These are your parameters quite absent from the original contention. Wouldn’t it just be easier to admit you were wrong?
When you’re spending time preaching, you’re not doing something else. If you just like preaching, then whatever. But the activist never seems to want to admit that he’s doing it because he feels like it. Intellectuals have trouble shutting up, but they feel the need to rationalize it. I really don’t care what anyone does, I just wish they’d be more honest/realistic about their motivations.
What is this in response to?
See above. And, also, once you realise it’s pointless you tend to be less inclined to do it. Still, I am pretty outspoken about my detestation of the government. But I don’t pretend I’m saving the world.
I’m aware of this. You seem to have lost the thread of the conversation here. Let’s recap.
BramElias: If you want to be free, try smoking some weed and running some red lights.
gocrew: That wouldn’t prevent me from preaching.
Ricky James Moore II: Yes it would.
This is getting a little silly. You can demonstrate some decorum and admit you were wrong or you can go on evading. I think I have done what I needed to do on this thread.
What I get from this conversation is that Ricky James once tried to convince people of how correct he was in all his opinions and failed completely due to a lack of charisma and people skills. In order to rationalise away this painful truth he tells himself that the reason he can’t convince anyone is that everyone alse has faulty DNA. Or maybe Victor is right and he’s just a douche.
What ‘political strategies’ do Libertarians use? I can only see the rise of socialism and more obtrusive government being successful, historically, since it merely requires a group of charismatic radicals to grasp popularity through slogans such as ‘free bread and wine for the poor’ before being elevated to positions where they have the power to raise taxes, increase public spending and wage wars. At best we can only pray they do not have a catastrophic effect on our lives.
Maybe our friend Rockwell is afraid of being caught off guard by questions posed by someone who isn’t his close friend or affiliate. I have never once seen Rockwell on the defensive. I still think the various Ron Paul-Rockwell report newsletters are haunting him… We all know he did them, but he completely ignores the issue. He absolutely refuses to leave friendly territory. This is all surprising, considering Mr. Rockwell has an enourmous skill for oratory and speechcraft. If it is fear of being ‘trapped’ into a question on live TV, I would say this could easily be answered by saying “I don’t really think that anymore.” How hard is that? Forgiveness!
That said, Ron Paul and many others have stooped down low to go on Jon Stewart’s program. He likes to post youtube links, well, why not of himself? He is much more eloquent, has far less of a shrill old man’s voice, and has the intellectual power to turnover any question. Or does he?
Vitor, have you considered that you’re not the person I am talking to? That the majority of you even read my posts is accidental from my perspective.
I am not interested in convincing anyone. I’m interested in talking to the two or three people on here who I can actually converse with. I have seriously considered starting my own forum and having it be invite-only. The general rabble are not my cup of tea. I do have a bad habit of replying to things I don’t really care about, because I’m just argumentative like that. I really should just not pay attention to them.
Yes, we know this. We gutted a sheep and read it in the entrails, which makes unnecessary anything like, I don’t know, evidence.
At any rate, the newsletter stuff was overblown. There was one comment about fleet footed black criminals that was well and truly out of bounds, but as I recall the others didn’t even say what the selected segments seemed to be saying once they were put back in context.
We’re not going to get a libertarian society before we get supertechnology. Get with the Heinleinian program
Heinnleinan was not a libertarian. He blantently endorsed the proto-keynesian overproduction/underconsumption ideas, and offered the ‘solution’ that the government print up money and give it out to people in order to make up the difference. Try reading ‘For Us the Living’(his first novel, not published till after his death) sometime.
As far as starting your own private forum, who would attend? Vichy? Liberte? RJ Moore?
It’s amazing the ends some people will go to in order to have a social experience, all the while claiming they don’t want to have those same social experiences.
Since that person (the 'outlier) was me at one stage, I have some sympathy with that position, but in reality I don’t believe a Libertarian society will ever be achieved; the mindset of the masses is devoted to statism and statism only
Only because they are never given any alternitive. Let them know there there isanother possibility and sopme people(at least) will cange their minds.
I dont know about Lew’s reasoning, but I think its definetly worth-while to to present our position to as many people as possible.
I agree in that personally exposing even dozens of people to the message of liberty might not make a huge global impact. However, I do it on the side because I enjoy it and it helps me understand the subject better personally.
The “global impact” affect I am striving for myself has led me to devote most of my energy towards entrepreneurship. Getting rich while building companies that disrupt the government has a much more profound effect on my environment and it’s fun! I also get in touch with other high-powered investors/entrepreneurs that enjoy building businesses that almost always end up greatly undermining the state even if unintended.
In Lew’s case, it depends on his preference, if he can find better ways of accomplishing his goals then perhaps he should stay off those outlets afterall. It’s not my place to make those decisions for him.
If you just like arguing with people, go ahead. But it’s delusional to think it will have any measurable impact on the degree of State control over your life.
I dont think my efforts will have any measurable impact in the near future, but I think its patently absurd to think that enough libertarians working togetbher wont make a difference in the long run.
Hell I dobut libertarians can have any real measurable effect in my own lifetime, but we might just be able to make a better world for our children.
I have an IQ rated within the range classified as “Genius” or “Near Genius”. I was not always an An-Cap Austrian.
A great man once appeared on a show so lowly it could hardly be considered one. The guest espoused some ideas which were totally unknown to me, others which were opposed to my held considerations. It was Ron Paul on a youtube video being interviewed about Internet Neutrality in the dormatory room of a college student.
I was a thinking mundane, but the sphere and scope of my thought was both misinformed and institutionally limited. This is no longer the case. There are countless others with the same capability but are stunted due to lack of exposure. Any opportunity to increase exposure to those “asleep” is one worth taking–no matter how menial it may seem.
No, if I were I wouldn’t even talk to you people. I just think that most people are worse because they don’t realise how ignorant and self-deceptive they are, and they offer all kinds of bullshit rationalizations. Lie if you feel the need, but don’t be a fake.