More procrastination today. This time, watching Ron Paul at Google:
It's so nice to hear a candidate for president talking about principles, and concrete proposals for change. If he gets the Republican nomination (and nobody who knows anything about the nomination process thinks he will), then I think I'll have to vote for him, even though I have the following misgivings:
I think he's wrong about Global Warming (see his answer to a question at around minute 38 of the video). I think there is a true market failure when it comes to global environmental issues. I think it makes sense to try to quantify the imbalance we're causing in carbon emissions, and then impose some kind of carbon tax, with the money going directly towards research, development, and/or deployment of carbon sequestration technologies. That said, I have almost zero faith that our current political system could possibly create a rational, effective system for fighting global warming that wouldn't degenerate into Yet Another "corporate welfare" system like our current agricultural price support system.
I'm also skeptical that he'd be able to actually get things done; I have a feeling our Senators and Representatives will not appreciate him vetoing every single pork-filled piece of legislation that they send to him to sign, and I have a feeling President Paul wouldn't suddenly be willing to compromise his principles if he found himself in the Oval Office. Maybe 4 years of total legislative gridlock in Washington DC would show us that we don't really need the Federal Government as much as we think we do. In any case, it would be a very interesting experiment!
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He would be in a supreme position to pressure congress and inform the public. President = unlimited free press. Think about that for a second. Can you imagine that much free press for the liberty message? We've seen what happens when the people get energized about impending crap Senators are about to foist on them (the immigration bill thing)... I think a Paul presidency would hold Congress to the fire, and that's what the job of the executive should be, after all.
The environmental thing is a tough issue, however, I (as an environmental consultant / soon to be attorney) think that local solutions to pollution problems are the best methods to achieve corrective action. Global crap is just a money pit, always was, always will be. Gotta have a bureaucracy to manage a global effort. Gee I wonder why the politicians push that instead of localism.
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