rob308
On "hearts and minds":
As usual with this sort of suggestion, no specifics. There's a reason.
"Stop doing what we're doing in the Mideast" = surrender, stop pursuing our national interests, do everything they demand that we do, and have a nice chat.
Sorry. Since bin Laden himself has stated that what we must do to end his jihad against us is to convert to Islam en masse, I don't think that's a good plan. "Negotiation" isn't in their vocabulary, and neither is "compromise". While we worry about making sure our prisoners have special foods at Ramadan and (literally) handle their Korans with gloves on, they subject their prisoners to torture and mutilation and cut their heads off on camera. I don't think they're going to respond well to diplomatic tea parties.
AQ blew up a nightclub in Bali. Killed a couple hundred people. Bali is not in Iraq. Didn't you hear?
I took a look at this site, and I invite anyone who cares to to do the same:
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Patriot_Act_abuses
See what you can find. I found a guy griping because he refused to show his ID at an airport and got detained, some allegations of people being beaten while in custody (Abu Ghraib writ small: a few rogue guards get out of control and it's the whole Government's fault), and, of course, lots and lots of articles about how abuses are POSSIBLE.
If there were any really significant abuses of the Patriot Act, I think there might be a few more prominent headlines, and in venues other than extreme-left blogs.
Even if you somehow managed to prove that the present Administration is exactly the kind of imperialist, fascist nightmare that the left keeps bleating about--which assertion, since it requires some actual facts, isn't likely to be proved anytime soon--it would still be light-years from proving that Ron Paul has a single idea that is, on examination, either practical or doable.
Maybe we ought to get back to THAT, because the title of this thread isn't "I hate Bush and here's why."