ExRx.net

Certainly ad nauseum as well, in any case.

Yes, the black market for assassination is small, but that's a trivial distinction. A small number of people wanting to do something is not a reason to support outlawing it. That was the incorrect argument made by some regarding flag-burning, "oh no one wants to do it anyway except for a few nuts so who cares if it's outlawed."

Based on prior statements you seem to have started off with the supposition that Ron Paul is not libertarian, and now are trying to distort any other fact to fit that world view. If you're not open-minded I really don't care either, but I guess that ends the discussion.

Coincidentally he was on Hardball last night and Matthews kept trying to bait him into bad-mouthing the tea party. When pressed about gay marriage Ron Paul gave the libertarian answer "why is the government even involved in marriage at all?" It was the first time I'd heard a politician say that - refreshing.

Trivial? It's the whole point! It's not JUST the small number of people, it's because it's also murdering someone. Flag burning does not even compare. The sensibilities of nationalist morons be damned. That's what I think about it. But I digress.

I am open-minded. However libertarianism is what it is, it means what it means. Nothing you, I or Ron Paul says is ever going to change that. A rose by any other name......


I've heard that said before. It is quite refreshing though. Speaking of tea parties, it has formed to very distinct factions. You have the more Palin loving conservative authoritarian types, aka nationalists. Then you have the Ron Paul followers who are more conservative centrists.

Sure, I'm all against murder. But the black market scenario is still very similar. In both assassination and abortion you have party A hiring a third party to do something to party B without party B's consent. The question is why one would be a black market and the other would not.

So far your only counterpoint to Paul being a libertarian is that he is pro-life. As I pointed out, that's a very tricky moral issue so I don't think it could possibly be a litmus test. I scanned through all of his official positions on his website just now - he seems to be on the libertarian side of every issue listed.

(I'd heard that before on the news as well, but Penn Gillette was the only one to have said it.)

That sentence shows you don't understand abortion and I'm virtually certain you don't want to.

Pro-life, and saying ID/creationism should be taught alongside evolution are the 2 I can think of off the top of my head. I don't feel like examining his positions on everything. He is in between a typical republican and a libertarian. I don't make up what the words mean.

You could start calling Ron Paul-like people libertarian and call typical far right libertarians super-duper libertarians. You could call them aardvarks for all the good would do.

If you are for the government making any laws about social problems that are none of it's business, you are not a libertarian, by definition. Not my definition, THE definition that existed before I was even born.

Ron Paul takes a mixture of authoritarian, centrist and libertarian positions on social issues. That is the definition of centrist. He seems very different from conservative republicans because he IS. He is in the center and they are authoritarian.

But again, I don't make the definitions up, this has existed longer than I have. Calling Ron Paul a libertarian doesn't make him a libertarian any more than calling him Mr Ed would make him a horse.

I was making a comparison of the legal/moral situations. If you have an actual point to make about why abortion is so clearly on one side or the other of personal liberty, then just say it rather than ignorantly demeaning my knowledge of biology.

If Ron Paul's official stance was that the government should enforce education of ID, I'd certainly agree that's not very libertarian.

But from what I can find, Ron Paul's official stance on education is that the Federal government should get out of the education business entirely, and it should be left to localities and the individuals. His personal feelings about ID are immaterial in regard to the libertarian position he holds regarding education. Ie, if his advocacy of ID is for individuals or private institutions that's completely consistent with libertarianism.

So where's the evidence to back up that claim? I do see lots of articles that indicate Ron Paul's advocacy of ID precludes him from being worthy of the Presidency, but even amongst those I don't see any quotes that say he wants the government to enforce teaching ID.

Well I will make the point that in the case of abortion party B might not even be a party at all. If it is, it certainly is not equivalently as much a party as in the case of murder.

The libertarian perspective also demands that in order for anything to ever be truly equal, people have to start on equal grounds. One can argue that without education, there can be no liberty. This is also an argument for health care run by the state within an libertarian framework. Since these issues potentially take away from ones ability to play on a level field, then again this would be justified as appropriate state policy.

In the case of ID then, if education is being funded only because it levels the playing field, then providing false education would be misusing funds. When one misuses tax money in the libertarian framework, that is like stealing, and therefore is wrong.

I could say more but I am trying to answer your claims about abortion and ID with regard to them not being libertarian issues.

Well, as I said, I would tend to agree with the principle of existing court precedent that the rights of the child aren't exactly equal to the parent, since it is not an equal party. It's certainly a party though in the sense that it exists.

Government-run education and health care are all about government power and control though. That's not very libertarian.

Many things are parties...doesn't mean we need to worry about them.

Just because you view government run education and health care as being about power and control, doesn't mean that it is. Furthermore, even if it is, it doesnt have to be in some alternate scenario.

As I said, it's within the libertarian framework to demand an initial "set up" point.

For instance, "justince in initial holdings".

Libertarians would not support a poker game where one person starts with 10 chips and another with 10,000. They would want to redistribute in that case. That's all I am saying; government programs can be within a libertarian framework.

Right, so the unborn child is certainly a party, the only question is what rights or considerations, if any, does it have. That's the key question, and is certainly not an easy one.

Ok, but government control of any industry is more on the authoritarian side of the scale. A moderate socialist-libertarian would, if anything, support redistribution of wealth in the form of vouchers/welfare payments.

Ughh.

Well you may think it is a hard question but I don't think it is that challenging.


Who said anything about "social-libertarians". I am not talking about welfare redistribution. Libertarians would strictly oppose an "ongoing" redistribution plan. What I am saying is that libertarians will look and see if the deck is stacked before saying "free for all"; that's all I am saying. I am talking about pure libertarian ideal since there was so much discussion earlier about the party vs. the concept. I have nothing to say about the party or an individual, just that even in PURE libertarian ideology, it could be decided that there was no way adults could entire into society from childhood in "fair" positions, without having had publicly socialized education. That decision would remain PURELY libertarian because libertarians require unstacked starting conditions.

If you read someone like Nozick, he will emphasize this point although I do think it is a clear flag that the libertarians have no chance because we can't make people genetically equal, so in my opinion, can't happen.

If it's so non-challenging of a question, what's your position on it?

And sure, publicly-funded education is a form of welfare. I'd expect most moderate libertarians to support it. Funding it is different than government-run education though.

My position is that the mother's "party" is more important.

I would let the mother get rid of her "baby" at any point. Note I am saying get rid of, not kill. If the baby could survive on its own, I could see having it delivered but that doesn't really matter to me either. As far as I am concerned the mother owns anything inside her for the most part. Now once the child is participating in society and society has invested in the child, I would not want the decisions to "get rid" of the child to rest with the mother.

Furthermore, I think it is a travesty to allow children with severe birth defects to be born at all. I realize that is a slippery slope but I am ok sliding down it.


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In this case I am claiming it is in NO way a form of welfare. I am saying libertarians would be pro-national curriculum (not sure if that is "govt run" to you). In fact, if it weren't a national curriculum, they would probably be anti the whole business.

In this case the education is not to keep someone better off; it is to allow them the means to enter into the "game" on the best possible equal playing field.

Welfare is nothing like the above and is to keep someone afloat when they have failed to succeed in the society already.

I would say that the external viability of the unborn child would have an impact. It becomes very difficult to justify killing and removing the child, as opposed to just removing it. But surely you agree that it's a delicate moral issue, even amongst libertarians.

Well, I think in so far as it affects viability etc of the unborn child, birth defects could be considered. It's not an easy question either though, and yea a dangerous precedent to follow.

The more libertarian position on education would be that it's the responsibility of the individual parents to provide it. Lack of govt education certainly does not equal lack of education.

Yes I tend to ignore "moral" issues. I am still unsure what moral means. Perhaps you could give me your definition and explain why this is a complicated moral issue.


You seem to be misunderstanding my point about libertarian point of view. It wouldnt be more libertarian to have the parents provide the education because not all parents have equal resources therefore it could be the case that the children would not enter into the "game" fairly. Liberterians must choose to prevent this scenario.

The two principles are

(1) Justice in initial holdings
and
(2) Justice via free trade in an open market

(1) if the initial disadvantages between individuals has come about because of non-libertarians means (ie theft, slavery, etc) then those initial holdings are unfair and can be changed, by the govt.

(2) If (1) is satisfied then all trading must be done in the manner of (2) otherwise a violation has occured and subsequent states of society may require redistribution.

There is not a "more" libertarian position; that is THE libertarian position. Once (1) and (2) are fulfilled, any further role of the govt can be removed, however many libertarians agree in paying for public services like fire departments and police because they benefit everyone.

Certainly abortion and abortion-criminalization is a moral/ethical dilemma - like the question of whether to steal food to save your starving family. You have to balance the rights of two opposed parties.

You seem to be incorporating some esoteric beliefs of Robert Nozick into your definition of libertarian? The redistribution tenets are not part of the commonly used meaning of the word "libertarian".