Ron Paul isn't on the radar? seriously you have to see this...

[Hugo Chavez]

This is not the most perfect indicator, it has flaws but it also is far from completely meaningless...  With so many people and a wide cross section of the people having myspace pages, I like to do searches to see who is talking about who the most.  VERY INTERESTING RESULTS!

2,970 mention Tommy Thompson
3,360 mention Fred Thompson
4,260 mention Rudolph Giuliani
5,140 mention Duncan Hunter
7,830 mention Joe Biden
19,300 mention John McCain
16,300 mention Mitt Romney
18,900 mention Dennis-Kucinich
26,600 mention John Edwards
43,000 mention Hillary Clinton
54,800 mention Barack Obama
103,000 mention Ron Paul

[Hugo Chavez]

It's also interesting that the democratic candidates in the myspace searches are not far off from the polling numbers.  BUT the republican candidates aren't remotely close to their polling numbers.... Interesting....

[Hugo Chavez]

Polling shows Ron Paul only has 1%

uh huh... all these pages must be saying really negative things about him... ah, nope I just went through the first 40 pages to see how many were negative... ZERO, not ONE...

All he musters is 1%   

yea....

[Hugo Chavez]

Online Poll Receives a Staggering 16,371 Individually Validated Ballots

WASHINGTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--FreedomWorks officially closed its Republican Presidential Straw Poll early this morning after 16,371 limited government conservatives cast their votes over 3 days of polling. Texas Representative Ron Paul won by a wide margin with 56 percent of the vote. Senator Fred Thompson snatched the second place position, with Duncan Hunter taking third. The FreedomWorks Straw Poll provides the most complete view of the limited government movement heading into the Iowa Straw Poll on August 11th. For complete results, visit http://www.freedomworks.org/strawpoll

[Hugo Chavez]

Ron Paul Demolishes Other Republicans In Online Polls
http://duggmirror.com/2008_us_elections/Ron_Paul_Demolishes_Other_Republicans_In_Online_Polls/

[Hugo Chavez]

now fellas, this has got to be the most active 1% campaign I've ever seen.  If we are to believe the numbers are even close, every last person who likes Ron Paul has to be engaged tipple overtime...

Did someone say democracy

[Hugo Chavez]

ahahaha.... It's called denial bitches...

[Nordic Superman]

now fellas, this has got to be the most active 1% campaign I've ever seen.  If we are to believe the numbers are even close, every last person who likes Ron Paul has to be engaged tipple overtime...

Did someone say democracy

Now "fellas"? Who are you talking to lad? No-one else has commented, have ye a split personality? I heard teh crack does that to a chap.

On the topic of the thread, Ron Paul is revolutionary in the field of republicans I suppose, and I like the guy. He has 2 fronts to fight on tho, against the democrats and his fellow closed neo-con republicans.

MySpace is hardly the place to find a logical group think responce.

[Hugo Chavez]

MySpace is hardly the place to find a logical group think responce.

Neither is the line to the polling booth   Yes I know the myspace search not any kind of tell all, as I addressed in my post, but thanks for agreeing with me...

[candidate2025]

i am starting to hate this ron paul douchebag.

[Eyeball Chambers]

i am starting to hate this ron paul douchebag.

Why?

[Dos Equis]

MySpace is hardly the place to find a logical group think responce.

He has a point there Berserker.  If this is just a summary of the number of myspace pages that mention Ron Paul, I would put that in the "meaningless" category as far his political candidacy goes.  Thompson was mentioned 3,360 times and Paul 103,000 times, but Thompson is miles ahead of Paul in the polls, despite not even being an official candidate. 

[Hugo Chavez]

He has a point there Berserker. 

Oh you mean the point I made in the first post, the one you two obviously didn't read   It's not meaningless, that goes to far, it is what it is and it has flaws as I pointed out, but it also has some worthy info. One way to look at it is it contains at least as many flaws as the very unscientific straw poll just conducted, that doesn't seem to stop people from pointing to its relevance and importance with frantic excitement it seems

I've also turned up similar numbers for Ron Paul in other areas of the net.  Without a doubt he has more people posting on blogs, forums and websites than any of the other candidates.  That bubba, has some value...  I never attempted to make it more than what it is, which is to say quite obviously any poll numbers putting him at 1 and less than 1 percent are full of complete shit.  Like I said, if he's only got 1% interest, it has to be the busiest 1% ever.

[Dos Equis]

Oh you mean the point I made in the first post, the one you two obviously didn't read   It's not meaningless, that goes to far, it is what it is and it has flaws as I pointed out, but it also has some worthy info. One way to look at it is it contains at least as many flaws as the very unscientific straw poll just conducted, that doesn't seem to stop people from pointing to its relevance and importance with frantic excitement it seems

I've also turned up similar numbers for Ron Paul in other areas of the net.  Without a doubt he has more people posting on blogs, forums and websites than any of the other candidates.  That bubba, has some value...  I never attempted to make it more than what it is, which is to say quite obviously any poll numbers putting him at 1 and less than 1 percent are full of complete shit.  Like I said, if he's only got 1% interest, it has to be the busiest 1% ever.

I really don't see any comparison between a poll, particularly a straw poll, where people indicate a preference for a particular candidate for president, and some amorphous reference to a guy on a myspace page with absolutely no frame of reference.  How do you know 50,000 of those references aren't calling the guy a nut?  How many of those pages belong to minors (i.e., people who aren't old enough to vote)?  How many of those people aren't United States citizens?  I could probably think of several other reasons why myspace hits aren't relevant to this guy's political candidacy, but those are just off the top of my head.     

I think I understand one of the points you're trying to make:  Ron Paul has some great positions on a number of issues and should be a major player in the Republican party.  I pretty agree many of his positions should be embraced by Republican and Democrat candidates (e.g., never voting for a tax increase--I really like that one.  

Let's see how the primary votes turn out, assuming he stays in the race that long.  It's possible the poll numbers could be way off, but I doubt that's the case where he is concerned. 

[Hugo Chavez]

Only a complete fool would see no relevant information in collecting various statistics from various major internet gathering places like myspace... I promise you, your glorious Karl Rove would never make that error and I would bet anything similar statistics from these .coms have crossed his desk more than once.  absolute fact.

If people find some value in the Iowa straw poll, which is completely unscientific and very open to manipulation, I have no problem looking for items of interest in sites like myspace, and I by far never claimed these numbers were some kind of absolute tell.  right off the bat I said otherwise so end that crap.

If you read what I said, I did a check of how many people were calling him a nut.  The search results should be fairly random, that is no order distinction between those who favor him and those who do not.  I could not find one page unfavorable to Ron Paul in the first 40 pages, I could extend that out until I find a few negative comments on Ron and ratio that with the whole to receive an approximate number that wouldn't be far off.  But if I came up with no negatives in the first 40 pages, that's a lot of pages on myspace mentioning Ron without calling him a nut.  There is infomation in doing these searches that has some relevent importance, it's totally foolish to say there is nothing there of interest and it is of interest to have so many talking about a candidate that isn't mustering even 1% in the national polls...

[Hugo Chavez]

Oh and you can control the searches pretty well.  Minors were filtered from the search, I have my preferences set to block them out.

[Dos Equis]

I didn't say myspace hits are completely irrelevant.  I said "If this is just a summary of the number of myspace pages that mention Ron Paul, I would put that in the 'meaningless' category as far his political candidacy goes."  In that context, it's relevant to nothing, particularly when you look at the number of hits involving the candidates who actually have a legitimate shot to win the nomination. 

On second thought, you might be on to something.  I did a Google search for the following names and came up with the following hits:

Ron Paul:  9,400,000
Hillary Clinton:  5,110,000
Scooby Doo:  3,770,000
Barack Obama:  3,260,000
Ronald Reagan:  2,550,000
Homer Simpson:  2,530,000
Rudy Giuliani:  2,160,000

The man who may be the next president of the United States (Rudy) has fewer hits than a dead guy and two cartoon characters, while a guy who will likely not garner more than 2 percent of the vote in the Republican primary (the one or two primaries that he might participate in) is being discussed all over the internet.  What that tells me is people might be talking about the guy, but that really has nothing to do with whether or not he is a viable candidate for the Republican nomination.  The fact is he's not.  At least not at this point.   

[~flower~]

He gets my vote!!:

Congressman Ron Paul (R-Texas) is the leading advocate for freedom in our nation’s capital. As a member of the U.S. House of Representatives, Dr. Paul tirelessly works for limited constitutional government, low taxes, free markets, and a return to sound monetary policies. He is known among his congressional colleagues and his constituents for his consistent voting record. Dr. Paul never votes for legislation unless the proposed measure is expressly authorized by the Constitution.

Health Freedom

Americans are justifiably concerned over the government’s escalating intervention into their freedom to choose what they eat and how they take care of their health.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA), in order to comply with standards dictated by supra-national organizations such as the UN‘s World Food Code (CODEX), NAFTA, and CAFTA, has been assuming greater control over nutrients, vitamins and natural health care providers to restrict your right to choose the manner in which you manage your health and nutritional needs.

I have been the national leader in preserving Health Freedom.

I have introduced the Health Freedom Protection Act, HR 2117, to ensure Americans can receive truthful health information about supplements and natural remedies.

I support the Access to Medical Treatment Act, H.R. 746, which expands the ability of Americans to use alternative medicine and new treatments.

I oppose legislation that increases the FDA‘s legal powers. FDA has consistently failed to protect the public from dangerous drugs, genetically modified foods, dangerous pesticides and other chemicals in the food supply. Meanwhile they waste public funds attacking safe, healthy foods and dietary supplements

I also opposed the Homeland Security Bill, H.R. 5005, which, in section 304, authorizes the forced vaccination of American citizens against small pox. The government should never have the power to require immunizations or vaccinations.

[Hedgehog]

He gets my vote!!:
The government should never have the power to require immunizations or vaccinations.

Smallpox was eliminated from USA due to legislation requiring vaccinations. At one time, smallpox killed 2 million people around the world. A year.

Why would you oppose such a thing?

[Nordic Superman]

Obviously she does.

Look under her handle: "Man = Parasite of Earth"

She probably thinks diseases and virus' have a right to kill us. Fooking lunatic hippy.

[~flower~]

Smallpox was eliminated from USA due to legislation requiring vaccinations. At one time, smallpox killed 2 million people around the world. A year.

Why would you oppose such a thing?

  You can get vaccinated if you chose too.  Nothing that has the potential to harm should be mandatory.

 Diseases were already on the decline when vaccinations were introduced, vaccinations take a lot more credit than they should.  Sanitation/hygiene and overall health (food, clean water) were/are the MAJOR contributor to disease decline.

 You should not force vaccination because of an assumed threat. 

 If someone choses to get vaccinated fine, if they chose not to, then that should be fine also. 

 The government is not going to tell me that I have to have something injected into me that will possibly cause me health problems down the line. 

 

[Decker]

  You can get vaccinated if you chose too.  Nothing that has the potential to harm should be mandatory.

 Diseases were already on the decline when vaccinations were introduced, vaccinations take a lot more credit than they should.  Sanitation/hygiene and overall health (food, clean water) were/are the MAJOR contributor to disease decline.

 You should not force vaccination because of an assumed threat. 

 If someone choses to get vaccinated fine, if they chose not to, then that should be fine also. 

 The government is not going to tell me that I have to have something injected into me that will possibly cause me health problems down the line. 

 

When it comes to the health and safety of the population at large, government has a very strong power/interest to effectuate certain things.  Compulsory innoculations is one of those things.

You're taking your libertarian streak too far. 

[~flower~]

When it comes to the health and safety of the population at large, government has a very strong power/interest to effectuate certain things.  Compulsory innoculations is one of those things.

You're taking your libertarian streak too far. 

Nope, don't agree.  You can not inject people with potentionally harmful substances.   The government does not own my body, they can't make a health decision for me or anyone.  They can not decide what is the greater risk to someone.  If I will be the one affected by possible consequences from either being vaccinated or not being vaccinated then it is MY choice to make.   People who feel the disease is the greater risk can get vaccinated, those that don't can chose not to get vaccinated. 

  Why violate anyone's rights?

[Decker]

Nope, don't agree.  You can not inject people with potentionally harmful substances.   The government does not own my body, they can't make a health decision for me or anyone.  They can not decide what is the greater risk to someone.  If I will be the one affected by possible consequences from either being vaccinated or not being vaccinated then it is MY choice to make.   People who feel the disease is the greater risk can get vaccinated, those that don't can chose not to get vaccinated. 

  Why violate anyone's rights?

The government can make a health decision for you and everyone inside the jurisdiction of the United States.  That is well settled law.  The Congress, States and Judiciary use 'cost/benefit' analysis in determining risk/viability all the time.

You may think that your individual liberty in this country is pure license to do as you please.  It is not and never has been.

Do you see why the State might have an over-riding interest in compulsory innoculation if someone like you, refusing innoculation, even poses the threat of becoming the next 'typhoid Mary'?

In this instance the welfare of the population at large outweighs any claim you have to freedom from governmental intrusion into your life.

[~flower~]

No, it doesn't.  Look at the government trying to force Gardisil on 6th graders! 

 You cannot force something into someones body.  It is not for the government to decide what I have to accept as the greater risk. 

 Since I will either have to live with damage from the vaccination or the risk in contracting the disease it is MY decision which I feel is the greater risk.

Add to it the fact that they give the vaccine manufacturers immunity against any lawsuits from people harmed by the vaccines, they really do not have any right to force vaccinations onto people. 

You can go along and just blindly allow them to vaccinate you, microchip you or whatever else they decide is "the best interest".