Meet the next President of the United States

[Al Simmons]

Until I read the last 20 pages of this thread I honestly didn't think Ron Paul supporters were a real creature that existed. I mean really, what the fuck?

recent studies have shown that you don't actually reach full mental maturity until your late twenties. I think a lot of young people are taken in by Ron Paul's ideas simply because they don't have enough experience with other humans to know why they don't actually work.

Not killing and murdering people for no reason sure is a fucking crazy and wacko idea. Why if we stopped doing that then all the companies that profit from killing people would no longer do so! Are you out of your fucking mind, those execs are the backbone of the economy. Every 500 people they kill they get a new Rolls. Each one of those Rollers employs at least two mexican immigrants to wash and wax it. You can't put a price on that kind of economic contribution!

[Frug]

Until I read the last 20 pages of this thread I honestly didn't think Ron Paul supporters were a real creature that existed. I mean really, what the fuck?

recent studies have shown that you don't actually reach full mental maturity until your late twenties. I think a lot of young people are taken in by Ron Paul's ideas simply because they don't have enough experience with other humans to know why they don't actually work.

Not killing and murdering people for no reason sure is a fucking crazy and wacko idea. Why if we stopped doing that then all the companies that profit from killing people would no longer do so! Are you out of your fucking mind, those execs are the backbone of the economy. Every 500 people they kill they get a new Rolls. Each one of those Rollers employs at least two mexican immigrants to wash and wax it. You can't put a price on that kind of economic contribution!

I belive Simmons has just proven your point. The question is, despite statistics, do you think he'll mature once he reaches 30?

[Al Simmons]

If maturing means thinking that giving trillions of public money to private defense companies to build weapons for pointless wars is a good thing, then no I don't think I will ever be "mature".

[Bartholomeus Crane]

If maturing means thinking that giving trillions of public money to private defense companies to build weapons for pointless wars is a good thing, then no I don't think I will ever be "mature".

I concur, I don't think anyone will ever be able to call you mature ...

[ChaeDoc II]

Step 1 - Al officially changes his name to 'Mature'
Step 2 - Check mate, World.

[Nicholai Pestot]

If maturing means thinking that giving trillions of public money to private defense companies to build weapons for pointless wars is a good thing, then no I don't think I will ever be "mature".

Thinking that the people opposed to Ron Paul believe war is a good thing, is one of the signs of your immaturity.

[erichkknaar]

If maturing means thinking that giving trillions of public money to private defense companies to build weapons for pointless wars is a good thing, then no I don't think I will ever be "mature".

Thinking that the people opposed to Ron Paul believe war is a good thing, is one of the signs of your immaturity.

I actually side with Ron Paul on foreign policy, according to the isidewith.com quiz. It's his domestic and economic policy I find hilariously derpy.

[Nicholai Pestot]

If maturing means thinking that giving trillions of public money to private defense companies to build weapons for pointless wars is a good thing, then no I don't think I will ever be "mature".

Thinking that the people opposed to Ron Paul believe war is a good thing, is one of the signs of your immaturity.

I actually side with Ron Paul on foreign policy, according to the isidewith.com quiz. It's his domestic and economic policy I find hilariously derpy.

Exactly.

[Frug]

If maturing means thinking that giving trillions of public money to private defense companies to build weapons for pointless wars is a good thing, then no I don't think I will ever be "mature".

Thinking that the people opposed to Ron Paul believe war is a good thing, is one of the signs of your immaturity.

Listen to Nicholai, Al. I know you won't, but I'm inclined to ask you to anyway.

[Bartholomeus Crane]

If maturing means thinking that giving trillions of public money to private defense companies to build weapons for pointless wars is a good thing, then no I don't think I will ever be "mature".

Thinking that the people opposed to Ron Paul believe war is a good thing, is one of the signs of your immaturity.

I actually side with Ron Paul on foreign policy, according to the isidewith.com quiz. It's his domestic and economic policy I find hilariously derpy.

Exactly.

Not really. Ron Paul isn't 'wrong' on his foreign policy. His professed foreign policy is just massively impractical. It is one thing to say: we should get out of Afghanistan NOW! It is quite another to do so in a way that doesn't fuck up things even worse, not just for Afghanistan, but also for the US itself. And the same holds for so many of his other foreign policy statements.

You won't hear me arguing against the US fucking less with other countries, dialling down the jingoistic rhetoric, and scaling down their military commitments to a more sensible level across the board. But it is the how and when that counts as well. And Ron Paul's answer: "Just get out everywhere NOW!" is just, you know: immature ...

[Al Simmons]

If maturing means thinking that giving trillions of public money to private defense companies to build weapons for pointless wars is a good thing, then no I don't think I will ever be "mature".

Thinking that the people opposed to Ron Paul believe war is a good thing, is one of the signs of your immaturity.

I don't know what they think. But clearly it's not on their list of priorities, is it. Obama and Romney basically have the same foreign policy with minor differences in execution, but they will continue the wars and meddling in foreign countries. That's a serious problem in the US that you don't have anyone to vote for who is likely to win if that's a big issue for you. So there's Ron Paul, who is basically the only guy on the ticket with a different viewpoint on this. And he gets laughed out of the political arena, called "batshit crazy" for expressing a different viewpoint.

I hate that. I know why people do it, it's so they can dismiss him out of hand without having to bother to refute his points, but it's pathetic. But people do support him, I think the ideas he's putting out have a huge following, and if he wasn't dismissed at every opportunity by the media then he could have a chance at getting somewhere. Just look at the responses he gets from the crowd in the debates, or the fact that he has the most donations of anyone from the armed forces.

Now for his economic policy, sure it's a little weird. I don't think going back to the gold standard is realistically viable at this point in time. But the basic principle behind it, that you don't spend money you don't have, that you reign in some of the excesses of the banking system, that banks should go back to being lenders to small business rather than stock market gambling houses is something I fully agree with.

It just drives me crazy that people are so focused on what's in front of their face, what affects them directly, at the expense of anything else. Yeah the anti-abortion, anti-gay shit the Repubs are trying to roll out across the states is pretty bad. But if that means you have to rally around Obama to stop Romney getting in, well you basically just agreed to his foreign policy. I know they're half a world away, but Obama is killing innocent people in your name if you vote for him. The simple thought exercise of "what if I lived in Afghanistan" or "what if the US was being bombed constantly" seems to be beyond these people. Obama's foreign policy, like Bush's before him is horrific, absolutely horrifiying. But it doesn't fucking register at all to the general public. He can trot out some soundbites about how they're winning and the troops will come home in a couple of years probably unless we change our minds. And the matter is settled for these people.

What is wrong with them? Empathy motherfucker, do you speak it?

[Frug]

oh Al. Al, Al, Al...

I'm a little bored and it's almost time to go home, so I figured I'd try again to communicate some basic human wisdom to you in the hopes of clarifying why everyone calls you an immature child. I've done it before, too. You sort of listened last time, but didn't get it.

So there's Ron Paul, who is basically the only guy on the ticket with a different viewpoint on this. And he gets laughed out of the political arena, called "batshit crazy" for expressing a different viewpoint.

You posted this remark directly beneath people saying that they AGREE with many of Ron Paul's positions on foreign policy. So, these people have said they agree with this, but still think he's batshit crazy. And here you are, declaring immediately after not paying attention to them, that they call him batshit crazy because "he expresses a different viewpoint" on foreign policy.

You then proceed to dismiss the real reasons people are saying that about him as if they don't matter. You pluck your own interpretation of the "basic principle" behind the gold standard nonsense, and ignore the fact that saying the US should go back to the gold standard is batshit crazy. You completely ignore the valid concern that an individual who is so detached from reality as to say the things that he says is not fit to run the country.

In addition to all of this, you accuse other people of being dismissive because so they "don't have to bother to refute his points". Yet you repeatedly repeatedly ignore other people's points and accuse everyone of not having any possible reasonable basis for their beliefs and tell everyone they're scared and stupid.

Some people agree on the foreign policy. Coincidentally those people happen to be the ones you're fucking talking to right now. But you won't shut up with your off the wall whinging about everyone lacking empathy and being sheep. You're basically a teenager who thinks he's smarter than everyone on the planet who disagrees with him and won't listen to adults.

[Nartek]

Not really. Ron Paul isn't 'wrong' on his foreign policy. His professed foreign policy is just massively impractical. It is one thing to say: we should get out of Afghanistan NOW! It is quite another to do so in a way that doesn't fuck up things even worse, not just for Afghanistan, but also for the US itself. And the same holds for so many of his other foreign policy statements.

We fucked up Afghanistan the minute we stopped allowing them the ability to dictate their own future. They go by old-school rules; not the prissy new ones all us westerners go by. Afghanistan won't be sorted until there is a proper conquering of historic relevance. It doesn't matter who provides it; it's just what that particular region needs to be hammered under a single leader. Our involvement there was not heavy enough. No earth was salted, no villages turned out into the wild to starve, etc... We (the westerners) won't do that anymore. Nor will we disarm a populace. And all of that bad shit WILL happen; our presence is just delaying it. Given that problem, and that the only solution is to effectively turn Afghanistan into a Western Society (not likely in our lifetime)... Your commitment to not "fucking things up worse" has us (meaning everyone currently there)... there for... well, basically until the sun starts going into triple-alpha.

Given the option of breaking a few eggs for the sake of an omelette, or trying to turn them into Faberge's... I'll take the former option. Let them sort out their shit. There's going to be a body count; staying there longer is just delaying it. May as well get it over with before I need special glasses to watch the 60 minutes specials on it.

[Bartholomeus Crane]

Not really. Ron Paul isn't 'wrong' on his foreign policy. His professed foreign policy is just massively impractical. It is one thing to say: we should get out of Afghanistan NOW! It is quite another to do so in a way that doesn't fuck up things even worse, not just for Afghanistan, but also for the US itself. And the same holds for so many of his other foreign policy statements.

We fucked up Afghanistan the minute we stopped allowing them the ability to dictate their own future. They go by old-school rules; not the prissy new ones all us westerners go by. Afghanistan won't be sorted until there is a proper conquering of historic relevance. It doesn't matter who provides it; it's just what that particular region needs to be hammered under a single leader. Our involvement there was not heavy enough. No earth was salted, no villages turned out into the wild to starve, etc... We (the westerners) won't do that anymore. Nor will we disarm a populace. And all of that bad shit WILL happen; our presence is just delaying it. Given that problem, and that the only solution is to effectively turn Afghanistan into a Western Society (not likely in our lifetime)... Your commitment to not "fucking things up worse" has us (meaning everyone currently there)... there for... well, basically until the sun starts going into triple-alpha.

Given the option of breaking a few eggs for the sake of an omelette, or trying to turn them into Faberge's... I'll take the former option. Let them sort out their shit. There's going to be a body count; staying there longer is just delaying it. May as well get it over with before I need special glasses to watch the 60 minutes specials on it.

You, sir, mistake me for someone who's arguing for the US to stay there longer or even indefinitely. I am not that someone. The US should get the hell out of Afghanistan, and pretty sharpish as well. The point is, saying 'get out now', is different than actually doing it, certainly if you still have a massive national commitment to wind down, and quite a sizeable army to pull out as well. On one or two roads through another country. In light of those practical argument, you know, in the real world, a wind down and exit strategy for the year 2014 isn't really all that bad after all. But hey, that's never going to be good enough for the 'get out now' people now is it?

And that's the whole point with Ron Paul's foreign policy agenda as well as the rest of his platform. You could argue that 'in principle' it is fine, or that it tickles you fancy. All peachy. But in practice it is just as naive and infeasible as introducing the gold standard. With pretty much the same disastrous results in the end.

Now, there's nothing wrong with taking the principled position if you're the wacky candidate with no possible hope of ever getting elected into the white house. It'll never get implemented anyway, so what would you care about the practical implications of it?

But if you're aiming for people to take you seriously, both inside and outside your own country, say for the position of 'leader of the free world'; my guess is that you actually have to make practical and real sense on issues. Then taking principled but hopelessly naive positions isn't such a good idea. It would make people think you're batshit insane. Or worse: Ron Paul ...

(edit: the US fucked up their effort in Afghanistan the moment it decided to go into Iraq. The US had a chance then, with Al-Qaida on its back, the Taliban broken, and the various Afghani tribes open to supporting a US/NATO involvement. It sound funny now, but the US or NATO weren't seen as infidel invaders back then, mostly because more of Afghanistan freed itself. I would never have become, say, Sweden, or anything even remotely like it. But a modicum of nation building could have created a stable, friendly regime, capable of looking after itself, with the US/NATO already well out of there by now. Now? There's no hope even of anything like that. Just more bodybags for no apparent purpose or reason.)

[Nartek]

But if you're aiming for people to take you seriously, both inside and outside your own country, say for the position of 'leader of the free world'; my guess is that you actually have to make practical and real sense on issues. Then taking principled but hopelessly naive positions isn't such a good idea. It would make people think you're batshit insane. Or worse: Ron Paul ...

You don't try to make sense when you're getting elected. I don't think anyone who is at that level of politics really has any illusions about the practicalities of a military withdrawal. However, you're saying (as a politician) some shit to get votes. You can either:

A: Construct, and deliver a 5 paragraph explanation that professes an immediate withdrawal of troops, utilizing fairly large words; quote references, interviews, and bring out your "team" that's going to organize it, and have them introduce themselves and explain their part of the plan...

B: Summarize all that into "PULL THEM OUT NOW", move onto the next subject, smug in the knowledge that about 90% of the people who want an immediate withdrawal are behind you. And move onto the next issue. You know... To get more votes.

While A may be popular for the types of folks who routinely take a book by Martin to the shitter with us; and love to dig into political deliveries to find the holes here or there... Most of us don't even fucking vote. We're too busy picking the news stations apart on election day to realize we're missing our window. So, you go for the biggest bang for the least buck. Shotgun statement. Moves people, gets your viewpoint out, doesn't take long enough for folks to start wandering away, or playing with their bellybutton...

That does not mean you don't have a plan. That does not mean that you, as a politician, don't understand it's not *quite* that simple.

Fact of the matter is that Ron Paul is Ron Paul's greatest enemy. Even if he happened to win the election; by his own demands of turning things over to Congress for decision on everything... he'd guarantee that his fringe shit would never see the light of day.

[marcus xero]

frankly I think we should invade Saudi Arabia, they've always been giving us trouble.

[Bartholomeus Crane]

But if you're aiming for people to take you seriously, both inside and outside your own country, say for the position of 'leader of the free world'; my guess is that you actually have to make practical and real sense on issues. Then taking principled but hopelessly naive positions isn't such a good idea. It would make people think you're batshit insane. Or worse: Ron Paul ...

You don't try to make sense when you're getting elected. I don't think anyone who is at that level of politics really has any illusions about the practicalities of a military withdrawal. However, you're saying (as a politician) some shit to get votes. You can either:

A: Construct, and deliver a 5 paragraph explanation that professes an immediate withdrawal of troops, utilizing fairly large words; quote references, interviews, and bring out your "team" that's going to organize it, and have them introduce themselves and explain their part of the plan...

B: Summarize all that into "PULL THEM OUT NOW", move onto the next subject, smug in the knowledge that about 90% of the people who want an immediate withdrawal are behind you. And move onto the next issue. You know... To get more votes.

While A may be popular for the types of folks who routinely take a book by Martin to the shitter with us; and love to dig into political deliveries to find the holes here or there... Most of us don't even fucking vote. We're too busy picking the news stations apart on election day to realize we're missing our window. So, you go for the biggest bang for the least buck. Shotgun statement. Moves people, gets your viewpoint out, doesn't take long enough for folks to start wandering away, or playing with their bellybutton...

That does not mean you don't have a plan. That does not mean that you, as a politician, don't understand it's not *quite* that simple.

Fact of the matter is that Ron Paul is Ron Paul's greatest enemy. Even if he happened to win the election; by his own demands of turning things over to Congress for decision on everything... he'd guarantee that his fringe shit would never see the light of day.

Sorry, but I don't buy that argument. Not all of it at least. The roads of politics are paved with politicians who, upon seeing how stupid the people that would vote for him anyway are, assume that the people who aren't so sure will be equally stupid or on board. There is power in soundbites, but you still have to make sense. And Bush notwithstanding, you can't look completely clueless to pull in the undecideds. Soundbites alone aren't good enough for that. You also have show you're able to come up with more than the vetted 8 word answer.

Ron Paul is Ron Paul's greatest enemy, and also for the reason you mentioned. But more because the majority of the people not wedded to him look at his standpoints and just can't shake the idea that in practice, in the real world, you know, the world they live in, they just don't seem to make sense. Often any sense whatsoever.

And the whole: "Congress decides everything" is a perfect example of that. Congress has an approval rating in the single digits. It has been patently incapable of dealing with anything constructively since the mid-term election put the Republicans in charge. Why in the name of anything considered holy would these undecideds, who clearly don't like Congress at all, vote for a candidate who proposes to put that lot in charge of everything? It is just one of those things that sounds fine in principle but doesn't make any sense whatsoever in practice, especially in the current circumstances.

And most of the people aren't too stupid to recognise that! Ron Paul is Ron Paul's worst enemy, but mostly because Ron Paul's most admired quality, his steadfast stand for his principles, also shows just how out-of-touch and naive he is.

[Nordstern]

frankly I think we should invade Saudi Arabia, they've always been giving us trouble.

Hi, I'm Colossal American Oil Company, and I'd like to thank you for this. We're going to start charging seven bucks a gallon for gas to everyone in North America. Why? Because of "free markets", "uncertainty of future world supply", and you meddling with an OPEC country.

[DevilDude]

If maturing means thinking that giving trillions of public money to private defense companies to build weapons for pointless wars is a good thing, then no I don't think I will ever be "mature".

Thinking that the people opposed to Ron Paul believe war is a good thing, is one of the signs of your immaturity.

I don't know what they think. But clearly it's not on their list of priorities, is it. Obama and Romney basically have the same foreign policy with minor differences in execution, but they will continue the wars and meddling in foreign countries. That's a serious problem in the US that you don't have anyone to vote for who is likely to win if that's a big issue for you. So there's Ron Paul, who is basically the only guy on the ticket with a different viewpoint on this. And he gets laughed out of the political arena, called "batshit crazy" for expressing a different viewpoint.

I hate that. I know why people do it, it's so they can dismiss him out of hand without having to bother to refute his points, but it's pathetic. But people do support him, I think the ideas he's putting out have a huge following, and if he wasn't dismissed at every opportunity by the media then he could have a chance at getting somewhere. Just look at the responses he gets from the crowd in the debates, or the fact that he has the most donations of anyone from the armed forces.

Now for his economic policy, sure it's a little weird. I don't think going back to the gold standard is realistically viable at this point in time. But the basic principle behind it, that you don't spend money you don't have, that you reign in some of the excesses of the banking system, that banks should go back to being lenders to small business rather than stock market gambling houses is something I fully agree with.

It just drives me crazy that people are so focused on what's in front of their face, what affects them directly, at the expense of anything else. Yeah the anti-abortion, anti-gay shit the Repubs are trying to roll out across the states is pretty bad. But if that means you have to rally around Obama to stop Romney getting in, well you basically just agreed to his foreign policy. I know they're half a world away, but Obama is killing innocent people in your name if you vote for him. The simple thought exercise of "what if I lived in Afghanistan" or "what if the US was being bombed constantly" seems to be beyond these people. Obama's foreign policy, like Bush's before him is horrific, absolutely horrifiying. But it doesn't fucking register at all to the general public. He can trot out some soundbites about how they're winning and the troops will come home in a couple of years probably unless we change our minds. And the matter is settled for these people.

What is wrong with them? Empathy motherfucker, do you speak it?

The problem with Ron Paul isn't his principles, it's his policy. The libertarian ideology on which he bases his policy is attractive in much the same way that capitalism is attractive. It makes sense theoretically, but that's the trap, it only makes sense theoretically. The problem with enacting libertarian principals into hard policy isn't the principals, it's people. Over and over again history hammers home the lesson, but the young rarely listen until they're the ones under the hammer.

You want the real secret of life? Humans are shit. Maybe some people are good, and some are bad, but taken as a whole, they're shit. Humans will take every opportunity to shit all over each other, steal from one another, rape each other, kill each other. Don't believe me? One word: Ethiopia. A country with no investment, no big government to hold the people down, complete freedom. It is Hell on Earth. You wanna see what happens when people are free to do as they please? Well we have the perfect fucking case study.

Sure you can talk all you want about high minded libertarian principals, but I've got news for you: We as a fucking species, are not ready for them. As we are now, every regulation you strip away is one step closer warlords and child soldiers, or nations like Indonesia where corporations can practically enslave entire indigenous populations through economic pressure. That's the hard truth of it. I once thought like you do, but the world has a way of teaching you the difference between theory and real life.

[Phrixus Zephyr]

frankly I think we should invade Saudi Arabia, they've always been giving us trouble.

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