Progressives and the Ron Paul fallacies

[weemadando]

You could murder the opposition in the press for holding your military hostage by tying support for them with unconstitutional and amoral riders.

*edit* Every one seems keen to defend Obama no matter what and say "oh he can't fight them on this" or "he's waiting for a fight he can win". The rest of government aren't going to feed him cans, and he always seems willing to compromise his values, but never push back very much at all.

When will this much awaited and vaunted, political fighter find something he's willing to take a real stand on? Or is that a second term thing, for when he's worried about legacy, not re-election?

[Simon_Jester]

I can agree with this. I have no love at all for the Republican Party and its corporatist leanings. (One of the only bits I have disagreements with is on the Confederacy and that's only so far as believing they had the right to leave the Union...

My views on this I've expressed elsewhere recently- the Constitution includes duties along with rights, and I don't think you can turn your back on those duties unilaterally.

Nullification and secession were always inextricably tied with the evils of Southern slavery. From the beginning of the nation, the South knew it had to maintain a strong hold on political power in the US to protect its own institutions (slavery, landed aristocracy, and cash-crop plantation farming) from changes that might be brought about by the rest of the country. That was the reason for the "three fifths compromise," the reason why the Constitution's ban on the slave trade didn't take effect for decades, the reason for many of the state boundaries we now have, and so on.

The northern and western states never felt such need to secede or ignore the laws, because they weren't the ones who had to worry about their violations of human rights becoming repugnant to a majority of the national population.

Re: king and union

Well, what I'm getting at there is that there's more than one way to decentralize authority. You can decentralize it by making the individual unit of government small, but that has drawbacks- petty tyrants are still tyrants, and it's easier for a tyrant to get uniformity of opinion and majority support for his actions when he rules a smaller area.

You can also decentralize authority by creating layers of authority, which have different powers and the ability to overrule each other to prevent injustice. That's the original theory behind "checks and balances," an Enlightenment idea favored by Montesquieu, who was reacting against the hyper-centralized authority of the French monarchy.

But when we take a nation's history (say, France) and look for the times when the people of France suffered trampling of their rights, we see both periods of concentrated rule under a single powerful tyranny (Louis XIV, Napoleon III, Hitler/Petain), and periods of dispersed rule by petty warlords (the middle ages) and mobs (the period of the French Revolution known as "the Terror"). Mobs and bandits can be just as cruel as supreme dictators.

If you look at countries where the people are consistently free and minorities are not forced to suffer, you will mostly find that these countries have federalist governments. Administrative and regulatory power may exist at the provincial level, but abuses by the provincial government can be overruled by the central government. I don't think that's a coincidence; I think it's a necessary feature of a free society.

It is not conducive to individual freedom to have purely concentrated government, where provincial rule is delegated from above. And it isn't good to have purely dispersed government either, where the provinces have broad authority to dictate the terms on which their citizens live, and there is no one to appeal to if they abuse their authority.

I'm a little iffy on Paul keeping that guy's money. One on hand, he may as well have taken it and used racist asshole's money on stuff that would overall be better for minorities. On the other, it's only five hundred bucks in a campaign that easily raises millions and it's an absolute PR nightmare. (OK, so I'm not so iffy on this.)

To me, the biggest concern is that after spending so many years hand in hand with racists and homophobes and conspiracy theorists, I'm not sure Ron Paul can be trusted to keep them where they belong- outside the realm of public policy-making. Even if he doesn't openly avow those beliefs himself, it's clear that he has no problem working with them and treating them as a valid section of the libertarian movement which he chooses to lead.

It would be one thing if he'd consorted with those groups in his youth (or thirty years ago, in his middle age), and since then had a strong legacy of rejecting discrimination and paranoia as political tools. I can see a man having a change of heart, and not hold it against him that before that his associates were questionable. But first I have to see the change of heart, and Ron Paul's recent actions don't give me much confidence.

At that point, I had already not voted for him in the Democratic primary (I didn't agree with his platform compared to Kucinich, and I just didn't know him as well as Hillary Clinton at the time), and now felt strongly vindicated about that. He's not a liberal, he's not the devil I know, and now, he cares more about the election than standing up for himself.

I accept the assessment; my conclusions may or may not differ because I have different voting priorities.

I think McCain was the wrong choice, still; I even think McCain was the 'wronger' choice than Obama. But in hindsight I really wish the Dems had picked somebody else in 2008.

I won't know exactly what to think of the upcoming election until I know who the Republicans nominate, and until we've had more time to form opinions of them during the race.

[MKSheppard]

The Ron Paul Political Report Special Issue on Race Terrorism

50 scans of the most 'fun' items in 20 years of Ron Paul 'Reports'

Naturally, Paul's name (and sometimes photo) is splashed over the front page of each newsletter; and they all have the general copyright going:

Code: Select all

Copyright 1992 by Ron Paul & Associates, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

He liked it enough to copyright it for his corporate holding company, which back in June 1993 was making an annual income of $940,000 off of suckers around the US. LINK

I don't care much about what he believed 20 years ago, or what scams he ran under his name.

20 years ago, he was saying stuff like this in his newsletter as part of the Ron Paul™ Brand:

I miss the closet. Homosexuals, not to speak of the rest of society, were far better off when social pressure forced them to hide their activities. They could also not be as promiscuous. Is it any coincidence that the AIDS epidemic developed after they came "out of the closet," and started hyper-promiscuous sodomy? I don't believe so, medically or morally.

Don't you feel all warm and fuzzywuzzy inside, Crossie?

As for the rest of the stuff over Obama's brutal war on innocents™...

I actually will vote for THE ABOMINATION in November because the Republican field is total utter shit, and Richard Milhous Obama's actions over the last three-ish years have repudiated the claims made about DEMMYCRATS being weak on defense. Nixon's Obama's the One!

[TithonusSyndrome]

You talk about tens of millions of people suffering from a bad economy... but millions of people are DEAD. Fucking dead, thanks to the hawkish foreign policies of the last decade, from both George Bush and Barack Obama.

I beg your pardon? Where do you get the idea that US military intervention has culminated in that kind of death toll? No comprehensive figure exists as published by any one authority for the total civilian deaths in Afghanistan from 2001-present, but aggregates of upper estimates from various sources don't go much higher than something like 20,000 for the initial invasion, 3,600 from then until 2003, 500 or so for 2005, about 10,000 for 06-10, and 440 in 2011, on top of the better-documented 2765 coalition troop deaths. If you want to add shit like Spanish soldiers dying on their flight back from combat, that's a reach, but we'll put another "deaths peripheral to Afghanistan" at 200 or so, just to make sure it's all covered. Bearing in mind the dearth of data on 2004, shall we say that a good upper estimate of total Afghan war deaths from 2001-present is 40,000?

Moving on to the next imperialist folly in Iraq, I don't have to run around nearly as much to find halfway-decent figures on civilian or coalition deaths there, which are in the range of 180,000. Can't forget all those other nickel-and-dime operations outside the main imperial venues, either, like the 2680 killed by drones in Pakistan or the brief US raids into Somalia in 2007 that killed 31. I couldn't be certain of naming every such operation outside of Iraq or Afghanistan, nor could I reliably guess what their death rates are, so would a very upper limit of 5,000 killed in non-Iraq or Afghanistan operations satisfy?

Assuming that none of these figures are especially controversial, we have a total death toll from US imperial militarism since 2001 of about 225,000. Assuming that these figures are somewhat controversial, I could understand this figure doubling or even tripling once more indirect deaths were tallied in here and more classified material were uncovered, to an absolute upper maximum of one million dead. One million sons, daughters, fathers, mothers, wives, husbands ripped from their loved ones never to return. Not a figure to belittle indeed, and I might be willing to hear arguments that the financial security of even average Americans should be forfeited in order to stop this insanity, being complicit in permitting these actions and profiting in small ways they take for granted as part of their lifestyles at the expense of those overseas. Don't mistake this for smug anti-Americanism either, because I would consider an outcome that sees Canadians who profited by Talisman Energy's actions in Sudan punished and the Sudanese affected given compensation acceptably just as well.

But to return to this figure, it is not the plural "millions" dead you cited, unless you were extending your reach several decades back into irrelevance. I understand that you were playing fast and loose, and I don't bring this up to pedantically nail you on a technicality - I bring it up because there is something that will result in "millions" dead were Paul elected, and if you are truly that concerned with the lives of the impoverished abroad, then you have either overlooked it or are trolling. I'm talking about Ron Paul's position, if you can call it that, on foreign aid - namely, eliminating it entirely. Immunization programs supplied by the US Poverty-focused Development Assistance programs save three million lives yearly. In one year, US foreign aid saves three times as many lives as an extreme upper estimate on the body count of American imperialism - just the immunization, nevermind the food assistance and other aid-related programs - and Ron Paul is the Second Coming to the ever-moral anti-war crowd because he wants to end military interventionism?

Now, you can argue that the aid is poorly implemented, you can argue that it fosters dependency, and you can argue that the aid ends up in the hands of despots. Those are all arguments for aid policy reform, not the abolition of foreign aid, and I won't object. You can argue that America can't spare this aid and that it has no obligation to help anyone outside its own borders. I would remind you to look again at how much of the federal budget is aid - a mere 0.39 percent - and that the moral obligation is tied to the degree that America profits by the misery it brings the same nations to which it gives this paltry sum of its ill-gotten exploits. You can argue that Paul wouldn't go through with it, and that's already been covered elsewhere. What you can't argue is that Ron Paul fully intends to execute a policy that would make him one of the largest mass-starvation orchestrators since Stalin arranged the Holodomor. In his case, I think it deserves a personal touch and should be referred to as the "Paulodomor".

I don't know to what extent you're trolling, and I really don't care, but if you deem it fit to snipe at Paul's opponents here as being "pro-murder" then I reserve the right to label you "pro-Paulodomor".

[bobalot]

I like how Ron Paul lectures everybody else about the importance of personal responsibility but then claims he is not responsible for newsletters that he profited from for years and had his name on it.

[Julhelm]

Let's not forget that some of Ron Pauls more well-known public supporters include the likes of Alex Jones and David Icke and their fans.

[UnderAGreySky]

A few things on my mind:

First, an article by Ta-Nehisi Coates. I absolutely love the way he writes about almost any issue, though his focus is race and race-related history.

During Farrakhan's heights in the 80's and 90's, national commenters generally looked on in horror. They simply could not understand how an obvious bigot could capture the imagination of so many people. Surely there were "good" Civil Rights leaders out there, waging the good fight against discrimination. But what they pundits never got was that Farrakhan promised something more--improvement, minus the need to beg from white people. Farrakhan promised improvement through self-reliance--an old tradition stretching back to our very dawn. To our minds, the political leaders of black America had fled the field.

I've thought a lot about Farrakhan, recently, watching Ron Paul's backers twist themselves in knots to defend what they have now euphemistically label as "baggage." I don't think it makes much sense to try to rebut the charges here. No minds will be changed.

Still let us remember that we are faced with a candidate who published racism under his name, defended that publication when it was convenient, and blamed it on ghost-writers when it wasn't, whose take on the Civil War is at home with Lost-Causers, and whose take on the Civil Rights Act is at home with segregationists. Ostensibly this is all coincidence, or if it isn't, it should be excused because Ron Paul is a lone voice speaking on the important issues that plague our nation.

I have heard this reasoning before.

As surely as Ron Paul speaks to a real issue--the state's broad use of violence and surveillance--which the America's political leadership has failed to address, Farrakhan spoke to something real, something unsullied, which black America's political leadership failed to address, Both Paul and Farrakhan, in their glamour, inspired the young, the disaffected, the disillusioned.

To those who dimly perceived something wrong, something that could not be put on a placard, or could not move the party machine, men such as this become something more than political operators, they become symbols. Substantive charges against them, no matter the reasons, are dismissed. The movement they represent means more. But as sure as the followers of Farrakhan deserved more than UFOs, anti-Semitism and conspiracy theories, those of us who oppose the drug-war, who oppose the Patriot Act deserve better than Ron Paul

(more at the link)

Second:

I keep hearing this talk about "ending the war on drugs". Does this not actually translate to Ron Paul's ending the federal war on drugs? Under a Paulian system, wouldn't states be free to pursue the drug war, just as much as they would be free to pursue detention, segregation and surveillance laws? Does this not mean that there are people out there who will definitely be worse off under Paul than Obama?

Third:

Obama has indirectly contributed to - I keep hearing - the murder of "millions". Even though Tithonus has echoed my thoughts, I would like to add... WTF?

Fourth:

- How many people will be dead from the abolition of the EPA? There will be deaths. See how needed the regulations on mercury that were introduced last month are. There were coal plants from the FIFTIES pouring out mercury and particulates. According to estimates, a minimum of 11,000 people die prematurely today
- How about loss of IQ that causes misery, financial loss and death? This will be caused by 1) lack of aforementioned regulations (estimates 400,000 babies each year in the US face significant loss of IQ due to mercury exposure!) and 2) removal of the Dept. of Education?
- Deaths caused by abolishment of the FAA? I presume even if the DoTransportation goes, cars may be built to European standards but without Air Traffic...

Fifth:

What are the consequences of Ron Paul appointing SC judges that agree with his views?

Sixth:

What happens when Ron Paul fires the entire board of the Fed? As I read it, he is allowed to do so. How many people will die as a result of the next depression and panic? And conversely how many lives were saved from devastation by averting the free-fall of the economy as performed by the ARRA?

----------------------------------------

Now, I'm putting up these questions because I don't have answers to them that don't scare the pants off me, even as a non-American citizen and a non-resident of the US. I think Obama has caused (and will cause) less unwarranted deaths and suffering and more warranted ones (fuck you, Osama) than Paul can or will. It's nice to have RP in the race so that at least ONE loon in the whole Republican circus is not saying Bomb Bomb Bomb Iran; but under no circumstances I should want the reins of power in his hand.

[TithonusSyndrome]

I'm talking about Ron Paul's position, if you can call it that, on foreign aid - namely, eliminating it entirely.

He just mentioned this on CBS too, and it is indeed his position to eliminate all the government aid. He prefers private donations and said the government programs "prop up dictators".

Which is a black and white fallacy - we saw in the Haitian earthquake that governments which provided significantly more aid relative to their size and budget were also the ones that saw the most private donating among their general public - Canada, Sweden, Denmark, etc. Who knows? Maybe citizens are likelier to be motivated to give to the needy if their governments lead by example.

Immunization programs supplied by the US Poverty-focused Development Assistance programs save three million lives yearly.

It would be undesirable to stop that. From what I can tell, however about half the money sent abroad (excluding for military shit) is from private sources, though I don't know the relative efficiency.

Do you have some info on that?

That is about correct, yes. That hardly means that the government aid can be spared, though. It also bears remembering that funding is nothing without expertise and manpower, which private donors are seldom in a position to supply.

Between his abolishing of foreign aid, AD's earlier mention of abolishing the EPA, and the human cost of his economic policies, I just don't see his anti-war position being anywhere near redemption enough, especially when considering that even the most hawkish Republican president is "out of wars" - Iraq and Afghanistan winding down and Iran's conventional army being deterrent enough for interventionism - to start.

[UnderAGreySky]

I actually have a seventh point:

Will people in South Korea, Japan, Israel*, India**, Taiwan, the Middle East, on ships in the Arabian Sea and in other parts of the world lose their lives when the US withdraws all troops from all bases abroad and from military presence in the high seas?

*It's silly to think that though Israel gets way too much favour from the US, they will be left alone when all its lifelines are pulled.

**What happens when the US destabilises Pakistan and Afghanistan with a complete withdrawal?

[Gigaliel]

... I just don't see his anti-war position being anywhere near redemption enough, especially when considering that even the most hawkish Republican president is "out of wars" - Iraq and Afghanistan winding down and Iran's conventional army being deterrent enough for interventionism - to start.

Iraqi and Afghanistan are winding down in the sense U.S. troops are pulling out (against Obama's best efforts). However, Iraq is being filled instead with mercenaries and Afghanistan will probably follow the same route. The U.S. may or may not be implicated in Stuxnet or the assassination of Iranian nuclear scientists and drone bombings continue in Yemen, Pakistan, and Somalia.

The number of Muslim countries we are bombing has increased under Obama, not decreased. The only difference is American troop deaths won't be filling the headlines. Which is some progress, I suppose.

edit: deleted sentence left in from old edit

[Simon_Jester]

Also, that deaths from drone bombing really are less- a lot less- than what you get in a full-scale guerilla war like what happened in Iraq.

Tapering off the drone attacks is worthwhile, but it's nowhere near as good a reason to elect someone president as "I will avert all the deaths caused by the Iraq War." Since it's not like electing Ron Paul would resurrect someone who died in 2007- or, for that matter, like Obama is responsible for someone who died in 2007.

[weemadando]

I don't understand. How are we discussing situations where Ron Paul comes into office with an isolationist policy and this is accepted and US forces worldwide come home and wars are ended on his say so. But we're having people say "Congress hamstrings Obama, he can't stop these bills!" in the same thread?

[Terralthra]

I don't understand. How are we discussing situations where Ron Paul comes into office with an isolationist policy and this is accepted and US forces worldwide come home and wars are ended on his say so. But we're having people say "Congress hamstrings Obama, he can't stop these bills!" in the same thread?

This is how.

[weemadando]

And?

You honestly believe that Ron Paul isolationist policy wouldn't be spammed by "Keep troops in Korea or we burn down the Library of Congress" type bills? That the legislative branch and judiciary would accept his policy?

Just like they accepted Tax Reform Socialised Health Care Indefinite Detention, just because the President wanted to do it?

[Simon_Jester]

I don't understand. How are we discussing situations where Ron Paul comes into office with an isolationist policy and this is accepted and US forces worldwide come home and wars are ended on his say so. But we're having people say "Congress hamstrings Obama, he can't stop these bills!" in the same thread?

Obama would be hamstrung by Congress if he were the man most of us hoped he'd be, back in 2008. If he were dedicated to a liberal agenda, he would be constantly battling the Republicans and conservative Democrats in Congress. Since he isn't, bills pass him that he doesn't much care about one way or the other, or that he's actively happy to see Republicans vote for, and he doesn't bother to fight it.

So he doesn't have to fight Congress very often. Congress defines a limit on what he could achieve if he wanted; he doesn't want to do as much as he promised.

Obama, judged on what he would do with no major forces interfering to limit his power, does not look all that good: not much positive change, a significant chunk of negative change, and a distinct lack of enthusiasm for doing anything about the rest.

Paul looks a lot worse, by the same standard: a few positive changes, a lot of disastrously negative changes, and plenty of enthusiasm to implement his ideas, no matter how impractical they might be.

[TithonusSyndrome]

Will it start back up easily? Will someone seriously campaign in 2016 on the promise to conquer the world once again? I know that's happened in the past. not even all that long ago... are we likely to repeat that mistake?

Assuming there's another serious terror attack, then I'm sure there's a good chance, and terrorism is in turn bred in the conditions of poverty created by American corporate exploitation of the third world. Until the US decides to start enforcing laws that prevent uneven bargaining positions from being exploited abroad, this is yet another reason why aid isn't optional charity, but morally and politically necessary whether an ideologue like Paul chooses to admit it or not.

[Shroom Man 777]

Hmm... what happens if instead of Ron Paul sending the US government's military to killfuck people, he instead does the libertarian thing and has the pre-redegregulated indivisible hand of the flea market result in a privatized army-navy-chair-force sending Buttwater Tacticool Massacrator kill-drones to do the systematic murdering of the Rest of the World in a for-profit small businessy enterprising fashion? Man, imagine it. It would be beautiful. There would be so much freedom in the Earth.

[MKSheppard]

Hmm... what happens if instead of Ron Paul sending the US government's military to killfuck people, he instead does the libertarian thing and has the pre-redegregulated indivisible hand of the flea market result in a privatized army-navy-chair-force sending Buttwater Tacticool Massacrator kill-drones to do the systematic murdering of the Rest of the World in a for-profit small businessy enterprising fashion?

I can buy that.

This drone strike brought to you by FEDEX! When it has to absolutely positively be there overnight!

[Shroom Man 777]

My view on Ron Paul is that while he is opposed to the war in Afghanistan, and to starting further wars, if he could get away with it, he would basically turn the US into you and PeZook's version of Murca, resulting in all sorts of chaos and possibly rule by Joey Jojo.

I was weighing the whole killfuck war vs. marriage equality in terms of badness thing irregardless of other things, and that some might consider people being blown to pieces to be worse and less desirable than a person being unable to marry and this won't make them damn dirty maggotoid spice-shitting water-soluble sandworms. As for Tron Paul and his issues, well.. what about Tron Paul and his issues.

Because Obama is still running all the grotesque bullshit going on, like the war on drugs or Guantanamo. Because us leaving Iraq has nothing to do with Obama and everything to do with Iraq telling us to get out. Maybe because Obama signed a bill that authorizes indefinite military detention of anyone, including US citizens. Are those good enough reasons to stop supporting Obama or what?

You filthy dirty braggot despicable wormoid annelid invertebrate retarded nozzle-douch fuckpalmer!

[hongi]

I actually will vote for THE ABOMINATION in November because the Republican field is total utter shit, and Richard Milhous Obama's actions over the last three-ish years have repudiated the claims made about DEMMYCRATS being weak on defense. Nixon's Obama's the One!

I...am surprised. I would say pleasantly surprised, if Obama wasn't such a sissy failure whose primary merit in this presidential field of turds is that he's not batshit insane like the Republicans.

[Simon_Jester]

My view on Ron Paul is that while he is opposed to the war in Afghanistan, and to starting further wars, if he could get away with it, he would basically turn the US into you and PeZook's version of Murca, resulting in all sorts of chaos and possibly rule by Joey Jojo.

I was weighing the whole killfuck war vs. marriage equality in terms of badness thing irregardless of other things, and that some might consider people being blown to pieces to be worse and less desirable than a person being unable to marry and this won't make them damn dirty maggotoid spice-shitting water-soluble sandworms. As for Tron Paul and his issues, well.. what about Tron Paul and his issues.

Uh, the thread was about Ron Paul and his issues.

Now, I agree that it would be really reasonable and OK to think the Iraq War or the Afghanistan War or both were way more important than gay marriage. This gets tied to Ron Paul because that is the man all of us were talking about before.

Some other entirely different man, who opposes war in Iraqistan and various other countries in the Middle East, opposes gay marriage, but does NOT want to turn the country into Murca and is not a corporate whore, him I would like a lot better than Ron Paul.

[Shroom Man 777]

Yeah, but I wasn't Tron Pauling. Some folks seemed aghast that some guise would rank wars and deaths as being worser than people being not being able to marry. Which I think is kind of unreasonable (the being aghast at other guise thinking war is worse), and I don't RLY see why someone would be considered a maggot or an aphid or a chinchilla for that.

[Simon_Jester]

Yeah, but I wasn't Tron Pauling. Some folks seemed aghast that some guise would rank wars and deaths as being worser than people being not being able to marry. Which I think is kind of unreasonable (the being aghast at other guise thinking war is worse), and I don't RLY see why someone would be considered a maggot or an aphid or a chinchilla for that.

OK, I agree about that.

Consider my concession accepted.

[Terralthra]

Woo, Ron Paul!

[Grumman]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tZeVqj-t1U0

Woo, Ron Paul!

Congratulations, you found an idiot on Youtube. That must have been hard.