Ron Paul

so I was going to reply in the philosophy forum, the thread about Tao, but I think I should start a new thread here rather than taking that one so off-topic.  apologies if I'm not following standard procedure, I've never been big on rules anyway…  :-D

I can't comment on Tao, because I haven't studied it myself, not in over 20 years or so when it made me feel an imposter, trying to steal someone else's way of being.  That's when I decided I can't use their teachings, anyones, I have to find my own way.

But Ron Paul isn't going to save us!!!  He wants to preserve the system as it is.  Sure, he suggests some minor changes, like giving us the illusion of freedom by restoring the Constitution, but he still has no faith in anyone's ability to think for themselves or to make their own decisions.  Besides, he's anti-abortion, and that, for me, says plenty about what he thinks about my autonomy!

Re: Ron Paul

There are a few rules for the Roundtable, but i'm going to try to satisfy them by ending every post with an alternative option or potential cure…

I will keep this brief…
1) Abolish The Fed
2) Abolish the IRS
3) Abolish Federal Income Tax
4) Abolish Homeland Security and other wasteful departments
5) Enforce immigration laws
6) Pull all America's troops out from around the world
7) Curb Military spending
8) Independent investigation into 9/11

He is anti abortion, yes, probably because he is an obstetrician, but he also notes that it has nothing to do with the government.

He's alright.

Now where is my happy peaceful point. It doesn't matter who wins, so long as everyone gets to vote and the vote is fair and accurate. Lets hope the next leader of the United States is as much wise as s/he is powerful. Let's hope for a government that truly represents the people.

Re: Ron Paul

I know some of you might not want to visit other websites… so I'll share the videos I've seen recently, but if you really want something to think about, go to InformationLiberation.com and read the comments after the videos there.  (yeah, I'm the same friendstacy but I'll not c&p my comments from there)

well, I can't figure out how to post them here, maybe one of you knows the trick!!
 http://www.informationliberation.com/index.php?id=23143

http://www.informationliberation.com/index.php?id=22951

Re: Ron Paul

“Let's hope for a government that truly represents the people.”

See, there's the problem, as long as you stick with a system that is merely representative of the people, you end up hoping for the things the people want, but rarely truly getting them. The current political system allows for marginal change, and a fair degree of representation (I am speaking of Canada here, I really know very little of the states), it is not that bad as current systems go, though even with only marginal change, it could be better. This is not just an issue of policy, as long as you have a system in which one person is asked to represent the views of thousands of people, as little as fifty percent of which marginally support him or her (and often only because of lack of options), you are going to have problems.

However, this is not a forum of problems, this is a forum of solutions, so, here we go, nitty gritty. At the very least, we need some form of proportional representation, and some increase in the number of members of parliament, as well as a redistribution of the ridings. A required annual (at least :)) town hall type meeting with you constituents would also be very helpful. Ideally, the federal government would have minimal power, provinces and territories just enough to get by, and the majority of decisions made on the local level would be made by the entirity of the population, using some form of online survey.

Re: Ron Paul

I concur, Matt, even in the U.S., that is the root of the problem, as I see it: our representatives represent to large of a population. We're fixeated on the pretty idea of having just enough rep's to fit in a pretty white building to “converse.” That's not what we need - more conversing. If we had one representative for every thousand people in the U.S., for example, we'd have about 260-300 rep's that voted on behalf of that thousand people. Instead of dividing us up based on where we live physically, we should be divided into a group at birth, where we grow up knowing who our representatives are for our group, we always know the issues that are being voted on, fromt the time we're little, and we always can hold them accountable for the way they voted on our behalf. That would be a true revolution for me. Or we could even take note of Switzerland (the only “real” Democracy alive), where each citizen receives documents each month of issues that need to be voted on, and they vote directly. Of course, they have a much more educated society, but if we emplimented something like that here in the states, it would be a huge impetus to get our schools up to par (which they're really pretty terrible, public ones, that is), so that each citizen would be more inept to make their decisions intellectually.