That Mars question was only significant because the first candidate to respond said that funding for space missions is wasteful government spending. No way I would ever vote for him.

Stormfront people may like Ron Paul, but I don't see how that reflects negatively on Paul. Can't "bad" people know something "good" when they see it? Are we supposed to vote for whatever is diametrically opposed to extremists? That will only land us with the extremists on the other side of the spectrum.

You seriously think it's a good idea to spend billions if not trillions of dollars sending a man to the moon again, and then mars? It's one thing to develop the space program if there's some conceivable benefit, but with our current budget situation, it's extremely irresponsible to spend that kind of money on science for the sake of science. Sure it's cool, but let's save that for a day when we actually have the luxury of doing it, rather than using it to flush our nation even further down the toilet.

********* I just came from a thread on SA where they were arguing the same thing.

Let me guess, Obi: you'd rather see the money for a Mars mission being spent on curing cancer and feeding the poor? That's the argument I always see and I love how ridiculously naive it is. It would be more realistic to say that you have a choice between either going to Mars or starting another war, because in all seriousness where do you think the money would go if not into a space mission. Obviously I'm not against charity or the quest to cure diseases, but it's silly to think that whether we explore space or not will make one bit of difference on these fronts (except for the fact that an interplanetary society would likely have less poverty and better health, on average).

EDIT: I'm sorry, I didn't mean to come off so harshly. I'm just frustrated right now, but it's not fair for me to attack you personally. Anyways this thread probably isn't really the right place for this debate; I might make one later on.

What!?


Also, there is no money to spend. If we go to Mars now, that'll just being the total economic collapse of the government closer a several decades. Our current level of spending in unsustainable. We can't go around trying to create dangerous and stupidly innefficient "space colonies". Interplanetary societies require technology that is hundreds, if not thousands of years away to be feasible, and maybe more to actually be advantages. We sure as won't get there be ruining our economy on exploration that has no redeeming value.

The only advantage space offers us is more space. The costs of getting to other planets and maintaining colonies are insanely expensive compare to what they actually give us. We're better off looking at colonizing the sea first. It's expensive but it's much more viable for now. The best part is that those same technologies could be incorporated into space colonization down the road. Either way, we're better off leaving things like that alone until we could actually see some short term benefit from them. We have plenty of land that's pretty much empty still.

Me too. All that stuff sounds awesome, he's got my vote.

Minimum wage is a cop out. It's just a method for politicians to pretend that they are doing something. We just constantly keep it way below what most people's service is actually worth. If they raised it higher than that, it would just hurt the economy, people getting raises included.



It took that much effort to say he's pro-life but thinks it should be left up to the sates? No one wants to hear a bunch of retarded pro choice slogans.

Please tell me you're kidding. The space budget is a tiny fraction of national spending, and has reaped enormous benefits. The list of new technologies and consumer products that are spin-offs of the space program is massive.

Funding science for the sake of science is one of the best possible uses of tax money. Or do you prefer to see it go to senseless wars?

Wait, no free-dried ice cream?

I didn't say our current space program was a bad idea, I said spend the astronomical amounts required to send people back to the moon or to mars was.

Also, the examples you gave were poor, because those inventions were incidental to, rather than directly resultant of the space program. Any of those things could have been much more cheaply developed on earth. Those are just inventions that also happened to be useful for things other than their intended purpose as part of the space program. The Third Reich made similar contributions to society. The real benefit of the space program, of course, are communication satellites, which are incredibly useful.



Why would you say that? The best use of funding (if we had any) would be toward science that had some sort of benefit from man kind. Science that is useful >>>>> science that cool. On some level any research will be helpful, but it's idiotic to say that we should do the least useful stuff first. We want to do the opposite.

Again, we don't have any money to spend in the first place, so the point is moot. We need to stop sweeping things under the rug until it all blows up, or the little problems we whine about now will be insignificant compared to the major problems we will have.

That site never said that those things were developed in space. They simply would have been impossible to develop without the information garnered from the space program, all of it. Sending up satellites is great, but then we would have missed out on, for example, so many of the medical innovations that came from the Apollo missions.

Initiatives like putting a man on the moon are an incredible catalyst for innovation and progress. The US has a vested interest in maintaining or increasing that funding if it wants to be any sort of global player in science and technology.

New thread for the discussion about space exploration: http://forums.massassi.net/vb3/showthread.php?t=49193

I thought you were better informed than that. That isn't meant as an insult. I'm just expressing that I didn't think a copy-paste post with, from what I can tell are, a bunch of dead links.

The problem is that Rob's post proves, or would if the links work (I am assuming they don't because the five or six I clicked said page not found), that Paul's positions are not "insane". I'm assuming that those links are to his voting record on certain proposed legislation. I doubt he would have been the only one to vote on one side in the over 400 person House. More than likely most of those votes came down like most others and were split down party lines.



It is wasteful spending. The majority of space programs should be privately funded. Just like almost any other type of research program should be privately funded. Using tax payer money on these programs is an abuse of power. Space programs should be limited to defense and infrastructure needs.



It is not the job of the federal government to fund science. However, the American people have allowed the federal government to grow into a monstrous entity. If ever we could repeal the sixteenth amendment and go to the Fair Tax maybe all this frivolous spending would start to get reigned in...

[Last I will comment on space exploration in this thread]

It's not that simple. To quote a user on another site:



From Stormfront's boards:

Well i wanted to actually read the links because im always open minded but none of them actually linked to anything except broken sites so... wheres the sources lol.

The very last link in his post is a link to the site with all the working links.

The real reason you should vote for Ron Paul is because he is the only candidate who likes this country the way it was. The democrats, ruled by the secular progressives, want socialist anarchy. The Republicans, ruled by the neo-cons, want authoritative fascism. Ron Paul has used the republican party to bring himself close, because there is no other way to gain power, but he's a real conservative, not a neo-con. That's why you should vote for him, even if you disagree with where he stands on every issue : Because he does stand on issues. He doesn't toe the party line. He's not part of the Hamiltonian machine that dominates both parties, not part of the Reagan cabal or the Clinton conspiracy.

And also, did Rob just copy and paste that entire post? How... lame.

Not everybody likes the country the way it was

If you like the government controlling everyone's life, I guess.

Don't be childish. It's not "Ron Paul vs fascism"

The Supreme Court has been the key to the progression of civil rights for centuries. He wants that done away with. That's why Stormfront loves him. That's why I don't.

I think public education is important. He wants it eliminated.

We have different priorities. That should be obvious to anyone. I don't know why you Ron Paul people act like anyone who doesn't like him is sum kinna crazy idiot who wants to be oppressed by da gubmint. But the fact I'd rather live in 2007 than in 1776 doesn't imply that in the slightest.

Don't YOU be childish, heh. That comment has nothing to do with Ron Paul.

You want more government influence in American life than there was in the old days. That's the long and short of it. And it's exactly what you are implying.

Furthermore, I suggest you actually read some of the bills before going off on a rant. I'm not convinced you've done that. Support your statements.

It has to do with respecting Ron Paul enough to defend him reasonably instead of with silly hyperbole:



In some issues, yes I do.

But by saying I want "the government controlling our lives" you make it look like mainstream candidates and Ron Paul represent two extremes of a spectrum of fascism vs freedom. The government doesn't control my life now, it won't control my life if Ron Paul isn't elected president, and it won't STOP controlling my life if he's elected president.

Again, this "I guess you just hate freedom" hyperbole is what I'm calling childish, not the assertation that I favor more federal control than Ron Paul does.



If I'm misunderstanding the nature of the bills, please tell me. Is keeping civil rights issues (among other things) in state courts NOT what he intends to do? I can't tell if, by asking me to cite bills to support my statements, you're implying that they are factually incorrect or if it's for some other reason.

As for education, he's made his position on that abundantly clear.

....right...Ron Paul wasn't alive back then. Anyways, let's get off the personal attacks and focus on the core issues.



Right now, all the government has to do is say you're a terrorist for any random reason and your rights are gone. You can be locked up, beaten and abused to their liking.

Ron Paul, who isn't the solution to complete freedom, is the only one that actually cares about loosening the grip of the government. As for other candidates: while they are not in for complete control, they want to expand control in there own little way.

"The government doesn't control my life now" -- Total control, no. Different aspects of control, yes. The issue is not whether they actively control your life. The issue is that they have the ever growing authority to do so when they please.



There's nothing wrong with state control of civil rights issues. Most issues don't make it past the state courts as it is. Furthermore, your original post implied that he was against the civil rights movement.

As for education -- he's not out to get rid of public education. Again, this is at the federal level. Please, read more about the position on this. He's mostly opposed to the DoE.

Reducing federal control is not a bad thing. Also, you seem to think that he wants to get rid of some of these things entirely.

I don't know dude, he is pretty old



NO U IDIOTT SHUTUP:argh:



I agree, this is not a good thing.



Here's where the difference of opinion lies--although I agree that federal involvement in the form of, say, the Patriot Act, is a bad thing, I don't therefore consider any form of federal regulation to be bad. It's a squares vs quadrilaterals thing.

For me, though, education is a bigger, more damaging issue than surveillance and wrongful arrests.



Fair enough. Don't get me wrong, I'm no fan of authoritarianism. But I don't think it's worth it to trade safety from creeping surveillance for public education, environmental protection, civil rights protection, etc.



From the ASSS:


That seems pretty straightforward. Has he contradicted that elsewhere?



Well, education, yeah.

Also, I'm not big on the Federal Government. But state governments seem far-and-away worse throughout history. I like the fact that urban and rural states balance each other out. I'd hate to see what Kansas or Mississippi or Georgia would get up to if left to their own devices.

From Ron Paul's website (http://www.ronpaul2008.com/issues/education/):

So he is a FLIP FLOPPER

AHA

Just because he doesn't believe public education is a very good idea, and admittedly it hasn't done a very good job, doesn't mean he thinks the federal government should prevent states from offering it.

Also, do you mind citing that quote?

Obi, did you read what Thrawn posted earlier?

Thrawn posted this: http://www.schoolandstate.org/signproclamation.htm
IRG Sithlord posted this: http://www.ronpaul2008.com/issues/education/
So Ron has changed his tune.

The desire to get rid of public education has more to do with keeping children away from certain types of information certain groups don't like than anything else (sadly, frequently on religious grounds).
The US really could do with a national curriculum. A bare minimum requirement in standards and subjects that any sort of educational establishment should attain and it should be applied to public, private and homeschoolers. Anything less is to allow children to be deprived and, frankly, abused.

I did some *brief* research cause I'm in a rush, but consider the statistics provided on this site: http://www.edreform.com/index.cfm?fuseAction=section&pSectionID=15&cSectionID=97

In particular, the funding:



These statistics may be off by a few years but I wouldn't think that they would have changed dramatically since then. Assuming these statistics to be relatively correct, it does not seem that Federal funding is all that great for public schools.

But like I said, I'm not 100% on those statistics so feel free to do additional research.

Like I said before, he also doesn't believe that the federal government has any business telling the states weather or not they can have public education systems, regardless of his personal beliefs.



Abused? Yeah right. The government has no business telling parents what they should teach their kids. It's the parents right to teach their kids, and giving that right to the government is a gross violation of personal liberty far greater than anything the Patriot Act does. Even at a federal level, this is an almost certain invitation for unwarranted propaganda. History books are bad enough with out the government them being written by the government.

Then why did he try to get it barred at state and local levels?

You're saying he thinks public education should be abolished, but he promises not to if he's put in a position to do so? That, combined with his relationship with the GOP, makes him seem less distanced from the doubletalking frontrunners than he was supposed to be

Endorsing a site that is against it != making a federal law that prohibits it.

The GOP hates him because he's anti war.

You're getting it backwards. It's not the parent's right to mold their kid into whatever the heck they like. It's the kid's right to a proper education. A childs education should be subject to external checks.
Forget the crap about religion, politics or opinions on history that admittedly I raised, I suspect it's only going to dirty the waters. There ought to be checks to ensure the kid is getting a quality education in the three Rs for example and in science and geography and so on. These aren't even controversial. As an example I have a friend who was home-schooled by parents wholly unsuitable for the job. He's practically unemployable due to his lack of even the most basic education. I feel that he was the one who was failed, both by his parents and also by his local education authority. His parents had no right to screw up his life like that in the name of parental choice.

If he thinks it should be eliminated, why wouldn't he say "I want to eliminate this?"

He's softening his stance to get votes. If he REALLY didn't want to get rid of public education, even if he personally thought it was a bad idea, he wouldn't be supporting organizations trying to do exactly that.



For that and other reasons--the thing is his supporters seem to be convinced he's really a libertarian revolutionary in disguise, while he proclaims his undying love for the Republican party. How could such a thing happen?

I'm not sure why you can't get this. Are you not reading what I'm saying? He doesn't believe that the ends justify the means. He doesn't believe that the federal government should have the power to tell the states not to have a public education system. That's why everyone likes him- his excellent governmental philosophy makes his person views on many things largely irrelevant, because it puts those issues out of the federal government's hands and into the state's hands.


Are you serious? He's said many times that he doesn't like the direction the party has taken, but is trying to change it rather that distance himself from it because he's been elected as a republican for so long, and because the bi party system and the media keeps third party candidates from being viable unless you have stupid amounts of money.



Homeschooled kids are, by and large, a lot better educated than public school kids, simply because their parents are involved and interested in their kids education. The standard would be totally worthless, unless public schools could consistently provide a decent education, which they cannot. If the government can't consistently do a good job with education itself, it has no business telling other people how to do things. Requiring a certain amount of subjects to graduate would be good, but choosing actual curriculum is a horrible idea. The public school system is notorious for using text books that are total garbage.

So, he wants to eliminate public education, but only as long as he doesn't do it via the federal government. His personal views would only be irrelevant if he kept them to himself and didn't act to make them a reality. He's done that.



Meaning what? His supporters are wrong?

He signed the damn thing over 5 years ago. Why is it hard to believe that he legitimately changed his position?

But as president, he wouldn't act to make them become reality, so they are irrelevant. You're grasping at straws here.



What are you talking about?



That's possible too, but not really important either way.

No, this is my point. I would want a president who does what he thinks is right, not what he thinks people want him to do...



I don't trust that guy