Ron Paul, even if he’s a statist, is spreading the idea of freedom globally. The People’s Liberal Party’s Youth Organization called “Liberal Youth” just elected a new leader who was wearing a Ron Paul t-shirt during the election. Now, “The People’s Liberal Party” (folkpartiet) is still an evil party, but now that their youth organization has a ledaer that supports Ron Paul, maybe the party can come closer to the idea of liberty.
I’m sure he has even a bigger effect in other countries, but Ron Paul is waking people up! I hope he runs again 2012 so he can educate even more people.
He’s a closet ancap imo (I’ve alluded to why previously). Regardless, he promotes the Austrian School of Economics and leads more people to anarcho-capitalism every single day. The Misesian tradition and classical liberalism exterior / image for the LvMI is genius. Ron reads Rothbard, supports civil disobedience, uses the Constitution as a sound bite in an age of manufactured consent, he is radical and is for abolition of basically everything (publicly, he goes as far as he can) Succession… yeah, he supports it. But yeah, I’ll stop the mini rant here.
Someone needs to analyze Ron Paul’s style of speaking in order to understand why it is that he’s able to “wake people up” and “inspire a revolution”, whereas the support for his son Rand Paul is comparatively lukewarm.
I think it has a lot to do with passion, plain speaking, and courage to recall the Constitution and the founding fathers even when faced with hostile opposition (e.g. Rudy Guiliani in the primary debates).
I like Rand, but he’s a little too sedate to inspire a revolution. He strikes me as very pragmatic and he doesn’t constantly tie things back to foreign policy and the Fed, like Ron Paul. Hopefully he’ll win though.
He’s gotten plenty of attention without the roadblocks of political maneuvering & mudslinging that comes with the manipulated populist reactionism against “taboo” labels.
He even had a pretty successful ask reddit thing recently, which helped break through the usual downvote brigades on the econ sub-reddit, imo.
He actually probably would not need to use the label at all, even in a more “receptive” social and/or political climate (I can’t really imagine the anarcho prefix becoming such, which is sort of the point, I guess).
Speaking from experience, the term voluntaryism seems to lend me the required social & political space to explain the position before it’s outright dismissed (as anarcho-capitalism is, & market-anarchism sort of is becoming), and that might have more to do with the focus of voluntaryism on the specifics rather than overall anarchistic history / mythology / language.
To prevent going completely tangential, I largely see Schiff & the “mainstream” minarchists / closet anarcho-capitalists achieving this in the larger political dialogue.
I could understand if he didn’t want to be seen as an ancap (well, not really, this was quite a bit before he even considered running for the senate), but I don’t get why would he say he doesn’t understand the term.
There are better ways of distancing yourself from an ideology, if you want to do so for pragmatic reasons, while saying something that will spark others’ interest in it.
Any explicit acknowledgment is obviously going to be followed up with a: so you agree / disagree with it?
So… do I destroy my campaign which will continue to spread the message of Liberty and indirectly promote the Austrian School of Economics, before it’s even begun, by attaching myself to a label that is politically explosive?
Or… do I ignore the label, so my critics (the entire establishment including the Fourth estate don’t have anything to grab a hold off) and instead represent the ideas for what they are, without all the needless baggage that is going to come with associating yourself?
I don’t see how saying something like “it’s a nice idea, but I don’t think we have any chance of seeing it in the next 100 years” would hurt him.
By the way I’m not saying he’s against the idea of ancap, if you explained it to him he might support it, but I believe him when he says he doesn’t understand the term. He’s a businessman, it’s entirely possible he didn’t give that much thought to politics.
Again, that was before he even considered any political activity.
I think it’s difficult to place people into categories, there are always going to be people with tendencies from both ends of the spectrum(s). Needless to say it’s obvious that Ron Paul and Peter Schiff are supporters of freedom and capitalism, and that’s good enough for me. I think it’s a waste of time to try and analyze things and to classify people into categories beyond that, but that’s just IMO.
That said, did anyone donate to the Peter Schiff “moneybomb” thing recently? I missed it that Friday but I’ll drop in a late addition once I get the chance anyway.
By Folkpartiet do you mean the so called “Liberals” in Sweden? Just out of curiosity.
In my opinion is downright scary that people around the world are increasingly turning to Dr Paul. Scary because this means there are no similar persons left in Sweden, Turkey, whatever to uphold his same values. People have to look the other side of the Atlantic for guidance because the offer on the home market is so downright pathetic as to be frankly embarassing. And to think Europe gave birth to Bastiat, Menger, Tocqueville, Mises…
I’ve always, always assumed he was holding back to at least some degree. You can’t forget that a politician, even a ‘good’ one, still has limits to what they can do.
Peter Schiff is spreading the Austrian school messgae which is admirable and beneifical. However, he is entering an institution that many here oppose and he is doing it to try and change something that really can’t be changed. I am reminded by what Hoppe once said in a lecture on his Democracy: The God that Failed work. I’m paraphrasing here but only those individuals who excel at what the state does ever make it to positions of power. Schiff is working against the institution and therefore besides spreading awareness of somethings, he will not get much done [ which in a way is also a benefit because with government politicians actually doing nothing is better then doing something ]
Actually, I think people with minority opinions like Paul and Schiff are best served by raising awareness and education from high position rather than by trying to ‘get things done’. If they get people like me to read Mises and Rothbard, I think that is the best thing they can do. Education is where the lasting, real change occurs.
Yeah, I don’t see anything wrong with that either. I think Ron Paul is well aware that he can’t get anything incredibly useful done other than waking up the public. Otherwise, why would he set the goalpost so low with a simple “Audit the Fed” bill? If he wasn’t well aware that he can’t really DO much, he’d be trying to pass “shut down the fed”, “shut down X agency”, “eliminate income tax” and so on bills that would probably get about one vote each.
BUT - this clunkering machine was built via politics and politicians, so why not at least make an attempt to disassemble it via the same means? If enough of the people wake up, support what he’s saying, and elect other freedom minded candidates–there’s nothing to stop a government-driven reform. It’s as simple as getting the votes. Not an easy (or actually “simple”) task of course, but if enough people are pissed off and educated, who knows. Schiff is a good test, to see if someone without the support of the political machine can break into the tyrant’s castle.
The Federal Reserve Board Abolition Act (H.R. 2755) was introduced by Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) on June 15, 2007, and was then referred to the Committee on Financial Services. If passed, the bill would abolish the Federal Reserve Board.
