Sorry, can't support him - his name always makes me think of RuPaul.

Of course, I'm Canadian, so my vote won't be counted.

heck - if you were Floridian, Michigonian, Iowan, or New Mexican your vote wouldn't be counted either...

Sorry, couldn't resist.

Kucinich couldn't be more opposite to everythin Paul stands for. Yes, he's probably a fairly non-corrupted politician, and, yes, he probably means well, but he's in favor of big government . . . BIG government. Which Ron Paul is certainly not.

I try to stay as far from politics as I can. The closest I've ever got was flying to Oman so some ***** could get a star on his shoulder.

Just because you don't take an interest in politics doesn't mean politics won't take an interest in you!

By and large, normal people want to be left alone. Do you want politics to take an interest in you? What you're saying to friends? Where you are spending your money? Where you travel and whom you meet? What you drink, smoke and eat? Do you want politics to take an interest in your income? Your pocketbook? The contents of your house?

If you want to be left alone by your government, Dr. Paul is the only choice.

Too often people who 'are interested in politics' see political actions as a way to solve social problems. Seldom do such people realize that the power and money they hand-over to the bureaucrats does not effect the positive changes they hope for.

Naturally politicians and bureaucrats are in the business of promising solutions. This is the first (and sometimes the only thing) people see when they 'look into' politics. Often it takes a long time on earth and an objective critical appraisal of current events and history to come to the awakening that those who hold the reigns of power do not act in your best interests. How could they?

Milton Friedman once said, "There are four ways in which you can spend money."

1. You can spend your own money on yourself. When you do that, why then you really watch out what you’re doing, and you try to get the most for your money.
2. Then you can spend your own money on somebody else. For example, I buy a birthday present for someone. Well, then I’m not so careful about the content of the present, but I’m very careful about the cost.
3. Then, I can spend somebody else’s money on myself. And if I spend somebody else’s money on myself, then I’m sure going to have a good lunch!
4. Finally, I can spend somebody else’s money on somebody else. And if I spend somebody else’s money on somebody else, I’m not concerned about how much it is, and I’m not concerned about what I get. And that’s government. And that’s close to 40% of our national income.

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Milton_Friedman

You as an individual are most productive and happy in a free society. You as an individual get the most value out of your work if you get to keep your money and decide what you want to do with it.

If you hang out in #maemo IRC chat on freenode, the ##ronpaul channel is just a /join away. Feel free to stop by and ask questions. Learn what the r3VOLution is all about.

Antilles: That's what makes it so great! Their common foundation (dare I say socialist tendencies in some areas) will make sure the country runs smooth, their opposing views would spice things up. Not to mention, I think a campaign consisting of two opposing party members running together would be just what America needs... aside from it being hilarious enough to bring me to tears. Goodbye 9/11 and waterboarding, hello actual issues. Believe it or not, most of the world still believes in America the good (at least all the people I've spoken to across it do.)... but we also think America the good has been taking a power nap for some time now.

Ron Paul has it right when he suggests going back to a gold standard

|sarcasm on|

Oh yeah, that'll fix everything!!!

|sarcasm remaining on|

Just want to add my 2 cents to this thread:

I wonder if people realize that Libertarians are ultra-conservative. Some of their ideas sound good, and some of them are good, but they are the extreme right (if you ever study politics you learn this).
According to political theory, Liberals believe we can fix problems and will try to do it, conservatives think we should not make changes to the way things are run because it might make thinks worse - they are resistent to change in policies. Libertarians fall to the right of conservatives.

Now of course these are broad statements and the parties we have do not match exactly to the liberal or conservative modes - life is more complicated - but in general it makes sense. Liberals do want change and to try to improve society and conservatives are less likely to try to address social problems. Libertarians are least likely to try to address social problems by government programs - they will actually increase poverty and levels of hunger among US children by reducing any programs that support poorer families.

The scary part to me is that Libertarians don't value taking care of the people in our society who might need it - for example children or the poor or the disabled. Think about if we did away with social security and medicare and any support for families such as food stamps. Some people are honestly trying to live and work but because of things like cancer or other sudden illnesses or disasters, it is hard for them. A libertarians idea would be "lets do nothing" - ie. let the starve, become homeless, die, have no health insurance, etc. Its ok because government spending is bad. People made homeless by Katrina for example - don't help them - government is bad - I don't want MY tax money to help some disaster victim - its MY money.
Its like a type of social darwinism - anyone who needs help its their fault and the gov. shouldn't help. So its okay if children in the us don't have enough to eat, or have health insurance.

I work with the poor in SF, USA and see that sometimes the programs that will help a family to survive and feed the children are a good thing. I am not educated on Ron Paul's platform, so I am not critcizing him, just wanted to share my undestanding of libertarians and also why I think they are too extreme even though some of there ideas may be good.

I think people get sucked into libertarianism because it sounds good on the surface, but they don't realize it is ultra-conservative and may hurt a lot of people in our society by its plan to reduce all support programs.

Politics isn't a left-right scale. There are many left-libertarians. You're mislead. The opposite of libertarian is statist. You can have statists on the left or right, too.

Libertarians believe that people are better at helping each other than government. It's called charity. You should do some research.

Seriously, you're so far off, it isn't funny.

Libertarians can't easily be typed on the left-right spectrum. There are certainly a lot of left-leaning libertarians out there. That said, Paul tends towards the right on many of these issues, which is why joining the Republican party was a better fit for him (he does have ambitions to hold national office, and he has realized that he wasn't likely to do that as a third party candidate).

I am quite willing to entertain a libertarian candidate, as I am libertarian leaning on many social issues myself, but I won't support Paul. He's staunchly anti-abortion. I admire his strict adherence to his moral code, but I will strictly adhere to my moral code by not voting for him.