Ron Paul won the Jefferson County Republican Party's presidential straw poll Saturday at the Birmingham Zoo, with supporters casting more than half of the votes collected.
Paul, a Republican congressman from Texas, took about 57 percent of the vote with 115 ballots.
Voters paid $35 to cast the ballot and eat a barbecue lunch.
RENO, Nev., Oct. 13 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Republican presidential
candidate Ron Paul has won the inaugural Conservative Leadership Conference
straw poll. Despite not appearing at the conference, Paul won convincingly
with 33% of the vote. Mitt Romney, who addressed the conference in a town
hall meeting and during a general session, finished second with 16%. Duncan
Hunter, who also delivered a major address during the three-day event,
finished third at 15%.
Full results are available at http://www.politicalderby.com
The poll was sponsored by PoliticalDerby.com and 411Communications. It
was executed onsite by Jason Wright and Stephen Fountain of
PoliticalDerby.com.
One of the most frequently highlighted plus points about Republican Presidential candidate Ron Paul is the fact that he's been married to his wife Carol for about 50 years. They have 5 children and 17 grandchildren.
Why do employers (including voters) assume that a long marriage and stable family life are good traits in a candidate? Simple! They show him (in this case) to be a man of his word. They indicate that he's likely to make careful decisions, and to carefully make those decisions work if at all possible.
So far so good, but how can we replicate that kind of behaviour? Dr. Paul certainly knows. Lead by open example, and use words to explain when necessary. Trustworthiness, as he'd be the first to agree, is the result of accepting and living out internally consistent moral standards in a consistent fashion.
What a pity that here in the UK, talk of the importance of marriage in public life is dominated by calls for some way to subsidise marriage through the tax system Money can't buy loyalty; it can only rent it. This is why Dr. Paul avoids supporting subsidies for married couples (with or without children). The state can't buy personal loyalty between individuals, and shouldn't try to do so – especially when that money must be awarded to families at the expense of the unmarried (whether single or not).
In truth, if the state really wants to strengthen the institution of marriage in society, it need only subtract itself from every aspect of subsidising children, be it conception, contraception, abortion, birth or education. This is the only financial way to reward marriage without violating the earning and property rights of the unmarried.
Subsidising marriage only encourages more of the wrong people to get married (the right ones don't bother about subsidies; they just get married anyway). Perversely, this involves the state in creating more divorces and separations – the multiplication of division in society; and as truly enlightened social policy goals go, that one really doesn't add up.
- Houseman
I've been watching Ron Paul's recent comments at the University of Michigan on 9th October 2007 regarding centralized, state-run banking. You can see Ron's comments here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RuiZRzu7khw&NR=1Ron points out that printing more money is always an act of counterfeiting and theft. It takes buying power away from existing savers and puts it in the hands of the first politically connected bankers to get their mitts (or perhaps romneys?) on the new money... preferably before anyone else even knows the stuff has been created!
This gives the politicians' favourite bankers the chance to buy at today's prices with tomorrow's money. And why would banks buy stuff outright which they don't much need or understand (e.g. houses, businesses, collectables) when they can simply lend the money out at a premium for years on end to other people?
Mortgages are a special favourite of the banks for several reasons: most of the money borrowed never needs to physically exist, lots of people can qualify, the debt usually runs for years on end, the loan is secured against a (hopefully) resaleable asset in the event of the borrower defaulting, and economically illiterate politicians can easily be sold on the idea that lending is almost always “socially responsible” and “empowering”.
Did I mention the voters love it because it's also one of the last ways left for British taxpayers to make large, comparatively tax-light capital gains? The problem is that as more fiat money moves through the economy, money holders (inc. borrowers) bid up prices for the goods and services they want - hence the housing bubble(s).
So what's Ron's solution? Scrap the central bank, ditch the income tax, drop the US Empire to balance the books, and bring back the gold standard. Then ,the Federal government could no longer just print its way out of debt... no income tax would mean no automatic deductions at source in many cases (and a frank admission by government that money really belongs to those who earn it rather than those who merely print it). Finally, the gold standard would also act as a good brake on inflation because really big strikes are very few and far between.
Now compare the good doctor's prescription to the UK's old hat media on sub-prime mortgages, debt instruments and a “liquidity crisis” (e.g. not enough in the petty cash at Northern Rock). Here, all the chattering classes can do is gab about whether Mervyn King should've inflated the British Pound away faster and further.
Since when was a lending crisis solved by more lending?
If there's a British Ron Paul in the audience, please stand up – the UK needs you so badly!
- Houseman
