Campaign for Liberty

Ron Paul is crazy, and his supporters are crazier. Bunch of sore losers.

 

Ron Paul is the only person in this election who is half-way logical.

 

logical? You can't be serious. What are people going to do if we get rid of all of those social programs?

 

Deal with a non-bloated Government?

 

sarcasm?

 

No.

...or is it?

I don't even know anymore

 

Ron Paul is right on the War on Drugs and the War in Iraq but wrong on most other things. Do you really support the suspension of all government programs not listed specifically in the constitusion? Like social security, highway funding, social security disabilty, etc...

 

Agreed.

Take care of themselves.... for once.

 

I disagree, you would still need a safety net for those who couldn't support themselves and you benefit directly from having those people who otherwise wouldn't be able to afford schooling and retirement. Such as a better educated work force and that work forces parents being able to care for themselves as opposed to being left in the street. We tried what you are suggesting in the 20s and the results were appalling. That's just to name a few, how about NASA, FDA, FCC, FEMA, HIPPA, etc..

 

He isn't opposed to highway funding, that is a user fee attached to tax on gasoline and tolls. He is opposed to the use of coercive taxation to pay for others.

Social security is a failure, the system is bankrupt. The private sector provides much better retirement investment opportunities, and at this point safer.

He would never completely remove all the programs the people have become dependent on, but he would phase them out of government and into the private sector. Statistically speaking government is horrible at providing services in comparison to private.

When you give too much power to the government through so many regulatory programs you provide easier access for corruption. The government, in theory of the constitution, should only be a means of protecting our negative rights (natural rights), not providing us positive rights.

 

What are you talking about exactly?

 

The private sector is driven by a profit motive. Programs like social security and it's branches cannot work if driven by a profit motive. The government is there to provide funding that the private sector can't because they aren't able to turn a profit. Examples would be NASA, Fermilab, CERN, and any other pure science programs that benefit humanity without a profit motive (there are others in unrelated fields but those are the first that come to mind). As for the 20s people are no longer able to depend on an agriculture base and are dependent on business and social programs if/when they are unable to obtain suitable work. In the 20s none of these programs were available and if the same pressures that drove people back into multigenerational homes then were present today those people would face depression like conditions. I'd rather not see the elderly in shanty towns eating cat food. As for a progressive taxation system, the rich benefit directly from the labor of the populous and the better off the the country is as a whole then the better the lifestyle of the rich. I hope I answered your questions about my post.

 

Yes, and in order to profit you have to best serve the consumer. By not forcing people to pay into the bankrupt IOU fund known as "Social Security", they could invest in sound retirement programs.

The cause of the depression was not lack of welfare programs, the market was heavily manipulated and distorted. Look to the solving the cause not appeasing the symptoms.

 

I didn't argue the cause of the depression (mismanagement of the banking system). The social security system would be perfectly solvent if they had left it out of the general funding which would have prevented its investments from being used in the general funding. To argue that they should be left to the private funding of the stock market is to leave the retirees at the mercy of the market, which.. as the current downturn and mismanagement shows, is counterproductive if you're interested in the welfare of the people in the system instead of the corporations that would benefit from the infusion of capital. Also, given the point of the earlier posts, you didn't address the necessity of government programs that don't turn a profit but are still benefitical.

 

I don't think we should get rid of all the federal departments, but we should get rid of most of them.

 

Such as, and why?

 

Well I wouldn't go so far to argue much privatization in a keynsian money system. The boom-bust cycle would not be favorable to private investments, so we should probably eliminate fractional reserve banking, our fiat system, and thus the personal income tax.

With sound banking and currency we would arguably not experience "bubbles" of malinvestment and inflation.

And there are safer options for retirement investment than the US stock market.

What *federal* government programs do you really think we need? As a union of states we initially intended for each state to impose its own policies of welfare and socialism, leaving other states free to compete with a better system.

While I do not completely support privatization of education and health care, both can probably be better served by the private sector, health care especially.

All federal programs that are necessary to carry out the functions of government are paid through user fees. What government programs are you talking about that don't turn a profit?