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Rand Paul Pledges to Immediately End NSA Mass Surveillance If Elected President

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Re: Rand Paul Pledges to Immediately End NSA Mass Surveillance If Elected President

#171

Post by discardorama »

lettergram wrote: post #66
morgante wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Constitutionally, the president doesn't control a state religion, abortion, marriage, etc. The Establishment Clause is pretty clear that states should not and cannot enact state religions, and its up to the federal government to enforce that. The fact that Rand Paul is clearly biased by his religion makes him distinctly un-libertarian.

I think pretty much everyone (including Paul) would agree that the federal government needs to keep a state religion from forming in a state. Laws related to abolition, marriage, etc. is not necessarily religious, so claiming the states should make their own decisions seems fair. Also, he's a Republican (for better or worse), he'll almost certainly get a large portion of Libertarian vote though (which accounts for 2…

> Laws related to abolition, marriage, etc. is not necessarily religious

Pray tell me what non-religious arguments you have against same-sex marriage and abortion (I assume you meant "abortion" instead of "abolition").

Re: Rand Paul Pledges to Immediately End NSA Mass Surveillance If Elected President

#172

Post by discardorama »

natmaster wrote: post #64
lubos wrote: post #30

This is not surprising. Rand Paul, similar to his father Ron Paul, has very libertarian political views which means they prefer no government involvement, not just in the Internet but anywhere. This is not as good as it sounds. For example, he doesn't support FED in controlling money supply. But FED was instrumental in making USD the most stable currency in the last 100 years. He doesn't like energy regulations and b…

Please leave your anti-science anti-intellectual comments outside of hacker news. "FED was instrumental in making USD the most stable currency in the last 100 years" - baseless argument. comparing fiat money to fiat money says nothing about efficacy of fiat money. "Too bad when California deregulated their energy market..." - http://www.tylervigen.com/ Furthermore, where does this money appear from? If the government…

> "anti-abortion" - please explain why third-trimester abortions should be allowed. the baby can live by being born at that point, and the mother has had plenty of time to deal with the issue. but sure, you can disagree with that, and I won't debate it here.

And you please tell us who are you to tell a woman what to do with her body. As a matter of fact, how does anyone other than the woman and her doctor have any standing in this issue?

Here's an analogy. Suppose you have a very rare blood type. Someone with that same blood type is in danger at a hospital; and your blood donation would definitely save his life. Would you let the government force you to donate blood to save this life? Even if it endangered your own life?

Re: Rand Paul Pledges to Immediately End NSA Mass Surveillance If Elected President

#173

Post by morgante »

GabrielF00 wrote: post #170
tzs wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So all neglect laws should be removed? That was the position of Murray Rothbard [1], who was one of the major intellectual founders of modern libertarianism, particularly anarcho-capitalism. He was a founder of the Ludwig von Mises Institute. Most internet libertarians seem to be followers of his school of libertarianism (although they often do not know it...). His book "The Ethics of Liberty" covers children in ch…

Is the world envisioned in the second paragraph really one that people want to live in?

I actually would much prefer it.

If a parent is so terrible that literally the only force compelling them to feed their children is a legal one, then someone else should be raising that child.

Re: Rand Paul Pledges to Immediately End NSA Mass Surveillance If Elected President

#174

Post by GabrielF00 »

morgante wrote: post #173
GabrielF00 wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is the world envisioned in the second paragraph really one that people want to live in?

I actually would much prefer it. If a parent is so terrible that literally the only force compelling them to feed their children is a legal one, then someone else should be raising that child.

I don't fully understand this comment.

The current system provides a mechanism for someone else to raise the child (CPS can take the child away).

In Rothbard's world, who intervenes in the case of parental neglect? The text implies that nobody intervenes.

Re: Rand Paul Pledges to Immediately End NSA Mass Surveillance If Elected President

#176

Post by joelrunyon »

sukilot wrote: post #165
joelrunyon wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He would have authority over the NSA. That's something he could directly end. However, FED / Deregulation, abortion, same-sex marriage & vaccination are not things that can be resolved by an executive order. Every 4 years, people have the same arguments about the same things and they're all generally about things that Congress controls - not the President. And the popular ones (abortion, gun control, etc) haven't rea…

Obama promised to end Guantanamo bay antiterrorism/whatever, which is executive branch.

That's on Obama. I don't see how that has any bearing on Rand.

Re: Rand Paul Pledges to Immediately End NSA Mass Surveillance If Elected President

#177

Post by spacemanmatt »

lubos wrote: post #137
maratd wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I was kind of shocked What's so shocking about letting parents decide what medical treatment their children undergo? He has repeatedly said that parents should get their children vaccinated. And they should. Parents who don't are irresponsible, both socially and toward their children. However, should and must are two very different words. When you start talking about mandatory, you're talking about cops breaking do…

Another straw-man argument against mandatory vaccination. Mandatory also means you might be subject to fines or denied access to government social programs.

The government already has the legal ability to make vaccines mandatory. They are rightfully hesitant to use coercive force, though.

Re: Rand Paul Pledges to Immediately End NSA Mass Surveillance If Elected President

#178

Post by Tiksi »

maratd wrote: post #126
MCRed wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm the kind of guy who would marry another guy. So, I have standing to have an opinion about Gay Marriage. I don't want the government in marriage AT ALL. Making the laws "more neutral" means getting gender out of the laws. This is a correct first step. Marriage is merely an expression of the right of freedom of association, which all people have. You don't need new laws to make it exist. But you should get rid of l…

> I don't want the government in marriage AT ALL. Making the laws "more neutral" means getting gender out of the laws. Why stop there? Take marriage out of the laws completely. If your religious institutions marries men to men, women to women, or hell, men to goats or chairs, I don't see why the government should stick its nose in it.

While I agree that it's not the government's place to be involved in marriage, I doubt marriage will ever be taken out of the laws. If only for tax reasons alone, most (married or planning to be married) people will be against abolishing the laws that give them a tax break. Plus, marital status is deeply intertwined with many laws/regulations.

Re: Rand Paul Pledges to Immediately End NSA Mass Surveillance If Elected President

#179

Post by encoderer »

jebblue wrote: post #144
encoderer wrote: post #70

Yeah, and Nixon had a secret plan to end the war. Twice.

The war that was started by the Democratic Party: http://blogs.britannica.com/2009/01/2-the-vietnam-war-top-10... "President John F. Kennedy had sent military advisors and then troops into South Vietnam. After Kennedy’s assassination, what to do about the Vietnam War became a pressing matter of business for the new president, Lyndon B. Johnson." From there see the VietNam War link: http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked…

You way missed the point man. It's about campaign promises not the Vietnam war.

Besides, Eisenhower was a republican.

Re: Rand Paul Pledges to Immediately End NSA Mass Surveillance If Elected President

#180

Post by XorNot »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #116
morgante wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I never said libertarians can't be religious. Rather, it's a fundamental tenant of libertarianism that you should not use the organ of government to enforce your religious views on others. On numerous occasions, Paul has referenced religious motivations for creating social policies. For example, he is opposed to same-sex marriage because it "offends him." Paul is not a libertarian. He's just a standard anti-Federalis…

"I believe in old-fashioned traditional marriage but I don't really think the government needs to be too involved in this..." http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/presidential-races/21967... "Senator Paul believes marriage is an issue that should be dealt with at the state level,” political adviser Doug Stafford told The Daily Beast. “Nothing about his position has changed." Stafford later added: "Senator Paul does no…

In other words he told positions which conveniently would be enforced by not interfering with the status quo. Why is state government the only acceptable level of government interference in citizens private lives?
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