This is the breakdown I put together from a recent debate I had with a Paulite.Ok, let me start my saying that as a leader within organizations in the secular community, I get it. A lot of secular folks love Ron Paul. In the end, I just don’t agree that he’s the best candidate. I think Obama has a good chance to do a lot of good if we can stop the current GOP “stop Obama at all costs” tactic, when they have no actual plan in place once they succeed. And yes, I would have preferred Hillary, though mostly because she’s got more experience and wouldn’t let anyone stop her from doing her job. That said, let me address Ron Paul and my problems with his policies.
The issue with the racist remarks from his newsletters disturbed. That said, he “claims” to not have had a hand in it, and even supports some good legislation that would aid in equality within the justice system. So, either he’s lying and the problem is with him, or he has some pretty sketchy supporters. Either way, it was a bad mark, but not an end all situation.
I can’t get behind the pro-life stance. However, the point very few people tend to realize is that the president isn’t really the one making those social issue calls. It’s congress. That’s why, even with a pro-choice president, we’re seeing so many assaults on women’s rights. The republican house is pushing the issue, when they SHOULD be focusing on the economy.
Ok, let’s look at his healthcare policies. A full repeal of the Obamacare plan isn’t wise. Unfortunately, the way our healthcare system is currently setup, it either needs a full overhall or none. Going piecemeal is a recipe for disaster. Right now, as things stand, the healthcare system is broken. As things stand, we’re the only industrialized nation without a nationalized healthcare system. Providers can drop you for any reason as it stands now. Up until 2005, about half the bankruptcy filings in the US were due to medical expenses. A large portion of those people HAD medical insurance, but were dropped because they came down with something expensive. That needs fixed. I like that he wants to preserve medicare and Medicaid. I’m tired of the current GOP idea that we should fix the national debt on the backs of the elderly. But, letting free trade handle it has screwed up pretty hard thus far. Given the sheer amount of layoffs, this should be apparent. When you lose your job, the only way to extend medical coverage if you have a pre-existing condition is via a group such as Cobra. Generally, that costs about as much as a house payment per month to keep. When you lose your job, you generally can’t afford that. And now, fewer and fewer businesses are covering their employees because it just costs too much and frankly, with so many people out of work, they aren’t having trouble finding people who need to eat and will work without medical benefits. Also, Paul wants to allow alternative medicine to be covered. That’s a huge problem. CAM or complimentary and alternative medicines have a high death count because they don’t work. These are large scale scams that people buy into very often because they’re cheaper and folks can’t afford real medicine. These modalities have NO science to back up their claims. Do you know what we call alternative medicine that’s been proven to work? Medicine. Alt med as either not been proven to work or been proven not work. I can’t stand behind that in any way, shape or form.
His economic policy has pros and cons. The federal reserve system does need work. Atm, it costs 2.6 cents to make a penny. That’s a bit off. I can’t get behind allowing offshore drilling. I think we learned our lesson very recently with BP, didn’t we? Eliminating income tax is counterproductive to repairing the economy. When you look at our current economic situation, there are a couple of things to look at. First, we’re in what’s called an economic lag period. This is when the job market shifts. We have a lot of people out of work because the career they’re trained for is no longer viable. We have a lot of new jobs opening in fields that no one is trained for. Historically speaking, the best and fastest way out of that is to raise taxes across the board and eliminate tax cuts across the board and pump money into education to allow these people the luxury to retrain. That will generally allow for a 5 year economic turnaround. The drawback is that the taxes often don’t go back down after, but that’s something that can also be addressed. But, right now, we’re cutting from education and he’s talking about eliminating income tax. That’s not sound economic policy. It looks great it the short term, but it’s a band-aid that would placate the masses, with a negative long term effect.
His defense policy isn’t bad, I’ll grant him that, though it does seem to imply a more forceful approach against Mexican immigrants, which I don’t necessarily agree with. Our country was built on “illegal” immigration. We haven’t had immigration laws for very long. Frankly, most of the immigrants who come here, even illegally, are harder working and more dedicated than many Americans, and when they do gain citizenship, often know more about our country than Americans and are prouder for the privilege. What needs to happen here is to pave the way for citizenship for those working hard to make a better life here, not inhibit it. I agree as far as the unnecessary and un-declared wars. However, I don’t want to see us hesitating as we did with WWII, when the need to be involved is clear. His stance is fairly vague here, so I’d need to read more to fully assess it.
Gun rights are fine. I have no issue with people owning firearm, though I won’t use them myself. Gun regulations do nothing to stop criminals from obtaining them. They don’t exactly give their ID to the local gun shop. That said, I DO have a problem with people being able to have cellars full of more firearms than most military bases. They don’t exactly have self defense in mind and I consider that a threat to both personal and national security. There do need to be some limits and oversight at the very least.
The national right to work law is fine, so long as it doesn’t force unions to stop operating. If you don’t want in, that’s ok, but everyone should have the option if they so choose. In todays American, businesses seem fond of trampling on the rights of employees and unions do help to protect them from that.
Homeschooling: Ok, but with reservations. I’m good with helping for homeschooling families and legitimizing their degrees, HOWEVER, they need to be regulated as far as curriculum. To many parents are homeschooling to stop their children from learning accepted science and even history, rather than to give them a better education. If parents refuse to teach their children about evolution or about the role of minorities in American History, as is often the case, then colleges should be under no obligation to accept those students who don’t have the appropriate education to be a college student. Homeschooling should not be used to keep children ignorant.
Ah and now I come to a whole section on that implied immigration policy I mentioned. I can’t stand behind it, sorry. I actually can’t stand behind any of it or have a good thing to say about it. My reasons are above.
Energy reform is needed, but I’m only half with Paul on this one. I’m pro-nuclear and good with promoting it. I can’t necessarily stand by goal or any other fossil fuels due to the harm to the environment and the reality of global climate change. If we want to reform energy, we need to focus some dollars into alternative energy research. Let’s get rid of our gas dependence and all fossil fuel dependence. There are ways to do it, but someone just needs to get the legislation through to fund the research. Yes, it’s spending now, but it’ll lead to lower overall energy costs later, not to mention independence from foreign oil which would be a big economic boon. Even for people who confuse politics with actual science and deny climate change in the way people deny evolution, the future economic benefits alone should be enough to spur that type of progress forward.
Ok, that’s just taking the policies from his website bit by bit, though it’s nowhere near a comprehensive analysis of his views. I hope this provides some food for thought.
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