And as I said, Ron Paul opposes the federal government passing laws that enforce civil liberties. Look it up. He always opposes legal enforcement of equal rights, especially at the federal level, which literally means that the words in the Constitution under Ron Paul would be just that: words on a document, but with no literal connection to society. People would be free to ignore civil liberties at will without laws enforcing them. In other words, even if he repealed NDAA, he wouldn't lift a finger to enforce the rights that you think would be protected by lifting the NDAA. He literally doesn't believe the federal government has any business enforcing civil liberties.
In the short-term, I want the federal government's power significantly cut back. The current administration doesn't want us to have any substantial civil liberties at any level, federal or otherwise. The Executive branch has been granted dictatorial power over US citizens. I'm willing to pay a significant price to see that rolled back. I am supporting non-establishment leaders until I see the corporate parasite eating away at the country's core is driven out. The ACLU has ranked Gary Johnson and Ron Paul ahead of all other candidates, and I'm stuck supporting the Libertarian candidates until the establishment's corruption and grip on the current system has been dealt with. The Democrats have lost their way, and Obama is one of the most dangerous individuals to come out of that party in quite some time.
Let's say Ron Paul won the presidency and immediately repealed the NDAA at the federal level. Are your civil liberties safe? Not really, because Ron Paul would also oppose the federal government being involved in enforcing laws related to civil liberties. Which, of course, means that state and local government could pass NDAA style legislation if they chose to and Ron Paul would do absolutely nothing to stop them. For example, Alabama could say "OMG, we think Sharia Law is just around the corner. We need to indefinitely detain any person in our state that is a terrorist Sharia Law supporter." What would Ron Paul do in response? Absolutely nothing. He'd say that it was none of the federal governments business. This is what people have to understand about libertarians. They're not going to protect jack squat because they don't believe in federal enforcement or the federal government in general.
Again, I want to emphasize to you that I have not pledged to obey the principles of Libertarianism until the end of time. I don't have any other options. Our political system is so screwed up and corrupt that Gary Johnson and Ron Paul are rated ahead of all of the other candidates by the ACLU. I'd love it if there was a Democrat who was stronger on such issues, but there is no FDR in today's Democrat party.
Obama turned out to be a bigger puppet than Bush was... that is a pretty impressive feat. His war mongering liberation of Libya was conveniently timed with Gaddafi's attempt to drop the USD in favor of a gold backed currency. Goldman Sachs is still running the show.
Reform for the worse. The bill boils down to "buy health insurance or pay a fine." Brilliant fucking idea considering the reason many people don't have insurance is because they can't afford it. It doesn't say anything about controlling costs. It doesn't say HMOs have to actually cover anything. It's a huge victory for the HMOs who probably handed Obama a big wad of cash to pass it.
The federal government is the best instrument to protect civil liberties across the entire country. There's no doubt about it. The solution is to elect Obama and a Democratically controlled Congress and pressure them politically to repeal the NDAA. Electing someone like Ron Paul would simply open the door to civil liberty abuse at the state and local level. His stance about the Civil Rights Act proves it. And you guys seem to forget that Obama doesn't have carte blanche with a split Congress. Could it be that some of the moves are related to that? That Congress wouldn't actually support many of those things?
The version of ACA that was passed is pretty much the only version that would have passed. Not passing anything in 2009 would have resulted in exactly the same situation as not passing reform back in the early 1990's. It would mean Congress would avoid any type of reform effort for decades to come because it would be considered a dead issue. And it's not correct to say that it doesn't control costs. http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp1006571
The Democrats control the Senate. It passed in the Senate 86-13-1. That's totally going to work. That strategy has about as much chance at success as gay-to-straight conversion therapy for Marcus Bachmann.
The Democratic vote in the House was split 93-93, which means it's the GOP that voted for the NDAA in majority in both branches of Congress, and Ron Paul is a GOP candidate. How is Ron Paul more likely to change that dynamic than Obama?
Here's a classic from Ron Paul, the guy that's supposedly going to protect civil liberty better than anyone else: the Civil Rights Act destroyed privacy. Got that? To Ron Paul, ending segregation in the South was the equivalent of the Patriot Act. Yep, Ron Paul, the supposed knight in shining armor for civil liberty, thinks that the Feds should have just left the South alone back in the 1960's. And that not allowing blacks to attend the same schools as whites etc. is apparently a matter of "private property", not something that falls under the 14th amendment of the Constitution. Whew, glad Ron Paul was around to provide such a refreshing interpretation of civil liberty compared to Obama!
Wow, Obama really has you bewitched. Are you ignoring that the government had also institutionalized slavery and discrimination? http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/01/ron-paul-civil-rights-act_n_1178688.html Is our current system and laws not massively biased against minorities? Luckily, we have a president who has led the charge in "change you can believe in," calling an end to the racist war on drugs, granted amnesty for non-violent drug offenders, and jailed the predominantly wealthy, white corporate criminal bankers found to aggressively target minorities and the poor. Oh, wait, Obama didn't do any of that. In fact, he mocks advocates of ending the war on drugs, has Tim Geithner on watch of the Treasury, and has Eric Holder doing nothing to bankers while targeting US citizens as terrorists. Evidently spying on US citizens and assassinating them with drones wasn't enough, so he decided he would also sneak through legislation to allow him to detain anyone he chooses without trial or proof for the rest of their lives, a law right out of a George Orwell novel that you would expect to see in North Korea. But that violates the Constitution! They can't do that! "Yes we can!"
Ron Paul is using his personal Catch 22 in your quote: "So those are the kind of discrimination that have to be dealt with, but you don't ever want to undermine the principle of private property and private choices in order to solve some of these problems." Ron Paul uses that same phrase in regards to comparing the Patriot Act to the Civil Rights Act. He thinks ending segregation through the Civil Rights Act violated private choice and private property, which tells you what he really wants regarding civil liberty: individuals and local communities get to decide what does or doesn't violate civil liberty and rights, not the federal government. It should be obvious that approach won't end any of the discrimination issues that Ron Paul is talking about. It simply transfers power to discriminate to individuals and local/state authority. To Ron Paul, having a "Whites Only" restaurant shouldn't represent discrimination or civil liberty abuse, but rather a private choice by a private property owner.
This is a good essay that sums up some of the problems with equating Ron Paul's positions to liberal/progressive positions. His underlying motivation for those positions is not the same as progressives or liberals, which means the end result is not going to be a progressive or liberal result.