Constant Conservative Ron Paul...

[surf4490]

Name me 1 politician who you like all their policies ?

[broncofan]

Name me 1 politician who you like all their policies ?

I don't really see the point of that exercise. There's not a politician whose list of policies I dislike in their entirety either.

However, I can't think of anyone in this country whose policies I dislike more than Ron Paul. Maybe Paul Ryan.

[Ben]

I don't really see the point of that exercise. There's not a politician whose list of policies I dislike in their entirety either.

However, I can't think of anyone in this country whose policies I dislike more than Ron Paul. Maybe Paul Ryan.

Ron Paul supports decreasing the military budget. Isn't that a good thing? Ron Paul supports ending the fruitless war on drugs. Isn't that a good thing?
I've disagreements with both Pauls. But they have some sensible policies. I mean, I don't support a push toward a full free market system. (I mean, a full free market means: no child labor laws, no minimum wage laws.)
And how do we address, say, spillover effects or externalities? The big one is pollution. How would a so-called "free" market address pollution? Or the bigger one: global warming?
In the absence of government, well, who puts constraints on corporate power?
But Ron Paul is right when he points out: we've a merger of corporate and state power. And that's the problem.
But we do have some say/control over government. As they've a flaw: they are potentially democratic.

[broncofan]

Ben, look no further than my last post on the previous page. I sort of anticipated some of your agreements with Ron Paul. As I said, it is possible for a politician to want to reduce the military budget and end the war on drugs but who does not want to get rid of Medicare, the Americans With Disabilities Act, The Civil Rights Act, who thinks the world should respond in cases of genocide, who supports same-sex marriage rights, who doesn't support the now ruled unconstitutional DOMA, who does not want to strip jurisdiction from the Supreme Court on abortion, who doesn't want to privatize all federal lands so that environmental law can be waged by private lawsuits, who doesn't have such bizarre notions of how jury trials should operate, and who doesn't think sexual harassment is something women can avoid by quitting their jobs.

Just my take. Not difficult to have one or two sensible policies out of several dozen.

[broncofan]

I mean, I don't support a push toward a full free market system. (I mean, a full free market means: no child labor laws, no minimum wage laws.)
And how do we address, say, spillover effects or externalities? .

Believe it or not, Ron Paul does have an answer to the externality question, though it's not a solution. He says if we privatize all federal lands, then there will not be a spillover problem because every individual will be able to vindicate their rights in court by suing the polluter. Of course, this leads to a tremendous amount of wasted expenditure in the form of court costs, there are enormous transaction costs associated with getting thousands of parties together to sue corporations, there are increases in insurance costs for businesses because of the uncertainty in magnitude of their liabilities. You are also going to have tremendous number of trial cases where the nature of property rights are litigated; what does it mean to own land adjacent to a stream, what quality of air are you entitled to? What he has suggested is not really an answer but in his view it's a good way to prevent the government from legislating.

[trish]

The principle difficulty with privatizing Federal lands is there won't be any Federal lands! No commons! No national parks! Nothing but private roads, private waterways and no resources belonging to the people! This is supposed to be a government of, by and for the people not an anarchy of the corporations.

[thombergeron]

Believe it or not, Ron Paul does have an answer to the externality question, though it's not a solution. He says if we privatize all federal lands, then there will not be a spillover problem because every individual will be able to vindicate their rights in court by suing the polluter. Of course, this leads to a tremendous amount of wasted expenditure in the form of court costs, there are enormous transaction costs associated with getting thousands of parties together to sue corporations, there are increases in insurance costs for businesses because of the uncertainty in magnitude of their liabilities. You are also going to have tremendous number of trial cases where the nature of property rights are litigated; what does it mean to own land adjacent to a stream, what quality of air are you entitled to? What he has suggested is not really an answer but in his view it's a good way to prevent the government from legislating.

The problem here is that Ron Paul talks out of both sides of his mouth when it comes to civil litigation. When he ran for president in 2012, he claimed to oppose tort reform on federalist grounds. But the Private Option Health Care Act that he authored in 2010 replaced malpractice litigation with a tax credit for adverse outcome insurance, which may be one of the worst health-policy ideas ever conceived. He also voted against a measure that would allow negligence lawsuits against gun manufacturers. He voted in favor of liability protection for manufacturers of certain gasoline additives. And he voted for a bill aimed at addressing court shopping that would move national class-action lawsuits out of local state courts to federal courts. He’s stated numerous times that he thinks the American economy is overburdened by civil litigation, and that it should be more difficult for a claimant to bring a lawsuit.

Ron Paul supports decreasing the military budget. Isn't that a good thing? Ron Paul supports ending the fruitless war on drugs. Isn't that a good thing?

I just plain don’t get the progressive fascination with the Pauls. Ron Paul is certainly not the only politician in this country who supports reducing DoD’s budget and ending the war on drugs, and on virtually every other issue, he’s a hard-right demagogue. Plus, how anti-war/anti-security state is he, really? He voted for the AUMF, one of the most intrusive pieces of national security policy this country has ever seen. And being against the drug war is not exactly a fringe position anymore. John McCain mentioned marijuana legalization yesterday. So why does Ron Paul have more credibility among the left than Barbara Lee or Alan Grayson?

[broncofan]

The problem here is that Ron Paul talks out of both sides of his mouth when it comes to civil litigation. When he ran for president in 2012, he claimed to oppose tort reform on federalist grounds. But the Private Option Health Care Act that he authored in 2010 replaced malpractice litigation with a tax credit for adverse outcome insurance, which may be one of the worst health-policy ideas ever conceived. He also voted against a measure that would allow negligence lawsuits against gun manufacturers. He voted in favor of liability protection for manufacturers of certain gasoline additives. And he voted for a bill aimed at addressing court shopping that would move national class-action lawsuits out of local state courts to federal courts. He’s stated numerous times that he thinks the American economy is overburdened by civil litigation, and that it should be more difficult for a claimant to bring a lawsuit.

First, good point on the AUMF.

I didn't know any of this above. This is the sort of heads he wins tails you lose stance he takes. He clearly wants to abolish the regulatory state. In its place he indicates he wants people to be able to vindicate their rights as individuals in court. Then he supports measures to limit liability. This isn't a free market paradigm but a rigged system.

I don't want to write anything else that's too long-winded but his federalism/state's rights arguments are grounded in an idiosyncratic view of the Constitution. I suppose he's entitled to think about constitutionality in his own terms when considering legislation, but he's gotten to the point where he doesn't even want to let the highest court in the land have its say. He wants to strip them of jurisdiction on issues where he disagrees with their rulings. Where is the principle in that?

Just a small historical note: If I remember correctly, one of the things established by Marbury v. Madison is that the executive cannot just ignore the Supreme Court's constitutional rulings in favor of his own view. Ron Paul is not exactly doing that by considering the constitutionality of laws BEFORE voting for them, but the only branch of government that can overturn that law once it's passed is the judiciary. So his insistence that settled law needs to be overturned with jurisdiction stripping measures is really just an end-run around the separation of powers.

Note: I am not a Constitutional scholar and I am not sure if what I am saying is completely correct, but that's my take on the matter.

[Ben]

[Dino Velvet]