Is Ron Paul platform closest to my beliefs?

[uncollapse]

I am from Indiana and would like to ask the following question to Ron Paul supporters.

1) I believe in individual freedom and liberty but am apprehensive about excessive individual liberty to the people as it would possibly compromise my security.
2) I am against pre-emptive war and am convinced that a non-intervention foreign policy is the best for US interest
3) I like the conservatives ideas about limited government and spending but will not embrace the idealist's platform of getting the government out of every aspect of our lives i.e. fight against global warming, scientific spending, universal healthcare are instances where government intervention are neccessary

So, do I belong here? Should I call myself a libertarian?

[nbhadja]

I am from Indiana and would like to ask the following question to Ron Paul supporters.

1) I believe in individual freedom and liberty but am apprehensive about excessive individual liberty to the people as it would possibly compromise my security.
2) I am against pre-emptive war and am convinced that a non-intervention foreign policy is the best for US interest
3) I like the conservatives ideas about limited government and spending but will not embrace the idealist's platform of getting the government out of every aspect of our lives i.e. fight against global warming, scientific spending, universal healthcare are instances where government intervention are neccessary

So, do I belong here? Should I call myself a libertarian?

Ya I would say you belong here even with the disagreement on health care. Though you should listen to what Ron Paul says about universal health care, free market health care would be much better.

[Tdcci]

but am apprehensive about excessive individual liberty to the people as it would possibly compromise my security.

Example please.

[pdavis]

So, do I belong here?
You can associate with whom ever you want.

Should I call myself a libertarian?
No. The central theme of libertarianism is the non aggression axiom, or the non initiation of aggressive force. In your description you implied you have no problem with initiating force and taking away rights amongst others for security or more accurately the illusion of safety.

[Penners]

I would 't put too much emphasis over what to call yourself. Many of us don't agree 100% with any party or candidate's platform. We have to evaluate and see who best meets our personal criteria.

[crazyfingers]

I think you're on the right track but the more you look into it the more you'll realize that "That government that governs best, governs least" is always the case, no matter the issue.

1. How would giving people "excessive individual liberty" compromise you're security? I assume you're talking about terrorism, but I don't really see what you're getting at. Don't believe the hype: you can't trade freedom for security, because you'll end up with neither.
2. This coincides spot-on with Paul's (and most libertarians) position.
3. You have to look at free-market solutions to these issues. If you open up your mind just a little bit, they become glaringly obvious.
Global Warming: Government actions, both overseas and at home, have ensured the price of oil remains below the true market rate. This, in turn, stiffles the invovation that will ultimately bring about a lasting solution to global warming and the energy crisis.
Scientific Spending: Once again, this is a market-oriented issue. The government should not be in the business of facilitating scientific research. They should let the people keep their money and fund the efforts that the market deems are worthwhile. This is the only way we're going to get progress. Otherwise it's just a process filled with corruption, religious/moral objections, and inefficiency.
Universal Healthcare: The healthcare system can be saved by less government intervention, not more. Special interests have taken over Washington and ensured that the prices remain high. Get government out of the business of "regulating" health care, and prices will go way down.

I was once like you, but you have to realize that it is an all-encompassing philosophy. Government doesn't work, period. The founders realized this, which is why they left us with a Constitution that strictly limits it's powers. I hope that as you study the issues and the philosophy more, you'll come to realize this.

[Ex Post Facto]

Ron Paul is the best candidate for our country, period. Issues aren't so much important when you are dealing with CFR candidates that are working toward global government.

[yongrel]

I just support him for the cool t-shirts.

[No1ButPaul08]

I think you're on the right track but the more you look into it the more you'll realize that "That government that governs best, governs least" is always the case, no matter the issue.

1. How would giving people "excessive individual liberty" compromise you're security? I assume you're talking about terrorism, but I don't really see what you're getting at. Don't believe the hype: you can't trade freedom for security, because you'll end up with neither.
2. This coincides spot-on with Paul's (and most libertarians) position.
3. You have to look at free-market solutions to these issues. If you open up your mind just a little bit, they become glaringly obvious.
Global Warming: Government actions, both overseas and at home, have ensured the price of oil remains below the true market rate. This, in turn, stiffles the invovation that will ultimately bring about a lasting solution to global warming and the energy crisis.
Scientific Spending: Once again, this is a market-oriented issue. The government should not be in the business of facilitating scientific research. They should let the people keep their money and fund the efforts that the market deems are worthwhile. This is the only way we're going to get progress. Otherwise it's just a process filled with corruption, religious/moral objections, and inefficiency.
Universal Healthcare: The healthcare system can be saved by less government intervention, not more. Special interests have taken over Washington and ensured that the prices remain high. Get government out of the business of "regulating" health care, and prices will go way down.

I was once like you, but you have to realize that it is an all-encompassing philosophy. Government doesn't work, period. The founders realized this, which is why they left us with a Constitution that strictly limits it's powers. I hope that as you study the issues and the philosophy more, you'll come to realize this.

Good Post

[Just Come Home]

I will give you the libertarian criticisms of your positions, and you can decide for yourself if you belong.



1) I believe in individual freedom and liberty but am apprehensive about excessive individual liberty to the people as it would possibly compromise my security.

Are you saying that you don't believe in the constitutional protections that we've been granted by our forefathers. That's what this issue comes down to. You either believe and trust in the constitution, or you don't. If you say, "I believe in individual liberty, but I don't believe in the second amendment," then what you are really saying is "I believe in individual liberty on the things that I agree with, but on the things that I don't agree with, I believe the government needs to force people to give up liberty in order to make me feel safe."


2) I am against pre-emptive war and am convinced that a non-intervention foreign policy is the best for US interest

This is exactly what libertarians believe, though the Cato set seem to think that being a libertarian means we're free to kill whoever we want so long as we're doing it for reasons that we can justify through jingoism.


3) I like the conservatives ideas about limited government and spending but will not embrace the idealist's platform of getting the government out of every aspect of our lives i.e. fight against global warming, scientific spending, universal healthcare are instances where government intervention are neccessary

Libertarians believe that the private sector would take care of these issues better than any other sector. Worried about Global warming? Then create an organization that puts a "global warming safe" stamp on products, and start a grass roots movement to make it popular. If enough people believe as you do, then the idea has a market and it will take off. If they don't, then you should ask yourself why nobody else believes like you do and either a) adjust to the market through an educational campaign, or b) come to terms with why the rest of the market doesn't accept your idea. Government shouldn't spend a dime on scientific spending. This should all be handled through the private sector. Why should my tax dollars be spent on research that I find questionable? Government shouldn't steal my money to use it for things that the private sector can handle better. Universal Healthcare is a disaster waiting to happen. I would like to opt out. Under your idea for Universal Healthcare, will I have the liberty to opt out of the system and use the money that you'd otherwise be taking from me to provide for myself and my family? Or is that another liberty that should be trampled on for the collective?

[uncollapse]

Example please.

gun control versus gun rights. I advocate stricter background check and age limits.

[Highstreet]

I would 't put too much emphasis over what to call yourself. Many of us don't agree 100% with any party or candidate's platform. We have to evaluate and see who best meets our personal criteria.

Great answer!!!

[FreeTraveler]

gun control versus gun rights. I advocate stricter background check and age limits.

And you trust the politicians to decide who is worthy to carry a gun?

Please read the following essay by L. Neil Smith. It explains why gun control should be THE litmus test for any politician you're considering voting for.

From http://www.lneilsmith.org/


Why Did it Have to be ... Guns?
by L. Neil Smith
lneil@lneilsmith.org (lneil@lneilsmith.org)




Over the past 30 years, I've been paid to write almost two million words, every one of which, sooner or later, came back to the issue of guns and gun-ownership. Naturally, I've thought about the issue a lot, and it has always determined the way I vote.

People accuse me of being a single-issue writer, a single- issue thinker, and a single- issue voter, but it isn't true. What I've chosen, in a world where there's never enough time and energy, is to focus on the one political issue which most clearly and unmistakably demonstrates what any politician—or political philosophy—is made of, right down to the creamy liquid center.

Make no mistake: all politicians—even those ostensibly on the side of guns and gun ownership—hate the issue and anyone, like me, who insists on bringing it up. They hate it because it's an X-ray machine. It's a Vulcan mind-meld. It's the ultimate test to which any politician—or political philosophy—can be put.

If a politician isn't perfectly comfortable with the idea of his average constituent, any man, woman, or responsible child, walking into a hardware store and paying cash—for any rifle, shotgun, handgun, machinegun, anything—without producing ID or signing one scrap of paper, he isn't your friend no matter what he tells you.

If he isn't genuinely enthusiastic about his average constituent stuffing that weapon into a purse or pocket or tucking it under a coat and walking home without asking anybody's permission, he's a four-flusher, no matter what he claims.

What his attitude—toward your ownership and use of weapons—conveys is his real attitude about you. And if he doesn't trust you, then why in the name of John Moses Browning should you trust him?

If he doesn't want you to have the means of defending your life, do you want him in a position to control it?

If he makes excuses about obeying a law he's sworn to uphold and defend—the highest law of the land, the Bill of Rights—do you want to entrust him with anything?

If he ignores you, sneers at you, complains about you, or defames you, if he calls you names only he thinks are evil—like "Constitutionalist"—when you insist that he account for himself, hasn't he betrayed his oath, isn't he unfit to hold office, and doesn't he really belong in jail?

Sure, these are all leading questions. They're the questions that led me to the issue of guns and gun ownership as the clearest and most unmistakable demonstration of what any given politician—or political philosophy—is really made of.

He may lecture you about the dangerous weirdos out there who shouldn't have a gun—but what does that have to do with you? Why in the name of John Moses Browning should you be made to suffer for the misdeeds of others? Didn't you lay aside the infantile notion of group punishment when you left public school—or the military? Isn't it an essentially European notion, anyway—Prussian, maybe—and certainly not what America was supposed to be all about?

And if there are dangerous weirdos out there, does it make sense to deprive you of the means of protecting yourself from them? Forget about those other people, those dangerous weirdos, this is about you, and it has been, all along.

Try it yourself: if a politician won't trust you, why should you trust him? If he's a man—and you're not—what does his lack of trust tell you about his real attitude toward women? If "he" happens to be a woman, what makes her so perverse that she's eager to render her fellow women helpless on the mean and seedy streets her policies helped create? Should you believe her when she says she wants to help you by imposing some infantile group health care program on you at the point of the kind of gun she doesn't want you to have?

On the other hand—or the other party—should you believe anything politicians say who claim they stand for freedom, but drag their feet and make excuses about repealing limits on your right to own and carry weapons? What does this tell you about their real motives for ignoring voters and ramming through one infantile group trade agreement after another with other countries?

Makes voting simpler, doesn't it? You don't have to study every issue—health care, international trade—all you have to do is use this X-ray machine, this Vulcan mind-meld, to get beyond their empty words and find out how politicians really feel. About you. And that, of course, is why they hate it.

And that's why I'm accused of being a single-issue writer, thinker, and voter.
But it isn't true, is it?

[uncollapse]

Libertarians believe that the private sector would take care of these issues better than any other sector. Worried about Global warming? Then create an organization that puts a "global warming safe" stamp on products, and start a grass roots movement to make it popular. If enough people believe as you do, then the idea has a market and it will take off. If they don't, then you should ask yourself why nobody else believes like you do and either a) adjust to the market through an educational campaign, or b) come to terms with why the rest of the market doesn't accept your idea. Government shouldn't spend a dime on scientific spending. This should all be handled through the private sector. Why should my tax dollars be spent on research that I find questionable? Government shouldn't steal my money to use it for things that the private sector can handle better. Universal Healthcare is a disaster waiting to happen. I would like to opt out. Under your idea for Universal Healthcare, will I have the liberty to opt out of the system and use the money that you'd otherwise be taking from me to provide for myself and my family? Or is that another liberty that should be trampled on for the collective?

I respectfully disagree.

On global warming. Free market is about profits. How can free market tackle this issue when a price tag was not even attached to it and is apparently oblivious to the problems? For e.g. can you list explicit examples of how the fight against global warming can generate a business?

Free market will not fund fundamental scientific researches. What company would want to fund a billion dollar NASA project to land the first man on the moon?

On universal healthcare,
http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/10/30/business/health.php

[Tdcci]

Free market is about profits. How can free market tackle this issue when a price tag was not even attached to it and is apparently oblivious to the problems? For e.g. can you list explicit examples of how the fight against global warming can generate a business?

Sell "green products" with environmentally friendly solutions that people can buy marked up higher, make them feel good and they're helping the environment, too!

[uncollapse]

Sell "green products" with environmentally friendly solutions that people can buy marked up higher, make them feel good and they're helping the environment, too!

Evidence show that the forces of free market is to accelerate global warming rather than to alleviate it. Government intervention is necessary to restraint the free market.

http://www.nrdc.org/globalWarming/f101.asp#12
But automakers should be doing a lot more: They've used a legal loophole to make SUVs far less fuel efficient than they could be; the popularity of these vehicles has generated a 20 percent increase in transportation-related carbon dioxide pollution since the early 1990s. Closing this loophole and requiring SUVs, minivans and pick-up trucks to be as efficient as cars would cut 120 million tons of carbon dioxide pollution a year by 2010. If automakers used the technology they have right now to raise fuel economy standards for new cars and light trucks to a combined 40 m.p.g., carbon dioxide pollution would eventually drop by more than 650 million tons per year as these vehicles replaced older models.

Let us agree to disagree. ;)

[crazyfingers]

I respectfully disagree.

On global warming. Free market is about profits. How can free market tackle this issue when a price tag was not even attached to it and is apparently oblivious to the problems? For e.g. can you list explicit examples of how the fight against global warming can generate a business?

Free market will not fund fundamental scientific researches. What company would want to fund a billion dollar NASA project to land the first man on the moon?

On universal healthcare,
http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/10/30/business/health.php

As I was trying to explain earlier: get government out of the way, let energy prices hit their true potential, and let the "invisible hand" spur innovation.

Companies have been "going green" for years now because it helps their bottom line; not only does it improve public perception but energy efficiency often more than pays for itself within a short-amount of time. As fossil fuel prices continue to rise, this process will accelerate.

As far as the moon landing goes, you answer your own question. No company would spend billions of dollars for a project that, while neat, serves little to no constructive purpose. However, if you read up on the private space industry, it has recently been expanding considerably: from companies that launch satellites to those looking to host "tourists". Government is fraught with waste and inefficiency. Meanwhile, private enterprise is naturally resourceful and competitive. It's just human nature, that's all. Don't fight it.

Like most people, you are stuck in a statist mentality -- many decades of conditioning will do that to a populace. But you don't need to accept it at face-value. Learn to question your assumptions and consider our arguments carefully. The people in charge are there to defend their own interests, not ours!

[FreeTraveler]

I respectfully disagree.

On global warming. Free market is about profits. How can free market tackle this issue when a price tag was not even attached to it and is apparently oblivious to the problems? For e.g. can you list explicit examples of how the fight against global warming can generate a business?

If carbon is determined to be a pollutant, companies will be forced to be carbon-neutral in their emissions. If free-market pollution control had not been pre-empted by the government, this would already be the case. Read your history.



Free market will not fund fundamental scientific researches. What company would want to fund a billion dollar NASA project to land the first man on the moon?

Research the X-Prize. There are a number of free-enterprise ventures already underway to retake the moon, this time with the goal of long-term development, instead of some macho race to beat some other gang there.



On universal healthcare,
http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/10/30/business/health.php

Also easy to refute, if I wanted to bother.

Let's get down to brass tacks. Advocating that the government handle these issues is saying that it's OK for the government to stick a gun in my ribs and take the money to pay for the projects, because you believe they should.

I happen to favor research into little green men, and others think that herbs are the solution to all mankind's ills. Everybody has their favorite scheme. Is it OK for the government to stick a gun in your ribs and make you support my little green men research and the herbalists as well?

Taxation IS theft. Sorry, even if YOU think it's for a good cause, it's still theft.

[berrybunches]

Even if you believe in gun control, universal health care and that global warming is killing the Earth you can still be a Ron Paul supporter.
In Ron Pauls world everyone will get to have a say on these issues, not just the Washington. States will decide what needs to be done, cities will decide. If you want universal health care in your state than go for it. If you want to pass "green" laws in your state thats fine.

The point is the federal government should not force anyone to believe in or do anything. They are extremely inefficient and they usually just make things worse.
We have our constitution, let the states decide so we have 50 different options.

For instance Compare New York city to Montana. In Montana almost everyone has a gun and there is a very small casualty rate. In New York people are getting murdered by guns all the time....this is a local issue, not one size fits all.

[kigol]

:cool:

[DocGrimes]

Originally Posted by uncollapse
Free market is about profits. How can free market tackle this issue when a price tag was not even attached to it and is apparently oblivious to the problems? For e.g. can you list explicit examples of how the fight against global warming can generate a business?

I would also make the distinction that our 'free markets' right now are not all that free. But the real problem involved with our current 'free market' system is that it lacks in the area of protections for individual property rights.

An adherence to property rights would fix much of our environmental issues.

ie I have the right to operate some business on my land but I do not have the right to do so if my operation would lead to damages (read polution) to your lands (or air you breath). Therefore, either arrangements would have to be made between myself an you as my neighbor being harmed by my operation or I would not be able to operate.

Now in the case that I decided to operate anyways then you my neighbor would have recourse against me for the damages my operation was causing. Thus the penalties and increased cost would limit my operation and likely shut it down. If this were one of those cases where my operation were profitable enough to soak up the increased costs... well, then we are finally looking at one of those places where it is just for 'government' to get involved (to protect your property rights).

[Broadlighter]

1) I believe in individual freedom and liberty but am apprehensive about excessive individual liberty to the people as it would possibly compromise my security.

That's what the 2nd Amendment is for. It legitimizes your right to defend yourself from encroachment from others exercising their freedoms excessively.


2) I am against pre-emptive war and am convinced that a non-intervention foreign policy is the best for US interest

That's spot on with Ron Paul's platform.


3) I like the conservatives ideas about limited government and spending but will not embrace the idealist's platform of getting the government out of every aspect of our lives i.e. fight against global warming, scientific spending, universal healthcare are instances where government intervention are neccessary

Below is an image that represents relationship between individual liberty and state power. This includes state power for seemingly benevolent purposes like universal health care. BTW, there is no concensus of science regarding Global Warming. There are literally hundreds of meteorologists who disagree with Al Gore and many of them served on the IPCC.

http://lh5.google.com/Broadlighter/R7AKjZrvRkI/AAAAAAAAAIw/HPdz4srU4os/s144/StatePower_vs_IndividualLiberty.jpg


So, do I belong here? Should I call myself a libertarian?

You're welcome to hang out here. Study the image and read other parts of this board and other Ron Paul oriented resources. They will help you become a libertarian.

[Catatonic]

I respectfully disagree.

On global warming. Free market is about profits. How can free market tackle this issue when a price tag was not even attached to it and is apparently oblivious to the problems? For e.g. can you list explicit examples of how the fight against global warming can generate a business?

Free market will not fund fundamental scientific researches. What company would want to fund a billion dollar NASA project to land the first man on the moon?

On universal healthcare,
http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/10/30/business/health.php

Free market is about competition, corporatism is about profits.

Its also amusing that you believe science wouldn't exist without government.

A fake concept like manmade global warming can't survive without government forcing it down our throats.