No one is perfect.

In the end, the person who will win will be what is judged
as the lesser of two evils we get to pick from.

In my opinion, RP has his head screwed on much straighter
than any other candidate at the moment. However, since
the media refuses to give him any air time, his chances
of a shot at the title are very slim indeed.

The media is a very powerful entity capable of manipulating
public opinion quickly. This is why it's so dangerous for
the FCC to allow so few to own so much of the media.

Taken to the extreme, the ideals of a very select few ( the
owners of the aforementioned media ) will be pressed upon
the populace, even if the masses are unaware of it. As a
result, our choices to vote upon will be limited by those
who have the power to limit them in the first place.

Of ALL the candidates I've seen so far, RP is the ONLY one
I would even consider voting for. The rest appear to be
cut from the usual spineless mold that most of our past
candidates came from. :|

However, even RP has to be taken with a grain of salt.

There isn't a candidate that truly means what the say. I
have yet to see any candidate ever fulfill their campaign
promises. My personal opinion is they shouldn't be given a
shot at a second term unless they make good on the promises
that got them into the position to begin with.

Maybe I should go buy my Guy Fawks mask now. . . . .

I for one don't like RP's platform. I don't really like any of the candidates' platforms this year, the one closest to what I support is Giuliani, he seems to have a pretty strong foreign policy idea, yet he's a pretty liberal guy with social issues it seems.

Guiliani is a hack who is totally in the pocket of the "security" industry, and is corrupt as any other NYC mayor.

Guilliani is anti-rights, pro-government.

Guilliani is very similar to Hillary, in fact they get their campaign funding from many of the same people.

After the massive failures of the past 8 years, I dont see how anyone could want a "strong" foreign policy. A bigger-badder Bush is not going to do us any good. /shrug

I would be curious to see what specifically you though Guilliana had right, as far as I can tell he is basically just another schlick schtick paying lip service to a false platform he thinks might get him elected. If you listen to him talk, you can also tell quickly that the Obfuscation is strong with him.

Well said, Daye & Derid.

This time around, if there's any way I can vote for Dr. Paul, that's who I'm voting for. I may even go so far as to write him on the ballot.

I like Chris Rock's take on Politics:

(paraphrase) "Liberals, Conservatives, Republicans, & Democrats are all fucking idiots. Anyone who is so short-sighted and narrow-minded as to pre-determine who or what party they'll vote for before even looking at the issues...is a fucking idiot. I'm liberal about some things...and I'm conservative about others. You've got to look at the issues, weigh them, and then make your decision."

If you are considering voting for RON PAUL, regardless of choices, Here is a site with a STEP-BY-STEP process on how to do it effectively using the Write-In Ballot. HERE IT IS

Thanks for the link. I will be voting for him in the GOP primaries (yes, I am and always have been a registered Republican) and writing him in on the main election day should he not get the nomination.

Dude, you can't tell me that voting against your own intuition and judgement isn't a wasted vote, either. Even if I know the person I'm voting for won't make it, I'll never sell out again and vote for someone simply because the person I really want doesn't stand a chance. It's only a waste if your heart isn't in it.

Blaze of Glory, Baby.

I don't know, I haven't really heard him, or any other candidate speak. I just the other day heard Obama's voice for the first time during his victory speach at Iowa.

Since the Florida primaries and the real election are rapidly approaching though, the other day I sat on wikipedia for like two hours looking through all the big republican and democratic candidates reading up on their political positions and the one that most matched my views was Giuliani, whom before knowing what he stood for was the candidate I was least likely to vote for just based on the fact that all he's been is a mayor, and all he seems to do according to the media is play the terrorism card.

So why Giuliani? Because first of all, all the Democrats want to immediately withdraw from Iraq. Although I agree going there was a mistake and any other argument that someone could bring up against Iraq that we've all heard a thousand times, I still think we should finish the job.

I think we should take a look at history and apply lessons learned from Vietnam. The second we left the North Vietnamese swept into the South and made it so the nearly 60 thousand U.S. troops that died over 10 years, died for nothing. So far Iraq has lasted five, and we're at about 3900, those numbers are fantastic, just the media hypes it like crazy in order to get higher ratings. I think we're better off just seeing the job through, rather than make those 3900 deaths a waste just like what happened with Vietnam.

I think any Republican learned lessons from Bush's presidency, and they'll think twice before engaging in wars on a whim. Regardless, I rather a Reagan than a Carter. I don't mean I want to go around starting shit all over the world or playing world police, but if someone starts shit with us, I think we should push back. And I think Ron Paul's idea of backing out of the UN is one of the dumbest proposals I've ever heard.

All right, so past foreign policy, which pretty much eliminates every Democrat on the list, sadly, I was faced with Giuliani, Huckabee, McCain, etc. Once I started reading up on them though, their platforms were stupidly absurd.

Pretty much every Republican but Giuliani is cut out of the same Bible-loving conservative mold (i.e. No Gay Marriage, No Abortions, No Stem Cell Research, Teach Creationism in schools, etc.)

I think a lot of those issues shouldn't be controlled by the Government, frankly some of them aren't the government's business.

To ban Stem Cell Research just because it comes from embryos at the cost of the hundreds of thousands of lives that could be saved from the fruits of such research is just plain stupid and ignorant. Luckily new sources of Stem Cells are being found now, but it shouldn't have to come down to finding alternate methods of finding Stem Cells just to please our Bible-toting compatriots.

Gay Marriage... honestly banning it is unconstitutional. It's like saying blacks can't get married or something. When it comes down to it, it's segregation. It's stupid that gays can't receive things such as insurance benefits that they would had their partners been of the opposite gender. I'm not gay, and have such few gay friends that I could count them on one hand, so Gay legislation really doesn't affect my life, but I just find it stupid that people believe the Government should even take a role in controlling people's personal lives like this. I'm agnostic and feel pity for people when they tell me they honestly believe in Creationism or they take the Bible literally rather than metaphorically. Adam and Eve shouldn't be a factor in how we run our government, period.

Abortions? Should I even have to argue in their favor? Their are a billion situations in which it would be ridiculous for a woman to be forced to have an abortion. Giuliani's stance is something like "I'm not fond of them, but I rather have them legal and occurring in a safe, controlled environment, than illegally with coat hangers or whatever. Because let's face it, abortions are going to happen whether the government allows them or not."

And yeah, I know certain aspects of his current platform are different than the stuff he supported during his years as the mayor of NYC, and yeah, this is to appeal to more voters, or benefit heavy donors to his campaign, but honestly, this is me caring. I guess like Fora said, it comes down to the lesser of two evils. Although Giuliani may not be 100% a match towards my views, he's the closest around, so my votes will be going to him this year... at least I think so thus far.

I'm for whoever is abolishing the IRS and the death tax. For me it starts and ends there.

I still have a REALLY hard time grasping the fact that my family has paid $1,500,000 in taxes in the past ten years and owes another $750,000, just because various members of the family passed away (dad and grandmother).

It's all bollocks, all of it!

holy shit :O

Seriously.

You should honestly go watch some of the interviews with Ron Paul, and then - honestly - watch the same or similar interviews with Guilianni.

Plus, whats wrong with withdrawing from the UN? I dont see what it has ever done for us, especially that could not have been achieved through other diplomatic channels.

Bush has shown once and for all that the UN has no real power. It has been known for a long time, that without America forking out the cash to enforce resolutions and fund peacekeeping, it wont happen.

Why channel all that effort in that fashion?

I disagree with withdrawing from the UN.

One of the things that I feel Bush is guilty of is alienating us from the rest of the world. And one of the things I'm most looking forward to our next leader to do is to help repair this damage that's been done.

Withdrawing from the UN would make what Bush has done look like nothing. It seems to me that it would completely alienate us from the entire world, and we'd become completely isolationalist, which is something I don't believe in (although, the exact opposite isn't the answer either; everything in moderation).

I understand all the complaints about the UN, and I can't disagree there, but withdrawing isn't the answer. If something this important to the world is broken, don't destroy it; fix it.

I'm not worried though, because I don't think it's even possible, not in the current political world. It'd take really drastic circumstances to cause this to happen, and once that all came... well, I'd be living a few miles underground in my own little awesome community to escape all that was coming, so I wouldn't care anyways.

The message isnt isolationism, its that the UN isnt an effective or desirable mechanism for diplomacy.

I agree about Bush having terrible diplomacy and foreign policy, I disagree that withdrawing from the UN would be worse than what Bush has done.

The idea that we deal respectfully with other nations is a good ideal, but the concept of signing over national sovreignty to a world body is a totally different animal.

Something else people fail to realize, is a forceful UN will lead to more war, not less. UN as a place to talk is OK, UN as a forcefull entity - will lead only to the reproduction on a larger scale of the chaos you get when splintered national governments have multiple armed factions who cannot agree.

We see it rather often, where a large cultural minority will get legislativly shafted by the cultural majority, and the minority cries "tyranny" and the majority yells back to "respect democratic process" and they end up slaughtering each other.

I disagree. I think the fear of the UN using force against them keeps countries in check. Think about it, since the UN was implemented a third world war has been avoided. Sure, wars have still squeaked by, but except for I guess Vietnam, they haven't been to the obscene magnitude as the world wars (although I guess you could also attribute that to technological improvements that lead to reduced casualties... at least on our side :P)

And I don't think it's so much a question of what the UN has done for us... we're a pretty self-sufficient, highly-developed country. The problem is that without us backing the UN, the world would be in a shitty state. No one likes us because we go around sticking our nose where it doesn't belong (in the most recent case, without the UN's approval...) but honestly if it weren't for the UN, all those communists and dictators that go around ass-raping the third world way too often as it already is, would completely wreak havoc upon the people they so love to oppress and exploit.

There is no reason to think the UN had anything to do with preventing WW3. The thing that prevented WW3, is both the US and Soviet leaders got cold feet about starting it, it had zero to do with the UN.

There is plenty of war, and tyranny despite the UN. As a matter of fact, unless the United States takes a strong interest in pushing for, and funding interventions it doesnt happen.

When it does happen, we are blamed (sometimes rightly, sometimes wrongly) of simply serving our own interests.

I would like to hear one good reason that U.S. soldiers should be tried for war crimes internationally, should someone wish to try and bring charges.

I would like to hear one good reason why we should ever screw ourselves, simply because others in the world think we should.

Guess what, other people in the world dont have fairness and agreement as their highest priority. They have their own agendas as their priority. Not that it should be any different, but diplomacy worked perfectly well for many centuries before the UN, and would continue to work perfectly well after.

I think you can look at history to see the effectiveness of the UN. The league of Nations were based on Wilson's 14 points, but English and French interests weakened the League. As a result, it did little to prevent future wars. World War Two happened, the UN came about, much more similar to the original plan for the league, and bam, no WW3. Globalization has increased since ww2, so you'd think more conflicts would arise to bring fourth a third world war. Two happened within twenty years, it's been sixty since the last and still nothing.

Uhm. No.

and

No, you wouldnt.

Ok, I guess I will explain these nos real quick -

ww2 happened, essentially because the French were insistent on such severe treatment of the germans after ww1 that their economy never recovered, and eventually the germans got so bitter as to hand power to a creature like Hitler.

WW3 DIDNT happen, because nuclear weapons were in play. Weighing the effects of some organization like the UN, and the concept that ww3 would likely bring about the near-extinction of our species side by side... I find it difficult to fathom how the UN could have played any part.

If you think "world opinion", or "world governing bodies" had jack, or shit to do with.... say- Kennedy or Chruszchev's military/nuclear decisions for example, then I have some fine real-estate in Florida I would love to sell you.

Saying "then along came the UN and, BAM - no WW3 " is akin to saying " wow I saw Brittney Spears on TV, and BAM! - my constipation cleared up".

Maybe, there was somehow through some complicated process connecting the two.. but in the example given above, the subject had also downed several habenero peppers, and a bag of black licorice. (peppers metaphorically representing the A-bombs here)

You're assuming ww3 would include nukes.

Countries with nuclear arsenals have been involved in probably a dozen wars, and twice as many military engagements lasting less than a week such as Kuwait or Panama since the end of WWII, a nuke has never been dropped.

With NATO and the Warsaw Pact, there was a presence of the entangled alliances that led to the first two world wars, yet a third was avoided.

Yeah, nukes could have played a part in the avoidance of a third world war, but I don't think they played the whole part. It's like rival gangs, they don't necessarily stop fighting because they each have guns. They could very well set up an outsiders-styled fists-only brawl or whatever.

No, again - way wrong.

I am not assuming anything, its a established fact that both the US and Soviets were both afraid that any conflict could/would escalate to nuclear, because eventually one side would gain an advantage and inevitably the loser would be tempted.

So, no - I am not assuming anything.

True statement that.

No nuclear armed country will ever allow a hostile country
to 'win' a war without playing the nuclear trump card. If
the enemy is at your doorstep, what do you have left to
lose ?

The knowledge of that little fact is what keeps the world
from it's third ( and likely final ) war.