Dr Ron Paul warns of world war 3

[ch3wbacca1991]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yYbZkf_fTC8

[Wayward son]

[JB.]

I don't think anything intelligent has ever come out of that woman's mouth.

[future_doc]

G-d bless America where they have the freedom to put their foot in their mouth.

[apache]

didn't watch the vid but god bless ron paul

[Mithril]

Doesn't matter if Ron Paul is actually an honest politician. He will inevitably be a puppet of the lobbies and his party. People had high hopes for Obama, but he can't really do anything if everyone votes along party lines.

[Apixaban85]

God I hope Ron Paul wins the nomination and beats Obama too. Everyone in American politics are sell-outs and hypocrites compared to Paul. Basically everything he has predicted has come true (even 9/11) and its clear he is the last honest politician standing. Too bad we don't have someone like him here in Canada to tell it like it is.

 

Even here in Canada our foreign policy is out of control. We had no reason to go into Libya to aid them in taking out Gaddhafi. I guarantee in the next few months, we'll be involved in a Syria operation too. Also, we are apparently building a base in Germany and we are still keeping over 3,000 Canadians in Afghanistan (under the guise of a super-embassy), even after the training mission is over. To make things worse, Harper is going around talking crap on Iran when Iran is not even close to a national security threat to us and has never been.

 

While Ron Paul's foreign policy is solid. I think his views on just about everything else are just terrible and will NEVER be implemented. That said, I despise every other Republican nominee particularly Mitt Romney who looks like the biggest corporate pawn to ever be in existence.

[Wayward son]

Do you know who Ron Paul is?

 

Unfortunately, yes.

 

Ron Paul hasn't changed in like 35 years. He has been saying the same things and is the only fully consistent politician.

 

Someone not changing in 35 years is not what I would consider a positive selling feature. Even most extreme ideologues are capable of changing the odd view.

[ch3wbacca1991]

Ron Paul on CIA drug trafficking in 1989!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SBh_hzU-jdI

[ch3wbacca1991]

God I hope Ron Paul wins the nomination and beats Obama too. Everyone in American politics are sell-outs and hypocrites compared to Paul. Basically everything he has predicted has come true (even 9/11) and its clear he is the last honest politician standing. Too bad we don't have someone like him here in Canada to tell it like it is.

 

Even here in Canada our foreign policy is out of control. We had no reason to go into Libya to aid them in taking out Gaddhafi. I guarantee in the next few months, we'll be involved in a Syria operation too. Also, we are apparently building a base in Germany and we are still keeping over 3,000 Canadians in Afghanistan (under the guise of a super-embassy), even after the training mission is over. To make things worse, Harper is going around talking crap on Iran when Iran is not even close to a national security threat to us and has never been.

Harper is just creating war propaganda. He states in the video below he will protect Israel by any means necessary....

 

I Will Defend Israel 'whatever the cost'

 

Israel has over 200 nukes I am sure they can defend themselves... And even if Iran does manage to create a nuclear weapon they have absolutely no means of delivering it.

[ch3wbacca1991]

Dwight D. Eisenhower farewell address on Jan.17 1961. Warns us about the abuse of the military Industrial complex. Too bad we didn't listen and it all became true.

 

[Lunasly]

I don't get how anyone would support any of the candidates regardless of wether they are republican or democrats. Both sides are corrupt and only have an interest in those that donate to their campaigns (i.e corporation). The only thing that will fix the corruption in the United States is constitutional reform where money is taken out of politics.

 

Iran is not blame here because they have done nothing wrong. It certain individuals inside the US government that are causing this havoc.

 

Watch this short clip if you need more proof:

 

http://www.youtube.com/user/TheYoungTurks#p/u/15/N2w7J59FPmQ

[Wayward son]

But for Paul, everything he has predicted has come true with regards to the economy, foreign policy, and social policy.

 

Yes I understand that Ron Paul has a cult-like following (similar to like minded libertarians Thomas Sowell and Ayn Rand) who post videos on the internet showing that Ron Paul has the predictive powers of Nostradamus. Having followed the writings and positions of the three of them for many years that makes me even more wary of the nonsense spread by his followers.

 

The bottom line that any time things really go sour you can look at any politician who has been far outside the mainstream whether that be Nader, Paul, or LaDuke and find that he or she has predicted most things that will go wrong, for the simple reason that they say absolutely everything will go wrong at all times. That only makes sense as these people have been fighting against the status quo. The problem is that Nader and LaDuke undoubtedly have diametrically opposed solutions to Paul on most things.

 

He presents solutions that are a stark change from what is going on today but they are focused on cutting the size and scope of government

 

I have no love for way the current and past administration dealt with the downturn. The one thing I can say is that at least we didn't have Ron Paul in charge who would cut government spending down to almost nothing and instantly plunged the US and the rest of the world into a depression worse than the great depression of the late 1920s and 1930s. The current administration has not made the best choices, but irritation about that doesn't logically lead someone to choose the person who would have made the worst possible ones.

 

and bringing back the US to the constitution.

 

Certainly most constitutional scholars and experts line up behind Ron Paul...oh wait....they don't. Go figure.

 

Look the policies of the past few decades have brought the US to its knees.

 

Yes and no. The US experienced massive growth over the past couple decades and that has now come to end, at least for now, with a painful retraction. There are many ways that this problem and its potential solution could be looked at and two of those include:

 

1) The US is experiencing problems because of out of control government spending and the solution is to dramatically decrease government spending. Part of this method of reducing the out of control government is the libertarian idea of removing as many regulations as possible and let the market figure it out. Oh yeah, and the money spent on several wars has been way to costly, so we should cut that out.

 

2) The US is experiencing problems with government spending that exceeds revenue because of dramatic tax cuts which coincided with excessive military costs to fight wars which were a mistake. Without those two things, government spending would have been fine, and indeed under Clinton there were massive budget surplus and the debt was at the lowest % of GDP in forever. At the same time the economy took a hit because of years of corrupt practices by far too many people in the banking and financial sectors - corrupt practices that were aided by the very deregulation that Ron Paul thinks is the ultimate solution. The government facing these dual challenges, and an insane opposition Republican party did an OK/mediocre at best, job stimulating growth through government spending so things didn't go completely down the tubes. They didn't do it the way I would have, and in hindsight many things should have been done way differently (but not the Ron Paul kind of way differently).

 

Currently, there is no one that has any idea on how to fix it. Obama is a tax-and-spend nut who wants to essentially be a Democrat version of Bush and the rest of the GOP field want to do the same as Obama.

 

 

I disagree on all counts above. Bush was a disaster because he was a moron. The Obama Presidency has not been doing well because he inherited a massive mess, has to deal with a Republican controlled house that desperately wants him to fail, and has been too tight with big business. Furthermore, the GOP field is nothing like you say.

 

I used to think that Paul was too extreme but considering the US is on a spiral downwards compounded by Bush and Obama's foreign policy and domestic spending, I think Paul is America's only hope in 2012.

 

Ron Paul voted for the bill which was the authorization of the war in Afghanistan by the way, you can also bet your last dollar that he voted for every piece of legislation that led to the removal of regulations on banks and the financial sector.

[apache]

ron paul is the kind of guy who would run independent or for the libertarian party if he got the republican nomination and became a corporate puppet... which is why he'll never become president... we need a benevolent dictator instead of this oppressive plutocracy... either that or get me into the oppressive plutocracy, i'll take either

 

Doesn't matter if Ron Paul is actually an honest politician. He will inevitably be a puppet of the lobbies and his party. People had high hopes for Obama, but he can't really do anything if everyone votes along party lines.

[A-Stark]

I agree that if someone sticks to something that is wrong for so long, its scary. But for Paul, everything he has predicted has come true with regards to the economy, foreign policy, and social policy. He presents solutions that are a stark change from what is going on today but they are focused on cutting the size and scope of government and bringing back the US to the constitution.

 

Considering how much the world has changed in the last 35 years (since 1976!), I would counter that any predictions he made then are worthless today. Did he also anticipate the reunification of Germany, demise of the Soviet Union, success and later stagnation of Japan, the Euro, and China's growing economic power?

 

The last would have been *quite* impressive as Mao only died that year.

 

What else did he anticipate? The Second Iraq War? The First Gulf War even? The Iranian Revolution? What great examples of Ron Paul's political and economic prognostication can you think of?

[jojoluvsu2]

Ron Paul hasn't changed in like 35 years. He has been saying the same things and is the only fully consistent politician. There is no ambiguity in his answers or voting record. He doesn't even care about being elected, hence him not changing his stance or policies for popular opinion. .

 

I couldn't find the actual comic strip, but it went something like this:

 

General Population:

 

Rational Human Being: Changes his mind on issues depending on the situation and latest evidence available

 

Stubborn A$$-hole: Doesn't change his mind no matter what new evidence is presented

 

Politicians:

 

Good Politician: Doesn't change his mind no matter what new evidence is presented

 

Spineless flip-flopper: Changes his mind on issues depending on the situation and latest evidence available.

[kylamonkey]

... focused on cutting the size and scope of government ...

 

Ron Paul says some interesting things but then some other things that are way out to lunch.

 

He is in the same camp with the people who want to shrink the size of government, all the way down so it fits in a woman's vagina. I'm not quite sure how you can be for drug legalization but also against legalized abortion, and somehow call yourself a libertarian.

 

(For the record- I could be a little off on this, I have stopped following the rupub race because it's so stupid as to have become boring, and RPaul was always an outlier)

[Mandibular]

what i find disturbing is that there are no "pre-requisites" to become a politician. I dont even know how people like Bachmann end up so far in a political race...

[skp1187]

Ron Paul says some interesting things but then some other things that are way out to lunch.

 

He is in the same camp with the people who want to shrink the size of government, all the way down so it fits in a woman's vagina. I'm not quite sure how you can be for drug legalization but also against legalized abortion, and somehow call yourself a libertarian.

 

(For the record- I could be a little off on this, I have stopped following the rupub race because it's so stupid as to have become boring, and RPaul was always an outlier)

 

Could you please explain what you mean by him saying things that are way out to lunch?? People say that he is too radical but has it ever occurred to you that maybe, just maybe, people in our society have become way to dependent on the government to take care of them. Ron Paul preaches individual responsibility and taking greater responsibility for our actions, peace and sound money. He is the most honest politician in congress and isn't afraid to speak the truth even though most times it alienates him from the republican party. He has been consistent in his message for over 30 years, and is not a flip-flopper like the rest of the candidates. He doesn't have lobbyists come after him because they know they can't persuade him: he is a man of integrity and principle.

 

Oh his opposition to abortion, Dr. Paul was an OB/GYN so its his PERSONAL belief that abortion is wrong and that life is precious. If he was president he WOULDN'T make it a federal law that abortion is illegal (like the other candidates), but he would leave it up to the individual states to determine what they want to do.

 

Oh and also another interesting fact: Ron Paul gets more donations from FEDERAL workers/contractors than any other candidate! [LINK: http://www.startribune.com/politics/national/134513848.html] Seems paradoxical since he wants to abolish 5 federal departments but I think people are really waking up and realizing the debit crisis going around the world right now. America is technically bankrupt. They borrow 42 cents of every dollar from China to maintain their economy. America's credit rating was downgraded in the summer and may be downgraded further if congress doesn't get its act other and cut.

 

His idea of abolishing the war on drugs makes perfect sense. The drug war has been an absolute and costly failure. Over 1 trillion dollars spent and look what we have, more teenagers are able to get drugs now then before, overcrowded jails, and greater border violence along the Mexican border. And as he has pointed out before in interviews, prescription drugs, alcohol, and smoking kills WAYYY more people, but why aren't those illegal?? Why society picks and chooses to ban certain things but not other similar things just baffles me.

 

RP 2012

[skp1187]

Considering how much the world has changed in the last 35 years (since 1976!), I would counter that any predictions he made then are worthless today. Did he also anticipate the reunification of Germany, demise of the Soviet Union, success and later stagnation of Japan, the Euro, and China's growing economic power?

 

The last would have been *quite* impressive as Mao only died that year.

 

What else did he anticipate? The Second Iraq War? The First Gulf War even? The Iranian Revolution? What great examples of Ron Paul's political and economic prognostication can you think of?

 

Ron Paul did predict the Soviet collapse: He has mentioned countless times that throughout history, empires collapse because they spread themselves too far out and as a result go broke. The war between Afghanistan and Soviet Union in the 1980's contributed heavily to this.

 

Ron Paul also correctly predicted the economic stagnation that has been going on in Japan. When the depression hit Japan, instead of liquidating the bad assets and allowing companies to go broke, they poured in billions and billions of dollars to prop up the economy - unfortunately that doesn't work in a free market economy.

 

I have no idea what you mean by him anticipating a 2nd Iraq war? Oh course he voted against it and he has even mentioned in interviews that the US was probably more interested in protecting their oil interests than removing a dictator.

 

HE PREDICTED THE OCCUPY WALL STREET protests. Here is the link

[Wayward son]

Wow. Where do I start? Firstly, just because they think the system is wrong and corrupt doesn't mean they were right by fluke. Paul clearly predicted the housing crisis, 9/11, America's monetary crisis, etc. These weren't random babblings from a loon, read his writings.

 

First of all I love that you told me to read Ron Paul's writings immediately after you started your quoting of my post with the exact line that follows my statement that I was very familiar with the writings of Ron Paul along with similar craziness of Thomas Sowell and the late Ayn Rand.

 

I've read his writings (At least 3 books by Paul, probably 10 by Sowell despite his books rehashing so much of the material found in previous books, and some by Rand although I rarely finish her completely tedious fiction crap). Why I continue to subject myself that kind of junk I don't know. I agree with the many of the conclusions that Paul, Sowell and Rand come to. I disagree with many of the conclusions that they come to. Where we differ however is the method that we use to get to our conclusions whether we agree or disagree. They use their extreme Libertarian world view, which they know is correct, to dictate what facts and evidence are true and which are not. Really no different than people who use the bible for similar means. So when any crisis occurs Ron Paul accepts without question whatever evidence and statements are made showing that the problem was caused (and solely caused) by the government regulations and actions which he disagreed with. The reality is undoubtedly far more complex than that and may be because government regulations were removed, or the free-market is simply not the panacea that Ron Paul thinks it is. But Ron Paul will NEVER accept that. If Ron Paul ever got into power and managed to implement his ideas, none of the problems would ever be the fault of his ideological world view, but would instead be only because his ideas were not implemented purely enough.

 

As for predicting things, so what? And I actually didn't say that they were by fluke. I said that most politicians far outside the mainstream would have predicted the same things. If the mainstream politicians are implementing policies that are extremely different from what Ron Paul would, then of course, he would have to, almost by definition, believe and predict that such actions would lead to failure. If they don't lead to failure in 2 years, then in 5, and if not in 5 then in 10 and if not in 10 then by 20 and so on. Any study of history could tell people that eventually rising markets are going to go down. Any study of foreign policy would tell people that in a world where a large superpower has many enemies and has been attacked many times by terrorists, that eventually they will be attacked again. Wow!! That is amazing.

 

To hold the view that Ron Paul fanatics have requires them to inflate his ideas and knowledge and at the same time deflate the ideas and knowledge of everyone else.

 

Ron Paul predicted the housing crisis! So what? I predicted the housing crisis, and the idea that a whole lot of people who were in positions of power didn't also know that such a crisis was possible is ridiculous. Many did, it was talked about a lot, but the problem was pushing through solutions that would fix the problem when the political system is at loggerheads, there are strong competing interests, and very little can spook the market. I am not very smart, but all that it took for me was looking at the well known facts that houses in most places were overvalued for many reasons, and an understanding that such a situation must lead to a correction whether that is over a short period of time or a long one. I waited many years before I bought a house because the I felt the local market was over-inflated and that an adjustment was coming. I bought my house at the exact moment that I felt (and still feel was taking perfect advantage of the housing crisis, financial crisis and interest rates, and got an amazing deal both in terms of house price and mortgage conditions both of which shocked my family and co-workers. Unfortunately it all went to crap when my job disappeared from out of no where a mere 3 days after I moved in). At the same time, I felt that a correction was near for almost a decade before it happened. However, and here is where the problem is. Just because I could realize that the market was over-valued doesn't mean that I know the exact causes (my view of the causes only slightly overlaps with Paul's), nor does it mean that I know best how to fix the problems, or that I could design a system or a framework that would produce the best long term results. I only had to look at my own interests, and not take into considerations the interests of anyone else, or the vast complexity. Paul doesn't have to worry about any of this as his ideology tells him exactly what the solution must be. And if implementing that ideology leads to a worse situation then it is not the ideology that is at fault, but the implementation.

 

Paul predicted 9/11! Again so what? Terrorists attacks were occurring all over the world. US assets had been attacked several times. The Clinton administration had been trying to take out Bin Laden for years for the very reason that he was a threat. People like Chomsky had predicted blow-back for 50 years. That doesn't mean that Paul or Chomsky or Clinton or I actually predicted the events of 9/11. Nor does it mean that the root causes of terrorism can be summed up in a mickey mouse way like Ron Paul.

 

And you claim that cutting government down considerably will somehow cause a depression. Did that happen after WWII, when government spending was cut by more than half and a lot of people were brought home without a job?

 

Non-defense US federal government spending increased steadily in the years after WWII. In 1945 it was 9.74 billion and by 1950 it was 28.84 billion dollars. That is a 3 fold increase. The federal government provided educational assistance, medical assistance, and government-backed loans for small businesses and mortgages for vets. They also expanded government in other ways. Yes overall government spending went down in the years after the war and many predicted that this would lead to a recession - which did not happen for many reasons, none of which have any relevance when comparing things to today.

 

First of all most manufacturing plants could quickly and immediately switch to producing consumer goods. There was a massive market for such goods which they couldn't even manage to fill as during the war wages had increased significantly at the same time that people, due to strict rationing, could not spend that money. There was a ton of surplus money both from workers at home, and soldiers from the war, which they were eager to spend. These same companies that were losing US government military contracts were also in a prime position to create the goods and materials needed to rebuild western europe and much of the rest of world.

 

Such a situation has nothing in common with the current situation where Ron Paul wanted to drastically cut government spending at the exact same time as the private sector was refusing to spend money. What happened after WWII both made sense, and was a lucky situation to be in (and which the western european powers were not). Paul ideas were and are ridiculous.

 

Did it happen in the 80s when Reagan cut taxes and spending and significantly reduced multiple government mandate significantly?

 

Yes it did, although the causes can't be solely attributed to Reagan's policies. Reagan came into power at the end of January 1981 and immediately cut back government spending. A recession started in July 1981 which continued until November of 1982. GDP fell by 1.9%. Unemployment reached 10.8% which is the highest it has been since the great depression (and higher than it has ever been under Obama). After that Reagan expanded government. He increased the federal workforce by 60,000 jobs and increased federal government by 69% (in both cases from the time he entered office until he left 8 years later). He also tripled the debt. Furthermore while he decreased taxes, he really only did so for the rich who received massive tax breaks. The poor and most of the middle-class ended up paying more as he dramatically increased social security payments and other payroll taxes. This tax inflow largely went to the rich in the form of tax cuts. Now many years later the US faces the problem of not being able to pay people's social security and it is referred to as an "entitlement" that can no longer be afforded. BS. This is money that workers basically loaned the government for decades and are owed it back. The government, instead of investing that money (as has been done in Canada) used it to cover tax cuts. This scheme of increasing social security and other payroll taxes to cover tax cuts for the rich was dreamed up by fellow Libertarian, and Ayn Rand devotee, Alan Greenspan.

 

And how can you say that deregulation caused the financial crisis?

 

Because I am not a libertarian. I could be wrong, and as a non-ideologue am perfectly open to that. However, until better evidence comes along, and not being an expert, I largely, at least for now, agree with this piece from the Economist and if in charge would have dealt with the crisis following the example of Sweden from their 1990s financial crisis due to deregulation of their financial markets in the 1980s. I have found that almost every country that had a significant banking crisis deregulated their banking and financial industries in the years before (The US, UK, Ireland, Iceland). And countries that refused to deregulate their banking industries like Canada did not (Spain is a possible exception. They did not deregulate their large banks, and were according to the Economist very strong when the financial crisis hit. Recently things have deteriorated there. There are lots of ideas as to why that may be, but it seems to early to evaluate what went wrong there since the fall of '08).

[apache]

being stupid is an advantage, most of the population are stupid... so they'll agree with ur stupid ideas, lol

 

what i find disturbing is that there are no "pre-requisites" to become a politician. I dont even know how people like Bachmann end up so far in a political race...

[Wayward son]

I am done with this conversation after this reply. If you can't be bothered with facts, then I see no point in conversing with you...and sadly I had a pretty good idea what some of the things you were going to say were before you wrote them - the no true Scotsman logical fallacy, and Reagan's corporate tax cuts grew the economy - having talked with enough Libertarians (and along the same lines: conspiracy nuts, religious true believers and the like.)

 

First, Alan Greenspan is NOT a libertarian.

 

Tell him that: "A lifelong libertarian, Alan Greenspan...." - The Economist.

 

For decades Alan Greenspan was among the most famous handful of Libertarians in the United States. He contributed 3 essays to Ayn Rand's love-fest to Libertarianism: "Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal."

 

The only real difference between Alan Greenspan and Ron Paul is that Greenspan managed to actually get into a position of power where his ideas would be tested by reality, something Paul has never had to deal with. When one of your own gets into a position of power and screws things up royally (and would have screwed everything up worse if he could have followed his Libertarian ideals more purely, something he at least has the brains to now admit) you don't get to now say that he is not one of your own.

 

It was the tax cuts that eventually lead to the rise in production and private sector jobs during the 1980s. Remember, corporate and small business taxes were significantly cut and the US prospered.

 

They were? I didn't mention corporate taxes on purpose....to kind of see if you knew what you were talking about. Just because you believe that you have found the perfect ideology that solves all of life's problems doesn't mean that you can make stuff up. You are not entitled to your own facts. Reagan did decrease taxes on the rich dramatically, and raised taxes on the poor and middle class, and yes, he did cut corporate taxes in 1981, and then he rolled back those corporate taxes the following year. The next year, 1983, he increased payroll taxes which increased corporate taxes... and then in 1986 he passed the Tax Reform Act of 1986....

 

Quote from the Washington Monthly:

Reagan continued these "modest rollbacks" in his second term. The historic Tax Reform Act of 1986...The plan imposed the largest corporate tax increase in history--an act utterly unimaginable for any conservative to support today. Just two years after declaring, "there is no justification" for taxing corporate income, Reagan raised corporate taxes by $120 billion over five years and closed corporate tax loopholes worth about $300 billion over that same period.

 

Taxes for the rich: down.

Taxes for the poor: up (not through income taxes, but through payroll taxes like social security).

Taxes for corporations: up.

 

And taxes are lower under Obama then they were under Reagan.

 

On top of his 11 tax increases during his time as President, his 8 years as Governor of California he also brought in two of the largest tax increases ever among any US states: in 1967 and 1970 (then a smaller one in 1971).

 

Finally standing by one's ideals have brought some of the best and worst results in history. I guess it depends on the ideals. I am at least happy that Ron Paul is so unlikely to get into power that I am very unlikely to be required to watch that poop-show crash and burn.

 

As I said - I'm done.

[Wayward son]

what i find disturbing is that there are no "pre-requisites" to become a politician. I dont even know how people like Bachmann end up so far in a political race...

 

Democracy is supposed to be representative. Representation for the people, by the people. Of course having a more educated public would help in this regard, as Jefferson said: "Whenever the people are well informed, they can be trusted with their own government." I don't think that the people of US are well informed, and I don't think Canadians are doing much better. However, having pre-reqs to become a politician is partially on the road to a technocracy or a timocracy (which both have their pros and cons, but I prefer democracy despite it faults).

[AtomSmasher2]

 

If you're trying to imply that Paul is anything like Bachman, then you clearly don't have a ****ing clue about real life.

 

What exactly in Paul's speech did you disagree with? The fact that invading other countries isn't improving international relations?