Ron Paul for President  | | | 
December 24th, 2007, 10:38 PM
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#461 (permalink)
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Join Date: Aug 2003 Location: PA, USA
Posts: 18,933
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Originally Posted by MTAtech  Ron Paul's proposals sound appealing from 40,000 ft. but are not practical at ground level. Sure, recall all the foreign troops and close foreign bases. Then what happens when an emergency requires deploying troops far away? We don't have a ready force able to respond. | Why should we respond? That's like saying the Laredo Police Department should respond do domestic disturbance calls in Mexico. It doesn't make sense.
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Eliminate the income tax and replace it with a flat tax. The rich will pay less while the burden goes up for everyone else. 'Oh, but we're going to cut spending too.' Tell me which programs are going to be cut. Just about every program has a reason to exist. Those that don't, don't add much to the tax burden.
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The bureaucracy needs to be slimmed down. Some agencies and programs are essential, but not all - i.e. welfare, social security, DHS, NSA, etc. | 
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December 24th, 2007, 10:41 PM
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#462 (permalink)
| | SoMuchAnime-SoLittleTime
Join Date: Aug 2003 Location: Plymouth, WI
Posts: 14,982
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Originally Posted by MTAtech Sure, recall all the foreign troops and close foreign bases. Then what happens when an emergency requires deploying troops far away? We don't have a ready force able to respond. | Ah, ever hear of the UN forces? If the US backed down from policing the world, the UN would have to take over.
And there isn't any reason that would require our forces oversees, anything we would want to send our troops for would probably end up backfiring. Anything important would be better left to a group of nations. | |
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December 25th, 2007, 02:59 AM
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#463 (permalink)
| | Ultimate Member
Join Date: Feb 2005 Location: Australia
Posts: 2,573
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Ron Paul is right, the savings will be astronomical, there's no threat to the US, yet it still spends huge amounts in the military industrial complex, money that would be better spent protecting the continental USA, not other ungrateful nations. Quote: |
The imperial bullshit level has surpassed the feeble imaginations of Cheney, Bush and even the presidential candidates. It emanates from the $700 billon smelly military budget pile, passed by Congress even though no nation poses a threat.
| http://www.counterpunch.org/landau12192007.html | 
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December 25th, 2007, 12:41 PM
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#464 (permalink)
| | Light to Counter the Dim
Join Date: Oct 2001 Location: Long Island, NY, USA
Posts: 6,694
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Originally Posted by The Real Bingo Why should we respond? That's like saying the Laredo Police Department should respond do domestic disturbance calls in Mexico. It doesn't make sense. | Well, it does make sense. Like it or not, events happen that require an American response not for someone Else's interest, but for our interest. Isolationism is not the answer. Had the U.S. not had bases in Europe, averting the genocide is Bosnia wouldn't have been possible. It would also have allowed al Qaeda to grow stronger in Bosnia.
In addition, although the Iraq War was a mistake had it been genuine it would have also been impossible to wage without bases. Wounded soldiers are air-lifted to hospitals in those bases in Germany. If you want an idea of the logistics, the U.S. was at war with Germany since Dec. 7, 1941 but couldn't launch an invasion until June 1944.Quote:
Originally Posted by The Real Bingo The bureaucracy needs to be slimmed down. Some agencies and programs are essential, but not all - i.e. welfare, social security, DHS, NSA, etc. |
When GWB tried to privatize Social Security a few years ago, the general public slapped him down. Perhaps as a college student you do not appreciate the value of Social Security, but I suspect that will change in time.
As for welfare, welfare doesn't exist the way it was decades ago. Since enacting the federal welfare reform act in 1996 (the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act), individual recipients are limited to a lifetime maximum of five years cumulative for receiving federal welfare of all types. In any case, personal welfare is normally given to households with children, often headed by single mothers. See what a mess you will have if Ron Paul cut out public assistance and also gave us a flat-tax that doesn't encourage charitable donations. The streets will resemble the beggar infested streets of 18th century London.
While on that topic, it's interesting that the notion that small government and little taxes produces a panacea of plenty, goes so easily unchallenged. We used to have that and 19th century England is a prime example of the laissez-faire society that too many here look to achieve. In England they had an industrialized economy with no protection of workers, no unions and no government provided social programs. As a result, there was fabulous wealth for the factory owners but poverty wage for those who worked in those factories and homelessness and hunger for everyone else. Regulation and programs were created exactly to address the pain and suffering that a hands-off government creates.
I'm sure the response from many here will be Scroogean, "are there no prisons; are their no workhouses?" We have social programs to improve the lives of all at a relatively low cost.
The only thing that I do like about Ron Paul is that he doesn't look at the Defense budget as untouchable the way the Republicans have and the Democrats are too afraid to say else be labeled weak.
I do know that closing bases is a bad idea. Once you give them up you can't get them back if you need them. Now, whether we need 500,000 soldiers in those bases or whether they can be cut at all; or whether they can be cut to 400,000; 300,000, etc., I don't know and I suspect nobody here does either. But making it an issue is helpful.
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"The Bill of Rights is my Patriot Act."
Last edited by MTAtech : December 25th, 2007 at 12:44 PM.
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December 25th, 2007, 02:23 PM
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#465 (permalink)
| | Rather Large Member
Join Date: Oct 2001 Location: Vernon, BC, Canada
Posts: 9,243
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__________________
Beware of promises of life where death is prerequisite.
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December 25th, 2007, 09:21 PM
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#466 (permalink)
| | Ultimate Member
Join Date: Dec 2002 Location: Del Rey Oaks, CA, US
Posts: 4,256
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Careful, MTA. Engels wrote a book about that. Next thing you know, they'll be calling you a Commie. (But a Commie who wants to keep overseas U.S. military bases in place.)  | |
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December 26th, 2007, 11:35 AM
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#467 (permalink)
| | Member
Join Date: Jun 2004 Location: Occupied Virginia
Posts: 395
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Originally Posted by MTAtech Well, it does make sense. Like it or not, events happen that require an American response not for someone Else's interest, but for our interest. Isolationism is not the answer. Had the U.S. not had bases in Europe, averting the genocide is Bosnia wouldn't have been possible. It would also have allowed al Qaeda to grow stronger in Bosnia. | Taken as a whole have US military deployments overseas been worth the cost? Sure there are some great successes but there have been costly failures (judging successes/failure) in a cost/benefit model. Do the Japans, Germanys, Bosnias, etc outweigh the Vietnams, Somalias, Iraqs? The pictures is complicated; US bases in Saudi Arabia have been of use in campaigns against Al Qaeda but they where also factor in its creation, growth, and its choice to target the US.
At best the results seem mixed | |
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December 26th, 2007, 01:01 PM
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#468 (permalink)
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Join Date: Aug 2003 Location: PA, USA
Posts: 18,933
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I don't think a war waged by a Western country can succeed in this day and age. Anything after World War 2 was pretty much a disaster, due mostly to the proliferated media coverage and the public opinion of the politically-correct, weak-stomached weeners who think war can't solve anything. GIVE WAR A CHANCE. 
No one is supposed to die, and that holds true in modern wars. No killing allowed. You want to eat sausage, but you don't want to see how it's made. That's basically how it is. Just look at all the "enlightened" countries in the world - all of Europe, Australia, Canada, New Zealand: no death penalty. Death is taboo to these people...and war is no different. It can't be won with media coverage (and U.S. Senators!) that portrays soldiers as rapists and murderers.
It's just a waste of time anymore. Let them kill themselves off the planet...bring the troops home - after all, why keep them there if no one wants to go to war anyway? | |
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December 26th, 2007, 01:07 PM
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#469 (permalink)
| | Rock of Ages
Join Date: Oct 2001 Location: Bismarck,ND
Posts: 25,964
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They enjoy the comforts of the "blanket" of freedom...
But don't want to pay the piper's price for it.
As far as the middle east, I honestly don't think any of them really know what they want.
All they have been doing since the dawn of time is war, and hatred twoards others that were better off than them.
It has never changed, and I highly doubt it ever will... so, why should we bother lifting a finger to help people that don't want it or need it in their lives? I doubt any of them can even grasp what "freedom" really is.
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Waitin' for the THWACK!
Last edited by jokostel : December 26th, 2007 at 01:10 PM.
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December 26th, 2007, 01:11 PM
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#470 (permalink)
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