http://www.autoblog.com/2012/05/29/wisconsin-man-avoids-jail-by-agreeing-to-have-his-nissan-skyline/
Cops seized 2 R33 GTRs in wisconsin, and are crushing them. The builder proposed selling them and giving the proceeds to prosecutors, but they didn't go for it - they were adamant that the cars be crushed.
There are no problems in Wisconsin, I guess.
New steering wheel. Check.
New underwear. Check.
The car performs perfectly fine with the FR layout. No need to change the basic corvette DNA. If GM really develops a dry sump, v8 turbo, 3 liter engine that winds to 10,000 rpm, and they offer it as a crate engine, that will be very exciting, irrespective of what happens with the corvette.
The list of cars that wouldn't be better with a turbo v8 that spun to 10k is very, very, short.
Ok, so I was overzealous when i said "entirely dependant". There are a few data points that are right around that 50% mark, as the very first graph shows.
Regarding #1, i was wondering what this data looked like historically. I found this:
from here: http://www.taxfoundation.org/news/show/1410.html
Can you argue that about 50% of households are dependant, to some degree, on government handouts? Yes. Entirely Dependant? Probably not, although there's certainly a definitional aspect of that question.
The point is: there are a lot of people who rely, to varying degrees, on gubmint handouts. They are the benficiaires of an immoral set of coercive arrangements.
A friend of mine is a brilliant laser physcist at a public university. She posted a link complaining about the lack of federal science funding. She was pretty hostile towards my suggestion that her salary and research was paid for by money taken from people against their will.
It's not just people on the poor end of the spectrum who are "bought in" to the current wealth-transfer based system and who don't want to see it go anywhere. Almost everyone can convince themselves that them getting a slice of other people's money is a great thing.
Few attempt to claim that how they receive this money is ethical. Instead, they typically try to rationalize that it is ok, or that everyone steals from everyone else, or that nobody ever acheived anything without government help.
Whether it is 5% or 50%, the immorality of coercive wealth redistribution is the core issue. Activities which further canonize the legitimacy of the principle of wealth transfer must be opposed, even if in practice they claim to be more fiscally effective and to immorally transfer less actual wealth.
IOW, TJ, even if I agreed that what you're proposing would save money (which I don't, btw :)), I have to oppose it because it moves us in the wrong direction ideology wise. I'm prepared to accept a lower standard of living for an increased standard of morality.
TJ: i think it's worth pointing out that there was no social welfare of any kind prior to 1930, no federal income tax prior to 1913..
We had a much freer society at one point in history. Why can't we have one again? People just have to want it. Part of getting people to want it is to discuss the current situation and the other possibilities with them frankly.
If you say, "yes, but over 50% of Americans are entirely dependant on the state and are net leeches on the system", you'd be right. And this is certainly an impediment to progress. This is why it is important to understand the inherent immorality of the current situation, and what the correct moral destination is. There is no way forward without common ground on morality, principles, objectives, etc.
Once we establish that the military industrial complex, oil companies, welfare recipients, etc... do not DESERVE the subsidies they receive via theft (called "taxation" by some), then it is a straightforward matter to end such practices. Once we understand that we have no moral obligation to support these entities against our will, and that we have the power and the moral high ground, we can figure out a way out of this mess and a way forward.
These things will end one way or another. The current system is unsustainable. The people are misinformed and the demogogues depend on this. The social safety net is wearing thin as we speak. We can engineer as soft of a transition as possible if we accept the inevitability of disaster. If we pretend that what we're doing is both sustainable and morally justifiable, the house of cards will surely collapse.
You need to get over this "let them die" bullshit.
Why is socialized medicine only good for this country? Suppose we get whatever healthcare system you want in place here. Why doesn't it extend coverage to people in Africa? How many Africans are you willing to let die? You're really not willing to lift a finger to help them? What kind of jerk are you?
I was clear about my obligations -- or lack therof -- in the first post.
Yes, It is more moral for me to sit by and do NOTHING to help someone than it is to allow you to HURT and STEAL from me when I've done nothing wrong!
What i want is for people to help each other. But i want to be clear about the ground rules -- I cannot be legally COMPELLED to help someone. I have no obligation to do so.
If i have an obligation to help people, as you seem to claim, what releives me of that obligation? Am I allowed to sleep? Am I allowed to eat until I am full? Am I always required to lift heavy objects for weaker people? Do I need to keep fixing people's computers for free? How much time am I allowed to spend playing with my kids when there are needy people nearby?
If you concede the principle that I must sacrifice for the good of others, then all is lost.
This claim that i have an obligation to help based on the neediness of others is Crazy. It's crazy because it's moral condemnation bullshit -- its not even an acheivable guideline. I could spend every waking second of my life and every dollar of my income giving my all for everyone. And there'd still be suffering. You could take 100% of my income and just $2 more could feed some kid in africa for 10 years. If you took everything someone, would still find that I should work 1 more hour per day to feed 30 more kids.
It IS moral to "let" someone suffer because suffering is infinite! No matter what I do, I can never stop everyone's suffering! If the suffering of others places a moral burden on me, how can any human being anywhere be moral? How can there even be virtue? Every second of my existance I "let" someone die -- and so do you!
Do you want a system of government who's premise is infinite sacrifice? Because that's what your sacrificial standard of morality is. Hopefully you never get what you're asking for good and hard - like so many of the people who got socialized medicine BEFORE the countries in your dinky chart.
I have not wronged someone by "letting" them die. But you HAVE wronged me by stealing from me.
How do you think I got that money? By spending my fucking hours working. You know how much time I get to spend with my kids? Not enough. Know how much time I get to spend with my wife? Not enough. I spend time working because I need to to serve myself and to serve society. When you dock my paycheck for your emotionally-driven pity parties, you're keeping me away from my kids. You're keeping me from donating as much to church. You are disrespecting my family, and you are taking a giant shit on the entire concept of work, value, and life.
You think what you're advocating is moral? What have I ever done to you? What gives you the audacity to think what you're proposing is acceptable?
Trafik Jamz;326631 wrote:
Seems to me like we could do better by just using ANY of the models that the other countries are using....except maybe Norway who spends more per person on their public system than we do. EVERY other country in the OECD spends less than us and the majority live longer (yes, I know fat American's makes a difference too.... but Canadians are just as fat in my personal experience)
The bad thing about data is that it's easy to misinterpret. First off, Americans have the highest disposable income of any nation. Looking at how much we spend on healthcare and then determining "OMG SKY FALLING" is kind of strange. Do you want to know what I spend on groceries? Hint: it's more than what most people in most of the world make in 1 month.. or even 1 year. Doesn't bother me -- I try to buy the highest quality foods possible for my kids, and I can afford it. If you looked at how much I spent on food you might conclude that food cost to much. Or that I need "improved Access to food" or some similar socialist code-words. You'd be wrong.
Life Expectancy is impacted by all kinds of things. Did you know that the #1 cause of death for black men in the USA under age 35 is murder? Are black men factored into our national average life expectancy? Do you think they are dying because the US has a "bad" healthcare system? Do you think Norway has the same problem?
Did you know that in the much vaunted "infant mortality" study, that the US has the lowest rate of infant mortality if your baby is premature? And that our aggregate mortality is impacted by our extremely high rate of prematurity? And that European nations calculate infant morality entirely differently?
There are European countries where if a baby is born prior to full term and dies, they don't count that in our infant mortality data. Is it reasonable to draw comparisons from those countries to the US?
Look, you can get your health care anyway you like it to. Changing how I get mine via force of government is immoral. Making me pay for your healthcare is immoral.
Even though I am happy to debate the "technical" problems of state-run care with you, the conversation misses the point entirely: what you want to do is morally unacceptable, so I don't care how good or bad it is.
Stop avoiding the question of morality.
Why not just shoot the poor now and put them out of their misery before they get in your way at the hospital. Don't tart up what you're doing with fancy ideas. It's murder, and if you support it, you're a monster.
I wanted to see if it sounded just as dumb when I typed it. It does.
The difference is simple. It would be wrong for me to shoot poor people haven't done anything to harm me. It wouldn't be wrong for a doctor to prefer to give me better service if I am giving them more money -- although it would be perfectly fine if the doctor gave me worse service or no service at all -- after all, in a voluntary society, that's their right.
Taxation is theft. Living on the same planet as someone else who happens to get sick doesn't make me responsible for their sickness. It's not my fault if other people get sick. It's not my responsibility to help them. I can do so if I choose to, but nothing can obligate me to do so.
I keep repeating myself because you continue to not get it. You are advocating for an objective moral evil. I don't care how great you think it will make things -- it's just plain wrong. If you're willing to commit harm to innocent people because you think it's going to make society better, what's the difference between putting the sickest 10% of Americans in the gas chamber every year? Won't that also reduce health costs dramatically?
Of course, that's ridiculous. I'd never suggest such a thing because it is morally reprehensible to harm people in that way.
The other thing you need to ask yourself is this: how do people get rich? I asked before and you didn't answer. In a voluntary society -- how will people get rich?
So, you are in favor of abolishing the fire department, police departments, highway systems, etc? Seriously?
I'm in favor of abolishing government.
Imagine, for a moment, the Cass County Government building(s) were empty. Imagine the state capitol was empty. Imagine there was no group or groups of people who had the ability to "arrest" you or break into your house or tax you or any of the other things government does to people that "normal" people can't get away with.
In this world, would people stilll want roads? Would they still want fires to get put out? Would they still want security, someone they could call if they needed help?
I think they would.
Would they want these things badly enough that they'd be willing to pay for them -- voluntarily?
I think most of them would.
People in North Dakota put out fires without government help right now. I have driven on roads in this very state that were designed, built, and maintained entirely by private actors.
The biggest triumph of government is convincing so many people that they need it; that life without "them" would be impossible.
I personally don't think we need a violent group of pscyhopaths with an army of bean counters and busy bodies, all of whom are above the law and can extort from any of us, break into our homes, close our businesses, and even KILL us... I don't think we need a group like that. But that's what government is. It is force. It is compulsion. It is, by definition, immoral. It may occasionally do things that seem beneficial - but occasionally beneficial ends do not justify it's violent means.
If I had my choice between 1 large police department I could never get rid of, and who could arrest me for any reason they liked, or 15 small ones that competed with each other and didn't want to make waves because that would be bad for business, I'd choose the latter. If companies that wanted to build roads had to negotiate with me on MY TERMS to get rights to build on my property, I'd actually beleive I owned property instead of renting it from the God-State who takes it from me at its pleasure. If I build my house out of non-flammable materials and keep a tidy lawn, you had better beleive that I'm going to pay less to my private fire suppression company than the other dipshits on my block.
And if I'm a rich son of a bitch, you had better beleive that I'm going to make sure the cops, fire department, ambulances, and emergency room staff have me at the top of their lists to serve and treat FIRST. I'll pay them more and I'll get better service. I'll pay them so much money and use so little of their services that they'll all buy gobs of nice equipment and have their employees training constantly. And the result will be that all of the "normal" people who have "normal" plans with these agencies still get the benefits of their excellent services and technologies.
Government is made up of us. You think government builds the roads now? Horseshit -- road construction experts build roads. You think government puts out fires? You should know damn well that a large chunk of firefighters are volunteers!
What government does, is it takes normal, fallible human beings -- and hopefully, it only takes the nicest ones with the most generous motives -- and it gives them the power to hurt others and get away with it.
Nobody should have a power like that.
In a voluntary society, one with no government, there will still be evil people who hurt others. But we won't be conditioned to think that's ok. We won't make special offices and titles for them to lord over us; we won't PAY THEM TO HURT US.
No matter what you do, there will be evil men, and thre will be innocent men that suffer. The aggregate needs of humanity will always be greater than the available resources. Man's appetite is limitless.
Men have a perfectly good way of resolving how infinite needs will met by limited resources. That way is commerce. Its medium is money.
You beleive that there are only two choices: "let" people die in the street, vs. allowing the immorality of government to exist. You are wrong for a variety of reasons. First and foremost, people currently do and ever shall die for reasons that can be argued to be lack of resources. No system you can design will allocate 1 billion dollars per second of the public treasury to keep someone alive. There will always be a maximum expenditure, beyond which those holding the purse strings will say, "enough". Ergo, even in your socialist dystopia, "people will die in the streets". Except everyone else will still be poorer and the quality of care for everyone will be worse.
Furthermore -- and let's get something straight -- nobody has a moral obligation to so much as bat an eyelash to prevent the death or suffering of another. If you beleive they have this obligation, the onus is on you to explain why and where it comes from. Is it a social contract? I didn't sign it. I've never even seen it. Ergo, it's bullshit.
We've already established that with what you propose, people will still die due to limtied resources. So you fail entirely at your stated goal.
What you are actually proposing is a total perversion of justice. There are infinite desires. There are limited resources. How then, should the resources be allocated? Should each resource owner allocate them for him or herself, according to her preferences? Or should there be a mystery group of special people who may steal from whom they like and gift other's wealth as they see fit? You advocate the latter -- and you have the audacity to call this civilization? If the difference between my vision and yours is that in your "civilization", an armed group of monsters robs from some to benefit others, who but someone who loved injustice and worshipped failure would choose what you're offering? Or do you rest on the assumption that they'll have no choice at all?
Finally, like all state apologists, you present a false choice.
The choices aren't "have a violent redistributionist system" or "people will die". People will die anyway.
And free people have always had the option to give of their limited resources for the benefit of others.
Why don't you trust society? You don't trust society's allocation of money -- you want to take from some and give to others -- and you don't trust that society will provide for those it values most. Why not? Who do you think can do a better job?
Will government care produce more resouces somehow? If not, you are tacitly admitting that you will actively see to it that some have less care than they previously had. Why would you want this?
You need a serious dose of Ayn Rand. Life requires sacrifice? Anytime someone says this, what they mean is "other's must sacrifice for my benefit". Why not just break in to my house and steal from me direclty? Don't tart up what you're doing with altrustic motives and fancy names. It's theft, and if you support it, you're a monster.
I don't trust a man who talks about ethics when he is picking my pocket. But if he is acting in his own self-interest and says so, I have usually been able to work out some way to do business with him.
-- Robert Heinlein
Trafik Jamz;326619 wrote:
I personally think that everyone has a right to have the opportunity to live their life to the fullest
But you don't actually beleive that. Or rather, that beleif is in conflict with other things you've written. You don't beleive doctors, for instance, have the right to have an opportunity to live their life to the fullest -- you beleive that their patients have a right to be treated. Do doctors have the right to take time off work? Do stop practicing when they want to retire?
Healthcare, education, law enforcement, etc -- when you call these things rights, they are POSITIVE rights. Positive rights require the cooperation and sacrifice of someone else. All positive rights are immoral because they depend on compulsion.
You cannot simultaneously beleive that doctors have the right to live their life to the fullest while at the same time beleiving government has the right to force doctors to provide services to people who have the "right" to basic healthcare. You have a contradiction you must resolve.
It's not a matter of patching up some things with your ideas -- Establishing positive rights fatally contradicts human freedom.
Tell me, what rights do sufferers of Portmano Lethalisrexia have?
Trafik Jamz;326614 wrote:
I think everyone has the right to life saving procedures and treatments beyond emergency room care (providing industry standard care for cancer, etc...)
Where does this right come from? Do I have it when I am alone on an island? What will motivate the majestic palms and the sandy beaches to heal my cancer?
Suppose I have a rare condtion called "Portmano Lethalisrexia". Basically, the cells in my forebrain are constantly getting sick and dying off. Without treatment, I'd live about 72 hours. However, with a simple treatment, I can lead a normal lifestyle and be a productive member of society.
The treatment for Portmano Lethalisrexia is simple -- I lay down and the heavenly touch of Natalie Portman's hand is applied to my forehead. I receive this treatment in 4 hour applications, every 48 hours. Lately it's been from 8am till noon, Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday. Nobody can quite explain how it works, but the radiant aura of Mrs. Portman's hand reverses the cell necrosis and completely restores my brain function. I lead a normal life - I work hard at work and I can be a father for my children.
Mrs. Portman has been very understanding and accomodating, but as the number of patients with this condition seems to increase, it's getting difficult for her to find time to eat, act, and do more basic stuff like hang out with her friends. I feel bad for her, but I'm going to die if she stops doing it. It's just a few hours of her time, right? And it's not like I did anything to deserve this.. some people like me are just unlucky, you know?
I'm glad that in this country I have a right to receive lifesaving emergency medical care, and on-going treatments for chronic conditions that would be terminal if left untreated. I have to admit, I am a little concerned about what will happen to me if Mrs. Portman gets some kind of hand injury, or ends up getting sick, or heaven forbid, leaves the country or dies or something. When I was first diagnosed, she tried to skip the country but the goverment was able to stop her at the airport, luckily. For the first few weeks they were actually treating me at the county jail -- Mrs. Portman was being kept in custody, you see. We've had time to smooth things over though, and now she just wears one of those ankle bracelets so my doctors can keep tabs on her whereabouts. She has a special government agent that lets her take it off if she's going to be shooting a movie scene where she'll have exposed ankles. They've been pretty understanding and flexible with her work schedule.
I guess there are a lot of people in the country that don't care about people like me, and don't think I deserve to live. They talk about how much it is costing them to pay for all this government monitoring and handling of Mrs. Portman, they keep talking about how unfair it is to a rich beautiful actress like her.
Well, what about me? Do my kids not deserve a dad because I'm not rich and beautiful? Where's the fairness in that?
Trafik Jamz;326605 wrote:
I find it fundamentally wrong that the more money you have the more likely you are to have advanced healthcare options.
Why?
The questoin about health insurers and birth control had no good answer, so i chose other:
"Health insurers can cover birth control if they want to. But the government should have no authority to compel an insurer to provide any product or service whatsoever. The government certainly shouldn't have the authority to compel an insurer to provide a particular product at a particular price"
So gold doesn't have any intrinsic value. Infact, nothing has intrinsic value. A thing is valued only if a particular person wants it more than something else they have at a particular time.
It turns out that most people for most of history have chosen silver and gold for money because they are extremely suitable for that purpose.
Money develops naturally as a logical outgrowth of the barter system. Without money, the butcher has to have exactly the number of chickens that the cobbler wants in exchange for making a set of shoes. The butcher can only get shoes when the cobbler wants chickens.
This is of course an awful way to conduct the affairs of society, and is a detriment to the effectiveness and growth of human civilization.
Compared to all other things, gold and silver have a few properties that make them excellent as money
the monetary utility of gold and silver is significantly higher than their industrial or ornamental utility. There simply isn't something that has more desirable properties than silver as day to day money, and gold as a store of wealth. Why? Because most people have decided that's what they want to use as money, primarily for the reasons above.
It doesn't hurt that silver and gold are both very pretty, and are both medically useful chemicals, and do have industrial/technical uses. But the #1 good feature of any commodity money is that it be difficult to inflate the supply rapidly. Copper or other metals would work as well for this, but they have problems with durability, corrosion resistance, etc.
Gold and Silver aren't the only things you should have because they are only useful to you in a proto-functioning society where people are willing to trade items with direct utility value (food, clothing, protection) for things with societal/barter value (money, jewelry, luxuries). Depending on how severe the collapse is, there may be a period where your silver/gold holdings are effectively worthless because nobody wants to give you their food in exchange for your silver. They can just wait until you die and then take it from you 
At some point -- perhaps on the way down, and perhaps on the way back up if we sink that low -- a barter economy will re-emerge and commodity money will re-emerge to make ti better. Historically, gold and silver have always been at the center of this.
If you made the government do its accounting the way we require private businesses to do theirs, that stuff starts to show up.
Here is an explanation that scratches the tip of the iceberg, from the magnificent Khan Academy:
http://www.khanacademy.org/humanities---other/american-civics/v/government-s-financial-condition
Basically, we are completely fucked. Buy gold, silver, and ammunition. The dollar will collapse in our (natural) lifetimes.
Well, Obama is wrong that everyone should go to college. Doesn't seem to make Americans smarter. It does seem to make colleges dumber. When you have everyone chasing after a fixed supply of college admission spots, using borrowed money, the result is predictable. College gets way more expensive, and universities spend the money on dumb things to attract fickle student loan dollars. Like giant new stadiums, rec centers, etc. Not things that make kids better.
Rexwagon;326426 wrote:
In the end it doesnt matter
It matters a lot if you're one of the people that gets killed.
But the world isnt perfect nor is it fair.
That doesn't excuse intentionally being evil. Which is what I think our politicians do a lot of the time.
I can appreciate the role that the military has in being the "Executive branch" of national political willpower. But when you advocate for the same kinds of policies and people that get us IN to undeclared wars where zillions of people on all sides suffer, you can't really play the "I was doing my job" card.
You have two jobs. One is to execute the military ambitions of your country when you deploy. The second is to keep your country from deploying you for stupid reasons by voting for the right people.
The option of war with Iran IS on the table with hypothetical president Paul. If the congress declares it, that is.
Anyone do plastic welding? I need some custom-sized holding tanks made for an RV. Potable, grey, and black water tanks, about 22" wide and around 9" tall, in various lengths up to 10ft. Would need fittings installed as well. Fresh water tank would need internal baffles.
Anyone been there / done that on RV tanks?
he's secular, like many people in Iran. Just like the government of Iraq was before we ruined that whole place.
I line up 100 women and kids from Iran right now and you'd go firing squad style on them? Why? What did they do to you?
The last Iranian I met was working in this country paying a fuckton more tax dollars than you do. His net contribution to USA >> yours. Why would I want to send him "home"?
I'd rather take all of the native-born "Americans" who live off the dole, make no legitimate attempt to become self-sufficient, and have an entitlement complex by virtue only of the zipcode of their birth, and who complain about how they are the "real" Americans, and send them to Iran.
Before beating the war drums, you need to read/view this and think about it pretty hard:
video re-enactment: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F3_EXqJ8f-0
transcript: http://www.ratical.org/ratville/CAH/warisaracket.html
About the man (who is a fuckton MORE of a man than I am): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smedley_Butler
short version: time of his death the most decorated Marine in U.S. history.
Are you more of a bad ass than this guy? You know more about war and fighting than he does?
The idea that Paul isn't going to fight back if Iran nukes us is ridiculous.
Unlike every other douchebag in the race, Paul actually got drafted and served during Vietnam. And he had 2 kids at home.
When 9/11 happened, Paul had legislation ready immediately to go after Bin Laden directly -- via letters of marque and reprisal -- the constitutional remedy that was used for us to stop piracy against American interests back in the 1700s. It was something the president could unilaterally do, it didn't commit the entire us Military. But instead of going with Paul's constitutional means of going over there and getting OBL, we telegraphed to the whole world for months that we were about to invade Afghanistan. Plenty of time for OBL to setup his Chateau in Pakistan.
Instead, we're trillions down the drain, loads of our precious children are dead, and zillions of more terrorists created in Afghanistan, Iraq, and elsewhere.
Let's say that Iran is working on a nuke. Let's say that they develop it. Do you think they plan on using it on US soil? They know that having 1 nuke and using if offensively is their death sentence. And despite what you think you know about Iran, it isn't full of dynamite vest wearing lunatics. The one thing about politicians is they love power. Amouasdfmasofkbad (president of Iran) loves power just as much as anyone else. Why would he possibly commit suicide and lose everything only to have his entire country glassed over? He's not one of the crazy mullahs.
Iran has a perfectly good reason for wanting a nuke-- the US leaves alone any country with nukes. Why do you think we haven't whacked north korea? Because they can park a nuke on South Korea in 5 minutes.
I honestly don't even think Iran wants to nuke Israel.
But suppose I'm wrong.
Suppose that Iran does get nukes, and gets crazy enough that they nuke Israel. 24 hours later, Iran doesn't exist. Problem solved. Suppose they set off a suitcase nuke in a sports stadium or something. President Paul isn't going to be like "shucks, they got us". He's going to figure out which bastards did it and ruin them.
But suppose I'm right about Iran not actually wanting to bomb us, and some jackball like Santorum gets elected. We're going to have a 5th war, and a shit ton of innocent people are going to die. For what? Would you pick up a rifle and head over to Iran right now and start shooting women and children?
How many Iranians do you guys who are so sprung for bombing Iran know? We had an Iranian guy on our team back during the crazy protests. Do you think he was supportive of the Iranian government? Do you think he wishes he was back there helping to crack down on the Iranians?
Iran came >< this close to having a political coup succeed. Everytime was antagonize Iran "the nation" and hurt "Iran, the people", we give power to their crazy Death To America mullahs and consolidate power under their president.
If we go with Pauls plan, yeah, there is a smalll chance that we could end up having 1 nuke go off somewhere. It would be bad. But we'd survive, we'd clean up the middle east, and come home fast.
But let's say we don't go with Pauls plan. Our economy is going to self destruct, and our world wide empire will crumble. Our soldiers all over hte world will increasingly become targets because they are in the enemy's back yards, and we will be powerless to respond beacuse we are going to be fucking broke. The world economy is precariously close to a total reset and not a single one of these guys except Paul has any fraction of the balls required to get things moving in the right direction, much less the brains to know what needs to change.
Basically, it comes down to this. If we elect Paul, there's a slight chance he's wrong about foreign policy -- even though he has a long history of being exactly right. But if we don't elect Paul, there's a MUCH bigger chance that he was right about domestic and monetary policy. At which point we are fucked deep in every hole, and what Iran is doing will be the least of our concerns.
