You're Michael Steele. Who do you run in 2012 vs Obama/Biden?

Haley Barbour and a young governor, or someone outside politics, for VP

 

It's beyond me how a resident of a foreign country can just mail his vote in. You haven't lived here in how many years?

 

^ I have never relinquished my residency in the US, or my citizenship.

I am sort of surprised (only sort of, I admit) to find you wishing that certain American citizens who don't fit your criteria didn't have the right to vote.

Would you like a poll tax and a literacy test along with all that, as a way of making sure only the "right" people can vote?

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At this point, a flaming turnip could probably beat Obama on national security alone. But I think you probably should go with Ron Paul or Mitt Romney. It seems that moderates don't do well enough to make any headway. Romney is better known, and he's likeable, however I think Paul is right on the economy, so that's kinda the rub here.

 

Ron Paul is a joke.

An icon of internet libertarians.

 

Vague insults apart, on what specific points do you disagree with him?

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I don't believe in a hands off federal govt. for one thing. I am conservative but I believe that you have to have an activist federal govt. to rollback the policies and programs passed by various admin. in the past.

Not to mention that Ron Paul never struck me personally as presidential timber.

 

If you were being more honest, you'd say that you like the federal government to pursue an aggressive foreign policy and to legislate your preferred morality, two things that Ron Paul would not do.

 

I fully agree with an aggressive foreign policy.

I do not believe in legislating morality. Unless you call ending abortion as "legislating morality".

It isn't like I'm wanting the govt. to forbid people from having sex.

 

I don't know who they'll wheel out, but they need to make a move soon. One problem for the delays may be timing, if they roll out someone today it gives gobbs of time to dig for dirt. This I think was one ofthe reasons Obama made it in the big chair, he wasn't presented early enough, and being new and heaven forbid I say it, Black, the dems played their hand well.

I don't see anyone on the Republican horizon though and that is again troublesome. Palin won't likely run, at least as a Republican, and there just doesn't seem to be anyone else who comes to mind.
I think after the elections later this year we'll see someone shaken out of the tree though.
Let's just pray it isn't the laundry list of losers and fuckwits we were stuck with last round. Few were even considerable.

The only one who stood out to me was Thompson and he lacked the gonads to go the distance. A shame really, he was in my opinion the most qualified candidate for the post.

 

My emphasis. I do, and I suspect that there are a vast number of other areas too.

 

And yet, that's pretty much what the Bill of Rights describes. The largest part of the Constitution is devoted to describing the various organs of government and how they work, but as to what that governement is supposed to do, and especially as to what it is not supposed to do, there aren't very many things that are supposed to be dealt with at the federal level.

It sounds to me like, fundamentally, you aren't really saying Ron Paul is a joke, but that the Constitution, as originally intended, is a joke. Not a very conservative opinion, IMO.

Doublespeak. All you need is someone who stops doing it.

Irrelevent. "Presidential timber" is as empty and misleading a term as there could be. You remind me of Marathon, getting all excited about Obama because he could make nice speaches. What I want in a President is someone who can preside over a federal government that has sound policies. You haven't given any examples of policies of Ron Paul that you do not consider sound.

I, however, do not. I am not in favor of isolationism, but I am in favor of noninterventionism, unless our national security is specifically threatened. It seems to me that a large part of our foreign policy is more about throwing our weight around and expecting the world to do what we say than it is about protecting ourselves.

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^ A pretty fancy way of saying you think the Constitution, as originally written, was a joke.

Which, as I said, is not exactly a conservative position.

And which doesn't make Ron Paul "a joke." It makes him someone who defends a position that is very well attested historically in America, that is very close to the values of the founders, and with which you happen to disagree, since you don't like the way the country was originally set up. You should be honest and state that openly, instead of simply saying that someone who wants to come back to the original intention of the Constitution is "a joke."

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What, you mean people who live here?

 

The U.S. Constitution is not a "joke".

But it isn't the Bible and the Bill of Rights are not the Ten Commandments.

It has served the U.S. well overall though a fair part of that service is thanks to some very loose interpretations of it over more than two centuries.

We should see the Constitution for what it is:

A VERY vaguely written document that was created more than two centuries ago to create a national government out of widely disparate factions among a group of weak and poor states along the North American east coast in a world dominated by a few European superpowers.

That is one reason I laugh at modern politicans referring to Washingtons warning against "entangling alliances" as though it as some kind of enlightened insight into our world today.

Washington was warning against "entangling alliances" because the U.S. was a small, weak country in a world dominated by England and France and he was deeply worried that the English and French would use the United States as a battlefield as they had before (French Indian War/Seven Years War)

 

^ You are the very embodiment of all of what is wrong in the worst elements of the modern neo-con movement.

IMO.

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Ah, so it's residency that makes a difference to you, not citizenship. Let all the Mexicans who live there vote, but not those of us who have been solid American citizens for decades and decades, who spend a lot of time in the country (even since my work brought me overseas, I average over a month per year physically present in the United States), who know significantly more about it than the average American (I have visited 48 states, have read and re-read the Constitution many times, have studied American history in detail, am well informed about American politics...), and who also know what is going on in the rest of the world.

Of course, I understand your motives. Overseas Americans do not tend to the mentality that makes them vote the way the labor unions would like, so trying to disenfranchise us certainly goes along with your agenda. Fortunately, the law does not work the way you want it to work.

But at least you have made it clear that you do not think all upstanding adult American citizens should be allowed to vote.

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Because I don't bend my knees and worship at the altar of a flawed document written by a group of prominent politicians more than two centuries ago?

Be honest.

One BIG reason that "conservatives" routinely talk about "respecting the constitution" and "orginal intent" is that they know that authorization of many liberal policies are not actually written in the text of the constitution.

If the U.S. Constitution said "Abortion and homosexual marriage shall be legal in all states of the union"....just how many conservatives of ANY stripe do you think would be talking about "respecting the constitution"?


Now who is and is not being intellectually honest?

 

I maintain what I said, and emphasize it more and more. Your opposition to the Constitution, as well as your continual upholding of American aggression overseas, makes you very firmly part of the problem, not part of the solution.

When people like you vote Republican, it is a good illustration of the reason for which I no longer do.

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I don't oppose the constitution. I just don't consider it sacred and inviolated.

I have no problem with an aggressive U.S. foreign policy.

The U.S. is undefendable by any stretch of the imagination. Thus the only possible "defense" is an offensive posture that seeks to expand American control and influence as far as possible away from our shores.

Better to eliminate possible enemies of the U.S. in North Korea than in North Carolina.

 

That's not what I said at all.

You are beyond butthurt, but why? Does the IRS know you live overseas?

You mean logically and consistently, no it doesn't unfortunately.

Not if they don't live here, no.

 

Ugh.

Somebody find me a 3rd party candidate who's not a Jesus freak, corporate minion, or socialist on the down-low.

 

What do you want them to believe in?

Seriously, if you want someone passionate enough about politics to bother running, then they've got to have some pretty serious beliefs.

 

I want them to believe in minimalist government and leaving people the fuck alone whenever humanly possible, rather than merely paying lip service to those sentiments as a way of granting legitimacy to their corruption and prejudices. A nation's government should not exist to protect people from themselves, guarantee individual outcomes, manipulate wealth and economic functions, impose morality, or spend the population's money policing the world.

 

Aren't you looking for Ron Paul?

 

Jesus freak. No man who believes in a Christian nation will ever get my vote. Not that anyone has ever gotten my vote.

 

Wasn't aware of that...

What about the libertarian party, or constitution party or someone like that then?

 

Link?

 

The only things I've ever discuss at length is being as hands off in micromanaging the lives of Americans as possible, which I assume also includes religion. As long as he holds up that promise, he can believe in a nation govern by Flying Spaghetti Monsters for all I care.