If We Don't Talk About it It'll Go Away

The more I think about it the more I honestly fear for the future of our lives and freedoms. Ron Paul won the MSNBC debate's online polls and came in 3rd place on Drudgereport. Despite this there's no mention of him in the mainstream media at all.

I sat there last night watching CNN Headline Prime host Glenn Beck pick out Paul's answer to the question of what major leadership decisions he's had to take as the worst answer of the night. Nevermind that the big talk is Giuliani's inability to define his abortion stance as crucifying his candidacy. The videos are all over youtube, so rather than sift through all of them for the specific questions here are all of Paul's statements. You'll note that when the question comes up he fumbles because he's a congressman and not in an actual leadership position. His job is to represent his district, not act as a leader, which is why he struggled to tie in his medical experience and then came away with citing his opposition to the war. What Glenn Beck did was nothing short of character assassination, and yes they cut off the clip right before he mentioned his opposition to Iraq.

Ron Paul is the only Republican candidate who opposes the war, and is perhaps the only candidate period who is proposing a withdrawal and an end to interventionist policy next to Gravel. Neither of them are being talked about and are the proverbial elephants in the room for the mainstream media. In response to Gravel attacking the other Democratic candidates for rattling sabers at Iran, The Daily Show likened him to a crazy old prospector. Yet despite the response Paul has received on the internet nobody wants to talk about him.

In this discussion on public television, all of the pundits made absolutely no mention of Ron Paul's anti-war platform, or his adamant opposition to the National ID Card, wanting to abolish the IRS and the Federal Reserve, or any other issues that resonated with the people who are supporting Paul online. They talk about a narrow orthodoxy among the candidates, say that nobody distinguished themselves, and that none of them would resonate with young voters (save Obama). None of them want to talk about the proverbial elephant in the room, Ron Paul. John McLaughlin had to slip in an endorsement for Paul at the end of the segment.

It's revolting. Whenever somebody comes up to the forefront of politics in order to speak the truth, like Paul and Gravel have done they are either ignored by the media, or treated as wide-eyed wing bats. Essentially the same thing which occurred to Ross Perot.

The media has hand-picked the candidates that we should vote for. From the Democrats it's Obama, Clinton, and Edwards (despite the character assassination they performed on him last time), and for the Republicans it's Giuliani, McCain, and Romney. All of them huge phoneys, and double-speaking political finks.

Don't believe me? Remember when Paul answered the question on ammending the constitution in order to allow foreign-born nationals to become president? Paul ended the statement by saying he supports the "original intent" and Chris Mathews can no longer hold back his contempt with an audible "oh God."

Consider this segment following the debates. First I'd also like to note no mention of Paul's understanding of why Republicans did poorly in the last elections (Iraq). Towards the end of the segment, however, Keith Olbermann interrupts with an outburst of "Who is in the lead!?" That outburst was clearly in regards to the poll results, citing Ron Paul as the winner of the debate which as of the time of my posting this entry is still the highest rated. A lead position met with forced laughter from those surrounding Olbermann.

It's not just that they don't think he will win, the media doesn't want Ron Paul to win. Men like Paul and Gravel shake up the establishment, and nothing scares the shit out of cronyist corporations more than when men who can't be bought run for a position of authority. The Republican National Congress itself funds a man to run against Paul in his own district for Galveston in every election, and despite that he's been elected to 10 congressional terms.

Men like Paul and Gravel, men who understand the values of personal freedom and the danger of foreign entrapment are the ones we need in the White House so desperately. Don't get wrapped up in Paul's supporting of the Gold Standard or Gravel's support of universal healthcare. In the long run they're minor issues compared to our personal freedoms and the safety of serving men and women abroad.

Paul/Gravel '08.

Addenda: Since the time I originally wrote this, more has developed on the media's Ron Paul blackout. ABC attempted to leave Ron Paul out of their poll for who won the Republican debates. Digg users caught onto it, and after several members' inquiries were deleted, they flooded the ABC forums, forcing them to make a new poll with Paul in it. It's to be presumed that Diggers flooded that too.

Furthermore, traffic records from after the debate presented at the unnoficial Ron Paul blog indicate that the spike of interest in Paul may be more than just organized moonbats.

Most amazing jew boots

Something? Islamodans can't walk across the ocean like they can just walk into Europe, so we've got a good hundred more years to kick out of this bitch.

The best thing we can do to keep people from being ignorant state-controlled zombies is to give them their rights back and to stop interfering in their lives in the name of welfare.

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We shouldn't base our lives off the exact words of a 231-year-old document any more than a 4000-year-old document. The constitution was designed as a living document (the founders' words, not mine) that was designed to have its meanings be flexible so that as times changes they could adapt.

That said, I also don't think they intended for the Constitution to take away our rights. If we're to ammend the constitution it should be as an expansion of what constitutes a right, not a constriction of them. Yes, the original intent of the ammendment is to keep foreign nationals from experiencing mixed loyalties in the oval office. So fucking annoying. Maybe you should actually read the constitution instead of blindly letting the government tear it to pieces because it's supposed to be a "living document."

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Apparently Yahoo is getting in on the action, with candidate pages for every participant except Ron Paul and Gravel.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

I know that specifically in regards to the Amber Alert system, Paul voted against it because of all the extra-Constitutional legislation slipped into the document, including Biden's Rave Act.

On the recent Hate Crimes Bill:

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Last week, the House of Representatives acted with disdain for the Constitution and individual liberty by passing HR 1592, a bill creating new federal programs to combat so-called “hate crimes.” The legislation defines a hate crime as an act of violence committed against an individual because of the victim’s race, religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability. Federal hate crime laws violate the Tenth Amendment’s limitations on federal power. Hate crime laws may also violate the First Amendment guaranteed freedom of speech and religion by criminalizing speech federal bureaucrats define as “hateful.”

There is no evidence that local governments are failing to apprehend and prosecute criminals motivated by prejudice, in comparison to the apprehension and conviction rates of other crimes. Therefore, new hate crime laws will not significantly reduce crime. Instead of increasing the effectiveness of law enforcement, hate crime laws undermine equal justice under the law by requiring law enforcement and judicial system officers to give priority to investigating and prosecuting hate crimes. Of course, all decent people should condemn criminal acts motivated by prejudice. But why should an assault victim be treated by the legal system as a second-class citizen because his assailant was motivated by greed instead of hate?

HR 1592, like all hate crime laws, imposes a longer sentence on a criminal motivated by hate than on someone who commits the same crime with a different motivation. Increasing sentences because of motivation goes beyond criminalizing acts; it makes it a crime to think certain thoughts. Criminalizing even the vilest hateful thoughts--as opposed to willful criminal acts--is inconsistent with a free society.

HR 1592 could lead to federal censorship of religious or political speech on the grounds that the speech incites hate. Hate crime laws have been used to silence free speech and even the free exercise of religion. For example, a Pennsylvania hate crime law has been used to prosecute peaceful religious demonstrators on the grounds that their public Bible readings could incite violence. One of HR 1592’s supporters admitted that this legislation could allow the government to silence a preacher if one of the preacher’s parishioners commits a hate crime. More evidence that hate crime laws lead to censorship came recently when one member of Congress suggested that the Federal Communications Commission ban hate speech from the airwaves.

Hate crime laws not only violate the First Amendment, they also violate the Tenth Amendment. Under the United States Constitution, there are only three federal crimes: piracy, treason, and counterfeiting. All other criminal matters are left to the individual states. Any federal legislation dealing with criminal matters not related to these three issues usurps state authority over criminal law and takes a step toward turning the states into mere administrative units of the federal government.

Because federal hate crime laws criminalize thoughts, they are incompatible with a free society. Fortunately, President Bush has pledged to veto HR 1592. Of course, I would vote to uphold the president’s veto.

There's always a Constitutionally sound reason for why Paul votes down these forms of legislation.

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I don't deny they exist - it's just that while I see piles of people publicly mentioning support or hatred for Clinton, Obama, Giuliani, and McCain, Paul is rarely ever mentioned except as "that libertarian nutjob who's got a few nice views but is way too crazy to take seriously".

You're also a very pro-statist socialist living in Michigan. Anecdotal evidence just doesn't cut it. I'm not saying that a good part of interest in Paul on the net isn't fake, but that also doesn't mean that the opposite isn't true. What is it about Paul that makes his support any less legitimate than the vote distribution on MSNBC's poll prior to the debate? It's around the same amount of total votes, and while you could put forth that it was conspired by Paul supporters to vote him down pre-debate, I thought that conspiracy theories were the turf of Paul supporters.

Paul's campaign is being marginalised by all facets of the MSM, and his media blackout is clear evidence of that.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

Hasn't failed yet. Still 8 months left before the first primary, and that's a lot of time for word of mouth.

I'd say that what people are looking for now in a candidate is precisely the kind of guy who is principled and stands by his positions. Like Paul pointed out in the debates, a big factor of the Bush campaign was that we wouldn't attempt nation building. Now the very thing we attempted following the fall of the Ba'ath Party was nation building, and the consequences of that decision has become the albatross around the neck of Neoconservatives.

I was speaking idiomatically.

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but doesn't seem to mind to vote for abstinence-only education or keeping mum about abortion. And he believes they should get extra funding for doing so. A bit of a contradiction, in my book.

Explain how those violate the 1st Ammendment.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

Most of your examples are state programs, and considering the following:

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Voted NO on allowing school prayer during the War on Terror. (Nov 2001)

I doubt that the bill Paul signed on for indicated establishmentarian intent.

FELIPE NO

No, you're still not getting it. Just because a bill determines federal funding doesn't mean that the bill is establishmentarian. There's nothing inherently establishmentarian about abstinence education, and how it's implemented at the school level is the jurisdiction of states, not the Federal Government.

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

Well here were his own words on the ban:

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Mr. Speaker, like many Americans, I am greatly concerned about abortion. Abortion on demand is no doubt the most serious sociopolitical problem of our age. The lack of respect for life that permits abortion significantly contributes to our violent culture and our careless attitude toward liberty. As an obstetrician, I know that partial birth abortion is never a necessary medical procedure. It is a gruesome, uncivilized solution to a social problem.

Whether a civilized society treats human life with dignity or contempt determines the outcome of that civilization. Reaffirming the importance of the sanctity of life is crucial for the continuation of a civilized society. There is already strong evidence that we are indeed on the slippery slope toward euthanasia and human experimentation. Although the real problem lies within the hearts and minds of the people, the legal problems of protecting life stem from the ill-advised Roe v. Wade ruling, a ruling that constitutionally should never have occurred.

The best solution, of course, is not now available to us. That would be a Supreme Court that recognizes that for all criminal laws, the several states retain jurisdiction. Something that Congress can do is remove the issue from the jurisdiction of the lower federal courts, so that states can deal with the problems surrounding abortion, thus helping to reverse some of the impact of Roe v. Wade.

Unfortunately, H.R. 760 takes a different approach, one that is not only constitutionally flawed, but flawed in principle, as well. Though I will vote to ban the horrible partial-birth abortion procedure, I fear that the language used in this bill does not further the pro-life cause, but rather cements fallacious principles into both our culture and legal system.

For example, 14G in the “Findings” section of this bill states, “...such a prohibition [upon the partial-birth abortion procedure] will draw a bright line that clearly distinguishes abortion and infanticide...” The question I pose in response is this: Is not the fact that life begins at conception the main tenet advanced by the pro-life community? By stating that we draw a “bright line” between abortion and infanticide, I fear that we simply reinforce the dangerous idea underlying Roe v. Wade, which is the belief that we as human beings can determine which members of the human family are “expendable,” and which are not.

Another problem with this bill is its citation of the interstate commerce clause as a justification for a federal law banning partial-birth abortion. This greatly stretches the definition of interstate commerce. The abuse of both the interstate commerce clause and the general welfare clause is precisely the reason our federal government no longer conforms to constitutional dictates but, instead, balloons out of control in its growth and scope. H.R. 760 inadvertently justifies federal government intervention into every medical procedure through the gross distortion of the interstate commerce clause.

H.R. 760 also depends heavily upon a “distinction” made by the Court in both Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey, which establishes that a child within the womb is not protected under law, but one outside of the womb is. By depending upon this illogical “distinction,” I fear that H.R. 760, as I stated before, ingrains the principles of Roe v. Wade into our justice system, rather than refutes them as it should.

Despite its severe flaws, this bill nonetheless has the possibility of saving innocent human life, and I will vote in favor of it. I fear, though, that when the pro-life community uses the arguments of the opposing side to advance its agenda, it does more harm than good.

The law itself distinguishes Partial Birth Abortion as:

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An abortion in which the person performing the abortion, deliberately and intentionally vaginally delivers a living fetus until, in the case of a head-first presentation, the entire fetal head is outside the body of the mother, or, in the case of breech presentation, any part of the fetal trunk past the navel is outside the body of the mother, for the purpose of performing an overt act that the person knows will kill the partially delivered living fetus; and performs the overt act, other than completion of delivery, that kills the partially delivered living fetus. (18 U.S. Code 1531)

Basically the bill challenges the notion that a fetus or infant which is only partially inside the womb during the operation isn't entitled to protection. The ban concerned a method of abortion, not the actual age of the fetus, and according to a Supreme Court ruling this past April, the ban isn't unconstitutional.

How ya doing, buddy?

At least he wouldn't abuse Habeus Corpus and get us into another war.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

You know the Civil War was Unconstitutional, right? That the CIA attempting to assassinate foreign leaders and depose democratically elected governments has damaged our foreign relations? that:

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(I especially loved his rant about how letting people have guns on planes could have stopped it, without regard for the fact that, you know, if you fire a gun on a plane the whole thing will decompress and all hell will break lose).

Explosive decompression is an urban myth?

How ya doing, buddy?

That's exactly why we have Air Marshalls armed with guns right now, right?

You'll notice how much good feedback he got in that interview, and how Maher couldn't figure out a way to one-up Paul. Paul's insistance that the Civil War wasn't necessary sounds crazy until he gives the argument for why it wasn't inevitable, which Maher couldn't counter. It's why he kept coming back to the Civil War despite all the good points that Paul brought up in the interview.

You're trying to marginalise a candidate who's more of an intellectual than you give him credit for.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

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I read up on this guy and even watching a few of the debate videos, but one question, one BIG question that I haven't found the answer for is this: Suppose he repeals the 16th Amendment and Abolishes the IRS, how will taxes be conducted/collected/organized? How will the US refinance in the wake of the abolution, and how will the markets recapitalize with no secondary market of capital (Income Taxes, AKAIK, allow money to be poured back into wallstreet when stocks are down, and act as ONE of MANY forces to force that economic balance of Bear and Bull markets) to act as a safeguard for when the economy takes an especially hard turned nose dive (in rare circumstances)?

Well Paul said it himself that the only way to get rid of the Federal Reserve and the IRS is to get rid of the programs that they finance like the war in Iraq and the welfare state. The overwhelming majority of revenue from individual income goes to paying off the interest to the Federal Reserve.

What acts as a placeholder in the absence of the Reserve is Congress itself, as it's Congress's duty to issue money. The States then take over the duty of bank regulation, or alternatively allow free banking. Instead of having the Fed manipulate interests and creating artificial booms like the housing market bubble individual banks would be able to set their own interest rates in accordance to their own reserves and market forces.

The transition wouldn't be painless, of course, but the way we pay a private bank to issue money that they have no controls on for printing is absolutely retarded.

An obstinate congress is another problem, though one solution Paul put forward in an interview was to make Gold and Silver legal tender, which would force the Fed to be more responsible monetarily as people would save their money in commodities like gold and silver instead of a constantly devaluated fiat money.

I was speaking idiomatically.

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Maher didn't counter because he realized how nuts Paul was. Remember that the Southern states seceded and attacked first. What was Lincoln supposed to do, wave goodbye? The Civil War was absolutely, 100% necessary.

No, it wasn't. Every historian agrees that Lincoln baited the South into firing the first shot by choosing to resupply Fort Sumter instead of giving it up to South Carolina, which considered it sovereign territory.

Seceding from the Union wasn't illegal, but the powers that Lincoln undertook to fight the war were. (suspending Habeus Corpus) You're also not really giving me a good reason for why the war was unavoidable, you're just saying that it was.

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I don't CARE if he can dream up complicated political theories and has the brain of Einstein reborn - he's lost in lala land with absolutely NO connection whatsoever to the realities of the world. And so, apparently, are you.

What, were the Air Marshalls too much for you to wrap your mind around? I must be crazy, though, to think that we don't need the CIA for information gathering, that guns on planes won't destroy everything in the blink of an eye, or that the Civil War was avoidable and that we didn't have to fight the bloodiest war in our history to end slavery.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?