Wednesday, February 9, 2011
12 Reasons Why Ron Paul Is Very Different From Most Of The Other Contenders For The Republican Presidential Nomination In 2012
Even though most of the potential contenders for the Republican presidential nomination in 2012 have not formally announced their intentions yet, the truth is that the race has already begun. Just look at all of the Republican politicians that have scheduled visits to Iowa. Potential candidates are gearing up their campaigns and it should be one of the most interesting primary seasons in ages. But is there anyone in the field that is really that much different from George W. Bush and John McCain? Is there anyone that is not just going to trot out the same tired old ideas? Is there anyone that would actually do something substantial about government debt? Is there anyone that actually wants to shut down the Federal Reserve? Is there anyone that would actually work to restore our civil liberties? Well, the truth is that most of the potential Republican candidates are virtual clones of George W. Bush and John McCain. There are very few in the field that offer any hope whatsoever. But there is one man that does stand out as being very different. His name is Ron Paul.
Is Ron Paul perfect? No, of course not. Nobody is perfect. But at least Ron Paul is against a lot of the nonsense that went on under George W. Bush. At least Ron Paul would fight for our civil liberties. At least Ron Paul is courageous enough to publicly oppose the Federal Reserve.
When you look at the rest of the potential Republican candidates for 2012, most of them are very, very similar.
What the Republicans need in 2012 is someone new and fresh.
The following are 12 reasons why Ron Paul is very different from most of the other contenders for the Republican presidential nomination in 2012....
#1 Ron Paul Is Against Big Government
For decades, nearly all Republican politicians have given wonderful speeches about the dangers of "big government", but when they have gotten into office nearly all of them have supported the expansion of government.
For example, George W. Bush gave speech after speech in which he railed against the dangers of "big government" and then he went out and expanded the size of government more than any other president that had ever come before him.
Well, Ron Paul is one of those rare Republicans that is actually not a RINO ("Republican in name only"). In fact, there are so many RINOs running around that even the word "Republican" has become a bad word to many people.
But when Ron Paul talks about smaller government he actually means it. Just take a look at his voting record over the years.
Not only that, but Ron Paul's son, U.S. Senator Rand Paul, just publicly proposed 500 billion dollars in spending cuts in the Wall Street Journal. Both Ron Paul and Rand Paul are men of their words. If Ron Paul became president, we would finally have someone in the White House that would actually be serious about smaller government.
#2 Ron Paul Wants To Shut Down The Federal Reserve
Who wrote a book entitled "End The Fed"?
Oh yeah, it was Ron Paul.
Who spearheaded the push to audit the Federal Reserve during the last session of Congress?
Oh yeah, it was Ron Paul.
Did you know that the Federal Reserve has never been the subject of a true comprehensive audit since it was created in the early part of the last century? The reality is that the people of the United States have a right to know what is going on over at the privately owned central bank that has almost complete control over U.S. currency and banking. The Federal Reserve played a leading role in creating the horrific economic crisis that the U.S. is currently experiencing, but right now the Federal Reserve has very little accountability to the U.S. Congress or to anyone else for that matter.
Ron Paul wants to fundamentally change that.
So how many other potential Republican candidates have come out and declared that they want to shut down the Federal Reserve?
None.
#3 Ron Paul Wants to Abolish The IRS
Talk about a great idea!
The truth is that we do not need a personal income tax and we do not need the IRS.
In fact, the U.S. got along just fine without a personal income tax for most of our history.
Ron Paul wants to permanently get rid of the IRS.
So how many other potential Republican candidates are proposing that we abolish the IRS?
The silence is deafening.
#4 Ron Paul Would Enforce Our Borders
Many Republicans talk a good game about enforcing our borders, but very few of them ever actually do anything about it.
Ron Paul is different. Ron Paul believes that we should stop the endless flood of illegal immigrants that is coming across our borders. He would be the first president in generations that would actually do something real about this problem.
Ron Paul is against amnesty for illegal aliens and he also believes that children born in the United States to illegal aliens should not be automatically granted citizenship.
Illegal immigration is a national crisis and we need a president that would take this issue seriously for a change.
#5 Ron Paul Is Against Globalization
Nearly all of the potential Republican candidates for president are in favor of the globalization of the economy and nearly all of them love all of the free trade agreements that the United States has agreed to.
Well, Ron Paul is different.
Ron Paul would put the breaks on a lot of this globalization.
Ron Paul is against NAFTA and thinks it should be repealed.
Ron Paul voted against CAFTA.
Ron Paul voted against the U.S.-Australia free trade agreement.
Ron Paul voted against the U.S.-Singapore free trade agreement.
Ron Paul voted against the U.S.-Chile free trade agreement.
Ron Paul has voted to withdraw the United States from the WTO.
Not that Ron Paul is a total protectionist either. But the truth is that he would take much more of a stand against the globalization of the world economy than just about any other potential Republican candidate for president.
#6 Ron Paul Was Against The Wall Street Bailouts
At the same time that George W. Bush, Barack Obama and John McCain were all running around promoting the Wall Street bailouts during 2008, Ron Paul was one of the most outspoken opponents against the bailouts.
Ron Paul did not understand why countless billions of U.S. taxpayer dollars should go to Wall Street elitists.
In the end, many politicians wished that they had been against those bailouts. They ended up being a really bad idea. Large numbers of conservatives and large numbers of liberals were both disgusted by them.
Well, let us not forget that Ron Paul was right about those bailouts from the very beginning.
#7 Ron Paul Would Protect Our Civil Liberties
Ron Paul said that if we passed the "Patriot Act" and all of these other fascist police state pieces of legislation that we would lose our individual liberties.
Did that not happen?
But neither major political party is taking any action to repeal the Patriot Act.
Under George W. Bush, Americans lost huge amounts of liberty and freedom.
Many Americans had been hoping that Barack Obama would be much better in that regard.
Well, it turns out that Barack Obama has been even worse. He has implemented some things that George W. Bush never would have been able to get away with.
Have you been to an airport recently? It is completely and totally ridiculous out there.
Ron Paul is against these abuses and would fundamentally change the direction of the United States when it comes to civil liberties.
#8 Ron Paul Would Not Have The U.S. Trying To Police The World
Did you know that the U.S. has forces in 130 different countries today?
It is absolutely ridiculous!
We simply cannot afford to be the police of the world.
If we endlessly bomb, invade and occupy other countries and torture everyone in sight then people around the world are going to end up hating America.
Many Americans had been hoping that Barack Obama would change the course of our foreign policy when he was elected, but that did not happen did it?
Instead, Barack Obama is promising to keep at least some troops in Iraq for many years, and he has sent a lot more troops to Afghanistan.
Well, Ron Paul is different.
Ron Paul is the only potential Republican candidate that actually voted against the Iraq war.
Ron Paul would dramatically reduce the number of our troops deployed overseas and he would be determined not to interfere in the affairs of other nations.
That would be quite a switch, wouldn't it?
#9 Ron Paul Is Against Carbon Taxes And The Global Warming Fraud
Tens of millions of Americans blindly believe in the environmental quackery of Al Gore, the "eco-prophet", who is trying to "save the environment" by viciously attacking carbon dioxide. Ron Paul is one of the few members of Congress who is willing to publicly stand up and tell the truth that carbon dioxide is one of the fundamental building blocks of life on earth and that it is NOT causing global warming.
But the American people did not elect Ron Paul back in 2008. Instead they elected Barack Obama who wants to impose an insane "cap and trade" carbon trading scheme that would decapitate the U.S. economy.
Well, now that the American people have seen the insanity of what Barack Obama is trying to do hopefully they will be ready for something different in 2012.
#10 Ron Paul Is Deeply Concerned About The U.S. National Debt
Did you know that right now our national debt is $14,104,021,737,251.53?
Did you know that if the federal government began right at this moment to repay the U.S. national debt at a rate of one dollar per second, it would take over 440,000 years to pay off the national debt?
Ron Paul is one of the few members of Congress that actually has a voting record that shows a consistent effort to reduce government spending and government debt.
Many other Republicans talk a good game about these things, but their voting records tell a whole different story.
#11 Ron Paul Would Provide Real Leadership
The liberty movement in the United States desperately needs a true leader right now, and Ron Paul can provide the kind of inspirational leadership that most other Republican politicians simply cannot. Tea Party activists are inspired by Ron Paul. They respond to his leadership. The truth is that the Republicans have not had a truly inspirational conservative leader in the White House since Ronald Reagan. It is about time they had another.
Not only that, but most of the other potential Republican contenders have a ton of skeletons in their closets. Ron Paul is one of those rare politicians that still has his integrity intact.
#12) Ron Paul Has Perhaps The Best Chance Of Defeating Barack Obama
Poll after poll has shown top Republican contenders such as Sarah Palin getting absolutely destroyed in a potential matchup with Barack Obama.
Most Americans view most of the potential contenders for the Republican nomination in 2012 as simply newer versions of George W. Bush and John McCain. In fact, when you listen to most of them talk, that is exactly what they are. They are just rehashing the same tired ideas that establishment Republicans have been pushing for decades.
If the Republicans want to win in 2012, they need something different.
They need someone that is a sharp break from George W. Bush and John McCain.
They need someone that can get us back in touch with the U.S. Constitution and with the principles that the millions involved in the Tea Party movement have been trying to restore.
So is Ron Paul the right choice?
That is for you to decide.
Victims of forced sterilization are hurting and dying off
As the state legislature convenes Wednesday, Gov. Bev Perdue should present it with a clear plan for helping the surviving victims of North Carolina's forced sterilization program. Some might argue that, with thelegislature facing the challenge of closing a $3.7-billion budget shortfall, this is not the time to help those victims. But with the victims continuing to suffer with physical and emotional ills from their operations, and with some of them having died waiting for help, the state has a moral obligation to finally right the wrong it visited upon them.
In an interview with the Journal Thursday, Perdue reaffirmed her commitment to helping the victims sterilized by the state program. "This is a tragic story for North Carolina," she said.
Perdue, a Democrat, and the legislature's new Republican majority should finally help these people who were stripped of their right to give life by a program that was, before it ended in 1974, one of the most aggressive in the country. Now, some of the victims believe that the state is waiting for them to die. "The wait breaks my heart," said Annie Buelin, 72, of Surry County, who was sterilized when she was 13.
The state could help the victims without a great expenditure of funds. Eight years ago, Gov. Mike Easleyapproved a committee's recommendations that the victims be given health-care and education benefits, but the now-disgraced Democrat never followed through on getting those recommendations approved by thelegislature. The benefits could be done relatively easily through the state's university and community-college system. Financial compensation, long talked about, will have to wait until the economy improves.
Responding to these victims — as many as a third of the more than 7,600 sterilized may still be alive — should be an effort that crosses party lines. In late 2002, when a Journal investigative series, "Against Their Will," reported for the first time the full details of the program, people of varied political viewpoints were outraged. The victims — men, women and children of modest means — were often bullied into sterilization by aggressive social workers carrying out a program based as much on thinning the welfare rolls as it was on misguided goals of "bettering" society. The effort, whose supporters included doctors and philanthropists in Winston-Salem, violated the sanctity of life.
For eight years, the victims have courageously shared their stories with the public, and politicians have promised to help them. "They keep talking: 'We're going to do something. We're going to do something.' They haven't done anything," said Nial Cox Ramirez, who was sterilized in 1965 in Washington County when she was 18.
Perdue promised to help as she ran for her position in 2008. She secured $250,000 for a foundation to study compensation for the victims. But Perdue and the foundation have been moving slowly. And the subject has already been studied at length. The process of sterilization — including voluminous paperwork that was often trumped-up — usually took a year or less. The state is moving much slower in helping the victims than it did in hurting them, despite repeated pleas from the victims' only real advocate in the legislature, DemocraticRep. Larry Womble of Winston-Salem.
Some of the victims have died waiting for help. For example, a 90-year-old woman, sterilized after she was raped when she was a homeless teenager in Winston-Salem, died in July. "I think the state should definitely do something for the victims," her granddaughter told the Journal.
North Carolina's sterilization program began in 1929 and was based on the junk science of eugenics, which had warped goals of improving society by rendering barren people classified as "feeble-minded," (often on the basis of flawed intelligence testing) as well as epileptics, the blind and others deemed unfit to reproduce. After World War II, as the horrors of Hitler's genocide were exposed, the other states backed off their eugenics programs. But North Carolina ramped up its under-the-radar program. By the 1960s, the program was targeting black women, even as the state was then seen by many as progressive in integration.
When Easley approved the recommendations for health-care and education benefits, he set North Carolina on a path toward doing what no other state with such a program had done: providing compensation for the victims. Should the legislature take that step now, our state would still be the first on compensation.
In doing so, Perdue and the Republican majority would set an example of bipartisan cooperation for the nation. But most important, North Carolina would at last be doing right by thousands of dying and aging victims of a program it should never have started.