Comments on: Ron Paul shocks the establishment

By: Tinter

Tinter — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 08:37:50 +0000

Ron Paul is a non-entity in the polls as you well know.
I’m not enthused by any candidate, but social conservatism sends me running for the hills, which I guess leaves me stuck with a democrat.
I guess I would have to hope for a Biden or Richardson, but neither of them inspires especially. Just because the field is awful though, doesn’t make Paul any better in my eyes.
Somewhat, its a matter of perspective I guess, and how you try to pick candidates when you don’t like any of them that much.
I stand by most of of my criticisms though, and a candidate who I think is bad socially and economically isn’t going to win much love from me.
Fortunatly its not an election I have to vote in anyway!

By: tristan

tristan — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 13:16:03 +0000

Joe: We are talking US conservatism which has a strong strand of liberalism within it. The neo-cons have done away with that, but Goldwater style conservatives are pretty liberal.

Tinter:
DADT: He’s against treating people as groups. So he doesn’t care about whether you are gay, just if your actions are disruptive - that goes for heterosexual relationships as well as homosexual relationships.
The fact that he sees people as individuals not just part of a group is exceedingly liberal.

The moralising which you speak of is far far more prominent in the Democrats with Clinton wanting to ban gambling to ‘protect’ you and to force a single healthcare solution upon people ‘for their own good’. That is not liberalism.

I’m open minded about a gold standard, given the multitude of problems the current fiat money system has, with value being set at a whim by a committee.

I do suggest you actually look at what he stands for before criticising. I also suggest you look into the principles behind the founding of the USA rather than simply moralising.

I do disagree with his stance on immigration, although it is the mainstream stance in the US and no other candidate seems to be saying anything different. His stance on abortion is that it is a moral choice which is none of the federal government’s business, which is far better than most of the Republicans or Democrats who want to force their morality upon others.

Lastly, who do you think offers better prospects? The reset of the Republicans would just expand the powers of the President even further and abuse it even more. The same goes for most of the Democrats who also seem to want to destroy the US economy.

Given the bad choices available, so far Ron Paul is by far the best option for me. Mike Gravel coming second, but he fails on trying to standardise health care (great, everyone but the rich can suffer from poor health care) and is a non-entity.

By: Tinter

Tinter — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 12:50:18 +0000

But its not just abortion where he acts in a conservative manner- I believe I mentioned DADT? He is willing to resrict freedom and choice on a range of issues.
He is against economic interventions by states- I don’t care to differentiate between federal and American states, government is government- but happy for them to moralise away.
It is moralising that has been at the leading edge of support for neo-conservatism. He is not the man to knock it on the head.
My criticisms of gold apply to pegging to any single good. All the same problems as have happened with gold would occur. Those who make the argument for pegging sensibly suggest pegging to a range of goods and measures.
Ron Paul, as far as I have read, just wants to peg to gold. Given his economic program is all he has, this is a pretty critical blow in my book.

By: Joe Otten

Joe Otten — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 14:32:07 +0000

Tristan,

“Paul does however exhibit too much conservatism, but at least that leads him to protect civil liberties and to respect individual choice in most areas.”

Funny, conservatism seems to lead at least as many people in the opposite direction. Perhaps it is not conservatism at work there.

By: tristan

tristan — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 13:05:57 +0000

And Ron Paul on Racism:
http://www.lewrockwell.com/paul/paul68.html

Even if you disagree with what he says, those are not the words of a racist.

By: tristan

tristan — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 13:00:25 +0000

Further towards trying to remove the perception of libertarians seeing the state as the onnly evil - libertarians are against eminent domain abuse. This is perpetrated by government, but usually at business’s request.
If a business were to attempt the same thing without government sanction libertarians would be opposed, and most would look to government to prevent it.

Libertarians made a mistake in siding with business against the state in the 70s, they are now coming to realise that the interests of business are not those of liberty. (the more clueful knew this all along…)

By: tristan

tristan — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 12:26:48 +0000

tinter:

Abortion is an issue which cuts across liberals. I don’t think that opposition to it should rule someone out, and unlike more other anti-abortion people he at least is not willing to impose his view upon others.

From a US point of view, states rights is the first step towards a liberal state, states can freely compete in the social and economic spheres. The people of the US are far wealthier than at any other time in history, even the poorest are. It is much easier to move between states than ever before.

As far as I understand modern gold bugs, they mean gold as a particular commodity, not necessarily gold. I think having a currency backed by a commodity of fixed amount with stable value would solve many of the problems of the current system, I however don’t know of one - gold as you point out is not really suitable.

The race rows- I thought they’d been dealt with - it certainly was not him expressing racist opinions.

Given the other Republican candidates, he is the only one I could hope wins the nomination. He’s at least dedicated to restricting the role of the state and getting back to the original (if still flawed) liberal ideas of the USA.

My hope is that he can cause a resurgence of the true liberals in the US, moving the Democrats away from their authoritarian statist position towards a liberal position.
At the very least he may cause a resurgence of the ‘Old Right’ in the US leading to the defeat of the ‘new right’ and neo-conservatives.

By: tristan

tristan — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 12:15:28 +0000

Paul:
Libertarianism is part of the liberal family, and it doesn’t universally see government as the only problem - that’s pretty much just the anarcho-capitalists. Even they are part of the liberal family, just as anarcho-communists are part of the socialist family, they’re just the extreme wing…

As for Ron Paul - he’s done several things which would actually fit well in the LibDems - he’s against pork barreling - something which LibDems would rail against I hope. He’s also proposed that Social Security benefits should not be taxed (solid LibDem there) and that money paid into Social Security should be used just for that and not siphoned off to other things - again I think LibDems would fully support that.

Paul does however exhibit too much conservatism, but at least that leads him to protect civil liberties and to respect individual choice in most areas.

By: Tinter

Tinter — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 02:00:51 +0000

On issues like abortion, saying “states rights” is creating a valid circumstance for the violation of the most fundamental right of bodily automonomy, and I don’t think you would allow such apologia if you didn’t happen to support some of his other goals. The same applies for immigration. Saying they can just go somewhere else is no excuse for such actions, and is essentially blaming the victim.
You say leaving religion to the states is better than now- what terrible errors in democratic states will be removed that will account for the christianization of the bible belt?
As to the gold standard, private gold standard currencies can be bought, but then so can gold. For a state to back both currencies has drawbacks that I would hope are obvious, given that exchange would occur between the two.
As to its inherent draw backs, pegging to any real good has many problems. Firstly, it means that any changes in avalability or price of the good cause financial collapse, as seen in the deflation that ended the gold standard.
More importantly, it reduces freedom within markets to only the movement of capital- that is to say, liquidity is dictated by how much gold we can mine (substitute for any other good). The current financial market circumstances should surely provide an obvious example of issues of this on a much smaller scale than could arise with pegged currencies.
Some coherent arguments have been made by the likes of Greenspan on anchor currencies, although I still disagree. These use systems are set to use a wider range of goods. However, Ron Paul supports the archaic Gold standard.
I don’t think choosing a commodity whos demand is reliant substantially on demand for jewellery in India; which would have to be heavily stockpiled and horded by governments, putting it to less efficent use than otherwise; and whos inherent value can vary according to mining returns and the like, represents any sound economics but rather backing a favoured warhorse of a few libertarian diehards despite the fact its inane.
Given the furore over race around his campaign and previously, I am not even willing to allow that he is a decent loon I’m afraid. He pretty terrible all around as far as I can see, and I did initially think he might be ok, as American politicans go.

By: Paul

Paul — Tue, 06 Nov 2007 20:58:42 +0000

I often agree with you, but Ron Paul is not a liberal in any parlance, he’s just a libertarian. With that comes the unsavoury and incorrect assertion that government is the sole evil to be combatted in pursuing the cause of indivual freedom.