General

Re: Ron Paul on a Roll

justinx0r — Tue, 10 May 2011 13:18:56 GMT

Lmao, wow you just don't get it. Hilarious. Check your premises bro... You continue to ignore the fundamental tenent of his liberalism (philosophical anarchism)... as to what he defines and constitutes as government.

So...you still haven't shown me where Mises opposes conscription.

"If you got rid of the welfare system and you had more border guards [shakes head]. I don't want us to worry about the borders between North and South Korea and between Iraq and Syria, I want us to worry about our own borders." - Ron Paul

Does he, or does he not shake his head after uttering that sentence? Interpret it whatever way you want... it is a compared to situation. He is operating within a statist context. He is making the point that it is absurd to make the claim about defense, when your own borders are left empty - because you've got a world empire. He's making the common sense claim of ending the empire, bring the troops home... be defensive, as opposed to offensive.How can you not understand that?

LOL. Are you serious? We're not talking about foreign intervention. Now I have to 'interpret' what he says about that and somehow morph it into his views on dometic policy?

"But never the less - immigration, no clear cut libertarian position. Block, Hoppe, Kinsella - diff sides."

So go on.. make the claim that free open borders [forced integration] is the only proper libertarian position - until then I'm enjoying the amusement you're providing. Cheers.

Except none of those three want to use state power in order to enforce immigration policy.

Conza, explain why the sekreet anarkist Ron Paul voted for a 700 mile border fence between the US and Mexico.

http://projects.washingtonpost.com/congress/109/house/2/votes/446/

Don't change the subject and dodge my question (again).

Re: Ron Paul on a Roll

Graham Wright — Sat, 07 May 2011 12:42:59 GMT

"If we reflect on how security works in the real world, we discover a huge and important role for private enterprise, and we find that the vast government apparatus of "national security" does not keep us safe so much as threaten our liberties by regarding the entire citizenry as a threat. Private security does not threaten our civil liberties, but government-provided security does."

Good find Wesker. As if more evidence was needed, these quotes from Liberty Defined confirm Ron's anarchist views. All statements from him that suggest otherwise are merely strategic educational rhetoric.

Re: Ron Paul on a Roll

vaduka — Thu, 05 May 2011 21:23:54 GMT

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Re: Ron Paul on a Roll

Libertyandlife — Mon, 02 May 2011 06:15:21 GMT

He describes anarchy and just doesn't say the word. Then gives you material to expand from there. Just like the judge.

Re: Ron Paul on a Roll

Wesker1982 — Mon, 02 May 2011 06:02:28 GMT

Some interesting quotes from Liberty Defined:

"...but a free people do entrust the management of social norms to the courts of taste and manners that arise spontaneously within civilization."

Page 254:

"In a free society, where depending on government is minimal or absent, any real crisis serves to motivate individuals, families, churches, and communities to come together and work to offset the crisis, whether it comes from natural causes such as floods, droughts, fire, illness, or predators or is man-made."

Page 254-255:

"We might reflect on how we achieve security in our everyday lives. We have locks on our doors, provided by private manufacturers. We use privately provided alarm systems. We depend on the idea that others are going to drive safely, and the incentive to do so comes from a private system of insurance. Some people own and carry guns for security. Their efforts help everyone by deterring criminality. Commercial establishments such as banks and jewelry stores hire private security guards. Malls and subdivisions have their own security apparatus."

"If we reflect on how security works in the real world, we discover a huge and important role for private enterprise, and we find that the vast government apparatus of "national security" does not keep us safe so much as threaten our liberties by regarding the entire citizenry as a threat. Private security does not threaten our civil liberties, but government-provided security does."

Ron Paul mentioning a society absent of government and praising private defense (including "national" defense), all in the same chapter. He doesn't share the minarchist view that government is necessary for security.

On page 70 he mentions Spooner's position on the constitution and doesn't necessarily says he disagrees with it but only that it isn't likely to make headway. This could imply that he agrees with Spooner but doesn't want to focus on it. He says all of Spooner's writings are worty of study in the footnote.

He lists For a New Liberty and Lets Abolish Government at the end of chapters too.

Re: Ron Paul on a Roll

DD5 — Mon, 02 May 2011 04:14:04 GMT

nirgrahamUK:

>>it's statist in nature

you'll have to explain that to me...

The message is not pure because it's political in nature, and I have a hard time making sense out of the strategy of spreading freedom through the political means.

If you understand that the message is corrupt, then to support it feels like political trickery.

Re: Ron Paul on a Roll

nirgrahamUK — Sun, 01 May 2011 23:05:14 GMT

>>it's statist in nature

you'll have to explain that to me...

Re: Ron Paul on a Roll

DD5 — Sun, 01 May 2011 22:52:17 GMT

Raudsarw:
Ron Paul saying that he isn't an anarchist

His #1 principle out of the Ten Principles of Liberty:

'Rights belong to individuals, not groups; they derive from our nature and can neither be granted nor taken away by government.'

is in such a blatant contradiction with his minarchist stance that it is mind-boggling.

Ron Paul is no entry level in libertarian studies. He is being very dishonest in my opinion, It's based on trickery, it's statist in nature, and it's why I could never support his strategy.

Re: Ron Paul on a Roll

Raudsarw — Sun, 01 May 2011 21:54:27 GMT

Ron Paul saying that he isn't an anarchist on Hannity. 4:25

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8dHKJBlrtmk&feature=player_embedded

Unfortunate. I mean he wasn't even asked, so why deny it?

Re: Ron Paul on a Roll

Phaedros — Sat, 30 Apr 2011 02:18:19 GMT

Ron Paul can win. Libertarians need to divide and conquer in my opinion. Divide the feminists from the communists and the socialists from the democratic socialists, etc. etc. Then run on ending the drug war. BAM

Re: Ron Paul on a Roll

LogisticEarth — Sat, 30 Apr 2011 02:03:27 GMT

The Obama stand-in sounded probably sounded a bit stilted because he was just repeated Obama's real statements, rather than attempting to reply to Paul. It was interesting, kinda gimmicky but the rest of the show was golden.

I mean, the defense contractor up there saying "We have to defend our equities!". Jesus christ, that's some double-speak right there.

I'm really looking forward to Paul running. He probably won't win, but he's starting with a LOT more exposure, infrastructure, and support than he did in 2008. Here's hoping we end up with a lot more people brought to the cause.

Re: Ron Paul on a Roll

My Buddy — Sat, 30 Apr 2011 01:24:25 GMT

"President Obama" looked alright, but sounded like a bloody muppet.

Still, it was a fun show. At least the absurdly enthusiastic audience avoided making itself look stupid by booing everything he said :P

Re: Ron Paul on a Roll

Gero — Fri, 29 Apr 2011 22:34:39 GMT

Ron Paul on Stossel which includes a mock debate with President Obama

Re: Ron Paul on a Roll

Conza88 — Fri, 29 Apr 2011 04:55:49 GMT

On Free Immigration and Forced Integration

"In an anarcho-capitalist society there is no government and, accordingly, no clear-cut distinction between inlanders (domestic citizens) and foreigners. This distinction comes into existence only with the establishment of a government, i.e., an institution which possesses a territorial monopoly of aggression (taxation). The territory over which a government's taxing power extends becomes "inland," and everyone residing outside of this territory becomes a foreigner. State borders (and passports), are an "unnatural" (coercive) institution. Indeed, their existence (and that of a domestic government) implies a two-fold distortion with respect to peoples' natural inclination to associate with others. First, inlanders cannot exclude the government (the taxman) from their own property, but are subject to what one might call "forced integration" by government agents. Second, in order to be able to intrude on its subjects' private property so as to tax them, a government must invariably take control of existing roads, and it will employ its tax revenue to produce even more roads to gain even better access to all private property, as a potential tax source. Thus, this over-production of roads does not involve merely an innocent facilitation of interregional trade - a lowering of transaction costs - as starry-eyed economists would have us believe, but it involves forced domestic integration (artificial desegregation of separate localities).

Moreover, with the establishment of a government and state borders, immigration takes on an entirely new meaning. Immigration becomes immigration by foreigners across state borders, and the decision as to whether or not a person should be admitted no longer rests with private property owners or associations of such owners but with the government as the ultimate sovereign of all domestic residents and the ultimate super-owner of all their properties. Now, if the government excludes a person while even one domestic resident wants to admit this very person onto his property, the result is forced exclusion (a phenomenon that does not exist under private property anarchism). Furthermore, if the government admits a person while there is not even one domestic resident who wants to have this person on his property, the result is forced integration (also non-existent under private property anarchism)." ~ Hans-Hermann Hoppe

Re: Ron Paul on a Roll

Conza88 — Fri, 29 Apr 2011 04:52:47 GMT

"Nope. I responded to everything you said with actual proof and then you ignored it."

Good joke. No-one's laughing. Respond is different to answer. Politicans "respond" to questions, they rarely answer them. Keep dodging.

"Appeal to authority."

Appeal to their arguments.

"They try to rationalize away his support for conscription. He explicitly stated that he supports it. Why don't you show me where Mises says he is totally oppossed to conscription (protip: you can't)."

Lmao, wow you just don't get it. Hilarious. Check your premises bro... You continue to ignore the fundamental tenent of his liberalism (philosophical anarchism)... as to what he defines and constitutes as government.

That is the core of it and yet you proceed as if his form of government is not voluntary. Quite pathetic.

AEN: Was Mises better than the classical liberals on the question of the state?

HOPPE: Mises thought it was necessary to have an institution that suppresses those people who cannot behave appropriately in society, people who are a danger because they steal and murder. He calls this institution government.

But he has a unique idea of how government should work. To check its power, every group and every individual, if possible, must have the right to secede from the territory of the state. He called this the right of self determination, not of nations as the League of Nations said, but of villages, districts, and groups of any size. In Liberalism and Nation, State, and Economy, he elevates secession to a central principle of classical liberalism. If it were possible to grant this right of self-determination to every individual person, he says, it would have to be done. Thus the democratic state becomes, for Mises, a voluntary organization.

AEN: Yet you have been a strong critic of democracy.

HOPPE: Yes, as that term is usually understood. But under Mises's unique definition of democracy, the term means self rule or self government in its most literal sense. All organizations in society, including government, should be the result of voluntary interactions.

In a sense you can say that Mises was a near anarchist. If he stopped short of affirming the right of individual secession, it was only because of what he regarded as technical grounds. In modern democracy, we exalt the method of majority rule as the means of electing the rulers of a compulsory monopoly of taxation.

Mises frequently made an analogy between voting and the marketplace. But he was quite aware that voting in the marketplace means voting with your own property. The weight of your vote is in accord with your value productivity. In the political arena, you do not vote with your property; you vote concerning the property of everyone, including your own. People do not have votes according to their value productivity.

AEN: Yet Mises attacks anarchism in no uncertain terms.

HOPPE: His targets here are left-utopians. He attacks their theory that man is good enough not to need an organized defense against the enemies of civilization. But this is not what the private-property anarchist believes. Of course, murderers and thieves exist. There needs to be an institution that keeps these people at bay. Mises calls this institution government, while people who want no state at all point out that all essential defensive services can be better performed by firms in the market. We can call these firms government if we want to.

"Non-sequiturs, non-sequiturs everywhere."

How does it not follow? Non responses everywhere. Dodging, dodging beware.

"It says that he wants to secure the border between the United States and Mexico using guards."

"If you got rid of the welfare system and you had more border guards [shakes head]. I don't want us to worry about the borders between North and South Korea and between Iraq and Syria, I want us to worry about our own borders." - Ron Paul

Does he, or does he not shake his head after uttering that sentence? Interpret it whatever way you want... it is a compared to situation. He is operating within a statist context. He is making the point that it is absurd to make the claim about defense, when your own borders are left empty - because you've got a world empire. He's making the common sense claim of ending the empire, bring the troops home... be defensive, as opposed to offensive.

How can you not understand that?

"Now you're trying to use some lame non-sequitur about ending wars abroad which has nothing to do with the fact that he still supports securing the borders using guards.

It's not a non-sequitur. Keep trying to dismiss it, it's all you've got. Gee, I wonder what Ron Paul would say if you COMPARED a completely FREE-MARKET voluntary society based on SELF-GOVERNMENT, where the borders are your own person and property to one where there is a STATE and imaginary "borders" with coercion.... which one would he choose?

But wait, we don't need to guess - because he's already answered that question... and it was the voluntary one!

"If you can show me (protip: you can't, again) where he wants free open borders that'd be great. But until then you're argument is laughable at best."

You sure do love "protip", such a shame you're a rookie. Protip: and I'm repeating myself here:

"But never the less - immigration, no clear cut libertarian position. Block, Hoppe, Kinsella - diff sides."

So go on.. make the claim that free open borders [forced integration] is the only proper libertarian position - until then I'm enjoying the amusement you're providing. Cheers.