Let's review what I said earlier.


You know, the thing about these Ron Paul supporters is that they can't accept even the vaguest possibility of them being wrong. They will not be proven wrong. It's just not going to happen. That's why they approach every single point of criticism with "no you're wrong, because" instead of "this is a valid concern, but we can explain this with thus and so". No. Whenever they see criticism, they immediately go on the defense. There's not even any argumentation. Just look at the posts of BlizzardVeers and Phanixis. One didn't even explain why he supports Ron Paul and the libertarian viewpoint, the other basically just quoted Omega's post and said "nah" to every single point he made. He didn't even try to back up the "facts" he mentioned. Such as his "fact" that "the U.N. has a habit of pulling us into wars". He says it like it's a fact, while it is in fact ridiculous, and does not mention even a single shred of evidence to back up such a ludicrous claim. Neither wrote a post in which they actually explain why they're right, like Omega and I both did.

[...]

Supporting an alternative candidate like Ron Paul is probably very exciting, because a lot of people in our demographic (people in their teens and early twenties) like to be alternative. But in the end, you can't substitute a good understanding of politics and the world with a standard list of demagogic statements.


Phanixis, you are a demagogue. You claim to know a lot about politics but say frighteningly little of substance.

I suppose I can understand some of your concerns.  But in regard to providing evidence to back my claims, sometimes I provide simple reasons and statements for my positions, in sometimes I go into greater detail providing specific evidence.  The reason why I often stick to basic statements is to keep these types of rebuttals concise, these topics can get very long very fast.  If particular issue is then taken with a given statement, it can always be further elaborated with evidence in a later post.  I am merely trying to strike a balance between being concise I providing sufficient evidence.

Furthermore, I haven't seen opponents using significantly greater evidence than myself in these Ron Paul topics.  They seem to start with a bunch hyperlinks, some of which could be taken as evidence, but then proceed essentially along the same lines as my own arguments.  If you do not believe me, consider a statement you just made:

You can't even explain why you really want to pull out of the U.N., that organization that has been proven to greatly reduce the amount of violent conflicts in the world, to which every single country in the world is a member.

You just made this statement, as if it were as clear as the light of day.  No evidence was provided to the effect that
1.) violent conflicts in the world have gone down
2.) the U.N. was the cause in the reduction of violence

You might actually have evidence of this or seen statistics that demonstrate this is true, but you never posted them here.  You just made the statement.  This goes for the rest of the reasons for your support for the U.N.

The U.N.'s purpose is to help people everywhere in the world by providing food and development to those who are in desperate need of it. Their peacekeeping soldiers are there to help prevent bloody conflicts from occurring.

Sure their good reasons for supporting the U.N., but you never provided the evidence this is true.  I had argued that it would be beneficial to leave the UN because the have dragged the US into wars, it was a good reason but with no evidence, perhaps I decided the fact was obvious as well.

Mind you, you were probably constrained for time and had no interest in provided detailed evidence for every claim you made in regard to the UN.  On an internet forum, such as this, this is perfectly understandable.  But please don't go criticizing me for not providing detailed evidence for every claim I made when you are not living up to the same standards you wish to impose on me.

As far as the demagogue claim goes, there may be faults in my arguments, but I don't ever remeber claiming that I was an expert of any kind in anything in this topic or even on these forums.  As long as I can remember, I have just been providing arguments.  If you think you have seen me claim I was an expert on a particular topic or claim that I  had complete understanding or mastery of a particular topic, feel free to quote me making those claims from whatever topics you can find.

I regard to some of your other complaints:

For example, you never mention exactly why it's a good thing to be against the rights of black people to vote as harbored in the Civil Rights Act of 1964. You simply state that "he provided some criticism". You don't mention what kind of criticism and why it's a good thing he did it. Because you don't know that. (By the way, he didn't just "provide some criticism", he actually voted "no". He also sponsored a bill that would weaken it.)

Ok, I didn't just claim he provided some criticism.  If you read my original posted, I actually pointed out that it was house resolution 676 that Ron Paul voted, which was a celebration of the Civil Rights Act, and not the actual Civil Rights Acts of 1964(after all, he was not in Congress in 1964).  In regard to the other bill, it pointed out it was forced busing, but I probably should have elaborated on how I came to that conclusion.  Still, Omega never criticized me for making that leap in logic, he just said it was necessary for desegregation.  In regard to this particular bill, here is the text:

Public School Civil Rights Act of 1984 - Eliminates inferior Federal court jurisdiction to issue any order requiring the assignment or transportation of students to public schools on the basis of race, color, or national origin.

Permits individuals and school boards to seek relief from court orders made prior to this Act unless the court makes certain findings, including: (1) that the acts giving rise to the order intentionally and specifically caused the segregation; (2) that no other remedy would work; and (3) that the benefits of the order outweigh its economic, social, and educational costs.

Basically, it is saying that a federal court is no longer allowed to assign transportation to students based on race.  If a student was assigned transportation based on race in the past based on his race, that student would no longer be bound by that particular order.  So without this bill, a federal court could assign a student transportation based on his race, and that student was stuck with this arrangement.  This actual sounds racist to me.  In any case, this practice has a more common name, "forced busing".  

I of course just threw out the term "forced busing", assumed everyone had read the link and new what I was talking about, and moved on.  No one posted saying that they read the link and found that it clearly wasn't forced busing, so I felt no need to elaborate further on the particular claim.

Also, as a matter of course, I have been reading many of the links provided and providing responses based on the content of the link, even going as far as to point out when the links weren't pointed to the correct material.  You can actually see this in my past responses if you read them carefully.

You mumble something about "U.N. mind control", completely ignorant of the fact that the U.S. is one of the permanent members that has every right to not comply when the U.N. wishes it to do something.

What I said about UN mind control was very specific.  Someone had intially placed a link supposedly proving the Ron Paul claimed the UN was mind controlling college students.  I read the link, saw no such statements, and pointed that fact out.

The total amount of gold that has ever been mined is estimated at around 142,000 tonnes. The price of gold has wildly fluctuated, being $27,300 per kilogram in 1980, around $8,000 per kilogram in 1999, and again around $27,500 in 2008. According to Kitco, gold is currently $975 per troy ounce, which is about $31,000 per kilogram. Now, that would mean that the current combined value of the entire planetary stock of gold is around $4.402 trillion. That's much less than the amount of cash circulating in the U.S. alone, which is estimated at $7.4 trillion. Since not all gold can be brought to U.S. bank vaults, either, the price of gold would be obscenely higher than it should be if the U.S. were to implement a gold standard. This in itself is not even the largest complaint against the gold standard (there's also the cost of even maintaining one, estimated at about 2.5% of the U.S.'s GDP, for example), but as you can see, things aren't that simple.

Now that is a good point, I will have to look into that somewhat further.  You could still deal with it by running gold as legal tender alongside U.S. fiat currency, although that wasn't quite what we were originally discussing.  Although I have no idea were you got the 2.5% GDP figure, that seems far to high a figure for the maintainance of any monetary system.

By the way, there are also nobel prize winning economists who strongly oppose the gold standard. I'll leave it as a readers' exercise to figure out who they are. (Annoying when people do that, isn't it?)

I never said there were no important economist who opposed the gold standard, I just pointed that there were also prominent economist who supported returning to it.

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What about all that foreign trade we did before 1913, when we were neither in a gigantic bubble or in space?
1913 was 95 years ago. If you believe that what happened then is still largely relevant with the globalization we're facing today, you must be dreaming. Ignoring the idea of global collaboration and integration at a time like this would be economical suicide. I'm not even exclusively talking about the gold standard here.

Sure, but why are you so certain that it would no longer work when you haven't seen in action during the 21st.  I mention 1913 because that was the most recent date in which the gold standard was truly in place(without the federal reserve), although some semblance of it was retained up until Nixon, whereas there is nothing to indicate that we would be unable to use the gold standard in our modern economy provided we were able to reinstate it successfully.

This is actually my largest complaint about Ron Paul. He ignores the fact that there's a world out there that's not part of the U.S. but still plays an important role in your daily lives. It's for this reason he also wants all U.S. troops on foreign soil to return home. He doesn't realize or doesn't care that this will send a shock wave of conflict through the regions that depend on U.S. troops that cannot be reinforced by U.N. troops on a short-term basis. (Then again, you think that the U.N. just controls minds into taking part in wars, so I cannot possibly expect you to provide a reasonable answer to that.)

Ron Paul can be a bit too isolationist at times, but this is something I believe we actually need to do.  We are deep in debt and running a huge deficit, and we really do not have the luxury of indefinitely stationing troops across the entire globe.  I do not believe that the world is as quite as dependent on our troops(or on us in general) as we like to think.  We can at the very least, remove our troops stationed in stable regions of the world such as Europe.

please don't post again, thanks! you're clearly at worst a liar and at best purposefully ignorant and Ron Paul will never get elected, he was an awful racist candidate, you all wasted your money by supporting him, and thank god for that. it's no longer relevant and all you did was make everyone realize you are an awful idiotic human being.

Its been a week, so I might have just left this topic be.  But seeing as how your so full of crap and full of yourself, I figured what the heck.

This material was published by writers other then Paul.
no they weren't, no writer ever stepped forward, no writer was ever disclosed, the "writers" had the odd and queer foresight to write as if he was Paul many many times, he hired the man distributing his letters for his campaign, and in 1990 he claimed authorship of them by saying they were academic tongue in cheek quotes. and if all if this was untrue it doesn't change the fact that this is just criminally irresponsible and he shouldn't be President if he can't check racism in a small newsletter he's been running for decades that he signs off on personally.

Why would the actual writer come forward when it would obviously destroy his or her public image?  You act as if the writers unwillingness to expose himself to the public is somehow proof that Ron Paul wrote these articles.

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This is just criticism of the TSA.
exclusionary, buddy, it was a racist criticism of the TSA.

Precisely how is it racist or exclusionary.  Ron Paul merely mentioned the TSA, he mentioned nothing of the particular race or creed of the TSA members.

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What Ron Paul voted against was a bill called House Resolution 676, which celebrated the 40th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act, not the renewal of the Civil Rights Act, because he wished to expressed grievances over the additional regulation of businesses that resulted.
ah yes this is so much better when you vote against a celebration because it stopped people from kicking out niggers.

There is a big difference between providing some criticism during the celebration of the civil rights act and voting against the act itself.

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This is a minor change in the IRS's ability to evaluate private schools, it is difficult to tell what the actual effect would without more background and the portion of IRS code this is effecting.
the effect would be that private schools could now discriminate and the IRS can't check them on it, thanks for playing.

The last time I checked, it was not the IRS's responsiblility to enforce discrimination laws, so it does not follow that private schools would suddenly be able to discriminate.

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This is a prohibition against forced busing, no problems here.
the Civil Rights Act and the "forced busing" was the only way people could stop racists like Paul from preventing them from getting their rights. don't say no problems. I and every minority have a huge problem with repealing it.

Forced busing has never been necessary to desegregate schools.  Forced busing allows the states school system to force children to attend distant schools as oppose to local schools.  The principle behind desegregation should be to allow students to attend the school of their choice, not to shuffle kids around over huge distances in order to produce the demographics politicans desired.  The basis for racial policy should be to treat children of all races like human beings, not to shuffle them around like pawns in order to create the appearance of racial integration.  Not to mention, it rather sucks for a kid who has to spend 1-2 hours each day making round trips to distant schools.

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For a pro-life candidate, this is about as reasonable as a pro-life bill is going to get.
for a libertarian its completely ridiculous and an infringement on a woman's rights.

Nobody ever said Ron Paul was a libertarian, he is merely closer than the other candidates.

Furthermore, even libertarians recognize limited government authority.  We obviously believe that the government has the authority to prevent murder, so any libertarian who was convinced that abortion is murder might find restricting abortion acceptable.  Also, as long as it is still accepted that their are some curtails on the liberties of minors until they become adults(which there currently are), this could also be deemed acceptable on these grounds. 

Ultimately, this particular position does not restrict liberty, but only privacy.  As it stands, the legal guardians of children can abrige their childrens privacy under most circumstances anyway.

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The bill in this link does appears to be entirely different from what is described here.
no it isn't. glad to see you've bought into the jargon of the estate tax instead of the reality and figured out something every single political economic theorist hasn't though. you sure are a clever one.

There are plenty of theorist out their who have postulated the same effect.  Besides, it doesn't take a Ph.D. in economics to figure out that if 50% of your businesses assets are seized, the business might go under.

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No, he is merely ensuring that the state's retain authority over marriage license. The state's are currently responsible for marriage license, and have also shown a greater willingness to accept gay marriages than the federal government, which the religious right as been attempting to use to block gay marriages. So protecting the states from federal courts may actually be helpful towards gay rights.
except the greatest help to gay rights is to be for gay marriage. the bill anulls marriages as soon as they cross state lines. this is not helpful to gay rights at all.

Its better that gays have rights in at least a few states than no states at all.  And the regions in which gay rights will be accepted will expand as more state governments are convinced to legalize gay marriages.  At the moment, I see few individuals in power willing to grant gays the right to marry on the federal level.

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Being a Christian, he believes life begins a conception. The link you provided provides no evidence for the other claims.
as a libertarian he has an obligation to fight for all rights, even ones he dislikes, and yes it does, you clearly have no idea what removing judicial review would do.

Again, he is not a true libertarian, only the closest to being a libertarian.

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Incidentally, this is also the bill that defines the civil war in Sudan as a genocide, perhaps he considered it just a civil war and not genocide.
you clearly didn't read the link, where he explained his horrible motives for giving government funds to Sudan.

Horribly reasons?  The link just sends you to a site that list voting records. 

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The U.N. has an annoying habit of pulling us into wars we do not need to be in.
as a member of the ruling seven the US has the right to not follow any UN action and frequently goes over the UN's head. once again, you demonstrate a complete lack of knowledge on the subject.

So, better to join the U.N. and then defy it(or dominate it) then to not join it and simply retain peaceful relations with other nations?

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We could use money that will retain its value.will destroy the economy according to every major economic thinker that isn't hilariously out of date.

There are actually a great deal of economist that believe that we should return to the gold standard.  Furthermore, the sustained inflation that we have been suffering the end of the gold standard cannot be denied.

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Some criticism of particular ideologies being pushed on college students, but nothing about U.N. mind control.way to be exclusionary

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Mr. Speaker, I rise today to introduce a concurrent resolution expressing the sense of the Congress that the United States should withdraw from the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).

UNESCO sponsors the International Baccalaureate program, which seeks to indoctrinate US primary and secondary school students through its ``universal curriculum'' for teaching global citizenship, peace studies and equality of world cultures. This program, started in Europe, is infiltrating the American school system.

U.N. Mind Control isn't even mentioned in this quote.  He wants to pull out of UNESCO, but we already knew that because he wants to pull out of the UN.

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That is the general idea.will destroy society according to every major political thinker that isn't hilariously out of date.

Really?  Abolishing the federal department of education will destroy society, even though the states are the ones who are essentially responsible for paying for and running the educational system?  And EVERY major political thinker who is in date has said that?  I suppose you checked.  Oh, and the disapperance social security, despite the fact that it did not even exist for most of U.S. history, will result in the destruction of society.  Oddly enough, often when I am presented with the thoughts of political thinkers, it sounds like social security is on the path to its own destruction.

Perhaps these absurb sweeping generalization backed by no evidence should be avoided.

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that inflation and deflation are positive and negative changes in the consumer price index respectively:

1.) The price deflation that is so often mentioned as a cause of the Great Depression did not happen until after the market crash of 1929 and the Depression began. Furthermore, the United States was actually accumulating gold during that time, meaning that the price deflation after 1929 was the result of the Federal Reserve removing federal reserve notes from circulation.

2.) Prior to the 1920s, their was a huge surge in the consumer price index, which rose from 9.9 in 1913 when the Federal Reserve was created to 20.0 in 1920. During the 1920s, their was a contraction in prices for the first two years, but then in remained relatively constant around 17.1 until the market crash of 1929. Therefore, the volatile 1920s followed a massive expansion in credit during the 1910s, and despite a two year contraction, prices during this time were nearly twice as high as in 1913. Therefore, any claims in regard to the Great Depression being a result of prior deflation simply are not true, because with the exception of 1920-1922, deflation was not even taking place, and the 1920-1922 are minor compared to inflation occuring during the 1910s.

3.) The Federal Reserve obviously had plenty of power to expand the money supply despite the gold standard, seeing as how in managed to double the consumer price index in less then a decade.

Below is a table I obtained from the Bureau of Labor Statistics containing the data I am describing:

Year CPI

1913 9.9
1914 10.0
1915 10.1
1916 10.9
1917 12.8
1918 15.1
1919 17.3
1920 20.0
1921 17.9
1922 16.8
1923 17.1
1924 17.1
1925 17.5
1926 17.7
1927 17.4
1928 17.1
1929 17.1
1930 16.7
1931 15.2
1932 13.7
1933 13.0
1934 13.4
1935 13.7
1936 13.9
1937 14.4
1938 14.1
1939 13.9
1940 14.0
glad to see you think you know more about economics than Dr. J. Bradford Delong, a Harvard educated economics professor who taught at Harvard, Boston University, MIT, and currently teaches at Berkeley and all these people:

http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/GoldStandard.html -Dr. Michael D. Bordo, London School of Economics, currently teaching at Rutgers
http://www.econbrowser.com/archives/2005/12/the_gold_standa.html -James D. Hamilton, Professor of Economics at University of California
and pretty much everyone else, such as professor Barry J. Eichengreen who wrote the fantastic Golden Fetters, who has ever published a paper on the subject. ps: EVERYONE ELSE. there are no serious economists advocating a return to the gold standard (cue Greenspan namedrop).

regardless, no doubt you will be angry that I suggested you have zero credibility compared to a man who taught at MIT and Harvard and got his PhD from the top university in the country instead of refuting your arguments but let's give it a shot.

Well excuse me for attempting to present some facts and evidence.  I merely presented a couple of basic facts.  I did not know that presenting arguments on this forum is automatically considered a direct challenge to every economist every who might have been critical of the gold standard.

Besides, there are some impressive individuals who would like to see the gold standard restored, such Dr. Robert Lucas and Dr. Robert Mundell, both of whom hold the Nobel Prize in Economics and are widely regarded as the experts in their field.  Does you rejection of the gold standard mean that you believe you are smarter are more learned than these individuals?

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1.) The price deflation that is so often mentioned as a cause of the Great Depression did not happen until after the market crash of 1929 and the Depression began. Furthermore, the United States was actually accumulating gold during that time, meaning that the price deflation after 1929 was the result of the Federal Reserve removing federal reserve notes from circulation.
by being stuck to the gold standard (if you read the link you'd know this), the Federal Reserve was unable to prevent the Great Depression. runs on the dollar resulted in the crash, and had the dollar not been tied to such a horrible (arbitrary) standard, it would have never happened.

I couldn't help but notice that for two centuries, are country had no federal reserve, and yet we had nothing like the Great Depression, despite the fact that their existed no federal reserve to step in a stop it.

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2.) Prior to the 1920s, their was a huge surge in the consumer price index, which rose from 9.9 in 1913 when the Federal Reserve was created to 20.0 in 1920. During the 1920s, their was a contraction in prices for the first two years, but then in remained relatively constant around 17.1 until the market crash of 1929. Therefore, the volatile 1920s followed a massive expansion in credit during the 1910s, and despite a two year contraction, prices during this time were nearly twice as high as in 1913. Therefore, any claims in regard to the Great Depression being a result of prior deflation simply are not true, because with the exception of 1920-1922, deflation was not even taking place, and the 1920-1922 are minor compared to inflation occuring during the 1910s.
I'm amazed you think you figured out some CPI shit that professors of economics would just magically ignore. did you know btw there was a huge depression before the Fed was around? the Panic of 1819 huh how did that happen....

I would refute this better but it's late and you saying that you just FIGURED OUT ALL THEM STATS THAT PROFESSOR WHO GAVE A LAYMAN'S VERSION DIDN'T GO INTO DETAIL ERGO HE'S WRONG is pretty funny. that and considering how much you've lied above and said OH IT DOESN'T SAY THAT leads me to believe your facts are almost certainly grossly inaccurate!

Like it or not, those facts are straight from the Bureau of Labor statistics.  It would be entertaining to have you explained how I exaggerated numerical data.

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3.) The Federal Reserve obviously had plenty of power to expand the money supply despite the gold standard, seeing as how in managed to double the consumer price index in less then a decade.
no. these have nothing to do with each other. what are you, stupid?

okay let's ignore your huge fucking selective bias by skipping over the salient part of the link provided and jumping to AHA SEE THE GOLD STANDARD HELPED THE GREAT DEPRESSION because I don't care and there isn't a single piece of economic literature that agrees with you. let's play the hypothetical scenario game.

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The US converting to a gold standard would require them to re-issue all currency in circulation as a fixed amount of gold. Since the US government doesn't have a lot of gold, it would mean a lot less currency. Thus, they would need to purchase gold — as a result, the price of gold would skyrocket. The US government would have to sell assets in order to purchase the now absurdly expensive gold, or run a deficit. Taxes would be forced to rise to finance this.

However, this would be pointless, since approximately 1 trillion dollars of goods flows out of the US economy every year. Thus, the economy would literally bled gold bullion. The only way to balance out is a recession, so deep and crippling, that it would eliminate the US trade deficit.

Okay, the regulatory mechanism for the gold standard works like this. Suppose we have two countries, A and B.

Now, for whatever reason, country A is on the gold standard. It doesn't matter what country B is on. Now, A and B buy and sell goods to one another. In order to buy and sell goods, the people in these countries need to purchase currency from one another to buy them.

When an economy buys things from another economy, they need to purchase money from the other economy to buy goods. So, for instance, country A needs to buy country B's currency (call it B$) to buy goods from country B. And vice versa.

Now, as they buy and sell, there usually will be an imbalance been how much people buy and sell in a given country. For instance, country A may be buying more from country B than it is selling. This leads to an imbalance in the currencies, because people in country A will be buying up B$ and selling A$. When it all comes out in the wash, there is a surplus of A$ on the market -- that is, the demand for A$ is lower than the amount supplied.

Now, people will work to correct this surplus, because it's pointless for them to have A$ sitting around no one wants to own. In a quasi-fiat system of freely traded currencies, the exchange rate does this. Bankers and financial dealers adjust the relative values of the currencies to make the "price" of A$ optimal. Currencies wax and wane in value based on their economies and variety of other complex mumbo jumbo which doesn't really matter here.

However, in the gold standard this doesn't happen, because A$ are linked to a fixed amount of gold -- that is, a commodity. Instead, people who hold A$ start redeeming them for gold, in order to sell them as a useful commodity. As a result, Country A's stockpile of gold, which they use to back their currency on, dwindles. In turn, the supply of money for country A falls.

Not enough money is circulation causes the economy to constrict, since doing basic business becomes increasingly difficult. It also can cause deflation, and a host of other problems. In short, the only way for A's domestic economy to come into equillibrium is for it to crash. Businesses shut down, and domestic demand for goods slows as the economy stalls.

While this is a bad thing, it does do one very good thing. If you have no money, because the economy is in recession, you can't very well afford to buy items from country B. Thus, the supply of A$ on the market falls, and people stop redeeming the excess for gold. The process brings the two markets into equilibrium again, and all is well in the world of international commerce.

Of course, the side effects are not exactly pleasant for people in country A.

The initial premise of this argument is faulty.  Sure, if you back the dollar with the same amount gold it was backed with in 1913, it is unlikely you could ever find enough gold to back all the currency in circulation.  But this entire scenario can be avoided simply by backing the dollar with less gold, in this case approximately 4 hundreths of the quantity used to back the 1913 dollar.  Then, their would be sufficient gold in our possesion to back all currency, without the need to import so much as a ounce of gold, and the imaginary disaster that befalls country A is averted(hooray!).

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The big problem is that once you move in to the scale of global markets on a gold standard you can no longer directly control the flow of money in and out of the country. This is well and dandy if you are running a trade surplus; money/gold flows in while goods flow out and you see a healthy level of inflation (gasp! Poor person tax ) and economic growth. Reverse that situation for a country running a trade deficit and a large amount of currency flows out of the country overseas. Lacking all this commodity based currency causes the value of money/gold to surge to the heavens and you see massive deflation. There isn't enough money in circulation so economic growth and investment stagnates and causes people to hoard what little they have left and it spurs a depression cycle.

Actually, the deflation will act as an automatic control that will vastly discourage this type of behavior.  Because deflation is beneificial to individuals who save and invest, and harmful to individuals who borrow, individuals will provided with increased incentives to invest and save money they might otherwise spend on consumption.  Less consumption means fewer imports as fewer items are being consumed, and savings and investment encourage the development of new capita and business which will seek markets to sell their goods.  But because of decreased domestic consumption, these businesses on the receiving end of investiment will be forced to seek oversea markets, increasing exports.  Once the imports and exports stabilize, deflation will slow/cease, and a normal level of consumption will resume.

Not to mention that there simply isn't enough gold out there to buy up to recognize and back the value of our economy so you would need to mandate a massive devaluation of currency right off the bat just to make the initial adjustment.

Again, you just need to set your intial ratio of dollars to gold to ensure their is sufficient gold to back the current amount of currency in circulation.

Fiat systems work because the value of your currency is an aggregate of the total worth of your economy and is being constantly re-evaluated and re-appraised by other economies, countries, and foreign businesses.

And yet it is the Federal Reserve, not these other economies, countries, or foreign businesses, that ultimately regulates the amount of currency in circulation.  So if you need to incorporate these entities into the value of your currency, and they are not currently being incorporated into the value of your currency, how is this system considered "working".

Only so much "Jew manipulation" can happen because if you push it too hard everyone else realizes you are trying to "print money" that doesn't have real economic backing and they devalue your currency for you because of that. Trying to tie your currency to a rock or oil or some other singular (or small set) of commodities is retarded because it will never be a truly accurate measure of your economy's worth, it might only keep in line for some periods of time if you are lucky.

Gold is not intended to provide an absolutely perfect measure of the economy's worth, only a reasonably stable referenced through which the demand of goods can be compared.

TL;DR Gold Standard only works if you put the entire continental united states in a gigantic bubble and blast it off in to space so you never have to deal with any foreign bodies again

What about all that foreign trade we did before 1913, when we were neither in a gigantic bubble or in space?  It worked then, despite all your theories and hypothetical scenarios.  You talk as if the gold standard has never been used with any success.

okay lets see if you can figure these out?

what gets me is the complete dishonesty you've been peddling. you clearly ignore salient points and jump on those you have weak rejoinders to. I'll at least admit I don't give a fuck about the Great Depression and the reason I linked had nothing to do with it (and even then you ignored the evidence like how every country not on the gold standard was okay and you know, the basic economic theory that makes your argument impossible), but you're just skipping over the bad parts, aren't you tex? whoa he didn't SAY mind control how can you exaggerate it...he just said the UN was secretly indoctrinating students.

Yes, the horror, I used evidence when talking about the Great Depression and I don't use mind control and indoctrination interchangeably.  Surely, deception knows no greater depths.  Such are the perils of the internet.

Glad to see we have another Ron Paul supporter, Blizzard.  Let's see if I can't help you rebutt some of these claims.  Let's go back to the source:

Ron Paul had several newsletters printed under his name over several decades that were pervasive with anti-semetic, homophobic, racist, and extreme right-wing paranoid conspiracy theory ramblings.

This material was published by writers other then Paul.  At the time of publication, Ron Paul was working as a Gynecologist and not as a Congressman, resulting in a clear lack of oversight over his publications.  He has publically apologized and taken moral responsiblity for allowing such racist views to be published in his newsletter.

Despite denying any connection to these newletters that bore his name--and were published by "Ron Paul & Associates"--for decades, Ron Paul continues to make prejudice remarks, describing those working for the Transportation Security Administration as looking "more suspicious to [him] than most Americans who are getting checked,"

This is just criticism of the TSA.

 

not to mention that he not too long ago voted against the renewal of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and published his reasons for disaproval with the Act. 

What Ron Paul voted against was a bill called House Resolution 676, which celebrated the 40th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act, not the renewal of the Civil Rights Act, because he wished to expressed grievances over the additional regulation of businesses that resulted.

It is not surprising that Ron Paul continues to make these types of remarks considering the newletters and his legislative past, where he sponsored a bill that would make it easier for private schools to discriminate,

This is a minor change in the IRS's ability to evaluate private schools, it is difficult to tell what the actual effect would without more background and the portion of IRS code this is effecting.

 

another that would weaken the Civil Rights Act of 1964,

This is a prohibition against forced busing, no problems here.

and finally one that would require unmarried minors to notify parents they requested an abortion or contraceptives,

For a pro-life candidate, this is about as reasonable as a pro-life bill is going to get.  Minor's need to get there parent's written permission just to bring some aspirin to school, yet they can off an unborn child without even having to tell their parent's about it!  Mind you, they can still perform the abortion without their parent's approval, this only ensures that their parents will be aware of it.

"[prohibit] the expenditure of federal funds to any organization which presents male or female homosexuality as an acceptable alternative lifestyle or which suggest that it can be an acceptable lifestyle," endorse "corporal punishment" against children, and repeal the estate tax--a tax which affects only the wealthiest of Americans. 

The bill in this link does appears to be entirely different from what is described here.  However, in regard to the estate tax, this tax takes approximately 50% of the accumulated wealth of an individual upon his death.  Now besides the fact that the individual already paid taxes on this money when he earned it, and by all rights should be allowed to pass it on to his children, it also carries a nasty practical effect.  Private business in the individuals name will be taxed, essentially forcing the business to pay 50% of its value to the government.  Because it is unlikely any small business can suddenly sell off 50% of its assets and still remain intact, this forces the individual inheriting the business to sell off the entire business in order to pay the estates tax on the business.  The ultimate result is that small businesses are unlikely to survive their owner's death.  They instead get bought up by corporation which are not effecting by the estates tax, resulting in the consulidation of large numbers of small family business in to fewer, incorporated businesses.

He has also recently published articles stating that he believes that the Left is waging a war on Christmas, that Churches should serve a role in society eclipsing that of the state

He is a Christian, he just wants individuals to be able to openly celebrate Christian holidays.  I would hardly call that believing in a war on Christmas.  The link provides no evidence for your second claim.

, and that he opposes gay marriage

. 

No, he is merely ensuring that the state's retain authority over marriage license.  The state's are currently responsible for marriage license, and have also shown a greater willingness to accept gay marriages than the federal government, which the religious right as been attempting to use to block gay marriages.  So protecting the states from federal courts may actually be helpful towards gay rights.

Plus, Ron Paul has recently (6/6/07) introduced legislation that would define life as beginning at conception and legislation that would prevent the Supreme Court from hearing cases on the Establishment Clause or the right to privacy, permitting the return of sodomy laws and the like--a bill which he has repeated reintroduced.  (A list of all the ridiculous bills he has sponsored over the past few decades can be found here.)

Being a Christian, he believes life begins a conception.  The link you provided provides no evidence for the other claims.

He was the sole vote against divesting US federal government investments in corporations doing business with the genocidal government of the Sudan.

Incidentally, this is also the bill that defines the civil war in Sudan as a genocide, perhaps he considered it just a civil war and not genocide.

He wants to pull out of the U.N.

,

The U.N. has an annoying habit of pulling us into wars we do not need to be in.

disband NATO,

NATO was formed to counter the threat the Soviet Union presented to the Western world.  Seeing as how their is no longer a Soviet Union, I don't see anything wrong with disbanding NATO.  What is wrong with temporary alliances anyway?

abolish the federal reserve,

It has been constantly devaluaing the dollar over the majority of the past century, and needs to go.

reinstate the Gold Standard,

We could use money that will retain its value.

believes in New World Order conspiracy theories,

He mentioned it in passing.  New World Order is a vague term that could mean several things.  It is not necessarily an endorsement of a conspiracy theory.

believes that the International Baccalaureate program is U.N. mind control, and...

Some criticism of particular ideologies being pushed on college students, but nothing about U.N. mind control.

Aw hell, just take a look at his own website, where he advocates abolishing the Department of Education, the Food & Drug Administration, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Social Security Administration, and a ton of other agencies that provide vital public services.

That is the general idea.

if I was omeg I would outline these but instead I'm going to lol at the fact you told us to wikipedia shit when I got a bunch of anarchist books right next to me and omeg probably knows more about libertarianism than you do considering how fascinated he is by how stupid it is.

here's a gold standard link: http://econ161.berkeley.edu/Politics/whynotthegoldstandard.html

oh and regardless of what he says about not knowing: in 1990 (remember, he KEPT WRITING THESE after this), he said the quotes were "tongue in cheek, academic" writings.

so he knew.

he KNEW.

and he kept on truckin!

Ok, in regard to the Great Depression being caused by the Gold Standard and the resulting deflation, two things need to be mentioned.  Please note that inflation and deflation are positive and negative changes in the consumer price index respectively:

1.) The price deflation that is so often mentioned as a cause of the Great Depression did not happen until after the market crash of 1929 and the Depression began.  Furthermore, the United States was actually accumulating gold during that time, meaning that the price deflation after 1929 was the result of the Federal Reserve removing federal reserve notes from circulation.

2.) Prior to the 1920s, their was a huge surge in the consumer price index, which rose from 9.9 in 1913 when the Federal Reserve was created to 20.0 in 1920.  During the 1920s, their was a contraction in prices for the first two years, but then in remained relatively constant around 17.1 until the market crash of 1929.  Therefore, the volatile 1920s followed a massive expansion in credit during the 1910s, and despite a two year contraction, prices during this time were nearly twice as high as in 1913.  Therefore, any claims in regard to the Great Depression being a result of prior deflation simply are not true, because with the exception of 1920-1922, deflation was not even taking place, and the 1920-1922 are minor compared to inflation occuring during the 1910s.

3.) The Federal Reserve obviously had plenty of power to expand the money supply despite the gold standard, seeing as how in managed to double the consumer price index in less then a decade.

Below is a table I obtained from the Bureau of Labor Statistics containing the data I am describing:

Year  CPI

1913 9.9
1914 10.0
1915 10.1
1916 10.9
1917 12.8
1918 15.1
1919 17.3
1920 20.0
1921 17.9
1922 16.8
1923 17.1
1924 17.1
1925 17.5
1926 17.7
1927 17.4
1928 17.1
1929 17.1
1930 16.7
1931 15.2
1932 13.7
1933 13.0
1934 13.4
1935 13.7
1936 13.9
1937 14.4
1938 14.1
1939 13.9
1940 14.0

I am glad we are back to arguments that both coherent and not condescending.

Lawlz, Constitutionalism. Just because some things (like the Federal Reserve) don't exist in the Constitution doesn't mean they are unnecessary. Our country was ridiculously small at the point the Constitution was ratified, and has grown several times its original size since then. Regulation of funds would be... difficult, to say the least, without a federal entity to oversee operations.

With a gold standard you essentially are not regulating funds, rather a almost constant but slowly growing level of currency is kept in circulation.  If anything, this is easier to managed than dealing with a national monetary policy.  Also, it seems that as the country grows, it becomes increasingly more difficult to regulate anything, including monetary policy, using a single central authority, as that authority must account for the increasingly complex details of the nations economy.  If anything, increased size should make decentralized regulation and self-regulation more desirable.

And apparently abolishing the Second Bank of the United States didn't help any back in the day. Panic of 1837, anyone? It was also caused by Specie Circular, initiated by Andrew Jackson, which required money to be back up by gold and silver specie. A.K.A gold standard. Didn't work very well. And Ron Paul is (correct me if I'm wrong, please) proposing we do the same thing. Just think of how badly this would end up with the United States population several times the size it was in 1837...

That is true, and abolishing the Federal Reserve could cause the same problem if we are not careful.  However, the problem in 1837 didn't simply result from backing currency by gold, it resulted from the near instantenous devaluation of currency.  A similar problem would occur if we demanded that the currency value should immediatly return to its 1913 value, in which case we would have to pull the majority of money out of circulation.  However, if the existing currency in circulation were simply backed by gold at its current value(basically backing each dollar by far less gold than in 1913), this problem can be avoided.  It won't restore the value of the dollar, but it should stop inflation, which has been allowed to proceed for almost a century.

Some things Ron Paul says are very interesting and admittedly may be beneficial to America, but I don't think adhering strictly to the Constitution will get us anywhere. Times have changed, and if we don't change with them, the country will be left behind. Certainly, the Constitution is the basis of our government and provides for liberties for American citizens. That doesn't mean we can't deviate from it where it is "necessary and proper" to do so.

But when is it necessary and proper to do so?  The downside to the necessary and proper clause is that the one clause essentially overrides the rest of the Constitution.  You can either obey all the restrictions listed in the rest of the document, or this single clause can let you disregard any section of the Constitution that is causing inconvenience at a whim.  We are  lucky the elastic clause has as of yet been directed at something fundamental, such as free speech or habeous corpus.

Also, the Constitution provides plenty of means to adapt to changes short of outright disregarding it through the elastic clause.  The Congress still has a fairly broad range of powers, and we have always managed to Amend the Constitution when it was necessary.  Furthermore, the state governments are not restricted by Article I the way that the Feds are, they can perform many of the activities that might be considered unconstitutional by a strict constructionist.  Overall, the Constitution tends to serve one major function, limit Federal government power.  This isn't much of a problem as long as you are willing to keep more of the government on the state and local level, and I would argue that state and local governments tend to be more accessible and accountable to their people.

Now, defining the "necessary and proper" clause is a big issue,  but it doesn't change the fact that many of the steps we have taken that were not fundamentally supported by the Constitution have been an improvement on the American society. The reference to The Jungle makes the perfect example. Self-correction is nigh impossible to do when companies throw safety out the window and focus on pure profit. The FDA is certainly expensive, but I think the services it provides allow me to overlook that fact. I like taking a bite out of a homemade hamburger and not having to worry about how many people have gotten sick before the industry "self-corrected" itself to make the burger safe.

If self-correction is impossible, how do explain voluntary complaince agencies like Underwriters Laboratories, or consumer information groups like the Better Business Bureau, which have performed exceptionally well.  The transition from a dangerous working enviroments in the past is often associated with increased regulation, but what about the rapid increase of wealth from the industrial revolution and continued industrial advances?  Making food safe would require a business to raise its prices, but if the consumer desires safer food, they will be willing to pay the higher prices.  The catch is, the consumer must first have enough money to buy food at a higher price, or at all to begin with.  At the beginnig of the industrial revolution, workers tended to be incredible poor and barely able to make ends meet, and would be unable to pay for these extra premiums.  However, as the revolution progressed and people became wealthier, purchasing higher quality and safer products now becomes possible.  I hold that this is much more instrumental the any form of regulation.  After all, if you can't afford safe found, it doesn't matter if someone is providing it because of a regulation or to attract business, you can't purchase it in either case.

Ahahaha, education. Federal standards set for education is the only reason why Florida isn't completely failing at education. Well, I mean, we are failing at education, but I'm pretty sure it would be worse if we weren't forced to met some education requirements set by the government.

I am not so sure, as you pointed out the education system is failing anyway.  Well parts of it anyway, there are actually many highly quality schools in Florida(my own High School included), but the quality of education often depends on the support of the local community.  That should give you a hint as to who is more effective at maintaining the quality of education. 

because of "reputation based" markets the people ultimately control the companies who employ militias much like the free market and self regulation all true libertarians believe in. the same self regulation that will occur 100% no doubt after the fda is disbanded and that will be far superior to the fda which was instituted to steal money from honest companies like my own (doug beachs ecletic remedies incorporated: NEW! chemical soap bars burn through multiple layers of skin for a refreshing clean).

Militias don't require a good reputation to use force against you, as you don't have to approve of someone to comply with their demands under the threat of death.  A reputation is only required by an organization such as a business when they need the consent of the individuals they interact with.  To ensure everbody acts only through mutual consent, force must someone be removed from the equation.  Thus, a government must be established before the market enviroment libertarians desire can be properly maintained.  Before such an enviroment is properly established, the market principles cannot be realied on, and therefore you cannot put them to proper use until some means of controlling violence and establishing peace has been achieved.

who are you to decide what affairs the government meddles in and what they don't? good job dodging the question pal but it's not a suprise considering you are only a Level 5 Operating Libertarian (i am level 17). only the true libertarian market controlled by rational self actors (the population) can dictate this.

That is analagous to claiming that the market being run by supply and demand is a political ideology.  Only its not an ideology, its an economic modeling consideration.  Libertarianism is an ideology, just as Liberalism and Conservatism are, and like those ideologies, we have defined a role for government.  It just happens to be vastly more limited in Libertarianism than in most other ideologies.

by the way i dislike history and i believe it should never be considered this is why i like true ron paul supporters (young rich white people). there is no such saying "those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" and i am merely mentioning this seeming jumble of words to give you a vague example of a non-existent quote. for instance ron pauls policy in no way represents a similar time in history at all and my previous reference to setting progress 100 years backwards has no basis whatsoever (p.s. i found this cool link while browsing sexypornowallpapers.com : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilded_Age )

Just because some of the changes libertarians would like to make to the government would bring it closer to how it existed a century go does not mean that society as a whole will revert to how it existed in the 1800s.  Libertarians are quite aware of the historical ramifications of the changes they plan to make, and if anything are using history as a guide to better understand how the changes they implement would effect the modern world.

there's a reason the entire civilized world does not run a government in any way shape or form related to libertarianism

For nearly two centuries the U.S. was run fairly close to libertarianism, a benefited dramatically because of it.  Hong Kong was also run in a similar manner before being returned to Chinese control, and derived similar benefit.  If there is any reason why most of the world does not run libertarianism, it is because it requires a delicate balancing act where their is a government with sufficient power to protect its people, but under sufficient control that it doesn't meddle with their lives beyond that protection.

The key difference between military/police protections and general regulatory protections is the use of force.  Force is required to defend against foreign invaders, prevent street gangs from ruling the streets, as well as prevent murder, rape and other crimes.  Force is not necessary to purchase quality consumer goods or provide assistance to the poor, although you can still do both with force.

The underlying philosophy behind libertarians is to confine the use of force to a single entity, the government, and otherwise keep it out of all other activity.  Thus, the government is limited as much as possible to only engaging in activities that require the use of force and in those activities necessary to keep the government under our control, and everybody else is prevented from using force.

The end result is an enviroment free from violence, in which people can interact with each other and live their lives as they choose, provided they don't resort to violence, threat, coercion, etc.  This is radically different from an enviroment run by competing military factions.

tell me bucko why is the government any better than private militias?

Well, not every government will be better than private militias.  But a good government will be better than private militias because it will be under, or at least mostly under, the control of the people.  And as long as an individual does not use force to harm another individual, he will never have to fear threats or violence from a good government.  This can not be said of private militia.

where does this inherent trust come from?

It doesn't.  That is why we have things like the Constitution, Seperation of Powers, a court system, limited police powers, etc.

Going for the longest strawman argument on the GW boards GZ?

Lets get something strait, Somalia is in a state of Anarchy, and there is a world of difference between Anarchy and Libertarianism.  The key difference is that libertarians still believe in a government, and that the government should be authorized to prevent the use of violence and coercion against its population.  So no violent gangs roaming the streets, no militias charging road tolls, no clans or warlords viaing for power.  Just because Somalia has free enterprise doesn't automatically make it a libertarian state.

No it can't. You're showing an uncommon level of stupidity if you think that letting each state handle special education is a good thing (Some states are far too poor to support it)

Why would the state, which essentially runs the rest of the education system, be unable to managed this single additional function?

You're the most ignorant person i've ever met thanks. CHARITY GUYS CHARITY. fuck you seriously. What you're saying is completely bigoted and some would even say racist. Guess what chach? My family was on welfare and food stamps when my mother left my dad, and not only are we not on it now, but she works full time while working on her master's degree in Speech Pathology. If those programs had not been available to us at the time I have no idea what we would have done. You're a horrible human being.

And how exactly is switching from government to private related support for the poor racist?  Or from federal government to state government support?  It is true that you probably needed support from somewhere, but the point is the federal government does not need to be the source of that support.  The state governments are actually better set up to manage the domestic affairs of individuals, should it become necessary. 

I would implore you to do a bit or research before posting nonsense like that. Not only do we NEED it but we need a larger and more comprehensive program in place. Do you really think it is ok for people to freeze every night because they have to choose between food and oil? Are you fucking crazy?

I see no reason why this is seperate from general assistance to impoverished individuals.

Saying "Much" is a ridiculous statement. But I guess you think it is ok for people to sell heroin and cocaine to our children right? DON'T TAKE MY FUCKING NOSE CANDY LIBERTY AWAY. Maybe you missed the part where federal crimes had a broader scope than just drug crimes chach.

Drugs laws violations may not be the only federal crimes, but between 55 and 60 percent of inmates in federal are there on drugs violations.  Not to mention there are more individuals in state prison on drug related charges.  You are looking at halving your inmate population simply by choosing not to imprison individuals for choosing what they do to there own body.  Rather than paying to keep these people locked up, they could be part of the tax paying workforce and increasing federal revenue through taxes, rather than decreasing it.

I just can't believe what i'm hearing. Some seniors cannot afford to spend hardly any money on their medical bills. Bringing things in line with the market is not going to help anyone other than the ones who could previously afford it. And again, if you think charities will help out enough THINK AGAIN

Reducing the cost of health care allows enables individuals who were previously too poor to purchase proper coverage to purchase it without assistance, as well as reduces the assistance required by those who are still unable to purchase health care.  Therefore, if healthcare cost can be reduced, it will be much easier to provide aid for the remaining individuals who are unable to efford it.

I'm aware. I was referring to the fact that ron paul wants to get rid of the social security tax too. Also it's a federal tax.

That is true, he also wants to do away with this tax and social security itself.  The program is very expensive to fund,  provides minimal benefit, and its setup is going to require either a tax increase or benefit reduction in the elderly take up a greater fraction of the population.

How do you suppose that can be? I'd seriously like to hear something than some baseless statement, I can make those too. "Ron Paul is likely a jew in disguise who in due time will kill everyone".

The FBI is not that expensive.  Elimination of the IRS will dramatically reduce funding, but the basic tariffs and excise taxes that were originally used to cover the Federal expenses were intended to be sufficient for basic law enforcement activity.

Again you say that the "War on drugs" is not a good thing when people die every day from overdoses, and it destroys our streets. And before you make a correlation to alchohol I want to know if you have EVER spent serious time around a person addicted to a hard drug? It's a completely different circumstance and if you can't realize that, you are insanely naieve.

I don't think anyone believes that using drugs, especially hard drugs, is a good thing, but going to jail isn't exactly a good thing either.  Basically, our policy on drugs seems to go something like this, drugs might ruin your life, but if they don't, the prison time probably will.  I have no idea why people believe throwing a drug addict in prison is supposed to help him.  We have been doing it for decades, and that hasn't helped reduce overall drug abuce.  Instead we have overcrowded prisons, people who have to deal with both the distructive effects of drugs and prison time, and gang violence centered around controlling illegal drug activity.  Not to mention additional civil liberties violations such as asset forteiture laws, unwarranted tactical police raids, enormous law enforcement expenses, and even the need to herbicide the crops of foreign nations.  All while drugs get cheaper, and are even availible in schools and prisons despite our efforts.

more baseless bullshit. Being an lolbertarian you must love the illegal gun trade and wish you too could have a fully automatic AK.

It is not like the state and local authorities don't already manage this sort of things.  Not to mention I don't see any real relation between alchohol, tobacco and firearms, all which are heavily regulated even without the ATF, other than bad Southern stereotypes and the fact that they are all considered to be bad things by some.  This organization is completely redundant as far as I am concerned.

You obviously have no grasp of how the military-industrial complex of the USA works. It is not a steady curve upwards where factories magically become more complex and so the weapons they produce become more complex; they could have manufactured several million FULL KITS (including rifle and ammunition) for a General Infantryman of the second world war for what it costs to buy one F-22 Raptor from the people who make them (sorry pal the US government doesn't build their own armaments, they buy them).

First off, I never said that the government built its own weapons.  My claim was that our industrial capacity as scaled as more complicated weapon systems have become availible, and in some cases, certain industrial technology might be necessary before you even build certain types of technology.  For instance, you are going to have a hard time mass producing microchips without lithography.

Also, despite advances in technology, we still field relatively large number of soldiers in comparison to more sophisticated and expensive weapon platforms such as the F-22.

Giant corporations like Lockheed-Martin and Boeing can charge pretty much whatever they like for their technology, and the federal government has to pay it. Why? Because of laissez-faire economics, my foolish friend! When you let companies have a completely free hand at running themselves, they will try to make as much money as possible and to HELL with the social consequences!

They can't charge anything, as military budgets are limited, and they still have to make competing price bids to get the government to purchase their products.  That being said, the government is a terrible price negotiator and they are probably being charged than the true value of the equipment they purchase, but that still only will account for 10-20 percent of the cost.

That being said, it is obvious you live in a dreamworld if you think it costs the US the same amount of money today (even minus any peacekeeping or overseas operations) to run their military as it did in 1913 before the massive aggrandizing during the first world war (nevermind the second World War when the US built more new modern warships than previously existed in the world, total).

Well, why don't we compare how much weaponry cost relative to our ability to produce them(relative to our ability to produce is the key)

Here are some wooden warship pricetags from the 1790s:

USSConstitution 44 guns 1576 tons $302,719. Boston
USS President 44 guns 1576 tons $220,910. New York
USS United States 44 guns 1576 tons $229,336. Philadelphia
USS Chesapeake was changed-Chesapeake 36 guns 1244 tons $220,678. Gosport (Va)
from 44 to 36 guns.
USS-Congress 36 guns 1268 tons $197,246. Portsmouth (NH)
USS Constellation 36 guns 1265 tons $314,212 Baltimore.

Now before we can compare them to modern warships, we must correct for three things.  Inflation, the GDP per captia, because one person today produces far more than they did in 1790, and of course the enormous growth in population, as there is now a much larger take base.  Therefore, these numbers need to be converted into the relative share of GDP.

I went ahead and ran these numbers through a calculator to convert them to year 200 relative share of GDP by converting from 1790 share of GDP to 2000 share of GDP:

USS Constitution: $15.7 Billion
USS President: $11.4 Billion
USS United States: $11.9 Billion
USS Chesapeake: $11.4 Billion
USS Congress: $10.2 Billion
USS Constellation: $16.3 Billion

Bascially, this is how much these ships would cost today if they their cost took up the same portion of the U.S. total GDP as they did in 1790.

Now, let us compare to some modern warships:

Arleigh Burke Class Destroyer: $800 Million
Seawolf Class Nuclear Submarine: $2.1 Billion
Nimitz Class Aircraft Carrier: $4.5 Billion

So you see, despite their increased size, materials requirements, and complexity, it is actually easier for us to build complex naval warships today then their wooden predecessars in the 1790s, all because of a vastly superior industrial infastructure and of course, a larger population to share the burden.

Just stop talking about the federal income tax and its relation to the armed forces of the US. You have no clue how they interrelate or how money works in general, it seems.

I disagree.

I'm... I'm not sure I understand what you're saying. Surely you aren't trying to say that just because we could afford state-of-the-art weaponry in the 1700/1800s without the IRS, it means we could afford to the same nowadays if we just cut back on our globalization, right? I mean, there have probably been more advancements in warfare technology in the past 20 years than there was in the first two centuries of our country's existence...

You forget that our advances in industrial and manufacturer technology and techniques tend to keep pace with the rest of our technology(if not being outright necessary for the continued advance of the rest of our technology).  So while the complexity of the devices we build increases, so does our capacity to produce increasingly complicated systems.

i can't believe how dumb you lolbertarians can be.

You keep spouting off on charity but do you really think charity will cover all of the social programs that are needed in this country? Even WITH an income tax bush still cut hundreds of needed programs. Even more will be cut under paul's terrible plan. So you're ok with no special education, no welfare, no food stamps, no support for low income families, no fuel assistance, no student loan assistance, dillution of the federal prison system (lol), dillution of the interstate highway system, medicare, medicaid, social security, healthcare assistance, federal investigative groups (FBI, DEA, ATF etc, don't you watch.... without a trace?), the fcc,

AND MANY MORE

Well, there is no intention of retaining ever social program the Federal Government runs.  Several programs, such as welfare, have had a habit of aggravating the problems they were intended to create.  Others, such as the war on drugs and a lot of our foreign military intervention, have ended up hurting us far more than helping us, all while still costing plenty of money to maintain.

As far as the example you have mentioned:

special education - can be run at the state level just like the rest of education is

welfare, food stamps, low income family assistance - these programs actually carry a risk of making encouraging participates not to pursue employement, or at least not to pursue it with the same vigilance.  As it stands, these programs can probably be consolidated, and their burdens eventually shifted to charity, state and local government

fuel assistance - don't need it anyway, get rid of it

federal prison system - much of the burden currently placed on the federal prison system is do to drug prosecution.  The need and cost of the federal prison system can be dramatically reduced by eliminating drug prohibition

interstate highway system - despite 'interstate' in the name, interstate highways are primarily funded for and maintained by the individual states they reside in, just like all other roads

medicare, medicaid, healthcare assistance - the need for these programs can be greatly diminished by bringing medical cost under control and in line with the rest of the market system.  The remaining burdens can be dealt with like welfare, consolidate these programs, then try to phase them out in favor of charities, state and local programs.

social security - has its own tax that it is supported by, does not depend on income tax funds

FBI - can likely be maintained without the income tax

DEA - can be abolished as soon as drug prohibition is done away with

ATF - probably should have never been created in the first place, we don't need it and can just get rid of it

a) Good luck raising excise taxes and tariffs on free trade
and
b) In 1865 they did not have to worry about ICBMs (defence and offence) or stealth bombers or one of the several dozen other multi-billion dollars programs that the US government has to worry about until every other country in the world agrees to stop worrying about them too.

Before the income tax was established in 1913, the Federal government had no problem running both a standing army and the navy without the income tax, and the navy included some fairly impressive warships that were state-of-the-art for their time.  The key difference between then and now isn't that we didn't maintain an army or some impressive weaponry, but that our armed forces stayed within or near the country except during times of war, as opposed to being permanently deployed across the globe.

It's like Ron Paulists are stuck in 1792 or something; the world has changed a great deal since then, and so the US government superstructure has changed as well.

I wouldn't have any problems if the Federal governments changes were simply to adapt to changing times.  The problem isn't with any changes in the superstruture, but with the fact the the Federal government keeps on taking on new responsibilites, and often doing a poor job at carrying them out.  We are more than capable of dealing with changing times without the Federal government managing every last aspect of our lives.  After all, the United States has been a bastion of change and revolution every since it was founded, and thrived on such changes, long before the Fed took on most of the responsibilities it manages today.

Maybe we should just repeal all the amendments (except the first ten, god bless america) because they are probably unconstitutional and then abolish the military, because state-run militias can defend the country for us.

Actually, besides the 16th, I considered the amendments an improvement.  Just because I have a problem with one of them doesn't mean I have a problem with all of them.

You guys are pushing for laissez-faire feudalism. The federal government exists for a reason.

None of us want to eliminate the Federal government, you are confusing us with Anarchist.  Just a dramatic reduction in Federal government size, cost and responsibilites is desired.

You guys can make all the ridiculous excuses you want but it all comes down to this:

You're incredibly selfish and don't want to be taxed, damn the consequences.

It has little to do with selfishness.  Many libertarians, including myself, strongly believe in charity.  However, charity and selflessness entails spending ones own money on others or for good causes, whereas taxation is forcing others to pay for the causes you believe in. 

If it got that bad, the states could simply raise their own taxes to compensate.  As it is, it makes little sense to tax the states's citizens, only to hand the money back to the state governments, when the state governments are fully capable to generating the revenue directly.  As it is, Federal money is often given back to the states only if the states agree to certain conditions, which often interefere with the ability of the states to properly appropriate the money and often require expensive bureacracies to be complaint.  Having the states directly fund their services would likely be more efficient and cost effective, and would keep the money under control of smaller, more local governments that are more accessible to those who will be benefiting from the education and other services it provides.

Actually, we managed to run the country for over two centuries without it, and it was done without running up a huge debt.  The Federal government was up to that point funded by tariffs and excise taxes.    This was more than enough to run our military.  Of course, at the time, are military was not stationed all over the globe, so it was much cheaper to maintain.

Schools and hosptials are run at the state and local level, and do not require Federal revenue to operate.

And what you fail to understand is that there are ways to provide healthcare for the poor other than Universal Healthcare, whether that be charity or merely a government program limited strictly to the poor.  I have no problem giving the poor finanical assistance for healthcare, but there is no reason why that should entail placing the government financially in charge of health care for those who can provide for themselves, especially when the government is not in proper financial shape to manage its existing responsibilities, let alone any new responsibilities that are this important.

The reason drugs undergo such incredibly strict testing is because they often create massive side effects in certain people, and they have to test it against every combination of features they can think of to make sure they aren't killing people. It's not like a video game where you can release a buggy version and then fix it up as people discover errors; lots and lots of people can die if they miss something, either through insufficient testing or plain old negligence. Don't say "lots of harmful drugs" make it to the market, because LOTS more would make it to the market without them, and lots more people would be dead.

Obviously the reason why drugs undergo testing is to protect the consumer.  However, there are multiple was to go about drug testing and quality control, and you do not necessarily need the incredibly complicated and expensive FDA oversite to achieve these goals.   Instead, other means such as those a previously mentioned can be employed.

Hahaha, yeah right, voluntary compliance measures. Because big corporations are well known for their adherence to anything voluntary that costs them money, right? Market competition isn't going to magically solve the issue of dangerous drugs entering the market and neither is liability; when you can afford to hire fifty of the best lawyers in the world against some poor schlub who hired Joe Lawstudent to defend him you can afford to pretty much crush every lawsuit that comes you way. And the US legal system doesn't need more lawsuits being thrown around, as it is already crippled by them. The FDA does a pretty good job of keeping the things we (you) eat and the pill we (you) need safe. You live in a dreamworld if you think handing over the reigns to the free market is going to safe lives.

Actually voluntary measures can be quite effective.  For instance, the safety of electrical appliances and non-portable electronics is acheived through compliance with Underwrite Laboratories standards.  The organization is private and businesses adhere to its standards of there own free will.  And yet, safety issues with electrical appliances and electronics are minimal.  In fact, just about any consumer or industrial product on the market is fairly safe, regardless of the level of federal regulation and oversite.  The FDA is doing, in effect, what the market does automatically, only at greater cost and with huge delays at bringing critical medicines and medical devices to the market.

As far as the legal system is concerned, handling cases is rather expensive, but that seems to be a problem central to how the civil legal system operates, not the fact that it occasionally has to deal with consumer safety cases.  Also, liability is likely to remain a concern of businesses regardless of the state of the legal system.  Many large businesses also adopt practices just to avoid letigation, meaning they are conscience of liability consequences despite any army of lawyers they might have at there disposal.

Income taxes pay for schools and roads and all that wonderful stuff in addition to government salaries. Once again, he is assuming the free market will step in to pay for all the things that income tax is paying for now; privately owned/subsidized schools and roads and God knows what else.

Actually, income taxes and Federal funding are not primarily responsible for paying for schools or roads.  Both of these services are funded primarily at the state and local level, and complete loss of Federal funding would likely have minimal effect on these services.

You obviously have no understand of how universal healthcare works. If a forty year old man with three kids has a heart attack and doesn't have health insurance at his workplace, he is fucked, because he can't possibly afford to pay for the treatment.

Well, unless of course the 40 year old man purchased personal health insurance, or the cheaper catastrophic health insurance, or has sufficient savings/disposable income, or is on medicare, or receives help from a charity, or receives emergency room care.

However, if everyone else in the country donates 3 cents, he is fine. Is this forcing people to pay extra money? No, the money already exists, and everyone can use it under a universal healthcare system. The US has more than enough money in its healthcare budget to pay for universal healthcare, and it is the fault of (primarily) independent insurance companies that such high costs for hospital care exist.

The problem is, the money does not exist.  The federal government is in the red, DEEP in the red, 9 trillion dollars in the red and sinking at a half-trillion a year.  Technically, the money to do what the Federal government currently does, does not exist, and many existing Federal activities are going to stop when it eventually reaches its borrowing limit.

I do however agree that it is partially the fault of insurance companies that healtcare cost are so high.  They do not properly represent their customers at the moment.  The most prudent thing to do would be to set of the system so that individuals purchase there health insurance directly, so that their insurance companines are beholden to them and not their employers, and to get insurance companies out of routine healthcare entirely.  Adopting Universal Health Care will further remove insurance companies from control of the individual.

Universal healthcare isn't for Jack Middleclass who has healthcare through his work and private health insurance at home, it is for the hundred million or so Americans who can't afford it/aren't offered it. I am in favour of a reform in terms of how healthcare money is handled, but abolishing it and cockblocking the idea is just insane, and shows that you have no interest in protecting the welfare of a quarter of the population of the US.

There are already systems in place to assist Americans who are too poor to reliably obtained healthcare, such as medicare and medicaid.  Perhaps it would be better try to fix these programs so they work as intended rather them implement another program that probably also would not work correctly.  Also, at least medicaid/medicare is localized to the segment of the population that needs it, limiting the cost, which is important when your health care is being paid for by I.O.U.'s.  This would also help us better avoid the various side effects of socialized medicine that have been observed in Canada, Europe.

Again, this is just not a viable option for a huge number of Americans. "Twice removed from their control"? Give me a break. Individual people OFTEN cannot afford to pay the huge medical bills a simple accident can cause, and many insurance plans are setup entirely to screw people out of their money while not actually providing any benefits to people who do not fall exactly into their contract's conditions. What the government needs to do is crack the fuck down on health insurance providers instead of repeatedly turning a blind eye or even outright supporting them (as is the case with Kaiser Permanente).

Well, for most people, it is "twice removed".  Instead of purchasing health care directly, your insurance company is purchasing it for you, which is in turned purchased for you by your employer.  A rather trivial alteration would be to grant individuals the same tax benefits when purchasing their health insurance directly, which would allow them to choose their own healthcare providers.  They could then at least choose a reliable healthcare provider, one that does a better job negotiating down the cost of health services and that properly honors contracts.  Their are plenty of reliable health insurance companies out there, people just need the freedom to choose which one to belong to rather then letting their employers make that decision for them.

Do you not have any social conscience? Do you not have any love for your country? If so, how can you vote for someone who wants to return the US to the way it was in 1780, complete with laissez faire government that doesn't give a shit about its people? The free market exists to make the rich richer off the backs of the poor while the middle class stays more or less the same. While you can argue its strong points in terms of economics, when applied to politics it completely falls apart.

Economic policy is hardly the only difference between now and then.  Like it or not, laissez-faire economics and what remains of a market economy today are central to the U.S. economy and have brought us from an agririan existence to the industrialized/mechanized/computerized existence that we know today, and to the benefit of all, not just a few rich.  Heck, the majority of the people in the country today are probably better off than the rich were in 1780, and that is not something you can achieve through any manner of socialist transfer of wealth.  I have no disregard for the poor, I just believe in going about benefitting the country as a whole using means other than socialism.
Links from the last topic on Ron Paul (including racism, etc).

When the founding fathers were writing the constitution, they should have added something about the separate of corporation and state next to the bit about the separation of church and state (not that anyone pays attention to that anymore, but whatever).

I agree.

http://www.latestpolitics.com/blog/2007/05/ron-pauls.html

http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2007/roll764.xml

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/6/5/193414/2787

Talk about your biased articles.  The last one is literally titled "Ron Paul Hates You". 

Here is a rather large repository of articles written by and about Ron Paul: http://www.lewrockwell.com/paul/

Ron Paul has never voted to award the Congressional gold medal to anyone, so its not like Rosa Parks was singled out.  He is rather indiscriminate with this policy.  He doesn't consider the gold medal a legitimate government expense.

he also wants to get rid of the fda, the irs and he has spoken many times in the past about privatizing education, making healthcare even more privatized, and is a known racist (fleet footed, the blacks, let's kick all those goddamn mexicans out i don't care if 5% die etc)

Well, except for the racist part, this is true, but for good reasons:

FDA:  FDA regulations prevent new drugs and medical devices from entering the market for years at a time, and at costs in the hundreds of millions.  In the case of drugs or medical devices needed to treat life threatening conditions, many people with life threatening conditions have died waiting for their treatment to receive FDA approval.  The regulations also act as a market entry barrier discourages new competitors from entering the market.  The high complaince cost and lack of competition are partly to blame for the astronomical cost of drugs and healthcare coverage.  And to add insult to injury, many drugs with harmful effects still make it to market despite all these sacrifices made to ensure there safety.

It is possible that through a combination of voluntary complaince measures, consumer information services, liability, and market competition that drug safety could still be ensured but without the huge cost, delays in life saving treatments and other problems that the FDA causes.

IRS:  Ron Paul wants to reduce the size and scale of the government to the point were Federal Income taxes are no longer necessary to maintain it.  Once this occurs, the IRS can go.

Healthcare:  While there has been a push of place the Federal government in control of funding healthcare, many of us would like to see the Federal government out of healthcare.  If anything, the Federal government has proven itself completely incompetent in matters of financing, wallowing in debt and unable to properly fund all of its current responsibilites.  That last thing we need is something as critical as our health dependent on the government's ability to properly finance its obligations.  Furthermore, one of the key problems with our health care system is rising health care cost.  A universal payer system will create a buffer in which our tax money is first pooled together for all Federal expenses and then distributed back to the health care system, which will effectively hide the cost from the taxpayer(especially because it is likely to be covered with borrowed money) but has no guarantee in actually reducing the cost or fixing the problem.

Rather, what we should do is put health care money back in the hands of individual people.  Right now, the money used to pay for health care is twice removed from their control.  There health care is payed for by their insurance company, which is in turn payed for by their employer, by money would otherwise be received by and under direct  control of the individual.  The status quo is maintained because of tax benefits that can only be obtained through employer health coverage and the fact that many employers of forced to provide HMO coverage thansk to Health Maintenance Organization Act of 1973.  Note that there has been a steady rise in health care prices since the passage of the HMO Act and the establishment of our current healthcare structure, so changing these circumstance might actually result in lower health care cost.  Ways to circumvent this situation include providing the same tax benefits to employes who personally pay for their health care and the establishment of Health Savings Accounts as an alternative to HMOs.

Racism:  Ron Paul is not a racist as far as I know.  He is construed to be a racist by some by taking individual events or positions well out of context.

But i guess since he wants to get rid of the patriot act and get us out of iraq (hint: Obama and the awful hilary clinton want to as well and aren't fucking crazy and don't think we should destroy any chance for the poor in this country to have meaningful education or healthcare.)

Well lets see:

Obama:  Obama might actually achieve one or both of these goals.  However, I am uncertain if I will actually stand against these because he was not in Congress when the original Patriot Acts was passed, nor was he in Congress when Congress authorized military action in Iraq.  Furthermore, he did reauthorize the Patriot Act in 2006. 

Clinton:  She was in office during the original Patriot Act and Iraqi war authorization, so I know EXACTLY where she stands:  Voted to Authorize the War in Iraq, Voted on the Original Patriot Acts, and Voted to Reauthorize the Patriot Act in 2006.  And I have yet to see her take a strong position against the Patriot Act in her campaign, and her position on Iraq is unclear.  So no, she is not an option for ending things like the Patriot Act.

But go ahead and spout off about civil liberties and how he will tape the constitution back together when the man will be taking REAL civil liberties away: People's ability to live a decent life.

I haven't even mentioned the War on Drugs, Asset Forfeiture, or the Kelo decision yet.  That fact is, Paul will not be taking away any civil liberties, and I think our lives will be much better when he gets rid of all these civil liberty violations.

Basically, all your post says is "I know he's crazy, but I'm still gonna vote for him". What about the things I mentioned? What about the fact he wants to withdraw from the most important international relations? You stand behind that, you say, but for what reason?

EDIT: and I must add that I really want to know. This isn't false interest. I see that there are a lot of Ron Paul supporters on the Internet, for some reason. I've not heard a single one of them actually state solid reasons for supporting him and his viewpoints. All they ever say is "other candidates don't care about the constitution" and stuff like that. It's like they don't even have a reason to support him other than the fact he's apparently COOL.

Let see if I can give you a quick answer.

Several of the international organizations we belong too, especially the UN and NATO, have an annoying habit of dragging the U.S. into military conflicts it could otherwise avoid.  We have too many troops in too many places of the world, and getting into conflicts we don't belong it just ends up getting our soldiers killed an costing us money we don't currently have.  And while it may improve our relations with some UN/NATO members, it likely generates a lot of ire with the various 3rd world nations we end up "peacekeeping"/occupying/bombing.  If we need to group together with other nations for defense we can do it on an as needed basis, we do not need to belong to these types of organizations.

As for trade treaties and trade organizations such as WTO or NAFTA, I have nothing against them in particular, but I also don't see the need for them.  We can engage in free and open trade without such agreements.

Where Ron Paul really shines is that he seems to be the only one who recognizes that we need to stop manipulating the affairs of other nations through force of arms, arming dissidents, or otherwise trying to occupying or aid in overthrowing the governments of other countries.  As part of the "War on Terror", we have invaded Iraq and Afghanistan and are actively discussing military action against Iran.  And yet, the regimes of all three nations came to power with the aid of the U.S.  So, essentially, every "front" in the "War on Terror" has been against a regime that is essentially a past U.S. foreign policy mistake.  Ron Paul has recognized this pattern and wants to end this type of foreign policy.

And of course there is the war in Iraq, which Ron Paul has opposed from the beginning(when others like Hillary went ahead and authorized the use of force), and which he is promising to promptly remove us from if we are president.  This war has caused us nothing but problems, and the sooner we get out of there, the better.  And because Ron Paul stood up against the war from the beginning, and did not cave to political pressure,  it is likely he will stand by his promise.

Domestically, we have suffered a huge loss of civil liberties in past 7 years do to bills like the USA Patriot Acts, Military Commissions Act, the Free-America acts, etc.  These bills allows for general warrants, warrantless wiretapping, searching the property of citizens without informing them, suspension of habeas corpus for "enemy combatants", the waving of Geneva convention rights for "enemy combatants", and other egregious violations of peoples civil liberties.  These types of laws are serious problems and need to be done away with as soon as possible.  And again, Ron Paul has voted against these bills and wants to do away with them.

Economically, our country has suffered from two chronic economic problems that have been ignored and allowed to worsen, the devaluation of our currency and an accumulation of a multi-trillion debt.  Steady inflation has reduced the value of the U.S. dollar to less than 4% of its 1913 value over the course of the century, and we have a 9 trillion dollar debt that is now increasing by over a half-trillion dollars annually, no thanks to politicians who have ignored the problem for decades.  These problems WILL get us into serious trouble eventually, and we can either fix them now under controlled circumstances are wait until they get so far out of hand we will be forced to deal with them.  I prefer to fix them now instead of later, and I want somebody who is willing to do that.  Again, this would be Ron Paul.

Ok, that wasn't a very quick answer, but hopefully it gives you a feel for why a lot of people(including myself) are backing this guy.

For many of these lower tiered candidates, the only real way to gauge the success of their campaign is to run a serious campaign and see how far they get.  Often, they will drop out before the primaries are complete if their campaign is going no where.  And if nothing else, they have a short opportunity to convey their particular ideas to the public. 

I wonder if anyone likes Hillary.  Her only qualification seems to be "Not a Republican."