Allison Bricker

Social news site reddit.com interviews 14th Congressional District representative, Ron Paul. Questions were asked and voted upon by the reddit community, with the top ten questions asked during the course of the interview.

1. Kitanata: Dr. Paul, you have stated that you do not support Net Neutrality. Could you define Net Neutrality as you see it, then elaborate on what aspects of Net Neutrality you do not support and why? Thank you.




2. Fauster: Do you think that scientists are politically motivated with regard to issues of global warming and evolution? As a medical professional, you probably understand the value of deferring to specialists outside areas of your expertise. Nonetheless, you openly disagree with overwhelming scientific consensus in these two areas. While hardly anyone thinks Greenland will melt in twenty years, the overwhelming majority of scientists believe the effects of climate change will be lasting and severe in the next 50-100 years. With regard to evolution, almost all biologists, geologists, and physicists would say it’s better characterized as a law than a theory. Do you think the Bible provides a superior account of the origins of life on Earth, and thus claim a different source of expertise? Or rather, do you believe that scientific claims are grossly wrong, biased, or politically motivated?




3. SquirrelOnFire: Congressman Paul, The current health care legislation seems to be moving closer to the insurance industry’s ideal (minimal change + mandatory insurance) each day. What can be done to tip the balance of power in the congress away from lobbyists and towards the voters? Thank you for agreeing to speak with us.




4. Blackf1sh: Congressman Paul, Government investments in science and technology have historically yielded great returns. For example, it has been estimated[1] that, “technologies derived from quantum mechanics may account for 30% of the gross national product of the United States.” Money from the US government has led to the development of the internet[2] and a long list of NASA spin-off technologies have contributed to our daily lives[3].

   In contrast, the risk-averse private sector has little incentive and a poor track record for funding these types of long-term projects. Although the exploratory research in academic settings is often inefficient at achieving specific goals, it has the unique potential to yield unexpectedly amazing results on decade-long timescales.

   How can one justify reducing the budget for science and technology in spite of the quality of life and national security afforded by the developments from government-funded research?




5. Rightc0ast: Dr. Paul, Regarding the theory of evolution, I realize you have said you don’t feel the issue is important, but it’s been a topic discussed at great length at reddit, and other web sites. We’d really appreciate an answer to this.

   Allow me to clarify. Many people mistakenly confuse actual evolution with abiogenesis, or life coming from inanimate matter. Evolution is not a theory of creation. It is a theory encompassing genetic drift and selection, and describing changes in the genetic material of a population of organisms from one generation to the next. Do you accept evolution in this regard as the foundation upon which nearly all biological knowledge is based, or do you truly believe change within species from generation to generation does not occur?




6. DoesMyKeyboardWork: Dr. Paul, What would a “return to sound currency” look like? Realistically, how would it play out? Would people exchange their dollars for a new gold/silver backed currency?

   As much as I agree with you (donated for the original money bomb, sticker on my car, wrote you in for the election), the defeatist in me thinks this is impossible and the entire system is eternally ruined. Thank you (and sorry for the pessimism)




7. TheHiveQueen: Dr. Paul, How do you reconcile the fact that you believe that the Federal Government has no place in Gay Marriage debate with your support of DOMA?




8. Playeren: Sir, should the government be able to keep secrets from the public at all? And Is ultimate freedom more important than ultimate security?




9. Chungkaishek: Dr. Paul, Given your well-established belief in the merits of the free market system, I’d like to know how you feel about the Americans with Disabilities Act. The ADA establishes restrictions and requirements on businesses, something I imagine goes against free market principles, yet it also ensures, for example, that a blind customer with a service animal such as a seeing eye dog will be treated like any other customer and not turned away for bringing a dog into a store.

   Should a free market decide which customers get service, or is this the responsibility of the federal government?




10. Jboeke: Dr. Paul, I’m trying to be a good libertarian, but I’m conflicted. I live in Phoenix, AZ and we just started up our light rail system earlier this year. I love it! I use it to commute to work and take it to the bar on weekends so I don’t drive drunk.

    But, light rail was a big public works project which took millions in taxpayer money from the three different cities and the Federal government. Unfortunately, I can’t imagine a scenario where something like light rail would have ever been built by the free market. How can I enjoy this project and still be a good libertarian?

Wire Report

(NoThirdSolution: David Zemens) – For many people (and yes I’m jumping to conclusions and making sweeping generalizations here) “No one should die because they can’t afford health care” is the weasel way of saying “I want someone else to pay for it” without sounding like a panhandler. So, take what follows with a grain of salt, OK?

On that note, someone’s Facebook status said:

“No one should die because they cannot afford health care, and no one should go broke because they get sick. If you agree, please post this as your status for the rest of the day.”

No one should die just because they were born in sub-Saharan Africa, either. But they do. Doesn’t make it fair, but it happens. For every “poor” or underprivileged Westerner complaining about their lack of “health care” (NB: even the poorest Americans have access to better health care than, I would venture to guess, 85% of the earth’s population has ever had), there are a million people living on $1 and a cup of rice each day — so cry me a river.

Every one of us will die at the crossroads of some particular circumstances, time, and place:

• Some of us die in our sleep. Some of us are merely in “the wrong place at the wrong time”.
• Some of us will die because the technology to cure what ails us has not yet been invented.
• Some of us will die because we made poor choices that presently impact our ability to care for ourselves, and
• some of us will die unfortunately through no direct fault of our own, because we can’t afford to pay for the technology that does exist.

To lament the fact that some people die under seemingly inopportune circumstances is folly; it ignores the lion’s share of the equation. Financial circumstances are a scapegoat, because at nearly any time and place where the individual isn’t DOA, a change in financial circumstances might forestall death for a few hours, days, weeks, or months.

You’ll get no arguments from me, if you say that “health care is too expensive”: blame the AMA cartel, the FDA, blame “Big Insurance”, etc. But national health care is health care fascism; the insurers want guaranteed profits, guaranteed customers for life, and Uncle Sam to pay the bills. They want to sell you your own welfare.

You’ll get no arguments from me, if you say that “the system” needs to be reformed: specifically it needs to not be a system at all. People aren’t permitted under the law to care for themselves or to arrange for the care of others. Or because the consumer is not the customer, and the customer enjoys certain tax privileges that the consumer does not, etc. Or because people have been conditioned to believe that “insurance” should pay for an annual check-up and dental exams and all sorts of other routine maintenance instead of just providing for accidents and serious illnesses.

The problem is that health care, medicine, long-term care, etc., is damned expensive. Government is the problem in health care, which keeps it unaffordable.

Asking or forcing others to pay the costs, which you can’t afford, will do nothing to actually solve that problem; it just shifts the burden, messing up someone else’s life circumstances, exacerbating the problem for the future.

About the Author: David Zemens

David Zemens is the Editor & Publisher of No Third Solution, and holds a Bachelor’s degree in Business and a Master’s degree in Economics. A self-taught libertarian, David has recently begun delving in to “agorism” a political philosophy developed by Samuel Edward Konkin III, which aims for a society built on voluntary associations and exchange, thereby resulting in a true free market. He considers one-day subverting state propaganda completely by opting to teach at the local community college. David currently works as a market-research analyst and he and his wire were happily married in September of 2008.

The Smoking Argus

The June 24th Edition of Fox News’ “Freedom Watch” with Judge Andrew Napolitano. The Judge’s guests this week include Representative Ron Paul, Lew Rockwell from the Mises Institute, former Libertarian Vice-Presidential Candidate, Wayne Allen Root, Michael Shanklin, and Shelly Roche from “Break the Matrix”.

Tarrin Lupo

Harry Browne (June 17, 1933 – March 1, 2006) – Just prior to Dr. Ron Paul reentering the House of Representatives in 1997, Harry Browne was one of the most visible faces in the liberty movement, having run for President as the nominee of the Libertarian Party in 1996 and 2000. Through his speeches, books, and campaigns, Mr. Browne worked tirelessly in pursuit of rebinding the Federal government to the Constitution, advocating the abolition of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), and advocating for a return to sound money.

For many Generation X’ers, he was the first exposure to both the freedom movement and Libertarian Party in the mid-1990’s. Additionally, unlike today’s Libertarian Party, which many feel has moved away from their core principles with the nomination of Bob Barr, Mr. Browne gained national media attention not only through what many considered highly controversial political advertisements but also for his refusal to accept Federal matching funds during his campaigns for President.

As such, I offer up some of the “controversial” ads from Mr. Browne’s Presidential campaigns and ask my fellow friends in Liberty and the defenders of the Constitution to remember a patriot who left us far too soon. Today would have been Harry’s 76th Birthday.

Other Related Material – (Hover over Icon for pop-up.)
	HarryBrowne.org

Source(s): The LCL Report

Allison Bricker

Penn Jillette on half of Penn and Teller sat down with Fox News’ Glenn Beck Thursday evening, March 18th, 2009 to discuss the absolutely ludicrous associations contained within the Missouri Information Analysis Center report on the Modern Militia Movement. As originally editorialized by Allison Bricker earlier in the week, the report attempts to advise law enforcement officers that support for former Presidential candidate Ron Paul could be an indication that the individual is a domestic homegrown radical.

Download full MIAC Report

Russell Means

(Original Video Blog) As we all sit awestruck in front of the television, the computer, or the newspaper, Mr. Means offers us a solution to the current Global calamity. In his own beautifully articulated words, Mr. Means, explains both how the World got into this mess and how we can move back towards sanity and wholeness. We must, as he says, return to Matriarchy, a balance, respectful way of life where we celebrate our differences, rather than stifle, or even, destroy them.

The Smoking Argus

Representative Ron Paul (R-TX) was the scheduled pre-panel guest this past Friday on “Real Time with Bill Maher.” Mr. Maher, whose political affiliations change quicker than the fashions of a New York catwalk, attempted quite unsuccessfully to pigeonhole Dr. No as a do-nothing capitalist in his opposition to President Obama’s pork-filled spending extravaganza.

However, Dr. Paul eloquently schooled the host relating to the common misnomer that capitalism, free-markets, and deregulation are Prima facie for the economic malaise and instead rightly laid the blame at the feet of both the nanny state and private bank monopoly of the FEDERAL RESERVE. By the end of the interview, Representative Paul drew applause from the audience on several occasions for his stance on ending the drug war, his mainstay of a non-interventionist foreign policy, and even his economic stance, much to the chagrin of Mr. Maher who apparently now worships at the shrine of Obama.

Mr. Maher’s newfound love of socialism is a complete 180 degree departure from his former libertarian mantra adorned during the mid and late 1990’s. Thus proving once again, pseudo-television pundits/comedians cannot trip over themselves fast enough to keep themselves en vogue with the political chic of the moment.

Allison Bricker

From the “way-back” machine, here is Ron Paul, during his run for President as a Libertarian candidate in 1988. Students of history will remember the news of the day revolved much around, the Iran-Contra Hearings, The Savings & Loans Scandal, and the prior years stock market collapse. His finely tuned understanding of the inherent dangers of central banking and a wholly fiat currency almost sound prophetic when examined under the weight of our current economic crisis.

Joseph Marohl

Just finished reading a good student essay on Wordsworth’s “Tintern Abbey,” in which the student quotes a source as saying that the poem does not indicate so much the conservative bent of the poet’s mind, in the years following the French Revolution, as his lack of interest in politics altogether.

The essay reminds me that, with few exceptions, a disinterest in politics is probably a large part of what conservatism is—or at least of how it thrives.

Politics is the science of acquiring or challenging power to effect change in a society.

Liberals seek power ostensibly to liberate people from undue coercion and impingement on their natural rights … from the state, from the church, from mob rule (or the “tyranny of the majority,” to cite de Tocqueville and Mill), from the wealthy or otherwise super-privileged, and, more recently, from corporations.

Liberals, unlike anarchists, look to the state “to secure these rights” (to cite the Declaration of Independence) … even from coercion by the state itself—theoretically the function of divided government and the Bill of Rights. In doing so, they often extend the influence of the state over private lives in ways that alarm anarchists, libertarians, and, for that matter, a lot of people who don’t know what to call themselves.

Libertarians and anarchists consider themselves the “true” liberals—either seeking to radically limit the powers of the state or transfer those powers to syndicates, unions, communes, or other small working communities of choice—or, for anarchic purists, to each and every individual to fend for herself or himself.

A keen interest in politics drives all these people.

It drives reactionaries, also. Like liberals, libertarians, and anarchists, reactionaries are deeply interested in acquiring power to change society—more particularly, in re-acquiring power to change society back—or returning it to traditional points of authority: the aristocracy, the patriarchy, the monarchy or dictatorship, and/or God (or those acknowledged to be God’s vicars or proxies).

About the only groups of people who find no need to care about politics are those who believe change is unnecessary, because the status quo is good enough already, or those who believe change is impossible or at any rate out of the control of ordinary individuals.

Into the latter group I clump together cynics and opportunists, who see power strictly as a playground. Although they lack political ideals (or at least have set them aside as impractical), they retain a limited interest in the forms of politics, not so much to change society, but more to enrich or otherwise empower themselves.

I would also include in this group those who have burned out or lost hope.

Such conservatism, like the poet Wordsworth’s, may derive from horror and outrage at the excesses or hypocrisies of past revolutions and idealism. The French Terror, for instance, moved a good many English romantic idealists to the right in Wordsworth’s day. Most, I dare say, simply threw up their hands and shrugged their shoulders.

Of course, the former group, who actually like things just as they are, are the true blue (or red) conservatives. Their disinterest in politics is meant either to leave well enough alone or to preserve their own interests, which are firmly embedded in the status quo. This is the group most properly called “conservative” and its values are those of the average American—quite literally “average”—all criticism, discontent, idealism, or sense of moral irony burned away in the crucible of the arithmetic mean.

I emphasize “average” because most individuals are not average. Most people want at least some aspect of the society they live in to change, but their values are offset by other individuals’ values and thus usually neutered … in opinion polls or in election years. It is only when the sum total of individuals in society is statistically processed and redistributed that we have the “average” American, who is, as I said, basically conservative … and largely nonexistent.

The people we usually think of as “conservative” are really and truly “reactionary” … at least on most issues. They want to return to the good old days … before Roe v. Wade, feminism, gay rights, environmentalism, R-rated movies, rap, the Second Vatican Council, Playboy, the New Deal, and Watergate.

Up to and including a fair share of the recent election, reactionaries have been effective in mobilizing the truly conservative side of American society, largely by appealing to its fear of change, forgetting for a moment that the reactionaries want change as much as the liberals and the radicals do.

The liberals and the radicals at least have history on their side. The change the reactionaries want, though, is undocumented in the annals of history. Even the dark ages of the medieval era, the most successful instance of backwards change in history, were different from whatever had preceded the classical world.

It is America’s conservative nature that, wisely or too cautiously, demands that its politicians be moderate, promise not to change things too much, or make concessions to opposing interests at the same time.

I tend to think these demands are overly cautious. With rare exceptions, America since World War II has feared the future. It lost or hugely diminished its supplies of frank vulgarity, iconoclasm, can-do spirit, audacious laughter, and big-heartedness, replacing them with political correctness, teleprompt pieties, victim mentality, canned laughter, and identity politics.

As a culture, we have chosen “no” over “yes.” That choice is the heart of conservatism—even when it calls itself compassionate or moderate, even when it thinks it’s progressive.

Of course, no-politics does not equal no change in society. No-politics simply relinquishes the power of change to the corporate-owned media, the corporate-funded politicians, and the elites who accept government loans but won’t lend any of the money back to you and me.

If the last eight years has taught us anything, it is the essentially destructive nature of choosing beer-drinking buddies as Presidents (even those who reportedly kicked the hooch 20 years ago) or mistaking escapism and deliberate ignorance for liberation and innocence.

Joseph Marohl

My teen years were spent as a fundamentalist. Back then (the early 1970s) a fundamentalist was somebody who affirmed the inerrancy of the Bible and lived a life of separation from the world.

Aspects of “the world” I was expected to shun included social drinking, movies, dancing, smoking, flared-leg trousers, miniskirts, heavy petting, mixed-race dating, divorce, masturbation, the peace symbol, sideburns, rock music, Good News for Modern Man, union membership, dirty jokes, gambling, and skepticism.

For a year and a half I even attended a Christian educational institution that preached “second degree separation,” which involved keeping a distance also from people who, although good and decent enough in their own behaviors, were yet not sufficiently separated from the world, so defined.

It is rather amazing, then, that I wound up, by age 30, an open homosexual with no desire to marry or adopt, tolerant and even supportive of prostitution and pornography, strongly inclined towards far-left politics and averse to religion—now even the blandest new age pablum irks me a little, even Unitarianism feels like I’m being clubbed over the head with simple-minded superstition.

Now I am deeply suspicious of almost all forms of purity and puritanism—even in the secular realm. In the early 1990s, when I followed a strictly vegetarian diet and belonged to one or two animal-rights organizations, I stopped short of criticizing others for eating meat—and affirmed, for no good reason, that I would happily eat meat again when I desired it again. (And I did, more out of convenience, though, than a born-again palate.)

Since my years as a Christian, I have found it difficult to be a joiner of, much less a true believer in, any organizations, even those for which I have a strong affinity. I belonged to ACT UP for a year in the eighties; more recently I sent a check to the Human Rights Campaign, even though I can’t fully comprehend why anyone, gay or straight, would want to marry, join the military, or be the subject of even benign stereotyping in Hollywood films.

I have not found a satisfactory “home” in the gay “community.” I have nothing rainbow colored in my home. I neither shun nor affect effeminate mannerisms—I consider myself neither queenly nor straight-acting, though I would not mind being called either one, provided sufficient qualification.

I have tried to form a character of integrity, with definite values, which nevertheless avoid strict strictures or wanted won’t’s. I can’t even say that I am entirely pure of puritanism as I sometimes sense a tendency in myself to pontificate and, when teaching literature, to preach from the text as if it were holy writ.

Politically I tend towards an idealistic form of socialism combined with libertarian, democratic values—but I don’t call myself a socialist, anarchist, or libertarian, and only recently started calling myself a democrat and a liberal, but only because it struck me as a little anal retentive (i.e. purist) to constantly distinguish myself from every known category of political persuasion.

I simply have to accept that labels have some value, however limited. I abandon any and every label when it begins to smack of exclusivity.

Thus, I am “homosexual,” “gay,” or “queer” entirely by whim, using whichever label tickles my fancy at a given moment.—I’d even feel better about myself if I could honestly call myself “bisexual,” since that strikes me as even more worldly. And I prefer to say I’m “irreligious” rather than “atheistic” (too puritanical in its ax-grinding) or “agnostic” (too wimpy—as if I’m advertising an interest in somebody’s converting me back to the faith).

I still catch myself, from time to time, drifting towards an absolutist mindset again, though seldom towards my old rightwing views. Catch me offguard and I’m likely to sign your petition to outlaw the sale of cigarettes or to demand the firing of a college professor who denies the Holocaust or a radio talk host who makes homophobic remarks … though I will regret doing so before the ink is dry. Why? Because it strikes me as so much more reasonable and worldly to be usually permissive, rather than censorious and reactive.

I would much rather be worldly than pure. The desire for purity tends to lead to persecution, it seems to me. What is the point of drawing a line in the sand unless you want to condemn others to the other side of that line?

Again, I’m not opposed to character or even strict definitions—but, as a rule, worldliness lends itself more easily to conversation. It seems to say “yes” more often than “no.”

The worldly relates, by its very definition, to the real world we live in; by contrast, purity is just a concept, one with no clear analogues to reality and one with a striking tendency to exclude common sense … and, too often, common decency.