If you read my posts, nowhere did I suggest he should vote for a bill because it would pass anyway.

I said his supporters shouldnt complain about election problems when he voted against a bill like HAVA that addressed those problems (by requiring paper trails, voting machine testing and certification, provisional voting.

I think anyone seriously considering RP should be asking him to explain some of his NO votes beyond what is often his false premise of constitutionality (ie what is unconstitutional about HAVA and Voting Rights Act?)

I was under the impression that Ron Paul voted against HAVA because it was unnecessarily complicated and open to abuse, as well as having concerns about the reliability and security of the electronic diebold voting boxes. (which have been under a lot of criticism since they started making them in 1991). The act was originally intended to replace paper voting completely but was amended to require paper trails, machine testing, increased monitoring, more complex voter registration, etc. The act defeats its own purpose, simply creating a voting system more complicated and less secure than the existing system. all of which increased costs and government size; one of Paul's main objections in government.

We have a different understanding of the original intent of HAVA.

My understanding from reading the bill was that the intent was to deal with inequities in the voting systems around the country and to attempt to provider all voters with a greater level of assurance that their vote will count...by providing for provisional voting, centralized state voter databases to ensure more accuracy in voter registration records, voluntary standardization of voter machine testing and the means for voters to verify votes they cast on machines, among other provisions

It may be more costly for the states, but certainly not more open to abuse or less secure than before for the voters.....unless you want every state in every election to go back to paper ballots and number 2 pencils.

But thanks for explaining Paul's vote on the bill. I do find it odd that you suggest Paul voted against HAVA because of concerns about the reliability and security of the electronic voting machines (like diebold) when before HAVA there was no requirement to have these machines tested and certifiied or provide a backup paper trail.

If you're looking to me as the purveyor of Ron Paul's inner thoughts, I will suggest that you look elsewhere.

Before HAVA the use of electronic voting machines was remarkably less pronounced. While not directly mandating that Electronic Voting Machines were to be used, the versatility that a software medium provides along with the 850 million dollars given to replace obsolete machines effectively ends with the same result.

Electronic voting machine vulnerabilities are well documented, and original HAVA standards (and perhaps even amended HAVA standards) were too lenient.
And if a electronic voting machine was compromised, a backup paper trail created by the same machine would be just as suspect as the machine itself.

I believe with much more stringent requirements on the security and reliability of electronic voting machines they could be a fine alternative to paper voting but at that point it may not even be feasible to use. I'm not saying that we should return to a punchcard system, as it has shown itself flawed, but there are better alternatives such as optical scan voting systems. As it looks to me, HAVA strongly encouraged the introduction of a system that was not reliable or secure enough to be trusted in an election.

I do believe that Ron Paul voted against the act because he thought it was an unnecessary expansion of government. I also believe that he was aware of its other flaws but I can't back that up with any solid evidence.

I just joined the Ron paul Meetup group in my area and we distributed 4000 flyers at a large event to get the word out. We are also working on getting a time slot on the local college radio and public access tv station as we have people in the group who are savvy in the areas of radio and video production. any other suggestions on publicity are greatly appreciated. We would love to know about others success in promotion of Dr. Paul. Results are key!!!!

congrats dutchtech :)

Personally, I'd suggest anything that would bring the ron paul message to older, less internet-savvy folk. perhaps using your video production resources to use by putting together a DVD and canvassing door to door in rural areas?

edit: also, local cable ads are cheaper than you might think.

http://www.hackcanada.com/canadian/other/adbusters.html

has some pretty good suggestions on how to produce on a budget

RP would never get my vote, but I will make a suggestion.

Check to see if RP is even on the ballot in your state. The last I heard, he was only on the ballot in a handful of states and the process is not as easy as you may think.

If he is not on the ballot, you need to start a petition drive and you must use pre-approved petition forms (you cant just write one yourself)....and get at least twice as many signatures (from registered voters only) than is required because many may not be accepted. And start ASAP, because state ballot deadlines are approaching.

I am not a RP supporter but I like to see more people get involved in the process, particularly those who are willing to fight for an underdog... so I wish you well.

Thanks for the suggestions
 

Skier and Dux thanks for the valuable input. I will bring it to the table at our next meeting. i hadn't thought of local cable or door to door DVD. great ideas and the ballot qualification is super important. Thanks again.

Woot, Ron Paul's $5 million haul is enough that he's getting some time on Google News, ABC, etc. I really think that he has a shot now.

Ron Paul is the only one out of all the candidates who is actually honest.

Every other candidate is just telling people what they want to hear, depending on the group they are talking to. Not an ounce of honesty in any of them.

I mean really.. I just turned 29... and I'd like to see a good president take office for the first time in my entire lifetime, but it doesn't look like its going to happen this round, unless Dr Paul works a miracle.

Kucinich is honest.

It takes more than honesty to be a good president.

Every time I see this thread title, my brain says "RuPaul??"



carry on.....:D

It's funny how many people try to put him down and it's not because they neccissarly disagree with his views more than other republicans, rather it's as if they just want to squelch a grassroots candidate for some reason. I don't get it.

Five million and straw poll results like this

That's front runner material.

I would suggest that it has nothing to do with RP being a grass roots candidate. Many disagree with his positions on numerous issues other than Iraq.

They disagree with his votes in Congress over the past 10+ years and his extremist view on the limited "constitutional" role of government (most notably in economic, energy environmental, health policies).

Five million $$$ is impressive, but his single digit, 1-3%, standing in polls, (even with their undercount of RP suporters w/o landlines) is far more reflective of his national standing than any collection of so-called straw polls.

A front runner......nah.

At best, he may be a spoiler in NH and Iowa before he fades away.

That's awfully rude of you to just assume that those who do not support Mr. Paul do so simply to squelch him.

I do not like Mr. Paul for the following reasons:

1. Ron Paul wants to abolish the IRS and make the government really, really small. This strikes me as idiotic. So long, medicare and medicaid. Federally-funded research? Nope. Government subsidized stuff for poor people? Too bad. RP is of the "starve the beast" mentality and that is a very, very silly idea. We give government power so it can act on our behalf, and some people require that help. It's been shown that we need to pump $10 billion into science or China is going to overtake the US in science shortly. How the hell are we going to do that with no income tax? Can you name a single developed nation with no income tax?
There's a reason for that. What we need to do is close the loopholes in the tax code, so the rich get taxed the same amount as the middle class. Warren Buffet said that while his secretary pays 30% tax, he pays about 3%. That's what we need to fix.

2. Ron Paul opposes humanitarian aid in places like Darfour. Come on, there's genocide and we're not going to do anything about it? Genocide = bad.

3. He wants to abolish the Fed and move back to the Gold Standard. Most economists will tell you that this is a Very Bad Thing, because the gold standard was stagnating the economy before.

4. Paul is extremely anti-abortion. He wants to overturn Roe v. Wade, has tried to introduce legislation that would allow states to ban it, etc. For someone who doesn't want government to interfere with people's lives, he has suddenly decided that his definition of when life begins must be impressed upon the people.

5. Paul introduced legislation that would, in effect, allow religious displays on government property, a HUGE MISTAKE imo, as there is supposed to be separation between church and state. Ron Paul also claimed that this separation was not written in the constitution and does not support it, claiming a "war on religion" by the left. As a minority religion this honestly scares the crap out of me. It is a dangerous notion that leads to intolerance. There never has been a war on religion; it is a made-up notion by the right. Those poor Christians. How tough it must be to be the majority.

6. Ron Paul does not want to support funding for stem-cell research. Maybe this goes with #1 but it's a big deal to me; look at places like China which fund research heavily -- many US soldiers who get paralyzed or wounded in battle go to China to have stem cell operations. That's not what I feel is best for our country.


Basically, when you look at him, he just looks like another one of the crazies EXCEPT when it comes to the war and national security. I give Ron Paul a big "no thank you." There is no way I can support this man.


Secondly, I feel like your suggestion is backwards. You say people against him want to squelch a grassroots movement, but I think people who support him are for the most part, just jumping on the grassroots bandwagon. I remain unimpressed with this candidate.

Most economists only know what they learn in school. The reality is that the gold standard helped us to avoid artificial inflation, which only makes it seem as if it stagnates the economy. If we're the only country in the world to have a gold standard, we go up and gold goes up, together. So long as we're the only ones with gold standard, we won't stagnate that much.

Everything else you said, though, is absolutely right.

I think many of your dislikes of him come from a misunderstanding of the way the constitution works, specifically how the USA is supposed to be a federation of states. The federal government has specific powers that they are allowed to handle and nothing more. Medicare, medicaid, welfare, and subsidizing are not part of their powers. These shouldn't even be discussed at a federal level because the feds do not have the power to do so.

These are state issues according to the constitution and with RP being a strict constitutionalist he doesn't support these things federally. Now, this doesn't mean your own individual state can't enact these programs. This helps keep government balanced and small, as well it allows variety for certain parts of the country to have more right wing policies or left wing polices instead of everyone being forced to do the same thing federally.

Therefore there is no need for the behemoth IRS code since the money won't be needed for many unconstitutional federal programs.

Again, he opposes federal money to help Darfur. He's not saying genocide is good or that you can't help out through charities.

Abolishing the fed abruptly could be very bad, it must be phased out. The fed prints money out of nothing which deflates the value of the dollar and somehow we've been sold that this is healthy economics. It's called fractional reserve banking.

His definition comes from delievering thousands of babies. RP was very liable to the health of the unborn fetus. Someone who murders a pregnant women faces double murder charges. If the fetus is a person in the above instances, how is it not during an abortion?

I don't know what legislation you're talking about but I'm guessing it was the ten commandments in courts or something. Try reading the constitution and find this 'seperation of church and state' clause. It's not there. You're probably thinking of the 'freedom of religion' clause.

It's not a federal issue. The federal government doesn't have the authority.

All those reasons above might explain why RP has been mired at 1-4% in the polls.

Wow...he even dropped two points (from 4% to 2%) in three weeks in the latest Gallup poll. (link)

No, those reasons explain all the success he's had. No one would have any reason to support him if he didn't have these views. He's started at the bottom and has acheived quite a lot. He's not like the other candidates who are household names and started out as front runners. He has been dominating everyone in the straw polls.

And dropping 2% is within the +-5 margin of error I'm guessing.

Which means he could have -3%.

The only thing that the straw polls demonstrate is that, a year before the election, a couple hundred RP supporters in those states who are active in the internet community are more motivated to participate than the supporters of other candidates.

His debate performances could help him with more mainstream (non-internet) voters when he talks about the war and privacy rights, but then he goes off on these wacky tangets, like how 9-11 could have been prevented if we placed greater value in Second Amendment rights.

Ron Paul is not a top tier candidate. Even Huckabee, who had no name recognition to start, is showing greater potential in the long run.

What the Repubs should fear most is that RP bolts for an independent candicacy and the "Nader" effect kicks in like it did for Dems in 2000.

He's the only republican with a different view. As republican candidates go, do you support him over the other candidates? Most of the other ones just taking Bush's barking orders.

9/11 would of been a lot less severe if the people we trust to fly thousands of people a year safely had a gun. Maybe it would of been 4 crashed planes if the pilot had a gun, instead of 3/4 planes hitting their target. Who knows. Police carry guns, why not a pilot?

I'm not an idiot. I know what Ron Paul's political views are. What I am saying is that I disagree with these positions. I disagree with abolishing the IRS and the Fed, I disagree with the ludicrous idea that there should not be a separation between church and state, and most of all I disagree with the notions that the Federal government should get smaller so state governments get bigger. This is not the European Union. We are ONE country. Contrary to RP's beliefs, there ARE some things that are better managed at the federal level. We don't need a microgovernment. Our first concern is to reduce the executive branch's power that the citizenry allowed to grow.

The other GOP candidates are complete and total idiots of a magnitude only superseded by our current president, so to say RP is the best GOP candidate is like saying that quick and painless is the best way to die, as opposed to being slowly eaten by a shark or tortured.

As for firearms on planes: do you know what happens when a firearm is used on a plane? I mean being a pro gun person is one thing, but opening fire on a plane is a recipe for 200+ deaths in a horrific plane crash. I would also hope you not bring a gun to an oil refinery or into a space station.

So, the cabin loses pressure and passengers have to use masks. That's a lot better then 3/4 planes hitting their targets that killed thousands of people on 9/11. If we trust pilots to fly 200 people a day, I think we can trust them with guns to stop hijackers.

I'm assuming you have no problem with police officers being armed, and their responsibility is far less then pilots.

That's not what happens.
http://www.askcaptainlim.com/asgunshots.htm
They weren't commercial planes. You don't need to give the official story to me. We're 9/11 buddies, along with fatsom and pai mei and others.
I don't mind them being armed. It's unfortunately necessary.

Ya we agree on 9/11, but the link you sent still implies the outcome a hijacked airplane crashing into a building would be far greater than someone opening fire in an airplane.

I'm kinda confused about the link you sent me. It seems to support my position and Ron Pauls's positon of arming pilots.

Pilots, not passengers. Pilots and people who know not to shoot at a certain place because they'll hit the lines that run to the hydraulics would be more appropriate than joe schmo with a pistol. A crashing plane is a crashing plane.

an episode of mythbusters blew all these theories away. Massive decompression isn't going to happen from a bullet hole in a window nor will a little hydraulic leak cause an explosion or bring a plane down out of the sky.

Planes need to steer. Planes need hydraulics to steer. If the hydraulics go out, the plane cannot steer.

Planes need to communicate. Planes need radios to communicate. If the radio goes out, the plane cannot communicate.

Planes need to know where they are. Planes need avionics to know where they are. If the avionics are damaged, then they won't know where they are.

I don't need a bald guy with a mustache and an annoying ginger to tell me that.

Actually, Christopher Walken begs to differ:
http://www.poetv.com/video.php?vid=23467



Hey, here's a good idea to stop plane hijackers. LOCK THE DOOR TO THE COCKPIT. Oh wait, they already do that? Oh yeah. They do.

I didn't say you were an idiot. However, your personal beliefs do not change the FACT that RP's beliefs aren't even his personal beliefs, they are the law under the constitution. Powers not expressly delegated to the United States by the constitution, or pohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

The States really were intended to be seperate countries bound only by a common monetary system, national defense, full faith and credit given to the other states, individual rights, and representation in the Union.

You're entitled to your view, but large centralized government is in stark contradiction to the Constitution.

separate countries? wtf!

Good thing Ron Paul didnt said that or he would probably lose most of the 1-3% support he has in the polls.

Or maybe he did and I missed it.

hydraulics makes steering EASIER, much like powersteering in a car. If the hydraulics go out, there are still the manual controls. more difficult, but still works.

The plane most certainly can communicate. Transponder codes, directional beacon signals, and tower light gun signals. This is how I, as an air traffic controller, would communicate with airplanes that had lost radio communications.

If a pilot doesn't know how to use directional beacons and VFR flight rules, he has no business flying an airplane.

how about an arrogant, longhaired, former us marine air traffic controller?

except for having a single denomination for currency, what do the feds manage better than anyone else?

excuse me, the 'citizenry' is not at fault here. This is the direct result of legislative refusing to back the executive down.

Nice sequencing on these two.

Isnt air traffic control a function of the FAA?

Yes, and they did a great job on 9/11, whereas a private FAA might of allowed the pilot to carry firearms to stop hijackers.

Blackwater is "private"...and it's working out great as a surrogate for "in-house", State Dept., secuirty, isn't it?

Enron was "private"...so was Worldcom....and Citicorp is "private", with an 80 plus year history of corruption:

Fast forward 70 years...to National City Bank's sucessor....Citicorp:
....Isn't it possible, that the solution that is needed is the mirror opposite of what you and Ron Paul advocate....??? Your goals would leave the entire "money party"....a corrupt selfish, bi-partisan monolith that zealously keeps the influence and the holdings of the wealthiest ten percent, in their hands...<h2>.....IN PLACE....but taxed less...and with the window dressing that now passes for government regulation and oversight of their agenda and activities....reduced even further......</h2>

I posted a reply to comments of Cynthetique, over on the Hillayr/Healthcare thread.... http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showpos...&postcount=237 ... it shows via statistical comparisons from the CIA factbook, that the status quo of wealth distribution in the US today, results in US distribution...too many in poverty, too much consumption by the richest ten percent, vs. the poorest.....and a Gini co-efficient nearly twice that of Denmark's....<h3>....makes the US economic conditions seem much closer to those in Mexico, than those in Denmark...or in France.....</h3>

Does quality of life of the average American mean anything to Paul or his supporters? All you will do, if you enjoy any success...is consolidate even more power and wealth into the hands of those who already hold too much of both.....and you seem eager to do their bidding......

Host, what is the difference between a government run program, and a corporation who operates under authority of the government?

Not much. The actions of the FBI and CIA really aren't any different than that of Blackwater. The key element they have in common though is the government mandates their existence.

To say Blackwater is a 'private' company is a huge stretch. Besides, national defense is one element that is allowed (for sake of argument ill loosely call the iraq invasion 'defense') under the constitution, so for us to be using mercs is something I'm against.

I really don't know how ending government programs and reducing taxes somehow would consolidate power to the wealthy. Where is the wealth already and where is the trend going, more government or less government? Doesn't it seem the more taxes and government we allow the more powerful the corporations become?

You're talking about a doctor who gave free care to people who could not afford it. To imply he doesn't care about the quality of life of an average American is ludicrous.

yes it is, and having seen it close up from the inside helped me decide to get the hell out of it.