c", only Ron Paul-types have been addressing the biggest problems the government currently faces (out of control military spending/activity, the promotion of powerful corporate interests, and the willful disregard of civil liberties). Ron Paul isn't the best voice for that, but he's the only person with national appeal who has even remotely come close to addressing those problems."

By "address" you mean abstaining on the worst expansions of government power, voting in favor of unlimited war, and generally allowing the 'Several States' to act like despotic dystopias with no regard for civil liberties whatsoever.

All Paulies care about is monetary policy. Whenever anybody asks them for support on an issue like civil liberties and government repression, they are nowhere to be found. Ditto foreign policy. Paulies are perfectly happy with our military-industrial complex, so long as it is engaging in John Birch Society-esq assassinations and coups and not engaged in long-term troop deployment.

"Concentrated economic power is indeed a problem, but it's not the worst problem we've got."

How do you figure we have 'concentrated government power' when our damn government can't pass anything due to gridlock? Libertarians hate government only when it helps people. When it's discriminating against people they adore it, calling it 'states rights'.

Well, he didn't say that, but that's really beside the point, because most of the corporatist BS happens through the executive branch, which isn't subject to Congressional deadlock.

What Ron Paul says and what he does are poles apart.

Yes it is. Have you noticed recently how many executive departments don't even have heads to them, because the Senate won't confirm anybody? Heck they can't even get the Consumer Protection Agency off the ground due to legislative obstructionism.

It's humorous that the Paulies whine about corporatism, when corporatism is the only thing keeping capitalism alive. Without the state, your markets collapse.

Yeah, that's it, so because some departments don't have heads, obviously the executive branch isn't doing anything and all the departments aren't operating at all.

Putin, I think that's a dramatic misreading of Ron Paul's message and appeal. A lot of people like him for the economic stuff, but his foreign policy is important, too. It's also a big part of the reason that he couldn't win the Republican nomination -- remember, when Paul reasonably said that America runs into trouble with the Middle East because we've got such a presence there, how Republicans said he was blaming American for 9/11? I have no doubt that many alleged Tea Partiers have voted for more war, given how that label was co-opted almost immediately by the Republican Party, but mostly I think you're mad at the Ron Paul in your imagination.

And of course we have concentrated government power, come on. How else do you put a $2 billion-a-year drone program into action? How else do you feel up old ladies and young children at every airport in America? How else do you crack down on medical marijuana dispensaries? Where else would the billions of dollars the government hands out to powerful companies and wealthy elderly people come from?

@Draug, I'm not familiar with Paul's position on seatbelt laws (though I can imagine he disregards the effect seatbelt has on the driver's ability to control the car in tough situations, thus limiting the damage done to him and others). However, even in that case, he would loudly call for their repeal only if they were passed at the federal level. If individual states passed them, he would say "scrap them, they infringe on liberty" but he wouldn't lift a finger for their repeal. Since, apparently, some miracle occurs with legitimacy at the border of federal and state level. Above that line it's a big government infringement on liberty, below that line it's states right – deluded but respectable. I really don't get what justifies this dichotomy (I'm not into Constitutionalism, like, at all).

I think that we're all overemphasizing Ron Paul, who certainly doesn't speak for all libertarians and who is focused on his own presidential campaign. Look at the front pages of Reason Magazine or the Cato Institute, where police misconduct and stories criticizing anti-immigrant laws sit beside calls for a gold standard and opposition to big government spending. Libertarianism is a broad, if still fairly marginal, movement.

"Putin, I think that's a dramatic misreading of Ron Paul's message and appeal. "

His message & appeal are worthless because he is a charlatan with the intellectual consistency of Arlen Specter. Like I said, what Ron Paul says and what he does are 100% different. He talks about our Middle East policy, yet he voted for the most broad-based war against all resolution we've ever managed to come up with. He's all for government abuse, as ulytau said, so long as the states are doing it. He's even in favor of sodomy laws so long as states do it. He supports DOMA. He supports every federal law against gay marriage.

Libertarians want the government weak, selectively, when it comes to protecting against corporate abuse, so their rich capitalist masters can run the rest of us into the ground without any recourse. With everything else, they want the government strong and robust, especially at the state level, so they can harass leftists, gays, African-Americans and women with impunity.

"so because some departments don't have heads, obviously the executive branch isn't doing anything and all the departments aren't operating at all."

They're rendered ineffective, yes. For whatever reason libertarians fail to comprehend our idiotic Montequieu inspired separation of powers, as it actually "works" exactly how they want it to, by paralyzing government and making it impossible to govern effectively.

Paralyze government, make it do nothing, and then complain that government doesn't work well. That's the rightwing playbook right there.

If the Cato Institute was the home of principled libertarians, they probably would not have hired torture enabler John Yoo for the editorial board of their Supreme Court Review.

http://www.thenation.com/article/167500/independent-and-principled-behind-cato-myth

"Government has facilitated corporate abuse over the past 70 years, not checked it. Expanding government power to check the corporate interests that control it is like giving bought-off referees more power to influence a sports game. How does that make any sense?"

So, how do you curb corporate abuse if not through the mechanism of stringent regulation?

"No, it is not. Austrians all predicted the current economic depression when all 'respectable' 'mainstream' economists were saying in the mid '00s that everything was wonderful and that real estate and the stock market were never going to have a serious setback ever again because of the advances in the "scientific" management of the economy. Here's Ron Paul successfully calling the housing bubble - in 2001:"

When you spend 50 years predicting imminent economic doom within the next year, you're bound to be right 1 out of 50 years. RP and co also predicted rampant inflation due to the stimulus, etc. That's never turned out to be true. They've been predicting runaway inflation since forever. Still waiting.

There's a difference between being for something and believing that you don't have the legal power to stop it, which is I believe Paul's feelings about state sodomy laws and similar.

Putin: "Libertarians want the government weak, selectively, when it comes to protecting against corporate abuse, so their rich capitalist masters can run the rest of us into the ground without any recourse. With everything else, they want the government strong and robust, especially at the state level, so they can harass leftists, gays, African-Americans and women with impunity. "

This simply isn't true, as even a cursory glance at any libertarian publication would tell you. Even the ridiculous paleo-libertarian Lewrockwell.com has a story on the front page right now about how America has wasted trillions of dollars on government spending and another about the state of North Carolina prosecuting the free speech of a food blogger.

Putin: "Paralyze government, make it do nothing, and then complain that government doesn't work well. That's the rightwing playbook right there."

See, here's the root of the your misconception, I think. You're looking at a very narrow slice of a broad intellectual movement, taking the most bizarre and extreme caricature of what that narrow slice thinks, and then expanding it to represent then whole. Libertarian doesn't mean rightwing, although I suppose a majority of libertarians who lean to one side of the political spectrum would be classified as rightwing. One of the fiercest critics of government overreach, one of the staunchest civil libertarians writing today, is Glenn Greenwald. It is inconceivable that anyone short of a communist could characterize him as rightwing.

"So, how do you curb corporate abuse if not through the mechanism of stringent regulation?"

Duh, through the honor system! Capitalists will stop abusing us of their own free will. Sure they will.

Putin.....go fuck yourself, you hypocrite. When YOU empty your OWN bank account to help the less fortunate....to equalize your wealth....THEN get back to us, bitch.


You are the WORST kind of fucking hypocrite. Enjoy the BMW, you hypocrite asshole.

"There's a difference between being for something and believing that you don't have the legal power to stop it, which is I believe Paul's feelings about state sodomy laws and similar. "

He doesn't want the federal government to stop it. He wants to empower the states to be as abusive as they want to be, and worships the document which he claims gives them that power. He doesn't want to amend the constitution to reduce that power. He wants a dramatic expansion of the police & other powers of state government. But somehow that's not tyranny. No, no, SEATBELT LAWS are tyranny.

Bob, didn't see that when I just posted above. Yeah, Cato is entirely wrong for hiring Yoo, and I wish Cato were more independent of the Kochs. But Cato also published (and will, I hope, publish in the future) people like Radley Balko and Greenwald. Like I said, it's a broad movement.

Regulation can check corporate abuse, but let's try not helping the corporations be abusive for a few years first. Perhaps there are mechanisms in the modern economy that will check, say, the concentration of banking power, if the federal government would let it happen. I'm pretty sure it would be the case for the massive agribusiness conglomerates. If natural economic selection doesn't work, then let's revisit the need for increased regulation.

Putin, do you have any evidence of Ron Paul saying he favored an anti-sodomy law, or he favored the expansion of state police powers, or any evidence of actions he's taken to that effect? To be clear, I'm not referring to a statement allowing such a state action.

"another about the state of North Carolina prosecuting the free speech of a food blogger. "

And I'm sure he's written oodles about Texas's law that shoves massive wants down women's vaginas against their will. Sure he has.

"Libertarian doesn't mean rightwing"

Yes it does. Complete unfettered markets. The destruction of all civil rights laws (because they're "overreach". Women and African Americans held in bondage at the state level. They are rightwing in every sense. Glenn Greenwald caring about civil liberties issues doesn't make him a libertarian. He's a progressive and calls himself that.

"And I'm sure he's written oodles about Texas's law that shoves massive wants down women's vaginas against their will. Sure he has. "

Who, Lew Rockwell? Maybe he has, I don't read his site much. I know that Reason Magazine ran critical stories on their website, regarding the Virginia (? I think) law about ultrasounds and abortion.

"
"Libertarian doesn't mean rightwing"

Yes it does. Complete unfettered markets. The destruction of all civil rights laws (because they're "overreach". Women and African Americans held in bondage at the state level. They are rightwing in every sense. Glenn Greenwald caring about civil liberties issues doesn't make him a libertarian. He's a progressive and calls himself that. "

Again, this simply isn't true. One example: check out the work of noted libertarian journalist Radley Balko, who helped make the Cory Maye story a national one.

"Women and African Americans held in bondage at the state level."

When does hyperbole just become wrong?

I think that Ron Paul has succeeded in his primary objective this election: Legitimizing libertarianism. Libertarianism was a fringe thing until he made it "mainstream" if you will.

Even if he doesn't win, I think we will see a libertarian shift in the Republican Party, as the next generation gets to voting age and the Republican Party will have no choice but to abandon its current stances on social issues, because that's the only problem (other than strong defense interventionism) that libertarians have with the GOP's ideology.

Ron Paul has doubled his share of the vote since 2008. Another presidential primary like that (headed by his son or someone else) and libertarian Republicans can do to the GOP what conservative Republicans did in the 1970s.

"Duh, through the honor system! Capitalists will stop abusing us of their own free will. Sure they will."

You're incredibly childish.

Bob - I couldn't say off the top of my head. Corporate abuse is pretty widespread and I think you'd have to address it issue-by-issue. Certainly, in the abstract, government could work as a means of checking corporate abuse.

Problem is that it doesn't, in reality. I don't think it's inconsistent to say "I don't know, personally, a perfect alternative to government for handling corporate overreach, but I do know that as government DOESN'T try to stop it, government ISN'T the answer."

" "I don't know, personally, a perfect alternative to government for handling corporate overreach, but I do know that as government DOESN'T try to stop it, government ISN'T the answer.""

That makes no sense at all. But I guess this counts for logic among knee jerk anti-statists. It's on par with saying that the solution to the increased crime rate is to take all the cops off the beat, since clearly the cops aren't solving the problem. Having no solution whatsoever and proposing to eliminate the few safeguards we do have is the height of irresponsibility which makes libertarianism a joke.

"Ron Paul has doubled his share of the vote since 2008. Another presidential primary like that (headed by his son or someone else) and libertarian Republicans can do to the GOP what conservative Republicans did in the 1970s."

This was Ron Paul's best chance of being anything but a perennial also-ran, and he failed. The mood was ripe for an "anti-government" (no matter how fraudulent) candidate, and he failed miserably. He couldn't even win one state. Santorum did far better than him. SANTORUM.

" I think we will see a libertarian shift in the Republican Party, as the next generation gets to voting age and the Republican Party will have no choice but to abandon its current stances on social issues, because that's the only problem (other than strong defense interventionism) that libertarians have with the GOP's ideology."

Where is this mythical shift? Extreme social conservatism in the form of a horribly corrupt, failed Senator who lost by 18 in Pennsylvania was far more popular than RP's fake libertarianism. Michelle Bachman & Herman freaking Cain had more momentum than Ron Paul.

"
That makes no sense at all. But I guess this counts for logic among knee jerk anti-statists. It's on par with saying that the solution to the increased crime rate is to take all the cops off the beat, since clearly the cops aren't solving the problem. Having no solution whatsoever and proposing to eliminate the few safeguards we do have is the height of irresponsibility which makes libertarianism a joke."

Putin, I'm sorry you don't understand, but given our past interactions, I suspect you don't actually care and are just looking to waste my time. This conversation is considered resolved.

"That makes no sense at all. But I guess this counts for logic among knee jerk anti-statists. It's on par with saying that the solution to the increased crime rate is to take all the cops off the beat, since clearly the cops aren't solving the problem. Having no solution whatsoever and proposing to eliminate the few safeguards we do have is the height of irresponsibility which makes libertarianism a joke. "

What if one of the most important sources of crime is police corruption? Or what if there is very little actual crime, but the enormous police force spends its time beating up hippies and harassing poor people? That's the better analogy.