Dangerous Allies: Big Business and Big Government
by Ron Paul
Last week ended with some promising news on finally stopping the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Unfortunately the administration still seems to believe that shutting down working oil wells is a higher priority than effectively dealing with the broken one. They are again issuing a moratorium on offshore drilling while maintaining a de facto ban on new permits even for shallow water drilling which they previously stated would not be affected. The courts have twice declared this unconstitutional, over 70% of the people see this as unreasonable, yet the administration seems determined to simply end offshore drilling, at least for those producers that cannot afford to sit idle for any unknown period of time until the ban is lifted.
Whether or not this latest effort will hold up in court is yet to be seen. Sadly, many smaller oil producers in the Gulf see the writing on the wall and instead of waiting around and risking their livelihoods on the whims of American politicians and judges, they are leaving for friendlier business climates. What is happening to this country when the Republic of the Congo is better for business than the United States?
One big factor is regime uncertainty. Regime uncertainty is the opposite of the rule of law. It is the rule of the whims of the people who are in charge and what mood they are in on any particular day. It is usually associated with third world dictatorships and plays a major role in why some countries remain poor. When a business cannot predict whether a government will issue a permit, confiscate or nationalize their capital investments, tax them into bankruptcy or arbitrarily stall their operations, they tend to do business elsewhere. This type of government hostility is not conducive to wealth creation and it is tragic to see it chasing away businesses here when wee need the jobs and productivity more than ever.
When the rule of law is respected it provides business with some measure of predictability so they can plan and operate smoothly. When it is not respected there are just too many variables, too much risk of loss or waste. Of course disregard of the rule of law creates other problems, too. For the larger and better connected businesses it creates the opportunity of regulatory capture. If the government becomes too unpredictable, one business survival strategy is to become so involved in government and regulatory bodies that they effectively gain control over the very entities that are supposed to keep them in line. In other words, if you can’t beat the government, become the government.
A business that achieves regulatory capture is also able to write and implement laws and regulations that they can deal with but its competitors cannot. The eventual outcome is that companies use regulation to drive everyone else out of business until a monopoly is achieved, putting consumers at its mercy. Meanwhile, the people develop a false sense of security, assuming that the many regulatory bodies in place are protecting them. Without respect for the rule of law, however, those bodies and their regulations are more likely protecting and enabling big business at the expense of small business and the consumer. We see this not only with big oil, but big banking, big defense contractors, you name it. That is why especially in a crisis we should uphold the Constitution. It is the ultimate consumer protection from crony corporatism.
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Enough said, and this was before our country was staring into the current financial abyss.
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So how does it feel to be pro-slavery again Libertarians? Good, bad, ho-hum, indifferent?
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http://cog.kent.edu/lib/Philmore1/Philmore1.htm
“The Libertarian Case for Slavery
A prominent economist has quipped that free-market libertarianism is derived from liberalism by taking the limit as common sense goes to zero. There is an element of truth in this because what liberals take as “common sense” often turns out to be only a shared prejudice. The Harvard philosopher Robert Nozick has carried out this limiting process of taking liberalism to its only logical conclusion: libertarianism.2 Nozick’s uncompromising statement of the libertarian credo represents something of a watershed in modern social and moral philosophy because of its explicit acceptance of voluntary contractual slavery.”
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Protectionism doesn’t achieve its objective, unless the objective is to support wages that are above-market. Protectionism lowers the purchasing power of those to whom a country exports, thereby reducing that country’s exports.
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That right, and we need to lower our wages relative to other industrialized nations. Not down to migrant worker levels, but to well educated, efficient and 5 fold more productive worker levels.
But to do that, we have to slash Government, reduce our taxes and remove the shackles of bureaucratic red tape. Repeal the 1931 Davis-Bacon Act put more people to work let the economy deflate and reach equilibrium again.
And maybe, just maybe we might have to consider trade sanctions with trading nations who refuse to compete openly and without sovereign state subsidies.
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See, the Free Trader’s goal is to “lower American wages”, they’re scum.
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Free traders hate America and Americans. They love the Communist Chinese, and are trying to turn this country into China.
If you love China so much, comrade Citizen, why don’t you just get the hell out? Leave! Go to China and leave America to those who love America the way it was before you and yours started destroying it.
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I will vote for you! This Congress is out of touch. Please Help
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I am surprised that the administration just haven’t issued Executive Orders to stop the drilling. I have been reseaching the power to actually suspend the Constitution, which this president has the power to do… by Executive Order, and according to the Executive Order Congress would have to wait 6 months before they could do anything.. but then if the Constitution is suspended, we don’t have a Congress! – God Help Us – November CAN NOT come soon enough!
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Free Traitors
__________________
Yankee Utopians in a Chinese Century
By Patrick J. Buchanan
For those who can yet recall the backyard blast furnaces of Mao’s China in the 1950s and the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution to re-instill peasant values in the 1970s, the news was jarring.
In 2011, said the Financial Times, China will surpass the United States as first manufacturing power, a title America has held since surpassing Great Britain around 1890.
Each years, China passes a new milestone.
Last year, China surpassed Germany as the greatest exporting nation. This year, China surpasses Japan as the world’s second-largest economy. This year, China became the first auto manufacturer on earth.
For a decade, China has been running history’s largest trade surpluses with the United States and has amassed a hoard of $2.3 trillion in foreign currency. She now holds the mortgage on America.
How has China vaulted to the forefront in manufacturing, trade and technology? Export-driven economic nationalism.
Beijing cut the value of its currency in half in 1994, doubling the price of imports, slashing the price of exports and making Chinese labor the best bargain in Asia. Foreign firms were invited to relocate their plants in China and told this was the price of access to the Chinese market. Beijing began looting these firms of technology, as she sent her sons to study in America. Industrial espionage and intellectual property theft became Chinese specialties.
And how has America fared in the new century?
One in every three manufacturing jobs we had in 2000, nearly 6 million, vanished. Some 50,000 U.S. factories shut down. We have run trade deficits totaling $5 trillion since NAFTA passed. The real wages of working Americans have been stagnant for a decade.
While China has resumed her 12 percent growth rate, the United States, with 25 million unemployed or underemployed, appears headed for a double-dip recession.
Yet, even as the end of America’s tenure as the world’s first manufacturing power was being announced, The Wall Street Journal admonished us to keep our eyes on the prize: a new world order where it does not matter who produces what or where.
“The pursuit of some ideal global ‘balance’ in trade and capital flows is an illusion. … World leaders would do better to worry less about (trade) imbalances and more about whether their own nations are pursuing policies that contribute to global prosperity.”
There you have it — the conflict in visions between us.
For decades, America’s leaders have followed the Wall Street Journal ideology. We put a mythical world economy before our own economy. We put “global prosperity” before national interest. We forced our workers to compete, in their own country, against the products of foreign laborers earning a tenth of their pay. And we let in tens of millions of semi-skilled and unskilled immigrants, legal and illegal, to take the jobs of our countrymen.
And the Chinese? They put China first, second and third.
And who won the decade? And who is winning the future?
Inside the July 1 Washington Post is a small story about how the World Trade Organization finally ruled that European nations have been unfairly subsidizing Airbus — for 40 years.
While welcome, what good will it do now for scores of thousands of U.S. workers who built commercial jets for Lockheed and McDonnell Douglas, which Airbus took down, or Boeing, which was outsourcing jobs even before Airbus dethroned it as the world’s No. 1 aircraft manufacturer.
Why did some U.S. president not tell the Europeans when they started this: Either stop subsidizing Airbus to kill our U.S. aircraft companies — or start defending yourselves against the Russians.
The day the FT reported that China was sweeping past us to become No. 1 in manufacturing, The New York Times ran a front-page story on the closing of the Whirlpool refrigerator plant in Evansville, Ind., and the loss of 1,100 jobs. The plant is moving to Mexico.
The Times spoke with Natalie Ford, a worker, whose husband and son also worked at Whirlpool, as had her dad, “This is all about corporate greed,” Mrs. Ford said, “It’s devastating to our family and to everyone in the plant. I wonder where we’ll be two years from now. There aren’t any jobs here. How is this community going to survive?”
“My mom and dad told me that when they were young, there were jobs everywhere. They said we had Whirlpool, Bristol-Myers, Mead Johnson, Windsor Plastics, Guardian Automotive, Zenith. Now if you want to find a job, there’s nothing around.”
“Free trade! Free trade!” said Henry Clay in the tariff debate of 1833. “The call for free trade is as unavailing as the cry of a spoiled child in its nurse’s arms for the moon or the stars that glitter in the firmament of heaven. It has never existed. It will never exist.”
It will only place us, said Clay, “under the commercial dominion of Great Britain.” Today, it is the dominion of China.
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Fred,
Pat’s article is moving, but short sighted on the CAUSES for all of those ugly Effects. Pat accurately points out what happens when government’s “unfairly subsidizing” they’re favored industries “for 40 years’. So he’s now advocating Trade Wars will get even, new import tariffs, tax increase on “Made in China” and on and on and on.
History is full of failed trade war policies that always collapse under the weight of their Plutocratic structures. Trade Wars benefit the Uber-Rich and at the direct expense of the middle classes.
Free Trade is the natural order of Human Action and Businesses!
The antithesis of Free Trade is SLAVE Trade, forced human conscription to a centrally planned economy that invariably falls apart.
A “slave” trade economy is built on artificial price controls, manipulation of commerce, contrived political arrangements and total LOSS OF CONSUMER LIBERTY AND INDIVIDUAL FREEDOM.
FRED… Is that YOUR DREAM ECONOMY?
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Wrong. Free Trade and Slavery go hand in hand, one cannot exist without the other, because a slave is too poor to purchase what they themselves produce; the slave master must look to foreign markets to sell. And the slave master looks to foreign markets to purchase their luxury items because slaves cannot produce luxury items.
And are you calling the Founding Fathers and every Republican up till the 1920′s “centrally planned economy” “slave economy”? Oh silly Libertarians, hehe.
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Free trade = good
Managed trade = socialism
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Oh look, the Libertarian loons are denying Tariffs are at an all time low in US history because of trade deals. The Libertarian loons are trying to distance themselves from FTA’s while continually pounding the Free Trade loon doctrine. How Orwellian.
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Fred,
Prior to 1915 there was no “Centrally Planned Economy”. The Government was simply too weak to “manipulate” the economy…. until the FED arrived and gave the Government the power of “Endless Magic Money”, by which they paid for WWI with counterfeit funds and doubled the M3 money supply to create the Roaring 20′s, only to have it collapse like a house of cards Oct 29th 1929. The FED funded mal-investment during the late teens and 1920′s Farm business Bubble, and then foreclosed on HALF the family farms after the crash.
Then FDR took our grandparents gold currency in 1933 so that he could INFLATE the USD by 42% in 1934 to fund his new Socialist Utopian State
Libertarians don’t want Government controlled trade, we want to be FREE TO CHOOSE.
Free Trade is the only FREE option for a FREE People.
Like it or not Fred, we MUST compete in the WORLD economy and isolationist-protectionist ideas are DOA policies.
SHRINK federal government to a manageable 4% – 7% of GDP, lower taxes, cut the bureaucratic red tape and End the FED’s systematic theft of our wealth….
And We the People will prosper once again HERE in American
»crosslinked«
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Wrong. Free Trade destroyed the economy today, just like historical low-tariffs in the 1920′s created the artificial boom (roaring 20′s) which lead to the great depression.
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Citizen, let it go. He drives me too. He says we libertarians always regrugitate the same mantra. Then his comeback to any argument you put up is FREE TRADE IS SLAVERY. That’s it, he just keeps being his own best broken record.
I have some questions for him. Why doesn’t he go to or create his protective statist site??? He comes to a libertarian site, many of the people inspired by Ron Paul, and then wonders why people on this site hold libertarian views and admire and respect Ron Paul on a website called RONPAUL.COM!!!!
And he doesn’t get that besides the fact we believe in his views, that isn’t even maybe the reason we started to like him in the first place. Maybe at the very beginning we liked Ron just for being honest. Maybe we liked him because we found out that he had at least been consistent to his beliefs for a very long time. Maybe because we began to see a humble, educated man who studied his whole life daily to get to the point in life he’s at today. And then Fred doesn’t understand why we listen to an elderly,humble, intelligent man instead of a rude, pompous, spammer who continually spams FREE TRADE IS SLAVERY. Let it go Citizen, even if I don’t write alot I check this site at least twice daily. I respect your views and intelligence too much to see you giving the spammer joy.
If we can wish Fred one thing if he can’t join Ron on his views on econmics maybe he can try to emulate his humility but I’m not holding my breath. Take care and keep up the good fight for liberty and rest easy… most of us side you.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oms6o8m4axg&feature=related
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I’ll tell you why we come here to this site to extol the virtues of protectionism. We come here because Ron Paul is not honest about his position on “free trade”. He hides his true position on “free trade” behind his rant’s against the “neocons”. “Neocons” was a term used by conservatives to describe people like Ron Paul who are in favor of “free trade”. He uses that very same term to decieve conservatives into thinking he is one of them.
Ron Paul is against these endless wars in Southwestern Asia and conservatives are against those wars too. Ron Paul is for a federal government constrained by the Constitution and conservatives are for that too. We have some common ground, and that is a good thing. We can work together on those things were we agree as long as you are not lying to our people saying, “oh we are the true conservatives” because you’re not! Not even close.
Libertarians are liberal hippy refugees from the ’60s. You’re the people we who are real conservatives despised when we ran Goldwater for president. You’re for free drugs and no government and always were and always will be. The fact that you now drive Buicks does not make you one of us. You let the current batch of communists who run the Democrat party steal your movement from you, so now you think it’s ok to steal the conservative movement from the conservatives, but it’s not, we’re not 18 and stupid like you were back then and we’re going to put up a fight.
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I have no idea about Goldwater, even though I’ve lived in Arizona most of my life, i’m not that old. But isn’t Goldwater a Free Trader or Libertarian’ish?
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OH crap I just opened a can of worms, I know it. I’m interested in Dfen’s response, not you Libertarians.
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No one has ever been for the kind of “free trade” Ron Paul and the Libertarians are for. No Republican or Democrat, not either of the Bush’s nor either of the Clinton’s, both of whom have made millions from the Saudi’s and Chinese, have ever been for the unilateral elimination of all trade protections from our market. That was why the Libertarians broke with the Bush’s and Clinton’s and call them nasty names now.
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Free trade raises living standards. Whatever it is against which you’re arguing is not free trade.
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Free trade raises the living standards of the ultra-rich, everyone else has their living standards lowered. Free Trade loons.
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Managed trade (what we have) favors the rich, free trade doesn’t.
Name calling suggests a lack of knowledge to get across one’s point.
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Wrong, FTA’s lowered Tariffs to ultra-low levels, they are Free Trade. You Libertarian loons cannot distance yourselves from FTA’s because they have turned out to be a disaster. FTA’s are your’s to take responsibility for.
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what is ron paul’s opinion on the arizona immigration bill? can anyone tell me please?
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His opinion is much like the rest of the neocons: no Amnesty, but let in 50 million “guest workers” who will become less then slaves because they won’t have access to medical care or other welfare things like food stamps.
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TST is great. More content in 4 m than FOX and CNN combined in a week.
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Libertarian Utopia in Somalia
http://mises.org/daily/2066
lol
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lol take 2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7QDv4sYwjO0
REGULATION VACATION CELEBRATION!
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Fred,
We are rapidly moving toward a Somalian like economy. A country chocked full of War Lords running a Military Industrial Complex paid for by the predatory taxes levied on our Citizens.
What the US Government can’t tax away, it simply TAKES away by NATIONALIZING the industries like, auto, railways, health care, banking and soon energy.
What part of this Government solution mantra don’t you understand Fred?
More government solutions to solve government orchestrated catastrophes, i.e. sub-prime loans to bail out the now $3 Trillion in defaulted sub-prime loans?
More FED inflation printing to bale out those GSEs, Big Crony Bankers, Freddy and Fannie run by Queen Barney and Franklin Reins who should be serving 25 to Life along with Bernie Madoff for their crimes of mass banking fraud.
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Isn’t it amazing how you’ll get nothing but scorn from people here for posting a quote from Ronny or Randy Paul or an article from their beloved Mises Institution for the Criminally Insane? They’re like cockroaches in the light every time someone posts what they were once happy to say on the record.
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Oh no. Don’t dare call them R O N N Y and R A N D Y or you too will be censored on this site by Libertarians who are all about “freedom of speech” (theirs). These are the thinnest skinned politicians of all time. Maybe they should consider alternate employment.
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And the solution is… Limited government and cash-rich companies?
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The Libertarian solution to everything is 90% poor and 10% rich, no middle class.
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Wait, or is the ‘solution’ limited government, minimal states rights, and a thriving free market economy?
Sounds great, and why do we think that government wouldn’t get bought off?
Triangle Shirtwaist Company anyone? The Jungle? Civil Rights act? Chinese dying to build our railroads? Irish perishing in mines. BP.
What a living Ron Paul has made sucking off the govt teat. Like a mouse nibbling his govt cheese.
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Forest….
Your Wrong
Libertarians want limited government and CASH RICH CITIZENS, who keep their earned wealth and are NOT STRIPPED of their wealth by excessive government TAXES and where their money is not DILUTED by FED COUNTERFEITING our currency to benefit the Uber-Rich.
“cash rich companies” are owned by the hard working Citizens of America, Private Citizens who direct that wealth to maximize the needs of the Citizens of this great nation.
In contrast to, the our Central Government which destroys wealth, consumes it voraciously, devouring our Children’s future with massive debts.
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Ahhh, that ol Libertarian utopia. ‘I see a world where everyone is rich, the free market unicorn works for the benefit of everyone simultaneously, and that big, bad government won’t confiscate by counterfeiting and inflating by stealing and destroying blah blah blah’.
But I will humor you, so you are saying a society where everyone is rich, and obviously they work, which means their companies are rich.
In such a society, a limited government would somehow be impervious to being bought off? A limited government would somehow be incorruptible?
Go on, keep supporting that Lost Cause, and don’t forget – you can’t keep a good conspiracy theorist down.
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Forest
Of course NOT EVERYONE will be nor can ever be rich, its a mathematical impossibility.
But freedom means free to be poor or wealthy.
However Government intervention creates favored classes of people, government entitlements, special protections, like union labor monopolies or special defense contracts. Government is notoriously manipulating and constantly creating artificial market conditions. Health Care legislation is just such a grandiose scheme to transfer massive wealth to the poor by taking from the middle class. This transfer does not affect the uber-rich one iota, it just makes the middle class poorer.
Government uses wealth envy to redistribute wealth using the big lie that the poor will become wealthy if you just GIVE them wealth.
Remember the 10th Commandment?, “Thou Shalt Not Covet”
But coveting is the primary plank of the Liberal Progressive political platform. They get elected on the central notion that coveting other peoples wealth is their atheistic right, and they’re duty bound to just TAKE IT.
Governments are by nature “corrupt”!
Unscrupulous politicians make entire careers of promising the gift of “other people’s money” saying its good to COVET from your neighbor. Well guess what, both the wealth and the wealthy are LEAVING the country.
Corrupt politicians are a historical fact, that won’t ever change.
But reigning in that corruption is the birth right of the Libertarian. Restricting and containing that corruption by slashing government budgets, reducing taxes and by taking away Government’s ability to dilute our wealth through the Central FED bank by counterfeiting our currency printing inflation.
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“Forest
Of course NOT EVERYONE will be nor can ever be rich, its a mathematical impossibility. ”
WHOAH WHOAH WHOAH there horsey, are you saying the world is a zero-sum game?
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Well said Dr. Paul!
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Go Ron Paul!
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HEY, HAS ANYONE SEEN RON PAUL LATELY? HE IS USUALLY ON AN INTERVIEW A COUPLE TIMES A WEEK AT LEAST! AND THIS WEEKLY TEXAS STRAIGHT TALK WAS POSTED LAST NIGHT BEFORE MIDNIGHT. I SAW IT ON THERE. I HOPE HE IS ALRIGHT. WAS HE PLANNED TO GO ON VACATION? DOES ANYONE KNOW? I HAVE NOT SEE HIM ALL LAST WEEK. WILL SOMEONE LET ME KNOW? K, THANKS.
THOMASJEFFERSONWASRIGHT@YAHOO.COM
(I JUST WORRY ABOUT HIM, YOU KNOW, BECAUSE HE SPEAKS THE TRUTH, AND “THE POWERS THAT BE” DO NOT LIKE THAT)
FOR LIBERTY, KAT
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I am being serious!!! I go online every single day to watch Ron Paul, and I have not seen him this week – not on Freedom Watch, not on Fox, not on any CNN program or anything. I have not even seen him on any of the House Floor YouTube videos. I called his office in Clute, TX and the woman there could not tell me whether he was on vacation or working (in DC) or whatever! I see a bunch of thumbs down, but I just want to know if anyone has an answer, because I google Ron Paul daily! I love him.
For liberty,
Kathryn Smith
Campaign for Liberty – Worcester County Coordinator, (MD)
ThomasJeffersonWasRight@yahoo.com
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Anyone know what the New Black Panthers are doing? I’m just saying, it can’t be a coincidence, right?
Eternal Serfdom,
Forest
ThomasJeffersonHadSexWithSlaves@Virginia
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@ Kathryn Smith Dr. paul has been around. Check out my podcast ! He hasn’t been on TV much the last couple weeks but has been doing radio interviews. In fact, last Friday he was on TRN’s America’s Morning News, and admitted that he IS PLANNING TO RUN FOR PRES IN 2012! For the first time I have heard he has answered in the affirmative, rather than just the standard “I have no plans to do so at this time.” Check it out!
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Look on the web for
“Franklin Roosevelt’s ‘Secret Map’ speech”
to see how the anti-American Socialist, FDR, plunged America into war and debt on behalf of his banking cronies and global Marxism.
True patriots such as Henry Ford, Charles Lindbergh and Joseph Kennedy favored neutrality and good relations with Germany. Now we see why.
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Relations with Germany was ruined in WW1, nothing could have been done in 1939 to change it. WW2 was just an extension of WW1, the same way Operation Iraqi Freedom is an extension of Operation Desert Storm.
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Republicans and Democrats are evil and we should not have to pick the lesser of two evils. Socialism works and provides economics and solitaire in overseas politics which brings success to America. Republicans and Democrats will try to scare you into thinking socialism is evil but many of our presidents were socialists including FDR and brought a prospering freedom to the US. Stand up with me and tell the government who is bought off by corporations and insurance companies A REVOLT IS NOW.
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Well if I had to chose a Socialist Utopia where the average wage is 25% less or a Libertarian Utopia where 10% are ultra rich and the other 90% of everyone is living below the poverty line cause we’re earning Chinese slave wages, i’ll chose the Socialist Utopia.
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Ron Paul 2012!!!!!
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If this were the 1990′s you’d be labeled a socialist for using the phrases “big business” or “crony corporatism” in a negative way.
What’s with all this populism coming from Libertarians? You know populism leads to “big government”.
Oh wait, I forgot. Libertarianism is ultimately Utopianist in nature, so…
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So Fred, I see your warming up to Libertarians, finding a home her, supporting Dr Paul and your starting to call a spade a spade? Oops, I’d better careful….
Speaking of Oops, when will Fred the Progressive find work for all those “useful idiots” who voted in this Populist Community Organizer? Got any ideas yet? Maybe we should
Close the borders? …. No that stops the FREE flow of illegals, nope can’t have that. .
Enforce existing immigration laws, no… no that won’t work either now that Holder is suing Arizona for enforcing it. Damn
I know Fred… How about protecting us from those “dirty” and “cheap” Chinese and nationalize Wal-Mart, take control of all that environmentally tainted merchandise, and give it to the poor? Nope bad idea again… can’t do that either, they now own 40% of our T-Bills which funded the false housing boom, because Queen Barney got generous with your money through Freddy and the Fanny.
I guess we can only keep printing mo money and until we’re all multi-millionaires, you know when a loaf of bread costs a million bucks
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Are you being sarcastic or just acting crazy. You’re all over the place.
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No Fred…
I’m just trying to figure out where YOU stand on the issues, since you’ve blogged all over the political spectrum and have taken all sorts of contradictory positions.
You echo National Socialist ideas, you promote Union Nationalist protectionism, you shown resentment over Free Enterprise.
You broadly paint Libertarians as open border advocates, we are not. We love the Rule of Law and illegal immigration should not be tolerated and is a major component affecting our high unemployment.
Do you believe in Individual Liberty and Personal Freedom, the right to Free Speech, Freedom of Association, Freedom of Movement, Freedom to Choose?
By your very words I would say these RIGHTS irritate you.
These are the very CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS that Dr Ron Paul is fighting for, and HE STANDS FOR!
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You are confused because you believe in the Party propaganda (Libertarian/Neocon Party propaganda). You’ve had too many 3-minute hate sessions to think properly and freely.
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No, Fred you’re just a fear monguring into believe that Libertarians don’t care about anything, I think you’re an alarmist with no real solutions.
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Actually, noone does alarmist or fear-mongering better than Ron Paul – “We probably will see widespread civil disorder in the 1980′s as a result of our faltering economic system.”
Wow, rioting in the streets, huh? In the 1980′s?
Fear monger much, Ron?
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Ron Paul’s amateurish fear mongering is at the same amateurish level as The Turner Diaries, “Get the honky cat!” lol
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In my country, Poland, government in 2 weekes passed a law, that delegalize most of the hazard business – specially one-armed bandit machines. People, who was using this stuff in 14 days become criminals.
And You are angry becouse of offshoring drilling? Wait till You become country like Poland. You are on good way.
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That’s our point exactly… we don’t want to “be on our way” like European corrupt governments.
Libertarians want less government and NO corruption at all.
Enjoy your Poland dude!
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No, Libertarians want anarchy and a slave based economy.
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So Fred you think that Independents like me as well as Libertarians don’t care about the environment and support big corporations that break the law? HUH? What you’re saying is false facts. & you need to do some research.
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Libertarian/Neocons support “big corporations”, whatever that means, you people love cheap foreign labor.
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I’m not enjoing. In last presidental elections, all of 10 candidates was socialists, exept 1. He get 2,5% of votes. Same story in rest of Europe. We’re going to fall soon, probably USA will too.
Sad. When I was a kid, I thought, I will escape to USA some day. Now I see it becomes same place. Where to go now?
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The Obama Regime’s response to the BP well collapse and oil leak is a textbook response of complete and total incompetence in the face of an emergency. Rather than sending fire boats, naval rescue ships they did nothing. Instead of pulling together the industry experts for a fast response, he vacillated, went on vacation and played golf and did nothing.
Never in history have We the People witnessed such inept leadership and gross incompetence in tandem.
Now add to that leadership gaff…. a leader hell bent on nationalizing industries and forcing businesses to unionize those he can’t directly take over.
Big Government running Big Businesses is a catastrophe in the making. Now just imagine the current level of government incompetence running the oil industry, Yes you guessed it >>> Half the Supply at Double the Price<<<
Just like Europe, they pay $7.50-$8.25 / gallon, welcome to Europe America.
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If it were up to you Libertarians, the Federal Gubment would have no assets to “fight the oil spill”.
You know all that “minimal goverment” talk we all hear of Libertarians, well what’s all this criticizing of Obama when your ultimate goal is a the very same outcome. Stick to Emmanual Goldstein bashing, it’s what you partisans are best at.
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You make no sense, why should the federal governmet be fighting the oil spill? It should be the local state coast guards and such, all the while charging BP a hefty bill for causing the accident. In regards of BP, its buisness, shit happens, and you pay for it. But instead government (despite saying they would be hard on BP) has capped the amount BP has to pay, so as to cover the rest on the taxpayers dime. We are all going to pay for the mistakes of BP workers. To make it worse, State officials have constantly informed us that the federal government continues to get in the way and deny them access to their own shores. its absurd. Most horrid of all, recently on a vote of 420-1, congress passed the power of subpeona to the president, inorder to give the BP commission (basically a delegation of beuracrats) the same power. for those of you who don’t know what subpeona power is, it is th power to request someone for a hearing, and then have them arrested for not showing up. Ever heard of contempt of court? We may now be held in contempt of the president or in contempt of “executive ordered beurocratic commission #X”. I was going to ask you all to guess who had the strength, integrity, and honor to vote NO on that bill, but I couldn’t help myself: Ron Paul.
Secondly how are Libertarians in want of a slave based economy? Becuase the free-market condones slavery? Do you read much? And Anarchy? Just becuase we see government as a necessary evil doesn’t mean we want anarchy. It just means we want as little as possibly needed to protect Life Liberty and Property.
Lastly, no one claims to be a utopianist, all systems have there flaws, we just believe we have the least flaws, and the most fair and moral system. This derives from the idea that we take only what we earn, and earn without infinging on the life liberty or property of others. Other systems, want to take more, and give more, to spread wealth a little often in the name of humanitarianism. The problem here is, it becomes a “legal” form of stealing, its immoral, and often resolves in a reduction of production.
Its a bit late where I am at, sorry about the lack of eloquency.
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“You make no sense, why should the federal governmet be fighting the oil spill? It should be the local state coast guards and such, all the while charging BP a hefty bill for causing the accident. ”
There is so much fail in your first 2 opening sentences, I couldn’t even read the rest.
A) You Libertarians are hypocrites. You claim you are for tort reform, but apparently are too stupid to realize Tort Reform means LIMITED liability, not unlimited liability.
B) You Libertarians are hypocrites. Stop critisizing Obama for being ineffectual when your entire goal is to to make the federal government ineffectual. And the Coast Guard is part of the Federal Government, “Florida is in Georgia idiot.”
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@shane farrar:
okay, its not the lack of eloquence, it is your lack of knowledge. The state has no coast guard, it is a federal agency. It is the duty of the coast guard to do such things (its kind of in the Constitution, the navy part).
But lets assume that the state government has a coast guard. Cost? $10.1 billion.
Okay, lets just have the state of Louisiana fend for itself. I’m sure oil revenues will cover that. Its good for me, at least. I’m in Indiana. I don’t particularly see any benefit from my taxes having to be paid for by the coast guard.
Secondly, damages are only capped at $75 million if it was accidental and not the result of negligence or violation of regulations. It seems fair, right? Things out of your control should be limited. Things that are under your control should not be limited. AND THAT IS THE CASE – listen now – there are no limits on damages in cases of negligence. Because of BP’s track record of substandard safety records, they will more than likely pay over $20 billion not only for compensation, but billions more in fines implemented by the government agency: The EPA. This would likely not have been the case in the libertarian model. You think BP would’ve voluntarily compensated the fisherman and workers affected, much less spanked themselves over the negligence in safety by “fining themselves”? Think hard now.
And Ron Paul, I’m ashamed. You should check your facts. Its a ban on NEW offshore oil drilling. Current ones aren’t being told to stop, and pack your bags and get the hell out.
What this country needs isn’t less government, it needs a more transparent, less corrupt government. And shifting the power from the Federal Government, where at least it is somewhat checked by the other two branches, is better than having corporations run rampant, saying f-you to regulations, privatizing the profits and socializing the costs.
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Sorry I meant to vote thumbs up, it’s a habit here to vote 90% thumbs down.
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Unless there’s proof to the contrary, I’d say the Republican Party “leadership” back-stabbed Ron Paul and supported John McCain in the 2008 election to maintain their “too big to fail” monopoly corporate sellout status!
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The misconception that our country was founded as a Democratic Republic was done by Woodrow Wilson to connect himself with the founders. Wilson coined the phrase Democratic Republic into the mainstream of his party for this reason and because the Republicans in that era spoke often about our Constitutional Republic and need to preserve it, as the founders intended, from tyranny.
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impeach Obama
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BP has an abominal safety record. Killing US petrochem workers seems to be their second line of business. Yet they were permitted to drill in 5000 feet of water, which is a challenge even for our good Oil companies. This is another intentional disaster created by the US govt. Now they have a 20 billion slush fund for the lawyers and politician to dip into, they can borrow Billions from the Fed to fund the “war on oil spills”, and invade more countries that price their oil in Euros vs US dollars
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What do you expect, it’s a British company, the British pioneered the art of exploiting foreign resources at all costs.
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In the original writings of many of the founders our nation was constructed as a Constitutional Republic, NOT a Democratic Republic!
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Leave it to the U.S. to think that by adding red tape will magically solve the problem without focusing on practical efforts which directly attack the source of the problem.
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If I was an oil business and the courts already declared Obama’s moratorium unconstitutional, I’d start drilling again and personally give Obama the finger.
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Obama is just 1 Big Puppet & a total idiot!
2012 We our going to take out the GARBAGE!!
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Ron Paul 2012.
Restore The Republic!
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This guy makes a lot of sense. Not like Obama who only had visions, Ron Paul has facts.
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“The only way Obama has a chance is if we have another 9/11″. Said by a former aide to Bill Clinton when discussing the next presidential election.
Stay out of tall buildings. Be well and be safe.
And, please don’t vote for democrats or republicans.
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Here is a great read on what Dr Paul is talking about, please read it and spread it around to educate your family and friends.
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preview . tinyurl . com /govt-failer
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Its like being the inshurance REP and owning the auto body shop:))) At the same time:)
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Obama Deception every one look into this . Thanks Ron
))) Keep on keeping it real:) Dave
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Corporatism is as bad a communism.
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Whatever
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Right on, Dr. Paul!! The man of LAWLESSNESS currently rules our country, so that we will be irreparably beyond salvation!! They have taken out all of the stops, so that NO ONE can make a living anymore in this country!! god bless you for THE TRUTH!!
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Mussolini defined this as Fascism. I dont think this can be a good way in 2010.
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hmm … this is posted today (18´th) but will be spoken by Ron Poul tomorrow (19´th)
now THATS good internet conecktion LoL´Z
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