Irregular Times Diaries: Unfit Discussion
In a time of the spring, old paths are obscured and new growth begins.
Irregular Times Diaries: Unfit DiscussionIn a time of the spring, old paths are obscured and new growth begins.
Ron Paul’s answer to the question, “What do you see as the role of the Environmental Protection Agency?”: He said, “You wouldn’t need it.”
Really? You wouldn’t need the EPA? So, we don’t need the work the EPA is doing to stop arsenic and PCBs and mercury and raw sewage from entering our rivers? We don’t need the work that the EPA is doing to control acid rain, or smog? We just don’t need it?
I suspect that what Ron Paul meant to say is that big corporations wouldn’t need the EPA. That’s precisely why we don’t need Ron Paul as President.
(Source: Grist, October 16, 2007)
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December 8th, 2007 at 7:13 pm
Rather then “suspect,” with a minimal amount of curiosity & research you might actually know. If you bothered to look, you’d find that no Congressman gets less support from large corporations and their lobbyists than Ron Paul. Throughout his career Paul has without fail opposed all forms of corporate welfare. One D.C. lobbyist explained that lobbyists don’t support Paul because he can’t be swayed from his principles. He won’t even participate in the lucrative Congressional pension system because he doesn’t think it’s Constitutional and he knows it’s a rip-off of the public. In his presidential campaign, almost all of Paul’s contributors are ordinary Americans making small contributions. So far in the 4th quarter he’s had approximately 102,500 different individuals donate to his campaign. That does not include donors to projects sponsored by grassroots’ supporters which are unconnected to the official campaign, and there are many of those. The average size of a donation to Paul is about $91. Unlike all the other candidates, Paul’s website gathers all on-line contribution information in real time & immediately makes it available to the public. http://ronpaulgraphs.com/index.html
Investigate & see who is contributing to Hillary, Obama, Giuliani, Romney and the rest. It’s not so easy to investigate because none of the other candidates make their contribution information transparent, as does Paul. You’ve got to go to http://www.fec.gov/disclosure.shtml and dig, dig, dig! Corporate executives and other wealthy Americans routinely give the $2,300 maximum to those candidates, and be sure that it’s not because they’re altruists. (Here’s a hint: those folks don’t “suspect,” they know the other candidates are easily influenced, some would say “bought,” by contributions).
Paul knows that the whole history of federal government regulation of corporations is one in which the regulators have been coopted by the regulated. The EPA is no exception. How about the infamous efficiency with which the federal bureaucrats consistently perform their duties? Have you ever heard of FEMA & Katrina? This is just one recent & notable instance. Other examples could be multiplied endlessly.
Paul has a difficult but not impossible path to the nomination. He’ll be opposed all the way by large corporations, their lobbyists, and many, but by no means all, “progressives” such as yourself. Maybe you ought to consider who you’re making common cause with and why.
December 8th, 2007 at 10:00 pm
It’s funny SS doesn’t say anything about the EPA.
You see, telling corporations they can’t put arsenic in the water is the same as ‘corporate welfare’. This here country is supposed to be one big Darwinistic experiment, survival of the economic fittest. Some municipality doesn’t have enough rich people with enough clout to keep arsenic out of the water the old fashioned way, with bribes and threats behind the scenes, they die. And they deserve to die. Because otherwise they’ll be coopted, see.
December 8th, 2007 at 11:00 pm
Actually, Paul proposes a return to the pre-EPA methods of dealing with pollution of this type, which primarily involved civil courts (suing polluters). There’s no right to pollute public property, after all. At one time there was a minor industry of detectives who specialized in pollution cases. As it happens I don’t think Paul’s idea is a good one (too easy to divest your pollution liabilities to shell corporations, for one thing), but to pretend that he advocates anarchy is to create a straw man.
December 8th, 2007 at 11:56 pm
Wow! Do you know what the conditions were like BEFORE the EPA? Ron Paul’s system certainly would be anarchy - and not a system at all.
Under Ron Paul’s plan, whoever could afford a good lawyer would have clean air and water, and the rest of us would rot.