Ron Paul is going on the View, Hannity, and the Colbert Report today. This Thursday (April 28th) Stossel is doing a whole show on Ron Paul.
Ron Paul is not even in campaign mode yet he is being interviewed again and again in a short time span. I wonder what another campaign run might look like.
He is popular enough to get on shows just for ratings.
He is speaking very well to his audience (linking pay to Planned Parenthood to the billions spent on wars, which is obviously a connection Whoopi, et al. don’t see). I think he is promoting his ideas more clearly this time around than last election season, actually.
What ideas exactly? That you don’t spend money on helping the poor because according to his interpretation of a 230 yr old piece of paper, it is not allowed. Some ideas. This is a turnoff (as it should be) to most libertarians, so why would it be a success with this liberal audience??
In fact, the only ideas on liberty promoted in that segment was the mentioning of his new book at the end by one of the girls.
I think Paul uses the Constitution as a stance not because he agrees with everything in it but because it shows that what the U.S does goes against its social contract…
“What ideas exactly? That you don’t spend money on helping the poor because according to his interpretation of a 230 yr old piece of paper, it is not allowed. Some ideas. This is a turnoff (as it should be) to most libertarians, so why would it be a success with this liberal audience??”
Think of it like a contract then maybe your tiny pea-brain will understand.
A contract where we all did not agree to is not really a valid contract…
“A contract where we all did not agree to is not really a valid contract…”
What’s your point? That’s the way it is treated.What solution to this is politically even possible at this time? I agree that not everyone has agreed to it, nor would they probably, but what do YOU think can be done about that?
What the hell is that even supposed to mean? Would it make you feel better if it were a 2 year old piece of paper? Give me a break. It’s the ideas of limited government, and actually holding those in power to those limits…actually enforcing the restraints that we Americans put on our own government (yes, 230 years ago). Very simple ideas, sure. Old ideas, fine. But are you really going to sit there and argue against the notion of moving in the opposite direction from which we are heading? Is it really that important to you to be an argumentative antagonist that you would actually expend your energies ragging on the one f-ing guy on the Hill who even knows what liberty is and has a shot at really changing things?
This “I know better than everyone else, not even Lew Rockwell is anarchist enough for me and Ron Paul is a pussy…anyone who even mentions the Constituiton is a waste of time” elitist attitude is really getting old. It runs parallel to the same idiocy perpetuated by all the whiners who bitch about the Institute mentioning pop culture items. I really don’t know what the hell you hope to accomplish with that.
So is your position stating that while you know why social contracts are invalid, you still choose to accept it because ‘that’s the way it is’?
I believe you are right from more than just an anarchist perspective. Even constitutionalist libertarians should understand that “it’s not in the Constitution” is not a good enough explanation for most. There are certainly reasons why the limitations on government are good, but this is not self-evident. People are naturally inclined to look up to the state for help simply because it is so powerful and its officials must act as if they have the solutions in order to get elected. What Dr. Paul said amounted to “I’m not helping the poor” and “I’m just another anti-abortion Republican” in the ears of the target audience. Not that those women would understand any significant amount of political philosophy, but the man didn’t say a single thing to make people say “well that’s a good point,” something he is usually so good at doing.
It’s as simple as this, guys: If Paul came out as an anarcho-capitalist (which I’m sure he’s more than sympathetic towards as a philosophy), people would marginalize him as a nutjob more than they already do today, and the extent to which they do this would completely shut him out of the political scenes. If Paul is portrayed as an Old Right figure and defender of the Constitution, he gets the platform, he namedrops the Mises Institute and Murray Rothbard from a distance, and voila, you’ve created more voluntaryists who are intrigued and decide to study the ideas deeper. Obviously the idea that the State is necessary is the cancer, but there are withdrawal methods.
“I practiced medicine at a time when we had no Medicare and Medicaid, I worked in a Catholic hospital for $3/hr, and I was satisfied, nobody was turned away, but the church took care of them.”
[applause]
Whoopi: “[to the audience] Yeah…you’re applauding old America. Now if we could somehow get back to that…”
Did we watch the same interview? They nodded their heads and agreed with everything he said. Of course they didn’t fully understand everything he said, but they’re idiots. But the people watching that show did not get “I’m not helping the poor” from “i worked for $3/hr and no one was turned away.”
They didn’t give him a lot of room to make the sophisticated points that lead people to say that. When you break it down, there really wasn’t much time for anything…they spent a third of the time on the Presidential race, another third on the wars, and we’re only talking about 7.5 minutes anyway. Not to mention the format where 4 people get to ask questions and have a total informal dialogue as opposed to a straight interview format in which the timing is at least somewhat planned and monitored.
Thank you! One person who gets it.
It’s also not self-evident that Ron Paul stands for more then just bureaucratic technicalities standing in the way of giving everyone free healthcare.
Looks like all these TV appearences have a very good reason:
http://www.nationaljournal.com/politics/ron-paul-launches-presidential-campaign-20110425
Yep, looks like all those “Ron Paul 2012” bumper stickers are no longer hypothetical.
Show me anyone who ever got to be President of the United States by making it “self-evident” he was an anarchist.
Ron Paul on Hannity in roughly 30 seconds.
How do you think Whoopi wants to get back to that? Deregulation and laissez-faire?
I think they were only nodding their heads because they didn’t really know what he was getting at. And he wasn’t very clear on the healthcare issue. I don’t think either of them were very satisfied with “the church took care of them” because neither are particularly religious and don’t like the idea of the poor being dependent on religious institutions. I think we can also assume they don’t buy that Medicaid, Medicare and government regulation in general are the problem when it comes to healthcare costs. They wanted to know what would be done about the poor RIGHT NOW and he didn’t really answer. This didn’t even make any sense to me: “When I practiced early, you were always charged the least and you helped people. But now you’re charged the most.” What is he talking about? And $3/hr. had to be quite a bit more whenever it was he was working for a Catholic hospital . . . although that’s not totally relevant, it’s not like he was a volunteer or anything.
I’m not criticizing Dr. Paul. The man is one of my heroes. I just don’t think he got his point across to the target audience very well.
Pointing out “the gun in the room”, the initiation of force against innocent individuals, the necessary violation of one’s private property, etc… does not require one to declare he’s an anarchist. " Not in the Constitution" is not the answer for why health care is not a right.
As for the comment of “no one ever got to be President…”, the comment is irrelevant. I assure you that Ron Paul has no plans on becoming president.
Please don’t anybody comment on how Ron Paul actually believes this or that. I know what he believes in and what’s he’s trying to achieve.
