This is a bit frustrating the stance Rand took on this. I can understand him simply not liking the Mosque being built there since most find it a bit distasteful. It's fine to not personally approve, but that's different from limiting or completely restricting private property rights through government coercion. However, he seems to be flirting terribly close to endorsing a forceful government move to ban the Mosque...Or at least sympathizing with such views. I honestly think that he holds a view similar to his father, but for election purposes is dancing around the issue. I don't want someone who stands for private property rights and the right to freely associate to be timid. If standing up for these things costs you the election then so be it, but don't kneel down at the alter of the DC political machine.
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20014453-503544.html
Ah, the good old fungled political move that the Pauls have an incredible knack of having. If Rand had stuck to what he originally said about racism(Namely, that private property owners>Government) then he would basically have no issue here, and might even attract "Bipartisan" support from lefties.
He said he isn't in favour of it being built there, not that he is in favour of it being prohibited.
Rand is probably less polished than Ron, which is saying something. He seems more of a waffler as well. Ron Paul doesn't have to worry about that because he believes what he preaches!
Wow... what a great opportunity this was for Republicans to take a stand on private property instead of pandering to xenophobia. Predictably, they've screwed up royally. Oh well.
For what little it is worth either way, he is not a libertarian, if that is what you are thinking, he even says so himself in this recent interview in USA Today:
Rand Paul, libertarian? Not quite.
"It's often repeated in stories about me or my race for U.S. Senate that I am a "libertarian." In my mind, the word "libertarian" has become an emotionally charged, and often misunderstood, word in our current political climate. But, I would argue very strongly that the vast coalition of Americans — including independents, moderates, Republicans, conservatives and "Tea Party" activists — share many libertarian points of view, as do I. I choose to use a different phrase to describe my beliefs — I consider myself a constitutional conservative, which I take to mean a conservative who actually believes in smaller government and more individual freedom. ......."
Rest of interview here: http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/forum/2010-08-10-column10_ST2_N.htm?loc=interstitialskip
Regards, onebornfree
For more information about onebornfree, please see profile.[ i.e. click on forum name "onebornfree"].
he is trying to ride the tea party thing into the white house. Which is mostly the Christian fundamentalists and warfare/police statists.
I wouldn't be surprised if Rand also didn't oppose welfare for old people. Since he doesn't want to offend that big Republican base.
I wouldn't say EVERY Republican screwed up...
http://www.lewrockwell.com/paul/paul690.html
Rand Paul is a politician, even more than his daddy. Devils don't sing like Angels, and when they do watch out - they're up to something.
“Socialism is a fraud, a comedy, a phantom, a blackmail.” - Benito Mussolini"Toute nation a le gouvernemente qu'il mérite." - Joseph de Maistre
My favourite joke about Randall Paul is
"It's like Sarah Palin made it through medical school." - Bill Maher
Prateek Sanjay:My favourite joke about Randall Paul is "It's like Sarah Palin made it through medical school." - Bill Maher
I hate to attack comedians, especially one as irrelevant as Maher, but Bill Maher isn't the sharpest tool in the shed either. The fact that he's making a joke about Paul's degree in medicine is pretty funny considering Maher's history of spewing falsities, some of which were related to the field of medicine.
Rand Paul is clearly a fascist. He supports expansionist militarism, the demonization of an unpopular ethnic/religious group, and yes, private property with state regulation. The last time I checked, those were the three main ingredients in fascism.
How can a voluntaryist hero spawn a facist? The worlds messed up.
Freedom has always been the only route to progress.
First, it is the "D.C. political machine" that encourages foolish, offensive projects like this. The mosque is funded by radical Islamic groups and encouraged by radical left-wing groups as a way to spit in the face of Americans. It has nothing to do with "healing" and "tolerance" as supporters claim. Muslims have a right to build a mosque wherever they please, but this sight was specifically chosen to make a political statement.
If you would be among those to allow it as a matter of private property rights, however, I can understand this view-- though "property rights" is hardly a concept supported by the state of New York. That is why I am a supporter of Greg Gutfeld's proposed new Muslim gay bar, which he plans to build right next to the Ground Zero Mosque. Check out the details. This will be hilariously ironic.
http://www.dailygut.com/?i=4696
Dear God, the man has a disagreement with you on one issue, and everyone attacks him and calls him a Fascist. No wonder libertarian values never get decent representation in government. Since I know of only one post here that is an obvious Socialist plant, shame on the rest of you!
Rand Paul is a conservative and he never said he was anything else that I'm aware of. Why is anyone acting surprised and 'outraged' over some of his stances?
FleetCenturion: Dear God, the man has a disagreement with you on one issue, and everyone attacks him and calls him a Fascist. No wonder libertarian values never get decent representation in government. Since I know of only one post here that is an obvious Socialist plant, shame on the rest of you!
Why should the other folks here take positions for the sake of decent representations in government? Why is government representation relevant here?
Schools of thought have little to do with the functioning of government. The government represents strictly the government class. If you ever looked up some editorials by Patrick Buchanan, who lives in Washington, you'd see that Beltway is its own world with its own concerns. Washington is full of think tanks, including powerful libertarian think tanks like Cato, but even groups like the latter are often just by-government-workers-for-government-workers institutions where staffers for senators and representatives, lobbyists, and policy wonks keep coming in and out in between jobs. Washington has had people of all schools of thought (even a few Trotskyist philosophers), but they often see it as purely abstract dining room conversation material and secondary to keeping government status quo.
It's the same story in Brussels, Cairo, Buenos Aires, or elsewhere. All over the world.
Meanwhile, in this forum and the rest of the internet, we can just say whatever we want about Randall Paul or whomsoever, and it doesn't make a difference. It's purely leisure and socializing.
"he is trying to ride the tea party thing into the white house. Which is mostly the Christian fundamentalists and warfare/police statists."
That he is. Worst strategy ever.
You ask why should people who love individual freedom and free markets seek to be represented? You can't be serious. Maybe because some of us haven't resigned ourselves to slavery just yet. Instead of bitching about how the Tea Partiers are full of Christian fundamentalists, maybe some of us should join and try to become leaders of this mini-rebellion. We need to be bringing to light the evils of things like central banks, debt-based money, and fractional reserve banking. The media will never bring up these issues, and political parties will never acknowledge them. We will never be invited to the party-- so we'll just have to crash it!
Tyranny can be slowed through peaceful means, or you can just slaughter the statists and start all over again, and then roll the dice as to what you'll get. Personally, I prefer the later, but I'll settle for a little drum beating and civil disobedience if there's a chance my children won't end up in abject servitude. And if the likes of Rand Paul or even Sarah Palin want to seek office by demonstrating that they can hand us back some lost liberties, I will judge them on their results and hold them accountable.
"Impotentes defendere libertatem non possunt" -- Those without power cannot defend freedom.
No wonder libertarian values never get decent representation in government.
You mean aside from it being inherently contradictory? Political libertarianism is a recipe for failure and iniquity ;)
Instead of bitching about how the Tea Partiers are full of Christian fundamentalists, maybe some of us should join and try to become leaders of this mini-rebellion.
Congratulations, you're now the leader of a bunch of atavistic morons with no political power who can't differentiate between Mises and Dick Armee. I think I'd rather go it alone than with those clowns. Populism never achieved anything worthwhile except by accident.
Some of you are ridiculous.
You ask why should people who love individual freedom and free markets seek to be represented? You can't be serious. Maybe because some of us haven't resigned ourselves to slavery just yet.
I find it extremely interesting how you manage to contradict yourself in just two sentences. Don't get me wrong, I know either way voting isn't some "blow against the man", but that's precisely it. Ron Paul has said so himself-What he really tries to do is educate more people. His votes don't really count a bit.
If you actually talk to such people, you will find that you have a lot more in common than you think you do. If not, then maybe you're just a different breed of elitist. Whether they were butchering Persians at Thermopylae, Hessians at Trenton, or Russians in Afghanistan, rednecks all over the world can be a powerful force in winning and keeping their freedom because they recognize it instinctively.
The people may be ignorant, but they can recognize the truth easily enough, and will yield to a worthy person who can explain it to them. He who builds on the people may build on mud, but for the individualist, what other foundation is there?
Meanwhile, have fun being morally superior as the guys in the blue helmets load your family into trucks.
Libertarians will never ever be represented in a democracy to the point where they start having a significant impact of policies because on the very fact we have a representative democracy. David Friedman has explained this before. You can convert 10 million people into Austrians and you will still never have any real change.
If you actually talk to such people, you will find that you have a lot more in common than you think you do.
No, they don't. The jawbone some brain-dead second-hand classical liberalism mixed in with a bunch of Conservative, NeoConservative and Southern Progressive (i.e., old Democrat) nonsense into a confused heap which they are pretty much unable to disentangle. Just like the Free Silverites who opposed a central bank these people are right largely by accident and rarely able to discover the tensions within their views (for example, police shouldn't be so constrained and we should impose protectionist tariffs; but Federal Bureaucracy is out of control and they're interfering with property). Not to mention the silly racialism, the religious nuttery and the sheer unemployed-douchery of many of its members.
Obviously there are going to be some people associated with the movement who aren't mental midgets and a hash of populist sentiments but these people are just wasting their time.
FleetCenturion:The mosque is funded by radical Islamic groups and encouraged by radical left-wing groups as a way to spit in the face of Americans.
So you have an issue with "radical"? Are they more radical then some libertarians here?
Let's see now, I would say that having your goals met when the State is abolished would pretty much classify as a "spit in the face of Americans" from the point of view of almost all those that are those protests. So I would say that if those Americans were more "enlightened" , they would protest the next Libertarian summit near ground zero as well.
Actually the Mosque is being funded by the Rockefellers...
Everything in New York is owned by the Rockefellers.
Wow, I've never known a libertarian who relied so heavily on the New York Times for information. Even they never accused Tea Partiers of wanting protectionist tariffs. That's a new one. And even the demonstrators look at me funny when I pick up my rattlesnakes and dance around with them.
Demonstrators of any movement, even those who disagree with me-- it's happened once or twice-- are not some lower form of life unworthy of a second glance. They are human beings, and more importantly, they are Americans. I only hold contempt for those who assume enlightenment and importance, when they're really just a 40-year-old virgins blogging from their parents' basements.
There are rednecks of every race, creed, and color out there, and God bless every one of them!
FleetCenturion:They are human beings, and more importantly, they are Americans.
And you plan to win your freedom back by fostering collectivism? Interesting strategy.
Patriotism is not collectivism, and you're not sticking it to the Man by rejecting the Founders and their sacrifices.
I think that somewhere, we were all talking about a mosque...
I love when ancaps bash conservatives. I hate being associated with them because some people think we are right wingers (or cause we're capitalists). I don't about allying with them, but any free market or libertarian influence rubbing off on anyone is good.
I don't read the New York Times, I don't even have a television. But I have read plenty of the bullshit on blogs and stupid books by the Tard Partiers to see that they don't know what they're about and, like any populist movement, are easily co-opted to serve whatever stupid demagogue will repeat meaningless but reassuring phrases.
you're not sticking it to the Man by rejecting the Founders and their sacrifices.
Your founders were a bunch of elites who wanted to run this country without George's interference, the Tea Party was just a bunch of hoodlums disguising themselves and destroying private property, the American Revolution was largely mob violence, the American Continental Army nearly lost the war, as soon as the war was over these 'founders' dedicated their lives to make a centralized People's State through which they could mould the public into their inspired image; and taxes and imposts quickly outpaced anything old George had considered.
The revolution in your head is pure fantasy, give it up already. F*** America, the Constitution and every rabble-rousing SOB that signed the worthless piece of paper.
Liberte, (or Vichy Army), I'm just curious but where is the place of elites in running a country? I always thought that you were more authoritarian but the above characterization of the founders ("a bunch" of elites) seems to degrade an elites importance -it's just a friendly question, I'm not trying to "catch you" or something.
I deny the premise of a 'country'.
Ah, but elites are important in some sense?
Elites exist. Just who is an elite will depend upon historical accident and institutional norms.
Well, countries exist too.
Rand Paul is clearly a fascist. He supports expansionist militarism, the demonization of an unpopular ethnic/religious group, and yes, private property with state regulation. The last time I checked, those were the three main ingredients in fascism
Fascism was a specific corporatist ideology emphasizing a blend of quasi-mythical nationalism and center-socialist futurism, typically a mix of Producerism and Corporatism. Calling everything vaguely statist or racialist (or anything you don't like) 'fascist' is pure Communist tactics; don't be an idiot: just because you're a statist doesn't mean you're a fascist. What are you, Glenn Beck?
Nazis weren't fascists, the American Progressives weren't fascist and Franco wasn't a fascist. Certainly Randroid Paul wasn't. Scott Horton does this all the time, it's ridiculous.