This writer earns no respect off the bat for idiocy or demagoguery. Unless he is oblivious to Ron Paul’s position on the issue, he would understand that Paul sees the fetus as living from conception, therefore entitled to rights from conception. My guess is that the writer understands the nuances of the issue but thought it would be more likely to be linked to on liberal message boards if he demagogued the issue.
Not seeing the connection. Now I’m starting to think the writer maybe doesn’t really understand the reasoning behind Paul’s positions. He just vomits Paul’s more controversial ideas into the blurb and prays for that coveted SDMB link.
Horrific? Boilerplate right-wing populism is horrific now? This is worth mentioning in blurb this short?
Paul on evolution: “My personal view is that recognizing the validity of an evolutionary process does not support atheism nor should it diminish one’s view about God and the universe.”
Regarding a debate when the candidates were asked to raise their hands if they “believed in evolution”: “At the time, my first impression was that this sounded like a third-grade class exercise. I interpreted raising one’s hand as an all-or-nothing answer and as an insult and didn’t bother to answer the question, nor was I called upon to discuss my views.”
I wonder if the writer has access to google?
Posture? This word was picked because of it’s negative connotation, but it doesn’t apply.
Isn’t oligarchy kinda the problem left liberals are complaining about now. Y’know the whole 1% thing. The truth is pure free markets have never trended towards oligarchy.
… and quell drug cartel related violence in southwestern U.S. and Mexico, dude. See I’m typing like a weed head. I’m so hip.
Of course the word “posture” applies to Ron Paul or any libertarian claiming the mantle of economic populism. Unless you think goldbuggery and “No More Fed!” counts as economic populism. :rolleyes:
How does he display a “bewildering lack of intellectual coherence” on the civil rights issue? It is the libertarian position. You can argue that it doesn’t work but it is definitely coherent to everyone but the author of the piece.
Now you are talking about the country that more nearly approaches the free-market ideal than any other industrialized democracy on Earth. It is capitalism, not socialism, that creates and preserves America’s oligarchy. And what is it, do you think, that gives Europeans more socioeconomic mobility than Americans have got now? Not capitalism.
My statement was that libertarians would shrug off accusations of racism. This is true regardless of whether they actively espouse racism itself.
I don’t know the personal opinions of young libertarians as a group and I suspect nobody else does either. The question is whether I need to.
Libertarianism is anti-government intervention. That includes social programs, many of which came into existence to protect the groups that have historically been marginalized by society. As a group, libertarians strongly resemble the dominant social caste. They are overwhelmingly more male, white, and well-to-do than the average. Libertarian ideology is inherently systemically racist, whatever individuals might think about other individuals. This is not inherent in the group demographics: libertarian demographics are similar to liberal demographics, according to Pew, although women are far more likely to be liberal. Yet liberals support these social programs for people who do not look like them. Libertarians are against those programs and generally are in support of programs that overwhelmingly benefit their own group. That’s the very definition of institutional racism.
It’s a terrible political stance in a country that will be majority minority in a generation. Libertarians may think they have a future. But their values put them into the fringe of what America really looks like.
If you don’t like libertarianism in the first place, this is a good thing. If you do, it’s hard to see a future of anything other than vocal frustration.
But by GOP standards – even current standards, as debased by post-Goldwater movement conservatism, and further debased by W-Cheney, and still further and irredeemably debased by the Tea Party – Paul is a whackaloon.
The oligarchy in the U.S. works hand in hand with government. The banking industry is the best example. Who do you think writes the regulations? Who’s interest do they have in mind?
Whites are the benificiaries of more government aid than blacks. Do you think white libertarians favor aid for whites? If so, do you need a stool to get down from that awfully high horse you seem to be sitting on?
You must not be in contact with many racists in the real world. Racists do not search out an ideology so they can deny aids to blacks. You are giving them too much credit.
So, for example, railroad subsidies were not an example of socialist ideas that predated the term socialism? That is most certainly not capitalism. Corruption and crony capitalism cannot exist in a libertarian free market.
Of course the word “posture” applies to Ron Paul or any libertarian claiming the mantle of economic populism. Unless you think goldbuggery and “No More Fed!” counts as economic populism. :rolleyes: