Who do you want to win the 2012 U.S. Presidential election?

That said, if anyone here on Fakku chooses Bachmann, trolling or not, I will find you and I will kick your ass to the moon. Unless you are a sadist who wants to be considered a common criminal (on par with child molesters) just because you like hentai or anything else not stringently agreed upon by the most right-wing Fascist church groups.

After additional consideration and analysis and shortly before the release of the Climategate emails in late 2009, Ron Paul identified the artificial panic around Global Warming as an elaborate hoax:

“The greatest hoax I think that has been around for many, many years if not hundreds of years has been this hoax on [...] global warming.” – Ron Paul on Fox Business, Nov. 4, 2009

“[The Copenhagen treaty on climate change] can’t help the economy. It has to hurt the economy and it can’t possibly help the environment because they’re totally off track on that. It might turn out to be one of the biggest hoaxes of all history, this whole global warming terrorism that they’ve been using, but we’ll have to just wait and see, but it cannot be helpful. It’s going to hurt everybody.” – Ron Paul on the Alex Jones Show, Nov. 5, 2009

@Fpod: Libertarianism is one of those things we have to agree to disagree on. It looks great on paper, but quite honestly, people, corporations, etc. don't always work in their own rational and enlightened self-interest.

On abortion: not really the topic for this thread--if you want, we can take it to the other abortion thread. But ftr, I do disagree with calling the murder of a pregnant woman a double-murder or double-homicide. I don't think fetuses should have rights, or that IF they do, their rights should not supersede the ones of the already living, breathing pregnant woman. And the partial-birth abortion act is a horrid bill not based on scientific and medical opinion, so I'm not even gonna talk about that. The abortion page on his campaign website also says nothing about improving access to contraceptive methods, and in addition, he has stated several times that he would cut funding to Planned Parenthood, which is THE biggest and most effective provider of sexual education and contraceptives in the nation. That doesn't seem like a way of promoting contraceptive access to me.

On global warming: I've already been at you with this issue before, and I choose to agree with the overwhelming amounts of scientific literature that say that AGW is true and is exacerbating the natural processes in place such as increased solar output. But this is what Paul has on his campaign website:



So yes, he does say it is a hoax--it's directly from the horse's mouth.

On healthcare: most people with socialized medicine are happy with it, and almost ALL the first-world countries and some of the third-world countries with socialized healthcare score better on patient satisfaction and patient outcomes than the US. Here's the wiki link summarizing the countries: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialized_medicine. We don't have to follow the NHS exactly-there are many other models for socialized healthcare. There are also many problems with treating healthcare as a commodity, but like you said, this discussion is probably more suited to another thread.

On the gold standard: Krugman says it the best, so here. I will admit that I'm not very knowledgeable on economic matters, but Krugman is, and he says it is unworkable. I believe he also stated in another article (can't find that one) that a gold or other fixed-currency standard would be prone to deflation and depression due to money-hoarding. I don't know what system would replace the current fiat money standard. I agree that it needs to be fixed somehow, but not with the gold standard.

It's time to work for me, so more later, if I don't get lazy.

Voting a new president will change nothing. I love how people forget to consider the past when making decision for the future.

We have had presidents for how long? In that time, have we (we being both England and America) stopped war entirely? Have we invested the majority of our research funds into farming, therefore providing us with enough food to feed all of us (considering we are all human being and that is our damn well duty!)? Have we sent our excess goods to other countries which need it more, which will then develop them, which will stimulate the economy more than anything else? There are tons more important things to list, which I won't.

The answer, is no. The system sucks, no matter how you look at it. We are stagnating.

fucknugget a is better then douchenozzle b.

[font=Courier New]I've never been able to take Ron Paul seriously because the conspiracy theory nutjobs love him. I guess reading "The Creature from Jekyll Island: A Second Look at the Federal Reserve" counts as being well-informed.

Pass the tin-foil hat please. [/font]

As someone who doesn't live in the U.S. I would say that it would be 4 very "entertaining" years if Palin would become the President.

Just about everyone is unhappy with the health care system we have now, a system some people wrongly blame on the free market. To the contrary, our system is shot through with government intervention, regulation, mandates, and other distortions that have put us in this unenviable situation.

It is easy to forget that for decades the United States had a health care system that was the envy of the world. We had the finest doctors and hospitals, patients received high-quality, affordable medical care, and thousands of privately funded charities provided health services for the poor. I worked in an emergency room where nobody was turned away for lack of funds. People had insurance policies for serious health problems but paid cash for routine doctor visits.

That makes sense: insurance is intended to protect against unforeseen and catastrophic events like fire, floods, or grave illness.

Insurance, in short, is supposed to measure risk. It has nothing to do with that now. Something has obviously gone wrong with the system when we need insurance for routine visits and checkups, which are entirely predictable parts of our lives.

Today most Americans obtain health care either through a Health Maintenance Organization (HMO) or similar managed-care organizations, or through Medicare or Medicaid. Since it is very hard to make actuarial estimates for routine health care, HMO's charge most members a similar monthly premium. Because HMOs always want to minimize their costs, they often deny payment for various drugs, treatments, and procedures. Similarly, Medicare does not have unlimited funds, so it generally covers only a portion of any costs. The result of all this is that doctors and patience cannot simply decide what treatment is appropriate. Instead, they constantly find themselves being second guessed by HMO accountants and government bureaucrats.

When a third party is paying the bills and malpractice lawsuits loom, doctors have every incentive to maximize costs and order all possible tests and treatments. The incentive to cut costs is lost, as physicians (now working essentially as low-level employees) seek to make as much as they can in the new corporate environment and charge the maximum the HMOs allow.

Before 1965, physicians and hospitals (like all other private entities competing for your dollar) strove to charge the minimum; because payment now comes so largely from third parties, they instead charge the maximum. At the same time, patients suffer when legitimate and necessary treatment is denied. HMO's have become corporate, bureaucratic middlemen in our health care system, driving up costs while degrading the quality of medical care.

In all other industries, technology has nearly always led to lower prices -- except in health care, thanks to the managed-care system that has been forced upon us.

The story behind the creation of the HMOs is a classic illustration of what economist Ludwig von Mises once said: government interventions create unintended consequences that lead to calls for further intervention, and so on into a destructive spiral of more and more government control. During the early 1970s, Congress embraced HMOs in order to address concerns about rising health care costs. But it was the Congress control over the health care dollar from so many consumers in the 1960s, and thus eliminating any incentive to pay attention to costs when selecting health care. Now, Congress wants to intervene yet again to address problems caused by HMOs, the product of still earlier interventions.

Now that the HMOs are all but universally unpopular, the very politicians who brought them to use are joining the bandwagon to denounce them, hoping the American people will forget, or never be told, that the federal government itself virtually mandated HMOs in the first place.

The most obvious way to break this cycle is to get the government out of the business of meddling in health care, which was far more affordable and accessible before government got involved. Short of that, and more politically feasible in the immediate run, is to allow consumers and their doctors to pull themselves out of the system through medical savings account. Under this system, consumers could save pretax dollars in special accounts. Those dollars would be used to pay for health care expenses, with patients negotiating directly with their physicians and their choice for the care they choose, without regard for HMO rules or a bureaucrat's decision. The incentive for the physician is that he gets paid as the service is rendered, rather than having to wait months for an HMO or insurance provider's billing cycle.

With the cash for the Medical Savings Account (MSA) coming from pretax dollars, most Americans could afford deposits that would cover routine expenses that families experience in a year. Insurance would tend to return to its normal function of providing for large scale, unanticipated occurrences, and would become far more affordable.

... Those who favor national health care schemes should take a good, hard look at our veterans' hospitals. There is your national health care. These institutions are a national disgrace. If this is the care the government dispenses to those it honors as its most heroic and admirable citizens, why should anyone else expect to be treated any better?

To me, he seemed to imply that people shouldn't depend upon the government, but it is okay for them to depend upon their neighbors and local organizations, which doesn't seem that different to me. If one's platform is that one should take responsibility and not try to get "handouts," shouldn't that apply to any sort of "handout," not just ones from the government? Really, how is getting food stamps any different from getting food donations from a church?

The mentality is you steal from your neighbor when the government taxes EVERYONE for a government program. Whereas the man reaches out to his community and people who know and care about him, or people part of organizations reach out for his aid. Those people willingly help him, and there's absolutely nothing wrong with 'helping thy neighbor'

There's a difference from going to your neighbor and saying 'May I borrow a cup of sugar' versus going over and helping yourself in their cabinets while they're not there.