Yesterday, for the imperial sum of 25 cents, I picked up a replacement copy of a book I lost some time ago: Barbara Tuchman's The Proud Tower -- A Portrait of the World Before the War: 1890-1910. From the back cover blurb:
The brilliant panorama of the years before World War I, when England's poor worked seventeen hours a day, seven days a week for 13 cents an hour, while the privileged lived in Olympian luxury... When America's William Howard Taft wrote of the Pullman strikes of 1894: "It will be necessary for the military to kill some of the mob... They have only killed six...as yet. This is hardly enough to make an impression."That's the world we've been slouching toward ever since the folks at the Cato Institute and similar thinkers have had influence on White House policy. If Ron Paul has his way, that slouch will become a free-fall.
Libertarians always talk a good game when it comes to fiscal responsibility, but the presidents most likely to give the Cato-ites a friendly hearing have also been the ones most likely to run a government in the red. Much of the borrowed money comes from decidedly non-Libertarian nations. (My favorite quote from Lawrence of Arabia: "The servant is the one who takes the money.")
Of course, Libertarians know how to argue their way out of those inconvenient facts. Sophistry is fun.
The more honest Libertarians don't bother arguing that their philosophy will actually work, if we define "work" in terms of the greatest good for the greatest number of people. (By that standard, what works is the system in Scandinavia.) When pressed, Libertarians argue that their philosophy is fairer, or at least purer, in an ideological sense -- although they confuse the issue by using the term constitutional when they really mean ideological.
Of course, the people making such arguments picture themselves as living among those luxuriating Olympians, and not toiling for seventeen hours a day, seven days a week. Daydreams are fun.
12 comments:
I wouldn't vote for Ron Paul. I give him credit for opposing the Iraq War, and for the American Freedom Agenda Act. He is tapping into something in this country and I see no point in insulting his supporters, particularly since they will be up for grabs in November 2008.
I give you credit Joseph for ignoring the Trent Lott gay rent boy story. I ran with it. Another test of Buell's Law.
I used to jump on top of every gay Republican story -- so to speak -- but, yeesh, there can't be THAT many of 'em, can there? I mean, you know, the law of averages...
So according to Buell's law, Hillary and Huma are likethis?
Be real careful with BigHeadDC, Gary. Rob Capriccioso is a liar.
That is one beautiful straw man you've constructed there, Joseph.
I know I can barely contain myself whenever I run into another "Libertarian" who constantly bemoans the fact that not enough federal power is devoted to killing workers and breaking up strikes.
Did you read Buell's Law? "If a prominent male political figure is accused of some sort of sexual misconduct or indiscretion--HE DID IT."
It only applies to men. The applicability of Buell's Law to female politicians has not been tested.
Anyway, BigHead DC has now posted the emails the guy denied sending. And the guy's denials seem very carefully worded, and are preceded by assurances to his clients of his discretion. Hmmm...
To be fair, however, I am giving the Huma/Hillary rumors maximum play as well.
Also, of course, I am a blogger and have low standards.
Straw man? Well, after several decades of listening (off and on) to Libertarian arguments, I have yet to hear a single kind word for unions or strikes.
Interesting...
Well, I firmly believe in the Libertarian principle of a weak federal government as a requisite for preserving liberty.
I believe in rigid adherence to consitutional principles, especially as they relate to "reserved" and "delegated" authority, and consider these principles to be the bulwark that separates us from fascism.
I also believe that organized labor is a necessary counter-balance to the concentration of power in capital, and I believe that such organization is protected under those same consitutional principles. I also believe that the phenomenon of organized labor saved this country from a dive into Marxist socialism, in spite of the fact that some of its champions were in fact themselves Marxist.
Now you can no longer say you have never heard a kind word about unions when listening to a Libertarian argument.
Can you tell me how Paul will be able to enact such great change? If George can't turn our country into a dictatorship, how will Ron get rid of work place laws? Everything moves slowly. Right now we need someone who will get us out of the ME. I'll fight the the next battle when I come to it.
For the most part, Joe, I agree with you. Though, I think you're being genorous in saying that Ron Paul has caused so-called "progressives" to humor Libertarianism. I myself was greatly fascinated with it when I was a teenager and, as a lawyer, I think they do have a number of solid points here and there regarding the Constitution and, particularly, the Bill of rights that would work. However, aside from the initial flaws in the ideology, I also think a big flaw of the party is that it has been ridiculously infiltrated by populist Republicans. Rudy never shied from calling himself a "Libertarian" where it would score him political points, and he's anything but.
But, before I digress, the "progressives" that have been suckered into humoring Ron Paul are really, in the end, just intellectually lazy. They find him appealing because of his principled anti-war stance in ragrds to Iraq. But, they simply haven't researched the other policy points ron Paul is proposing, nor have they look at his voting record. Ron Paul isn't a Libertarian either. He's almost a textbook example of a Republican posing as a Libertarian because it will score him some extra political points and attention in a campaign where he will lose. He claims that he is a Constitutionalist and yet is completely hostile to the 14th Amendment, and also wants to limit the say of the judiciary on various issues, which is completely spelled out in our Constitution and runs counter to his proposals. You can't claim to be against "the tyranny of the federal government" all while being fully willing to invoke that tyranny where it suits your political interests. Yet, that is what Ron Paul does.
In the end, Ron Paul is just a tight-wad isolationist running on what is largely a xeonphobic campaign, pretty much because his current constituents, which is all his Presidential campaign is really about, are a border state where people have demonized illegal immigrants.
any so-called "progressive" that supports Ron Paul is just naive. Other progressives like myself may be able to see the merits in some of what he says, but will also know that he doesn't deserve a vote. He's the wrong choice for this country. He'd weaken the US dollar, take a complete hands off approach to human rights, and adopt policy pretending entities like the UN and the ICC are a art of the evil NWO which is the natural offshoot of the Nazi plan. A populist fool who would be worse than Bush, which makes the whole Kucinich scenario all that more silly.
Libertarianism is a philosophical view, no? When did it get a seat at the economic spectrum table of systems of governance? It was always called 'laissez-faire capitalism' in poli-sci and civics, and it sat between fascism and limited/regulated capitalism. I just got off the phone with Noam Chomsky, who told me two phonological facts: 'liber-' originally derived from the Latin for 'book' or 'reader', and implied that learning is the pathway from enslavement, whence 'liberty' and 'liberal'; and 'libertarian' was coined, as a philosophical view, a few hours after Samuel Johnson declared that "patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel". Wasn't Maynard G. Krebs a libertarian? Did you know that Parker Bros. originally called its Monopoly game Libertarianism, but their legal dept. advised that people would confuse it with 'libertinism' and free love, but 'monopoly' would sound like monogamy? Doctor Paul is highly admired only by highly reluctant thinkers mainly because "he's a doctor!" (who has not yet explained how he would cure red neck), and he wants to do to our political system and our civil society what Dr. Josef Mengele essentially wanted to do in his day, unhindered by the burdens of sympathy, compassion, and charity.
WRT the trent lott rumors, this one has far more interesting implications than the silly 'boy' story:
http://thenexthurrah.typepad.com/the_next_hurrah/2007/11/more-intriguing.html
Libertinism! Now there's something I'd vote for! Anyway RU Paul's latest record stinks, s/he hasn't had a hit since 2004, and I hardly doubt that many republicans would vote for a 6'4" Drag Queen-- even if s/he was the Revlon girl(?) for a year or two in the nineties... but all kidding aside, one more Texan racist (well let's just say 95% racist) and America will implode. My only fear is that he will take the pull-out meme (hm... he's not only an OB-Gyn and anti abortion, but also into puling out... is he also Catholic??) and then mix in his anti war on drugs, and get all the unwashed dreadlocked 19 year old "progressives" to put down the doobie and go register to vote-- as independents. And that would suck, unwashed dreadlocked 19 year olds should be voting for Huma, er Hilary.. 'twould be hilarious if it weren't so deadly.
Ron Paul is strictly for alienated white guys who think government is evil.
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