This Is........ AWESOME!!!!!!!!!

[Shadowrider]

If you had gone to college you would have written "should have gone" rather than "should of went." And tell the recently graduated petroleum engineer that we just hired for $100k per annum that college is overrated. And Ron Paul is still the crazy uncle in the attic.

Well I have a couple of 1099s that I could show you. But unfortunately I can't produce any student loan papers to go along with them. But I bet he can!

I'll admit though that's one of the fields that I think college is good for. Science, math, engineering, biology, physics, etc. Everything else? Not so much.

Well, it looks like there's a consensus among the elderly.

And just think Madd, you too will be admitted into this club. Someday....

 

[HMFIC]

I believe it's perfectly factual. One personal experience isn't going to change that. We've done more bad than good.

I don't agree. I'll attempt to persuade you:


The complete text from Ron Paul's "Imagine" speech which the video was based on is at the bottom in quotes. When you read it without the video marketing and inflection, you can actually pick out the insanity a little better.


He refers to American troops as "occupiers" who he believes have no reason to be there and are not wanted. I don't view it like this at all and I don't think most Americans do either.

He falsely states that American troops kill and terrorize innocent people with "little or no repercussions or consequences". Wow... pretty bold statement and fully untrue.

He pretends that our normal course of action is to "ransack entire neighborhoods" at will and with no cause. Ask a soldier if this is true... perhaps even one who just had a buddy killed by an IED. Go ahead... I dare ya.

He plays the same old tune that WE somehow have caused people in the world to hate us. That is assuming the world (and especially our enemy) does hate us at all or any more than they hate anyone else.

He characterizes the CIA report outlining Bin Laden's rationalle for attacking us as "meddling". The fact is that just because Bin Laden's vision of harming us in the same way he saw towers and buildings destroyed in the 1982 Israeli siege of Beirut and blamed our support of Israel over the years as reason for revenge, doesn't mean that the CIA thinks it's rational, justified or representative of "meddling". It's no different than a report from a psychiatrist stating the fact that someone is crazy.

He makes a statement that we only deal with other nations through "threats and violence" rather than "friendship, honest trade and diplomacy". As if we are the schoolyard bully stealing lunch money from the world rather than the generous and protective nation that we have proven ourselves to be many times over.

You don't need my personal experience from the Gulf War, go ask a WWI or WWII Frenchman. Go ask a Chinaman from the 1930s or 40s. Ask any Israli from any time. Ask an East German who is no longer imprisoned by a wall that we pressed to have "torn down". Ask a Kuwaiti, Ask an Iraqi. Ask an Afghani. NOT the Taliban or the leftovers from Saddam's forces who seek to gain power again and rule with everyone under their thumb. Even still, ask OUR OWN OKLAHOMA TROOPS who are currently in these places. Ask them if their mission is fruitful and their cause just. Ask the countless men, women and children who have been saved from starvation, lack of clean water, disease, etc... through our humanitarian efforts across the world. Have we also make mistakes, sure... have we disenfranchised people sometimes, sure. Opinions from a single perspective abound, but if you can step back and take a look at the whole, we are not deserving of Ron Paul's rant about how bad we've been.

Like I said... if Ron Paul wants to have a debate on the merits of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, or even the larger discussion about foreign policy in general, there is plenty of room to do so without him being sensational, dishonest, and incriminating of our troops.

I'd love to see all of our troops home, but it's not because I believe "we've done more bad than good". On the contrary, I'm just tired of spending PILES of our money and spilling our blood on countries that can't seem to get their own act together and likely never will. There may be good reasons that can be debated for us to stay there, but it's difficult to even get to that point when people like Paul continue to attempt to control the language of the debate by playing to people's emotions with bald faced lies and manipulative speeches.

Imagine for a moment that somewhere in the middle of Texas there was a large foreign military base, say Chinese or Russian. Imagine that thousands of armed foreign troops were constantly patrolling American streets in military vehicles. Imagine they were here under the auspices of “keeping us safe” or “promoting democracy” or “protecting their strategic interests.”

Imagine that they operated outside of US law, and that the Constitution did not apply to them. Imagine that every now and then they made mistakes or acted on bad information and accidentally killed or terrorized innocent Americans, including women and children, most of the time with little to no repercussions or consequences. Imagine that they set up check points on our soil and routinely searched and ransacked entire neighborhoods of homes. Imagine if Americans were fearful of these foreign troops, and overwhelmingly thought America would be better off without their presence.

Imagine if some Americans were so angry about them being in Texas that they actually joined together to fight them off, in defense of our soil and sovereignty, because leadership in government refused or were unable to do so. Imagine that those Americans were labeled terrorists or insurgents for their defensive actions, and routinely killed, or captured and tortured by the foreign troops on our land. Imagine that the occupiers’ attitude was that if they just killed enough Americans, the resistance would stop, but instead, for every American killed, ten more would take up arms against them, resulting in perpetual bloodshed. Imagine if most of the citizens of the foreign land also wanted these troops to return home. Imagine if they elected a leader who promised to bring them home and put an end to this horror.

Imagine if that leader changed his mind once he took office.

The reality is that our military presence on foreign soil is as offensive to the people that live there as armed Chinese troops would be if they were stationed in Texas. We would not stand for it here, but we have had a globe straddling empire and a very intrusive foreign policy for decades that incites a lot of hatred and resentment towards us.

According to our own CIA, our meddling in the Middle East was the prime motivation for the horrific attacks on 9/11. But instead of re-evaluating our foreign policy, we have simply escalated it. We had a right to go after those responsible for 9/11, to be sure, but why do so many Americans feel as if we have a right to a military presence in some 160 countries when we wouldn’t stand for even one foreign base on our soil, for any reason? These are not embassies, mind you, these are military installations. The new administration is not materially changing anything about this. Shuffling troops around and playing with semantics does not accomplish the goals of the American people, who simply want our men and women to come home. 50,000 troops left behind in Iraq is not conducive to peace any more than 50,000 Russian soldiers would be in the United States.

Shutting down military bases and ceasing to deal with other nations with threats and violence is not isolationism. It is the opposite. Opening ourselves up to friendship, honest trade and diplomacy is the foreign policy of peace and prosperity. It is the only foreign policy that will not bankrupt us in short order, as our current actions most definitely will. I share the disappointment of the American people in the foreign policy rhetoric coming from the administration. The sad thing is, our foreign policy WILL change eventually, as Rome’s did, when all budgetary and monetary tricks to fund it are exhausted.

 

[dutchwrangler]

Uhhhhhh ... okay ... Too bad more people don't respond the same way I do to highly emotionally-charged, over sensationalized, over simplified commercials about the economy, foreign policy, abortion, drugs or any other polarizing issue. I completely shut down just about 30 seconds into that "thing".

Ron Paul cares about one thing ... and that is having "President" in front of his name ... That's what politicians do.

Good grief ...

Politicians, priests, preachers, rabbis, imams... elites in the shadows... it's what they do. The rest of us are livestock.