Around noon today, the grassroots organized and funded Ron Paul blimp will be over Raleigh, on its way to SC from Elizabeth City.

I just figure SoapBox folks might be interested enough to go outside and look up. According to the map, it appears North Raleigh is gonna be hit more than downtown on its way, but it's tough to tell.

I know, I know, I already posted this in the Ron Paul thread, but this is short-term stuff and interesting in general. I'm really not aware of any campaign in semi-recent history that was almost entirely done by people not involved in the official campaign. Dean had some elements of it, but this is entirely new to the political process. It might fade and never come back, or not, but it's worth taking note of.

[Edited on December 14, 2007 at 11:25 AM. Reason : a]

12/14/2007 11:22:52 AM

It's a novel idea. I'm just surprised that I haven't heard more "hot air" jokes or been treated to an image of the Hindenburg crashing.

12/14/2007 11:35:41 AM

If the people fully backed Ron Paul do you all think democracy would prevail or the higher powers and the media would swank the election.

12/14/2007 11:43:35 AM

A picture just after taking off this morning.



[Edited on December 14, 2007 at 11:59 AM. Reason : a]

12/14/2007 11:59:01 AM

12/14/2007 12:04:56 PM

http://youtube.com/watch?v=23XQeLGNAeA

12/14/2007 12:06:47 PM

Quote :

"If the people fully backed Ron Paul do you all think democracy would prevail or the higher powers and the media would swank the election."

I don't buy the Ron Paul supporters arguments that voting for Paul will restore dignity and democracy to our government. It's pretty much the same as 'vote for us or the terrorists win' but in a different setting.

Sure, Paul may be more honest than most politicians but that doesn't make his ideas or implementation (or ability to implement them if elected) any better.

12/14/2007 12:43:16 PM

[Edited on December 14, 2007 at 2:56 PM. Reason : oops misread. carry on]

12/14/2007 2:55:48 PM

the problem is our crappy two party system has trouble addressing all the political views in this country.

Who would a devout Christian but in support of socialist programs like Universal health care vote for?

Who would a fiscally conservative capitalist vote for if he supports abortion, against the war on drugs, and wants more green environmental policiest?

12/14/2007 2:59:31 PM

^
that's the whole point

america isn't really a democracy at all, it's a constitutional republic

it's a bifurcated one-party state, a partisan duopoly masquerading as a bipartisan democracy

it uses gradually weaker interpretations of capitalism over time

as it balances it's takeover of the world with it's evolution into socialism

the two parties are mutable (look at how they change over time; 180 degrees in some cases)

they just exist to polarize everything

and the resulting conflict both fuels their common goals and creates the "illusion" of democracy and fairness

it's pretty obvious....

12/14/2007 3:35:55 PM

Quote :

"that doesn't make his ideas or implementation (or ability to implement them if elected) any better. "

if he wants to strickly adhere to the constitution of our country where others do not, it does.

12/14/2007 3:38:05 PM

The best way to get people to take your side seriously is to wear a cowboy hat and ride around on a fucking horse.

12/14/2007 3:49:07 PM

it did work well for bush.

[Edited on December 14, 2007 at 3:52 PM. Reason : .]

12/14/2007 3:52:02 PM

and use fear mongering to rally the people to your cause.

12/14/2007 4:00:20 PM

^^^ Yeah, so many people, particularly the Europeans, mock cowboys--until they need them to save their asses. Just ask the French.

Cowboy Capitalism: European Myths about the American Reality

Quote :

"Europeans and many American pundits believe that while the U.S. economy may create more growth, Europeans have it better when it come to job security and other factors. Olaf Gersemann, a German reporter who came to America, found the reality quite different. He checked facts and found the market freedoms in America create a more flexible, adaptable and prosperous system then the declining welfare states of old Europe."

http://www.amazon.com/Cowboy-Capitalism-European-American-Reality/dp/1930865627

The Cowboy Myth

Quote :

"ANTI-AMERICANISM EMPLOYS A SET OF CLICHÉS as predictable and stale as the conventions of supermarket romance. Every time, for example, the United States acts forcefully abroad to protect its interests, you can bet the farm some pencil-neck in America or Europe will whip out the charge that America once more is acting like a 'cowboy.' This charge is usually tossed off with the smug assurance that acting like a cowboy is about the most horrible thing one could do [emphasis added]. The ignorant masses might think that the cowboy myth is about qualities such as the courage to risk one's life for one's convictions or to protect others, but what do those oafs know, brainwashed as they are by movies and ads? The right-thinking elites know the real score--the cowboy is the racist enforcer of manifest destiny, a sadistic, genocidal thug, probably a repressed homosexual, and the mythic peddler of cigarettes and pickup trucks and other proletarian accessories. This misreading of the cowboy myth of course reflects the world-view of what the cowboy himself would call a 'tinhorn' or a 'tenderfoot,' those usually Eastern city-boys who are unable for whatever reason to use violence when violence is necessary to stop evil. Sometimes the tenderfoot is merely a coward who camouflages timidity with principle. Other times he's a naïve idealist who thinks that the protocols of civilized justice and reasoned debate will work in the Darwinian world of the frontier, even though there the rudimentary social structures are themselves either ineffective or corrupt. The constant theme of the cowboy myth is that such idealism is dangerous, for force is always the tragic choice necessary for destroying evil and protecting civilization. Nor is this choice simple: in the best movie westerns, the cowboy understands that his willingness to use force to protect civilized innocence is itself uncivilized and creates a moral burden, which he must accept and bear. As Alan Ladd says in Shane, 'There's no living with a killing.' As such, the cowboy myth is one of the last great expressions of the tragic view of life increasingly absent in our therapeutic world, but necessary now more than ever. We have instead adopted a weird hybrid of Enlightenment and Romantic myths that tells us people are basically good and rational, and only behave destructively because an unjust and oppressive society robs them of self-esteem and causes them to 'act out.' Reform society, offer therapeutic, esteem-building solace through psychological technique and sensitivity, and then we can create the utopia in which everybody is happy, evil is banished, violence disappears, and all problems are solved through reasoned discourse. The cowboy knows better. He knows that some people are evil, and their evil afflicts the innocent. Maybe they have an excuse for their evil, maybe they don't, or maybe they're just no damn good, but ultimately what matters is keeping that evil from destroying the good. Reason, law, appeals to morality ultimately cut no ice with the bad guy. He respects only one thing-- overwhelming, devastating and, usually, lethal force. Since the legal and social structures for applying force and judging evil are usually ineffective or corrupt, that force has to be applied by the man (or the woman, like Grace Kelly at the end of High Noon) who is willing to kill for the right. Our modern tinhorns and tenderfeet, those intellectual deconstructors of every mythology save their own, scorn the cowboy as simplistic. His 'good' and 'evil' are old-fashioned concepts modern psychological science has shown to be no more real than fairy tales. His dependence on force is crude and primitive, and ultimately more noxious than the evil against which he fights. Better, like the intellectual in his universe of words and ideas, to rely on talk, negotiation, persuasion, and all those other confabs in which the verbal adept shines. This belief in talking evil out of its evil ways strikes me as peculiar, and one certainly not supported by the evidence of 20th century history. The two great totalitarian threats to human freedom, fascism and communism--whose collective tally of dead is at least 150 million people-- were stopped by force or the threat of force. It was Hitler after all who scorned the GI's landing at Normandy as 'cowboys' his panzers would quickly teach a lesson. The next time some Eurocrat sneers about American 'cowboys,' he should remember that if not for those 'cowboys' Europe wouldn't even exist today. Talk can work with those who respect talk, who share a common tradition of democratic values and rational discourse. It can work with those who don't respect talk if talk is backed up by a believable threat of force. But talk fails utterly with those who scorn negotiation and give-and-take as evidence of weakness. With such people talk merely provides the cover for their aggression and emboldens them into thinking their use of force will succeed. As Jimmy Stewart--the idealistic Easterner who wants to counter evil with reasoned law in John Ford's The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence-- finally learns, 'When force threatens, talk is no good.' Again, talk can work when validated by sufficiently deterrent force. But ever since Vietnam, our talk has not been so validated, with the exception of Reagan's build up of potential force that brought the Soviet Union to its knees. Elsewhere we threatened and blustered, we negotiated and bribed, we dickered and haggled, but the message was clear: America will blink and stay its hand. It took the most devastating attack on American soil finally to rouse us from our therapeutic slumber and wake us up to a hard world filled with evil people who need not to be talked to, but killed before they kill others."

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/664661/posts

[Edited on December 17, 2007 at 3:59 AM. Reason : .]

12/17/2007 3:58:16 AM

^
way to totally miss the fucking point dumbass

12/17/2007 5:00:03 AM

^ GTFO.

12/17/2007 5:09:25 AM

he wasn't talking about some high-minded metaphors. he was talking about a dude riding a horse.

12/17/2007 8:18:11 AM

lol

12/17/2007 8:37:23 AM

Quote :

"the cowboy is the racist enforcer of manifest destiny, a sadistic, genocidal thug, probably a repressed homosexual, and the mythic peddler of cigarettes and pickup trucks and other proletarian accessories. "

This isn't true??

Quote :

"violence when violence is necessary to stop evil."

This artical lost all credibility after this sentence.

Quote :

"The two great totalitarian threats to human freedom, fascism and communism--whose collective tally of dead is at least 150 million people-- were stopped by force or the threat of force. "

hey wait Stalin was our buddy during WW2.

Quote :

"The next time some Eurocrat sneers about American 'cowboys,' he should remember that if not for those 'cowboys' Europe wouldn't even exist today. "

The largest ethnicity of those "cowboys" in the US armed forces in WW2 were italian who being from the eastern US this article
called a "tinhorn." I guess all these tenderfoots were busy cooking pasta in the barracks while only the real men aka
cowboys were shootin up them nazi's.

Quote :

"But ever since Vietnam, our talk has not been so validated, with the exception of Reagan's build up of potential force that brought the Soviet Union to its knees."

In the Vietnam context I think the american "cowboys" would play the character role of the cowboys from Tombstone.
Anyone seeing the movie would know what I am talking about since much like modern day Iraq we had no fucking
reason to be in Vietnam except for the interests of the corporate elite.

I guess you also forgot about US involvement in Panama, Iran, 1st gulf war, Hondorrus and various other places post-Vietnam. This had to be one of most biased least intelligent propraganda endowed articles i have ever read.

[Edited on December 17, 2007 at 3:33 PM. Reason : a]

12/17/2007 3:32:59 PM

^ Coming from you, that's a compliment.

12/20/2007 1:41:05 PM

The GF saw a big RV today decked out with Ron Paul stuff....we think it was that "Grandma for Ron Paul" lady.

[Edited on December 20, 2007 at 2:28 PM. Reason : oh, and I saw the wienermobile on tuesday ]

12/20/2007 2:27:12 PM

I saw a Ron Paul bumper sticker on a downed pine tree out by Crabtree Mall--not sure what that means, though.

12/20/2007 2:39:23 PM

^on the ramp gettin on to the outer beltline......it's about to fall off

12/20/2007 2:45:23 PM

Quote :

" Sure, Paul may be more honest than most politicians but that doesn't make his ideas or implementation (or ability to implement them if elected) any better."

so you'd rather stick with current shitty policies than take a small chance on someone implementing their own? it's not like he would immediately drastically change everything, it's called checks and balances. That's what the other two branches are for.

12/20/2007 3:48:49 PM

Ron Paul's policies scare me. Sure he is against the war in Iraq, wants to bring our civil liberties back, but on everything else, he is wrong and down right scary.

12/20/2007 4:14:47 PM

how so?

I find pretty much everyone else "wrong and downright scary"

Quote :

"it's not like he would immediately drastically change everything, it's called checks and balances. That's what the other two branches are for"

and unlike some other "leaders" he won't find every possible way to siphon power form the other branches.

[Edited on December 20, 2007 at 4:44 PM. Reason : .]

12/20/2007 4:43:01 PM

i find George W getting us involved in Iraq and poking a stick at Iran and N. Korea "scary"

As far as Ron Paul i guess its ok to be scared of what you do not understand

12/20/2007 4:45:17 PM

the main problem with paul, is that it's very easy for opponents to paint him as the crazy one, when in fact, he is probably the most sane.

12/20/2007 4:47:52 PM

threads like this make me wish Gore was running.

12/20/2007 7:45:59 PM

I think I saw this thing passing by my house in fayetteville on monday. I didn't see the side with writing, but i remember looking up into the sky randomly and seeing a huge blimp above my house and being like "wtf?"

12/21/2007 2:21:55 AM

Quote :

"Ron Paul's policies scare me. Sure he is against the war in Iraq, wants to bring our civil liberties back, but on everything else, he is wrong and down right scary."

Oooh, I know - a Constitutionally-limited government is enough to keep you up at night, huh?

12/21/2007 2:23:55 AM

Quote :

"Ron Paul's policies scare me. Sure he is against the war in Iraq, wants to bring our civil liberties back, but on everything else, he is wrong and down right scary."

so, in short, there is nothing wrong with him, right?

12/22/2007 11:10:06 PM