Ron Paul Spam Traced to Reactor Botnet

Brother, Can You Spare a Dime? writes "Ars is reporting that the Ron Paul spam has been traced back to the Reactor botnet. According to the SecureWorks report, which originally identified the spammer, someone calling themselves nenastnyj was behind it and their botnet control server has been shut down. The Ron Paul campaign has previously denied any connection with this spam campaign."

Sure Fire +5 Insightful (or -1 troll... not sure)

[explosivejared (1186049)]

I told you all Ron Paul was a saint. Ron Paul would never stoop to spamming. He is right on par with a god, in fact he may be a god (the tests are still being run). Any of you jerks who thought that this stuff was official hate the constitution and what to see the the declaration of independence used as toilet paper. I hate anyone who thinks any ill of Ron "OUR MESSIAH" PAUL!! GET IT!

Re:Sure Fire +5 Insightful (or -1 troll... not sur

[rednip (186217)]

I've said it before, but to me, as a former Republican, Ron Paul represents the party which most people believe they are voting for when they vote Republican. Trouble is that if he actually won, he would try to implement their public platform rather than continue Bush's private one. Also and more importantly, I believe that the leaders of that party need to have a candidate who will allow the many crimes of the last 7 years to go unpunished, so they need a person they already own. (that's also why McCain and Huckabee don't have many 'big' endorsements or money, btw).

Re:Sure Fire +5 Insightful (or -1 troll... not sur

[vsync64 (155958)]

Also and more importantly, I believe that the leaders of that party need to have a candidate who will allow the many crimes of the last 7 years to go unpunished, so they need a person they already own. (that's also why McCain and Huckabee don't have many 'big' endorsements or money, btw).

McCain? If anything he is likely to let them go unpunished. He pretended that having to wear a flak jacket and be escorted by tanks and helicopters to grocery shopping is A-OK. Didn't he cave on torture ("allowing a 'just following orders' defense"), on habeas corpus, and on illegal detentions? Sad to see a good man fall.

Re:Sure Fire +5 Insightful (or -1 troll... not sur

[geekoid (135745)]

good man fall, or just showing his true colors?

Re:Sure Fire +5 Insightful (or -1 troll... not sur

[Elemenope (905108)]

No, fall. The 2000 primaries were terrible to him, and he changed in agonizing increments since then from principled maverick to administration lapdog. I mean, this is a man who was literally beaten by a rumor that the kids he had adopted were really illegitimates. After having bled and fought for this country (and served it in many capacities) that has got to be devastating. After that, he started to listen to all the wrong advice, and lost his instinct for being different (since it punished him so much in the election and even afterward).

Every person has a breaking point beyond which disillusionment and cynicism are inevitable. Public service (no matter how much, or how deservedly we pile on to politicians) is a fairly dehumanizing and unforgiving profession. That the guy finally lost his way is no reflection of his "true colors" in any legitimate sense I can think of.

Bush hijacked the 2000 platform

[michaelmalak (91262)]

In response to an editorial Why the Ron Paul Campaign is Dangerous [canadafreepress.com] that created a lot of controversy on the Ron Paul fora, I had a lengthy e-mail exchange with the author (once I figured out that I had to obfuscate the phrase "Ron Paul" to get past his Comcast spam filter). A "small" portion of that e-mail exchange was about what you alluded to -- what people think in response to the brand name "Republican". The brand name "Republican" is supposed to have something substantial behind it, namely the party platform. Indeed, we find that Bush is not only opposed to traditional Republicanism -- his operatives rewrote the platform behind closed doors (without input from the delegates) at the 2000 RNC!

The e-mail excerpts are below:

Ron Paul isn't hijacking the party because he is closer to the 1996 Republican Party platform (and previous years) than any other Republican candidate. It was Bush and friends who hijacked the Republican Party in 2000. Here are some excerpts from the 1996 platform [cnn.com] that are either missing in the 2000 platform, watered down, contradicted by other portions of the platform, or just ignored by Bush and ultimately removed in the 2004 platform:

We are the party of small, responsible and efficient government, joining our neighbors in cities and counties, rather than distant bureaucrats, to build a just society and caring communities. We therefore assert the power of the American people over government, rather than the other way around. Our agenda for change, profound and permanent change in the way government behaves, is based on the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution:

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

[...]

As a first step in reforming government, we support elimination of the Departments of Commerce, Housing and Urban Development, Education, and Energy, and the elimination, defunding or privatization of agencies which are obsolete, redundant, of limited value, or too regional in focus. Examples of agencies we seek to defund or to privatize are the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and the Legal Services Corporation.

In addition, we support Republican-sponsored legislation that would require the original sponsor of proposed federal legislation to cite specific constitutional authority for the measure.

[...]

The unborn child has a fundamental individual right to life which cannot be infringed. We support a human life amendment to the Constitution and we endorse legislation to make clear that the Fourteenth Amendment's protections apply to unborn children.

This is the Republican Party that I grew up with and knew and loved. I stopped calling myself a Republican in 1999 because, among other reasons, Bush refused to commit to a litmus test for Supreme Court nominees.

Ron Paul worked to nominate Reagan over Ford in 1976. Ron Paul is the torchbearer of what Reagan stood for (although Reagan did not live up to his words).

After the Democratic Party became the Communist Party at the turn of the century and went on to dominate the first half of the century, the Republican Party responded by becoming the anti-Federalist Party after WWII. Ron Paul is trying to steer the Republican Party back toward those days of 1952-1996. That's getting back on track, not hijacking.

The main difference between Ron Paul and Reagan is foreign policy -- the Reagan Administration, in its fight against communism, armed the most radical elements of Afghanistan and created the Taliban, which of course ended up harboring Osama bin Laden. Ron Paul wishes for the U.S. to not repeat that mistake.

Ron Paul is the

it's not like people don't play dirty

[crossmr (957846)]

but even if you trace it to a spammer does it really prove the campaign had anything to do with it? Do you think viagra is behind the v1 4ga spam you see in your inbox? Heaven forbid someone in American politics play dirty and hire a company to "promote" another candidate... just saying..

Re:it's not like people don't play dirty

[s20451 (410424)]

Heaven forbid someone in American politics play dirty and hire a company to "promote" another candidate... just saying..

Gee, I hope they clear up this nasty business! I would hate to see it affect Ron Paul's chances of being elected President.

Re:

[by Anonymous Coward]

I don't know how anyone could be a geek on /. and not know that Ron Paul promotion is one of those viral web things that show up a lot on YouTube, random gaming sites, blogs, basically all over the place. If college kids all over the place are putting together grassroots advertising for Ron Paul, it's pretty obvious that this was some Ron Paul fan that also ran a botnet that got a really, really, bad idea on his own and ran with it. And the media is happy to portray it as coming from Ron Paul himself.

I mean

Vote Smart in 2008

[reporter (666905)]

About 61% of American voters [electionstudies.org] votes along party lines. Their attitude is, "I do not care whether the position is correct. If my party supports it, then I support it." Worse, within party primaries (like the ones that will begin soon in early 2008), voters tend to choose candidates based on gotcha's, glamor, and glitz. A candidate who can crack a witty joke during the debate can easily reel in millions of mindless voters.

Clearly, this incident with the spammer supporting Ron Paul will be spun, by his competitors, into a gotcha.

Please do your yourself -- and your nation -- a favor. Avoid the above method of selecting political candidates. Ignore gotcha's, glamor, and glitz. Do not vote along party lines.

Instead, research the voting history, the policy proposals, and the honesty of the candidates in the 2008 race for president. You can easily find this information at the quality news sites like "The Washington Post [washingtonpost.com]". Hopefully, Rupert Murdoch will open the web site of the "Wall Street Journal" (WSJ) to the public before the election in 2008. The WSJ has some of the best in-depth reporting in the industry, but the WSJ web site is currently open only to subscribers.

Re:

[squiggleslash (241428)]

If it were anyone but Ron Paul then I'd say yes. But Ron Paul isn't someone anyone in the political establishment really believes has any chance of winning. So why risk the chance of being caught setting such a smear campaign up to discredit a candidate who poses no real threat to begin with?

The likely culprits are people with no connection to either Ron Paul's campaign or any of his opponents. Either an over-enthusiastic supporter, or else someone with a chip on his shoulder about Ron Paul who wants to

Re:it's not like people don't play dirty

[crossmr (957846)]

Done through enough channels you wouldn't know if it was you, me or George Bush who paid them to do it. Just saying that things don't always seem as they appear especially in the spam world.

Re:it's not like people don't play dirty

[Aerion (705544)]

things don't always seem as they appear

... Yes, they do!

Re:it's not like people don't play dirty

[evil agent (918566)]

No, sometimes they're closer.

Re:it's not like people don't play dirty

[Nephilium (684559)]

Not really true... most small corporations want smaller government in the areas of their field... while the bigger corporations want bigger government, with more barriers to entry to help protect themselves...

Nephilium

Real world people

[NEOtaku17 (679902)]

I know many people think that Ron Paul doesn't have many real supporters and that it is mostly internet bots, but when Barack Obama visited Arizona State University to give a speech there were literally almost as many people with Ron Paul signs and t-shirts than Barack Obama even though Ron Paul wasn't even visiting that day. Make no mistake these supporters definitely are real. Unless of course all those people on campus are actually bots...

Re:Real world people

[megaditto (982598)]

A tiny vocal minority does not matter, in this case.

Your vote does not carry a passion multiplier.

Re:

[jcr (53032)]

Yes, I've read it. He's the only politician I can remember in my lifetime whose votes match his words 100%.

-jcr

Re:Great, more anti women supporters.

[jcr (53032)]

He's a liar and flip-flopper just like the rest of them.

Actually, you're the liar. Ron Paul's votes on this issue are consistent with his stated position: he votes against federal funding for abortion (since he votes against federal funding for anything not authorized by the constitution), and he votes to allow the states to set their own policy on the matter.

As for changing his position, the only issue I can name where Ron Paul has changed his stance is on the death penalty: he used to be in favor of it, but given the number of death row convicts who have been exonerated by DNA evidence, he no longer supports it. I don't have a problem with that.

-jcr

Re:Great, more anti women supporters.

[sethawoolley (1005201)]

Is that your excuse?
I need no excuses. You're the one who's tried to tar Ron Paul as a liar, and failed to do so. Your claim, your burden of proof.

I already met your burden of proof with his contradiction: that he's for non-intervention, specifically on the abortion matter, with what states should be doing ala a more strict interpretation of the tenth amendment than the Supreme Court holds (which is ok, I'm fine with that as it's not a violation in itself), which he stated in the CNN/Youtube debate, for example. All the while, he has a voting record of intervention in every instance Dilation and Extraction came up on whether or not to be banned. As far as I know, that's not a power of the federal government. The commerce clause doesn't provide that, for example. I would think the tenth amendment would take over. States can handle their own murders -- why not abortion policies?

This is the third time I've repeated myself, in a slightly different way, just so that it's in the same post and that perhaps it might sink in if presented slightly differently. At this point, you can choose to believe whatever you want. I know that most reasonable people will look at your responses to my posts and ponder at how efficiently you've selectively quoted me and not even addressed my arguments. At this point, probably the majority just think you're trolling.

Consider the burden of proof as still being on me all you want, but if you want to convince people that I haven't proven it, then you should actually try rebutting them directly. In another post, you did try once, but you just created a huge contradiction with the rest of his program. As that's a contradiction, I'm not left with anything to argue against from your angle.

Maybe its form of spammer lobbying

[vux984 (928602)]

I mean, if I were operating a botnet and sending out spam, and I wanted to protect my business interests I'd vote Ron Paul.

Not that Ron Paul is 'pro botnets' or anything absurd like that, but his policies and philosophy would be more hospitible to their business model than nanny-states and government-monitoring of all communications.

If I had a botnet, why wouldn't I use it to promote my candidate of choice during its free time?

Spammer lobbying for property rights

[Harmonious Botch (921977)]

...his policies and philosophy would be more hospitible to their business model...

Ummm...not meaning to be impolite, but are you on crack? The whole problem with spam is that it intrudes on someone else's private property. Ron Paul is a very strong defender of private property. He would be their worst nightmare.

Re:Spammer lobbying for property rights

[vux984 (928602)]

Ummm...not meaning to be impolite, but are you on crack? The whole problem with spam is that it intrudes on someone else's private property. Ron Paul is a very strong defender of private property. He would be their worst nightmare.

Ron Paul is all for privacy in the sense that he would never authorize government to monitor citizens at large. But in the same breath he would never authorize government to regulate the communications other businesses, eterprises, or citizens would send to you either. Including advertisments, sales offers, unsolicited email, or spam.

Think I'm wrong? Remember the "Do not call list"? Well, when the FTC imposed it the telemarketing industry responded arguing that the FTC had no such authority to impose such a system, and a judge *agreed* with the telemarketing industry. So what do you think happened next?

Well, a bill was introduced in Congress to specifically authorize the FTC to create the do-not-call-list. It passed Congress 412-8, and it passed the senate 95-0. The 'people' had spoken, and our right to have dinner without being tele-offered a long distance plan was established!

Would it surprise you to know that Ron Paul, your champion of privacy, was one of those 8 that voted AGAINST authorizing the FTC to create the do-not-call-list? Don't beleive me? Look it up.

Here's some links to get you started - some background:
http://www.cnn.com/2003/ALLPOLITICS/09/25/congress.no.call/index.html [cnn.com]
and

http://www.vote-smart.org/voting_category.php?can_id=BC031929 [vote-smart.org]
Section: "Technology and Communication", Date: 09/25/2003, Bill: "Do-Not-Call-Registry Bill"

Or you can take my word for it: He voted "No".

I'm quite confident he'd vote *against* any bill that proposed the government some how step in and regulate email of ANY kind, including spam.

Ron Paul and the content of speech.

[Harmonious Botch (921977)]

I'll believe you, without any trouble at all. As best I recall, he had problems with the particular choice of executive departments ( FTC vs FCC ). He didn't so much vote against a do-not-call list, as he voted against an FTC-operated do-not-call list. He would have voted for the list if it were run by the FCC.

The issue is that when run by the FTC, as the vote authorized, the government is judging speech by its content. The FTC - the Federal Trade Commission - would be judging whether or not the speech is commercial, ie: trade oriented. And judging speech by its content is a first amendment violation.

The FCC, by contrast, would only be judging what type of communication it is. The FCC has a long history of banning certain types of communication: broadcasting on certain frequencies, or using too much power, etc. These don't violate the first amendment.

A formal legal opinion was expressed by Judge Edward Nottingham ( after the vote ):

"There is no doubt that unwanted calls seeking charitable contributions are as invasive to the privacy of someone sitting down to dinner at home as unwanted calls from commercial telemarketers...The FTC has imposed a content-based limitation on what the consumer may ban from his home, thereby entangling the government in deciding what speech the consumer should hear."

In summary, Ron Paul made his decision based on first amendment issues. It is not clear that the issues of privacy or property rights even made it onto his screen.

BTW, all of the above is from memory. I can't find anything on the net explaining why he voted against it.

PS: sorry about the 'crack' comment.

What was being spammed?

[Sensi (64510)]

What was the content of the spam? Was it spamming Diggs for Ron Paul articles, comment spam, or did everyone get emails promising if you vote Ron Paul your dick gets bigger?

minor point

[geekoid (135745)]

Legally, unsolicited political messages are not considered spam. Unless they try to sell a product.

IN the US as I understand the pertinent federal laws.

Re:

[Psychotria (953670)]

Political spam *IS* trying to sell a product. They are trying to buy your vote. I know this is a little pedantic, but they are selling themselves and, therefore, qualify as spam.

Re:

[QuantumG (50515)]

Yeah man. And charities? They're selling good vibrations.

russian origin

[Newton IV (666922)]

That's interesting because Nenastnyj means something like "cloudy weather man" in Russian.

Eh? what about the donations?

[TekGnos (624334)]

So what about all of the donations coming into Ron Pauls website? Spam as well? If so, I want some of that spam in my inbox!!

Makes sense

[Yurka (468420)]

I guess that the only thing left for Russians is to try and influence elections in the US, since they had absolutely no chance to do that at home.

Re:I don't for a minute believe this was unofficia

[Butisol (994224)]

His voting record suggests otherwise.

Re:I don't for a minute believe this was unofficia

[by Anonymous Coward]

Paul gives more than vague promises. He has a long, principled voting record.

Will he be an imperial president? No.

Will he be able to change the USA into some libertopia. No.

He can exercise veto power.

He can issue pardens.

He can bring the troops home.

That will be more than enough for me.

Re:I don't for a minute believe this was unofficia

[Shining Celebi (853093)]

I'm curious about what you mean by "principled" voting record. Is talking about leaving things up for the "states to decide" while trying to ban [loc.gov] abortion on the federal level principled? Is talking about the need to remove power from corporations while at the same time sponsoring bills to repeal worker safety laws [loc.gov], the minimum wage [loc.gov], and federal antitrust law [loc.gov], plus dozens of other laws, even including child labor and overtime laws, principled? What about his earmarks for the local shrimp industry while decrying those evil politicians wasting out money? What about proclaiming himself as a purveyor of libertarianism while trying to outlaw flag-burning?

I'd be all for the kind of candidate people think Ron Paul is, but this guy ain't him. Aside from that, you also have to take into account his lunatic economic theories, his stance regarding the Internet, and complete withdrawal from all international organizations. I mean, Jesus. I see all these people talking about how great he is, and then very fre of them seem to actually be aware of, you know, his actual record.

Re:

[mojo-raisin (223411)]

Great. Another ignorant, fear-mongering post.

Ron Paul is Pro Liberty and Individual rights! How on earth can you get "against homosexual rights" from that?! He wants to get the federal government out of the marriage business entirely!

In regards to religion, please show me one article written by Dr. Paul http://www.house.gov/paul/legis_tst.htm [house.gov]
where he puts religion above the law and the Constitution.

Re:I don't for a minute believe this was unofficia

[Pode (892717)]

IANRP ( I Am Not Ron Paul), but I'm going to put words in his mouth based on my understanding of his positions.

2597 and 1094: It's what the man believes, and it's consistent with basic biology (A fetus is alive, and it is unarguably human. You can legitimately argue whether or not it should have full legal protections identical to an adult, and that's a discussion we should have, but creating a mythical transformation point from non human to human somewhere between conception and birth is a laughable failure to grasp high school biology). He could argue the Constitutionality based on the Congressional power to conduct the census (The power to count a thing by necessity includes the power to determine what does and doesn't count as that thing). Regardless of your beliefs on the issue, a straight up or down vote on a bill like this in Congress (or my preference, state legislatures) is almost infinitely preferable to the current situation where 9 old lawyers answerable to no one decide whatever the hell they feel like and impose it on all the rest of us. Paul's bill, crackpot as it seems, would force a settlement of the issue so we could get on with other things in this country instead of this same tired fight coming up every election and dividing us yet again.

1095: Put an end to a blatant violation of the 10th amendment. Government should follow the law. Christ, you'd think the last 7 years would have made that PAINFULLY obvious to everyone.

300: See above, just change Article 3 for Amendment 10. State courts were supposed to be primary (read the Federalist papers and see for yourselves, even the big government Federalists promised that order of court supremacy in order to get the Constitution ratified)

We the People Act: See Amendments 1 and 10, especially 10. Not a power given to the federal government, courts or no courts. IIRC, 3 of the ratifying states had established state religions when the Bill of Rights was adopted, so it clearly was not intended to prevent states from making up their own minds on the subject. I'm not saying this is the way things should be, but unless there is an amendment to fix it, it's the law of the land and government should obey it.

"Against homosexual rights" and "supported laws to discriminate against homosexuality federally": More like against allowing the Federal government to have any say on or knowledge of the matter of who people sleep with one way or the other. Although I admit I haven't dug as deeply into this aspect of his record, so if you can contradict me on that interpretation I'd be interested to see your evidence.

Paul is a long way from perfect, but even the positions I violently disagree with him on are rationally argued and internally consistent with respect to his understanding of the Constitution, which overrides all other considerations for him. After 8 years of the Constitution being "just a goddammned piece of paper", I think restoring that principle to government is the absolute priority. We can sort out differences in opinion later, once our freedom to have differences in opinions is safe again. (Military Commissions Act, Homegrown Violent Radicalization act etc.)

Re:

[evanbd (210358)]

Really? Last I checked, plenty of economies have had trouble both with and without backed currencies. As far as I can tell, the recipe for a strong economy is sound political and economic policy. There is no magic, and no easy answers.

(I'm a Ron Paul supporter, but it's in spite of, not because of, his ridiculous gold standard ideas.)

Re:I don't for a minute believe this was unofficia

[stuartkahler (569400)]

WRONG!
The fed artificially lowered interest rates by way too much. This allowed people to either drastically lower their monthly payments or be able to buy a much more expensive home for the same monthly payment. This became a national trend.

In areas with a limited housing supply, home prices rose drastically so that the higher price with the lower interest rate yielded the same monthly payment. Some people cashed out massive profits, but at the expense of the buyer who would see their home value plummet to it's previous value in five years.

In areas with plenty of builders and land to put homes on, people began building huge quantities of larger, more lavish homes. Individual home prices didn't go up, but median home prices did. Fueled by low monthly payments, people bought homes that they could never afford at the rates from just a few years earlier.

This, in turn, LED to the incredibly lax bank lending standards in some areas. Previously, banks required hefty down payments, good credit and proof of income to give a loan. But with homes appreciating at double digit rates (again, caused by artificially low interest rates), it looked like a sure thing that the outstanding loan would be under 80% in two years. Fifty year, interest only, reverse amortization, it didn't matter, the house would out-appreciate ANY loan.

Then the fed comes back in, raises the rates back up and BAM, people default like crazy because they can't refinance their ARMs at anything close to the old rate.

Yes, there was bad business practices and greed all around, but the root cause of the whole thing was bad interest rate manipulation by the federal reserve.

Re:

[Archeopteryx (4648)]

Amen.

I like their focus on the Gold Standard.

Hilarious.

There is not enough gold on the whole planet to cover the money now in circulation, much less the Nine Trillion dollar debt!

Re:I don't for a minute believe this was unofficia

[by Anonymous Coward]

Erm, not at $1 and ounce, no. But at some multiple. If it has to be $2,800 per ounce then people will not both exchanging dollars for gold with the government, because they can get gold cheaper elsewhere. But the effect of tying the dollar to *something* will be just as strong. At least if we stick with it, it won't be $3,100 next year and $3,300 the year after that. Just because a return to the gold standard can't undo the last 90+ years of inflation is no reason not to do it.

Re:I don't for a minute believe this was unofficia

[evanbd (210358)]

Surprisingly enough, good economies require good economic policy. Unfortunately, that's not as simple as a gold standard. Historically, inflation occurs regardless of whether there is a precious metal or other substance backing the currency. Incidentally, you are aware that there isn't enough gold for the government to buy enough for 100% backing of the currency, right? Also, if you set the exchange value for gold at higher than the current market price, all you've done is ignored the problem and made an empty promise until such time as inflation makes the price of gold rise past your set value -- at which point the problem isn't any easier.

Re:I don't for a minute believe this was unofficia

[morgan_greywolf (835522)]

Correct. Racism != prejudice. Racism is a belief that your race is superior to that of others. Usually this also means that you think your race should get preferential treatment over others, but that's not necessarily so. Prejudice is just that -- prejudging someone based on external factors that can -- but do not necessarily include -- race.

Supporting the abolition of affirmative action -- i.e., hiring, promoting or admitting into school, etc., on the basis of racial quotas -- as Ron Paul does is also not racism. If anything, the entire concept of affirmative action could arguably be viewed as racism since there is some underlying notion that minorities would otherwise be unable to gain schooling or employment were it not for racial quotas. I think that underestimates the abilities of minorities to the extreme.
     

Re:Unfortunately...

[Ungrounded Lightning (62228)]

To me, it does not make sense that an election should last 4 years and require the kind of funding only mega-corporations can provide.

Why shouldn't it last 4 years - or longer - and cost a large fraction of the GNP. Civil wars do.

Republics are designed to model civil wars accurately enough that they can be "fought" to their conclusion without all that nasty dying, burning of crops and towns, and so on.

They do a good enough job of it (except for assasinations B-( ) that the US hasn't had to hold a full-scale civil war in well over a century (though there hace been a few small ones when the the elections were corrupted or a significant power group was disenfranchised and oppressed).

See the "Battle of Athens" for one example.

Re:Unfortunately...

[jmorris42 (1458)]

> And to avoid be labeled a civil war, simply declare a portion of the country "independant"?

By your 'logic' the War in 1776 was also a Civil War. The difference is pretty obvious to anyone with a functioning brain and a basic understanding of the English language.

The US, an internationally recognized territory of the British Empire, wanted to be free of the Crown, thus making it a War of Independence. The CSA quit the Union, wishing to be recognized as an independent nation in exactly the same way as their forefathers had sent their Declaration of Independence to King George. The Union objected pretty much the same as King George did and for much the same reason (fear of losing a critical revenue stream, the North was very dependent on taxing Southern exports mixed with pride) and a War for Southern Independence was fought. The Union won, obviously and thus wrote the official histories.

Had it actually been a Civil War the CSA would have been trying to conquer the Union and thus win the right (through contest at arms) to control the whole of the United States and impose it's views.

> you sir are a fucking moron.

And thee are a foul mouthed twerp that needs to grow up and learn how adults discourse in public.

Re:

[GradiusCVK (1017360)]

I'm sorry, but I have to disagree with pretty much everything you said. First: Yes, I am a 22 year old pursuing a Master's degree (partially fitting your description of a "kiddie ... flooding the web 2.0 sites with Ron Paul crap"... however, I have not yet met another person fitting that description in any of the numerous groups I am a part of who support Ron Paul. Everyone I know is a middle-to-late age person with a steady job and a LOT to lose by electing the wrong person. They do NOT participate a lot

Re:

[Kenshin (43036)]

Ron Paul is the ANSWER to our problems

Ron Paul is the answer to America's problems in the same way that narcotics are the answer to life's problems. You have a wild and crazy trip, but then you crash hard when you wake up to reality biting you in the ass.

Re:Unfortunately...

[m2943 (1140797)]

It makes no sense to spend more time agonizing over some potential policies of guys who will never be elected while ignoring the government and representatives currently making the decisions.

After you've elected your representatives, what they do is out of your hands; the only way you can change their behavior is to elect someone different next time. Therefore, agonizing over who to elect next time is, in fact, the only thing that makes sense if you live in a representative democracy. Worrying about day-to-day policies is pointless once you've made up your mind that you already don't like the current guys.

On another note, I am Canadian. To me, it does not make sense that an election should last 4 years and require the kind of funding only mega-corporations can provide.

If you're trying to imply that the Canadian political system is somehow immune to such excesses, you're wrong. The reason companies spend a boatload of money on US elections is because US elections matter a great deal to their bottom line; on the other hand, who governs Canada simply doesn't matter much to corporations or anybody outside Canada.

Re:

[OctaviusIII (969957)]

First, I should say that I'm an American that has lived in Canada for the past 6 years as a political science student, so I've been following Canadian politics for a while now. Basically, the current situation in the States is a bit like how it was in Canada after Chretien left office: nobody cared that much about Martin and they just wanted to get on to the next thing, but even that's a weak comparison when examined next to the perfect storm of the '08 presidential campaign.

This year, things started so s

Re:

[Bill, Shooter of Bul (629286)]

Not saying I endorse him or his policies, but Huckabee has raised only 2 million and is actually ahead in some poles. I don't know about you, but I want a president that can do the most with the least. If Huckabee could run the government with the same financial prudence he has shown in his campaign, that would be awesome. I expect with the rise in polls that will most likely change. He probably won't turn down the money from anyone. But, it sort of shows what could be done.

Re:big deal, he'll move us to the gold standard

[jcr (53032)]

Cause basing your currency on the pricing of a commodity is somehow more secure than the faith and trust of the government.

Had a look at just how much the currency has been inflated since the Federal Reserve was established? For extra credit, can you tell us who benefits from inflation?

Great understanding of economics there, pal.

Ever heard the phrase "not worth a Continental"? Any idea what it refers to?

The gold and silver clause was written into the constitution because the framers had recent, painful experience with the dangers of fiat currency.

-jcr