I find Ron Paul rather interesting in a Barry Goldwater kind of way.

Not that I'd ever vote for him, of course. It's just that when I look at the line-up of Republican candidates, he's the one who comes across as an honest man who is not beholden to corporate interests and especially not beholden to the military -industrial complex. I don't think any of the others could carry on a five minute conversation in a check-out line.

in terms of individuals. For instance, I would not be surprised if he'd say "New Orleans' poor made a decision to stay, so they are responsible for what happened to them." Ron Paul is a libertarian, not a Barry Goldwater conservative at all.

basically that they didn't need our help rebuilding. We are just screwing them up with red tape and they have to do it our way. The people of Galveston had their entire city wiped out in 1900 and they rebuilt it without any help and it gave them a sense of pride that they wouldn't have gotten if the Federal Govt had just come in and done it for them. It's an interesting idea especially considering how badly FEMA etc. messed this up, although I'm not sure just let them do it themselves is feasible in this day and age.

well with the other Repubs--he's really a Libertarian, and kind of his own animal. I think he's got, at best, a loose association with the party. The only Repub who reminds me of a Goldwater-type is Hagel, and he's not running.

Goldwater was a fervent Cold Warrior; Paul is essentially an isolationist. Both could be considered as forms of national chauvinism; but very different forms.

Also, Goldwater, however nutty he was on certain issues, was at least sane enough to repudiate the religious right. Paul has posted all sorts of bizarre stuff about kids being influenced by 'heterophobia', etc.

That plus the shear cussed independence. The other Republicans seem like chancers (Guilaini) or puppets.

he is presenting a point of view on Iraq and the actions of this current regime that I agree with. There are many issues that I really don't think our opinions would coincide.

I certainly don't agree with the Libertarians on economic matters, or with their extreme isolationist attitudes, but some of them, at least, have the right idea about where government should stay out of religious and private matters. More so, in some respects, that some Dems.

They believe there shouldn't be government, or at least nothing called government. Libertarians, wittingly or not, fully embrace the idea of being ruled by an unaccountable tyrannical force. Most parts of the country this would be a corporate entity, but I could just as easily see megachurches breaking out their billions to rule their own feifdoms.

Libertarianism is not about freedom, or individualism, or any of that. Libertarianism is about privatizing profit and socializing cost. Someone gets rich, and everyone else gets to clean up his pollution, suffer his private police, ovver over their firstborn daughters, etc. It's modern feudalism.

How 'bout half a million people incarcerated in the name of an unwinnable War On Drugs that most Dems don't have the spine to oppose?

I already said that economically they've got their heads up their asses, but government DOES not need to be involved in religion or private matters between individual citizens, i.e. "consensual" crimes. It does not have the right to pass laws to criminalize whole segments of the population based upon religious ideology.

I've argued with Libertarians about their free market bullshit before. And I point out the same thing to Repugs. Money equals power and it automatically tips the scales in the favor of those with it and eliminates personal liberty. Corporate power is no more trustworthy in the end than government power and I'm not sure why they believe it is.

As far as I'm concerned, the most important function of government is to regulate THAT power, leaving the citizens to live in relative freedom. But thanks to the government we're expected to pony up our piss upon demand as if we're OWNED by our employers and they have any right to know what we do when we're not at work.

No, the Libertarians have THAT point entirely correct.

Do you know why Libertarians oppose it? I'm sure you know why they say they oppose it - "It restricts personal liberty!" Bullshit. They oppose the war on drugs because it prevents drugs being on the open market, and thus prevents corporations from having the commodity of an addicted populace to peddle to. They talk about liberty, but they don't mean for you.

You can't say "economically they have their heads up their asses," and then try to agree with them somewhere else. To the libertarian, it's all economics. You've argued against their "free market" crap? Congratulations, you disagree with every... single... position they have. Because when it comes down to it, making you their personal debt slave is what every single Libertarian position boils down to.

They say some agreeable things, sure, but they sure as fuck don't mean them the way you would take them. It's like finding a conservative who thinks the Iraq war needs to end as soon as possible, and then finding out he thinks the way to end it is to nuke the hell out of the Iraqis.

I'm married to one. It ain't about the money for her. It's about being micro-managed by a government. She lived in Germany for 8 years and VASTLY preferred their approach to things. Don't sweat the small stuff but zero tolerance for the intolerable.

Under the headline of "Terrorist Update," for instance, Paul reported on gang crime in Los Angeles and commented, "If you have ever been robbed by a black teen-aged male, you know how unbelievably fleet-footed they can be."...

"Opinion polls consistently show that only about 5 percent of blacks have sensible political opinions, i.e. support the free market, individual liberty and the end of welfare and affirmative action,"Paul wrote....

Paul continued that politically sensible blacks are outnumbered "as decent people." Citing reports that 85 percent of all black men in the District of Columbia are arrested, Paul wrote:

"Given the inefficiencies of what D.C. laughingly calls the `criminal justice system,' I think we can safely assume that 95 percent of the black males in that city are semi-criminal or entirely criminal," Paul said...

Stating that lobbying groups who seek special favors and handouts are evil, Paul wrote, "By far the most powerful lobby in Washington of the bad sort is the Israeli government" and that the goal of the Zionist movement is to stifle criticism.

http://www.jewcy.com/daily_shvitz/ron_paul_not_so_fond_of_blacks

1. Getting rid of the Federal Reserve
2. Getting out of Iraq
3. non-interventionist foreign policy
4. opposes the North American Union


Everything else he can go Cheney himself.

Their disdain for * and the neocons are apparent in the writings of Charley Reese! His archives
can be found at

http://www.lewrockwell.com/reese/reese-arch.html

interesting reading!