Posted on 03/15/2008 9:13:01 AM PDT by pissant
Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas), he of the quixotic GOP presidential campaign and unique policy positions, is never one to be shy about his opinions. Take the case of fallen New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer (D), whose political career fell apart this week after his liaisons with high-priced call girls became public. Spitzer resigned his office effective Monday.
Most politicians from both sides of the aisle publicly (at least) offered condolences for Spitzer and his poor family, including his three daughters, but didn't — of course — defend Spitzer's atrocious behavior.
But for Paul, Spitzer's downfall at the hands of a Justice Dept. investigation shows government at its worst. Yes, Spitzer climbed to power on the backs of political enemies he destroyed, making him not a swell guy, but he didn't deserve what happened to him. The FBI should have never been allowed to listen in to his phone call in the first place, according to the Texas Republican.
Here's the statement Paul made on the House floor last night. It's worth reading, at least for the enlightenment it gives into Paul's view of the world, which basically comes down to who controls the money:
"Madam Speaker, it has been said that 'he who lives by the sword shall die by the sword.' And in the case of Eliot Spitzer, this couldn't be more true. In his case it's the political sword, as his enemies rejoice in his downfall. Most people, it seems, believe he got exactly what he deserved.
"The illegal tools of the state brought Spitzer down, but think of all the harm done by Spitzer in using the same tools against so many other innocent people. He practiced what could be termed 'economic McCarthyism,' using illegitimate government power to build his political career on the ruined lives of others.
"No matter how morally justified his comeuppance may be, his downfall demonstrates the worst of our society. The possibility of uncovering personal moral wrongdoing is never a justification for the government to spy on our every move and to participate in sting operations.
"For government to entice a citizen to break a law with a sting operation — that is, engaging in activities that a private citizen is prohibited by law from doing — is unconscionable and should clearly be illegal.
"Though Spitzer used the same tools to destroy individuals charged with economic crimes that ended up being used against him, gloating over his downfall should not divert our attention from the fact that the government spying on American citizens is unworthy of a country claiming respect for liberty and the Fourth Amendment.
"Two wrongs do not make a right. Two wrongs make it doubly wrong.
"Sacrifice of our personal privacy has been ongoing for decades but has rapidly accelerated since 9/11. Before 9/11, the unstated goal of collecting revenue was the real reason for the erosion of our financial privacy. When 19 suicidal maniacs attacked us on 9/11, our country became convinced that further sacrifice of personal and financial privacy was required for our security.
"The driving force behind this ongoing sacrifice of our privacy has been fear and the emotional effect of war rhetoric — war on drugs, war against terrorism and the war against Third World nations in the Middle East who are claimed to be the equivalent to Hitler and Nazi Germany.
"But the real reason for all this surveillance is to build the power of the state. It arises from a virulent dislike of free people running their own lives and spending their own money. Statists always demand control of the people and their money.
"Recently we've been told that this increase in the already intolerable invasion of our privacy was justified because the purpose was to apprehend terrorists. We were told that the massive amounts of information being collected on Americans would only be used to root out terrorists. But as we can see today, this monitoring of private activities can also be used for political reasons. We should always be concerned when the government accumulates information on innocent citizens.
"Spitzer was brought down because he legally withdrew cash from a bank — not because he committed a crime. This should prompt us to reassess and hopefully reverse this trend of pervasive government intrusion in our private lives.
"We need no more Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act! No more Violent Radicalization & Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Acts! No more torture! No more Military Commissions Act! No more secret prisons and extraordinary rendition! No more abuse of habeas corpus! No more Patriot Acts!
"What we need is more government transparency and more privacy for the individual!"
Your unique insights explain the success of your POTUS candidates. Sometimes four or five others vote for them in addition to you.
Enjoy trying to put lipstick on the McCain pig.
You might want to buy stock in a cosmetics company.
William Buckley definitely defused the John Birch Society, as Richard Nixon acknowledged to him. However, the same cannot be said for Ayn Rand. The harshest criticism of her work came not from Buckley directly but from Whittaker Chambers, writing for National Review, who saw a sort of incipient fascism in her egoism, what he called the “stench of the concentration camp”. Buckley may have excommunicated Rand from the conservative mainstream, as he did Murray Rothbard, Robert Welch, Joseph Sobran, and others. Rand's novels and writings have had a sustained popularity far above those of those others whom Buckley condemned, in spite of his hostility.
“When I see bordermanic good ol’ boys roving the Canaduian border with shotguns and cases of beer in their pickups hunting Canadian “illegals”, it will be easier to distinguish.”
This is indistinguishable from the far left, open borders, anti-American propaganda coming from the Mecha crowd.
And I wasn’t aware that the Canadians were planning on creating one of these out a few states of the Union:
http://www.aztlan.net/homeland.htm
The answer to the mythical Atzlan if (as seems utterly unlikely) it ever becomes an actual threat is the vigorous application of US military force but we don't need to waste resources having the military posing as F troop resisting those "terrorist" Mexican mamacitas when they are needed in the Middle East and elsewhere to kill our nation's actual enemies. BTW, the Second Amendment RTKBA will also come into play as necessary to thwart any Atzlan fantasies.
My maternal (Scottish/Scots-Irish) grandfather came across the border on foot from Canada in about 1901 and had no "papers." Look how I turned out. You might want to be more careful about those Canadians.
This country has allowed the murder of 50 million innocent infants by abortion. The Mexicans and other Hispanics are making up about half of that deficit to date and are working diligently on making up the other half. God bless them and may they prosper in spite of the childish whining of their nativist neo-KnowNothing enemies.
What's next as an allegedly conservative cause? A revival of the KKK??? The unofficial "border patrol" newsletters attacked the late John Paul II for diminishing the importance of national boundaries when they clash with human rights. Of course, JP II was a 19-year old youth in Poland, an altar boy serving the last Mass for several years at the cathedral when the nazis and communists invaded on a September day of 1939 and had a lot of experience with bordermania run amok but that does not matter to some bordernuts who seem to be anti-Catholic while they are at it.
Just because the Canadians know better than to try a Canadian form of Atzlan (and under the current Canadian government are pro-American unlike their last government) does not mean that they have tight enough security or firm enough determination to keep terrorists like the 9/11 hijackers from coming across our northern border. Until we protect the northern border, the conclusion is inescapable that the real concern of bordermania is that its practitioners see some social difference between themselves, their idea of America and the Mexicans and other Hispanics crossing our border.
A lot more people than you may suspect see the United States as a great nation that has absorbed wave after wave of immigrants to our benefit and theirs and will continue to do so despite the ever present caucus of those who, incapable of being comforted, whine uncontrollably and rage against the reality and necessity of refreshing our republic by the influx of those whose highest earthly ambition is to be Americans and part of the American Dream. We are a greater nation than that. Our nation is far greater than those who would surround it with a Berlin Wall.
Your grandchildren, if permitted to know where you stood on this matter, will be ashamed of you.
See #301
The more I freep, the more I become convinced that there is a genetic connection between hating Ron Paul and proclivities for ridiculously long run-on sentences. Periods are your friend, young freeper.
Poohbah, is that you?
See Paulie. See Paulie pee on our country. Love Paulie.
I trust that the first paragraph is simple enough for even you to comprehend.
Also, see #301 which applies to you as well.
And you have the nerve to call Ron Paul a kook?!
At least he has the common sense not to support criminal invaders.
My English grandfather MAY have had papers when he arrived about 100 years ago. My Scottish/Scots Irish grandfather arrived by way of Canada without them in about 1901. My Irish grandmother arrived in South Boston in 1895 without them and my German ancestors in 1848 and 1876 without them. Who cares???? They are all dead and every living descendant of each of them is an America citizen by birth.
If your best credential is an accident of birth by which you were born here (if you were born here), you don't have much to brag about.
On the record to date, many incoming Mexicans without papers are likely to be more valuable citizens than you.
As to your screenname, you would prefer maybe Obama or Her Satanic Majesty???? Whichever one is nominated will be the only electable alternative to McCain.
Did someone die and put the "Minutemen" in charge of immigration enforcement???? Will they stop suing each other over the organizational loot from the gulls long enough to actually accomplish anything in public policy? An anti-immigration obsessive just lost the verrrry Republican Hastert Congressional seat (just one district south of the one where I live) by, among other things, offending the hell out of Hispanics who locally have a decently GOP voting record and a large measure of social conservatism.
NoWayMcCain has no better POTUS candidate than the 4.5% primary vote getting Galveston moonbat and Al Qaeda answer man and all purpose kook and surrender monkey paleoPaulie (who BTW does in fact support the immigration as has been posted in detail elsewhere).
Criminal invaders???? May every crime in America be as victimless and as much of a benefit to our nation.
I have the common sense to call paleoPaulie the kook that he clearly is even though he has been right (stopped clock...twice a day) in not having a nervous breakdown over the immigration. There are 25 million of them now. They have a high birthrate and God bless them for that. Their children are born as US citizens if they are born here (not unlike the children of my paperless ancestors and probably yours). You have lost. Your issue is over. There is no turning back as there ought not be. They are here. They are not going back. Do you want them to vote conservative or to be a new army of resentment in Demonratic ranks?
The word "breeder" is more likely encountered in Mein Kampf or in paleoagitprop of the "blood and soil" variety or in the brochures of Planned Barrenhood or Zero Population Growth. I think of (and know many) Mexicans as enthusiastic parents, generous enough to give birth to large families unlike many native born Americans addicted to birth control and abortion. We and they are free to have as many or as few children as we please. The Mexicans often choose to have many. They will make great citizens in the constantly unfolding tapestry of American life.
If you think Ron Paul is not a kook, vote for him and complete your resume.
You may be new but stick around. You are going to be fun. You may now resume your emotional and psychiatric breakdown. The Mexicans are coming! The Mexicans are coming! And, whether you like it or not, they aren't going back.
They are: Faster than a speeding bullet...more powerful than a locomotive....able to walk through gaping holes in the Canadian border fence right around the locked gates with a single bound or step!!!! Those Minutemen are just awesome!!!! Lions and tigers and bears, oh my!
As you can see, I am not dumb at all. In fact, I have been called quite talkative.
AND, see #301 which apparently applies to you too!
Paul has a big leftie streak.
....above all, do not join the wrong ideological groups or movements, in order to 'do something.' By 'ideological' (in this context), I mean groups or movements proclaiming some vaguely generalized, undefined (and, usually, contradictory) political goals. (E.g., the Conservative Party, which subordinates reason to faith, and substitutes theocracy for capitalism; or the 'libertarian' hippies, who subordinate reason to whims, and substitute anarchism for capitalism.) To join such groups means to reverse the philosophical hierarchy and to sell out fundamental principles for the sake of some superficial political action which is bound to fail. It means that you help the defeat of your ideas and (hand) the victory to your enemies.
For the record, I shall repeat what I have said many times before: I do not join or endorse any political group or movement. More specifically, I disapprove of, disagree with and have no connection with, the latest aberration of some conservatives, the so-called 'hippies of the right,' who attempt to snare the younger or more careless ones of my readers by claiming simultaneously to be followers of my philosophy and advocates of anarchism. Anyone offering such a combination confesses his inability to understand either. Anarchism is the most irrational, anti-intellectual notion ever spun by the concrete-bound, context-dropping, whim-worshiping fringe of the collectivist movement, where it properly belongs.
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