paulg_68 posted:

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Did it pass by 1?

If not, then his vote would have merely been a futile gesture.

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Ron Paul posted:

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“The founders wanted to set a high bar for the government to overcome in order to deprive an individual of life or liberty,” Paul, the libertarian congressman from Texas, said Monday in a weekly phone message to supporters. “To lower that bar is to endanger everyone. When the bar is low enough to include political enemies, our descent into totalitarianism is virtually assured. The Patriot Act, as bad as its violations against the Fourth Amendment was, was just one step down the slippery slope. The recently passed National Defense Authorization Act continues that slip into tyranny, and in fact, accelerates it significantly.”

“The Fifth Amendment is about much more than the right to remain silent in the face of government questioning,” Paul continued. “It contains very basic and very critical stipulations about the due process of law. The government cannot imprison a person for no reason and with no evidence presented and without access to legal council. The danger of the NDAA is its alarmingly vague, undefined criteria for who can be indefinitely detained by the U.S. government without trial.”

“It is no longer limited to members of Al Qaeda or the Taliban, but anyone accused of substantially supporting such groups or associated forces,” Paul continued. “How closely associated, and what constitutes substantial support? What if it was discovered that someone who committed a terrorist act was once involved with a charity? Or suppose a political candidate? Are all donors of that candidate or supporters of that candidate now suspects and subject to indefinite detainment? Is that charity now an associated force?”

“The president’s widely expanded view of his own authority to detain Americans indefinitely even on American soil is for the first time in this legislation codified in law,” Paul said. “That should chill all of us to our cores.”

“The Bill of Rights has no exceptions for really bad people or terrorists or even non-citizens. It is a key check on government power against any person. That is not a weakness in our legal system, it is the very strength of our legal system. The NDAA attempts to justify abridging the Bill of Rights on the theory that rights are suspended in a time of war, and the entire United States is a battlefield in the war on terror. This is a very dangerous development, indeed. Beware.”

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cherrim posted:

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These things are given:

- The likelihood that an election will come down to a difference of one vote diminishes with the number of voters

- About 125,000,000 Americans voted in the '08 presidential election

- By your own definition, any vote cast in such an election is almost certain to be a futile gesture.


I therefore recommend that paulg_68 abstain from voting in the next presidential election.

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paulg_68 posted:

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Would his vote have affected the outcome or would it merely have been a futile effort?

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paulg_68 posted:

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Yuki was complaining about Ron Paul making a career out of futile efforts. Now you guys are complaining that he doesn't make enough futile efforts.

Which is it? Does he do it too much or too little?

I'll wait while you check with DailyKOS for the answer.

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