Trying to argue the opposite view - Why I don't like Ron Paul

Ron Paul is not a serious candidate. He consistently scores below 10% of any telephone poll. He's against abortion. He is a conspiracy theorist. He wants to achieve unreasonable objectives like get rid of the IRS, income tax, CIA, and Departments of Education and Energy. He wants to go to the gold standard. He wants to withdraw most, if not all, of our troops from around the world. It's because of these crack pot ideas that Ron Paul is not taken seriously.

Because Ron Paul scores less than 10% in any telephone based poll, he is given less air time on Fox News, CNN, or most major news networks. Ron Paul supporters cry foul! The networks and their overlord leader Viacom are conspiring against Ron Paul. "They don't want him elected," they claim. For example, Ron Paul was given 1/3 of the time that Mitt Romney and Rudy Guiliani had in the last CNN debates. Of the questions asked, Ron Paul was asked whether he believed in conspiracies and whether he'd promise to never raise taxes. (His answers to both were pretty much yes.) Ron Paul supporters claim that those questions were merely bait to embarass the candidate.

His supporters are a mixture of crazy people. Most of them, if not all, come from the internet. This makes them seem more than they really are. For example, there has been a lot of recent Ron Paul email spam lately originating from a single person in Ukraine. Because of this, he wins almost all online political polls. The internet is full of conspiracy theories and Ron Paul tends to attract this crowd of people. If you ever meet a Ron Paul advocate in real life, it is incredibly hard talking to them about politics because half of what they will talk about has no basis in reality. He attracts the pro gun, pro life, libertarian, pro drugs crowd.

He also attracts a lot of students. Students and universities are typically more liberal than people in other sectors of society. It is impossible to tell how many - or how few - students actually support him because these are likely people who won't be polled.

Ron Paul is against abortion. This is suprising because he was a previous obstetrician and gynecolist! Doesn't he understand that women can enter life-threatening situations where the fetus must be aborted? Actually, Paulites will tell you that they want abortion laws to be decided on a state level. But if that occurred, then couldn't a mother just travel to another state to have her baby aborted? (For that matter, couldn't they travel to another country? My guess is if a mother is that rich to travel that far, they probably are rich enough to provide for the baby through life.)

Ron Paul is crazy. He doesn't follow norms. Quite often 400 congressmen will vote for something while Ron Paul stands alone in his 1 vote against it. For example, he voted against a medallion for Rosa Parks. The nerve!

He stands alone among other congressmen on many issues. He wants to obliterate the IRS, Department of Energy and income tax. He thinks the IRS is unconstitutional. If we got rid of those we wouldn't be able to pay for all of the science that occurs in the US. Nevermind that it would cut half of our military spending. What about all the promises that we have made to veterans? What about the amazing benefits people get from serving in the military?
Besides that, he wants to abolish the Department of Education and the CIA. What about all of the good people working in those companies that will be without a job? Doing this would displace thousands of Americans.

And going to the gold standard? Well, that's what he wants, not what he'll do. If elected, he would allow gold to be a competing currency to the dollar. There are plenty of reasons behind this but mostly I picture a person holding a bag of gold coins trying to deposit them in the bank. "Before I can make this deposit Mr. Adams I'll have to weigh this and put it in acid. Oh, it checks out. Would you like your change in gold or dollars?"

And he wants to withdraw all of our troops from all around the world. We are preventing Americans from being killed in America by having our troops fight a war against terrorism. We are stabilizing the rest of the world. We are providing oil for our own economy to function. It would be a mistake to pull our troops out of Iraq.

Nevermind that he won't be able to accomplish these goals. He doesn't have a chance to be elected. Even if elected, he would have strong opposition in both the House and Senate. Even if he had a chance, those goals could not be immediate.

(Did I miss any other criticisms of his campaign?)

To quote:
"Constitution, Smonstitution. Ron Paul may have the largest online following of any presidential candidate, more military donations than any other candidate, and a name that rhymes with the (former) pope's, but he doesn't have what you need to become president- NO INTEGRITY AT ALL. Ron Paul missed the boat on talking without saying anything and kissing the anus of the two party system. He's too in line with the American people to actually become president, then we might get a government that reflected the American people. I'm glad the media hasn't anointed him a top-tier candidate, so that we can all admire him in peace without wondering when he'll get the coverage he deserves. Besides, you can't give the power to the people! Where do you think we live? 18th century France? Anyway, this guy can never be president- you can actually tell what he thinks."
by hubrisrising October 3 at 3:56AM
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