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Forums - Politics Discussion - We The People Act or Why Ron Paul is a Crazy Person

I thought it was mandatory for American politicians to be crazy.



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Kasz216 said:
badgenome said:
rocketpig said:

Heh, yes. Apparently "states rights" is supposed to mean "let's allow states to oppress the minority population".

I'm totally digging the idea of Texas making homosexuality a felony and the Federal courts not being able to do a damned thing about it. I mean, that's fair, right? Right?!?!

It's all about stopping the federal government from trampling states' rights so that those states can feel free to trample the rights of their own citizenry unabated. Yee hah. America, fuck yeah.

It's pretty egregious, but at least people could - and would - still vote with their feet. I'm sure Paul would allow them that much, at least, unlike that fascist fuckhead Schumer and his fucktastic EX-PATRIOT Act.

Paul is nowhere close to perfect, but sadly he is infinitely better than the vast, vast majority of politicians.

Ah the Ex-patriot act.  I can't even remember the last time there was such a vindictive stupid law proposed based on one guy leaving the country.

The only thing i discovered from the hubbub around the Ex-Patriot act is that the government already does what i think they should do to people leaving the country for tax reasons: Tax all of their assets as if they had liquidated all of them when they leave. Anything else would be a bit over the top, especially because American billionaires tend to stick around compared to other countries' billionaires.



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rocketpig said:

I noticed a lack of Ron Paul supporters in this thread. Possibly it's because they don't know he wrote this bill or perhaps it's because they already know he's a crazy person with dangerous ideas and choose to avoid attempts to defend the indefensible. Either way, this should liven it up a bit.

I'm not one of those people who worship the ground he walks on and name him the saviour of humanity, but I suppose I could be considered a supporter.

It is unfortunate that he is completely insane, and he would probably be a pretty appalling President, but he's never really aimed that high. He wants to spread his message, and that is something that, on the whole, I support.

I prefer Gary Johnson anyway. If you guys don't want him, ship him across the Atlantic to us.



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On the surface, I like Johnson. To be honest, I haven't dug deep enough on him to consider myself a "supporter". But at first glance, he seems like a reasonable guy who shares many of my beliefs.




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This seems like a wise piece of legislation. I thoroughly enjoy every sentence therein.



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rocketpig said:
Kasz216 said:

Of course, that's also ignoring things like Payroll tax, state taxs, sales tax, gas taxes and the dozens of other consumption based taxes that exist that are likely regressive in nature.

Medicare too, depending on whether or not you consider that a tax.

 

Either way, said graphic is laughably inaccurate.

Laughably inaccurate, yes. But there is an underlying truth to the concept that over the past 30 years, the rich have been able to minimize their paid taxes while the burden for the middle class has remained relatively consistent.

But graphs like this are no better than Romney replying to a commenter "all money ends up going to an individual!" On the surface, they're true but they lack the nuance and maturity needed to enter into complex conversations about difficult problems.

Not true.


Effective federal tax rates among the bottom 50% have dropped 65% since the 1980's. Comparatively, effective federal tax rates among the top 1% have dropped only 30%. The middle and lower class pay a lot less than they have before. The only taxes that have stayed at similar levels are payroll taxes, which are generally mitigated by their other offsets (such as insane deductions and rebates that usually give them back more than they paid in).



Back from the dead, I'm afraid.

What IF the federal government etc. is/are the bad guys? If a state governor/whatever has the chance to stop arbitrary control freak laws that totally act against the constitution then the governor should be able to do it.

And about the homosexuality example:
Seriously if a state and most of its citizens/voters dont want homo sexuality its their damn right to make it illegal. Noone is forcing anybody to stay in the state. IF you force people in another state with another mentality to comply with your federal rules thats WRONG.
The more levels of government exist the better because the federal government in any country has no idea what the citizens in a state want and no idea whats best because they can not relate to the people in the state. Hell even the state government has no idea what the state citizens want sometimes so how should the federal government know?

IMHO the federal government should only be able to "suggest" laws and should be given the chance to convice the states. And the states should decide on their own if they accept it or not.

(I mean like in stock exchange the one with more than 50% wins. The federal government has like 40% of the "decision power" and the states have 60%. If the law of the federal government is good and convinces enough of the state government the state government can accept the federal law. If the federal government comes up with stupid laws then.... well HAHA better luck next time)



mrstickball said:
rocketpig said:
Laughably inaccurate, yes. But there is an underlying truth to the concept that over the past 30 years, the rich have been able to minimize their paid taxes while the burden for the middle class has remained relatively consistent.

But graphs like this are no better than Romney replying to a commenter "all money ends up going to an individual!" On the surface, they're true but they lack the nuance and maturity needed to enter into complex conversations about difficult problems.

Not true.

Effective federal tax rates among the bottom 50% have dropped 65% since the 1980's. Comparatively, effective federal tax rates among the top 1% have dropped only 30%. The middle and lower class pay a lot less than they have before. The only taxes that have stayed at similar levels are payroll taxes, which are generally mitigated by their other offsets (such as insane deductions and rebates that usually give them back more than they paid in).

Bloomberg Businessweek has a slightly different take on it.

http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-04-17/how-to-pay-no-taxes-10-strategies-used-by-the-rich

"For the 400 U.S. taxpayers with the highest adjusted gross income, the effective federal income tax rate—what they actually pay—fell from almost 30 percent in 1995 to just over 18 percent in 2008, according to the Internal Revenue Service. And for the approximately 1.4 million people who make up the top 1 percent of taxpayers, the effective federal income tax rate dropped from 29 percent to 23 percent in 2008. It may seem too fantastic to be true, but the top 400 end up paying a lower rate than the next 1,399,600 or so."

And that's just since 1995. 




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JazzB1987 said:

What IF the federal government etc. is/are the bad guys? If a state governor/whatever has the chance to stop arbitrary control freak laws that totally act against the constitution then the governor should be able to do it.

And about the homosexuality example:
Seriously if a state and most of its citizens/voters dont want homo sexuality its their damn right to make it illegal. Noone is forcing anybody to stay in the state. IF you force people in another state with another mentality to comply with your federal rules thats WRONG.
The more levels of government exist the better because the federal government in any country has no idea what the citizens in a state want and no idea whats best because they can not relate to the people in the state. Hell even the state government has no idea what the state citizens want sometimes so how should the federal government know?

IMHO the federal government should only be able to "suggest" laws and should be given the chance to convice the states. And the states should decide on their own if they accept it or not.

(I mean like in stock exchange the one with more than 50% wins. The federal government has like 40% of the "decision power" and the states have 60%. If the law of the federal government is good and convinces enough of the state government the state government can accept the federal law. If the federal government comes up with stupid laws then.... well HAHA better luck next time)

Then there is absolutely no point in remaining The United States of America. Let's just break it up into 50 separate countries.

Whether you like it or not, The Constitution is the highest law in the land. No state is allowed to violate its laws under any circumstances. Ron Paul is seeking a way to circumvent that, despite the fact that he fancies himself a Constitutionalist.

You didn't really think this through, did you? Your "system" would require for the entire government to be scrapped along with the Constitution, which is one of the most successful governing documents written by man. It's over 225 years old and has been amended only 17 times. That's insane and speaks to the power of the document. Not to mention that we already tried your idea. It failed so miserably that it almost destroyed the country before it even got going. Thankfully, the document you seem to think is trash, the Constitution, was written and it basically saved the United States from fracturing into oblivion. I might be going out on a limg here but somehow, I doubt you even know about the Articles of Confederation...




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We the People Act removes the jurisdiction from the federals courts, because the federal courts should never have even took the case (Roe v Wade) in the first place. It's a state matter, as all other acts of violence are.

The federal courts, despite your assumptions, do not have the right to rule over anything they choose to.  They are only allowed to rule on things that are related to the powers delegated in the Constitution.   States can and should do all the rest.  That is their obligation.