Thread: To Ron Paul Supporters: Civility is Essential

PineStrawGuys wrote:

I've seen Ron Paul supporters get hammered on this site time after time by the same posters who are now claiming to be the abused.

I must have missed that. I've seen a lot of folks with serious concerns about Paul comment regarding his voting record, statements, position on certain issues. However, I haven't seen any consistent hammering of Ron Paul supporters. Personally, I think we should all strive to keep our posts less personal. Just my opinion.

Perhaps when you feel that fire in your belly after reading a post it would be wise to walk away from the keyboard for 10-15 minutes prior to responding. Just a thought.

I am going to have to pay attention - I haven't seen Ron Paul supporters being abusive - certainly not nearly as abusive as the anti-Paul posters.

As someone asked, could these 'abusive spammers' be people, other than Paul supporters, trying to present such an image?

I mean really folks, everyone is against this man - except American people. The media pretends he doesn't exist - just as they did illegal immigration, remember - the other candidates are working really hard to make him out a nutjob. Why?

This isn't directed to the OP, but might this 'banning' be another way of catering to the powers that be?

Once again, if we are going to pull ourselves out of the quicksand, it will have to be this election - and it will have to be someone very different.

Unless something drastic happens this election, the next election will have all these illegals being made legal and they will have the vote, and we will have electronic voting everywhere. Elections will be a complete sham.

This is it folks, let's don't get mired down in the small things.

Even if this is true, there is room for doubt, as someone said, Mr. Paul can't help what others post on sites. Would it not be better, in the interest of fairness and letting all ideas come out, to simply ban the abusive posters - rather than the entire candidacy????

Interesting. I remember the prior 2 elections. I voted, both times, for Ralph Nader. Now before anyone jumps on my back, I have to say, that voting for Nader was not a vote for Bush, it was a vote for Nader. I do understand the thinking behind voting for a third-party candidate is "taking away" votes from the mainliners, but I still have the right to cast my vote for the person I think is best for the job, right?

Choosing the lesser of two weasels is still choosing a weasel.

I would like to address any questions about "serious concerns about Paul regarding his voting record, statements, position on certain issues."

I don't know everything there is to know about Dr. Paul, but I think his voting record and positions are easily defensible. I'm even willing to do the leg work neccessary to honestly answer any questions anyone may have about him.

Please be specific.

Originally Posted by PinestrawGuys

I would like to address any questions about "serious concerns about Paul regarding his voting record, statements, position on certain issues."

I don't know everything there is to know about Dr. Paul, but I think his voting record and positions are easily defensible. I'm even willing to do the leg work neccessary to honestly answer any questions anyone may have about him.

Please be specific.

Hi, Pinestraw. I am undecided on Ron Paul at this point. I admire him at times, but at others, I wonder what he's doing. I am still reading about him, and will make a decision based on my OWN logical reasoning once I have enough information.

Aside from that, Dr. Paul votes against legislation that would be good for border security, yet they have follow-up provisions that undermine the Constitution. How is he going to prevent Congress from preparing all-inclusive bills like these? He can either accept them as President or veto them. In the first instance, he would be backtracking from his stance while a candidate. If he vetoes the all-inclusive bills, then nothing will ever get done. Or does he have some sort of plan to have Congress limit bills to one or two items each?

Please don't jump on my back, these are honest questions.

corhanem,

I seldom jump on anyone's back, so fear not, my friend.

The question you ask is a good one, and almost impossible to answer, as it would require a certain amount of foreknowledge that even Karnak the Magnificent would be unable to demonstrate. The best answer that i can give would be this: Dr. Paul has demonstrated time and again his willingness to stand upon Constitutional principles and vote against ANY bill that goes against it. When the vote in the House is 434-1 you can be sure that Ron Paul is the '1'.

Would this propensity for doing the right thing create a gridlock situation in Washington? Possibly, but it wouldn't take long for the rest of the political world to catch on and start submitting bills that stand or fall on their own merits.

Besides, I'd rather that Washington do nothing than continue down the path they presently occupy.

IMHO, of course.

Originally Posted by PinestrawGuys

The best answer that i can give would be this: Dr. Paul has demonstrated time and again his willingness to stand upon Constitutional principles and vote against ANY bill that goes against it. When the vote in the House is 434-1 you can be sure that Ron Paul is the '1'. ... but it wouldn't take long for the rest of the political world to catch on and start submitting bills that stand or fall on their own merits.

Besides, I'd rather that Washington do nothing than continue down the path they presently occupy.

Touche'! I kept wondering why Dr. Paul continually voted against laws that are against illegal aliens. It wasn't until someone brought up the Constitutionality of the other subsections of the bills that it finally made sense to me.

I'd much rather there be no more rewarding criminals, too. Guess we need to shout louder??

I just finished helping my husband fill out a voter registration form. He's 42, has never voted (or registered) or even cared before. But even my lazcksadaisical hubby is infuriated by the current foreign invasion from south of the border. He had one of the biggest mouths at the Vicente Fox protest Monday night! When we went to vote on Tuesday, he told me he didn't think he was registered. My jaw dropped to the floor. You have to be registered 30 days before the election here, so it was too late. But we're taking care of it now!

Each morning, my news editor and I go through the news stories to determine what we will run. We are in agreement that our first choice will be stories about the presidential campaigns and the candidates. If the AP does not have a story about Ron Paul, there is absolutely nothing we can do about it. Yet, without knowing the facts, we get blasted for "not covering him" or for "ignoring him."

This statement speaks volumes about "GOUSA" If they only follow what the MSM wants to cover then they are no better. Don't they know that the MSM is bought and paid for and have been for years. Don't they know they have their own agenda.

Here is an article that appeared in PCWorld.com this week, that may shed some light on what is happening with the Spamming.


Spam the Vote: Ron Paul Spam Surfs into Inboxes

This batch is NOT from the Paul campaign, but security firms warn that political spam pitching candidates and causes is going to be huge in coming months.

PC World
Sunday, November 4, 2007; 12:19 AM


Spam supporting presidential hopeful Ron Paul filled inboxes this week as zombie computers spewed thousands of messages to recipients, according to spam experts. The spam supporting Paul was sent using the same illegal spam methods used to distribute masculinity enhancement products and pump-and-dump penny stock schemes.

Experts suggest getting used to it. They expect that during this election cycle things are going to get ugly as campaigns, spammers, unruly supporters, and even rival camps use blogs, inboxes, YouTube videos, and search engines to spam the vote.

In this case, theRon Paul 2008 Presidential Campaign Committeevigorously denies sending the spam, approving its distribution, or having any ties to its senders. Security experts analyzing the deluge agree the official organization is likely not the source.

Or, as everyone discussing the deluge noted, the spam may have been sent by someone trying to make Paul look bad by associating him with spamming.

"It's a tactic that we've seen many times in the past," says Sam Masiello, director of threat management at e-mail security firmMX Logic. "We just didn't expect to see it start happening so early this year."

Security experts contacted report seeing this week waves of identical spam that supports candidate Paul. In each instance, the spamwas sent using a botnet, which is a network of hijacked consumer or commercial PCs that are often used surreptitiously by hackers to send spam.


MX Logic's Masiello says the spam messages sent on Paul's behalf didn't contain malicious surprises.

Instead, the Ron Paul spam contained only written requests to support Paul's presidential bid. E-mail subject lines of the spam messages featured various come-ons, such as "Who Is Ron Paul?" "Ron Paul Eliminates The IRS!" and "Ron Paul Wins GOP Debate!"

"We suspect an overzealous and well-intentioned Ron Paul supporter sent these messages," says Jesse Benton, spokesperson for the Ron Paul 2008 Presidential Campaign Committee. Benton suggests the spam may have been sent by someone interested in discrediting Paul by associating his campaign with spamming.

A Paul spam surge was spotted Monday by several security services, includingSophosLabs, which quickly began blocking the messages. MX Logic tracked the spam coming from hijacked PCs from Europe, South America, and Australia. The security services say volumes of Paul spam have dropped considerably by Friday.

What is unique about the Paul spam is that it doesn't try to entice the recipient to do anything, such as visit a page loaded up with malware. It's a common tactic of virus-spreaders or phishers to lure recipients into opening an enticing message with a spoofed return address--inviting them to donate money to California fire victims, for example, and instead harvesting the credit card information for nefarious purposes. That kind of spam could cause a backlash on Paul, even if his campaign had nothing to do with it.

Security experts expect political spam will soon be used to carry more than political messages. Representatives of Internet security firmSonicWallsay they have already seen political-themed spam used to entice people to open messages containing links to viruses and wormsincluding the so-called Storm worm.

The spate of spam supporting Paul does not urge recipients to fork over personal or financial information, says MX Logic's Masiello. "It just asks you to support Ron Paul," he says.

Political Spam Goes Web 2.0

Accusations that supporters of Paul are using spammy tactics to promote the candidate don't stop with e-mail. The suspicious point out that Paul garners a disproportionate amount of support online (as measured by Web-based polls, mentions in blogs, and frequency of Web searches conducted by users related to "Ron Paul") compared to voter interest polls conducted offline. That fact may suggest Paul's online supporters are stuffing the virtual ballot by voting early and often at political polling Web sites.

Benton chalks up the lopsided support online verses offline by noting that Paul has won some of the tech savvy-voters by supporting issues such as an Internet unfettered by government regulation.

While current Paul-promoting political spam poses little security threat to users, spam that promotes candidates could overwhelm the systems used to block unwanted e-mail, say security experts.

Last presidential election MailFrontier, now owned by SonicWall , reported that in days leading up to the 2004 presidential election one percent of all spam -- more than 40 million messages daily -- were political. Spam topics included both President Bush and Sen. John Kerry.

This campaign season is likely to see spammers adopting new technology to get their candidates' messages out, moving beyond botnets that spew spam. One technique is called Google bombing, which tricks a search engine's ranking algorithms by flooding the Web with links and sites of a certain theme. Google bombs were used last year against 50 Republicans up for re-election.Liberal bloggers at Direct Democracy admitted to targeting the Republicansand did their best to influence Google search results to refer searches for candidate information to unflattering Web sites and articles about individuals running for office.

Unsolicited political messages are specifically exempt under the federal CAN-SPAM Act, which sets rules for mass messaging and provides penalties for violations. Mass mail must provide the actual source as a return address and offer an opt-out from future mailings. However, any use of bots to disguise the source of e-mail is illegal.

Other types of expected political spam beyond the inbox variety are so-calledsplogsor comment spam, which is an automated technique used to add comments to blogs or create Web pages promoting a commercial or -- in this case -- political cause. Other recent techniques of spamming include people who create decoy YouTube videos that promise one thing but deliver a commercial or political message.

The reason we see this is because in a tight race spam (in its various incarnations) can shape public opinion just as spammer peddling diet pills always find customers, says Andy Klein, SonicWall product marketing manager.

And this, mind you, is the dark side of political spam, not to be confused with thevolumes of legitimate political e-mail from candidatesand their supporters sent by legitimate e-mail channels that is also likely to multiply in our inboxes over the next 12 months.

http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,139241/article.html

Originally Posted by Darlene

Each morning, my news editor and I go through the news stories to determine what we will run. We are in agreement that our first choice will be stories about the presidential campaigns and the candidates. If the AP does not have a story about Ron Paul, there is absolutely nothing we can do about it. Yet, without knowing the facts, we get blasted for "not covering him" or for "ignoring him."

This statement speaks volumes about "GOUSA" If they only follow what the MSM wants to cover then they are no better. Don't they know that the MSM is bought and paid for and have been for years. Don't they know they have their own agenda.

Here is an article that appeared in PCWorld.com this week, that may shed some light on what is happening with the Spamming.


Spam the Vote: Ron Paul Spam Surfs into Inboxes

This batch is NOT from the Paul campaign, but security firms warn that political spam pitching candidates and causes is going to be huge in coming months.

PC World
Sunday, November 4, 2007; 12:19 AM


Spam supporting presidential hopeful Ron Paul filled inboxes this week as zombie computers spewed thousands of messages to recipients, according to spam experts. The spam supporting Paul was sent using the same illegal spam methods used to distribute masculinity enhancement products and pump-and-dump penny stock schemes.

Experts suggest getting used to it. They expect that during this election cycle things are going to get ugly as campaigns, spammers, unruly supporters, and even rival camps use blogs, inboxes, YouTube videos, and search engines to spam the vote.

In this case, theRon Paul 2008 Presidential Campaign Committeevigorously denies sending the spam, approving its distribution, or having any ties to its senders. Security experts analyzing the deluge agree the official organization is likely not the source.

Or, as everyone discussing the deluge noted, the spam may have been sent by someone trying to make Paul look bad by associating him with spamming.

"It's a tactic that we've seen many times in the past," says Sam Masiello, director of threat management at e-mail security firmMX Logic. "We just didn't expect to see it start happening so early this year."

Security experts contacted report seeing this week waves of identical spam that supports candidate Paul. In each instance, the spamwas sent using a botnet, which is a network of hijacked consumer or commercial PCs that are often used surreptitiously by hackers to send spam.


MX Logic's Masiello says the spam messages sent on Paul's behalf didn't contain malicious surprises.

Instead, the Ron Paul spam contained only written requests to support Paul's presidential bid. E-mail subject lines of the spam messages featured various come-ons, such as "Who Is Ron Paul?" "Ron Paul Eliminates The IRS!" and "Ron Paul Wins GOP Debate!"

"We suspect an overzealous and well-intentioned Ron Paul supporter sent these messages," says Jesse Benton, spokesperson for the Ron Paul 2008 Presidential Campaign Committee. Benton suggests the spam may have been sent by someone interested in discrediting Paul by associating his campaign with spamming.

A Paul spam surge was spotted Monday by several security services, includingSophosLabs, which quickly began blocking the messages. MX Logic tracked the spam coming from hijacked PCs from Europe, South America, and Australia. The security services say volumes of Paul spam have dropped considerably by Friday.

What is unique about the Paul spam is that it doesn't try to entice the recipient to do anything, such as visit a page loaded up with malware. It's a common tactic of virus-spreaders or phishers to lure recipients into opening an enticing message with a spoofed return address--inviting them to donate money to California fire victims, for example, and instead harvesting the credit card information for nefarious purposes. That kind of spam could cause a backlash on Paul, even if his campaign had nothing to do with it.

Security experts expect political spam will soon be used to carry more than political messages. Representatives of Internet security firmSonicWallsay they have already seen political-themed spam used to entice people to open messages containing links to viruses and wormsincluding the so-called Storm worm.

The spate of spam supporting Paul does not urge recipients to fork over personal or financial information, says MX Logic's Masiello. "It just asks you to support Ron Paul," he says.

Political Spam Goes Web 2.0

Accusations that supporters of Paul are using spammy tactics to promote the candidate don't stop with e-mail. The suspicious point out that Paul garners a disproportionate amount of support online (as measured by Web-based polls, mentions in blogs, and frequency of Web searches conducted by users related to "Ron Paul") compared to voter interest polls conducted offline. That fact may suggest Paul's online supporters are stuffing the virtual ballot by voting early and often at political polling Web sites.

Benton chalks up the lopsided support online verses offline by noting that Paul has won some of the tech savvy-voters by supporting issues such as an Internet unfettered by government regulation.

While current Paul-promoting political spam poses little security threat to users, spam that promotes candidates could overwhelm the systems used to block unwanted e-mail, say security experts.

Last presidential election MailFrontier, now owned by SonicWall , reported that in days leading up to the 2004 presidential election one percent of all spam -- more than 40 million messages daily -- were political. Spam topics included both President Bush and Sen. John Kerry.

This campaign season is likely to see spammers adopting new technology to get their candidates' messages out, moving beyond botnets that spew spam. One technique is called Google bombing, which tricks a search engine's ranking algorithms by flooding the Web with links and sites of a certain theme. Google bombs were used last year against 50 Republicans up for re-election.Liberal bloggers at Direct Democracy admitted to targeting the Republicansand did their best to influence Google search results to refer searches for candidate information to unflattering Web sites and articles about individuals running for office.

Unsolicited political messages are specifically exempt under the federal CAN-SPAM Act, which sets rules for mass messaging and provides penalties for violations. Mass mail must provide the actual source as a return address and offer an opt-out from future mailings. However, any use of bots to disguise the source of e-mail is illegal.

Other types of expected political spam beyond the inbox variety are so-calledsplogsor comment spam, which is an automated technique used to add comments to blogs or create Web pages promoting a commercial or -- in this case -- political cause. Other recent techniques of spamming include people who create decoy YouTube videos that promise one thing but deliver a commercial or political message.

The reason we see this is because in a tight race spam (in its various incarnations) can shape public opinion just as spammer peddling diet pills always find customers, says Andy Klein, SonicWall product marketing manager.

And this, mind you, is the dark side of political spam, not to be confused with thevolumes of legitimate political e-mail from candidatesand their supporters sent by legitimate e-mail channels that is also likely to multiply in our inboxes over the next 12 months.

http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,139241/article.html

Darlene, this has been debunked, and it was shown that a Rudy GUILIANI supporter was PAID to do the spamming. I'll post the youtube link for it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U5LgUiz2mBA

Thanks for the link Hapexamendios,

I think this paragraph alone in the PCWorld.com article that traced the spam shows that Ron Paul's staff is not responsible.

A Paul spam surge was spotted Monday by several security services, includingSophosLabs, which quickly began blocking the messages. MX Logic tracked the spam coming from hijacked PCs from Europe, South America, and Australia. The security services say volumes of Paul spam have dropped considerably by Friday.

This also,

This batch is NOT from the Paul campaign, but security firms warn that political spam pitching candidates and causes is going to be huge in coming months.

To bad Hannity doesn't read PCWorld.com He hangs up on anyone mentioning Ron Paul.

Yeah Hannity, your a "great American." NOT!!