For Liberty(and pwnage) Ron Paul 2012 Part II

[Oruc]

Why is Ron Paul proud of the fact his donations are coming from parasites living off the government's teat rather than proud American capitalists creating wealth?

Well they actually do a job, instead of Obama's supporters who are dolewallers or liberal arts majors.

 

[useless]

useless will support any kind of police state, no matter how backwards and repressive, so long as its head pays lipservice to gay issues. Jackboots pepperspraying you in the face? That's fine, just so long as it comes with a handout. Government bureaucrats using arcane and ambiguous rules to keep poor people dependent? Just fine. The federal government uses racist drug laws to keep poor blacks in prison? Wave the rainbow flag and you've got his support! Bomb Iran, incite anti-U.S. terrorism? No problemo! He's not useless, because he's a useful pawn of the regime.

Tell me more about how you support a racist, homophobic candidate, whilst accusing me of being the former!

Also, I guess those poor people, with what little help they get being withdrawn, will definately not suffer, lose their homes or starve, for you see people, the only reason that they're poor is because of the state. No other reason is needed clearly! Being born into poverty? Nah, no need to look any deeper than "GOVERNMENT = BAD!"

Also I love how you talk about how "backwards and repressive" it is, i didn't realise that supporting gays rights is exactly that, but thank you Amadeus, for telling me that truth, whilst you support stripping away what little rights and help gay people, black people and poor people have and get.

i loled (which is laughing out loud for you non-internet people) reading this

 

[Crezth]

Well they actually do a job, instead of Obama's supporters who are dolewallers or liberal arts majors.

Are you insinuating that liberal arts majors are deserving of scorn in some way, and that all of Obama's supporters are liberal arts majors?

 

[Oruc]

Are you insinuating that liberal arts majors are deserving of scorn in some way, and that all of Obama's supporters are liberal arts majors?

It was a joke

 

[useless]

Continuing on from my last post; apparently I support racism, despite criticising and pointing out (repeatedly) Ron Paul's racism, but clearly once homophobia disappears, according to Amadeus, I will stop objecting to all other forms of inequality and bigotry because

 

[Cryptic_Snow]

Yes, because voting for a man (Ron Paul) who wants to eliminate the Department of Education, is such an advisable move, one which could lead to future generations becomming uneducated, which would be disastrious, given how America relies on an educated citizenry to retain it's posistion in the world.

Ron Paul doesn't care about others, he only cares about his own, the people that he recognises as being similar to him, it just so happens that these people are mainly male, white, middle-class, straight Christian people.

Eliminate what little social nets there are? Who cares! The people that suffer and starve from such an action, they're just lazy, feckless, and they weren't really people anyway, not like the middle and upper classes, they're "real" Americans.

At the end of the day, Ron Paul only cares about money, not actual people. His own ideology is based around tight-fisted policies, that benefit the already rich, that end up screwing everyone else, because to him capitalism and the free-market are inherently beneficial, abuse of the people living under it be damned.

The U.S. consistently lags behind other countries in education. The Dept. of Education has only been in existence since 1979 so get a grip. It's not like people went without education before some totem bureaucracy.

Moderator Action: 'Get a grip' is not helpful. It's trolling.
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889

 

[useless]

The U.S. consistently lags behind other countries in education.

I guess that's a reason to totally abolish the DoE because

It's not like people went without education before some totem bureaucracy.

So again, that's a reason to abolish it?

 

[Cryptic_Snow]

amadeus will oppose any type of government, no matter how beneficial, so long as it exists to stop individuals from predating upon one another. Poison in the canned foods? That's OK, as long as individuals can futilely try to sue the corporation. Free-rider problem? That's alright, clean water is a privilege, not a right.

What are you talking about? Hyper progressives, such as Ralph Nader actually agree with libertarians concerning Tort law. See the video @5:32


Link to video.

 

[Cutlass]

Tort reform is usually a conservative issue, and one not all libertarians agree with. Conservatives just want to abolish the private ownership of property, and that is the reason that they support tort reform. Many branches of libertarians just want to deny access to a process that can protect people and property.

 

[Tenochtitlan]

Yes, because voting for a man (Ron Paul) who wants to eliminate the Department of Education, is such an advisable move, one which could lead to future generations becomming uneducated, which would be disastrious, given how America relies on an educated citizenry to retain it's posistion in the world.

Ron Paul doesn't care about others, he only cares about his own, the people that he recognises as being similar to him, it just so happens that these people are mainly male, white, middle-class, straight Christian people.

Eliminate what little social nets there are? Who cares! The people that suffer and starve from such an action, they're just lazy, feckless, and they weren't really people anyway, not like the middle and upper classes, they're "real" Americans.

At the end of the day, Ron Paul only cares about money, not actual people. His own ideology is based around tight-fisted policies, that benefit the already rich, that end up screwing everyone else, because to him capitalism and the free-market are inherently beneficial, abuse of the people living under it be damned.

I love these objections. They remind me of this fitting quote by Bastiat:

"Socialism, like the old policy from which it emanates, confounds Government and society. And so, every time we object to a thing being done by Government, it concludes that we object to its being done at all.

We disapprove of education by the State - then we are against education altogether.

We object to a State religion - then we would have no religion at all.

We object to an equality which is brought about by the State then we are against equality, etc., etc.

They might as well accuse us of wishing men not to eat, because we object to the cultivation of corn by the State."

- Claude Frédéric Bastiat - The Law, 1850.

 

[Crezth]

"Socialism, like the old policy from which it emanates, confounds Government and society. And so, every time we object to a thing being done by Government, it concludes that we object to its being done at all.

This is because a lot of these things would not be done without government. If you oppose public education, you oppose mass education. It would not occur otherwise, and, historically, did not.

 

[useless]

So do you actually have anything to say?

 

[MagisterCultuum]

This is because a lot of these things would not be done without government. If you oppose public education, you oppose mass education. It would not occur otherwise, and, historically, did not.

Ron Paul does not oppose public education though. What he opposes is a federal bureaucracy whose portion of school funding is offset by increased administrative costs. He wants schools and teachers to have more control of of how they teach students to understand the material rather than requiring them to focus on teaching kids how to pass standardized tests.

The Unites States had public schools long before it had a department of education, and since the department was established we have only fallen further behind the rest of the world.


Link to video.

 

[Leoreth]

@Tenochtitlan:
As opposed to Socialists (whom I don't agree with too), Libertarians in general and Paul in particular haven't presented any sound idea how to achieve these things without the state. The best we get is the vague assumption that free market mechanisms can do anything, and just don't do this because evil government interferes with it somehow.

But even that's rare. Most of the time all we hear is: Government is EVIL, taxation is THEFT, all I care about is FREEDOM and MY BUSINESS, damn the consequences, especially for people who are not ME. Inexplicable capital letters obligatory.

 

[Traitorfish]

If that's the case care to explain why special interests and Wall Streeters refuse to fund Ron Paul? They know the gravy train of corruption would come to an abrupt halt...Romney and Obama keep the status quo going. The average donation to Paul is about $70 and his top contributors are the various branches of the military.

This is just begging for a Weimar-era parody.

Well they actually do a job, instead of Obama's supporters who are dolewallers or liberal arts majors.

In what sense is employment, in itself, a virtue? Surely for someone like Paul, there's much more to be said for living in poverty on minimal welfare than in non-productive public sector employment? If you're going to be a drain on society,his philosophy would seem to dictate, then be the smallest drain possible, not the biggest drain that is convenient.

I love these objections. They remind me of this fitting quote by Bastiat:

"Socialism, like the old policy from which it emanates, confounds Government and society. And so, every time we object to a thing being done by Government, it concludes that we object to its being done at all.

We disapprove of education by the State - then we are against education altogether.

We object to a State religion - then we would have no religion at all.

We object to an equality which is brought about by the State then we are against equality, etc., etc.

They might as well accuse us of wishing men not to eat, because we object to the cultivation of corn by the State."

- Claude Frédéric Bastiat - The Law, 1850.

And that's basically why this philosophy is entirely half-cocked: it offers no innovations in social organisation, it just wants to scramble the distribution of functions. There's no critique of mediation, which is to say a meaningfully libertarian politics, there's just a lot of yammering about which set of barely-supervised suits should get to fill the role.

The Unites States had public schools long before it had a department of education...

Noting that you had at least one public school doesn't say anything at all about the quality or availability of mass education.

 

[Crezth]

Ron Paul does not oppose public education though. What he opposes is a federal bureaucracy whose portion of school funding is offset by increased administrative costs. He wants schools and teachers to have more control of of how they teach students to understand the material rather than requiring them to focus on teaching kids how to pass standardized tests.

This focus is the result of specific policy, such as the No Child Left Behind act, not the system as a whole.

Schools and teachers having more control over their curriculums does not correlate with better education overall: could you be more specific? Why is standardization bad for something like math or science, wherein there really isn't a lot of room for interpretation. I'm all for reforming the department of education, but I think most reform plans thus far are short-sighted or incomplete.

The Unites States had public schools long before it had a department of education, and since the department was established we have only fallen further behind the rest of the world.

It really is not clear that the Department of Education is why the U.S. has fallen behind, when so many of those countries that we have fallen in behind all have their own state-provided education and federal education ministries.

 

[Leoreth]

This is just begging for a Weimar-era parody.

You mean like this?

Kapp 1920 - Hitler 1923 - Paul 2012

 

[Traitorfish]

You mean like this?

Kapp 1920 - Hitler 1923 - Paul 2012

I was thinking more of a Thalmann-von Papen-Hitler thing. Soviet flag under the first, Papal insignia under the second, Germany military insignia under the third. "Support the guy wot the army supports, can't go wrong!

 

[amadeus]

Poison in the canned foods? That's OK, as long as individuals can futilely try to sue the corporation.

I still don't understand how this belief is held by non-libertarians. Although, I suppose if they understood, they wouldn't be non-libertarians anymore. Even without lawsuits, there'd be no reason to sell poisoned food.

It goes without saying that the motivation of the capitalist is always to maximize profits. In doing so, knowledgeably selling poisoned food and not rectifying the problem once identified would lead to bad press. Stores, in their own interest of not losing business, would stop carrying the offending brand and people, fearing the safety of their food, would flock to other brands. Sales would plummet and the business would go under.

A good example of free-market health regulation already exists: kosher certifications. Despite this lack of governmental regulation, Jews still confidently buy food from manufacturers.

 

[Cutlass]

I still don't understand how this belief is held by non-libertarians. Although, I suppose if they understood, they wouldn't be non-libertarians anymore. Even without lawsuits, there'd be no reason to sell poisoned food.

It goes without saying that the motivation of the capitalist is always to maximize profits. In doing so, knowledgeably selling poisoned food and not rectifying the problem once identified would lead to bad press. Stores, in their own interest of not losing business, would stop carrying the offending brand and people, fearing the safety of their food, would flock to other brands. Sales would plummet and the business would go under.

A good example of free-market health regulation already exists: kosher certifications. Despite this lack of governmental regulation, Jews still confidently buy food from manufacturers.

The problem is that the real world fundamentally does not work that way. If there is no mechanism for holding people responsible or preventing them from doing harm, then we know with indisputable certainty that some portion of them will either deliberately harm others, or just recklessly do so, in the search for ever higher profits.

The markets have never prevented something like that from happening in the past, so there is flat out no reason to think that it would ever do so in the future. The maximization of profit is what drives that to happen.

People sell poisoned food because they make more money in doing so than they do in being safe with food.

You are assuming a behavior that flat out rejects observed human behavior in the past. And in doing so you would remove all ability of people to protect themselves from that behavior.

So your system can only work to the extent that people cease to act in their own best interest and cease to act in ways that people have always acted. And you give no reason why people should so fundamentally change their behaviors.