Quote:US monetary policy
Not perfect, but the last thing we need is to take Monetary Policy out of the hands of appointees and into the hands of Politicians and thus the political realm, its already politicized enough. Its an imperfect world, this issue is so complicated and a majority of voters are so ignorant of basic economics much less monetary policy. The system we have of a PRIVATE central banks, with public appointees to oversee is about as good as we are going to get. We just need more greenspans and less Volker’s overseeing. More Adam Smith/Milton Friedman fundamentals and less Keynes, IMO. Not perfect, but as close to as good as you can expect in an imperfect/fallen world.
And when you look at our track record of unprecedented Economic Growth(to 1000’s of years of Human history), over the past century its kinda hard to think we need change. We are night and day better off today than we were 50 years ago much less dating back to 1913. In the 1800’s we had Depressions regularly, today the Fed has managed to keep us in just a recession and avoid full blown depressions. With the exception of the Great depression, which I think had more to do with the Hawley Tarrif’s the Congress passed in an attempt to Isolate ourselves Economically, like we were Foreign Policy wise, at the time.
Quote:public schools
Hate them, but in the real world they aren’t going anywhere. Too many broken homes and irrationality. If you are voting for Paul because you think he’ll get rid of the Dept. of Education and/or Public Schools, he’s misleading you. POTUS isn’t a dictator, all he will do is piss off the Teachers Unions and get creamed in the press and get national opinion turned against him, even trying to do just have the policy of School Vouchers will be rewarded like this. That’s the Political realities of it, a hard line on this and many of these other issues would ultimately lead to a quick impeachment. It’s not politically feasible, possibly in baby steps but I think we need cultural change just as much.
Quote:border security
RP doesn’t have a perfect record on this, liberal in some cases. But definitely an area that needs improvement. But again the politics of it aren’t good, if you piss off too many Hispanics as the press labels you bigoted and/or a “fascist” over the issue, which the NYT’s will and has done.
Quote:700+ military bases worldwide in over 130 nations and the 1 trillion dollars spent to maintain them.
I’m for withdrawing from some of them, Germany for example. However they don’t want us to and that gets into another fine line of geo-politics. We are in effect subsidizing their welfare states in some cases by our present, and they like that. They way they tax and spend on Govt. and don’t have to worry about little things like National Security. Although with Germany’s track record it may not be such a bad idea to have them militarily weak, especially as they are being Islamified.
Quote:US welfare state
don’t like what we do have, but keep in mind we did achieve Welfare Reform in the 90’s. As long as you have out of wedlock births, dead-beat dads, etc., there is unfortunately going to be some need for it.
Quote:use of the military without declaration of war or impending threat
we did declare war effectively, but that is another discussion. As is the nature of the threat,
Quote:unbalanced US budgets
Not good, but not end of the world when analyzed as % of GDP and our economic Growth. This is something RP is not good on with all his $400 Million worth of Pork request this year alone, not to mention many other “Aye” votes related to others Pork amendments. He just pay’s lip service for the budget hawks.
Quote:
If not...Then I have no idea who you find in the current mainstream of politics that would pledge to tackle even 1/3 of this list or risk the political capital to do so.
you have to have the political capital first, as would the Congress and Senate. They don’t, look at what the AARP did when they tried to privatize Social Security, or a portion of it, which was reasonable. And that was with a Repub. Congress and senate, it was Dead on Arrival.
It’s easy to be idealistic and spout out talking points when you are just a congressman and 1/500th of a vote. Totally different when you are 1/1, ultimately playing a PR game and don’t have absolute power. Pragmatism is your friend, and things are going historically pretty well, regardless of all the fear mongering about it by those on the left and Ron Paul fringe.
