Nobody reads them!

So, its the begining of 2008, everyone should have recovered or at least be well on the road to recovery from all the familial, spiritual, and fleshly (take your pick) excitement of the CHRISTmas season, and be ready to embark on an important election year of 2008.  I know I am.

That being said, at least 2 of you have been consistently singing the praises of Dr. Ron Paul, so being the contrary meany that I sometimes am I decided to google "The Case Against Dr. Paul", LOL, well I thought i'd get some good material and present an awesome case against him...I was wrong.

Heres is the blog that I read from The Case Against Ron Paul (Emphasis added by me).
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Ron Paul is a douche bag.

I say this not from any factual knowledge, but rather from an impression gained from observation. It has been remarked that Ron Paul resembles a simple bag that could be used to hold water suitable for douching. I also read somewhere on the Internet that Ron Paul was helpful in relieving vaginal irritation. So upon these two elements of heresy, I have concluded that Ron Paul is a douche bag.

This is the only non-factual piece of information you will read in this post.

The truth of the matter is, Ron Paul is, in some corners of the Net, the second coming of Gandhi, FDR, and George Washington all rolled into one. While I understand a Republican's need to find someone who is not intrinsically evil to get behind in their primary, much of this Saint Paul crap comes from Democrats.

That's just wrong.

Most of this praise is for his stance on Iraq. He hates it, thinks we should get out. When placed on stage and surrounded by Republicans, he stands out as someone who has a brain in their head. It's refreshing, it's appealing, it's mesmerizing.

You want to vote for him. He's so dashing. The way he says the War on Terror's a bunch of B.S. You just want to scoop him up and take him home for some serious cuddling. Tell me again, Ron Paul, how much Bush has destroyed our nation with his war. And you're a Republican? Oooooo. Now I'm getting frisky.

What he's doing is, in fact, brilliant. He's the ONLY Republican Candidate against the war. In doing so, he's created a very obvious line between himself and his fellow GOPers. He's banking on the war being so unbelievably unpopular that enough Repubs vote for him just to get out of the war. Then, in the general, his War stance would take away one of the Democrat's most glaring strengths. If it works, it's genius.

But when you rub off the fine sheen of the War, you might be surprised at what lies beneath.

So I thought I'd do a little research and bring a few matters to your attention. Because when all is said and done, you can learn a lot more about a candidate from what he's done, rather than listening to what he's saying.

Let's start with his little pet project. Every politician has one. The one issue that means something personal to them, so they go out of their way to push for that particular special interest all the live long day. One guy may have hunted quail with his Daddy, so he loves the NRA. Another may have rehabilitated injured llamas as a kid, so he loves animals, and votes to protect them no matter what. For some it's the mountains they grew up in, or the river they fished in. Or maybe their own mother was adopted, so they now champion adoption issues.

Based on Ron Paul's pet project, I'm betting he used to drive a car.

Because he loves oil.

Oh my God, does he love oil.

Wisco gave us a great expose on Ron Paul's ties to oil in his own Ron Paul guide, Ron Paul is not the Second Coming. The whole thing is worth a look, but I just want to highlight some of the, err... highlights.

He wants to drill in ANWR.
He doesn't want to increase gas mileage standards.
He wants to allow new offshore drilling.
He wants to protect oil companies from contamination lawsuits.
He wants to stop having oil companies pay royalties for drilling in the Gulf of Mexico.

Oh, and did I mention he thinks Global Warming is for sissies?

"Fear is constantly generated by politicians to rally the support of the people. Environmentalists go back and forth, from warning about a coming ice age to arguing the grave dangers of global warming." - June 29, 2006, in a speech before the U.S. House of Representatives.

He's not an environmentalist.

Also in that article, you can learn all about how Ron Paul thinks Roe v. Wade was wrongly decided. He even went so far to sponsor legislation that states that "human life shall be deemed to exist from conception."

What about some other issues? OK. Let's look.

I'm a big fan of the separation of church and state. It's one of the founding principles of America. Ron Paul? Wants that wall torn down and the individual bricks used to build a monument to Jesus.

He wrote a lovely article called "Christmas in Secular America" that sounds like it's straight out of Bill O'Reilly's ridiculous War on Christmas playbook. My favorite quote from his article:

"The Founding Fathers envisioned a robustly Christian yet religiously tolerant America, with churches serving as vital institutions that would eclipse the state in importance."

Uhhmm.. no. They didn't. They most specifically DID NOT envision churches as eclipsing the state in importance. This is someone you want to put in charge of our country?

Oh, and if you don't agree with him, if you think we should have the ability to cry foul when government institutions are violating the establishment clause and pushing Jesus (or even one particular version of Jesus) on you? Ron Paul thinks you should go defibrillate yourself with a Jiggly Monkey Man Vibrating Dildo- now with extra lube! He introduced a bill in the house that would stop the federal courts from even hearing such cases.

Can you say Theocracy? Ron Paul would like to.

On immigration, he voted with his fellow Republicans when they rode their xenophobic train-wreck off the cliff. But Ron Paul wants to bring the crazy and go one step further. He wants a Constitutional Amendment that repeals the Fourteenth Amendment's birthright citizenship right. So even if you're born here, you're an illegal.

Way to court the Latin vote, Ron!

What about other non-white people? Well, let's look at Darfur. You know, that whole genocide thing? Ron's had some things to say about it. Mostly, Not Our Problem. On one hand, this is consistent with his Libertarian leanings that believe that we shouldn't interfere anywhere, so I suppose he gets props for that. But take a look at his impassioned plea to, basically, ignore Darfur. How many times do you find the word "genocide" in there? What? None? You mean there's no genocide at all? It's all one big Civil War? Huh. No wonder we don't have to do anything about it.

He wants us out of the United Nations. Thinks it's a waste of our time. Remember, the few Libertarian leanings he has lead him to the grand conclusion that we should ignore the rest of the world. They're not American, so who gives a flying crap about them?

But does he care about Americans?

Well, no. Did you know he voted for that really awesome Bankruptcy bill that got shoved through Congress, saving the poor, dying credit card companies from having to help nearly as many people as before? He also protected companies near and far by voting to make it harder to file a class-action lawsuit.

So actually, he does care about Americans, if they have a lot of money. And especially if they are a part of that special pet project close to his heart. Oil.

There's a ton more out there for you to find and enjoy. I haven't touched on his cringing stances on gay rights, civil rights, social security (Go Privatization!), veterans care, and much, much more. Plus, order today and you'll receive this handy-dandy dismissal of campaign finance reform! My point is Ron Paul, while speaking lovely dulcet tones on the War in Iraq, is still a pretty damn conservative Republican. Oh sure, he was the Libertarian Party's 1988 Presidential Candidate, but he's only Libertarian until their position begins to bump and grind down a progressive path, then he's all conservative, all the time.

And he's a total douche bag.

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All of the bold text represents points where I said to myself...whats the problem with that? The blog was intended to make me dislike Dr. Paul, but it only made me more interested in him.  There are still two glaring issues I see, his ECONOMIC policy abolishing the IRS/FED and returning to a gold standard goes against every economic idea that i've learned, and his idea of cutting and running in Iraq is absurd, certainly we SHOULDN'T be there but we ARE and something constructive needs to be done.

This is not a position paper, just informative, and im hoping for a few responses to my concerns. I look forward to the debates both on the national stage with the candidates and on the local stage between myself and my amigos.

THANKS FOR LISTENING!

John A.