Ron Paul is wrong, primarily because his policies are impossible to implement

Benevolent Heretic and I recently pointed out something in another thread, primarily that Ron Paul suffers from the same problem as Obama, but to a greater degree: Some nice ideas, but they're mostly impossible to implement without a slow and gradual process.

Now, I've stated this before but it bears stating again: Ron Paul has it easy, he just has to criticize without getting things done.

Give me an example of legislation that he's put forth that actually challenged the status quo. Give me an example where he's actually tried to use legislation to get things done to change the system he says is so dreadfully broken. Give me some evidence that shows that any of his ideas could actually be implemented within a Presidential term by the executive branch of the government operating within the Constitution's restrictions on power.

Prove to me that the cult of Ron Paul is actually something that has a rational basis.

Until then, all I can see is that he is really good at complaining and offering rides on libertarian unicorns that are moved by the magical invisible hand of the free market.

reply to post by madnessinmysoul

You are right, in that there is no way one man can stop a multi-trillion dollar out-of-control beast, regardless of how much de jure power you give him.

Ron Paul shouldn't be President because he would almost immediately go the way of JFK. He belongs right where he is, raising awareness and spreading truth. As for the system, it will collapse on its own in time.

"Paul authors more bills than the average representative, such as those that impose term limits, or abolish the income tax[76] or the Federal Reserve; many do not escape committee review. He has written successful legislation to prevent eminent domain seizure of a church in New York, and a bill transferring ownership of the Lake Texana dam project from the federal government to Texas. By amending other legislation, he has barred funding for national identification numbers, funding for federal teacher certification,[9] International Criminal Court jurisdiction over the U.S. military, American participation in any U.N. global tax, and surveillance on peaceful First Amendment activities by citizens.[77]

In March 2001, Paul introduced a bill to repeal the 1973 War Powers Resolution (WPR) and reinstate the process of formal declaration of war by Congress.[78] Later in 2001, Paul voted to authorize the president, pursuant to WPR, to respond to those responsible for the September 11, 2001, attacks.[79] He also introduced Sunlight Rule legislation, which requires lawmakers to take enough time to read bills before voting on them,[80] after the Patriot Act was passed within 24 hours of its introduction. Paul was one of six Republicans to vote against the Iraq War Resolution, and (with Oregon representative Peter DeFazio) sponsored a resolution to repeal the war authorization in February 2003. Paul's speech, 35 "Questions That Won't Be Asked About Iraq",[81] was translated and published in German, French, Russian, Italian, and Swiss periodicals before the Iraq War began.[72]

Paul says his fellow members of Congress have increased government spending by 75 percent during George W. Bush's administration.[82] After a 2005 bill was touted as "slashing" government waste, Paul wrote that it decreased spending by a fraction of one percent and that "Congress couldn't slash spending if the members' lives depended on it."[83] He said that in three years he had voted against more than 700 bills intended to expand government.[84]

Paul has introduced several bills to apply tax credits toward education, including credits for parental spending on public, private, or homeschool students (Family Education Freedom Act); for salaries for all K–12 teachers, librarians, counselors, and other school personnel; and for donations to scholarships or to benefit academics (Education Improvement Tax Cut Act).[85] In accord with his political positions, he has also introduced the Sanctity of Life Act, the We the People Act, and the American Freedom Agenda Act"

en.wikipedia.org...


Ron Paul has introduced many pieces of legislation, more then most of his peers, unfortunately most of them are quickly shot down.

reply to post by madnessinmysoul


We all suffer from wanting the world one-way. The question is why if the world is not how we like it, can we not change it. The answer is because the people with the power and money like it the way it is. The problem is we are slaves. The solution is that the system must collapse to take the power from those that stop change from occurring.

Ron Paul is owned by the TPTB like everyone else. He is given as a false hope (under the Libetarian Party) so that you all will somewhat shut up and think there is hope for you only to be crushed again at the finish line and business as usuall continues.

*All the other independent partys are the same way...to shut you up and rile you up simutaneously* Divde and Conquer is the game.

There is only ONE PARTY currently and that is National_Transnational Corporations.

The unbelievers of this fact will have to learn the harsh way as the way it has always been and always will be.

UNLESS
There truly is a divine intervention whether from a good God or good race of ETs. Because (US) as in WE... just aren't cutting it anymore. Anything short of divine intervention and divine transformation will no longer work.
End of discussion

reply to post by TruthWizard


The post from wikipedia is a bit misleading, and it doesn't speak to the validity or the implementability of the specific bills. It also doesn't address his specific ideas, like withdrawing from all military basis in the world and becoming a pseudo-isolationist nation.

Any sensible people must realize that the 18th century view of the USA that Paul presents provides no viable solution to today problems . Really Paul does well off pleading his views judging by his book sales . Any old joe blogs can tape into the anti establishment crowd hatred of the Fed . For the rest of us or at least me I like to take responsibility for my own life and not look for a bogey man to blame things on . Paul strikes me as someone who would make a nice neighbour but his political views aren't viable . It is true that if elected president that Paul wouldn't get congress to implement any of his policy;s that alone doesn't make him in the wrong . His policy's often fail plainly on merit .

At the very least he is trying. What have you all done today to help take down the status quo?

Originally posted by madnessinmysoul
reply to post by TruthWizard

 

The post from wikipedia is a bit misleading, and it doesn't speak to the validity or the implementability of the specific bills. It also doesn't address his specific ideas, like withdrawing from all military basis in the world and becoming a pseudo-isolationist nation.

You asked for specific legislation he has introduced.

TruthWizard has provided that to you.

If you want to learn about his specific ideas, you need to read the works published by the Mises Institute.

Ron Paul is not an isolationist. Ron Paul is probably the biggest advocate of unrestricted trade in the US Congress. The isolationists are those who favor protectionist trade measures, dollar hegemony, cartelized international banking, and formalized trade agreements - which basically includes everyone in congress except for Paul.

A huge collection of Ron Paul's writings and articles:
www.lewrockwell.com...


End the Fed | Ron Paul
www.youtube.com...

Prepare for the Worst | Ron Paul
www.youtube.com...

My Exchanges with Fed Chairmen - Ron Paul
www.youtube.com...

Gold, Peace, and Prosperity - written by Ron Paul
www.youtube.com...

Gold versus Discretion: Ron Paul Debates Charles Partee
www.youtube.com...

reply to post by bigbomb456

Originally posted by bigbomb456
At the very least he is trying. What have you all done today to help take down the status quo?

Well, I'm not an elected official, nor do I have the base of wealth as a practicing OBGYN to actually take as much time to author books and the like as I want.

I try to do it by that most dreaded of things: community organizing.
I try to organize my fellow members of the community to redress the government for its faults on a local level. It's a start.

He's a US Representative, "he is trying" isn't enough when you're at that position. Obama's trying to, whether or not your agree with him he's actually making a run for it. Ron Paul can't even pass the legislation that addresses his core issues. Passing status quo bills doesn't count for anything if your primary position is anti-status quo.

And once more, complaining isn't trying, even if you put those complaints into a book and make a lot of money off of it.

reply to post by mnemeth1

Originally posted by mnemeth1
You asked for specific legislation he has introduced.

I sort of asked for specific bills, not a fairly biased summary from wikipedia. I wanted more of a specific break down of maybe one bill to be happy.

If you want to learn about his specific ideas, you need to read the works published by the Mises Institute.

No, I know quite enough about them. I have some Paulite friends.

Ron Paul is not an isolationist. Ron Paul is probably the biggest advocate of unrestricted trade in the US Congress. The isolationists are those who favor protectionist trade measures, dollar hegemony, cartelized international banking, and formalized trade agreements - which basically includes everyone in congress except for Paul.

He has an isolationist view of foreign policy, he feels we shouldn't meddle when our nation isn't directly at risk. He doesn't support us having a single military base in Korea, doesn't see the necessity for fixing the problems we have in Iraq and Afghanistan, and thinks we should cease all foreign aid.

A huge collection of Ron Paul's writings and articles:
www.lewrockwell.com...

None of those explains how we could reasonably implement any of his policies.

Take a single major platform he has. Any of them. Let's not start out with addressing all of his issues as once, as political ideas suffer when we try to clump them all together simply because one person supports them. Take an issue of your own choice and explain how we could implement it in 4 years without it backfiring in our face and having more negative than positive consequences in the long haul.

If you prove one position correct and implementable, I'll accept it and we'll move on to the next one. If you prove a majority of his positions are correct and implementable, I'll accept that I'm wrong and concede this thread.

Originally posted by madnessinmysoul
Give me an example of legislation that he's put forth that actually challenged the status quo.

TruthWizard gave you several. Throw us a bone here! Give us an example of who has spoken "to the validity or the implementability of the specific bills" so we can actually answer your questions!

/TOA

term limits.

right behind ya ron!


that would be the hardest i think and we really have to get the career politico's out of there.

reply to post by The Old American

Originally posted by The Old American

Originally posted by madnessinmysoul
Give me an example of legislation that he's put forth that actually challenged the status quo.

TruthWizard gave you several.

Yes, but it was a general summary of a plethora of examples of legislation that didn't even make it to committee.

Throw us a bone here! Give us an example of who has spoken "to the validity or the implementability of the specific bills" so we can actually answer your questions!

Anyone can speak about it. I gave a pretty reasonable challenge in my last post, one that has gone unanswered:

From me:

Take a single major platform he has. Any of them. Let's not start out with addressing all of his issues as once, as political ideas suffer when we try to clump them all together simply because one person supports them. Take an issue of your own choice and explain how we could implement it in 4 years without it backfiring in our face and having more negative than positive consequences in the long haul.

If you prove one position correct and implementable, I'll accept it and we'll move on to the next one. If you prove a majority of his positions are correct and implementable, I'll accept that I'm wrong and concede this thread.

reply to post by fooks


reply to post by fooks


How is Ron Paul not a career politician? He's been in office as rep for the 14th district for 13 years. He previously spent another 6 years in office in the 22nd district and a previous stint of a few months in that same position in a separate term before that.

He's basically been in office for nearly 20 years, more than a quarter of your life. How can you do something for a quarter of your life without it being considered a 'career'?

And to top it all off, I don't see any particular reason to put term limits on the legislature. Part of looking at an incumbent is to see their voting history and the success of their legislative efforts. You can't look at the voting history of people with no experience at all. If their voting history is disagreeable, vote for a newcomer. When politicians refuse to run again you get a situation where you're essentially not sure which person would be the most qualified. It's a portion of our government with 528 different people, why do we really need term limits? 528 people can hardly come to an agreement over minor issues, let alone come to enough of an agreement to cause tyranny.

Ok, so I've basically issued a challenge to all followers of Ron Paul out there, to rephrase myself:

Take any major policy position Ron Paul has. Any of them. Then explain how we could implement it in 4 years without it backfiring in our face and having more negative than positive consequences in the long haul.

If you prove one position correct and implementable, I'll accept it and we'll move on to the next one. If you prove a majority of his positions are correct and implementable, I'll accept that I'm wrong and concede this thread.

reply to post by madnessinmysoul


Being in the right as the saying goes and being able to implement policy are not two and the same thing . Winston Churchill warned of the rising threat from Nazi Germany in the 30's but he was able to do little about it . That said really the only time I have particularly agreed with Paul is when he has made the point about the US not formally declaring war since WW2 . During the 2008 US presidential Paul worshippers flooded the boards with there propaganda . During that time I sometimes made the point to his followers that even if Paul got elected as POTUS his policy's would never fly with Congress . He would virtually have to become a dictator in order to implement his policy ideas .

After the presidents we have had as of late, why don’t you just give him a chance to see if he can change things? He can’t do any worse that is for sure. If he fails then you get the chance to beat up on us conservatives! I am telling you that he is about the only hope we have. At least we know where he was born!

Hey Broskis, Have you guys hear about the huge Libertarian/Anarcho-Capitalist conspiracy?

They want to take over the government and then leave us alone! They say once they are in power they won't even use it. (talk about a waste of a vote, don't waste a vote on those lazy bums, they want to spend all day repealing stuff. Chaos....)

Edit: The libertarians will shrink the government and those millions of people who worked for it will be out of work and that will ruin the economy as those people are really well paid. And then they'll release hundreds of thousands of criminals form jails. Hundreds of thousands!

reply to post by xyankee

Originally posted by xyankee
After the presidents we have had as of late, why don’t you just give him a chance to see if he can change things?

Well, we had 8 horrible years of Bush and Obama's nearly half done and actually hasn't done that bad of a job. He hasn't given us rainbow-farting unicorns to ride on, but he's actually achieved quite a few things

He can’t do any worse that is for sure. If he fails then you get the chance to beat up on us conservatives! I am telling you that he is about the only hope we have.

Yes, he can do much worse. Can you show me how a single one of his policies would benefit the nation?

At least we know where he was born!

This is the sort of idiocy we don't need in this thread. The only people who don't know where Obama was born are the lunatic fringe who won't be satisfied unless someone goes back in time, chops of a baby's finger on camera in Hawaii on the day of Obama's birth, and have Obama lose a finger through this action.

Why don't we see the same level of reaction to other candidates? Oh wait, they're not of a different racial background than the rest of the Presidents in history.


reply to post by xpert11

Originally posted by xpert11
reply to post by madnessinmysoul

 

Being in the right as the saying goes and being able to implement policy are not two and the same thing . Winston Churchill warned of the rising threat from Nazi Germany in the 30's but he was able to do little about it .

That's like comparing apples to bears.
Churchill had ideas that could actually be seen as beneficial, even if he wasn't able to get any traction on them. And his problem wasn't getting British support, it was getting international support.

Ron Paul has ideas that are impractical, unreasoned, and impossible to implement.

That said really the only time I have particularly agreed with Paul is when he has made the point about the US not formally declaring war since WW2 .

That I do disagree with, though technically no conflict we've been in since WW2 has been anywhere near the scale of that conflict, we should still have Congress declaring war. But he's not the only one that says it, plenty of people on both sides have agreed to it.

During the 2008 US presidential Paul worshippers flooded the boards with there propaganda . During that time I sometimes made the point to his followers that even if Paul got elected as POTUS his policy's would never fly with Congress . He would virtually have to become a dictator in order to implement his policy ideas .

Exactly. If he wanted to implement his policies the US Congress would be the best place to do it, and he's failed so far.

In Rothbard's epic work The Case Against The Fed, he addresses how a return to sound money could be implemented.

Rothbard writes:

There is only one way to eliminate chronic inflation, as well as the booms and busts brought by that system of inflationary credit: and that is to eliminate the counterfeiting that constitutes and creates that inflation. And the only way to do that is to abolish legalized counterfeiting: that is, to abolish the Federal Reserve System, and return to the gold standard, to a monetary system where a market-produced metal, such as gold, serves as the standard money, and not paper tickets printed by the Federal Reserve.

While there is no space here to go into the intricate details of how this could be done, its essential features are clear and simple. It would be easy to return to gold and to abolish the Federal Reserve, and to do so at one stroke. All we need is the will. The Federal Reserve is officially a "corporation," and the way to abolish it is the way any corporation, certainly any inherently insolvent corporation such as the Fed, is abolished. Any corporation is eliminated by liquidating its assets and parcelling them out pro rata to the corporation's creditors.

Figure 12 presents a simplified portrayal of the assets of the Federal Reserve, as of April 6, 1994.

Of the Federal Reserve assets, except gold, all are easily liquidated. The $345 billion of U.S. government and other federal government agency securities owned by the Fed should be simply and immediately canceled. This act would immediately reduce the taxpayers' liability for the public debt by $345 billion. And indeed, why in the world should taxpayers be taxed by the U.S. Treasury in order to pay interest and principal on bonds held by another arm of the federal government – the Federal Reserve? The taxpayers have to be sweated and looted, merely to preserve the accounting fiction that the Fed is a corporation independent of the federal government.

"Other Fed Assets," whether they be loans to banks, or buildings owned by the Fed, can be scrapped as well, although perhaps some of the assets can be salvaged. Treasury currency, simply old paper money issued by the Treasury, should quickly be canceled as well; and SDR's ($8 billion) were a hopeless experiment in world governmental paper that Keynesians had thought would form the basis of a new world fiat paper money. These two should be immediately canceled.

We are left with the $11 billion of the Fed's only real asset – its gold stock – that is supposed to back approximately $421 billion in Fed liabilities. Of the total Fed liabilities, approximately $11 billion is "capital," which should be written off and written down with liquidation, and $6 billion are Treasury deposits with the Fed that should be canceled. That leaves the Federal Reserve with $11 billion of gold stock to set off against $404 billion in Fed liabilities.

Fortunately for our proposed liquidation process, the "$11 billion" Fed's valuation of its gold stock is wildly phony, since it is based on the totally arbitrary "price" of gold at $42.22 an ounce. The Federal Reserve owns a stock of 260 million ounces of gold. How is it to be valued?

The gold stock of the Fed should be revalued upward so that the gold can pay off all the Fed's liabilities – largely Federal Reserve Notes and Federal Reserve deposits, at 100 cents to the dollar. This means that the gold stock should be revalued such that 260 million gold ounces will be able to pay off $404 billion in Fed liabilities.

When the United States was on the gold standard before 1933, the gold stock was fixed by definition at $20 per gold ounce; the value was fixed at $35 an ounce from 1933 until the end of any vestige of a gold standard in 1971. Since 1971 we have been on a totally fiat money, but the gold stock of the Fed has been arbitrarily valued by U.S. statutes at $42.22 an ounce. This has been an absurd undervaluation on its face, considering that the gold price on the world market has been varying from $350 to $380 an ounce in recent years. At any rate, as we return to the gold standard, the new gold valuation can be whatever is necessary to allow the Fed's stock of gold to be allocated 100 percent to all its creditors. There is nothing sacred about any initial definition of the gold dollar, so long as we stick to it once we are on the gold standard.

If we wish to revalue gold so that the 260 million gold ounces can pay off $404 billion in Fed liabilities, then the new fixed value of gold should be set at $404 billion divided by 260 million ounces, or $1555 per gold ounce. If we revalue the Fed gold stock at the "price" of $1555 per ounce, then its 260 million ounces will be worth $404 billion. Or, to put it another way, the "dollar" would then be defined as 1/1555 of an ounce.

Once this revaluation takes place, the Fed could and should be liquidated, and its gold stock parcelled out; the Federal Reserve Notes could be called in and exchanged for gold coins minted by the Treasury. In the meanwhile, the banks' demand deposits at the Fed would be exchanged for gold bullion, which would then be located in the vaults of the banks, with the banks' deposits redeemable to its depositors in gold coin. In short, at one stroke, the Federal Reserve would be abolished, and the United States and its banks would then be back on the gold standard, with "dollars" redeemable in gold coin at $1555 an ounce. Every bank would then stand, once again as before the Civil War, on its own bottom.

You can listen to the entire audio book for free here:
fascistsoup.com...

You can also download the book for free as a PDF from the Mises Institute.

reply to post by mnemeth1


I'm not listening to something that's probably upwards of 8 hours long for a forum discussion. There's absolutely no way I could address the entirety of a book on this forum and it would be an unreasonable standard for you to ask me to do so.
I'll listen to it and see what I think, but even my 'wall of text' posts can't be expected to critique a whole book.

The gold standard is a ridiculous idea and it has been for a while.
Try reading this, it's a bit shorter than a book

1. The Federal Reserve destabilizes the economy with its "boom and bust" monetary policy. This is hard to square with the fact that the longer the Federal Reserve has been in existance, the more stable the economy has been. Dr. Paul's words strongly imply that he believes that there was no business cycle in the 19th century, which is untrue; as best we can tell, recessions were much longer and deeper before America had a central bank.

2. Americans don't save because they're afraid inflation will erode their savings. This is daft. Moderate inflationary expectations are built into the interest rates that banks offer. After thirty years of stable monetary policy, a good portion of the population doesn't even remember high inflation, and the ones that do are mostly retired and spending down their savings. Americans don't save because . . . well, have you tried the Wii? It's awesome.

3. American exporters are whipsawed by our fluctuating currency. Unless Dr. Paul has plans to put the entire world back on the gold standard--which I mote would require the kind of powerful international organization he's so suspicious of, or invasion--our currency will still fluctuate relative to others if we're on the gold standard. Every time the price of gold changes in another country, American exporters will either be helped or hurt by a change in the relative prices of their goods. The gold standard will shelter exporters from currency fluctuations only in their trade with other countries on the gold standard. There are no other countries on the gold standard.

4. Fiat money inflation benefits those shadowy figures who receive access to artificially inflated money before the inflationary effects kick in. Those shadowy figures being the bankers who loaned it to you so that you could buy your house. At any rate, this would only be true if we were talking about unexpected inflation. Expected inflation is already built into asset prices. The US economy does not have significant unexpected inflation.

5. Fiat money inflation "also benefit big spending politicians who use the inflated currency created by the Fed to hide the true costs of the welfare-warfare state". This is an extraordinarily primitive view of the money supply. The Federal government is not Caesar cutting his denarii with lead. The revenues from seignorage on 2% inflation are trivial. The Federal government gets the money for the "welfare-warfare" state just where it says it does: by taxing the bejeesus out of your wages.

6. Congress does not have constitutional authority to delegate its power "the authority to coin money and regulate the value of the currency". Hmm. Okay, but I'm pretty sure none of our legislators are qualified to operate a printing press, much less the annealing ovens and upsetting mills needed to mint coins.

7. Congress "should only permit currency backed by stable commodities such as silver and gold". Commodities, almost by definition, are not stable. The price of gold looks as if it used to be stable, because the dollar was fixed relative to an ounce of gold. This does not mean that its value relative to other economic goods was unchanged. You could fix your currency to the price of a bushel of wheat, and suddenly "wheat bugs" would be claiming that wheat is the only reliable, stable commodity in the world whose price never changes. That wouldn't stop fluctuating wheat supplies from whipsawing your economy back and forth. To be sure, the supply of gold changes more slowly than the supply of wheat. But demand for it is not so fixed.

Another short article