Yes, I am saying involvement in the political process at this stage of the game (i.e. in advance of general election) is a waste of your time. Even if it wasn't, it is boring to read about.

No, I am not referring to any 1996 Houston Chronicle article when I refer to Ron Paul as a documented racist. I am referring to various excerpts from his "Survival Report" newsletter, including:

"95 percent of the black males in Washington, D.C. are semi-criminal or entirely criminal." (Everyone loves that one here in DC)

"If you have ever been robbed by a black teen-aged male, you know how unbelievably fleet-footed they can be."

etc. He claims he did not make these statements himself, which is probably true, but if he was running a newsletter spouting crap like that, it doesn't make him any less culpable.

The anti-semitism thing which many people attribute to Paul stems from his statement that "By far the most powerful lobby in Washington of the bad sort is the Israeli government." I don't necessarily agree, but at the very least I think this argument can be made on non-ethnic/religious lines and therefore I think it is an unfair accusation to call him an anti-semite.

And on the sign thing...I know the ugly jerkoff who stomped the sign was not just some random dude. But if I was running/funding/responsible for a political event like that and some mangy looking militia types from an opposing candidate came in and made a scene, I would definitely do my best to remove them. I probably would have found a more polite/civilized/mature means than stomping their sign and standing there silently (also, had my sign been taken away in that manner, I wouldn't have just stood there and peacefully whined like a bitch), but these people are in the politics business and we can assume their intelligence is low.

Ronnie should consider getting his dong huffed in a bus station bathroom. An everyman mode of travel, and instant national name recognition. I would bet Senator Craig is probably more well known now, at least by name, than any of the non-Giuliani repub "candidates."

New call: Thompson vs Gore in 08.

One last thought...you summarized my post with "we should just be bored by the whole process and accept whatever the media and party insiders decide should be force fed to us." Which is a pretty accurate summary. Just realize this: Post what you may in a blog, but you accept it every time you pay a tax and every day you live in this country peacefully. Talk is cheap.

What I understand from your post, BillKlinton, is that because the electoral system is a sham we shouldn't even bother finding and supporting candidates and we should just be bored by the whole process and accept whatever the media and party insiders decide should be force fed to us. Hmmm, doesn't seem very responsible and if that's the way our government really is then woe is us! I'm reminded of what Ben Franklin (you know, the white, long-haired rich guy) said when asked what had been just created at the Philadelphia Convention: "A republic if you can keep it." was his answer.

A republic requires care and involvement by the people. Due to our lack of these things we have let the beast that is our central federal government get out of control. Rather than accept our fate we can choose to diminish the role of government in our lives but it takes action. I understand that this isn't everyone's cup of tea (some of you lefties and NeoConvicts like "Big Gov") and I suspect that we won't choose to shake things up until the current system of big government, big banks, big war, big welfare, big taxes and big idiocy falls flat on its face (any day now, see post below). So while I agree that Ron Paul's chances are not the greatest in overcoming the current political party bullshit, at least he (and we who support him) are trying, trying to do something within the flawed system, because that's all we've got (for now).

I look upon the Ron Paul campaign as a good warm up to what will be a major movement in America. It is a revolution, but a revolution in its infancy and while Ron Paul may not be the standard bearer in the future battles, the principles of hard/sound money, limited government and The Bill of Rights will be the major tenants of "we the insurgents".

Viva la revolucion!

P.S. Ron Paul is not a racist nor an anti-semite. You are referring to a story in the Houston Chronicle in 1996 which refers to a Ron Paul newsletter published in the 1990's which "highlighted portrayals of blacks as inclined toward crime and lacking sense about top political issues." Dr. Paul has explained that he didn't write it and it was done by a former press secretary. Even so, I would hardly call this racist (but that is neither here nor there). What Ron Paul does believe about racism is the following:

“The true antidote to racism is liberty. Liberty means having a limited, constitutional government devoted to the protection of individual rights rather than group claims. Liberty means free-market capitalism, which rewards individual achievement and competence, not skin color, gender, or ethnicity. In a free market, businesses that discriminate lose customers, goodwill, and valuable employees – while rational businesses flourish by choosing the most qualified employees and selling to all willing buyers. More importantly, in a free society every citizen gains a sense of himself as an individual, rather than developing a group or victim mentality. This leads to a sense of individual responsibility and personal pride, making skin color irrelevant. Rather than looking to government to correct what is essentially a sin of the heart, we should understand that reducing racism requires a shift from group thinking to an emphasis on individualism.”

P.S.S. The guy who stomped on the Ron Paul sign was directed to do so by the Illinois State Chairman of the Mitt Romney campaign. He wasn't just some ordinary shmo, hence the significance of that story. He was looking to start a fight, the Paulians were well behaved and didn't reciprocate.

From Jim Sinclair's MineSet newsletter: http://www.jsmineset.com/

"People do not have a clue what is really happening. All the talk everywhere, even by well placed people without a bone to grind politically and economically, keep calling this a failure in sub prime loans. This is presented as if securitized bonds (with the assumption that the collateral for the bonds were mortgages themselves) has lost all its value. This is not the case. What is worthless is a the mix of credit and default derivatives that make up the vast majority of many instruments held by financial and commercial paper dealing entities, both private and public.

Even if you forget that the economic figures recently released are whoppers and take them at face value as commentators are, you still have to ask why the equities market fails to do better. The answer is simple. Rallies in the equities are presently being supplied by those that understand the grave nature of the present problem.

This is why the attitude of the Fed is not commensurate with the gravity of the global problem being caused by the meltdown in credit and default derivatives.

If it was simple mortgages it isn’t apparent because as bad as the mortgage market is they have not all failed simultaneously as if all sub prime mortgage holders have been foreclosed on at once. That alone should give you a hint that the problem is not the advertised, but much larger.

The Fed altering their banking regulations has to give you a hint that the problem is not the advertised problem, BUT MUCH LARGER.

The financial difficulty going global has to give you a hint that the problem is not the advertised problem, BUT MUCH LARGER.

When you see bank after bank needing liquidity in substantial amounts, this has to give you a hint that the problem is not the advertised problem, BUT MUCH LARGER.

The hope for every central bank is that the real problem can be kept from public view. The truth is the public, even professionals in Wall Street, have no clue what the problem is. They know it has something to do with derivatives, but none realize it is a more than $20 trillion dollar mountain of unfunded, unregulated paper that has just been discovered to not have a market and therefore any real value.

This is why I have suggested you plan for the worst and hope for the best. Taking cautionary action before a problem occurs only requires some of your time. If you wait and try to clean up the mess after a problem happens usually there is no action that can be taken.

When the US dollar realizes the seriousness of this situation, be that now or sometime soon, the bottom will drop out.

The dominos are falling and only a few really know why. Sometimes I wish I did not understand derivatives. I would certainly be held in better light."

SAN FRANCISCO - Election season seems to have started a year earlier than normal, as Howie Hardcore, and approximately six other deadbeats and militia men shown in an exclusive internet video, have latched on to the seemingly most anti-establishment semi-mainstream presidential candidate they could find in libertarian-leaning Texas Repub Ron Paul. A demonstrated racist and alleged anti-semite (I disagree with the latter claim), Paul advocates a "return to the Constitution" approach, a logical choice for HH and his cohorts since the best anti-establishment ideas obviously come from 250 year old rich white men living in a plantation society facing approximately zero of today's issues/problems.

But that's really not the point. I make no secret of my opinion that the U.S. electoral process is a joke, at the very least, up until the general election. The "primary elections" are merely an expensive ruse during which each party gets the person it wants to run elected by controlling the press, strongly encouraging voters in demographic(s) backing its candidate to get to the polls, etc. This is why Howard Dean never had a chance to get anywhere as the '04 primaries progressed, and Paul is not even Howard Dean.

What I don't understand is why Hardcore wastes his time, and all of yours, loyal readers, with the prattling on and what almost appears to be genuine hope that something revelutionary is happening here. I know that the philosophical fantasyland that the Bay area offers makes a slight departure from reality possible, but anyone looking at this objectively realizes that we have, at its most effective, a Nader-like uprising in the works. In other words, a completely irrelevant fringe of people who, however logical their arguments/platforms may be, seem completely unfazed by the fact that the crap they do and the things they think make no difference to anyone else (except in Florida every once in a while). My thinking is that people enjoy latching on to a cause they know is going nowhere, because it validates their thinking that they are being held down by the establishment and that they are really unique and cool and free-thinking and insightful whilst the rest of us sheep march off to slaughter.

Is it because someone stomped on a sign? Now THIS I can relate to. When I went to a basketball game in 1993, I had a sign that said "Fuck Montross," and this was also ripped out of my hand and stomped by a big dude who didn't say anything. I think any time you walk into one candidate's rally carrying another's sign, and you are generally chanting stupid chants and disruptive to the goings on, you can expect to be not very well received. I don't think this is a sign of any growing realization of a free-thinking RP insurgency...but...this got me thinking...

I now have my pick for president in 2008: Eric Montross.

As an aside, if I gave a fuck about politics, this would be an interesting election to follow, because for once I really don't have a clue who each party is going to put in the general election. My early picks were Romney and Clinton, respectively, which would be a safe play by the Repubs and a disasterous one by the Dems, as Hil is utterly unelectable. Nothing in the past few months has changed my picks, but I have considerable doubts about both, especially since Romney appears to be the very preliminary frontrunner but there's no steam being put behind him, if that makes any sense.

In the end, it makes no difference.

What is it about the Ron Paul lunatic fringe that irritates the status quo? As I've read the multitude of postings on Digg about Ron Paul and the subsequent comments I can't get over about how vehement the attacks against Ron Paul and his supporters are getting. Granted, he and we are easy targets and because he is better represented by people on the Internet than in middle America I suppose we're a bit irritating to other Internet users who are not Ron Paul fans. Of course he believes in some radical ideas like getting rid of the IRS, repealing Income Tax, getting back to sound money and getting rid of the Federal Reserve. And while these are dramatic changes, we live in dramatic times so these ideas, in my opinion, are not that fringe. Anyway I would assume that the status quo would be content to merely call Paul a "freak" or "lunatic" or "tinfoil hat crowd" but I see that they are stepping it up a bit so to speak. This new level of opposition was poignantly illustrated during this weekend's Illinois Straw Poll where the state chairman for the Mitt Romney campaign ripped a Ron Paul sign out of the hands of a supporter, threw it on the ground and then had an underling step on it so that the supporter couldn't take it up again. Here's the vid:
Why do the operatives of a 1st tier candidate angrily take on a candidate who is polling at 2%. Is it because he is 2nd tier that they think they can push him around? Is that the same phenomenon that is occurring on Digg? Are these people just bullies? Or is it that Paul is actually making inroads to the 1st tier. He did win some straw polls this weekend in New Hampshire and Alabama and he came in a close third, behind Fred Thompson in the larger Illinois Straw Poll. Are the powers that be waking up to the threat that is Ron Paul? I expect more of this in the days ahead. The bigger his influence gets the more blatant the omission of coverage from the mainstream press will become and attacks against him by other candidates and their officers will become larger and perhaps more dangerous.

1. Believes in individual rights (see Bill of Rights).
2. He knows the Federal direct income tax is wrong and while a Congressman he has never voted for a tax increase. And he wants to abolish the IRS.
4. Knows what the Federal Reserve really is, a banking cartel and it is not operating in the best interests of our country.
5. Supports national sovereignty without being isolationist (no GATT, CAFTA, NAFTA, WTO and ICC).
6. Wants a much smaller Federal Government (more "Republican" rather than "Federalist" in founding father lingo). Would shrink the role of the Executive Branch rather than continually trying to increase it.
7. Has a plan for dealing with the Social Security mess, would allow young people to opt out of it while continuing coverage for those beholden to it.
8. He understands and supports the sound money principles found in the Austrian School of Economics (see Mises and Rothbard).
9. Would pull troops out of Iraq because it is not a "defensive" war. He would have gone after Bin Laden directly rather than invade two countries unnecessarily. And he won't get us into a deadly war with Iran.
10. Wants government out of regulating the Internet. Thinks tapping your phone without a warrant is unconstitutional. And wants limited legal powers for the FDA and FCC.

I've stayed away from posting on Lowbar lately, mostly because I've wanted to spare my friends my opinions on who would make a great President. I know we probably don't see eye to eye on this matter. But I've got too much to say so the dam is breaking and from here on out you'll probably see me rant on and on about the "fringe" GOP candidate, Ron Paul, whom I've decided is a super fucking rockstar. So with that introduction I'll introduce you to where the Ron Paul campaign stands in the media with this quote from Monsters and Critics :

"The mainstream media appears loathe to talk about the other candidates they deem fringe, like Dennis Kucinich and Ron Paul, but they may have no choice as the public forces the issue and demands that these men, despite their disagreements and political stances, deserve respect and equal time to be heard."