Okay, it appears solid.
But, where do we go from here? What bills will be launched in Congress in the name of this manifesto? Will they be as pure?
Further, I didn't realize that End the Fed was just a campaign theme. I thought End the Fed was something we needed to do to stop great evil.
There is nothing wrong with advocating liberty in the internet sector, indeed liberty everywhere, but what will Rand Paul's position be on the Fed?
Is this a bait and switch to get those who joined the liberty movement to move focus away from the Fed?
Let's end the Fed and prevent tyranny in the internet sector. What's wrong with both?
I'm hoping they're viewing this new issue initiative as a gateway to help inform and educate about the more important issue of 'end the fed'.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I agree. I'm all for Internet freedom but I see no need not to push for freedom anywhere and everywhere. Hopefully, this doesn't mean that they are going to become a one issue group. Why you wouldn't continue to push to end the Fed when the movement is bigger than ever is beyond me.
ReplyDelete"Is this a bait and switch to get those who joined the liberty movement to move focus away from the Fed?"
ReplyDeleteYep, that's precisely what it is, Bob. Rand made less concessions in his Romney endorsement than recieved his marching orders.
I wonder what dead fish they dangled in front of him.
It's a clean-break re-brand with the hope of separating Rand and Ron while sliding Ron fans to Rand by implication that this unrelated "fight" is equivalent to the Fed slogan somehow.
ReplyDeleteSlogans. That's all this is in the end...and just as meaningless.
F*** politics.
End the Fed and Free the Net (I had some come up with somthing) are not just "bills" or proposed items. They are baked in to libertarian and limited government -- to make them in to marketing platforms seems so disingenuous.
ReplyDeleteThese are the reasons I went full blown Anarcho-capitalist years ago. There is no "limiting" government. This is a ploy for the campaign trail and I'm shocked Dr. Paul would go along with it.
The Fed will end. The crash will come, and we as a population will be especially vulnerable to even more losses of liberty.
ReplyDeleteWhether it's their main talking point or not, they won't forget about the Fed. Ron wrote a freaking book about it. Besides, there are plenty of other people in the movement. The Pauls aren't dictators, so quit assuming they're going to do it all for you.
Keep educating people and quit whining.
The Fed is the linchpin of the whole rotten system. This is like saying "Quit trying to stab the monster in the heart -- aim for his hand!"
ReplyDeleteOr, as Thoreau said: "There a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root."
I agree completely. Returning control of money and interest rates to the unhampered market is the single most important issue.
DeleteAnd how will this movement continue to grow without the internet freedom of sites like this? The internet is the only reason the movement has exploded, since Paul had been saying the same stuff for three decades before the truth was able to be exposed and documented on the internet.
DeleteI have zero reason to doubt Ron on this issue, just like I was correct about Ron not endorsing Romney when everyone was throwing a panic attack because Rand did the same thing and Ron's idiot grandson in law was saying Ron would endorse Romney. I do not trust Rand at all, but why would someone who has never let us down for three decades in DC all of a sudden do something that runs contrary to every debate and media appearance of Ron's?
People should have learned by now that idiot advisors and staff members in the Paul campaign say all sorts of things that turn out to be immediately rebuked by Ron himself when asked. Ron's only real fault is he is too loyal and nice to moronic Benton and company since they are related, despite doing stupid stuff over and over. Then again, Paul's grandfatherly nature is the reason he is so popular among the youth.
"Let's end the Fed and prevent tyranny in the internet sector. What's wrong with both?"
ReplyDeleteCome on, Bob, you're an economist, even politicians resources are scarce and they have to prioritize. This is a change of priority in deploying their resources. Maybe Ron thinks that at the margin his further contribution to the anti-Fed movement is less important than the other.
What is the objective here? We already HAVE internet freedom, and the best way to preserve it is to abolish the state. Ending the Fed would be real progress in that respect.
ReplyDeleteDo you think the MSM who has seen its power plunge in the last few years, DC itself, and the two parties want internet freedom to continue? That is actually the exact point, we have a movement only because of internet freedom being able to see just how right Paul has been for three decades. Do you think the DC establishment hasn't realized this?
DeletePolitics lol
ReplyDeletelol Politics
Egads Wenzel, you've doubled down on it.
ReplyDeleteIs it possible to at least get a direct quote from Ron on the matter?
No, because anonymous campaign staffers attributing things to Paul are more important, especially when we have seen Ron directly contradict them multiple times recently.
DeleteI think End the Fed wouldn't have gained momentum without a free internet. That said, I was attracted to Ron Paul because of his economic understanding. It became something I compared against other presidential contenders or even politicians.
ReplyDeleteThe Free the Net or whatever it will be called won't be as attractive, even though it is an important position.
As Tallyrand said of Napoleon proclaiming himself Emperor, "It's worse than a crime, it's a mistake!"
ReplyDeleteInternet freedom is as important an issue as the Fed. I can't blame them for wanting to promote it. And I agree that the Fed is likely to self-destruct long before any campaign to change it, much less end it, can gain sufficient momentum.
But when the Fed fails, what do we replace it with? This movement isn't about saving the country from an economic crash. It's too late for that. This movement is about picking up the pieces. It is about how we re-build after the crash, and the campaign against the Fed is an important part of that debate that should not be neglected.
I'm certainly not against preseving internet freedom, but I think the Fed debate is actually the better vote-getting issue in the longer run. The Fed needs to remain the signature issue, because the opposition can easily steal our thunder on internet freedom with half-way measures.
it sounds a little like "somebody' has decided that the free the net issue, especially after the anti-SOPA action might be an an icebreaker issue with the ending the fed, which might a little difficult to take on board for a lot of people if they hadn't heard anything about it previously.
DeleteThe problem we all have here is that that end the fed message will be watered down or quietly left to wither away.
RW, yes let's end the FRS and prevent tyranny in the internet sector. But you're counting upon electoral politics to save you from the toxic effects of electoral politics.
ReplyDeleteIs that wise?
I don't think Ron is abandoning anything, and if he hasn't to this point, never will. I think he correctly realizes that he has set in play a large movement of millions that will use sites like this and Lew's to continue to make the movement larger and more powerful. However, without internet freedom, that has zero chance of happening.
ReplyDeleteAnd if you don't believe internet freedom is a serious issue, then talk to anyone in the military who is over in Iraq of Afghanistan about trying to visit sites like lewrockwell.com and how they were blocked. The Southern Poverty Law Center fascist group is doing its best to classify true anti-state libertarian types as "hate speech" for a reason.
Gun rights are very important, but the bigger short term threat to the government being out of control is the internet. They know this, and if they didn't know it before the Ron Paul movement, they know it now. All sorts of lies and falsehoods that were easy to get away with just a decade or more ago are now exposed pretty quickly.
Fast and Furious, the Fed's true nature, the NDAA, the Patriot Act, the UN anti-gun treaty, the MSM and its lying and editing of footage to discredit Ron Paul, the MSM censorship of Ron Paul, voter fraud against him, etc. How would we know all of these things without the internet?
I am sure Jesse Benton's dumbass is the one who claimed it was replacing the Fed stuff, but Ron Paul will never give up on it, and Ron Paul always points out that civil liberties, war, and the Fed are all part of a package deal of tyranny.
If one has to try to winnow out the truth from Rand Paul's position than it is not a position at all.
ReplyDeleteWait, I don't get it... Did I miss the part where they said, "Hey guys, forget about the Fed"?
ReplyDeleteIs it okay if Ron advocates for preserving internet freedom AND ending the Fed? He also likes to talk about how evil the wars are... should we interpret that as backing away from his stance on the Fed?
I don't see "Free Our Bits" having quite the same impact as "End the Fed."
ReplyDeleteRon Paul works 35 years to get the Fed issue out to the public, then finally, FINALLY the public starts to listen, and then he changes priorities????? WTF????
ReplyDeleteThis is a move to allow the liberty movement to back the disappointing Rand Paul, and it won't work.
Where did Ron say this? This is just like Benton claiming Ron would endorse Romney, then Ron literally laughing and saying he wouldn't because he isn't any different than Obama when asked. How many times was Paul told to lay off the foreign policy stuff in the GOP race, yet he doubled down on it?
DeleteRand is a hack, but Ron has never wavered, and never will. I am glad to see Ron attacking the state pro-actively before they can make any more serious attempts to go after the internet. Without the internet, then anything close to resembling libertarianism is dead.
The Fed is politically invulnerable at this point. The privacy and freedom of the Internet is very much in play. Wenzel is only upset about this because his is not a libertarian when it comes to IP.
ReplyDeleteA super-majority of the House of Representatives has co-sponsored Dr. Paul's and CFL's "Audit the Fed" Bill. This would not have happened if Congress were not already feeling unbearable pressure from the people on this issue. In 2008 they caved to the Fed in the face of overwhelming popular pressure, and the result was that a greater percentage of them lost their jobs than in any election in recent memory. The current crop of ignorant criminals who rule us are at least marginally more attuned to the power of the vote than to the power of the fiat dollar.
ReplyDeleteI interpret this manifesto as an indication that Dr. Paul believes that the movement to end the Fed is well beyond critical mass, and that the only possible factor which could forestall this victory is a shutdown of freedom of communication on the internet... which is clearly what the Administration and the MSM desire above all else.
Our role is to remain true to the principles of liberty, to fight ferociously to abolish the plague of monopoly paper money from planet Earth, and to aggressively use and zealously protect the free internet, our most powerful weapon for the defeat of evil; for although the internet may be used to propagate evil, it may also be used to propagate the Truth, and evil withers in the presence of the Truth.