The Truth @ The Spin Factor

Rudy Giuliani is a retard

All he talks about is 9/11. You know why? Because that’s his entire platform. He pretends he is tough on terror, but he is weak. He hasn’t read the 9/11 Commission Report, and he doesn’t know what blowback is.

He claims the nation will be str Giuliani Simpsonized onger with a Republican in power, especially him. Yet, he’s got nothing to back that up with. What exactly does Giuliani know about terrorism?

His children hate him. NY Firefighters hate him. Ferrets hate him. Ferret poop hates him. Jaywalkers hate him. The American Psychological Association hates him. His wives hate him. His children hate him. NY Bus drivers hate him. TouchingYou guy hates him. The first amendment hates him.

Did you know terrorists can use RFID chips to blow up Americans? All they need is a RF receiver linked to an explosive device. Then they can target Americans carrying REAL IDs or the new American passports.

Now the terrorists can track you.

What a genius!

Did you know his children hate him? I’m not surprised because he contradicts himself every time he speaks.

“Dad, are you coming to my graduation?”
“No son, I have to battle terrorists today.”
“Good, I was going to ask you not to come.”
“Actually, I’ll be there with your third stepmother.”
“What about the terrorists?”
“That’s OK. When they attack us, my ratings go up.”

(Source: detailed random imagery that popped into my head).

So why write this article? It’s not an article. It’s a plea to all retards (probably not you, dear reader) begging them not to vote.

“Freedom is about Authority” - Rudy Giuliani.

Prediction: Ron Paul will take 15-20% of the primary vote.

If the last debate was any indication, the upcoming Republican debate on Septermber 15 hosted by CNN in conjunction with YouTube is expected to draw a large audience along the demographics of young adults 18-34.

According to usaelectionpolls.com, Ron Paul’s highest demographic is composed of young adults. Most of the Republican candidates will have a difficult time answering direct personal questions from the young YouTube audience. But Ron Paul has already faced young voters in countless interviews. His consistent and candid responses will set him apart from the rest of the Republican candidates. Furthermore, YouTube is already pro-Ron Paul, in volume of videos watched and popularity.

In the meantime 26,000 people in Ron Paul meet-up groups are promoting Ron Paul independently of the main campaign. The most watched Candidates@Google video is Ron Paul’s with 109,858 views after only one week. This video is over an hour in length.

The most blogged item according to Technorati is consistently “Ron Paul”.

And along the 18-29 age group 33% of people are libertarians, the largest ideological demographic for that age group, which partly explains the popularity of Ron Paul on the internet.

Since 13% of voters in the last election are libertarians, it should be fairly straightforward to predict that Ron Paul will get at least 13% of the vote in the primaries.

Additionally, there is a growing trend for libertarian voter turn out. It increased 3% between the 2000 and 2004 elections.

Because the national polls do not reach young voters and voters who have not voted before, the 3% that registers nationally is a bad indicator of what to expect in the Republican primary.

Based on the number of libertarians who have voted at previous elections; the misrepresentation of young voters at the landline-based national polls; Ron Paul’s growing popularity at this relatively early stage; the strong military support for Ron Paul; the “Streissand Effect“; and the expected high voter turn out by his grassroots supporters, my prediction with the current available data is Ron Paul will take a surprising 15-20% of the primary vote.

Source: The Libertarian Vote by David Boaz and David Kirby.

July 25th, 2007 Posted by eaglescout | Politics, Libertarianism, Analysis, 2008 Election, Technology | 2 comments

Non-Ron Paul supporters: Do you understand libertarianism? Really?

Non-Ron Paul supporters: Do you understand libertarianism? Really?

From Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarianism [Libertarianism]

“Libertarianism is a political philosophy maintaining that all persons are the absolute owners of their own lives, and should be free to do whatever they wish with their persons or property, provided they allow others the same liberty and avoid abusing their liberty.”

See also:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_liberty [Negative Liberty vs. Positive Liberty]

“The philosophical concept of negative liberty refers to an individual’s liberty from being subjected to the authority of others. In this negative sense, one is considered free to the extent to which no person interferes with his or her activity.”

Department of Eating Out and majority rule vs unanimous consent.

Whenever the government creates a new organization like the Department of Homeland Security or raises taxes, it interferes with your liberty. We wouldn’t make our neighbors pay for our haircut or our next meal. So why does the government do it? The answer is that the government does it because we accept the tyranny of the majority at the expense of the minority.

Think about it this way: You are with your friends and you want to order a pizza. Well, eight of your friends do. Your last two friends have been eating pizza for the last week and will absolutely not pay for your pizza. In most situations you wouldn’t force them to pay for your pizza; if you did you might not have very many friends, soon. So your two friends abstain and instead choose to go separately to a Chinese restaurant. The rest of your eight friends are divided between Papa John’s and Domino’s, most don’t really care, because they just want pizza. So you flip a coin and Domino’s it is. Six of you want pepperoni and three of you want anchovies. You could force the three to eat your pepperoni pizza, but that’s not a fair solution. Instead, you order two large pepperoni pizzas and one large anchovy pizza. Furthermore, three of you want onions and mushrooms and the other three don’t care. So you end up with one large pepperoni, one large anchovy pizza, and one large pepperoni pizza with mushrooms and onions. And Chinese take out.

Seems like a very good solution. But what if we created a fictitious U.S. Department of Eating Out? What would the order look like? Well, they’d ask you for each individual’s social security number, look through their records, and determine that they will send you two medium anchovy pizzas for everyone in your eleven-person party. You argue with them on the phone and you tell them that most of you don’t like anchovies, but it turns out that three of your friends didn’t register with the the department of Eating Out. That’s why you are only getting two medium pizzas. And that’s why they made them with anchovies. But don’t worry… Your pizzas will arrive in 40-70 minutes and they are free. That is until you look at how much the government is paying for your two pizzas: each pizza is costs 15 dollars, but the total isn’t 30 dollars. The total is 570 dollars because the government pays minimum wage and it was just raised to 13.00. The person who made your pizza dropped a bucket of tomato sauce on the floor and his friend slipped and had to be sent to the emergency room.

But who cares right? If it wasn’t for the goverment, we wouldn’t have pizzas. Everyone would have to buy their own pizza, and who would deliver it? Does anybody outside the government even know how to make a pizza? No thanks. We’ll eat our cold and tiny anchovy pizzas and pay 570 dollars for them. We are scared of the consequences of abolishing the Department of Eating Out.

As you can see, the only happy people in your party are the three anchovy aficionados. Eight of you are completely unsatisfied. This is an example where the tyranny of the “majority” affects the “minority”. Except it wasn’t the majority because the government had incomplete records and no incentive to please you.

Now apply this scenario to Health Care or the Department of Education, or Homeland Security. These organizations are inefficient and have no incentive to please you. On the other hand, Papa John’s and Domino’s Pizza make money by pleasing you. Their greed is an incentive to make your pizza better, faster, and keep you coming back for more. When you were ordering the pizzas from Domino’s your friends figured out exactly how to order without government interference. Your friends who didn’t want to eat pizza got their Chinese food and were happy. Everyone else got a share of the pizza they wanted and were happy as well. And it was done through unanimous consent, not majority rule. This is the way libertarians envision an ideal society.

But if the government doesn’t make our pizza who will?

If Papa John’s and Domino’s didn’t exist, someone would learn to make it and make a living off it. The first company to sell pizzas might sell at relatively high prices. But if this is the case, someone else will take advantage of those high prices to sell pizza at lower ones. As long as the government stays out of the pizza industry, pizza will get better and cheaper. So there is no need for the government to make our pizzas. As long as there is demand for pizza, the free-market will provide it.

But what about the poor people? They can’t all afford pizza.

No. Pizza isn’t free. Someone has to make it. To give pizza away for free would be to devalue the work of Someone. When we start giving free pizza away or raise minimum wage, we trigger a domino effect that reduces the value of our currency and the value of our work. Then other people can’t afford pizza either. But it’s free right? So they don’t need to be able to afford pizza… Well, wrong. Because nothing is free. In order to make pizzas, the government has to raise taxes.

But the rich can have all the pizza they want. It’s wrong for them not to share. What have they done for us anyway?

Well, the rich create jobs. When you raise their taxes and raise minimum wage they can’t afford to hire as many people. That means next time they need to reduce spending, they might have to fire you, because maybe you are not worth the new minimum wage.

But in an ideal world everyone would have pizza.

Not everybody likes pizza. If your neighbor doesn’t like pizza why should they pay for it? Think back to the example at your party. Everyone got what they wanted and nobody paid for anything they didn’t want, through unanimous consent.

Health care is different. Health care is a necessity.

And that’s why it is more compassionate to let the free-market take care of it. When you use a medical coupon you are entitled to all kinds of evaluations and free tests. And the hospital or clinic gets a free pass, so they can order as many tests as they want. What happens then? The price of health care increases and the price of taxes goes up. Furthermore, because everyone is expected to afford health care the price goes up.

So, in reality, government subsidized health care increases the price of medical services. That means the poverty line will gradually increase until people who might have once been able to afford health care no longer can.

What about the war on drugs?

If we stopped fighting war on drugs, we would spend less tax money on a problem we created. By fighting a war on drugs, we increase the market value of drugs. This means drug dealers earn more money from selling drugs. So in reality the war on drugs is relatively good for drug cartels and dealers. It’s not so good for people who get caught in the cross-fire. One would think it would be preferable that someone who wants a drug simply got it and left everyone alone than for our government to kill that person during a drug raid.

Furthermore, our jails are filled with people whose crime was victimless. They would be more productive and less costly out in the real world.

So if the government stays out of everything, who takes care of the environment?

You wouldn’t trash your neighbors house, so why should you be allowed to trash a privately owned park? It has been shown in experiments that people protect and value things they own more than those they don’t. When people own private property, they take care of it. By privatizing all land, we can protect the environment.

So if the free-market works so well, how come Ron Paul isn’t doing well at the polls?

On the contrary. Ron Paul does very well on all post-debate internet polls

But those aren’t scientific. I get the impression that the internet is filled with Ron Paul spammers.

The internet is definitely filled with Ron Paul supporters. The reason for that is that there is a great demand for Ron Paul and the main stream media is ignoring him. The internet is very much unregulated, and it allows people who are interested in him to follow his progress. Thus the internet is saturated with Ron Paul. A way to solve this “problem” is to ask the mainstream media to cover Ron Paul a little more often.

Ron Paul Blames America for 9/11.

False. Ron Paul blames our foreign policy. He was baited at the SC debate, but he didn’t bring up 9/11. It was brought up as a loaded follow-up question by the moderator and Giuliani.

Ron Paul is an isolationist.

No. Ron Paul is a non-interventionist. He favors global trade and diplomacy with all nations. He wants to pursue terrorists and wants to defend our country. However, he is against nation-building.

Ron Paul’s fiscal policies will help the oil industry and other monopolies.

Ron Paul favors a true free-market and is against subsidies, special interest groups, and corporate welfare. He would not subsidize the oil industry or any corporation. In a true free-market society true “monopolies” do not arise because the government does not hold back the competition through ineffective regulation.

You may also find these articles very interesting:
http://www.isil.org/resources/libertydocs/pizzacracy.html [Pizzacracy]
http://www.econlib.org/LIBRARY/Essays/rdPncl1.html [I, Pencil]

If you want to know what libertarians think about current events take a look at: http://cato.org/ [The Cato Institute]

July 24th, 2007 Posted by eaglescout | Politics, Libertarianism, Freedom, 2008 Election | 10 comments

How everyone benefits from a Ron Paul presidency

You don’t have to agree with Ron Paul on specific issues to benefit from his principles and presidency.

Ron Paul wants to restore your freedoms. Other candidates want to impose an arbitrary and inconsistent belief system - Thus, I cannot bring myself to vote for just anybody else.

Is Romney for or against abortion?
Is Rudy going to implement a Real ID and embedded RF-ID chips in humans?
What are Obama’s positions on the war? How are they consistent?
What about Fred Thompson? If these candidates are consistent in their positions, why are they hiding them? If they simply want to follow popular public opinion why don’t they come out and say it?

Because it would cost them the presidency. Because they know there is wide opposition to their inconsistent views and if you really knew what they stand for, given an informed choice, you’d choose to avoid them.

I don’t have to agree with Ron Paul’s positions to know that my political positions and freedoms will be respected as long as I don’t hurt anybody else.

Ron Paul has been the most transparent candidate. Everyone else is putting on a facade. Why vote for someone who is going to change their mind when an interest group sponsors them? Why vote for someone who isn’t led by consistent principles, and who can’t explain to you, reasonably and justifiably, why they support a particular issue?

We don’t need a cryptic president. We need transparency and consistency.

July 23rd, 2007 Posted by eaglescout | Libertarianism, Politics, Analysis, Freedom, Technology, 2008 Election, Truth | 3 comments

Sean Hannity experiences blowback live on the radio at the hands of Ron Paul supporter

The internet impacted the air waves and shocked commentator Sean Hannity last Wednesday, July 18th. He found himself experiencing cognitive dissonance when statistics published at The Spin Factor made it on his radio show:

Sean Hannity may be remembered for playing down statistics from FOX News’ own text messaging poll and asking loaded questions at the May 15th, 2007 South Carolina debate. He experienced blowback when a enthusiastic caller called in. From Vote Write In for Ron Paul 2008:

“Normally Paul supporters come right out of the gate, guns blazing, confronting Hannity on Ron Paul related issues (also known as common sense). This time was different. This Ron Paul supporter disguised himself as a man un-decided on which canditate [sic] he’d support, going so far as to calling Hannity a ‘great American’ like most of his boot-licking audience tends to do upon introducing themselves. Little did Hannity know, he was in store for a Ron Paul sucker punch.”

Hannity claims to favor the troops, and when told that a republican candidate had received the most contributions from military and veterans, it validated his belief that the military supports Republicans and the Iraq war. When the caller, Kylan, revealed Rep. Ron Paul was the recipient, Hannity had to resolve the conflict between his perception that troops favor the war and “want to win” and the implication by the FEC statistics that the troops favor Ron Paul’s non-interventionist policies. The result? If Hannity supports the troops he must support a withdrawal from Iraq. The only way out of this contradiction is to ignore the data and hang up.

Update: Suprisingly, FOX News eventually reported the story here.

Cognitive Dissonance
Justifying Iraq war and escalation
Escalation of commitment
Blowback

July 20th, 2007 Posted by eaglescout | Blowback, 2008 Election, Truth | 29 comments

Ron Paul leads ALL ‘08 candidates with over one-fourth of military contributions for Q2

Earlier, we reported military contributions among Republican presidential candidates place Ron Paul on top at 49.5%, with nearly as much as all Republicans combined.

A more complete compilation of statistics by Phreadom shows that presidential candidate Ron Paul leads all 2008 presidential candidates in military contributions from the US Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps and war veterans. Presidential candidate Ron Paul leads with an impressive one-fourth* of all contributions this second quarter according to newly released data from the FEC.

Ron Paul currently has more cash-on-hand than John McCain this quarter, and this new information is indicative of Ron Paul’s success. It appears that our soldiers and war veterans have an affinity to, or inclination for Ron Paul’s non-intervention principle - defending our homeland and pursuing terrorists, but no nation-building.

Military contributions for Q2

Ron Paul 26.23%
Barack Obama 24.02%
John McCain 18.31%
Hillary Clinton 11.08%
Bill Richardson 5.59% Dollar Planes
Mitt Romney 4.05%
John Edwards 2.63%
Rudy Giuliani 2.44%
Mike Huckabee 1.84%
Tom Tancredo 1.63%
Duncan Hunter 1.05%
Joe Biden 0.84%
Mike Gravel 0.16%
Sam Brownback 0.07%
Dennis Kucinich 0.05%
Tommy Thompson 0%
Chris Dodd 0%
Jim Gilmore 0%
John Cox 0%

Source: Finance Reports for the 2007 July Quarterly and compiled by Phreadom. Visit phreadom.blogspot.com for more detail.

*Edit: Correction for Obama’s totals changes the order and brings him to second place in military contributions, passing McCain. Our apologies to Sen. Barack Obama. (7/19/07)

July 17th, 2007 Posted by eaglescout | 2008 Election, Truth | 52 comments

Vote for your favorite Rudy slogan; he really needs your help!

1. Rudy: His kids hate him, but your kids hate you too

2. Rudy: When fire fighters in your own city hate you, they must be terrorists

3. Rudy : Because 9/11 happened on that fateful day of 9/11. Let’s not forget 9/11. 9/11″

4. Rudy: Respect my AuthoritAY” (Eric Cartman knockoff)

5. Rudy: Ignorance is bliss

6. Rudy: Now available in Woman Form!

7. Rudy: Death to Ferrets
Youtube: Tucker on Giuliani’s hatred of ferrets / Ferrets for Freedom

8. Rudy: War is Peace
Freedom is Slavery
Ignorance is Strength

8. Rudy: When God won’t even let you talk at the debates, you know you’re right!”

9. Rudy: Who cares about freedom anyway?”

10. Rudy: Strong where it counts! Just ask his cousin

11. Rudy: *Godfather music playing in background* “you wouldn’t want nothin’ bad to happen to your city, now would ya?

12. Rudy: Is Rudy going to have to divorce a bitch?

13. Rudy: America’s mayor, because NY hates him

14. Rudy: He’ll marry the war on terror so it will be over in 2 years!

15. Rudy: Because Bush didn’t go far enough

16. Rudy: Because he’ll TRIPLE Guantanamo. Doubling is for pussies.

17. Rudy: “It’s about time law enforcement got as organized as organized crime.”

18. Rudy: Because if it doesn’t start with a 9 and end with an 11, its not important

19. Rudy: “Thank God George Bush is our President!”

20. Rudy: Because the dress does fit.

21. Rudy: Because taking shits on the constitution is fun.

22. Rudy: Give me your freedoms. I’ll keep them safe for you.

23. Rudy: Because we look upon authority too often and focus over and over again, for 30 or 40 or 50 years, as if there is something wrong with authority. We see only the oppressive side of authority. Maybe it comes out of our history and our background. What we don’t see is that freedom is not a concept in which people can do anything they want, be anything they can be. Freedom is about authority. Freedom is about the willingness of every single human being to cede to lawful authority a great deal of discretion about what you do.

24. Rudy: because the constitution now comes in two-ply

25. Rudy: 9/11

26. Rudy: We have nukes!

27. Rudy: They have nukes!

28. Rudy: On to Iran! We will be greeted as liberators!

29. Rudy ‘12: On to Syria and Sudan!

30. Rudy ‘12: “Im sorry.”

31. Rudy ’16: Rudy 16: Yeah, I can run again

32. Rudy 08: Endorsed by former mayor Penguin!
Mayor Penguin / Penguin Giuliani

33. Rudy: Ferrets are terrorists too

34. Rudy ‘08: A vote to end all votes!

35. Rudy: Because Polygamy isn’t reserved for Mitt and the Mormons.

36. Rudy: “There is something deranged about you. … The excessive concern you have for ferrets is something you should examine with a therapist. … There is something really, really very sad about you. … This excessive concern with little weasels is a sickness. … You should go consult a psychologist. … Your compulsion about—your excessive concern with it is a sign that there is something wrong in your personality. … You have a sickness, and I know it’s hard for you to accept that. … You need help.”

37. Rudy: You need help.

38. Rudy: Freedom is about authority.
Sex is about rape.
Childhood is about patricide.

39. Rudy: Because America needs to rule the world.

40. Rudy: Because I said so.

41. Rudy: Because free speech is overrated.

42. Rudy: “I have you wife and child here with me. If you want to ever see them alive again, you’ll vote for me! Got it?!”

43. Rudy: Because they hate us for our freedom. Get rid of our freedoms, get rid of the hate.

Compiled by Matt Estlund from facebook users.

Vote damnit. Rudy really needs your input.

Is this thread really necessary? - facebook user

Yes, Rudy asked me to help him figure out what really draws the younger crowd into his campaign. - Matt Estlund

July 17th, 2007 Posted by eaglescout | Satire, Freedom, No Spin At All, 2008 Election, Truth | no comments

Military support for the republican candidates

NAME: TOTAL [ARMY] [NAVY] [AIRFORCE] [VETERAN] [USMC**]

RON PAUL: 24,965 [6,975] [6,765] [4,650] [5,075] [1,500]
McCain: 17,475 [6925] [6305] [1795] [800] [1600]
Romney: 3,551 [2,051] [0] [1500] [0]
Giuliani: 2,320 [1,450] [370] [250] [250]
Hunter: 1000 [0] [1000] [0]
Huckabee: 750 [250] [0] [500]
Tancredo: 350 [350] [0] [0]
Brownback: 71 [71] [0] [0]
Thompson: 0 [0] [0] [0]

Units are contributions in dollars by employees of the respective military organizations.

Source: Finance Reports for the 2007 July Quarterly.

Percentages**:

49.5% Ron Paul
34.6% McCain
7.0% Romney
4.6% Giuliani
2.0% Hunter
2.3% Others

*Note: These statistics include the contributions of employees who recorded or indicated their military branch. Contributions where no employer was specified were naturally not included.

**Edit: McCain and Ron Paul have USMC contributions which were overlooked. Their totals have been corrected. (7/17/07)

Update: Ron Paul leads ALL presidential candidates in monetary military contributions.

July 16th, 2007 Posted by eaglescout | 2008 Election, Truth | 223 comments