[Video] Ron Paul On CNN's The Arena With Eliot Spitzer Tonight

[Immortal Technique]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=riLe9Uf9t4M


Airing Date May.13, 2011

Ron Paul On CNN's The Arena With Eliot Spitzer

[zerosdontcount]

thanks!

[eduardo89]

thanks for sharing!

[Wesker1982]

Is taxation theft?

"Yes."- Ron Paul

:D

[eduardo89]

What a douchebag comment at the end:

"My taxes pay your salary"

[low preference guy]

What a douchebag comment at the end:

"My taxes pay your salary"

Ron Paul should've said: And Congressmen received their salaries before the income tax was enacted.

[smartguy911]

wtf was that about? Damn Dr Paul looks insanely tired.

[anaconda]

Ron missed the opportunity to talk about all of the constitutional taxes (corporate) and taxes that are not extracted via the income tax: gasoline tax, sales tax, property tax, use tax, etc. It is always a fun fact that the income tax revenues essentially only pay for the interest on the national debt (hint hint).

[Gaddafi Duck]

"[making sense]" - Ron Paul

"Congressman..." - Spitzer

"Just a sec --- [making more sense]" - Ron Paul

HAH! Love it :D

[risiusj]

I would have loved to hear Dr. Paul's whole answer to Spitzer saying that he pays taxes with pride and being part of a community is about paying taxes. Instead it got obviously edited and all we hear is, "Good, you're a good volunteer."

[t0rnado]

Notice how Eliot avoided the heroin and prostitution question, while everyone in the media didn't. Fucking scumbag deserves to rot in a pit.

[Philhelm]

Notice how Eliot avoided the heroin and prostitution question, while everyone in the media didn't. Fucking scumbag deserves to rot in a pit.

Ron should have mentioned that he'd like prostitution to be legalized, just to mix it up a bit.

[BenIsForRon]

Ron Paul is throwing out lots of terrible soundbites. Gingrich, Obama, and their corporate sponsors are going to have lots of ammo for attack ads. Let's hope there are enough open minded Americans ready to delve deeper on the internet.

[tasteless]

Man I was really hoping he'd bring up the prostitution bit, especially after Rand nailed Spitzer on that during his interview.

[roho76]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=riLe9Uf9t4M


Airing Date May.13, 2011

Ron Paul On CNN's The Arena With Eliot Spitzer

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=riLe9Uf9t4M

[pacelli]

Thanks for the video of Client #9.

[trey4sports]

ughhhh.....

We just have to throw money at Ron left and right to counter the bullshit

[TortoiseDream]

Is taxation theft?

"Yes."- Ron Paul

:D

LOOOOL

Sometimes I want to be in Ron's shoes when he's answering these questions, like when Spitzer "rebuts" that taxes are used to pay for all of this stuff. "We don't call it theft because of how the criminal spends the loot!"

[Theocrat]

Is taxation theft?

"Yes."- Ron Paul

:D

If you listen closely, you'll understand that Congressman Paul was referring to income taxes, not all taxes, when he said "Yes" to taxation being theft.

[TXcarlosTX]

The machine!!!

[TortoiseDream]

If you listen closely, you'll understand that Congressman Paul was referring to income taxes, not all taxes, when he said "Yes" to taxation being theft.


He talked about incomes taxes, but I don't think anything specifically indicates that he meant just income taxes.

[Theocrat]

He talked about incomes taxes, but I don't think anything specifically indicates that he meant just income taxes.

Sure, because, in general, we know Congressman Paul believes in lower taxes. However, he is not against all taxes because he knows his salary is paid by taxes. If he believed all taxes were theft, then he would be the biggest hypocrite in Congress by reason that he has held federal office for over 20 years and has been a recipient of this "theft" for a long time.

[low preference guy]

Sure, because, in general, we know Congressman Paul believes in lower taxes. However, he is not against all taxes because he knows his salary is paid by taxes. If he believed all taxes were theft, then he would be the biggest hypocrite in Congress by reason that he has held federal office for over 20 years and has been a recipient of this "theft" for a long time.

I disagree. I used stole property all the time, but that's because the government makes it impossible not to. Yesterday, for example, I went to the store by walking through a public road which was built with stolen money.

[Theocrat]

I disagree. I used stole property all the time, but that's because the government makes it impossible not to. Yesterday, for example, I went to the store by walking through a public road which was built with stolen money.

That is quite different for Congressman Paul's situation. He made the choice to run for public office, knowing that it is a position paid via taxes. Dr. Paul was already making good money as a physician, so it's not like he ran for Congress for the money. Given his views on economics, if he really believed that all taxation was theft, surely, he would not have chosen to be a recipient of that "theft" by holding a position which receives tax dollars for his salary.

Congressman Paul does believe that taxes should go towards paying for certain things in a limited government. The Constitution allows Congress to lay and collect taxes towards certain things. Since Dr. Paul is a Constitutionalist, he would not agree that all taxes are theft. Otherwise, he would not support the Constitution.

So, please stop shaping Congressman Paul to suit your own views. That is a form of idolatry.

[low preference guy]

So, please stop shaping Congressman Paul to suit your own views. That is a form of idolatry.

That's a lot of bullshit because Ron Paul has said in many contexts, unequivocally and without clarifications, that taxes are theft. You're the one projecting your own views on Dr. Paul.

[low preference guy]

That is quite different for Congressman Paul's situation. He made the choice to run for public office, knowing that it is a position paid via taxes.

He made that choice because that's the best way he can infiltrate the criminal gang and try to stop it. Moreover, he did not have the option to work and make money, that's forbidden if you're elected. He didn't have a choice because he couldn't make money practicing medicine part time or something like that.

[low preference guy]

Ron Paul: "Taxes are theft". Go to 2:03.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HmEOv_rT8LQ

Note he doesn't say "income taxes are theft".

[BenIsForRon]

Low preference guy, I know you want Ron Paul to be totally in line with your Anarchist beliefs, and who knows, deep down he might be. But for the next year and a half, nobody gives a fuck.

Threads like this need to stop being derailed into the never-ending philosophical fights, now that more people will be coming here looking for the truth about the campaign and media spin. You're just being a distraction.

[Theocrat]

That's a lot of bullshit because Ron Paul has said in many contexts, unequivocally and without clarifications, that taxes are theft. You're the one projecting your own views on Dr. Paul.

And like I've mentioned before, in those contexts (particularly in the video in the OP), Congressman Paul qualifies his statement that he is not talking about all taxes. In the video, he specifically mentioned the income tax as being theft.

As I also stated in my previous reply, Dr. Paul is a Constitutionalist, and the Constitution grants Congress the authority to tax. If he thinks taxation is theft, then he must be against Article I, Section 2 of the Constitution. And if that is the case, he is lying when he takes his oath of office to support and defend the Constitution because, in a sense, he is agreeing that some taxation is necessary for the federal government (if for nothing else but to pay his salary as a congressman).

The fact that you fail to see the logical implications of that reveals your own projection of views placed upon Congressman Paul that he is against all taxes, and that falsely so. You're just blinded by your anarchistic presuppositions.

[low preference guy]

Low preference guy, I know you want Ron Paul to be totally in line with your Anarchist beliefs, and who knows, deep down he might be.

LOL, I'm not an anarchist.


Threads like this need to stop being derailed into the never-ending philosophical fights, now that more people will be coming here looking for the truth about the campaign and media spin. You're just being a distraction.

Tell that to Theo. I'm just defending myself from the charge of "idolatry". Also, please stop being a distraction with posts like this.

[Wesker1982]

If you listen closely, you'll understand that Congressman Paul was referring to income taxes, not all taxes, when he said "Yes" to taxation being theft.

http://www.techchuff.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/theo-huxtable.jpg

The quote Spitzer mentions is:

"The government, they have nothing. Everything they get they have to steal it from somebody. That is called taxation. The redistribution of wealth."- Ron Paul, the word income is not mentioned in this quote at all.

Then Spitzer asks: Is taxation theft in your mind? (note he did not say income taxation). Ron Paul answers with a definite "Yes."

It should be obvious that the reason Ron immediately changes the subject to focus on the income tax is because his political career would be over when Spitzer calls him out on being an anarchist since thats what being against all taxes leads to. Judge Napolitano has said all taxation is theft, I guess cuz he isn't running for teh prez?

But Ron has made it clear he is against all taxation, he has just not said it bluntly on TV like The Judge. If you read Liberty Defined you will see that Ron Paul advocates the private (as in, voluntarily funded) production of defense, including national defense, and he states that government is incapable of providing defense. Advocating the privatization of everything is equal to being against all taxes.

And this is pretty clear, anyways:

If we as a nation continue to believe that that paying for civilization through taxation is a wise purchase and the only way to achieve civilization, we are doomed.-Liberty Defined, Page 284

http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthread.php?291050-Ron-Paul-reconfirms-he-s-a-voluntarist&p=3254157&viewfull=1#post3254157

[low preference guy]

As I also stated in my previous reply, Dr. Paul is a Constitutionalist, and the Constitution grants Congress the authority to tax. If he thinks taxation is theft, then he must be against Article I, Section 2 of the Constitution. And if that is the case, he is lying when he takes his oath of office to support and defend the Constitution because, in a sense, he is agreeing that some taxation is necessary for the federal government (if for nothing else but to pay his salary as a congressman).

Ron Paul has said that the Constitution is an imperfect document. If the Constitution says something, it doesn't mean RP believes it's right.



You're just blinded by your anarchistic presuppositions.

The fact that you keep making things up about me makes you lose all credibility.

[Theocrat]

http://www.techchuff.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/theo-huxtable.jpg

The quote Spitzer mentions is:

"The government, they have nothing. Everything they get they have to steal it from somebody. That is called taxation. The redistribution of wealth."- Ron Paul, the word income is not mentioned in this quote at all.

Then Spitzer asks: Is taxation theft in your mind? (note he did not say income taxation). Ron Paul answers with a definite "Yes."

It should be obvious that the reason Ron immediately changes the subject to focus on the income tax is because his political career would be over when Spitzer calls him out on being an anarchist since thats what being against all taxes leads too. Judge Napolitano has said all taxation is theft, I guess cuz he isn't running for teh prez?

But Ron has made it clear he is against all taxation, he has just not said it bluntly on TV like The Judge. If you read Liberty Defined you will see that Ron Paul advocates the private (as in, voluntarily funded) production of defense, including national defense, and he states that government is incapable of providing defense. Advocating the privatization of everything is equal to being against all taxes.

And this is pretty clear, anyways:

If we as a nation continue to believe that that paying for civilization through taxation is a wise purchase and the only way to achieve civilization, we are doomed.-Liberty Defined, Page 284

http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthread.php?291050-Ron-Paul-reconfirms-he-s-a-voluntarist&p=3254157&viewfull=1#post3254157

You make a good point about his answer, Wesker1982, because, admittedly, he did not say income taxes are theft. He did say just taxation, in general. It does make me wonder how he can hold public office, receive a paycheck paid by taxes, and hold to such a view that taxation is theft. That is something I need to meditate on and pray about because it makes him inconsistent in being a public officer.

I have not read his book, yet, so I do need to check out his views on the nature of taxation.

[low preference guy]

It does make me wonder how he can hold public office, receive a paycheck paid by taxes, and hold to such a view that taxation is theft. That is something I need to meditate on and pray about because it makes him inconsistent in being a public officer.

How much money was taxed from him when he worked in the private sector? Maybe he just considers it getting his money back, but I don't know if he actually does.

[Theocrat]

Ron Paul has said that the Constitution is an imperfect document. If the Constitution says something, it doesn't mean RP believes it's right.

That is true.


The fact that you keep making things up about me makes you lose all credibility.

I just read in a previous post of yours that you do not consider yourself an anarchist. My apologies for accusing you of being one.

[TIMB0B]

Man I was really hoping he'd bring up the prostitution bit, especially after Rand nailed Spitzer on that during his interview.
Really? Link? :)

[rich34]

The media is really trying to cut off any kind of support Ron may get from the left or conservative democrats by attacking him with social spending issues. I seriously hope Ron and company is getting prepared in how he's going to answer these questions in the debates to come. Just as they didn't ask him a question on healthcare the last time around during the debates I suspect they are going to avoid him on economic issues this time around as much as possible.

Meanwhile they're going to allow Mr Herman WHO to act like he's giving us an education on economic policy when in fact he was once one of them by being chairman or vice chairman of the federal reserve bank of KC. We're going to have to win this on the ground the media will not allow it.

[Wesker1982]

You make a good point about his answer, Wesker1982, because, admittedly, he did not say income taxes are theft. He did say just taxation, in general. It does make me wonder how he can hold public office, receive a paycheck paid by taxes, and hold to such a view that taxation is theft. That is something I need to meditate on and pray about because it makes him inconsistent in being a public officer.

I have not read his book, yet, so I do need to check out his views on the nature of taxation.

He is acting in self defense. He must pay taxes whether he likes it or not. We wouldn't say that a slave is a hypocrite or consented to his slavery for eating food that was produced by the other slave's labor. The slave eats the food provided out of a matter of necessity, because he has no other choice.



There is nothing wrong, and everything rational, then, about accepting the matrix in one's daily life. What's wrong is working to aggravate, to add to, the statist matrix...

It seems to me, then, that the criterion, the ground on which we must stand, to be moral and rational in a state-run world, is to: (1) work and agitate as best we can, in behalf of liberty; (2) while working in the matrix of our given world, to refuse to add to its statism; and (3) to refuse absolutely to participate in State activities that are immoral and criminal per se. -Murray Rothbard

Living in a State-Run World:
http://www.lewrockwell.com/rothbard/rothbard63.html

and Spooner (who Ron Paul recommends reading) says it well too:


In truth, in the case of individuals, their actual voting is not to be taken as proof of consent, even for the time being. On the contrary, it is to be considered that, without his consent having even been asked a man finds himself environed by a government that he cannot resist; a government that forces him to pay money, render service, and forego the exercise of many of his natural rights, under peril of weighty punishments. He sees, too, that other men practice this tyranny over him by the use of the ballot. He sees further, that, if he will but use the ballot himself, he has some chance of relieving himself from this tyranny of others, by subjecting them to his own. In short, he finds himself, without his consent, so situated that, if he use the ballot, he may become a master; if he does not use it, he must become a slave. And he has no other alternative than these two. In self- defence, he attempts the former. His case is analogous to that of a man who has been forced into battle, where he must either kill others, or be killed himself. Because, to save his own life in battle, a man takes the lives of his opponents, it is not to be inferred that the battle is one of his own choosing. Neither in contests with the ballot — which is a mere substitute for a bullet — because, as his only chance of self- preservation, a man uses a ballot, is it to be inferred that the contest is one into which he voluntarily entered; that he voluntarily set up all his own natural rights, as a stake against those of others, to be lost or won by the mere power of numbers. On the contrary, it is to be considered that, in an exigency into which he had been forced by others, and in which no other means of self-defence offered, he, as a matter of necessity, used the only one that was left to him.

Doubtless the most miserable of men, under the most oppressive government in the world, if allowed the ballot, would use it, if they could see any chance of thereby meliorating their condition. But it would not, therefore, be a legitimate inference that the government itself, that crushes them, was one which they had voluntarily set up, or even consented to.

Therefore, a man's voting under the Constitution of the United States, is not to be taken as evidence that he ever freely assented to the Constitution, even for the time being.

[Wesker1982]

May a Libertarian Take Money From the Government?
http://www.lewrockwell.com/block/block175.html


My take on this is that it is a positive virtue to relieve the government of its ill-gotten gains. Suppose Z steals an apple from Y and then X comes along and takes this fruit away from Z. Did X do anything wrong? Did he act incompatibly with the NAP? Is X no longer a libertarian? Of course not. Very much to the contrary, X did something entirely compatible with our philosophy. Certainly, all libertarian theories of private property rights, of punishment, would agree that of all people in the world, Z is the absolutely least deserving of this foodstuff. Now, it might be nice, it might be virtuous, for X to return the apple to Y. - Walter Block

Ron Paul is X returning the apple to Y here.

And even Rothbard wasn't opposed to political action:


In the name of practicality, the opportunist not only loses any chance of advancing others toward the ultimate goal, but he himself gradually loses sight of that goal—as happens with any “sellout” of principle. Thus, suppose that one is writing about taxation. It is not incumbent on the libertarian to always proclaim his full “anarchist” position in whatever he writes; but it is incumbent upon him in no way to praise taxation or condone it; he should simply leave this perhaps glaring vacuum, and wait for the eager reader to begin to question and perhaps come to you for further enlightenment.

What Rothbard describes here is exactly what Ron Paul is doing, and doing a great job at it too.

[outspoken]

It wasn't that long ago that the taxpayers income paid for his prostitutes if he wants to take that road. We need to distinguish between stealing from the production/labor of citizens and other forms of taxation.

[Napoleon's Shadow]

Notice that his tie is the same color as Obama's.

[JJonesMBA]

Ron ought to frame his argument against federal disaster insurance in the context of a strategic transition to a privatization of the disaster relief industry, in accordance with his vision of liberty.

He should be clear that the victims of the latest environmental disaster would of course still be covered & assisted with today's circumstances (similar to those dependent on Medicare, Social Security, food stamps & unemployment benefits due to the Welfare State), although citizens under a Paul presidency would be given the choice to opt-out in the future during a transition to a free market environment.