Ron Paul speaks against SOPA • Hacker News Board

Re: Ron Paul speaks against SOPA

#251

Post by ubernostrum » Fri, Dec 30, 2011, 9:02 PM UTC

scarmig wrote: post #234

fragsworth wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You've missed the point entirely. Ron Paul wants to make it legal for states to ban abortions, because Ron Paul generally favors state powers and is against federal powers. It has nothing to do with his personal opinion on abortion. He's made this clear several times, but most people don't seem to understand it.

Sigh, there is certainly a point being missed here. Should the federal government give states the right to ban Islam? If someone argued that it should... they'd rightly be acknowledged as anti-Islam, because freedom of religion is a human right, and rights aren't just rights for the federal government, but for all the state governments. Rights are inviolable. If Ron Paul believes states should be able to violate cert…

Should the federal government give states the right to ban Islam?

Actually... Paul's "We the People Act" seeks to expressly place state laws on religion, sexual orientation and abortion outside of any possible constitutional review (essentially it's a repeal of the Fourteenth Amendment, targeted at the issues that provoke the most frothing at the mouth from social conservatives). So if he gets his way, yes, a state could pass a law banning Islam and there'd be no recourse.

Re: Ron Paul speaks against SOPA

#252

Post by nirvana » Fri, Dec 30, 2011, 9:04 PM UTC

kingkilr wrote: post #223

nirvana wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

His name does not appear on the vote for the Defense of Marriage Act. Please give us an example for your claim he supported it. Apparently he didn't even show up to vote for it, so much was his "support": http://clerk.house.gov/evs/1996/roll316.xml

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_positions_of_Ron_Paul...

First off, Wikipedia is not a credible source. It is controlled by a group of editors who are leftists, and in many cases factual corrections are undone by them simply because they disagree with the editors politics.

Secondly that page agrees with me: "Paul opposes all federal efforts to define marriage, whether defined as a union between one man and one woman, or defined as including anything else as well. He believes that recognizing or legislating marriages should be left to the states, and not subjected to "judicial activism".[197] For this reason, Paul voted against the Federal Marriage Amendment in 2004."

"He says that in a best case scenario, governments would enforce contracts and grant divorces but otherwise have no say in marriage.[201] Paul has also stated he doesn't want to interfere in the free association of two individuals in a social, sexual, and religious sense.[202][203] Additionally, when asked if he was supportive of gay marriage Paul responded "I am supportive of all voluntary associations and people can call it whatever they want."[202]"

Thus, Ron Paul, directly quoted, endorses gay marriage. Something you can't say for Barack Obama.

"Same-sex marriage In a 2007 interview with John Stossel, Paul stated that he supported the right of gay couples to marry, so long as they didn't "impose" their relationship on anyone else, on the grounds of supporting voluntary associations."

I cut all the parts which contradict these because they are due to misinterpretations or assertions based on legislation that don't include any statements by Paul, or an explanation for why Paul might support some act. Paul has to pick and choose legislation carefully because most legislation contains both constitutional and unconstitutional provisions.

You can't cite him supporting some bad legislation unless you give the reasons he supported it, especially when it conflicts with direct statements. Well, you can, but that's just spin.

Now, I've spent time debating a wikipage, when you didn't provide even an argument for your position.

Re: Ron Paul speaks against SOPA

#253

Post by stcredzero » Fri, Dec 30, 2011, 9:06 PM UTC

thebigshane wrote: post #146

nickpinkston wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(Full disclosure, I was an activist for Paul during 2008) I agree that Paul seems to have too narrow of a focus in his talk - he answers healthcare or fuel price questions half the time by saying these wouldn't happen with a gold standard / Fed, etc. I don't think he's thin in his views, but that (in typical libertarian fashion) he focuses just a bit too much on pure philosophy and not on pragmatism. I agree with the…

A truly frightening situation would be in the near impossible case that Ron Paul does get elected president: that he ends up looking just as paralyzed and neutered as President Obama and we find out that it isn't a matter of conviction or fearlessness but that the collective power of interest groups and the media has just gotten too powerful.

...we find out that it isn't a matter of conviction or fearlessness but that the collective power of interest groups...

The collective power of interest groups is indeed the key.

The horror of slavery wasn't abolished by President Lincoln's stand on principle. It was an alignment of the industrial North's economic/geopolitical interests with the principled stand of abolitionists. Lincoln merely walked to the front of the parade and raised his baton. The Emancipation Proclamation was pragmatic, not principled.

Even Gandhi was doing this. He was able to align the interests of the average Indian villager with the principle of Indian independence, and get the population to understand it through clear material examples. (Cloth and salt.)

"The collective power of interest groups" is the reality, the landscape of politics. Those who fight battles and wage campaigns on this landscape had better be aware of its shape and implications. Wars are not won by those who "want it" bad enough. The energy of fervor needs to be directed in the most effective fashion.

Re: Ron Paul speaks against SOPA

#254

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Dec 30, 2011, 9:07 PM UTC

fl3tch wrote: post #181

roguecoder wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He's either lying now about the newsletters or he was lying then and in 1996 and profited from those lies. I don't understand why people think he's an honest straight-shooter, any more than I understood that meme when it was applied to McCain. He's a politician playing a roll, that's all. He's not even a libertarian: he's perfectly fine with States grossly abridging freedom, just not the federal government. It's the…

> He's not even a libertarian: he's perfectly fine with States grossly abridging freedom, just not the federal government. Exactly this. He's not a libertarian, he's a states rights guy because he wants the power to do things like ban abortion in Texas. I think he has a very regressive political philosophy, that would empower local governments to discriminate against minorities, women, the disenfranchised, etc. Peopl…

[deleted]

Re: Ron Paul speaks against SOPA

#255

Post by ithought » Fri, Dec 30, 2011, 9:07 PM UTC

fl3tch wrote: post #181

roguecoder wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He's either lying now about the newsletters or he was lying then and in 1996 and profited from those lies. I don't understand why people think he's an honest straight-shooter, any more than I understood that meme when it was applied to McCain. He's a politician playing a roll, that's all. He's not even a libertarian: he's perfectly fine with States grossly abridging freedom, just not the federal government. It's the…

> He's not even a libertarian: he's perfectly fine with States grossly abridging freedom, just not the federal government. Exactly this. He's not a libertarian, he's a states rights guy because he wants the power to do things like ban abortion in Texas. I think he has a very regressive political philosophy, that would empower local governments to discriminate against minorities, women, the disenfranchised, etc. Peopl…

This is a fantastical framing of the incorporation doctrine. Do you even understand the debate or how historically your position is wrong? Do you realize that as of today not all of the Bill of Rights apply to the states, only some?

I don't think states can legally violate natural rights and I think they should adopt and ratify their own Bill of Rights but this hyperbolic sensationalism overlooks the historical context and distorts the original intent of the Constitution.

Ron Paul is not against the incorporation doctrine so the states can legally discriminate. He's against it because it's not how the Constitution was written, see history. Our rights pre-exist the Constitution and the states.

Re: Ron Paul speaks against SOPA

#256

Post by smokeyj » Fri, Dec 30, 2011, 9:08 PM UTC

wycats wrote: post #240

smokeyj wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My comment here was based entirely on what actually happened I'm not disagreeing with your historical account, just what you derived from it. You're essentially arguing networks would never exist unless the U.S government made it happen -- and that's why government must act as an "entrepreneur". I hear you, I'm saying this is naive and without evidence, and most likely exists to support your opinions of central pla…

Your argument here takes my claim that there are cases where government infrastructure bootstrapping (interstate highways, Internet) is useful and concludes that I would be in favor of a command-and-control economy. This is a classic reductio ad absurdum fallacy, and only works if your concept of how the economy works is very ideological.

You're confusing principle with ideology. We're discussing central planning verses distributed planning. I'm for a distributed economy that resembles a p2p network. I support p2p networks because it's robust and lacks a single point of failure -- and it's difficult to corrupt. You're saying, p2p networks will never work, because it's too ideological. Ok, cool story bro. But why is a centralized protocol better? That's what I want to know. There is no "hybrid" protocol, if a protocol is contingent on a centralized aspect, then it's a centralized protocol. Just because you have no principle doesn't make your ideology "moderate".

Re: Ron Paul speaks against SOPA

#257

Post by davidw » Fri, Dec 30, 2011, 9:31 PM UTC

stcredzero wrote: post #243

davidw wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't understand how you can attribute "sane = I agree with" to that poster. What evidence do you have for that? His original sentence: > he is talking about something none of the other candidates are talking about: returning freedoms and sanity to America It's a cheap rhetorical trick. "Sanity" is defined as what his favored candidate wants to do, no? > I would posit that "insane" and "broken" are problematic in…

It's a cheap rhetorical trick. "Sanity" is defined as what his favored candidate wants to do, no? It depends. If Ron Paul were to reverse his views on positions where individual rights and freedom are the foundation, do you think the original poster would still support Ron Paul? If your answer is no, then he's clearly not defining "Sanity = What favorite candidate wants." If the answer is no, then the original poster…

My above phrase was not quite correct: it's not about the candidate, per se, it's about labeling as 'sane' those policies that he agrees with. Presumably, he could have a great time trading 'insane' and other verbiage with the people who view the lack of universal health care in the US as 'insane', as one example, and no one would be the better off for the whole exchange.

By the way, you, too, are insane for not agreeing 100% with me:-)

Re: Ron Paul speaks against SOPA

#258

Post by cbs » Fri, Dec 30, 2011, 9:33 PM UTC

adbge wrote: post #211

cbs wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And when I'm out of states that share my views?

Try voting.

Well yeah. Thats kind of my point. I was showing the silliness of the statement I was replying to, that somehow if I don't like the laws of my state, I can just up and move to one that does instead of having to try and affect legislative change.

Re: Ron Paul speaks against SOPA

#259

Post by wycats » Fri, Dec 30, 2011, 9:34 PM UTC

VMG wrote: post #242

wycats wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

See my other response on this thread. My comment here was based entirely on what actually happened, not some theoretical view of how economies work in the abstract.

My comment here was based entirely on what actually happened, not some theoretical view of how economies work in the abstract. Then you aren't allowed to speculate abstractly on how economies work. You are relying on one data point with no control group.

You know, I've just about had enough of libertarians and conservatives claiming such moral superiority of their economic world view that they perceive any disagreement with it as obviously wrong.

I was replying to a parent comment that claimed that ARPA wasn't particularly important in the greater scheme of things ("If it wasn't ARPA, it would have been something else"). I replied by pointing out that even when ARPA did exist, it took quite some time before the free market started churning out Internet alternatives (none of which really survived, by the way), so perhaps the initial bootstrapping was useful. I also pointed out the the ARPA internet defined the character of the "public internet", which most people here think is vastly superior to the walled garden alternatives that the free market cooked up years later.

I didn't go into a long treatise on economics because that wasn't the point I was responding to. Just because I don't take every tangentially related opportunity to evangelize my personal thinking on economics does not mean that I'm ignorant about economics.

I've said this before to people who take a moralistic tone on economics: if you are a true believer of purely free market economics thinking, please take the time to read extensively from respected economists who disagree with your world view. There are plenty of Nobel Prize winning economists who disagree with your position, so it shouldn't be hard.

I, personally, have a somewhat nuanced (read: "not unprincipled") view largely because I have read extensively from people with radically different positions on economics. It really helps.

Re: Ron Paul speaks against SOPA

#260

Post by espeed » Fri, Dec 30, 2011, 9:38 PM UTC

grandalf wrote: post #238

scythe wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>he's a states rights guy because he wants the power to do things like ban abortion in Texas. No, he's a states rights guy because he's a states rights guy, and he holds to that position even when states pass laws he disagrees with. Look, the two most decentralized first-world countries that I can think of are Canada and Switzerland. These are not draconian racist hellholes; they're considered some of the freest coun…

In the majority of recent, real-world instances, local laws have tended to be more liberal than federal laws. This is an excellent point. It's also far more expensive for lobbying groups to try to influence politicians state by state. Powerful Federal officials represent a one stop shop for buying influence, so decreasing Federal power will reduce corruption.

Exactly. And for this reason, would we be served better if there were more members of Congress? (http://www.quora.com/Would-US-citizens-be-served-better-if-t...).

How many members would it take before lobbying became prohibitively expensive?