TheEvilDetector
10-10-2007, 05:33 PM
In response to a great article about ron paul on: http://www.insidevandy.com/drupal/node/5160 someone who goes by the name of Tyler Zimmer wrote 2 comments.
Those comments criticise Paul heavily and I was wondering if anyone here could address these criticisms.....
First comment:
"Ron Paul believes that power belongs in the pocketbook, not the polling station. It is his view that democratic government cannot do anything right and therefore shouldn't do anything. He also thinks that every distribution of burdens and benefits that markets produce are just, no matter how egregious or unequal the outcome. He doesn't believe that democratic government should foster social goods like education or guaranteed universal health insurance. He doesn't even think that democracy should be the tool we use to build up infrastructure like roads or foster public spaces like parks.
Saying 'democracy' runs against the grain of everything Paul believes in. Democracy, if it is to mean anything at all, must have something to do with giving power to people and thus weakening the concentrations of power and influence that large corporations and businesses have in market scenarios.
Anarcho-capitalism, roughly Paul's political position, is not a democratic view, but one that gives markets and those who have power in them the ability to rule. This view has roughly sculpted the politics of leaders since Reagan and has also lead to a systematic and consistent increase in inequality and weakening of public amenities. One only needs to look at the California energy crisis, Enron and similar scandals to see what happens when large businesses are freed from the checks of democratic government and allowed to do as they please. Increasing the power of big business and hurting the ability of democracy to limit socially corrosive effects of corporations is not a 'revolution', it is a regression back to a period in history we know now as the "Gilded Age."
College students should be fighting against the encroachment of powerful business interests on our democracy, not cheering it on in the way that Paul is. Paul's answer is to take the umpire out of the game and let the fattest cats have their way without having pesky democratic checks on their pursuits. Maximizing profits for large corporations isn't what our generations of students should be about, maximizing social goods and fostering progressive social change is. If the latter is of any interest, then we would do well to eschew the fossilized and anachronistic politics of a right wing extremist."
Second Comment:
"Preface:
According to most major polls, Ron is pulling either " - " or "1-2%" among Republicans.
As a Congressman, Ron Paul (R-TX) has voted with his party nearly 80% of the time, which places him firmly within the bounds of a "rank-and-file-Republican".
Comment:
I am confused by the relative collegiate popularity of a reactionary who believes we should cut all public spending on education to zero. I say "confusion" because I fail to understand why college students in particular (most of whom attend publicly financed institutions) could possibly consider this guy. I could understand why an 80 year old crippled billionaire with 3 weeks to live might get excited about Ron Paul's legislative checklist, but I fail to see why anyone below the age of 75 or under the uppermost tax brackets has anything to get excited about.
Maybe I'm missing something, but the last time I checked, college students weren't the ones who stand to benefit from a candidate who believes in:
1. Eliminating public institutions of higher learning by privatizing the entire system, stubbornly voting against all measures to increase public funding of universities.
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2. Destroying free public education at all levels K-12 and beyond (i.e. abolish the dept. of education, arguing that that all education should be a privately-owned venture, advocating home-schooling, opposing all public spending initiatives, eroding funding by eliminating taxes on the wealthy)
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3. Staunchly opposing Universal Health Care and in favor of further privatizing an already corrupt corporate system that rakes in billions in profits for its ownership while close to 50 million Americans are uninsured and those that are insured get screwed, dropped or drowned in extremely costly co-pays and premiums.
--------------------------------------------
4. Worsening the student debt crisis by further gutting (I say 'further gutting' because Bush and his GOP congress made putative cuts in 2005) programs like Pell Grants and Stafford Loans (put in place by LBJ) and giving even more of the student loan system over to a (corrupt, as we've seen from recent revelations in NY) billion-dollar private racket. Students in France and the UK strike over tuition increases and fight for grants and the abolition of loans... Ron Paul thinks we should slash all of it and only have private lenders who generate profits from college students' inability to afford high-priced tuition.
--------------------------------------------
5. Destroying the environment: in the 109th Congress alone, he voted to allow drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, to shield oil companies from MTBE contamination lawsuits, against increasing gas mileage standards, to allow new offshore drilling, and to stop making oil companies pay royalties to the government for drilling in the Gulf of Mexico.
--------------------------------------------
6. Destroying the progressive income tax (reverting to the regressive system in place during the Gilded Age), letting the rich get out of paying their fair share and depleting funding for social goods. On Ron Paul’s view, it’s ‘communistic and against liberty’ for Bill Gates to be expected to pay higher taxes than working-class single mothers.
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7. Supporting right-wing anti-choice laws and stripping women of reproductive rights.
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8. Opposing Church-State Separation: From keeping "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance to co-sponsoring the school prayer amendment to keeping the Ten Commandments on a courthouse lawn, this "strict constitutionalist" isn't a big fan of the Constitutionally-mandated separation of church and state. “Separation of Church and State”, on his view, is something that left-liberals simply made up from whole cloth.
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9. Supports the repeal of public programming like NPR, PBS and the National Endowment for the Arts and Humanities.
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10. Supporting right-wing anti-immigration legislation. Opposes building a wall, but only because that would require ‘big government’, otherwise presumably erecting a wall would be a great idea for this xenophobic nativist.
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11. Opposing worker's rights and virulently against workers organizing themselves against exploitative employers (has consistently voted against Employee Free Choice Act.)
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12. Fervently opposes raising the minimum wage, in favor of abolishing the minimum wage altogether (a standard libertarian belief.) Let me repeat this one more time: Ron Paul argues that we should abolish the minimum wage altogether.
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13. Repealing Social Security, Medicaid, Medicare, and every other social program put in place since the New Deal.
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14. etc, etc, etc...
Yes, Ron Paul is against the Iraq War, and so are Pat Buchanan and David Duke. The fact that he is against the Iraq war alone isn’t enough to actually make the guy worth a second look. He's also not the only person running for president who is advocating withdrawal (Kucinich (D) and Gravel (D), both of whom also have no chance of receiving a nomination, both advocate immediate withdrawal.) His non-interventionist position on Iraq cannot be a compelling reason to suspend judgment about the lunacy of his other positions.
"But he's consistent throughout his whole career!" His supporters will claim. Yes, I agree, but since when is being consistently wrong about everything that matters a good thing?"
I believe it is not too hard to defend Paul on these points. Anyone feeling up to the challenge?
Those comments criticise Paul heavily and I was wondering if anyone here could address these criticisms.....
First comment:
"Ron Paul believes that power belongs in the pocketbook, not the polling station. It is his view that democratic government cannot do anything right and therefore shouldn't do anything. He also thinks that every distribution of burdens and benefits that markets produce are just, no matter how egregious or unequal the outcome. He doesn't believe that democratic government should foster social goods like education or guaranteed universal health insurance. He doesn't even think that democracy should be the tool we use to build up infrastructure like roads or foster public spaces like parks.
Saying 'democracy' runs against the grain of everything Paul believes in. Democracy, if it is to mean anything at all, must have something to do with giving power to people and thus weakening the concentrations of power and influence that large corporations and businesses have in market scenarios.
Anarcho-capitalism, roughly Paul's political position, is not a democratic view, but one that gives markets and those who have power in them the ability to rule. This view has roughly sculpted the politics of leaders since Reagan and has also lead to a systematic and consistent increase in inequality and weakening of public amenities. One only needs to look at the California energy crisis, Enron and similar scandals to see what happens when large businesses are freed from the checks of democratic government and allowed to do as they please. Increasing the power of big business and hurting the ability of democracy to limit socially corrosive effects of corporations is not a 'revolution', it is a regression back to a period in history we know now as the "Gilded Age."
College students should be fighting against the encroachment of powerful business interests on our democracy, not cheering it on in the way that Paul is. Paul's answer is to take the umpire out of the game and let the fattest cats have their way without having pesky democratic checks on their pursuits. Maximizing profits for large corporations isn't what our generations of students should be about, maximizing social goods and fostering progressive social change is. If the latter is of any interest, then we would do well to eschew the fossilized and anachronistic politics of a right wing extremist."
Second Comment:
"Preface:
According to most major polls, Ron is pulling either " - " or "1-2%" among Republicans.
As a Congressman, Ron Paul (R-TX) has voted with his party nearly 80% of the time, which places him firmly within the bounds of a "rank-and-file-Republican".
Comment:
I am confused by the relative collegiate popularity of a reactionary who believes we should cut all public spending on education to zero. I say "confusion" because I fail to understand why college students in particular (most of whom attend publicly financed institutions) could possibly consider this guy. I could understand why an 80 year old crippled billionaire with 3 weeks to live might get excited about Ron Paul's legislative checklist, but I fail to see why anyone below the age of 75 or under the uppermost tax brackets has anything to get excited about.
Maybe I'm missing something, but the last time I checked, college students weren't the ones who stand to benefit from a candidate who believes in:
1. Eliminating public institutions of higher learning by privatizing the entire system, stubbornly voting against all measures to increase public funding of universities.
--------------------------------------------
2. Destroying free public education at all levels K-12 and beyond (i.e. abolish the dept. of education, arguing that that all education should be a privately-owned venture, advocating home-schooling, opposing all public spending initiatives, eroding funding by eliminating taxes on the wealthy)
--------------------------------------------
3. Staunchly opposing Universal Health Care and in favor of further privatizing an already corrupt corporate system that rakes in billions in profits for its ownership while close to 50 million Americans are uninsured and those that are insured get screwed, dropped or drowned in extremely costly co-pays and premiums.
--------------------------------------------
4. Worsening the student debt crisis by further gutting (I say 'further gutting' because Bush and his GOP congress made putative cuts in 2005) programs like Pell Grants and Stafford Loans (put in place by LBJ) and giving even more of the student loan system over to a (corrupt, as we've seen from recent revelations in NY) billion-dollar private racket. Students in France and the UK strike over tuition increases and fight for grants and the abolition of loans... Ron Paul thinks we should slash all of it and only have private lenders who generate profits from college students' inability to afford high-priced tuition.
--------------------------------------------
5. Destroying the environment: in the 109th Congress alone, he voted to allow drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, to shield oil companies from MTBE contamination lawsuits, against increasing gas mileage standards, to allow new offshore drilling, and to stop making oil companies pay royalties to the government for drilling in the Gulf of Mexico.
--------------------------------------------
6. Destroying the progressive income tax (reverting to the regressive system in place during the Gilded Age), letting the rich get out of paying their fair share and depleting funding for social goods. On Ron Paul’s view, it’s ‘communistic and against liberty’ for Bill Gates to be expected to pay higher taxes than working-class single mothers.
--------------------------------------------
7. Supporting right-wing anti-choice laws and stripping women of reproductive rights.
--------------------------------------------
8. Opposing Church-State Separation: From keeping "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance to co-sponsoring the school prayer amendment to keeping the Ten Commandments on a courthouse lawn, this "strict constitutionalist" isn't a big fan of the Constitutionally-mandated separation of church and state. “Separation of Church and State”, on his view, is something that left-liberals simply made up from whole cloth.
--------------------------------------------
9. Supports the repeal of public programming like NPR, PBS and the National Endowment for the Arts and Humanities.
--------------------------------------------
10. Supporting right-wing anti-immigration legislation. Opposes building a wall, but only because that would require ‘big government’, otherwise presumably erecting a wall would be a great idea for this xenophobic nativist.
--------------------------------------------
11. Opposing worker's rights and virulently against workers organizing themselves against exploitative employers (has consistently voted against Employee Free Choice Act.)
--------------------------------------------
12. Fervently opposes raising the minimum wage, in favor of abolishing the minimum wage altogether (a standard libertarian belief.) Let me repeat this one more time: Ron Paul argues that we should abolish the minimum wage altogether.
--------------------------------------------
13. Repealing Social Security, Medicaid, Medicare, and every other social program put in place since the New Deal.
--------------------------------------------
14. etc, etc, etc...
Yes, Ron Paul is against the Iraq War, and so are Pat Buchanan and David Duke. The fact that he is against the Iraq war alone isn’t enough to actually make the guy worth a second look. He's also not the only person running for president who is advocating withdrawal (Kucinich (D) and Gravel (D), both of whom also have no chance of receiving a nomination, both advocate immediate withdrawal.) His non-interventionist position on Iraq cannot be a compelling reason to suspend judgment about the lunacy of his other positions.
"But he's consistent throughout his whole career!" His supporters will claim. Yes, I agree, but since when is being consistently wrong about everything that matters a good thing?"
I believe it is not too hard to defend Paul on these points. Anyone feeling up to the challenge?