As I said, the slavery thing is ridiculous but Paul’s philosophy does call for the elimination of all “non-essential” government agencies, which in his philosophy means all of them except for defense and law enforcement (including the accompanying judiciary). Not only no FCC but no FTC, EPA, FDA, OSHA or anything else resembling regulation or limits on business. I think he’d leave customs inspectors in place but he might privatize it out to companies that will hire people at $9.00 an hour and minimal training to do the job much like the private contractors in charge of our airport security. As anyone who’s called Dell tech support can attest, profit comes above service or doing the job right in far too many companies. But I forgot. In libertarian fantasyland private businesses always work best.

–Rich

Xenophobia isn’t so bad. It’s the de-humanization you have to watch out for.

That is easily the silliest thing I’ve read this week (but the week is young). It is becomming obvious that word play is all that is left to those with contempt for liberty, property, and peace. How could anyone honestly interpret “I own myself” to mean “therefore I get to own others”?

As Lenin advised “First, confuse the vocabulary”.

With opposition of this caliber, Ron Paul may be our next president.

Regardless if i agree with him over his more radical views, it doesnt matter. We need him now in the white house to clean up the mess. He’ll air out all of Cheneys secret dirty laundry, kick out the corrupt ones and encourage congress to take their oath of office seriously and reward integrity by example. We need a strict constitutionalist statesman.

We simply cant take another empty suit moderate or neoconservative who will keep taking us down the same road, well go bankrupt just like the Soviets did.

We unfortunately need a radical like paul to shake things up at this stage of our history.

That’s a different perspective too, Chris — from the truth. The guy who posted that about Paul wasn’t even wrong. It’s just utter garbage. Saying that libertarianism ultimately leads to slavery? The very pinnacle of *limiting* human freedom?

Dude.

And keep in mind that just posting something on your site is an endorsement — even if you say you don’t necessarily agree. It’s like posting some lame-ass hate speech and saying you just wanted to be fair. It still hurts you because it’s still crap that you put on your site.

I can’t even begin to count the number of times I’ve heard they are fair and balanced, yet when watching their shows almost every time I wonder – why wasn’t this point made, why didn’t they even bring up this point, etc.

Bottom line, it’s not a news station, it’s a political attack station. Fox even appealed a lawsuit saying – they by law are allowed to manipulate the news and won.

First, Ron Paul is not a libertarian. Never has been. Second, and more important, Ultimate Josh clearly doesn’t understand libertarianism. He asserts that libertarianism advocates slavery. This is the most ridiculous straw man I’ve ever encountered.

I have the right to remain free from harm. You have the right to remain free from harm. That includes assault, murder, whatever. This is easy enough to follow. But human beings are not private property in the way a television is property. I am my own property. You are your own property. Hence, we each have the right to be free from (involuntary) harm from each other, including involuntary servitude. You can’t buy me unless I agree.

It is not possible in that construct to then own another human being without his consent. No right to own slaves or pining for a return to the days of the Confederacy exist within libertarianism.

That should be enough to discredit Ultimate Josh, but let me tackle a few other low-hanging points. Yes, libertarianism believes in limited government. That’s based on the explicit powers granted to the government in the Constitution. Everything not in there is reserved to the people.

* saving you tax dollars – if the government shouldn’t be doing something, it doesn’t need tax dollars. I can then use those dollars to buy the service the government was providing in the private market, or I can spend it on whatever else I want to buy.

* privatize – This is not a blanket goal, but yes, privatization is good. Free enterprise is better at allocating scarce services and resources, as well as adapting to changes, than government. Government is good at destroying things and little else. The private market is good at providing food, shelter, iPods, movies, stoves, televisions, cell phones, Xbox 360s, laptops, paper, pens, magazines, baseball cards, lamps, locks, keys, shoes, shelves, tables, pans, plates, knives, forks, spoons, paint, coffee… Should I continue?

* CIA, the Air Force, nuclear arsenal – Those powers are granted to the government as legitimate. Common defense and courts are the most basic government duties. Libertarianism accepts this. There are certainly more radical libertarianism who don’t, but they are the minority. Nor does libertarianism believe that private individuals should control our nuclear arsenal. If we could use them to blow up our slaves, however, maybe?

* FCC – How exactly has the FCC helped us? Censorship? Limiting markets in media and technology through arbitrary rules and enforcement? Count me among the pleased if it disappears.

* you’d have to stop playing your Sony Playstation, hang up your T-mobile phone, and spit out that coffee – What? No one is saying this, even not-libertarian Ron Paul.

* every electrical device plugs into the same AC outlet – Ultimate Josh assumes this wouldn’t happen without government intervention. He is wrong. USB, anyone? Using Ultimate Josh’s silly interpretation of our Constitution, it’s now the government’s job to decide the winner of the on-going battle between Blu-Ray and HD-DVD. There are people who will end up with useless dvds if they chose wrong. Government must save us. Think of all the people who lost out on Beta over VHS.

* hard money supply – We don’t have a hard money supply, unless he means the actual bills printed by the Treasury. We have a fiat currency. The value is not based on underlying gold assets, for example. On this point, Ultimate Josh’s attack on Paul is wrong because Paul supports a return to the gold standard. This is flawed, but it’s what he believes.

* someone loyal to the constitution regulates your air traffic, or would you rather have someone loyal to money – Government workers are loyal to the Constitution, not money? Do they accept a paycheck? Would they continue coming to work if they stopped receiving paychecks but were emboldened that they’re being loyal to the Constitution? I guess we can save some of those tax dollars and return them to the people. Of course, I’d rather they be loyal to not letting planes crash with hundreds of people onboard.

Finally, I love that violating the Constitution is somehow guaranteeing its stability. I had to destroy it to save it, don’t you see?

In a libertarian world he can and will have all those things available.
They just won’t be given to you by the government. I won’t be forced to buy you things I don’t want and you won’t be forced to buy me things you don’t want. That’s not exactly an anti-liberty stance.

He can even join a voluntary collective that limits his freedoms to specific, approved choices, if he so desires. He just doesn’t have the right to force me into his collective. His view fits into libertarianism. Libertarianism does not fit into his view. Forcing me into his view because he likes it is a form of control over me. It’s short of slavery, but barely. He’s saying that he possesses the right to choose for me. No, thanks.

“Do you like that the secret service is working to ensure the credibility and legitimacy of our economy’s hard money supply? Ron Paul doesn’t.”

Hard money means a currency backed by a physical commodity. The US Dollar is most certainly not hard money. In fact, returning the US to sound money this is one of Ron Paul’s major platform planks. It’s truly bizarre someone could accuse him of not supporting hard money.