Rick Perry was scrounging for some brownie points from the gun community at the end of ABC’s debate by brining up the fact he likes to unwind by hitting the shooting range:
“Just relaxing a bit @ Red’s Range before we leave for New Hampshire!” @governorperry tweeted Friday along with a photo of himself wearing a green sweatshirt and a baseball cap with a firearm in hand.
On the campaign trail, Perry, a staunch defender of second amendment rights, has not been shy about talking about his “long love affair” with guns.
“It was a long love affair with a boy and his gun that turned into a man and his gun, and it turned into a man and his son and his daughter and their guns,” Perry told reporters before a pheasant hunting trip with Iowa Rep. Steve King in October. “It’s, I think, one of the great American traditions is taking your family hunting.
Now numerous people in the gun community are jumping on the Rick Perry 2012 bandwagon. Let’s all take a second to step back and remember what Rick Perry is, a tyrant. Rick Perry is the same candidate who advocated an invasion of Mexico as a strategy in the War on Drugs and issued an executive order forcing girls to be injected with the HPV vaccine, which could possibly cause paralysis (sadly it’s such a new drug we don’t know enough about possible side-effects but hey drug company campaign contributions cay make such pesky details vanish).
Politicians pander to communities in order to get votes. They do this because pandering works and many single issue voters exist in the world. Yet even if Rick Perry is an advocate of the Second Amendment facts are none of us will be able to afford new guns or ammunition if the economy entirely collapses and Perry has no fucking clue about economics. On top of that if he’s willing to send troops into Mexico to enforce a United States prohibition you can guarantee he’s in favor of seeing troops into other countries we have no business being in. Don’t like the fact Perry goes to the shooting range and supports the Second Amendment fool you into supporting him, on every other ground he’s horrible.
On the other hand there is another pro-gun candidate (I’d argue far more pro-gun than Perry) who actually understands economics and supports every civil liberty running for presidential candidate named Ron Paul. I’m just saying why support a tyrant when you can have a true supporter of liberty?
Rick is done in the race. That being said having lived for a decade under his rule he has been good on guns. Every session in the last decade we have advanced our gun rights here and haven’t lost any ground. So while I think he would be a bad president, he seems pretty legit on guns. I am still voting for Ron and Ron is the only one I could see signing a repeal of Hughes for example, but Rick would be the second best choice (from a gun rights only perspective) in the race. I mean if you look at all the other candidates (Ron Paul excluded) there isn’t really a difference between any of them on policy issues except Rick is better than the rest of the field on guns. Newt is bad on guns, Romney is terrible, and Santorum I am not sure cause I don’t want to google Santorum to find out his positions. I think I recall reading that he hasn’t been that good either. So from a pure second amendment perspective Rick is the 2nd best choice.
Although I like a lot of the things Ron Paul stands for, I am having a hard time with the racist letters thing (being I am a part of the minority they speak on). Here is an article that speaks more about the same apprehension I have:
http://www.pagunblog.com/2012/01/03/the-ronulution/
Essentially, unless he has done so in some previous statement somewhere, he has not denounced those articles and taken responsibility. After all, they were written in articles bearing his name. In my opinion, he needs to answer for these in one form or another.
It appears that, all in all, every single candidate on both sides are nothing but your typical politicians at heart. I’m tired of voting using the “lessor of evils” method.
Ron has denounced the letters and taken responsibility for them. He said he never should have let the letters go out under his name and that if people were releasing things under his name he should be knowing what they are releasing. I don’t think he could do anything more than he has done.
So you can look at 10 sentences that never should have been written in a hard money investment news letter that people were releasing under Ron’s name (presumably with his permission), vs someone who has been working to promote liberty and freedom for all on the public stage since the 70s. Someone who has consistently come down in favor of individual rights.
I am not a minority so I don’t know what minorities have gone through in life to say I can relate, but I think if we way the amount of good that Ron has done vs a slight amount of evil that he allowed to occur by not providing sufficient oversight for those things.
Weigh that against any other politician running and you won’t find that good of a record. You have Romney and Newt that both go whichever way the wind blows, and Santorum who works to persecute a different minority. There is no greater person in favor of all individuals liberty in the political system that I am aware of in this country today than Ron Paul and for that reason alone I think it is time to move on and accept his apology of the letters.
Correction. I have found information where he has publicly disavowed those letters. In that regard, I am satisfied with his apology.
As I said, I couldn’t find the specific information that he had but, with some additional research, I came up with the information I was looking for. That’s on me for not searching more thoroughly the first time through.
Although, some people would call the explanation “tenuous” at best, I’m actually a firm believer in understanding the underlying context of the situation before making a judgement call.
Personally, that was one of the things holding me back with regards to support of his positions. Mind you, I don’t think the guy is perfect. Then again, we shouldn’t expect our elected leaders to be, after all, they are human, just like us.