Thread: Ron Paul on the Issues

Video at link below






TSA Releases VIPR Venom on Tennessee Highways (Ron Paul Video)

10-24-2011 • YouTube


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If you thought the "Transportation Security Administration" would limit itself to conducting unconstitutional searches at airports, think again. The agency intends to assert jurisdiction over our nation's highways, waterways, and railroads as well. TSA launched a new campaign of random checkpoints on Tennessee highways last week, complete with a sinister military-style acronym--VIP(E)R—as a name for the program.

As with TSA's random searches at airports, these roadside searches are not based on any actual suspicion of criminal activity or any factual evidence of wrongdoing whatsoever by those detained. They are, in effect, completely random. So first we are told by the U.S. Supreme Court that American citizens have no 4thamendment protections at border crossings, even when standing on U.S. soil. Now TSA takes the next logical step and simply detains and searches U.S. citizens at wholly internal checkpoints.

The slippery slope is here. When does it end? How many more infringements on our liberties, our property, and our basic human rights to travel freely will it take before people become fed up enough to demand respect from their government? When will we demand that the government heed obvious constitutional limitations, and stop treating ordinary Americans as criminal suspects in the absence of probable cause?

The real tragedy occurs when Americans incrementally become accustomed to this treatment on the roads just as they have become accustomed to it in the airports. We already accept arriving at the airport 2 or more hours before a flight to get through security; will we soon have to build in an extra 2 or 3 hours into our road trips to allow for checkpoint traffic?

Worse, some people are lulled into a false sense of security and are actually grateful for this added police presence! Should we really hail the expansion of the police state as an enhancement to safety? I submit that an attitude of acquiescence to TSA authority is thoroughly dangerous, un-American, and insulting to earlier freedom-loving generations who built this country.

I am certain people will complain about this, once they have to sit in stopped traffic for a few extra hours to allow for random searches of cars. However, I am also certain it merely will take another "foiled" plot to silence many people into gladly accepting more government mismanagement of safety.

Vigilant, observant, law-abiding, gun-owning citizens defend themselves and stop crimes every day before police can respond. That is the source of real security in America: the 2nd Amendment right to defend oneself. The answer is for people to be empowered to protect themselves. Yet how many weapons might these checkpoints confiscate? Even when individual go through all the legal hoops of licensing and permits, the chances of harassment or outright confiscation of weapons and detention of citizens when those weapons are found at a TSA checkpoint is extremely high.

Disarming the highways and filling them full of jack-booted thugs demanding to see our papers is no way to make them safer. Instead, it is a great way to expand government surveillance powers and tighten the noose around our liberties.

Read Full Story
Reported by Ernest Hancock



http://www.freedomsphoenix.com/News/098 ... ?From=News

MSM Continues To Muddy Paul Message

October 25, 2011 by Sam Rolley


Ron Paul said the Federal government has taken advantage of students seeking education loans.

GOP Presidential candidate Ron Paul appeared on MSNBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday to explain to David Gregory, the show’s host, his definition of true conservatism. By Monday, mainstream media headlines called the candidate everything but an anarchist.

POLITICO, following Paul’s assertion that the Federal government has taken advantage of students seeking education loans, claimed that the candidate wanted no available loan programs for those seeking an education.

“Just think of all this willingness to want to help every student get a college education,” said Paul during his television appearance. “I went to school when we had none of those. I could work my way through college and medical school because it wasn’t so expensive.”

On Monday, Paul released a statement on his website saying that media has once again misconstrued his message claiming that he wants people to pay cash for school. In reality, the candidate said, if the Federal government gets out of the student-loan business, other lenders will fill the gap and will do so more competitively.

A piece in The Wall Street Journal draws on “Meet the Press” statements made by the candidate calling his views on foreign interventionism “skeptical.”

During his Sunday interview, Paul expressed disbelief that President Barack Obama’s announcement that troops were to be completely withdrawn from Iraq by the end of the year was true. The candidate said that because the military and private sector defense companies have been intermingled on U.S. dime, it is really impossible to say how many armed American interveners will actually remain at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad. He also raised questions as to whether Iran is a real threat to the United States or even to Israel.

“Israel has 300 nuclear weapons and missiles… Iran can’t even make enough gasoline for themselves, they have to import gasoline,” Paul said. “So, they don’t have intercontinental ballistic missiles, they don’t have a nuclear weapon, there’s a big discussion going on on how far along they are. I was in the service, and lived through the 60s, the Soviets had 30,000 of them and they were going to bury us. And we survived that, so for us to plan to go to war against Iran under these conditions scares a lot of Americans. It certainly scares the young people… because they’re going to bear this burden financially and also they may be required to fight these wars that are unnecessary and un-Constitutional.”

Paul’s “Restore America” plan, offering a comprehensive view of his plans if elected President, can be viewed in full on his website.

http://www.personalliberty.com/news/...-paul-message/

Ron Paul surges to first place in Iowa 2012 Presidential Power Rankings

Bachmann drops to last place in Iowa 2012 Presidential Power Rankings

By Lynda Waddington
Monday, October 17, 2011 at 1:18 pm
22 Comments

In the 15th edition of The Iowa Independent’s Power Rankings, U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota has fallen to the back of the GOP herd, according to the journalists, academics and political consultants surveyed.

A major disconnect is underway that makes it difficult to know exactly how the caucuses would play out if they were held tonight. That is, the candidates who are surging in polling are those who aren’t spending time in Iowa, a state that values its grassroots, retail politics.

So while the field itself became clearer with the final announcements by New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin that they would not seek the nomination, the path out of the caucuses has become more muddy. Social conservatives are rumored to make up 60 percent of GOP caucus-goers in Iowa, and we’ve yet to see them coalesce around a single candidate. Republicans who focus more on fiscal issues also have yet to find a home within the current field.

The situation, according to our group of assembled panelists, has opened a door for individuals previously expected to do “just enough” in the Iowa caucuses due to assembled core support to grab the golden ring of victory.


Here’s how our panel, comprised of grassroots activists, state political reporters, consultants, academics and strategists, believe the caucuses would play out if they were held tonight:

1. Ron Paul — The Texas congressman surges to the top of our rankings for the first time, but not without caution. “If the caucuses were held today, [Paul] would win because he’s the only candidate with an excited base and an excellent organization,” a panelist noted.
   “However, the caucuses being held January 3 could hurt him because a lot of his young voters will still be on Christmas break.”
   
   The panelists have given props to the Paul organization for some time, and there is no denying that the Texan has a core group of supporters that are incredibly loyal and excited. The question, at least for our panelists, has always been if there were enough supporters to compete against a candidate that drew large swaths of social conservatives (i.e., Huckabee in 2008.
   
   But, in this 15th edition of our rankings, our panelists now see a social conservative base so fractured in the Hawkeye State as to allow Paul’s seemingly limited base — that is, a base that doesn’t appear to be drawing vast numbers of new supporters — to exit Iowa with a victory.
   
   “Paul has been back in the state, and he is drawing good crowds. But, from what I’ve seen, these are the same people who have been showing up at Paul’s events for ages. There’s not much new blood here, which made a difference in 2008, but may not really matter in 2012.”
   
   Paul was given an opportunity to shine in the last presidential debate in New Hampshire due to its focus on the economy. The format also, as one of the panelists noted, didn’t lend itself to Paul’s past problems where his differences with others in the field were a focus.
   
   “He’s also started airing TV ads. The two I’ve seen focus mostly on core Republican issues as one is pro-life and the other concerns national security. These should help him with the Republican base and he might pick up some supporters who are ambivalent about the other candidates. Then again, I don’t think he’ll pick up many. Those who don’t want to go with Romney will be looking mostly at other choices. Like Romney, Paul has been through this before and is a known quantity for most likely caucusgoers. As such, it’s unlikely that we would see any surge for him.”

Mitt Romney — Speaking of the former Massachusetts governor, he and Paul are separated in this edition by less than two percent. Our panelists believe that Romney’s long-standing core support in Iowa, combined with the inability thus far of the “anti-Romney contingent” to find a suitable home with a specific candidate would allow him to exit Iowa in very good shape if the caucuses were held tonight. “The biggest problem Romney has had in Iowa is the group of social conservatives that find him uniquely undesirable,” wrote a panelist. “Whether that is because of his religion or for other reasons, it doesn’t really matter because these are individuals who won’t simply not support him, but individuals who will actively pursue a strategy to prevent him from exiting Iowa with a victory. In the past that has meant some supporting a candidate they otherwise would not, just because they see an opportunity to elevate someone ahead of Romney.

“I think we saw that in 2008 with the Arkansas governor. Yes, Huckabee had good support, but there were some who viewed his candidacy as the anti-Romney campaign, even when they knew Huckabee was not likely to go the distance.”

And that last point of electability might be the one place where Romney bests Paul and other members of the GOP field.

“His support has been steady. He has had good debate performances and is generally well versed on the issues. He isn’t great at retail politics, but isn’t horrible either. People know his weaknesses and may be willing to look past them if they believe he has the best chance to beat Obama, which is the key factor for most Republicans. To the extent that the ‘not Romney’ candidates continue to split the support of both social conservatives and tea partiers, Romney could be the caucus winner.”

Another panelists put it even more bluntly, “Regardless of how hard Romney is working Iowa, he still looks like the candidate most likely to defeat the President due to his message discipline.”

Much more at the link; too big to post it all


http://minnesotaindependent.com/9007...power-rankings

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Jackson County Missouri Ron Paul Sign Bomb

Ron Paul's Unusual Path

Steve Chapman
Oct 27, 2011

DAVENPORT, Iowa -- No one in this year's race has spent more time running for president than Ron Paul, who before entering the Republican primaries in 2008 and 2012 was the 1988 nominee of the Libertarian Party. And no one runs for president quite the way Paul does.

His town hall meeting is in an auditorium at the Figge Art Museum, which an audience of some 100 people has filled on a sunny fall afternoon. Other candidates may arrive to thumping music, but Paul gets a simple introduction as "the Thomas Jefferson of our day."

Others may affect shirtsleeves or cowboy boots to show their connection to ordinary folks, but the 76-year-old Paul wears a business suit. He doesn't tell jokes or pay homage to local politicians. When he is done, he leaves without stopping to shake hands or pose for photos.

Paul is the only Republican contender who can speak for more than an hour without attacking President Barack Obama by name or invoking Ronald Reagan. His rivals are running political campaigns. Paul has bigger fish to fry.

"I've had a strong message for a long time, and I've been talking about it for many, many years if not decades, but it seems like the message of liberty is more appropriate now than it has been in a long, long time," he says.

Style is the least of the ways in which the candidate departs from convention. Paul delights in two principal habits: taking un-conservative positions that are anathema to the other candidates, and taking conservative positions further than the other candidates would dare.

Today, he is intent more on the latter, criticizing the federal government for bailing out financial institutions, running up debt and meddling in the economy. "It's time to change policies and quit spending so much money," he says, to hearty applause.

Paul has unassailable credibility on the issue, having earned an "A" from the National Taxpayers Union every year he's been in Congress going back to 1997. While other Republican members of Congress were approving swollen budgets under President George W. Bush, the retired obstetrician was validating his nickname: "Doctor No."

He has released a plan to slash federal spending by $1 trillion -- not over four years or 10 years, but in one year. He would reach that goal by, among other steps, abolishing five Cabinet departments. Total number of departments abolished by the past two Republican presidents? Zero.

Rick Perry may utter ominous warnings to Ben Bernanke, but no one is more critical of the Federal Reserve than Paul. He objects not just to its recent conduct but to its existence.

Central banks, in his view, are shadowy institutions that exist to enrich the powerful and debase the currency. He said earlier this year, "We need to stop allowing secretive banking cartels to endlessly enslave us through monetary policy trickery."

That's the sort of alarmism that causes many people philosophically compatible with Paul to roll their eyes. His fetish for the gold standard finds few allies even among economists who favor free markets and low inflation.

But his views on monetary matters don't evoke fierce disagreement from his fellow GOP candidates. What makes them recoil is his rejection of military intervention in places like Iraq and Afghanistan, which he blames for squandering money and provoking anti-American terrorism.

But again, Paul laces useful insights with irrational paranoia. In Libya, President Obama might get points for insisting that NATO take the lead role. Not from Paul, who denounces the multilateral approach as "a victory for one world government" -- one of his curious obsessions. He has previously accused both Obama and George W. Bush of favoring one world government.

Paul often makes such detours into the strange or indefensible. The newsletters he put out in the 1980s and 1990s showed a penchant for crude bigotry against blacks ("animals") and gays. Paul disavowed the offending passages, claiming he never saw or approved most of them -- an implausible excuse for a publication carrying his name.

But his appeal in this campaign lies elsewhere, in his longstanding opposition to inflation, excessive spending and endless war. On those issues, Paul has not moved toward the Republican mainstream since 2008; the Republican mainstream has moved toward him. As he hurries off to his next event, he leaves the crowd behind him, but he seems to be pulling the party in his wake.

http://townhall.com/columnists/stevecha ... page/full/