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 ...
Very true.
Well now it just sounds like you are trying to rationalize a system of yesterday with the sins of today. Certainly if a State were to vote itself a sanctuary State for cheap labor from Mexico (or anywhere else), I expect other States would want laws passed by Congress enforced in all the States instead of giving one State an economic advantage over other States in terms of cheap labor.
“Lets raise the level of debate just to make it interesting.”
Okay, you start by leaving.
I did not mean to imply that the purchase of slaves by the government would have been approved by slaveholders, nonetheless it is not true that it would have put them out of business. Most of the slaves would have gone right back to work as hired hands or sharecroppers as they did after the war. The plantation owners, even though they might not have been smart enough to see it in advance, would simply have recouped their capital which could have been put into machinery to make farming more efficient.
There was a guy talking about the imminent danger of fascism in America. Who is that, I thought? Ramsey Clark? Mike Gravel? Noam Chomsky? Alexander Cockburn? Bertram Gross, author of Friendly Fascism (he's dead and the book is out of print)? Somebody who edited The Nation or The Progressive? The head of Move On, ACT up, or the Committee on Nuclear Disarmament?
Nope, Ron Paul. He's nuttier than I thought.
Speaking of nutty, Lew Rockwell was on Paul's congressional staff in the 80s.
No. He was responding to an inane question from Russert who claimed that slavery would still exist if Lincoln hadn't gone to war to end it. Paul laughed at that. So did I.
Like walking thru a cemetary,,what would these folks have said ::Here’s a little
http://xroads.virginia.edu/~hyper/wpa/index.html
“Russert said, if it weren’t for the Civil War, there’d still be slavery.”
The Democrats liked that war, didn’t they?
I dont agree with Ron Paul’s stupid comments for course but does anybody at all agree with Russert’s comment here?
Perhaps the north could have given the south shrimp for the slaves?
Nope. Importation of slaves was forbidden by the constitution after 1808.
Third party run....will hurt the donkeys, that’s where all the moonbats reside.
Well, if Run Paul can find a shrimp-subsidizing clause that allows him to sponsor earmarks for, he could surely find a slave-buying clause that would have simply made the civil war unnecessary. That’s how the Run Paul Utopian “constitutionalism” works.
Yeah, that would have stopped them. Drugs are illegal, yet drug traffickers import them because they can sell them for a profit. Slavery being forbidden by the constitution in 1808 would not have stopped the importing of slaves for sale.
Because ratification of the constitution was itself an act of secession from the Article of Confederation - which declared itself a permanent union requiring unanimous vote to make any changes - and no one wanted to be alone in doing that.
Paul NEVER wanted the GOP nod to begin with. He wanted to garner the supporters and most importantly the $$$$ for his 3rd party run. He has been accepting help from MoveOn.org, I think he is a plant to siphon off conservative votes from the GOP and cost them the election.
Right back where we were for 197 years before Roe V Wade was handed down.
LOL
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