The real thing:
http://washingtonexaminer.com/transcript-ron-pauls-farewell-...
Some great stuff in there, I just wish it was about half its length. Would tighten up the points a lot.
http://washingtonexaminer.com/transcript-ron-pauls-farewell-...
Some great stuff in there, I just wish it was about half its length. Would tighten up the points a lot.
"What a wonderful world it would be if everyone accepted the simple moral premise of rejecting all acts of aggression. The retort to such a suggestion is always: it’s too simplistic, too idealistic, impractical, naïve, utopian, dangerous, and unrealistic to strive for such an ideal.
The answer to that is that for thousands of years the acceptance of government force, to rule over the people, at the sacrifice of liberty, was considered moral and the only available option for achieving peace and prosperity.
What could be more utopian than that myth—considering the results especially looking at the state sponsored killing, by nearly every government during the 20th Century, estimated to be in the hundreds of millions. It’s time to reconsider this grant of authority to the state.
No good has ever come from granting monopoly power to the state to use aggression against the people to arbitrarily mold human behavior. Such power, when left unchecked, becomes the seed of an ugly tyranny. This method of governance has been adequately tested, and the results are in: reality dictates we try liberty.
The idealism of non-aggression and rejecting all offensive use of force should be tried. The idealism of government sanctioned violence has been abused throughout history and is the primary source of poverty and war. The theory of a society being based on individual freedom has been around for a long time. It’s time to take a bold step and actually permit it by advancing this cause, rather than taking a step backwards as some would like us to do."
No, my objection is that Ron Paul wants to pretend property titles are not acts of aggression backed by the state. I'm no anarchist, but I am a believer in the Enlightenment and the social contract. When a regime of property has grown unbearable to the people, it is the right of the people together to abolish it and free themselves of its burden.
Whereas Ron Paul would say that anyone wishing for even the slightest alteration of existing property arrangements is exercising the "offensive use of force." No, we are simply withdrawing force once exercised because we no longer approve its usage.
You are not entitled to a police force that defends your plantations, factories, mines and, yes, server farms and retail outlets from the angry, starving masses. You receive that defense because you're part of a society that works together and must work for everyone.
"Anarcho"-capitalism is in no way anarchist: without hierarchies.
The idea of the 'social contract' isn't terrible - for any sort of stability, there must be a rough consensus on what constitutes society's Schelling points. The problem comes about when the concept is taken as an immutable condition and used to nebulously justify the specifics of the current system, lulling people into believing in change from within. Any contract needs to have well specified methods of exit.
Would you happen to have an opinion on which of your books I should read first?
Granting monopoly power to state governments to use aggression against the people would have resulted in the continued application of that aggression against slaves.
Ron Paul is the only US politician I've ever wanted to cross the street for. I'm hoping his youth movement produces more leaders who value freedom and liberty as much as he does.
Which policies, specifically? Not wanting to fund wars and nation-building in other countries? Not picking sides in foreign revolutions, operating drone wars in other countries, assassinating American citizens and maintaining a secret "kill list" without any congressional approval? Wanting to close down Guantanamo Bay? Vetoing legislation that is unconstitutional and which violates our civil rights like the PATRIOT Act and NDAA? Not wanting to maintain the security theater that is TSA?
Hell, if that's batshit crazy, then sign me up. In fact, open up one of my veins and mainline it right into my bloodstream. Because if that's crazy, America needs more of it instead of the status quo "sanity" that results in $16 trillion in unfunded liabilities, TARP, banker bailouts, Dodd-Frank, corporate welfare, the failed drug war, and continued violation of the civil liberties of ordinary citizens.
But I somehow doubt that policy would stay the same if there was more than one (or now zero) of him. And I happen to like public roads, safety regulations, and currency that doesn't deflate.
Getting rid of the Fed.
Repealing the Civil Rights Act.
Global warming denialism.
Getting rid of clean air and water standards.
Seizing the Panama Canal.
There's no shortage of batshit insane ideas when you go down Ron Paul's rabbit hole.
You like the drug war? NDAA? Patriot Act? Massive debt and unfunded liabilities? Corporate welfare and bank bailouts? Constant war and policing of the globe? Secret kill lists? FBI raids of dairy farmers? Rendition and torture? Please explain to me how voting for Obama or Romney (and thus their support of those policies) is not crazy in comparison to Paul's policies. After you do that, I'll continue this conversation, but not before.
Yes, it's bananas crazy. Fiat money won everywhere because it outcompeted the gold standard just like mixed economies won everywhere because they outcompeted libertarianism. The story is the same for every single frontier town in the us, brazil and every other country -- more government or ghost town.
"And a lot of those aren't policies, you know. "
Those are all policy positions. Playing semantic games isn't going to change that.
""You still haven't told me what policies I wrote about above are objectionable to you""
Because the question was which Ron Paul policies are crazy. I answered that, don't move the goalposts.
"After you do that, I'll continue this conversation, but not before."
You seem to have mistaken my replies as leverage that you can take this subthread hostage for your tangent. I don't care if you continue. The fact that I don't like the Patriot Act and many other things the government does doesn't mean I'm ready to throw out the many good things it does which outweigh this by many orders of magnitude. I'm certainly not ready to chuck the mixed economy so we can go back to feudalism.
On top of being a clueless pie in the sky Randian, Ron Paul is a social issue troglodyte whose own newsletters and repeated ties to white supremacist groups should disqualify him from consideration for anything ever by any rational American.
But it really doesn't matter much now, because this thread has dropped off the front page, so your ignorance and your advocacy of Federalism (and the federalistas who enforce it) can't poison the well.
Perhaps you should get back to me after you've read the books and are ready to engage in a real debate on the issues, but at this point you're wasting my time.
If the "John Galt speech" is your baseline, that was brief for a libertarian/objectivist.