Hmm… Looks like the Republican Party wonks are going to have to choose: let Ron Paul stay in the debates or completely ban him from any party related events.
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But the Huffintonians are hailing him as an internet celeb.AA I wonder if he will get as far as Howard Dean did in 04.
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In the land of OZ, you all apparently still have a few interesting liberties left…
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Do you want to hear REALLY intelligent things said about the Paul campaign?
Go to the lewrockwell blog.
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I am wondering something a little hypothetical… Would you all settle for a socialist welfare state if the warfare state was made kaput ala Sweden?AA I have been to Sweden.AA As much as I like to flash my libertarian colors, I must say that Sweden ain’t that bad (in summer that is).AA It’s very peaceful and pleasant.AA The people are very tall and well-nourished, and seem contented enough.AA Politesse is pretty much legislated into every single motion a human body moves in a given day, but it seems to keep the peace.
What I’m trying to ask is this: could there ever be a functional unholy alliance between small government libertarians and big government greens and lefties?AA The common buffer in which the two wouldAA swim would be seeking the end of the military industrial complex. AA Wouldn’t we be faced with a far more appealing set of things to argue about than nowadays?
Oscar – read Greg Palast’s “Armed Madhouse” where he makes a very good case that good governance is possible (he uses the example of Danemark, China and others in his 3rd chapter). I think that if the choice is a horrible government like the one the US has today an no government at all, the latter makes perfectly good sense, if only because the US government does exactly *nothing* for its citizens. However, there are cases of better governance out there, several of them in Europe of course, but I would argue that Chavez has done a terrific job also.
Not all government by their very nature are orwellian repressive regimes, sometimes they can be actually decent (if always imperfect).
So yes, an alliance between Libertarians and direct-democrats is possible and desirable. Notice that I did *not* use the term socialism as anything European is “socialist” in the current US parlance and that is most unfortunate because the term really can mean anything and everything. Is China socialist or capitalist? How about Switzerland? Or Japan? We should stay well clear of some meaningless categories and use something less ambiguous.
There are people out there who:
* are anti-war
* believe in international law
* believe in regulating corporations (in the words of Greg Palast China’s regulattions and state control are its “economic locomotives”)
* are civil libertarians and value ideological pluralism
* believe in human rights and individual freedom
* want the people to be able to force legislation on elected officials (popular initiative)
* want the people to be able to veto bad legislation (referendum)
* want the people to be able to recall bad elected officials
* favor de-centralization and regionalism over big central government
* stand for basic norms of civilized behavoir such as habeas corpus, no capital punishment, universal health care, assistance to the poor, handicapped, destitute, a total ban on any kind of torture anywhere, etc.
None of that makes them “socialist”, at least not in any historically meaningful sense as, for example, these people would very much support private property, private capital, etc.
If the Libertarians can get past their repulsion of anything “government” then there is a natural alliance between these two groups in all the key issues including, most importantly, the opposition to any forms of Imperial governance.
I really wish that Ron Paul and Mike Gravel had decided to run as an independent or libertarian ticket together and I think that as long as libertarians and liberals do not join forces to oppose the Imperial Presidency and the lobbies behind it there is no hope of overcoming the current nightmare.
I believe Libertarianism ( freedom baby ) taken to its extreme is absurd Libertarianism taken to its extreme is Anarchy and the rule of the strong. Socialism ( the good of the many out weighs the good of the few or the good of the one) taken to the extreme is absurd it leads to the very powerful telling us what is good for us Communism and poverty.
I believe government first job is to assure equal protection under the law for all, and to give all people the greatest degree of freedom which is possible. In the natural order of things the poor and voiceless need greater protection then the rich and powerful.
I believe we need a government, I believe we need this government to honestly debate on a case by case bases whether greater freedom could be spread by applying socialist ideas or libertarian ideas
Lets take an easy example health care if government provided every person with basic health care would that make small business owners more or less free? Would it make people more or less free? I believe if general motors who is the number one provider of privet health care in America) would be better off if they were free to just build cars and did not need to worry about the cost of health care.
Socialism has been turned into a dirty word but you know what we have public schools that is a socialist program, and its good. Anyone who suggests we should do away with public schools is dead in the water.
So what do you think I dub this idea social-libertarianism
I think the best the left has to offer as candidates is Dennis Kucinich (please invite him on Scott) my dream ticket is the Ron Paul / Dennis Kucinich ticket. I know they are both men of principle and honor and have caucused together many times but I know it just will not happen.
The reason Ron Paul is the best choice to be president is he is the one person who will roll back the power of the executive branch.
He really is getting a populace moment behind him right now and corporate media seems to believe their own propaganda, that he does not have a chance. The longer they believe that the better. Remember how they engineered the Dean Scream. When it becomes apparent he has a real chance I pray Ron Paul has placed his bodily safety ahead self sacrifice for the sake of us all.
1+1=2. 2 +2=4. American foreign policy = blowback. 3 simple equations that any child could understand, if they wanted to. When Ron Paul states that American policy = blowback, he is dismissed as “off the wall and out of whack” by the head of Michigan’s Republican Party, who is seeking to remove Paul from all further debates.. What is needed is a serious movement to remove Giuliani from future debates, on the grounds that anyone who has never heard about the theory of “blowback” is simply not qualified to be president.
I think an alliance of libertarians and say Greens to help pull back the military industrial complex would be a good idea, but I wouldn’t imagine it would be able to remake America into one big Sweden.
Mainly because I’m not sure it would even be possible to convert the USA into a “Sweden” of 301 million people. The real Sweden only has about 9 million people. It does show it is possible to have generally well governed social democratic state, but the experience of big socialist states is not that cheerful. Sweden has historically been a remarkably homogeneous society racially, ethnically and linguistically. F.A. Hayek in his classic book “The Road to Serfdom” argued that a planned economy required a common scale of values. The more diverse the population the more authoritarian the planning system would have to become. There is probably some kind of lesson in that as far as social democracy is concerned. Luckily the relative smallness of Sweden puts a practical limit on it’s socialism. If Swedes want a high standard of living, they need an internationally integrated economy, that means exports and imports and thus a proportionally large sector outside of the power of the government to influence.
Libertarians know better than anyone that the US is not as “free enterprise” oriented as it’s official rhetoric states. This often leads to exaggerated assumptions of American laisser faire by foreigners. A similar process may impact foreign assumptions about Sweden too, but from a different political polarity. Tim Worstall points out (see here) there are parts of the Swedish experiment that aren’t quite as socialistic as foreigners often assume.
“…only certain parts of the, say, Swedish, “miracle” are held up as ideas for us to copy. Wouldn’t it be interesting if we were urged to adopt some other Swedish policies? Abolish inheritance tax (Sweden doesn’t have one), have a pure voucher scheme to pay for the education system (as Sweden does), do not have a national minimum wage (as Sweden does not) and most certainly do not run the health system as a national monolith (as Sweden again does not). But then those policies don’t accord with the liberal and progressive ideas in the USA so perhaps their being glossed over is understandable, eh?”
The US can also “suffers from size” in many side by side country to country comparisons. These figures, especially for income distribution, are sometimes treated as if they were an index of economic opportunity or fairness. To compare the US to Sweden or Australia on income or wealth distribution can be stacking the statistics. At least how people mostly use these stats it is. The USA is 30 times larger than Sweden and 15 times larger than Australia. Imagine comparing income distribution in two US cities. Say one of 500,000 and another of 15,000,000. My guess is that the former would have the more ‘egalitarian’ income distribution. But so what? Is it a fair comparison? A better comparison for the US might be the whole EU counted as one bloc. As a whole, I doubt if the EU is more ‘equal’ than the US.
I have never considered myself a conservative (of any stripe) in the official political sense, but for some time I too have been thinking about the possibility and indeed the benefit of an alliance. The grounds are certainly there. Libertarians think government should be as small as possible, but it is not as if liberals go around preaching that govenrment should be as LARGE as possible. The military-industrial, imperialistic, corporate-welfare, security-surveillance state is just as much anathema to liberals as it is to true conservatives. As for the size of government, my question to conservatives is this: the world, the nation, and the population are just much bigger and much more complicated than they were in the 18th century. I do not understand how some particular size of government can be preordained a priori. Government is necessary, a necessary evil perhaps, but necessary, and our constitution was designed to make it as responsive as possible to the people. Some programs are needed, some are not, some are downright harmful. But I don’t understand the point of an absolute, preset ideal that government is always better when you limit its activities “in general.” Same applies to taxes. Nobody enjoys paying taxes, but we need a government functioning for the common good (which is not a concept inventged by socialists, BTW!) So let’s have a fair tax system and is not a giveaway to the super-rich and the corporations, but does pay for programs we need, including the many functions that private enterprise CANNOT do well precisely because such functions are not profitable when done well but only when done poorly — and if done poorly it means the private sector is parasiting off the public good, not promoting it.. I have deliberately made this vague, because we can and will argue about the details, but the principle should not be “small government,” it should be govenrment that is “no bigger than necessary.” BTW, that is the title of a book by Andrew Greeley, No Bigger Than Necessary: An Alternative. to. Socialism, Capitalism and. Anarchism (New York: New American Library, 1977) that I heartly recommend.
Via Eric Garris…..Good news that the writers at National Journal are taking a bad spanking over their false article about Ron Paul. And NJ is pro-Neocon to boot.
http://hotlineblog.nationaljournal.com/archives/2007/05/ron_paul_blowba.html
Great to see it!!
Sweden’s government is much more libertarian than the United States government. It murders fewer people and cages fewer innocents. QED.
…Vinyerd Shaker: As I’ve said before. Hindus and Muslims united to drive the British out of India. But once gone? I’ve no doubt you recall the horrific consequences. History demonstrates to my satisfaction that Facultative Alliances, whether Domestic or Global are conducted not unlike Treaties: Both are always dissolved and violated once they’ve served their intended purposes. Diplomacy amounts to another way of warfare.
My take is reinstate the articles of confederation and then get back to me. the decentralization of power is what is paramount.
…I hope you don’t think I’m being sycophantic Scott, but in your ceaseless promotion of Congressman Ron Paul you’ve been more than a little effective at helping to put him on the Political map…Better yet, in the long haul it could succeed. You’ve helped throw a small, yet very logical wrench into the mechanisms of the Electoral Process’s presentation of say nothing, platitudinal, multi millionaire cardboard candidates…Congressman Paul surprised the shit out of an arrogant Don Rudolfo Giuliani; and judging from his body language himself as well.
Scott’s promotion of Ron Paul, and other internet sites doing the same, is really becoming quite a phenomenon. I can’t tell you how much I look forward every day to gobbling up everything I can about Ron and the status of his campaign. But my enthusiasm is always tempered by the fact that the more popular he becomes, and the closer he gets to an actual nomination, the more certain it becomes that AIPAC/Mossad will take him out. I mean, come on, does anyone really believe that Israel will accept a Ron Paul presidency and do nothing about it? Anyway, keep up the great work, Scott! P.S. Does anyone know if Paul and/or Gravel will be allowed in the upcoming CNN debates? I can’t wait to see Rabbi Blitzer ask Dr. Ron if he would like to take this opportunity to apologize to Rudy and to the American people.
…I can’t help but get the idea that War Policies are for the most part perpetrated by upper class males who’ve never lifted anything heavier than their boyfriend’s cock, or some beautiful courtesan’s tit. This as a subconscious compensation for their effeminity and easily gotten position, privilege and power. Past the classic number of exceptions to this rule, you will observe that the upper strata of this world? Is comprised of hard women and soft men…You can throw assassins into a similar category as well.
…Scott, it’s not my intent to urinate on your parade here, but, in the question of decentralizing The Power of The State. I think that even if the issue were put to a popular vote, I seriously doubt they, the Dons of Global Dominion et al would yield their burgeoning authority under any Constitutional, and/or other legal electoral mandate…Past that, what then? I can predict ensuing Legislation that wealthy and powerful citizens will design and actuate for their own protection. And those who will defy such will find themselves in some God damned punitive adjudication of Political Crime, remember it was the Left that criminalized Politics under Clintonista Regime…Gore Vidal would probably tell you the same thing.