New at Reason

January 22, 2007

Brian Doherty interviews possible presidential candidate Ron Paul .

Comments

|1.22.07 @ 4:10PM|#

Paul has no change of actually winning, but he needs to be on the stage debating the other candidates in the primaries. He was dead right in the interview when he talked about how conservatives used to be the real antiwar activists and how the GOP has strayed from so many of the things on which is was based.

I'm not a Republican (or a Democrat, or of any other party), but I'm interested in seeing how the primary debates go. So far, the field is very politically diverse: Paul, McCain, Romney, Hagel (my favorite so far), Guiliani, Brownback and Gingrich. If all seven seriously engaged in a debate, America could finally get a good look at the many faces of "conservatism" and why those who call themselves conservatives have been struggling to define that word for the last six years.

|1.22.07 @ 4:11PM|#

*no CHANCE of actually winning. Sorry.

Christopher Monnier|1.22.07 @ 4:31PM|#

Is Ron Paul as macho as he sounds (he refers to everyone by only their last name)?

|1.22.07 @ 5:55PM|#

I like what I read in the interview. I particularly agree with his immigration policy (unlike conventional libertarians). His sentiment is the same as what I've been saying since the illegal immigration debate heated up recently: You can't have open borders AND a welfare state (i.e. free medical care, free education, and income distributions (for mothers of anchor babies)). One of the two has to go. Sure, it would be nice to get rid of the welfare state instead, but that's right up there with social security and medicare on the list of political untouchables.

brian423|1.22.07 @ 6:11PM|#

Sure, it would be nice to get rid of the welfare state instead, but that's right up there with social security and medicare on the list of political untouchables.

I don't understand that logic. Why use one crappy policy to justify another crappy policy? Two wrongs don't make a right. If the welfare state seems untouchable, put your energy into changing people's minds about that instead of tightening the border.

|1.22.07 @ 6:32PM|#

One of the two has to go. Sure, it would be nice to get rid of the welfare state instead, but that's right up there with social security and medicare on the list of political untouchables.

Don't worry, Social Security and Medicare are going to be going away soon enough - Either by design, or because the system collapses.

In fact, leaving our borders open will help us get rid of Social Security a bit sooner. Talk about two birds with one stone!

|1.22.07 @ 7:25PM|#

If the welfare state seems untouchable, put your energy into changing people's minds about that instead of tightening the border.

I can agree with that, but what do we do in the meantime while millions of illegals are flooding in and taking advantage of the freebies?


Don't worry, Social Security and Medicare are going to be going away soon enough - Either by design, or because the system collapses.

I wish it were that easy, but when the time comes, the solution will be to raise taxes (perhaps drastically) to bail them out. You don't agree with that, you say, and you won't vote for anyone who posits that solution. It doesn't matter, by that time there will be a Gazillion SS/Medicare-eligible (or soon-to-become-eligible) baby boomers that will easily overwhelm all of our votes.

|1.22.07 @ 7:44PM|#

what do we do in the meantime while millions of illegals are flooding in and taking advantage of the freebies?

Maybe I run in the wrong circles, but all the illegal immigrants/undocumented workers/dirty messicans/whatever you want to call people who cross the border from Mexico into the US without papers that I have known or met came here to work. They left their families at home so they could work 60, 70, 80 hours a week. Lazy people tend to not leave their families and go on dangerous journeys to foreign countries.
But let's not start another immigration feud. We don't want to wake up MikeP.

|1.22.07 @ 8:03PM|#

So the question is, which primary do I vote in? Where would a protest vote make the most, if any, impact?

As much as I would enjoy voting against Hillbilly Clinton, I would probably equally enjoy the opportunity to have a jab at McCain & Able?.

|1.22.07 @ 8:48PM|#

NAL,

I particularly agree with his immigration policy (unlike conventional libertarians). His sentiment is the same as what I've been saying since the illegal immigration debate heated up

Glad to see I'm not alone.


highnumber,

Maybe I run in the wrong circles, but all the illegal immigrants/undocumented workers/dirty messicans/whatever you want to call people who cross the border from Mexico into the US without papers that I have known or met came here to work.

How many of them have you known? I live in Arizona and have met many of them. There's a dirty little secret hiding under the rug and I've never seen anyone touch it in the MSM. The secret is --

There is a sizable black market in fake IDs for Mexicans. Those who bring their families, come here and buy papers that let them get social services.

Nobody knows how big this black market is. Nobody even wants to acknowledge its existence. But there's been articles in the local papers -- even the Feds can't tell real, legit papers from the fakes. Local builders have been told (by the Feds) to fire many, many Mexicans because the Feds couldn't tell if their papers were legit.

Like I said, nobody knows how widespread this practice is. But I did learn about this first hand from Mexican immigrants (in the construction industry), and it's no secret among their community.

The idea that Mexicans aren't costing us huge tax dollars somewhere along the line is preposterous. Especially if you live in an area like this where you can see what's going on first hand.



Anyway, if Paul runs I'll have to support him. Even if it isn't likely he'll get on the final ticket.

|1.22.07 @ 10:32PM|#

Genghis,

No part of what you said in any way contradicts the statement you quoted.

Maybe I run in the wrong circles, but all the illegal immigrants/undocumented workers/dirty messicans/whatever you want to call people who cross the border from Mexico into the US without papers that I have known or met came here to work.

If you have first hand experience that there is a huge market in fake immigration papers for Mexicans working in the construction industry, then that is confirming the idea that illegal immigrants come here to work, not refuting it. The illegal Mexican immigrants you know are working (and if they are doing so with fake papers, they are paying sizable amounts in payroll taxes). Now granted, I will probably also pay into social security my whole life without getting benefits from it, but look at the breakdown of the budget. FICA payments by the fed account for over 40% of the budget. This means the illegals that it is "preposterous" to assume aren't costing us huge tax dollars somewhere down the line, are probably actually paying more into the system than they are getting.

You can check out the data yourself:
http://www.publicagenda.org/issues/factfiles_detail.cfm?issue_type=federal_budget&list=8

look at what the federal government spends money on, and see if you can imagine any illegal immigrant who pays into FICA using 40% of those other services. Even if you count the military budget as entirely part of the freeloader column (whatever benefit our military supposedly gives them, they would most likely still be getting in Mexico) it would still be tough to overcome the 40% that they pay into the system with no hope of a return.

|1.22.07 @ 11:57PM|#

I disagree with Paul on immigration, but nobody's perfect. He's worlds better than John "Authoritarian Warmonger" McCain, Hillary "Statist vote-panderer" Clinton, and Barack "Generic inexperienced liberal" Obama, and as a New Yorker I couldn't in good conscience vote for Giuliani for sewer-sweeper (if Giuliani runs the country like he did NYC, he'll be McCain lite anyhow).

Better a poor immigration policy and most other things done right than a trainwreck in every other respect (possibly including immigration as well). Plus, his immigration stance sounds principled, unlike the Tancredo screeds, so even if it's suboptimal it won't be disastrous.

|1.23.07 @ 2:37AM|#

I like what the man has to say well enough. As has been mentioned by numerous posters frequently, including myself, he's about the best candidate I've heard even considering such a move in quite a while.

|1.23.07 @ 8:10AM|#

It sure would be nice to have a candidate to vote *for*, instead of trying to decide which of the clowns that both wings of the Ruling Party will field to vote against.

-jcr

|1.23.07 @ 11:36AM|#

In a comparison of web traffic I've done over at google trends, Ron Paul's search totals are second only to McCain's, which says a lot since McCain is on the news every day.


http://www.google.com/trends?q=ron+paul%2C+john+mccain%2C+mitt+romney%2Csam+brownback%2C+rudy+guliani

PS: I'm not sure how reliable this data is. The site's in beta, and Ron Paul's search totals for Florida raises questions.

|1.23.07 @ 12:14PM|#

Maybe I run in the wrong circles, but all the illegal immigrants/undocumented workers/dirty messicans/whatever you want to call people who cross the border from Mexico into the US without papers that I have known or met came here to work.

Since this is a response to my post, I want to say
just for the record, I have no problem with hispanics.
I live in New Mexico and have daily interactions with hispanic people in all aspects of my life. I find them to be hard-working, fun-loving, great-family-values people. The problem is the welfare state brings out the worst in ALL people and it attracts the dregs of ALL societies. My point is having open borders while we have this golden goose here is just asking for trouble.

|1.23.07 @ 4:48PM|#

But what about the gold standard?

|1.23.07 @ 6:49PM|#

I agree with highnumber. Maybe we just run in the wrong circles. Or maybe we are the only people who actually KNOW the type of people everyone else is judging from afar.

ALL the immigrants I have ever known ( of any status) have been the hardest working people. Many working 2 or 3 jobs and some going to school as well.

I am pro-immigration. I am open to REASONABLE arguments on the subject. However, the old "those lazy (Mexicans) want to come here for the freebies" card is not one of them.

I am a natural born US citizen with natural born ancestors going back hundreds of years, and I have no problem saying "natural born" AMERICANS are the laziest useless fucking people ( if you want to generalize by group) and ALL immigrants, even the brown ones, probably work much harder and many of the foreign people I have known are much more "American" than most Americans ( especially ones who lived through hard socialism and have no time for American socialist idiots). I think it is stupid to want to turn away people who want to live the American way of life, when we have so many here who don't.