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*** January 2012 low content thread ***

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At least he's trying.  And at least some of that money is aimed in a good direction.

 

 

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TheFinest replied on Wed, Jan 11 2012 9:16 PM

 

I laughed hard

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I actually just saw that myself and immediately went searching for death penalty data.  The ACLU (which I guess Prager will dismiss as a crazy left-wing conspiracy organization or something) has an entire section on it...

http://www.aclu.org/capital-punishment/race-and-death-penalty-0

And here's a specific article (although it's quite dated)

Race and the Death Penalty

 

And here's another writeup from another organization

The Death Penalty in Black and White: Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Decides

 

And here's the straight facts [stats] [pdf]

 

 

You can find more links in the comments of this article that agrees with Prager:

This Is Ron Paul on Drugs

Top comment...from none other than David Friedman:

"...it's striking reading the comment thread to see the contrast between lots of posters providing links to evidence supporting Ron Paul's claim and lots of other posters insisting that Ron Paul supporters aren't interested in evidence..."

 

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Wheylous replied on Wed, Jan 11 2012 10:02 PM

Just thought this was interesting. Of course, an uninformed person might jump to the conclusion "CAPITALISM!!"

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2084971/Hong-Kongs-cage-homes-Tens-thousands-living-6ft-2ft-rabbit-hutches.html

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Gero replied on Wed, Jan 11 2012 10:19 PM

John James pointed out this video critique to me, but I am unsure how many people here know if it:

Story of Stuff, The Critique Part 1 of 4

Story of Stuff, The Critique Part 2 of 4

Story of Stuff, The Critique Part 3 of 4

Story of Stuff, The Critique Part 4 of 4

The Story of Stuff shows how liberals and many Americans understand the economy. The above critique is outstanding. My only nitpick is in Story of Stuff, The Critique Part 3 of 4. In his response to women buying two different shoe types again and again, Lee Doren’s response was unsatisfactory. He should have said, “Yes, social pressure can influence people to make silly decisions. What do you want to do? Ban free speech? Force human beings to stop making a social hierarchy based on clothing? In modern society, if clothing was not the comparison, the comparison could be religion or skin color or physical fitness or music taste or etcetera.”

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Eric080 replied on Wed, Jan 11 2012 10:37 PM

The so-called Paulbots absolutely wrecked National Reviews' idiocy in the comments section.  I love it! :)

 

I was driving home from one of my classes today and heard Mark Levin pleading the case for Gingrich and Perry to drop out of the race so that the conservatives can get behind Santorum in order to "defeat Romney and Paul."  I never thought I would hear Levin be worried about Ron Paul outperforming a "conservative" in a Republican primary.  This has been a crazy election cycle.

 

Also, how about that Dennis Prager video?  89 dislikes to 0 likes as of this moment.  Talk about a complete failure of a video, granted it was catering to Paul fans, but still.

"And it may be said with strict accuracy, that the taste a man may show for absolute government bears an exact ratio to the contempt he may profess for his countrymen." - de Tocqueville
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For anyone interested, here's a collection of his best (including a link to a playlist of all his critiques).

 

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Gero replied on Thu, Jan 12 2012 12:09 PM

List of upcoming Republican caucuses, debates, and primaries

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There's actually a better list in the thread I created for the debates...

The Debates

 

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"They're very nice, very polite, but they are everywhere."

 

 

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A surprisingly nice report on Ron Paul by CNN.

A lot closer to what news reporting should be...

 

 

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Money and Credit and Sustainable Growth (Roger Garrison at Cato Institute)

 

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quick chuckle

Jon Stewart exposes media bias against Paul again...

 

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John James replied on Thu, Jan 12 2012 10:00 PM

This would be funny if it weren't so sad.  This is what people think of when they think of "excited young supporters"...ignorant morons who have no real idea why they're there, and couldn't tell you the first thing about the guy whose name is on the sign they're holding.  Kind of like the last election.

The great part is, you really don't get this with Paul supporters.  It's what the establishment would like everyone to think about the Paul camp, but Paul supporters by and large seem to tend to be the most knowledgable of any voters.  They can speak intelligently on a host of issues, and more importantly can tell you where their candidate stands on those issues and why they agree with him.  No one else can claim that kind of support.  Not Obama.  Not Romney.

 

 

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John James replied on Thu, Jan 12 2012 11:53 PM

They already admitted it months ago...

Federal Reserve Admits It Was a Complete Failure in Forecasting the Great Recession

Bernanke Admits He Is Clueless about His New "Tools" and How They Might Impact the Economy

 

Or you could just look at what Bernanke was saying at the time...

 

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Bert replied on Fri, Jan 13 2012 12:50 AM

Something I had found when Obama won last election that is still in my bookmarks.

I had always been impressed by the fact that there are a surprising number of individuals who never use their minds if they can avoid it, and an equal number who do use their minds, but in an amazingly stupid way. - Carl Jung, Man and His Symbols
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One thing you can say for this Ken doll is he's not a total idiot.  He already knows he needs Ron Paul's supporters if he's going to win an election...and he knows it would take a miracle to get almost any of them.  But that doesn't mean he's not gonna be extra nice...

 

 

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This was quite gratifying to watch.  I love the fact that she has to deal with this.  And I love that email reaches them instantly, and that it's incredibly easy to send one and it costs the sender nothing.

It reminds me of Andy Dufresne and his letters about funds to expand the Shawshank library.

Keep it up, folks.

 

 

The only thing that could have made it better is if someone actually responded to her constant "thank you"s with something like:

Voter: Oh you're welcome!  I'm so glad you appreciate it.  You know in that case I actually have some more advice...

Bash: Okay, that's great thank you.

Voter: Oh don't mention it!  I have plenty of more.  [touches Bashes arm and gets in close in a tell-you-a-secret kind of manner] You know, can I be honest with you?  Before meeting you I just thought you were gonna be this total bitch.  I mean all hifalutin, and "I'm so great" and "oink oink oink" Miss Piggy kind of thing.  But you're not like that at all!  I mean you come off like that on the news all the time, but you're such a sweetheart in person.  Is that like a news strategy for TV or something?  Does that help get ratings, like the Jersey Shore?  Are you like the Snooki of CNN?

 

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I haven't confimed all the factual statements made here, but this is a pretty interesting piece.  Uploaded 4 years ago...

bonus: catch the McCain gaff where he says something that makes absolutely no sense, and has to be corrected by the people who happen to be standing next to him at the microphone.  Obviously he hasn't gotten any sharper as time has gone on.

 

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Here is the video of the Fed economist promoting anarcho-capitalism on MSNBC:

http://video.app.msn.com/watch/video/a-look-at-america-post-meltdown/6a8svlw

And he is talking to us in a thread on the Ron Paul Forums about his book. He replied to my review. I asked him how a Fed economist ends up writing a book like that. Interesting stuff. 

Edit: Adding a link should have been obvious lol. I just woke up...

http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthread.php?348479-Welcome-to-Free-America-An-Immigrants-Guide-to-Anarcho-Capitalist-America-in-2057

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Could you edit the post again to add a link to the thread?

 

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Done

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Ron Paul in third in  South Carolina with 20%!

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Gero replied on Fri, Jan 13 2012 12:26 PM

Guess who may be unelectable? It’s not Ron Paul.

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Bert replied on Fri, Jan 13 2012 3:35 PM

News from VA: Only Romney and Paul will be on VA primary ballot.

I had always been impressed by the fact that there are a surprising number of individuals who never use their minds if they can avoid it, and an equal number who do use their minds, but in an amazingly stupid way. - Carl Jung, Man and His Symbols
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Wheylous replied on Fri, Jan 13 2012 3:50 PM

@Evilsceptic

Hm, last time I saw a poll by that group it again overstated RP's power. Have you looked into their polling practices? They are not included in RCP's averages. I found this when looking them up online: http://ajacksonian.blogspot.com/2007/12/problem-with-american-research-group.html

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John James:

He's quite an interesting host if he wasn't so wrong. But you immediately notice the fallacies. Zero-sum fallacy, objective price fallacy... Typical folklore economics. He says rich people are "wasting money", as if lack of money was the reason there's scarcity. If only Peter Thiel wasn't allowed to have so much money, then more goods for poor kids would be available!  And then he doesn't seem to consider effects of spontaneous order at all; how could blacks possibly find restaurants that serve them if the government didn't force everyone to accept them as customers? Hmmm... Someone would have to, like, be willing to exchange their money for services? I mean, seriously, does he think that blacks would somehow be excluded from the civil economy? Everyone would have to refuse to serve them, at a staggering cost to them and their business. Reminds me of the people who think that food would be poisonous without government regulation. Apparently we would all just happily buy that poisoned food every day and no businessman would get the idea to get rich by offering safe food. You have to wonder how humanity made it into the computer age with the broad public that unaware of how simple monetary allocation mechanisms work.

The funny thing is that I can see where he comes from. Libertarianism, at least in the form it is advocated by most supporters today, is rather unpolished and must seem arbitrary and inconsistent. That's, I think, a symptom of it's near extinction in the Progressive era and recent revival, the arguments are just being formulated and most supporters didn't have the time to memorize all the right responses yet. One shouldn't confuse lack of articulateness with ideological inconsistency. The entire reason there is statist mythology is that it is easy to articulate and understand. Accurate explanations are usually not as simplistic and plausible as the false ones.

"They all look upon progressing material improvement as upon a self-acting process." - Ludwig von Mises
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Wesker1982:

Here is the video of the Fed economist promoting anarcho-capitalism on MSNBC:

http://video.app.msn.com/watch/video/a-look-at-america-post-meltdown/6a8svlw

And he is talking to us in a thread on the Ron Paul Forums about his book. He replied to my review. I asked him how a Fed economist ends up writing a book like that. Interesting stuff. 

Edit: Adding a link should have been obvious lol. I just woke up...

http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthread.php?348479-Welcome-to-Free-America-An-Immigrants-Guide-to-Anarcho-Capitalist-America-in-2057

 

Wow, what a great interview and what an interesting story he has.  Thanks for posting.

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vermin_Supreme

"They all look upon progressing material improvement as upon a self-acting process." - Ludwig von Mises
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Clayton replied on Fri, Jan 13 2012 5:56 PM

He's quite an interesting host if he wasn't so wrong.

He's right that Seasteading is an unsound idea but he comes to this conclusion for all the wrong reasons (he barely gives any reasons at all, in fact). If he'd bothered to read even the introductory Seasteading FAQ, he would have found that all his trite objections are, in fact, thoughtfully rebutted. And I didn't find him interesting... I found his demeanor to be affected.

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Wheylous:

In this thread we post short things that don't require a seperate thread.

At the beginning of every month, I feel bad for the month of February 2011.

I hereby present the Ever-Overlooked February 2011 Low Content Thread!!...

http://mises.org/Community/forums/t/22523.aspx

cheeky

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Clayton replied on Fri, Jan 13 2012 6:14 PM

Vermin Supreme comes across to me as an agent provocateur. If this is what anarchy is, who could possibly want it? In my view, putting sparkles on someone in a context where they can reasonably expect not to be so molested (i.e. not walking down an open street in NOLA during Mardis Gras) must be some form of legal violation of the person's integrity.

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EmperorNero:
He says rich people are "wasting money", as if lack of money was the reason there's scarcity.

...as if spending money made it more scarce.  And as if he knew better about what someone "should" be doing with their own property than the own himself does.

 

And then he doesn't seem to consider effects of spontaneous order at all;

I'd be willing to bet money he'd think that was a term libertarians made up to describe some aspect of their ridiculous ideas.

 

You have to wonder how humanity made it into the computer age with the broad public that unaware of how simple monetary allocation mechanisms work.

I've heard it said a few different ways, but "when the government controls the education system, don't be surprised when everyone comes out thinking the government is the solution to everything."

Never underestimate the power of indoctrination.

 

The funny thing is that I can see where he comes from. Libertarianism, at least in the form it is advocated by most supporters today, is rather unpolished and must seem arbitrary and inconsistent.

Yeah that's because in reality things are a lot more subtle and sophisticated than people tend to have the time (or mental capacity) to consider.  I spoke a little on this here.

 

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Clayton replied on Fri, Jan 13 2012 7:04 PM

The problem isn't libertarianism, per se. The problem is vulgar reductions of libertarianism. How's this for arbitrary and inconsistent?:

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