Ron Paul is a kook. Read his “positions” on various issues and you’ve got to scratch your head about his sanity. Just because he’s a Republican against the war, doesn’t mean he’s got his head screwed on straight. He’s just a more palpable version of Pat Buchanan, representing the libertarian tendancy of the right wing. His entire analysis concerns surrendering governmental authority to big business.
Ron Paul: Anti-choice, isolationist, racism denialist, bigotted toward immigrants, free-market fundamentalist. Kook, who has a good time poking holes in the faulty logic of his fellow Republicans.
Ron Paul is the only person on the Republican Ticket that stands up for freedom. The Bush administration is out of control, trying to pass ex-post facto laws that are explicitly barred by our constitution. Where were the other candidates to stand up against this? There was only Ron Paul and Chris Dodd.
Wish i could see the blimp! Ron Paul does want the states to have controls, just not Washington. But now we use “international business” concepts to destroy anything resembling personal freedom. We think we must move to a point where some global committee is regulating all our businesses. At this point, any real and lasting repair of America will read as something strange - because that is just how far out of whack America is. This movement is not so different from our original Revolutionists. A person who sees it as kooky - just isn’t looking very deeply, imhpo
If you cut your finger and attend to the wound properly, you get a bandaid and heal. If you neglect the cut, you get gangrene and must amputate your arm. This is where the “kook” assessment comes in, imho - it’s America that is out of it’s mind though, not Dr. Paul. Thank you and God Bless.
Sam: I read thru his website, because I hadn’t heard much about him other than his criticisms of the Bush administration (and we agreed, superficially, in those areas). However, under “issues” on his site, there are numerous pathological rants that approach complex issues with a black/white fundamentalism tha is dangerous and irresponsible. The guy’s platform is totally one dimensional. Sure, I’m glad there’s some variety in the right wing debates, but Ron Paul is really no better than the other fearmongerers and he’s worse when it comes to social issues, the environment, and fair trade.
Matt: If you read past the word “kook” you might notice that I went a bit beyond namecalling. Nonetheless, he IS a kook because his few sound ideas obscure is sociopathic platform that would subordinate the public interest to the interests of corporate power.
I am all in favor of Republicans wasting their money supporting a guy who won’t win the nomination! Keep it up! Any money you spend there will be less money spent on Huckabee or Romney, both of whom make my palms sweat with fear.
haduken’s been missing the heated discussions of old. sure, i love voodoo dolls and zombies as much as the next guy, but it would be nice to dig a little deeper again. maybe someone will challenge to someone to a duel again or something. i’m optimistic that something terribly negative will happen!
RVA Fruity, “Anti-choice, isolationist, racism denialist, bigotted toward immigrants, free-market fundamentalist” is basically an entire string of name-calling. just sayin. not that that’s all you said, but mostly.
as for my view: i’m disappointed in the republican race. the lack of variety, the typical dancing around issues, the keeping to the recent trend of ignoring many important conservative values of old (small(er) government, less spending, etc.). I’d like to see someone a little more fiscally old-school, but socially a little newer school, but not too liberal (for example, ef illegal immigrants).
on the other hand, someone said some of the republican candidates were scary? nobody scares me as much as a president hillary. what a nightmare.
I can’t understand the “sports team” affiliation some people have with parties. Of course I am going to support Ron Paul with my money, even though I am fully aware he probably won’t win the nomination. I don’t need the Republicans to win. I don’t need the Democrats to win. What I want is the best available candidate to win — not the best available team.
At this point, for me, that is Ron Paul. After February it may change.
i agree about teams. sort of. i’m a bit torn bc i also see the futility in throwing money/votes towards a lost cause. it’s difficult.
disagree about “hillz” - huckabee. hillary seems to think (like many democrats, but to an even more insane degree) that throwing money at everything fixes everything. like, “let’s just give every baby $thousands for being born.” she’s an uber-socialist but even pushing communism. craziness. sure, government interference and giving up rights is scary, but not as scary as communism! haha, i kid a little, buts just a little.
i wish the dems had somebody with some experience somewhere. and a clue. it’s sort of a sad race on both sides if you ask me.
I have to say that I’m really disappointed in that the anti-progressive and anti-social attitudes of this Pat Buchanan clone are being celebrated in Richmond. I’m all for fringe candidates and voting in primaries to urge a new direction. However, Ron Paul’s candidacy is akin to Abbie Hoffman and the Yippies running a pig for president. His declaration for the downsizing of government is that radical and misguided. Nonetheless, it’s not laughing matter because the message that is being sent isn’t simply anti-status quo, it’s the ideology of Carl Rove on steroids. Sure, he’s relatively libertarian, but he’s ultra-conservative on social issues:
Bush is famous for saying that if you aren’t with us, you’re with the terrorists and cultivating an atmosphere where questioning the president gets you accused of being unpatriotic. It seems Ron Paul’s supporters equate disagreement with their candidate as “anti-constitution.” Just when it seemed that new ideas were percolating in the right wing, it turns out to be a case of Dumb and Dumber.
So what I take from the Ron Paul supporters commenting thus far is that he stands for “freedom” and “the original American revolution.”
What a substantial rebuttal to the supposed name calling of RVA Foodie. And how wonderful that you make up great names for him while castigating him for name calling. I haven’t seen such blatant thoughtless hypocrisy in a long time! You’ve made my evening.
None of you gave substantial reasons for supporting Paul. And certainly nothing that would convince me that his anti-global warming, anti-stem cell research, anti-evolution, pro Christian American positions are compelling.
To call Ron Paul socially conservative is crazy. In being the “libertarian” candidate, that means he’s inherently fiscally conservative and socially liberal. Anyway, to compare Paul and Pat Buchanan is misguided - Paul is no Buchanan.
On to Ron Paul’s position the issues:
Immigration: 1) Eliminate incentives for people to enter the US illegally - things like birthright citizenship. 2) Enforce the current laws on the books - we already have laws to deal with illegal immigrants - let’s start enforcing them. 3) Immigration reform legislation - only after we’ve taken care of points 1 & 2.
Health Care: Neither the government or HMOs are effective managers of our health care. Each individual is probably the best manager of his/her own healthcare. Ron Paul would cut the big companies/gov’t out of health care, which would drive down medical costs. Then, he would make all costs tax deductible. Ron Paul is also in favor of tort reform, which would reduce much of the cost of malpractice insurance for doctors, which would also drive down insurance premiums and make medical coverage more affordable. This is probably the single most-effective tool for giving American’s affordable care with a choice.
Abortion: Ron Paul supports each state deciding for themselves if abortion should be legal. This is not a federal issue but a local one, and Ron Paul supports getting the federal gov’t out of your personal business and people deciding as communities.
If we eliminate birthright citizenship, then where will I be a citizen of?
I’m not even going to touch the health care scams of libertarian candidates. No amount of tax breaks will get me insured- I already pay no taxes because my income’s so low and I own a house (deductible mortgage). So give all the tax breaks you want, I still can’t afford the $600 a month bill (with $1000 deductible and $40 copays- $200 at the hospital) I’m currently paying. This is the only industrialized country IN THE WORLD that can’t figure out how to offer health care to its citizens/residents. And if you look at our health indicators, we’re faring worse than most nations with single payer.
And why is he against stem-cell research, and evolution, and doing something about global warming? And then his comments on race, like this one:
“We don’t think a child of 13 should be held responsible as a man of 23. That’s true for most people, but black males age 13 who have been raised on the streets and who have joined criminal gangs are as big, strong, tough, scary and culpable as any adult and should be treated as such.” From the Houston Chronicle
Wow.
Sorry, still not convinced. And still not sure what citizenship I should have.
Congrats Ross for the sighting and everyone else for the vitriol. Paul haters should know better than to make ad hominem attacks on the man over blog comments, lest they’re braced for an earful of logical, historical, economic, and Constitutional substantiation for his “kooky” positions. The appearance of “kook” is only due to the slow deviation the land of liberty has taken over the centuries back into the welcome arms of centralized governmental control over every facet of our lives. We demand a king again and the one who tells us we’re better off free is laughed at. We’ll see you at the polls… with 10 friends each voting for Paul. Keep hating and not being excited about any particular candidate. :o)
Haha Ross, I feel that way about sports. “Why do people get all partisan about sports teams? What does being into one sports team or another signify? It’s not like one sports team traditionally hates women and gay peeps and science and change and loves rich white people and the other team doesn’t. So how does one even choose a loyalty if there isn’t that criteria to consider?”
Boys, this is a joke. I don’t actually want answers to that question. The jaw slackens and the eyes glaze to even think of it.
to be clear, i am not a ron paul supporter. i haven’t chosen a candidate yet because i don’t particularly like any of them. and my name calling about name calling was meant to be ironic, but you can call me hypocritical i suppose.
citizenship: if your parents had you in another country, you can still be american. their kids can be whatever nationality they are.
healthcare: there aren’t a lot of things in history that the fed government has done efficiently and competently and saved us money on. i’m not sure that has ever been done on any program? but why save us money when we can just have wealthy people pay for everything?
it probably wasn’t as effective as a blimp, but i was driving on 64 today and say a guy on an overpass hold a giant home made Ron Paul sign. he did appear slightly deranged from what i could tell driving by at 75mph.
Evolution: First of all, I fail to see how this is a issue in the election. Since when does the president’s view on evolution even remotely affect his ability to do his job? However, to placate you, I’ll explain Ron Paul’s position… He has no idea how the world was created, and isn’t going to venture a guess. He said that he wasn’t around when it happened, and evolution could have been the method by which we were created, but it is a theory, so he’s not going to start explaining his position on things he doesn’t know about. He’ll stick to monetary policy, thank you.
Stem-cell research: Ron Paul is against federal funding for most of the Congressional pet-research projects in general. It would be much better for this research to be funded by private companies and institutions who are reaping the benefits of this research to begin with. “It is much better than pretending Congress possesses the magical wisdom to serve as the nation’s moral arbiter.” “Federal funds thus distort the natural market for scientific research.” Ron Paul feels differently for areas where the national interest is at stake. But for the rest of these Congressional pet projects, let companies and institutions fund them and get politics out of it.
As for your situation, Matthew, I think you need to do a better job managing your money. If you own a house and don’t make any money, it seems like you are stretched too thin. Maybe you should spend less on housing and use the difference to get medical insurance. We all make choices of where to spend our money - you chose housing, and so a medical emergency could push you to bankruptcy (along with thousands of Americans each year). Spending less and using insurance/savings to protect yourself from a medical emergency is your solution, not the government saving you with subsidized health care.
it was recently suggested to me that ron paul’s bumber sticker slogan should be “the less insane republican choice”. i thought that was pretty accurate.
I would be willing to bet Matthew has a cell phone and high speed Internet access. So much for priorities. As far as what to call you… hmmm.. how about an American? Not an African-American or Hispanic-American, but just an American. I’m not sure how HillaryCare could even be considered an option. She was bought out in 1993 by the insurance companies and hasn’t said another word about it until this year.
Sam - you may need to consider that housing and insurance rates are very different in other areas. My wife and I just moved to New York, where our housing cost have gone up by half again what we were paying in Richmond. The cost for insurance, however, has quadrupled, making it $1080 a month for one of us to be insured. Consequently, I don’t have insurance either, but my wife, whose medications are cost prohibitive, has to be insured. I am one of millions of americans without health insurance, and it has nothing to do with the choices we’ve made in housing or other expenditures. Some of us simply can’t afford it.
Changing gears for a minute:
“The federal government does not own our children. Yet we act as if it does by letting it decide when, how, and what our children will learn… The federal government has no constitutional authority to fund or control schools. I want to abolish the unconstitutional, wasteful Department of Education and return its functions to the states. By removing the federal subsidies that inflate costs, schools can be funded by local taxes, and parents and teachers can directly decide how best to allocate the resources.” - Ron Paul website
While I still agree with a good portion of Paul’s positions, some of them, like education reform, scare me a bit. Won’t it be great for Pennsylvania and Texas to add creationism, or intelligent design, or flying spaghetti noodle monsterism to the educational system? I can’t wait ’til each locality can decide what it should teach it’s kids. It’s been so progressive in the past.
Ron Paul is a kook. Read his “positions” on various issues and you’ve got to scratch your head about his sanity. Just because he’s a Republican against the war, doesn’t mean he’s got his head screwed on straight. He’s just a more palpable version of Pat Buchanan, representing the libertarian tendancy of the right wing. His entire analysis concerns surrendering governmental authority to big business.
Ron Paul: Anti-choice, isolationist, racism denialist, bigotted toward immigrants, free-market fundamentalist. Kook, who has a good time poking holes in the faulty logic of his fellow Republicans.
— RVA Foodie | @
I got to see it too :) Flew right over my building. Thought it was kinda cool.
As for the commenter above me … really? Silly name calling is the best you can come up with? :P
— Matt | @
Ron Paul is the only person on the Republican Ticket that stands up for freedom. The Bush administration is out of control, trying to pass ex-post facto laws that are explicitly barred by our constitution. Where were the other candidates to stand up against this? There was only Ron Paul and Chris Dodd.
RVA Foodie - maybe you’re not anti-Ron Paul. Maybe you’re anti-Constitution.
— Sam | @
Wish i could see the blimp! Ron Paul does want the states to have controls, just not Washington. But now we use “international business” concepts to destroy anything resembling personal freedom. We think we must move to a point where some global committee is regulating all our businesses. At this point, any real and lasting repair of America will read as something strange - because that is just how far out of whack America is. This movement is not so different from our original Revolutionists. A person who sees it as kooky - just isn’t looking very deeply, imhpo
If you cut your finger and attend to the wound properly, you get a bandaid and heal. If you neglect the cut, you get gangrene and must amputate your arm. This is where the “kook” assessment comes in, imho - it’s America that is out of it’s mind though, not Dr. Paul. Thank you and God Bless.
— Zed | @
Sam: I read thru his website, because I hadn’t heard much about him other than his criticisms of the Bush administration (and we agreed, superficially, in those areas). However, under “issues” on his site, there are numerous pathological rants that approach complex issues with a black/white fundamentalism tha is dangerous and irresponsible. The guy’s platform is totally one dimensional. Sure, I’m glad there’s some variety in the right wing debates, but Ron Paul is really no better than the other fearmongerers and he’s worse when it comes to social issues, the environment, and fair trade.
Matt: If you read past the word “kook” you might notice that I went a bit beyond namecalling. Nonetheless, he IS a kook because his few sound ideas obscure is sociopathic platform that would subordinate the public interest to the interests of corporate power.
http://rptruthnow.blogspot.com/
— RVA Foodie | @
I am all in favor of Republicans wasting their money supporting a guy who won’t win the nomination! Keep it up! Any money you spend there will be less money spent on Huckabee or Romney, both of whom make my palms sweat with fear.
— Susan | @
haduken’s been missing the heated discussions of old. sure, i love voodoo dolls and zombies as much as the next guy, but it would be nice to dig a little deeper again. maybe someone will challenge to someone to a duel again or something. i’m optimistic that something terribly negative will happen!
RVA Fruity, “Anti-choice, isolationist, racism denialist, bigotted toward immigrants, free-market fundamentalist” is basically an entire string of name-calling. just sayin. not that that’s all you said, but mostly.
as for my view: i’m disappointed in the republican race. the lack of variety, the typical dancing around issues, the keeping to the recent trend of ignoring many important conservative values of old (small(er) government, less spending, etc.). I’d like to see someone a little more fiscally old-school, but socially a little newer school, but not too liberal (for example, ef illegal immigrants).
on the other hand, someone said some of the republican candidates were scary? nobody scares me as much as a president hillary. what a nightmare.
— Wolf | @
Huckabee is infinitely more scary than Hillz.
I can’t understand the “sports team” affiliation some people have with parties. Of course I am going to support Ron Paul with my money, even though I am fully aware he probably won’t win the nomination. I don’t need the Republicans to win. I don’t need the Democrats to win. What I want is the best available candidate to win — not the best available team.
At this point, for me, that is Ron Paul. After February it may change.
— Ross | @
i agree about teams. sort of. i’m a bit torn bc i also see the futility in throwing money/votes towards a lost cause. it’s difficult.
disagree about “hillz” - huckabee. hillary seems to think (like many democrats, but to an even more insane degree) that throwing money at everything fixes everything. like, “let’s just give every baby $thousands for being born.” she’s an uber-socialist but even pushing communism. craziness. sure, government interference and giving up rights is scary, but not as scary as communism! haha, i kid a little, buts just a little.
i wish the dems had somebody with some experience somewhere. and a clue. it’s sort of a sad race on both sides if you ask me.
— Wolf | @
I have to say that I’m really disappointed in that the anti-progressive and anti-social attitudes of this Pat Buchanan clone are being celebrated in Richmond. I’m all for fringe candidates and voting in primaries to urge a new direction. However, Ron Paul’s candidacy is akin to Abbie Hoffman and the Yippies running a pig for president. His declaration for the downsizing of government is that radical and misguided. Nonetheless, it’s not laughing matter because the message that is being sent isn’t simply anti-status quo, it’s the ideology of Carl Rove on steroids. Sure, he’s relatively libertarian, but he’s ultra-conservative on social issues:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/6/5/193414/2787
http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=ron_pauls_abortion_rhetoric
http://www.buchanan.org/blog/
http://www.ronpaulgrassrootshq.com/ron-paul/leader/pat-buchanan-conservative.html
Bush is famous for saying that if you aren’t with us, you’re with the terrorists and cultivating an atmosphere where questioning the president gets you accused of being unpatriotic. It seems Ron Paul’s supporters equate disagreement with their candidate as “anti-constitution.” Just when it seemed that new ideas were percolating in the right wing, it turns out to be a case of Dumb and Dumber.
— RVA Foodie | @
So what I take from the Ron Paul supporters commenting thus far is that he stands for “freedom” and “the original American revolution.”
What a substantial rebuttal to the supposed name calling of RVA Foodie. And how wonderful that you make up great names for him while castigating him for name calling. I haven’t seen such blatant thoughtless hypocrisy in a long time! You’ve made my evening.
None of you gave substantial reasons for supporting Paul. And certainly nothing that would convince me that his anti-global warming, anti-stem cell research, anti-evolution, pro Christian American positions are compelling.
— Matthew | @
whoa politics are back on haduken?!??!?
also that is awesome that you saw the blimp. it is going up to boston or something right?
-mbs
— midas | @
Yeah, I thought it was going up for the Tea Party event, but I guess not. It was neat to see.
I love vitriol.
— Ross | @
To call Ron Paul socially conservative is crazy. In being the “libertarian” candidate, that means he’s inherently fiscally conservative and socially liberal. Anyway, to compare Paul and Pat Buchanan is misguided - Paul is no Buchanan.
On to Ron Paul’s position the issues:
Immigration: 1) Eliminate incentives for people to enter the US illegally - things like birthright citizenship. 2) Enforce the current laws on the books - we already have laws to deal with illegal immigrants - let’s start enforcing them. 3) Immigration reform legislation - only after we’ve taken care of points 1 & 2.
Health Care: Neither the government or HMOs are effective managers of our health care. Each individual is probably the best manager of his/her own healthcare. Ron Paul would cut the big companies/gov’t out of health care, which would drive down medical costs. Then, he would make all costs tax deductible. Ron Paul is also in favor of tort reform, which would reduce much of the cost of malpractice insurance for doctors, which would also drive down insurance premiums and make medical coverage more affordable. This is probably the single most-effective tool for giving American’s affordable care with a choice.
Abortion: Ron Paul supports each state deciding for themselves if abortion should be legal. This is not a federal issue but a local one, and Ron Paul supports getting the federal gov’t out of your personal business and people deciding as communities.
I’ll post more later if I have time.
— Sam | @
If we eliminate birthright citizenship, then where will I be a citizen of?
I’m not even going to touch the health care scams of libertarian candidates. No amount of tax breaks will get me insured- I already pay no taxes because my income’s so low and I own a house (deductible mortgage). So give all the tax breaks you want, I still can’t afford the $600 a month bill (with $1000 deductible and $40 copays- $200 at the hospital) I’m currently paying. This is the only industrialized country IN THE WORLD that can’t figure out how to offer health care to its citizens/residents. And if you look at our health indicators, we’re faring worse than most nations with single payer.
And why is he against stem-cell research, and evolution, and doing something about global warming? And then his comments on race, like this one:
“We don’t think a child of 13 should be held responsible as a man of 23. That’s true for most people, but black males age 13 who have been raised on the streets and who have joined criminal gangs are as big, strong, tough, scary and culpable as any adult and should be treated as such.”
From the Houston Chronicle
Wow.
Sorry, still not convinced. And still not sure what citizenship I should have.
— Matthew | @
OMG! That photo is undeniable proof! UFOs exist! And I think I see Sasquatch piloting it!
— BK | @
Congrats Ross for the sighting and everyone else for the vitriol. Paul haters should know better than to make ad hominem attacks on the man over blog comments, lest they’re braced for an earful of logical, historical, economic, and Constitutional substantiation for his “kooky” positions. The appearance of “kook” is only due to the slow deviation the land of liberty has taken over the centuries back into the welcome arms of centralized governmental control over every facet of our lives. We demand a king again and the one who tells us we’re better off free is laughed at. We’ll see you at the polls… with 10 friends each voting for Paul. Keep hating and not being excited about any particular candidate. :o)
— Dave | @
no, most ufos and bigfoot support kucinich, not ron paul. aliens exist.
— midas | @
Haha Ross, I feel that way about sports. “Why do people get all partisan about sports teams? What does being into one sports team or another signify? It’s not like one sports team traditionally hates women and gay peeps and science and change and loves rich white people and the other team doesn’t. So how does one even choose a loyalty if there isn’t that criteria to consider?”
Boys, this is a joke. I don’t actually want answers to that question. The jaw slackens and the eyes glaze to even think of it.
— Susan | @
to be clear, i am not a ron paul supporter. i haven’t chosen a candidate yet because i don’t particularly like any of them. and my name calling about name calling was meant to be ironic, but you can call me hypocritical i suppose.
citizenship: if your parents had you in another country, you can still be american. their kids can be whatever nationality they are.
healthcare: there aren’t a lot of things in history that the fed government has done efficiently and competently and saved us money on. i’m not sure that has ever been done on any program? but why save us money when we can just have wealthy people pay for everything?
— Wolf | @
it probably wasn’t as effective as a blimp, but i was driving on 64 today and say a guy on an overpass hold a giant home made Ron Paul sign. he did appear slightly deranged from what i could tell driving by at 75mph.
— Wolf | @
More Ron Paul issues:
Evolution: First of all, I fail to see how this is a issue in the election. Since when does the president’s view on evolution even remotely affect his ability to do his job? However, to placate you, I’ll explain Ron Paul’s position… He has no idea how the world was created, and isn’t going to venture a guess. He said that he wasn’t around when it happened, and evolution could have been the method by which we were created, but it is a theory, so he’s not going to start explaining his position on things he doesn’t know about. He’ll stick to monetary policy, thank you.
Stem-cell research: Ron Paul is against federal funding for most of the Congressional pet-research projects in general. It would be much better for this research to be funded by private companies and institutions who are reaping the benefits of this research to begin with. “It is much better than pretending Congress possesses the magical wisdom to serve as the nation’s moral arbiter.” “Federal funds thus distort the natural market for scientific research.” Ron Paul feels differently for areas where the national interest is at stake. But for the rest of these Congressional pet projects, let companies and institutions fund them and get politics out of it.
As for your situation, Matthew, I think you need to do a better job managing your money. If you own a house and don’t make any money, it seems like you are stretched too thin. Maybe you should spend less on housing and use the difference to get medical insurance. We all make choices of where to spend our money - you chose housing, and so a medical emergency could push you to bankruptcy (along with thousands of Americans each year). Spending less and using insurance/savings to protect yourself from a medical emergency is your solution, not the government saving you with subsidized health care.
— Sam | @
it was recently suggested to me that ron paul’s bumber sticker slogan should be “the less insane republican choice”. i thought that was pretty accurate.
awesome that you saw the blimp.
hope you are doing well.
merry christmas!
— stephanie anne | @
http://www.RonPaulBlimp.com
The Blimp only needs 90K more in the next 36 Hours to keep flying through the early primaries!
BE A PART OF SOMETHING! Donate to the blimp TODAY!
Last time we needed 50K in a day, we got it NO PROBLEM! LETS MAKE THIS HAPPEN!
— JRock | @
I would be willing to bet Matthew has a cell phone and high speed Internet access. So much for priorities. As far as what to call you… hmmm.. how about an American? Not an African-American or Hispanic-American, but just an American. I’m not sure how HillaryCare could even be considered an option. She was bought out in 1993 by the insurance companies and hasn’t said another word about it until this year.
— Mark | @
Sam - you may need to consider that housing and insurance rates are very different in other areas. My wife and I just moved to New York, where our housing cost have gone up by half again what we were paying in Richmond. The cost for insurance, however, has quadrupled, making it $1080 a month for one of us to be insured. Consequently, I don’t have insurance either, but my wife, whose medications are cost prohibitive, has to be insured. I am one of millions of americans without health insurance, and it has nothing to do with the choices we’ve made in housing or other expenditures. Some of us simply can’t afford it.
Changing gears for a minute:
“The federal government does not own our children. Yet we act as if it does by letting it decide when, how, and what our children will learn… The federal government has no constitutional authority to fund or control schools. I want to abolish the unconstitutional, wasteful Department of Education and return its functions to the states. By removing the federal subsidies that inflate costs, schools can be funded by local taxes, and parents and teachers can directly decide how best to allocate the resources.” - Ron Paul website
While I still agree with a good portion of Paul’s positions, some of them, like education reform, scare me a bit. Won’t it be great for Pennsylvania and Texas to add creationism, or intelligent design, or flying spaghetti noodle monsterism to the educational system? I can’t wait ’til each locality can decide what it should teach it’s kids. It’s been so progressive in the past.
— Matt | @