tangent4ronpaul
04-10-2010, 03:24 PM
http://blogs.alternet.org/refugee/2010/04/10/unleashing-my-inner-libertarian/
Unleashing My Inner Libertarian
As a long time progressive, I have been quite fascinated to discover that I agree with the Tea Party movement in many areas. In fact a number of people on the so-called “left” have been following Ron Paul, one of the Tea Party’s founders, quite closely since he first raised the alarm about the systematic destruction of the Bill of Rights under the Bush administration.
I use the term progressive quite loosely because I have always found it quite difficult to attach a label to my political views. In fact I have only recently discovered there are two kinds of libertarians – “free market” libertarians like Ron Paul and “left” libertarians like MIT linguistics professor Noam Chomsky. However given that we don’t really have a “free market” economic system in the US – and haven’t had one since the federal government began selectively subsidizing corporations over a century ago – I sometimes wonder if the two wings of libertarianism are as far apart as we are led to believe. This morning I am feeling like a green left libertarian feminist, though this may change later in the week. Would I vote for Ron Paul as the Republican presidential candidate? There is a strong possibility I would.
It appears that that the free market and left libertarians are in fundamental agreement that the root cause of the current economic and political crisis relates to the loss of popular control over our government. Where we seem to part ways is in our analysis of exactly how the American people lost control of the democratic process – though in many cases the solutions we propose are surprisingly similar.
Points of agreement
* Like the Teabaggers, I believe the trillions of dollars of debt the US is amassing will result in the destruction of the US economy and its replacement (most likely by China) as the world’s superpower.
* Like the Teabaggers, I am totally opposed to the two trillion bailout Bush and Obama awareded to the Wall Street speculators, many of who engaged in outright fraud, responsible for the October 2008 economic collapse. The word for this is crony capitalism, not free market capitalism .
* Like the Teabaggers, I support the concept of limited government. I believe in the absolute freedom of conscience, expression and association guaranteed in the Constitution, as well as the protections the Bill of Rights guarantees against unlawful detention and (heaven forbid) extrajudicial murder by federal authorities that Obama has just authorized by executive order. The right to habeas corpus, which dates back to the 13th century Magna Carta, must be restored now. I also oppose federal interference with local and state authority because I feel participatory democracy is that absolute best model of government and the current corporate stranglehold on our federal government means the only place Americans can have any voice in government is at the local and state level. Over the last 30 years I have watched how the centralization of economic and political control in the European Union has systematically stripped Europeans of their democratic rights by placing de facto political control with European banks and corporations.
Points of Difference
Ironically my main points of difference with the Tea Party movement are not so much with its founders, but with various public figures such as Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck who the mainstream media (particularly Fox News) has appointed spokespeople for the movement. The media has very effectively used these individuals to promote various “conspiracy” theories as the cause of the current crisis – distracting the American people from what clearly is the main cause – namely the greed, recklessness and criminality that pervades our banking industry and the crony capitalists Obama has appointed to conceal all this from public view.
Unleashing My Inner Libertarian
As a long time progressive, I have been quite fascinated to discover that I agree with the Tea Party movement in many areas. In fact a number of people on the so-called “left” have been following Ron Paul, one of the Tea Party’s founders, quite closely since he first raised the alarm about the systematic destruction of the Bill of Rights under the Bush administration.
I use the term progressive quite loosely because I have always found it quite difficult to attach a label to my political views. In fact I have only recently discovered there are two kinds of libertarians – “free market” libertarians like Ron Paul and “left” libertarians like MIT linguistics professor Noam Chomsky. However given that we don’t really have a “free market” economic system in the US – and haven’t had one since the federal government began selectively subsidizing corporations over a century ago – I sometimes wonder if the two wings of libertarianism are as far apart as we are led to believe. This morning I am feeling like a green left libertarian feminist, though this may change later in the week. Would I vote for Ron Paul as the Republican presidential candidate? There is a strong possibility I would.
It appears that that the free market and left libertarians are in fundamental agreement that the root cause of the current economic and political crisis relates to the loss of popular control over our government. Where we seem to part ways is in our analysis of exactly how the American people lost control of the democratic process – though in many cases the solutions we propose are surprisingly similar.
Points of agreement
* Like the Teabaggers, I believe the trillions of dollars of debt the US is amassing will result in the destruction of the US economy and its replacement (most likely by China) as the world’s superpower.
* Like the Teabaggers, I am totally opposed to the two trillion bailout Bush and Obama awareded to the Wall Street speculators, many of who engaged in outright fraud, responsible for the October 2008 economic collapse. The word for this is crony capitalism, not free market capitalism .
* Like the Teabaggers, I support the concept of limited government. I believe in the absolute freedom of conscience, expression and association guaranteed in the Constitution, as well as the protections the Bill of Rights guarantees against unlawful detention and (heaven forbid) extrajudicial murder by federal authorities that Obama has just authorized by executive order. The right to habeas corpus, which dates back to the 13th century Magna Carta, must be restored now. I also oppose federal interference with local and state authority because I feel participatory democracy is that absolute best model of government and the current corporate stranglehold on our federal government means the only place Americans can have any voice in government is at the local and state level. Over the last 30 years I have watched how the centralization of economic and political control in the European Union has systematically stripped Europeans of their democratic rights by placing de facto political control with European banks and corporations.
Points of Difference
Ironically my main points of difference with the Tea Party movement are not so much with its founders, but with various public figures such as Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck who the mainstream media (particularly Fox News) has appointed spokespeople for the movement. The media has very effectively used these individuals to promote various “conspiracy” theories as the cause of the current crisis – distracting the American people from what clearly is the main cause – namely the greed, recklessness and criminality that pervades our banking industry and the crony capitalists Obama has appointed to conceal all this from public view.