Thread: Is a border fence offensive?

Originally Posted by Rockfish

Originally Posted by tancredofan

Ron Paul voted against the fence in 2005 before he voted for the fence in 2006. Now, in 2008, he says he finds the fence "rather offensive".

Hmm, it would seem that Ron Paul is a fence sitter on the issue of the border fence.

LMAO..!

..but REALLY..

we NEED a fence..!!

TWENTY years AGO..!

Nearly every time (or maybe every time) that I have started a thread about Mitt Romney that has nothing to do with Ron Paul, the supporters of Ron Paul have come to those threads and attacked Mitt Romney.

It is the personal attacks of Ron Paul supporters upon Mitt Romney that have ensured that I will not vote for Ron Paul under any circumstances even if he runs as a third party candidate. I will never vote for Ron Paul for any elected office. Additionally, there were some Ron Paul supporters that personally attacked Tom Tancredo when he was a candidate for the presidency. When I speak of personal attacks, I am not speaking of criticism of positions held by Mitt Romney or Tom Tancredo or votes cast by Tom Tancredo.

Whenever anyone posts facts about Ron Paul that some Ron Paul supporters don't like, you can count on attacks coming from some Ron Paul supporters.

I am not saying that all Ron Paul supporters behave the same way.

The reputation of Ron Paul supporters on the web is nearly universally negative among the supporters of other candidates.

I don't expect Ron Paul supporters to vote for Mitt Romney just as I will never for Ron Paul. However, those persons who aren't supporters of either candidate should know the facts about the background of Ron Paul.

Below I have copied commentary from Bobby Eberle of the conservative website GOPUSA about the conduct of Ron Paul supporters. Persons associated with many other websites have given similar commentary. There are no group of supporters for any other GOP candidate for president that have had even one such article written about them. One of the reasons that Ron Paul has performed so poorly is because of the actions of his supporters.

http://www.gopusa.com/theloft/?p=599


To Ron Paul Supporters: Civility is Essential
Posted by Bobby Eberle
November 8, 2007 at 7:27 am


The candidacy of Rep. Ron Paul has garnered some national media attention lately. On Monday, the Associated Press reported on Paul's record-setting fundraising effort. The next day, the Associated Press ran a follow-up story. Congratulations! The congressman from Texas deserves credit for the online network that has been put together.

Unfortunately, there is a segment of the Ron Paul network that has been receiving attention of another nature for quite some time -- his avid online "supporters." I'm not talking about people who simply support Ron Paul. I'm talking about the aggressive network of online fans who bombard discussion boards, spam web sites, flood online polls, and behave in a manner that puts their candidate in an extremely bad light. These so-called supporters not only hurt the Republican Party overall, but they also hurt their candidate.


Before I continue, I know there are those who are already getting their typing fingers ready to fire off some nasty e-mail, so please allow me to explain. If you are a general Ron Paul supporter, then that's great. Good for you, and good for your candidate. I'm not talking about you. I'm talking about those who are part of Paul's Internet network who have no sense of civility, decorum, and common manners. These are the people who do a disservice to Dr. Ron Paul.

I have been running GOPUSA for over seven years. I receive A LOT of e-mail feedback to news stories, commentary, and the discussions which occur on the GOPUSA Forum (our discussion board). In all those years, there have been times when I've received angry e-mail from left wing zealots. I have also received pointed e-mails from time to time when readers disagree with one of my columns. But, those e-mails pale in comparison to the tone and text of e-mails received by so-called Ron Paul "supporters."

There are readers who support Huckabee. There are those who support Romney, and so on. They often write to GOPUSA and let us know of their support. In most cases, they do so with professionalism and politeness. They describe why they are FOR their candidate. On the flip side, the typical e-mail from a Ron Paul supporter often contains profanity and is filled with name-calling and attacks on the other candidates.

Let's review.... Dr. Ron Paul is a sitting REPUBLICAN official. He is running for the presidential nomination of the REPUBLICAN Party. Yet, his supporters that flood our site and others seem to have a disdain for the Republican Party and all other candidates involved. They throw out slurs such as "neo-con" or "fake Republican" or "sheeple" or "jerks" or worse. They say people are "stupid," "idiots," "traitors," and worse for not supporting Ron Paul. Come on! There are millions of people out there who are solid conservatives who are supporting someone other than Ron Paul. These Ron Paul supporters are going out of their way to alienate all of them. In addition, they show absolutely no support for the party in general. This whole process is designed to determine the Republican nominee. We need everyone on board after that process is complete in order to defeat the Democrat.

The antics and unprofessional behavior of some of Ron Paul's supporters have been noted for quite some time. The web site RedState.com has banned Ron Paul supporters completely from their discussion board. Is it because they have something against Ron Paul? NO! It's because these people show up and bombard the board. They don't participate in discussions as the board is intending... they simply push their candidate and blast all the others to such an extent that it turns people off and brings discussions to a halt.

We have seen the same thing on GOPUSA. I take great pride in the fact that our discussion board (the GOPUSA Forum) has existed for years and provides an arena where people can discuss issues in a FRIENDLY and PROFESSIONAL manner. Some folks just come by to chit-chat, while others have been coming by for years to discuss politics. The atmosphere clearly changes when a Ron Paul zealot drops in and in typical fashion starts name calling and blasting other candidates and their supporters (our Forum members). Some have gotten banned. This has lead to complaints against GOPUSA. On our board, all views are welcomed, but people who show up simply to bombard the board for a particular candidate are not. There are plenty of other boards for that.

GOPUSA has also been accused by these "supporters" of blatantly ignoring the candidacy of Ron Paul. Of course, I don't receive e-mail simply asking, "Why aren't there more Ron Paul stories?" I get e-mails cursing at me, accusing me of bias, and saying much more nasty things. Here are the facts: 1) GOPUSA DOES NOT have a staff of news writers. I once had a volunteer team of new reporters and I would love to do so again, but we don't right now. 2) GOPUSA gets its news from the Associated Press.

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." On Monday, the AP had a story, and guess what? We ran it. The same on Tuesday.

Online polls are another item that has web sites like RedState.com, GOPUSA, and others quite frustrated. It is simply meaningless to do an online presidential poll because of spamming by groups. The results are completely skewed and don't reflect any other poll out there. For example, here are the latest poll numbers for Ron Paul:

NBC/ Wall Street Journal -- 4%
USA Today / Gallup -- 1%
CNN -- 5%
Washington Post / ABC -- 3%
FOX News -- 1%
Even the results of GOPUSA's latest survey indicate support at 6%. This is taken from our national focus group of several thousand members. Compare this result to GOPUSA's basic online poll from September, and you can see the difference.

This happened on LittleGreenFootballs.com, where they noted, "I'm going to be removing Ron Paul's name from any further LGF straw polls, because his supporters are deliberately spamming our polls to make it appear as if Paul has more support than he does."

A message to Rep. Ron Paul:

It's clear that your online network of supporters is highly motivated and organized. Your fundraising efforts prove that. But it is also clear that some of your supporters are doing you more harm than good. It does not further your cause when supporters send profanity-laced e-mails to GOPUSA or other organizations. It does not further your Republican cause when your supporters blast other Republicans. We are all in this together.

At GOPUSA, we want input and discussions. All we ask is for civility and professionalism and something more than just pimping for your candidate. Unprofessional and profane behavior does not advance your candidate's cause. In fact, it hurts your candidate.

Get the message out, drum up support, and see what happens... that's what it's all about. And when the dust settles, we need to move on to the next battle, and we need the full team on board in order to fight it.

1_Paint wrote:

Guess my first check to ALIPAC is my last check to ALIPAC. Pretty soon there won't be any difference between this board and MSNBC'S Gutcheck.

Excerpt from ALIPAC rules:

6. Disclaimer: ALIPAC is not responsible for the content of posts, comments, articles, and links to other organizations. Posting here does not imply endorsement or support. Posts from the public here are NOT organizational statements or the positions of ALIPAC. Official ALIPAC organizational positions and statements are found on the main site at www.alipac.us

Should ALIPAC seek to censor every poster that you disagree with? William has said time and time again that the views of individual posters on ALIPAC aren't necessarily the views of ALIPAC. With that said, we all share a very common bond and I would encourage you to remember that.

Nearly every time (or maybe every time) that I have started a thread about Mitt Romney that has nothing to do with Ron Paul, the supporters of Ron Paul have come to those threads and attacked Mitt Romney.

I gotta call BS on this, you have denigrated Ron Paul waaaayy back before you even had a thought on Romney...

It is the personal attacks of Ron Paul supporters upon Mitt Romney that have ensured that I will not vote for Ron Paul under any circumstances even if he runs as a third party candidate. I will never vote for Ron Paul for any elected office.

I have the same feelings about the Romney supporters recently, I actually thought that my vote would probably go to him but after some of the drivel posted by some on this site the last couple of days there is no way I would vote for him just out of spite.

I'll agree that some Paul supporters are way over zealous but some of the manipulated crap that has been posted about him is also ridiculous. He may not be the ideal candidate for some people but I honestly don't think we have had a more honest candidate to run for this office in a very very long time. Honesty and Integrity always seem to finish way back in the world of politics unfortunately.

We have a congress trying to give your tax dollars to illegal aliens
We have a criminal mainiac named McCain that thinks he is going to be President

We have 2 lib morons named Obama and Hillary that last night
PROMISED open amnesty and a path to citizenship to every illegal
that can sneak in here

Don't we have better things to do with our time then start this
old fight again between Romney and Paul supporters ?

There comes a time when repeating the same old, same old for the umpteenth time gets a bit tiresome. It goes from being informative all the way down to being spiteful. This is what has happened with Ron Paul and his fence comment.

Once again I will give my opinion of this tempest in a teapot, and hopefully the strident and accusatory voices will be stilled long enough for a bit of this information to make it past your hairline and into your collective brains. So here we go again.

In the context that a 'fence' really hasn't been necessary for the last 150 years, I too find it a trifle offensive. It seems that as long as Corporate America had respect for the laws of the land and a healthy fear of violating those laws the 'fence' was an absurd proposition. After all, if there were no jobs waiting for illegal aliens 'El Norte', there would be no great desire for them to come. Seems pretty clear-cut to me.

Now some of you will say that jobs are not the reason that illegal aliens come to America, they come for the 'free money' available through our generous social welfare programs. This may be true to a certain extent, but once again we have laws that are supposed to prevent ineligible people from accessing those programs. It is the non-enforcement of these laws that encourages illegal aliens to 'test their luck' against the system we have in place.

Others may say that many come here so their soon-to-be-born children will have American citizenship, and consequently all those benefits that we reserve for citizens. This also is true to a certain extent, witness the highly lucrative travel industry for pregnant women from Asia designed to get them here within a few weeks of their due dates.

I'm sure that some illegal aliens have other reasons for coming, but these 3 seem to be the most common.

Ron Paul's solution to these 3 main reasons is clear, simple and correct.

1.) Enforce our current laws in the workplace.

2.) No benefits for non-citizens.

3.) Eliminate birthright citizenship for the children of aliens.

These 3 things will go a LONG way toward fixing our illegal alien problem without needing a 2,000 mile long fence from Brownsville to San Diego.

And besides, even if Ron Paul personally finds the fence 'offensive', as an elected representative of the people he would build it, doing his duty with honor as he has for the last 30+ years.

Originally Posted by kniggit

Nearly every time (or maybe every time) that I have started a thread about Mitt Romney that has nothing to do with Ron Paul, the supporters of Ron Paul have come to those threads and attacked Mitt Romney.

I gotta call BS on this, you have denigrated Ron Paul waaaayy back before you even had a thought on Romney...

I'll agree that some Paul supporters are way over zealous but some of the manipulated crap that has been posted about him is also ridiculous. He may not be the ideal candidate for some people but I honestly don't think we have had a more honest candidate to run for this office in a very very long time. Honesty and Integrity always seem to finish way back in the world of politics unfortunately.

I posted about Ron Paul's record long before I supported Mitt Romney. I posted this information while I was supporting Tom Tancredo. Several Ron Paul supporters on this forum called Tom Tancredo a "neocon". Other Ron Paul supporters personally attacked Tom Tancredo with comments that I will not repeat.

During the last several days leading up to the Iowa caucuses, Mr. Gheen asked everyone not to attack candidates other than Rudy, McCain and Huckabee. I posted several threads about Mitt Romney during that time that had nothing to do with Ron Paul. Always or almost always, Ron Paul supporters would come to the thread and personally attack Mitt Romney. During that time, I never posted at any positive threads about Ron Paul.

I have not posted any "manipulated crap" about Ron Paul.

Ron Paul said the following words: "I didn't like the fence. I don't think the fence can solve a problem. I find it rather offensive."

Ron Paul voted three times for Section 245(i) amnesty. In both 2001 and 2002, President George W. Bush supported the amnesties.

There is nothing manipulated about that information.

According to NumbersUSA:

Nearly doubled H-1B foreign
high-tech workers in 1998
Rep. Paul helped the House pass H.R.3736. Enacted into law, it increased by nearly 150,000 the number of foreign workers high-tech American companies could hire over the next three years. Although the foreign workers receive temporary visas for up to six years, most historically have found ways to stay permanently in this country. Rep. Paul voted for more foreign workers even though U.S. high tech workers over the age of 50 were suffering 17% unemployment and U.S. firms were laying off thousands of workers at the time.


Voted in 1998 to allow firms to lay off Americans
to make room for foreign workers
Before the House passed the H-1B doubling bill (H.R.3736), Rep. Paul had an opportunity to vote for a Watt Substitute bill that would have forbidden U.S. firms from using temporary foreign workers to replace Americans. Rep. Paul opposed that protection. The substitute also would have required U.S. firms to check a box on a form attesting that they had first sought an American worker for the job. Rep. Paul voted against that. The protections for American workers fell 33 votes short of passing.

According to NumbersUSA:

Voted against an amendment to reduce funding for the visa waiver program.
Rep. Paul voted against the first Tancredo amendment to HR 2638, which would prohibit funding from HR 2638 from being used to fund the visa waiver program. This amendment failed 76-347.

I thought this thread was about the 'fence'...