Has Stefan Molyneux hooked you?

[Lex]

Lex, just to be clear, I'm not trying to dodge your questions. I'd actually really like it asked on my site so I can respond for others to see because I'm sure you're not the only one to misinterpret my message. I actually expected statements like that.

I posted a comment regarding your description. You can respond to it there but I will also post it here.

At the end of your description you state that if you are proven wrong you will appologize. But the problem is that what if you are wrong AND your (and others) efforts to discredit Ron Paul cause him to not get elected (hypothetically speaking)? Why attack him when in fact you admit that you are not certain if what you're doing is for the best? It's insane. Here we are all working to try and achieve liberty in our life times in our ways and you're attacking someone who's working very hard towards that goal because you have a hunch that maybe they will fail using their method?!? What the heck?

That's what Jason and Seth (and maybe others..) do to the civil disobedience movement. Don't you think they are a bit self-rightous to be so certain that the things the civil dis. folks are doing are causing more harm than good? Yet, somehow you are just as certain that Ron Paul would be a "disaster" (to use Stefans words)? Disaster compared to what? Hillary getting elected?

But lets look at your analogy, I completely agree that the ring exists. The only problem is that there is more than one ring and it cannot be removed. Some people are born with the ring and it stays with them for the rest of their life. Some use it for good but most use it to be manipulative. For thousands of years people have ruled and been ruled. Even if we get Anarcho-capitalism there will still be ignorant people following evil leaders, it's a given, you cannot deny this. Look at religions, those are voluntary, right? Yet you have religions that promote hatred and violence and you have people to voluntarily subscribe to those religions and you have people being oppressed by those religions. We will always be finding people with influence for eternity and in this case the enemy of our enemy is our friend: Ron Paul. He is fighting the same beast we are he's just using different means.

We must always strive for more freedom but we have to understand that we will never have total freedom, it is impossible. And the irony of this is that Stefan agrees that perfection is unnatainable (listen to his introduction on philosophy). So while he agrees that we cannot be perfect he suggests that we should always strive towards that direction. Ron Paul is NOT perfect but he IS undoubtedly better than Guilliani would you not agree? Stefan will probably say that no president is still better than Ron paul and I agree. But the reality is that we will have a new president elected in a year so and if by then we have an anarcho-capitalist society all those sheeple that we have today will still be electing some leader to try and bring government back.

Using Stefans logic: Not supporting Ron Paul is ok since Ron Paul is obviously not pure and thus if you want to reach purity you shouldn't support him. BUT supporting Ron Paul should also be okay because he's more pure than Hillary Clinton or Guilliani. Attacking Ron Paul on the other hand doesn't seem to fit with the philosophy of reaching perfection.

[MengerFan]

Ron Paul has never made such a promist, NEVER. All you hear him say is how government is evil! He doesn't say that if we just elect him it would be better!

Excellent. So he never talks about the government needing to provide "national defense" or "border security" or creating money? He has never used the words "my plan" with regard to fixing government programs?

That's funny, because my ears sure hear all of those thing just in the Stossel interview.

[Lex]

Excellent. So he never talks about the government needing to provide "national defense" or "border security" or creating money?

National Defense - Show me a quote where Ron Paul says that our government does or can do a good job of maintaining our national security. You won't find it. But he does support 2nd Amendment rights and would support any groups of people that want to create militias.

Border Security - He doesn't want to build a wall or spend any significant amount of money on the border. He does preface every discussion on this subject by saying that if we got rid of welfare we could completely get rid of borders and let people come here. So, he has nothing against open border once welfare is eliminated. And if you look at his voting record and listen to him speak you'll know that getting rid of the welfare state is #1 on his priority list (along with bringing our troops home and ending the US empire).

Creating Money - You've got to be kidding me. All he talks about is getting rid of the IRS and Federal Reserve and privitizing the creation of money. He has mentioned going back to the gold standard but this would not preclude private currency. He wholeheartedly supports the Liberty Dollar effort. And was upset when he heard about them being raided.

He has never used the words "my plan" with regard to fixing government programs?

Yeah, his plan is to get rid of them.

That's funny, because my ears sure hear all of those thing just in the Stossel interview.

Link me.

[MengerFan]

It's on youtube and the ABC website.

[Lex]

It's on youtube and the ABC website.

This one?

[youtube=425,350]UJz81lAwY0M[/youtube]

[youtube=425,350]ky3CTT7Hw4s[/youtube]

[shyfrog]

I'm not a big fan of Saint Stefan the Coffee Sipper.
With that said, I'm also not a big fan of anyone who comes off as a self-aggrandizing, narcissistic, armchair philosopher who cries crocodile tears with superfluous dignity while claiming imperfection and ultimately rejecting any criticisms directed at him. *excuse me...I need to sip my coffee...mmm..ok*

I also despise hypocrisy (especially my own). It's not that I'm wrong, but that my ideas are just not fully understood. *sip* Mmmm, see how that works

If Ron Paul is Boromir, then I will liken Stefan to Denethor. Sitting on his gluttonous throne pontificating the glories of inaction and ultimate selfishness. No doubt, given the ring, Stefan...err...Denethor would grasp at it. Despite blustery arguments to the contrary.

I think Ron Paul would be better characterized as Gandalf if we're gonna get all geeky here.

[KBCraig]

His logic and his straightforwardness is great.  I'm not too much into the podcasts though.  I am a reading type of guy. 

I have read some of his columns on lewrockwell.com, and mostly enjoyed them. From the conversation in this thread, I've obviously missed a great deal that he's said, and I don't think what I've missed is anything I'd care for.

That said, the first time I listed to his podcast, I wanted to drive sharp things through my eardrums. Ack! It's not the content, nor the accent... it was like listening to Hugh Grant bumble and fumble and hem and haw and deprecate and dissemble. I'm sure the proper words were all there, but the delivery sucked, horribly.

Maybe I just picked a bad example.

[Lex]

If you drank as much coffee as he obviously does you'd probalby sound like that too 

[dalebert]

Lex, I'm not just acting on a hunch any more than you are by supporting Ron Paul. You obviously believe your efforts are going to result in a good outcome. So do I. Disagree with me all you want, but I wouldn't be saying what I'm saying if I didn't have confidence in my beliefs. I don't want to just let things play out and see what happens because I think the whole think is ultimately setting us back. This whole campaign is mental masturbation for liberty lovers. It's making you all feel better for doing something while wasting a lot of energy and resources that could be better spent, all while teaching people that the path to liberty is to become part of the aggressive force that is government.

There's also another key factor here. Once again, without actually starting a whole new thread on the argument of the morality of political action, you know from things I have said before that my belief is that political action is a violation of the NAP. Again, not trying to start another endless thread to try to change minds on this subject right now (let's move on), but given that it's my belief that the action is not acceptable and given that I strongly believe it will do no good and quite likely do harm, the logical course of action for me is to speak out against such action. If I believe there is a 99% chance of a good result by taking a moral action and a 1% chance of a good result by taking the immoral action, what do you think I'm going to do? Now if others who disagree take such actions and it turns out I'm wrong, then yes, I will have to admit my mistake about the utility of said action. It still doesn't change my opinion about the morality of said action because I don't accept the premise that the end justifies the means. Move on and do what you feel justified to do. You will simply have to do it without my passive consent. I said in my post that I don't expect to stop you and that I only hope this will be a learning experience and perhaps some will look back in retrospect and reconsider what I've said.

Also, keep in mind that my arguments are primarily directed at anarchists. For those who are minarchists, we're not starting off from the same premises. If you believe in minimal government, then I have a problem with that, but at least you're not hypocritical by supporting Ron Paul. That's another debate entirely.

[Lex]

Okay, give me your vision for how the civil disobedience folks without any help from folks working within the system can end the government.

Lets say that you get every conscionable bureaucrat to quit their jobs. The guys that are left are going to be the same crooks that would otherwise be literally out commiting burglary and theft. Suddenly the barrier to entry into politics will become easier because no reasonable person would be running for office. So you're going to see crooks winning elections unchallenged with a thousand votes from their mafia friends in towns with a tens of thousands of voters (who would not be voting?).

Essentially what would happen is a gradual change from a mixture of ignorant, apathetic, some law abiding, some honest, some diabolical, etc bureaucrats being replaced with purely die hard criminals. This is what has happened in pretty much every third world countries where the government was oppressive, then overthrown by people and with or without their consent rebooted by thugs.

I don't know the right way to create a truely free society but I have a pretty strong gut feeling that working strictly outside the system is not going to do it. Non violent civil disobedience works only against governments that are trying to preserve a sence of legitimacy. The moment you replace every bureaucrat in government with a Guilliani for example any attempts to resemble legitimacy will be gone, it'll make the government brutality today like like a walk in the park.

Gandhi was successful because he was battling Britian and the Brits were self-righteous and believed that they were doing the right things. Gandhi won only because the Brits had some dignity. You think a Gandhi would have been successful under a Nazi regime or under a Soviet Russia? He would have been dead the same day, no questions asked.

The only way I see success is if we have civil disobedience going on and friendly politicos in government nudging their apathetic and ignorant fellow bureaucrats to notice the protests and use that as a way to change things. Otherwise without allies on the inside you're doomed to fail and would only make things worse by convincing anyone with any bit of consciounce left to quit and inevitably having some former criminal take their spot.

[Lex]

Also, keep in mind that my arguments are primarily directed at anarchists. For those who are minarchists, we're not starting off from the same premises. If you believe in minimal government, then I have a problem with that, but at least you're not hypocritical by supporting Ron Paul. That's another debate entirely.

I used to have the label Anarcho-Capitalist in my profile but decided to remove it because it was too limiting.

My direction is the system of society argued by Ludwig von Mises which is essentially Anarcho-Capitalism (a system that Ron Paul believes in as well). But I don't think being completely ignorant of the political process will get us there. I think it is impossible without having allies inside the system.

[Lex]

Also, some people would argue that Gandhi replaced evil rule with even more evil rule and in the end created much more human suffering.

That is the problem with a completely bottom up approach. As soon as the local thugs got into power Gandhi became irrelevent. The same will happen here once you guilt trip all of the liberty minded bureaucrats out of office.

[Russell Kanning]

you have to have a little "top down" approach activity?
how much?

[dalebert]

That appearance of legitimacy is exactly the source of their power though. You take that away, and you take away the power and the threat that accompanies it. I can print a sticker with "president" on it and go order some army personnel around. Without legitimacy, military personal will not feel compelled to follow my orders. Without legitimacy, people won't feel compelled to pay taxes that support that military, report on their neighbors, etc. Government survives because we all fuel it with both moral and tangible support. If we stop fueling it, the legitimacy and the threat diminishes and we want to diminish it as much as we possibly can with a (perhaps asymptotic) goal of zero. Without legitimacy, whoever assumes the then meaningless role of governor, or mayor, or whatever, has gained no power from that worthless title. They may as well print their own sticker. In such a scenario with no legitimacy, government has failed to provide the thug with any power he didn't already have. A government with no appearance of legitimacy is no threat at all.

[dalebert]

If Ron Paul is this anarchist that you claim he is, why does he talk about the "limited role of government"? Why is an anarchist saying there is a role for government?