For Liberty(and pwnage) Ron Paul 2012 Part II

[downtown]

Aldi is great. Just the product, none of the bs.

What is Ron Paul's position on the Aldi.

Ha yeah, I didn't know there were Aldi haters. I buy half of my groceries from there....it's awesome.

Just dont buy veggies.

 

[amadeus]

I don't like the selection at Aldi, and it seems like there's always some screaming kids there. My preferred supermarket is まるたか, but I don't live in Nagasaki anymore.

 

[G-Max]

The anti-Paul crowd seems to keep forgetting that the Federal government can't prevent the states from sponsoring public services. California has its own Department of Education, you know. We have this thing called "Medical", too.

In fact, even if the Federal government completely ceased to exist, the states would just keep chugging along, creating their own post offices and issuing their own currencies and raising their own armies.

Paul isn't the one who's crazy...

 

[Leoreth]

In fact, even if the Federal government completely ceased to exist, the states would just keep chugging along, creating their own post offices and issuing their own currencies and raising their own armies.

That's the problem.

 

[G-Max]

How so?

 

[Traitorfish]

The anti-Paul crowd seems to keep forgetting that the Federal government can't prevent the states from sponsoring public services. California has its own Department of Education, you know. We have this thing called "Medical", too.

In fact, even if the Federal government completely ceased to exist, the states would just keep chugging along, creating their own post offices and issuing their own currencies and raising their own armies.

Paul isn't the one who's crazy...

That's what fascinates me about me about the Paulistas, actually. They make a big song and dance about being "libertarian" and opposed to intrusive state action and all that, but when it comes to concrete politics all they seem to envision is the same system that the US has now, but with the emphasis shifted slightly towards the states. I don't if it's the turgidness of American politics or their own self-mythologising that leads this to be imagined as something radical, but, either way, it is quite hilarious.

 

[Leoreth]

How so?

Can you even remotely imagine what a chaos there would be when suddenly you had 50 postal services, 50 different currencies, and 50 armies? Moving freely across the US is a matter of course for most of its population now, and this plan would turn 49 states into de facto foreign countries. It's sacrificing a working system on a national level for no discernable benefit.

Bosnia-Herzegovina would be a joke compared to the US.

 

[Arakhor]

That's what fascinates me about me about the Paulistas, actually. They make a big song and dance about being "libertarian" and opposed to intrusive state action and all that, but when it comes to concrete politics all they seem to envision is the same system that the US has now, but with the emphasis shifted slightly towards the states. I don't if it's the turgidness of American politics or their own self-mythologising that leads this to be imagined as something radical, but, either way, it is quite hilarious.

If that happened, the United States would abruptly cease to be a super-power as the ever-friendly relations between the states would lead to a rapid balkanisation and all those alternate American map-makers would be in ecstacy.

 

[G-Max]

That's what fascinates me about me about the Paulistas, actually. They make a big song and dance about being "libertarian" and opposed to intrusive state action and all that, but when it comes to concrete politics all they seem to envision is the same system that the US has now, but with the emphasis shifted slightly towards the states.

Not slightly, but very, very heavily. We'd be eliminating well over half of the Federal budget. I'd imagine that most of them would also favor getting rid of socialized medicine at the state level, they just don't expect Paul to do that.

Can you even remotely imagine what a chaos there would be when suddenly you had 50 postal services, 50 different currencies, and 50 armies? Moving freely across the US is a matter of course for most of its population now, and this plan would turn 49 states into de facto foreign countries.

So it would be a lot like the more developed parts of Europe. Are you saying that you want the Eurozone to become a single country?

It's sacrificing a working system on a national level for no discernable benefit.

You say that as if I was advocating the dissolution of the US. I wasn't.

If that happened, the United States would abruptly cease to be a super-power as the ever-friendly relations between the states would lead to a rapid balkanisation

That's funny. I don't recall much Balkanization back in 1913.

 

[Arakhor]

After all the contentious laws passed in the last 90 years, you're telling me that the various US states wouldn't immediately start to have different laws, making any grand union pointless?

 

[G-Max]

They already have different laws...

 

[Arakhor]

I'm not talking about separate state laws in a federal set-up, as you well know.

 

[G-Max]

Actually, I didn't know, because this thread is about Ron Paul, not dissolving the union, and I already said that I wasn't advocating the dissolution of the union.

 

[Cutlass]

The anti-Paul crowd seems to keep forgetting that the Federal government can't prevent the states from sponsoring public services. California has its own Department of Education, you know. We have this thing called "Medical", too.

In fact, even if the Federal government completely ceased to exist, the states would just keep chugging along, creating their own post offices and issuing their own currencies and raising their own armies.

Paul isn't the one who's crazy...

It would lower the standard of living of all Americans because the states are so much worse at so many of those things.

 

[Crezth]

In fact, even if the Federal government completely ceased to exist, the states would just keep chugging along, creating their own post offices and issuing their own currencies and raising their own armies.

Paul isn't the one who's crazy...

Ah, so we'd have ~12 more nuclear powers instead of just the one. I can see no downsides, if I'm honest.

 

[G-Max]

It would lower the standard of living of all Americans because the states are so much worse at so many of those things.

Is that even possible? I just can't imagine anything being more incompetent and wasteful than a Federal entitlement service.

Ah, so we'd have ~12 more nuclear powers instead of just the one. I can see no downsides, if I'm honest.

Nuclear weapons prevent war. Unless you're Iran, but Paul would actually address the legitimate grievances that they have against us instead of antagonizing them, so they'd only be a threat to Israel.

 

[GamezRule]

All this talk is making me favor more centralization, really.

 

[Traitorfish]

If that happened, the United States would abruptly cease to be a super-power as the ever-friendly relations between the states would lead to a rapid balkanisation and all those alternate American map-makers would be in ecstacy.

Would it, thought? The current degree of centralisation seen in the United States is something of a novelty, a product of the early 20th century (albeit with some significant shifts in that direction at earlier points, the Civil War being the obvious if overstated if example). I don't think it's a foregone conclusion that any significant decentralisation must lead inexorably towards Balkanisation, even if it's quite likely that it would end up as more of a runaway train than the Paulistas realise. I suspect, although feel free to tell me I'm wrong here, that you may be taking the devolutionary movements in Britain, with their strong nationalist components, as a model for generic devolutionism. (I wonder, would we Britons have a different perspective on the matter if Labour had more successfully pushed English regional devolution?)

Not slightly, but very, very heavily. We'd be eliminating well over half of the Federal budget. I'd imagine that most of them would also favor getting rid of socialized medicine at the state level, they just don't expect Paul to do that.

Well, that's perhaps a to-may-to/tom-ah-to issue. I'll just say that, for a country that really has seen some major periods of political re-composition in its history- the Revolution, the Jeffersonian era, the Jacksonian era, the Civil War, Progressivism, the Civil Rights era- his program seems a decidedly mild one. Redistributing responsibility for certain matters of social and financial policy isn't exactly on the level of Radical Reconstruction, if you get what I'm saying.

 

[G-Max]

All this talk is making me favor more centralization, really.

For the love of Thor, why?

 

[Leoreth]

So it would be a lot like the more developed parts of Europe. Are you saying that you want the Eurozone to become a single country?

Not a single country, but it should unify its standards of services, while you seem to favor a competition of standards, which doesn't make sense. The Eurozone already has a common currency, common standards for products and services. Its current problems come from a lack of common standards in labor and fiscal politics. So you propose to change the US into an even more loose economical zone than the current Eurozone.

You say that as if I was advocating the dissolution of the US. I wasn't.

What exactly constitutes the US when you abolish every aspect of the federation?