Kentucky Republican Sen. Rand Paul took what very well could be considered his most pro-Israel stance yet, saying in an interview that an attack on Israel should be treated as an attack on the United States.
Asked whether the United States would stand with Israel and provide it foreign aid if the Jewish state were attacked by its enemies, Paul went a step further.
“Well absolutely we stand with Israel,” he said in an interview with Breitbart News, “but what I think we should do is announce to the world – and I think it is pretty well known — that any attack on Israel will be treated as an attack on the United States.”
Yeah, my early thesis of Rand Paul’s actions is bearing out to be true. This is exciting!
I knew when he wedged into the NATO/Georgia vs. Russia issue that he was putting his foot in the door (with McCain, Rubio, Lieberman, Graham, etc.) and asking to be in on the GOP establishment. His hindering their plan was merely a way of demonstrating that he can be a nuisance if not accepted. And it worked!
My various Rand Paul expose’s are around the forum.
It pains me to say it (and it happened last May), but the movement is dead. We should be in “clandestine infiltration” mode at this point. Don’t tell anyone you are a libertarian just play ball until you get into power then play dumb and block, conflate, obfuscate, and otherwise hinder anything that comes your way. Support nothing or everything, lie to all fellow politicians and bureaucrats as well as the media, and only tell the truth to a few people on the outside who are trusted disseminators of the truth.
Think how Seneca described the world in his letters. ‘You do not trust people, but it is possible to trust a person.’ (and since I assume you are skeptical of that Rousseauean double speak, just don’t tell the truth to anyone. People who know what is up will get it.) Everyone trusts different sources; know who is getting what statements and plan from there.
I notice that you didn’t disagree with the rest of that rant. I think people getting elected and then playing the part of the clumsy idiot is a good way to muck up the process. “Losing” important papers can go a long way (even the CIA told the Nicaraguan rebels to do this from the inside among other things).
I don’t talk to anyone about my politics anymore really. In the Ron Paul hype days I would try sometimes, but now it’s just complaining to close friends. So I may have already been following your advice if that’s what you mean. I didn’t do that out of any virtuous commitment to political strategy but in the selfishness of retaining my image as a ‘normal’ person. But is that good for our cause? If, on the other hand, you mean that Libertarian publications and public stages won’t be effective anymore now that Rand is now Z-money and Ron is gone, I disagree. I think there’s a sizeable group of the American right who, despite the constant reminders and education of mainstream press, ask themselves “Why are we fighting for these assholes at the expense of our own security?” This is something that they can’t be ‘tought’, because it is such a fundamentally retarded idea that it just goes against the instincts of anyone who respects themself.
I didn’t pronounce my disagreement with your points that Rand is useless or worse. In order to speak on the rest I have to understand it; are you prioritizing the roles of libertarian public figures / politicians as sugar in the State gas-tank as higher than their roles as representatives of libertarian ideology?
It is not that I don’t think it will be effective, but the counter-“attacks” from the State and its benefactors has already been entrenched. They have the academic world well assimilated to the defense (not intellectually, but socially), they have the propaganda machine (particularly effective imo), and these things combined will shutout the influence of the “good guys” everywhere where it matters. Rand, himself, is an example of the political level of this manipulation. This is not to mention the political bureaucracy which, from my estimations, has the most barriers for foreign influence in the agenda setting (think tanks would be more forgiving).
Rand comes from his fathers coattails and instead of pursuing the central bank (the epitome of power) he waters down the movement with raw milk and lightbulbs. And what is worse is that the Establishment has used his watered down message as the points to polarize. Good luck getting to the level of central banking/military indusrtial discussion with the intellectual climate at that level.
Tacitum sed intelligitur.
Can they not be one in the same? Why can’t we have our own Platonic “Magnificent Myth / Noble Lie”? Why can’t we behave like Machiavellian politicos? Everyone else does. This totally unrealistic idealism that has been built on the movement is insufficient for modern politics. Plain and simple.
The IR academic world is hell bent on justifying the Kantian concept of cosmopolitan universal history for a federation of nations constituting a world state. If you think you are going to fight back at the “grass roots” level from this sort of intellectual glacier, then you are mistaken, I’m afraid. The IR and Finance world are the market planners because they deal in how states interact. They are attempting to distinguish the “anarchy” that defines the world system of international relations. They are not going to allow the dialogue to “regress” (in their eyes) to the days of Hobbes (who is referenced in virtually all realist interntational theories).
The best bet is for there to form a pseudo-organization, like they did over and over and over again, and to then transcend the physical plane into sugar once it is nice and cozy in the gas tank.
Interesting. But, the only type of organization which could muster that kind of balls, secrecy, ideological fervor, and simultaneously charisma in the public sphere would have to be on a plane no different than that of the Club of Rome or the Trilateralists.
Where are you going to get people who will live a lie all their lives, who you actually like.
Or the Masons or the original Sicilian Mafia. The Masons “aren’t a secret society.” They are a “society with secrets.” Who knows what levels of corruption is gotten away with in their halls (well, we know in Italy in the 1960s and we know in France in the 1790s). We don’t have to partake in corruption, however; this is a plus. We have to act like Adam Sandler in positions of power.
Hamilton and Jefferson didn’t get along, but they still managed to play their parts in the revolution. You just have to worry about the Burr or Stalin types in the crowd (Lenin hated Stalin).
I don’t think Jefferson ever did. And Hamilton promoted his agenda through psedonyms; Pacificus & Publius (they changed depending on their subject). They trusted each other because they were both … barons… and knew that they had common interest in deposing the throne.
Even the neocons published their true intentions, but the media never focuses on the source material for them. The media is more than willing to publish as “news” PR statements from the Pentagon (for God’s sake) and cite “sources” for pressing international issues. You never get the agenda. [Which is to illustrate the propaganda machine not the dissemination of ideas per se]
All this talk of “rights” and "liberty’ are antiquated. New words or phrases should be thought up to represent those concepts or concepts related to them. We need to develop a libertarian tradecraft.
I’m not talking about the bank. I’m talking about ratification (Publius) and the first executive foreign policy decision (which Hamilton was right about (Pacificus).
In his series of letters under the pseudonym Pacificus Hamilton debated Madison on whether or not the Executive branch could not act when congress wanted to in terms of war. The French regime prior to the French revolution had signed a war pact treaty with the new U.S. government and during Washington and Adam’s administrations the Congress wanted to declare war on England when France declared war on England (holding up our end of the bargain). Hamilton said that we signed the treaty with the pre-revolutionary government and therefore weren’t tied to this new French regime’s declaration of war. In te mean time, Hamilton riducled Jefferson for being “more Frenchman than American” because Jefferson hated England and loved France and Hamilton looked up to the English. But Jefferson agreed with Hamilton in that we cannot go to war with England, so later after Hamilton is buried (we cannot forget that Hamilton was ‘the decider’ in putting the last few delegates on the side of Jefferson over Burr in the 1803 election) Jefferson bought LA and funded the French for $15 million (a direct contribution to the French war effort and the English knew it) and imposed a trade embargo for all of Europe to make US policy more “neutral” and to prevent the legislature from doing anything stupid (make what you will with the freedom of trade hinderance). Hamilton was right as fucking rain because when the Congress did finally declare war on England (1812), the English stomped over here and burned our capital down. Thus Madison emerges as the least competent and probably the most embarrassing of the actual power brokers from the US revolution. Jefferson caused much ire in England during his terms (possibly sealing the fate of Madison’s administration) and the Federalists were right on this issue the whole time.
haha. Liberty…what does that combination of phonetic timbres mean?
My theory of democratic mercantilism specifically defines democratic state powers as including “positive rights drawn through legislature.” So, natural rights, negative rights are what are antiquiated. just name what you want and start lobbying!
Admirable (except Goode’s view on nationalism, immigration, and drug policy). They are fighting, however, for a cause that simply cannot ever come back. As I’ve stated before, the world system is moving towards integration. The way of the nation state itself is in decline. This century will be that of the emergence of a unified transnational-multilateral(cooperative)-corporate-regulatory system that spans the globe. Democratic politics will find their apex before this because when this new order becomes “operational” (like the Death Star) it will disintegrate democratic politics as we know it and nation states as we know them. Nation states will become administrative units for the transnational regulatory formers. This can be found in the bureaucratic manueavers in our own system today.
Our legislature makes laws and agencies. The agencies interpret the laws and form regulations based on their interpretations. These interpretations are administered by states, counties, cities, municipalities, and everyone in the private market. This is how the UN code ends up in county policy.
The point of pushing for “democracy” at every turn is to try to homogenize the circumstances of “legitimacy” of existence for all of the nation states in the world. Once this is accomplished then it becomes a matter of homogenizing policies which will be done through the transnational regulatories (WTO, WHO, WB, IMF, BIS, etc.) all of which are voluntary associative institutions (even though once you volunteer you are at the "general will’s whim of who runs these organizations which is anyone’s guess). I feel like I’m rambling, but this is concise stuff.
Fighting for the Constitution is like fighting for a reexamination of Newton’s great work. It is great and for its time veryone is willing to admit that, but no one is willing to test “progress” for “another attempt.”
People, what do you think of this:
That is my assessment of Rand Paul’s power politics. He used that wedge to gain admittance into the upper echelon as a Jr. Senator.
The movement is not dead - the idea of peace and prosperity through liberty continues to spread. And what you are advocating the movement do - the adoption of war means (political means) - would be the death of the movement. Not that that is surprising coming from a traitor or infiltrator such as yourself who is always filled with this kind of self-defeating “advice” to the liberty movement.
The means of peace begin with self-reformation - change your own attitudes and ideas about yourself, about society, abut humanity in general, about how to live rightly (yourself), and share your experience with anyone who will listen. This is the path to building and expanding healthy communities from the ground up, communities that are impervious to the ubiquitous divide-and-rule strategy employed by the imperialists, also-known-as those who employ war means.
I don’t see that. And if it is true that doesn’t mean idealism needs to be structured on it. The GOP strategically relocated the rabblerousing teaparty congressmen. That went no where and was marginalized by its own party (it didn’t even get to compete with the liberal propaganda machine). Ya catch my drift?
It shouldn’t be limited to political means (legally obstructing the establishment what a bad idea…). Private market actors can do these sorts of things to; cooperative gentlemen’s agreements.
You calling me a “traitor” lets me know that I am on the right path. And “infilitrator” … I’m a college student not a spook, you paranoid little man.
How is it “self defeating” to see the reality of political and geo poltical and economic trends and work into that framework. How is it “self-defeating” to point out that there are Lenin and Burr types out there and to be wary of them (Rand Paul, ahem; maybe not quite to the degree of Stalin…YET ;).
I’ll pull a cite for that advice…here…I’m sure it’s in there.
Hey, divide and conquer works…there is evidence of its success. Why sit back and be the political pacifists when there is such an obvious channel for success right in front of you. Black and gray propaganda are always more successful than white propaganda in the realm of politics.
“Rand comes from his fathers coattails and instead of pursuing the central bank (the epitome of power) he waters down the movement with raw milk and lightbulbs.”
Look, you rebel by not taking any action, and going to college. Other people actually do things. We all have our ways.
World view? Well, I spoke about you personally, so not that part. You mean when I said people actually doing things? People really don’t take action? Jesus, you’re more defeatist than I thought.
What is defeatist about my comments? Clayton says I am defeatist because I don’t see ‘the moral angle’ as being powerful enough to be effective in the modern democratic circumstance; the high horse and soap box only go so far. That is all I am saying. And that libertarians should take a lesson from the GOP… 1) fool people to get into office, 2) play partisan, 3) ???, 4) Profit.
If you were planning on, in seven months, going to graduate school on a thesis concerning “The Use of a National Currency as a Subversive Foreign Policy Tool” would you think of yourself as “doing nothing?” What did Rothbard do his thesis on…hmm…I bet he thought he was doing nothing as well. Nothing at all (x3).
This however, taken out of context, is a true statement. Jesus was rather defeatist wasn’t he? For him, you don’t create the world you want, you inherit it when the clever and ambitious people are done…like I said, idealists.
You can’t have it both ways… you’re “only saying” the high-horse and soapbox only go so far… who here has said that all that is needed is self-righteous lecturing?? I’m all for working with the political system but we need to do so in a way that addresses rather than avoids the root issues. In particular, we need to work from the bottom up. The entire national political scene is hopelessly corrupt - it is frankly Machiavellian and nothing more than a thinly-veiled mafioso mentality applied to every apsect of life. It is true that there comes a point where social measures need teeth to back them up.
And no, this doesn’t mean the haphazard notion of a “people’s militia”. Real, organized resistance can only occur above-ground in broad daylight. But the correct answer here is, again, to start locally and work our way up, not try to “fool people” into electing libertarians to national offices… complete waste of time… it has never worked, Ron Paul being the sole exception that only goes to prove the rule.