To Get Ron Paul's Insanity, You Have To Understand Libertarianism

American Thinker ^ | 12/30/2011 | Don Feder

[SeekAndFind]

To "get" Ron Paul you have to understand libertarianism -- an ism every bit as delusional as Marxism. The National Libertarian Party, which first ran a presidential candidate in 1972, hasn't had many wins -- electing 4 state legislators in as many decades, as well as a planning commissioner here and an alderman there. Ron Paul is its greatest success.

The Texas congressman is far and away the most prominent proponent of what I like to call rightwing utopianism. Libertarianism is to authentic conservatism what Barack Obama is to 19th century liberalism.

Inspired by Ayn Rand (Ron named his son, the future senator, Rand Paul), Libertarianism was an outgrowth of 1960s campus conservatism. Like ideologues of the left, libertarians of the day were on a never-ending quest for ideological purity and the foolish consistency Emerson derided. (They still are.) Unlike traditional conservatives, libertarians came to oppose the Vietnam War and what they called "prohibitionist" drug policies. You must be consistent, libertarians lectured us. If you support economic liberty, then you must support "personal liberty" (legalized abortion, freedom to use soul-destroying drugs) and the libertarian principle applied to foreign policy -- isolationism.

During the Cold War, economist Murray Rothbard (one of the foremost libertarian theorists) once observed that if we lost the rest of the world and the Soviets invaded America, we could always take to the hills and launch a guerrilla war, a la "Red Dawn." Libertarians have never been hampered by reality.

Some libertarians drifted into anarchy, others organized the National Libertarian Party. Ron Paul was the party's 1988 standard-bearer.

I understand libertarians because I was one, from roughly 1968 (when I read "Atlas Shrugged") to 1982. I was a vice chairman of the New York Libertarian Party in the early '70s.

[SeekAndFind]

Author concludes:

Ron Paul may be delusional, but he is a consistent. Neither mass murder, terrorism, the advance of militant Islam, nor nuclear weapons in the hands of fanatical regimes will shake a libertarian’s faith in his dogma: We have no foreign enemies. If certain states want to kill us, it’s our fault. Nothing is worth fighting for — unless it’s abolishing the Federal Reserve System.

[Leep]

If you believe its ok for adults to choose to use “street” drugs then there should be a way for those same drug users to sign off on receiving any medical related health issues that result from that use.
Then I would say legalize all drugs.
In other words the philosophy sounds good on paper but the reality is something quite different. Its the same problem I have with modern liberalism.

[A_perfect_lady]

Consistency is a virtue until it becomes inconvenient. Then, suddenly, it’s time to quote Emerson.

[baddog 219]

[Cringing Negativism Network]

I am a small-l libertarian.

What you describe is exactly why I am not an upper-case L libertarian.

Libertarians are deliberately delusional about national defense.

I don’t know why, but there is no question Libertarians are profoundly naive about the world.

[servantboy777]

>>legalized abortion, freedom to use soul-destroying drugs<<

Abortion is already legal in this country, that was not Paul.

Freedom to use soul-destroying drugs...you mean, like alcohol?

POT..KETTLE..BLACK

[marktwain]

I was a Libertarian for decades, before reality caused me to stop supporting the party. The problem with Liberterianism is that some of its basic assumptions are at odds with reality. One of the assumptions is that “everyone is the same all over the world”, when the reality is that no, everyone is different all over the world. That assumption is what drives Ron Paul to say that the Iranians want the bomb because in their situation, we would too. Of course, in a very general way, he is correct, but he fails to see that the Iranians have a completely different world view and assumptions from Americans, and many of the leadership's assumptions include that the world would be a better place if America did not exist, no matter what our foreign policy was.

It is the same problem with open borders. Open your borders and let enough people in who have not assimilated into American society, and America will cease to exist as a free society.

Libertarians have this vision that all people all over the world are really libertarians under the skin. It is simply not true.

[Cringing Negativism Network]

Agreed.

“Free traders” are the same way.

They think everyone wants to be like us, so we should not have to look out for ourselves, just be “fair”.

Both views are profoundly dopey.

[aimhigh]

If you believe its ok for adults to choose to use “street” drugs then there should be a way for those same drug users to sign off on receiving any medical related health issues that result from that use.

We need to have this policy when it comes to homo-sodomy and Aids. You play, you pay.

[Raider Sam]

That is not a Libertarian thought. That is what a big government conservative thinks Libertarian thoughts are.

[Jukeman]

Of course, it follows that no Federal Reserve System would mean no control on the issuance of coinage. True libertarian position. It can be cloaked in patriotism but anarchy is the result.

[MtBaldy]

Good read. It won’t matter at all to the Paultards.

[SeekAndFind]

RE:That is not a Libertarian thought.

Can you tell us if Ron Paul has any problems with Iranian Mullahs acquiring Nuclear weapons?

[Jukeman]

Well, there you go again.

[Unassuaged]

Or eat meat...oh wait...

[Unassuaged]

Or eat meat...oh wait...

[WilliamofCarmichael]

Ron Paul's libertarianism? Old technology. Introducing the new libertarianism: Obama/Cass Sunstein total nuthouse Stalinist libertarianism.

libertarian paternalism

I don't want to miss the opportunity to mention what the behavioral economists loosed upon us by Obama are doing; to wit, the czars and their fetters.

Obama's regulatory czar Cass R. Sunstein writes:

"The idea of libertarian paternalism might seem to be an oxymoron, but it is both possible and legitimate for private and public institutions to affect behavior while also respecting freedom of choice."

more..

"Often people's preferences are ill-formed . . . In these circumstances, a form of paternalism cannot be avoided [to overcome the decision-makers' limited knowledge and just plain stupidity otherwise known as] bounded rationality . . . libertarian paternalists should attempt to steer people's choices in welfare-promoting directions without eliminating freedom of choice . . . It is also possible to show how a libertarian paternalist might select among the possible options and to assess how much choice to offer." [End of quotes]

IOW Cass R. Sunstein and the Obamanists decide the options from among which you are permitted to choose. You get to be a libertarian! and they get to be the slave masters. What a deal!

[nathanbedford]

Believing they alone are possessed of the ultimate key to understanding the way humans are or should be organized, Marxist deny the legitimacy of the nationstate and would impose their own new system of rule, not according to national lines, but according to an economic doctrine.

Libertarians are likewise convinced of their unique apprehension of the key to everything. They believe that the organizing principle should be individual liberty and the economic outworking of untrammeled commerce done by free individuals. To the degree that a nationstate imposes limitations and requirements on individuals and obstructs their freedom, the nationstate is illegitimate, except in extremely limited circumstances.

Since Ron Paul lives in America, he discusses the illegitimacy of the nation in which he lives. It is not so much that Ron Paul blames America first, he blames the institution of the nationstate first and he happens to live in the most powerful nation state on earth.

At this gut level the libertarian is no less a revolutionary than the Bolshevik except that the libertarian will not resort to violence to do away with the nationstate. He does not fear the takeover of the nationstate by the Bolsheviks because he believes that his organizing principle must ultimately and inevitably prevail so there is no use shedding blood to obtain that which will come anyway.

Likewise, he does not fear sharia because it is built on a false foundation, a false organizing principle which must, like communism, give way to the greater truth owned by Libertarians.

[Jukeman]

Libertarianism is a brand of utopianism and not in accordance with Biblical truths. We are not perfect and as such will never act in ways of perfection. When given the opportunity, usually, one human being will act in a way which will benefit himself the most. And sometimes, it will be in a way which is harmful to another which is why libertarianism is not workable just the same as communism is not workable.