Ron Paul, I like you - I really do. I like it when you denounce our military adventurism and imperial urges. I share your distaste for prosecuting harmless, consensual acts and I don't think either of us like having a government dictate morality according to some chosen religious standards.
I couldn't agree more that we need to keep the governmental nose out of our personal choices that don't infringe on other people's rights. I think we have an inherent right to be left alone too, but when you assert that that same government can force a woman to continue a pregnancy I find it inconsistent. When you proclaim that President Obama is overstepping his presidential powers by taking action to end a dangerous drug shortage, I'm confused. I'm disappointed. Market forces alone aren't going to induce drug companies to make unprofitable products that some people need to stay alive and if they eventually do, it won't be soon enough for someone's mother or sister or child. There are times when the the noli me tangere market approach does not serve the public interest and times when human life is more important than the sanctity of inflexible doctrine.
Yes, I agree that our government was designed to move slowly, for inaction to be the default action as you said yesterday. I even agree that there is an invisible hand in the market, but I cannot understand how you can ignore the sometimes dire consequences of such slow moving or inert systems in a world that moves at a rate inconceivable in 1789.
Sure, eventually drug shortages will tend to rectify because of market forces. 'Tend to' and 'eventually' are expensive words however and the price is often paid in death and suffering. A car tends to steer itself in a straight line, but you know, sometimes someone has to grab the wheel if staying alive is a consideration.
I have to ask you how much needless death and suffering are you willing to force us all to endure to gild the vision of a withered and minimal state where things move only by themselves and the making of money is the only test of righteousness?
Dictatorship? Seriously? Isn't that a bit like calling the guy who pulls your kid out of a well a kidnapper because he didn't apply to Congress in advance through proper channels?
I believe in Democracy as much as you do and perhaps more. I mistrust radical change and I lean toward Libertarianism in many things, but unlike you, I do not belief in faith over fact. If there is a plague, if a dam breaks -- if that asteroid that passed close to us this morning had landed in Texas, I want someone to grab the steering wheel without having his hands tied by doctrines soaked in the tea of Utopian visions.
I have to ask "why now?" Were you as firm in protest of our previous president's extra-legal activities? The signing statements, the treaty breaking, the torture, the illegal search and seizure and surveillance? The wars that have killed hundreds of thousands, destroyed millions of lives and wasted trillions of dollars? Of course you didn't approve and neither did I, but there is a difference between an asteroid and a sand grain. Are we really confusing necessary course corrections with wanton disrespect for law, due process and freedom?
Why now? Or are you just jumping on the Obama Bashing Band Wagon because you're more of a loyal Republican and less interested in doing what needs to be done before too many people die than you'd like to admit?
Capt. Fogg,
ReplyDeleteSeems to me that many libertarians' promotion of certain healthy kinds of liberty stem from incredibly naïve faith in the myth of the free market. That's the problem – the good stuff they say is more or less a byproduct of total commitment to a myth; it is not grounded in a fully humane and worldly philosophy, but rather in a boyish or girlish infatuation with pure ideas.
I suspect that nothing could ever shake their absolute belief in the ideals they hold. You certainly will not do it with rational argumentation, and indeed, even sad experience of a sort I will not wish on anyone is no guarantee. Such is the power of pure ideology.
I think that those who wish to eradicate all centralized authority have little knowledge of the history of this country. We've already had less government, generations where labor and industry weren't regulated, working conditions were unsafe, workers' rights nonexistent, and child labor acceptable.
ReplyDeleteI believe in personal liberty but that liberty has boundaries imposed by responsibility. In addition my pursuit of personal liberty cannot be allowed to run rampant over the rights of everyone else. Governments provide structure and regulations so that groups of people can live in some level of cooperation and harmony.
I agree with Dino. Ron Paul apparently believes in some fantasy notion that absent government regulation of pretty much anything, we will all just get along.
Capt. Fogg I think that you sum up well the serious problems with Paul's philosophy. There are good aspects to the notion of government not infringing on personal liberties; however, I think that you sum it up well with your metaphor, "A car tends to steer itself in a straight line, but you know, sometimes someone has to grab the wheel if staying alive is a consideration."
Ron Paul is scum. He is a demogogue who is unwilling to quit the GOP because he can get a ride from them and share in the moneypot. He pisses and moans about "Fiat currency" and says he puts his money where his beliefs are by investing in gold. In reality he invests in gold mining and gold trading. Gold mining is heavily subsidized by the U.S. government and gold mining companies, like most "resource extraction" companies have a really bad habit of polluting the environment and walking away, externalizing their true costs by letting the government (us) pick up the costs of remediation thus privatizing profit and socializing loss, per usual. There's your "Invisible hand" slapping you stupid. Gold trading companies, especially those that are advertised heavily on all forms of media, are at best gamblers, at worst they're frauds and swindlers.
ReplyDeletePaul's people have been running an ad about him standing up to President Obama's attempt to screw the VA. The truth is that it is Paul's GOP pals who want to pull the rug out from under me and a lot of other vets who aren't sufficiently veterany for their tastes.
Paul likes to make much of his principled stand against federal intervention in disaster relief efforts. He did this after Katrina destroyed much of the gulf coast (but not his district) and when Irene wreaked havoc on the easter seaboard (but not his district) and yet again when wildfires in Texas burned down homes and businesses, causing tremendous loss (but not in his district). Curiously, the one time he was all for the feds helpin' out was when Rita beat up HIS district about two weeks after Katrina hit hte gulf coast. Oh, yeah, he was lookin' for uncle sugar's help then. He co-signed a letter with Rich the Hairbarian Perry requesting that Bushkins declare all 254 Texas counties as Federal disaster areas (http://paul.house.gov/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=595&Itemid=28). He's a slimy hypocrite.
And Paul's libertarianism dies in the womb. He's all for forcing women to carry unwanted babies or to have unsafe pregnancies because he's a doctor and he's delivered thousands of babies and shut up that's why.
Ron Paul's a lot of things, but an honest, decent human being is not one of those things.
democommie
As with most everything, personal liberty and personal rights come attached to personal responsibility and respect for the rights and liberties of others.
ReplyDeleteOr at least they should. I believe Paul understands this as well as anyone. And Ron Paul dumped on Bush as well. After all hasn't he always been a burr under the Republicans saddle?
I have been reading posts and accompanying comments on the Swash Zone for about a month. It renews my hope to know that these discussions are taking place. I always suspected that there must be intelligent discussion going on inside the USA that we, outside, don't hear. -an Australian in Cambodia
ReplyDelete"After all hasn't he always been a burr under the Republicans saddle?
ReplyDelete9:51 PM, November 08, 2011"
Only when he doesn't need them.
He's scum, racist scum, at that.
I've been trying to avoid using words like "scum" not because I'm afraid to insult anyone. I'm given to hyperbolic polemics, after all but perhaps it's that while Paul may be too extreme to call extremist, he's more plain spoken about it than are the whores, mercenaries and hypocrites that infest the starboard side of the American garbage scow -- and so he seems the easiest to confront soto voce. Besides I do encourage some of his ideas -- at least in principle -- and again, like Barry Goldwater, I think I could find things to like about him if we stayed away from politics and kept it about Radio or Photography. Have mercy on me. I'm a misanthrope who likes people and it gets me into trouble all the time.
ReplyDeleteYes, I've seen some of his early writings that have that certain racist stench to them. I'm just giving him the benefit of the doubt on that one. I've seen racists change.
I wonder if he's really been that burr though. I wonder whether they just use him to say what they wish they could get away with saying. I haven't noticed more than faint damnation, but then I don't spend a lot of time listening to Republicans.
Sheria,
"I think that those who wish to eradicate all centralized authority have little knowledge of the history of this country."
Well, exactly -- or the history of anywhere for that matter and it's funny because they seem very interested in history since knowledge thereof makes it easier to write historical fiction. While I may like the style, the art, the music and even the cars of certain eras, history is a horror story waiting for an end.
And Cambodian Aussie -- can you be sure we're in the USA and not in some octopus' garden beneath the waves?
If there were such a thing as a ‘true’ libertarian, you would have either a full-fledged liberal and/or three-fourths of a socialist, and perhaps the purest exemplar that comes to mind is Noam Chomsky, a self-professed libertarian-socialist. Of course, our libertarian friends would blanch at the idea. Like everything else these days, libertarians come in various flavors from left to right - and do a poor job differentiating themselves.
ReplyDeleteOne of the definitions of libertarianism, I read, is an adherence to a belief in equality of opportunity (not to be confused with equality of outcome). Yet, when Paul the Younger makes headlines about civil rights laws going to far, i.e. that small businesses should have a right to discriminate at the lunch counter, these are not the words of true libertarian but of a panderer appealing to the bigoted Tea Party faction of his party. How can you have equality of opportunity in the face of systemic discrimination and prejudice! You can’t, and there is no way to rationalize it.
Similarly, when I hear Paul the Younger or Paul the Elder make statements about how all regulations are bad, again, the inconsistencies and contradictions slap you in the face. How can you have equality of opportunity in a capitalist system without anti-trust laws? You can’t. How can you ensure clean air and water for the most people without imposing restrictions on polluters? You can’t. And how can you keep the nation’s food and drug supply safe without an FDA? You can’t.
How can you affirm, “Government is best which governs least,” when politicians poke into your bedroom and under your sheets and legislate sexual behavior with laws that would criminalize, and thus subjugate, half the human population? You can’t.
We should remember that the Paul family are politicians first and libertarians last, who will pander for votes just like any other hack. There is no such thing as a ‘pure’ libertarian, and pious words about liberty, principles, and responsibility are frankly devoid of meaning against any tableau of hypocrisy, injustice and inequality.
Libertarianism is not about what you claim to believe, or how you rationalize the contradictions and justify yourself; sometimes it is about the company you keep. If your candidate is pandering to bigots and corporatists, then you are not a libertarian by any definition.
The main view I've gleamed from discussions with libertarians is the idea that "eventually" the market will correct itself. It may take years or decades but things will work out. So even though Enron or Goldman Sachs screws millions out of their life savings and pensions by offering up a rigged system of toxic assets or cooked books, eventually those companies if allowed to wax and wane will be winnowed out of existence due to their evil actions.
ReplyDeleteAnd so it's too bad that granny lost her savings or your pension board invested in a shoddy company they should have done more research and it's far superior that the free market be allowed to work than to try any government regulation which might be subjected to improper human actions.
If your candidate is pandering to bigots and corporatists, then you are not a libertarian by any definition.
ReplyDeleteWell said, Octo. I do so love having you in the family!
Thank you, dear Sister. Finally - after a lifetime as the proverbial L’Enfant unique (and as a squiggly cephalopod rejected by human society) - I finally feel loved.
ReplyDeleteOcto:
ReplyDeleteIt'a always good to have someone who can type witty, erudite screeds, make a nice mire poix, change the baby AND wash the car--all at once!
Capt. Fogg:
Rather than going full Godwin on the Pauls, puke and filth, let me say this; Benito Mussolino had some good ideas, too.
democommie
So did Marx and even Mao, but that's the thing. These damn humans can be totally rational about one thing and totally impractical and even nutso about another. Reason is only the crowbar with which to pry open the door and allow the tasty madness in.
ReplyDeleteDr. Paul has even expressed support for the OWS people and contempt for what he calls "Crony Capitalism" although I'd like to hear how he's going to regulate such things by avoiding regulation. You know that invisible hand may sometimes be invisible because it doesn't exist, but what do I know?
It's the rules that keep everything, including capitalism, "pure." Without rules and referees, football and war would be the same thing and that invisible hand would be wrapped around a Kalashnikov.
Thoreau's old saw "that government is best which governs least" is of course a fallacy, since the state of no government is not government at all. A bit like dividing by zero I think, although it's still early in the morning and I haven't had my second cup of IQ booster yet.
Obviously there has to be a saddle point between too much and too little and that needs to be constantly adjusted and that's where democracy and balance of power come in although HDT seems to have felt otherwise. He spoke against those "who are more interested in commerce and agriculture than they are in humanity," which seems to be the OWS theme but he's hardly a liberal in today's terms. I blame him for the "government is by nature evil" viral meme that's so easily misinterpreted, and for saying that Democracy is no help in controlling that evil, but what do you expect from a misfit living in a shack and counting beans?
Anyway for a mob that talks about running the government like a business, they sure do sound like mystics.
Exhibit A for anybody who thinks "small gummint" is a good idea would be Somalia.
ReplyDeleteAs some other wag said a while back, libertarians are republicans who like smoking pot and watching pornos.
democommie
Octopus this one is so good I am going to include it in my discussion about Lib' vs Libertarians. Thank you for finding it or me and posting the link over at S.W's place.
ReplyDeleteTake care and enjoy the silly season ok? ;)