What are you doing right now?

[EndOfTheEarth]

Besides posting on here and replying to this thread. Original credit for this goes back to Fate and Nathan on MX.

[Fake Fang]

It's kind of depressing, looking back at who I was before. :/

[Contradiction]

I have the same problem.

[Nighthawk]

School's back in tomorrow. I have to do homework this week. I haven't started my English 101-102 portfolio that's due at the end of the week. Fuck. 

I hate school. And I just got Skyrim yesterday... I've only played it for a couple hours so far. Y-Y

Good news is that I'm skipping on Friday to go on a weekend trip to Savannah! :D I actually get to visit SCAD!

[Contradiction]

Fucking hell, the new Jason Mraz song is beautiful. as if I wouldn't think that but really it is

[Contradiction]

The Iowa caucuses show a deadlock between Romney and Santorum.

Santorum? Really?

I know these are ultraconservative Republicans who vote in the primaries, but still.

I do not understand.

Why can't anyone pay attention to Huntsman?

Also, way too many people are saying that Ron Paul has good ideas. Maybe so, but he's fucking insane and I do NOT want him to run this country. Holy shit, that would be terrifying.

[EndOfTheEarth]

Of all the other folks in the GOP primaries, Romney and Santorum are okay by me.

I mean, hey, I'm from Pennsylvania. We had Santorum as our senator for a while, and I'm still alive.

[Contradiction]

Santorum's views on gays and "family values" are repulsive. You know about the Dan Savage campaign thing with Santorum's name, right?

[EndOfTheEarth]

Yup. And I agree with you, but both of us know that it isn't likely that he'd actually be able to pass anything relating to his personal views on family or homosexuals through congress, so I don't see it as being as big of a factor as, say, his foreign policy, military doctrine, and control over government organizations that directly respond to the whims of the President, rather than to congress, such as NASA, the NSF, and so on.

Though, I've always figured the elections on either side to be a judgement call about who would be less bad, rather than good in any form. From this standpoint, I'd rather see Santorum in that spot than, say, Bachmann; that way if we do wind up with a Republican president, it's a somewhat tolerable one. I'll be making a similar judgement call between Obama and whomever wins the GOP primary, though from the start I've been of the opinion that the GOP field this year has been crap.

[Contradiction]

Legislatively and practically, you're right. But to have someone like him spouting that shit in representation of this country as a world leader? Fuck no.

I had such hope about Obama in 2008. I would have considered him good rather than just the lesser of the evils. Otherwise, yeah, I agree. Bachmann's dropped out now, so there's no chance of her winning (not like there's been one for a while), and Perry's all but gone, too. Paul won't win because he won't have the backing of the GOP as an establishment (and while his base is solid he's too extreme to gain much more support), and Huntsman's unlikely because no one knows who he is, plus he's a Mormon, plus he believes in evolution and global warming.

This leaves us with Santorum, Romney, Gingrich, and someone else who might announce later maybe. Of them, Romney's preferable because, while he looks like a Ken doll and his core value is winning the election, he's fairly moderate. I haven't looked into either Santorum's or Gingrich's specific positions, so I'm not sure who I'd choose over the other, but I'd be interested in what you have to say.

[Brandybuck]

I am curious as to what about Ron Paul you find so insane.  This isn't me attacking that viewpoint, I'm honestly pretty damn uneducated as far as most of their political stances go.  I know he sent that one dicky twitter message about Huntsman's lack of votes, but besides that he doesn't seem more unstable then the rest of this year's Republican hopefuls (not that that's saying much).

Besides having an... interesting live persona, his views seem relatively refreshing in a Republican candidate, and its nice to see a candidate that might not just be the Secretary of Defense's personal bitch.  Its also worth mentioning that he would never actually be able to get us to withdraw from the UN or NAFTA, as is the case with most of his more extreme views.

[nathan_p]

Someone else made this post, I'm just re-upping it:

 

Yasser Arafatwa posted:

Ron Paul is the worst possible choice.

Ron Paul wants to define life as starting at conception, build a fence along the US-Mexico border, prevent the Supreme Court from hearing cases on the Establishment C... or the right to privacy, permitting the return of sodomy laws and the like (a bill which he has repeatedly re-introduced), pull out of the UN, disband NATO, end birthright citizenship, deny federal funding to any organisation which "which presents maleor female homosexuality as an acceptable alternative life style or which suggest that it can be an acceptable life style" along with destroying public education and social security, and abolish the Federal Reserve in order to put America back on the gold standard. He was also the sole vote against divesting US federal government investments in corporations doing business with the genocidal government of the Sudan.


Oh, and he believes that the Left is waging a war on religion and Christmas, he's against gay marriage, is against the popular vote, opposes the Civil Rights Act of 1964, wants the estate tax repealed, is STILL making racist remarks, believes that the Panama Canal should be the property of the United States, and believes in New World Order conspiracy theories, not to mention his belief that the International Baccalaureate program is UN mind control.

Edit: Fixed Ning's weird linking ghetto-style. 

Anyway, Gingrich I don't know much about other than Old and Crazy, Santorum is a douche, and no matter who the Republicans put up for candidate, they're gonna be a crazy shitfest.

[Brandybuck]

Well yeah, on certain issues, Paul is pretty bat-shit crazy, but on issues such as changing the legal tender, dropping out of the UN, and his plans for border control he can do no actual harm (provided he's backed by a relatively sane senate).  I'd really only like to challenge a few of the above post's statements, those being that he is 1. Against gay marriage, 2. Opposes the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and 3. Is still making racist remarks.

1. The Marriage Protection Act, the subject matter of the link in question, does not in any way prevent states from legalizing gay marriage.  The Bill essentially says that states outside of a state where a gay marriage is performed need not recognize it as a gay marriage, meaning that a same-sex couple from say, Arizona, cannot go  to Pennsylvania in order to have a marriage performed and then return to Arizona with the rights and recognition of a married couple.  I should at this point, state that Paul's reasoning behind this has to do more with the matter of State's Rights, for which he is famously a fanatic, mainly do his dramatic feelings on taking the Constitution very literally.  Paul seems to avoid the subject of gay marriage as much as possible, though he was in favor of more tolerant reforms to the 'Don't Ask Don't Tell' law while it was still in practice.

2.  The Outburst that the above link cites is a matter of him criticizing the manner in which the Civil Rights reforms were handled in the 60's, claiming that true reforms in Civil Rights and race relations were due to "changes in public attitudes and private efforts" instead of the act.  I don't personally agree with this, but it is important to note that he's not a crazy old racist, just a crazy old libertarian.

3.  I found nothing in above-linked article about him making any racist remarks.  After reading the entire article, I really don't remember race even being brought up at all.  This could have been an error on my part, but again, I don't see evidence to this whatsoever.

What's really left are the ramblings of an old guy who seems a little overly accustomed to filling the role of Congress's crazy grampa, but who has valuable insight nonetheless.  On areas where he could actually cause reform, he's innovative as far as the right-wing goes.  He is for the legalization of Marijuana, a move that could not only allow the government to tax it as a product but would allow it to be less easily distributed to minors (this coming from a teenager who has injested Marijuana.  >.> Cast Party; sue me) and has been against the war in the Middle East since Bush initiated it.  He's also against the Patriot Act; y'know, that one bill that allows the government to wire tap its own citizens and hold them indefinitely without trial.  The one that Bush put forward over a decade ago and Obama just agreed to another four years of.

All I'm saying is that that fuckin' crazy old shit actually raises good points every once in a while, intermittent amongst his wide-eyed libertarian babble.  Remember that any talk about Republican candidates is really more of a political exercise and interesting debate topic than anything else; there's no way we'll see a Republican in office for at least another four years.  And its not like there are any less homophobic, questionably racist, border-patrolling GOP candidates out there except for maybe Romney, who just seems to be doing whatever he thinks will get him the most votes in a wild attempt to get them good ol' god fearin' Amurricans to forget that he's Mormon.

EDIT: Holy fuck I've never made a post that long before.  Sorry everyone, this is what happens when I procrastinate my goddam critique for Newspaper class tomorrow.