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    Ron Paul and Libertarian Idiocy

    By Wattree on Fri, 01/27/2012 - 8:39am |

    BENEATH THE SPIN • ERIC L. WATTREE

     

    Ron Paul and Libertarian Idiocy 
    .

    It's really frightening how many Americans are willing to listen to a guy like Ron Paul. The congressman is clearly one of two things - he's either a typical demagogue, or an unthinking ideologue. He specializes in combining fact with fiction by pointing out everything that’s wrong with all of the policies that are contrary to his agenda, then claims that his irresponsible solutions are a cure for all of the nation's problems - solutions drawn from an outlandish philosophy, which, on its face, is a corruption of the U.S. Constitution, and would constitute an exercise in national destruction. Paul is quoted as saying the following:
    .
    “The most basic principle to being a free American is the notion that we as individuals are responsible for our own lives and decisions. We do not have the right to rob our neighbors to make up for our mistakes, neither does our neighbor have any right to tell us how to live, so long as we aren’t infringing on their rights. Freedom to make bad decisions is inherent in the freedom to make good ones. If we are only free to make good decisions, we are not really free.”
    .
    Paul's entire premise is flawed. Total personal freedom was clearly not the intent of the founding fathers. They had the good sense to recognized that a society, or a civilization, as it were, is defined as a “GROUP of people who have joined together to pursue a common interest or goal,” and they clearly set out their intent in the preamble of the United States Constitution, which reads as follows:
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    “We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare [not just make Ron Paul happy] and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”
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    Thus, if Ron Paul doesn’t like the rules we’ve set up to “promote the general welfare,” he has the freedom to move to the wilderness and not live among us. But according Ron Paul’s philosophy, he thinks he should have the right to pee against the wall in the middle of Times Square during rush hour, and the government should be precluded from stopping him.  Because you see, according to Paul’s  philosophy, and his flawed reading of the United States Constitution, that should be his inalienable right, since he's not hurting anyone else.
    .
    So in essence, Paul wants to have his cake and eat it to. He wants to take advantage of the benefits of living in an ordered society, while not having to adhere to the rules that make it a society. For example, he contends that the civil rights laws that prevent him from refusing to serve certain groups in his restaurant abridges his right to private ownership. But on the other hand, he has absolutely no problem with the fact that the group that he bans is forced to pay taxes that support “his right to private ownership.” If his business catches on fire, he’s going to expect the banned group’s tax supported fire department to come put it out.  And if he’s robbed, he’s going to expect the group’s tax supported police department to come to his aid. But the fact is, he can’t have it both ways. If he's not willing to adhere to society's rules, he can't expect to take advantage of the benefits of living in an ordered society.
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    Paul also wants to abolish the Department of Education, which is essential to maintaining a “more perfect union.” His philosophy also dictates that we should simply “trust” corporations not to grind up rats in our ground beef, or pollute our air and water.  He says, “Just let the free market handle it.” 
    .
    Well, that sounds like a plan, but we saw how the free market handled the Wall Street fiasco, didn't we? The free market created it, and we paid for it - dearly. The only thing free about the free market is the freedom of ruthless and greedy capitalists to take advantage of a naive and unsuspecting public - and then they tell us we'er un-American if we complain about it.
    .
    Thus, Ron Paul’s philosophy represents the rantings of a selfish, unthinking, greedy, and totally irresponsible lunatic. Therefore, if he wants total personal freedom, it’s well within his grasp. He can vote with his feet and move to the wilderness. Then he can pee against any tree in the forest at will - but he shouldn't expect us to come to his aid if a snake decides to latch on to his pecker, because that's the price of total freedom.

     

    ​LIBERTARIAN JUSTICE

     

    .

    Eric L. Wattree

    Http://wattree.blogspot.com

     
    Religious bigotry: It's not that I hate everyone who doesn't look, think, and act like me - it's just that God does.

    Comments

    I get the impression that Paul is stuck in the extremist rants of the 60's.  It would be interesting to discover what his actions and choices were then. 

    Currently, his cover of less government, lower taxes and some other of the more populist libertarian ideology is mostly successful in deflecting most honing in on the whole package.


    by Aunt Sam on Fri, 01/27/2012 - 1:27pm

    Mac links further testimony of the man's newsletters of the 90's; the penny newspaper of old or the web link of the now.

    Paul says: Oh I never wrote those things, I knew not that these things were published in my name....

    I think Ron Paul and his son are just reincarnations of Goldwater in the 60's.

    But the others are worse in that Gingrich would do away altogether with taxes on dividends and interest and capital gains. Santorum would either abolish education altogether or turn all secondary schools and universities into Bible schools.

    Mitt would halve the amount of taxes paid by individuals and, and...oh hell I really do not know what he would do!

    All of them would effectively dismantle the EPA. Goodbye any chance of clean air and water let alone even think about global warming.

    We already have established a permanent aristocracy in this country by abolishing the estate tax. We only tax estates in excess of 5 mill net and any attorney worth his salt could get the corpse out of that threat.

    Why every interviewer does not cite your prologue to the US Constitution is beyond me.

    At least the Pauls would get us out of foreign entanglements and the others will not.

    But since we would lose any chance of clean water, any chance of clean air, any chance of maintaining national forests, any chance of providing the basic necessities of life to our citizenry; I doubt that that pacifism would do us any good!


    by Richard Day on Fri, 01/27/2012 - 3:08pm

    Paul also wants to abolish the Department of Education, which is essential to maintaining a “more perfect union.” 

    Oh my - "essential"? A department that didn't exist until 1980? How we must have suffered.

    There are 6 goals offered in the preamble, promoting general welfare being just one of them (and it's not quite obvious what the founding fathers meant by that phrase - unlikely the New Deal or Great Society). 

    You go a long way to ignore what Ron Paul means by " neither does our neighbor have any right to tell us how to live, so long as we aren’t infringing on their rights. "  Presumably the right to not live in the stench and dampness of your neighbor's pee is one example of an exception to live and let live.

    Paul's entire premise is flawed. Total personal freedom was clearly not the intent of the founding fathers. 

    Of course he never says "total personal freedom" is desired - he says it should be limited to not infringe on neighbors.​

    Regarding his right to private ownership and taxes, he basically thinks ownership should be private as the original condition, that government should be limited in support of the 6 goals, and taxes should primarily be used only for protecting private rights. He seems content to let the level of mutual protection fall in order to limit the intrusion of goverment, and that trying to make everything too perfect, providing too much general welfare, is an infringement that actually decreases our freedom.

    ​You can disagree with him, but why is it so hard to follow his arguments without completely misrepresenting him?

    ​Of course your main gripe is that he notes that the Civil Rights Act limits personal freedom - something that should be blatantly obvious.  Almost every good act limits personal freedom in some way, and if the act goes too far, it's a danger. Too much military leads to a military state - too little leads to being conquered. Too high a level of government services leads to draconian taxes - too little leads to decay and neglect of basic needs.

    ​In the case of Civil Rights, we made a decision that by 1964, enough was enough - laissez faire had led to too little support for basic rights for blacks, and despite progress in the courts, basic access to needed services and recreation was not improving. So we restricted the right of individuals to discriminate. We put quotas on school admissions, and company hiring policies by default. But we didn't put quotas on how many mixed marriages there had to be, didn't force people to live in integrated neighborhood - obviously the Civil Rights could have been much more intrusive.

    Ron Paul's contention is that the basic pursuit of happiness could have been handled through civil suits and other recourse. But his argument seems not very detailed or convincing in this matter - how can you uphold a civil suit on denial of services when the Constitution doesn't guarantee the delivery of those services and the Congress hasn't created an obligation? How can you expect state courts to uphold expanded rights when the racist southern ones are knocking down even explicitly guaranteed rights?

    But I still don't get why you don't argue these points, rather than misrepresenting him and trying to make him a nutcase. He's the only candidate who's emphatically against the War on Drugs and the horrendous imbalance in incarceration of blacks. But instead of commending that stance for a critical widespread problem that still exists and holds black opportunity back, some blacks spend all their time wanting him to cry uncle over a non-PC stance on a legislative victory almost 50 years ago that has no chance of being reversed. Why the skewed priorities?

     


    by PeraclesPlease (not verified) on Fri, 01/27/2012 - 3:19pm

    Of course he never says "total personal freedom" is desired - he says it should be limited to not infringe on neighbors.​

    So what constitutes infringing on one's neighbors?  Is the branch of my tree hanging over the fence dividing our property infringing on the neighbor?  What about the neighbor whose cattle destroy the wetland upstream from me?  I could go on and on with examples of one "neighbor" doing or not doing something which another neighbor believes it is an infringement. 

    One only has to the look at the battles surrounding private property rights movement to see where the conflict is intense over the ambiguity about infringement.  Whose definition gets to have to be the one society lives by?

    The history of civilization can be seen through the prism of defining where the fist ends and the nose begins.  That is one of the key problem with the likes of Ron Paul - they act as if this issue is simple to define.


    by Elusive Trope on Fri, 01/27/2012 - 3:56pm

    Can you show me where he acts like it's easy to define?


    by PeraclesPlease (not verified) on Fri, 01/27/2012 - 4:03pm

    Of course he never says "total personal freedom" is desired - he says it should be limited to not infringe on neighbors.​

    I was using your definition.  Everyone believes personal freedom should be limited to not infringe on neighbors.  The argument is over where the limit is.  He acts like it is self-evident.  For instance, I don't think heroin should be legal - because addicts end up breaking into my home to pay for their habit.  We as a society know this will be the outcome.  So we as society take preventative measures and punitive measures in order to ensure that people don't become addicts.  We're just doing a poor job at it.  The question for some is how do we keep people from becoming addicts in the first place and once they do, what to do with them.  Those who participate in the use and distribution of the drugs need to be dealt with.  We don't just say - legalize drugs, leave it up to the individual to make the responsible choice.  That isn't the answer. It is a simple answer dealing with a complex problem. There are changes to the drug laws that need to happen for sure.  But that is reform, not elimination.  Reform recognizes that the answer isn't so simple as Ron Paul would like it to be.


    by Elusive Trope on Fri, 01/27/2012 - 4:18pm

    Ron Paul's contention is that the basic pursuit of happiness could have been handled through civil suits and other recourse.

    This is such an important point in all these discussions.

    First our courts are clogged due to financing and the inability of the US Senate to properly perform their constitutional duties.

    Second, the oligarchy can get away with stealing a hundred bucks here and a thousand bucks there from millions of people and make out like earls and dukes. It is impossible to see redress in the courts for such a small sum. You really cannot sue GE in conciliation court.

    Third, it costs too much money to file in court let alone pay for an attorney.

    Fourth, the Supreme Court has been closing the door on class action suits and shareholders' suits over the past three decades.

    When you think about it, the conservative really wishes for days of old like those wonderful days in Rome or Athens where citizens represented 5 or 10 percent of the total population.

    The courts have never been equipped to handle the problems of the masses--except in the case of criminal prosecution.

    The aristocracy has always been immune to criminal prosecution except in some token manner. The Duke kills the Duchess in library and such.

     

     


    by Richard Day on Fri, 01/27/2012 - 3:53pm

    PeraclesPlease,

    You said,

     

    "Ron Paul's contention is that the basic pursuit of happiness could have been handled through civil suits and other recourse. But his argument seems not very detailed or convincing in this matter - how can you uphold a civil suit on denial of services when the Constitution doesn't guarantee the delivery of those services and the Congress hasn't created an obligation? How can you expect state courts to uphold expanded rights when the racist southern ones are knocking down even explicitly guaranteed rights?

    "But I still don't get why you don't argue these points, rather than misrepresenting him and trying to make him a nutcase. He's the only candidate who's emphatically against the War on Drugs and the horrendous imbalance in incarceration of blacks. But instead of commending that stance for a critical widespread problem that still exists and holds black opportunity back, some blacks spend all their time wanting him to cry uncle over a non-PC stance on a legislative victory almost 50 years ago that has no chance of being reversed. Why the skewed priorities?"

    I didn't argue that point because it's too convoluted. The key to good writing is keeping it simple. The average reader doesn't have any background in the law, so much of the concept that you've put forward would be lost on them. Unlike attorneys and others schooled in the law, the average reader has the good sense to expect legal issues to be decided on simply what's fair and what's unfair. And I can completely understand their point of view, because even though I have been schooled in the law, just reading through your initially quoted paragraph, while very well stated, put me to sleep twice.

    As for your contention that I've misrepresent Paul in an attempt to make him look like a nut case, Ron Paul needs absolutely no help from me to look like a nut.  In addition, not only did I not misrepresent him (you're simply nitpicking over semantics), actually, I've been very measured in my criticism of him. Because the fact is, as one poster on my blog put it, and very succinctly, 

    "Jeff WinbushJan 28, 2012 01:46AM

    Ron Paul is a senilie racist and as The Washington Post reported Friday, was totally on board with his newsletters in the 90's. 

    The willingness of his supporters to align themselves with the pin-up boy of every White supremacist, neo-Nazi and right-wing extremist in the country makes them either naive, ignorant beyond belief or incapable of handling the truth."
    And again,
    Intrinsic to every zealot's passion for justice lies the seeds of tyranny

    by Wattree on Sun, 01/29/2012 - 12:52pm

    Oh, I see.

    Jeff Winbush is a raving loony fully of hysterical overstatements, so anything short of that is being "measured in my criticism". Right, got it.

    BTW, Rand Paul (who's not Ron Paul) denounced and fired Tim Profitt for stepping on the woman's head, and Profitt plea-bargained to medical expenses and a year's probation.

    So again, I suggest sticking with the facts and what's relevant.


    by PeraclesPlease (not verified) on Sun, 01/29/2012 - 12:58pm

    There was a guy on the "Smothers Brothers" show, or was it "Laugh-In" who would repeatedly run for President. At one point, it seemed that the comedian was actually starting to take himself seriously. It was tragic. Ron Paul is not taken seriously by Republican voters. When GOP voters actually thought that Paul was a serious contender, they ran away from him as fast as they could.

    Blacks take Ron Paul with the same degree of seriousness as they did Reverend Al Sharpton when the pastor ran for President. Sharpton wasn't going to be able to get anywhere near changing the status quo, because he simply was unelectable. Ron Paul is also simply unelectable. Since Paul isn't a serious contender he gets ridiculed just like Rev Al. It is naive to believe that blacks would flock to any candidate that simply talks about changing drug laws.

    Voting for Al was a wasted vote. Blacks aren't voting in the GOP Primaries in large numbers because Ron Paul's State's Rights buddy Barry Goldwater got the black GOP vote down to 6%.


    by rmrd0000 on Sun, 01/29/2012 - 7:12pm

    Pat Paul ... sen.


    by Donal on Sun, 01/29/2012 - 7:23pm

    LOL. Thanks for that.


    by rmrd0000 on Sun, 01/29/2012 - 9:17pm

    Don't think Paul-sen ever took himself seriously. However, he undoubtedly thought politics needed more comedy. As Tommy Smothers said, one of the great deadpan comics of all time, couldn't make him laugh. Worth reading the tribute at paulsen dot com


    by PeraclesPlease (not verified) on Mon, 01/30/2012 - 12:53am