NY Times: For the Pauls, Libertarian Ethos Began at Home

[bobbyw24]

www.nytimes.com/2010/06/06/us/politics/06paul.html

[MRoCkEd]

Really great article. Thanks for posting!

This will appear in the Sunday edition of the National NYT.

[bobbyw24]

You're welcome. Woulda put a snippet from article but am posting from my cell (Sprint Evo 4G)

[Vessol]

Excellent article, I was raised very similarly.

I wasn't raised that strictly really. I could go out and play until fairly late as long as I told my mother where I was. Never received allowances, I spent a lot of time mowing lawns and shoveling sidewalks for the money I earned. Nor did I ever have a strict chore list, rather I had expectations of what was to be regularly done and did so usually.

I think I turned out pretty well. I've much more common sense, especially when it comes to finances, then any of my peers for one. And many other things.

Living in a marine base area, I know a lot of kids whom were raised in very strict households and military discipline. And while I respect a parents choice for this, the results I often see are not usually that good. A lot of these kids rebel and lash out against such an upbringing.

[ravedown]

pretty good article but wow, the comments. apparently there is something very wrong about being raised in a respectful, independently-minded household.

[silverhandorder]

I must have been raised like a communist then.

[Jeremy]

A quote from Eric Dondero... that names seems awfully familiar...

[Epic]

Comments are ridiculous

Apparently, the Pauls are "militant", Greenspan the central planner is a libertarian, and Rand Paul blindly adopted his ideology from his dad.

Oh yeah, and libertarians shouldn't go into government because they don't believe in it.

It's like they are asking for a dictator to exercise total control over them. If somebody didn't believe in exercising total control of them, the statists would ask them not to go into politics, because duh, tyranny is what government is for! So if you don't want to hurt people, don't go into politics!

[Corto_Maltese]

Really nice article.

[Knightskye]

Applicable quote from Lanny's article:

“Since governments, when instituted, must not violate individual rights, we oppose all interference by government in the areas of voluntary and contractual relations among individuals.” Under “Property and Contract,” the platform states that “property rights are entitled to the same protection as all other human rights. The owners of property have the full right to control, use, dispose of, or in any manner enjoy, their property without interference … ”

So there it is: If you believe in that principle, you wouldn’t agree with government compelling a private restaurant owner to serve anyone he or she doesn’t want to, regardless of the reasons.

I wonder if Ron corrected Lanny's sentence about Rand being pro-choice, when he phoned him.

[CGeoffrion]

"Rand walked door to door in support of his father’s first Congressional race, in 1974, and while a student at Baylor University, he helped in his father’s unsuccessful Senate race against Phil Gramm in 1984. (When Ron Paul had to be in Washington for a Congressional vote, Rand stepped in for him in a debate against Mr. Gramm — it was his first public speaking appearance). Rand would take it upon himself to organize the other family members on neighborhood walking tours, canvasses and appearances."

Damn, I'd love to watch that!

[Epic]

My comment:


Thanks for the article. It was balanced enough.

I just want to respond to several illogical comments and also provide some clarification to questions posed.

1. "I'm always suspicious of people who wholeheartedly adopt their parents' philosophies without any evidence of investigating alternative ways of thinking." Rand certainly doesn't. He is less of a libertarian than Ron is, disagreeing on earmark policy (though they both oppose the general process), foreign policy to some extent, and Guantanamo policy. Probably more, too. In fact, Rand said that at Thanksgiving Dinner, Ron was a bit peeved at Rand's water-downing of the libertarianism, and they also made Rand sit at the kids table!

2. "It will be very interesting to see how the incoherence of Libertarian ideology unfolds in the Tea Party." Disagree with libertarianism if you must, but do not claim that the ideology that is wrong to initiate force against other human beings is internally inconsistent or incoherent. It is straightforward, yet many do not understand it. Coercion is at the root of most of society's problems.

2. "I hope he will be asked what he thinks about medical licensing." I don't know what Rand would say for political purposes, but Ron and libertarianism (in general) would definitely be against it. Licensing implies an establishment guild that uses coercion to keep certain people out of the profession.

4. "Most people are not open-minded nor independent enough to consider living a truly free life. For that reason, libertarianism can never work on a large scale." The fact that people aren't angels is a reason to limit government power - the politicians and bureaucrats are corruptable, self-interested, and often malevolent - and are also subject to a set of incentives that lead to suboptimal policy outcomes - as public choice economics demonstrates. Economists who understand public-choice economics tend to lean libertarian.

6. "The big problem with the Libertarian movement is it does not work when faced with reality. " Except every time and to every extent it has been tried. Simply look at the free market success stories of Hong Kong, China, Chile, Estonia, the US, Singapore, etc. vs. Venezuela, Cuba, North Korea, and other countries that score lower on the scale of economic freedom. Also look at the Heritage Foundation Economic Freedom Index - it correlates very well with economic productivity and thus quality of life. Also consider Peter Leeson's paper "Two Cheers for Capitalism" - which gives all the empirical evidence for free-market capitalism that one would ever need: http://www.peterleeson.com/Two_Cheers_for_Capitalism.pdf...

10. "Like the rest of the "tea party", understanding the issues was never high on the list in the Paul household, either." First, most participants in the Tea Party aren't libertarian. Second, Ron Paul - and Rand - have spent more time understanding human action and its consequences than your average dozen congressman. Ron Paul is an Austrian Economist in his own right and has published many books on economics and foreign policy. For this reason, Ron Paul was able to predict the breakdown of Bretton Woods back in 1971 and also the financial crisis of 2008. It also has allowed him to profit handsomely from gold over the past 10 years as governments around the world run up debt and imperil their currencies. For the reasons, people who understand Austrian Economics understand how the world works. Ron Paul has benefited from ascertaining this knowledge.

9. "but when you are a physician it's easy to say that each is responsible for one's self, ie food, shelter, paying for college, health care). " Rand runs a health-care clinic for people who can't pay for medical care.

Also, back when Ron Paul worked at a medical facility in Texas in the 50s, the hospital would take all comers, free of charge if they couldn't pay. They could do that because medical care was cheaper. Now, after many decades of huge federal intervention (see here: http://mises.org/daily/4434), the costs are much more expensive. The lesson is clear - if you want the poor to have better medical care, reduce the interventions that subvert basic supply and demand. This allows the price to fall over time, just as it does in other industries.

7. "I don't get it. If you don't believe in the government on any level, why run to be part of it? Just do your own thing, mind your own business, and don't try to impose your nonsense on the rest of us." I suppose only power-crazed megalomaniacs should seek political power? Ron and Rand are running for office to stop the politicians from using violence against the victims of that political violence. Also, remember that an anarchist is simply someone who believes in less government than you, so your comment endorses a full-blown totalitarian dictatorship in comparison to a run-of-the-mill big-government politician. I prefer politicians understand the limits of political power.

[low preference guy]

Epic comment, Epic!

[jfriedman]

My comment:

Epic comment, is Epic.

[Epic]

What are the chances my comment gets through?

Based on the current comments, they may not allow comments by non-socialists.

[low preference guy]

i have a critique of your last rebuttal, to "I don't get it. If you don't believe in the government on any level, why run to be part of it? Just do your own thing, mind your own business, and don't try to impose your nonsense on the rest of us."

You could have pointed out that it was a straw man. Rand doesn't believe in "no government at any level". He at the very least believes that the government should run the army, the police, and the courts. That person's criticism was absolutely nonsensical.

Other than that, it was a superb rebuttal.

[Epic]

You could have pointed out that it was a straw man. Rand doesn't believe in "no government at any level". He at the very least believes that the government should run the army, the police, and the courts. That person's criticism was absolutely nonsensical.

I was more concerned about libertarianism in general than Rand.

[andrewh817]

Sometimes I wonder how many self-proclaimed libertarians actually use or plan to use those ideals when child-raising. We don't have much control over the state, we do have control over our personal relationships.

[Corto_Maltese]

Epic comment, is Epic.

+1

[BuddyRey]

Bump!

[silentshout]

Sometimes I wonder how many self-proclaimed libertarians actually use or plan to use those ideals when child-raising. We don't have much control over the state, we do have control over our personal relationships.

I will be trying my best to as a parent :). Not sure how good I will do., lol.
I thought this was a good article, but some of the comments were pretty scary.

[Anti Federalist]

pretty good article but wow, the comments. apparently there is something very wrong about being raised in a respectful, independently-minded household.

Well, it is the NY Slimes after all.

Those inclined to read it are not those inclined to our way of thinking.

ETA - The overwhelming number of comments from NYC, LA, DC...I need say no more.

[Anti Federalist]

From the article:


In a recent interview with The New York Times, Mr. Paul, the two-time libertarian presidential candidate, referred to his son’s campaign as “our race.” When his son faced criticism recently over comments that some interpreted as skeptical of federal civil rights laws, the congressman was shaken

Wait, wut?

He ran twice for president as a libertarian?

From the article:


“They were a very Brady Bunch-type American family,” said Eric Dondero, a longtime former aide to Ron Paul. “As different as their politics are, their personal life was very normal.”

Oh, WTF?

[JCF]

Good article, I was raised in various different ways... Sometimes I was living with someone that let me do what I wanted and other times I was living under a house of fundamentalist Christians who had strict rules. I've been more productive when on my own, left to use my imagination to guide and entertain me.

When I was around 7 years old I literally had no parental control, I was left alone with my uncle to play with who was 1 year older than me. Together we thought of ways we could buy candy, at first we collected cans and turned them in for like 5 cents a can. Eventually we ran out so instead we made comics! At 7/8 years old we were already creating a product and we sold our first for $2, door to door.

I'll tell you one thing, if we were given structure and told when to go to the park and when to play inside and when to do this and that we probably would not have had the time to think of creative ways to feed and entertain ourselves.

Now we did do stupid stuff as well, like putting army men in the microwave and we once tried to cook and egg in the toaster.

--

[Thrashertm]

This is what I posted for the education of all of the government-loving statists that dominate the NYT readership:

Libertarians are often depicted as selfish greedy people that want total anarchy. Let me set the record straight on a few philosophical points here.

1. Libertarians generally support a role for government. However, that role should be focused solely on protecting individual rights. Most libertarians oppose the fact that our government is engaged in empire, torture, regulating abortion and illegal drugs, and far more.

2. Libertarians generally support helping other people. The difference is that they would like people to help others when it’s in their own self interest to do so, rather than have the government forcibly extract and redistribute resources. The specter of people dying in the streets in a libertarian world is often raised, yet it is difficult to believe that people with the means would not willingly contribute to organizations dedicated to preventing that problem. In a libertarian world, there would be multiple such organizations competing for the public’s voluntary contributions.

3. Libertarians generally support regulations. However, those regulations should be enforced voluntarily by the market. If a business behaves badly, they should bear the full consequences of their mistakes via a boycott and civil and criminal proceedings. Companies like BP should not be able to hide behind liability laws that shield them from responsibility. Furthermore, libertarians are often against the very notion that a corporation should be able to shield individuals from liability.

[specsaregood]

From the article:
Wait, wut?
He ran twice for president as a libertarian?


It really is amazing the amount of inaccuracies or outright lies in the media.

And it sounds like I was raised in a very similar household to Rand.

[bobbyw24]

It really is amazing the amount of inaccuracies or outright lies in the media.

Even more amazing is how idiotic liberals think everything in the NY Times is the gospel. They never take the time to check things out for themselves.

[No1ButPaul08]

http://www.newseum.org/media/dfp/jpg6/lg/NY_NYT.jpg