Ron Paul is weird.

[daedalus_dude]

If you listen to him talk about foreign policy and the military industrial complex, he sounds like a totally cool guy and like he is to the left of most democrats.

But if he then starts ranting about domestic policies, you think "wow, what a crazy person"

Here's a question I would like to ask Dr. Paul: How exactly does he plan to ensured that his ideal vision of a capitalist unregulated free-market system does not turn into the corporatocracy that he apparently doesn't like? What other than an elected government regulating the economy, could make sure that this doesn't happen? I thought it is common understanding that unregulated capitalism inevitably converges into the few owning most of everything and buying the government and turning it into whatever they want?

[undeterred]

1. Ron Paul is a Libertarian.

Libertarians are weird.

Ron Paul is weird.

[HughMoran]

29. Ron Paul is no libertarian

He's just weird.

[PeaceNikki]

2. He's completely insane.

[emulatorloo]

4. And he is the idol of most of the teabaggers!

I guess we could call him the intellectual leader of that movement.

[Solly Mack]

3. Yeah he is

[LeftishBrit]

5. Agree. I have an essay about him as my last journal entry

He is a scary right-wing nutter, just like most Republicans but in a slightly different way.

[tridim]

6. There is nothing easier than debating Paul-tards.

They have nothing except Ayn Rand.

[nxylas]

15. Except Rand at least believed in objective truth, while Paulbots feel entitled to their own facts

I mean, how do you have a rational debate with someone who thinks that Obama was born in Kenya and that there are microchips in the swine flu vaccine? Not to mention that they have their own arcane language that only other True Believers can understand. A relative of one of my Facebook friends, who happens to be a Paulbot (the relative, not the friend) was practically creaming his pants over this bill sponsored by Rep. Paul.

http://www.thomas.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c111:H.R.1207:

I read the full text of the bill, and I still have no idea what the bloody hell it's all about.

[wtmusic]

17. linky no worky

thanks.

[nxylas]

18. For some reason, the DU autohyperlinkotron stripped out the final colon from the link

Add a colon to the end of the URL, and as if by magic, the bill will appear.

[Zynx]

34. Ayn Rand believed in her version of the truth.

[Ian David]

7. The correct term is "Batshit Crazy." n/t

[GrantDem]

8. I was behind Ron Paul in the security line at Reagan Airport Friday.

TSA pulled him out of line for extra screening.

(Doesn't really have anything to do with the OP but just wanted to chime in with my sighting)

[Warpy]

9. He's a typical Libertarian dreamer

and dreams don't usually make much sense.

Don't expect logic from a dreamer. You're not going to get it, ever.

[pretzel4gore]

10. the myths persist...

what you're getting at is the collision of mythic virtue with grim reality- with mr pig coming out smelling like pretty gal and looking like john wayne and with all them notions fitting despite fact they are a grab bag with something for everybody. As long as the fundamentals were intact, the thing kept a-going, but since ww2 we've pumped carbon into air at progressive rate (it's up to 70 million tonnes every 24 hours today) and that's just the physics. In the reactionary right's grab at power, they've warred on 'truth' so effectively truth no longer pertains- anyone can define truth, and only guns can back truth up. The right wins by losing, and loses by winning, and, as many have noticed, the rightwing is stoopid. Its tiny dicks makem very self-conscious of their weakness, their cowardice, and their obvious lack of virtues. God despises reactionaries, as Jesus clearly said. This drives the rightwing batty, as they NEED to be godly- they did w/out for sooo long! And they did w/out in order to be 'holier then thou' (you) and me....haha. Ron Paul is sincere, but the Pig defanged the left (USSR) while empowering the right(bushinc/foxnews) and in order for a ship to go straight, it needs both ruddders, or it go around in circles! Thus nixon begits Reagan begat bush, sort of. The forces of reaction simply cannot admit that the 'privileges of the few' going before the 'needs of the many' must end in catastrophe, if not regulated. They insist the privileged few will look out for the many, if only because of self interest, and out of good hearts. But that's wrong. And Ron Paul refuses to believe it, even unto death

[mdmc]

11. good questions

[Odin2005]

12. Right-Libertarian crackpot.

[Flaneur]

13. Paul is good on foreign policy and drug policy. Otherwise, no.

[wtmusic]

14. The theory goes something like this:

If only government would get COMPLETELY out of the way and everyone could make whatever transactions they wanted to, as long as they are voluntary, capitalism would fix itself.

I guess if someone is holding a gun to your head and demanding your wallet, and you give it to them, that's a voluntary transaction - you've "chosen" your life over your wallet.

These people are f*cking idiots.

[guitar man]

37. yeah, but im truth,

they don't want the govt completely out of the way. Most of the "big L" Libertarians I know seem to recognize one legitimate function of government, protecting the wealth of the wealthy. Now, they don't want to have to pay any taxes to support this "service", but by gods they are wealthy and somebody had better protect them and their money and property from the unwashed masses. :eyes:

[wtmusic]

42. Protecting the wealth of the wealthy does seem to contradict

a "true" libertarian POV.

A client of mine once told me that even police and fire depts. should be independent from the government. I asked him what happens if you have a property line dispute with your neighbor and his security company can kick the ass of yours. Poof - Libertarianism becomes Feudalism.

They would have to admit it gets pretty silly, if they ever thought it through.

[saltpoint]

16. Ron Paul should probably host that aliens radio program that runs

all night long in many markets, whatever the name of it is. It appears to concern itself with outer space kookery and the like.

I think Ron Paul is entirely suitable to host a show like that.

As for political influence in the Congress, he has almost none, and that's a good thing.

[Blue_Tires]

23. you mean the Art Bell show??

[saltpoint]

25. Not sure the title. Every once and a while you can hear it on in certain

times of the night through some cities. The talk seems to lean toward aliens and outer space theories.

Actually what I was going for is that Ron Pau is an esoteric taste, best considered out of the realm of public service.

[Blue_Tires]

26. I used to listen to him for entertainment value in the 90s...

the local station would put him on in like the middle of the night...

[saltpoint]

27. It could be the same person. Some of the guests seemed sharp and

very professional. I didn't get much of the kook factor from them at all.

[tuckessee]

30. Won't happen. The job's already taken by Kucinich, Jerry Brown & Jimmy Carter. n/t

[saltpoint]

32. I like all three of those folks.

[The Magistrate]

19. A Good Question, Sir, And The Only Answer He Could Honestly Give Is Mob Violence

Absent government, that is the only remedy, and the traditional one, against excesses of the wealthy....

[Greyhound]

20. He's an idiot that happened to stumble across a couple of good ideas.

A deep thinker he is not.

[Ozymanithrax]

21. Libertarianism holds as articles of faith the goodness of uncontrolled capitalism.

It works in their minds the same way religion works in the minds of the religious. They believe because they believe. It is an article of faith not determined by logic.

The answer he would give you would that in a real free market system where corporations were allowed to fail, no mater how big, you would never have that problem. If a corporation got to big, the people (who are all superbly informed and know exactly what is going on) would see the corporation getting to big and quit buying their products, driving them into bankruptcy. Corporations would fear consumers as, in Paul's mind, the government is supposed to fear its citizens.

In reality, corporations use every modern tool of psychology to control the consumers and keep us salivating like Pavlov's dogs by manufacturing needs and filling them with ever more goods. The few who do earn enough money to become investors become part of the corporate system in order to maintain their wealth. The government doesn't fear the citizens, no matter how well armed, because they know that at least half the citizenry rarely if ever vote and they can manipulate their constituents with every modern tool of psychology to control the electorate and keep us fearful of manufactured partisan crises.

Ron Paul is nothing more than a faith healer who drinks too much of his own sacred potency potion.

[optimator]

22. I hate libertarian beliefs

they are antisocial and (if I believed in morality) pure evil.
you scum bag libertarians don't want to be in a civilization, then fuck off, get out of politics, go form your own anarchist commune or whatever. Just get the fuck away from me. The rest of us normal humans are trying to live together.

[niyad]

24. welcome to DU

one of the things that makes me shake my head at libertarians (at least the variety grown in one of the reddest counties in the country) is that they all favour abolishing social security, medicare, public schools, etc. however, I never hear them talk about the biggest program of all--the military. and WHY, since they hate government so much, are there so damned many of them IN government.

look, for example (those of you in CO know him well) at doug bruce. and there is my newest favourite, one sean paige, formerly editor of that reichwing fishwrap known as the gazette-- hates government, hates social programs, hates environmentalism, hates public schools and public transit--yet just got himself appointed a city council member. funny that none of them seem to see the sheer hypocricy in this.

[WhiteTara]

28. government only funds border patrol

the rest is up to us....after all the inmates run the asylum.

[troubledamerican]

31. Ron Paul says "Deregulate banks even farther, let them do whatever they fucking want" -- Link

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M5lb0l3sYBo

Ron Paul spouts lies throughout. But his "Too much regulation is the problem" quote is at 2:35-2:45

[leveymg]

33. If a handful of major multinationals didn't rule the world, he might be right.

Giant global banks and corporations make old-fashioned competitive capitalism impossible.

[Zynx]

35. Old fashioned, perfectly competitive capitalism never existed.

It actually can only exist if government breaks up large entities, ironically.

[leveymg]

36. There really weren't any big trusts in the US until the Civil War

Read Josephson's "The Robber Barons." It was that wartime economy that created national markets and the large-scale public debt that built the giant public feeding trough that the Rockefellers, Morgans, Harrimans, Fricks, Carnegies, Mellons, etc., etc, and their great-great grandchildren are still fattening themselves on. In the last 35 years, its truly become a global trough for pigs that fly.

[Zynx]

39. I would argue that was due to the fact that economic development was still at an early stage.

The tendency of capitalism is to concentrate market power.

[leveymg]

41. Yes, agreed. But, concentration into oligopoly really takes off during wartime.

Wars kill off smaller, niche companies that can't meet the large-scale standardized specifications of government contracting agencies. The public ends up at the end of the war with fewer choices and higher prices from fewer, bigger companies. People don't realize this because they're mesmerized by the new technological "wonders" that come when former defense industries start to market new product lines. There's a "sweet spot" in that cycle when new technologies are adopted widely enough that prices start to come down, wages improve, and unemployment declines as demand increases and new companies enter the market. Then the bubble bursts or another war starts. It's in these crisis periods of capitalism that the greatest fortunes are made by those who have their hands in the pockets of government. Gobble, snort, gobble some more. Around and around it goes, and the pigs get continually fatter.

[Union Yes]

38. RP is against Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid..in other words the social safety net.

[tjwash]

40. He's a "libertarian" which is more accurately described as "bigoted narcissism".

nt

[Iggo]

43. Ron Paul is Magneto.

[Anarcho-Socialist]

44. I would say he's more old-school palaeocon than a right-libertarian