I would love to see a Paul/Kucinich ticket.
I have never acknowledged the concept of electibility as a reason for voting for anyone. That's saying you want to vote for the winner, not the best person for the job, not your conscience, not your beliefs. Your vote is secret. You don't win a prize for voting for the guy who wins.
Paul has integrity and wants to follow the constitution. That's what a president is there for and I think he's the right man. Are some of his policies extreme? YES! Because the constitution's policies are extreme! If decide to ignore the constitution as Bush does, in his words, "just a piece of paper," then we're not a nation of laws where no man is above the law. While there are people who do seem to be above the law, the important thing is the law does not acknowledge it. It's our misapplication of law which allows unfair treatment.
One also has to consider what Paul would actually be able to do. Presidents can't do much without congress and no president gets everything on his agenda. The more extreme or unpopular a policy, the more congress is likely to block it. That's the beauty of the system, or should be, until recently.
The single most important factor in our government is that it does not exist by any right other than that of the will of the people. How real that is in practicality is iffy though I do not believe our armed forces would participate in a coup. The integrity of our government derives from that single remarkable feat. Other governments the world over may be representative (or not). Other governments may be democratic, yet none owe the basis of their existence on the will of the people whom it represents. It is every American's right to dissolve the government when it ceases to function.
Bush sets a dangerous precedent of refusing to obey constitutional restraint in his policies. Our congress, which refuses to act as it is legally required to, is no less complicit. The foxes are watching the henhouse and nobody cares. That sort of thing happens when the people are fat, lazy, and don't care what happens because they see no change in their lives.
We're just a few short crises away from a de facto fascist state and don't think that isn't so. Ask people of 1928 Germany if they'd have fascism by 1933 and they'd laugh at you. So would the people of Italy and Spain. It's the misfortune of despots that they rarely see the revolution coming. Ceaucescu and his wife were gunned-down in their garden, the Romanovs and Bourbons didn't attempt escape until it was too late.
Nobody ever sees it coming save the handful of people who have learned the signs of history.
I see those signs and I don't wish any of it on my country.
Quote:
Originally Posted by JustAsking  Ron Paul is exasperating for me. He is sometimes amazingly right about an issue when all the others seem clueless. But he also has some pretty extreme and almost crackpot ideas about a few things. So he scares me like Ross Perot scared me.
On the other hand, that particular section in the NH debates was just as you described it. No one but Ron was willing to recognize that our foreign policy over the last 50 years or more is a huge factor in radical fundamental hatred of The West. Paul was right to mention us propping up brutal dictators (even Saddam at one point). |
