Fuck Ron Paul

[Searcher08]

Thing is, for all his abrasive personality and lecturing style, he still went down to speak with people.
He is anti-fascist, doesn't believe that private firms debt should be paid by you and me and infinitely preferable him to the former Kissinger Associates scumbucket Obamaboy Tim Geithner , who is neither white, male, straight, "christian", rich or powerful

[ninakat]

5 Reasons Progressives Should Treat Ron Paul with Extreme Caution -- 'Cuddly' Libertarian Has Some Very Dark Politics
He's anti-woman, anti-gay, anti-black, anti-senior-citizen, anti-equality and anti-education, and that's just the start.

By Adele M. Stan, Alternet
August 26, 2011

There are few things as maddening in a maddening political season as the warm and fuzzy feelings some progressives evince for Rep. Ron Paul of Texas, the Republican presidential candidate. "The anti-war Republican," people say, as if that's good enough.

But Ron Paul is much, much more than that. He's the anti-Civil-Rights-Act Republican. He's an anti-reproductive-rights Republican. He's a gay-demonizing Republican. He's an anti-public education Republican and an anti-Social Security Republican. He's the John Birch Society's favorite congressman. And he's a booster of the Constitution Party, which has a Christian Reconstructionist platform. So, if you're a member of the anti-woman, anti-gay, anti-black, anti-senior-citizen, anti-equality, anti-education, pro-communist-witch-hunt wing of the progressive movement, I can see how he'd be your guy.

Paul first drew the attention of progressives with his vocal opposition to the invasion of Iraq. Coupled with the Texan's famous call to end the Federal Reserve, that somehow rendered him, in the eyes of the single-minded, the GOP's very own Dennis Kucinich. Throw in Paul's opposition to the drug war and his belief that marriage rights should be determined by the states, and Paul seemed suitable enough to an emotionally immature segment of the progressive movement, a wing populated by people with privilege adequate enough to insulate them from the nasty bits of the Paul agenda. (Tough on you blacks! And you, women! And you, queers! And you, old people without money.)

Ron Paul's anti-war stance, you see, comes not from a cry for peace, but from the deeply held isolationism of the far right. Some may say that, when it comes to ending the slaughter of innocents, the ends justify the means. But, in their romance with Ron Paul, what ends do Paulite progressives really seek? The end of war, or simply payback for a president who has let them down. And for that payback some seem all too willing go along with means, that if allowed to come to fruition, involve trading the rights and security of a great many Americans for the promise of non-intervention.

Here's a list -- by no means comprehensive -- of Ron Paul positions and associates that should explain, once and for all, why no self-respecting progressive could possibly sidle up to Paul.

1) Ron Paul on Race

Based on his religious adherence to his purportedly libertarian principles, Ron Paul opposed the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Unlike his son, Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., Ron Paul has not even tried to walk back from this position. In fact, he wears it proudly. Here's an excerpt from Ron Paul's 2004 floor speech about the Civil Rights Act, in which he explains why he voted against a House resolution honoring the 40th anniversary of the law:

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 not only violated the Constitution and reduced individual liberty; it also failed to achieve its stated goals of promoting racial harmony and a color-blind society. Federal bureaucrats and judges cannot read minds to see if actions are motivated by racism. Therefore, the only way the federal government could ensure an employer was not violating the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was to ensure that the racial composition of a business's workforce matched the racial composition of a bureaucrat or judge's defined body of potential employees. Thus, bureaucrats began forcing employers to hire by racial quota. Racial quotas have not contributed to racial harmony or advanced the goal of a color-blind society. Instead, these quotas encouraged racial balkanization, and fostered racial strife.

He also said this: "[T]he forced integration dictated by the Civil Rights Act of 1964 increased racial tensions while diminishing individual liberty."

Ron Paul also occasionally appears at events sponsored by the John Birch Society, the segregationist right-wing organization that is closely aligned with the Christian Reconstructionist wing of the religious right.

In 2008, James Kirchick brought to light in the pages of the New Republic a number of newsletters with Paul's name in the title -- Ron Paul's Freedom Report, Ron Paul Political Report, The Ron Paul Survival Report, and The Ron Paul Investment Letter -- that contained baldly racist material, which Paul denied writing.

At NewsOne, Casey Gane-McCalla reported a number of these vitriolic diatribes, including this, on the L.A. riots after the Rodney King verdict: "Order was only restored in L.A. when it came time for the blacks to pick up their welfare checks three days after rioting began.”

In a related piece, Jon C. Hopwood of Yahoo!'s Associated Content cites a Reuters report on Paul's response to the TNR story, which came in the form of a written statement:

The quotations in The New Republic article are not mine and do not represent what I believe or have ever believed. I have never uttered such words and denounce such small-minded thoughts.... I have publicly taken moral responsibility for not paying closer attention to what went out under my name.

2) Ron Paul on Reproductive Rights

The sponsor of a bill to overturn Roe v. Wade, Ron Paul's libertarianism does not apply to women, though it does apply to zygotes. His is a no-exceptions anti-abortion position, essentially empowering a rapist to sire a child with a woman of his choosing. Although Paul attributes his stance on abortion to his background as an ob-gyn physician, it should be noted that most ob-gyns are pro-choice, and that Paul's draconian position tracks exactly with that of his Christian Reconstructionist friends.

While mainstream media, when they're not busy ignoring his presidential campaign in favor of the badly trailing former Utah Gov. John Huntsman, invariably focus on Paul's economic libertarianism, Sarah Posner, writing for the Nation, noted that during his appearances leading up to the Iowa straw poll (in which Paul finished second only to Rep. Michele Bachmann, Minn., by a 200-vote margin), "launched into gruesome descriptions of abortion, a departure from his stump speech focused on cutting taxes, shutting down the Federal Reserve, getting out of Iraq and Afghanistan and repealing the Patriot Act."

3) Ron Paul on LGBT People

While it's true that Paul advocates leaving it to the states to determine whether same-sex marriages should be legally recognized, it's not because he's a friend to LGBT people. Paul's position on same-sex marriage stems from his beliefs about the limits of the federal government's role vis-a-vis his novel interpretation of the Constitution.

In fact, a newsletter called the Ron Paul Poltiical Report, unearthed by Kirchick, shows Paul on a rant against a range of foes and conspiracies, including "the federal-homosexual cover-up on AIDS," to which Paul parenthetically adds, "my training as a physician helps me see through this one." The passage, which also portends a "coming race war in our big cities," complains of the "perverted" and "pagan" annual romp for the rich and powerful known as Bohemian Grove, and takes aim at the "demonic" Skull and Bones Society at Yale, not to mention the "Israeli lobby," begins with the paranoid claim, "I've been told not to talk, but these stooges don't scare me."

While Paul denied, in 2001, writing most of the scurrilous material that ran, without attribution, in newsletters that bore his name in the title, this passage, according to Jon Hopwood, bears Paul's byline.

4) Ron Paul Calls Social Security Unconstitutional, Compares it to Slavery

Earlier this year, in an appearance on "Fox News Sunday," Paul declared both Social Security and Medicare to be unconstitutional, essentially saying they should be abolished for the great evil that they are -- just like slavery. Here's the transcript, via ThinkProgress:

["FOX NEWS SUNDAY" HOST CHRIS] WALLACE: You talk a lot about the Constitution. You say Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid are all unconstitutional.

PAUL: Technically, they are. … There’s no authority [in the Constitution]. Article I, Section 8 doesn't say I can set up an insurance program for people. What part of the Constitution are you getting it from? The liberals are the ones who use this General Welfare Clause. … That is such an extreme liberal viewpoint that has been mistaught in our schools for so long and that's what we have to reverse—that very notion that you're presenting.

WALLACE: Congressman, it's not just a liberal view. It was the decision of the Supreme Court in 1937 when they said that Social Security was constitutional under Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution.

PAUL: And the Constitution and the courts said slavery was legal, too, and we had to reverse that.

5) Ron Paul, Christian Reconstructionists and the John Birch Society

The year 2008 was a telling one in the annals of Ron Paul's ideology. For starters, it was the year in which he delivered the keynote address [video] at the 50th anniversary gala of the John Birch Society, the famous anti-communist, anti-civil-rights organization hatched in the 1950s by North Carolina candy magnate Robert Welch, with the help of Fred Koch, founder of what is now Koch Industries, and a handful of well-heeled friends. The JBS is also remembered for its role in helping to launch the 1964 presidential candidacy of the late Sen. Barry Goldwater, R-Ariz., and for later backing the segregationist Alabama Gov. George Wallace in his 1968 third-party presidential bid.

The semi-secular ideology of the John Birch Society -- libertarian market and fiscal theory laced with flourishes of cultural supremacy -- finds its religious counterpart, as Fred Clarkson noted, in the theonomy of Christian Reconstructionism, the right-wing religious-political school of thought founded by Rousas John Rushdoony. The ultimate goal of Christian Reconstructionists is to reconstitute the law of the Hebrew Bible -- which calls for the execution of adulterers and men who have sex with other men -- as the law of the land. The Constitution Party constitutes the political wing of Reconstructionism, and the CP has found a good friend in Ron Paul.

When Paul launched his second presidential quest in 2008, he won the endorsement of Rev. Chuck Baldwin, a Baptist pastor who travels in Christian Reconstructionist circles, though he is not precisely a Reconstructionist himself (for reasons having to do with his interpretation of how the end times will go down). When Paul dropped out of the race, instead of endorsing Republican nominee John McCain, or even Libertarian Party nominee Bob Barr, Paul endorsed Constitution Party presidential nominee Chuck Baldwin (who promised, in his acceptance speech, to uphold the Constitution Party platform, which looks curiously similar to the Ron Paul agenda, right down to the no-exceptions abortion proscription and ending the Fed).

At his shadow rally that year in Minneapolis, held on the eve of the Republican National Convention, Paul invited Constitution Party founder Howard Phillips, a Christian Reconstructionist, to address the crowd of end-the-Fed-cheering post-pubescents. (In his early congressional career, Julie Ingersoll writes in Religion Dispatches, Paul hired as a staffer Gary North, a Christian Reconstructionist leader and Rushdoony's son-in-law.)

At a "Pastor's Forum" [video] at Baldwin's Baptist church in Pensacola, Florida, Paul was asked by a congregant about his lack of support for Israel, which many right-wing Christians support because of the role Israel plays in what is known as premillennialist end-times theology. "Premillennialist" refers to the belief that after Jesus returns, according to conditions on the ground in Israel, the righteous will rule. But Christian Reconstructionists have a different view, believing the righteous must first rule for 1,000 years before Jesus will return.

They also believe, according to Clarkson, "that 'the Christians' are the 'new chosen people of God,' commanded to do what 'Adam in Eden and Israel in Canaan failed to do...create the society that God requires.' Further, Jews, once the 'chosen people,' failed to live up to God's covenant and therefore are no longer God's chosen. Christians, of the correct sort, now are."

Responding to Baldwin's congregant, Paul explained, "I may see it slightly differently than others because I think of the Israeli government as different than what I read about in the Bible. I mean, the Israeli government doesn't happen to be reflecting God's views. Some of them are atheist, and their form of government is not what I would support... And there are some people who interpret the chosen people as not being so narrowly defined as only the Jews -- that maybe there's a broader definition of that."

At the John Birch Society 50th anniversary gala, Ron Paul spoke to another favorite theme of the Reconstructionists and others in the religious right: that of the "remnant" left behind after evil has swept the land. (Gary North's publication is called The Remnant Review.) In a dispatch on Paul's keynote address, The New American, the publication of the John Birch Society, explained, "He claimed that the important role the JBS has played was to nurture that remnant and added, 'The remnant holds the truth together, both the religious truth and the political truth.'"

Is there a progressive willing to join that fold?

[Canadian_watcher]

if it makes anyone feel any better my daughter, 18 yrs old, enrolled in a very liberal program at a politically active university, and also a young person who reads 'reddit' multiple times a day & considers herself a 'hipster' sees right through Ron Paul. To quote her, "Everyone's all Ron Paul this and Ron Paul that but I don't know.. he doesn't seem very good to me."

Not very good compared to....?
I value transparency in politicians - and think he is not a lying scumbag unlike 99% of pols.

From the top page of reddit - this was too good to pass - entitled
"Why I don't use public transport"

She doesn't like any of them, but she was stating that she couldn't get behind the rah rah ron paul thing even though the online energy seemed to be doing so. I consider that a sort of triumph, anyway.

as to the pic.. classic!

[JackRiddler]

Ah, that stuff doesn't matter. As soon as you eliminate all federal regulations whatsoever - hey, we all agree the SEC sucks, right? - end the Federal Reserve and restore the gold standard and the rights of states to take handle their own law and short-order without no revenooers comin round, the awesome power of free Americans will be unleashed and solve pretty much all of those them economic problems. Right?

[Searcher08]

Ah, that stuff doesn't matter. As soon as you eliminate all federal regulations whatsoever - hey, we all agree the SEC sucks, right? - end the Federal Reserve and restore the gold standard and the rights of states to take handle their own law and short-order without no revenooers comin round, the awesome power of free Americans will be unleashed and solve pretty much all of those them economic problems. Right?

Right... back at cha.

The things is, I think libertarians and progressives have a choice about whether they talk and even dialogue with each other or not - and people tend to come down on very different lines around that. Many people here dont like that idea at all - and I'm sure neither ninakat nor you do. Because you think they are WRONG.

For every person like the Alternet editor, there will be a corresponding libertarian who will tar someone like Dennis Kucinich as as pinko UFO loving commie limey humpin fruitcake and that Obama is actually the love child of Malcolm X - and a white girlfriend who is STILL ALIVE! (I admiit I quite like the idea of that )

As for the Alternet article - blimey
http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/ja ... nalism.htm

James Kirchick, yes, my first thought was WHO would want to do a smear job? Perhaps somone who actually objected to Ron Paul's Israel stance? I wondered...where is he working now??

A Likudnik pro-war thinktank

http://www.defenddemocracy.org/about-fd ... ry/fellows
Israel firsters - dontcha just love them? BTW - en passant - Louis Freeh was heavily involved with this group...

I find it very strange to be honest. Maybe it is because it is so much easier to argue over the merits or otherwise of Zizek than talk and listen with people who one might not care for, either personally or politically. But hey, we ARE connected. Part of me worries that in the future, pressing issues may be about foraging wisdom and survival knowledge post BIG climate change.

Oh, maybe you dont care about a private banking cartel lending a trillion here or there, maybe you dont see people as capable of helping themselves and maybe you want a centralised Washington driven USA where states are quaint relics of a distant history, but the SEC,
NOOOO LEAVE THE SEC ALOOOONE! - it can just be fixed with some new regulations - Gary Weiss told us, it is the only thing protecting us from the robber barons, gnome sane?

Did you get my PM btw??

[JackRiddler]

Ah, that stuff doesn't matter. As soon as you eliminate all federal regulations whatsoever - hey, we all agree the SEC sucks, right? - end the Federal Reserve and restore the gold standard and the rights of states to take handle their own law and short-order without no revenooers comin round, the awesome power of free Americans will be unleashed and solve pretty much all of those them economic problems. Right?

Right... back at cha.

The things is, I think libertarians and progressives have a choice about whether they talk and even dialogue with each other or not - and people tend to come down on very different lines around that. Many people here dont like that idea at all - and I'm sure neither ninakat nor you do. Because you think they are WRONG.

For every person like the Alternet editor, there will be a corresponding libertarian who will tar someone like Dennis Kucinich as as pinko UFO loving commie limey humpin fruitcake and that Obama is actually the love child of Malcolm X - and a white girlfriend who is STILL ALIVE! (I admiit I quite like the idea of that )

Yeah, except that's all made up, isn't it? And even if some of it wasn't, it would still amount to cultural or personal matters that have little to do with the kind of politics that politicians decide, which is what we should care about when we talk about politicians.

Whereas most of the Paulites really do support the program I described: flat-out end the Fed without replacement, unleash the market, establish gold standard, states' rights as the foundation of liberty, etc. Am I misrepresenting the substance? I submit that none of this would work out the way the Paulites imagine, or would even be possible. These aren't the real causes or solutions to the problems of capitalism. They are a diversion.

As for different sides talking - that's what we do here, too. Nothing against it. I'm against the idea that between two differing positions, truth is always somewhere in the middle, or that compromise consists in taking six of one and a half-dozen of the other. Paulite economics don't work. They're an extreme caricature of putting no limits on capital whatsoever: in other words, the same system that's already failed.

Oh, maybe you dont care about a private banking cartel lending a trillion here or there,

Utter nonsense, and you know it. But the problem is not fictional money - it's all fictional, including gold. It's all money by convention. The problem is that this independent branch of the government with the money power serves the private oligarchy. The Fed creates the trillions to shore up the rotten balance sheets of those who plunder the human economy - to exacerbate and not to relieve the debt burden on the 99 percent (for want of a better term).

maybe you dont see people as capable of helping themselves and maybe you want a centralised Washington driven USA where states are quaint relics of a distant history,

Also nonsense, and remote from the hundreds of pages I've written on these subjects here. I'd be all for a revival of the states. They should each start their own public banks - separate ones for commerce, development and individual accounts. The function of a national central bank would be to support those, and not the private power of Wall Street that currently determines the actions of a captured federal government. (By contrast, I believe that state-level tyranny is as bad or worse than national tyranny. Who imprisons the most people?)

but the SEC,
NOOOO LEAVE THE SEC ALOOOONE! - it can just be fixed with some new regulations

Again, go find where I ever said that. If it were up to me, the SEC would indeed go away, having proven itself useless - and be replaced by a truly independent, muscular agency that puts the Wall Street banksters away for the epic frauds they've perpetrated.

Gary Weiss told us, it is the only thing protecting us from the robber barons, gnome sane?

His problem if he believes that. The SEC of course is the most captured agency of all, it covers for and enables the robber barons, and has not remotely fulfilled anything like its supposed mission in 30 years.

Did you get my PM btw??

Oops. I'll check to see what you mean.

.

[Laodicean]

[ninakat]

But it can't happen here.

Raw Story’s Mike Rogers: Ron Paul hiding an extremist agenda
By David Ferguson
Friday, December 30, 2011

Raw Story’s managing director Mike Rogers was a guest on Thursday’s The Ed Show, discussing Ron Paul and the real ramifications of the candidate’s views on “states’ rights,” civil rights, and the rights of LGBT people under a potential Paul administration.

Related: Paul once criticized equal pay, AIDS patients, sexual harassment victims

The Paul campaign prominently featured the endorsement of Rev. Phillip G. Kayser, a Christian pastor who believes that gays should be executed in accordance with “Biblical law.” Kayser is a Paul supporter, saying that he believes that Rep. Paul’s policies are consistent with a Biblical world view. As Kayser’s more controversial statements have come to light, the Paul 2012 website scrubbed any mention of the pastor.

Rogers pointed out that Congressman Paul has left a trail of contradictory statements on the rights of gays and minorities and indicates that this may be part of a pattern of disinformation and obfuscation. He added that Paul may even be using the guise of so-called “libertarianism” as a springboard toward the goal of rolling back all civil rights legislation, effectively stripping away the hard-won rights of any U.S. citizens who are not part of the white, heterosexual mainstream.

Rep. Paul has said before that he would not have voted for the Civil Rights Act of 1964, a view that is shared by his son, Sen. Rand Paul (R-TN), who claimed that the Civil Rights Act was an intrusion on the rights of businesses owners, who he feels should be able to determine for themselves who they will and will not serve.

These views led the Southern Poverty Law Center to dub Rand Paul an “extremist,” over a view his father has actively promoted.

[ninakat]

Dear Washington Post: Ron Paul Is Not a Champion of Civil Liberty
Darren Hutchinson
12/29/11

Washington Post "factchecker" Josh Hicks gives Ron Paul high marks for consistency. Hicks claims that Paul's proposals and voting record are 100 percent consistent with his political rhetoric. This conclusion, however, is woefully incorrect.

Ron Paul (along with his many fans) describes himself as a champion of civil liberties. Paul also embraces an extremely narrow conception of federal power. These two positions, however, do not always co-exist peacefully. Consequently, Paul has sponsored legislation that would imperil the very civil liberties he claims to endorse.

Consider for example Paul's sponsorship of the We the People Act. This bill, if passed, would have dreadful consequences for the protection of civil liberties. The proposal would prohibit the federal courts, including the Supreme Court, from deciding cases challenging state laws that implicate:

1. the free exercise or establishment of religion;

2. the right of privacy, including issues of sexual practices, orientation, or reproduction; or

3. the right to marry without regard to sex or sexual orientation where based upon equal protection of the laws.

The proposal would also prohibit the federal courts from issuing rulings that "interfere[] with the legislative functions or administrative discretion of the states." Also, the bill, if passed, would "negate[] as binding precedent on the state courts any federal court decision that relates to an issue removed from federal jurisdiction by this Act."

(continues)

[JackRiddler]

.

Watch out if enough Republicans in the South realize that Paul's philosophy is amenable to the establishment of a modern Confederacy.

I'm used to the system being what it is, but I've been having a really visceral disgust today at a political environment so utterly degenerate, so comically fixed, that the only "candidate" who ostensibly opposes imperialism and the drug war (as if he'd really manage to end either) happens also to be the one who would restore legal child labor, return to 19th century economics, rob people of their hard-earned Social Security and Medicare, and bring us back to the happy day when the stifling tyranny against minorities, gays and atheists was local and constitutional -- not federal, goddamn it! How are things so wrong and fucked, that this is supposed to be a choice?

.

[eyeno]

.

Watch out if enough Republicans in the South realize that Paul's philosophy is amenable to the establishment of a modern Confederacy.

I'm used to the system being what it is, but I've been having a really visceral disgust today at a political environment so utterly degenerate, so comically fixed, that the only "candidate" who ostensibly opposes imperialism and the drug war (as if he'd really manage to end either) happens also to be the one who would restore legal child labor, return to 19th century economics, rob people of their hard-earned Social Security and Medicare, and bring us back to the happy day when the stifling tyranny against minorities, gays and atheists was local and constitutional -- not federal, goddamn it! How are things so wrong and fucked, that this is supposed to be a choice?

.

I understand your sentiments and I agree. Choosing one imperfection, or lesser evil, is settling for imperfection or lesser evil.

But there is no perfection and there will always be evil so in my opinion choices have to be made for the greater good.

Abolishing money lending for interest (usury) would solve the greatest woes humanity endures. Conservatively speaking 75% of human suffering could vanish were it not for lending money at interest. If this practice could be abolished it would leave humanity free to earnestly work on the other 25% of the woes of humanity. Considering the technology that can be brought to bare on the remaining 25% humanity could live a very decent life.

Ending the war on drugs.

Ending the wars of usury.

Paul could never accomplish these feats because lenders would simply blow his head off with a bullet, exactly as Lincoln, Kennedy, etc...

Paul has his drawbacks but the anti-Pauls are more dangerous to humanity than Paul will ever be.

Usury needs racism, and racism needs usury. They live together in the same house like cockroaches. It is entirely possible that if usury were to disappear that racism would diminish to a degree that it would become miniscule, because due to the technology humanity has created every person on this earth could live well regardless of their race. Without usury different races and tribes would not be provoked into hating each other to the degree that they are now.

Its a thought...

[Nordic]

.

Watch out if enough Republicans in the South realize that Paul's philosophy is amenable to the establishment of a modern Confederacy.

I'm used to the system being what it is, but I've been having a really visceral disgust today at a political environment so utterly degenerate, so comically fixed, that the only "candidate" who ostensibly opposes imperialism and the drug war (as if he'd really manage to end either) happens also to be the one who would restore legal child labor, return to 19th century economics, rob people of their hard-earned Social Security and Medicare, and bring us back to the happy day when the stifling tyranny against minorities, gays and atheists was local and constitutional -- not federal, goddamn it! How are things so wrong and fucked, that this is supposed to be a choice?

.

I understand your sentiments and I agree. Choosing one imperfection, or lesser evil, is settling for imperfection or lesser evil.

But there is no perfection and there will always be evil so in my opinion choices have to be made for the greater good.

Abolishing money lending for interest (usury) would solve the greatest woes humanity endures. Conservatively speaking 75% of human suffering could vanish were it not for lending money at interest. If this practice could be abolished it would leave humanity free to earnestly work on the other 25% of the woes of humanity. Considering the technology that can be brought to bare on the remaining 25% humanity could live a very decent life.

Ending the war on drugs.

Ending the wars of usury.

Paul could never accomplish these feats because lenders would simply blow his head off with a bullet, exactly as Lincoln, Kennedy, etc...

Paul has his drawbacks but the anti-Pauls are more dangerous to humanity than Paul will ever be.

Usury needs racism, and racism needs usury. They live together in the same house like cockroaches. It is entirely possible that if usury were to disappear that racism would diminish to a degree that it would become miniscule, because due to the technology humanity has created every person on this earth could live well regardless of their race. Without usury different races and tribes would not be provoked into hating each other to the degree that they are now.

Its a thought...

How else would things get financed, if not for the borrowing of money? Seriously. If you needed money to start a business, what are you supposed to do, save up your entire life, until you're 80 years old, to maybe get the money to start it?

Ridiculous. Lending money at interest isn't the root of all evil, the act of it in itself is utterly without goodness or evil, it's just a transaction. Like having electricity supplied to your house.

The trouble is, the complete non-regulation and the corruption of this business. Lending money needs to be EXACTLY like having electricity supplied to your house, in other words a public utility, regulated thusly.

[eyeno]

How else would things get financed, if not for the borrowing of money? Seriously. If you needed money to start a business, what are you supposed to do, save up your entire life, until you're 80 years old, to maybe get the money to start it?

Ridiculous. Lending money at interest isn't the root of all evil, the act of it in itself is utterly without goodness or evil, it's just a transaction. Like having electricity supplied to your house.

The trouble is, the complete non-regulation and the corruption of this business. Lending money needs to be EXACTLY like having electricity supplied to your house, in other words a public utility, regulated thusly.

I suppose I did mix the terms "usury" and "lending money at interest" but I am assuming that astute readers understand the context of my words. But your response is interesting and indicative of people (such as myself) that have grown up in a world in which the term "credit" actually means "debt". Usury is a problem but the bigger problem is the creation of money by private parties. When a society does not have control over the creation of its money most of society suffers and that is actually a bigger problem than usury.

How else would things get financed, if not for the borrowing of money? Seriously. If you needed money to start a business, what are you supposed to do, save up your entire life, until you're 80 years old, to maybe get the money to start it?

Well, that is sort of the point isn't it? If it were not for usury people could save the fruits of their labor and retire long before they were 80 and have all they needed to live comfortably. We don't live in the stone age. We have machines that can do the work of hundreds of thousands of humans. Hundreds of millions of people could sit on their ass, never contribute to society, and society as a whole would still have all it needed to live very comfortably. We don't have a scarcity problem, we have a greed problem, and that is the crux of my point.

Lending money at interest isn't the root of all evil, the act of it in itself is utterly without goodness or evil, it's just a transaction.

That would probably be accurate in a society in which the creation of money was regulated and decided upon by the whole society at large. As it stands in this day and age IT IS the root of most evil and the cause of more misery and suffering than any other aspect of human existence.

I really don't think it was necessary for me to expound on these points, but since you insisted...

Definition of USURY
1: the lending of money with an interest charge for its use; especially : the lending of money at exorbitant interest rates

2: an unconscionable or exorbitant rate or amount of interest; specifically : interest in excess of a legal rate charged to a borrower for the use of money


Usury is over rated in my opinion. Usury is bad enough on its own I suppose but it is the ability of the 1% of society to create money that is the bigger problem.

[Cedars of Overburden]

.

Rep. Paul has said before that he would not have voted for the Civil Rights Act of 1964, a view that is shared by his son, Sen. Rand Paul (R-TN), who claimed that the Civil Rights Act was an intrusion on the rights of businesses owners, who he feels should be able to determine for themselves who they will and will not serve.

Okay, but what is the deal with people not being able to tell the difference between Tennessee and Kentucky? Tennessee's asshole Republican Senators are Alexander and Corker. Kentuckians are the ones burdened with Rand Paul. This isn't the only story where I've noticed this confusion. It does seem like Tennessee has more in common with Kentucky than any other state, but then again, this obviously preventable blunder repeated in leftie news sort of turns my copy editor mania on high alert.

I want to see The Raw Story where they decide Nancy Pelosi is from Oregon!

Now back to Fuck Ron Paul....

[slomo]

Okay, but what is the deal with people not being able to tell the difference between Tennessee and Kentucky? Tennessee's asshole Republican Senators are Alexander and Corker. Kentuckians are the ones burdened with Rand Paul. This isn't the only story where I've noticed this confusion. It does seem like Tennessee has more in common with Kentucky than any other state, but then again, this obviously preventable blunder repeated in leftie news sort of turns my copy editor mania on high alert.

I want to see The Raw Story where they decide Nancy Pelosi is from Oregon!

Now back to Fuck Ron Paul....

Nah, Oregon is more easily confused with Washington. California is like unto itself only...