Constant Conservative Ron Paul...

[Ben]

Sam Seder makes an interesting point. He says that Paul isn't a libertarian perse. He simply wants to dismantle the Federal government. And basically States can do what they like.

[Ben]

ANDREW SULLIVAN:

Why Ron Paul Is Right And Barack Obama Is Wrong About Iran

One of the key things that Ron Paul has contributed to our discourse is the notion that we should try and look at conflict from the point of view of our foe. You'd think this would be obvious if we are attempting to influence, say, Iran's behavior, to understand their fears, their baseline interests and their ideology. So far, all we hear about is their ideology. But let's broaden our moral imagination in ways not allowed in the Washington Post.
Imagine that three scientists working on the US nuclear arsenal were assassinated in the streets of Chicago or Washington or Los Angeles by agents of Iran. Now imagine that an explosion took place at one of our nuclear facilities - also engineered by Iran. Also imagine that Iran was capable of blockading US ports to cripple the US economy. Imagine the dollar collapsing because of this and a new depression initiated. What do you think Mitt Romney would be saying? I suspect he would be saying that Iran has already declared war on the US.
But all these things have happened in Iran, probably by the hands of Israeli intelligence, perhaps by the US, or some combo of the two. Is it surprising that the Iranians are throwing rhetoric around, even if much of it is empty? Of course not. Vali Nasr argues that Iran is already on a war-footing because of this:

Iran has interpreted sanctions that hurt its oil exports, which account for about half of government revenue, as acts of war.

Who alone among the presidential candidates gets this? Only Ron Paul. Bob Wright has a must-read on the potential president's lonely sanity on this question. Jon Rauch also notes that the debate we're having about Iran is very very similar to the debate we once had about China's nuclear capacity:

Fifty years ago, [China] was the Iran of its day, a rising regional power that was radical, ideological, boldly antagonistic. It fought the U.S. in Korea, attacked India and Taiwan, supported violent insurgencies and more. Its leader, Mao Zedong, mused that killing half of mankind might be a price worth paying to make the world socialist. Understandably alarmed, some of President Eisenhower’s advisers urged a pre-emptive nuclear attack. (Ike wisely forbore.) President Kennedy said a nuclear China would dominate Southeast Asia and "so upset the world political scene" as to be "intolerable."

Notice the classic Kennedy recklessness in foreign policy (he was George W Bush avant la lettre), and the characteristic Eisenhower sanity. Now look at the history. Since China's adoption of nuclear status, it has actually behaved more responsibly abroad, not less. Jon makes a very persuasive case that nuclear weapons really don't give countries much of an edge, and, if anything, tend to calm them down, especially if they are in a region where they have foes who do have such weapons.
The Obama administration has foolishly decreed that it will never allow a nuclear-armed Iran. It's foolish because at some point, Iran will get one, and the US will therefore have to go to war either to stop it or to punish Iran for it. The obvious option - containment - is foregone.
Obama also argues that he opposes Iran's nukes because of proliferation in the region. At which point one must loudly cough "Ahem." Only one country in the region has illegally, in defiance of internatinal law and the NPT and US policy, has nuclear weapons and it's Israel, not any Arab state. More absurdly, the US government has a formal policy of never acknowledging this fact. At one point in the not-so-distant past, the US government was committed to the view that Iraq had nukes but Israel didn't.
When will the US evolve a sane policy in the Middle East? One that advances our interests, avoids a catastrophic global religious war, and bases it judgment on history and statecraft rather than religion and a US-Israel alliance that, since the end of the Cold War, has become increasingly unhealthy to both parties? Less Kennedy, more Eisenhower, please.

[Ben]

Environmentalism poses a problem for libertarian ideology

By Matt Bruenig On December 21, 2011 · In Environment
George Monbiot had an article in the Guardian on Monday about bastardised libertarianism and its inability to understand the real freedoms being fought for by environmentalists and social justice advocates. However, Monbiot’s treatment of environmentalism’s threat to libertarianism was a bit sloppy. He got sucked into the negative freedom and positive freedom debate, and although he worked his way to the correct conclusion ultimately, I felt like the clarity was lacking.
So I want to explain more clearly just how much environmentalists stick in the side of libertarian ideology. First, consider what libertarians of the sort Monbiot criticizes are really about philosophically: they favor a procedural justice account of the world based heavily on property rights. This is the newest face of libertarianism. Gone is the appeal to utility and desert. The modern libertarians try to prop up their political ideas almost solely through a rigid formalism of property rights.
I have written before about the problem with the procedural accounts of property rights, but here I want to just accept the libertarian property rights premise. Somehow individuals can grab up pieces of the world and exclude those pieces from everyone else forever. Once those individuals become owners of their respective property, nobody else can touch that property or do anything whatsoever to that property without their consent. Coming onto my property without my consent is a form of trespass under this picture. Doing anything to my property — whether it be painting it, dumping stuff on it, or causing some other harm to it — is totally off limits.
So environmentalists point out that carbon emissions are warming the planet, one consequence of which is that harm will be done to the property of others. Most environmentalists — being the leftists that they generally are — do not make too much of the property rights issues, but one certainly could. Coal plants release particulates into the air which land on other people’s property. But no permission is ever granted for that. Coal plants do not contract with every nearby property owner to allow for them to deposit small amounts of particulate matter on their neighbors’ land. They are guilty of a form of property trespass.
Beyond that, all sorts of industrial processes have environmental externalities that put things into the air or the water that ultimately makes its way into the bodies of others. This is a rights-infringing activity under the procedure-focused libertarian account. The act of some industry is causing pieces of matter to land on me and enter into my body. But I never contracted with them to allow them to do so.
The air and the atmosphere is an especially problematic issue for libertarians. Who owns those things? Libertarians might try to argue that you own the air above your land, but air — or the matter that it is made up of — does not stay above your land; it moves around the world. Any matter released into the air is sure to find itself to someone else’s property, causing a violation. The atmosphere might seem like something nobody owns and therefore something anybody can dump things into. But with climate change, we know that greenhouse gas emissions are causing the world to warm, the consequences of which will include damage to the property of others all over the world. Yet again though, greenhouse gas emitters have not contracted with every single property owner in the world, making their emissions a violation of a very strict libertarian property rights ideology.
The short of is that environmentalists totally smash open the idea that property rights theories can really account for who is permitted to do what with the land that they own. Almost all uses of land will entail some infringement on some other piece of land that is owned by someone else. So how can that ever be permitted? No story about freedom and property rights can ever justify the pollution of the air or the burning of fuels because those things affect the freedom and property rights of others. Those actions ultimately cause damage to surrounding property and people without getting any consent from those affected. They are the ethical equivalent — for honest libertarians — of punching someone in the face or breaking someone else’s window.
That is why environmentalism is such a huge problem for libertarians, and it is no doubt why so many of them are skeptical of the effects of climate change or other environmental issues. Admitting that someone’s use of their own property almost certainly entails an infringement on someone else’s property makes the whole libertarian position basically impossible to act out in the real world. A landowner could never get individual contracts with literally every single person that might ever be affected by the owner’s land-use (e.g. operating a coal-burning power plant). But a libertarian that was honest about environmental externalities would require such a landowner to undertake precisely that impossible task.

[Ben]

The Return of the Chickenhawks:

http://original.antiwar.com/justin/2...-chickenhawks/

[Ben]

Ron Paul Heated CNN Interview:

[Ben]

Why would Dana Bash say she is "worried" that Paul will "continue on long into the Spring and Summer...." Seems a bit odd that she'd be worried.
I mean, worried for Romney? The Republican Party? Again, why would she use that word???

[Ben]

Ron Paul's Moment of Racial Clarity

His recent comments about institutional racism defy the GOP norm.

http://www.theroot.com/views/ron-pau...s-racism-issue

[Faldur]

[onmyknees]

LMAO....I'm convinced of Bens political schizophrenia. He loves Ron Paul.........He loves him NOT.

Doesn't make him a bad guy, but it makes him...........well.........
"undecided".

Imagine Ben being randomly interviewed by a TV reporter? "Who are you voting for sir?"

[Ben]

At the 10 min and 20 sec mark Paul talks about institutional racism: