Ron Paul?

No way he will get the nomination
Total votes: 67 (64%)
He has a chance of the nomination, but he could never beat the Democrats
Total votes: 4 (4%)
Paul in '08!
Total votes: 33 (32%)
Total votes: 104

Presidential Contender: Ron Paul

772
Rick Reuben wrote:modern liberals love bankers, dishonest money, and the extremely rich who control them


Rick Reuben wrote:Modern Liberals would rather take advice on the money supply from Ronald McDonald than from Thomas Jefferson.


It's like you've known me my whole life!
How did you know?

I think a lot of people would call this statment hyperbolic, but you know, we DO love bankers and dishonest money. Oh, and the extremely rich, how I enjoy the crumbs they pass on to us...

Viva McDonald!

-A
Itchy McGoo wrote:I would like to be a "shoop-shoop" girl in whatever band Alex Maiolo is in.

Presidential Contender: Ron Paul

773
From Znet:

Hello Mr. Chomsky.
I'm assuming you know who Ron Paul is.
And I'm also assuming you have a general idea about his positions.

Here my summary of Mr. Paul's positions:
- He values property rights, and contracts between people (defended by law enforcement and courts).




Under all circumstances? Suppose someone facing starvation accepts a contract with General Electric that requires him to work 12 hours a day locked into a factory with no health-safety regulations, no security, no benefits, etc. And the person accepts it because the alternative is that his children will starve. Fortunately, that form of savagery was overcome by democratic politics long ago. Should all of those victories for poor and working people be dismantled, as we enter into a period of private tyranny (with contracts defended by law enforcement)? Not my cup of tea.



- He wants to take away the unfair advantage corporations have (via the dismantling of big government)



"Dismantling of big government" sounds like a nice phrase. What does it mean? Does it mean that corporations go out of existence, because there will no longer be any guarantee of limited liability? Does it mean that all health, safety, workers rights, etc., go out the window because they were instituted by public pressures implemented through government, the only component of the governing system that is at least to some extent accountable to the public (corporations are unaccountable, apart from generally weak regulatory apparatus)? Does it mean that the economy should collapse, because basic R&D is typically publicly funded -- like what we're now using, computers and the internet? Should we eliminate roads, schools, public transportation, environmental regulation,....? Does it mean that we should be ruled by private tyrannies with no accountability to the general public, while all democratic forms are tossed out the window? Quite a few questions arise.



- He defends workers right to organize (so long as owners have the right to argue against it).



Rights that are enforced by state police power, as you've already mentioned.



There are huge differences between workers and owners. Owners can fire and intimidate workers, not conversely. just for starters. Putting them on a par is effectively supporting the rule of owners over workers, with the support of state power -- itself largely under owner control, given concentration of resources.



- He proposes staying out of the foreign affairs of other nations (unless his home is directly attacked, and must respond to defend it).

He is proposing a form of ultranationalism, in which we are concerned solely with our preserving our own wealth and extraordinary advantages, getting out of the UN, rejecting any international prosecution of US criminals (for aggressive war, for example), etc. Apart from being next to meaningless, the idea is morally unacceptable, in my view.


I really can't find differences between your positions and his.



There's a lot more. Take Social Security. If he means what he says literally, then widows, orphans, the disabled who didn't themselves pay into Social Security should not benefit (or of course those awful illegal aliens). His claims about SS being "broken" are just false. He also wants to dismantle it, by undermining the social bonds on which it is based -- the real meaning of offering younger workers other options, instead of having them pay for those who are retired, on the basis of a communal decision based on the principle that we should have concern for others in need. He wants people to be able to run around freely with assault rifles, on the basis of a distorted reading of the Second Amendment (and while we're at it, why not abolish the whole raft of constitutional provisions and amendments, since they were all enacted in ways he opposes?).



So I have these questions:

1) Can you please tell me the differences between your schools of "Libertarianism"?


There are a few similarities here and there, but his form of libertarianism would be a nightmare, in my opinion -- on the dubious assumption that it could even survive for more than a brief period without imploding.


2) Can you please tell me what role "private property" and "ownership" have in your school of "Libertarianism"?

That would have to be worked out by free communities, and of course it is impossible to respond to what I would prefer in abstraction from circumstances, which make a great deal of difference, obviously.


3) Would you support Ron Paul, if he was the Republican presidential candidate...and Hilary Clinton was his Democratic opponent?



No.

Presidential Contender: Ron Paul

777
Jordan wrote:Steve, what would you do to improve education in this country?

Quit privatizing our education infrastructure. Begin an initiative to construct and staff an enormous number of well-equipped public schools. Prop up local school budgets so that teachers could be paid commensurate with their importance in the lives of the children they teach (and thus make the job a respectable and desirable one). Commit to this as a method rather than a moment.

Rather than try to lob a quick solution out there, I would look toward changing the place of schools in our society, something that can only happen with investment on a scale otherwise assumed by other great pieces of infrastructure like the highway system, the mail and the military.

Make schools important. Make them invulnerable. Make them exemplary. Make a first-rate education available to everyone in the same way the mail and the roads are available to everyone. Make those the benchmarks of education policy.
steve albini
Electrical Audio
sa at electrical dot com
Quicumque quattuor feles possidet insanus est.

Presidential Contender: Ron Paul

778
Ron Paul has put his support behind an act to legalize and legitamize online gambling (The Internet Gambling Regulation and Enforcement Act, to be specific). Theres a video on youtube of him introducing this guy (Radley Balko) to testify on behalf of supporting internet gambling, specifically online poker.

Did you read that PRF? Yep, online poker.

I'm glad I could secure your vote.

:)

Presidential Contender: Ron Paul

780
wiki wrote:Hayek’s central thesis is that all forms of collectivism lead logically and inevitably to tyranny, and he used the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany as examples of countries which, in his view, had gone down “the road to serfdom” and reached tyranny. Hayek argued that within a centrally planned economic system the distribution and allocation of all resources and goods would devolve onto a small group which would be incapable of processing all the information pertinent to the appropriate distribution of the resources and goods at the central planners’ disposal. Disagreement about the practical implementation of any economic plan combined with the inadequacy of the central planners’ resource management would invariably necessitate coercion in order for anything to be achieved. Hayek further argued that the failure of central planning would be perceived by the public as an absence of sufficient power by the state to implement an otherwise good idea. Such a perception would lead the public to vote more power to the state, and would assist the rise to power of a “strong man” perceived to be capable of “getting the job done”. After these developments Hayek argued that a country would be ineluctably driven into outright totalitarianism. For Hayek “the road to serfdom” inadvertently set upon by central planning, with its dismantling of the free market system, ends in the destruction of all individual economic and personal freedom.

Hayek argued that countries such as the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany had already gone down the "road to serfdom", and that various democratic nations are being led down the same road. In The Road to Serfdom he wrote: "The principle that the end justifies the means is in individualist ethics regarded as the denial of all morals. In collectivist ethics it becomes necessarily the supreme rule."


Yeah, Hayek's thesis is soooooo laughable. :roll:
Marsupialized wrote:I want a piano made out of jello.
It's the only way I'll be able to achieve the sound I hear in my head.

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