Why is Ron Paul against the Civil Rights Act of 1964?

Economics Political Theory
61

You’re only a victim because you adopt a victim mentality and use it to whip up violent and counter-productive anarchist sentiment.

Your assertion that Paul makes a lot of money, and thus isn’t a victim is false. Paul isn’t a victim because he doesn’t sit around crying all day and ranting against one group or another. He puts his money into libertarian causes. He represents some libertarian ideals. He works it, even at 72 years old, he is out there, flying to Washington to vote, then flying home that night, then flying out to the campaign trail a day later. He could have dropped out, and taken the pension. Instead he swore to never take the pension, and only collect his wage for what does. A wage he has always voted against increasing.

Paul faces down belligerent fools in government, in the media, in debates. And he does it with class. What makes you think you are so special or righteous? I’d think that rather than trying to bring down Paul all of the time, you would be out recruiting for your angry agorist army. You know, group therapy for victims.

62

Yet Nicky gets a free pass for being belligerent? Hmmm. You might want to dish some of that, “Luke, I am your father” stuff his way as well. You know, for the sake of principled consistency.

63

You can’t view the state as an abstraction; that’s a leftist/statist thing to do. The state is a group of individuals systematically violating the rights of others. That’s it. My rapist analogy stands.

64

I still haven’t quite bought into it, but this is an excellent point. It is very important that everyone remembers that “the state” is only a term of convenience. In the end, “the state” is a huge game of pretend that’s gone way, way to far, with guns, by a bunch of childish, deluded individuals. It has no objective or seperate reality. In that sense, Nicky is right; if everyone just ignored the state, it would go away with not even so much as a whimper.

Extant governments are, indeed, collaborations of individuals that conspire to violate human freedoms and dignity. Most of these people even believe they’re doing right, and are part of something greater. In Nicky saying that these individuals cannot stop violating other people because they had no right to violate people in the first place is, indeed, rather like your example.

65

Note how I did not defend Nicky from criticism itself, in the past; I defended his right to say such “belligerance”, just as I would/do for Ego.

That still doesn’t mean I have to think certain comments are productive if I don’t think they are, thus the comment “I don’t think it’s very productive”, which could easily be for some of Nicc’s comments in other posts as well, if I did bother to voice my opinion in such threads.

Sounds fairly consistient to me, at least until I reply to Ego saying “shut up” (which I wouldn’t, I would just remain silent & uninvolved instead). Something like that would probably violate the first line above.

66

Please drop this conservative (and therefore unlibertarian) perspective, for it mischaracterizes people and stifles debate. Niccolo is not a political “leftist” and neither am I or any of the other people I know of who identify as “left-libertarian”. Neither are we “socialists”. We just happen to not be conservatarians who are blinded by contemporary left-right politics.

67

That is not what was meant by “victim.” If you think that the producing class is not indeed a victim of the parasitic class, I would invite you to explain why - though this will be impossible given the definitions of the two classes.

Replace the word victim with “member of the producing class” or “non-governmental personel.”

Oh boy, Ron Paul voted down increasing his already handsome wage. What will he do next? Give up his first class seat to the people that are taxed into poverty? How generous, Ron Paul is to give his slaves a few bread crumbs! How generous indeed!

68

And fairies dance on pin needles. Just because you say it doesn’t make it so.

The state IS an abstraction. The “group of individuals” are just thugs that can be shot as easily as a rapist.

69

What?

70

Wow… You suck at typing.

The logic that I’m using here is fairly solid and definitely consistent. It does not mean that the rapist/statist can’t stop or shouldn’t stop, it’s that they haven’t the right to be in the situation where they have an option to stop. Again, this doesn’t mean that the rapist/statist shouldn’t be stopped, but merely that the rapist/statist has no right to a choice - as the choice of stopping or starting suggests - about their actions. They can only be stopped, this is the only moral option.

71

The state is an abstraction. There may be members within “the state” that violate people’s rights, however, like a rapist each one of them can be shot. These are men, mortal men, not gods, as you seem to believe.

72

No… I’m saying exactly what you just said (as opposed to what you were saying earlier).

I said:

For you to say that it’s immoral for them to stop is like saying it’s immoral for a rapist to stop: it’s nuts.

73

Again, not entirely what I’m saying. I’m saying that it’s immoral for them to be in the situation to begin with, thus, no further action can be considered moral. It will take an external force to bring about equilibrium.

Take the rapist example, a bad one, but whatever. By saying that it is moral for the rapist to stop, you seem to concede that he’s in a place where morality can be attained by his hands. This, however, is a paradox. If the rapist stops himself and you call it moral you accept the premise of the rape as an opportunity for morality to occur - that is you accept the rapists action as being moral, despite being a rapist. However, again, if the rapist does not stop it appears that he is also committing an act of immorality.

When one reaches a paradox, to find the solution one needs to look at the constant between the two - in logic, this is usually the premise. To solve the problem of this paradox, you need to look at what both examples of the rapists action have in common - that is the constant between ending the rape and continuing it. Here, the premise is that the rape itself. If rape occurs, the action is immoral no matter what, whether it is gentle rape, loving rape, or rape without disease, it is rape nonetheless - likewise if it is just rape for a short time. Though ending the rape is of course good for the victim, however, to call the rapist moral for ending presupposes that he is not an immoral man - that he is not a rapist even thoug he is!

For the state the example goes further. Assume that the state continues progressing their oppression, obviously this is immoral, but why? Not because of the consequence, necessarily, but rather because of the nature of the state itself. The consequences of a state are natural and one cannot blame a beast for acting within its nature. The reason that the states oppression is immoral is because of the premise of the state - an organization defined by its oppression. Now, assume the opposite - though unlikely and unnatural example. Assume that the government begins repealing laws. Of course, the repeal of oppression is a good thing for the victims of the state, however, does that make it moral? No. With the example of the state not only do the repeal of laws not come in an instant - making the state immoral as before - but also supposes the existence of the state - an immoral entity - as a premise. Here one sees that with the state both the continuance of oppression and the repeal of it qualifies as immoral, not because of the consequence of the premise, but because of the nature of it.

74

Your class warfare inherited from the NLM is silliness. SEK3 should be embarassed for propagating the idea of humanity split along two classes only, because some feeble minded individual might actually believe it.

It’s victim-speak.

Again, this is victims-speak. It’s meant to appeal to the radically fanatical.

Have you ever had a real job? A career? Have you ever engaged in entrepreneurship? Created employment for others?

Ron Paul votes down increasing spending. He tries to cut it. He doesn’t vote to increase the size of government. He proposes legislation to shrink and undermine it. He’s done more for returning America to sound money than any other politician or libertarian that I know of.

He puts his money into public education projects for liberty. If I understand correctly, he’s an important sponsor of the LvMI.

To quote Murray Rothbard,

For one thing, it is far easier to discover flaws in existing institutions than to offer a cogent alternative, and secondly it is tactically more comfortable to be on the attack.

75

Oh God.

[8-)]

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76

And should Rothbard have been embarassed for describing history as a race between social power and political power?

In my understanding, there’s more than just two basic classes. There’s (1) those who directly control the state, who are parasites (2) those private elites who are in patronage with the state, who are parasites but may also function as producers outside of the patronage (3) producers, constituted by the vast majority of workers and honest enterprenuers (4) the welfare class, who are parasites but are in a state of dependancy rather than the control of the private elities and (5) the practising agorists, I.E. those who are producers whom go out of their way to avoid the state.

77

But Humanity IS split into two classes: The ruling and the ruled. And it is precisely the establishment of greater privelage on a collective of individuals which libertarians srive to end.

78

Absolutely. There is a fairly simple dichotomy between the rulers and ruled. Though to a certain extent there are people who are somewhere in between, who function as either of the two depending on the context in which they are acting.

79

No, democracy is set up so that everyone both rules and is ruled by others.

80

Except in reality, even democratic political systems are still fundamentally oligarchies in which 1% or less of the population are truly directly in control of the state. It does not eliminate an exclusive ruling class, it merely expands access to the ruling class and provides the illusion of citizen control, which functions as a cloak of legitimacy.