Yankees were pretty much indifferent to the effect the tariff had on the South.
Only in your alternate universe. The Civil War started with the attack on Fort Sumter.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=xo6KIusCBoU
He knows why the civil war was fought. He only brings up slavery because well most Americans through public education have been conditioned to believe that the civil war was fought to free the slaves.
Yeah it was. At least from the confederate standpoint.
“Paul Won’t Rule Out Run as Independent (views on Civil War)”
Please welcome Hillary to the Whitehouse with 41% of the vote.
And the RATS will claim a mandate.
No it doesn't. The actual Constitution says "powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people." The word 'expressly' is nowhere to be found. And since there are powers prohibited to the states the real question is where does the power to secede without the consent of the other states come from?
Nobody with any sense.
You CW professor obviously never read the Supreme Court devision in Texas v. White (74 US 700).
War is hell.
They had rebelled before. And had won before. The South only accomplished half of that.
Remember that every single slave coming into the country came in on NORTHERN-flagged ships. Since the North made profits and then deemed the practice illegal, it would be only fair to return the money they had taken from Southerners.
My ancestors were some of the most active abolitionists there were, and many shed blood/gave their lives in the fight to end slavery. I can't presume to speak for them, but I imagine they would have preferred the slavers themselves to have paid up for that which they had done.
ROTFLMAO! And the rebel attack on the garrison in Sumter had nothing to do with it I suppose?
The more I hear Paul, the more I think he is a few fries short of a Happy Meal...
Maybe you could explain where in the Constitution the government was given power to buy and release thousands of slaves, which the Constitution at that time considered to be private property, and how politically he would get this passed with the Congress full of representatives fom slaveholding States. Posing as "Mr. Constitution" himself, Paul needs to answer this as well.
The man's a loon.
True, but winning or losing says nothing about the justice of the cause. They were justified in both cases. To believe otherwise is to deny the principle of self government.
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