Glenn Greenwald: Progressives and the Ron Paul fallacies

Explain please. I thought it actually made the point very well. Although, I admit, the number of paragraphs devoted to the "no jews" example was stupidly excessive.

 

What makes this one of the worst? Serious question.

 

Why? The title is pretty snarky, but the analysis is spot-on.

One thing that the article gets right is that our country is an experiment in democratic republican government. Liberty was a key right they championed, but they also recognized that the cost of living in a society was that no person would ever have 100% liberty. So the goal was to find the right balance, and one thing our founders emphasized was that there should be protections from the "tyranny of the majority." Yet that's precisely what we'd see in a world led by Ron Pauls.

The civil rights laws were put in place exactly to foster such protection, yet Ron Paul and his disciples somehow see it equivalent to a law that reduces privacy and limits habeus corpus. One is a clarification of our constitution aimed at those who sought to deny its rights to disenfranchised segments of our population while the other chips away at the same rights.

There are many reasons to admire Ron Paul, but his narrow and inflexible view of the role of government shows a person unable to recognize the complexity of the world and how the rights he values are just as endangered by private entities as they are by the big bad government.

 

I'll save myself from reliving the same argument again.

http://bbs.clutchfans.net/showthread.php?t=207699

 

Hard to interpret much of an argument from that given the clear points made in the Salon piece, but I do fundamentally disagree with this:

First off, I don't think that's true necessarily. More to the point though, it ignores that the state was already sponsoring an "unelegant solution" by de facto supporting bigotry previously. I'll take state-sponsored regulation of private business over state-sponsored bigotry any day.

And the above I think, neatly summarizes why Ron Paul usually looks like a fool when questioned on his social policy - as the author of the Salon piece points out very clearly. EDIT: Actually, I think it neatly summarizes why american variant libertarianism (the Rothbard model) looks vicious and shallow compared to Locke's ideal liberalism.

 

I think it's pretty obvious.

Disagree. Counter-discrimination as a public policy pretty much fails consistently. The top 10% rule in Texas Higher Ed is one of my favorite examples.

1) Two fails don't make a win.

2) I'm not sure if what you're referring to was considered a "solution" to anything.

Who says we have to choose between them?

Yes, he looks like a fool politically because it's not a very sellable concept/idea. But his reasoning and values are sound. As well all know though, that doesn't always make for good polling numbers.

The only mistake I see in Paul's case here is making a comparison between something that deals with shifting rights from one private group to another (CRA), when the PATRIOT act is shifting rights from one private group to a public group. It's a little different in nature, although the core concept of affected rights is still the same.

The author sounds like he spent about 5 minutes tops thinking about this and just shat out some knee-jerk tripe.

 

Seriously? Are you suggesting that the great strides America has taken in regards to race relations since the Civil Rights Act are nevertheless, not the result of said legislation? At least tangentially?

Our system of government, which was purposely designed to allow for the state the protect the minority from the majority via constitutionally mandated rights. (see subtomic's post)

So is Rothbard and Von Mises and even Ayn Rand. They're still arguing for a society so ruthless and privatized it would make living miserable. Assuming that private property is a given, my major problem with Paul is that, as the author notes, he favors private abuses over public abuses. At least in a publicly-mandated system you have some say in the matter (again, this is kind of simplified inasmuch as liberalism is "wrecked on the realities of capitalist economy" - perfect example being America but I digress...).

I don't want "private property" to be thrown around as some sort of shield for all sorts of societal depravity we, as a species, have spent centuries trying to reign in. That all being said, I certainly understand the ideology - I just don't see how it works practically.

For once in my experience on this board, it's Donny being the cynic while I'm playing Major. I need a drink.

 

Why should anybody be forced to do business with somebody they don't want to do business with, regardless of race, creed, color, etc.?

 

What was so great about eating at that lunch counter anyway?

Obvious trolls are obvious.

 

I must spread some reputation around before giving it to subtomic again.

 

Because otherwise one group will invariably get the short end of the stick. Unfortunately, unless we live in a raceless, creedless, colorless society that is the way it will be.

 

Even if we did live in a raceless, creedless, colorless society, some group would be getting the short end of the stick. My point is that people should have the right to voluntary association (or lack thereof), regardless of race, creed, and color.

 

I agree to a point, we shouldn't be forcing people to associate in some impossible attempt to create a prejudice-less society, but I think somewhere we have to draw a line. I think public services and private services that are essential or are generally distributed should be open to anyone regardless of race etc.

I think a landlord has the right to be a dick and not only certain people to board, but I think an electricity company shouldn't have that privilege. I think a private group, I'll make it up and say Clutchfans, should have the right to limit membership to certain people if they so chose, my only concern is if you have a society that has a prejudiced majority (South Africa, let's say) there's the potential for the slippery slope of it turning into an apartheid state.

 

...........wait, so Jim Crow's now okay?

 

Ta-Nehisi Coates writes well.

 

I liked the Glenn Greenwald article a lot - I've never seen myself in having anything in common with progressives because of the positions they hold that I believe are harmful, but I see that's not true now.

It's interesting that both Obama and Paul have an alleged racist past, although I'd argue that at least Paul has never been associated with someone who hates America.

To me Obama has been a huge disappointment for many reasons - but what will it take to lose the hard-core followers? If he takes us into a war with Iran, will that be the straw that breaks the camels back?

There are many reasons for him to do it (none of which benefit the general American people). War-time profiteering, distraction from the horrible economy, chance to strip more of our freedoms via emergency executive orders...

I think Ron Paul is the only candidate who would be willing to make the hard choices to bring us back to what America should be - a free country, not a nanny state that is in an unending series of conflicts and wars.

 

Well written opinion scare piece with a lot of ? marks. Obama makes sense though.

 

At this point and with the offerings that have a realistic chance of getting the GOP nod, the only way I would vote for someone over Obama were if a Constitutional Amendment were passed so that Bill Clinton could run against Obama in the primary.

Unfortunately, even THAT is more likely than the only GOP ticket for which I would vote, Johnson/Paul.

 

Apparently he believes it's just groovy. :-(-

As for Paul, he's a worse Isolationist than Eugene McCarthy, who I liked. Hell, he makes McCarthy look like an Internationalist.

 

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/ldzsah2RCwA" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>