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The Forum > Article Comments > Left's profitable Pauline conversion? > Comments

Left's profitable Pauline conversion? : Comments

By Daniel Kogoy, published 19/1/2012

Why the left should be supporting Ron Paul's bid to become the Republican Presidential candidate.

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I suspect that I may not be the first to tell you, Peter Hume, but you often come across on this forum as a self-righteous prig. Not that there's anything wrong with that, as they say.

>>...once again, when we take away your misrepresentations and projections, you have no argument left.<<

Ummmm... which misrepresentations and projections might you be referring to, pray? You carefully select one mini-topic - the old-age pension (which, incidentally, I didn't single out for comment) - and ignore the rest. You may think that is a smart debating tactic, but to me it is simply cowardice.

But I'm afraid your slip is showing.

>>...the way to abolish the age pension is not by new taxes or regulations. It is to stop inflating away people’s savings, stop taxing away their income, stop destroying capital on schemes that people wouldn’t voluntarily pay for, stop preventing people from earning income by occupational licensing and minimum wage laws; and allow young people to opt out of the whole dysfunctional racket if they want.<<

You plan to achieve all that without new regulations? "Watch my lips: no new regulations"

How? By osmosis? Telepathy? Vulcan mind-melds? As with all you platonic idealists, you think that these small details can be resolved just by wishing them into being.

*tap tap* "There's no place like home..."

Ron Paul has not yet articulated a single practical policy. They exist on the same cosmic plane as your ideas - "if only the world wasn't like it is, life would be so much better". Newsflash - you cannot replace the reality that the rest of the world enjoys, with your own brand of theoretically-benevolent anarchy.

But let's be generous for a moment, and imagine you could sprinkle your wouldn't-life-be-grand-if fairy dust around. Explain to us how Ron Paul's fixation for the gold standard (or, if you don't like gold, pick a specie) is going to benefit the US economy. Maybe you could begin with a quick overview of how it might be introduced?

That's just for starters.

And please, try hard, for once, to be practical.
Posted by Pericles, Sunday, 22 January 2012 5:12:04 PM
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And while I'm here, Peter Hume...

>>The flaw in your reasoning is to think of freedom as a kind of policy option. According to this theory, ending some kind of control is “managing the economy”.<<

How do you avoid "managing the economy"? It will happen, whatever you do - taking controls away is "managing the economy". Abolishing tax is "managing the economy".

Bringing back the gold standard is reintroducing a type of control, not ending it, as you seem to think. And by definition, of course, is just another form of "managing the economy".

Your particular brand of muddled-up Mise Institute economics and laissez-faire anarchy is itself a "kind of policy option", and one that has nothing to do with freedom, and everything to do with power. Not to the people, but to a new elite who will grind the faces of the poor and disadvantaged at the first opportunity. It's what they do.

>>Your smirk of gnostic self-righteousness on monetary policy only shows the indefensible irrational Keynesian belief that printing money is what makes modern society wealthy.<<

Nope. I just know, for absolute certain, that the Austrian School and the Ron Pauls of this world are living in cloud-cuckoo land if they think they can simply wish away what exists, and replace it with pipe-dreams. It may well give you a warm feeling to promote the inerrancy of Mise and his boys. But show me one example of how their concepts can be implemented - anywhere in the world - in 2012.

The main reason I think a Ron Paul candidacy would be such a good thing is that we could see in all its threadbare glory, the detail of his policies.

I suspect Obama feels much the same way.

Incidentally, you didn't answer this:

"Oh yes. Kill the Fed. That will achieve what, in real terms?"

Forget for a moment the Arjay-style rave, "a system that rips off the workers of countless billions and gives it to the big banks and corporations", and explain to us what actual transactions will stop happening, and what the result will be.
Posted by Pericles, Sunday, 22 January 2012 6:01:31 PM
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The general issue is whether a vote for Ron Paul would be preferable to a vote for Obama, in terms of the left’s own self-understanding of the values it stands for.

This turns on the underlying proposition that less government and more freedom would be preferable, for the left’s own professed values, than the status quo under Obama.

This presents the acid test for the left, namely, whether they are *really* in favour of social justice and human liberation or whether despite their talk, when it comes to the crunch, they will show their true colours and prefer totalitarian fascism which, by coincidence, has been the result every time the left has had free rein to implement its self-defining project of socialism.

Actions speak louder than words, and it is very telling that Passy has blatantly evaded answering the question which will prove where he stands on this issue.

It is obvious why: he’s stuck in a cleft stick. He either contradicts himself and supports Ron Paul. Or he admits his *actual* answers “YES I DO support perpetual aggressive war over the freedom of people not to be forced to pay for it, and YES I DO support the forced redistribution of wealth from the world’s working class to the American big banks and military-industrial complex over people’s freedom from government monopoly control of the money supply, and YES I DO support the state’s pretended right to detain torture or kill people without charge or trial, over the concept of freedom from the state’s arbitrary power.”

In other words, their self-understanding is mistaken, and their pretensions to care about human liberation and social justice are FALSE. They would rather have what they themselves consider right-wing fascism than tolerate freedom and private property!

Passy’s non-argument that Ron Paul supports the confederacy must turn on an unspoken premise that bigger government is self-evidently better than smaller. But that’s precisely what’s in issue here. So the deep structure of his argument is only this: “Big government and less freedom are better, because big government and less freedom are better.” It’s illogical…
Posted by Peter Hume, Monday, 23 January 2012 12:01:55 AM
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(Lincoln’s openly stated purpose in going to war was not to free the slaves, but to “save the union”, i.e. to forcibly repress the right of secession and freedom of association which the Declaration of Independence had declared was an inalienable natural right and the basis of government. Lincoln’s purpose wasn’t to free the slaves, it was to treat the whole population as the state's property, which is why Passy agrees. Since slavery was abolished elsewhere at the same time without slaughtering hundreds of thousands of people, it is not self-evident why Lincoln’s violent statist approach was automatically better. So all we’re getting from Passy here is circular argument: the state as God.)

Sir Vivor
What happens when a business make a loss? Does that affect the direction of production?

What happens when a business makes a profit? Does that affect the direction of production?

Being *completely unable* to make any substantive argument, you instead resort to ad hominem (trying to divert the issue onto the character of Ron Paul’s backers without saying how this is relevant to anything in issue) and circularity (assuming that profit is bad). Illogical.


Pericles
Your first misrepresentation is that it is inconsistent with my views to support Ron Paul’s proposals to decrease government and increase freedom.

Your second misrepresentation is that I am offside to Ron Paul
“Considering [Paul’s] views on "creating an economy"
which you apparently derive from the author’s statement "Ron Paul has said that he does not support ending welfare before an economy is created that makes a welfare state unnecessary."

That is a misrepresentation because neither I nor Paul ever said that Paul envisages the government “creating an economy”. If he did, please cite your quote.

Your third misrepresentation is that, by advocating a greater degree of freedom, libertarians are being “utopian”; I have explained why that’s wrong. (Legislative change is also required for statist programs, but you don’t call them “utopian”. You should.)

Your projection is to tell me what I think:
“why you are actively supporting the continuation of a system that you so clearly despise”…
Posted by Peter Hume, Monday, 23 January 2012 12:07:03 AM
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For all you know, I might think greater freedom under a government complying with the US Constitution, better than the status quo under Obama, without in any way contradicting my views in general.

You assert that any action taken by government must, by definition, be “managing the economy”. Leaving people free to spend their own income as they choose, is presumably “fiscal policy”. And the fact that consensual private adult sex is legal, I suppose, shows the existence of “sexual policy”? According to your line of reasoning, one’s private and consensual sex that the government doesn’t even know about, is just an expression of the government’s “management” of sexuality, since the government has a right of ultimate decision-making, and therefore there is no such thing as a decision or action that is not a product of government.

Reducing your line of reasoning to its absurdity, statists have a right to indefinitely expand their claims against my liberty, even to my life, but it would be inconsistent with my views to make the slightest objection! Needless to say, that’s wrong.

The concept you are completely lacking is: freedom.

Notice how you guys cannot identify any principle on which one has a right to be free of government interference? So it’s no wonder you fall a natural prey to the blandishments of unlimited government. You support forced redistributions *upwards*, because you have no concept of freedom except on the basis of arbitrary government power. You’re proving the libertarian case for me.

Notice how, when someone proposes freedom, you think that’s “utopia” and “pipe-dreams” and “cloud cuckoo land” and not “practical”? The implication is that interventionism is the only practical alternative, even though the state relies for all its revenue on the property that it confiscates from the private sector without which, the state and society would immediately collapse! So your understanding of state and society is completely backward. Society is fructifying; the state is predatory.

At base, your theory is that of Hobbes: society is essentially unworkable, and therefore we need to stoop our neck under an unlimited and absolute Leviathan.
Posted by Peter Hume, Monday, 23 January 2012 12:09:13 AM
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What if you are wrong?

That would explain why it's wrong for you to support military imperialism killing hundreds of thousands of innocent people, wouldn’t it? It would make sense of what your own theory of the state and society cannot explain, wouldn't it?

It’s a misrepresentation that you support killing hundreds of thousands of innocent people? Oh good! - so now you support Ron Paul over Obama do you? Congratulations on your change of mind!

“explain to us [in abolishing the Fed] what actual transactions will stop happening, and what the result will be”

I would be happy to explain and thanks for asking. You never know, once you understand it, you might think it preferable, in terms of social justice for the ordinary worker and society as a whole, to the system of corrupt cronyism over which Obama is presiding (and all the Democrats and Republicans - except Ron Paul -

What if you are wrong?

That would explain why your support of military imperialism is wrong, wouldn’t it? So that would make sense, wouldn’t it, of what your own theory of the state and society cannot explain?

It’s a misrepresentation that you support killing hundreds of thousands of innocent people? Oh good! - so now you support Ron Paul over Obama do you? Congratulations on your change of mind!

“explain to us [in abolishing the Fed] what actual transactions will stop happening, and what the result will be”

I would be happy to explain so and thanks for asking. You never know, once you understand it, you might think it preferable in terms of social justice for the ordinary worker and society as a whole, to the system of cronyism over which Obama is presiding.

But before I do, can you let us know whether you have read any original works of the Austrian school ? If so, what, and either way, what is your understanding of the Austrian theory of money and credit and critique of the Fed
Posted by Peter Hume, Monday, 23 January 2012 12:13:26 AM
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