Letters to the Editor
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More complicated than that...
Not only did our founders envision individual states with greater autonomy than what has since evolved, they also envisioned that the citizenry would be directly involved in their own defense and that an Army would only be raised in a time of War as declared by Congress.
There's two problems with this argument; a) it's not exactly true and b)that people today have a right to make political decisions of their own, even if they contrast or conflict with things the Founder's argued for (presuming, of course, that the Founder's can be thought of as a monolithic entity; they weren't).
The argument that the founders wanted autonomous states might have held true in the initial euphoria of the victory over the British, but it waned enough to have them revisit the topic a couple years later. Even then, they couldn't resolve the greatest tension that wracked the country only a mere couple decades later, and America would have to be torn asunder before it was decided the supremacy of the Federal government would rule the land.
More to the point, people are presuming that the so called strict constructionist view of the Constitution is the only valid, correct one, and everyone else is just trying to shoehorn their own politics into it. I think thats the biggest laziness of anyones support of Paul; that he, or so called libertarians, have the monopoly on interpreting the Constitution. The reality is they've merely disliked the court decisions that have been handed down about them. So has everyone at some point or another.
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Unstated contexts
I couldn't care less whether GG is a libertarian, or a liberal, or what. -- bamage
Believe it or not, neither could I. The complexity of human circumstance and human thought being what they are, though, there's always a subtext. Like many people who're curious by nature, I'm often at a loss to avoid addressing it explicitly. That said, I'm also no fan of gossip. I do hope I haven't been indulging in it here.
Good night to you too, and to all the other usual suspects.
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Kucinich
Of the candidates for President that I could consider voting for, Kucinich is the one that most closely parallels my ideal of what a Presidential candidate should be, except for one critical point: his seeming lack of any serious effort to actually get elected. I realize that, notwithstanding any effort on his part, the elite media would shut him out (as it does) and ridicule his positions (which it does). But where are his campaign volunteers? Where is his campaign? Why is he not "taking it to the people," as it were? I've seen no attempt on his part to fly under the radar.
This is an unforgivable failure on his part. The only candidates that seem to actually be running are Clinton, Obama, and Edwards. Even Richardson doesn't seem to be making much of an effort. As a socialist, this is extremely frustrating; I don't place much stock in the electoral system as a path to meaningful change, but it's necessary to participate in electoral politics in order to secure political room to manuever outside of it. If the left were to give up on electoral politics entirely, all we would have left would be the crypto-fascist (and even then, weakly-encrypted) element that would be more than happy to ram through every piece of repressive legislation they can think of; even if, after packing the courts, the laws are found constitutional, the damage will have been done.
Granted, this would not be the final defeat for the left in the United States. But it would be a great setback. Democracy would essentially die, and while it would ensure the necessity of violent social change, what would come after would be something like what followed the Russian or Chinese revolutions. The authoritarian measures that would be required to stabilize society would ensure that the ultimate goal, socialism, would require even longer to attain. It would, in essence, set back the entire agenda of the modern left so far that we would no longer be able to even speak about it for generations.
Supporting an Obama, a Clinton, an Edwards, a Dodd, or any other Democratic candidate is definitely the lesser of two evils, but until the organizational infrastructure is built to ensure that truly progressive candidates are elected to office, that's what we've got. None of this, of course, is news. Many of us here are engaged in such work. Glenn's post, however, speaks to the difficulties involved in it. The task at hand is stupendously difficult, but if we cut through the bullshit, it'll be easier.
Glenn is cutting through the bullshit. Let's just hope that people listen.
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Now you know why I vote libertarian
because they advocate the sort of constitutional/civil liberties positions that Ron Paul has been advocating. The democrats and republicans are both a bunch of liberals. By which I mean believers that the government should be large and directing society as opposed to government should be small and let society just get on with it.
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So will the Lakota succeed?
Or are those racist Indians going to get what's coming to them when the Feds eventually send in their stormtroopers to stomp faces and get them back in line? They've told the Feds to piss off. One of the reasons the Lakota's gave is that they are sick of the Government "taking their children", i.e. sterilization programs. Eugenics rearing its ugly head I guess.
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Glenn is a blogger and author
And therefore is driven by hitcounts and street cred. I'm fairly sure that politics doesn't really enter into it. He can't admit it anyway lest he fall under the same criticism he heaps over all others. Only I am pure and without sin. But you losers all suck.
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WT
Who the fuck are you? Are you a novelist? If not, can I ghost write for you? Where's your fucking blog? Or are you a better as a counterpuncher? - which I completely understand.
You are the most eloquent writer on this board, Glenn included.
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Ron Paul and Libertarianism
I welcome Glenn's series on this topic. It is successfully forcing thought leaders among the readership to address the lack of transparency and occasional elements of intellectual dishonesty in the slate of national Democratic candidates. The Democratic leadership has failed to act as an effective check on this administration after their victory in the mid-term elections. The assumption that a shift to any Democratic President would immediately reverse the course of Bush/Cheney policies is just that, an assumption.
The use of Ron Paul's policy positions as a springboard for this debate is an effective one. Like Tancredo's role in raising the immigration debate, Paul has introduced broad philosophical questions about the role of the United States within the world that are typically addressed by other candidates as simply a position for or against continuing the war in Iraq. Beyond this, Paul has spoken to executive power abuses, loss of individual liberties, over-promised and unsustainable domestic spending, and national security risks driven by the economics of unprecedented debt to foreign nations. He has been articulate, outspoken and unexpectedly successful with a sobering tone that the U.S. electorate rarely rewards. Paul has forced issues into the debate that had previously been the province of academics or policy specialists, and in doing so created a motivated coalition of individuals who are increasingly bought into a broader policy package that would severely limit the federal government.
Since libertarianism has come up in regards to Glenn (whom I have not read long enough to have an informed opinion) and Ron Paul himself, I want to make a few comments on Paul's relationship with libertarianism and the Libertarian Party (LP):
- After much consideration I am convinced that Ron Paul is not a libertarian in a philosophical sense, but a libertarian-leaning candidate whose first priority is enforcing the U.S. Constitution as a contract between government and the people
- Paul's failure to recognize abortion rights and his role in assisting the the federal government in regulating gay marriage with the Defense of Marriage Act and Marriage Protection Act are at odds with the LP platform, and outraged many libertarians despite his candidacy in 1988
- Paul's numerous statements supporting a role for Christian thinking in government are at odds with the atheist/agnostic tendencies and absolute church/state separation requirement found in the LP
- Paul would end the "incentives" for illegal immigration while securing the borders, where the LP calls for ending immigration quotas and penalties for hiring undocumented workers with the goal of free immigration to individuals meeting basic requirements
- Paul's refusal to acknowledge (or advance) a right to Privacy within the Constitution is problematic, despite his harsh criticisms of government abuses in this area
Because libertarians haven't seen so much potential in a candidate since Barry Goldwater in 1964, it's not surprising that many are willing to overlook these shortcomings to support Paul some forty years later. That Glenn is willing to force his readers to consider which Democrats might be getting unearned latitude simply because they wear the right party name is a fair and proper question to advance the debate.