Letters to the Editor
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Eco-Hummer
tempus, the Eco-Hummer guy's idea is a great one, and I agree, cost-effective. I was merely saying that it takes an organized factory - usually owned by a corporation - to create products that are affordable by everyone. We make the corporations provide products which conform to environmental standards, and encourage eco-friendly technology, through regulation and tax incentives - neither of which Paul believes in. Chris pointed out that individual ingenuity can solve environmental problems, and I agree - but in order for them to be implemented on a large scale, government has to be involved. The market doesn't magically make it all happen.
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@Chris Sinnard
I imagine the preachy, holier than though attitudes of the "regulars" here have done more to turn people off from this site in general than any number of "potential Ron Paul supporters" I've turned off from reading my comments in a handful of Salon articles.
-- Chris Sinnard
Coming from you, "preachy, holier than though attitudes" is quite comical.
I think you "imagine" incorrectly, and I would "imagine" that the traffic on Glenn Greenwald's specific blog on Salon would back up my "imaginings" and thwart yours.
At any rate, you've just posted yet one more bombastic comment that, I would "imagine", was of no help at all to Ron Paul's run for president.
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I don't really understand the purpose of these Paul posts
Paul has his beliefs and sticks to them, which is admirable in its way, but... are you saying complete de-centralization of health care, education, etc. is something you look forward to?
It also deeply bothers me that you would refer to the Houston Chronicle article only in a parenthetical aside, and dismiss Paul's anti-abortion stance as practically irrelevant to his position as presidential candidate. Perhaps these issues aren't important to you as a white man, but they are things that many people (on this blog and as voting U.S. citizens) take very seriously. The information on Paul in these posts has been enlightening to me, but I'd be lying if I said they made me look at him in a new or positive way. Paul is obviously not made from the same neocon mold as Bush & Cheney and their ilk, but I simply do not see the use of propping up another Republican, no matter how much less bad they might be for the country, when real liberals like Dennis Kucinich are still in the running. Just my two cents, but I'd really like if you did more posts on other candidates (including from the Republican side of things) rather than more about Ron Paul.
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SS is not a "threat"
SS is part of the internal mess. General level of taxation and national debt is part of that.
Social security has no problems at all until 2047. LOTS of time to deal with it...and privatizing isn't the answer. Sure, lets all make everyone own stocks. The market never crashes. The value of one's stock portfolio never goes down.
How's YOUR portfolio looking these days? Down 300+ points a couple days ago, donw a few hundred more recently. More downward spiral to come? Boy, it would be GREAT to count on that crap as the last hope for your retired life.
Social Security was, and is, insurance. It is NOT intended to be an investment. It is intended to be there for you no matter what. Even if the stock market tanked ala the Great Depression, SS is still there for you. THAT is the intent and purpose of that safety net. It defeats the point and purpose to make everyone pay into wall street firms and hope that magic happens and that the stock market NEVER goes down and ruins your retirement fund. Also, when a buttload of boomers suddenly starts cashing in their stocks for their retirement, what does that do to the markets? Hmmmmm, self-fed downturn that drives down the value of the retirement fund which sparks MORE selling in hopes of getting out before the retirement fund loses even more value, etc, etc.
The Stock Market isn't magic. It can and will tank. It is not a life-vest - that is where SS comes in.
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Promotion of the General Welfare.......... or Americans do not live by Foreign Policy alone
[Paul] doesn't just happen to have these slackjaws as followers, like flies to dung. He actively seeks them out which absolutely is indicative of a fellow traveler. -- tempus
Uh-huh. And except for a brief period when their master told them to stop doing so, the Stalinists in the Communist Party USA supported FDR. He didn't reject their support. Hence, FDR was either a Stalinist or a fellow-traveler. Or so was the far-right flip-side of your position at the time. -- -Mona
Except FDR's broad support among sane, average Americans dwarfed 'support' from the conspiring Communist fringe. By contrast, Ron Paul's support base seems to be dominated by gushing, petulant zealots who soothe their egos with doctrinaire libertarian notions.
In their perfect future world, all will be serene and glorious once we all live in male-headed families in which the 'lady-of-the-house' is free to teach her children and can the produce of her vegetable garden. Somehow, no one is ever widowed with toddler(s) in their idyllic future world. No need for government insurance or oversight of large companies! They will obey their own contracts of course! Except, that isn't what happened in the early part of the past century, is it? Cheating widows out of their husbands' life insurance was damned near normative behavior c. 1910 (citation: The Autobiography of Malcolm X). And no one is ever in need of recourse to the regulatory authorities when she is cheated out of (privately contracted for) health coverage or denied life insurance because an insurer gains access to data they were not entitled to have. These things just don't happen to the righteous yeomen of the future perfect libertarian America. Of course.
Many of the letter writers who are gushing over Ron Paul on this thread have benefited repeatedly from the laws and regulations they profess to despise. They use the road and education systems they hate to fund via taxes, and the internet. In all likelihood, many have another family member doing the heavy lifting for them in regards to the petty grinds of daily life -- someone else fills out the insurance claims forms, talks with Human Resources about coverage gaps, gets the kids vaccinated (the Horror!), gets over to the county clerk's office during the workday to pay their speeding tickets for them.....The list of screw jobs and tasks above all derive from my personal experience, and I am not uniquely blighted by life. I've had it easy compared to many Americans. But, if it were not for government and its !horrific! regulatory apparatus -- the combined burdens of life and death could have rendered me pretty damned damaged -- impoverished and harried. My late husband's life insurer obeyed the terms of its contract and paid out promptly -- because I had a realistic option of going after them with the law if they didn't. The company he worked for obeyed the COBRA regulations, and I had 3 years of uncommonly good health insurance (at ~$500/month), courtesy of the federal government. I now pay ~$515/month for catastrophic-only, high-deductible junk insurance. Fortunately, that's only about 40% of my daughter's monthly social security check; the rest can offset the cost of her daycare. There are good public schools where I'm moving where my kid can be educated while I work, and where a (private) caregiver operates after school for a reasonable price (she is price-competitive with the city-run aftercare program that operates in some of the other elementary schools -- funny how that works.)
Paul's resolute anti-imperialism is admirable and a viable Ron Paul candidacy may be quite tonic for the body politic. But his virtues on foreign policy are dwarfed by his many bugaboo notions regarding macroeconomics and the role of government in promoting the general welfare. The elevation of chip-on-the-shoulderism to a public virtue is not something I'll refrain from attacking. It is not necessary to put up with it in order to have a righteous foreign policy.
However, if a decent fear of the People can be cultivated in our 'competitive' politicians by way of his growing campaign -- that is a result I'd like to see. I'd be happy to can that garden produce.