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  1. #21
    Platinum Poster Ben's Avatar
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    Default Is Rand Paul Crazier Than Anyone Else in D.C.?

    Is Rand Paul Crazier Than Anyone Else in D.C.?

    The media mock libertarians and other candidates outside the mainstream. But are their ideas really any less valid than those of the ‘centrists’?


    The Right Stuff: A history of conservative movements.


    Forced to name the “craziest” policy favored by American politicians, I’d say the multibillion-dollar war on drugs, which no one thinks is winnable. Asked about the most “extreme,” I’d cite the invasion of Iraq, a war of choice that has cost many billions of dollars and countless innocent lives. The “kookiest” policy is arguably farm subsidies for corn, sugar, and tobacco—products that people ought to consume less, not more.


    These are contentious judgments. I hardly expect the news media to denigrate the policies I’ve named, nor do I expect their Republican and Democratic supporters to be labeled crazy, kooky, or extreme. These disparaging descriptors are never applied to America’s policy establishment, even when it is proved ruinously wrong, whereas politicians who don’t fit the mainstream Democratic or Republican mode, such as libertarians, are mocked almost reflexively in these terms, if they are covered at all.



    Kentucky GOP Senate candidate Rand Paul is the most recent subject of these attacks. “Is Rand Paul ‘Crazy’?” asked a headline in The Week. “Rand Paul may not be a racist, but he is an extremist,” Ezra Klein wrote in The Washington Post. “The newest Washington parlor game is coming up with wacky questions to ask Rand Paul about his worldview,” noted Robert Schlesinger, opinion editor of U.S. News & World Report.


    This is how the notion forms that libertarians are especially nutty. The overall attitude is captured nicely by a hyperbolic post at Gawker, that reliable purveyor of snarky conventional wisdom. “Rand Paul, it seems, is the political-contender version of the mouth-breathing conspiracy theorist with missing teeth and a torn plastic bag full of photocopies who you hope doesn’t sit next to you on public transport,” Ravi Somaiya writes, prompted by an old speech the Senate candidate gave in opposition to a trans–North American superhighway that is more conspiracy theory than actual proposal.


    And it’s true, Paul has plenty of beliefs that I regard as wacky, such as his naive, now withdrawn, assumption that markets would have obviated the need for certain provisions in the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Or his desire to return America to the gold standard.


    Of course, I feel world-weary exasperation upon hearing every national politician speak—have you ever gotten through the election-season television commercials without rolling your eyes?—but the media seem to reflexively treat some ideas and candidates less seriously than others for no legitimate, objective reason. Third-party presidential candidate Ross Perot was called a disparaging name so often that he tried to defuse the situation with humor by dancing in public to Patsy Cline’s rendition of the song “Crazy.” Rand Paul can’t escape this treatment even on Fox News, where an .


    If returning to the gold standard is unthinkable, is it not just as extreme that President Obama claims an unchecked power to assassinate, without due process, any American living abroad whom he designates as an enemy combatant? Or that Joe Lieberman wants to strip Americans of their citizenship not when they are convicted of terrorist activities, but upon their being accused and designated as enemy combatants? In domestic politics, policy experts scoff at ethanol subsidies, the home-mortgage-interest tax deduction, and rent control, but the mainstream politicians who advocate those policies are treated as perfectly serious people.


    Call them crazy, but Rand Paul, Ron Paul, and former New Mexico governor Gary Johnson, a likely 2012 presidential candidate, oppose those policies, which puts them at odds with an establishment whose consensus shouldn’t determine whether we grapple with or dismiss an idea. As the most egregious excesses of the war on terror so clearly demonstrate, libertarian ideology doesn’t always lead its adherents to lunacy, and being “in the mainstream” isn’t always a self-evidently desirable characteristic, nor has it ever been in the long history of American politics.


    Will the dismissive treatment of libertarians nevertheless persist? Will reporters covering a 2012 Gary Johnson candidacy zero in on his opposition to the war on drugs, and ask him questions like “Will sex offenders who’ve served their time in jail be able to buy ecstasy on their way to a Miley Cyrus concert?” Quite possibly. The press loves to ask questions premised on the most absurd applications of libertarian theory. But Obama won’t face incredulous questions from the establishment press about asserting powers that, if abused, would theoretically enable him to declare a political opponent an enemy combatant, deport him, and murder him using the power of the state.


    The beliefs of libertarians and other candidates on our political fringes should not escape media scrutiny, nor should the media start making reflexive judgments about the wisdom of nonlibertarian Democratic and Republican policies, treating them with the open mockery and barely concealed disdain that Rand Paul and his father have received. But the policies and ideology of libertarian politicians should be treated as seriously and equitably as those of Lindsey Graham or Joe Lieberman, especially given the balance of political power in this country. It’s a de facto two-party system. And crazy, kooky, extreme actions are perpetrated by establishment centrists far more often than by marginalized libertarians.


    Friedersdorf writes at TheAtlantic.com and True/Slant. Reach him at conor.friedersdorf@gmail.com or through his Twitter handle @conor64.



  2. #22
    Silver Poster hippifried's Avatar
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    Bars/Clubs for instance will refuse ppl dressed a certain way, people of a certain age, people not "beautiful" enough, etc. They're open to the public but still choose which members of the public they will serve.
    Dress codes aren't covered. You can change your clothes & hairstyle. You can't change your melanin.

    All public business is regulated. There's zoning rules & licences that are contingent on service to the public. Farmers get subsidies & price supports. If you're going to make your living off the society, & everybody does, then you have an obligation to be social. If people started going hungry, I have no problem with them forcibly taking farms away from those who wouldn't make their excess available, even for sale. It happens throughout history, & even recently. Property has no rights, & owning it is a privilege. Human rights trump everything.


    "You can pick your friends & you can pick your nose, but you can't wipe your friends off on your saddle."
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  3. #23
    Professional Poster NYBURBS's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by hippifried View Post
    Dress codes aren't covered. You can change your clothes & hairstyle. You can't change your melanin.

    All public business is regulated. There's zoning rules & licences that are contingent on service to the public. Farmers get subsidies & price supports. If you're going to make your living off the society, & everybody does, then you have an obligation to be social. If people started going hungry, I have no problem with them forcibly taking farms away from those who wouldn't make their excess available, even for sale. It happens throughout history, & even recently. Property has no rights, & owning it is a privilege. Human rights trump everything.
    I know dress codes aren't covered, but they easily could be. The point is people make decisions about who they want to associate with. What is a human right? The right to be free? The right to provide for yourself? The right to associate or not associate with whom you see fit? It's certainly not to have people serve you upon your command.

    Of course you're advocating using force upon someone that has not used it upon you, so that you might take as you deem fit. That is referred to as cynical egoism.



  4. #24
    Silver Poster hippifried's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by NYBURBS View Post
    I know dress codes aren't covered, but they easily could be. The point is people make decisions about who they want to associate with. What is a human right? The right to be free? The right to provide for yourself? The right to associate or not associate with whom you see fit? It's certainly not to have people serve you upon your command.
    The priority human right is freedom from victimization. That trumps anybody's freedom to be an asshole. They aren't equal or absolute.

    There's no problem with discrimination for cause, based on choices people make. Nobody chooses their parents. The law covers race, religion, creed, national origin, & sex. Now 2 of those five could be construed as a

    choice, but the freedom to think & believe as one does trumps the freedom to act on it toward others. Discrimination is an action. Discrimination without cause is a victimization. A right for one is a right for all, & you don't get to trod on the rights of others in the name of your own. We all live in the society, without which all these abstracts about rights are unnecessary. Anyone who's uncomfortable with social restraint is free to leave.

    Quote Originally Posted by NYBURBS View Post
    Of course you're advocating using force upon someone that has not used it upon you, so that you might take as you deem fit. That is referred to as cynical egoism.
    Not in this scenario, where food is withheld just because the one who has it doesn't like the one who needs it. We're not talking about shortages or subsistence farming here. We're talking about the grocer & the farmer who supplies the grocer. Deliberately causing others to go hungry is an act of violence. Fighting words at the very least. It's an assault. There's no such thing as a right to impunity. Commandeering the food supply, in this instance, is an act of self defence. Tyranny is not a government function & doesn't even require the existence of government. Being an asshole is risky behavior & there's no protection if one insists on that behavior.

    Sorry spud, but you're advocating immorality. You're denying the social moral code of reciprosity. Without that, there's no society & all your "rights" are irrelevant. So's all the BS about property, livelyhoods, & association. If someone wants to live like an animal, there's lots of woods, jungle, & desert to go hide in. If you want to live like a human being & reap the benefits & protections of human society, then it's incumbent on you to be social. Ayn Rand's psychobabble egoist theories were woefully incomplete, & therefore she was wrong. We're more than individuals, working from self-interest alone. We're social critters & "colectivism" is our nature. Without the social collective, we could never have survived as a species.


    "You can pick your friends & you can pick your nose, but you can't wipe your friends off on your saddle."
    ~ Kinky Friedman ~

  5. #25
    Hung Angel Platinum Poster trish's Avatar
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    Of course the right to property is intertwined with the freedom to associate (which you seem to confuse with the freedom not to associate) and with other liberties. This doesn’t mean they can be inflated with logical impunity; nor does it automatically allow properties rights to function as trump cards. They certainly do not trump civil liberties. BTW, discriminating on a one time basis on the style of clothing someone chose wore one night to a club is more akin to judging a contest than trumping that person’s right to enter the threshold of a "club". I’m disappointed you would deliberately equate this with an African-American's right to buy breakfast at a Denny’s.

    Property rights are granted by society at large, often with strings attached. There is no metaphysical connection between you and your property. There is no physical test one can perform to decide ownership. You own your stuff because the society grants your claim of ownership


    Last edited by trish; 05-30-2010 at 08:35 PM.
    "...I no longer believe that people's secrets are defined and communicable, or their feelings full-blown and easy to recognize."_Alice Munro, Chaddeleys and Flemings.

    "...the order in creation which you see is that which you have put there, like a string in a maze, so that you shall not lose your way". _Judge Holden, Cormac McCarthy's, BLOOD MERIDIAN.

  6. #26
    Professional Poster NYBURBS's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by trish View Post
    Of course the right to property is intertwined with the freedom to associate (which you seem to confuse with the freedom not to associate) and with other liberties.
    The freedom to associate and the freedom not to associate derive from the same basic right, and cannot be separated. If you are allowed a pro-choice bumper sticker, but the law required you to also apply a pro-life one, then essentially your right to distinguish your association with or against something has been diminished.

    Quote Originally Posted by trish View Post
    Property rights are granted by society at large, often with strings attached. There is no metaphysical connection between you and your property. There is no physical test one can perform to decide ownership. You own your stuff because the society grants your claim of ownership
    Yes property rights are a function of law, but who you work for or service is a personal choice that exists without society's say so. Property rights are designed to to safeguard one's ability to exercise more inherent rights, and association/speech/thought are held among the most important of those.

    As I wrote earlier, it's not that I think someone is going to come up with a good logical reason to exclude someone based on their race, but the government should not be involved in personal decisions such as that. You end up opening the door for other policies that are simply insufferable in a free society. The parts of the civil rights act that forbids government action against someone, or punishes its deliberate inaction that is premised upon its own discriminatory policies, is a wonderful thing. My one issue with it, and obviously Rand Paul's issue with it too, is the section that deals with private persons.



  7. #27
    Hung Angel Platinum Poster trish's Avatar
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    The association established through expression via bumper stickers can be separated from the non-association one attempts to express through closing one's business to say, Italian-Americans, or Korean-Americans, or say Gay citizens. Refusal to do business (an action) is not protected by the first amendment (which concerns the expression of political and religious belief through speech and free assembly). The government can intervene to protect citizens against wrongful action...which is what refusal to do business is.


    "...I no longer believe that people's secrets are defined and communicable, or their feelings full-blown and easy to recognize."_Alice Munro, Chaddeleys and Flemings.

    "...the order in creation which you see is that which you have put there, like a string in a maze, so that you shall not lose your way". _Judge Holden, Cormac McCarthy's, BLOOD MERIDIAN.

  8. #28
    Silver Poster hippifried's Avatar
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    Hey Burb,

    I can understand your position. I think it can't work as an absolute, but I understand it.

    One thing though... Your analogies really suck.


    Okay, back to it:

    I'm seeing a problem here in respect to rights vs liberties. Rights aren't granted. They're innate. Some aspects are specifically recognized in law, but not all. Some liberties & priveliges come along with rights, & some others are grants. The distinction needs to be made when discussing specific issues in order to avoid confusion. This is the difference between us & Europe. It's the mindset with regard to government power, which is always a grant.


    "You can pick your friends & you can pick your nose, but you can't wipe your friends off on your saddle."
    ~ Kinky Friedman ~

  9. #29
    Professional Poster NYBURBS's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by hippifried View Post
    Hey Burb,
    I can understand your position. I think it can't work as an absolute, but I understand it.

    One thing though... Your analogies really suck.
    Well, I find simple and basic to often be best when trying to make these types of points. However, I'll do my best to live up to your wit and dazzle standard in the future kind sir



  10. #30
    Silver Poster hippifried's Avatar
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    "You can pick your friends & you can pick your nose, but you can't wipe your friends off on your saddle."
    ~ Kinky Friedman ~

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