Go back and listen to the damned debate: Ron Paul said he would not interfer with a State of our Union implymenting mandatory heath care payments. Period. He did not mispeak, he did not make a correction afterward. At what level of coercion would he make a stand? Where is the principle?
So murdering people is bad until it’s your job… I get it.
I love how you use a video-game word like “ass-kicking” as a synonym for the murdering of innocent men, women, and children.
If your job isn’t specifically to avoid murdering people, then you bear no moral responsibility. Nice.
The reason he would not interfere is because the states have Constitutional authority to do that. Paul is working within a Constitutional framework; Paul has hinted that he is an anarchist elsewhere. He doesn’t support state’s rights for the sake of state’s rights. He wants to promote the idea of more local governance. If people think the federal government has the authority to limit health care mandates in individual states, that gives the next guy in the federal government the right to expand the authority of the national government, thus likely squashing any little oases of freedom that may spring up.
This is the game that Paul has chosen to play. Not all anarchists go the political route, but Paul has and wants to appear legitimate to the masses. He will do what he thinks necessary in our Constitutionalist-republic framework to bring about a more libertarian society. He thinks the effects of having a larger emphasis on state’s rights will allow people to vote with their feet, so if a state got too oppressive in its mandates, you could always leave. This would force the states to “compete” for tax cattle.
Well, since people won’t stop feeding the troll I guess I might as well throw him a bone, too.
I can’t speak for Ron Paul but my view is that principles without praxis are useless… it’s no use to say “aggression is wrong in every instance” without providing a path for moving from a society where aggression is institutionalized to a society where aggression is not tolerated. The best path forward in the opinions of venerable men like Dr. Hoppe or Dr. Paul is a gradual process of political dis-aggregation or secession, if you will. The political unions do not want to be broken up. They like things just the way they are. If anything, they want to build bigger political unions (European Union, American Union, African Union, United Nations, etc.) Many of today’s national governments rule over wide geographic areas populated by people of different cultures, races, religions, ethnicities and so on. This is a root source of much of the world’s problems today. The political solution that is acceptable to one ethnic group is unacceptable to another ethnic group. The political solution that is acceptable to one religious group is unacceptable to another. And so on. The solution to all these problems is to acknowledge the universal human right - spelled out in the Decl. of Independence - to political secession. We need to legalize “political divorce.” Note that the seceding territory is never the aggressive party when tensions arise over secession. The political unionists are ever the aggressors because they are power-worshippers. Life is a pissing contest to people like this and the globe is their urinal. They are imperialists at heart and they - like Abraham Lincoln, Ulysses Grant or General Sherman - stand ready to use whatever level of violence is required to submit would-be secessionists.
The so-called Civil War was not America’s first war of secession. The first war of secession is usually called the American Revolution. It was the first American war of secession from Mother Britain. This was well-understood at the time. The South explicitly used the rhetoric of the war against British rule to explain its position. “The 13 colonies had a right to secede from Britain and we (the South) have a right to secede from that political union.”
Clayton -
Livermore Jim wrote:
" …Any resonable observer of history would be aware of the extent to which our military goes out of its way to avoid civilian casualities – often to the detriment of our own troops. …"
Tell that to my Great x3 Grandma who never could walk right after the war. You see, after the troops stole her food, burned her house, and killed two of her younger sons, they then demanded her gold. She refused to tell them where it was so they placed her over the embers of what was her house, permently scarring her feet.
War is hell. Without government it could be closer to heaven.
Certainly a tragic incident, but not U.S. policy. You’re rationalizing your anarchist position. Do you suppose it would be better? Private police, private armies?
I’m coming to understand the philosophy here: not limited government, but no government, nada, zilch. Just ragtag gangs roaming the streets enforcing, avenging, re-distributing and destroying that would make Sherman look like a saint. And Ron Paul the savior here.
Be careful what you wish for.
Livermore Jim,
If human nature is so bad that you believe without government people would just create gangs and go destroy things and society would collapse, how is it that the government which is made up of the very same humans is somehow immune to these flaws of nature and can create peace?
It’s called the rule of law, objective standards of right and wrong enforced by non-personal force – government. We have close to that now, but with major issues. People are not necessary evil, just in conflict with individual philosophies and such conflict often leading to physical confrontation. With anarchy you won’t have any ‘referee’ to sort out the difference – only force of arms.
The troll has completely missed the mark. There are a lot of minarchists on here and there is no such thing as “a philosophy” on these boards. I am a hardline anti-statist and I believe the minarchists are mistaken. Nevertheless, I do have in common with minarchists a desire to set in motion a process of beating back and shackling Leviathan. I believe, as Henry David Thoreau eloquently stated: “I HEARTILY ACCEPT the motto, — ‘That government is best which governs least’; and I should like to see it acted up to more rapidly and systematically. Carried out, it finally amounts to this, which also I believe, — ‘That government is best which governs not at all’; and when men are prepared for it, that will be the kind of government which they will have.” So, I’m perfectly happy to hold hands with my fellow minarchist libertarians though they have not yet seen the light: the government which governs least of all is no government at all and the best government of all.
Clayton -
I guess he means Robo-Cop.
Clayton -
Even if the victor’s history is true on this point, land invasion is not a proportional response to border violence involving only military targets. The North’s invasion of the South most definitely was not merely about Fort Sumter.
Clayton -
Troll? Thanks for the complement!
T: Truth
R: Reason
O: Order
L: Liberty
L: Liquor
Although I resent the liquor crack.
The government is a non-personal force? Last I checked, it is made up of humans and these “objective standards of right and wrong” are subject to human interpretation and it is to be carried out by humans. Again, this is the State-as-deus-ex-machina fallacy (percieved problem due to people running around without a sense of absolute structure? I know, State! And invoking the State solves all problems inherent in human action and is over and above calculation problems and moral quandaries!). If an agent of the State threatens to shut down a gambling operation entered into by voluntary means, it is the same as a citizen doing it. Human action is human action, regardless of the cloak of legitimacy.
The rule of law is overrated as well, if it’s referring to state law. It was rule of law to detain people of Japanese descent in WWII, but that has no bearing on the rightness or wrongness of the action. Its recognized legality has no bearing on whether or not an action is to be pursued. Many libertarians believe in the rule of law (as in Natural Law; although I don’t totally agree with that ethical theory, they believe that these rules are binding).
Under the modern state, law is made by self-interested men, law is interpreted by self-interested men, and law is enforced by self-interested men. Just tell me where in the world are these angels who are going to organise society for us.
Under the modern state, law is made by self-interested men, law is interpreted by self-interested men, and law is enforced by self-interested men. Just tell me where in the world are these angels who are going to organise society for us.
Let me see…hmm.. Now where would such laws and such men to organize society? Now that’s a toughie.
Well, off the top of my head, how about THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES!
http://archives.gov/exhibits/charters/constitution.html
And this: THE BILL OF RIGHTS!
http://archives.gov/exhibits/charters/bill_of_rights.html
Education in American is worse than I thought!
Even this might help: HUMAN ACTION by Ludwig Von Mises
http://mises.org/resources/3250
Get back to me when you’ve gone though those and we can debate more seriously.
I didn’t realize the Constiution and The Bill of Rights were able to organize matter into human beings. I mean, I’ve read all three documents, and Human Action is sitting on my desk shelf, but I’ve never seen it create a person before.
The Superman Idea
The claims of these organizers of humanity raise another question which I have often asked them and which, so far as I know, they have never answered: If the natural tendencies of mankind are so bad that it is not safe to permit people to be free, how is it that the tendencies of these organizers are always good? Do not the legislators and their appointed agents also belong to the human race? Or do they believe that they themselves are made of a finer clay than the rest of mankind? The organizers maintain that society, when left undirected, rushes headlong to its inevitable destruction because the instincts of the people are so perverse. The legislators claim to stop this suicidal course and to give it a saner direction. Apparently, then, the legislators and the organizers have received from Heaven an intelligence and virtue that place them beyond and above mankind; if so, let them show their titles to this superiority.
They would be the shepherds over us, their sheep. Certainly such an arrangement presupposes that they are naturally superior to the rest of us. And certainly we are fully justified in demanding from the legislators and organizers proof of this natural superiority.
- Frederic Bastiat, The Law
The Hobbesian Myth
Among the most popular and consequential beliefs of our age is the belief in collective security. Nothing less significant than the legitimacy of the modern state rests on this belief.
…
The myth of collective security can also be called the Hobbesian myth. Thomas Hobbes, and countless political philosophers and economists after him, argued that in the state of nature, men would constantly be at each others’ throats. Homo homini lupus est. Put in modern jargon, in the state of nature a permanent underproduction of security would prevail. Each individual, left to his own devices and provisions, would spend too little on his own defense, and hence, permanent interpersonal warfare would result. The solution to this presumably intolerable situation, according to Hobbes and his followers, is the institution of a state. In order to institute peaceful cooperation among themselves, two individuals, A and B, require a third independent party, S, as ultimate judge and peacemaker. However, this third party, S, is not just another individual, and the good provided by S, that of security, is not just another “private” good. Rather, S is a sovereign and has as such two unique powers. On the one hand, S can insist that his subjects, A and B, not seek protection from anyone but him; that is, S is a compulsory territorial monopolist of protection. On the other hand, S can determine unilaterally how much A and B must spend on their own security; that is, S has the power to impose taxes in order to provide security “collectively.”
In commenting on this argument, there is little use in quarreling over whether man is as bad and wolf-like as Hobbes supposes, except to note that Hobbes’s thesis obviously cannot mean that man is driven only and exclusively by aggressive instincts. If this were the case, mankind would have died out long ago. The fact that he did not demonstrates that man also possesses reason and is capable of constraining his natural impulses. The quarrel is only with the Hobbesian solution. Given man’s nature as a rational animal, is the proposed solution to the problem of insecurity an improvement? Can the institution of a state reduce aggressive behavior and promote peaceful cooperation, and thus provide for better private security and protection? The difficulties with Hobbes’s argument are obvious. For one, regardless of how bad men are, S —whether king, dictator, or elected president— is still one of them. Man’s nature is not transformed upon becoming S. Yet how can there be better protection for A and B, if S must tax them in order to provide it? Is there not a contradiction within the very construction of S as an expropriating property protector? In fact, is this not exactly what is also—and more appropriately—referred to as a protection racket? To be sure, S will make peace between A and B but only so that he himself in turn can rob both of them more profitably. Surely S is better protected, but the more he is protected, the less A and B are protected from attacks by S. Collective security, it would seem, is not better than private security. Rather, it is the private security of the state, S, achieved through the expropriation, i.e., the economic disarmament, of its subjects. Further, statists from Thomas Hobbes to James Buchanan have argued that a protective state S would come about as the result of some sort of “constitutional” contract.1 Yet, who in his right mind would agree to a contract that allowed one’s protector to determine unilaterally—and irrevocably—the sum that the protected must pay for his protection; and the fact is, no one ever has!
- Hans Hoppe, The Private Production of Defense
Clayton -
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The point is that men are NOT angels. Since currently law is written, interpreted, and enforced by men, government is not the impartial, non-personal force you claimed it was. I asked where we could find the ANGELS who will organise society, not for men. The results of men attempting to organise society lay before you.
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Your mention of the US Constitution and Bill of Rights proves my point - it has been changed and re-interpreted many times to fit the agenda of a new group of rulers. The framers of the constitution may have been statist, but today’s USA is nothing like what they had plannned.
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I’m not American.
Aristippus: Bear in mind that it’s “election season” here in the US so these campaign researchers are crawling all over the web trying to do “deep dives” on the candidates. I think that a lot of the Ron Paul deep divers end up at this forum because Ron is friends with Lew, who was President of the LvMI for a number of years and this is the forum linked from the LvMI website.
Clayton -