How does that address the problem of oppresive government? Ignoring it won’t make it go away. In fact, ignoring it has allowed it to become so oppressive. In order to change it, we have to elect people who will make it smaller.
I said use your mind in other words, reason, and you say I’m ignoring an “oppresive government”. How do you jump around like that? Don’t be rational, I’m not dictating this to you. Your choice.
Are you trying to be some sort of Zen master? I asked a simple question. I propose electing politicians who support reducing the size and scope of government. What alternative do you propose?
Just wondering how you got from me stating the use of reason to I ignore an oppressive government. Thought you might like to elaborate on that conclusion of yours. How did you get from (A) Exercising Reason – to – (B) that means ignoring oppressive government?
The other means of a plausible alternative is either;
(A) Revolts where the uneducated masses select another form of government dictatorship .
(B) Some sort of Anarcho-Capitalist/ Libertarian Che Guevara.
They don’t need to, the best thing for RP was not being elected. Look at the political wing of any “radical” organization anywhere and you’ll see that the political authorities see them as a threat and do their best to silence them (ETA and Batasuna) even though they’re not going to win for a long time. Same goes for Ron Paul, nobody seriously believed that he was going to win, they did their best to silence him anyway because what he was saying was a threat to the establishment and he gave people a person whom they could rally behind, that’s all that is needed. That in itself is victory, if RP had won he’d have wasted years in office doing everything he originally opposed.
I prefer to avoid A and B above, thanks.
Did it make government less oppressive because Ron Paul lost? Is government shrinking because Ron Paul lost? No doubt, power corrupts. But it doesn’t corrupt everybody at the same rate. It doesn’t seem to have corrupted Ron Paul yet. I contend the FairTax is a policy, that if Paul had championed it, would have made him a viable contender. The vast majority of Americans would love to keep 100 percent of their paychecks. If Paul had run on the FairTax with the promise to abolish it when he brought home our overseas troops and made other deep cuts in spending, he might have gotten elected and been able to do a lot of what he promised.
No, but because he ran there is a sizable number of people who are now far suspicious of the state than they were beforehand. What would RP have done if he had won? If there was even the slightest bit of doubt that he would have attempted to abolish the Fed or whatever else he’d have been killed.
The game is too heavily rigged for a libertarian candidate to win, even if they’re not running on a particularly libertarian platform unless they’re friends with the right people they’re not going to win it. GWB ran on a somewhat respectable platform, he didn’t scare anybody because they knew at the end of the day he was part of the political elite.
If you’re playing poker against somebody no matter how well you play, you’re not going to win if the dealer is giving the guy next to you pocket aces every hand.
Why do you go on about this Fair Tax and yet have no idea how it will change anything? I asked for facts about it so I could consider it, and you didn’t have any. It makes me think you just like it cause it’s popular. I showed you how income taxes pay off interest to the debt via Reagan’s Grace Report. I know of nothing different than that status quo. So if the State would just spend less, then our taxes could drop cause the debt would drop. But… Keynes economics says debt is good. I wouldn’t let the State have another tax option. I’ve seen no reports that say taxes will drop. Even the writer of one of the books that Nitroadict quoted admitted that the Fair Tax probably wouldn’t lower taxes. The supposed expert on Fair Tax saying that… no thank you. They advocate the Fair Tax cause it will make doing taxes easier. How nice.
And as to Ron P. being able to do that… maybe.
I think you might be missing something significant about the free market and freedom minded people keeping statists in check.
While I applaud the idea of mass gatherings of people protesting the state, and wish such action nothing but the best, I cannot shake the feeling that the majority of those in attendance are there only because a Democrat was elected recently.
Very true. My own mother, a hyper-partisan Republican, attended the same one I did. To her, because McCain lost the state is now oppressive. If McCain had won - things would be all hunky-dory.
Still, I support the sentiment as reducing or eliminating any tax is a very libertarian goal. A great number of Ron Paul’ers attended the Dayton tea party despite the heavy presence of FAIR(sic)taxers. Some other TEA parties were a bit more successful; a friend of mine attended one in a small town where they were ‘confronted’ by the mayor with a small entourage of police. Clearly, some statists feel threatened by these, as evident by the bombastic media coverage - “astro-turf movement, not grass roots”, “..set up by a LOBBYIST”. And from the Daily Show “..a cause the right can get behind - tax breaks for the rich!”. (Any one else noticed the Daily Show getting more statist all of a sudden?)
Out competing the state, to put it simply, but this should be libertarianism 101, honestly. The political means of de-clawing or minimizing will continue to fail as long there are those around opposing it with political power. I thought one the entire points of libertarianism was to analyze how & why the political means continue to fail, & why the economic means (vis-a-vis Austrian Economics) of change would bring about more permanent change.
It also seems hypocritical when purported followers & students of libertarianism and/or Austrian economics ignore that the economic means of achieving freedom do not require coercion (i.e. counter-economics, civil disobedience, microscession, etc), whereas the political either does, or ends up doing so via other political entities hijacking ideas, movements, armed revolutions, etc.
The Neo-Con’s / Republicans either refuse to understand or deny economics, so they prefer to hijack Tea Parties & refresh their tired, decrepit political rhetoric to deny reality & make their tribe stronger, maybe enough to win back the Political Throne in D.C.
I can understand some wanting to take lemons & make lemonade regarding the Tea Parties (especially since not every rally has been hijacked, yet at least), but I think in this case, the lemons are rapdily becoming too sour for anyone to salvage.
The honest protesters, if they want to continue political protest, should continue to decry the Republican hijack, & should re-focus on setting up a competing Tea Party movement under a different name (that darn ‘marketing’ concept proves useful yet again…); most likely before the Republicans completely hijack a previously peaceful movement into a semi-hot air factory for their own agenda, which will most certainly not be for even a remotely minimal state that some of the libertarians previously involved advocated, let alone no-state at all.
IMO, I thought the Tea Party idea was cute in the beginning, but a bit premature, compared to the borrowed namesake of the protests themselves. Then again, perhaps they are just as radical, as nowadays we have free speech zones & police forces who are too busy arresting pesky (on the whole peaceful) protesters, instead of reading the manual for their tazers.
These plausible alternatives are unavoidable whether we like them or not, It’s just a matter of which scenario will happen first. Unless our government pulls a world war or mow us down similar to the Bonus March. I personally think we’re heading towards a direction identical to the October Revolution. I’m not completely sure that we’re going to outnumbered the Socialists, Fascists, Neo-Cons etc., . What’s definite? Dearth. Slow systematic change is not going to happen since our government controls and regulates our education. Eventually they’ll regulate the internet.
By those who do not want to hear, by those who believe the Neocon lies, and by those who are asleep.
Well, be fair, that’s not what I’m saying. I mean that we can’t cut all taxes down to zero all at once. It’s like a drug addict quitting their addition–even the doctors don’t have them simply stop. I don’t think the main problem is economic–if the government stopped stealing today we’ll be adding a lot to the debt every year until spending can be slowed (there will have to be a long transition period)–but we’re already adding mass amounts to the debt anyway aren’t we? So I think the problem is more a political one than an economic one. Even if we’re in a depression, dollar collapses, etc, I have doubts that the political mood of the nation will change so radically that people will accept eliminating almost all taxes. Everyone wants to run to the state for help in those situations…
I couldn’t say which alternative system would be the best step backwards, but whatever it is it has to be politically feasible (yeah, I probably know what you’re thinking here), this is all I’m saying.
Actually, no, I don’t know what you are saying here.
It’s hard to outcompete the state when they have the monopoly on states. [;)] (More accurately, I mean a monopoly on coercion.)
It seems to me the only way to reduce the size of the state is to address it directly, and by obtaining the support of people (where the real political power really rests, emphasis on “rests”) who want to reduce government meddling. I think “competing” will just generate crackdowns, more laws, jail time, and so on for those trying to “outcompete” an authority that can just do whatever it wants as long as it can justify it politically. That kind of stuff will alienate people and “the Libertarian” will just fall further into the “crazy person” category than it already is. And once the state realizes that someone is evading their authority, it’ll immediately start working to “correct” that. [^o)] But perhaps I’m just not picturing what you mean by “outcompete” correctly?
Right now I think the best way to get people to open their minds to real freedom is to do what we’re trying to do now, obtain credibility by explaining our positions as reasonable alternatives, challenge misconceptions and attack arguments that try to keep us in the “crazy extremist” category. Call me an optimist, but I think a side effect of having a more and more intrusive state is that it becomes more obvious, more annoying, and provides more recent examples of it’s failure to expose.
I mean that I have doubts that eliminating all tax is politically feasible in the near future because people have such a shocked reaction to hearing it. Maybe it is feasible, of course I can’t say definitely, I’m just trying to imagine a path that sounds like it could actually happen. If it were up to me, yeah I’d skip right to stopping legalized theft right away, sure.
So it’s not “…politically feasible in the near future…” and? Ron P. isn’t feasible?
From Don Cooper’s scathing review on LRC…
“I watched closely all the tea parties all over the country Wednesday. What a showing of national pride and solidarity. What a showing of subservient compliance and casual indifference. What a joke.
In Lafayette Park, Washington D.C., of all places to protest, the plan was to dump one million tea bags in the park, but the brave dissidents never did it because they forgot to get the proper permits. Are you kidding me? What is civil disobedience without civil disobedience? They even went so far as to say that they were willing to put down plastic tarps and clean up after themselves.”
Examples like these indicate to me that events such as these Tea Parties are ultimately little more than huffing and puffing. However, as other have already noted, there are some signs pointing to more promising trends. It would have been interesting to see how many would have showed up at something like a Ron Paul rally that day. That would be more indicative of popular support towards ideas much more palatable for our side. Otherwise, I think the actual proceedings were much too diluted by mere partisanship to really mean anything for conservatives genuinely interested in limited government, libertarians, and even an-cappers. In short- I’m interested in seeing a snapshot of how many potential allies we might have out there. Because those pulling up to dump tea bags with McCain bumper stickers probably are not among them.