Why even bother posting “believes”, “worships” etc? You have no idea what he worships or believes. You know what he does as a politician. And that is a role. I don’t know where you live or what you do, but where I come from, compromise is unavoidable.
I’m merely stating what he himself has stated that he believes and the implications of what he believes as reflected in his rhetoric and his actions. I don’t think it’s even in dispute that Ron Paul is a constitutionalist who believes in some level of government, even federal. Everyone here knows that Ron Paul is not an anarchist. I’ve seen some imply that he’s a market anarchist in disguise or infiltration mode, but I find that notion to be highly laughable.
Compromising with the uncompromisable is not unavoidable. You do not have to make compromises that cause you to aschew a principle. The only compromises worth making are ones that are still consistant with your principles. Those kind of compromises are virtually impossible when working within the framework of politics, which basically incentivizes its own perpetuation. Politics isn’t about principle, it’s about short-term gains and pragmatics.
Well, that’s certainly empirical. [8-)]
Right. Someone posted about this earlier. The left fascination with ideological purity. It’s not realistic, but realism is not the benchmark is it?
Well, I’ve got you here. Paul doesn’t gain (accomplish) anything, and he’s completely unpragmatic. Now if he actually accomplished anything besides using the pulpit to get government criticism into the official record every change he has, you might have a case for him compromising to reach a short term goal or exercising pragmatism.
If we really want to talk about being realistic, I can’t think of anything less realistic than advocating means that are intrinsically opposed to the nature of your desired ends. I feel like it’s me who is being realistic by pointing out that anarchistic goals cannot be achieved through democracy. I believe those who think that they can achieve meaningful strides towards liberty by simply putting “the right person” in power are truly the ones who are persueing a pipe dream.
And what you call “ideological purity” I call “consistancy”. What is wrong with consistancy? Nothing, to my knowledge. If X is true, then X is true and should be consistantly applied. Otherwise, what we have is “hypocrisy” and the foundation of statism is essentially moral hypocrisy since principles of justice do not consistantly apply to the rulers in statism. To be a “radical”, in the context of libertarianism, is merely to be consistant. Also, I fail to see what consistancy has to specifically do with “the left”.
Firstly, I’d like to note that you’re basically admitting one of my premises: that Ron Paul has done essentially nothing substantive to bring about liberty. You would appear to basically agree with me then: Ron Paul has not accomplished anything for liberty besides vaguely spreading the message of constitutionalism and minarchism and paleoconservatism to a tiny portion of the population. To me, such a message threatens to actually undermine liberty by restoring people’s faith in the government.
Secondly, I do consider some of his positions eggregious compromises that violate principle: such as the post-ponement notion that a police-state to combat immigration is justified in the present because we currently have a welfare state. In short, “intervention X must be persued because of intervention Y” or “until intervention Y is done away with, we must pursue intervention X”. Mises had a term for this: it’s called interventionism.
You’d be wrong. Women often lie and make excuses for their abusive husbands.
You are neglecting the issue of property. Women are not required to retreat from a home that is partially theirs, the subject of divorce is more complicated. However, the process of divorce must be initiated by a person inside the marriage.
What is your alternative? That I break into my neighbors house and shoot him, against his and his wife’s will. No, external violence will not improve the relationship.
I know. Not legitimate, but voluntary. The state remains voluntary, not until you leave it, but until you reject its authority over you(and over others, on your behalf)
I’m not talking about divorce and I’m not talking about 3rd party intervention. I’m talking about a case where a husband (or boyfriend or whatever) is blatantly abusing the wife (or girlfriend or whatever). Are you that blind that you don’t see that the husband (or boyfriend or whatever) is an aggressor in such a scenario? How could you possibly call such a situation “voluntary”? How is someone who pretty much has nowhere to go, who gets beaten, “voluntarily” choosing to be beaten? That’s victim-blaming nonsense. I’m sorry, spousal abuse is not “voluntary” or justified based on any rational ethic that I’m aware of. The abuser is an aggressor and fully liable for damages imposed on their victim(s).
You keep trying to set up a straw man here, and I’m not going to take the bait. The alternative to your absurd view which appears to attempt to justify paternalism and spousal abuse by blaming the victim is to recognize that the abuser is an aggressor. If you can’t see that the abuser is in the wrong in the situation, then that is your problem and I’m very uncomfortable with your lack of moral sense. The victim has every right to engage in defense or retaliation or to voluntarily patronize someone else to help them in the matter, and they most certainly are not “voluntarily” being beaten - an oxymoron if I’ve ever heard one. Initiations of aggression are not “voluntary” and if you mean to imply that all cases of spousal abuse are just familial cases of psedo-masochism, then you have an incredibly warped worldview.
The state is not voluntary, period. If it were, it’d be legitimate. It’s not.
Personally it looks like Paul accomplished a great deal in terms of book sales and monetary gain.
Kind of sleazy actually…
Are you deliberatly misunderstanding me? Liable to whom?
To their victim(s).
And what if the wife doesn’t want to press charges? Perhaps you and your pals could destroy her rights as a victim and punish him for her.
Paul was independently wealthy before he ran this time out. Not to mention the numerous things he donates to, including if I am correct, LvMI.
Niccolo, are you in college or university?
No, I’m not going to bite the bait of this straw man you keep trying to foist upon me. I don’t advocate forcing the victim to do anything. The original point was that spousal abuse is not voluntary, and you seemed to imply that it can be simply because the victim continues to enable the situation by living with their abuser. The actual initiation of aggression itself on the part of the abuser is not voluntary. Abused people don’t explicitly consent to being beaten. At best, they may ideologically rationalize it or enable it in some ways, but that by no means magically makes the abuse “voluntary”.
I will concede this point to a certain extent, but I will continue to insist that this by no means legitimizes the abuse or makes it “voluntary” on the part of the victim. My ex-girlfriend was being abused by her boyfriend who she lived with, and she kept running to my house to temporarily escape. But she also kept going right back home to the abuse. Her main excuse was that she had nowhere else to go - which was actually true, since she had no money of her own and was entirely financially dependant on her boyfriend (incidentally, it took the scenario of her boyfriend attacking their landlord for the cops to finally be called and for him to be sent off to jail for about a year).
And that’s an important factor not to overlook - the degree to which the abused is dependant on their abuser, which makes leaving the relationship harder. This is especially true in the case of children, who are particularly dependant on their parents. It’s also important to take into account the degree of psychological control that might be in such a relationship. In the case of my ex-girlfriend, she was constantly guilt tripped into staying and things that were near and dear to her were threatened to be taken away if she started to be defiant. She was deliberately kept isolated from her friends and family and the degree of control was much more than a matter of being attacked.
Stick to your guns.
It’s a simple case of standing. Only the victim has standing to use defensive force, or bring charges. Bystanders can intervene forcibly only by a right derived from the victim. In other words, they can defend the victim on the assumption that the victim desires it. If the victim denies them permission to defend her, their hands are tied.
We can turn that into a gut-wrenching sob story, but the reality is that today, under archy, police officers hate responding to domestic disputes precisely because they’re almost always assaulted by the victim when they try to intervene. Anyone peddling the sob story should be requied to do the intervening. Afterward, while they’re nursing the nasty bump on their heads, we can ask them to explain how the assault was non-consensual, although the “victim” decided to defend the “aggressor” by using force against her “rescuers”…
–Len
The problem is that’s not what I’m advocating and it’s an entirely separate debate from what I’m trying to debate. I’m insisting that spousal abuse is not voluntary, while he keeps implying that it can be. That’s what the initial question was, and he repeatedly keeps trying to imply that I’m advocating a 3rd party intervening without the victim’s permission, which isn’t what I’m talking about at all. All I’m doing is emphasizing that an abuser is an aggressor. Their victims do not explicitly “consent” to being beaten merely by continueing to live with their abuser. I don’t believe that asquiescance and consent are the same thing. One is passive while the other is explicit. I’m talking about the nature of the situation itself, not what should or should not be done about it. And the nature of the situation itself is that spousal abusers are aggressors, which should be quite obvious!
I mostly agree with you. Spousal abuse IS aggression, in the sense that the victim is perfectly entitled to defend herself using deadly force.
On the other hand, if the victim absolutely refuses to be helped, the distinction between that and consent is somewhat elusive. She’d certainly say she doesn’t want to be beaten, but praxeology only recognizes demonstrated preference. I’d “prefer” to eat less, exercise and get skinny–just ask me! But my demonstrated preference is for large helpings of barbecue, with seconds and thirds.
–Len.
Atta boy!
Do you know any book packages to buy to teach austrian economics in a homeschool setting?
How can you hang out on mises.org forums and claim that selling books (or anything else) to willing buyers and making money is “sleazy”?
You’re confused. My objection does not center around the market mechanism itself, it centers around the allegation that Ron Paul used the situation to promote his book for profit in a deceptive manner. For those that donated to his campaign, I feel immense sympathy as I do feel they’ve been unduly taken advantage of, mislead by the purposes of their donations.
It’s nothing I would outlaw, but it is something I find personally sleazy, like peddling hardcore porn to children.