Speaking of militarist, retired USAF Ron Paul, who you nobly call Dr. Ron Paul -- well, yeah, he was a flight surgeon in the Air Force. He became a doctor with plenty of government help. No Libertarian problems with taking government money then, when it came to health care. It was only after Paul left the US military machine that he had an attack of conscience and decided he had Libertarian principles that should prevent him from caring for folks on Medicare/Medicaid.
As well, Libertarians, and Paul, if I understand him completely, are against labor laws (minimum wage, OSHA, overtime pay -- the market would resolve the need for these), social insurance safety nets, social retirement like Social Security, and Medicare.
So, he doesn't just want to reduce social safety nets. He opposes their existence. His healthcare plan is -- there is none. It's the opposite of pretty much any liberal, anti-capitalist, etc. plan on what was supposed to be maybe the hot button issue in the '08 election.
Pat Buchanan also talks big about a "Republic, not an Empire," scaling back overseas US presence, and he's also come out with this same, loony-right pandering about the immigrant-magnet known as the NAFTA Superhighway, attracting neo-Nazis, too, like Paul has in many embarrassing pronouncements.
Also, no one has a truly binary choice in Pres. elections. You can write in Spongebob Squarepants.
-B.
Shane Mage wrote:
"Only if you disregard civil liberties and if you accept the stupid, implicitly militarist, distinction between 'domestic' and 'foreign' policies. But if peace and freedom are important 'issues' Dr. Paul, a forthright opponent both of imperialist wars and of the 'War on Drugs,' is immeasurably better than any of the presently prospective Dumbocrat candidates. If (per impossibile) the election came down to a binary choice between Paul and Clinton, I would for the first time in my life vote and even actively campaign for a bourgeois candidate--and it wouldn't be Clinton."
B. <docile_body at yahoo.com> wrote:
"Ron Paul's domestic agenda is horrible.