Political Theory

Re: Funny anti-RP article from my college's newspaper.

banned — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 09:24:41 GMT

I agree. It reads like a syntactical mess.

Re: Funny anti-RP article from my college's newspaper.

BlackSheep — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 15:57:57 GMT

Libertas est Veritas:
But this quote did make me laugh: "this group meets no resistance in promoting an ideology that, when executed around the globe, has been the greatest rival of democracy and resulted in the most tyrannical regimes in the past half century".

That, and a lot of other crap in there seem to have been pretty much copied from Naomi Klein's The Shock Doctrine.

Re: Funny anti-RP article from my college's newspaper.

Niccolò — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 13:21:40 GMT

Len Budney:

Solomon:
Americans adore public services? Buses, post offices, libraries?...

Pffffffffffffft.

Is it just me or are proponents of democracy all inordinately stupid?

I honestly can't tell if he means what he's saying, or is trying to be satirical. Of course liberals tend to be self-parodies at the best of times.

--Len

I think he's trying to be satirical. I can't imagine he's being serious when he says, "I hate freedom. I do."

I just have a problem with the mechanics of his writing.

Re: Funny anti-RP article from my college's newspaper.

Libertas est Veritas — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 10:02:32 GMT

Reactionary propaganda. Freedom (well, not total freedom, but more freedom in the case of Paul) is a threat to both the left and the right. But this quote did make me laugh: "this group meets no resistance in promoting an ideology that, when executed around the globe, has been the greatest rival of democracy and resulted in the most tyrannical regimes in the past half century".

Re: Funny anti-RP article from my college's newspaper.

MatthewWilliam — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 19:23:18 GMT

JohnSchreimann:
The Friedmanite insistence that poor people are too ignorant of the economy to effectively decide what ought to be done brings Paul's supporters more in line with the stubborn anti-democracy of Lenin than the florid idealism of Martin Luther King Jr. or Emma Goldman.

Oh dear. Ohhhhhhhh dear.

Re: Funny anti-RP article from my college's newspaper.

Len Budney — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 14:11:39 GMT

Solomon:
Americans adore public services? Buses, post offices, libraries?...

Pffffffffffffft.

Is it just me or are proponents of democracy all inordinately stupid?

I honestly can't tell if he means what he's saying, or is trying to be satirical. Of course liberals tend to be self-parodies at the best of times.

--Len

Re: Funny anti-RP article from my college's newspaper.

Solomon — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 09:10:07 GMT

Americans adore public services? Buses, post offices, libraries?...

Pffffffffffffft.

Is it just me or are proponents of democracy all inordinately stupid?

Re: Funny anti-RP article from my college's newspaper.

Niccolò — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 08:00:11 GMT

He's not a very good writer...

He flips from first to third person like a coin and his vocabulary is... confusing at best and misplaced at worst.

Does he really write for a newspaper? Well... I guess it is just college.

Re: Funny anti-RP article from my college's newspaper.

Anonymous Coward — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 05:34:23 GMT

Paul:
I especially liked the part about how "Ron Paul is squarely at the far right of the spectrum, practically infrared" - since the colour spectrum is usually portrayed with red on the left, not the right (and of course the colour red is associated with the political left, too; I don't know if that's related).

Well, they couldn't say Ultraviolet since that would imply Ron Paul is "fighting a guerrilla war against a totalitarian government dictatorship."

It's a bit too much to expect someone to get their scientific facts correct (particularly for college students, my God!) and even more so to believe they have any understanding of an economic system where there isn't a free lunch for them in the college cafeteria. OK, I'm oversimplifying here, they know it's not free but paid for by taxing the immoral profiteering by the economic elite who rob from the workers by collecting profits from their labor.

Oh, and Daddy working all that overtime...

Re: Funny anti-RP article from my college's newspaper.

Morty — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 04:10:09 GMT

Paul:
What's with the "disdain for the scientific method"?

He's a creationist, therefore he hates all science (according to lunatics like the author of this article). Generally that's what people are talking about when they say that about Ron Paul.

Re: Funny anti-RP article from my college's newspaper.

Paul — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 03:02:22 GMT

I especially liked the part about how "Ron Paul is squarely at the far right of the spectrum, practically infrared" - since the colour spectrum is usually portrayed with red on the left, not the right (and of course the colour red is associated with the political left, too; I don't know if that's related). What's with the "disdain for the scientific method"? Is that the usual "Austrians are anti-scientific because they don't like econometrics" nonsense? But he's called a Friedmanite above, so I'm guessing the author doesn't know enough about Austrian econ to write that...

Re: Funny anti-RP article from my college's newspaper.

Morty — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 02:12:29 GMT

Working people fought for the progressive income tax; Paul's supporters insist that it is a tyranny.

So, anything working people fought for is inherently pro-liberty? I'm not so sure how the writer reconciles this opinion with his anti-Leninism, considering Lenin was supported by...noneother than the working class. For that matter, so was Hitler.

absurd anti-patriotism of income tax denial

Tax resisters are clearly the least patriotic people ever.

Re: Funny anti-RP article from my college's newspaper.

MacFall — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 01:04:48 GMT

I wouldn't call that a "funny" article. Pathetic, more like.

Re: Funny anti-RP article from my college's newspaper.

Jon Irenicus — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 22:05:45 GMT

If I shed any tears over the death of democracy, they'll be crocodile's tears. What a stupid piece of rhetoric. I wonder when they'll make the effort to discover where exactly Austrians differ from Friedmanites, and I wonder when they'll trotting out the bullsh*t fed to them by Ms Klein. Since he hates freedom so much though, he should have no problem with being gagged.

-Jon

Funny anti-RP article from my college's newspaper.

JohnSchreimann — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 19:25:52 GMT

It's from February, but still funny.

I don't just think that the Ron Paul movement is silly. I find it troubling. The fact that a far-right movement can exist on a college campus, complete with demonstrations and graffiti, is what worries me.

It means that the people who are most motivated to have their ideas heard are anti-egalitarians who flaunt their message beneath a banner of freedom. Although they're a minority, this group meets no resistance in promoting an ideology that, when executed around the globe, has been the greatest rival of democracy and resulted in the most tyrannical regimes in the past half century.

These ideas are mostly native to our country, but have had to be exported to nations in a state of shock, such as Pinochet's Chile, where the nuisance of democracy was a minimal inconvenience as opposed to the tyrannically stable liberty of the United States.

The odd thing is that the Ron Paul movement, on its surface, resembles a sort of left-wing activism. Poster-makers and graffitists seem to be working spontaneously, recalling such non-ideological causes as the Civil Rights movement or early trade unionism.

In fact, the opposite couldn't be truer. The ideology is rock-hard and ruthlessly self-contained (and self-perpetuating). The Friedmanite insistence that poor people are too ignorant of the economy to effectively decide what ought to be done brings Paul's supporters more in line with the stubborn anti-democracy of Lenin than the florid idealism of Martin Luther King Jr. or Emma Goldman.

The facts of history must be ignored in order to back such a cause. Working people fought for the progressive income tax; Paul's supporters insist that it is a tyranny. Americans adore their public services, from the city bus to the post office to libraries. My argument only falls short on one point: I can't think of a single moment in history when a "states' rights" argument was used by the benefactors of oppression. Oh, except for that one. And that one. And that one. (Goodness, remember that one?)

I think it would be appropriate here to mention a few reasons why I personally hate Ron Paul so much. It's because I hate freedom. I really do. I hate the Constitution as well. But Ron Paul sure loves them. Boy, does he ever love freedom and the Constitution. Just ask one of his supporters. Did you know he delivered 4,000 babies? Dennis Kucinich doesn't come close.

So where do I get off, calling Ron Paul's backers a far-right movement? Don't they seem to be off the conventional political spectrum, something un-categorical? After all, Paul is against many things the Republicans are for, from the Iraq War to NAFTA.

There should be no doubt: A fascinating (particularly for college students, my God!) disdain for the scientific method, together with a fanatical cynicism toward democratically-earned public institutions, means that Ron Paul is, at the very least, a conservative. Match this up with conspiracy theories (always characteristic of far-right ideologies) like the North American Union or the absurd anti-patriotism of income tax denial, and Ron Paul is squarely at the far right of the spectrum, practically infrared.

I want to emphasize what it is about Ron Paul that troubles me. I'm not worried that he'll win (naturally). What I find disconcerting is that the tactics of the left have been fully appropriated to the opposite end of the political spectrum, without anyone really taking notice. The egalitarian, participatory character of these tactics gives a movement that rejects basic democratic principles a misleadingly democratic character. And if the Paul movement is integrated into mainstream conservatism, without a reaction from the left, we could be dealing with more graffiti, larger marches, and less democracy.