Some of you are ridiculous.
I find it extremely interesting how you manage to contradict yourself in just two sentences. Don’t get me wrong, I know either way voting isn’t some “blow against the man”, but that’s precisely it. Ron Paul has said so himself-What he really tries to do is educate more people. His votes don’t really count a bit.
If you actually talk to such people, you will find that you have a lot more in common than you think you do. If not, then maybe you’re just a different breed of elitist. Whether they were butchering Persians at Thermopylae, Hessians at Trenton, or Russians in Afghanistan, rednecks all over the world can be a powerful force in winning and keeping their freedom because they recognize it instinctively.
The people may be ignorant, but they can recognize the truth easily enough, and will yield to a worthy person who can explain it to them. He who builds on the people may build on mud, but for the individualist, what other foundation is there?
Meanwhile, have fun being morally superior as the guys in the blue helmets load your family into trucks.
Libertarians will never ever be represented in a democracy to the point where they start having a significant impact of policies because on the very fact we have a representative democracy. David Friedman has explained this before. You can convert 10 million people into Austrians and you will still never have any real change.
If you actually talk to such people, you will find that you have a lot more in common than you think you do.
No, they don’t. The jawbone some brain-dead second-hand classical liberalism mixed in with a bunch of Conservative, NeoConservative and Southern Progressive (i.e., old Democrat) nonsense into a confused heap which they are pretty much unable to disentangle. Just like the Free Silverites who opposed a central bank these people are right largely by accident and rarely able to discover the tensions within their views (for example, police shouldn’t be so constrained and we should impose protectionist tariffs; but Federal Bureaucracy is out of control and they’re interfering with property). Not to mention the silly racialism, the religious nuttery and the sheer unemployed-douchery of many of its members.
Obviously there are going to be some people associated with the movement who aren’t mental midgets and a hash of populist sentiments but these people are just wasting their time.
So you have an issue with “radical”? Are they more radical then some libertarians here?
Let’s see now, I would say that having your goals met when the State is abolished would pretty much classify as a “spit in the face of Americans” from the point of view of almost all those that are those protests. So I would say that if those Americans were more “enlightened” , they would protest the next Libertarian summit near ground zero as well.
Actually the Mosque is being funded by the Rockefellers…
Everything in New York is owned by the Rockefellers.
Wow, I’ve never known a libertarian who relied so heavily on the New York Times for information. Even they never accused Tea Partiers of wanting protectionist tariffs. That’s a new one. And even the demonstrators look at me funny when I pick up my rattlesnakes and dance around with them.
Demonstrators of any movement, even those who disagree with me-- it’s happened once or twice-- are not some lower form of life unworthy of a second glance. They are human beings, and more importantly, they are Americans. I only hold contempt for those who assume enlightenment and importance, when they’re really just a 40-year-old virgins blogging from their parents’ basements.
There are rednecks of every race, creed, and color out there, and God bless every one of them!
And you plan to win your freedom back by fostering collectivism? Interesting strategy.
Patriotism is not collectivism, and you’re not sticking it to the Man by rejecting the Founders and their sacrifices.
I think that somewhere, we were all talking about a mosque…
I love when ancaps bash conservatives. I hate being associated with them because some people think we are right wingers (or cause we’re capitalists). I don’t about allying with them, but any free market or libertarian influence rubbing off on anyone is good.
I don’t read the New York Times, I don’t even have a television. But I have read plenty of the bullshit on blogs and stupid books by the Tard Partiers to see that they don’t know what they’re about and, like any populist movement, are easily co-opted to serve whatever stupid demagogue will repeat meaningless but reassuring phrases.
you’re not sticking it to the Man by rejecting the Founders and their sacrifices.
Your founders were a bunch of elites who wanted to run this country without George’s interference, the Tea Party was just a bunch of hoodlums disguising themselves and destroying private property, the American Revolution was largely mob violence, the American Continental Army nearly lost the war, as soon as the war was over these ‘founders’ dedicated their lives to make a centralized People’s State through which they could mould the public into their inspired image; and taxes and imposts quickly outpaced anything old George had considered.
The revolution in your head is pure fantasy, give it up already. F*** America, the Constitution and every rabble-rousing SOB that signed the worthless piece of paper.
Liberte, (or Vichy Army), I’m just curious but where is the place of elites in running a country? I always thought that you were more authoritarian but the above characterization of the founders (“a bunch” of elites) seems to degrade an elites importance -it’s just a friendly question, I’m not trying to “catch you” or something.
I deny the premise of a ‘country’.
Ah, but elites are important in some sense?
Elites exist. Just who is an elite will depend upon historical accident and institutional norms.
Well, countries exist too.
Rand Paul is clearly a fascist. He supports expansionist militarism, the demonization of an unpopular ethnic/religious group, and yes, private property with state regulation. The last time I checked, those were the three main ingredients in fascism
Fascism was a specific corporatist ideology emphasizing a blend of quasi-mythical nationalism and center-socialist futurism, typically a mix of Producerism and Corporatism. Calling everything vaguely statist or racialist (or anything you don’t like) ‘fascist’ is pure Communist tactics; don’t be an idiot: just because you’re a statist doesn’t mean you’re a fascist. What are you, Glenn Beck?
Nazis weren’t fascists, the American Progressives weren’t fascist and Franco wasn’t a fascist. Certainly Randroid Paul wasn’t. Scott Horton does this all the time, it’s ridiculous.