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Ron Paul’s Farewell Address: The Internet Can Stop Big Government

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Re: Ron Paul’s Farewell Address: The Internet Can Stop Big Government

#91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is Ron Paul is a crazy guy. He's trying to rigorously apply principles from the 1700s to today's world. He's not willing to compromise in the face of evidence that contradicts his firmly held opinions. I've studied Libertarianism to the point of finding out that, not unlike other extremist philosophies, it's too far-fetched to ever work. People are too "human" for Libertarianism to ever work. It's too eas…

> where corporate interests never trump personal liberties Corporations are a construct of government. So yes, if we limit the power of government, corporate power will be limited too.

? explain your point. you are saying than in a full libertarian society there would not be any corporation? i say there would not be any USA, nor society.

Re: Ron Paul’s Farewell Address: The Internet Can Stop Big Government

#92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personal stewardship of nuclear weapons. Please don't "prove to me how it actually would work". Just think about it a while for yourself, and learn to accept that there's limits to the philosophy. Libertarianism is ultimately a heuristic, and you do it no favors by handwavingly claiming that you can prove desirable large scale behaviors based on a small set of axioms. Signed - a libertarian.

This has been what bugs me about gun rights people. The argument about personal safety is fine, but the people who want everyone to be armed in case the government decided to show its true colors or something? Um. You don't want a firearm . You want a tank .

No, you want black markets and cryptography.

Re: Ron Paul’s Farewell Address: The Internet Can Stop Big Government

#93
post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I challenge you to give me one very specific example of how something is not going to work in a libertarian world and I'm going right here right now to prove you how it actually would work. (because, with all due respect, I think writing comments that basically say "it's not gonna work because it's puppies and rainbows" is not helping us find out the truth).

Others have chimed in with similar explanations but it often revolves around the principal problem of how do you allow "freedom" without infringing on someone else's? For instance, if I want to drink radiation laced water, Libertarians would think I have the right. They'd also say I should have to pay for my own medical treatment resulting from that. Reasonable enough. However, if I drank radiation laced water becaus…

>However, if I drank radiation laced water because a chemical company was disposing of their waste in my backyard and I didn't know, Libertarians would tell you it's your fault for not having the proper testing equipment or paying a company to run these tests for you.

This is simply false. Pollution would be treated as a tort. Now, you can't set up a home near an already existing, noisy club and complain about noise pollution. If you set up a home in a quiet and unpolluted area, you have a right to maintain the structural integrity of that area.

The details of what the maximum allowable punishment for someone coming along and polluting your land is is a bit of an advanced subject. That you have no recourse except to test your soil for pollution and clean it yourself is just incorrect.

>The same thing shakes out for food. For employment. For air travel. For basically everything you do you're assumed to have done enough research to know the risks you're exposed to. Libertarianism also makes the enormous assumption that a safe option will always be available.

Again false. Libertarian law is all about what to do when people violate others' rights. There's also certain reasonable assumptions of safety which consumers must be able to make. For instance, it would be a crime to sell some sort of food, presented as safe to eat, which was really poisonous. It would be a crime to sell tickets for a plane ride and fly with an untrained pilot or a plane which hadn't been checked for safety.

>Since there's zero protection from monopolies in a pure Libertarian society, they will naturally occur, and the results will be overwhelmingly negative for all but a handful of people, the proverbial 1% if that.

If you had any genuine concern about monopolies, you would have concern about your government. A state is a territorial monopoly on the legitimate use of violence, the ability to arbitrate disputes and to assign property rights.

State-granted monopoly rights (IP for instance) is different from a hypothetical "natural monopoly". A natural monopoly would not be problematic because all it would mean is that one company is so successful at meeting the demands of consumers such that no others care to or are able to enter the market.

>Libertarianism also as much as endorses discrimination as it sees it as your absolute right to decide who you provide goods and services to. Idealists would have you believe that non-discriminatory companies will always out-perform their discriminatory counterparts, but history has proven the opposite. If people are racist, they will certainly pay a small premium for service that reflects their views.

The other side of the coin to rights of free association, or what you would disparage as legalized racism, is that the tolerant of is would be free to discriminate against racists. As it is now, we will never root out racism because hardcore bigots are afforded state subsidies and not cast out of civil society.

If people are not racist—and I would say the vast majority of Americans are not—why wouldn't they also pay a bit extra for services which reflect their values? If most people are concerned for the poor not receiving medical services, why wouldn't they pay a bit extra to receive services from a Samaritan hospital which never turns away the poor?

You can't just take a look at a small segment of the worst of humanity and pretend they are the majority because it is convenient for your argument.

Re: Ron Paul’s Farewell Address: The Internet Can Stop Big Government

#94
post #33

What makes me sad is that a lot of people, even here, discharge Ron Paul as some sort of crazy guy without even listening to what he says. In comments to this post "thesagan" wrote that some of his ideas are "batshit crazy" as if his ideology is composed of many different unrelated parts. Not true, Ron Paul ideas are ideas of libertarianism and if you study them diligent enough, you'll eventually be used to thinking…

The problem is Ron Paul is a crazy guy. He's trying to rigorously apply principles from the 1700s to today's world. He's not willing to compromise in the face of evidence that contradicts his firmly held opinions. I've studied Libertarianism to the point of finding out that, not unlike other extremist philosophies, it's too far-fetched to ever work. People are too "human" for Libertarianism to ever work. It's too eas…

We have a lobby system in place. Why would the world be any other place than upside down? You've got a tobacco vote in the House and John Boehner is handing out checks from the tobacco lobby. Really?

Re: Ron Paul’s Farewell Address: The Internet Can Stop Big Government

#95

"The Internet" is not democratically elected. Why should it have a mandate to defeat what is decided democratically?

The internet as an institution is far more democratic than the current US election system. Anyone can exchange ideas online, and better yet, most people do!

the internet is a medium ,not an institution.

Re: Ron Paul’s Farewell Address: The Internet Can Stop Big Government

#96
post #65
post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, what's the alternative to having majorities vote? Since I gather you're a libertarian, let's make a market-based argument. There will always be some demand for violence (meaning the application or threat of force to cause other autonomous agents to act a certain way), and there will always be suppliers of violence. The question then becomes of market structure: do we want decentralized and competing suppliers o…

I think you're assuming that violence is somehow more profitable than no violence. I disagree. In fact, I think it's the opposite: violence is much less profitable than a non-violent solution. Violence only becomes more profitable when you have a monopoly to it: it doesn't cost you anything to use it, because you know no one is even gonna try to challenge you. On the other hand, when you don't have a monopoly, even i…

I'd agree that without a monopoly you'd have lots of deals being struck. If you're just talking about violence-suppliers, the likely equilibrium is no violence at all.

But you're always fighting over stuff and, moreover, people. In all the cases I can think of, violence-suppliers would look at all the people it can extract value from, look at each other, and then combine forces to extract the most value from people. The only time they'd fight each other is if someone miscalculated who had more capability to deliver violence. But either way, violence suppliers would either combine forces or get destroyed, ultimately leading to a monopoly and making violence a profit center.

Re: Ron Paul’s Farewell Address: The Internet Can Stop Big Government

#97
post #57
post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I challenge you to give me one very specific example of how something is not going to work in a libertarian world and I'm going right here right now to prove you how it actually would work. (because, with all due respect, I think writing comments that basically say "it's not gonna work because it's puppies and rainbows" is not helping us find out the truth).

Let me preface this by saying that I'm actually pretty much onboard with a lot of the Libertarian policies that I've heard. Like anything, of course, I think it can be taken too far. So, when you ask for a "very specific example", this is the sort of thing that comes to mind: - City governments have health inspectors that check local restaurants, and food-product companies to ensure they are using good ingredients, t…

>Now think what happens when a Monsanto executive realizes that paying the occasional legal suit is cheaper than keeping their packing plants clean and disease-free.

The maximum allowable punishments under libertarian law would be very harsh. Endangering swaths of people's lives could result in that executive's death. It wouldn't be just a matter of paying off a small bribe. For details on the theory of proportionality, see this PDF from page 12 especially: http://www.walterblock.com/wp-content/uploads/publications/b...

Re: Ron Paul’s Farewell Address: The Internet Can Stop Big Government

#98
post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you elaborate? I'm not necessarily disagreeing with you - I just haven't followed him enough to know what you're talking about.

As far as the racist background, the Ron Paul newsletters certainly have explicit racism (and sexism, and homophobia) in them (as opposed to implied racism, such as opposing the civil rights legislation of the 60s). Most Ron Paul fans argue that it was actually Lew Rockwell who wrote most of that, under Ron Paul's name, and Ron Paul never read or approved of them. Take that for what it's worth--I personally suspect i…

Even if he didn't write it, his name was on it. I feel pretty safe loathing anyone who would put their name on something a) they hadn't read b) they hadn't written and c) was so goddamn vile.

Re: Ron Paul’s Farewell Address: The Internet Can Stop Big Government

#99
post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> where corporate interests never trump personal liberties Corporations are a construct of government. So yes, if we limit the power of government, corporate power will be limited too.

? explain your point. you are saying than in a full libertarian society there would not be any corporation? i say there would not be any USA, nor society.

I guess what he meant is that in a libertarian society corporations would not be able to lobby the government for special (monopoly) rights and privileges - because there would be no government to lobby. Corporations would have to rely solely on consumers to generate profits by providing services consumers want. And if they fail to do so, they'd go out of business and no one's gonna bail them out.

Re: Ron Paul’s Farewell Address: The Internet Can Stop Big Government

#100
"You start out in 1954 by saying, “Nigger, nigger, nigger.” By 1968 you can’t say “nigger”—that hurts you, backfires. So you say stuff like, uh, forced busing, states’ rights, and all that stuff, and you’re getting so abstract. Now, you’re talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you’re talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is, blacks get hurt worse than whites.… “We want to cut this,” is much more abstract than even the busing thing, uh, and a hell of a lot more abstract than “Nigger, nigger.”"

-- Lee Atwater's Secret Decoder Ring for Conservative Doubletalk

http://www.thenation.com/article/170841/exclusive-lee-atwate...

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