Ron Paul is out

[Seth King]

Good. 1 less fascist in the presidential race.

SO BRAVE.

Personally I could care less about what any politician is up to, pseudo-libertarian or otherwise.

EXACTLY!
He voted for the AUMF (the blueprint for the NDAA), supports sodomy laws, believes in marriage discrimination, and much, much more. He has nothing to do with any kind of libertarianism except for state's liberty to wage tyranny

Can you provide links to these things? I challenge you to do so because he's constantly spoken out against sodomy laws, marriage discrimination and much, much more that you claim. Also, I don't know what the AUMF is so if you could provide links to that as well as his vote on it that would be great.

[dpalme]

I'd appreciate links to that stuff too. I can understand the marriage discrimination (but only in his personal opinion, not laws he wants to pass), but the other stuff just seems a bit off.

[dpalme]

Got bored of waiting to I looked it up:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=433x829909
http://bobcesca.com/blog-archives/2012/01/ron-pauls-record-on-terrorism.html

[Seth King]

Got bored of waiting to I looked it up:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=433x829909
http://bobcesca.com/blog-archives/2012/01/ron-pauls-record-on-terrorism.html

Whoopy-do! Letters of Marque and Reprisal are Constitutional and he discusses the efficacy of them quite brilliantly before Congress, which I read in his book A Foreign Policy of Freedom.

[Mark Stoval]

I see that a few here would much rather have Romney or Obama giving speeches and telling the nation's people what to believe rather than a lifelong defender of freedom and liberty. Interesting. I supposed if Rothbard himself rose from the grave and ran for president then he would not be nearly "libertarian" enough for some. Jesus on a cracker.

We have millions of young folks (say, under 35) who have been exposed to the ideas of liberty, non-interventionism, anti-war, anti-drug-war, and the NAP for the first time due to Ron Paul's campaign. I suppose that is no big deal to the snide little "to good to do anything but criticize crowd".

As Ron Paul has said on countless occasions: it was never about one man but was about the message.

[Will]

I see that a few here would much rather have Romney or Obama giving speeches and telling the nation's people what to believe rather than a lifelong defender of freedom and liberty. Interesting. I supposed if Rothbard himself rose from the grave and ran for president then he would not be nearly "libertarian" enough for some. Jesus on a cracker.

It's all fine and good that he was giving speeches that resembled libertarian ideas slightly and its great that these speeches lead a lot of you to look at anarchism. But I'm sick of politics, I spent my whole previous life trusting in politicians and right now I am free of that and couldnt care less what a politician is doing. Yes, even Rothbard.

Now Friedman on the other hand...

[Mark Stoval]

It's all fine and good that he was giving speeches that resembled libertarian ideas slightly and its great that these speeches lead a lot of you to look at anarchism. But I'm sick of politics, I spent my whole previous life trusting in politicians and right now I am free of that and couldnt care less what a politician is doing. Yes, even Rothbard.

Now Friedman on the other hand...

I spent over two decades being very suspicious of Ron Paul due to the fact that he was a politician. I waited years and years for the "sell out" to come. Still waiting. But he is still in politics and politics is the war of groups on other groups to dominate and steal from them. But what would you rather have, a tyranny like the old USSR or a laissez-faire decentralized country like early America? Don't give me "I don't care" cause that would be a lie. We all live in the present and we all would prefer more freedom to less freedom.

We must show the masses the correctness of our position that NO GOVERNMENT is the best solution; but that requires a sea-change in the thinking of most people. We need to guide them there. And one of the best ways is to show that the free, voluntary market (the freewill interaction of all the people) is the system of liberty and freedom. Show them that less is more. Less government is more happiness.

Ron Paul has done more to advance the ideas of freedom and liberty in the last 10 years than you or I  will do in 60. For that, we should be appreciative. (and we will dump his ass at the first sign of sell-out)

PS: Rothbard was never in politics, but he did write on politics a lot.

[Will]

But what would you rather have, a tyranny like the old USSR or a laissez-faire decentralized country like early America? Don't give me "I don't care" cause that would be a lie. We all live in the present and we all would prefer more freedom to less freedom.

This is a false dichotomy, there isn't simply a choice out there between USSR and Paul's good ole 'merica. And even if there was, what I wanted or thought about it wouldn't matter, because the leaders of our corprotocracy aren't really chosen democratically and even if they were, in the state I live the moderate demopublicans out number me 10 to 1.

But let's look beyond that, let's say I really did have a say in the election and Paul wins. What would change? As President Obama found out, saying what you would do if elected and getting the rest of politicians to hop on board are two different things. Paul knows this well, what he's gotten like one bill passed? The way I see it he may be able to cut back our foreign military wars and forays and perhaps use his veto power liberally to stop lots of bad legislation. So at best he would be able to slow the bleeding, but the dream of getting us back to laissez-faire America (which I don't really think it was all that it is cracked up to be) is just that, a dream separate from reality.

We must show the masses the correctness of our position that NO GOVERNMENT is the best solution; but that requires a sea-change in the thinking of most people. We need to guide them there. And one of the best ways is to show that the free, voluntary market (the freewill interaction of all the people) is the system of liberty and freedom. Show them that less is more. Less government is more happiness.

Ron Paul has done more to advance the ideas of freedom and liberty in the last 10 years than you or I  will do in 60. For that, we should be appreciative.

And if people really do come to anarchism through what Paul does, than good for him. I'm still not donating money, voting, or telling people about how great he is, because I have better places to spend my money, take my time, and direct my conversations.

PS: Rothbard was never in politics, but he did write on politics a lot.

My point was if he did run, I wouldn't have voted for him.

[MAM]

But you obviously have enough time to tell people how much you don't care... If you don't care about politics or whatever why are you posting on this thread?

I don't think anyone can argue that Paul and Mitrack Obamney are similar... Sure it's government but ir's a matter of degrees.

[Will]

But you obviously have enough time to tell people how much you don't care... If you don't care about politics or whatever why are you posting on this thread?

Because I have an insatiable need to argue with people on the internet

But really your right, I'm being a little hypocritical. Politics is a hard drug to quit. It's sort of like watching your favorite sports team make its way through the season. Its all exciting and stimulating, building camaraderie or animosity with complete strangers, and at key moments of the season it seems like nothing could possibly be more important.

And then the season ends and your life continues on no different than it was before.

[Script]

But you obviously have enough time to tell people how much you don't care... If you don't care about politics or whatever why are you posting on this thread?

He doesn't care about politics, but he cares about people caring about politics. 

Problem?

[MAM]

The problem is simple everyone cares about politics, even if they want to quit the system in favor of Agorism everyone cares.

It seems to me that this thread is getting close to being one of those semantic games like what is a libertarian? A Rothbarian, or someone like Rand Paul?

Here is the thing with Ronnie Paul he is a strict Constitutionalist so to the degrees to which the Constitution is better than dictatorship than it is good, but the degrees to which it is worse than anarchy it is bad, and Ron Paul stands with it.

I would much rather see the Constitution in acted than not. If we followed the Constitution it would be easier to change the system. Or to at least control a State (from what I've seen of the Free State project the Feds are one of the larger problems they are having to overcome).
 

[braindead0]

The problem is simple everyone cares about politics, even if they want to quit the system in favor of Agorism everyone cares.
..

A bit of on over-generalization.. I don't care about politics, thus my first post on this thread.. I was curious about how this thread stayed alive for so long though ;-)