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*** January 2012 low content thread ***

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John James replied on Thu, Jan 19 2012 12:39 PM

I wonder how much a Rick Perry endorsement can do to combat this.  I just wish this were Santorum.

 

"You want me all to yourself" (aka You need to share me)

 

 

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John James replied on Thu, Jan 19 2012 12:52 PM

A conversation between an Austrian businessman and a Keynesian? academic

 

This is more data to play into what I was talking about here.  If you notice, he starts off talking basically about central planning, and a need for the government to play a role in a "broken" and "failed" market of capitalism.  But when it gets down to specifics, he actually ends up agreeing with a lot of what Peter talks about all the time.  All Schiff had to do was ask him a few questions and the guy actually starts admitting that Social Security is a Ponzi scheme and the like on his own.

This points to the notion that he is actually smart enough to understand at least some of the free market arguments.  But his insistence that there is free market blame to go around, and that the government needs to play a role in coordinating the economy is still quite obvious and prevalent.  Initially one might chalk this up to what Hayek was talking about at the link above, at least in a way...that there is a predisposition to prefer something that is visibly directed to a good purpose.  I actually am led to believe that that is where a lot of leftist mentality stems from.  But that is usually born out of economic ignorance.  Of course simply having academic credentials doesn't automatically mean one isn't economically ignorant, but one would hope it would at least mean one is somewhat intelligent and can understand basic concepts.

For this guy it seems there is a bit of a need to blame "the free market" not out of any real evidence, but more just because "of course it can't be all government's fault".  That, plus a little leftist indoctrination of a negative opinion of free markets that one could easily obtain from a childhood around "modern liberal" parents, or spending enough time in academia.

But even more so than that, if you notice, this guy spends a decent amount of time reminding everyone that he's not affiliated with any party.  In fact that's literally how he begins the interview.  He even has a hard time admitting the party he's looking to be nominated for is actually a "Party".  He makes a pretty decent effort to keep reiterating that he's "not far right, not far left...right in the middle".  Kind of like a sort of Goldie Locks "juuust right" thing that people do to try to avoid being attacked from partisans.  "I'm a moderate" is supposed to mean "I'm not extreme" which means "I'm rational and not blindly agreeing with some political party or ideology" which is finally supposed to translate to "I'm right because I'm taking the best ideas from 'both' sides."

I think a need to come off as Goldie Locks is the main motivator for this guy.  It's like he has an internal, emotional predisposition to be on the typical pro-government leftist side of things, but he's smart enough to realize he can't deny the points Peter makes, so he has to use his smarts to sit around and come up with reasons why the "free market" doesn't work and why government intervention is needed...Like the notion is there before, and he needs to come up with the "evidence" to support it...as opposed to evidence leading to a conclusion.

 

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Eric080 replied on Thu, Jan 19 2012 2:11 PM

Jargon, I don't think so.  A very significant portion will go to Santorum.  It's basically a three-way race now between Santorum, Romney, and Paul.  But the sad fact is that Romney will have a huge lead on the both of them.

"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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That's why Rockwell seems to think Perry was paid off in some way.

 

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Jargon replied on Thu, Jan 19 2012 5:05 PM

@JJ

Being center of the road is the 'sensible' choice. The ends of the spectrum are too 'extreme'. This immature philosophy must be the result of the visualization of politics as a slider bar, where the center results in the most mild outcomes. It's sheer nonsense. There are good ideas and bad ideas. It's another face of the modern fashion of holding ideas equal, post-rationalism, etc.

 

EDIT: Listening to this guy gives me the impression that Keynesian don't understand at all why anything happens. They just think that things happen and then we need to do things to make those things unhappen. The worst part of it all, is that much of it is based off of factually untrue history (Hoover was laissez-faire, WWII ended depression, etc.)

Land & Liberty

The Anarch is to the Anarchist what the Monarch is to the Monarchist. -Ernst Jünger

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Wheylous replied on Thu, Jan 19 2012 6:40 PM

I'm planning a survey of my teachers and classmates about things like the Meat Packing industry, Hoover, what got the US out of the GD, Regan taxes, etc. Should be interesting.

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Jargon replied on Thu, Jan 19 2012 6:44 PM

Make sure to get their e-mails cool. Although I'm not sure they would care to have their popularly held notions upturned...

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Wheylous replied on Thu, Jan 19 2012 8:48 PM

Paul just slammed Santorum hard. He correctly points out that violent acts are punished at the state level and not the federal level and acting otherwise is against the rule of law in the Constitution.

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Jargon replied on Fri, Jan 20 2012 1:03 AM

Tee hee! Tom Woods is a sledgehammer.

 

Land & Liberty

The Anarch is to the Anarchist what the Monarch is to the Monarchist. -Ernst Jünger

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Another one to send to any religious folks:

 

 

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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-16643430

Not a mention of ron paul in the article but in the comments at the bottom people are quick to notice and point it out. I expect nothing more from a state media organisation like the BBC.

edit: looks like BBC did a ninja edit and added his name twice to the article but the update time did not change.

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CNN has it in for him too.  It came to a head late in the debate when that asshole tried to skip over Paul for probably a third or fourth time, making it the second medical field-related question he ignored him on, and the audience booed so loud he went back and let Paul answer the question everyone else had gotten at least 2 times each to comment on.

But you don't have to look far to understand what their reason is for giving him the shaft...

Background check on CNN

 

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Gero replied on Fri, Jan 20 2012 12:20 PM

Below is an excerpt of last night’s debate and my analysis:

South Carolina GOP CNN debate, Jan. 19, 2012. Transcript

MR. KING: You've met the candidates. It's time now to begin the debate, an even that has quite a dramatically different feel than just a few hours ago. Just this morning, as Senator Santorum just noted, we learned he, not Governor Romney, won the Iowa caucuses. (Cheers, applause.) There were five podiums on this stage when the sun came up; four now because of Governor Rick Perry's decision to drop out. Just as Speaker Gingrich surged into contention here in South Carolina, a direct, fresh character attack on the speaker. And Mr. Speaker, I want to start with that this evening. As you know, your ex-wife gave an interview to ABC News and another interview with The Washington Post, and this story has now gone viral on the Internet. In it, she says that you came to her in 1999, at a time when you were having an affair. She says you asked her, sir, to enter into an open marriage. Would you like to take some time to respond to that?

MR. GINGRICH: No -- but I will. (Cheers, applause.) I think -- I think the destructive, vicious, negative nature of much of the news media makes it harder to govern this country, harder to attract decent people to run for public office. And I am appalled that you would begin a presidential debate on a topic like that. (Cheers, applause.)

Gingrich did not address the allegation. Martial infidelity matters to voters, so the news media reports it, but that is “destructive, vicious, [and] negative” to Gingrich.

MR. KING: Is that all you want to say, sir?

MR. GINGRICH: Let me finish.

MR. KING: Please. (Boos, cheers, applause.)

MR. GINGRICH: Every person in here knows personal pain. Every person in here has had someone close to them go through painful things. To take an ex-wife and make it two days before the primary a significant question in a presidential campaign is as close to despicable as anything I can imagine. (Cheers, applause.) My -- my two daughters, my two daughters wrote the head of ABC, and made the point that it was wrong, that they should pull it. And I am frankly astounded that CNN would take trash like that and use it to open a presidential debate. (Cheers, applause.)

Insult, insult, insult, seems to be Gingrich’s modus operandi in this case.

MR. KING: As you noted, Mr. Speaker, this story did not come from our network. As you also know, it is a subject of conversation on the campaign. I'm not -- I get your point; I take get your --

MR. GINGRICH: John, John, it was repeated by your network. (Boos.) You chose to start the debate with it. Don't try to blame somebody else. You and your staff chose to start this debate with that. (Cheers, applause.)

An ex-wife makes a claim while the ex-husband denies it. Who is right? I don’t know. However, the applauding audience seems to trust Gingrich, but who knows Gingrich better the audience of strangers or an ex-wife who was with him for 18 years?

MR. KING: Now, OK --

MR. GINGRICH: Now, let me be quite clear. Let me be quite clear. The story is false. Every personal friend I have who knew us in that period says the story was false. We offered several of them to ABC to prove it was false. They weren't interested, because they would like to attack any Republican. They're attacking the governor, they're attacking me. I'm sure they'll probably get around to Senator Santorum and Congressman Paul. I am tired of the elite media protecting Barack Obama by attacking Republicans. (Cheers, applause.)

What surprises me is how a scandal has turned into a boon for Gingrich. He criticized the moderator John King, CNN, and, the news media as if wanting an open marriage does not affect evangelical voters and does not cause people to reevaluate his criticism of Bill Clinton’s affair. Anyone can criticize the media, but proving those criticisms is harder. Blaming the vast news media without evidence is easy. Sadly, the audience approved Newt’s insult-laden response.

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FAIR USE NOTICE: This video may contain copyrighted material. Such material is made available for educational purposes only. This constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in Title 17 U.S.C. section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3wwf7UFYQnM#t=139s

Newt Gingrich SLAMS CNN For Question About His Ex-Wife! SC Republican Presidential Debate pt.1

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http://www.economist.com/node/21542931

"They all look upon progressing material improvement as upon a self-acting process." - Ludwig von Mises
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Gero replied on Fri, Jan 20 2012 9:40 PM

Every Public Statement of Every Fed Chairman

Misleading Claims in Obama’s First 2012 Spot

FactCheck said: Ron Paul, a physician, claimed medicine “worked rather well” in the early 1960s. That was before Medicare, when in fact rising health care costs were forcing many of the elderly onto public assistance or charity care.

­Does anyone know what was happening with U.S. healthcare in the early 1960s and before?

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tunk replied on Fri, Jan 20 2012 11:10 PM

Here's what Tom Woods says about it in Rollback:

Rollback, p. 26:
The year prior to the establishment of Medicaid, poor families had higher hospital admission rates than did those in wealthier brackets. And while higher income individuals had an average of 5.1 doctor visits a year, low-income individuals had 4.3 -- hardly a dramatic difference. What Medicaid did result in was a dramatic decline in the reduced-cost or pro bono services that doctors had once provided the poor as a matter of routine. According to historian Allan Matusow, "Most of the government's medical payments on behalf of the poor compensated doctors and hospitals for services once rendered free of charge or at reduced prices [...] Medicare-Medicaid, then, primarily transferred income from middle-class taxpayers to middle-class healthcare professionals." [...]

And how were doctors doing in those days?

"They were among the wealthiest people in town," Hornberger says. "The money they made from the middle class and the wealthy and the poor who could pay subsidized the patients who couldn't pay." Those who received free care were grateful to receive it, and typically brought the doctor in-kind gifts.

I haven't read it yet, but David Beito's book on mutual aid is probably the best place to go on this.

Notice, though, that PolitiFact doesn't actually refute anything Ron Paul says. What they do is cite a passage from a government report that claims that (a) the "cost" of hospital care was rising in 1959, (b) that the elderly have a greater demand for healthcare provision, (c) that they have lower incomes than most, either fixed or declining, and (d) that they were turning to charity in greater numbers as a result.

(a) shouldn't be controversial, given the AMA was in the business of meddling with the supply of doctors and hospitals even then. Neither is (b), for obvious reasons. Neither is (c), since while old people make less money than the rest of us (obviously, since they're nearer the retirement age), they also have much less in expenses than the rest of us. And of course, neither is (d). How is the fact that people turned to charity in times of necessity a point against the reliability of charity?

The report's conclusion was justifiably ambivalent, given the apparent pointlessness of what it had to say, yet PolitiFact revealingly enough failed to cite it:

"The basic question is: Should the Federal Government at this time undertake a new program to help pay the costs of hospital or medical care for the aged, or should it wait and see how effectively private health insurance can be expanded to provide the needed protection for older persons?"

Significantly, the HEW report did not attempt a definitive answer to the question it posed. After listing major arguments, pro and con, and summarizing all the known technical data bearing on the subject, the report in effect left it to the Ways and Means Committee and to the political process to decide what action, if any, should be taken.

Websites like PolitiFact overreach their usefulness when they leave the realm of strict fact checking and start to pronounce on complex and hotly debated topics as if they are entitled to the final word.

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anyone who says Ron Paul isn't baller is kidding themself...

 

 

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Nielsio replied on Sat, Jan 21 2012 10:02 AM

Can someone explain that Guess Ron Paul's name joke?

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Nielsio:

Can someone explain that Guess Ron Paul's name joke?

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

Where there is no property there is no justice; a proposition as certain as any demonstration in Euclid

Fools! not to see that what they madly desire would be a calamity to them as no hands but their own could bring

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Nielsio replied on Sat, Jan 21 2012 10:46 AM

Okay..

And the "hang in the gold" part?

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I hear it as ' spin hay into gold'

Where there is no property there is no justice; a proposition as certain as any demonstration in Euclid

Fools! not to see that what they madly desire would be a calamity to them as no hands but their own could bring

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Heather replied on Sat, Jan 21 2012 12:50 PM

Nielsio:
Can someone explain that Guess Ron Paul's name joke?

 

Ever hear of Rumpelstiltskin? He was referencing an old fairy tail by the Brothers Grimm. Why they laughed so hard? Couldn't tell ya, it wasn't that funny.

 

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Go figure Bill O'Reilly and Mike Huckabee would be the ones to call out the obvious...

 

 

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U.S. Senator from South Carolina, Jim DeMint on Ron Paul's foreign policy...

 

 

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Ron Paul vs. the Elite

 

 

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Can someone tell me what conventionally liberal policies Obama has instituted as president? Obamacare is the only one I can think of. He hasn't been as "liberal" as most expected when he initially won the presidency, right?

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Scrooge McDuck:
Can someone tell me what conventionally liberal policies Obama has instituted as president? Obamacare is the only one I can think of. He hasn't been as "liberal" as most expected when he initially won the presidency, right?

Yeah, Obama has been pretty pragmatic in office. He didn't do much of that crazy socialist stuff we feared (and his supporters hoped for).

In the end his job is getting elected, and the left largely votes for him without getting much in return. So he hasn't given them much.

That being said, the political spectrum has drifted so far towards statism ("liberalism") these days, that just by not repealing the status quo he has in effect been far left. But I guess any mainstream Republican would have done the same.

"They all look upon progressing material improvement as upon a self-acting process." - Ludwig von Mises
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Wheylous replied on Sun, Jan 22 2012 9:59 AM

Dodd Frank, too.

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skylien replied on Sun, Jan 22 2012 1:28 PM

 

Cpl Jesse Thorsen speaks out for Ron Paul despite US Army censorship!

"Quis custodiet ipsos custodes, qui custodes custodient? Was that right for 'Who watches the watcher who watches the watchmen?' ? Probably not. Still...your move, my lord." Mr Vimes in THUD!
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Wheylous replied on Sun, Jan 22 2012 2:04 PM

I'm not sure it's quite "censorship" unless you wanna go to the very literal definition.

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Wheylous replied on Sun, Jan 22 2012 2:08 PM

XD

 

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skylien replied on Sun, Jan 22 2012 2:50 PM

@ Wheylous

The US Army does not want him to publicly speak about his political believes either in uniform or without. And if his statement is true that they even threatened his safety then this really becomes a very serious censorship..

I wonder why he wants to go once more to Afganisthan. I for sure would not go another time after such an issue. I'd quit. How can you trust your military superiors? How can you be sure they are still concerned about your wellbeeing at least as much as before? 

Nice picture! :)

"Quis custodiet ipsos custodes, qui custodes custodient? Was that right for 'Who watches the watcher who watches the watchmen?' ? Probably not. Still...your move, my lord." Mr Vimes in THUD!
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