Snapshots: Ron Paul On The Main Mall

um... actually, the federal gov't contributes less than 10% (on average) to school systems around the nation. it's just that 10% can't be missed-- and the feds think they get to call all the shots because they can control just enough.

fact is: the states aren't equal when it comes to test scores and attendance. however, i believe that an area's culture contributes to the problem, as well as a lack of money.

i hate NCLB. you try teaching a class of 30 mixed ability students- and i do mean the highest of high and lowest of low... at the same (limited) time. in the same (small) room. with the same (outdated) materials. it doesn't work for anyone and the kids are the ones losing out. it's a shame.

Good News, spacebetween, Bush cannot be reelected.

In other good news, you do not have to vote Republican.

All right, guys, you've convinced me.

I love having Mr. Bush in Washington D.C. telling the schools in Manor, TX what they should be teaching. His Department of Education has done a swell job.

I'm still confused how I'd be losing any rights or liberties with a President who respects the Constitution and doesn't take part in illegal wiretapping, suspending habeus corpus, and expanding the institution of torture prisons. Maybe I would understand better if our President could just tell me what to do all the time.

I have no problem with other people's opinions, but there are some basic facts of the abortion debate, including the fact that people who believe a woman has a right to choose an abortion are being labeled as murderers of fetuses. Here's a fact: The abortion debate has been used by the Republicans for over 25 years to lure "G-d loving Christians" into their lair of keeping the poor poor and the rich rich.

For a man who claims to be all about individual rights, the fact that he doesn't believe that part of a woman's body is her own decision points to a hypocrisy.

As for education, this country is already up a creek without a paddle. I can't imagine the USA wanting to be any dumber. And yet we've got politicians doing all they can to make it happen.

I say this as someone who was raised during those super swell Ronnie Raygun years. Outlawing the Department of Education.... Awesome.

I think you're missing the point. I don't trust a man who says he's for smaller government that in fact wants to restrict rights and liberties.

I also don't trust his views regarding public education and I think more money needs to go into research concerning the best educational measures and into ensuring that standards are set that allow American children to compete in a global workplace. Not that this No Child Left Behind business is a success, but if home schooling is encouraged and there is no national oversight for education then the national funding for education will be eliminated and standards will drop. Plus, you're asking the states to take control of their own children's education which is goign to mean that in states where education is well funded and there are already high standards those children are going to succeed. There are far more states where education is underfunded and they're just scraping by, states like Alabama, where the children are going to suffer.

His ideas are frightening and seem to stem from a personal problem with authority, which I can relate to, but I don't think he's the best choice for America. Thankfully most voters seem to agree. I'm not worried about him as a candidate, but the fact that so many people would blindly support him does worry me.

Asher, you're missing the point. You have one viewpoint, many others have a different opinion, and you are quite frankly misinformed about Ron Paul's. He has said in almost any interview that there may exist cases where an abortion is necessary. That makes it all the better for a decision such as this to be made at a very local level versus a bureaucrat in Washington, D.C.

Should Ron give back all the money he received from Democrats or Libertarians since they are not Republican? Just because a candidate disagrees with some person is a rather asinine reason to return money.

Sorry, natrius, but the argument over a woman's right to choose is that the woman gets to choose what to do to her body. She and she alone, not whether some other people have a right to view her fetus as an individual. Talk about privacy rights... As for Paul's tendency to take money from white separatists, it was his choice to take their money, and that action should speak loudly about his character.

I personally also don't like his views of gun ownership and control, which is yet another reason for me to not want to vote for the guy.

mdahmus: Yeah, and he sucks for that. There's no doubt that he's a pretty crappy candidate in some respects, but he has some good policies that make him better than all of the other candidates. It's dangerous for us to continue to allow power to be concentrated in the hands of unaccountable people, and that needs to change as soon as possible.

natrius, Ron Paul let white supremacists spew their garbage all over a newsletter with his name on it, and profited from it.

undrum1: Forget about Ron Paul for a second. He's clearly not going to be president. The problem with you faulting him on the fact that white separatists donate to his campaign is that those types of people will donate to anyone who wants less government. Any future advocate of shifting the balance of power from the federal to the local level will have their support. That doesn't mean that the position is wrong.

Also, if you think that is an honest analysis of the abortion argument, you're kidding yourself. Have you considered the fact that some people think fetuses are equally worthy of protection by the government as full grown human are? I disagree with that view, but writing it off as "paternalistic" and framing it as an issue solely of women's autonomy over their bodies is disingenuous.

undrum1: On the mark!

Paul apparently has no problem taking money and speaking regularly with white seperatists groups, who publicly celebrate how in-step he is with their philosophy and worldview. Even if we take Paul at his word that he disagrees with racial separatist ideology, at the very least he shows exceedingly poor jusgment by aligning himself with these groups. That alone is enough for him to fail the smell test for me, but his position on abortion really seals the deal. Red herrings like states rights and illegitimate federal police power are convenient distractions for his supporters to tout, but Dr. Paul simply doesn't belive that women have legal autonomy over their own bodies and is more than willing to allow his governement to enforce (at the end of a gun) that paternalistic belief on his fellow Americans.

And to further clarify, I would imagine that most of the UT Students for Ron Paul members would know his positions pretty well, which is just fine. Unfortunately, the same does not hold true for the more casual Ron Paul supporters that I run into all the time.

spacebetween: Allow me to clarify, then. I've been volunteering for a different campaign for a while now, and I've spoken to more Ron Paul supporters who have no clue about his non-Iraq war views, by far, than Ron Paul supporters who know everything for which he stands. So I am making a generalization, but it's based on my own experience talking to dozens of Ron Paul supporters, the majority of whom I've found to not know nearly as much about his domestic policy as his foreign policy.

Patrick,

The pictures are beautiful. Thanks so much!

stephenbush,

As a UT student and supporter of Ron Paul, allow me to point out your egregious fallacy.

You simply cannot group an entire bloc of people like supporters of Ron Paul (specifically UT student supporters) and say the majority of them have not researched all of his viewpoints.

In fact, as an active participant of the UT Students for Ron Paul group, I don't think I've met anyone that HASN'T researched all of his positions. That's not to say there aren't those who haven't. But of all the active supporters I've encountered (key phrase there), they are very well-read and knowledgeable.

Additionally, your generalization presents one of the very issues against which Ron Paul speaks. That collectivist speak is antithetical to the philosophy that Dr. Paul and his supporters espouse.

LoudMouth: In police states, the people are ruled, sometimes viciously, by a higher government power... how exactly does Ron Paul's small/local government and Constitutionalist views result in a police state??

I don't know a whole lot about individual states but I know that without the help of Texas during Hurricane Katrina a whole lot more people would have died. I'm not saying that the national government did a great job there, what I am saying is that I think sometimes we really need the federal government and abolishing all the big governement would be a grave mistake.

If Ron Paul really got his way, I think we'd have anarchy in a month.

LoudMouth: The more locally power is held, the more you have a say over that power is used. Since Ron Paul wants to limit the federal government to the powers it was given in the Constitution, that will result in you and I having more of a say in what our government does. I don't see how that would result in a police state. To me, it sounds like the way democracy is supposed to work. Yes, it would mean that we would have to convince fellow Texans that the availability of safe, legal abortions is a good thing, but convincing your neighbors of what you think is right is one of the responsibilities that comes with democracy. I greatly prefer it to the status quo of the federal government issuing edicts from up on high.

For piltdownman:

Nader declared his candidacy on Sunday. hope your happy. not really.

natrius: I'm glad you've checked out his views more extensively, and in that case, I think it's right for you to support him if you truly do agree with him on most of the issues. I said, though, that I think *most* of Ron Paul's supporters are just banking on his Iraq war stance. As a politically active UT student, it's incredible how many students are supporting Ron Paul who, unlike you, are not inclined to agree with his mostly libertarian views; they don't do their research on *all* of his beliefs and positions. Anyway, I'd rather have Ron Paul as our president before I'd accept McCain, Huckabee or any of the other Republican candidates...

Natrius, you seriously think Ron Paul is going to give you a say in government? It sounds like, from what you've written, he wants to eradicate many of the freedoms I hold dear and pretty much put us under a police state.

Ron Paul is a freakin' creationist for chrissake. Eek!

When's Ralph Nader coming?

Oh God, save us all from your followers.

well-said, natrius!

You're assuming we haven't checked out his other views. You should consider the possibility that we've checked out his other views and liked some of them.

The Department of Education is unconstitutional and shouldn't exist. Everything that the Department of Education does could be done by individual states. There would be less bureaucracy and more local control over where the money goes. We wouldn't have No Child Left Behind. The general consensus now is that No Child Left Behind was a mistake, but look how hard it is to get it changed. Getting 300 million people to agree on policies is difficult and results in bad compromises in legislation. There's no need to do it at the federal level.

The federal government doesn't have the constitutional authority to set a minimum wage. If states decide that setting a minimum wage is a good thing (which is debatable), they can set it on their own.

There are two possible approaches to fixing health care: a single-payer system and making the private system more efficient. Any single-payer system should be implemented at the state level, as the federal government doesn't have the authority to create such a system. Helping the private system work better is something the federal government can do because they are the reason it's broken. It's cheaper for businesses to provide insurance for their employees than it is for individuals because of the tax breaks they get. That makes no sense. The federal government should make it easier for individuals to purchase insurance, and get rid of regulations that make it harder and more expensive to do so.

I disagree with him on abortion, but I do think that Roe v. Wade was a poorly adjudicated case and will be overturned eventually. The only way a president can effect the legal status of abortion is via the Supreme Court justices they nominate. Any justice that thinks the way Roe v. Wade was decided is okay is less likely to keep the federal government in check when they overstep their constitutionally limited powers.

Ron Paul isn't anti-immigrant, he just wants to stop illegal immigration. Except for the border fence, I don't see much wrong with his immigration policy.

Ron Paul thinks people should be able to enter into whatever voluntary associations they want to and call it whatever they want. There's nothing wrong with gay marriage, he just doesn't think states should have to recognize any marriages granted in other states. I think that's pretty lame, and his We The People Act is atrocious.

The reason I support Ron Paul is because I think people should have more of a say over what their government does. With everything done at the federal level, there are few repercussions for enacting bad legislation because the vast majority of incumbents get elected no matter what. If individual states had more control over their laws and money, they would be able to enact policies that appealed to their own people. As a result, progressive states would get more progressive policies and conservative states would get more conservative policies. Over time, we'd be able to see what policies work and what policies don't. If a single-payer health care system works well in California, do you think it would take that long for people in Texas to see that it's a good idea? We would end up with more progressive policies far more quickly if those policies could at least be implemented in some parts of America to start with, but that's hard to do when the federal government takes so much of our money, then makes our legislators beg for it back with strings attached.

Ron Paul may not be the perfect candidate, but this country needs to move in the direction of federalism if we're going to retain our freedom from oppressive governments and if we're going to see meaningful progress on progressive policies in the near future. Hillary and Obama's policies are watered down version of what progressives actually want to see, and it will take decades to change them once they're implemented.

I admire his speaking out against the Iraq war, but most of Ron Paul's supporters seem to bank on that point exclusively without checking out his other views, most of which -- for example, eliminating the Department of Education and the minimum wage, further privatizing the health care industry and imposing his anti-choice, anti-immigrant and anti-homosexual views on our nation -- are ridiculous and horrible in every way.