In the US special interest groups dominate every political issue. Military industrial complex, pharmaceuticals, etc… is it really all just a conflict of ideaology over there? The system isn’t hijacked?
The system is certainly hijacked, the unions are all powerful and demand more solidarity even though we have 50% income tax, 21% VAT, etcetera. Combine their legal privileges in the “negotation model” with their power to stop providing public transport and you see why they are incontournable. So all these smaller special interests go via these unions and employer organisations to influence the yearly negotiations.
Belgium is also a particracy, MPs very often vote what their party tells them to, so again little need for special interests to bribe individual MPs.
The many different parties are a result of having more than just the left/right dichotemy in our politics; Parties always split or don’t merge over the anti/pro Belgium divide. so I guess after Flemish indepence we’ll probably fall back to 3-4 parties.
Edit: Now that I think about it, maybe we have a particracy because we have a prohibition for private funding of election runs.
Eh, not so fast:
http://www.lewrockwell.com/blog/lewrw/archives/63845.html
Lew: I am getting lots of emails asking me, to which I always reply, “I do not know.” When I mentioned this to Ron, he wrote:
Ron: And the truth is, I don’t know either. I have said publicly several times that it has not been ruled out. Certainly the decision will not occur in 2010. Assessing the degree of support will be a very major factor in making the decision. And note: there was no announcement in Orlando.
Matt Collins is a world class attention whore.
Not much more need be said.
The so called “free press” will once agin make a concerted effort to silence anything RP has to say and will purposefully ignore him. Absolutely none of my friends know who Ron Paul is. He definitely does not stand a chance. However he will drag more people into the growing movement for liberty.
There was a lot of us in Orlando…
Agreed. As soon as I saw his name associated with it, I thought “BS”.
Anyone else HATE the way that’s worded? Whenever I hear the talking heads say “The Government of BlahBlah is collapsing” I get excited. :[
Trust me, the vast majority of history is a testament to the “fact (?)” that you don’t want anarchy to develop out of a collapse of the government. It needs to be an intellectual revolution.
Armed revolution cannot form a lasting society, it merely plants new seeds of power. That said I strongly doubt those in power will merely lay down their guns and surrender when the intellectual revolution takes place and the people no longer want them.
They wont have to give up power, as they wont really exist any more. A little bit of education, a little bit of social selection (evolutionarily), and a lot more action will put statist supporters as a very small minority, and easily identifiable as exploitive.
They’ll still have the guns and will probably be very willing to use them to “re-educate” the non-statists. Probably long before they become the majority, in fact.
Who says the anarchists won’t have guns?
All governing systems are based on consent (sadly, usually because of apathy on the part of the public). If the vast majority of people take personal responsibility highly, where will the state find its support?
Who gives a crap?! Wouldn’t you rather have no president, no state at all? Why do you think one person would make a difference.
I used to be big supporter. Then I realized the nature of the state and what a waste of time politics is. He only hurts the cause of liberty/anarchy.
Personally no. I would rather slowly evolve society to anarchism than to violently overthrow the state by people who have no idea (and inherently feel there is no point to) what an anarchist society would look like.
Just demoloshing the state, without a some form intellectual revolution, and a very educated populace, has consistently in history led to barbarism and/or feudalism.
I’ve never said they’d win. My point is in the transition to a stateless society, the existing states must “collapse” in some form or another.
Well, of course. And I do believe their will have to be some form of resistance, proably/maybe even a forced confiscation of state property. But, as you said, bringing freedom at the barrel of a gun will only lead to a new form of tyranny.
Yes I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to imply that a democracy with more parties would be any sort of ideal system, just that voter frustration will increase because more of them will see that they won’t even have the opportunity to vote for someone they agree with.
And I agree that Ron Paul (or anyone) as president would not be able to reform Washington into anything salvagable, but I still think he could advance the cause for liberty if he took advantage of the presidential bully pulpit to plant the seed of libertarian thought in millions of minds who would otherwise be oblivious.
“He only hurts the cause of liberty/anarchy.”
That, sir - is beyond retarded. There isn’t anyone alive whose done more than RP to spread the message, besides possibly Lew Rockwell.
"I used to be big supporter. Then I realized the nature of the state and what a waste of time politics is. "
Then you failed to recognise alternate and verying strategies. You threw the baby out with the bathwater. [I hate that phrase]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wFYRHZpavX4
4min +… (but seriously, watcht the whole thing)
Ron Paul and the Mises Institute, along with LRC, have become the libertarian educational campaign the way the Libertarian Party was meant to be.