Ron Paul the Racist

[onmyknees]

A tedious and utterly predictable discussion between Ron Paul and Tingles Matthews. Of all the potential questions he could have asked, or all the seemingly insurmountable issues facing our country, Tingles falls back to the tried and true "When did you Stop Beating Your Wife" line , or in the case of MSNBC...you must be racist if you don't worship liberal policies. He starts out by saying he understands libertarianism, but he's obviously fucking clueless ! But this is not new...they tried this angle on Rand as well. Here's a fat liberal upper middle class white guy more obsessed with race than the New Black Panthers! Does any black American really think Ron or Rand Paul are racist ...do they really think they're the enemy? In the abstract it could be an interesting discussion, but when it's the same thing night in and night out...it becomes a pattern...Like him or not, Ron Paul understands the Federal Reserve and monetary policy better than anyone else in Congress, but Tingles can't fuck with him on that, so let's play the ace of spades...slap the race card down. But this is the tactic of liberals like Tingles and Olbermann...and I've been saying it for years. Trouble is....Ron isn't buying it. Tingles has his marching orders....tear down and dehumanize by any means necessary any opponent of The Chosen One. Get the race card out there early and often. What a disgusting human being. And they wonder why we hate them ? But appearently most Americans feel as I do because the Home Shopping Channel and Nancy Grace have better ratings !


http://www.mrctv.org/embed/101763

[trish]

Rand Paul claims anyone who supports government sponsored healthcare endorses slavery! His father Ron thinks it's wrong for a corporation to refuse to hire African/Americans as executives or ban them from their boards and staffs, but Ron supports their "right" to do so. I take it you agree. So what would you say about the "right" of a university to ban firearms from its campus, or the "right" of a business to ban them from its establishment? Ron is of the opinion that property rights trump civil rights. Ron and Rand insist they are not racist, and indeed it may be true that they bear no one ill-will; but their brand of hard core libertarianism grants safe harbor to all sorts of racist practices.

Ron's position on heroin is now well known. He believes you have a "right" to own and consume heroin. Of course not a legal right. But he thinks you "should" have that legal right. You have, according to Ron, a sort of innate property right to heroin ownership. He doesn't say anything about the source of that right or its nature, but he's sure you have that "right" in the sense that the "right to heroin ownership" should be encoded into law. He may be right. But this doesn't stop at heroin. His point is that this right-to-ownership is universal. It applies to all any sort of thing. You should be able to own any sort of thing and once you own it do anything with it that your heart desires. Of course there are exceptions to that right. Rand implies as much when he makes his "healthcare-implies-slavery-argument". You can't own people and do with them what you will. But if there are exceptions how are we to ascertain what those exceptions are? How is Ron so sure heroin isn't an exception? So there are exceptions to what sort of things can be owned, like people and nuclear weapons. There are also exceptions to that part of the rule that says once-you-own-a-thing-you-can-use-it-in-any-way-you-please. Should you be allowed to discharge your firearm in your backyard in a crowded city? Should you be allowed to play your stereo in the back yard at full volume any time of day? Should you be allowed to set fire to your home if it strikes your fancy to do so? How does one determine the exceptions? How is it that Ron is so sure the Civil Rights Act isn't a viable exception? He never says. His whole argument is simply: the Civil Rights Act conflicts with your universal right-to-do-whatever-you-please-with-your-own-property.

The fact is there are no metaphysically given or god given rights. There is no universal right-to-property out there waiting to be discovered by enlightened human beings. Human beings themselves are the source of rights, laws, moral codes etc. Over time we have evolved some that work very well and some that don't. At one time American businesses had the right to deny services on the basis of race. In spite of Ron Paul we've progressed beyond that point.

[Silcc69]

Ron Paul was also against these Bush led wars.

[trish]

Ron Paul was also against these Bush led wars.

Yes, and I appreciated his vote. On that issue he and I accidentally came to the same conclusion.

[Ben]

On quite a few issues Ron Paul is outstanding.
However, I don't want him to be president. He's actually in favor of free markets. Which literally means: no government intervention. Which means: no minimum wage laws, no child labor laws etc. etc. etc. The economy, without state intervention, would self destruct in 5 minutes.
We saw what happened in '08 when the financial sector approximated so-called free market conditions.
But as Ron Paul stated: in free markets you wouldn't bailout the big banks. There would've been a market correction, as it were. And there would've been a painful process. But, ultimately, the economy would recover... and be a helluva lot healthier.
Again, Paul views the economy as sick -- and it needs to recover.

[trish]

But as Ron Paul stated: in free markets you wouldn't bailout the big banks. There would've been a market correction, as it were. And there would've been a painful process. But, ultimately, the economy would recover... and be a helluva lot healthier.

A key word here is "ultimately". How soon is that? Healthier when? Ultimately? Is that any sooner than the recovery we're on now? Any healthier? If so, why? Libertarians just assume the markets seeks an equilibrium and that equilibrium, presuming it exists, is the best of all possible worlds. Wouldn't [it] be a miracle if we never really have to concern ourselves with political freedom, justice and security; that all these things just take care of themselves when all market forces are left unrestrained?

[hippifried]

Yes it's painful, but I'm with OMK on this one. I quit paying any attention to Chris Matthews a long time ago, for the reasons already stated. I think he's vile & insidious. I don't think he's worse than the right wing haters, but he's really no better. He's usually a lot more subtle though. I saw that interview & it made me cringe the way every answer was twisted. Disgusting.

As for Ron Paul: I really don't see him as libertarian. I don't see modern libertarianism as libertarian. What I see is a misnamed political movement for philosophical property fanatics & the cult followers of Ayn Rand. I don't really have a problem with the idea of private property per se'. As an American, it's pretty hard not to undersand it. But a philosophical abstract concept isn't the be all & end all of everything social. The egoists are even farther off in the ozone with the claim that altruism is non-existent. I don't have a problem with ideology, but I do have a problem with attempts to engineer society around any single ideology. Might as well create a theocracy.

Are the Pauls racist? I think not. They're just fanatic ideologues. Ron Paul doesn't like the Civil Rights Act, but he doesn't lide the Jim Crowe laws either. He makes the claim that there probably wouldn't have been so many segregation problems in the first place if governments hadn't made segregation mandatory. He's consistant in his view as a government minimalist. I don't buy it. I think it's a pipe dream, & the minimalism couldn't work once the Jim Crowe laws wer on the books.

[Ben]

A key word here is "ultimately". How soon is that? Healthier when? Ultimately? Is that any sooner than the recovery we're on now? Any healthier? If so, why? Libertarians just assume the markets seeks an equilibrium and that equilibrium, presuming it exists, is the best of all possible worlds. Wouldn't [it] be a miracle if we never really have to concern ourselves with political freedom, justice and security; that all these things just take care of themselves when all market forces are left unrestrained?

Exactly. That's why I don't believe in free markets. It's, well, a pure fantasy. And, too, true free marketeers believe in a utopian vision of society. Which is somewhat naive and childlike. I just don't think it's realistic. Again, free markets mean NO state intervention. So, well, we'll have to privatize the police and fire and on and on....
And, Trish, Ron Paul said it'd take about a year for markets to correct themselves. Do you believe him??? (Just to add: I do think Ron Paul is sincere about his belief in the Austrian School of Economics. His belief in Hayek and Von Mises and unfettered free markets. That if you free business up from State control, well, everything will be hunky dory... )
I like what Naomi Klein said about the Chicago School. These guys -- Milton Friedman and Gary Becker etc... -- approached economics as a hard science. Like physics.
Well, it isn't. It is not a hard science.

[Silcc69]

The freemarket does sound good but we have government intervention because people are greedy and will screw over whoever to make big bucks. We already see it now with so much business being shipped overseas.

[Stavros]

The contradiction in the anarchism that is at the root of Robert Nozick, Hayek, and to some extent Friedman's ideas is that they want minimal government, yet want government to put into law the 'rights' that would make people 'free'. I don't know much about the Paul, but the idea that an individual should have the right to inject themselves with heroin is not new; when Margaret Thatcher made libertarianism respectable, there was a book of essays ('The New Right Enlightenment') in which one writer argued it was no business of the government if someone wanted to shoot up: the obvious problem is that if the addict has to rob, injure maybe even kill to get the money to get high, he/she has 'harmed others' and crossed that precious boundary. Moreover, government has intervened to regulate markets because unfettered markets can create the conditions for monopolies, which happened in the US in the last quarter of the 20th century -the Sherman Act which was used in 1911 to break up Rockefeller's Standard empire was thus not anti-capitalist, but a form of competitive correction. As usual we end up with the perennial question: not do you want government, but what do you want government to do, and how far should it go when intervening in the lives of the citizens? And it doesnt take long for libertarians when they become elected politicians with budgetary responsibilities to lose their enthusiasm for 'freedom' -just as lefties have entered office determined to 'change the structure of society' and ended up just making a mess. Ultimately, pragmatism in government is the most flexible, and workable policy platform.