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Ron Paul 2012!!! Your thoughts on who we should pick for our "Cause"?

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DiscoBiscuit

DiscoBiscuit

weed fiend
Veteran
whodare said:
what are you even doing in this thread if its all daisies to you?
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Pointing out your idea we're going to invade Iran arguably has less to do with the preponderance of evidence and more to do with political preference.

personally im not promoting a candidate, (i did defend his record, and clarified his positions on a few subjects), im promoting the platform of, liberty, personal freedom/responsibility, non-interventionism, fiscal responsibility, and a small government ruled by law....
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And your point is?

and stop crying about neg rep ya baby....

when you post inflammatory comments
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Care to reference?

or more establishment rhetoric/propaganda your going to get neg rep...
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:laughing: A judgmental and punitive Dahlia Gandhi.

way to compare the message "our government is too big and will fail because of it" with 50's soap operas...
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The comparison is melodrama.

we get it you'd rather continue your life with your head up your ass but some of us like the light....
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Now there's some of that inflammatory rhetoric you previously projected.
 
SpasticGramps

SpasticGramps

Don't Drone Me, Bro!
ICMag Donor
Veteran
DiscoBiscuit said:
When it comes to weighing all the relevant information, I get the impression that zero hedge guy has a heavy hand on the edit function.
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Funny. I feel the same way about the Huffington Post and relevant information, or more precisely lack thereof.

From a little less "colored" source which may be more palatable?

Good to know that we are still in a national state of emergency. We may as well extend the state of emergency and extraordinary executive power indefinitely and stop pretending like this country runs under the rule of law.

US to Iran; ‘Cease nuclear pursuit or face attack’
The Russian newspaper Kommersant reported Wednesday that US diplomats have asked their Russian counterparts to convey a message to Iran that the upcoming P5+1 nuclear negotiations are the Islamic Republic’s last chance to avoid a military confrontation this year. The report added that the unusually strong warning stemmed from Washington’s assessment that Israel needed reassurance in order to delay its own unilateral attack on Iran’s renegade nuclear program. The report came a day after a Reuters/Ipsos poll was released indicating a majority of Americans would support an attack on Iran if it could be proved that Iran is in fact pursuing a military nuclear program, even if it meant paying more for gasoline. The same poll indicated strong support for Israeli military action against Iran. Also on Tuesday, US President Barak Obama extended the U.S national emergency with respect to Iran, declared on March 15, 1995, by one more year.

Obama said in a statement that "because the actions of the government of Iran continue to pose an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security, foreign policy, and economy of the United States," the national emergency must continue in effect beyond March 15, 2012.
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whodare

whodare

Active member
Veteran
http://www.cato.org/publications/policy-analysis/what-made-financial-crisis-systemic


The current narrative regarding the 2008 systemic financial system collapse is that numerous seemingly unrelated events occurred in unregulated or underregulated markets, requiring widespread bailouts of actors across the financial spectrum, from mortgage borrowers to investors in money market funds. The Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, created by the U.S. Congress to investigate the causes of the crisis, promotes this politically convenient narrative, and the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act operationalizes it by completing the progressive extension of federal protection and regulation of banking and finance that began in the 1930s so that it now covers virtually all financial activities, including hedge funds and proprietary trading. The Dodd-Frank Act further charges the newly created Financial Stability Oversight Council, made up of politicians, bureaucrats, and university professors, with preventing a subsequent systemic crisis.

Markets can become unbalanced, but they generally correct themselves before crises become systemic. Because of the accumulation of past political reactions to previous crises, this did not occur with the most recent crisis. Public enterprises had crowded out private enterprises, and public protection and the associated prudential regulation had trumped market discipline. Prudential regulation created moral hazard and public protection invited mission regulation, both of which undermined prudential regulation itself. This eventually led to systemic failure. Politicians are responsible for both regulatory incompetence and mission-induced laxity.
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http://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/how-bishops-undermined-individual-responsibility

There are times when a single issue captures the troubles of an age. Now in its fourth week, the Obamacare contraceptive battle is bringing to the fore not only the conflict between government-run health care and religious liberty but, far more sweepingly, between our ever more socialized world and basic notions of liberty and responsibility.

The firestorm the White House created when it announced last month that it would allow only a narrow religious exception to its rule requiring employers to provide women with free contraception and abortion medication was hardly extinguished by Friday’s “fig leaf” compromise. The U.S. Counsel of Catholic Bishops, among many others, has seen right through the sham: “In the case where the employee and insurer agree to add the objectionable coverage,” the bishops said, “that coverage is still provided as a part of the objecting employer’s plan, financed in the same way as the rest of the coverage offered by the objecting employer.”

The White House response? That’s it — no more compromise. So the lines are drawn. And the president’s supporters, looking to November, are rallying to spin this as a battle not about religious liberty but about women’s rights. New York Times editorial page editor Abe Rosenthal’s immediate reaction to Friday’s announcement was to dismiss “the ridiculous brouhaha over the new health care rule” and to chide the president for seeming to cave. But by Sunday we saw MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow with a Washington Post op-ed, “The Republican war on contraception,” while the Times’ Nicholas Kristof wrote that “If we have to choose between bishops’ sensibilities and women’s health, our national priority must be the female half of our population.”

Turn anything over to government and the battle over conflicting values begins...

“Our national priority”? Fasten on that phrase and a question posed by Kristof follows of necessity: “Do we really want to make accommodations across the range of faith? What if organizations affiliated with Jehovah’s Witnesses insisted on health insurance that did not cover blood transfusions? What if ultraconservative Muslim or Jewish organizations objected to health care except at sex-segregated clinics?” Well, what if they did?

The bishops have it exactly right, as far as they go: “[Friday’s] proposal continues to involve needless government intrusion in the internal governance of religious institutions and to threaten government coercion of religious people and groups to violate their most deeply held convictions.” But with their plea for special exceptions, they go only part way. What’s worse, since they supported Obama’s efforts to socialize American health care, they have no one to blame for this but themselves.

Turn anything over to government and the battle over conflicting values begins — the battle over “our national priorities.” With certain things — protecting our liberties from domestic and foreign threats, providing basic infrastructure and clean air and water — we pretty much all agree, if not at the edges at least in the main. But beyond those, we have vast disagreements about health care, education, retirement, and so much else that government dominates today, all at the expense of individual liberty and responsibility. The bishops are rightly concerned that Catholic employers are being forced to do what their religious beliefs prohibit. But that comes, necessarily, with the collective territory.

And it doesn’t help that Justice Antonin Scalia, a Catholic’s Catholic, laid a foundation for today’s dilemma. In 1992, in Employment Division v. Smith, he wrote that “We have never held that an individual’s religious beliefs excuse him from compliance with an otherwise valid law prohibiting conduct that the State is free to regulate.” He’s right, but unfortunately the court has never drawn a proper constitutional distinction between what government is free and not free to regulate — the very question before it at the moment in the Obamacare litigation.

On the contrary, the court’s expansive reading of government power, especially over the 20th century, has enabled people like Kristof to assume the collective posture. Thus he writes that “the cost of birth control is one reason poor women are more than three times as likely to end up pregnant unintentionally as middle-class women,” from which he concludes that “birth control is not a frill that can be lightly dropped to avoid offending bishops.” Rather, coverage for it “should be a pillar of our public health policy — and, it seems to me, of any faith-based effort to be our brother’s keeper, or our sister’s.” As the president so often says, we’re all in this together, which means that if poor women end up pregnant unintentionally, it’s we who are responsible. That’s what we’ve come to.
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SacredBreh

SacredBreh

Member
^^^^^ Out of Karma AGAIN! Great post Whodare.

These guys are not putting all these laws and executive orders to take up paper. They are preparing for what is coming! I hope I am wrong but don't think I am.

Peace
 
DiscoBiscuit

DiscoBiscuit

weed fiend
Veteran
SpasticGramps said:
Funny. I feel the same way about the Huffington Post and relevant information, or more precisely lack thereof.
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Funny funny or funny strange?

News Sources




Blogs






Columnists



:chin:
 
whodare

whodare

Active member
Veteran
http://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/ron-paul-revolution-continues

The Ron Paul Revolution Continues

by Christopher Preble


This article appeared in Foreign Policy on March 6, 2012.



For most of this campaign season, an unassuming septuagenarian has been striking terror in the hearts of the Republican establishment. Much as he did in 2008, Ron Paul has exposed a rift within the Republican Party between small-government, anti-war libertarians and big-government, pro-war neoconservatives. Although Paul has yet to win a plurality in any state, he more than doubled his 2008 vote percentage in Iowa and tripled it in New Hampshire. He retains an enthusiastic following, particularly among younger voters. And he will make a lasting mark on the Republican Party, and the United States, if his followers remain active in politics after he leaves the scene. Whether they will do so, as well as which party they will call home, remains very much in doubt.

Much as in 2008, differences over foreign policy define people's impressions of Paul. He and his supporters think that America's recent wars have undermined the country's security and prosperity, which rankles those who believe that Paul justifies acts of terrorism against the United States by seeking to explain why they occur. National Review's Rich Lowry has labeled Paul a "blame America first" Republican — a sentiment that others in the GOP seem to share.

The amorphous Tea Party movement, meanwhile, speaks with no unified voice and is especially inscrutable when it comes to foreign policy. In an early survey of Republican members elected to Congress in the Tea Party wave of 2010, my Cato Institute colleague Benjamin H. Friedman concluded that the incoming class was no less hawkish than the incumbents whom they ousted. A recent New Yorker article observed that Tea Party voters are not more inclined to support Paul, even though his own campaign literature bills him as the "Godfather of the Tea Party," and other profiles have dubbed him the "Tea Party's Brain."

Paul's bold stance against both wars earned him plaudits from those on the left who do not share his libertarian philosophy.
In the face of this resistance, Paul is not only doing better this year than four years ago, but also better than in any of his other nationwide campaigns, including his run on the Libertarian Party ticket in 1988. Unlike with some politicians, the shift in interest is not attributable to a late conversion on the part of the candidate. Paul's views haven't changed much over his nearly four-decade political career. His railing against the Federal Reserve and warnings about the perils of government power long attracted a following, but never a very large one.

So, what changed? In short, people's attitudes toward the country's wars and their concerns about the country's debt, which the wars have exacerbated. When the Iraq war went south and the counterterrorism mission in Afghanistan morphed into a quixotic nation-building crusade, Paul's bold stance against both wars earned him plaudits from those on the left who do not share his libertarian philosophy. Now, some on the right have begun to embrace Paul's views as well. In addition to his strong performances in several recent primaries and caucuses, he has done well in various straw polls, including last year's Values Voter Summit and the 2010 and 2011 meetings of the Conservative Political Action Conference.

There is an inherent logic to Paul's foreign policy that should appeal to small-government conservatives. For one thing, conservatives' doubts about Washington's ability to accomplish particular ends, no matter how well-intentioned, should multiply when the government project involves violence in foreign lands. Americans who doubt the U.S. government's ability to reform health care should be doubly skeptical about its efforts to reform Afghanistan.

Those concerned about government power should also appreciate, as Paul does, that war has almost always led to the expansion of the state's size and power at home. And he is hardly alone. "War is a friend of the state," Nobel laureate Milton Friedman explained. "In time of war, government will take powers and do things that it would not ordinarily do." We have seen this in the creation of new government agencies and the erosion of civil liberties after the 9/11 attacks.

Paul's warnings against stationing large numbers of U.S. troops in foreign lands reveal an understanding about how the world works that transcends libertarianism. Conservatives who comprehend that people aren't inclined to pay for goods if Uncle Sam foots the bill should understand why wealthy allies in Europe and Asia will free-ride, taking U.S. protection as an opportunity to scrimp on defense and splurge on other things.

Ignoring this dynamic, Paul's Republican opponents are calling for spending even more money that the United States doesn't have. They think that the $5.7 trillion now planned for military budgets over the next decade isn't nearly enough. Mitt Romney promises to spend at least 4 percent of GDP on the Pentagon's base budget, plus whatever more is needed for any wars that he may want to fight. If Romney is serious about fulfilling his pledge (which, given his track record, is far from assured), he would spend an additional $2.5 trillion on the military over the next decade. His military budget in 2022 would top $1 trillion — 61 percent more than current projections. And Romney has not explained which taxes he would increase or what other spending he would cut to cover that increase, which suggests that he would kick the problem to future generations in the form of more debt. No wonder young people like Paul.

Military spending is not the main cause of America's fiscal crisis, and cutting military spending won't solve it. But Republicans who argue that "the common defense" is one of the few legitimate functions of government and that therefore the Defense Department budget should be the last one cut after every other department must come to grips with the fact that most of what Americans spend on their military goes to defending foreigners.

This arrangement suits people in Washington, Republican and Democrat alike, but many people outside the Beltway hunger for a, yes, humbler foreign policy. Short of that, they would like to see a less militarized one. As AlterNet's Adele Stan recently explained, Paul's anti-war rhetoric "satisfies this deep spiritual yearning" among progressives to "hear someone say that we shouldn't be bombing other people around the world." On the other end of the ideological spectrum, even as she explicitly rejected Paul's foreign-policy views, Sarah Palin warned after the Iowa caucuses that "the GOP had better not marginalize Ron Paul and his supporters ... because Ron Paul and his supporters understand that a lot of Americans are war-weary and we are broke."

That sentiment is especially true for Paul's enthusiastic young backers who regularly cite concerns about the growth of government and debt as their reasons for supporting him in the first place. They also fret over the loss of civil liberties and privacy rights under the pretext of the "war on terror." These young people are powering the burgeoning Students for Liberty (SFL) movement that has grown in just five years to more than 730 student groups. And they have their eyes on the future. "The large number of young people supporting Ron Paul," explains SFL's Alexander McCobin, "support the ideas he is advocating and are preparing to carry those ideas on when Ron Paul is no longer a public figure."

For now, however, Paul is enjoying the support of these motivated 20-somethings. In the seven states that have held either primaries or caucuses so far and for which we have reliable polls broken down by age, Paul won a plurality of the youth vote (18- to 29-year-olds) in five of them. He garnered the support of 48 percent of young Iowa caucus-goers and 46 percent of the youth vote in New Hampshire.

Paul also draws support from Democrats and independents who cross over to vote for him in the states where such party-switching is allowed (he garnered a larger share of the independent vote than any other candidate in Iowa, New Hampshire, and Nevada) and from liberal bloggers with a civil-libertarian streak such as Salon's Glenn Greenwald. Predictably, then, skeptics suggest that Paul's backers aren't true Republicans and can safely be ignored.

They are only half-right on the first point and entirely off the mark on the second. Paul's supporters favor limited government, fiscal discipline, sound money, low taxes, fewer regulations, and less government spending. They could be Republicans, and many genuinely are. Meanwhile, Romney, Rick Santorum, or Newt Gingrich could win the votes of every single registered Republican and still lose the election by a landslide. Self-identified Republicans represent just 27 percent of the electorate, compared with 31 percent who identify as Democrats and a record-high 40 percent who call themselves independents. Republicans must figure out a way to tap into those ideas of Paul that have bipartisan appeal, even if Ron Paul the person isn't the party's standard-bearer.

Christopher Preble is vice president for defense and foreign policy studies at the Cato Institute and the author of The Power Problem: How American Military Dominance Makes Us Less Safe, Less Prosperous, and Less Free.

More by Christopher A. Preble
Paul's harshest critics like to dismiss him as an isolationist, but they should tell that to the tens of millions of Americans who want to remain engaged in the world without trying to run it. Paul's message appeals to those Americans who have tired of being held responsible for everything bad that happens in the world and always being on the hook to pick up the costs. A CNN survey last year found that just one in four Americans relished the United States' being the world's "policeman," and a Rasmussen poll concluded that a mere 11 percent of likely voters support that mission.

A big part of what people find so refreshing about Paul, however, limits his broader appeal. People like that he is not a typical politician — that he speaks bluntly and from the heart. At times, however, his remarks betray a degree of disinterest that undermines his message. Paul, for example, seems to imply that he would do nothing at all to try to halt or slow Iran's nuclear program, when his focus should be on why the solutions proposed by the other leading candidates in the Republican presidential field are unlikely to solve the problem and would likely make it worse.

Paul is unlikely to win the Republican nomination, but he may have awakened a sleeping giant. Don't be surprised if a more polished politician — in either party — emerges in 2015 or 2016 and aggressively courts those Americans who see war as corrosive to freedom at home and want their military to focus on defending the United States and its citizens. On the other hand, if Republican leaders show Paul and his legions out the door, they will be turning away many of the same swing voters who turned the tide against the Republican Party in 2006 and 2008 and then swung back in their direction in 2010.
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JJScorpio

JJScorpio

Thunderstruck
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I took a few minutes and browsed through this trainwreck of a thread...... The same things over and over and over and over,,,,,,, I think you get it.

This thread just keeps wandering more and more into nasty politics. This thread is in regards to who the best choice is for "our cause", meaning Cannabis reform or legalization. So far it's been mostly arguments about the economy, wars, schools, bad Gov't, treason and so on. And very little about Cannabis.

All this arguing and namecalling is why we stopped having political talks here. So now I guess it's time to keep the thread about who's best for our cause.
 
bombadil.360

bombadil.360

Andinismo Hierbatero
Veteran
when news sources start writting about cannabis, they always make so many errors it is not even funny, they are fucking idiots, journalists are the lowest of the low in all counts, from morals to intelligence.

how many times have we seen: "genetically modified super potent marijuana causing terror in our youth" or stupid shit like that?

you think it matters what the news source is when it comes down to hiring idiots to do the job?

most news I read, regardless of source, contain so many errors it is quite difficult to take any of it seriously.

people whinning about fox news or whatever, should be whinning about all news source, they are all the same useless load of nonsense.

use your head for a second.

it is irrelevant what news sources may write about how X or Y candidate may feel about cannabis or any other subject, journalists simply do not have the ability nor the access to all the information to report anything more than their misguided opinions in the form of "objective journalism", that's a real faery tale... journalists having access to classified info? yeah, ok, give me a break.
 
dagnabit

dagnabit

Game Bred
Veteran
Hell the thread only neede one post....

Who is best for cannabis reform?
Ron Paul
Every other candidate from either party wants us in jail and the only access to cannabis to be through pfizer.
Indisputable fact.
 
M

Mickeyspliff

Member
I'm not a single issue voter, but it's clear Ron Paul would be the best choice to end cannabis prohibition. The other issues are important to discuss, we need a president with a sane plan forward.
 
M

Mickeyspliff

Member
Most people who want an end to prohibition would surely vote for Ron Paul if that were the only issue important to them. The reason the thread hasn't focused on prohibition are the many other important issues friends here are divided on.
 
whodare

whodare

Active member
Veteran
JJScorpio said:
This thread just keeps wandering more and more into nasty politics. This thread is in regards to who the best choice is for "our cause", meaning Cannabis reform or legalization. So far it's been mostly arguments about the economy, wars, schools, bad Gov't, treason and so on. And very little about Cannabis.

All this arguing and namecalling is why we stopped having political talks here. So now I guess it's time to keep the thread about who's best for our cause.
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my apologies,

though i dont believe we have gotten too 'nasty' i apologize for the inappropriate comments, i strongly disagree with people but i truly hold no animosity towards anyone .

i care so deeply for people and i believe so strongly in the principles ive been promoting that i occasionally lose sight of the fact i cant convince everyone, sometimes people need to learn on their own, and some may never at all...

i would love a big gov that could insure my safety, health, and economic status....

problem is it can never work because man is not infallible nor incorruptible.

imho personal responsibility is the key, we live in an era where there is more knowledge accumulated and available to more people than ever before in history, there is no excuse to not be educated on the things you are purchasing, eating, drinking, voting for etc etc...

the old saying "with great power comes great responsibility"

i like to think of it as "with great responsibility comes great power"

the gov we currently have in place takes over responsibility for pretty much everything leaving current americans essentially powerless over their health, education, retirement, money, property...

the only way currently to get around some of the control is too be wealthy and well connected enough to influence government policies, which is why i believe in small local governance..

no its not perfect but i would argue that many of the problems of centuries past are solved with current technology, and the amount of knowledge available to the common man.




:ying:
 
G

greenmatter

all the arguing must make a mods life suck ......... sorry JJ

FWIW i'm pretty sure everyone one all sides of the debate is pretty stoned, so we are going to meander somewhat. we are all pretty frustrated with the anti cannabis game and attack everything attached to it.

i'm pretty sure if we were all in one room together we would still be pretty high and talking about everything but politics ...... i hope

i hope RP can get some changes made to the system one way or another. even if he does not get the nomination he has shaken some things up a little

puff,puff,pass
 
ShroomDr

ShroomDr

CartoonHead
Veteran
Alright... i wanna try this, because i dont think we can add a poll to this thread any other way.


Please copy and paste this into your post

I want Dr Paul to win the GOP
Dr Paul

I want Dr Paul to run 3rd party
ShroomDr

I dont want Dr Paul to run at all.
Newt
Santorum
Romney

Please copy and paste this into your post

(feel free to remove Newt, Santorum, Dr Paul, etc once it gets started and other users have added their name)

FWIW he could still win the GOP, but it would be at a brokered convention (and i dont think he has a chance against those vultures).

-
 
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