Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
Okay, So Sell Me On Your Guy
Now that Rand Paul is out if the race, I’m left with a big gaping hole. Not only in my heart, but in my ballot. Despite my disagreements with the man, I had intended to vote for him. But now that he’s thrown in the towel, I’ve got no Plan B, and the New York primary is in two months.
Ricochet member V the K asked what everyone’s big three issues were. Mine were:
- The police state
- War
- National debt
I consider our police state to be incompatible with liberty; war and national debt are the two things that tend to topple nations. The way I see it, Rand Paul was pretty good on two of those things, and poor, but not the worst, on one of them.
Now, I realize I’m swimming upstream here, but I don’t want it to ever be said that I’m inflexible, closed-minded, or unwilling to compromise. So now that I have an opening, I invite everyone who wishes to pitch their favorite candidate to me.
If you support Cruz, Rubio, Kasich, Christie, Trump, Bush, Fiorina, or, sure, what the heck, even Jim Gilmore, you’re welcome to try.
Please realize that I’m a very tough sell. I’ll listen, but I’m not guaranteed at all to buy what you’re selling. (Also, an argument that I should vote for an inanimate carbon rod with an R next to the name won’t fly with me.) But even if you don’t sell me — after all, I’m very stingy with my vote — maybe you’ll convince someone else reading your pitch.
Published in Elections, General
That’s easy – Ted Cruz. He stood up for the sequester that helped reign in military spending, he’s been extraordinarily good on the national security state and he is one of the better fiscal Hawks in the party.
Look, if you had one shot, one opportunity
To seize everything you ever wanted, one moment
Would you capture it, or just let it slip? Yo
His palms are sweaty, knees weak, arms are heavy
There’s vodka on his breath already, Grey Goose
He’s nervous, but on the surface he looks calm and ready
To drop bombs, but he keeps on forgettin’
What he wrote down, the whole crowd goes so loud
He opens his mouth, but the words won’t come out
He’s chokin’ how, everybody’s jokin’ now
The clock’s run out, time’s up, over, BLOW!
Snap back to reality, oh, there goes gravity
Oh, there goes Gilmore, he choked, he’s so mad
But he won’t give up that easy, no, he won’t have it
He knows his whole back’s to these ropes
It don’t matter, he’s dope
He knows that, but he’s broke, he’s so stagnant that he knows
When he goes back to his Virginia home, that’s when it’s
Back to the lab again, yo, this whole rhapsody
He better go capture this moment and hope it don’t colapse on him
You better lose yourself in the rally, the moment
You own it, you better never let it go
You only get one shot, do not miss your chance to blow
This opportunity comes once in a lifetime
#StillStanding
You are invited to include links to support each of those assertions.
That goes for everybody else too.
Ted Cruz is my default choice as of this writing, but I am not supporting him, sending money, etc.
On the police state he has taken hits from Jeb!, Marco, Christie and the others whose position is that we need to surrender our 4A rights in the name of security. Ted Cruz supported Rand Paul during the drone vs. U.S. citizens filibuster. Of the remaining I think Ted Cruz is closest to Justice Scalia on the rights of U.S. citizens to be free from illegal search and seizure. Ted Cruz is the most originalist of the remaining candidates.
War is less clear, but my perception based solely on some of the attacks he endured in the debates is that he is not a full throttle NeoCon. Going back to his Constitutional originalist roots I think he would be less inclined to abuse the war powers act and make Congress ratify a declaration of war before doing so. Congress would have a hard time doing so unless it was obvious and near unanimous. I think that is a good thing and a key feature of the Constitution. I think Ted Cruz would be similar.
He is willing to shut it down over spending as a Senator, will he be similarly strict as President? I am not sure though if anyone is actually going to try to eliminate or reduce something he is the only candidate that appears serious. His tax plan sucks, but will raise a lot of $.
FWIW, Rand Paul was my got 2nd choice in the monthly Rico poll.
Gary Johnson will be on the ballot in November so you’re all set.
If you have to choose:
Just as a thought outside of the LP candidate trump is the only guy who has said repeatedly that we can’t invade all the places.
But I think you would find his domestic policies such as they are and rationally interpreted, would not be your cup of tea.
The other candidates are various flavors of hawks and may be more likely to have opinions closer to yours of domestic policy.
Debt is not reasonably going to be addressed by any candidate running, at least not with a default assumption of magic.
Disclaimer: I am not a republican, I support no one, and I have no plans to take part in the primary.
Yeah, I know…
A guy can dream, can’t he?
To use Cruz’ logic, that disqualifies him, since by standing for the sequester he carefully aligned himself with Barack Obama, whose idea the sequester was.
Eric Hines
I hear Hillary is readying to come out against the police state.
His tax plan sucks, and will raise a lot of $. Or so some estimates indicate.
However, he (along with the others whose plans increase revenue to the Federal government) has chosen not justify why the Federal government needs the added money.
Eric Hines
Doesn’t matter much. They’re all the same on the Republican side. The President operates in a pretty tight box. Most of the government is chugging along on its own.
Any R will put less fuel in the train and any D more. To view this as anything else is goofy.
I’ll believe that when I see it. Democrats as a whole (including the current administration) are heavily invested in the police state.
And even if she did, she’s still be terrible on the other two issues.
I wasn’t really serious on that one, but isn’t leading from behind in Libya and failing to fortify Benghazi the type of non-interventionism that appeals to libertarians? She’s also shown a keen eye for the purse, as the Clinton Foundation amply illustrates.
You don’t think much of McAfee’s chances, eh?
No…
Non-interventionism would be … not intervening in Libya’s civil war in the first place.
Look, I know there’s this trope that Obama is some kind of peacenik or something, but from where I’m sitting, it looks like the man has never seen a war he didn’t want to get involved in.
Are you sure that’s not “state police”?
I’ll be hornswaggled if she includes federal agencies in her condemnation of “police”.
Well, maybe the FBI, which is what I had in mind.
While you would tend to agree with Bernie on very very little, a vote for Bernie in the Demo’s Primary would tend to add to the confusion and drama.
The sequester was a great idea. How else do you imagine spending cuts could be effected?
I don’t know what my three big issues are, probably because I don’t expect any president to make too much of a difference either way. I do like how much Marco makes nativists squirm as if he was some sort of actual open borders proponent and not a strawman. But I guess Bush is probably the most likely to be pro-immigrant, as distasteful as his name and family legacy is.
If I put my brain into pre-anarchism politics mode, I’d just be a run-of-the-mill conventional-wisdom Ricocheti, meaning Rubio all the way (though I never went through the Carly honeymoon).
I have no real problem with Cruz, though I do think he’s less likely to win in November.
Fred, I think you should vote for the sweet meteor of death.
Once the sweet meteor of death hits this country, the police state, war, and the national debt will be eliminated almost instantaneously.
I second SMOD 2016. He promises an end to politics as usual – forever.
As often happens, Brent beats me to the punch (comment #4) and says what I would have said, only better.
I find points 1 and 2 to be difficult to address. Certainly, I’m not predisposed toward either “The Police State” or toward “War,” but I’m also not sure whether I’d disagree with specific policy proposals, because they really aren’t self-evident from the names.
Does The Police State mean you don’t want the IRS to have its own police force? Or does it mean you want to de-criminalize drugs? Does it refer to seizure? Would it have implications on local police forces that deal with local crime? I think there is a lot of reform that I would support that falls under “policing,” but it’s hard to say without knowing more. It’s also hard to say whether any particular candidate would be more or less inclined to agree.
Same goes for “War.” I certainly don’t want to get involved in every war that goes on in the world. I don’t consider us to be the “World’s Police,” so to speak. But I do think that global diplomacy needs to come with a serious threat of force – or at least without broadcasting our spinelessness even if we are extremely hesitant to act. So do I want a president who would rush into all sorts of wars without thinking about it? Of course not. Do I want a president who will broadcast his anti-war stance to all the world as an invitation to act against our interests? Well, we already have that with Obama, and I’m not a big fan.
As for point 3. Let’s call it entitlement reform, and I’m just as eager as you are to find out which candidate is most serious about it.
if you can marry pro-immigrant with anti-entitlement (and tackle the latter first), I think you’ve got something.
We could also shoot for tort-reform… and insurance across state lines. Personally, I’m a fan of de-regulation and economic freedom. Immigration ranks pretty low on the list, but I see pro-immigrant as a positive thing once those other issues are addressed.
Ted Cruz understands that the sequester was a ‘poison pill’ proposed by the White House and that passing it hoist the Obama administration in its own petard. The sequestration poison pill, which has been written about ad nauseam, and which everybody understands to have been such, was a total failure for the President.
This widespread ability to understand and appreciate a ‘poison pill’ strategy doesn’t extend to the Ted Cruz version dealing with immigration, in which he proposed a ban on illegal immigrants ever obtaining citizenship, betting that it would go down to defeat. It did. But because in doing so it ruffled the feathers of the Washington establishment on all sides, who had been pretending that none of the Gang of Eight bill was about creating millions of new citizen voters. So we must all loathe Ted Cruz, because he played the game and won.
I would call it, Ted Cruz, 1; Obama Administration 0, in the battle of the poison pills.
If you can’t see that Rubio is the most electable conservative then there’s no use trying to convince you.
^^^^^^
Please, let’s not accuse Fred of being concerned about electability.
After all, he was hoping Rand would stay in the race long enough to vote for him in the primary.