![[FSF Associate Member]](http://www.notsosoft.net/images/getButton){kind=small}
Ron Paul Sucks Again
Ron Paul seems to be doing pretty good at losing. I’m stoked. The most dangerous person in this race is being appropriately marginalized, and that makes me smile. Ron Paul brought his message to the table–a message of retreat from the entire world, of selfishness, of rolling back all of the positive democratic and social reforms in the last 100 years, a message of indifference, of ignorance, and of hate–and the people of Iowa, the people of Wyoming, and the people of New Hampshire have rejected it.
Mitt Romney has failed to win this state that he seemed almost certain to win, and Mike Huckabee came in a distant third. I don’t know how the Democratic primaries are going to turn out, there’s an awful lot of variance minute-by-minute, but it does look like Hillary may have won there (I’m hoping to print a retraction soon).
Let’s all join together to congratulate John McCain on his victory, and congratulate Ron Paul for his overwhelming defeat. Have a good night folks.
Popularity: 8%
This entry was posted
on Tuesday, January 8th, 2008 at 20:59 and is filed under Politics.
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Stumble it!
Ok, I’m sorry, but how the hell are you going to say that Ron Paul isn’t a libertarian, and that libertarianism is a nice philosophy, and some of your best friends are libertarians, etc, and then go and complain about “retreating from the entire world [Ron Paul is for retreating the military, not trade! He's not Pat Buchanan], selfishness, and rolling back all of the positive democratic and social reforms in the last 100 years”. What do you think libertarianism is? You can’t just make it into something you like. You’re in no position to say that libertarianism doesn’t advocate free trade, complete (”selfish”, if you will) free-market capitalism, and removal of the welfare state, and any sort of “civil rights legislation” OTHER than what keeps the GOVERNMENT from discriminating. If you know libertarians that you like because they’re not so extreme, then I would say they’re soft-core libertarians. But I assure you, these extreme things are in fact a more extreme and proper form of libertarianism. You don’t have to like it, you have every right to dislike any position, and there are plenty of good arguments against it. But don’t go around saying “real libertarians don’t believe that crazy stuff”. No. They _Do_. If you don’t like it, you don’t like libertarianism. That’s perfectly fine, I wouldn’t complain about you having a point of view, I just don’t like you misinterpreting mine.
That said, if you believe Ron Paul has been advocating “indifference, ignorance, and hate” (which I don’t believe), then you can legitimately say he’s not a libertarian.
I do believe that’s what he’s been advocating. Libertarianism supports free trade, but Ron Paul believes in the government enforcing property “rights,” including “intellectual property rights.” which is fundamentally not a fair-trade system.
Dan, you’re a great guy, but you’d have to be blind or ignorant to miss Ron Paul’s past and present message of indifference–his stance on pulling out of US obligations to help the rest of the world, his stance on removing the department of education, his stance on health care–his message of ignorance, and his enormous past record of hate–see the TNR article.
Ron Paul is also advocating retreating from trade. He wants to pull out of the WTO, NAFTA, and all other trade treaties. He ignorantly believes that these treaties are somehow a threat to our “sovereignty.”
Oh, and the ignorance is obvious in his wack-job conspiracy theories. This guy should be wearing a tin-foil hat in a psych ward, not running for president.
If you believe that stopping US Govt. foreign aid, removing the dept of education, and fully privatizing health care is indifference, that’s fine. It’s a reasonable point of view. But your beef is with libertarianism in general, not just Ron Paul. These are libertarian positions.
However, your issue with pulling out of WTO and NAFTA organizations is a fair point of contention with Paul. His goal as a libertarian is free trade, and avoiding bowing to an even higher governmental authority; both libertarian goals, more or less. Some libertarians might support those organizations because they’re a good step toward free trade, but Paul seems to think that they start putting the US into the control of a larger authority (think States Rights, but on a different scale). I think he’s still doing it out of his libertarian ideals, but it’s fair of you to criticize him on his proposed course of action to reach those ideals. I don’t think you could say he’s being un-libertarian here. In fact I bet he would say he’s for free trade with Mexico, just not under NAFTA.
And yeah, conspiracy theories, while perhaps libertarian-based in his case, are not inherently libertarian. I’m not sure how founded or unfounded his beliefs are. I won’t put away my tinfoil hat yet, I’d have to look into it.
Bottom line, you do have some decent points about Ron Paul, but so many misinformed ones. I don’t know if I can trust your assessment sometimes because of your misunderstandings about libertarianism.
As funny as it sounds, I would complain a lot less if you just said you hated libertarians
But I don’t. I think there’s some real value to many libertarian ideals. I like the “you leave me alone and I’ll leave you alone” idea, I just don’t think it works in all cases. I also think that privatizing everything is the fastest way to the exploitation of the people by private organizations trying to rake in more profits. This is often at the expense of the health and safety of the people. The government, which is supposed to be for the people by the people, does have a duty to protect the people and ensure that they have a fair chance at a good quality of life.
Health care should be a right and education should be considered–and in many places is–a right. Unfortunately, Libertarianism puts these things in a place where they are more of a luxury.
I don’t hate anybody, not even Ron Paul. I just think that my dog is better qualified to lead our country than he is. At least my dog only shits in the grass, Ron Paul will shit on the constitution.
“…education should be considered–and in many places is–a right. Unfortunately, Libertarianism puts these things in a place where they are more of a luxury.”
Remind me to one day tell you about a book that remembers the day when there was a much higher level of education in the United States that was destroyed by “mandatory” schooling with a one-size-fits-all curriculum. I’ll have to find the title again.
All I’m saying is to question your assumptions.
Cezar: As an alternative school graduate I totally agree there. But the only reason I was able to go to an alternative school was because I had that right. There’s a difference between having a right to an education and having an obligation to one. Until kids are a certain age I think it makes sense for parents to choose this for them, but there should be a point at which that choice shifts. And the one-size-fits-all curriculum is a real problem. But I think privatizing everything and removing the notion that it is a right is a big mistake.
Ron Paul WILL NOT DROP OUT.
HE WILL NOT RUN THIRD PARTY
MCCAIN IS A MANCHICKEN.
Hey do us all a great justice and move to china you are anti american. Ron paul is our only hope, Bozo and i am sory you are to brainwashed to see that.
shannon: So standing up for our constitution–the whole constitution, not just the parts that Ron Paul likes–is anti-American? Hoping for a president who isn’t a known white supremacist is anti-American? You’ve got a strange definition of what it means to be an American.
Ron Paul -does- suck.
I am a Pro-Choice Libertarian that is also sick of the hero worship for a man that won’t even use the word, ‘libertarian’, unless backed in to a corner.
He says that he is a Republican with Constitutionalist leanings, and he is.
He is proudly and consistently anti-abortion and has tried to give millions of fetus’s the same rights of real Americans, which seems -very- big-government to me. (see Sanctity of Life)
How can such a smart doctor like him not recognize the ill effect on our community to force the continued import of millions of unwanted children?
He loves the Constitution except for the words, ‘persons born’, and his mantra of late, that the decision should be relegated to the States, is a lie.
How can you trust a Republican that -used to be- libertarian, but does not respect Body-Ownership Rights of Individuals already born?
Ronpaulicans get very mad at me because I make Paul’s anti-Choice platform a -huge- sticking point, but many of them simply don’t realize that it is -he- that makes it the big issue.
HELL, I would love to see our troops come home, and see the end of the FED and the IRS, but I want a leader I can TRUST.
In, short, a rich old white Christian Republican will never lead a successful revolution for Liberty.
~Ron Boozell aka stoneman76
yahoo’s largest libertarian group:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/LibertyBandwagon/