Matthew, an interesting one for you...

It's hard to know where to even start on this one

He does a pretty good job of pointing out the hipocracy of those on the "left" that accuse Paul of not being a good civil libertarian while supporting Obama and other establishment Democrats who are way worse. However, he doesn't even address some of their most egregious demagoguery. Like the accusing Paul of supporting "forced pregnancy" because he believes that the basic function of the state is to protect innocent life. They act like the issue of abortion is a simple matter of supporting women's rights without any regard to the complicated issues of the the rights of the unborn. There is certainly a legitimate debate there that both sides seem to write off as not debatable. Also, he didn't point out the fact the most on the "left" that are supposedly solid civil libertarians virtually write off 10% of the Bill of Rights by ignoring the 2nd amendment or claiming it means something that no evidence has ever suggested it does and defies the plain language of it while reading stuff into the rest of the BoR that if the same logic was applied to the 2nd amendment the government would be required to buy everyone a gun and issue it to them at birth.

I believe the that the divide between "left wing" libertarians and "right wing" libertarians like Paul comes down to a fundamental disagreement of where rights come from. The "right" believes rights are natural and inalienable while the "left" believes that rights are a something the government must provide even if they must force others to provide that "right". This is the mentality that calls health care a right even though it is a commodity that must be provided by others. A "right wing" libertarian might call health care a right but only in that the government cannot infringe upon your ability to seek out and receive health care.

Really what the "left" wants is a nanny states that frees everyone from the fear and consequences of failure. The rights they support are only the ones that facilitate that eventuality. It's not real civil libertarianism it's just a self serving political agenda disguised as it. Which is why they don't like Ron Paul, he undermines that agenda.
 
Well, I didn't pass it along...

because I thought it a comprehensive reconciliation of the left and right on all points of 'liberty issues'. I just found this to be the first time that the 'Pascalian Wager' of "...what would I, as a liberal lose by a Paul Presidency?'' put in print and with reasonable economy. His argument that, from a practical perspective, there is probably an enormous net gain-the end of the wars, the general pullback from both our militarism and our interventionism, an end to the War on Drugs, and end to domestic spying. The risks, again from a practical perspective, aren't all that great-the gold standard will not happen, the roll back of the Civil Rights Act is very,very, unlikely; the immigration issue could easily be looked at as a gain in that an immigration policy formed around an honest-to-god secure border could be to the great benefit of all (I say this on the grounds that there is a compelling economic case to be made for the availability of cheap labor in Mexico and if it was regularized, controlled and even taxed in some ways the net benefits could be great and managed rather than being arguable and out of control)
Now abortion is something I can't really comes to grip with in terms of analyzing it from the liberal point of view simply because I don't think it is at root a political issue. Unlike all the other issues it is purely an ethical/moral issue and the flimsiness of the thinking contained in Roe v. Wade is an embarassment to any person of good will. You are absolutely correct in condemning the left for not even wanting to engage this issue as a matter of reasoned and felt dispute (I have lost almost all my 'liberal' friends over the last 30 years on these very grounds).
No need to grapple with the 2nd again-it has been hashed to death in here and as a matter for the present and the foreseeable future there is simply no practical or political means by which to deprive gun owners of either their guns or their rights to keep them, I just don't think there is a philosophically interesting issue there that I personally want to discuss.

Well, I found the article thought provoking anyway.
 
Just musing why this writer and his respondents (except Pareene) all assume that RP gets elected in a vacuum.....

Pareene addresses that point but cannot wrap his head around what Congress would look have to look like if Paul were elected; he can only go so far as to see a big R majority, but his R majority are the "same old RINOs".

I think it would be decidedly Republican, and just about every R elected would be a TeaPartyer. (You might even see a Libertarian Party candidate elected to Congress.) The ones who are not, ie Dems and leftover Rs in the Senate, would be looking down the barrel of the single most momentus political event in US history...a real, live, no sh*t mandate from the electorate to get with RP's program.

During an RP presidency with a Congress like that, a lot could be done (or rather, undone.)
 
In a way it is hard...

to imagine a scenario where Paul is elected without an enormous shake up all the way round. The flavor of the whole political soup would have to be much altered to get him in. If it was not he would be utterly frustrated from both sides and the middle.

"In a vacuum"! well put.:wink2:
 
Regarding The Atlantic....

...is this what passes for "investigative journalism" there?

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2011/08/ron-paul-owns-millions-in-gold-interests/244157/

The writer: "When a politician has a financial stake in one of his pet causes, it always seems a bit fishy on its face."

Me: RP puts his money where his mouth is.

Footnote: Jeez, of all people you'd think RP would be buying gold and not gold mining stocks:whistle:. He would have gotten a 31% return in gold as opposed to his 21% return in mining stocks.:wink2:
 
That article is unbelievably stupid. It's shocking someone would invest in something they believe in :rolleyes: Not only that, he votes against all unbalanced budgets even though they would help his investment in gold. People can't seem to understand that some people run for office because they believe in something not the other way around.

It's interesting that people that are viewed as the most credible are the ones saying what people want to hear even if they are almost always wrong. At the same time people who are repeatedly proven correct are considered nuts because nobody likes what they have to say. This is why flagrant fools like Paul Krugman get more respect than Ron Paul.
 
Who knows?

It is a crap magazine for the most part. Things that we read these days have to be taken on their own merits after a good hard critical consideration. That applies right across all sources in my experience. They all seem to have an axe to grind or at least a readership to pander to. It never pays to swallow something before chewing it over pretty thoroughly.

Best to remember that the real struggle is not between left and right but between the hegemons and the rest of us:help:
 
Really the shake up would mostly have to be in the GOP. Somewhat surprisingly of all the GOP candidates only Romney polls better (slightly) against Obama than Paul. I know it's over a year away and they are only polls but Ron Paul appears, at least on paper, to be at the top of the GOP field when it comes to "electability".
 
Who would have thought...

it possible-very interesting:wink2::wink2:

Maybe there is hope, if not for the Doc himself, at least for some heterodox thinking somewhere in our politics.
 
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