I should preface this by saying that Ron Paul does indeed have many fine qualities. He is anti-war. He opposed the Patriot Act. He opposes corporate welfare in its most obvious, direct form -- that is, direct money, such as the bank bailout. Although I disagree with him on many things, I at least get the sense that he is honest enough to say what he really believes, rather than just whatever he thinks will get him elected, which is more than I can say for most politicians. You could pick much worse people to vote for. I could still change my mind and wind up voting for him, particularly if I can't find another anti-war candidate.
That said, I am disturbed by many of his views on the environment and the economy, and do not think he is strongly enough in favor of free speech. I am also rather bothered by my experience in debating a number of his supporters, although I realize of course that his supporters are neither a homogenous group, nor necessarily representative of his views. Still, in so far as they were attempting to convince me vote for him, and many of their arguments utterly failed (although they probably would've worked better in debate with a right-winger), I feel it is worthy of discussion.
Firstly, the environment, since even if you don't believe in man-made global warming (which I do, for the record, although that's mostly my faith in Greenpeace rather than personal experience), pollution is killing so many Americans.
See, for example:
http://gaslandthemovie.com/
http://www.splitestate.com/
http://www.greenpeace.org/usa/en/news-and-blogs/campaign-blog/50000-people-tell-the-senate-to-protect-peopl/blog/34000/
http://archive.greenpeace.org/comms/nukes/chernob/rep02.html
Now, looking at his record:
http://www.ontheissues.org/2012/Ron_Paul_Environment.htm
Okay points for supporting tax breaks for start-up farmers and making tax deductions permanent for conservation easements. (Some small farmers put conservations easements on their properties for tax reasons.) Those things help small farmers. And he voted against funding for a website that would've promoted the use of Yucca Mountain as a nuclear waste dump. And I'm not a fan of compact florescent bulbs either, seeing as how they contain toxic mercury.
Points down for his comment on recycling. That actually does save energy, and not just for aluminum.
http://www.recycling-revolution.com/recycling-facts.html
And what do his comments with regards to property rights mean? Is he talking about the right of polluters to pollute on their own property, and subsequently let that pollution affect everyone else? Or the right of land owners not to be polluted? (Both positions were argued by his supporters, but I got the impression the former was dominant, given that most of them wanted to abolish the EPA and make property owners go through an almost impossible legal process to get any relief.) What about non land owners? Do we not have a right to clean air and clean water and healthy years of life not cut short for the sake of lining the corporate coffers of gas, oil, and coal?
Well, it gets worse:
http://www.ontheissues.org/2012/Ron_Paul_Energy_+_Oil.htm
With a few exceptions, it appears he's been in favor of coal, gas, and oil, and against renewable energy. And what does he mean legitimately earned through the free market? One where coal, oil, and gas companies have the right to poison the people mercilessly? Free to pay for their corporate profits by taking years off our lives, by taking away our health and leaving us sicker and less capable and before? A free ride for corporations on the backs of the people? Is that legitimate? Indeed, on the forum I visited, many argued against either federal regulation or reforms to help the people take on the corporations in court. (A few did in fact agree the court system needed reform, but didn't offer much suggestion on how to accomplish that.) Some said they would support state-by-state regulations, but if hydraulic fracturing isn't safe for New Yorkers, why should it be safe for anyone else? What about other states in the same watershed as New York? One particularly insane Ron Paul supporter, Acptulsa, argued that there was no proof that benzene was toxic.
The trend continues in his views on drugs, which often create much more localized environmental problems. Example: Second hand smoke, whether from cigarettes or marijuana. Personally, I haven't been exposed to much second hand marijuana, thanks to users keeping it in private to avoid getting caught. As for second hand smoke, that kills a lot of people, and makes even more sick.
http://news.nationalpost.com/2010/11/26/second-hand-smoke-causes-1-of-worldwide-deaths-who/
http://www.pslgroup.com/dg/29486.htm
http://quitsmoking.about.com/cs/secondhandsmoke/a/secondhandsmoke.htm
http://www.lungusa.org/about-us/our-impact/top-stories/secondhand-smoke-heart-attacks.html
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/1454981.stm
http://ash.org/30minutes
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/81273.php
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2005-01/28/content_413188.htm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/1454981.stm
http://vickie-ewell.suite101.com/second-hand-smoke-makes-asthma-more-severe-a228319
http://www.scientistlive.com/European-Science-News/Medical/Killed_by_second_hand_smoke%3F/19725/
http://www.forbes.com/2004/02/24/cx_vc_0224olympic.htmlhttp://www.webmd.com/migraines-headaches/guide/triggers-smoking
http://www.uua.org/accessibility/chemical/181872.shtml
http://www.ehow.com/about_5548423_nonallergic-rhinitis-children.html
http://cantbreathesuspectvcd.com/page5.html
As for meth labs, the production of meth can make the neighborhood explode, or at least severely pollute it. Marijuana can also make people really sick, particularly when grown indoors, in shared office buildings, with pesticides. Using pesticides indoors in shared office buildings is bad. So, even if we accept that drug users who turn violent because of the drugs are hopefully a minority, and address those who do separately, drug production and use can only be victimless if non drug users are not exposed to pollution to support other people's addictions. Ron Paul really doesn't address this. Granted, industrial hemp should have nothing to do with the drug war. Granted, the drug war has been fought in a completely arbitrary, ineffective, and sometimes racist way. But this is more a problem with insane enforcement than with outlawing substances that don't belong in a marketplace with product liability and which often pollute non-users. Keep them illegal but cut enforcement, or legalize them but enact laws which recognize the rights of non users not to be polluted or have to suffer from someone else's drug-induced violence, but don't just legalize them and deny non-users any protection or even recognition. Even an unenforced law still indicates societal standards that law-abiding folk should follow. (A number of Ron Paul's supporters denied that second hand smoke kills people, and maintained that drug use was totally victimless. Acptulsa, who apparently hates disabled people, denied the existence of people with life-threatening sensitivity to cigarette smoke,and the existence of some bullies who terrorize said disabled people. A few suggested the disabled person should avoid the smokers, apparently failing to comprehend the impossibility of this when the smokers light up in the public right of way, or, worse, on rare occasions, chase the disabled person. One surprisingly reasonable person, compared to all the others, noted that a distinction should indeed be made between a person who simply smokes without being aware that a person nearby is disabled, and one who intentionally forces the person to breathe smoke, even knowing of their condition.)
So, given his energy opinions and lack of consideration of the effects of drugs on non-users, Ron Paul clearly isn't on the side of people being polluted against their will. So, what should all the people who have become severely disabled as the result of pollution do about it?
http://www.ontheissues.org/2012/Ron_Paul_Welfare_+_Poverty.htm
Apparently, the only time Ron Paul voted in favor of any welfare program, or at least the only time mentioned on that page, was when the alternative was computer upgrades for a government agency. So, if Ron Paul first supports the rights of polluters to make people disabled, and then insists that disabled people should not get welfare, what is to be concluded but that he supports first the creation, then the punishment of disabled people? (To be fair, I'm not sure what his opinion on the ADA is, but many of his supporters oppose it. I'm also not sure what are his opinions on the rights of people, homeless or otherwise, to sleep, panhandle, perform, or sell things in the public right of way and commons -- activities that many disabled people might have to resort to if denied welfare, and many already do -- and his supporters expressed varying views on these things.)
Also, for all that Ron Paul's supporters went on about property rights, most of them were quite reluctant to discuss the origin of property rights. This is a common mistake of Royal Libertarians, who go on and on about property rights without considering the possibility that the wealth may not have been rightfully gained in the first place.
http://geolib.com/essays/sullivan.dan/royallib.html
(To give credit where credit is due, there was one who pointed out the government didn't let people go out and homestead some of the perfectly fertile, well-watered, unused land out there. Touche.)
Now, given that he is an antiwar candidate, not near so extreme in his support of corporations as most Republicans, and against the Patriot Act, perhaps I am unwise to discount him so quickly. Perhaps I should vote for him anyway, just for those things. Maybe I still will change my mind again. However, I have serious concerns about his ability, and that of his followers, to support free speech and free and open debate.
I would think from this article that he seems fairly pro-free speech.
http://www.lewrockwell.com/paul/paul288.html
But then, look at this article:
http://www.lewrockwell.com/paul/paul165.html
"The mistake of never having privatized the radio and TV airwaves does not justify ignoring the 1st Amendment mandate that 'Congress shall make no law abridging freedom of speech.'"
So, censorship is only bad when it is a violation of the First Amendment? There is nothing inherently good about free and open debate, and its role in helping people make informed decisions, except as necessary to follow the constitution? Why should the airwaves be privatized, anyway? Why should corporations be able to monopolize such limited resources?
This does, indeed, seem to be the view held by many of his supporters. The moderators of ronpaulforums.com routinely move anything critical -- even fence-sitter level of criticalness -- into non-publicly viewable forums, such as one called "Hot Topics". You must register in order to see these posts. I do recommend it -- in my experience, what people don't want you to see tells you more about them than what they do want you to see, and while it is ordinarily polity to respect that, it's different when you're picking who you want to be President. They also ban their critics. Apparently, the site is only for hardcore supporters of Ron Paul. Fence-sitters are only welcome so long as they seem easily convincable. Single-issue voters, e.g. someone who might vote for Ron Paul soley in opposition to the wars, while disagreeing on most everything else, do not appear to be welcome. And if they only want hard core supporters, not people who agree on that one issue and little else, why should I bother them with my support? They clearly do not want it.
Many Ron Paul supporters polarize issues. Rather than respect that standing up for the freedom not to be polluted is a legitimate viewpoint, even if they do not share it, they attack the person as being anti-freedom, since stopping polluters would involve more pesky government regulation. They will point at any example of government corruption and say that is why we need less federal government and more states rights / local regulation, even when the corruption is local or state corruption. A few of them, particularly a paranoid madman called Acptulsa, attack people who do not share their view on all important subjects as being enemies, trolls, sock puppets. Not only that, they seem to think they know better than you do what opinions you hold, or what medical conditions you have. One was convinced that anyone who did not accept his rational arguments was just being intentionally disruptive, without considering that perhaps he was simply not being convincing. And according to Acptulsa, it's apparently impossible in the state of Maryland to vote for Donald Duck or Kucinich, so anyone who does must be a liar. Acptulsa is big on baseless accusations, sort of like Israelis who accuse any Palestian rights activist of being antisemitic. It's a common strategy among those who hate free speech. Who does Acptulsa think he is, the correct and proper vote police? Is that like the fashion police? (There's actually someone even worse than Acptulsa, called Ottava, on an obscure forum called wikipediareview.com A lot of forums have someone like this. The internet is infested with people who cannot tolerate dissent!) Like many such free speech haters, Acptulsa wants to insult and baselessly accuse people left and right, while himself being protected from being called the asshole that he is. Sorry, but if you're going to dish it out, you have to be willing to take it.
In fact, Maryland voters have a proud tradition of voting for many obscure and sometimes nonexistent candidates.
http://articles.baltimoresun.com/1999-01-02/news/9901227210_1_write-in-wasted-votes-vote-is-wasted
Do I really want to vote for someone who thinks privatization of the airwaves would be a good way around the pesky First Amendment, and whose supporters (some of them, in any case) remind me of people who throw accusations of antisemitism or racism around baselessly to shut down debate? Many of whose supporters are clearly uninterested in drawing fence sitters who only agree with Ron Paul on a few issues, perhaps only one (like the wars), over to their side, by, say, celebrating similarities and showing some basic level of respect for differences? Sorry, no, but shutting down free and open debate is no way to begin the resolution, or at least acceptance, of those differences.
That said, the wars are a big issue, so it's entirely possible I'll change my mind again.
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