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Kuros
Joined: 27 Apr 2004
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 Posted: Mon Nov 19, 2007 7:15 pm Post subject: |
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| thepeel wrote: |
| So, he isn't a libertarian because he has a different opinion on history? Hardly convincing. |
That's it? I really didn't think defeating you would be so easy.
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| Now, the real question is: Do you? |
I linked to the Richardson site. You can go over the multitude of my past posts. Either would be more accurate than my declaration that I'm a libertarian. Decide for yourself.
But I think if I had absolute control of the American gov't I would slash entitlements, halve defense spending (cutting almost all the money we spend on nuclear weapons), and eliminate poverty spending to nothing over five years. Oh, and I'd balance the budget before I cut taxes. |
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thepeel
Joined: 08 Aug 2004
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| Posted: Mon Nov 19, 2007 7:26 pm Post subject: |
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| Quote: |
| That's it? I really didn't think defeating you would be so easy. |
Paul even ran for the Libertarian Party at one point. He has been involved with virtually every libertarian organization in the USA and is supported by, as far as I know, every single libertarian organization in the USA (less the Lib party, which is running their own candidate, but should Paul make a 3rd party run, the Lib party will support him). Again, sorry, but you are the only person I know of who doesn't consider him a libertarian. And I'm quite plugged into the the American libertarian movement after interning at a prominent lib organization in the North East.
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I linked to the Richardson site. You can go over the multitude of my past posts. Either would be more accurate than my declaration that I'm a libertarian. Decide for yourself.
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And your view on the war on drugs? Afghanistan? Foreign aid? Income taxes? How about seat-belt laws? Merely being fiscally conservative does not a libertarian make. Richardson is a fine man, and I appreciate his positions, but he is a right-leaning Democrat fiscally.
And his abortion position is entirely libertarian, if you understand the fetus to be human. I disagree with him, but it is a disagreement of assumptions, not dogma. It does not matter what the specifics of r.v.w. were. He considers legal abortion to be state sanctioned murder and I respect, but disagree with, his position. |
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Kuros
Joined: 27 Apr 2004
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| Posted: Mon Nov 19, 2007 7:33 pm Post subject: |
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| thepeel wrote: |
And your view on the war on drugs? Afghanistan? Foreign aid? Income taxes? How about seat-belt laws? |
The War on Drugs is perhaps the worst problem in America after our foreign debt. It won't end anytime soon, though.
Afghanistan? *sigh* I hate to admit it but we need to buy peace. The Pashtuns aren't a threat to us. Honestly.
Foreign Aid? *shrugs* It's pennies in the jar.
Income Taxes? Better than customs duties. No more progressive than property taxes. This sums up my skepticism on the elimination of income taxes.
Seat-belt laws? Yes, if you fail to wear a seat-belt, you are negligent per se. Part of the reason for seat-belt laws is to bar full recovery in a lawsuit from a plaintiff injured in an accident not wearing one. |
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thepeel
Joined: 08 Aug 2004
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| Posted: Mon Nov 19, 2007 7:36 pm Post subject: |
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So, you are a right leaning democrat. Right? You hold different assumptions about the nature of the state-individual relationship. There is nothing wrong with that, but it is rich if you want to call someone who has a solidly libertarian understanding of that relationship not a lib. Right?
Income taxes are an expression of the governments ownership of you. |
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Kuros
Joined: 27 Apr 2004
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| Posted: Mon Nov 19, 2007 7:54 pm Post subject: |
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| thepeel wrote: |
So, you are a right leaning democrat. Right? You hold different assumptions about the nature of the state-individual relationship. There is nothing wrong with that, but it is rich if you want to call someone who has a solidly libertarian understanding of that relationship not a lib. Right?
Income taxes are an expression of the governments ownership of you. |
What does Democrat have anything to do with this? If Bill Richardson were Republican I'd vote for him.
Even if I were to accept that I am not libertarian (which I'm not), I could still claim Ron Paul was not libertarian.
And no, I'm not as deeply libertarian as some. But I'm a libertarian. I believe in the 2nd Amendment and am suspicious of most government regulations. But I also don't believe that libertarians are exclusive to the right or left.
For example, the War on Drugs is opposed on the right and left. More strongly on the left, I'd argue. It pains me greatly that American customs officials are rude to foreigners. I don't think such a feeling is isolated to the right. To recognize that Bill Clinton, Nelson Mandela, and Milton Friedman are all libertarian is no more controversial than acknowledging that Mao, Lenin, Stalin, and Hitler were all authoritarian.
Its revealing to me that Ron Paul backs States' Rights when more American States than not have recently banned gay marriage in their Constitutions. And States' Rights, as I've stated above, has strong racist connotations (I'm not saying Ron Paul is racist) and follows in Nixon and Reagan's traditions of the Southern Strategy.
Partly, what I'm trying to do is steer people away from thinking of Ron Paul as a libertarian, because I do not want to be associated with him. No, this doesn't make Ron Paul less of a libertarian alone, but I think he is not a good advertisement for the brand 'libertarian' |
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thepeel
Joined: 08 Aug 2004
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| Posted: Mon Nov 19, 2007 8:02 pm Post subject: |
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| I don't even know what we are debating anymore. |
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Funkdafied
Joined: 04 Nov 2007
Location: In Da House
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| Posted: Wed Nov 21, 2007 8:41 am Post subject: |
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| Excellent, I have enjoyed this little exchange gentlemen... |
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thepeel
Joined: 08 Aug 2004
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| Posted: Wed Nov 21, 2007 8:57 am Post subject: |
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| We discovered that we agree on far more than either of us want to agree with the other on. |
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igotthisguitar
Joined: 08 Apr 2003
Location: South Korea (Permanent Vacation)
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| Posted: Tue Nov 27, 2007 6:18 pm Post subject: |
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http://www.ronpaulforums.com/
Feds Cancel Amazon Customer ID Request
By RYAN J. FOLEY, Associated Press Writer
Tue Nov 27, 3:58 PM ET
MADISON, Wis. - Federal prosecutors have withdrawn a subpoena seeking the identities of thousands of people who bought used books through online retailer Amazon.com Inc., newly unsealed court records show.
The withdrawal came after a judge ruled the customers have a First Amendment right to keep their reading habits from the government.
"The (subpoena's) chilling effect on expressive e-commerce would frost keyboards across America," U.S. Magistrate Judge Stephen Crocker wrote in a June ruling.
"Well-founded or not, rumors of an Orwellian federal criminal investigation into the reading habits of Amazon's customers could frighten countless potential customers into canceling planned online book purchases," the judge wrote in a ruling he unsealed last week.
MORE ...
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/amazon_subpoena;_ylt=Al.gtKjToyGyQi6JxBAmGXhhr7sF |
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