I've got this crazy neighbor… He's a Ron Paul fanatic

[MrScorpio]

He literally has handmade Ron Paul signs pasted to his car windows.

The other day I was walking to the pizza place and I overheard him lecturing to his family about the wonders of Paul and the horrors of the Fed while they were out BBQing.

He's a fan of Alex Jones too… Saw an Infowars sticker on his car along with a faded Bush hat by his rear window.

This guy is just another working stiff (If he's still employed in this economy).

Somehow, he thinks that his conspiracy theories are genuine information, and I'm positive that he can't be convinced otherwise.

It's going to be interesting to see how he reacts when Paul won't even get the nomination…


He'll probably chalk it up as another conspiracy.

[Fumesucker]

1. I know someone with similar beliefs..

What scares me is that he knows a great deal more about the financial world than I do.

[coalition_unwilling]

4. You should not be scared. Wordsworth's poem comes to mind: his "meddling intellect mis-shapes the

beauteous form of things. He murders to dissect."

[chillspike]

23. Don't be scared of that

My brother does too and is a huge Rush Limbaugh fan but that's all like a game that is played inside a box. They may know all the rules and may be expert players of their little game inside their little box. But all it is is an invented and artificial game that they are playing. That little box nowhere near encompasses the world that is outside itself. Outside the box their rules, their knowledge, their pretense at superiority crumbles before the rest of reality. They say the rules dictate that consumption should be entirely based on merit but how quickly that rule falls when faced with the starving, the weak or someone in an emergency. Their little game is ever interrupted by reality. They say their right to their resources is based solely on their effort. But where did they get the energy to exert that effort? They got it from other entities, by force, who exerted that same effort which, apparently, doesn't warrant the same rights as they claim for themselves.

No. Don't be scared of those low-brows. They don't know jack shit.

[banned from Kos]

2. there are many anti-Fed CT types who post here --

its a product of the distrust of government and internet chat.

[Shagbark Hickory]

3. There's a lot of paul bigotarians here. And they all make their own signs with markers too.

Also very vocal in public.

[On the Road]

5. Well as Far as Ron Paul Not Getting the Nomination

it *is* a sort of conspiracy -- the sort where there is a tacit agreement that certain people and points of view are outside the mainstream and not to be treated seriously. Same thing that happens to candidates who are too far to the left.

[Romulox]

6. This is what happens when the "authorities" can be observed lying to our faces:

suddenly every conspiracy theory becomes credible, when it is clear that the "received truth" is plainly false. For example, "weapons of mass destruction" in Iraq was a bald-faced lie. So it becomes quite natural to believe that our motives for our military adventure du jour are similarly fabricated.

[NNN0LHI]

7. I have one living a few doors down from me too

Crazy as a shit house rat.

I do my best to avoid him.

Don

[ellie]

8. My brother is convinced

that all Americans will be rounded up and put into camps. When? Who knows. It is always "soon." He keeps asking my sister if she is scared. People like him and your neighbor are mentally unstable.

[banned from Kos]

9. I have an idea - go to this Fed link ( a pdf file of the Fed's last audit)

http://www.federalreserve.gov/monetarypolicy/files/BSTcombinedfinstmt2009.pdf

print all 63 pages out and take it to him to discuss why Ron Paul is lying about the lack of a Fed audit.

Of course, Paul does not know what an "audit" is. That is the real problem.

[tama]

10. Hey guys,

I have hard time understanding the uncritical love of so many DUers towards Fed and fiat money system? Why do you think so highly of it, is that some (neo)liberal ideological attitude, I just don't understand, affection for the word "Federal, or what is this about?

[wuushew]

11. What is your beef with the Fed?

It has opearated as designed for a century. Central Banks are key component of modern economies, it is not desirable nor plausible to return to some fantasy "age of gold".

[tama]

15. Same as with ECB

and any central bank creating fiat money by lending to private banks which by fractional reserve system create money by lending to citizens, with interest on top.

In order to get paid, with interest on top, the whole amount of debt must grow the amount of interest. That means that the whole amount of debt must grow exponentially, In short, to avoid collapse, the debt bubble must keep on growing (exponentially!) which of course is not possible. Also any understanding of real economy (energy and limited resources on limited planet) gets lost in the financial bubble building. It's not sustainable and causes much unnecessary destruction and misery.

I'm not a gold bug nor right wing libertarian - there are much better ideas for a new money system than return to gold -, but I would like to remind you that Fed has not operated "as designed" for a century, Richard Nixon disconnected dollar from the gold standard in 1976 IIRC and made it a pure fiat currency.

To quote Henry Ford: "It is well enough that people of the nation do not undersgoldtand our banking and monetary system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning."

Internet has been a great educator, it was some years ago I saw the cartoon 'Money as debt' posted on DU; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vVkFb26u9g8 and the same issues have been discussed in depth also in the Zeitgeist movies.

[banned from Kos]

17. So a FULL Reserve system, backed by a commodity where the private bank

also charges interest and creates debt to the borrower is what you prefer?


This entire "money is debt" notion is absurd. Money is an asset and debt is a liability in the real world.

[tama]

19. What I prefer?

No private banks as they are now, and if we still need money as a means of exchange, money creation should happen as citizens salary, central bank paying each citizen certain amount each month or year. Rest is minor details.

[banned from Kos]

12. Fiat currency takes the power of capital away from the bankers and gold holders

Before the Fed, frequent banking panics cost farmers/laborers all they had - so the progressive pro-labor Greenback Party was formed.

The party opposed the shift from paper money back to a bullion coin-based monetary system because it believed that privately owned banks and corporations would then reacquire the power to define the value of products and labor. It also condemned the use of militias and private police against union strikes.<3> Conversely, they believed that government control of the monetary system would allow it to keep more currency in circulation, as it had in the war. This would better foster business and assist farmers by raising prices and making debts easier to pay. It was established as a political party whose members were primarily farmers financially hurt by the Panic of 1873.

(Wiki)

By establishing a LENDER of last resort, progressives set up a regulatory body to control the banking system and pay the taxpayer with interest earned by the Fed - $125 billion in 2009-10. All advanced liberal democracies accept a central bank and government control of the value of currency now.

[tama]

18. Ehm,

if fiat currency takes the power of capital away from the bankers, how is it possible that bankers are now very much in control of capital???!!! And also, it does not seem that the days of banking panics are over, on the contrary!!! :D

Also, from what I know, the central banks like ECB and Federal Reserve are not "governement controlled" if by governement you mean "we the people" and democratic controll over the decisions of the central bank.

Here is how the bank robbery system works, at least here in eurozone: when growth dependent system stops growing and the debt bubble bursts, first the private banks start to go bankrupt and faith in the system disappears and it grinds to halt. Central bank gives first aid and then countries lend from the private money markets (bonds) to finance the failing banks and to keep them and the whole financial system afloat - just a bit longer. Then some countries start to fail under the growing debt burden, and then other countries lend from the private market to assist the failing countries, so that the whole financial system - IMF etc. - would not collapse but stay afloat - just a bit longer. Everything depends from more growth and more growth, but now when there is no more growth but second steep drop into the abyss, it's austerity!

The whole thing is a fraud, citizens paying to bankers for their greed, or more correctly, money as debt used to rob people their land, natural resources and fruits of labour in the hands of the banker capitalist class. And when corrupt governements allow and encouradge bankers robbing people, people start to riot and rob. And then the real fun starts...

[banned from Kos]

20. US personal net worth is north of $60 trillion - bank net asset value (US)

is less than $3 trillion. So the banks "control" little of the personal capital here (not to mention corporate wealth).

Yes, the US has experienced two panics since 1925 - the Depression when the Fed RAISED the Fed Funds rate to 5% in the dumbest move in central banking history (it should have been .025% like now) and 2002-08 - the great Deregulation of Greenspan/Bush.

Lesson - never put a Libertarian in charge of a regulatory agency.

[blogslut]

13. Paul fans are like Libertarians

Libertarians = Republicans who support abortions and like to smoke dope.

Paul fans = Republicans who don't support the Bush wars but like to smoke dope.

[Little Star]

14. He couldn't be too surprised when Paul doesn't get the nod...

How many times has Ron Paul ran for president anyway? Seems like he runs every primary season. LOL

[EFerrari]

16. If his beliefs keep him from going up in a tower, that's a good thng. n/t

[GoCubsGo]

21. More than a fanatic...

"Cultist" would be more appropriate. Every one of them that I have ever run into reminds me of religious cult members. "Ron Paul is right, and I don't want to hear any different. Sticking my fingers in my ears. Lalalalalala. I can't hear you." You are absolutely right that this guy can't be convince otherwise, MrScorpio. The only way for that to happen would be to have him deprogrammed.

[DFW]

22. When he finds out that Ron Paul won't be nominated...

Will he go into the Fox HQ, blaming them, and blasting everyone in sight with whatever is in his
arsenal (verbal or otherwise) for ignoring his idol, and therefore denying him the nomination?

[evilDonkey]

24. at least he's intellectually consistent

Ron Paul is a little nutty but at least he's intellectually consistent unlike the rest of the Repugs.

[sfpcjock]

25. Yeah, they're pot smoking Republikooks, sometimes called "conservative anarchists"

or confused conservatives. I have a young friend of a friend in law school who thinks Paul is anti-establishment because he advocates abolishing a long list of things. Here's a recent thread:

Ron Paul dumps on FEMA (again) using Irene - DU
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=439&topic_id=1836716&mesg_id=1836716

[MH1]

26. Just make sure he knows he can write in 'Ron Paul' at the general election.

Tell him you know lots of people are doing that.

:evilgrin:

[MrScorpio]

27. Excellent idea nt

[XanaDUer]

28. I hope he's not dangerous

nt.

[MrScorpio]

29. Unless he's armed, he's harmless

He's a little scrawny type

[krabigirl]

30. so crazy, those anti-war types, really. lol. and to think they even want to end the WOD?

reeeall crazy. It's the 'merikan way to keep bombing people overseas and imprisoning people in private jails for injesting drugs not approved by Pfizer or Smith-Kline Beecham. Oh yeah, and the Patriot Act is wonderful, too. sooo glad Obama extended it and ramped it up! /s

I'd rather have a ron paul "nut" as my friend than some neo-lib or neo-con who wants crap like this to continue. I may disagree on the gold standard, or on dismantling the EPA or whatever, but I agree with them much more on civil liberties, anti-war stuff, etc than I do with many Democrats.

[tama]

31. +1

Only big problem with right wing libertarians, from the point of view of left wing libertarians (aka anarchists) is that they want to maintain police state or state police to protect private property. Their ownership issues tends to make many of them also quite paranoid... but same goes for neo-lib neo-con progressive moderates whatever capitalists. :D

[PeaceNikki]

33. lol, Paulestinians are even more dangerous because they are wolves in sheeps' clothing to liberals.

Ron Paul is an insane, woman-hating, racist, privatize everything batshit crazy loon. And so are his supporters.

[mailman82]

32. Where did I go wrong,

My youngest son told me his a Ron Paul Repug. UGH!