Posted on 09/17/2002 7:14:29 AM PDT by Red Jones
if our society was full of people who love truth for the sake of loving truth and doing what's right for the sake of doing what's right, then we'd be in very good shape. Instead we are not in good shape. You argument is foolish.
It doesn't have to be gold. You can use silver or iron or oil or any similar commodity instead. You could even use Coke. :-)
My problem with the Fed is that they have the power to control the amount of cash banks must have on hand. You cannot start up a bank without the Fed telling you how to run it. Not what I call free enterprise!
No sir.
His meaning is clear. For some reason many people refuse to acknowledge what Ron Paul actually says.
It is very strange.
Ron Paul says we contributed to this.
Do you agree?
And contributed, yes. Here let me give you an example. My brother was thrown in prison a few years back for stealing (from family friends and others) to pay for his drugs and other things he was doing at the time. After he got out (he was under 18 so light sentence), my parents gave him shelter despite the fact that he had already commited heinous crimes. They gave him clothes helped him get a car, etc etc after he got out even though they knew better. My brother then in turn used the car a few weeks later to make many more in home burglaries. My parents were unwittingly contributing to my brother's crimes. Are they guilty of anything? Nope. Much the same is true here. Our military policy of intervention, no matter how good the intentions, will only cause people to hate us and since a lot of them are loco, they will use terrorist attacks to get back at the US. Does that make the US guilty of a crime? Nope, but does it help contribute to the problem? Yes. There-in lies the difference between Ron Paul's view and the way you see Ron Paul's view.
Hmm now that completely changes what I last said. ;^)
I may be wrong, but this seems to state that it's Congress rather than the Fed that sets the reserve requirement. It also sounds as if your concerns have shifted a little since your first objection on this thread. I'm not trying to force feed you any of this stuff. I'm no expert, but I don't want to spend a lot of time going round and round on this and parrying your jabs at something that you're no more of an authority on than I.
FWIW, on another day and at a conceptual level, I think it's a good discussion to have (even though I'm confident that he's wrong.) But if this was stated after 9/11, I think he at least made the mistake of not recognizing that during war one doesn't promote such a fundamental shift in our strategic position that it would be perceived as nothing other than a retreat and lead to a defeat on one or more fronts.
Proposing that we dont police the world has nothing to do with retreating at all. He's been proposing this before and after the fact. The CP, LP and other third parties hold this view. It isn't very popular among Dems and Repubs though, obviously.
If shielding a kid from the law is not a perfect analogy, then just make it shielding a friend from a community where there are no formal laws.
I don't know Ron Paul, but everyone else I know who says that our interventionist foreign policy is partially to blame for 9/11 is pointing to Israel, although they generally avoid naming specific solutions and use phases like "world police". I think that the majority who share that opinion would like to see us do a tactical withdrawal from Israel first, followed by Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, Diego Garcia, Taiwan, Korea, the Philippines, Okinawa, The Baltics, Puerto Rico, Panama, Cuba, Guam etc
And all they have to support this ideal is the unproven hypothesis that other less benevolent powers will not move into the vacuum that we leave behind, and we won't be faced with an invigorated al-Queda like force controlling the strategic assets of the world that our military had protected. Despite a history of evil growing where wealth is left unprotected and where good men do nothing to protect their allies, they expect the landlords of western civilization to risk all the good that we've promoted and wealth created throughout the world and withdrawal to the homeland to be protected by only a denial of the power of evil and a European style military.
So you say that the LP, CP (and don't forget the GP) are in favor of this? But not the DP and RP (who are dominated by those with assets to lose)? Other than a lack of enlightenment, why could that be?
Without our protection, I don't think it takes great imagination to see states in our own hemisphere fall to revolutionary forces similar to al Queda, African Nationalists or the old Soviet Communists. Not to mention growing sympathies for them in our mosques, ghettos and universities. I don't think that's easier or more honorable to defend against that than maintaining our strength around the world and defending those that either share our values of freedom or have something so strategically valuable to us that we'll pay them off for access.
I generally have some respect for those who see it differently, and want to explore integrated alternatives to our strategic position. But I have little respect for those that promote such a change during war, especially after the Vietnam example where we won every battle except the one at home. People found that careers were easily made out of leveraging dissent in the anguish of war, but at the expense of the people of SE Asia, the US and our soldiers.
Plus its not military support for self defense of a country that is the main issue. It's US offensives. Ex: Yoguslavia.
Btw when will this 'war on terror' end in your opinion that someone could suggest a change.
So you say that the LP, CP (and don't forget the GP) are in favor of this? But not the DP and RP (who are dominated by those with assets to lose)? Other than a lack of enlightenment, why could that be?
The RP and DP above all desire power. The LP and CP don't. The RP for years believed this as well until more modern times.
Also the LP and CP do not rule out giving weaponry, information or even letting American volunteers help defend allied countries. What we don't want is the US military all over the globe. And by all over the glove I mean that literally as it is now. If we just said we'll defend Israel, Taiwan and S. Korea I don't think we'd be having this discussion.
Of course Israel can currently negate any foreign attack. But without our present level of commitment, that can't be assured in the future when faced with another foreign inspired uprising and economic blackmail by the world to limit their response, making their existence a miserable and tentative one.
I gave a big clue as to what difference I was referring to between the fringe and mainstream parties before you took it to be a drive for power. It's that the fringe parties have less an investment in the results of our foreign policy, and are much more free to propose radical (and I say reckless) solutions that are a magnet for people who's minds are perhaps a little too open.
That's fine, it will always be like that. I just don't respect this one during an honorable war. And as long as there's a significant domestic political threat to our upcoming campaign in Iraq, Iran or whatever. It's at least irresponsible to promote policy changes that weaken our position and align with those behind that threat to further their partisan goals.
To some degree I give libertarians and such a little slack in figuring this out. People don't change their message on a dime. But I don't give them forever, and those who are still promoting US withdrawal from the world a year into the war, like this guy, I consider open game.
What you fail to realize is that we dont see it as weakening our position, moreover you never can even tell us when this supposed war is over as they've hated us for decades.
In short, your belief is just an opinion, so is mine. Tallhappy however tries to make this the end all of his belief, which is my point is simply silly and foolish.
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