What do you think about Ron Paul? Was he the hope and dream of our movement or just a republican quack?
I think Ron Paul was pretty inspirational to me at one point. Recently, I wonder whether he’s just another Russian shill.
Yeah. I’m pretty disappointed with his more recent statements and actions.
But he was at one point very inspirational to me as well. People change, so I’m just going to attribute his latter behaviors with getting older and losing his mind/principles.
I liked Ron Paul. I didn’t always agree with him, but he had principles that he stood by and fought for. He was one of the few people in DC fighting the Bush forever-war surveillance-state in the years after 9/11.
I lost all hope for the Republican party when I saw the crowd at the Republican primary debate in 08 (iirc) boo him for saying that the Golden Rule (do unto others as you would have others do unto you) should apply to international relations.
He was ultimately a Don Quixote figure. Nobody wants a libertarian state. The right wants authoritarianism, the Dems want crony capitalism, the progressives want socialism or social democracy. He was shouting into the wind about freedom and privacy, the public shrugged, and the two parties established a surveillance state and dragged us into a twenty year quagmire.
I liked him. He was the one who made me into a libertarian. I was impressed by his anti-war stance that set him apart from the other GOP presidential candidates in 2008.
The entire libertarian movement is a republican quack.
I’ll die on this hill
I don’t know this Ron Paul but I really hate that the libertarian philosophy is being reduced to a political agenda even more to an american one. Of course, one has to appreciate the important influences from america but libertariansim is by far more than that.
I’m not really sure what libertarianism is outside of the U.S. But, if it has anything at all to do with the American version, it’s not only derivative, but just as trashy.
Libertarianism is a philosophy independent from any political system that callsxitcselfclikecthat. It is based on the fundamental value of what freedom is and puts it before everything else. The non agession principle is concerned with maximizing the personal freedom of all. As long as you don’t restrict anyone’s freedom or interfere with their abilities, you can do anything. As long as you adhere to these principles you can call yourself a libertarian.
Yeah, and there’s never a reason given why “freedom” as conceived by a libertarian trumps all other values. It’s just asserted that freedom is the most important fundamental human value from which all others derive, and thus it’s the highest. I am not convinced (though I once was).
And the non-aggression principle fails to be useful when human relationships enter into the context; that is, it fails to be useful at all. I am partial to the libertarian ideal, as much as I don’t like it, and in my own personal life, what others consider perfectly normal, I often feel as an attempt of coercion because of my libertarian affinity. And this is in relationship without a power dynamic. In other contexts, both in my life and from what I’ve seen of others, and especially where power dynamics exist, the assumptions of non-aggression principle are being routinely violated.
Human relationships restrict freedom in all sorts of ways and interfere with others’s abilities, too. My use of a public bathroom removes from you the opportunity to use it simultaneously. You are less free in a sense because of my need to relieve myself. Attending to my biological needs results in a restriction of your opportunities. Sure, that’s a trivial example, but, from a libertarian perspective, that restriction on freedom is not less important than more meaningful instances, like taxes that redistribute wealth. A violation of freedom is a violation of freedom. Period. It is after all, the fundamental value of what freedom is" and “before everything else”.
In short, globalized libertarianism is both derivative and trashy.
Yeah, I hear what you’re saying, and I see a lot of Libertarian-doubters have similar issues with the philosophy. You can point to a specific situation and say “Libertarianism doesn’t work here. Libertarianism must be trash.” But really I’ve been seeing the same thing with other competing philosophies right? Like “Our world is a mess. This is what Capitalism does? Capitalism is trash.” And then right wing people say “look at the communism in Venezuela. Is this what the Left wants? Communism is trash” And the Libertariand are all “its not TRUE Libertarianism” It’s not TRUE capitalism It’s not TRUE communism Etc. But really it’s just a lot of arguing over small matters that necessarily arise between people who hold different philosophies. There are some people who legitimately believe that governments are better equipped to decide what people need and better equipped to provide those needs to individuals. Others believe that the individual knows best and is in a better position to provide. Because of this one simple outlook on life there are necessarily thousands of differences in opinions about daily life choices, controls, limitations etc simply because of a higher disagreement. Yes, people find the non-aggression principle to be useless, but we Libertarians find war-making and unprovoked aggression to be less beneficial than peace, mutual cooperation, and the resulting division of labor.
