I like Buchanan. Anyone who writes revisionist history on World War II is okay in my book.
That’s what I was thinking. Did anyone else see him on the Colbert Report?
Incorrect or watered down ideas gaining momentum is counterproductive to libertarian education.
This is a reoccuring mischaracterization. Noone is advocating non-engagement of people or not striving for larger goals. Indeed, half of the complaint is precisely that the larger and higher goals or values are being sacrificed to lesser ones.
Actually this is how electoral politics works. Politicians are viewed as messiahs, and each one is a false prophet each time. We are encouraged to place faith in a single man or small group to do that which we can be doing for ourselves already.
Again, the analogy doesn’t hold because you’re making the false assumption that there is a total “void” in the absence of your particular methods, as if no meaningful alternatives exist. You act as if nothingness is the only alternative.
If Pat Buchannan is a good ally, I see no reason why Mike Gravel or Ralph Nader should not be regaurded likewise. Personally, I consider neither of them to be good allies, at least in any broad sense. If they happen to be correct on an individual issue, sure, I will ideologically align with them but this would only be conditional. It would not constitute any sort of broad or meaningful alliance.
No it isn’t. I got here through watered down ideas, and now I’m seriously considering anarchism, in ways I never would have done before.
The mischaracterization is that watering down ideas can’t work as a means of making things more palatable to the uninitiated.
On the contrary, non-engagement with those who are not ideologically pure is the reoccurring theme. If one is not ideologically pure, like Ron Paul, or Pat Buchanan, then they are an enemy.
I wasn’t using Messiah as a human leader, but rather the anarchy event that will set the people free.
Nope. Counterproductivity is the other alternative. Actually hardening statism.
I think most of us are just weary of watching our so-called allies backstab us. Look up the history of the Deustch National Liberal Party and see what happens when you compromise.
So you see absolutely zero danger in presenting a watered down message to people? Surely you can see the problem.
No, personal empowerment and taking the initiative for oneself is the reoccuring them of apolitical libertarians. What is being advocated is precisely engagement - among society itself and through economic organization in defiance of the state. This is what is repeatedly overlooked.
Again, the argument is made with the erroneous assumption that there is absolutely nothing productive to be done outside of electoral politics. That is nonsense, especially when one is taking market economics into consideration and realizes the productivity of private interaction. Our point is precisely that electoral politics is what is counterproductive to the ultimate end and that interaction on the market itself is what is most productive. There is nothing counterproductive about it - the entire point here is the self-empowerment of the individual as to render the political power obsolete. You don’t do that by brushing off all alternatives to the political process or acting as if there is a total void of productive options in its absence.
That’s why I like Ron, because he is bringing libertarianism into conservative groups, instead of Bob “Drug Czar” Barr bringing conservatism into libertarian groups.
The Libertarian Party, The Party of Principal’s( except for drug warin’, soldiers overseain’, Patriot Act supportin’ Flag Burning Amendment supportin’ ) candidate for president.
Seems like everyone is supporting protectionism except JOHN MCCAIN. Nevermind, he’s protecting OUR oil in Iraq, and our precious environment by advocating cape and trade policy.
At least Barrack Obama supports failed ideas with conviction, instead of failing to convict failed ideas for political expediency.
Long Live Barrcain McBama " Change we can believe won’t allow us to smoke crack because it causes Co2 "
anyone else have a better slogan for our wonderful trough of candidates?
yes McCain is trading capes… for statist vampires
Do you want a medal for being the exception to the rule then?
The logic is clear. Education means educating. If you’re educating people about Y and calling it X then you are not educating people about X, you are serving to confuse them.
Many people calling themselves libertarians now believe that borders should be closed, women ought not have the right to choose, and the state is necessary and fixable.
Is that what you want to educate them?
If you want to comrpomise your action, then it’s pseudo-action at best and counterproductive at worst.
If you want to waterdown your speech and confuse conservativism with libertarianism, you’re just incorrect.
I am an exception to the Rule as well give me a medal too. Did you wake up one morning and become an Anarchist? Or was it a long process? I think it is evolution for 99% of Anarcho Capitalists, ussualy starting with Rand, and now Paul, and in the future Barr.
The exception to the exception is how open-minded a person is, if a proper debate & challenge is presented to the person, if that person even bother’s to regonize said challenge to their thinking, if said person has time to devote resources into researching needed information & topics, etc.
So no, getting people interested in Ron Paul & Rand (imo, an “an-cap” rationalization of Barr is comical) will not automatically make them into ‘anarcho-capitalists’. Saying that is like saying asexual reproduction renders sexual reproduction obsolete, or that liking chocolate automatically means you hate vanilla.
What you said made somthing click, sharply… as in put together things I hadn’t previously made a connection between.
I am not saying listening to Barr will automatically make you an-cap. But it takes people from "how will the government solve this problem to “get the hell out of the way.” It get’s a person interested in liberty to further their research and perhaps becom an-cap. A debate will be extremely hard to present to a person if it is not in the media. That is why we need to send a watered it down version as well, so people can at least see an arguement that is liberty leaning. At best they will continue down the road to an-cap, at worst they will question the government just that much more. I am not saying we do not educate people about an-cap, but I am saying that if we want a large amount of people moving in our direction we will have to spread a watered down version as well.
No. I do not see absolutely zero danger. Merely existing presents a better than zero chance of danger.
Not doing enough presents danger. Doing too much presents danger. A stateless society, will still have danger.
You’re looking at a watered down message only as a negative. I’m looking for an upside for the risk, and whether the potential for damage is containable.
actics can be disposable, in the sense that what we need to accomplish today, is not what we need to accomplish tomorrow. In this regard, folks like Ron Paul and Bob Barr can be vehicles from point A to point B.
After all, the state already is in control. The state already possesses the imagination of the masses. How much damage can we do flirting with statists? I suppose only if you feel the liberty movement (1) has something to lose, and (2) has advanced far enough that it can be set back.
But even then, no risk, no reward. I don’t believe the dream that a small number of us are going to collapse the state by conducting agorist activity and then one day, everyone will buy our tax free tomatoes, and we will supplant a massively complex economy with barter, while a decaying state fights it out with our private defense forces. Almost sounds like something outta Star Wars.
Think about what you wrote. Do you think anyone with a modicum of intelligence would propose such a thing?
The point is that eschewing all allies or potential allies, particularly as it is done on this forum, is counterproductive. I read complaint after complaint about Ron Paul, and yet there are easily a half dozen people here that I know of, who are interested in learning more about Liberty because of him.
And while he has opened up a lot more people to the idea of affecting political change, he has also inspired the intellectual and philosophical curiousity of many as well.
Most of all, he’s inspiring activism on a scale unprecedented for liberty oriented folks. Something IMHO that is badly needed.
Now you are attempting to turn the argument around. I have never suggested that all alternatives to the political process should be brushed off. That is what you do. You suggest all ideological differences are impossible to cross, and this shrug off any notions of a big tent.
First, I’m an Anarchist, not an “anarcho-capitalist” - which I take to be an oxymoron.
Second, I never started in that line of thought. I came from a syndicalist standpoint and moved further to Individualist Anarchism from there.
Third, Barr is the farthest thing from an Anarchist (i.e. a libertarian).
A lot. A hell of a lot. Just look at the historical failure of classical liberalism - and the conservative corruption of libertarianism that already has taken place in more recent years. It seems nonsensical to try the exact same thing over and over again (I.E. engage in the politics of compromise and the game of smoke and mirrors) when it has quite obviously failed. There is a danger of literally becoming one’s own enemy, of becoming precisely what one originally set out to oppose.
Again. It seems to be a situation of what is seen and what is unseen for these people.
For every person that has been turned onto the libertarian message by Ron Paul, I’m sure I could count at least two immigrants, a feminist, and a lblack guy that have been turned off to it only to now associate the antithetical of authoritarian with the blood suckers that would destroy their livelihoods thinking of them as routine “law” breakers and as no good for society.
I honestly know next to nothing about Bob Barr. The libertarian party has always been a bore to me. You’d think since they know they’ll never win that they’d at least run someone more ballsy or at least use the platform to mock politics in general. I’ve always liked Ralph Nader for doing that (I think even he giggles if he imagines himself being president).
Except Robert ‘Peckerwood’ Barr doesn’t question government.
He supports it fully.