Ron Paul on Al-Awlarki's Assasination: We Have Crossed the Rubicon to Tyranny

Why can't it?

You have been brainwashed by elitist propaganda. Overpopulation is has never been, is not, and is never going to be a problem.

How is that possible if the federal govt has adopted totalitarian population controls?

Are you intentionally being vague? What do you mean by "absolute freedom"? Anarcho-capitalism?

More statist propaganda based totally on fiction.

 

Yes.

No, because they'd be dead. Fortunately that didn't happen.

 

Well at least I can hand it to you that you don't compromise your principles.

Naive IMO, but whatever gets you through the day!

 

I'll take naive over social authoritarian any day.

 

Actually, violence is regularly the solution sort by cowards and the uneducated.

So, no big surprise that you and your yanky mates love it so much.

 

If all of America had your attitude, World War II could've never been won because you wouldn't have been willing to compromise your freedoms, put up with the rationing, etc necessary for the war effort.

We in America for the years of world war II became in all practical purposes a dictatorial state as rigid as Hitler and Stalin's. All republics have to on occasion. Even the Romans had such a system which is where we get the term Dictator from. We still have to live with some of that dictatorship today.

 

Some are okay with authoritarian governments and some aren't. I'm not.

 

When Timothy McVeigh killed innocent Americans in an act of terrorism, should we have executed him without a trial?

 

But yet,had it happened,you would defend Al-Awlarki ,not the hundreds of Americans killed?Really??
The guy was an enemy combatant.When he renounced his citizenship and sided against us ,he also gave up those same protective rights to a trial by jury.He chose his path,to spit on us,and tried to do us harm and he paid the ultimate price.
Deal with it.

 

I would defend Al-awlaki's Constitutional rights, not his actions. You can't equate the two.

We have already discussed this at length in this thread. He never officially renounced his citizenship.

 

Baseless speculation.

Yeah, and look where the Roman Empire is right now - nonexistent. It's ironic that you call for abuses of indivial rights for the purpose of preserving the state, when in reality it causes the downfall of both the individual AND the state in the end. That is Collectivism in a nutshell.

 

Al Awalaki forfeited his rights when he called for the destruction of the US and plotted killing US citizens. At that point he became an enemy combatant and a clear and present danger to the US.

What he renounced or didn't renounce makes no difference.

And Ron Paul is a terrorist apologist.

 

Whether you killed an American citizen or an enemy combatant it doesn't really matter you still killed someone. I see no difference.

 

exactly WHY Ron Paul will never get elected.
Ron Paul would be the perfect President if we were still in the 17-1800's,but as times change,so do the threats.And as times change,so do the tactics of war.Otherwise,we would still be marching in formations to the sounds of drums and flutes with tune of yankee doodle dandy shooting at each other with muskets.

 

No, not baseless speculation, historical fact you refuse to accept. Just like you refuse to accept the legitimacy of Lincoln's War against Secession.

The USA and the Roman Republic both share the same fatal flaw. There is a certain point of size and scope of population that it becomes impossible to maintain an orderly society through democratic means.

The Founding Fathers did the best they could by trying to keep the power distributed among the States, but that experiment died when a group of States tried to break away and take half the national territory with it.

The America you believe in and want to restore us to, hasn't existed in over 150 years and died on the day Lincoln ordered 75,000 volunteers up to form an army of invasion. The rest of that experiment died with the election of FDR.

These are all unfortunate facts, but facts none the less.

I'm not "brainwashed" by Propaganda, no one told me this stuff, these are conclusions I've reached from a thorough study of history.

 

No he didn't. Please show me where in the Constitution it says that individual rights are forfeitted if the individual allegedly (not proven in court) calls for the destruction of the US and plotted killing US citizens.

Btw, Barack Obama plotted killing US citizens when he was planning to have al-awlaki knocked off...does that mean he has forfeited his Constitutional rights too? Did Timothy McVeigh forfeit his Constitutional rights when he called for the destruction of the govt and killed American citzens?

Sure it does. If he officially renounced his citizenship, then he would have no rights under the Constitution. That's what this entire thread is about.

Please show me where Ron Paul has defended the actions of terrorists.

 

Your claim that we wouldn't have won the war without sacrificing our freedom is baseless speculation. We still could have won the war without abusing individual liberties.

The South seceeded becuase of the policies of Lincoln's government. If Lincoln had obeyed the Constitution in the first place, the South would have never seceded.

You are correct that both the American and Roman Empires demonstrate the same fatal flaw, but you are completely wrong on what that flaw is. Rome fell because 1) It could not afford its military empire, 2) it inflated the currency to pay for it. You demonstrate a gross misunderstanding of the flaws of the Roman Empire.

Collectivist propaganda.

No, the experiment died when the American People continued to elect panderers that disobeyed the Constitution, which caused the states the desire to secede.

I don't want to restore America back to 1860. That is a gross misrepresentation of my beliefs, as I've already explained to you.

 

When he became a clear and present danger to American lives he forfeited his rights.

To preserve American lives. Big difference.

He was an enemy combatant calling for the destruction of America. He sealed his fate.

Paul claimed that we brought 911 on ourselves. Add to that this nonsense about terrorists who happen to be US citizens have due process rights. The man is a blithering idiot and so are his followers.

 

The American People at the time by and large, wouldn't have made the sacrifices they did if they didn't believe in it 100%.

Slavery was a blight and evil and the Constitution was flawed in allowing it to continue after its creation. The States seceded almost to he day lincoln was elected before he even had a chance to do anything. How could he violate the Constitution when he was elected. You act as if the day he took power he immediately tried to abolish slavery.

The Roman empire would've never grown to the size and influence that it did without that military empire. Just like us, the Roman empire was built on war, sustained by war, and it's people enjoyed warlike conflict. Just like Americans today. We are impatient and don't want to "negotiate" for decades on end to no avail like the Israelis and Palestinians do, we'd rather just wipe them out and end the situation once and for all in our favor.

The Founding Fathers virtually all agreed that they intentionally conquered this land from the natives to give to you and me. I feel no guilt about that and I feel no guilt about any killing or war we have to undertake to ensure our manifest destiny as leader of the world.

*sigh* You must see collectivist propaganda everywhere.

The Constitution was flawed in it's creation and allowed a great evil to exist that made us hypocrites. Since half the nation was unwilling to undo that flaw through democratic means, the only other means left was war.

Your writings betray an ancient and outmoded belief more fit for the revolutionaries of 1776 than an American citizen of 2011.

You would fit right in 2 centuries ago, today you are seen as outdated and a little crazy.

 

Except that by the time of the fall of Rome it had long since ceased to be a republic and was an autocratic empire based on hereditary birth rites. The fall of Rome was due to the Romans building their entire economy on plundered goods from surrounding regions and eventually spreading their military too thin to stave off their many enemies and the opportunistic hordes who wanted to sack Rome's treasures. Hence the joke historians sometimes make: The question is not why did Rome fall, it is why did Rome last so long?

The 50 states weren't established during the times of the founding fathers. In fact every founding father was dead long before we entered the last two states into the union in 1959. There were only 16 states in the union when Washington died. What is your point about the confederacy and how did it kill the experiment of the founding fathers?

 

It lasted so long precisely because they went to a totalitarian dictatorship. All historians know that for the Roman empire to continue to exist Augustus had no choice but to become the autocratic leader of the empire. Only the imperial throne was based on heredity. The bureaucracy was based on the cursus honorum that didn't change at all until the time of Constantine when the bureaucracy was finally converted into a hereditary birthright.

Yes I know the 50 states didn't exist that was a mistake, but the point remains salient.

They rebelled and forced America to start on the long dark road to centralized Government authority with the Reconstruction Acts that gave the Federal Government sweeping and authoritative powers that it did not have prior to the Civil War. The 14th Amendment alone, giving the Federal Government the power to intervene in interstate politics regardless of the feelings of the State itself is the main culprit.

I'm not saying I disagree with the outcome of the war, merely stating fact.

Before teh Civil war, the States ruled over the Federal Government, afterward the Federal Government was the ruler over the States.

I already explained above, Lincoln started the entire ideology of the Centralized Federal Authority having absolute binding authority over the States rather than the other way around as the Founding Fathers had intended, that destroyed the initial experiment.

FDR advanced the ideology that economic freedom is secondary to all other concerns and can/should be limited to the strictest degree possible.

What kind of leader, other than a dictator, intimidates the judiciary to agree to laws that tell a man who cannot afford food for his family that, for the good of the collective he must buy his wheat on the open market or starve to death rather than grow it himself?

Who, other than a dictator would have a law passed where the Government sets a price control of one dime for dry cleaning and when a businessman decided to sell dry cleaning for a nickle, has him arrested, jailed and fined?

Only commie countries do that.

 

Well now you are contradicting yourself because you previously said it failed for its democratic principals. It failed under tyrannical rule, so it is logical to say that it fell not because of its democratic leanings but because it was an empire.
The senate had very little power and it would be a stretch to say that Rome exercised democratic principals from the period that Julias Caesar crossed the Rubicon to the fall of Rome. It eventually wore down for the same reason that all dictatorships wear down: because hereditary leadership, especially in a "cult of personality" type regime are unsustainable. The Roman emperors grew progressively more insane and depraved and were no longer fit for leadership. Nero murdered his own mother for god sakes. In addition they ran out of people to exploit and had no real services to offer the world. Their economy was mismanaged and they were surrounded by enemies. Not a good spot to be in.
Which is exactly why democracy works when it isn't corrupted, people are assigned positions based on merit rather than arbitrary hereditary or spiritual rights.

Well from what I've read many of the founding fathers were in favor of a central government. Still, I see your point and think America would be better off if the states were like their own countries able to govern themselves with a federal government to weakly unify them.

Yeah I know what you mean, I have thought about that as well. It would be better if each state had maximum power, because you could just move to another state if you didn't like the laws and attitudes of the people in your own state.

It certainly changed it, but one could also argue the federal issues at hand were such that the arguments concerning the future of industrial and agricultural practices (and the question of the morality of slavery of course) in the US were destined to end up in blood shed. Whatever side won was going to absorb the rest of the nation into their stance and set a precedent for the new states that were to join the union. However this doesn't mean that federal power has to be absolute, that is more the people's choice, although I don't think at this point it is likely that the vast power of the federal government is going to end.

Well FDR was wildly popular because he pulled America out of the dump and restored the people to honor. You might see it as communistic, but if you look at it from a pragmatic standpoint he increased manufacturing, stabilized the economy, led the allies to victory and ushered in an age of prosperity in America that lasted well into the eighties. In your political view it may be better to say unemployment and starvation during the great depression was more economically free on paper, but to the people of the US it is far greater to be truly free of mind and spirit under an ethical government that allows people the dignity of work and the ability to put food on the table and start a family. FDR's solution was the only way to restore market capitalism in the US. You should be happy we had FDR, if it was up to American big business of the time, and people like Prescott Bush and Henry Ford, we probably would have aligned with the Nazis.

 

You seem to think that attacking Paul is an attack on me. I started the first "This was a bad move" thread as soon as I got the details, long before Paul weighed in on the subject. I kicked up a fuss when he was targeted actually. My opinion pre-dates Paul by miles.

The underwear AND shoe bomber deny Al Awlaki was behind the plots. He just recruited them, according to them. He has never been shown to be involved with terror plots, or hold rank. In fact, the whitehouse flat out stated that the decision was made because he RECRUITED the guys who got closest to killing people. That is not an imminent threat. That is not engagement in hostility.

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5KvnFeW4hIc"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5KvnFeW4hIc[/ame]

 

'I'm Alive,' Says Yemen Radical Anwar Awlaki Despite U.S. Attack

http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/awlaki-alive/story?id=9455144

After the first attempt to kill him. His family, tribe and everyone ever captured denies his involvement in planning anything.

That requires a trial for me.

 

Okay then, since everyone loooves to compare America to ancient Rome so much, can you explain the 'individualist' aspects of Roman culture that allegedly eroded when they became an imperial government? Because I've done tons of research on Rome, and the emphasis on obedience to the Roman state and collectivism exists from the very beginning of the Roman Republic. Very little 'individualism' at all. Maybe you mean 'rule of law'?