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Author Topic:   For all the Ron Paul supporters....
littlecloud
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posted January 17, 2011 12:55 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for littlecloud     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
http://www.petitiononline.com/fed/petition.html
http://www.ronpaul2012.net/

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juniperb
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posted January 17, 2011 08:54 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for juniperb     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
That seems to be a 2007 petition and I seem to remember signing it... no matter to Ron Paul!

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What we do for ourselves dies with us. What we do for others and the world is immortal"~

- George Eliot

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littlecloud
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posted January 18, 2011 06:20 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for littlecloud     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
I found it googling and thought I'd post it.

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Glaucus
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posted January 18, 2011 12:35 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for Glaucus     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
I checked out Ron Paul and how he stands on the issues http://www.ontheissues.org/Ron_Paul.htm

After reading what he's about , I am not going to vote for him for the following reasons:


He opposes ABORTION IS A WOMAN'S RIGHT
Abortion is murder
Roe v. Wade decision was harmful to the Constitution
Protecting the life of the unborn is protecting liberty
Get the federal government out of abortion decision
NO on allowing human embryonic stem cell research
NO on expanding research to more embryonic stem cell lines
Sanctity of Life Act: remove federal jurisdiction
He opposes hate crimes legislation
He is NO on enforcing anti-gay hate crimes
He is YES on banning gay adoptions in DC
He says No "sexual orientation " in Employment Non-Discrimination Act
Gender-equal pay violates idea of voluntary contract
He wants to Abolish Social Security, but not overnight:
Socialized medicine won’t work
Abolish federal Medicare entitlement; leave it to states
NO on giving mental health full equity with physical health:
YES on making the Bush tax cuts permanent
Repeal 16th Amendment and get rid of the income tax
He believes that the Defense of Marriage Act should stay in place, and so he is not for same-sex marriages
NO on $84 million in grants for Black and Hispanic colleges

I mainly wouldn't vote for him because he doesn't support women's rights and he is not much of a supporter when it comes to gay rights.
He is Rated 0% by NARAL, indicating a pro-life voting record
He is Rated 38% by the HRC, indicating a mixed record on gay rights
Rated 30% by the ARA, indicating an anti-senior voting record
Rated 17% by the AU, indicating opposition to church-state separation.
Rated 0% by the CTJ, indicating opposition to progressive taxation


I am a believer in gay rights. I believe that homosexual people should have all the same rights as heterosexual people.
I have gay cousins and friends,and I want them to have all their rights. If I had children that are gay, I'd want them to have all their rights too.
Enough of homosexual people treated like 2nd class citizens because of religious beliefs that not everybody believes in.

As a person who has Black and Hispanic in me, I am not a real supporter of Affirmative Action. I don't believe in ethnic nor gender quotas. I believe that people should get into colleges,have jobs by their own merits and not by their ethnic group nor gender. I also believe that Affirmative Action has led to racial resentment towards ethnic minorities. Affirmative Action is used an argument that there is reverse racism.
Affirmative Action was created to address the ethnic disparities that resulted from slavery,Jim Crow laws/segregation,and not allowing ethnic minorities the same rights as whites. It it also involves women too, and I believe that women should be paid equal to men. Women have been underpaid for far too long. Many women work as hard and even harder than many men. However I don't see anything wrong with giving grants for Black and Hispanic colleges. Those colleges were created to give Blacks and Hispanics a chance for an education at a time when the vast majority of colleges which are predominantly white didn't give Blacks and Hispanics chances for education. There was a lot of racial prejudice against Blacks and Hispanics before and during the times that Black and Hispanic colleges existed.
It same thing with things like Miss Black America and BET which were created because Blacks didn't have many opportunities in beauty pageants and entertainment. It's like people forget about the history of racism against blacks in this country. I am sick and tired of people using Miss Black America and BET as argument for reverse racism.

I support universal health care. A lot of people cannot afford health care. It includes a lot of poor,disabled, and ethnic minority people. My mom is disabled with no low legs and in a wheel chair for the rest of her life. She cannot afford to pay for health care. A lot of health programs are being closed.
I believe that mental health problems should be treated equally to physical health problems. There is such thing as mental illness,and it can effect physical health just like physical health problems can effect mental functioning. I have both a strong family and personal history with mental illness. I am a believer in mental health human rights. I believe that there needs to be psychiatric overhaul. A lot of disabled military veterans are not getting adequate treatment.

As a person who is not a Christian nor involved in any other mainstream religion, I support the separation of church and state. Not everybody is Christian in this country. Why should we let Christian beliefs dictate our lives?
I am a member of an interfaith unity church. My beliefs fit with New Age, Neopaganism, New Thought,and Unitarian Universalism.


I am socially liberal and fiscally moderate, and there is no way that I would vote for Ron Paul.


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No..I am not a Virgo.

Developmental Neurodiversity Association facebook group. http://www.facebook.com/#!/group.php?gid=131944976821905&ref=ts

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juniperb
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From: Blue Star Kachina
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posted January 18, 2011 12:51 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for juniperb     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
I have noted Ron Paul is about the only single agreement GU lefties or rightes have (re politics)!

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What we do for ourselves dies with us. What we do for others and the world is immortal"~

- George Eliot

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littlecloud
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posted January 18, 2011 01:19 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for littlecloud     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Glaucus you do not know all the facts. There is a reason why he opposes everything he does. A very good reason.

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littlecloud
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posted January 18, 2011 01:22 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for littlecloud     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Actually income tax is illegal.

America Freedom to Fascism.

Look it up.

Learn.

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Glaucus
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posted January 18, 2011 01:39 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for Glaucus     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote

The more I read about this Ron Paul, the more I dislike him.

on Paul Hates You
Share8 0
by phenry
Tue Jun 05, 2007 at 04:34:14 PM PST

Daily Kos is very definitely not the place you'd expect to see a lot of fulminating praise for right-wing conservatives. Yet the diaries are full of people who can't find enough nice things to say about Rep. Ron Paul, whose smiling face is at this moment being beamed to America from the site of the Republican debate in New Hampshire--after which, we may be sure, we will see yet another round of diaries brimming with joy about Paul's sweet words against the Iraq war. You, dear reader, may even be considering writing one or more such diaries yourself.

Before you do, fellow Democrat, please understand just one thing: Your affection for Paul is far from mutual. Through his words, his actions, and his votes in Congress, he has made one thing abundantly clear over the decades: Ron Paul hates you. By building him up, by supporting him, by taking him seriously, you are not driving a wedge into the heart of the Republican Party--you are only giving him a helping hand along the road to his goal of destroying just about everything you stand for.

* phenry's diary :: ::
*

THE RON PAUL EXPERIENCE - A Diary Series

1. Ron Paul, In His Own Words
2. Ron Paul: The Radical Right's Man in Washington
3. Ron Paul: Dude is Wack
4. Ron Paul Hates You

Let's have a look at some of the many, many issues on which Ron Paul places himself squarely in opposition to me and, presumably, you:

Abortion: Ron Paul's "libertarianism" famously does not extend to the right of a woman to control her body. In February he introduced H.R. 1094, "[t]o provide that human life shall be deemed to exist from conception." He voted against overriding Bush's veto of the stem cell bill.

The Environment: Ron Paul may be a Republican, but he's certainly not a Republican for Environmental Protection. That fine organization gave Paul a shameful 17 percent rating on its most recent Congressional Scorecard (warning: PDF). He doesn't fare much better in the eyes of the American Wilderness Coalition or the League of Conservation Voters. Paul's abysmal record on the environment is driven in large measure by his love of sweet, sweet oil: in the 109th Congress alone, he voted to voted 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. Par for the course for a man who called the Kyoto accords "bad science, bad economics and bad domestic policy" and "anti-Americanism masquerading as environmentalism."

Immigration: Paul marches in lock-step with the xenophobic right wing on immigration, calling last month's compromise immigration bill "a compromise of our laws, a compromise of our sovereignty, and a compromise of the Second Amendment." Yet even the hardcore nativists in the immigration debate have been hesitant to support repealing birthright citizenship as enshrined in the Fourteenth Amendment, as Paul has done. His proposed Constitutional amendment, introduced as H. J. Res 46 on April 28, 2005, reads: "Any person born after the date of the ratification of this article to a mother and father, neither of whom is a citizen of the United States nor a person who owes permanent allegiance to the United States, shall not be a citizen of the United States or of any State solely by reason of birth in the United States." Only four other Representatives, all Republicans, were willing to cosponsor this proposed amendment.

Civil Rights: Paul doesn't much care for ensuring your right to vote. Like when he voted with just 32 other members of Congress against reauthorizing the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Or when he voted for the bogus "Federal Election Integrity Act" voter suppression bill.

But at least Ron Paul knows who's responsible for racism in America: you are. "By encouraging Americans to adopt a group mentality," he writes, "the advocates of so-called 'diversity' actually perpetuate racism. Their intense focus on race is inherently racist, because it views individuals only as members of racial groups." So now you know. (Apparently, saying that "[i]f you have ever been robbed by a black teen-aged male, you know how unbelievably fleet-footed they can be" is not racist, as long as it's said with a proper appreciation for free-market economics.)

Gay Rights: Paul's rigid, uncompromising libertarianism leads him to take a number of positions that liberals find objectionable or even reprehensible but which should not in themselves be taken as ipso facto evidence of bigotry. His reflexive opposition to the Civil Rights Act of 1964, for example, is consistent with libertarian positions on federalism and the right of the individual to be free from government "coercion," even if that means limiting the ability of minorities to seek employment and housing free from discrimination.

Still, libertarian orthodoxy can't fully explain Paul's hostility to gay rights, and indeed to gay people in general. The Libertarian Party, which nominated Paul as its presidential candidate in 1988, has strongly opposed the so-called Defense of Marriage Act from the beginning; Paul supports it. While he opposed the "Federal Marriage Amendment" that would have outlawed gay marriage everywhere, he actually cosponsored the odious "Marriage Protection Act," which would nonsensically bar federal courts from considering challenges to the Defense of Marriage Act, which is a federal law. "The definition of marriage--a union between a man and a woman--can be found in any dictionary," he writes condescendingly. Despite Paul's disingenuous claims that he is a "strict constitutionalist," most legal scholars agree that the so-called Marriage Protection Act would be unconstitutional.

You also will not find Paul listed among the 124 co-sponsors of the Military Readiness Enhancement Act of 2007, which would repeal the "don't ask, don't tell" policy barring gays and lesbians from serving in the military. Maybe he's worried that they'll take their "gay agenda" to far-flung corners of the world. He also doesn't want gay people adopting children while they're not serving in the military, either.

On a personal level, we have this 1993 quote wherein Paul equates homosexuality with "sexual deviance." And let's not forget his wink-wink characterization of Hillary Clinton as "a far leftist with very close female friends".

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. "Religious morality will always inform the voting choices of Americans of all faiths," he writes. "...The collectivist left" --that's you!-- "is threatened by strong religious institutions, because it wants an ever-growing federal government to serve as the unchallenged authority in our society.... So the real motivation behind the insistence on a separation of church and state is not based on respect for the First amendment, but rather on a desire to diminish the influence of religious conservatives at the ballot box."

And just in case the dirty liberals in the federal court system might take it into their heads to enforce the Establishment Clause, Mr. Strict Constitutionalist introduced a bill to bar the federal courts from hearing any such cases. No wonder James Dobson's Family Research Council gave Paul a 75 percent rating on their 2005 scorecard.

International Relations: Like crackpot paleoconservatives everywhere, Paul wants us out of the United Nations, which is just a bunch of un-American non-Americans out to destroy America. Darfur is also filled with non-Americans, so you certainly won't find Ron Paul lifting a finger to stop the genocide, or even acknowledge that genocide is taking place. I guess that's why he's one of only four members of Congress to receive an "F" rating on Darfur from the Genocide Intervention Network.

Peace and Military Issues: With all the hooting and hollering about Paul's opposition to the Iraq war, it sure seems like he should have been able to get better than 58 percent from PeacePAC, doesn't it? Even Joe Lieberman managed to get 63 percent. (Still, it beats the 45 percent Paul got from them in the previous Congress.) He did a little better from Peace Action, managing 67 percent--easily the top score for a Republican, but a below-average score for Democrats. (Still, it beats the 40 percent he got from them in 2004.)

And while Paul may oppose the Iraq war, he doesn't seem to have much use for the men and women who have to fight it. Paul received an "F" rating from the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America. It's not easy to get an F from the IAVA; Paul shares this distinction with only six other members of the House.

Taxes: Do we even need to go into this one? If you audaciously believe that we need a progressive system of taxation in this country, here's what Ron Paul thinks of you:

* "[W]e have exactly the kind of steeply progressive tax system championed by Karl Marx. One might expect the left to be happy with such an arrangement. At its core, however, the collectivist left in this country simply doesn’t believe in tax cuts. Deep down, they believe all wealth belongs to the state, which should redistribute it via tax and welfare policies to achieve some mythical 'social justice.'... The class war tactic highlights what the left does best: divide Americans into groups. Collectivists see all issues of wealth and taxation as a zero-sum game played between competing groups. If one group gets a tax break, other groups must be rallied against it- even if such a cut would ultimately benefit them.... Upward mobility is possible only in a free-market capitalist system, whereas collectivism dooms the poor to remain exactly where they are."
* "Collectivist politicians forget that the American dream of becoming wealthy is alive and well. They seek to encourage resentment of the wealthy, when in truth most Americans admire successful people. They forget that upward mobility, the chance to start from humble beginnings and achieve wealth and position, is virtually impossible in high-tax socialist societies. Most of all, however, the pro-tax politicians forget that your money belongs to you. As a society, we should not forget their dishonesty when we go to the polls."

Screw this; this diary's way too long already. Worker rights: Voted to defund OSHA's ergonomics rules. Voted against increasing mine safety standards. Hates unions. Campaign finance reform: Opposes. Social Security and Medicare: Repeats the Republicans' lies about the programs' solvency. Consumer protection: Voted for the bankruptcy bill. Voted to make it harder to file class-action lawsuits. Universal health care: don't make me laugh. Privatizing everything: the Internets are not large enough to hold all the citations.

"But he's against the war!" Yes, he is. So is Pat Buchanan. So is David Duke. If either of them were on the stage in New Hampshire today, full of sweet words about the war, would you be as quick to praise their "independence," to gush about how well of course I wouldn't vote for him myself but he sure is awesome anyway? Do you truly require nothing from a political candidate other than that he oppose the war?

Think about it.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/6/5/193414/2787

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No..I am not a Virgo.

Developmental Neurodiversity Association facebook group.
http://www.facebook.com/#!/group.php?gid=131944976821905&ref=ts

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Glaucus
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posted January 18, 2011 01:45 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for Glaucus     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
On June 4, 2004, Congress hailed the 40th anniversary of the 1964 Act. Only the heroic Ron Paul dissented. Here are his comments.

Mr. Speaker, I rise to explain my objection to H.Res. 676. I certainly join my colleagues in urging Americans to celebrate the progress this country has made in race relations. However, contrary to the claims of the supporters of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the sponsors of H.Res. 676, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 did not improve race relations or enhance freedom. Instead, the forced integration dictated by the Civil Rights Act of 1964 increased racial tensions while diminishing individual liberty.

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 gave the federal government unprecedented power over the hiring, employee relations, and customer service practices of every business in the country. The result was a massive violation of the rights of private property and contract, which are the bedrocks of free society. The federal government has no legitimate authority to infringe on the rights of private property owners to use their property as they please and to form (or not form) contracts with terms mutually agreeable to all parties. The rights of all private property owners, even those whose actions decent people find abhorrent, must be respected if we are to maintain a free society.

This expansion of federal power was based on an erroneous interpretation of the congressional power to regulate interstate commerce. The framers of the Constitution intended the interstate commerce clause to create a free trade zone among the states, not to give the federal government regulatory power over every business that has any connection with interstate commerce.

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 not only violated the Constitution and reduced individual liberty; it also failed to achieve its stated goals of promoting racial harmony and a color-blind society. Federal bureaucrats and judges cannot read minds to see if actions are motivated by racism. Therefore, the only way the federal government could ensure an employer was not violating the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was to ensure that the racial composition of a business's workforce matched the racial composition of a bureaucrat or judge's defined body of potential employees. Thus, bureaucrats began forcing employers to hire by racial quota. Racial quotas have not contributed to racial harmony or advanced the goal of a color-blind society. Instead, these quotas encouraged racial balkanization, and fostered racial strife.

Of course, America has made great strides in race relations over the past forty years. However, this progress is due to changes in public attitudes and private efforts. Relations between the races have improved despite, not because of, the 1964 Civil Rights Act.

In conclusion, Mr. Speaker, while I join the sponsors of H.Res. 676 in promoting racial harmony and individual liberty, the fact is the Civil Rights Act of 1964 did not accomplish these goals. Instead, this law unconstitutionally expanded federal power, thus reducing liberty. Furthermore, by prompting raced-based quotas, this law undermined efforts to achieve a color-blind society and increased racial strife. Therefore, I must oppose H.Res. 676.
http://www.lewrockwell.com/paul/paul188.html


The Civil Right Act of 1964 is unconstituional???
WTF???

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No..I am not a Virgo.

Developmental Neurodiversity Association facebook group.
http://www.facebook.com/#!/group.php?gid=131944976821905&ref=ts

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juniperb
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From: Blue Star Kachina
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posted January 18, 2011 02:27 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for juniperb     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote

quote:
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

Remember Civics class? I`m guessing phenry does not.

There is no such Constitutional clause.

There is the Establishment Clause along with the Free Exercise Clause which states:


"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof...

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What we do for ourselves dies with us. What we do for others and the world is immortal"~

- George Eliot

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Glaucus
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posted January 18, 2011 02:55 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for Glaucus     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
quote:
Originally posted by littlecloud:
Actually income tax is illegal.

America Freedom to Fascism.

Look it up.

Learn.


Look
Don't talk to me like I am stupid


Who the hell are you to tell me

"to look it up and learn"


take your condescending and patronizing and shove it!


You have your views, and I have mine!

I believe that taxes are important for funding government programs.
The problems is that people have this issue about socialism, especially when it comes to "spreading the wealth" and supporting minorities. That's always been an issue in this country.


------------------
No..I am not a Virgo.

Developmental Neurodiversity Association facebook group. http://www.facebook.com/#!/group.php?gid=131944976821905&ref=ts

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littlecloud
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posted January 18, 2011 03:14 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for littlecloud     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Fine. I'll bite.

1) Abortion- (aside from cases of rape, incest and extreme harm to child or mother if born). Did you think once, question that maybe, just maybe Ron Paul actually wants Americans to live full healthy lives? That he thinks since there are so many things that kill us and make us sicker that maybe one day we'll have to repopulate the earth. More children actually goes against what the New World Order wants. The less people you have the easier it is to control them. Astrologically I have read that the Pluto in Scorpio generation might have to repopulate the earth. So maybe just maybe having more people on our side isn't such a bad thing. The federal government needs to be limited in it's power and allow states to come to their own decision. This allows for a greater feeling of community.

2)Hate crimes- This is a laugh. Read this before you jump down my throat. This is a laugh because it's abused so many times. Example: A friend was telling me a story on how he got into a fight with a gay body builder. This gay gentlemen was eyeing my friend up and down and just staring intently at him. My friend told him to look elsewhere. They started fighting. The police where called and the gay guy told the police that my friend had called him a "f*cking f*ggot". Which he did NOT. By saying this and pressing charges the gay guy would have put my friend in jail for 2 years for something he didn't do because it would be called a hate crime. We have such a double standard here it's ridiculous. Gay guys can go on harassing straight men and if anything along the lines of "F*ck off!" is said then it's a hate crime but one doesn't even consider that the straight guy could be feeling sexually harassed.
I know a lot of this will be misconstrued but this is my thought on this. Actually I think the real cause of hate crimes is caused by secret agents trying to distract people from the truth of things around them.
Homosexuality and it's "sufferings" (for lack of a better word, which is why it's in quotes) is another subject altogether and deserves it's own thread.
I will state that I don't hate gay people, nor have I ever abused, or mistreated anyone because of their sexual-orientation. I wish I could say the same for myself.

3)Healthcare- It absolutely STINKS in America along with other countries but we will stick to America for the time being. Lets firstly forgo the fact that all medicine is not based on actually helping people. Another long topic. Medicare/medicaid are unsuccessful for many reasons. They don't pay doctors what they want so a lot of doctors won't take it. The few who do only have 3 minutes for you and everything needs to be cleared by the state first. You end up waiting much much longer for the help and treatment you need. Many people abuse it, by lying about income to get it because the middle class doesn't make enough to get the coverage they need from insurance companies and they make too much for aid/care. On top of that when switching or getting health insurance many won't cover a pre-existing condition. Meaning that if you discovered you had cancer while on one insurance but then decided to switch to a new one, the new one won't pay for your existing condition, having cancer now. They consider it a pre-existing condition that you have to pay on your own full price. Then instead of helping you prevent getting diabetes type 2 by covering a visit to a nutritionist they will only cover your medication and costs once you are diagnosed with having diabetes type 2.

3)Education- The educational system in America is crap. Pure and unadulterated crap. Every teacher hates the Board of Education. It's all I ever heard from my teachers. Students don't learn or gain in knowledge. All they learn is how to take tests. If you're a good test taker then it will help you get far. Memorize facts, spew them out and then you forget whatever you where taught. They don't even teach grammar in school anymore! Can you believe that? It's not required. And then people wonder why kids today can't string two sentences together. Unfortunately I too have forgotten much of the grammar I've learned but I see that even so I write much better than many of my peers, thankfully not all because that would be very sad.

4)The Environment- Firstly we are entering a new Ice Age. Secondly no one seems to actually fully care about the environment. They fill everything with useless chemicals from shampoos to the cotton you wear in your underwear, which is bleached to look clean. Meanwhile all the chemicals entering your body doing God-knows-what to it no one stops to consider. They fill food with hormones and pesticides which have killed off half the honey-bee population. Just wait until the food shortage hits us. The first car was invented to run on peanut oil being called the "Poor mans fuel". Why doesn't anyone use that? Oh yea! NO MONEY in it. Instead of letting nature guide us, people have turned around and used everything to fight nature. Real preservation of the environment would be actually respecting enough to mimic it instead of trying to change it.

5)Immigration= cheap labor. That's why so many American jobs have been lost. All these people crossing the border work for nothing and then become citizens. This includes all the jobs that have been brought overseas because it's much cheaper for big companies. Then you wonder why a middle class person has to work 2 jobs to survive.

"By encouraging Americans to adopt a group mentality," he writes, "the advocates of so-called 'diversity' actually perpetuate racism. Their intense focus on race is inherently racist, because it views individuals only as members of racial groups."

Why don't you re-read that quote and actually understand what Ron Paul is saying. Black people calling white people crackers, and white girl/boy, or white lily is not racist? Focusing on not putting focus on something actually focuses it even more. Now when companies hire someone they have to look at their race, gender, and sexual orientation to make sure they include enough of each one in their work force so they don't get sued. Don't you think that's counter productive? What happened to getting hired or getting in a school because of your credentials? Schools and employers now have quotas to fill. Thus making it even more unfair. If you want to make all people equal then treat them so. By hiring, entering, giving scholarships to those you absolutely deserve them. Because they worked their a$s off to get to where they are now. Not because they are black, Mohican or what-not.

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littlecloud
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posted January 18, 2011 03:15 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for littlecloud     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
BTW I'm a registered democrat and Ron Paul is the only person I'll ever vote for.

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Glaucus
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posted January 18, 2011 03:40 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for Glaucus     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
quote:
Originally posted by littlecloud:
Glaucus you do not know all the facts. There is a reason why he opposes everything he does. A very good reason.

Well....I don't agree.

You have your views,and I have mine.

I know that I don't know all the facts, but I don't believe that you do either.

I actually hate using the word "I know" when it comes to anything. I even wrote a poem once, "I know nothing"
I prefer to use words like "I think", "I believe" , "I feel", and "I have a belief or view of"

That even applies to Astrology. I don't have knowledge of Astrology. I only have experience of what I have studied and try to apply in my astrological practices. I have belief in that Astrology works. I believe that I acquired understanding of Astrology from my studies and experience. I don't believe that I have knowledge of Astrology.
As far as I am concerned, any knowledge could be questioned. It could all be relative.

This is what I believe about politics.


The whole "knowing all the facts" is very relative.

People of many political parties think that they know all the facts,that they have all the correct views,and have the best ethics and morals while thinking/believing/feeling people of other political parties don't.


Just because you believe that Ron Paul has good reasons for supporting or opposing political issues doesn't mean that he does.

A lot of people of all political parties believe that their political candidates have good reasons for supporting or opposing certain issues. That doesn't mean that they do.

That definitely goes for me too.
I believe that Barack Obama has good reasons for supporting or opposing certain issues, but I am well aware that many other people don't share that view. I understand the relativity of how political issues are viewed.


Somebody would be against judges who influence legislation

but I am grateful that June 12, 1967 Loving vs. Virginia Supreme Court ruling made it o banning interracial relationships/marriages unconstitutional. In my opinion, it was right thing to do. I believe that people have the right to be in relationships and marry people of any ethnic group.

I wouldn't majority of the people to decide back in those days.

The whole individual rights can be argued.
I believe that individual rights can be taken too far and infringe on the rights of others.

I believe that groups rights can be used to protect rights of individuals that are part of a certain group.


I think that the whole collectivism argument can be used to hinder progress.


I am all for diversity. I really don't see anything as referring to people according to a certain race,ethnicity,etc.

I come from a multiethnic,multicultural background, and I have always been in multiethnic,multicultural environments. I am a strong believer in diversity.

The USA was built on hypocrisy. The Bill of Rights and the Declaration of Independence was not about liberty and justice for all. It wasn't about all men being created equal.
That was total B.S.
The country was not created for all people.
The nation even was built on stolen land of people that were oppressed,slaughtered,enslaved in their own native land. They were even forced on reservations. The nation was built on theft,genocide,and slavery.

Why should the natives of the country have to be referred to as Americans of any kind?
They have the right to embrace their heritage as Cherokee,Sioux, and other tribal names.
They were their tribal names before Europeans came on their land.
That's the same for other natives of lands that were subjected to invasion,imperialism.

On the other hand, I like the idea that we can refer to ourselves as just Americans, as Human beings. However, I don't believe that
we shouldn't acknowledge our heritages,our individuality,or identity.

All my life, I fought the "Black" label
I didn't want to be referred to as being black. It wasn't about being ashamed of my heritage. It was about my wanting to embrace all of my heritages. I am strong result of diversity,and why should I deny it. Why shouldn't I acknowledge. I was only 2.4 percent of 2000 US Census takers that identifed as having more than one ethnic group.

I believe that diversity is not the problem in this country nor planet.
I believe that intolerance of diversity is the problem.

USA is a not a true melting pot to me because there is no complete assimilation. We are not homogeneous.
I believe USA is more like gumbo soup.

truth is relative imho

You talk about your Sun in Sagittarius in one your threads in regards to truth

Well.....I have Jupiter,Neptune,and IC are in Sagittarius myself. I have Jupiter conjunct IC in Sagittarius.

I am interested in truth too, but I believe that truth is relative. I don't believe in absolute truth.

------------------
No..I am not a Virgo.

Developmental Neurodiversity Association facebook group.
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Glaucus
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posted January 18, 2011 03:41 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for Glaucus     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote

I found this, but I don't know what to think of it. It's very controversial.

He opposed the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. holiday

Ron Paul: The Deep Dark Details (1 of 2) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t4P87p-Arcw

Ron Paul: The Deep Dark Details (2 of 2) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zCSZRuS2YfU&feature=related


Ron Paul's Racist Quotes http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=de_CSuJCsfY&feature=related


A Message to Ron Paul Supporters http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cRdUqh3oJr0&feature=channel


Ron Paul on the American Civil War http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jbOE4Ip7In0&feature=related


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littlecloud
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posted January 18, 2011 03:51 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for littlecloud     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
This is what gay/colored people should be opposing instead of same sex marriage. http://forum.prisonplanet.com/index.php?topic=123605.0;wap2

This is the most important one:

http://www.thewatcherfiles.com/cooper/aids.htm

After reading it I remembered I was vaccinated against Hep B....sooooo here's to hoping I don't end up with AIDS later. I really wish my parents knew this information.

I've said it before- Martin Luther King was a Zionist. The true leader of the movement (sorry I'm forgetting my English) was Malcolm X

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littlecloud
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posted January 18, 2011 05:33 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for littlecloud     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
quote:
Originally posted by Glaucus:
Look
Don't talk to me like I am stupid


Who the hell are you to tell me

"to look it up and learn"


take your condescending and patronizing and shove it!


You have your views, and I have mine!

I believe that taxes are important for funding government programs.
The problems is that people have this issue about socialism, especially when it comes to "spreading the wealth" and supporting minorities. That's always been an issue in this country.


Touchy aren't we?
I was merely hoping to show you that income tax is illegal and only goes to support the debt currency that has enslaved many nations to the Federal Reserve.
I never said that I "know" everything. That would be an extremely boring life wouldn't you think?
This movie shows us much of what we don't know as citizens of America. I'm trying to tell you that you don't have to pay taxes because it is actually illegal to do so. If you want to shell out more and more money that's up to you but you should at least know all the facts.
If you support taxes so much why don't you find out where they actually go.

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littlecloud
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posted January 18, 2011 05:46 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for littlecloud     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
quote:
Originally posted by Glaucus:

The nation even was built on stolen land of people that were oppressed,slaughtered,enslaved in their own native land. They were even forced on reservations. The nation was built on theft,genocide,and slavery.

Why should the natives of the country have to be referred to as Americans of any kind?
They have the right to embrace their heritage as Cherokee,Sioux, and other tribal names.
They were their tribal names before Europeans came on their land.
That's the same for other natives of lands that were subjected to invasion,imperialism.



I agree here.


quote:
Originally posted by Glaucus:
You talk about your Sun in Sagittarius in one your threads in regards to truth

I said no such thing. You might want to re-read that post.

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Glaucus
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posted January 18, 2011 08:01 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for Glaucus     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote

One of the problems that I believe that libertarianism is impractical is that I don't believe that property rights trump equality.

For example, if everybody had the right to refuse to have anything do with anybody that they don't like, it could viol


for instance if libertarianism was the

ethnic minorities could be refused to be served in business establishments which was something that done in the

as a person that has Black,Hispanic,and Native American in me, I don't want to live in a country that think that it's ok for people to do what they want to the point that I am treated unequally

a lot of business are privately owned

If prejudice and hate were part of the majority, I wouldn't be able to partake in many things in business establishments.


Civil Rights laws were passed for people like me to be treated equally.


Libertarianism could be misused to argue against fair treatment of minorities behind the point of individual rights.


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Glaucus
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posted January 18, 2011 08:02 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for Glaucus     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote

Why I Am Not a Libertarian

I thought about entitling this essay "Two Cheers For Libertarianism." On civil liberties matters, I am perfectly libertarian; in fact, I have just delivered a briefing paper on the pervasiveness doctrine to the Cato Institute, and hope to write more for them on topics such as anonymity and mandatory ratings systems.

But there are other libertarian positions, such as that against anti-discrimination laws, which shock the conscience; like Hayek, I believe that there are things worth doing that the free market cannot do. Here then, is an attempt to outline what is good about libertarianism, and then contrast what doesn't make sense. The conclusion I draw is that like most human belief systems, libertarianism mixes practicality with some idealism unrelated to human nature. Therefore, as much as I sympathize with most of the diagnoses and some of the prescriptions, I am not a libertarian.

Big government v. little government

When I was a child, someone asked me what my favorite color was, and I replied "Blue." A day later, I went to the store and selected a red bicycle, to replace the worn out red bike in the garage. I realized that the color I thought I favored was not the one I actually selected.

In preparing this essay, I had a similar insight about government. Though I have been quick to say that there are things the free market cannot do, that must be done by government, I have made choices in my own life that led me away from government regulation as much as possible. I left a regulated profession for an unregulated one. It matters to me that the government does not attempt to tell software developers how to write code. Though I believe that government-backed unions served an important purpose in securing advances for American workers, I am also happy that as an employer I do not have to deal with the Teamsters ("We say the word, and not a line of code moves in this facility!"). I have rebelled in my life against government actions such as the Vietnam war. Every time I take a close look at any process owned by the government, wther it is immigration or the air traffic control system, I am horrified by the inefficient way it is handled. And, as a civil libertarian, I have been a plaintiff in the Communications Decency Act case to invalidate an Internet censorship law passed by Congress and backed by the President.

Confidence in government is at an all time low; most people believe that the government is inept at almost any project, whether that project consists of curing poverty, reforming health care, fostering the arts, or launching the space shuttle Challenger.

Nevertheless, as libertarians are quick to point out, most traditional liberals and conservatives believe in a role for big government somewhere:

Conservatives want to be your daddy, telling you what to do and what not to do. Liberals want to be your mommy, feeding you, tucking you in, and wiping your nose.--David Boaz, Libertarianism: A Primer

Conservatives, in other words, want the government to intervene in matters of private morality such as sex, sexual preference, abortion and pornography. Conversely, they want the government to stay away from regulating business and markets. Liberals want the opposite: perfect freedom of action in the moral sphere, and a vigilant, interventive government in the business sphere. Looked at this way, libertarians are the only consistent party: they want the government small and far away for all purposes; they don't want it involved in what we can read or see at the movies, nor do they want it telling us we must hire black people or can't hire children.

A classic example of big-government thinking is Professor Catharine Mackinnon, a Marxist and anti-pornography feminist who believes that government perpetuates sexism and pornography, yet drafts ordinances that would ban as pornography any work depicting violence against women. She thus calls upon government to intervene in our lives to do the opposite of what she believes it now does, without being able to explain how we should bring about the revolution in the minds of men required to accomplish her goals.

It seems clear that in the minds of most big-government types there is a dichotomy: there is the real government, the one we perceive with our senses and distrust, and there is the fantasy government, the one we all believe we could have if we just worked a little harder, voted in larger numbers, turned the rascals out, and perhaps made some changes to our laws. Somehow, we fail to perceive any inconsistency between the two versions of government; perhaps this failure is based in our own need for self-deception, much like the unbridgeable gap between the "ought" and the "is" which Hume pointed out.

Libertarians, then, are better diagnosticians than most of us when they say that the odds are infinitesmally small that we can have a better big government, much like a doctor counselling you not to depend too much on the cancer going into remission.

Libertarianism and the Tragedy of the Commons

The tragedy of the commons is a first-rate device for testing the efficiency of any human proposal for governing ourselves.

The tragedy of the commons is essentially a parable with a moral, like an Aesop's Fable. In the parable, we all live in a village that shares a commons on which we, farmers all, graze our sheep. The moral of the story is that left to our own devices, we will each decide to add one sheep too many to the commons, destroying it for ourselves and for future generations. The short term benefit to each of us of an additional sheep outweighs the intangible gain of preserving the commons for our grandchildren.

David Boaz gives us the libertarian take on the "tragedy of the commons":

When resources--such as a common grazing area, forest or lake--are "owned" by everyone, they are effectively owned by no-one. No one has an incentive to maintain the value of the asset or use it on a sustainable basis.

In other words, the libertarian answer to the tragedy of the commons is to eliminate the commons. No commons, no tragedy. If the commons was owned by a single individual who charged everyone else grazing fees, he would be more committed to preserving it for the future than a village of farmers.

But why is this necessarily so? I could argue the converse, that a village acting collectively is more likely to avoid short-term thinking than one man responsible only to himself.

Hume made the point that in most moral philosophizing, we carry on talking about the "is" until, suddenly, in mid-paragraph, we encounter an "ought". There is no real-world bridge from the "is" to the "ought"; all such bridges are fantasies based on optimism and self-deception.

Where libertarianism crosses this chasm is when it passes from selfishness to enlightened self-interest. A human being who owns the Pennekamp coral reef in Key Largo is entitled to break up the reefs and sell the pieces to gift shops (in the absence of a government expressing the will of the majority and telling him he can't.) He ought to realize that there is more gain in selling tickets to Pennekamp over many generations--that way, it will support his children and grandchildren as well. But most human beings, left in complete freedom to act, will select the short-term gain. This is what the Prisoner's Dilemma teaches: we will select betrayal over cooperation because it grants an immediate benefit more tangible to us than the repetitive, long-term benefits of cooperation.

Individuals and groups

An apparent paradox of libertarianism is that humans can be trusted individually but not in groups.

A democratic government consists of humans acting as a group. The government carries out the will of the group. In Rousseau's terms, it carries out not only the will of the majority, but in a sense, even of the dissenting minority, who despite their disagreement with the particular action, endorse the majority will by continuing to participate in the society.

Libertarians believe, therefore, that we are singularly inept as a group. Assuming for a moment that the proposition is true-- there is a lot of evidence for it--a cynic would propose that the reason we are collectively incompetent is that we are individually incompetent as well.

Libertarians, however, are optimists. I cannot fault them for this; I have written elsewhere about the importance of optimism in any human scheme, even to the point of self-deception. Nonetheless, libertarians assume, as most people do, that there is a way out of any given dilemma; their self-deception may consist of believing that what we cannot accomplish collectively, we can more effectively do individually.

Let's take a look again at the Pennekamp reef example. Testing the proposition that commons should not exist because they will always be mismanaged, let's try a thought experiment. Who would you rather have manage the Pennekamp coral reef so that it will remain alive, clean and available for future generations: fifty randomly picked people, or one?

Libertarians would say that fifty people, if they were acting as a government, will inevitably destroy Pennekamp, while one person, following a profit motive, is more likely to regard it as being in his self-interest to preserve it for the long term. But I think there is substantial reason to look at this the other way. Any one person you pick from the street may wish to break up the coral and sell it to souvenir shops, make a quick million and retire. If you randomly pick fifty people, chances are much greater that most of them will appreciate the benefits of preserving Pennekamp for the future. Thus, acting collectively has a smoothing effect: recognizing that we really do share some agreements as a culture which we may call values, the more of us we involve in the Pennekamp decision-making the more likely it is that we will make a decision reflecting these common values. In fact, in the classic tragedy of the commons, the tragedy happens because the villagers are not deciding collectively how many sheep to add. The tragedy happens because each individual using the commons has the right to think selfishly--exactly as an individual who owned the land might do.

"Public" v. "private" motives

A libertarian might, I suppose, respond that I am on a false trail here. It is not the issue of the many versus the one; it is the issue of government versus private enterprise. Looked at this way, fifty people acting as a government will ruin Pennekamp, while fifty acting as a corporate board of directors will not. Correspondingly, one person acting as a government will ruin Pennekamp, while one person acting as Pennekamp's private owner will not. It is not the number of actors that is relevant, but the motive.

I suppose that this argument would go as follows: when we try to act in the public interest, we always make a hash of things. When we acknowledge that only selfishness works, that it is the fuel that drives all human endeavor, only then can we create efficient forms of human interaction.

I believe that libertarians are right about this up to a significant point. Like most human belief systems, libertarianism must fight the Second Law of Thermodynamics and the reality of fuzzy thinking. Because things fall apart, because we are constantly dealing with a fuzzy, unknowable and changing reality, because human values are not absolutes and it sometimes require some illogic to arrive at the destinations of the heart, all human belief structures are of necessity incomplete. Our optimism and self-deception usually does not permit us to acknowledge this. A belief system is always part building and part blueprint, a combination of the is and the ought. The building may be a small shack, and the blueprint a tower extending out of sight into the sky. In the case of libertarianism, the building's foundation is the failure of government; but the blueprint soaring away into the cerulean blue is the idea that selfishness is the key to long term thinking and enlightened behavior.

Libertarians are right that most supply and demand decisions are best made by a free marketplace. As I have said elsewhere, I too am a capitalist. I believe that Hayek was right about government planning versus free markets. But what libertarians do not acknowledge is that there are a subset of decisions, mostly about commons--which I define as anything which has a non-economic value to us as a group-- which cannot be left to the marketplace. Even Hayek acknowledged this:

[T]he price system becomes similarly ineffective when the damage caused to others by certain uses of property cannot effectively be charged to the owner of that property. In all these instances there is a divergence between the items which enter into private calculation and those which affect social welfare; and whenever this divergence becomes important, some method other than competition may have to be found to supply the services in question.

Garrett Hardin hadn't yet coined the phrase "tragedy of the commons" when Hayek wrote, but this is exactly what is under discussion here. Hayek goes on to give examples: the building of roads, creation of signs on those roads, avoidance of harmful effects of deforestation and of pollution are all matters which cannot be trusted to the marketplace. "In such instances," Hayek says, "we must find some substitute for the regulation by the price mechanism."

Bringing this home to our Pennekamp example: breaking up the coral reef will harm the fishermen who fish the peripheries of the reef; it will harm the tourism operators who bring people to nearby resorts; and it will harm all of us who believe that our lives are better because there are coral reefs in the world. Trying to transform non-economic values into economic ones creates an auction in which we must pay Pennekamp's owner more for to preserve the reef than the market will pay him to destroy it; but then are we not back at government intervention? There is no distinction between the government acting as a collector of funds to subsidize the reef owner and the unhappy spectacle of paying farmers not to plant wheat. And if we are postulating a market in which enough of us must want to write checks directly to the reef owner to incent him not to ruin the reef, then, in my opinion, we are making an argument for the existence of commons and of governments. Because otherwise we are left without a coral reef.

The Second Law of Thermodynamics

Libertarians are fond of talking about "spontaneous order". For example, the common law is an example of a complex structure of practical rules developed by people over the centuries, before government took over the job of making the laws. The stock and bond markets don't exist because of laws and regulations, but in spite of them; businesspeople spontaneously created these markets for convenience' sake. Your ability to use a credit card anywhere in the world is a result not of government rules but of "spontaneous order".

There is a lot of truth in this; most of the progress we have made is the result of just letting people work out convenient schemes while forbidding the use of force. In that sense, the libertarian free market scheme mirrors nature, where complex structures build up over time, and then die off if surrounding conditions change so that they are no longer warranted. Life is a battle against the Second Law of Thermodynamics, seeking to build up structures and resist decay.

Does the Second Law have its equivalent in the business world? And should it?

It does and should. If by 2100, IBM becomes a fifteen person company making hand-tooled working replicas of the RS-6000, that is the way of the world. Government intervention to prop up a failing company is a short-term way to preserve jobs while saddling the market with old or inferior products. As Charles Murray points out, the best way for the government to create jobs might be to prohibit the use of farm equipment. Most of us, other than hardcore Luddites, don't really want this. Most people, instead, are comfortable with the idea of a form of natural selection in the marketplace. Over the past few decades, for example, we have bled manufacturing jobs and proliferated software jobs. .

Companies don't only end when they go bankrupt; they may disappear after being merged or divided into pieces. In fact, a dangerous moment for many privately held companies, like other property, comes at the death of an owner, when the assets are divided according to the individual's will. Again, we think of this as normal, if sometimes regrettable. The American system of inheritance has been described as a democratizing force, as opposed to the medieval European doctrine, which kept the estate together in the hands of the oldest son. As a business owner, I would not support any law that limited my right to sell or divide my company; though I believe many such actions are immoral in their effect on my employees, I don't want government involved in making them. Law and morality should not be coextensive.

But do I really want the same set of rules to apply to Pennekamp Reef?

Libertarians would have me believe that it will be cleaner, healthier, stocked with more fish, generally better taken care of, if privately owned. But ownership includes the right to divide it into lots and sell them. Some lot owners may decide to preserve their portion of the reef, while others may decide to dynamite theirs, release foreign fish species, or release pollutants--and each small owner would have a perfect right to do so under libertarian theory. But Pennekamp Reef is not really a sub-divideable entity; until science perfects Star Trek-type force fields, actions taken on any section of the reef affect the whole thing. If Pennekamp Reef is subdivided, I believe it will die much faster than it will in the hands of government.

David Boaz doesn't agree; in fact, he thinks the oceans should be privatized, though he never says how:

One of the biggest environmental problems today is the depletion of ocean fisheries, a clear example of the tragedy of the commons for which a privatization solution is urgently needed.

The idea of a private ocean boggles the imagination even more than that of a privately owned coral reef. For the answer, we have to look to Charles Murray, whose What It Means to be a Libertarian takes a less dogmatic view. Murray acknowledges--as Boaz apparently does not--that there is a small but irreducible class of truly public goods, which must be managed by government. He defines these as "nonexclusive", meaning there is no way to subdivide them, and "jointly consumable", which means that they can be used by one person without diminishing availability to another. The example Murray gives is clean air, which cannot be divided into parcels, but which can be breathed by one person without denying it to another. I think Pennekamp Reef fits Murray's definition of a public good; you can't subdivide it, meaning that foreign species or pollution released on one portion of it will invade the rest, and it is jointly consumable, meaning that one diver or fisherman using it does not deny it to another.

Libertarian Theory and Social Darwinism

This leads us to my major argument against libertarianism: part of its doctrine is intellectually dishonest. This is not to say libertarians are liars; the best way to deceive anyone else is to deceive yourself first. And libertarians have no corner on the market in deceptive reasoning; other belief systems are fond of it too.

If, as their system implies, libertarians really want to leave the consensual human world of interaction free to imitate the process of natural selection, why won't they just say so? An honest if repellent argument would go something like the following:

"Nature doesn't prop us species that no longer make the grade due to changed circumstances. Most of us agree that government shouldn't prop up businesses that can no longer compete, due to wasteful ways or outdated technology. So why do we feel that government should create a safety net for people who can no longer pull their weight?" Ebenezer Scrooge at least was honest: "Let them die and decrease the surplus population."

Libertarians (and traditional conservatives, who want big government only in other areas) instead argue that the free market approach will miraculously eliminate poverty. Among the arguments you can find in Boaz's book (and in Newt Gingrich's): private charity will step up to the plate for the truly needy. Deprived of a culture of dependency, many others will discover that they can, after all, pull their own economic weight in our society. An end to government intervention will result in a heady rush of job creation, benefiting the bottom layers of society. And so forth.

All of these statements are true, to an extent. Some people will be taken care of private charity. Some will discover that they can work after all. Some who formerly couldn't find jobs will get them as the economy expands and unemployment decreases. And some will be worse off or will die.

In order to conduct an honest dialog, we would need to focus on the latter class and ask how many? How many will constitute acceptable losses? Ten million? One thousand? One? None? In fact, both private business and government make such decisions every day. Suppose you could make a perfectly safe automobile, but it would cost one million dollars. Few people would buy it. So we find the compromise point at which people feel that there is enough safety and a low enough price that they are comfortable taking their chances. In this context, Ford's execrated decision to continue manufacturing the Pinto with the risky fuel tank becomes a normal, if unfortunate, cost-benefit analysis: it was less expensive to pay a few wrongful death judgments than to redesign the car.

If you are proposing to redesign the society in which we live, that's fine; it certainly needs some changes. Just tell me what the costs are. But don't tell me that its free. I have rarely met a libertarian or a conservative who would acknowledge that their plan for society would also cost a few lives (though they believe the status quo costs many).

Even Murray deflects away from this issue. He acknowledges that "what becomes of those who are helpless, or luckless, or perhaps simply feckless, must deeply concern any human being worthy of the name." But, right on the heels of this insight-- which I am certain is not shared by many who call themselves conservative or libertarian--he says: "There can be no such thing as a society free of human suffering."

No matter what social and economic system is put in place, some proportion of children will be neglected, some adults will be desperately lonely, some people will suffer terrible accidents and diseases that leave them incapacitated, and some people will live in squalor.

Fair enough; any realistic proposal must acknowledge this, though dogmatic libertarianism apparently does not. But Murray gets squeamish when it comes to the question of how much suffering is a worthy exchange for the greater liberty he envisions. "I do not consider reducing poverty the top priority of a civilized society," Murray says. " Protecting human freedom is." Again, this is an acceptable goal; but Murray has just described a transaction (trading some amount of security for some amount of liberty) without describing the cost. Aren't we entitled to know the cost in order to make the decision?

Murray also skirts the issue in his discussion of health insurance. While acknowledging that this is an area where reasonable people may differ--some almost-libertarians want to reform but not end government involvement in health care--Murray concludes that "[o]n balance...we would be better off if the government stayed out of the health care business altogether."

What about the people who are left out? Who don't or perhaps cannot buy catastrophic health insurance? Who don't have enough money to pay even for routine medical care?

He has asked the right question, but provides no answer. We really neede to know two things: How many of them are there? And how many will die or become extremely ill if we get government out of the health care business? Virtually every type of government decision makes someone happier and someone else unhappier; but health care falls more than most into the category of decisions that literally mean life or death for someone. So, once again, in order to determine that the net gain is worth it, don't I first need to know the cost in lives?

By the way, we need this data irrespective of the wisdom of the decision we are considering reversing. Let's look for a second at rent control/rent stabilization in New York City. On the one hand, I have benefited from living in rent stabilized apartments (I do not live in one now). On the other hand, I would never wish to be a landlord in New York City, because of the stifling regulations you have to deal with. So let's assume for a moment that the whole program, instituted during World War II, was a gross mistake. Nevertheless, we went ahead and made it. Before correcting it, shouldn't we know how many people we will make homeless? Presumably, there are some. Most rent stabilized tenants will pay higher prices, or find cheaper housing elsewhere, even if it means leaving New York. But some number will live on the streets. In figuring out how to right the wrong imposed on landlords, shouldn't we nevertheless know if we are going to render just one person homeless, or one million?

Murray doesn't answer his own question about the costs of ending government involvement in health care. Instead, he tells us that without government, doctors are more charitable, and will pick up some number of the uninsured at reduced fees. Some, but how many? Don't we need to know? Or wouldn't it be more honest to say "Unregulated is better, and whatever losses are needed in order to get there are acceptable"?

Libertarianism, Compassion and Race

I will never stop arguing that certain actions must be taken based on compassion, even if they cannot be logically justified; logic untempered by compassion is no more human than compassion unaltered by logic. Libertarianism, as a belief system, is completely logical but rather horrifying in its premise that laws against racial discrimination are an interference in individual liberty. If I open a coffee shop, the Libertarian argument goes, I should be completely free to decide who enters my property. If I have this right, then I am free to exclude black people. Libertarians like to add that I would be stupid to make such a decision, as the restaurant next door, serving a larger and more diverse clientele, will probably be more profitable.

In analyzing such laws, we might distinguish, as Libertarians do not, between laws which level the playing field (you must serve anyone who enters) and laws which promote particular groups (you must hire at least ten percent black waiters). Many people who support the former oppose the latter.

Perfect consistency can lead to perfectly horrifying systems; there is an argument that it always does. The Cambodian killing fields were a completely logical place, as long as you accept the basic premise.

Human systems are a composite of logic, custom, common sense and (one hopes) compassion. We have lived with it for more than two hundred years, so it may seem natural in retrospect, but there is nothing simple and logical about our system of senators and representatives, our three divisions of government,or the respective powers of each. It is a human system, cobbled together with a little logic and a lot of instinct, and some compassion for the minority whose rights were protected by the prohibition of an establishment of religion. We are not called upon to justify the details of every disposition we make; we can live with inconsistencies where grand goals are served, and have always done so.

For example, Professor Catharine Mackinnon calls attention to a fundamental conflict between the First Amendment and the Fifth: the latter promotes equality, and the former is construed to protect speech that denies equality. She points out that equality trumps speech in the marketplace (I cannot pin up a Playboy centerfold over my cubicle for fear of offending a coworker) while speech trumps equality everywhere else (I can sell all the Playboy magazines I want in my candy store or keep them in my home, though it offends the sensibility of my peers).

The answer is that we are not called upon to reconcile all clashing schemes on the most detailed level, where greater goals are served. In the example which concerns Mackinnon, society has decided that equality of opportunity in the marketplace appropriately trumps the right to free speech there, but nowhere else.

Libertarians would agree that the employer has a right to ban such speech--under the libertarian scheme , I can require my workers to be all white or all male, or to declare Tuesday to be Wednesday, or wear their underwear on the outside, to steal a page from Woody Allen. If they don't want to do so, let them find another job; and if I am too restrictive or crazy, I won't be able to find workers.

So, according to libertarians, the state is not really infringing the worker's right to the centerfold, since the worker has no right to do anything in the workplace the employer disapproves. It is appropriating only the right of the employer to permit the employee to post the centerfold. It is acting in the employers' stead, making the rule that society expects the employer to make. Certainly this is a restriction on his freedom of action, as is a law saying he cannot beat his workers. But, up until now, libertarians have been arguing Millian liberty, that we should all be free to do whatever does not harm anyone else. Here, they seem to be crossing over into an absolute freedom based on property rights whichincludes a qualified right to harm others in the use of one's own property.

Libertarians are here on the horns of the dilemma I described above. One consistent and realistic, if repugnant, position would be, "Freedom of association is everything, and it trumps equality, no matter what the consequences." But libertarians always seem to draw back from those last five words. Instead, they resort to the good hearts of private humans, and claim that we will reach the same goal of equality faster, better and cheaper by leaving people to their own devices. Murray points out that antidicrimination laws were not needed to allow Irish and Jews access to opportunity and social status in the earlier years of this century.

I am an employer. I do not wish to be forced to hire anyone who cannot do the job--nor do I feel that I am forced to do so by current law. I do not want or need the right to post a sign on my door saying that no blacks need apply. I myself, as a Jew, could not feel equal in a society in which a store could post a sign saying "No Jews or dogs permitted." I feel perfectly equal in a society in which someone can publish a book saying that "No Jews or dogs should be permitted." The latter is speech, but the placard banning me from a store is action. I had the experience once of living in a neighborhood in Paris where I couldn't get my hair cut. One barber told me he was booked for the rest of the week, while another across the street simply let me sit in his shop for an hour, while he took customers who had come in after me. I believe this was action, not speech. A libertarian would say that the barber's property right extends to refusing to cut the hair of anyone for any reason. Note, however, that the employer uses public goods--the air, municipal water, police, garbage collection. If he has property rights enabling him to deny service to anyone, why is it so much different if the government denies him service based on his failure to comply with certain rules? He can always move elsewhere.

If hate was pervasive, individual property rights could be used (and have been used, at certain times and places in thsi country) to deny an entire group access to the free market entirely--no access to credit, no ability to rent a storefront or to buy goods from anyone, or even groceries for one's family. I think the true test of the libertarian scheme is whether an impoverished but talented individual from a disfavored group could get a start in it. If the rest of the individuals could legally band together to starve him to death, as they could do under the libertarian theory of property rights, we have gone far beyond Mill's theory of liberty, to a monstrous selfishness, a tyranny of the individual over society.

Laws against racial discrimination are effectively an action of the heart. They are legal under our constitution, they are morally right, and they constitute one of the infringements on perfect personal liberty that I am happy to see. This is one of those areas where I do not believe the free market would ever solve the problem.

Conclusion

I have painted myself into a corner: big government doesn't work, and though the free market is the perfect solution to problems of supply and demand, there are certain areas of human aspiration which are best served by commons, common interests, common actions. Therefore, there are certain zones in which the free market is just as inept as big government. All of which is another way of saying that humans are inept at managing their destiny--a proposition for which I see significant evidence every time I read a newspaper, take a subway, or have a conversation.

So, should we give up? No; we can, motivated by the foolish but sustaining optimism that has always kept us alive, realistically work for the best accomodation of bad systems--hoping that the whole will be greater than the sum of its parts, as it is with the best of human endeavors. Let's use the free market where possible, and government where necessary.

When I paddle my kayak in Hither Hills State Park in Montauk, I'm glad it belongs to all of us.
http://www.spectacle.org/897/trust.html

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No..I am not a Virgo.

Developmental Neurodiversity Association facebook group.
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