An Open Letter To The Catholic Community In Behalf Of Ron Paul

[Aloysius]

[quote]I do actually, and apparently you missed the thread with me and tgoldson[/quote]
yes, I did not see the Paul references in that thread. but no, not with the racist thing you were not sticking to the issues, but parroting a smear campaign. But I am glad you admitted you were wrong on that, this latest thing is more focused on the issues, more worthy of discussion.

The one comment on that site summed it up pretty well:

[quote]In other words: Paul effectively said, “I don’t want my taxpayers to be spending their money on government subsidies, but if they are, then I may as well try to get that money back to my district.”[/quote]

What's he supposed to do? Let every other district in the country get pumped full of projects from taxes that came from the whole country (ie some from his district)? Of course, I see in the other thread you already quoted that comment. No, I'm sorry, it DOES work that way. Simply put: that tax money is going to go somewhere, into some district, and some of those taxes come from the people in his district. He would be impractical and irresponsible if he didn't make sure that some of those taxes that he doesn't think should have been taken by the government in the first place don't at least go back into his own community somehow. He votes against that budget because he doesn't want government spending; he proposes those spending projects because he knows that's a futile cause and if there is to be government spending, at
least it shouldn't be uneven and leave out the community from which he came.

You just want to see something bad in him... it doesn't matter, you're looking for something. How about how he returns some of his congressional pay to the National Treasury? How about how he refused his congressional pension? How about how all the lobby groups are well aware that they cannot sway him no matter how hard they try, so they've stopped trying? no, apparently because he didn't want the taxes taken from his community to go to every other place in the country except his community, you have decided he must be "suspicious irrelevant scum"... please.

Of course, as President, he won't have a specific community that he has to watch out for and make sure gets some of that pie the government likes to take from the people and use as it sees fit, instead of just voting against such budgets as a futile cause, he'll veto them

Another very poignent comment from the blog:
[quote]What you highlighted isn’t pork. They are necessary expenditures that every state, especially his home state of Texas needs and is urged to putt into bills.

1. $25,000 for the Brazoria County Sheriff to establish a “Children’s Identification and Location Database.”
(anti-pedophilia and police actions)

3. $2.3 million for shrimp fishing research.
(industry)

4. $3 million to “secure the acquisition of the McGinnes tract, protecting its critical natural resources and helping consolidate refuge inholdings.”
(historical places and the environment)

5. $5 million to expand the cancer center at Brazosport Hospital.
(disease treatment and prevention)

6. $200,000 for the Matagorda Episcopal Health Outreach Program to fund a “National Health Service Corp Scholar.”
(education and scholarship)

7. $4.5 million to study the effects of the health risks of vanadium.
(testing and research)

9. $10 million to repair the Galveston railways causeway bridge.
(infrastructure and public property)

10. $1.18 million for “Personalized Medicine in Asthma”
(disease treatment and prevention)

11. $100,000 for a “data-driven automated system for nursing students on the Texas Gulf Coast.”
(health care and employment)

12. $257,000 to “prepare graduates from the doctoral program at the University of Texas Medical Branch School of Nursing to assume faculty roles in schools for nursing with a deficient number of doctoral level faculty.”
(health care and employment)

15. $5 million for highway spending.
(infrastructure and public property)

16. $2 million to replace facilities for Galveston bus service.
(infrastructure and public property)

17. $3 million to replace facilities for the Golden Crescent Regional bus facility.
(public transportation)

19. $2.14 million to renovate the Edna Theater.
(historical places)

20. $13 million for I-69 highway project.
(infrastructure and public property)

22. $4.5 million to maintain Cedar Bayou. Plus another $9 million
(historical places and the environment)

23. $15 million for “construction at GIWW Matagorda Bay.” Plus another $5.8 million
(historical places and the environment)

24. $100,000 to maintain Chocolate Bayou.
(historical places and the environment)

25. $2.5 million to maintain Double Bayou.
(historical places and the environment)

Most of the things highlighted by this blog were not pork whatsoever, seeing as how pork is wasteful spending to earn the esteem of lobbyists and their ilk, but what you highlighted was not that bad. It was all necessary. A very lame attempt to smear Ron Paul. Not good.[/quote]

He would be very irresponsible if he went around letting his district and state suffer without things like this based on principals.

one last comment from the site that made a good point:
[quote]Constituent says ” We need $2.14 million to renovate the Edna Theater.”

Ron Paul thinks to self “I disagree with this. However, this is my constituent, and it is my sworn duty to put this request to a vote.”[/quote]

That last one is very likely a part of Ron Paul's idealogical reasoning for this, he really believes in the vision of the Founders of the country, for better or for worse, he believes that the government has to be representative of the people.

[Justin86]

[quote name='Aloysius' post='1423900' date='Nov 24 2007, 01:46 AM']yes, I did not see the Paul references in that thread. but no, not with the racist thing you were not sticking to the issues, but parroting a smear campaign. But I am glad you admitted you were wrong on that, this latest thing is more focused on the issues, more worthy of discussion.[/quote]
I would argue that whether or not my President is a racist would be an issue, but I'll move on.

[quote]What's he supposed to do? Let every other district in the country get pumped full of projects from taxes that came from the whole country (ie some from his district)? Of course, I see in the other thread you already quoted that comment. No, I'm sorry, it DOES work that way. Simply put: that tax money is going to go somewhere, into some district, and some of those taxes come from the people in his district. He would be impractical and irresponsible if he didn't make sure that some of those taxes that he doesn't think should have been taken by the government in the first place don't at least go back into his own community somehow. He votes against that budget because he doesn't want government spending; he proposes those spending projects because he knows that's a futile cause and if there is to be government spending, at
least it shouldn't be uneven and leave out the community from which he came.[/quote]
Yes, yes quite a nice little rationalization there. Do you REALLY think Ron Paul is going to veto anything out of a budget? If he doesn't have the guts to stand up to the lobbyists in his district he's not going to have the guts to stand up to Congress.

[quote]You just want to see something bad in him... it doesn't matter, you're looking for something. How about how he returns some of his congressional pay to the National Treasury? How about how he refused his congressional pension? How about how all the lobby groups are well aware that they cannot sway him no matter how hard they try, so they've stopped trying? no, apparently because he didn't want the taxes taken from his community to go to every other place in the country except his community, you have decided he must be "suspicious irrelevant scum"... please.[/quote]
That is one other reason he's so scary. Why would anyone refuse their pension and return some pay to the government? I in no way believe in the whole "for the good of America" thing. Yeah, you're trying to avoid attention Paul. What do you have to hide?

Oh and Ron Paul has his lobbyists he follows. They're just all the wealthy people from his district.

In regards to the blog post you cut and pasted:

Things like subsidizing industry and government funding for healthcare aren't very in-line with conservative thought, and has nothing to do with what the government is for in my ideology. If nobody is buying shrimp, maybe its time for the business to close. If nobody thinks there's a profit in looking into some idea for medical research maybe that's because all the reliable data indicates its a dead end.

In other words, [b]pork[/b].

Edited November 23, 2007 by Justin86

[Aloysius]

If there were anything substantial to it, okay, but random cheap blind accusations, that's not looking at the issues, that's participating in the sin of calumny.

He brings up what his constituents ask him to, but votes against it because he disagrees with his constituents.

He has never been in the pocket of a powerful lobby group. They all pretty much hate him for it, too.

Now he's hiding something by refusing his pension and giving part of his pay back to the government? Bull. He knows those are tax dollars. He hates the direction the federal reserve is taking the dollar. He does not wish to be part of the problem, part of the debt.

Yes, that's not what hard-core libertarian conservative principals are about, they're about the free market (and I think Paul probably has too much faith in the pure free market, Catholic Social Justice principals don't allow for the type of faith in the unfettered free market that he and other libertarians would have, but to certain large degrees we can agree with the economic principals about the benefit of the free market). But the question becomes: the taxes are already taken, should they be wasted in other people's district, or should some of them help the people in my district who also paid taxes; should my constituents be given the opportunity to propose things to the congress, even if I'll vote against them? But as was listed out: most of it was not pork, but maintenance of public facilities, historical places,

[Paladin]

In case anyone wants to hear what the USCCB has to say...

[url="http://defendlife.blogspot.com/2007/11/evaluation-of-presidential-candidates.html"]Evaluation of 2008 Presidential Candidates Against US Bishops' Criteria[/url]

Can't wait for the GOP apologists to explain that Rudy's pro-abort stance is insignificant next to the power of the Clintonian Fascist Empire that is eminent if we don't submit to Guiliani.

[Pleural]

[quote name='goldenchild17' post='1423571' date='Nov 22 2007, 05:23 AM']I agree. I disagree with his stance against capital punishment. I don't know that I care for his views on economics (based on the letter alone, I haven't read much about him on the subject). I disagree with what seems to be his views on the rights and freedom of each person, and as a result also think I disagree with his refusal to permit national regulation on matters of morality. But in this regard he is being true to the Constitution and the much of the foundation of our country so I can't really take him to task for it, when its the principles themselves I disagree with. Aside from this, to me he is still far and away the best candidate from what I can tell, and I will have no problem voting for him if he can get the nomination.[/quote]

Don't wait until then. Vote in your state's primaries, if you can.

[Pleural]

[quote name='Justin86' post='1423842' date='Nov 23 2007, 12:46 AM']Oh, and I'm not buying all that pro-life carp. Why does NARAL like him so much then?

Here's his ratings for the past three years:

2006: 65 percent
2005: 75 percent
2004: 65 percent

[url="http://www.prochoiceamerica.org/elections/statements/paul.html"]http://www.prochoiceamerica.org/elections/...ments/paul.html[/url][/quote]
Slanderous nonsense. NARAL admits the following, which you deliberately chose to overlook:
[quote]Rep. Paul has an anti-choice record. He received the following scores on NARAL Pro-Choice America's Congressional Record on Choice.[/quote]

[Adrestia]

[u]Also from NARAL re: Ron Paul[/u]

Public Statements about Choice:
A selection of Rep. Paul's public statements on this issue is below.

"Roe v. Wade was wrongly decided, but not because the Supreme Court presumed to legalize abortion rather than ban it. Roe was wrongly decided because abortion is simply not a constitutional issue…."

[Ron Paul, Federalizing Social Policy, Ron Paul's Texas Straight Talk – A Weekly Column, January 30, 2006, [url="http://www.house.gov/paul/tst/tst2006/tst013006.htm"]http://www.house.gov/paul/tst/tst2006/tst013006.htm[/url] (accessed May 9, 2007).]

"Pro-life libertarians have a vital task to perform: to persuade the many abortion-supporting libertarians of the contradiction between abortion and individual liberty…. A libertarian's support for abortion is not merely a minor misapplication of principle, as if one held an incorrect belief about the Austrian theory of the business cycle. The issue of abortion is fundamental, and therefore an incorrect view of the issue strikes at the very foundations of all beliefs…."

[Ron Paul, Being Pro-Life Is Necessary to Defend Liberty, LFL Reports, no. 1 [1981], 1 & 3. [url="http://www.141.org/library/bepro-rp.html"]http://www.141.org/library/bepro-rp.html[/url] (accessed April 10, 2007).]

"Although the real problem lies within the hearts and minds of the people, the legal problems of protecting life stem from the ill-advised Roe v. Wade ruling, a ruling that constitutionally should never have occurred."

[Congressional Record – House, H4934, June 4, 2003.]

[Aloysius]

[quote]1. Ron Paul ®: 99 points
2. Alan Keyes ®: 70 (not on the ballot in all states)
3. Mike Huckabee ®: 69
4. Duncan Hunter ®: 50
5. Tom Tancredo ®: 48
6. John McCain ®: 36
7. Chris Dodd (D): 25
8. Dennis Kucinich (D): 22
9. Mitt Romney ®: 10
10. Joe Biden (D): 5
11. Fred Thompson ®: 4
12. Hillary Clinton (D): (-11)
13. John Edwards (D): (-13)
14. Bill Richardson (D): (-15)
15. Barack Obama (D): (-15)
16. Rudy Giuliani ®: (-28)[/quote]

NICE.