According to Michael Gerson. True, this is a worthless piece of trash, but I found it amusing. Not only are the reasons that Paul supports for drug and prostitution legalization a strawman, but his representation of Paul's quote in the debate is dishonest and/or inaccurate.
someone needs to tell Michael that his newspaper is going out of business.
Michael Gerson, your newspaper is going out of business.
I find it funny that Gerson is so dismissive of Paul as some loon who has all these wacky and barbaric ideas floating in his head. He probably has read the most and understood the most "philosophy" relative to anybody else running (Gerson criticized Paul as not being informed by any serious political philosophy). I'm sure Gingrich has such a strong backing with the influence of Kant, Rawls, and his personal philosophy is one of existentialism. Oh wait, no, his philosophical idols are Ronald Reagan and Jerry Falwell. How swell. Such thinkers.
I was sure the article couldn't get any crazier than when he calls Washington, D.C., 'Paulsville'. But it did. How anyone could get 'Social Darwinism' from Paul's comments is beyond me. "Most of us don't need laws to tell us to avoid crack" says nothing about the plight of addicts; it is clearly about non-addicts.
What a joke.
You want to talk about a quote mining job! You are right, Michael, he was clearly referring to the "everybody besides me will start doing it" crowd and Gerson completely twisted it. It's fun though to see the establishment writhe and squirm about; that's why I posted this link because it was too good to pass up.
The other part of the problem is this idea that, somehow, making a law "official" acts as some sort of public message like, "WE DISAPPROVE OF DRUG USAGE IN THIS LAND." Which isn't the case, it's just dehumanizing to people who actually do decide to violate the law when they get kidnapped and thrown in cages. But don't expect people to look beyond the surface of things....
Sigh.. typical Ronulans... I will give you guys a crash course in respectable values:
Drug abuse
Bad values = offering support and advice to those suffering with drug addiction
Good values = shooting them
Prostitution
Bad values = setting up charities to help prostitutes who are being coerced by their employers
Poverty
Good values = giving money to the poor
Better values = shooting people who don't.
Honestly, I wouldn't worry too much about what this sniveling sycophant spews out onto the page. Without even reading the article, I'm sure his whole point is to simply try to shame or otherwise intimidate Ron Paul supporters, if not libertarians in general, into shutting up. In response, I recommend we all redouble our efforts.
The keyboard is mightier than the gun.
Non parit potestas ipsius auctoritatem.
Voluntaryism Forum
Before I ventured down the path of libertarianism I used to be one of these who put Ronald Reagan at the right hand of God. In fact even after coming full swing to libertarianism (about 3 years ago) for a while I used to give conservatives the benefit of the doubt. Even though I knew they were wrong I found myself only mildly frustrated at their unwillingness to even listen, certainly much less frustrated than what I tended to become after hearing equally ridiculous tripe from the left. This kind of stuff in this article is just incredible though! Incredible in the worst possible way and to think I would have defended somone like this only a few years ago!
Even some of the establishment is coming around. And here I thought this guy was just another delusional establishment shill after his post-debate assessment (he said he thought Pawlenty won). It appears he was just blinded by all the establishment noise going into the debate and doesn't have a problem changing his opinion once he actually learns the facts. Once you take a step back and look at the facts, you get a different perspective, no?
First he says he's a voluntarist, encourages reading anarchist literature, and now he actually has a chance.
This makes me optimistic about the future.
Freedom has always been the only route to progress.
Libertyandlife, I wonder how much of that is due to public apathy. Anybody digging into Paul's associations with Rothbard and Rockwell and the books that he cites in a work like Liberty Defined would reveal his anarchist sympathies, but I wonder if people just don't have the time to invest in research. If he actually caught wildfire in the primaries, I'm sure this would be one of the foremost things to come up. And I actually welcome that aspect; wouldn't it be hilarious to hear names like Lysander Spooner or Murray Rothbard on CNN or Fox News or something in a Reverend Wright scenario? Rothbard got an indirect mention on Fox Business a few weeks ago when the guy being interviewed objected to the Feds' shutdown of some poker sites and had his "Enemy of the State" t-shirt on. That is exciting to me because you never know how many anti-statists are created by name-dropping + individual research.
Eric080:wouldn't it be hilarious to hear names like Lysander Spooner or Murray Rothbard on CNN or Fox News or something in a Reverend Wright scenario? Rothbard got an indirect mention on Fox Business a few weeks ago when the guy being interviewed objected to the Feds' shutdown of some poker sites and had his "Enemy of the State" t-shirt on. That is exciting to me because you never know how many anti-statists are created by name-dropping + individual research.
Peter Schiff recommended AGD of Fox years back and mentioned Rothbard by name.
We put you in federal prison because we care about you.
Eric080:Rothbard got an indirect mention on Fox Business a few weeks ago when the guy being interviewed objected to the Feds' shutdown of some poker sites and had his "Enemy of the State" t-shirt on. That is exciting to me because you never know how many anti-statists are created by name-dropping + individual research.
Just noticed it on the blog...there's video:
(gotta watch it all the way through...it's not just the shirt...we get a few name drops too...one due to a mistaken identity)