Let me ask a (seemingly) innocent question: If there is only one restaurant available and you can't find anything on the menu that suits your taste, do you order a meal there? Or do you go home and make your own dinner? The upcoming election resembles (to me) this hypothetical restaurant.

I think I shall stay home and make my own stew, or at least stew by myself.

If I were going to vote for someone it would be John McCain. Why? Because he is a son of a bitch. But he is something like my kind of son of a bitch. He was a warrior who dropped explosive devices on enemies, including women and children. On the other hand I might vote and write in Lucifer and Mephistopholes. If we are going to hell, let us, at least, do it right. Why settle for the lesser of evils?

Ba'al Chatzaf

I should probably stop doing this but Baal "Tell us how you really feel."

Very good analogy. I feel like a vegetarian in Texas cowboy country.

I am still undecided about the election and I don't feel like sifting through all the rhetoric and propaganda to figure out who my candidate is. As much as I love this country and having the right to vote, I am very tempted to sit this one out. I wish there was some comparative information out there showing side by side (maybe in table format) the basic views of the top 5 candidates along with comparison to Objectivist political philosophy. That would make it so much easier to sift through all the blah blah blah that makes me politically apathetic. (Does Ron Paul even fall into the top 5?) Maybe if there was a comparison between Guiliani, Ron Paul, and McCain, it would be very helpful. Does any republican have a chance at winning the general election. I'm in Chicago where Obama is extremely popular.

So if someone around here wants to take on the task of presenting an objective side-by-side comparison of the candidates' positions on issues important to us--domestic, international and economic--or have found something of this nature online, please share it on the stump in the backyard. I'd like to see links to the candidates websites as well.


Kat
Hating politics, but yet feeling shamefully uninformed...

Given that your sense of taste was corrupted by the last meal you ate, you go with your reason rather than your emotions and you vote Ron Paul.


Shayne

Not while we are at war. If we were at peace, I might entertain the idea. Paul is the Bugle that Sounds Retreat. I never considered the U.S. Constitution as a suicide pact with stupidity.

Ba'al Chatzaf

Kat, Here is a link to give you an idea what Ron Paul has in mind to do if elected. It is his economic revitalization program in answer to the anemic proposal of the others including Bush.

http://www.ronpaul2008.com/Prosperity

Although one can find fault from an Objectivist purist position Ron Paul is a rare principled advocate of Constitutional limits on government power who has served ten terms with a proven record of adherence to his ideals.

He has my vote, admiration and I am doing what I can to enlighten others I meet in my daily rounds. I hand out his literature in the form of Slim Jims available at his website www.ronpaul2008.com. Because of the virtual media blackout most voters are unaware of his existence at all.

I just spoke with volunteers here in MA who have set up a phone bank which automatically calls unenrolled voters to find any who would like to know more about Ron Paul. So far they have received many calls for info. It is a system used in Nevada where Ron Paul came in second to Romney but ahead of the rest.

Admittedly a long shot but he is so close to the ideal candidate despite shortcomings, given the opportunity to help him get the republican nomination, it is clear to me that this fight is our fight and we should do whatever we can to help his cause, which is our cause as well.

William

You're wrong, and if you want to debate it go to the original thread where you made this claim:

http://www.objectivistliving.com/forums/in...amp;#entry45536


Shayne

OK, after fishing around on Ron Paul's site for awhile, I found his paper that summarizes where he stands on issues and so I am attaching it to this post. If there are similar position papers around the other candidates sites, please post a link. It seems like so far only the Ron Paul supporters are trying to sway my vote away from Ringo.

Kat

Here is a link to a table checklist on the candidates and where they stand on various issues:
http://www.2decide.com/table.htm

Kat

Excellent work. I do not suggest that anyone sit out any election and not vote. I have been an election inspector, supervisor and trainer of poll watchers my whole life. I have never voted a "straight ticket" [or even a gay ticket lol], but one way you can excercise your vote is to go in and in NY for example, just pull the curtain, push no levers down, and pull the lever back[this is efore the new machines that they are using this year which have not been certified by the feds and makes New York the only state in the union that is in non-compliance with the new standards]. This essentially is voting for "None of the above is acceptable to me." Some political person like me would pick that up and make that e.d. one to look at.

Additionally, there are a lot of other just as critical offices that are federally local and local local that you can participate in.

Too many people gave too much to protect that right for us to not exercise it to voice our true mind's choice.

Kolker, Kolker, Kolker.

Its time someone just said this flat out.





[note from admin: offensive dead mutilated baby picture removed. If you really must see it it is here at the bottom of the page.]


Oh god, that hole in the skull is such a good place to pour my stream of race hatred into!!!

Or wait? Is

Sand Nigger kosher enough for you?

I mean, us Jews want to live up to Hitler's standards for the tribe right?





If racist genocide is fine on this forum but that ain't, ban me. I don't post here much anyway.

In a pig's ass. Ron Paul would be a disaster for this country. We are currently at war. I want a Warrior President. I want a Butcher in Chief. After we kill our enemies and their children, wreck their property and wipe the memory of their existence from off the earth, then we might profitably consider limited government.

Remember Amalek and and do not forget.

Delenda Islama est. We will make a Desolation and call it Peace.

Ba'al Chatzaf.

I have removed a picture of a mutilated baby that was posted. Not something I wanted to see at breakfast time. I don't care what your agenda is, whether it is anti-war, anti-abortion, racist or whether or not I agree or disagree with your point of view, I don't want pictures of dead babies (or other highly offensive graphics) posted on my site. The flaming has to stop as well or we will start removing posts and close the thread.

We are not a collective, just an internet forum where everyone thinks and speaks for themselves. OL certainly does not promote racism. There will be times when people disagree and tempers flare. People are free to come and go as they please and sometimes they dare us to ban them or flounce off. That is the nature of internet forums. I do, however, ask that people exercise a bit more self-control in our home and refrain from intentionally insulting and offending each other. If a post is offensive, please click the report button to alert us.

Kat

Thank you.

All of us have personally seen some very tough and revolting realities by living a full life and some of us are very hardened in where and how we productively live with the reality we have lived and I was enraged by having that thrust in my sight in a personal space that I voluntarily participate in.

Just action and quickly taken.

Kudos

This kind of thinking is precisely what got the Germans to vote for Hitler.


Shayne

Bob,

What the hell is this? You are preaching desolation? The primitive tribalism of killing off family lines?

I looked up Amalek because I did not know what it was other than some Biblical tribe. Then I read that the Jews did to Amalek what the Nazis tried to do to the Jews—a "sacred war of extermination," except the Jews got away with it. The Nazis didn't. In our modern times, the Jews would not be allowed to get away with it again. Nobody is allowed to do that anymore even though they might try. Thank God I live in modern times!

You are preaching genocide. You are preaching racism on a site devoted to reason. What is wrong with you?

I will not have this on OL, especially not as a regular feature. There is flexibility here and that is sometimes misconstrued as weakness. Well, you have stretched the goodwill to the limit with your preaching of racial hatred.

The next such outburst will be deleted and I will moderate your posts. I am only keeping this one up as the last example. I simply do not have time to babysit you anymore to get at the decent part of your thuggish primitive soul. You are a grown man. Take your racism elsewhere. OL is not the venue for it.

Racism is disgusting and contemptible.

Your kind of mentality never learns and I am tired of having this crap near me. It has stopped being an intellectual challenge and has started becoming an insult to my intelligence and the intelligence of every person of goodwill and productivity who reads OL.

I totally reject your worldview as a step backwards in mankind's evolution.

Michael

As usual, well put. Ba'al I am going to send you a personal message, respectfully. I am 61, you really need to listen. I find you have a "remarkable" mind.
I would consider it an honor if you would read what I send you and consider it. I have been away from this forum at the political wars and I found your "99 %" post very close to certain decisions that I made about her philosophy.

If my "debate jousting humor" offended you in any way, I apologize.

Geez, Rodney King will be posting here soon!

Adam

Michael,

Bob has been preaching exactly this form of genocide on this site for many months. Are you really surprised that he is still preaching genocide here, just as he always has? He has never stopped preaching genocide here. And he never will.

In case you haven't had enough of Bob's genocidal ravings on this site, you can always read them over at the Rebirth of Reason site, where he's making exactly the same arguments. Happy reading! Or not.

Martin

We are at war, a war to the death. If we do not slay our enemies they will slay us or destroy our nation. There it is. Them or Us. Which shall it be? Since I bring bad tidings, naturally you want to kill the messenger. So what else is new?

Ba'al Chatzaf

You aren't worth replying to.

Wow, I just had a breakthrough, the troll in me is dying out.

Bob,

Thre is no war. The two wars (Afghanistan and Iraq) are won and over, and war was not even formally declared. Now there is police and military action against a small group of thugs (added to politico cronies milking the rebuilding cow through USA occupation). Your idea of "enemy" is collectivist, primitive and thuggish. Not all enemies want to slay us and we can certainly subdue large numbers of hostile people without slaying them, as we have done throughout history.

I'm tired of arguing the obvious on this. It is too close to racism.

Michael

Mike11,

I read a long time ago that no man is without value. At the very least, he is a good example of what not to be. I think your breakthrough entails starting to learn when to accept a person as an example of what not to be and when to engage his intelligence on a subject (if there is any).

Michael

Actually I think Ba'al cured me of a debilitating illness. The troll in me is dead, gone, buried.

Like Samuel L Jackson in Pulp Fiction I think I'll just walk the interwebs and stop doing other people's dirty laundry.

As a former libertarian I am thouroughly enthused to see so many signs for Ron Paul for his domestic libertarian support and it's good to see a legitimate 'third' option (even though he is officially republican) getting so much attention. However, as that same 'former' libertarian, I despise Ron Paul's foriegn policy ides, and to me this trumps all his domestic libertarian stances. Also, his popularity is not coming from his libertarian stance, it's coming from his abandon iraq now stance, he is the only major truly anti-war candidate, so again my enthusiasm for Ron Paul signs is significantly reduced. They all like him for the wrong reasons. His stance on Roe V Wade, stem cell research, and affiliation with the pro-south evil lincoln libertarian contigent is rather dispicable as well. Ultimately I feel very much like Kat, equally dissapointed with everyone.

well, that's your take on it. I find nothing wrong with getting out of Iraq. We had no reason to be there, and libertarians should never be pro-war. (pro-defense is something else, and invading Iraq was never pro-defence).



While I don't agree with him, I don't find his stance on Roe vs Wade as 'dispicable'. Its clear where he's coming from on RvW.

And there is no such thing as a "pro-south evil lincoln libertarian contigent". That's a bit of BS spread by the compolian beltway 'libertarians'. Lincoln is not the great man that people want to believe he is. And not believe that myth doesn't make one 'pro-south' or 'pro-slavery'.

Yes I am aware that is my take on it. I find everything wrong with pulling out of Iraq, this is not the 1700's, we don't need an Iraqi Battleship steaming up the Hudson to act in self defense. In an age of nuclear terrorism, bio terrorism, and rapid technological growth, it perpetually takes fewer and fewer resources to kill more and more people. It is in the long term rational best interest of the US to promulgate the spread of constitutional market based democracies, allowing murderous despotism to become entrenched will always come back to bite you in the end and to a much worse degree than if you had acted earler. The greatest enemy we face right now is not just Al Qaeda but murderous fundamentalist Islam in general, where Al Qaeda is only one face of hundreds. This murderous fundamentalist is fed and promulgated by the plethora of murderous dictatorships which dominate the middle east, of the 22 nations of the middle east 20 were totalitarian hell holes. You must always deal the best blow you can against the worst enemy possible, creating a more progressive market based democracy in the middle east is the best long term thing we can do right now.

Consider that in South Korea, a nation went from not even having a word for personal individual freedom, to being one of the wealthiest, freest, and most progressive democracies on the planet in about 30 years with NO directed international support in that direction.



It's not clear, it's foolish and relates to his pro south lincoln evil stance, he is part of the libertarian contigent which elevates states rights over individual rights. If it is up to the states to decide if abortion is murder, why don't we let individual states decide if slavery is just as well? Why not let individual states setup their own gulags and criminal justice systems, ignoring our constitution? His stance on RvW is either a pathetic cop out or a disgusting mis-prioritization of valus. It is never right for part of a nation to withdraw and form an even more oppresive nation.



Well... that's your take on it.