Debates were better in those days!
Let me explain. Having watched that travesty last night, the merciless rape and torture of the once noble art of debate – I have come to the rapid conclusion it will be a while before the British people are ready to engage in meaningful politics.
It’s not our fault really. Well, not entirely. Well, a little part of it is not down to us. Well…
Our media has drifted beyond the pale in terms of filtering the news and hyping up the trivial so it’s little wonder the candidates that have been pre-selected and put in front of us for rubber-stamping appear as they appear and spout what they spout.
It’s a theatre. Everyone has their lines, the two “change” bods are clones (of that bloke who killed a lot of people and now makes a ton boasting about it) and the old guy who looks a lot like Nixon (shit – he does look like Nixon) is classic hiss and boo material.
This is what they mean by change. They’ll tell you who and when and they’ll even do it in such a way you believe you’re making a choice. It’s pretty clever stuff really. Evil, but clever.
So anyway, with the UK election over before it began I found the following quite interesting as it hints we could be treated to a real election in the not too distant future. Oh please God let it be true, just for once. I can’t stand any more of the teasing…
The news that a Rasmussen poll has Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) running in a dead heat against President Barack Obama in a hypothetical Paul-Obama face-off for the White House has the pundits fuming.
Read carefully, there will be a test later.
Ron Paul and the Libertarian Movement
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MR. RUSSERT: When I looked at your record, you talked about big government and how opposed you are to it, but you seem to have a different attitude about your own congressional district. For example, “Congress decided to send billions of dollars to victims of Hurricane Katrina. Guess how Ron Paul voted. `Is bailing out people” that choose–”that chose to live on the coastline a proper function of the federal government?’ he asks.” And you said no. And yet, this: “Paul’s current district, which includes Galveston and reaches into” the “Brazoria County, draws a substantial amount of federal flood insurance payments.” For your own congressional district. This is the Houston Chronicle: “Representative Ron Paul has long crusaded against a big central government. But he also” “represented a congressional district that’s consistently among the top in Texas in its reliance on dollars from Washington. In the first nine months of the federal government’s” fiscal “2006 fiscal year,” “it received more than $4 billion.” And they report, The Wall Street Journal, 65 earmark-targeted projects, $400 million that you have put into congressional bills for your district, which leads us to the Congressional Quarterly. “The Earmark Dossier of `Dr. No.’ There isn’t much that” Ron–Dr. “Ron Paul thinks the federal government should do. Apparently, though, earmarks” for his district “are OK. Paul is the sponsor of no fewer than 10 earmarks in the water resources bill,” all benefiting his district. The Gulf Intercoastal Waterway: $32 million. The sunken ship you want to be moved from Freeport Harbor. The Bayou Navigation Channel. They talk about $8 million for shrimp fishermen.
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REP. PAUL: You, you know…
MR. RUSSERT: Why, why would you load up…
REP. PAUL: You got it completely wrong. I’ve never voted for an earmark in my life.
MR. RUSSERT: No, but you put them in the bill.
REP. PAUL: I put it in because I represent people who are asking for some of their money back. But it doesn’t cut any spending to vote against an earmark. And the Congress has the responsibility to spend the money. Why leave the money in the executive branch and let them spend the money?
MR. RUSSERT: Well, that’s like, that’s like saying you voted for it before you voted against it.
REP. PAUL: Nah! Come on, Tim. That has nothing to do with that.
MR. RUSSERT: If, if, if you put it in the bill and get the headlight back home…
REP. PAUL: No, I, I make the request. They’re not in the bills.
MR. RUSSERT: …and then you, then you know it’s going to pass Congress and so you, you don’t refuse the money.
REP. PAUL: Well, no, of course not. It’s like taking a tax credit. If you have a tax credit, I’m against the taxes but I take all my tax credits. I want to get…
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MR. RUSSERT: But if you were true…
REP. PAUL: …the money back for the people.
MR. RUSSERT: If you were true to your philosophy, you would say no pork spending in my district.
REP. PAUL: No, no, that’s not it. They steal our money, that’s like saying that people shouldn’t take Social Security money.
MR. RUSSERT: For…
REP. PAUL: I don’t advocate that.
MR. RUSSERT: All right, let me ask you this…
REP. PAUL: I’m trying to save the system, make the system work.
MR. RUSSERT: Let me ask you this…
REP. PAUL: But no, I think you have it all mixed up. Now, you’re confused.
MR. RUSSERT: All right. It’s all facts.
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REP. PAUL: You’re confused.
MR. RUSSERT: This is The Wall Street Journal. You load up the bills with special projects…
REP. PAUL: I–no, no, no. No, you don’t.
MR. RUSSERT: You do. You do. You deny that you have, you have…
REP. PAUL: How many of them ever got passed? But the whole point is, we have a right and an…
MR. RUSSERT: They pass. You vote against them, but you take the money.
REP. PAUL: You don’t quite understand.
MR. RUSSERT: OK.
REP. PAUL: They take our money from us, and the Congress has the authority to appropriate, not the executive branch. And I’m saying that I represent my people. They have a request, it’s like taking a tax credit, and I put it in–the whole process is corrupt so that I vote against everything.
MR. RUSSERT: All right, let me ask you this. But if…
REP. PAUL: I vote against it, so I don’t endorse the system.
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MR. RUSSERT: But when it passes overwhelmingly, you take the money back home.
REP. PAUL: I don’t take it. That’s the system.
MR. RUSSERT: The system.
REP. PAUL: I’m trying to change that system. To turn it around and say I’m supporting this system, I find it…
MR. RUSSERT: Well. Well…
REP. PAUL: …rather ironic and entertaining.
MR. RUSSERT: Well, when you stop taking earmarks or putting earmarks in the, in the spending bills, then I think you’ll be consistent.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22342301/print/1/displaymode/1098/
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