Barack Obama was viewed as a major contender for the Democratic Party nomination from the beginning of the primaries. He and Hillary were the only two candidates that had raised over $20MM in the first 3 months of 2007. So, 19 months before the election, the two serious democratic candidates had already taken the lead. In January 2008, Obama won 3 of the 4 first primaries, and tied with Hillary in the 4th.
Rand Paul is viewed as following in his father's footsteps, who was never taken seriously by the national party. In his best performance in 2012, Ron Paul only won the primary in the US Virgin Islands.
I distinctly recall a whole slew of pundits ready to hold a coronation for Hillary Clinton in 2007 prior to a single primary vote being cast.
The Republican field is completely different, of course, but that's why Rand Paul could win. The "front runner" has less than 17% of the vote and there are less than ten percentage points between #1 and #7. Those are exactly the conditions under which a candidate who can differentiate himself can succeed by capturing the entirety of his own base while the base of the other camp is split between several different candidates.
> In his best performance in 2012, Ron Paul only won the primary in the US Virgin Islands.
In the popular vote, true, but in number of delegates, once the counts were tallied, Ron Paul won Iowa, Maine, Minnesota and Louisiana.
Ron Paul also had a solid financial campaign in 2012, not the largest fund, but likely the best managed. his performance was in large part diminished by media bashing on the eve of any primary elections in which polls were in his favor. For example, see CNN's Gloria Borger interview cut, which was quite outrageous.
I understand that Rand Paul is heavily into the "rights" of corporations. Is that actually true?
I personally am rather more worried about corporate surveillance than NSA surveillance. That's why I pay cash for everything, and take pains to blackhole web analytics servers with my hosts file.
Presumably Rand Paul, like many Republicans (and no small number of Democrats), accepts the idea that people can exercise their rights through government-registered entities which they own, called "corporations". These are entities without intrinsic rights, but a well-known intellectual framework called "corporate personhood" which dates back to some of our earliest jurisprudence in this nation says that you treat them like they do, because it is a good way to reason about their owners' use of their personal rights. (This theory also makes it trivially obvious why corporate "personhood" doesn't mean corporations get to do things like vote or get married -- using a corporation is not a way that to exercise that sort of right.)
</factual description>
<opinion>
One may, of course, disagree that this is sound policy, but this opinion seems to be all-too-often presented in a manner which deliberately misunderstands / misrepresents the theory, perhaps in order to strengthen the invective language advocating against these policies. (Be sure to keep an eye on that, at least for the sake of your own intellectual honesty.)
My issue with this situation is that these corporations generally have orders-of-magnitude louder megaphones through which to exercise these rights. It really skews the one-person-one-vote ideal this democracy is built on. (Yes, individuals exercising an out-sized influence through money and access is a part of the same issue.) This is why things like Citizen's United and Super-PACs are so horribly distorting the functional workings of our country.
We've always had and will always have private citizens who have orders-of-magnitude-louder megaphones: big-money bogeymen like Rupert Murdoch could be plenty effective at buying megaphones. Or think of any celebrity Twitter account, from Taylor Swift to Obama himself. And we'd disempower a variety of political activity (ostensibly) backed by the common man if private-sector labor unions couldn't spend money on politics and rich CEOs could.
Corporations are just individuals who pool their resources for a common endeavor. Usually this is for profit but sometimes it is a charity. Either way, why should individuals lose rights when they operate as a group? Preventing people from pooling resources shifts the balance of power towards rich individuals who don't need extra outside resources to further their political goals.
While not debating the facts of your statement, I would contend that the only legitimate exercise of an owner's rights in the context of a corporation are to seek profit through commerce. Political speech, religious beliefs, and other "personhood" concepts are already granted to corporate owners as individuals.
> I would contend that the only legitimate exercise of an owner's rights in the context of a corporation are to seek profit through commerce.
Not all extant corporations are made to seek profits. There are nonprofits out there for a variety of charitable causes, social-justice causes, and other activities which often have a nontrivial component to them. I believe the ACLU is a corporation, for instance -- the EFF as well, and Amnesty International. We've seen many of their free-speech activities on this site. What provision shall we make for these activities and organizations in an alternative legal framework?
More generally: if an arbitrary profit-seeking corporation doesn't have first-amendment rights, why do newspapers specifically have them? (Or are we abandoning freedom of the press as well? That'll take some Constitutional doing, naturally.) Assuming that it remains, why should Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation or Bloomberg's Bloomberg have rights that Warren Buffet's Berkshire Hathaway doesn't? And where and how should we go about drawing a line between "press" and "not press" organizations in a complicated world where, for instance, an Internet-technology firm like AOL has bought a major news entity, Time Warner?
Outside speech questions specifically, if a corporation does not have first-amendment protection to speak as it chooses, does this mean the government ought to be legally compel its choice of speech? (e.g. endorsing specific politicians, policies, etc.) Is it protected from search and seizures by the Fourth Amendment? (Or, hell, from quartering troops by the third?)
These questions may or may not have good answers. Either way, these narrow margins can hardly contain a proper treatment of the matter. I'm just throwing a few monkey wrenches into the problem, as your comment was simple and straightforward, but the consequences of the proposed legal regime are complex and wide-reaching. :P
take pains to blackhole web analytics servers with my hosts file
There are many projects online that do that for you. All you need to do( just once ) is to download the file and add custom domains if you have some, but this is usually not required since everything that doesn't break the "web experience" is blocked by default.
Corporations are not as worrisome as government because their power to act on that data is less. No company in america is going to bust down my door with rifles or throw me in prison because I think things they don't like. The worst they can do (assuming the government doesn't totally break down) is refuse to do business with me. But the government can do a lot worse and have a history of doing a lot worse.
I agree that the government can do a lot worse and that governments certain have in the past. That said, the more comfortable the relationship between government and a corporation the more likely one is to benefit from the resources and pull of the other.
No, but corporations can lean on the government to do that on their behalf. Such as forcibly evicting a tenant from a foreclosed home [1] or confiscating equipment from a journalist who wrote about your unreleased products [2].
Agreed. If the corps use the government to do their bidding that is bad. In the case of this candidate I think the pitch is that he won't allow that either (or at least that' me general understanding of the libertarian position).
Psychic terror, working against you ever getting a job again if you don't "behave", colluding to make sure you are held down (e.g. your wage, benefits, whatever) .. and so on. People who think that physical violence - the one the government reserves for itself - is the worst form of violence live a very sheltered life. I envy them.
Help me understand this better. It seems like being blacklisted by a big company or even entire industry is bad, even life altering. But people get serious PTSD or sometimes even die from one single 5-minute fight with a cop.
Furthermore, I think shunning and blacklisting should be a protected form of individual choice. For example, I'm just not going to hang out with someone that's a racist. That is and should be 100% my choice. But I don't have a right to physically harm them. I'll argue that this arrangement of making violence special and different from harsh-words or shunning will make for a more functional society because we don't always all have to agree but we can still live in one place together.
Rand Paul learned well from his father. He will say he'll do things that presidents can't actually do because a bunch of folks will send him cash for doing so.
Ron Paul was an incredibly good marketer, first selling conspiracy newsletters and racist shit to kooks, then realizing that American libertarians are both wealthier and more gullible. Rand is v2.0 of that awful nonsense.
Given that the NSA mass surveillance of American citizens have proven of little value in the fight against terrorism, I am surprised that you imply that this cannot be changed.
A reasonable proposal is for ALL candidates to say that these programs are expensive, not useful and should be ended. (One might also say they are a blatant example of government overreach - but that is just my opinion and you are free to disagree.) It is not misguided to say that a bad program should be ended.
It might be more general than that. People here (and most other forums) seem conditioned to treat politics like sports teams and they will ignore all the horrible ideas their "team" has just as long as they can beat the other team. It is pretty sad...
The returns generated depend on finding new investors in the scheme, if current investors pull out the scheme cannot return promised benefits to current investors.
This is pretty much the precise definition of a ponzi scheme and why the scheme faces certain bankruptcy with out a significant rise in births.
That quote is taken out of context. To quote the entire thing:
"The point is that I have heard of – I mean who hasn’t ever met a child who has a profound disability and in the parents’ mind they see a connection,” Paul said. “But I didn’t allege there is a connection. I said I heard of people who believe there is a connection. I do think that vaccines are a good idea. I’ve been vaccinated. My kids have been vaccinated."
The headlines says "Rand Paul: We Wouldn’t Need Laws If Everyone Were Christian". Paul never said anything like that. He said that "Christian values" like non-violence and such are good.
> Paul, Feb. 2: I have heard of many tragic cases of walking, talking, normal children who wound up with profound mental disorders after vaccines.
> That quote is taken out of context. To quote the entire thing
That wasn't out of context, that's him later trying to walk back his quote. They link directly to a video of him saying what they quoted[1]
(and even ignoring that, his point that parents should essentially use their instincts for setting a vaccination schedule is irresponsible and would make for incredibly poor public policy)
And against gay marriage, too! His defenders will claim that although he does not like it, he will still allow it. But that's not true either, because he will leave it to the states to decide (and about half of them will decide to ban it).
Private prisons? Have at it. Urban poverty? Let the charities deal with it. Access to abortion? Similar response to gay marriage.
The only reason he's popular on the internet is because he likes bitcoin, wants to legalize weed, wants to drastically reduce defense spending (including scaling back the NSA), and likes "civil liberties" (whatever those are).
Rather than pre-empting his "defenders'" comments, how about linking us to where he says he's against gay marriage and letting us judge for ourselves based on his words.
My impression of Rand Paul is that he has personal views which conflict with many Americans and that he believes that it's not his right to impose those views, this differs significantly from Hillary who is a long time advocate of actively denying marriage to gays and lesbians through acts like DOMA.
As far as private prisons I think his views on sentencing are much more relevant. I think people being sentenced to less time and those who have non-violent offence being released are more important than whether the prison is owned and operated by the gov't.
As far as popularity he's the only Republican that outpolls Clinton in many swing states. (Not sure if you were insinuating that he's only popular on the internet)
He's a huge advocate of fixing urban poverty by not removing working parents from their home to serve lengthy sentences for non-violence offences.
What happens if the President hates abortion and gay marriage (serious question)? Does he have any power to repeal/overturn, other than having access to the bully pulpit? It's not like he can get elected and say "OK gay marriage is over now", which he could do to the NSA (whether he will is certainly up for debate).
One thing I'm confident in is that the further Rand Paul makes in the election process, the more discussion and awareness of mass surveillance's threat to democracy itself.
I remember when Ron Paul ran in the primaries, and in one of the first debates from 2011 I believe, they asked the Republican candidates whether they support a stronger Patriot Act or not. Like all the other 4 or 5 other candidates tried to out-match each other in how much stronger they would like the Patriot Act and other such laws to be.
Ron Paul? He was the only one who said he would do away with it. Full stop. If only Rand Paul could reverse that majority of opinion this time in the debates, and force most candidates to say they'd also scale back on the mass surveillance, support repealing the Patriot, FISAA, EO12333, and possibly even pardon Snowden (probably even promising that in the campaign would be the best litmus test to see whether a candidate is actually serious about truly reforming the surveillance powers).
> I believe, they asked the Republican candidates whether they support a stronger Patriot Act or not. Like all the other 4 or 5 other candidates tried to out-match each other in how much stronger they would like the Patriot Act and other such laws to be.
It's worth thinking about the significance of that. These guys aren't doing it because it's wildly unpopular with voters.
I think you're overestimating the degree to which the average US voter gives a shit about the Patriot Act (or NSA surveillance, for that matter). The response was red meat for the primary voters, sure, but it's not likely to be significant negative for the wider electorate.
> It's worth thinking about the significance of that. These guys aren't doing it because it's wildly unpopular with voters.
but one could argue that it's so popular with voters due to fear mongering, the labeling of everyday criminals as 'terrorists', and the national call to arms every few weeks when some psycho (undoubtedly referred to incorrectly as a terrorist) shoots his way through somewhere.
At what stop in this twisted feedback loop are we going to place blame? It seems pretty naive to put the blame on the scared (and voting) public.
This seems like a slightly more plausible version of Newt Gingrich promising a moon colony if elected President. And by slightly more I mean something that he would most likely not fulfill once in office. All candidates promise big things to get elected and most of those things never happen.
This is not surprising. Rand Paul, similar to his father Ron Paul, has very libertarian political views which means they prefer no government involvement, not just in the Internet but anywhere. This is not as good as it sounds.
For example, he doesn't support FED in controlling money supply. But FED was instrumental in making USD the most stable currency in the last 100 years.
He doesn't like energy regulations and believes free market should dictate the energy prices. Too bad when California deregulated their energy market, the prices went up 10x in some cases due to market manipulations by Enron and similar.
And then there is his religious agenda like anti-abortion, anti same-sex marriages, anti mandatory vaccination etc...
Just because he supports one or two policies we like, doesn't make him good candidate overall. Even a broken clock is right two times a day.
"Paul, who is an ophthalmologist, also asserts that he's heard of cases where vaccines have caused "profound mental disorders."
"I've heard of many tragic cases of walking, talking, normal children who wound up with profound mental disorders after vaccines," Paul said. "I'm not arguing vaccines are a bad idea. I think they're a good thing. But I think the parents should have some input."
I was kind of shocked when I heard a Ophthalmologist make such a pandering comment. He is a trained Doctor? I won't argue Libertinism on this site. I have a feeling this link will get more comments than when Paul Graham told us to be nice--essentially because we are jealous of successful people?
What's so shocking about letting parents decide what medical treatment their children undergo?
He has repeatedly said that parents should get their children vaccinated. And they should. Parents who don't are irresponsible, both socially and toward their children.
However, should and must are two very different words.
When you start talking about mandatory, you're talking about cops breaking down doors, taking children away, and vaccinating them by force.
Thank you. That's the truth. I very rarely find myself a moderate on things, but both sides of this argument make me sick.
The selfish parents who claim vaccines cause autism and who are really riding on herd immunity, while avoiding the relatively minor risks involved with vaccination ... and people like you who think that the solution is to use force and throw these people in jail.
A little shaming will go a long way. Both sides have jumped to absurd extremes.
And then there is his religious agenda like anti-abortion, anti same-sex marriages, anti mandatory vaccination etc...
So, this is an interesting ad-hominem, but something to consider is that, if a candidate is against pervasive government influence, they probably are also against using the .gov to enforce their ideology on other people.
I disagree with many of Rand Paul's stances, but I think you're being misleading in saying that his stance on vaccination is related to his religious views. You should probably edit your comment to put that under a different category (like the preceding three blocks relating to his libertarian views).
He's a traditional U.S. states' rights conservative, an ideal intersecting with classical liberalism - less common these days due to the widespread influence of neoconservatism.
He doesn't really touch on deeper libertarian or even minarchist philosophy at all. His stringent views on border security are also unusual for it (unless you're Hans-Hermann Hoppe).
Don't you mean federalism? A lot of people seem to use it to signify states rights and a balance of power. Such as the historian podcaster Dan Carlin.
Edit- I can't reply below but you are using the term incorrectly and in the context of Anti-Federalists from the 18th century. From Wikipedia on federalism:
> In contrast, Europe has a greater history of unitary states than North America, thus European "federalism" argues for a weaker central government, relative to a unitary state. The modern American usage of the word is much closer to the European sense.
(1) It seems you are just dismissing him and his father have similar ideas, which aren't necessarily any crazier than every other politician ever (i.e. social security is so awesome). Rand and Ron Paul both supported STATES rights, which lets be honest, makes it possible to move between states and have different taxes, laws, and unique experiences. This leads me to my second point...
(2) "His religious agenda" he's made it clear he doesn't have a agenda, he's not going to push any religious agenda because he seems (at least) to support the constitution. This means that,
(2a) Rand seems to support the President, Senate, House, and Supreme court all being separate. Constitutionally, the president doesn't control a state religion, abortion, marriage, etc.
(2b) Supporting the policy of letting the states determine their laws seems probably the most American thing to do. If you don't like it, you just move to a different state where people are like minded.
It's actually pretty awesome if you ask me, we can work together to defend our country, but live the way we want.
> Constitutionally, the president doesn't control a state religion, abortion, marriage, etc.
The Establishment Clause is pretty clear that states should not and cannot enact state religions, and its up to the federal government to enforce that.
The fact that Rand Paul is clearly biased by his religion makes him distinctly un-libertarian.
It seems like you're grasping at straws. Good luck finding a single human anywhere that isn't biased in some way. I'm also not aware of any Libertarian Cabal documents stating that nobody with vaguely libertarian views can have a religion, or that in having a religion one is so tainted as to be unable to compartmentalize one's personal and professional lives.
I never said libertarians can't be religious. Rather, it's a fundamental tenant of libertarianism that you should not use the organ of government to enforce your religious views on others.
On numerous occasions, Paul has referenced religious motivations for creating social policies. For example, he is opposed to same-sex marriage because it "offends him."
Paul is not a libertarian. He's just a standard anti-Federalist Republican.
My favorite quote from that (showing how intellectually dishonest Paul really is): "The First Amendment says keep government out of religion, not religion out of government."
I'm sorry, you must have misunderstood me. I wanted to see an example of him proposing a policy that would proscribe same-sex marriage in contrast with his statements that he is personally uncomfortable with it. You have offered only the latter.
"Senator Paul believes marriage is an issue that should be dealt with at the state level,” political adviser Doug Stafford told The Daily Beast. “Nothing about his position has changed." Stafford later added: "Senator Paul does not want his guns or his marriage registered in Washington. He has said this repeatedly and consistently. Marriage is not a federal issue. It is an issue for state and local governments to deal with."
In other words he told positions which conveniently would be enforced by not interfering with the status quo. Why is state government the only acceptable level of government interference in citizens private lives?
That way government more closely follows the will of the people when people have geographically non-uniform distribution of what they want in government. For example, if 60% of Maryland wants children to be banned from playing outside while 40% of Pennsylvania does, it more closely matches the will of the people if Maryland bans it and Pennsylvania doesn't, instead of having the feds ban it or ban states from banning it. Not that "will of the people" democratic mysticism is a good justification for anything.
I think pretty much everyone (including Paul) would agree that the federal government needs to keep a state religion from forming in a state.
Laws related to abolition, marriage, etc. is not necessarily religious, so claiming the states should make their own decisions seems fair.
Also, he's a Republican (for better or worse), he'll almost certainly get a large portion of Libertarian vote though (which accounts for 2 - 5% of the population per state).
you say that as if you can't imagine that there are any or something. so silly. um, okay: government has no business in marriage. abortion is arbitrarily deciding you have autonomy over the life of another possibly intelligent being for political reasons. I'm in favor of self-ownership and property rights--I don't know about you. none of these things have anything to do with religion. (hint: I am not religious.)
I see this rhetoric a lot and would love an actual explanation. Do you propose that tax benefits for couples should be abolished? How do you propose to handle Estate planning? Health and other insurance benefits? Managing the custody of children of divorce?
How exactly do you imagine the government not being involved in marriage? Because as it stands today, the government is inextricably a part of the concept of marriage; the government must recognize a marriage in order for the benefits of marriage to work.
> Do you propose that tax benefits for couples should be abolished?
Yes. (I am married)
> How do you propose to handle Estate planning?
Contract law. Before you get married, sign a contract that outlines everything.
> Health and other insurance benefits?
Nothing to do with government or at least, should have nothing to do with government. The insurance companies can structure it however they want.
> Managing the custody of children of divorce?
Contract law. See above. Marriage at its heart is a business arrangement. You share resources and work for a common purpose. It's almost like you're starting a company with a partner.
Would you start a business without signing a contract that didn't outline not only how the arrangement would function, but what would happen if it were to come to an end? Of course you wouldn't.
> How exactly do you imagine the government not being involved in marriage?
It can be involved in marriage through contract law. The same way it's involved in any business arrangement where a contract was signed.
In other words, if need be, one party can take another to court over the breach of a contract.
The issue today is that the government defines that contract. It specifies who the contract can be between (a man and a woman), specifies what happens when that contract ends, what benefits accrue, it essentially controls everything about that contract ... why not let the people choose what form they want their marriage to take? Why force everyone into the same universal contract that in the end doesn't really fit anyone properly because it's so unbelievably general?
> Because as it stands today, the government is inextricably a part of the concept of marriage
Unfortunately.
> the government must recognize a marriage in order for the benefits of marriage to work.
Resource sharing is by far the greatest benefit and it has nothing to do with the government. Yes, tax benefits and such stem directly from the government ... but that's about it.
> Would you start a business without signing a contract that didn't outline not only how the arrangement would function, but what would happen if it were to come to an end?
Lots of people do without a lot of specific detail on that, because they take advantage of government-created standard business forms that, in addition to providing special advantages not available through contract alone, also provide well-tested default handling of common situations, including dissolution.
Much like marriage.
> It can be involved in marriage through contract law. The same way it's involved in any business arrangement where a contract was signed.
But, if you want to compare marriage to a business arrangement, you should also be aware that government doesn't just manage business arrangements through general contract law, it defines a whole bunch of special standard forms for business entities which people form (various classes of corporations, LPs, LLPs, LLLPs, LLCs, heck, even general partnerships have a separate body of law from general contract law.)
So, the only way marriage is different is that government hasn't provided a whole bunch of different special forms for couples with different priorities and goals.
I think it makes him a politician more than anything. The guy has an MD from Duke; I doubt he is as religious as he seems.
The reality is, there is little upside in a Republican primary for saying he thinks gays should marry or for promoting a nuanced view on abortion. Just like his dance on saying he will increase defense spending after first proposing to cut it.
No, just highly educated. I meant that he is less likely to use religion to define his beliefs. He is a critical thinker and a smart guy, so he surely recognizes the contradictions and problems with religion. He can call himself a Christian, like many secular people do, but he is not religious like Santorum or Huckabee. Rand and his father rarely talk about it.
And he certainly has a strong belief in its separation from government.
Actually, the Establishment clause does not make it clear, and in fact, only prevented the US Congress (not the states) from establishing an official religion. It wasn't until the supreme court Incorporated the establishment clause in 1947 that states were prevented from establishing an official state religion. In fact, at least six states had official religions at the time of the founding.
Ron Paul tried to effectively reverse that, three times, by introducing legislation that prohibited the Supreme Court and any other Federal court from hearing cases involving it and the laws, policies, or regulations of any state.
That would work because aside from a small number of case types the Constitution explicitly says the Supreme Court has original jurisdiction over, it is Congress that decides the bounds of Federal jurisdiction.
The Establishment Clause prohibits the Federal Congress from establishing a national religion; the 14th Amendment on the other hand has been interpreted to establish a universal standard of morality for the nation as decreed by the Supreme Court. One might say the 14th Amendment and the Establishment clause directly conflict. And the 14th Amendment has won.
Most contemporary opinion, including the vast majority of applicable precedent, holds that the 14th Amendment made the Establishment Clause applicable to the states.
Power vacuums are always filled. Prior to the 14th amendment; the states filled the power vacuum of 'police power & moral standards' which was intentionally denied the Fed. With the 14th amendment; the power to establish 'moral standards' was taken from the states; and filled by the Supreme Caliphate. If the Supreme Caliphate applies the moral standards of Congress to moral issues like abortion and marriage it is 'problematically' over-riding the Establishment Clause. If it applies solely its own 'moral standards'; then the Supreme Caliphate is consistent with the Establishment Clause. Language usually gives lip service to latter path.
"I understand that you disagree with everything my candidate has ever voted on or stated he believes, but he is still a good candidate for your vote because as President he won't do anything."
Please don't use the term "American Dream" from now on. I'm not trying to be mean/sarcastic, but that term is too... it's dead. It's dead of any real meaning, and it makes candidates and their supporters sound like parodies of themselves.
That's the American dream if you were born into the means of achieving the American dream.
Libertarians seem to universally believe that everyone is just born with wealth, or that if you bootstraps hard enough, you are just bound to trip over wealth.
That strawman is just about the same as saying, 'liberals seem to universally believe that nobody could be incompetent and every personal outcome is controlled by everyone else instead of personal decisions.'
It might be true that some people hold the belief but the belief is not true in "every measurable way". Otherwise you would never have stories of poor people becoming rich.
> (2b) Supporting the policy of letting the states determine their laws seems probably the most American thing to do. If you don't like it, you just move to a different state where people are like minded.
Ugh. This is the kind of elitist self-righteous perspective that keeps me from wanting to have anything to do with the far right. "Just move to a different state"?! You probably have the means to do so. MOST people do not. Even you are probably unlikely to say, oh, I think this state sucks, I'm going to pick-up and leave tomorrow.
People have families, jobs (and new jobs to get), kids, commitments, ailing parents, etc. Get off your high horse and stop thinking the rest of the world is just like you.
What matters though is which of these policies would actually get implemented if he becomes president. My guess is that ending NSA surveillance and the war on drugs would, the others not so much. You'd probably get a couple bad laws and a couple bad Supreme Court justices, but that's not much worse than you'd get with anyone else. I probably wouldn't vote for him for president, but I'd have no problem with him winning the Republican primary.
While Rand Paul is not a libertarian (this is a concept promoted by the media to make him seem radical), your understanding of abortion issues is quite off. The real debate about abortion is over when life that deserves protecting begins. There is nothing else anyone disagrees with. If the fetus was an animal PETA would be the only ones having issue; if the fetus was dead noone would have issue with removing it. Some people believe that because a baby is not yet outside its mother, it has no rights. Other believe that until a baby is named, it has no rights. That is what the issue is about, and thinking otherwise you might as well not engage because you will go in circles all day.
As far as same-sex marriage, Rand Paul thinks it is not the federal government's responsibility to regulate that. Removing regulation over social issues from government IS a very libertarian philosophy.
I don't think Rand Paul is a libertarian (I was simply responding to the parent).
As for abortion, even if you consider the fetus a "person," I don't see how a libertarian would make a good case for the government to force the mother to continue to sustain and provide for it.
> Removing regulation over social issues from government IS a very libertarian philosophy.
Delegating to the states is very different from removing the regulation. The libertarian thing to do would be to ban such regulation.
I am not a libertarian, so I wouldn't. But several libertarians I know have said we so, and also argue that there should be no duty to feed the poor, etc.
> The libertarian thing to do would be to ban such regulation.
That requires a constitutional amendment. Those are not easy to get passed.
That depends on what regulation we want passed. The First Amendment already includes some pretty important limits on the power of government (included limits which Paul seems loathe to enforce).
"several libertarians I know have said we so" This is a first for me to hear, though it's important to note libertarians are individuals too, and have their own ideas! I have not found any libertarians promoting children as full-class citizens; so this is very new to hear this. Suffice it to say, I don't think that viewpoint is common.
"First Amendment ..." to the constitution. Are you just agreeing with me here?
That was the position of Murray Rothbard [1], who was one of the major intellectual founders of modern libertarianism, particularly anarcho-capitalism. He was a founder of the Ludwig von Mises Institute. Most internet libertarians seem to be followers of his school of libertarianism (although they often do not know it...).
His book "The Ethics of Liberty" covers children in chapter 14. You can find the PDF online. There's a big chunk of chapter 14 here [2]. Here's the most relevant part:
Even from birth, the parental ownership is not
absolute but of a "trustee" or guardianship kind. In
short, every baby as soon as it is born and is
therefore no longer contained within his mother's
body possesses the right of self-ownership by virtue
of being a separate entity and a potential adult. It
must therefore be illegal and a violation of the
child's rights for a parent to aggress against his
person by mutilating, torturing, murdering him, etc.
On the other hand, the very concept of "rights" is a
"negative" one, demarcating the areas of a person's
action that no man may properly interfere with. No
man can therefore have a "right" to compel someone
to do a positive act, for in that case the
compulsion violates the right of person or property
of the individual being coerced. Thus, we may say
that a man has a right to his property (i.e., a
right not to have his property invaded), but we
cannot say that anyone has a "right" to a "living
wage," for that would mean that someone would be
coerced into providing him with such a wage, and
that would violate the property rights of the people
being coerced. As a corollary this means that, in
the free society, no man may be saddled with the
legal obligation to do anything for another, since
that would invade the former's rights; the only
legal obligation one man has to another is to
respect the other man's rights.
Applying our theory to parents and children, this
means that a parent does not have the right to
aggress against his children, but also that the
parent should not have a legal obligation to feed,
clothe, or educate his children, since such
obligations would entail positive acts coerced upon
the parent and depriving the parent of his rights.
The parent therefore may not murder or mutilate his
child, and the law properly outlaws a parent from
doing so. But the parent should have the legal right
not to feed the child, i.e., to allow it to die. The
law, therefore, may not properly compel the parent
to feed a child or to keep it alive. (Again, whether
or not a parent has a moral rather than a legally
enforceable obligation to keep his child alive is a
completely separate question.) This rule allows us
to solve such vexing questions as: should a parent
have the right to allow a deformed baby to die
(e.g., by not feeding it)? The answer is of course
yes, following a fortiori from the larger right to
allow any baby, whether deformed or not, to die.
(Though, as we shall see below, in a libertarian
society the existence of a free baby market will
bring such "neglect" down to a minimum.)
If a parent is so terrible that literally the only force compelling them to feed their children is a legal one, then someone else should be raising that child.
The fact that mothers give birth to babies,not to fully formed and educated adults, is a major unsolved problem of Libertarian and Objectivist (and part of Conservative) philosophy.
I think one should probably be pragmatic. I mean, if you're a republican, you practically need to have someone with these ideals. Otherwise, it'd be impossible to have enough votes.
So Ron Paul (anti-abortion) is not a libertarian? I think this is news to Ron Paul, all of Ron Paul's congressional staffers and campaign volunteers, r/libertarian, mises.org, reason.com, Cato, Students for Liberty, IHS, FEE, FFF, antiwar.com, every libertarian podcast and radio show, and libertarians everywhere. /s
While pro-choice is the view held by the majority of libertarians, there is a large minority of libertarians that are pro-life and they are accepted as libertarians by almost all libertarians.
If every libertarian who disagreed with the libertarian majority on one or two issues were disqualified from being a libertarian there wouldn't be any libertarians left.
> I don't think it's fair to call someone who advocates against abortion and same-sex marriages a libertarian.
Regarding abortion: Libertarians believe in individual liberties. So if you believe that an unborn child is a person, it is very consistent with libertarian-ism to protect its life. The crux of the debate is when does does a fetus become a person.
Regarding same-sex marriages: Again, relating this question to personal freedom, a typical libertarian position is that in the eyes of the law and gov't, a gay marriage should be the same as a heterosexual marriage. However, an individual should have the freedom to not participate in a gay marriage. In other words, saying one person has the freedom to marry who they wish and another has the freedom to not participate in the wedding is very consistent with libertarian views.
> So if you believe that an unborn child is a person, it is very consistent with libertarian-ism to protect its life.
Is it though? Most libertarians say the government shouldn't force you to feed a starving person, but banning abortion means forcing a mother to feed and care for another person (even if you consider a fetus a person).
> Regarding same-sex marriages:
Can you explain how a governmental (even at the state level) distinction between marriage types is consistent with libertarian philosophy?
> banning abortion means forcing a mother to feed and care for another person (even if you consider a fetus a person).
There's a difference between murdering a person and being forced to feed him. So assuming for this argument that a fetus is a person, an abortion would be akin to murder. Being forced to care for the person would be akin to being forced to raise him. Libertarians who believe fetuses are persons are arguing you can't abort the baby, but you can have the baby adopted.
> Can you explain how a governmental (even at the state level) distinction between marriage types is consistent with libertarian philosophy?
I might not understand the question, but many libertarians want the government out of the business of defining marriage at all except where it relates to interacting with the government. Paul seems to have dithered on this issue quite a bit, but this quote of his to National Review in 2013 seems fairly libertarian: "I'm an old-fashioned traditionalist. I believe in the historic and religious definition of marriage...That being said, I'm not for eliminating contracts between adults. I think there are ways to make the tax code more neutral, so it doesn't mention marriage. Then we don't have to redefine what marriage is; we just don't have marriage in the tax code."
> Being forced to care for the person would be akin to being forced to raise him.
Until the baby is born, it does depend entirely on the mother's resources. It literally pulls energy out of her blood stream.
Now, I don't think fetuses are people, but if you believe they are then you have to admit that for the duration of the pregnancy the mother is compelled to feed and provide for that "person."
Yeah, it gets tricky to pick the policy that maximizes individual liberty when one person is biologically dependent on another to live. One way to analyze it is to look at which person sacrifices the greater freedom. If the mother terminates the pregnancy, the baby loses its life. If the baby is allowed to live off the mother's resources until birth, the mother sacrifices 9 months of her body's resources. Again, this all assumes the fetus is a person, which I believe is Rand Paul's position.
So if you believe that an unborn child is a person, it is very consistent with libertarian-ism to protect its life.
But not everyone believes that a fetus is a person. In fact people have quite divergent views on that question, and I am inclined to doubt the debate will ever be finally settled. It is more a matter of religion than of science.
I don't think it's consistent with libertarianism to enact an answer to that question into law when it is still so much debated.
People have an odd view of gay marriage, where people have some sort of right to marry who they choose. Marriage isn't a right, it's a privilege granted by society to try to promote nuclear families. They get tax breaks, etc. at the expense of anyone who doesn't prefer that family structure.
Ideally, these rights could be assigned piecemeal between any two individuals, with non-exclusion (i.e., polyamory is allowed.) Perhaps my spouse isn't the best at difficult decisions, and I'd prefer my stable son to be able to make difficult medical decisions, like whether I should be kept on life support. Perhaps I would like to file taxes jointly with my roommate for two years, if we shared household expenses.
In no way is granting gay marriage some kind of rights equalization, but an expansion of an already unfair system, so I oppose it, just as if white people could own black people, but not vice versa, I would not be in favor of allowing black people to own white people, and would oppose any such measure, while being in favor of real equalization by abolishing the system of anybody owning anybody.
There is no such thing as a good candidate overall. Different citizens want different things.
But if the positions Rand Paul takes that you disagree with are the ones shared by other Republicans then you should still want Rand Paul to win the Republican nomination. Because if a Republican wins in the general election then at least it will be a Republican with the right position on mass surveillance, and if a Democrat wins then it will be a Democrat forced by Rand Paul to take more sensible positions on the issues that Rand Paul is right about.
Please leave your anti-science anti-intellectual comments outside of hacker news.
"FED was instrumental in making USD the most stable currency in the last 100 years" - baseless argument. comparing fiat money to fiat money says nothing about efficacy of fiat money.
"Too bad when California deregulated their energy market..." - http://www.tylervigen.com/ Furthermore, where does this money appear from? If the government makes energy cheaper by paying for it by taxing you more, you are just lying to yourself.
"anti-abortion" - please explain why third-trimester abortions should be allowed. the baby can live by being born at that point, and the mother has had plenty of time to deal with the issue. but sure, you can disagree with that, and I won't debate it here.
"anti same-sex marriage" - "I think the way to fix DOMA is maybe to try to make all of our laws more neutral towards the issue [of same sex marriage], and I don't want the government promoting something I don't believe in.", Rand Paul
So hey, maybe you disagree with some of his positions after you found out what they actually are. Is that enough to say, you shouldn't care at all about privacy, the military industrial complex, foreign entanglements that make us less safe, more drones strikes on civilians, and a corrupt, racist criminal justice system? I recommend becoming informed and making a rational decision about such things instead of lying to yourself.
I'm the kind of guy who would marry another guy. So, I have standing to have an opinion about Gay Marriage.
I don't want the government in marriage AT ALL. Making the laws "more neutral" means getting gender out of the laws. This is a correct first step. Marriage is merely an expression of the right of freedom of association, which all people have. You don't need new laws to make it exist. But you should get rid of laws that violate it.
Alas, most gays and lesbians are more leftist and wanted some sort of recognition form the government.... if they had taken the position of getting government out of marriage completely, they would have found many christians (whose ideas of what their marriages should be are regularly infringed upon by government) as allies.
I'll take Rand Pauls government out of marriage over Bill Clinton (signed DOMA) and the democrats (3/4 of which voted for DOMA) and Obama (he was anti-gay marriage before he was "for" it) anyday.
This. Marriage certificates were invented by the government originally to prevent white and black people from marrying. Their only purpose seems to be to oppress.
Some googling shows this to be, at best, partially true. While marriage license requirements were used to prevent miscegenation, they were not invented for that purpose and they have been used for other purposes.
>Not until the 16th century did European states begin to require that marriages be performed under legal auspices. In part, this was an attempt to prevent unions between young adults whose parents opposed their match.
>The American colonies officially required marriages to be registered, but until the mid-19th century, state supreme courts routinely ruled that public cohabitation was sufficient evidence of a valid marriage. By the later part of that century, however, the United States began to nullify common-law marriages and exert more control over who was allowed to marry.
>By the 1920s, 38 states prohibited whites from marrying blacks, “mulattos,” Japanese, Chinese, Indians, “Mongolians,” “Malays” or Filipinos. Twelve states would not issue a marriage license if one partner was a drunk, an addict or a “mental defect.” Eighteen states set barriers to remarriage after divorce.
>In the mid-20th century, governments began to get out of the business of deciding which couples were “fit” to marry. Courts invalidated laws against interracial marriage, struck down other barriers and even extended marriage rights to prisoners.
>But governments began relying on marriage licenses for a new purpose: as a way of distributing resources to dependents. The Social Security Act provided survivors’ benefits with proof of marriage. Employers used marital status to determine whether they would provide health insurance or pension benefits to employees’ dependents. Courts and hospitals required a marriage license before granting couples the privilege of inheriting from each other or receiving medical information.
Source: [http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/26/opinion/26coontz.html]
This Yale Law Journal article outlines the arguments made by 19th century state courts on both sides of the common law marriage issue: [http://www.jstor.org/stable/797340]
> Marriage certificates were invented by the government originally to prevent white and black people from marrying. Their only purpose seems to be to oppress.
This is a remarkable claim. Do you have a source backing it up?
Bear in mind that marriage certificates exist in many countries which, historically and today, do not have very many black citizens or white citizens.
> I don't want the government in marriage AT ALL. Making the laws "more neutral" means getting gender out of the laws.
Why stop there? Take marriage out of the laws completely.
If your religious institutions marries men to men, women to women, or hell, men to goats or chairs, I don't see why the government should stick its nose in it.
While I agree that it's not the government's place to be involved in marriage, I doubt marriage will ever be taken out of the laws. If only for tax reasons alone, most (married or planning to be married) people will be against abolishing the laws that give them a tax break. Plus, marital status is deeply intertwined with many laws/regulations.
> "anti-abortion" - please explain why third-trimester abortions should be allowed. the baby can live by being born at that point, and the mother has had plenty of time to deal with the issue. but sure, you can disagree with that, and I won't debate it here.
And you please tell us who are you to tell a woman what to do with her body. As a matter of fact, how does anyone other than the woman and her doctor have any standing in this issue?
Here's an analogy. Suppose you have a very rare blood type. Someone with that same blood type is in danger at a hospital; and your blood donation would definitely save his life. Would you let the government force you to donate blood to save this life? Even if it endangered your own life?
A more apt analogy would be denying the removal of a dangerous tumor because the government was interested in studying it. Because thus is essentially the only situation under which third trimester abortions happen in the first place.
> FED was instrumental in making USD the most stable currency in the last 100 years.
If you mean "most stable" in the sense that all the others fared even worse, I guess I can't argue with that. But I'm not sure the word "stable" is the best one to describe the USD since the Fed was created. A "stable" currency would not, I think, have inflated by a factor of about 30 (especially since, before the Fed was created, the USD's value was relatively constant, on average, over time).
First, it goes back to 1800; second, it's from the Fed itself, which means it's doubly entertaining. For example, I love this little note in the "description and comments" section:
Notice how the peaks in inflation over the last 200 years have coincided with major wars.
But don't notice at all how there was, on average, no inflation until after the Fed was created, but since then it's skyrocketed. No, these aren't the droids you're looking for.
> Just because he supports one or two policies we like, doesn't make him good candidate overall.
Yes, but most likely no candidate will line up with a person's beliefs 100%, so it becomes about choosing the candidate who agrees with you on your highest priority issues. Judging from the number of posts on that make the front page of HN about the surveillance state, I would guess that this issue is one that many people here would vote based on.
Do you consider losing %98 of its value "stable"? The US Dollar has lost at least that, probably closer to %99.9999, though it's harder to measure now that the fed is not giving us reliable stats anymore.
Do you realize the FED is a private bank, owned by the upper %1 of the %1? And that giving them an interest rate on ever dollar in circulation was probably the worst example of a government granted monopoly ever?
Do you realize that the incentives are completely aligned against us? The government wants to deficit spend with impunity, the fed wants to collect rent on the entire economy, so the fed prints money, and makes it look like it's not been irresponsible in doing so? (For instance, via the FOMC, by manipulating the gold price)
It's really amazing to me that Liberals seem to never have met a corporation they like, yet they are universally in favor of the Federal Reserve.
Maybe you don't realize it's a private corporation? Yeah, yeah the governing board is appointed, blah blah, that's like saying one fox appointed another to make sure the henhouse was safe.
And now, thanks to Obama, the Fed has the power to FORCIBLY MERGE smaller banks. No way that could be abused, right?
Read The Creature from Jekyll Island. Learn the fed's history. It's not exactly secret this stuff. But most people never get told. And of course the fed isn't going to advertise it.
Well you can't really be a Keynesian and think inflation is bad. Who does it favor? Governmentts and the rich who get the new money first.
For regular people, it encourages them to spend money now and not save. And the only way around it is to invest in the stock market etc where they may make mistakes.
As for your implied notion that it's been stable inflation, I'm not so sure. In the last 40 years, the average price of key foods have increased 400 to 500% when agricultural science and distribution has improved dramatically.
He would have authority over the NSA. That's something he could directly end.
However, FED / Deregulation, abortion, same-sex marriage & vaccination are not things that can be resolved by an executive order.
Every 4 years, people have the same arguments about the same things and they're all generally about things that Congress controls - not the President. And the popular ones (abortion, gun control, etc) haven't really changed all that much at all.
Which he also is not in direct control of since he was blocked - repeatedly - from transferring Guantanamo prisoners to the normal penitentiary system to stand trial in US states.
1. The Federal Reserve is not an acronym. Neither is it an example of a successful government program, when it is explicitly a public-private institution that only serves to guarantee government blank-check spending and easy credit kickbacks to Wall Street.
2. If the free market dictating prices causes such rampant price gouging and monopolization, then why don't we see this in industries that are relatively deregulated like technology or hospitality, as opposed to the most regulated, ie. wall street? The power of industry disruption by nascent startups is systematically more powerful than regulators that have always, throughout history, been moved more by regulatory capture than by populist idealism.
3. The Paul's tend to favor the states deciding social issues.
I would be interested in understanding how he proposes to balance US national security interests with scaling back the NSAs capabilities and Total Information Awareness. I am aware (totally ;)) that Rand Paul is considered a bit of a 'dove' and in that way represents me and many other citizens very well.
However, this dovish attitude failed to express itself before when it came to ISIS - just as it is likely to fail in the face of the Wolfowitz Doctrine - the primary US national security concern has been for the past 25 years that there should be no nation that grows mightily enough to challenge the United States. The defense industry is so bent on this doctrine, and the US allies and obligations so tangled up in it, it would take at least a full 8 years of effort to unravel. What's more, these absolutely radical changes to the United States would alter it inexorably (I'm not saying terribly) from its current state (perhaps closer to 1800's traditional America).
Provided the current challenges to US power, a retirement of global bullying would seem to represent a peaceful option in the short term - but its exactly the sort of thing that causes long term defense strategists heart attacks.
What's more - the NSA capabilities means are disjoint from their ends. I'm not sure whether Paul means to say that he would reverse the NSA's ends to apply their capabilities toward American citizens: thus ending surveillance - but then only by the same sort of policy that is represented by the FISA courts. He could possibly mean that he would scale back the NSA's means, but doing so would be absolutely untenable to anyone close to Washington especially as cyber is seen as one of the key weak areas of US defense. On this note does anyone know who would make up Rand's security council? Is he proposing to elect general doves?
Overall, the statement that he would end surveillance means nothing. We need to know how he would propose to end it. What would it entail? What trade-offs are being made on interacting fronts?
I applaud the lip service though. Even if it's bunk, let's hear some more promises to end mass surveillance. (I'd also like them to mention the DEA, FBI and other intelligence orgs - it ain't just NSA). Clinton?
If anyone is a threat to the Establishment, it is Rand Paul. He is not perfect but he can't be if he wants to win. He has a serious chance of getting the nomination and will help propel the conversation on surveillance reform and criminal justice reform. In another article, it said that he wants to eliminate jail time on all non-violent drug misdemeanors.
> If anyone is a threat to the Establishment, it is Rand Paul.
He's not a threat to the part of the Establishment which wants government regulation rolled back so they can pollute and play games with energy prices.
It will be a mildly entertaining distraction to watch establishment politicians squirm with this issue. Will anyone really argue in favor of dragnet surveillance?
But in the end it will be just that, a mildly entertaining distraction. Rand Paul has no chance, and even if he were to be elected President in a fluke, nothing much would change.
All presidential candidates make similar promises when they run, and then, when they get elected, they get exposed to the true reasons why most of these programs exist and they realize the reality is not as simple as it seemed from outside. And then, they perpetuate the status quo.
Besides, I just can't stand libertarians who contradict their own positions saying that they want the government out of their lives except when it pertains to contraception, abortion, mandatory vaccinations and same-sex marriage.
On this issue I think Rand Paul has been quite consistent. He was among only a handful of Senators against the FISA Amendments Act renewal from 2012, when he proposed a "4th amendment act" that would require a warrant for all data requests:
This guy has been preaching this stuff for years and voted like that as well.
Obama on the other hand came out of nowhere, told us nice things we wanted to hear and then did a 180 when he became president. Oh, and just before he won his first mandate he voted for the Patriot Act's renewal while still in Senate - all while he was promoting an "end to illegal mass surveillance" in his campaign.
I'm just saying, at least on this issue, he might be a little different than Obama. I would've still preferred his dad much more...but I'm not really seeing anyone fighting for this major issue. It's not a "privacy" issue...it's a liberty issue - I think that stuff used to be pretty important for Americans, no? I'm not seeing Elizabeth Warren, not seeing Bernie Sanders, nor Hillary Clinton pushing against the surveillance state from the Democratic side.
I'm not in favor of a rand paul president, or even nominee. However I think it's great to at least have one candidate who can steer the conversation towards these issues.
Hopefully he will go after candidates on the left and right about this.
"President John F. Kennedy had sent military advisors and then troops into South Vietnam. After Kennedy’s assassination, what to do about the Vietnam War became a pressing matter of business for the new president, Lyndon B. Johnson."
"Accepting the de facto partition of Vietnam as unavoidable but still pledging to halt the spread of communism in Asia, U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower began a crash program of assistance to the State of Vietnam—or South Vietnam, as it was invariably called. The Saigon Military Mission, a covert operation to conduct psychological warfare and paramilitary activities in South Vietnam, was launched on June 1, 1954"
This is my litmus test for all future elections until this issue is resolved. There is and will never be a candidate that reflects all or even most of my positions. But, if a candidate is willing to unequivocally say that they will end domestic surveillance programs and uphold the 4th amendment, they will get my vote over anyone else who shows even the slightest hesitation, period.
This is the single most important issue of the internet era. The current policy will erase the concept of privacy altogether. It is hardly "just a single issue".
Given the current field of candidates, it's pretty much Rand Paul or More-Of-The-Same. Seriously, Hillary is just Obama-term-three and Jeb... oh Lord, talk about scary.
as someone who vehemently hated Bush Jr, I am beginning to wonder which would ultimately be more dangerous and damaging to the states; the sneakily nefarious third term Obama cabinet which will say one thing and do the other while ignoring the people calling them out on it to gradually gain small amounts of power, or the recklessly irresponsible and blatant nature of the Bush cowboy genes and the power grabs that are so obvious that half of his own party disagrees.
God, it makes me sick to my stomach to sound pro Bush. I promise I don't mean it that way.
Great, the man also wants to destroy public funding of science. I understand that that is his opinion, but well fuck that. I want to be a scientist and need REUs. Science is more important than capitalism. Capitalism has failed the world.
edit: that last sentence was a bit much, I'll admit.
Capitalism is the reason you are using the wonderful machine in front of you. Capitalism is the reason you have food. Capitalism is the reason you are not right now waiting in line for toilet paper. Capitalism has far from failed.
Very little actual good and a lot of bad science has come from public funding.
> Capitalism is the reason you are using the wonderful machine in front of you. Capitalism is the reason you have food. Capitalism is the reason you are not right now waiting in line for toilet paper. Capitalism has far from failed.
Correlation doesn't imply causation. That countries like Finland, Sweden etc. exist and do very well (in most metrics better than the USA), which use a system that most people in the US label "socialism" shows that there is not very much reason to believe that any of that was because of capitalism. It could very well be that despite capitalism all that happened. We will never know.
"The president created this vast dragnet by executive order." That's a remarkable simplification. Makes a good sound bite, but demonstrates, to me anyway, that he doesn't mean what he's saying.
Falsifying the origin of a problem you claim to intend to fix puts that claim in quite a bit of doubt.
206 comments
[ 2.5 ms ] story [ 230 ms ] threadThat being said, an honest politician...
It's almost like we need another word other than politician.
I mean, that did happen didn't it?
Barack Obama was viewed as a major contender for the Democratic Party nomination from the beginning of the primaries. He and Hillary were the only two candidates that had raised over $20MM in the first 3 months of 2007. So, 19 months before the election, the two serious democratic candidates had already taken the lead. In January 2008, Obama won 3 of the 4 first primaries, and tied with Hillary in the 4th.
Rand Paul is viewed as following in his father's footsteps, who was never taken seriously by the national party. In his best performance in 2012, Ron Paul only won the primary in the US Virgin Islands.
The Republican field is completely different, of course, but that's why Rand Paul could win. The "front runner" has less than 17% of the vote and there are less than ten percentage points between #1 and #7. Those are exactly the conditions under which a candidate who can differentiate himself can succeed by capturing the entirety of his own base while the base of the other camp is split between several different candidates.
In the popular vote, true, but in number of delegates, once the counts were tallied, Ron Paul won Iowa, Maine, Minnesota and Louisiana.
Ron Paul also had a solid financial campaign in 2012, not the largest fund, but likely the best managed. his performance was in large part diminished by media bashing on the eve of any primary elections in which polls were in his favor. For example, see CNN's Gloria Borger interview cut, which was quite outrageous.
I personally am rather more worried about corporate surveillance than NSA surveillance. That's why I pay cash for everything, and take pains to blackhole web analytics servers with my hosts file.
<opinion> One may, of course, disagree that this is sound policy, but this opinion seems to be all-too-often presented in a manner which deliberately misunderstands / misrepresents the theory, perhaps in order to strengthen the invective language advocating against these policies. (Be sure to keep an eye on that, at least for the sake of your own intellectual honesty.)
Not all extant corporations are made to seek profits. There are nonprofits out there for a variety of charitable causes, social-justice causes, and other activities which often have a nontrivial component to them. I believe the ACLU is a corporation, for instance -- the EFF as well, and Amnesty International. We've seen many of their free-speech activities on this site. What provision shall we make for these activities and organizations in an alternative legal framework?
More generally: if an arbitrary profit-seeking corporation doesn't have first-amendment rights, why do newspapers specifically have them? (Or are we abandoning freedom of the press as well? That'll take some Constitutional doing, naturally.) Assuming that it remains, why should Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation or Bloomberg's Bloomberg have rights that Warren Buffet's Berkshire Hathaway doesn't? And where and how should we go about drawing a line between "press" and "not press" organizations in a complicated world where, for instance, an Internet-technology firm like AOL has bought a major news entity, Time Warner?
Outside speech questions specifically, if a corporation does not have first-amendment protection to speak as it chooses, does this mean the government ought to be legally compel its choice of speech? (e.g. endorsing specific politicians, policies, etc.) Is it protected from search and seizures by the Fourth Amendment? (Or, hell, from quartering troops by the third?)
These questions may or may not have good answers. Either way, these narrow margins can hardly contain a proper treatment of the matter. I'm just throwing a few monkey wrenches into the problem, as your comment was simple and straightforward, but the consequences of the proposed legal regime are complex and wide-reaching. :P
There are many projects online that do that for you. All you need to do( just once ) is to download the file and add custom domains if you have some, but this is usually not required since everything that doesn't break the "web experience" is blocked by default.
Can you give an example?
A corporation won't bust down your door when they can just have LE do it on their behalf. The iPhone 4 leak comes to mind... http://www.fastcompany.com/1628188/police-raid-gizmodo-edito...
[1]: http://stlouis.cbslocal.com/2012/10/15/florissant-police-arr... [2]: http://gizmodo.com/5524843/police-seize-jason-chens-computer...
Furthermore, I think shunning and blacklisting should be a protected form of individual choice. For example, I'm just not going to hang out with someone that's a racist. That is and should be 100% my choice. But I don't have a right to physically harm them. I'll argue that this arrangement of making violence special and different from harsh-words or shunning will make for a more functional society because we don't always all have to agree but we can still live in one place together.
Ron Paul was an incredibly good marketer, first selling conspiracy newsletters and racist shit to kooks, then realizing that American libertarians are both wealthier and more gullible. Rand is v2.0 of that awful nonsense.
I haven't heard a reasonable proposal to put that cat back into its bag, and without one Rand's statement sounds impractical and misguided, at best.
Latvia deploy surveillance potato! You now scared!
A reasonable proposal is for ALL candidates to say that these programs are expensive, not useful and should be ended. (One might also say they are a blatant example of government overreach - but that is just my opinion and you are free to disagree.) It is not misguided to say that a bad program should be ended.
It would be very nice to see other candidates making similar pledges though.
Some of his positions:
Life begins at conception.
Endorsed Liberty Candidate: End the Federal Reserve.
Women won the "war on women": they're no longer downtrodden.
Punishing the rich means the poor lose their jobs.
Blacks look who's in prison & conclude cops out to get them.
EPA regulations cost $15 trillion in 2012.
Exit the UN; maintain US sovereignty.
Defund, repeal, & replace federal care with free market.
Defense should be largest part of much smaller budget.
Social Security is a Ponzi scheme.
Economic growth comes when we lower taxes for everyone.
Voted NO on authorizing states to collect Internet sales taxes.
Tax cuts help the poor because local businesses will hire.
Yeah, no thanks.
The returns generated depend on finding new investors in the scheme, if current investors pull out the scheme cannot return promised benefits to current investors.
This is pretty much the precise definition of a ponzi scheme and why the scheme faces certain bankruptcy with out a significant rise in births.
Or we could just remove the cap for social security tax.
Your comment doesn't really add anything to the conversation, expand my knowledge, or even explain why anyone should value your opinion...
I don't mean to be rude, but it was a rather harsh comment, without much (if any) addition to the conversation.
http://religiondispatches.org/rand-paul-we-wouldnt-need-laws...
That quote is taken out of context. To quote the entire thing:
"The point is that I have heard of – I mean who hasn’t ever met a child who has a profound disability and in the parents’ mind they see a connection,” Paul said. “But I didn’t allege there is a connection. I said I heard of people who believe there is a connection. I do think that vaccines are a good idea. I’ve been vaccinated. My kids have been vaccinated."
>http://religiondispatches.org/rand-paul-we-wouldnt-need-laws...
The headlines says "Rand Paul: We Wouldn’t Need Laws If Everyone Were Christian". Paul never said anything like that. He said that "Christian values" like non-violence and such are good.
> That quote is taken out of context. To quote the entire thing
That wasn't out of context, that's him later trying to walk back his quote. They link directly to a video of him saying what they quoted[1]
(and even ignoring that, his point that parents should essentially use their instincts for setting a vaccination schedule is irresponsible and would make for incredibly poor public policy)
[1] http://video.cnbc.com/gallery/?video=3000351424 at 1:53
Private prisons? Have at it. Urban poverty? Let the charities deal with it. Access to abortion? Similar response to gay marriage.
The only reason he's popular on the internet is because he likes bitcoin, wants to legalize weed, wants to drastically reduce defense spending (including scaling back the NSA), and likes "civil liberties" (whatever those are).
As far as private prisons I think his views on sentencing are much more relevant. I think people being sentenced to less time and those who have non-violent offence being released are more important than whether the prison is owned and operated by the gov't.
As far as popularity he's the only Republican that outpolls Clinton in many swing states. (Not sure if you were insinuating that he's only popular on the internet)
He's a huge advocate of fixing urban poverty by not removing working parents from their home to serve lengthy sentences for non-violence offences.
Ron Paul? He was the only one who said he would do away with it. Full stop. If only Rand Paul could reverse that majority of opinion this time in the debates, and force most candidates to say they'd also scale back on the mass surveillance, support repealing the Patriot, FISAA, EO12333, and possibly even pardon Snowden (probably even promising that in the campaign would be the best litmus test to see whether a candidate is actually serious about truly reforming the surveillance powers).
It's worth thinking about the significance of that. These guys aren't doing it because it's wildly unpopular with voters.
but one could argue that it's so popular with voters due to fear mongering, the labeling of everyday criminals as 'terrorists', and the national call to arms every few weeks when some psycho (undoubtedly referred to incorrectly as a terrorist) shoots his way through somewhere.
At what stop in this twisted feedback loop are we going to place blame? It seems pretty naive to put the blame on the scared (and voting) public.
For example, he doesn't support FED in controlling money supply. But FED was instrumental in making USD the most stable currency in the last 100 years.
He doesn't like energy regulations and believes free market should dictate the energy prices. Too bad when California deregulated their energy market, the prices went up 10x in some cases due to market manipulations by Enron and similar.
And then there is his religious agenda like anti-abortion, anti same-sex marriages, anti mandatory vaccination etc...
Just because he supports one or two policies we like, doesn't make him good candidate overall. Even a broken clock is right two times a day.
Its always nice to have a link when you make such claims :)
"I've heard of many tragic cases of walking, talking, normal children who wound up with profound mental disorders after vaccines," Paul said. "I'm not arguing vaccines are a bad idea. I think they're a good thing. But I think the parents should have some input."
http://www.cnn.com/2015/02/02/politics/rand-paul-vaccine-eff...
I was kind of shocked when I heard a Ophthalmologist make such a pandering comment. He is a trained Doctor? I won't argue Libertinism on this site. I have a feeling this link will get more comments than when Paul Graham told us to be nice--essentially because we are jealous of successful people?
What's so shocking about letting parents decide what medical treatment their children undergo?
He has repeatedly said that parents should get their children vaccinated. And they should. Parents who don't are irresponsible, both socially and toward their children.
However, should and must are two very different words.
When you start talking about mandatory, you're talking about cops breaking down doors, taking children away, and vaccinating them by force.
Is that what you support? That's sick.
Mandatory also means you might be subject to fines or denied access to government social programs.
So you write me that ticket and I shove it down my pants, wipe my ass with it, and throw it in your direction. What then?
You want to know what happens when you don't pay the government's fines?
http://www.npr.org/blogs/codeswitch/2015/02/09/384968360/jai...
So you're OK with throwing people in jail for not performing a medical procedure on their children? I just want to know where you stand.
Personally, I think we're better off with a public shaming campaign, same as we did with smoking, but apparently I'm soft?
Yes.
Thank you. That's the truth. I very rarely find myself a moderate on things, but both sides of this argument make me sick.
The selfish parents who claim vaccines cause autism and who are really riding on herd immunity, while avoiding the relatively minor risks involved with vaccination ... and people like you who think that the solution is to use force and throw these people in jail.
A little shaming will go a long way. Both sides have jumped to absurd extremes.
So, this is an interesting ad-hominem, but something to consider is that, if a candidate is against pervasive government influence, they probably are also against using the .gov to enforce their ideology on other people.
He doesn't really touch on deeper libertarian or even minarchist philosophy at all. His stringent views on border security are also unusual for it (unless you're Hans-Hermann Hoppe).
His platform ultimately rests on anti-federalism.
Edit- I can't reply below but you are using the term incorrectly and in the context of Anti-Federalists from the 18th century. From Wikipedia on federalism:
> In contrast, Europe has a greater history of unitary states than North America, thus European "federalism" argues for a weaker central government, relative to a unitary state. The modern American usage of the word is much closer to the European sense.
The anti-federalists advocated for states rights and against a strong federal government.
(1) It seems you are just dismissing him and his father have similar ideas, which aren't necessarily any crazier than every other politician ever (i.e. social security is so awesome). Rand and Ron Paul both supported STATES rights, which lets be honest, makes it possible to move between states and have different taxes, laws, and unique experiences. This leads me to my second point...
(2) "His religious agenda" he's made it clear he doesn't have a agenda, he's not going to push any religious agenda because he seems (at least) to support the constitution. This means that,
(2a) Rand seems to support the President, Senate, House, and Supreme court all being separate. Constitutionally, the president doesn't control a state religion, abortion, marriage, etc.
(2b) Supporting the policy of letting the states determine their laws seems probably the most American thing to do. If you don't like it, you just move to a different state where people are like minded.
It's actually pretty awesome if you ask me, we can work together to defend our country, but live the way we want.
That is the American dream.
The Establishment Clause is pretty clear that states should not and cannot enact state religions, and its up to the federal government to enforce that.
The fact that Rand Paul is clearly biased by his religion makes him distinctly un-libertarian.
On numerous occasions, Paul has referenced religious motivations for creating social policies. For example, he is opposed to same-sex marriage because it "offends him."
Paul is not a libertarian. He's just a standard anti-Federalist Republican.
My favorite quote from that (showing how intellectually dishonest Paul really is): "The First Amendment says keep government out of religion, not religion out of government."
http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/presidential-races/21967...
"Senator Paul believes marriage is an issue that should be dealt with at the state level,” political adviser Doug Stafford told The Daily Beast. “Nothing about his position has changed." Stafford later added: "Senator Paul does not want his guns or his marriage registered in Washington. He has said this repeatedly and consistently. Marriage is not a federal issue. It is an issue for state and local governments to deal with."
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/03/28/rand-ditche...
According to the second quote, Paul is also opposed to federal opposite-sex marriage. That's pretty much a standard libertarian position.
Laws related to abolition, marriage, etc. is not necessarily religious, so claiming the states should make their own decisions seems fair.
Also, he's a Republican (for better or worse), he'll almost certainly get a large portion of Libertarian vote though (which accounts for 2 - 5% of the population per state).
Pray tell me what non-religious arguments you have against same-sex marriage and abortion (I assume you meant "abortion" instead of "abolition").
I see this rhetoric a lot and would love an actual explanation. Do you propose that tax benefits for couples should be abolished? How do you propose to handle Estate planning? Health and other insurance benefits? Managing the custody of children of divorce? How exactly do you imagine the government not being involved in marriage? Because as it stands today, the government is inextricably a part of the concept of marriage; the government must recognize a marriage in order for the benefits of marriage to work.
Yes. (I am married)
> How do you propose to handle Estate planning?
Contract law. Before you get married, sign a contract that outlines everything.
> Health and other insurance benefits?
Nothing to do with government or at least, should have nothing to do with government. The insurance companies can structure it however they want.
> Managing the custody of children of divorce?
Contract law. See above. Marriage at its heart is a business arrangement. You share resources and work for a common purpose. It's almost like you're starting a company with a partner.
Would you start a business without signing a contract that didn't outline not only how the arrangement would function, but what would happen if it were to come to an end? Of course you wouldn't.
> How exactly do you imagine the government not being involved in marriage?
It can be involved in marriage through contract law. The same way it's involved in any business arrangement where a contract was signed.
In other words, if need be, one party can take another to court over the breach of a contract.
The issue today is that the government defines that contract. It specifies who the contract can be between (a man and a woman), specifies what happens when that contract ends, what benefits accrue, it essentially controls everything about that contract ... why not let the people choose what form they want their marriage to take? Why force everyone into the same universal contract that in the end doesn't really fit anyone properly because it's so unbelievably general?
> Because as it stands today, the government is inextricably a part of the concept of marriage
Unfortunately.
> the government must recognize a marriage in order for the benefits of marriage to work.
Resource sharing is by far the greatest benefit and it has nothing to do with the government. Yes, tax benefits and such stem directly from the government ... but that's about it.
Lots of people do without a lot of specific detail on that, because they take advantage of government-created standard business forms that, in addition to providing special advantages not available through contract alone, also provide well-tested default handling of common situations, including dissolution.
Much like marriage.
> It can be involved in marriage through contract law. The same way it's involved in any business arrangement where a contract was signed.
But, if you want to compare marriage to a business arrangement, you should also be aware that government doesn't just manage business arrangements through general contract law, it defines a whole bunch of special standard forms for business entities which people form (various classes of corporations, LPs, LLPs, LLLPs, LLCs, heck, even general partnerships have a separate body of law from general contract law.)
So, the only way marriage is different is that government hasn't provided a whole bunch of different special forms for couples with different priorities and goals.
That's not argument against same-sex marriage; it's against all government-recognized marriage, even opposite-sex marriage.
It's funny how people come out against "marriage" only when teh gays become interested in it.
The reality is, there is little upside in a Republican primary for saying he thinks gays should marry or for promoting a nuanced view on abortion. Just like his dance on saying he will increase defense spending after first proposing to cut it.
I don't understand what you're saying here—are you implying that MDs are somehow unlikely to be religious?
And he certainly has a strong belief in its separation from government.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Establishment_Clause#Incorporat...
The second paragraph in the Incorporation clause discusses my points above.
However, since incorporation via the Fourteenth Amendment, the majority of precent applies it to the states as well.
(I've written dozens of papers on the Establishment Clause.)
That would work because aside from a small number of case types the Constitution explicitly says the Supreme Court has original jurisdiction over, it is Congress that decides the bounds of Federal jurisdiction.
Here was one of Ron Paul's bills on this: http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c112:H.R.958.IH:/
Please don't use the term "American Dream" from now on. I'm not trying to be mean/sarcastic, but that term is too... it's dead. It's dead of any real meaning, and it makes candidates and their supporters sound like parodies of themselves.
Libertarians seem to universally believe that everyone is just born with wealth, or that if you bootstraps hard enough, you are just bound to trip over wealth.
"Liberals seem to universally believe that the status you are born into will probably be the status you stay in your entire life."
The important distinction here is that competence isn't a factor and that the above statement is true in every measurable way.
Ugh. This is the kind of elitist self-righteous perspective that keeps me from wanting to have anything to do with the far right. "Just move to a different state"?! You probably have the means to do so. MOST people do not. Even you are probably unlikely to say, oh, I think this state sucks, I'm going to pick-up and leave tomorrow.
People have families, jobs (and new jobs to get), kids, commitments, ailing parents, etc. Get off your high horse and stop thinking the rest of the world is just like you.
What matters though is which of these policies would actually get implemented if he becomes president. My guess is that ending NSA surveillance and the war on drugs would, the others not so much. You'd probably get a couple bad laws and a couple bad Supreme Court justices, but that's not much worse than you'd get with anyone else. I probably wouldn't vote for him for president, but I'd have no problem with him winning the Republican primary.
See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_libertarianism
Libertarianism is probably best not defined as a noun but as an adjective.
As far as same-sex marriage, Rand Paul thinks it is not the federal government's responsibility to regulate that. Removing regulation over social issues from government IS a very libertarian philosophy.
As for abortion, even if you consider the fetus a "person," I don't see how a libertarian would make a good case for the government to force the mother to continue to sustain and provide for it.
> Removing regulation over social issues from government IS a very libertarian philosophy.
Delegating to the states is very different from removing the regulation. The libertarian thing to do would be to ban such regulation.
So all neglect laws should be removed?
> The libertarian thing to do would be to ban such regulation.
That requires a constitutional amendment. Those are not easy to get passed.
I am not a libertarian, so I wouldn't. But several libertarians I know have said we so, and also argue that there should be no duty to feed the poor, etc.
> The libertarian thing to do would be to ban such regulation. That requires a constitutional amendment. Those are not easy to get passed.
That depends on what regulation we want passed. The First Amendment already includes some pretty important limits on the power of government (included limits which Paul seems loathe to enforce).
"First Amendment ..." to the constitution. Are you just agreeing with me here?
That was the position of Murray Rothbard [1], who was one of the major intellectual founders of modern libertarianism, particularly anarcho-capitalism. He was a founder of the Ludwig von Mises Institute. Most internet libertarians seem to be followers of his school of libertarianism (although they often do not know it...).
His book "The Ethics of Liberty" covers children in chapter 14. You can find the PDF online. There's a big chunk of chapter 14 here [2]. Here's the most relevant part:
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murray_Rothbard[2] http://mises.org/library/children-and-rights
If a parent is so terrible that literally the only force compelling them to feed their children is a legal one, then someone else should be raising that child.
The current system provides a mechanism for someone else to raise the child (CPS can take the child away).
In Rothbard's world, who intervenes in the case of parental neglect? The text implies that nobody intervenes.
While pro-choice is the view held by the majority of libertarians, there is a large minority of libertarians that are pro-life and they are accepted as libertarians by almost all libertarians.
If every libertarian who disagreed with the libertarian majority on one or two issues were disqualified from being a libertarian there wouldn't be any libertarians left.
Regarding abortion: Libertarians believe in individual liberties. So if you believe that an unborn child is a person, it is very consistent with libertarian-ism to protect its life. The crux of the debate is when does does a fetus become a person.
Regarding same-sex marriages: Again, relating this question to personal freedom, a typical libertarian position is that in the eyes of the law and gov't, a gay marriage should be the same as a heterosexual marriage. However, an individual should have the freedom to not participate in a gay marriage. In other words, saying one person has the freedom to marry who they wish and another has the freedom to not participate in the wedding is very consistent with libertarian views.
Is it though? Most libertarians say the government shouldn't force you to feed a starving person, but banning abortion means forcing a mother to feed and care for another person (even if you consider a fetus a person).
> Regarding same-sex marriages:
Can you explain how a governmental (even at the state level) distinction between marriage types is consistent with libertarian philosophy?
There's a difference between murdering a person and being forced to feed him. So assuming for this argument that a fetus is a person, an abortion would be akin to murder. Being forced to care for the person would be akin to being forced to raise him. Libertarians who believe fetuses are persons are arguing you can't abort the baby, but you can have the baby adopted.
> Can you explain how a governmental (even at the state level) distinction between marriage types is consistent with libertarian philosophy?
I might not understand the question, but many libertarians want the government out of the business of defining marriage at all except where it relates to interacting with the government. Paul seems to have dithered on this issue quite a bit, but this quote of his to National Review in 2013 seems fairly libertarian: "I'm an old-fashioned traditionalist. I believe in the historic and religious definition of marriage...That being said, I'm not for eliminating contracts between adults. I think there are ways to make the tax code more neutral, so it doesn't mention marriage. Then we don't have to redefine what marriage is; we just don't have marriage in the tax code."
Until the baby is born, it does depend entirely on the mother's resources. It literally pulls energy out of her blood stream.
Now, I don't think fetuses are people, but if you believe they are then you have to admit that for the duration of the pregnancy the mother is compelled to feed and provide for that "person."
The core of the debate should be human life is not terminable based on convenience.
Anyone who argues that it is, personage, would have no way to argue against any war, past, present or future.
But not everyone believes that a fetus is a person. In fact people have quite divergent views on that question, and I am inclined to doubt the debate will ever be finally settled. It is more a matter of religion than of science.
I don't think it's consistent with libertarianism to enact an answer to that question into law when it is still so much debated.
Ideally, these rights could be assigned piecemeal between any two individuals, with non-exclusion (i.e., polyamory is allowed.) Perhaps my spouse isn't the best at difficult decisions, and I'd prefer my stable son to be able to make difficult medical decisions, like whether I should be kept on life support. Perhaps I would like to file taxes jointly with my roommate for two years, if we shared household expenses.
In no way is granting gay marriage some kind of rights equalization, but an expansion of an already unfair system, so I oppose it, just as if white people could own black people, but not vice versa, I would not be in favor of allowing black people to own white people, and would oppose any such measure, while being in favor of real equalization by abolishing the system of anybody owning anybody.
However beyond that, you should be more educated before spouting historical "facts".
California Energy Deregulation: http://www.forbes.com/sites/williampentland/2013/10/13/after...
Federal Reserve History: https://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/advisor/federal-100-years-de...
In this case, your clock is simply wrong 24 hours a day.
But if the positions Rand Paul takes that you disagree with are the ones shared by other Republicans then you should still want Rand Paul to win the Republican nomination. Because if a Republican wins in the general election then at least it will be a Republican with the right position on mass surveillance, and if a Democrat wins then it will be a Democrat forced by Rand Paul to take more sensible positions on the issues that Rand Paul is right about.
"FED was instrumental in making USD the most stable currency in the last 100 years" - baseless argument. comparing fiat money to fiat money says nothing about efficacy of fiat money.
"Too bad when California deregulated their energy market..." - http://www.tylervigen.com/ Furthermore, where does this money appear from? If the government makes energy cheaper by paying for it by taxing you more, you are just lying to yourself.
"anti-abortion" - please explain why third-trimester abortions should be allowed. the baby can live by being born at that point, and the mother has had plenty of time to deal with the issue. but sure, you can disagree with that, and I won't debate it here.
"anti same-sex marriage" - "I think the way to fix DOMA is maybe to try to make all of our laws more neutral towards the issue [of same sex marriage], and I don't want the government promoting something I don't believe in.", Rand Paul
"vaccination" - http://www.latimes.com/nation/politics/politicsnow/la-pn-ran...
So hey, maybe you disagree with some of his positions after you found out what they actually are. Is that enough to say, you shouldn't care at all about privacy, the military industrial complex, foreign entanglements that make us less safe, more drones strikes on civilians, and a corrupt, racist criminal justice system? I recommend becoming informed and making a rational decision about such things instead of lying to yourself.
I don't want the government in marriage AT ALL. Making the laws "more neutral" means getting gender out of the laws. This is a correct first step. Marriage is merely an expression of the right of freedom of association, which all people have. You don't need new laws to make it exist. But you should get rid of laws that violate it.
Alas, most gays and lesbians are more leftist and wanted some sort of recognition form the government.... if they had taken the position of getting government out of marriage completely, they would have found many christians (whose ideas of what their marriages should be are regularly infringed upon by government) as allies.
I'll take Rand Pauls government out of marriage over Bill Clinton (signed DOMA) and the democrats (3/4 of which voted for DOMA) and Obama (he was anti-gay marriage before he was "for" it) anyday.
>Not until the 16th century did European states begin to require that marriages be performed under legal auspices. In part, this was an attempt to prevent unions between young adults whose parents opposed their match.
>The American colonies officially required marriages to be registered, but until the mid-19th century, state supreme courts routinely ruled that public cohabitation was sufficient evidence of a valid marriage. By the later part of that century, however, the United States began to nullify common-law marriages and exert more control over who was allowed to marry.
>By the 1920s, 38 states prohibited whites from marrying blacks, “mulattos,” Japanese, Chinese, Indians, “Mongolians,” “Malays” or Filipinos. Twelve states would not issue a marriage license if one partner was a drunk, an addict or a “mental defect.” Eighteen states set barriers to remarriage after divorce.
>In the mid-20th century, governments began to get out of the business of deciding which couples were “fit” to marry. Courts invalidated laws against interracial marriage, struck down other barriers and even extended marriage rights to prisoners.
>But governments began relying on marriage licenses for a new purpose: as a way of distributing resources to dependents. The Social Security Act provided survivors’ benefits with proof of marriage. Employers used marital status to determine whether they would provide health insurance or pension benefits to employees’ dependents. Courts and hospitals required a marriage license before granting couples the privilege of inheriting from each other or receiving medical information. Source: [http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/26/opinion/26coontz.html]
The context here is United States. I don't know anything about European marriage nor is it relevant to this conversation.
This is a remarkable claim. Do you have a source backing it up?
Bear in mind that marriage certificates exist in many countries which, historically and today, do not have very many black citizens or white citizens.
Why stop there? Take marriage out of the laws completely.
If your religious institutions marries men to men, women to women, or hell, men to goats or chairs, I don't see why the government should stick its nose in it.
And you please tell us who are you to tell a woman what to do with her body. As a matter of fact, how does anyone other than the woman and her doctor have any standing in this issue?
Here's an analogy. Suppose you have a very rare blood type. Someone with that same blood type is in danger at a hospital; and your blood donation would definitely save his life. Would you let the government force you to donate blood to save this life? Even if it endangered your own life?
> I recommend becoming informed and making a rational decision about such things instead of lying to yourself.
Please don't insult the person you're talking to. Doing so breaks our rule about civility.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
If you mean "most stable" in the sense that all the others fared even worse, I guess I can't argue with that. But I'm not sure the word "stable" is the best one to describe the USD since the Fed was created. A "stable" currency would not, I think, have inflated by a factor of about 30 (especially since, before the Fed was created, the USD's value was relatively constant, on average, over time).
http://www.economics-charts.com/cpi/cpi-1800-2005.html
First, it goes back to 1800; second, it's from the Fed itself, which means it's doubly entertaining. For example, I love this little note in the "description and comments" section:
Notice how the peaks in inflation over the last 200 years have coincided with major wars.
But don't notice at all how there was, on average, no inflation until after the Fed was created, but since then it's skyrocketed. No, these aren't the droids you're looking for.
Yes, but most likely no candidate will line up with a person's beliefs 100%, so it becomes about choosing the candidate who agrees with you on your highest priority issues. Judging from the number of posts on that make the front page of HN about the surveillance state, I would guess that this issue is one that many people here would vote based on.
Do you realize the FED is a private bank, owned by the upper %1 of the %1? And that giving them an interest rate on ever dollar in circulation was probably the worst example of a government granted monopoly ever?
Do you realize that the incentives are completely aligned against us? The government wants to deficit spend with impunity, the fed wants to collect rent on the entire economy, so the fed prints money, and makes it look like it's not been irresponsible in doing so? (For instance, via the FOMC, by manipulating the gold price)
It's really amazing to me that Liberals seem to never have met a corporation they like, yet they are universally in favor of the Federal Reserve.
Maybe you don't realize it's a private corporation? Yeah, yeah the governing board is appointed, blah blah, that's like saying one fox appointed another to make sure the henhouse was safe.
And now, thanks to Obama, the Fed has the power to FORCIBLY MERGE smaller banks. No way that could be abused, right?
Read The Creature from Jekyll Island. Learn the fed's history. It's not exactly secret this stuff. But most people never get told. And of course the fed isn't going to advertise it.
Yeah, I don't understand how inflation works either.
For regular people, it encourages them to spend money now and not save. And the only way around it is to invest in the stock market etc where they may make mistakes.
As for your implied notion that it's been stable inflation, I'm not so sure. In the last 40 years, the average price of key foods have increased 400 to 500% when agricultural science and distribution has improved dramatically.
However, FED / Deregulation, abortion, same-sex marriage & vaccination are not things that can be resolved by an executive order.
Every 4 years, people have the same arguments about the same things and they're all generally about things that Congress controls - not the President. And the popular ones (abortion, gun control, etc) haven't really changed all that much at all.
2. If the free market dictating prices causes such rampant price gouging and monopolization, then why don't we see this in industries that are relatively deregulated like technology or hospitality, as opposed to the most regulated, ie. wall street? The power of industry disruption by nascent startups is systematically more powerful than regulators that have always, throughout history, been moved more by regulatory capture than by populist idealism.
3. The Paul's tend to favor the states deciding social issues.
That's complete bullcrap. The most stable for the last 100 years (1915 - present) is the Swiss Franc.
However, this dovish attitude failed to express itself before when it came to ISIS - just as it is likely to fail in the face of the Wolfowitz Doctrine - the primary US national security concern has been for the past 25 years that there should be no nation that grows mightily enough to challenge the United States. The defense industry is so bent on this doctrine, and the US allies and obligations so tangled up in it, it would take at least a full 8 years of effort to unravel. What's more, these absolutely radical changes to the United States would alter it inexorably (I'm not saying terribly) from its current state (perhaps closer to 1800's traditional America).
Provided the current challenges to US power, a retirement of global bullying would seem to represent a peaceful option in the short term - but its exactly the sort of thing that causes long term defense strategists heart attacks.
What's more - the NSA capabilities means are disjoint from their ends. I'm not sure whether Paul means to say that he would reverse the NSA's ends to apply their capabilities toward American citizens: thus ending surveillance - but then only by the same sort of policy that is represented by the FISA courts. He could possibly mean that he would scale back the NSA's means, but doing so would be absolutely untenable to anyone close to Washington especially as cyber is seen as one of the key weak areas of US defense. On this note does anyone know who would make up Rand's security council? Is he proposing to elect general doves?
Overall, the statement that he would end surveillance means nothing. We need to know how he would propose to end it. What would it entail? What trade-offs are being made on interacting fronts?
I applaud the lip service though. Even if it's bunk, let's hear some more promises to end mass surveillance. (I'd also like them to mention the DEA, FBI and other intelligence orgs - it ain't just NSA). Clinton?
He's not a threat to the part of the Establishment which wants government regulation rolled back so they can pollute and play games with energy prices.
But in the end it will be just that, a mildly entertaining distraction. Rand Paul has no chance, and even if he were to be elected President in a fluke, nothing much would change.
Absolutely. In fact, I'd expect them to argue in favor of dragnet surveillance, saying that it's necessary to prevent another 9/11.
Besides, I just can't stand libertarians who contradict their own positions saying that they want the government out of their lives except when it pertains to contraception, abortion, mandatory vaccinations and same-sex marriage.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CIyLlXBcbjo
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2012/12/why-we-should-all-care...
He's been against the Patriot Act as well:
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2011/02/rand-pau...
He filibustered John Brennan's CIA nomination and the idea that the US government can assassinate an American with drones:
http://www.politico.com/story/2013/03/rand-paul-filibuster-j...
And he supports abolishing the TSA:
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/Decoder/2012/0504/Sen....
This guy has been preaching this stuff for years and voted like that as well.
Obama on the other hand came out of nowhere, told us nice things we wanted to hear and then did a 180 when he became president. Oh, and just before he won his first mandate he voted for the Patriot Act's renewal while still in Senate - all while he was promoting an "end to illegal mass surveillance" in his campaign.
I'm just saying, at least on this issue, he might be a little different than Obama. I would've still preferred his dad much more...but I'm not really seeing anyone fighting for this major issue. It's not a "privacy" issue...it's a liberty issue - I think that stuff used to be pretty important for Americans, no? I'm not seeing Elizabeth Warren, not seeing Bernie Sanders, nor Hillary Clinton pushing against the surveillance state from the Democratic side.
He's not against government, he's against government when it bothers him and in favor of government when it suits him.
Hopefully he will go after candidates on the left and right about this.
http://blogs.britannica.com/2009/01/2-the-vietnam-war-top-10...
"President John F. Kennedy had sent military advisors and then troops into South Vietnam. After Kennedy’s assassination, what to do about the Vietnam War became a pressing matter of business for the new president, Lyndon B. Johnson."
From there see the VietNam War link: http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/628478/Vietnam-War
"Accepting the de facto partition of Vietnam as unavoidable but still pledging to halt the spread of communism in Asia, U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower began a crash program of assistance to the State of Vietnam—or South Vietnam, as it was invariably called. The Saigon Military Mission, a covert operation to conduct psychological warfare and paramilitary activities in South Vietnam, was launched on June 1, 1954"
Besides, Eisenhower was a republican.
God, it makes me sick to my stomach to sound pro Bush. I promise I don't mean it that way.
edit: that last sentence was a bit much, I'll admit.
Very little actual good and a lot of bad science has come from public funding.
Many, many private and public universities depend on federal grants to do the important research in every field.
Perhaps what you say about capitalism is correct, but an increasingly automated society can probably do without it. Look up post-scarcity economics.
Are you serious?
Correlation doesn't imply causation. That countries like Finland, Sweden etc. exist and do very well (in most metrics better than the USA), which use a system that most people in the US label "socialism" shows that there is not very much reason to believe that any of that was because of capitalism. It could very well be that despite capitalism all that happened. We will never know.
Falsifying the origin of a problem you claim to intend to fix puts that claim in quite a bit of doubt.